3.6.1. Is the body dear?

Mil 3.6.1

A birch tree beside a still mountain lake, its reflection and morning mist.

PTS vp En 115 PTS cs 1 The king said: ‘Is the body, Nāgasena, dear to you recluses?’

‘No, they love not the body.’

‘Then why do you nourish it and lavish attention upon it?’

‘In all the times and places, O king, that you have gone down to battle, did you never get wounded by an arrow?’

‘Yes, that has happened to me.’

‘In such cases, O king, PTS vp Pali 74 is not the wound anointed with salve, and smeared with oil, and bound up in a bandage.’

‘Yes, such things are done to it.’

‘What then? Is the wound dear to you that you treat it so tenderly, and lavish such attention upon it?’

‘No, it is not dear to me in spite of all that, which is only done that the flesh may grow again.’

‘Just so, great king, with the recluses and the body. Without cleaving to it do they bear about the body for the sake of righteousness of life. The body, O king, has been declared by the Blessed One to be like a wound. And therefore merely as a sore, and without cleaving to it, do the recluses bear about the, body. For it has been said by the Blessed One:

“Covered with clammy skin, an impure thing and foul,
Nine-apertured, it oozes, like a sore.”’

‘Well answered, Nāgasena!’ PTS vp En 116

Connections

Collection & context

MilindapañhaThe collection containing this text
The Pāli canonCanonical collection in which this edition is preserved
Theravāda traditionsTransmission and study context
The early Buddhist communityHistorical and traditional setting

About this edition

Translation by T.W. Rhys Davids · SuttaCentral · Public domain

The source expressly identifies this translation as public domain.

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.

This text is in the public domain. You are free to do whatever you wish with it.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.

Published source. Translation wording and order are preserved; source headings and notes are retained, with navigation and formatting adapted for this reader.

The opening image is AI-generated nature artwork for Buddhist Atlas, an evocative companion rather than a historical depiction.