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 192

162
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV,8, 39.
"Very good, Nagasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.'
[Here ends the dilemma as to dreams?.]
[DILEMMA THE SEVENTY-SIXTH.
PREMATURE DEATH.] 39. Venerable Någasena, when beings die, do they all die in fullness of time, or do some die out of due season ?'
'There is such a thing, O king, as death at the due time, and such a thing as premature death.'
Then who are they whose decease is at the due time, and who are they whose decease is premature ?'
'Have you ever noticed, O king, in the case of mango trees or Gambu trees or other fruit-bearing trees, that their fruits fall both when they are ripe and when they are not ripe?'
Yes, I have.'
Well, those fallen fruits, do they all fall at the due time, or do some fall prematurely?'
Such of those fruits, Nagasena, as are ripe and mature ? when they fall, fall in fullness of time. But of the rest some fall because they are bored into by worms, some because they are knocked down by a
1 It is not known whether the whole of this theory of dreams is taken from the Pi/akas, or whether it is an expansion of views there suggested. But the germs of the theory are certainly in the Pitakas. Thus the Buddha is made at Magghima Nikâya I, 249, 250 to say of himself that in his midday sleep he was neither stupefied nor the contrary (neither sammâlho nor asammalho), which comes very near to the monkey's sleep' referred to throughout this dilemma.
: Vilinani, wilikun wa says Hînafi-kumburê (p. 442).
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