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 154

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THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 8, 10.
birds. And why so ? Because he had said to himself: “Thus acting may I attain to Buddhahood.” As a man in need, O king, who is wandering about in his search after wealth, will have to pass along goat-tracks, and through jungles full of stakes and sticks !, and doing merchandise by sea and land, will devote his actions, words, and thoughts to the attainment of wealth-just so, O king, did Vessantara, the king of givers, who was longing for the treasure of Buddhahood, for the attainment of the insight of the Omniscient Ones, by offering up to any one who begged of him his property and his corn, his slave girls and his slaves, his riding animals and carriages, all that he possessed, his wife and children and himself, seek after the Supreme Enlightenment. Just, O king, as an official who is anxious for the seal ?, and for the office of the custody thereof [281], will exert himself to the attainment of the seal by sacrificing everything in his house---property and corn, gold and silver, everything-just so, O king, did Vessantara, the king of givers, by giving away all that he had, inside his house and out 8, by giving even his life for others, seek after the Supreme Enlightenment.
10. 'And further, O king, Vessantara, the king of givers, thought thus: “It is by giving to him precisely what he asks for, that I shall be of service
Agapatham sankupatham vettapatham gakkhati. Hînah-kumbure, at p. 416, repeats the words with a gloss on the two last words, which I have followed.
? Mudda-kamo; mudra-nam ganam perekkuwa, says Hînati-kumburê, p. 416.
* Bå hirabbhantaram dhanam datva. I am not sure that I have rightly understood this phrase, which the Simhalese merely repeats.
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