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 233

IV, 8, 88.
OF MILINDA THE KING.
203
situate, and yet Nirvana is, and he who orders his life right will, by careful attention, realise Nirvana. Just as fire exists, and yet there is no place where fire (by itself) is stored up. But if a man rubs two sticks together the fire comes ;-just so, O king, Nirvana exists, though there is no spot where it is stored up. And he who orders his life aright will, by careful attention, realise Nirvana.
87. 'Or again, O king, just as there are the seven treasures of the king of kings—the treasure of the wheel, and the treasure of the elephant, and the treasure of the horse, and the treasure of the gem, and the treasure of the woman, and the treasure of the finance minister, and the treasure of the adviser. But there is no spot where these treasures are laid up. When a sovran conducts himself aright they appear to him of their own accord — just so, O king, Nirvana exists, though there is no place where it is stored up. And he who orders his life aright will, by careful attention, realise Nirvana.'
88. “Venerable Nagasena, let it be granted that there is no place where Nirvana is stored up. But is there any place on which a man may stand and, ordering his life aright, realise Nirvana ?' “Yes, O king, there is such a place.' Which then, Nagasena, is that place ?'
Virtue, O king, is the place. For if grounded in virtue, and careful in attention-whether in the land of the Scythians 2 or the Greeks, whether in China or
1 This is stated in regard to each of the seven in the standard passage on these seven treasures, translated in my Buddhist Suttas,' pp. 251–259.
Saka. Hinat-kumburê has sadly blundered over this, to him, strange word. He actually translates it'one's own.'
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