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96
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 7, 7.
these things, becoming free from the obstacles thereto, attain to Arahatship 1!
Right well have you made me understand this puzzle, Nâgasena. That is so, and I accept it as you say.'
[Here ends the dilemma as to the obstacles.]
[DILEMMA THE SIXTY-SECOND.
THE LAY ARAHAT.] 7. 'Venerable Nâgasena, your people say:
“Whosoever has attained, as a layman, to Arahatship, one of two conditions are possible to him, and no other-either that very day he enters the Order, or he dies away, for beyond that day he cannot last ?."
[265] 'Now if, Nâgasena, he could not, on that day, procure a teacher or preceptor, or a bowl and set of robes, would he then, being an Arahat, admit himself, or would he live over the day, or would some other Arahat suddenly appear by the power of Iddhi and admit him, or would he die away?'
He could not, O king, because he is an Arahat, admit himself. For any one admitting himself to
1 Literally therefore is it that recitation, &c., is a condition free from the obstacles, and unmade' (the Unmade being also one of the many epithets of Arahatship).
This passage has not yet been traced in the Pitakas. : All these are necessary to one who is a candidate for admission to the Order—the teacher and preceptor being, as it were, his proposer and seconder; and no one being admitted who is not already provided with a bowl and a set of robes.
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