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CHAPTER III.
THOUGHT.
33. As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back.
34. As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on dry ground, our thought trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mâra (the tempter).
35. It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in and flighty, rushing wherever it listeth; a tamed mind brings happiness.
36. Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well guarded bring happiness.
37. Those who bridle their mind which travels far, moves about alone, is without a body, and hides in the chamber (of the heart), will be free from the bonds of Mâra (the tempter).
38. If a man”s thoughts are unsteady, if he does not know the true law, if his peace of mind is troubled, his knowledge will never be perfect.
39. If a man”s thoughts are not dissipated, if
[33. Cf. Gâtaka, vol. i. p. 400.
34. On Mâra, see verses 7 and 8.
35-39. Cf. Gâtaka, vol. i. pp. 312, 400.
39. Fausböll traces anavassuta, ”dissipated,” back to the Sanskrit root syai, ”to become rigid;” but the participle of that root would be sîta, not syuta. Professor Weber suggests that anavassuta stands for the Sanskrit anavasruta, which he translates unbefleckt, ”unspotted.” If avasruta were the right word; it might be taken in the sense of ”not fallen off, not fallen away,” but it could not mean ”unspotted;” cf. dhairyam no ”susruvat, ”our firmness ran away.” I have little doubt, however, that avassuta represents the Sanskrit avasruta, and is derived from the root sru, here used in its technical sense, peculiar to the Buddhist literature, and so well explained by Burnouf in his Appendix XIV (Lotus, p. 820). He shows that, according to Hemakandra and the Gina-alankâra, âsravakshaya, Pâli âsavasamkhaya is counted as the sixth abhigñâ, wherever six of these intellectual powers are mentioned, instead of five. The Chinese translate the term in their Own Chinese fashion by ”stillationis finis,” but Burnouf claims for it the definite sense of destruction of faults or vices. He quotes from the Lalita-vistara (Adhyâya XXII, ed. Râjendra Lal Mittra, p. 448) the words uttered by Buddha when he arrived at his complete Buddhahood:--
Sushkâ âsravâ na punah sravanti,
”The vices are dried up, they will not flow again;”
and he shows that the Pâli Dictionary, the Abhidhânappadîpikâ, explains âsava simply by kâma, ”love, pleasure of the senses.” In the Mahâparinibbâna-sutta, three classes of âsava are distinguished, the kâmâsavâ, the bhavâsavâ, and the aviggâsavâ. See also Burnouf, Lotus, p. 665; Childers, s.v. âsavo.
That sru means ”to run,” and is in fact a merely dialectic variety of sru, has been proved by Burnouf, while Boehtlingk thinks the substitution of s for s is a mistake. Âsrava therefore, or âsrava, meant originally ”the running out towards objects of the senses” (cf. sanga, âlara, &c.), and had nothing to do with âsrâva, ”a running, a sore,” Atharva-veda I, 2, 4. This conception of the original purport of â + sru or ava-sru is confirmed by a statement of Colebrooke”s, who, when treating of the Gainas, writes (Miscellaneous Essays, I, 382); ”Âsrava is that which directs the embodied spirit (âsravayati purusham) towards external objects. It is the occupation and employment (vritti or pravritti) of the senses or organs on sensible objects.…
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