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III.
A PARABLE.
delight in this triple world, which is like a burning house, in these miserable forms, sounds, odours, flavours, and contacts. For in delighting in this triple world ye are burnt, heated, inflamed with the thirst inseparable from the pleasures of the five senses. Fly from this triple world; betake yourselves to the three vehicles : the vehicle of the disciples, the vehicle of the Pratyekabuddhas, the vehicle of the Bodhisattvas. I give you my pledge for it, that I shall give you these three vehicles; make an effort to run out of this triple world. And to attract them I say: These vehicles are grand, praised by the Aryas, and provided with most pleasant things; with such you are to sport, play, and divert yourselves in a noble: manner. Ye will feel the great delight of the faculties 3, powers“, constituents of Bodhi, meditations, the (eight) degrees of emancipation, self-concentration, and the results of self-concentration, and ye will become greatly happy and cheerful.
1 The same idea and the same moral form the warp and woof of the sermon on the hill of Gayâsîrsha, the Aditta-pariyaya, Mahavagga I, 21. This sermon was the second in course of time, if we leave out of account the repetitions of the first, preached near Benares. The parable also is propounded at the time when the Master moves the wheel of the law for the second time; see above, st. 34. Hence we may conclude that the sermon and parable are variations of one and the same monkish moralization on the base of a more primitive cosmological legend.
'Akripanam, properly, not miserably.
s Indriya; here apparently the five moral faculties of faith, energy, recollection, contemplation, and wisdom or prescience; cf. Spence Hardy, Manual, p. 498; Lalita-vistara, p. 37.
• Bala, the same as the indriya, with this difference, it would seem, that the balas are the faculties in action or more developed ; cf. Spence Hardy, l. c., and Lalita-vistara, l. c.
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