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104
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
III, 4, 4.
burn for hundreds of thousands of years in purgatory, yet are they not destroyed." That too is a statement I don't believe.'
The Elder said: 'Now what do you think, O king? Do not the females of sharks and crocodiles and tortoises and peacocks and pigeons eat hard bits of stone and gravel ?' *Yes, Sir. They do.'
What then ? Are these hard things, when they have got into the stomach, into the interior of the abdomen, destroyed ?'
Yes, they are destroyed.'
And the embryo that may be inside the same animals, --is that too destroyed ?'
Certainly not.' But why not.' 'I suppose, Sir, it escapes destruction by the influence of Karma.'
Just so, great king, it is through the influence of Karma that beings, though they have been for thousands of years in purgatory, are not destroyed. If they are reborn there, there do they grow up, and there do they die. For this, O king, has been declared by the Blessed One: “He does not die until that evil Karma is exhausted ?."!
Give me a further illustration.'
* It may be noticed that the particular feminine forms chosen are in each case unusual, being in ini instead of the simple i. The first animal, the Makarinî, is said by Childers to be a mythical animal, but it is clear from Buddhaghosa on K'ullavagga V, 1, 4, that an ordinary animal is meant, and that is so I think here, though the translation 'shark 'is conjectural.
* From Anguttara III, 35, 4 (p. 141 of Dr. Morris's edition for the Pali Text Society).
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