Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 1062

II ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 34.
49
Self is not capable of any modification; nor the latter, as we cannot assume that the energy of the sense-organ which is non-obstructed in the preceding and the following moment should, without any cause, be obstructed in the intervening moment). Hence we have to acknowledge, the existence of an internal organ through whose attention and non-attention perception and non-perception takel place. Thos scripture declares, ‘My mind was elsewhere, I did not see; my mind was elsewhere, I did not hear; for a man sees with his mind and hears with his mind' (Bri. Up. I, 5, 3). Scripture moreover shows that desire and similar states are modifications of the mind, 'Desire, representation, doubt, faith, want of faith, memory, forgetfulness, shame, reflection, fear, all this is mind.' The explanation given in Satra 29 is therefore an appropriate one.
33. (The soul is) an agent, on account of scripture having a purport (thereby).
In connexion with the doctrine that the soul possesses for its essence the qualities of the buddhi, another attribute of the soul is set forth.-The individual soul is an agent, because thus scripture has a purport. For only on that assumption scriptural injunctions (such as 'He is to sacrifice,' 'He is to make an oblation into the fire,'. He is to give,' &c.) acquire a purport; otherwise they would be purportless. For they all teach special acts to be done by agents; which would not be possible if the soul did not possess the quality of being an agent.-On that supposition a meaning belongs to the following passage also, 'For it is he who sees, hears, perceives, conceives, acts, he the person whose Self is knowledge' (Pr. Up. IV, 9).
34. And on account of (the text) teaching its wandering about
The quality of being an agent has to be attributed to the soul for that reason also, that, in a chapter treating of the soul, the text declares it to wander about in the state of sleep, 'The immortal one goes wherever he likes '(Bri. Up.
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