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DHAMMAPADA. CHAP. XIX.
and ignorant; but the wise who, taking the balance, chooses the good and avoids evil, he is a Muni, and is a Muni thereby; he who in this world weighs both sides is called a Muni.
270. A man is not an elect (Ariya) because he injures living creatures; because he has pity on all living creatures, therefore is a man called Ariya.
271, 272. Not only by discipline and vows, not only by much learning, not by entering into a trance, not by sleeping alone, do I earn the happiness of release which no worldling can know. Bhikshu, be not confident as long as thou hast not attained the extinction of desires.
i.e. a Buddhist friar who has left his family and lives entirely on alms. Muni is a sage, hence Sâkya-muni, a name of Gautama. Muni comes from man, to think, and from muni comes mauna,
silence.' Ariya, again, is the general name of those who embrace a religious life. It meant originally respectable, noble.' In verse 270 it seems as if the writer wished to guard against deriving ariya from ari, 'enemy.' See note to verse 22.
272. See Childers, Notes, p. 7.
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