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THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
IV, 2, 1.
Book IV. CHAPTER 2.
[THE ABOLITION OF REGULATIONS.] 1. Venerable Någasena, it has been said by the Blessed One: “It is by insight, O Bhikkhus, that I preach the law, not without insight?.” On the other hand he said of the regulations of the Vinaya : “When I am gone, Ananda, let the Order, if it should so wish, abolish all the lesser and minor precepts ?." Were then these lesser and minor precepts wrongly laid down, or established in ignorance and without due cause, that the Blessed One allowed them to be revoked after his death? If the first statement had been true, the second would have been wrong. If the second statement were really made, (143] then the first was false. This too is a double-headed problem, fine, subtle, abstruse, deep, profound, and hard to expound. It is now put to you, and you have to solve it.'
2. 'In both cases, O king, the Blessed One said as you have declared. But in the second case it was to test the Bhikkhus that he said it, to try whether, if leave were granted them, they would, after his death, revoke the lesser and minor regulations, or still adhere to them. It runs as if a
· Not traced as yet.
. Mahậparinibbâna Sutta VI, 3 (translated in my · Buddhist Suttas,' p. 112). The incident is referred to in the Kullavagga XI, 1, 9, 10, and in his commentary on that passage Buddhaghosa mentions the discussion between Milinda and Nagasena, and quotes it as an authority in support of his interpretation.
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