Book Title: Questions of King Milinda Part 02
Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford


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Page 1143
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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
130
become connected with those plants.-How is this known? -From the fact of the statement here also being of the same nature. Of what nature ?-Here, also, as in the case of the souls becoming ether, &c., down to rain, the text does not refer to any operation of the works; hence we conclude that the souls do not enjoy pleasure and pain. Where, on the other hand, the text wants to intimate that the souls undergo pleasure and pain, there it refers to the operation of the former works; so, e. g. in the passage which treats of men of good or evil conduct. Moreover, if we should take the souls' being born as rice, &c., in its literal sense, it would follow that when the rice plants are reaped, unhusked, split, cooked and eaten, the souls which have descended into them and are animating them would have to leave them; it being generally known that when a body is destroyed the soul animating it abandons it. And then (if the souls left the plants) the text could not state (as it does state, V, 10, 6) that the souls which had entered into the plants are transmitted by animal generation (on the part of those who eat the plants). Hence it follows that the souls which have descended are merely outwardly connected with the plants animated by other souls. This suffices to refute the assertions that to be born' must be taken in its literal sense; and that the state of vegetable existence affords a place for enjoyment. We do not entirely deny that vegetable existence may afford a place for enjoyment; it may do so in the case of other beings which, in consequence of their unholy deeds, have become plants. We only maintain that those souls which descend from the moon with an unrequited remainder of works do not experience the enjoyment connected with plant life.
25. Should it be said that (sacrificial work is) unholy; we deny this on the ground of scripture.
We proceed to refute the remark made by the pûrvapakshin that sacrificial works are unholy because involving harm done to animals, &c., that they may therefore lead to unpleasant results, and that hence the statement as to the souls being born as plants, &c., may be taken in its
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