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176
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
IV, 1, 39.
and sought, with terrified hearts, for a way of escape. And as the water on which it rests 1 was troubled and agitated, then the broad earth began to shake, and with it the mountain ranges and the ocean depths, [118] and Sineru began to revolve, and its rocky mountain crest became twisted. And at the trembling of the earth, the serpents, and mungooses, and cats, and jackals, and boars, and deer, and birds became greatly distressed, and the Yakkhas of inferior power wept, while those of greater power were merry.
39. 'Just, О king, as when a huge and mighty cauldron ? is placed in an oven full of water, and crowded with grains of rice, then the fire burning beneath heats first of all the cauldron, and when that has become hot the water begins to boil, and as the water boils the grains of rice are heated and dive hither and thither in the water, and a mass of bubbles arises, and a garland of foam is formed just so, O king, king Vessantara gave away whatsoever is in the world considered most difficult to bestow, and by reason of the nature of his generosity the great winds beneath were unable to refrain from being agitated throughout, and on the great winds being thrown into confusion the waters were shaken, and on the waters being disturbed the broad earth trembled, and so then the winds and the waters and the earth became all three, as it were, of one accord by the immense and powerful influence that
This conception of the earth resting on water and the water on air is Indian, and forms no part of distinctively Buddhist teaching.
* Mahati-mahå-pariyogo; not in Childers nor in the Sanskrit Petersburg Dictionary. Hinati-kumburê renders it ita mahat wu maha bhaganayak,
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