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THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 6, 22.
should give way', or he should fall a cripple on the ground, unable to move, would there then be any fault, O king, in the broad earth that that man's sides had given way?'
Certainly not, Sir! The great earth is always ready. How should it be in fault? The fault was in the man's own zeal which made him fail.'
And just even so, O king, the fault was not in the exertion, not in the power, not in the battle waged against evil, that the Tathagata did not then, at once, attain to Buddhahood. But the fault was in the disuse of food, and the path itself was always ready-[246] just as if a man should wear a robe, and never have it washed, the fault would not be in the water, which would always be ready for use, but in the man himself. That is why the Tathagata exhorted and led his disciples along that very path. For that path, O king, is always ready, always right.'
Very good, Nagasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say
[Here ends the dilemma as to the path.]
1 Pakkha-hato: should become like one whose two hands are ruined' says the Simhalese here (p. 349), but at p. 411 (on p. 276 of the Pali) it translates the same term, whose hands and feet are broken. It is literally should become side-destroyed,' and may mean paralysed.
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