English
The wise man, who would obtain merit, bends his mind to the avoiding of all demerit, and to the destruction of the demerit he has already received ; he regards with indifference, or he does not regard at all, the objects that are presented to the eye and other organs of sense. He also endeavours to gain all merit, and to retain the merit he has already gained. In this way, his mind is like a circle divided into four segments. The kusala-chitta, or mind endowed with merit, is received and retained by the hearing of religious discourses ; the per- formance of acts that in themselves are free from evil, and the studying of such lessons of wisdom as are beneficial in their tendency. To those who dwell in the d^wa-16kas the kusala- chitta is natural, they receive it with their birth. It is also natural to those who have overcome evil desire, or have attained to the state of rahats. in the kalpas in which there is no Budha, there are no years, seasons, months, titis, or nekatas. There is no teaching of the dharmma, or law. There is no saying. This is right, or, This is wrong. There is no acquiring of merit. Even when there is a Budha, they cannot acquire merit who are bom in any of the eight hells, or in the heU called Osupat ; they cannot receive the news of his birth, and there is no cessation to their torments. The beasts that are bom upon the earth, because they are devoid of wisdom, cannot distinguish right from wrong. They are under the influence of fear, and they possess evil desire and anger, but nothing more. Theyare therefore unable to acquire merit. There are beings called pretas, who continually think with sorrow on their fate, from not having acquired merit in former births ; they are now tormented without ceasing by hunger and thirst, and have not the power of obtaining merit. Neither can merit be acquired by the beings in the foor arupa 2h 466 A MANUAL OF BUDHISM. worlds, afi they cannot see Budha, nor hear hia disconrses. And those who live in the onter sakwalas, even though it be in the time of a supreme Badha, are nnable to acquire merit, for a similar reason. There are also other places in which merit cannot be obtained, such as Uturukum, Pdrwawid^sa, and Aparag<5dana, and ihe /)00 islands connected with each of these continents ; and in the same class are to be included the 500 islands of Jambudwipa, ozcept Ceylon; and the barbarous countries of Jambudwipa. And even persons who are born in Jambudwipa, if they are maimed, deaf, blind, outcastes, idiots, or sceptics, are unable to acquire merit. It is only in this sakwala that nirwina can be secured ; and it is therefore called the magul-sakwala, or most favoured world ; literally, the festive sakwala. Budha has declared that men are few in number, but that the other beings are many ; and that there are more in the sea than upon the land. The water of the great ocean is to the four continents as the water of the pond to the lotus ; yet in eveiy part there is an abundance of fish. Were the branches of all the trees in Jambudwipa and its 500 islands to be stripped of their leaves, and every blade of grass to be rooted up, and a fish were to be pierced with each leaf and blade, there would still be a multitude of fishes in the ocean remaining unpierced. The living things upon the land are also numerous, as in the body of a man there are ninety different species of worms. The hells t.oo are filled with beings who are continually passing from one state of torment to another ; and in the pr^ta-ldka it is the same. Thus it is difficult, even in a kap-asankya, to obtain deliverance from the sequence of existence. 7. There was a nobleman, in whom the king delighted, and he was entrusted with the government of a country ; but as he began to oppress the people, the king commanded him to be cast into prison, and slain. It is thus with men who have the opportunity of acquiring merit, and neglect it. As the noble- man enjoyed . the royal favour, but was afterwards cast into prison ; so may a man be prosperous for a time, on account of tlie merit he has received in former births ; but if he does not confcimio to keep the precepts, his next birth will be in one of the hells; he will then be bom in this world as a beast; IX. THE ONTOLOGY OF BUDHISM. 467 afterwards as a pr6ta ; and again in one of the hells. The same succession of punishment will be many times repeated. Therefore, let him who has the opportunity of acquiring merit, by being bom when the precepts of Budha are taught, be careful not to let his privileges pass away without improve- ment. Budha one day took up a small portion of mould in his finger nail; and said that those who die in this world, and are afterwards bom again in the same world or in one of the d^wa- Idkas ; or those who die in one of the d6wa-16kas, and are afterwards bom again in a d^wa-16ka or in this world ; are in the same proportion to those who are bom in some inferior form, as the mould in his nail to the whole earth. He who IB bom as man in the time of a Budha, and refuses to acquire the merit necessary to attain nirwdna, is like one who having swam across the seven seas, surmounted the eight concentric circles of rocks, and succeeded in climbing to the summit of Maha M6ru, for some frivolous reason falls back into the sea, whereby he places himself in the position he occupied before his toils commenced, rendering them, after all their arduousness and difficulty, utterly without profit. The man who thus allows himself to be led away by evil desire will receive the destruction of the crow, which was on this wise. An elephant feeding on the banks of the Ganges, at a place where it is four miles broad, fell into the stream, and was drowned. As the body floated down the river, it was seen by a crow, who in his ignorance thought thus within himself ; *' Here is food for more than a thousand crows ; this body shall be my permanent abode." Thus thinking the crow flew to the carcase, and remained upon it night and day. It had all his thoughts ; he fed upon its flesh, and from the water of the river quenched his thirst. Though he saw upon the banks many forests of mango, jack, and other fruit trees, and the sacred trees upon which were the fish that had been ofPered in sacrifice, he regarded them not. Thus he was hurried on by the stream, until carried far out to sea, whence even a bird would have attempted in vain to reach the shore. The flesh of the elephant was soon washed from the bones, or it was all eaten and there remained nothing but the skeleton. The crow then flew away in the direction in which he had come, but he 2 H 2 468 A MANUAL OF BUDHISM. conld not diecover the land ; he flew north, in great alarm, and he flew south, but his efibrts were all in vain. At last he fell into the sea, exhausted, and there perished. And so perish all who are nnder the influence of evil desire, and cleave to existing objects. 8. The king of Sdgal said to Ndgas^na, *' Is knsala, merit, or akusala, demerit, the more powerful ?" Ndgas^na: "Merit is more powerful (in its effects) than demerit." Milinda: "This I cannot believe : when a man commits murder, theft, or any other great crime, he is beheaded, or eaten by dogs, or perishes in some other way. Not unfrequently the punishment is awarded the next day or at most a very little time after ; but do we ever see that when an upasaka gives alms to a priest, or ten priests, or even a hxmdred thousand priests^ the reward for so doing is received in the same birth P *' N^gas^na : " Tes ; there have been four persons who by this means have gone from the same body in which the alms were g^ven to enjoy the happiness of the d^wa-ldkas ; viz., the monarchs Maha Mandh^tu, Nimi, and Sddhina, and the famous musician G-uttila.'^ Milinda: " But these things happened ages ago ; they are doubtful matters, such as no one has recently seen ; can you not tell me of something that has happened since the appearance of our present Budha ? " Ndgas^na : " The slave Pdrnna, from having presented alms to Seriyut, in the same birth became the wife of a nobleman. The daughter of a poor noble, 06pdla-m4tru.d6wi| cut off her hair, and sold it for eight pieces of gold, which she gave to eight priests, and in the same birth became the principal queen of Ud^ni.