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 1650

170
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, I.
Yû said, “You, Sir, govern the kingdom, and the kingdom is well governed. If I in these circumstances take your place, shall I not be doing so for the sake of the name? But the name is but the guest of the reality;—shall I be playing the part of the guest ? The tailor-bird makes its nest in the deep forest, but only uses a single branch; the mole 1 drinks from the Ho, but only takes what fills its belly. Return and rest in being ruler, I will have nothing to do with the throne. Though the cook were not attending to his kitchen, the representative of the dead and the officer of prayer would not leave their cups and stands to take his place.'
5. Kien Wû 2 asked Lien Shù ?, saying, “I heard Khieh-yü 3 talking words which were great, but had nothing corresponding to them in reality);-once gone, they could not be brought back. I was frightened by them ;—they were like the Milky Way 4 which cannot be traced to its beginning or end. They had no connexion with one another, and were not akin to the experiences of men.' 'What were his words ?' asked Lien Shù, and the other replied, (He said) that 'Far away on the hill of Ku-shih 5 there dwelt a Spirit-like man whose flesh and skin
1 Some say the tapir. ? Known to us only through Kwang-zze.
8 • The madman of Khû' of the Analects, XVIII, 5, who eschews intercourse with Confucius. See Hwang-fû Mi's account of him, under the surname and name of Lû Thung, in his Notices of Eminent Tâoists, I, 25.
* Literally, 'the Ho and the Han;' but the name of those rivers combined was used to denote 'the Milky Way,
5 See the Khang-hsî Thesaurus under the character At. All which is said about the hill is that it was in the North Sea.'
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