3.6.3. The marks of a great man (MIL3.6.3)

The king said: ‘Is it true, Nāgasena, that the Buddha was endowed with the thirty-two bodily marks of a great man, and graced with the eighty subsidiary characteristics; that he was golden in colour with a skin like gold, and that there spread around him a glorious halo of a fathom’s length?’

‘Such, O king, was the Blessed One.’

‘But were his parents like that?’

‘No, they were not.’

‘In that case you must say that he was born so. But surely a son is either like his mother, or those on The mother’s side, or he is like his father, or those on the father’s side!’

The Elder replied: ‘Is there such a thing, O king, as a lotus flower with a hundred petals?’

‘Yes, there is.’

‘Where does it grow up?’

‘It is produced in mud, and in water it comes to perfection.’

‘But does the lotus resemble the mud of the lake, whence it springs up, either in colour, or in smell, or in taste?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Then does it resemble the water?’

‘Nor that either.’

‘Just so, great king, is it that the Blessed One had the bodily signs and marks you have mentioned, though his parents had them not.’

‘Well answered, 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.