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20
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 5, 19.
[DILEMMA THE FORTY-SIXTH.
THE MOCKING OF THE BUDDHA.] 19. Venerable Nâgasena, it was said by the Blessed One of Six-tusks, the elephant king, “When he sought to slay him, and had reached him
with his trunk, He perceived the yellow robe, the badge of a
recluse, Then, though smarting with the pain, the thought
possessed his heart,"He who wears the outward garb the Arahats wear Must be scatheless held, and sacred, by the good?.""
But on the other hand it is said : “When he was Gotipala, the young Brahman, he reviled and abused Kassapa the Blessed One, the Arahat, the Buddha supreme, with vile and bitter words, calling him a shaveling and a good-fornothing monk ?”
Now if, Nagasena, the Bodisat, even when he was an animal, respected the yellow robe, [222] then the statement that as Gotipala, a Brahman, he reviled and abused the Blessed One of that time, must be false. But if as a Brahman, he reviled and abused the Blessed One, the statement that when he was Six-tusks, the elephant king, he respected the yellow robe, must be false. If when the Bodisat was an animal, though he was suffering severe and cruel and bitter pain, he respected the yellow robe
i From the Khaddanta Gâtaka, No. 514 (Fausböll, vol. v, p. 49); with which compare the Kåsâva Gâtaka, No. 221 (vol. ii, p. 196).
* This has not been found in these words, but Mr. Trenckner refers to Magghima Nikaya, No. 81. Compare also Gataka I, 43.
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