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18
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
I, 33.
there anything more to be learned in this Brahmanical family of ours, or is this all ?'
'There is no more, Nagasena, my dear. This is all,' was the reply.
And young Nagasena repeated his lesson to his teacher for the last time, and went out of the house, and in obedience to an impulse arising in his heart as the result of previous Karma, sought a place of solitude, where he gave himself up to meditation. And he reviewed what he had learnt throughout from beginning to end, and found no value in it anywhere at all. And he exclaimed in bitterness of soul: 'Empty forsooth are these Vedas, and as chaff. There is in them neither reality, nor worth, nor essential truth!'
That moment the venerable Rohana, seated at his hermitage at Vattaniya, felt in his mind what was passing in the heart of Nâgasena. And he robed himself, and taking his alms-bowl in his hand, he vanished from Vattaniya and appeared near the Brahman village Kagangala. And young Nagasena, as he stood again in the doorway, saw him coming in the distance. At the sight of him he became happy and glad, and a sweet hope sprang up in his heart that from him he might learn the essential truth. And he went [11] to him, and said: "Who art thou, Sir, that thou art thus bald-headed, and wearest yellow robes ?'
They call me a recluse, my child' (Pabbagita : literally, 'one who has abandoned ;' that is, the worldly life).
And why do they call thee "one who has abandoned ?"
Because a recluse is one who has receded from
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