Vinaya Texts

SR No.: 007684
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2523
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 137

94
MAHÂVAGGA.
1, 6, 17.
said to the five Bhikkhus: 'Do you admit, О Bhikkhus, that I have never spoken to you in this way before this day?' • You have never spoken so, Lord.'
The Tathagata, O Bhikkhus, is the holy, absolute Sambuddha. Give ear, O Bhikkhus, &c. (as above).'
And the Blessed One was able to convince the five Bhikkhus; and the five Bhikkhus again" listened willingly to the Blessed One; they gave ear, and fixed their mind on the knowledge (which the Buddha imparted to them).
17. And the Blessed One thus addressed the five Bhikkhus2: 'There are two extremes, O Bhikkhus, which he who has given up the world, ought to avoid. What are these two extremes? A life given to pleasures, devoted to pleasures and lusts : this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, ignoble, and profitless; . and a life given to mortifications: this is painful, ignoble, and profitless. By avoiding these two extremes, O Bhikkhus, the Tathagata has gained the knowledge of the Middle Path which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to the Sambodhi, to Nirvana.
18. Which, O Bhikkhus, is this Middle Path the knowledge of which the Tathagata has gained, which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which con
1 As they had done before when they underwent austerities together with the Bodhisatta at Uruvela.
? Of the literature that exists referring to the discourse which follows now (the Dhammakakkappavattana Sutta), it will suffice to quote M. Feer's Études Bouddhiques, I, p. 189 seq., and Rh. D., • Buddhist Suttas from the Pali,' pp. 137-155, and in the Fortnightly Review for December 1879.
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