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

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Page 2150
________________ CH. I. HARMONY OF THE SEEN AND UNSEEN. 259 the doctrine of the three coordinate Powers ;—Heaven, Earth, and Man, which I have never been able to comprehend clearly. 3. The nature of Heaven belongs (also) to Man; the mind of Man is a spring (of power). When the Way of Heaven is established, the (Course of) Man is thereby determined. These short and enigmatic sentences seem merely to affirm the general subject of the Treatise,—the harmony between the unseen and the seen. 4. When Heaven puts forth its power of putting to death, the stars and constellations lie hidden in darkness. When Earth puts forth its power of putting to death, dragons and serpents appear on the dry ground. When Man puts forth his power of putting to death, Heaven and Earth resume their (proper course). When Heaven and Man exert their powers in concert, all transformations have their commencements determined. The power of putting to death here seems merely to indicate the rest' which succeeds to movement. The paragraph is intended to show us the harmony of the Three Powers, but one only sees its meaning darkly. The language of the third sentence about the influence of Man on Heaven and Earth finds its explanation from the phrascology of the thwan of the twenty-fourth hexagram of the YÎ (vol. xvi, pp. 107, 108). 5. The nature (of man) is here clever and there stupid; and the one of these qualities may lie hidden in the other. The abuse of the nine apertures is 1 (chiefly) in the three most important, which may be now in movement and now at rest. When fire arises in wood, the evil, having once begun, is sure to go on to the destruction of the wood. When S 2 Digitized by U Digitized by Google

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