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 1796

316
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, XII.
that there arose the first existence ! ;-the first existence, but still without bodily shape. From this things could then be produced, (receiving) what we call their proper character ? That which had no bodily shape was divided 3; and then without intermission there was what we call the process of conferring 4 (The two processes) continuing in operation, things were produced. As things were completed, there were produced the distinguishing lines of each, which we call the bodily shape. That shape was the body preserving in it the spirit", and each had its peculiar manifestation, which we call its Nature. When the Nature has been cultivated, it returns to its proper character; and when that has been fully reached, there is the same condition as at the Beginning. That sameness is pure vacancy, and the vacancy is great. It is like the closing of the beak and silencing the singing (of a bird). That closing and silencing is like the union of heaven and earth (at the beginning). The union, effected, as it
punctuated ;-*FETE, TE Z, or HE, HE THE
2. Each punctuation has its advocates. For myself, I can only adopt the former; the other is contrary to my idea of Chinese composition. If the author had wished to be understood so, he would have written differently, as, for instance
1 Probably, the primary ether, what is called the Thâi Kih. 2 This sentence is antici
9 Into what we call the yin and the yang; the same ether, now at rest, now in motion.
4 The conferring of something more than what was material. By whom or what? By Heaven; the Taoist understanding by that term the Tâo.
5 So then, man consists of the material body and the immaterial spirit.
The potential heaven and earth, not yet fashioned from the primal ether.
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