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 658

III ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 16.
205
from the jaws of death' (1, 3, 15). Moreover, the text by declaring that nothing is higher than the person and that he is the highest goal intimates reverence for the person, and thereby shows that the whole series of objects is enumerated only to the end of giving information about the person.
For the purpose of pious meditation,' i.e. for the purpose of perfect knowledge which has pious meditation for its antecedent. For the passage under consideration does not teach pious meditation by itself.
15. And on account of the word 'Self.'
The above conclusion is confirmed by the circumstance that the person under discussion is called the Self in I, 3, 12, “That Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth, but it is seen by subtle seers through their sharp and subtle intellect.' From this we conclude that the text wishes to represent the other beings enumerated as the Non-Self. The passage quoted, moreover, indicates that the person is hard to know, and to be reached by sharp minds only.-Again, the passage (1, 3, 13), 'A wise man should keep down speech and mind,' enjoins pious meditation as a means of the knowledge of the highest person, as we have explained under I, 4, 1.- It thus follows that scripture indicates various excellences in the case of the purusha only, and not in that of the other beings enumerated. — The passage, moreover, 'He reaches the end of his journey and that is the highest place of Vishnu,' sug. gests the question as to who is the end of the journey and so on, and we therefore conclude that the enumeration of the senses, objects, &c., has merely the purpose of teaching the highest place of Vishnu (not of teaching any. thing about the relation of the senses, objects, and so on).
16. The (highest) Self has to be understood (in Ait. År. II, 4, 1), as in other places; on account of the subsequent (qualification).
We read in the Aitareyaka (II, 4, 1), Verily, in the beginning all this was Self, one only; there was nothing
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