5.2.6. Unconscious Crime

Mil 5.2.6

A modest yellow wildflower grows from a crack in a weathered stone.

PTS vp En 224 PTS cs 27 ‘Venerable Nāgasena, your people say: “Whosoever deprives a living being of life, without knowing that he does so, he accumulates very serious demerit.” But on the other hand it was laid down by the Blessed One in the Vinaya: “There is no offence to him who acts in ignorance.” If the first passage is correct, the other must be false; and if the second is right, the first must be wrong. This too is a double-pointed problem, hard to master, hard to overcome. It is now put to you, and you have to solve it.’

PTS cs 28 ‘Both the passages you quote, O king, were spoken by the Blessed One. But there is a difference between the sense of the two. And what is that difference? PTS vp Pali 159 There is a kind of offence which is committed without the co-operation of the mind, and there is another kind which has that co-operation. It was with respect to the first of the PTS vp En 225 two that the Blessed One said: “’There is no offence to him who acts in ignorance.”’

‘Very good, Nāgasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.’

Here ends the dilemma as to sins in ignorance.

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.