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THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA. IV, 1, 48.
devoid of virtue, under no restraint?, sinful, who have overstepped all limits, and are full of transgression, and live on the plunder of fools?”
"" It is true, O king, what you say. That is just the kind of creature I am. But even in such a one as I so great is the power of the Act of Truth that I could turn the whole world of gods and men upside down by it."
*Then the king said: “What is this Act of Truth? Come now, let me hear about it."
""Whosoever, O king, gives me gold-be he a noble or a brahman or a tradesman or a servant-I regard them all alike. When I see he is a noble I make no distinction in his favour. If I know him to be a slave I despise him not. Free alike from fawning and from dislike do I do service to him who has bought me. This, your Majesty, is the basis of the Act of Truth by the force of which I turned the Ganges back.”'
48. Thus, o king, is it that there is nothing which those who are stedfast to the truth may not enjoy. And so king Sivi gave his eyes away to him who begged them of him, [123] and he received eyes from heaven, and that happened by his Act of Truth. But what is said in the Sutta that when the eye of flesh is destroyed, and the cause of it, the basis of it, is removed, then can no divine eye arise, that is only said of the eye, the insight, that arises out of contemplation. And thus, o king, should you take it.'
Well said, Nâgasena! You have admirably
· Khinnikâya. Compare Gâtaka II, 114, and the Sutta Vibhanga on Påkittiya 26.
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