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PT. I. SECT. IV.
THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-SZE.
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giving out grain to the sick, he received three kung, and ten bundles of firewood. If this poor man, so deformed in body, was still able to support himself, and complete his term of life, how much more may they do so, whose deformity is that of their faculties?!
9. When Confucius went to Khú?, Khieh-yû, the madman of Khûs, as he was wandering about, passed by his door, and said, 'O Phoenix, O Phoenix, how is your virtue degenerated! The future is not to be waited for; the past is not to be sought again ! When good order prevails in the world, the sage tries to accomplish all his service; when disorder prevails, he may preserve his life; at the present time, it is enough if he simply escape being punished. Happiness is lighter than a feather, but no one knows how to support it; calamity is heavier than the earth, and yet no one knows how to avoid it. Give over! give over approaching men with the lessons of your virtue! You are in peril! you are in peril, hurrying on where you have marked out the ground against your advance! I avoid publicity, I avoid publicity, that my path may not be injured. I pursue my course, now going backwards, now crookedly, that my feet may not be hurt 4.
1 The deficiency of their faculties-here mental faculties-would assimilate them to the useless trees in the last two paragraphs, whose uselessness only proved useful to them.
* The great state of the south, having its capital in the present Hd-pei.
* See the Analects, XVIII, v.
• The madman would seem to contrast his own course with that of Confucius; but the meaning is very uncertain, and the text cannot be discussed fully in these short notes. There is a jingle
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| SR No. | 007682 |
| Book Title | Questions of King Milinda Part 02 |
| 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 |