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3.6.7. Passion

Mil 3.6.7

A pale lotus opening among leaves and reeds at daybreak.

PTS cs 7 The king said: ‘What is the distinction, Nāgasena, between him who is full of passion, and him who is void of passion?’

‘The one is overpowered by craving, O king, and the other not.’

‘But what does that mean?’

‘The one is in want, O king, and the other not.’

‘I look at it, Sir, in this way. He who has passion and he who has not—both of them alike—desire what is good to eat, either hard or soft. And neither of them desires what is wrong.’

‘The lustful man, O king, in eating his food enjoys both the taste and the lust that arises from taste, PTS vp Pali 77 but the man free from lusts experiences the taste only, and not the lust arising therefrom.’

‘Well answered, Nāgasena!’ PTS vp En 120

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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.

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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.

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