Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/142

 taken in my hand, or the other leaves yonder in the wood?"nodash [sic] And without taking much time to consider, they answered: "The leaves, Lord, which thou hast taken in thy hand are few, and far more numerous are the leaves yonder in the Sinsapa wood." "Even so also, O ye disciples," said the Master, "is that which I have discerned and not declared to you, greater in sum than that which I have declared. And why, O ye disciples, have I not declared everything? Because it is not salutary, is not in keeping with the ancient spirit of asceticism, and does not lead to the turning away from all earthly things, not to conversion from earthly lust, not to the final dissolution of all that is subject to change, not to perfect knowledge, not to Nirvana."

"If the Master spoke thus in the Sinsapa grove at Kosambi," answered Kamanita, "then the matter is probably ever more serious still. For in that case, he has certainly been silent on the point in order not to discourage, or, as might well happen, even terrify his disciples; as he certainly would, if he should reveal to them the final truth—namely, annihilation. This seems to me to result as a necessary consequence from what thou hast so plainly stated. For, after all the objects of the five senses and of thought have been denied and rejected as fleeting, as without any real existence, and as full of suffering, there remain as a matter of fact no powers by means of which we could grasp anything whatsoever. So I understand, O Reverend One, from the doctrine thou hast just expounded to me, that a monk who has freed himself from all impurity falls a victim to annihilation when his body dies, that he vanishes, and has no existence beyond death."

"Didst thou not say to me, pilgrim," then asked the Lord Buddha, "that thou wouldst sit within a month at