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 1645

PT. 1. sect.I. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
165
There is the (book called) Khi Hsieh ?,-a record of marvels. We have in it these words :- When the phăng is removing to the Southern Ocean it flaps (its wings) on the water for 3000 lî. Then it ascends on a whirlwind 90,000 lî, and it rests only at the end of six months.' (But similar to this is the movement of the breezes which we call) the horses of the fields, of the dust (which quivers in the sunbeams), and of living things as they are blown against one another by the air ? Is its azure the proper colour of the sky ? Or is it occasioned by its distance and illimitable extent ? If one were looking down (from above), the very same appearance would just meet his view.
2. And moreover, (to speak of) the accumulation of water ;-if it be not great, it will not have strength to support a large boat. Upset a cup of water in a cavity, and a straw will float on it as if it were a boat. Place a cup in it, and it will stick fast;—the water is shallow and the boat is large. (So it is with) the accumulation of wind; if it be not great, it will not have strength to support great wings. Therefore (the phăng ascended to the height of 90,000 lî, and there was such a mass of wind beneath it; thenceforth the accumulation of wind was sufficient. As it seemed to bear the blue sky on its back, and there was nothing to obstruct or arrest its course, it could pursue its way to the South.
1 There may have been a book with this title, to which Kwang-zze appeals, as if feeling that what he had said needed to be substantiated.
? This seems to be interjected as an afterthought, suggesting to the reader that the phăng, soaring along at such a height, was only an exaggerated form of the common phenomena with which he was familiar.
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