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 496

II ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 29.
43
with the sense of touch (the skin), we deny that assertion. For from that it would follow that, when we tread on a thorn, the sensation extends over the whole body, since the connexion of the thorn and the skin abides in the entire skin, and the skin extends over the whole body. While as a matter of fact, when treading on a thorn we experience a sensation in the sole of the foot only.-Nor again is it possible that a quality of an atom should diffuse itself beyond the atom. For qualities occupy the same place with the substances of which they are qualities, and a quality not abiding in its substance would no longer be a quality. Concerning the light emitted from a lamp we have already shown that it is, not a quality, but rather a different kind of substance. Hence odour also, being avowedly a quality, can exist in so far only as it inheres in its substance; otherwise it would cease to be odour. Thus the reverend Dvaipåyana also says, 'Having perceived odour in water some unthinking people ascribe it to the latter; but know that it is in the earth only, and (merely) passes over into air and water. If the intelligence of the soul pervades the whole body, the soul cannot be atomic; for intelligence constitutes the soul's proper nature, just as heat and light constitute that of fire. A separation of the two as quality and that which is qualified does not exist. Now it has already been shown (II, 2, 34) that the soul is not of the same size as the body; the only remaining alternative therefore is that it is all-pervading (infinite). But why then, our opponent asks, is the soul designated in some scriptural passages) as being of atomic size, &c. ?—It is designated as such on account of being of the nature of the essence of that (i.e. the buddhi).'-The Self is here said to be of the nature of the essence of the mind's (buddhi) qualities, because those qualities, such as desire, aversion, pleasure, pain and so on, constitụte the essence, i.e. the principal characteristics of the Self as long as it is implicated in transmigratory existence. Apart from the qualities of the mind the mere Self does not exist in the samsára state; for the latter, owing to which the Self appears as an agent and enjoyer, is altogether due to the circumstance of
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