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III, 6,7.
PASSION.
119
6. The king said: 'To which of these two, Nâgasena,—the man who weeps at the death of his mother, and the man who weeps out of love for the Truth (Dhamma),—are his tears a cure ?'
• The tears of the one, O king, are stained and hot with the three fires of passion. The tears of the other are stainless and cool. Now there is cure in coolness and calm, but in heat and passion there can be no cure l'
Very good, Nagasena!'
7. The king said: "What is the distinction, Nagasena, between him who is full of passion, and him who is void of passion ?'
The one is overpowered by craving, O king, and the other not.'
But what does that mean?' The one is in want, О king, and the other not.'
I look at it, Sir, in this way. He who has passion and he who has not—both of them alikedesire what is good to eat, either hard or soft. And neither of them desires what is wrong.'
'The lustful man, o king, in eating his food enjoys both the taste and the lust that arises from taste, [77] but the man free from lusts experiences the taste only, and not the lust arising therefrom.'
Well answered, Nagasena !
The Simhalese follows the Påli, but that of course only shows that the text before the translator was here the same as in Mr. Trenckner's edition.
1 The point of this lies in the allusion to the coolness and calm of Nirvana, or Arahatship, which is the dying out of the three fires of lust, ill-will, and delusion. The word used for coolness, Sitala, is one of the many epithets of Arahatship.
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