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246
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA. IV, 3, 24.
nine successive conditions are glorious, even so are those gifts made, by their glory, [177] of greater fruit, and of greater advantage than any others. Very good, Nagasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.'
[Here ends the dilemma as to the Buddha's
last illness.]
[ADORATION OF RELICS.] 24. Venerable Någasena, the Tathāgata said: “Hinder not yourselves, Ananda, by honouring the remains of the Tathagata 1." And on the other hand he said: “Honour that relic of him who is worthy of honour, Acting in that way you go from this world to
heaven?" Now if the first injunction was right the second must be wrong, and if the second is right the first must be wrong. This too is a double-edged problem now put to you, and you have to solve it.'
25. 'Both the passages you quote were spoken by the Blessed One. But it was not to all men, it was to the sons of the Conquerors that it was said : "Hinder not yourselves, Ananda, by honouring the remains of the Tathagata 4." Paying reverence is not the work of the sons of the Conqueror, [178] but rather the grasping of the true nature of all
1 Book of the Great Decease, V, 24. * Not found in any of the Pitaka texts as yet published. : Gina-puttanam. That is, the members of the Order.
• Here again Hînafi-kumburê goes into a long account of the attendant circumstances (pp. 233, 234).
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