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the necessity of voiding excreta, fatigue and sleepiness, old age, disease, and death. And in respect thereof, the Arahat is without lordship, without mastery, without power.'
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 6, 42.
'Venerable Nâgasena, what is the reason why the commands of the Arahat have no power over his body, neither has he any mastery over it? Tell me that.
'Just, O king, as whatever beings are dependent on the land, they all walk, and dwell, and carry on their business in dependence upon it. But do their commands have force, does their mastery extend over it?'
'Certainly not, Sir!'
'Just so, O king, the Arahat keeps his mind going through the body. And yet his commands have no authority over it, nor power.'
42. 'Venerable Nâgasena, why is it that the ordinary man suffers both bodily and mental pain?'
'By reason, O king, of the untrained state of his mind. Just, O king, as an ox when trembling with starvation might be tied up with a weak and fragile and tiny rope of grass or creeper. But if the ox were excited then would he escape, dragging the fastening with him. Just so, O king, when pain comes upon him whose mind is untrained, then is his mind excited, and the mind so excited bends his body this way and that and makes it grovel on the ground, [254] and he, being thus untrained in mind, trembles 2 and cries, and gives forth terrible
1
Parikupati, not in Childers; but see above, IV, 1, 38 (p. 118 of the Pâli).
Tasati. Mr. Trenckner points out (p. 431) that two MSS.
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