Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 2279

38
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
1, 44.
a feeling of fear and of anxiety, and the hairs of his body stood on end. But nevertheless, though he felt like an elephant hemmed in by rhinoceroses, like a serpent surrounded by the Garudas (the snake-eating mythical birds), like a jackal surrounded by boa-constrictors, or a bear by buffaloes, like a frog pursued by a serpent, or a deer by a panther, like a snake in the hands of a snake charmer, or a rat played with by a cat, or a devil charmed by an exorcist, like the moon when it is seized by Rahu, like a snake caught in a basket, or a bird in a cage, or a fish in a net, like a man who has lost his way in a dense forest haunted by wild beasts, like a Yakkha (ogre) who has sinned against Vessavana (the king of ogres and fairies), or like a god whose term of life as a god has reached its end—though confused and terrified, anxious, and beside himself in an agony of fear like that-yet at the thought that he must at least avoid humiliation in the sight of the people, he took courage, and said to Devamantiya : 'You need not [24] trouble to point out to me which is Nagasena. I shall pick him out unaided.'
Certainly, Sire, recognise him yourself, said he? 44. Now Nagasena was junior in seniority (reckoned from the date of his full membership in the
1 This again, like the passage at p. 8, is an echo of the Sâmañña Phala. (See D. 2, 10 of our forthcoming edition, or p. 116 of Grimblot.)
: In the corresponding passage of the Sâmañña Phala Gîvaka points out the Buddha to Agâtasattu ($ 11, Grimblot, p. 117). This would be in the memory of all his readers, and our author alters the story in this case to show how superior Milinda was to the royal interlocutor in the older dialogue.
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