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 43

IV, 5, 13.
OF MILINDA THE KING.
13
[DILEMMA THE FORTY-FOURTH.
THE ORIGINALITY OF THE BUDDHA'S TEACHING.] 12. 'Venerable Nâgasena, it has been said by the Blessed One:
66
The Tathagata, O brethren, the Arahat, the Buddha supreme 1, is the discoverer of a way that was unknown 2."
'But on the other hand he said:
"Now I perceived, O brethren, the ancient way, the ancient path, along which the previous Buddhas walked 2."
'If, Nâgasena, the Tathagata be the discoverer of a way not previously found out, then it must be wrong that it was an ancient way that he perceived, an ancient path along which previous Buddhas walked. But if the way he perceived were an ancient way, then the statement that it was unknown must be wrong. This too is a double-edged problem, now put to you, which you have to solve.'
13. 'Both the quotations you make, O king, are accurate. And both the statements so made are correct. When the previous Tathagatas, O king, had disappeared, then, there being no teacher left, their way too disappeared. And it was that waythough then broken up, crumbled away, gone to ruin, closed in, no longer passable, quite lost to view-[218] that the Tathagata, having gained a
'Supreme, that is, in comparison with the Pakkeka Buddhas, 'Buddhas for themselves alone:' whereas the 'altogether Buddha can not only see the truth for himself, but also persuade others of it.
2 These two quotations are from the Samyutta Nikâya XXI, 58 and X, 2, 65, says Mr. Trenckner, but I cannot trace them in M. Feer's edition.
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