3.2.2. Rebirth and awareness (MIL3.2.2)

The king said: ‘Is a man, Nāgasena, who will not be reborn, aware of the fact?’

‘Yes, O king.’

‘And how does he know it

‘By the cessation of all that is cause, proximate or remote, of rebirth.’

‘Give me an illustration.’

‘Suppose a farmer, great king, had ploughed and sown and filled his granary; and then for a period should neither plough nor sow, but live on the stored-up grain, or dispose of it in barter, or deal with it as he had need. Would the farmer be aware, great king, that his granary was not getting filled?’

‘Yes, he ought to know it.’

‘But how?’

‘He would know that the cause, proximate and remote, of the filling of the granary had ceased.’

‘Just so with the man you spoke of. By the cessation of all that leads to rebirth, he would be conscious of having escaped his liability to it.’

‘Well explained, Nāgasena!’

The Questions of King Milinda, translated from the Pali by T.W. Rhys Davids.

Part 1 (to section 5.4.10) was originally published as Volume xxxv of “The Sacred Books of the East”, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1890.

Part 2 (from section 5.5.1) was originally published as Volume xxxvi of “The Sacred Books of the East”, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1894.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Bhikkhu Sujato based on the digital text of the Internet Sacred Text Archive. The work of the Sacred Text Archive to make this text publically available is gratefully acknowledged.

In preparing this edition minor editorial changes have been made. The structure has been adapted to agree with the Mahāsaṅgīti Pali text as found on SuttaCentral. In addition, the corrections proposed by the translator in the “Addenda et Corrigenda” of the original editions have for the most part been adopted.

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Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.