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V, 20, 3. ON THE DAILY LIFE OF THE BHIKKHUS.
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that from that very quarter should arise danger, calamity, and distress—that where one ought to expect a calm, that just there one should meet a gale! Methinks the very water has taken fire! My wife has been defiled by Dabba the Mallian!"
2. 'Very well, Sirs!' said Vaddha the Likkhavi, accepting the word of the followers of Mettiya and Bhummagaka. And he went up to the Blessed One (and spake even as he had been directed].
Then the Blessed One, on that occasion and in that connection, convened a meeting of the Bhikkhusamgha, and asked the venerable Dabba the Mallian:
Are you conscious , Dabba, of having done such a thing as this Vaddha says ?'
As my Lord, the Blessed One, knows. [And a second, and a third time, the Blessed One asked the same question, and received the same reply.]
'The Dabbas, O Dabba, do not thus repudiate. If you have done it, say so. If you have not done it, say you have not.'
Since I was born, Lord, I cannot call to mind that I have practised sexual intercourse, even in a dream, much less when I was awake!'
3. Then the Blessed One addressed the Bhikkhus, and said: 'Let then the Samgha, O Bhikkhus, turn the bowl down ? in respect of Vaddha the Likkhavi,
See the note above on IV, 4, 9.
Pattam nikkuggatu. This phrase is used in the ordinary signification above, V, 9, 4. It is characteristic of the mildness of early Buddhism that this should be the only penalty imposed upon a layman. Compare H. O.'s remarks in his · Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde,' pp. 391–393. The house of such a layman becomes then an agokaro, an unlawful resort.' (Kullavagga VIII, 1, 2.)
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