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 247

V, 10.
OF MILINDA THE KING.
217
either conversion or any other. And this, o king, is what is called “The Blessed One's bazaar of fruits."
“Men give their Karma as the price, And buy the fruit ambrosia ; And happiness is theirs, and peace,
Who've bought the fruit ambrosia ?.”' 10. 'And what, venerable Nâgasena, is the antidote bazaar of the Blessed One, the Buddha ?'
Certain drugs, O king, have been made known by the Blessed One; drugs by which the Blessed One delivers the whole world of gods and men from the poison of evil dispositions. And what are these drugs? The four Noble Truths made known by the Blessed One, that is to say, the truth as to sorrow, and the truth as to the origin of sorrow, and the truth as to the cessation of sorrow, and the truth as to that path which leads to the cessation of sorrow. And whosoever, longing for the highest insight (the insight of Arahatship), hear this doctrine of the four truths, they are set quite free from rebirth, [335] they are set quite free from old age, they are set quite free from death, they are set quite free from grief, lamentation, pain, sorrow, and despair. And this, o king, is what is called “The Blessed One's bazaar of antidotes.”
1 These lines have not been traced as yet in the Pitakas, and are probably not meant as a quotation. Ambrosia' is of course the ambrosia of Arahatship.
. For the full text of these Truths' see Buddhist Suttas,' pp. 148-150.
3 Añ The Simhalese, p. 486, has a wabodhaya. The word is rare, but it occurs at Gâtaka I, 140; II, 333; and at Dhammapada, verses 57, 96, always in this sense.
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