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 94

64
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 6, 25.
saying: “This fellow came to the bathing tank, and has gone back as dirty as before. How could the bathing tank, of itself, cleanse a man who did not care to bathe ? What fault is there in the tank ?”.
Just so, O king, [247] has the Tathagata constructed a bathing tank full of the excellent waters of emancipation !, -the bath of the good law. Whosoever of conscious discerning beings are polluted with the stains of sin, they, bathing in it, can wash away all their sins. And if any one, having gone to that bathing tank of the good law, should not bathe in it, but turn back polluted as before, and return again to the lower state, it is him the people would blame, and say: “This man entered religion according to the doctrine of the Conquerors, and finding no restingplace within it, has returned again to the lower state. How could the religion of the Conquerors, of itself, cleanse him who would not regulate his life in accordance with it? What fault is there in the system ?”
25. Or suppose, o king, that a man afflicted with dire disease should visit a physician skilled in diagnosis ?, knowing an efficacious and lasting method of cure, and that that man should then not let himself be treated, but go back again as ill as before. Now therein whom would the people blame, the sick man or the doctor ?'
It is the sick man, Sir, they would blame, say
1 Vimutti: of the nectar of the Nirvana which is the highest fruit of Arahatship' is Hina/i-kumburê's gloss.
Roguppatti-kusalam: skilled in the threefold origin of disease' says the Simhalese (p. 351). See also pp. 248, 272 of the Pâli text.
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