Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 221

IV, 8, 69.
OF MILINDA THE KING.
191
69. 'Venerable Nâgasena, those four qualities of the ocean which you said were inherent in Nirvana, —which are they?'
'As the ocean, O king, is free from (empty of) corpses', so also is Nirvana free from empty of) the dead bodies of all evil dispositions. This, O king, is the first quality of the ocean inherent in Nirvana. And again, o king, as the ocean is mighty and boundless, and fills not with all the rivers that flow in to it; so is Nirvana mighty and boundless, and fills not with all beings (who enter in to it). This is the second quality of the ocean inherent in Nirvana. And again, O king, as the ocean is the abode of mighty creatures, so is Nirvâna the abode of great men-Arahats, in whom the Great Evils and all stains have been destroyed, endowed with power, masters of themselves. This is the third quality of the ocean inherent in Nirvana. And again, O king, as the ocean is all in blossom 3, as it were, with the innumerable and various and fine flowers of the ripple of its waves, so is Nirvana all in blossom, as it were, with the innumerable and
1 See on this belief above, IV, 3, 39 (I, 259).
* The word used here for free, empty (sunna), has again given rise to the most odd misconceptions. As Nirvana is hence called Sunyata, emptiness,' Christian writers (taking Nirvâna as a name for some kind of future life) have very naturally thought, in trying to fasten some meaning upon emptiness in a future life, that it must mean 'annihilation of a soul,' and have labelled Buddhism as Nihilism! The real meaning is really very simple, and entirely ethical (not metaphysical or animistic) :
Men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.' See below, IV, 8, 78, for a metaphor founded on a similar idea.
* Samkusumito, only found here. Compare 'garlands, vitvam,' I, 175, 176.
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