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236
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
IV, 3, 9.
How, then, could a carpenter by doing nothing to a piece of timber, and simply laying it był, make it straight and fit for use ?'
No, Sir. He would have to get rid of the bends out of it, if he wanted it straight and ready for use.'
Just so, O king, the Tathagata could not, by merely watching over his disciples, have opened the eyes of those who were ready to see. But by getting rid of those who took the word wrongly he saved those prepared to be saved. And it was by their own act and deed, O king, that the evil-minded fell; just as a plantain tree, or a bambù, or a she-mule are destroyed by that to which they themselves give birth. And just, o king, as it is by their own acts that robbers come to have their eyes plucked out, or to impalement, or to the scaffold, just so were the evil-minded destroyed by their own act, and fell from the teaching of the Conqueror.'
9. 'And so (187) with those sixty Bhikkhus, they fell neither by the act of the Tathagata nor of any one else, but solely by their own deed 3. Suppose, O king, a man were to give ambrosia * to all the people, and they, eating of it, were to become healthy and long-lived and free from every bodily ill. But one man, on eating it, were by his own bad digestion, to
1 Rakkhanto, which Hinati-kumburê expands in the sense adopted above.
* Plantains and bambùs die when they flower. And it was popular belief in India that she-mules always died if they foaled. See K’ullavagga VI, 4, 3; VII, 2, 5; Vimâna Vatthu 43, 8; Samyutta Nikaya VI, 2, 2.
· Hînati-kumburê here inserts a translation of the whole of the Sutta referred to.
* Amatam, with reference, no doubt, to Arahatship, of which this is also an epithet.
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