Questions of King Milinda Part 02

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford

Page 40

10
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 5, 10.
Blessed One was in the habit of taking a second, or even a third. So such, O king, of the disciples as were "eaters at one sitting" surpassed him in that particular. And in a similar way, O king, a number of different things have been told, each one of one or other of the disciples. But the Blessed One, O king, surpassed them all in respect of uprightness, and of power of meditation, and of wisdom, and of emancipation, and of that insight which arises out of the knowledge of emancipation, and in all that lies within the scope of a Buddha. It was with reference to that, О king, that he said :
"A Brahman am I, O brethren, devoted to selfsacrifice, pure-handed at every time; this body that I bear with me is my last, I am the supreme Healer and Physician."
10. "Now one man, O king, may be of good birth, and another may be wealthy, and another full of wisdom, and another well educated, and another brave, and another adroit; but a king, surpassing all these, is reckoned supreme. Just in that way, O king, is the Blessed One the highest, the most worthy of respect, the best of all beings. And in so far as the venerable Bakkula was healthy in body, that was by reason of an aspiration (he had formed in a previous birth). For, O king, when Anoma-dassi, the Blessed One, was afflicted with a disease, with wind in his stomach, and again when Vipasst, the Blessed One, and sixty-eight thousand of his disciples, were afflicted with a disease, with greenness of blood , he,
See, for other instances of such aspirations, above, vol. i, p. 5. * Tina-pupphaka-roga. There is a flower called tinapuppha, and this may be a skin disease named after it. But pupphaka at Gataka III, 541, means blood, and the disease may
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