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 762

III ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 28.
passage under discussion cannot be an anuvâda referring to it. The case is analogous to that of passages such as 'therefore Pûshan1 receives a well-crushed share of food, for he is toothless.' There also no injunction is directly stated; but as the matter of the passage is new we assume an injunction and understand that the grains for Pushan are to be crushed at all vikritis of the darsapurnamasa; as was explained in the Purva Mîmâmsâ.
309
An analogous conclusion was arrived at under Sutra 20. Smritis also such as the Bhagavadgitâ explain that sacrifices and the like if undertaken without a view to their special results become for him who is desirous of final release a means of knowledge. Hence sacrifices and the like, on the one hand, and calmness of mind and so on, on the other hand, according to the âsramas, i.e. all works enjoined on the âsramas must be had regard to with a view to the springing up of knowledge. Calmness of mind, &c., are, on account of the expression 'he who knows this connecting them with knowledge, to be viewed as approximate-direct-means of knowledge, while sacrifices and so on which scripture connects with the search of knowledge are to be looked upon as remote-indirect-means.
28. And there is permission of all food, (only) in the case of danger of life; on account of this being shown (by scripture).
In the colloquy of the prânas the Khandogas record, 'To him who knows this there is nothing which is not food' (Kh. Up. V, 1, 2); and the Vâgasaneyins,' By him nothing is eaten that is not food, nothing is received that is not food' (Bri. Up. VI, 1, 14). The sense of the two passages is that anything may be eaten by him.-A doubt here arises whether the texts enjoin the permission of eating anything
1 The passage quoted occurs in the Veda under the heading of the darsapurnamâsa. But as Pushan has no share in the fundamental form of that sacrifice, we conclude that the injunction implied in the passage is valid for those vikritis of the darsapurnamasa in which offerings are made to Pushan.
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