United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The latter for instance quotes the well-known lines "anupubbena medhavi" not as coming from the Dhammapada but as "spoken by the Lord." But the author of the Questions of Milinda, who knew the canonical books by the names they bear now, also often adopts a similar method of citation. Although this author's probable date is not earlier than our era his evidence is important.
Avalokiteśvara is unknown to the Pali Canon and the Milinda Pañha. So far as I can discover he is not mentioned in the Divyâvadâna, Jâtakamâlâ or any work attributed to Aśvaghosha. His name does not occur in the Lalita-vistara but a list of Bodhisattvas in its introductory chapter includes Mahâkaruṇâcandin, suggesting Mahâkaruna, the Great Compassionate, which is one of his epithets.
But whatever else the word may mean, it clearly does not signify annihilation. Both here and in the Questions of Milinda an impression is produced in the mind of the reader, and perhaps was not absent in the mind of the writer, that nirvana is a sphere or plane of existence resembling though excelling space or ether.
In the Pitakas Kassapa's disciples are described as dhutavâdâ and the advantages arising from the observance of the Dhutângas are enumerated in the Questions of Milinda. It is probable that the Buddha himself had little sympathy with them. He was at any rate anxious that they should not degenerate into excesses.
But Buddhist writers more commonly illustrate rebirth by fire than by water and this simile is used with others in the Questions of Milinda. We cannot assume that this book reflects the views of the Buddha or his immediate followers, but it is the work of an Indian in touch with good tradition who lived a few centuries later and expressed his opinions with lucidity.
It is without stability, without movement, without basis: it is the end of sorrow, unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, uncompounded ." The statements about nirvana in the Questions of Milinda are definite and interesting. In this work , Nâgasena tells King Milinda that there are two things which are not the result of a cause, to wit space and Nirvana.
These censures began in early times; we find them in the famous dialogues between Nagasena and Milinda, the king Menander, about 100 B.C. And yet we know how, in spite of all warnings given by the founder of Buddhism, this religion was soon entirely overgrown with metaphysics; and how, finally, metaphysics as Abbidharma found an acknowledged place in the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists.
He is celebrated in Buddhist literature as the hero of the Questions of Milinda but his coins, though showing some Buddhist emblems, indicate that he was also a worshipper of Pallas. Shortly after this Hellenic influence in Bactria was overwhelmed by the invasion of the Yüeh-chih, though the Greek principalities in the Panjab may have lasted considerably longer.
He is just mentioned in the Dîgha Nikâya and Buddha-Vaṃsa and the Milinda Pañha quotes an utterance of Gotama to the effect that "He will be the leader of thousands as I am of hundreds," but the quotation has not been identified.
Word Of The Day