What a constancy is his! What ability to put into effect the best means for the realisation of his aims! It is a wonder that being alone and emaciated by penance, he was able to subdue so large a monkey, who had just entered his hermitage! At all events, may his penance be successful[1]!' In reply to them, the Bodhisattva, without losing his placidity of mind, said: 'Your honours, blaming me, should not disregard the fair tenets of your doctrines. This is not the way by which to make the glory of learning shine. Your honours must consider this.
23. 'He who despises his adversaries with such words as are destructive to his own doctrine, such a one, so to speak, wishes the dishonour of his enemy at the cost of his own life.'
After thus reproaching those ministers collectively, the Great Being, wishing to revile them once more individually, addressed that minister who denied causality in these terms :
24. 'You profess that this universe is the product of essential and inherent properties. Now, if this be true, why do you blame me? What fault is mine, if this ape died in consequence of his nature? Therefore, I have rightly killed him.
25. 'If, however, I committed a sin by killing him, it is evident that his death is produced by an (external) cause. This being so, you must either renounce your doctrine of non-causality or use here such reasoning as does not befit you.
26. 'Further, if the arrangement, colour &c. of the stalks, petals &c. of lotuses were not the effect of some cause, would they not be found always and everywhere? But this is not so, they are produced from seeds being in water &c.; where this condition is found, they appear, not where it is not found.
'This, too, I would propound to Your Worship, to consider it well.
- ↑ The last words are the usual complimentary blessing said to ascetics. When asking after their health, it is similarly said: 'is your penance successful ?'
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