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 139

IV, 7, 20.
worms and beetles and ants and moths and snakes and scorpions and centipedes, and birds and wild beasts.'
OF MILINDA THE KING.
109
'Who else, O Nâgasena, could have solved this puzzle except one as wise as you!'
[Here ends the dilemma as to dead demons.]
[DILEMMA THE SIXTY-EIGHTH.
THE METHOD OF PROMULGATING THE RULES.]
20. 'Venerable Nâgasena, those who were teachers of the doctors in times gone by-Nârada', and Dhammantari 2, and Angirasa3, and Kapila, and Kandaraggisâma, and Atula, and Pubba Kakkâyana 3 -all these teachers knowing thoroughly, and themselves, and without any omission, the rise of disease and its cause and nature and progress and cure and treatment and management,—each of them composed his treatise en bloc, taking time by the forelock, and pointing out that in such and such a body such and such a disease would arise. Now no one of these
1 No doubt the celebrated Devârshi is meant, though it is odd to find him in a list of physicians.
In Sanskrit Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods. He is mentioned in the Gâtaka IV, 496, with Bhoga and Vetaranî, as a well-known physician of old famous for the cure of snake-bite. The connection of Angîrasa with the physicians is due to the charms against disease to be found in the Atharva-veda.
Kapila is known in the Brahman literature as a teacher of philosophy rather than of medicine.
Probably 'the Eastern Kakkâyana,' but nothing is known of these last three names. Hînafi-kumburê calls all seven 'Rishis.' Siddhâsiddham, for which Hînati-kumburê (p. 385), who merely repeats all the other terms, has sâdhyâsâdhya.
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