6.2.8. Dilemma the Sixty-Eighth. The Method Of Promulgating the Rules (MIL6.2.8)

‘Venerable Nāgasena, those who were teachers of the doctors in times gone by—Nārada, and Dhammantari, and Aṅgīrasa, and Kapila, and Kaṇḍaraggisāma, and Atula, and Pubba Kaccāyana —all these teachers knowing thoroughly, and of themselves, and without any omission, the rise of disease and its cause and nature and progress and cure and treatment and management —each of them composed his treatise en bloc, taking time by the forelock, and pointing out that in such and such a body such and such a disease would arise. Now no one of these was omniscient. Why then did not the Tathāgata, who was omniscient, and who knew by his insight of a Buddha what would happen in the future, determining in advance that for such and such an occasion such and such a rule would be required, lay down the whole code of rules at once; instead of laying them down to his disciples from time to time as each occasion arose, when the disgrace (of the wrong act) had been already noised abroad, when the evil was already wide spread and grown great, when the people were already filled with indignation ?’

‘The Tathāgata, O king, knew very well that in fulness of time the whole of the hundred and fifty Rules would have to be laid down to those men. But the Tathāgata, O king, thought thus: “If I were to lay down the whole of the hundred and fifty Rules at once the people would be filled with fear , those of them who were willing to enter the Order would refrain from doing so, saying, ‘How much is there here to be observed! how difficult a thing is it to enter religion according to the system of the Samaṇa Gotama’—they would not trust my words, and through their want of faith they would be liable to rebirth in states of woe. As occasion arises therefore, illustrating it with a religious discourse, will I lay down, when the evil has become manifest, each Rule.”’

‘A wonderful thing is it in the Buddhas, Nāgasena, and a most marvellous that the omniscience of the Tathāgata should be so great. That is just so, venerable Nāgasena. This matter was well understood by the Tathāgata—how that hearing that so much was to be observed, men would have been so filled with fear that not a single one would have entered religion according to the system of the Conquerors. That is so, and I accept it as you say.’

Here ends the dilemma as to the method in which the Rules were laid down.

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.

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Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.