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I, 13.
THE HERETICS OF OLD.
him: Who is it, venerable Kassapa, who rules the world ?'' 'The Earth, great king, rules the world!'
But, venerable Kassapa, if it be the Earth that rules the world, how comes it that some men go to the Aviki hell?, thus getting outside the sphere of the Earth ?' [5]
When he had thus spoken, neither could Purana Kassapa swallow the puzzle, nor could he bring it up; crestfallen, driven to silence, and moody, there he sat.
13. Then Milinda the king said to Makkhali of the cowshed 3 : Are there, venerable Gosâla, good and evil acts ? Is there such a thing as fruit, ultimate result, of good and evil acts ?'.
• There are no such acts, O king; and no such fruit, or ultimate result. Those who here in the world are nobles, they, O king, when they go to the
Aviki (probably the Waveless'). The mention of this particular hell as being outside the earth is noteworthy. One would expect to find the Lokantarika hell so described. Spence Hardy indeed goes so far as to say that the Aviki is seven hundred miles directly under the great Bo Tree at Budh Gâyâ (Manual, p. 26), which would be within the sphere of the earth. But there is nothing in the Pâli texts yet published as to its position. See Kullavagga VII, 4, 8; Anguttara III, 56; Gâtaka I, 71, 96; Panka Gati Dipana, 20. There is a list of the hells at Sutta Nipata III, 10, but the Avîki is not one of them. This blunder, improbable in a writer so learned as our author elsewhere shows himself, is another reason for thinking these sections to be an interpolation.
i Pattak khando pagghầyanto. See my note on Kullavagga IV, 4, 7, and compare Anguttara III, 73, 4.
3 This, again, is most clumsy, as the rival teachers must have dwelt far apart. And it will be seen that, notwithstanding the parade of the six names at the beginning of this episode, the remaining four are no further mentioned.
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