THE QUESTIONS
OF
Pe Te Ve Grae Velen es.
TRANSLATED FROM THE PALI
BY
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS
Grford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1890
LAU rights reserved}ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.
Page xiii. Srt-wardhana-pura. It should have been pointed out
that this city is not (as stated by Emerson Tennant at vol. i, p. 414
of his ‘Ceylon’) the same as the modern town of Kandy, but was
in the Kurunzgalla district, and (as pointed out by Mr. K. James
Pohath in the ‘Ceylon Orientalist,’ vol. iii, p. 218) about three and
a half miles distant from the modern Damba-deniya.
P. 2, note 2, Mr. Trenckner in his ‘ Pali Miscellany’ (London,
1879) has translated and annotated the whole of Book I, that is,
to the end of p. 39 of this translation.
P. 6, line 1, read ‘to Tissa the Elder, the son of Moggali.’
P. ro, note t. It is strange that when it occurred to me that
§§ 10-14 are an early interpolation I failed to notice the most
important, and indeed almost conclusive argument for my sug-
gestion. It is this, that the closing words of § 14 are really in
complete contradiction to the opening words, and that they look
very much as if they had been inserted, after the interpolation, to
meet the objection to it which would at once arise from the ex-
pression in § 16, that the venerable Assagutta ‘heard those words
of King Milinda.’ As it originally stood the words he heard were
those of § ro. After the interpolation these words had to be
reinserted at the end of § 14, in spite of their being in contra-
diction to the context.
Pp. 14 foll., for ‘Rohana’ read ‘ Rohaza.’
Pp. 15, 16. This whole episode as to the charge of lying is
repeated by Buddhaghosa (in the Introduction to his Samanta
Pasddika, p. 296 of vol. iii of Oldenberg’s Vinaya), but as having
happened to Siggava in connection with the birth of Moggali-putta
Tissa. A modern author would be expected to mention his
source, but Buddhaghosa makes no reference whatever to the
Milinda. Perhaps the episode is common stock of Buddhist
legend, and we shall find it elsewhere.
P. 32, line 1, add after ‘Quietism’ ‘and the discourse on losses
(Parabhava Suttanta).’ [See p. xxix, where the reference is sup-
plied.]
(38] xP. 53. ‘Virtue’s the base.’ It should have been pointed out
that this is the celebrated verse given by the Ceylon scholars to
Buddhaghosa as the theme of the test essay he was to write as a
proof of his fitness. If he succeeded in the essay they would then
entrust him with all their traditions for him to recast in Pali. The
‘Path of Purity,’ which opens with this verse, was the result.
P. 185, § 49. On the question discussed in this section the
curious may compare what is said by Sir Thomas Brown ‘in his
‘Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors,’ Book VII, Chapter
xvi (p. 304 of the London edition of 1686). He gives several
instances of supposed cases of conception without sexual connec-
tion mentioned in western writers, and comes to the conclusion,
apropos of the supposed generation of the magician Merlin by
Satan, that ‘ generations by the devil are very improbable.”
Thad desired to dedicate this translation of the Milinda
to Mr. Trenckner, to whose self-denying labours, spread
over many years, we owe the edition of the Pali text on
which the translation is based, and without which the
translation would not have been attempted. But I am
now informed that any dedication of a single volume in the
series of the ‘Sacred Books of the East’ is not allowable,
as it would conflict with the dedication of the entire series.
Had I known this when the Introduction was being written,
a more suitable acknowledgment of the debt due to Mr.
Trenckner than the few words on page xv, would have
been made at the close of the Introductory remarks. I am
permitted therefore to add here what was intended to
appear in the dedication as an expression of the gratitude
which all interested in historical research must feel to a
scholar who has devoted years of labour, and of labour
tendered valuable by the highest training and critical
scholarship, to a field of enquiry in which the only fruit
to be gathered is knowledge.