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The Questions of King Milinda (In Two Volumes)

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Item Code: NAC392
Author: T.W. RHYS DAVIDS
Publisher: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PVT. LTD.
Language: English Translation Only
Edition: 2011
ISBN: 8120801369
Pages: 785
Cover: HARDCOVER
Other Details 8.8 Inch X 5.8 Inch
Weight 1.14 kg
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Book Description
ISBN Volume 36 – 8120801377

Introduction from Part I

The work, of which a translation is here, for the first time, presented to the English reading public, has had a strange and interesting history. Written in Northern India, at or a little after the beginning of the Christian era, and either in Sanskrit itself or in some North Indian Prakrit, it has been entirely lost in the land of its origin, and (so far as is at present known) is not extant in any of the homes of the various sects and schools of the Buddhists, except only in Ceylon, and in those countries which have derived their Buddhism from Ceylon. It is true that General Cunningham says that the name of Milinda ‘is still famous in all Buddhist countries.’ But he is here drawing a very wide conclusion from an isolated fact. For in his note he refers only to Hardy, who is good evidence for Ceylon, but who does not even say that the ‘Milinda’ was known elsewhere.

Preserved there, and translated at a very early date into Pali, it has become, in its southern home, a book of standard authority, is put into the hands of those who have begun to doubt the cardinal points of Buddhist doctrine, has been long a popular work in its Pall form, has been translated into Simhalese, and occupies a unique position, second only to the Pali Pitakas (and perhaps also to the celebrated work of Buddhaghosa, the ‘Path of Purity ‘). From Ceylon it has been transferred, in its Pali form, to both Burma and Siam, and in those countries also it enjoys so high a repute, that it has been commented on (if not translated). It is not merely the only work composed among the Northern Buddhists which is regarded with reverence by the orthodox Buddhists of the southern schools; it is the only one which has survived at all amongst them. And it is the only prose work composed in ancient India which would be considered, from the modern point of view, as a successful work of art.

The external evidence for these statements is, at present, both very slight and, for the most part, late. There appeared at Colombo in the year of Buddha 2420 (1877 A.D.) a volume of 650 pages, large 8vo.—the most considerable in point of size as yet issued from the Simhalese press—entitled MILINDA PRASNAYA. It was published at the expense of five Buddhist gentlemen whose names deserve to be here recorded. They are Karolis Pins, Abraham Liwera, Luis Mendis, Nandis Mendis Amara-sekara, and Charlis Arnolis Mendis Wijaya-ratna Amara-sekara. It is stated in the preface that the account of the celebrated discussion held between Milinda and Nagasena, about 500 years after the death of the Buddha, was translated into the Magadhi language by ‘teachers of old’ (purwakarln wisin) ;—that that Pâli version was translated into Simhalese, at the instance and under the patronage of King Kirtti Sri Raga-simha, who came to the throne of Ceylon in the year of Buddha 2290 (1747 A. B.), by a member of the Buddhist Order named Hinatikumbure Sumangala, a lineal successor, in the line of teacher and pupil (anusishya), of the celebrated Woeliwita Saranankara, who had been appointed Samgharaga, or chief of the Order—that ‘this priceless book, unsurpassable as a means either for learning the Buddhist doctrine, or for growth in the knowledge of it, or for the suppression of erroneous opinions,’ had become corrupt by frequent copying—that, at the instigation of the well-known scholar Mohotti-watte Gunananda, these five had had the texts corrected and restored by several learned Bhikkhus (kipa namak lawa), and had had indices and a glossary added, and now published the thus revised and improved edition.

The Sinmhalese translation, thus introduced to us, follows the Pali throughout, except that it here and there adds, in the way of gloss, extracts from one or other of the numerous Pitaka texts referred to, and also that it starts with a prophecy, put into the mouth of the Buddha when on his death-bed, that this discussion would take place about 500 years after his death, and that it inserts further, at the point indicated in my note on p. 3 of the present version, an account of how the Simhalese translator came to write his version. His own account of the matter adds to the details given above that he wrote the work at the Uposatha Arama of the Maha Wihara near Sri-ward- hanapura, ‘a place famous for the possession of a temple containing the celebrated Tooth Relic, and a monastery which had been the residence of Woeliwita Saranankara, the Samgha-raga, and of the famous scholars and commentators Daramiti-pola Dhamma-rakkhita and Madhurasatota Dhammakkhandha.’

As Kirtti Sri Raga-simha reigned till 1781, this would only prove that our Pali work was extant in Ceylon in its present form, and there regarded as of great antiquity and high authority, towards the close of the last century. And no other mention of the work has, as yet, been discovered in any older Simhalese author. But in the present deplorable state of our ignorance of the varied and ancient literature of Ceylon, the argument ex silentio would be simply of no value. Now that the Ceylon Government have introduced into the Legislative Council a bill for the utilisation, in the interests of education, of the endowments of the Buddhist monasteries, it may be hoped that the value of the books written in those monasteries will not be forgotten, and that a sufficient yearly sum will be put aside for the editing and publication of a literature of such great historical value. At present we can only deplore the impossibility of tracing the history of the ‘Questions of Milinda’ in other works written by the scholarly natives of its southern home.

That it will be mentioned in those works there can be but little doubt. For the great Indian writer, who long ago found in that beautiful and peaceful island the best scope for his industrious scholarship, is already known to have mentioned the book no less than four times in his commentaries; and that in such a manner that we may fairly hope to find other references to it when his writings shall have been more completely published. in his commentary on the Book of the Great Decease, VI, Buddhaghosa refers to the quotation of that passage made in the conversation between Milinda and Nagasena, translated below, at IV, it And again, in his commentary on the Ambattha Sutta (D. III, 2, 12) he quotes the words of a conversation between Milinda and Nagasena on the subject he is there discussing. The actual words he uses (they will be found at pp. 275, 276 of the edition of the Sumangala Vilasini, edited for the Pali Text Society by Professor Carpenter and myself) are not the same as those of our author at the corresponding passage of Mr. Trenckner’s text (pp. 168, 169; IV, , ii), but they are the same in substance.

Introduction from Part II

I have first to notice a few points as to the history of the Milinda book have either come to light since the former Introduction was written, or which I then omitted to notice.

Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio in his Catalogue of Chinese Buddhist Books mentions a Chinese book called Na-sien Pikhiu Kin (that is ‘The Book of the Bhikshu Nagasena’ Sutra). I have been so fortunate as to receive detailed information about this book both from Dr. Serge d’Oldenbourg in St. Petersburg and from M. Sylvain Levi in Paris. Professor Serge d’Oldenbourg forward to me, in the spring of 1892, a translation into English (which he himself had been kind enough to make) from a translation into Russian by Mr. Ivanovsky, of the Chinese Introduction, and of various episodes in the Chinese which seemed to differ from the Pali. This very valuable aid to the interpretation of the Milinda, which the unselfish courtesy of these two Russian scholars intended thus to place at my disposal, was most unfortunately lost in the post; and I have only been able to gather from a personal interview with Professor d’Oldenbourg that the Introduction was a sort of Gataka story in which the Buddha appeared as a white elephant. By a curious coincidence this regrettable loss has been since made good by the work of two French scholars. Mons. Sylvain Levi forwarded to the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, held in London in the autumn of 1892, a careful study on the subject by M. Edouard Specht, preceded by an introductory essay by himself.

It appears from this paper, which excited much interest when it was read, that there are, not one, but two separate and distinct works extant in China under the name of Na-sien Pikhiu Kin, the one inserted in the Korean collection made in that country in 1010 A.D, and the other printed in the collection of Buddhist books published under the Sung in l9. Neither the date nor the author of either version seems to be known, but Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio states of his work, which is probably one of the two, that it was composed between 317 and 420 A. D.1 The Korean book gives much less of the matter contained in our books II and III than the later work in the Sung collection, the former containing only 13,752 characters while the latter has 22,657. In the matter of the order of the questions also the later of the two Chinese books follows much more closely the order found in the present translation than does the work found in the Korean collection.

This paper has since been published in the Proceedings of the Congress, and it gives translations of several episodes on questions in which the Chinese is said to throw light on the Pali. Both M. Specht and M. Sylvain Levi seem to think that the two Chinese books were translations of older recensions of the work than the one preserved in Pali. This argument does not seem to me, as at present advised, at all certain. It by no means follows that a shorter recension, merely because it is shorter, must necessarily be older than a longer one. It is quite as possible that the longer one gave rise to the shorter ones.

The story of a discussion between Nagasena and Milinda is no doubt, if the arguments in the Introduction to Part I are of any avail, an historical romance with an ethical tendency. In constant repetition, after it had become popular, it is precisely those parts which do not appeal so easily to the popular ear (because they deal, not with ordinary puzzles, but with dilemmas or with the higher mysteries of Arahatship), that would be naturally omitted. I do not go so far as to say that it must have been so. But I venture to think that for a critical judgment as to the comparative dates of the three works on the same subject, now known to exist, we must wait till translations of the whole of the two independent Chinese versions are before us. And further that the arguments must then turn on quite other considerations than the very ambiguous conclusions to be drawn merely from the length or shortness of the different treatment in each case. It is very much to be hoped therefore that M. Specht will soon give us complete versions of the two Chinese works in question.

At present it can only be said that we have a very pretty puzzle propounded to us, a puzzle much more difficult to solve than those which king Milinda put to Nagasena the sage. If the shorter version (or rather paraphrase, for it does not seem to be a version at all in our modern sense)—that from the Korea—be really the original, how comes it that the other Chinese book, included in a collection made two centuries later, should happen to differ from it in the precise parts in which it, the supposed original, differs from the Pali? Surely the only probable hypothesis would be that of the Chinese books, both working on the same original, the later is more exact than the earlier: and that we simply have here one more instance of an already well-known characteristic of Chinese reproductions of Indian books—namely, that the later version is more accurate than the older one. The later a Chinese ‘translation’ the better, in the few cases where comparison is possible, it has proved to be (that is, the nearer to our idea of what a translation should be); and Tibetan versions are better, as a rule, than the best of the Chinese.

Since the publication of this very interesting paper, M. Sylvain Levi has had the great kindness to send me an advance proof of a more complete paper, to be published in Paris, in which M. Specht and himself have made a detailed analysis of the three versions setting out over against’ the English translation of each question (as contained in the first volume of the present work) the translations of it as they appear in each of the Chinese versions. I have not been able by a study of this analysis to add anything to the admirable summary of the conclusions as to the relations of these two books to one another and to the Pali which are given by M. Specht in his article in the Proceedings of the Ninth Congress. The later version is throughout much nearer to the Pali; but neither of the two give more than a small portion of it, the earlier does not seem to go much further than our Volume I, page 99 (just where the Pali has the remark, ‘Here end the questions of king Milinda’), and the later, though it goes beyond this point, apparently stops at Volume I, page I 14.

These details are of importance for the decision of the critical question of the history of the Milinda. The book starts with an elaborate and very skilful introduction, giving first an account of the way in which Nagasena and Milinda had met in a previous birth, then the life history, in order, of each of them in this birth, then the account of how they met. Throughout the whole story the attention is constantly directed to the very great ability of the two disputants, and to the fact that they had been specially prepared through their whole existence for this great encounter, which was to be of the first importance for religion and for the world. This introductory story occupies in my translation thirty-nine pages. Is it likely that so stately an entrance hall should have really been built to lead only into one or two small rooms?—to two chapters occupying only sixty pages more? Is it not more probable that the original architect had a better sense of proportion? As an Introduction to the book as we have it in these volumes the story told in those thirty-nine pages is very much in place; as an Introduction to the first two chapters only, or to the first two and a portion of the third, it is quite incongruous. And accordingly we find in the very beginning of the Introduction a kind of table of contents in which the shape of the whole book, as we have it here, is foreshadowed in detail, and in due proportion. This will have to be taken into account when, with full translations of the two Chinese books before us, we shall have to consider whether they are really copies of the original statue, or whether they are interesting fragments.

I ought not to close this reference to the labours of MM. Levi and Specht without calling attention to a slip of the pen in one expression used by M. Sylvain Levi regarding the Milinda’. He says, ‘La science ne connaissait jusqu’ici de cet ouvrage qu’un texte ecrit en Pali et incorpore duns le canon Singhalais?’ Now there is, accurately speaking, no such thing as a Sinhalese canon of the Buddhist Scriptures, any more than there is a French or an English canon of the Christian Scriptures. The canon of the three Pitakas, settled in the valley of the Ganges (probably at Patna in the time of Asoka), has been adhered to, it is true, in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. But it cannot properly be called either a Ceylonese or a Burmese or a Siamese canon. In that canon the Milinda was never incorporated. And not only so, but the expression used clearly implies that there is some other canon. Now there has never been any other canon of the Buddhist Scriptures besides this one of the three Pitakas. Many Buddhist books, not incorporated in the canon, have been composed in different languages—Pall, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Sinhalese, Burmese, Siamese, &c.—but no new canon, it the European meaning of the phrase, has ever been formed.

One meets occasionally, no doubt, in European books on Buddhism allusions or references to a later canon supposed to have been settled at the Council of Kanishka. The blunder originated, I believe, with Mr. Beal. But in the only account of that Council which we possess, that of Yuan Thsang’, there is no mention at all of any new canon having been settled. The account is long and detailed. An occurrence of so extreme an importance would scarcely have escaped the notice of the Chinese writer. But throughout the account the canonicity of the three Pitakas is simply taken for granted. The members of the Council were chosen exclusively from those who knew the three Pitakas, and the work they performed was the composition of three books—the Upadesa, the Vinaya Vibhasha, and the Abhidharma Vibhasha. The words which follow in the Chinese have been differently interpreted by the European translators. Julien says:

‘They (the members of the Council) thoroughly explained the three Pitakas, and thus placed them above all the books of antiquity.

Beal, on the other hand, renders:

‘Which (namely, which three books) thoroughly explained the three Pitakas. There was no work of antiquity to be compared with (placed above) their productions.

It is immaterial which version best conveys the meaning of the original. They both clearly show that, in the view of Yuan Thsang, the Council of Kanishka did not establish any new canon. Since that time the rulers of China, Japan, and Tibet have from time to time published collections of Buddhist books. But none of these collections even purports to be a canon of the Scriptures. They contain works of very various, and some quite modern, ages and authors: and can no more be regarded as a Canon of the Buddhist Scriptures than Migne’s voluminous collection of Christian books can be called a new canon of the Christian Scriptures.

This was already pointed out in my little manual, ‘Buddhism,’ published in 1877, and it is a pity that references in subsequent books to a supposed canon settled at Kanishka’s Council have still perpetuated the blunder. M. Sylvain Levi, for whose genius and scholarship I have the profoundest respect, does not actually say that there was such a canon; but his words must lead readers, ignorant of the facts, to imply that there was one.

I have also to add that M. Barth has called attention1 to the fact that M. Sylvain Levi has added another service to those already mentioned as rendered by him to the interpretation of the Milinda, by a discussion of the reference to our book in the Abhidharma-kosa-vyakhya, referred to in my previous Introduction, p. xxvi. This discussion was published in a periodical I have not seen. But it seems that M. Levi, with the help of two Chinese translations, has been able to show that the citation is not only in the commentary, but also in the text, of Vasubandhu’s work. M. Leon Feer has been kind enough to send me the actual words of the reference, and they will be found published in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ for 1891, p. 476.

Professor Serge d’Oldenbourg has also been good enough to point out to me that the two Cambridge MSS. of Kshemendra’s Bodhisattvavadana-kalpalata read Milinda (not Milinda as given by Rajendra Lal Mitra3) as the name of the king referred to in the 57th Avadana, the Stupavadana. I had not noticed this reference to the character in our historical romance. It comes in quite incidentally, the Buddha prophesying to Indra that a king Milinda would erect a stupa at Pataligrama. There is no allusion to our book, and the passage is only interesting as showing that the memory of king Milinda still survived in India at the time when Kshemendra wrote in the eleventh century A. D.

Content: Part I

Introduction xi
The Simhalese version of the Milinda xii
Buddhaghosa’s four references to it. xiv
MSS. And edition of the text xvi
King Milinda the same as Menander xviii
Notices of him in classical writers xix
His coins xx
His birthplace, Kalasi, probably = Karisi xxiii
The Author not the same as Nagarguna xxv
Passages in the Pitakas referred to silently xxvii
Pali books, &c., referred to by name xxix
Pitaka passages quoted xxxi
Length of the Pitakas xxxvi
Results of these comparisons xxxviii
Differences between our author and the Pitakas xl
Proper names outside the Pitakas xliii
Differences of language between our author and the Pitakas xlv
The Milinda as a work of art xlviii
Translation of the Test.
Book I. The Secular Narrative 1
Description of Sagala2
Previous births of Milinda and Nagasena 4
Milinda’s greatness and wisdom and love of disputation 6
Birth story of Nagasena 10
His admission as a novice into the order 20
His conversion 25
His attainment of Arahatship 29
Milinda confutes Ayupala 30
Nagasena arrives; his character 34
Milinda goes to him 36
Book II. The Distinguishing Characteristics of Ethical Qualities 40
Individuality and name 41
The chariot simile 43
The riddle of seniority 45
(Interlude) How kings and scholars respectively discuss46
No soul in the breath 48
Aim of Buddhist renunciation 49
Re-incarnation 50
Wisdom and reasoning distinguished 51
Virtue’s the base 53
Faith 54
Perseverance 57
Mindfulness 58
Meditation 60
Continued identity and re-individualisation 63-77
Wisdom and intelligence distinguished 66
Time 77
Origin and development of qualities 82
Is there a soul? 86
Thought and sight 89
Contact, sensation, and idea 92
Book III. The Removal of Difficulties 100
Rich and poor 100
Renunciation again 101
Nirvana and Karma 106
Difficulties of various kinds as the transmigration, individuality, and the Buddha 120
Book IV. The Solving of Dilemmas137
Milinda finds dilemmas in the Holy Writ 137
And takes the Buddhist vows 138
Third meeting between him and Nagasena 140
Ist Dilemma. If the Buddha has really quite passed away, what is the good of paying honour to his relics? 144
2nd Dilemma. How can the Buddha be omniscient, when it is said that he reflects? 154
3rd Dilemma. Why did he admit Devadatta to the Order, if he knew of the schism he would create? 162
4th Dilemma. Vessantara’s earthquake 170
5th Dilemma. King Sivi 179
7th Dilemma. Difference in prophecies as to the duration of the faith 185
8th Dilemma. The Buddha’s sinlessness and his sufferings 190
9th Dilemma. Why should the Buddha have meditated? 196
10th Dilemma. Why did the Buddha boast? 198
11th Dilemma. How could the Buddha revoke regulations he had made? 202
12th Dilemma. Why did the Buddha refuse to answer certain questions? 204
13th Dilemma. Contradictory statements by the Buddha as to fear 206
14th Dilemma. How can Pirit cure disease? 213
15th Dilemma. How could the evil one turn people against the Buddha? 219
16th Dilemma. Contradiction as to conscious crime 224
17th Dilemma. Contradiction as to the Buddha’s wish to be the chief. 225
18th Dilemma. How could a schism have arisen in the Buddha’s life? 227
19th Dilemma. Why do members of the Order accept reverence? 232
20th Dilemma. The evil results of preaching 234
22th Dilemma. Was not the Buddha once angry with Sudinna? 237
23rd Dilemma. The tree talking 241
24th Dilemma. The Buddha’s last meal 242
25th Dilemma. Adoration of relics 246
26th Dilemma. The splinter of rock 248
27th Dilemma. Contradictory description of the Samana 251
28th Dilemma. Buddha’s boasting 253
29th Dilemma. How can the kind punish others? 254
30th Dilemma. Was not the Buddha angry at Katuma?257
31st Dilemma. How could Moggallana have had miraculous powers seeing that he was murdered? 261
32nd Dilemma. Why should the rules of the order be kept secret? 264
33rd Dilemma. Contradictions about falsehood 268
34th Dilemma. Did not the Omniscient One once doubt? 270
35th Dilemma. Suicide 273
36th Dilemma. Love to all beings 279
37th Dilemma. Wickedness and prosperity 283
38th Dilemma. Women’s wiles294
39th Dilemma. Did not the Arahats once show fear? 297
40th Dilemma. Did not the Omniscient One once change his mind? 301
Appendix. Devadatta in the Gatakas 303
Addenda et Corrigenda 305
Index of Proper Names 307
Index of Subjects 311
Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Translations of the Sacred Books of the East 317

Content: Part II

Introduction
Chinese books on Nagasena xi
The Buddhist canon xv
Vasubandhu’s reference to Nagasenaxvii
Kshemendra’s reference to Milinda xvii
The Mahavamsa on Assagutta and Vattaniya xviii
The Katha Vatthu xx
Milinda and other authorities on the soul theory xxi
The Milinda later than the Katha Vatthu xxvi
Translations of the Text.
Book IV. The Solving of Dilemmas.
41st Dilemma. Why should houses (Wiharas) be built for the houseless ones? 1
42nd Dilemma. Was not the Buddha immoderate in food? 4
43rd Dilemma. Was not Bakkula said to be superior (in health) to the Buddha? 8
44th Dilemma. Why is the Buddha’s teaching called both new and old? 13
45th Dilemma. Did not the Bodisat once kill animals in sacrifice?16
46th Dilemma. Did not the Bodisat once abuse the Buddha?20
47th Dilemma. Was not Kassapa the Buddha less powerful than the potter?23
48th Dilemma. Why is the Buddha called both Brahman and king? 25
49th Dilemma. Did not the Buddha teach for hire? 31
50th Dilemma. Did not the Buddha once doubt? (See No. 34) 38
51st Dilemma. Was not the Buddha taught by others? 43
52nd Dilemma. Why can there be only one Buddha at a time? 47
53rd Dilemma. Did not the Buddha put the Order above himself? 51
54th Dilemma. As a layman can reach Arahatship, why enter the order? 56
55th Dilemma. Did not the Buddha, having tried and abandoned asceticism, nevertheless still insist on it? 60
56th Dilemma. Men sometime throw off the robes. Why not test candidates before initiation? 63
57th Dilemma. How is it that Arahats suffer bodily pain? 75
58th Dilemma. Why cannot an offender, who is not aware of his offence, enter the Path 78
59th Dilemma. How can a guilty Samana purify gifts? 82
60th Dilemma. The ‘soul’ in water 85
61st Dilemma. Why does the order trouble itself about learning, and about buildings and gifts? 92
62nd Dilemma. Why cannot a layman, who can become an Arahat, continue as one? 96
63rd Dilemma. How is it that an Arahat can do wrong? 98
64th Dilemma. What is there that is, but not in the world? 101
65th Dilemma. What is there that is without a cause? 103
66th Dilemma. Karma-born, cause-born, and season-born 107
67th Dilemma. What becomes of dead devils? 108
68th Dilemma. Why did not the Buddha promulgate all the Rules of the Order at once? 109
69th Dilemma. How does the sun get cool? 111
70th Dilemma. Why is the sun hotter in winter? 112
71st Dilemma. How can Vessantara’s giving away of his children be approved? 114
72nd Dilemma. Why did the Bodisat undergo penance? 132
73rd Dilemma. Which is stronger, virtue or vice? 144
74th Dilemma. Do the dead derive advantage from gifts given here? 151
75th Dilemma. Dreams and sleep 157
76th Dilemma. Is death ever premature? 162
77th Dilemma. How can there be wonders at the graves or Arahats? 174
78th Dilemma. Cannot all men be converted? 176
79th Dilemma. Is Nirvana all bliss, or partly pain? 181
80th Dilemma. The form, figure, duration, &c., of Nirvana 186
81st Dilemma. The realization of Nirvana 195
82nd Dilemma. The place of Nirvana 202
Book V. The Problem of Inference
1. How can you know that the Buddha ever lived? 206
4. The ordinary city and its architect, shops, and inhabitants 208
5. The City of Righteousness, and its architect 211
6. The flower bazaar therein 212
7. The perfume bazaar therein 214
8. The fruit bazaar therein 215
10. The antidote bazaar therein 217
11. The medicine bazaar therein 218
12. The ambrosia bazaar therein 219
13-20. The jewel bazaar therein, and the seven Jewels of the Truth 220
21. The general store bazaar therein 229
22. The inhabitants of the City of Righteousness 231
23. The generals in the City of Righteousness 234
The chaplains in the City of Righteousness 234
The lamplighters in the City of Righteousness 235
The peace-officers in the City of Righteousness 236
The shop-keepers in the City of Righteousness 237
The drunkards (!)in the City of Righteousness 238
The watchmen in the City of Righteousness 238
The lawyers and judges in the City of Righteousness 238
The bankers in the City of Righteousness 239
24. The conclusion drawn by inference 240
Book VI. The Voluntary Extra Vows.
1. Can laymen attain Nirvana? 244
6. The twenty-eight advantages of the vows 251
7. The eighteen good qualities that come from keeping them 252
10. No Arahatship without having kept them 254
12-15. Similes 255
16. He who, being unworthy, takes the vows 261
18. He who, being worthy, takes the vows 264
20. Details of the thirteen extra vows 268
24. The example of Upasena 270
25. The thirty graces of the true recluse 271
26. The example of Sariputta 273
Book VII. Similes of Arahatship
1. Detailed list of these similes, sixty-seven being still preserved, and thirty-eight being now lost 275
19. Wonders at the conclusion of Nagasena’s solution of the three hundred and four puzzles 373
20. Conversion of Milinda the king 373
21. Milinda enters the Order, and becomes an Arahat 374
Additions and Corrections 377
Index of Proper Names 379
Index of Subjects 381
Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Translations of the Sacred Books of the East 385
**Contents and Sample Pages**













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