Questions of King Milinda Part 01

SR No.: 007681
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1890
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 280

IV, 2, 30.
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two that the Blessed One said: There is no offence to him who acts in ignorance 1."'
'Very good, Nâgasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.'
[Here ends the dilemma as to sins in ignorance.]
BUDDHA AND HIS FOLLOWERS.
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[THE BUDDHA AND HIS FOLLOWERS.]
29. 'Venerable Nâgasena, it was said by the Blessed One: "Now the Tathagata thinks not, Ânanda, that is he who should lead the brotherhood, or that the Order is dependent upon him "." But on the other hand when describing the virtues and the nature of Metteyya, the Blessed One, he said thus: "He will be the leader of a brotherhood several thousands in number, as I am now the leader of a brotherhood several hundreds in number." If the first statement be right, then the second is wrong. If the second passage is right, the first must be false. This too is a double-pointed problem now put to you, and you have to solve it.'
30. 'You quote both passages correctly, O king. But in the dilemma that you put the sense in the one passage is inclusive, in the other it is not. It is not the Tathagata, O king, who seeks after a following, but the followers who seek after him.
1 The Simhalese has here a further page, giving examples of the two kinds of offences referred to, and drawing the conclusion for each.
Book of the Great Decease, II, 32 (translated in my 'Buddhist Suttas,' p. 37), just after the passage quoted above, IV, 2, 4. Not in any of the published texts. Metteyya is, of course, the Buddha to come, the expected messiah.
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