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 1382

IV ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 7.
369
teach this doctrine; compare e. g. Consisting of earth, water, wind, ether, heat' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 5); and 'The subtle perishable parts of the five (elements) from them all this is produced in due succession' (Manu I, 27).—But is there not another scriptural text-beginning 'Where then is that person?'-which teaches that at the time of the soul attaining a new body, after speech and the other organs have been withdrawn within the soul, work. constitutes the soul's abode, 'What those two said, as work they said it; what they praised, as work they praised it' (Bri. Up. III, 2, 13)?—That passage, we reply, describes the operation of bondage consisting of the senses and their objects—there called grahas and atigrahas—and therefore work is spoken of as the abode; here on the other hand the elements are said to be the abode because we have to do with the origination of a new body out of the matter of the elements. The expression they prayed'inoreover intimates only that work occupies the chief place in the process, and does not exclude another abode. The two passages therefore do not contradict each other.
7. And common (to him who knows and him who does not know) (is the departure) up to the beginning of the way; and the immortality (of him who knows) (is relative only) without having burned (nescience and so on).
The question here arises whether the departure of the soul, as described hitherto, is the same in the case of him who knows and him who is destitute of knowledge; or whether there is any difference.—There is a difference, the púrvapakshin maintains. For the departure as described has for its abode the elements, and this abiding in the elements is for the purpose of a new birth. But he who possesses true knowledge cannot be born again, since scripture declares that 'He who knows reaches immortality.' Hence only he who is devoid of knowledge departs in the way described.-But as that departure is described in chapters treating of knowledge it can belong only to him [38]
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