________________
IV, 3, 29.
THE SPLINTER OF ROCK.
249
rock grazed his foot? When that splinter was falling on his foot why did it not, then, turn aside ? If it be true that the unconscious earth makes its deep places full and its steep places plain for him, then it must be untrue that the splinter of rock hurt his foot. But if the latter statement be true, then the first must be false. This too is a doubleedged problem now put to you, and you have to solve it.'
28. · Both statements, o king, are true. But that splinter of rock did not fall of itself, it was cast down through the act of Devadatta. Through hundreds of thousands of existences, O king, had Devadatta borne a grudge against the Blessed Ones. It was through that hatred that he seized hold of a mighty mass of rock, and pushed it over with the hope that it would fall upon the Buddha's head. But two other rocks came together, and intercepted it before it reached the Tathagata, and by the force of their impact a splinter was torn off, and fell in such a direction that it struck [180] the Blessed One's foot.'
29. 'But, Nagasena, just as two rocks intercepted that mighty mass, so could the splinter have been intercepted.'
'But a thing intercepted, O king, can escape, slip through, or be lost—as water does, through the fingers, when it is taken into the hand-or milk, or buttermilk, or honey, or ghee, or oil, or fish curry,
Kullavagga VII, 3, 9. Compare the Samyutta Nikaya I, 4, 8; IV, 2, 3 (pp. 27 and 110 of M. Léon Feer's edition for the Pali Text Society).
• Attaro dhammatâ ya. • So above, IV, 2, 64, and below, IV, 4, 41.
Digitized by Google
