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 495

14
DÎNKARD, BOOK VIII.
beneficial creatures. 2. First, as to the spiritual existence, and how much and how is the maintenance in the spiritual existence; and the production of the worldly existence therefrom, qualified and constructed for descending (fitôdano) into the combat with the destroyer, and accomplishing the associated necessity for the end and circumvention (garang) of destructiveness.
3. The manner and species of the creation of the creatures; also their material existence, ard the character and use of the races and species ; and whatever is on the same subject. 4. The reason for their creation, and for their perfection at last. 5. About the adversity, injury, and misery of those creatures, and their secret (nihồno) resources and means of attacking and annihilating them; with the preservation or disablement (apikarinidano) of the creatures thereby?
6. Of righteousness the excellence is perfect excellence.
according to B. P. Riv.; but it is the fifth Nask in other Rivayats. Då mdad means 'the creatures produced,' and it is called Dvâzdah-hâmâst (or humast) in the Rivayats, which also state that it contained thirty-two kardah, or subdivisions. No further particulars of this and the subsequent Nasks are given by the Dinkard, beyond the contents of this eighth Book.
1 So far as this brief account of the Dâmdâd goes, it corresponds very well with much of the contents of the Bundahis. Zad-sparam, in his Selections, IX, I, 16, also quotes the Dâmdâd as the authority for certain details contained in the Bundahish, which work must therefore be considered as derived from this Nask. It is very probable, however, that the Nask contained much more information than is here hinted, because the author's usual plan, in these brief summaries, is evidently to confine his remarks to a few of the details near the beginning of each Nask.
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