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V, 7, 1.
ON THE DAILY LIFE OF THE BHIKKHUS.
"" Infinite is the Buddha, infinite the Truth, infinite the Order. Finite are creeping things; snakes, scorpions and centipedes, spiders and lizards, rats and mice.
""Made is my safeguard, made my defence. Let living things retreat,
““ Whilst I revere the Blessed One, the Buddhas seven supreme ?.”'
I allow you, O Bhikkhus, to let blood ?'
1. Now at that time a certain Bhikkhu, tormented by distaste (for meditation, &c.), castrated himself 3. They told this matter to the Blessed One.
When one thing wanted cutting off, O Bhikkhus, that foolish fellow has cut off another! You are
This is only one of the many passages from which it is evident that in the oldest Buddhism only the seven Buddhas, from Vipassi down to Gotama inclusive, were known by name to the members of the Buddhist community. Compare Rh. D.'s Hibbert Lectures, 1881,' p. 142. It is nevertheless probable that, with their ideas as to the infinite number of worlds which had succeeded one another in the past, they considered that the number of previous Buddhas had also been infinite.
* This last injunction, which comes in here so tamely, is omitted in the Gâtaka story, and is merely a hook on which to hang an excuse for introducing this ancient and evidently favourite prescription into the Vinaya. That it is quite out of place is sufficiently evident from the fact that it has already been laid down in identical terms in the Mahâvagga VI, 14, 4, where it is found in its natural connection.
Anabhiratiya pilito attano angagâtam khindi. This anabhirati is constantly referred to, and always as the result of falling in love, or in connection with sexual desire.
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