We find a chapter that supposedly must be from Question of King Malinda. But it doesnt seem like it. I only share this part but I like many parts of that chapter he added.
Is not man an organism of many aggregates? Are we not composed of various attributes? Man consists of the material form, of sensation, of thought, of dispositions, and, lastly, of understanding. That which men call the ego when they say ‘I am’ is not an entity behind the attributes; it originates by their co-operation. There is mind; there is sensation and thought, and there is truth; and truth is mind when it walks in the path of righteousness. But there is no separate ego-soul outside or behind the thought of man. He who believes that the ego is a distinct being has no correct conception of things. The very search for the ātman is wrong; it is a wrong start and it will lead you in a false direction. 6 "How much confusion of thought comes from our interest in self, and from our vanity when thinking ‘I am so great,’ or ‘I have done this wonderful deed?’ The thought of thine ego stands between thy rational nature and truth; banish it, and then wilt thou see things as they are. He who thinks correctly will rid himself of ignorance and acquire wisdom. The ideas ‘I am’ and ‘I shall be’ or ‘I shall not be’ do not occur to a clear thinker.
36, 37: And the venerable Mahânâma and the venerable Assagi, when they received from the Blessed One, . . . . (&c., as in §§ 33, 34, down to:). Thus these venerable persons received the upasampadâ ordination.
38: And the Blessed One thus spoke to the five Bhikkhus: 'The body (Rûpa), O Bhikkhus, is not the self. If the body, O Bhikkhus, were the self, the body would not be subject to disease, and we should be able to say: “Let my body be such and such a one, let my body not be such and such a one.” But since the body, O Bhikkhus, is not the self, therefore the body is subject to disease, and we are not able to say: “Let my body be such and such a one, let my body not be such and such a one.”
This is part I truly like because its exactly what I was mentioning here on forum once
Is not this individuality of mine a combination, material as well as mental? Is it not made up of qualities that sprang into being by a gradual evolution? The five roots of sense-perception in this organism have come from ancestors who performed these functions. The ideas which I think, came to me partly from others who thought them, and partly they rise from combinations of the ideas in my own mind. Those who have used the same sense-organs, and have thought the same ideas before I was composed into this individuality of mine are my previous existences; they are my ancestors as much as the I of yesterday is the father of the I of to-day, and the karma of my past deeds conditions the fate of my present existence.
Im really interested to know sources of these text.
Im sorry now I understood that he himself wrote the book from sources. So he mention in Questions of King Malinda because there it is that he took the source for his new writings. I quess
@moderators : technically my first post in this thread is the solution to the original question, my second post is the solution to the second request. (Doesn’t really matter, but it can look confusing when only reading the first post.)
Yes, the book is an anthology of pre-existing English translations. However, Carus doesn’t always present his sources exactly as he finds them.
Sometimes he creates a hybrid collage of passages taken from different Suttas.
Sometimes he gives his own paraphrase of the text. These paraphrases are often tendentious, giving the text a quite different slant from the original.
Sometimes he presents the text supplemented with extra passages in which Carus’s own views are put into the Buddha’s mouth. A particularly egregious example of this is his expanded version of the Buddha’s discourse to the Jain follower General Sīha. In Carus’s retelling, Sīha is concerned that converting to the Buddha’s teaching will require him to embrace pacifism. The Buddha hastens to cure him of this error, revealing himself to be an advocate of just war theory.
The Blessed One continued: "The Tathāgata teaches that all warfare in which man tries to slay his brother is lamentable, but he does not teach that those who go to war in a righteous cause after having exhausted all means to preserve the peace are blameworthy. He must be blamed who is the cause of war.
