“Then, venerable Lady, does the Perfect One not exist.”
“The Perfect One has not declared that he does not exist after death.”
“But, venerable Lady,—does and does not? How is this possible?”
And, smiling a little, the learned nun replied:
“Great King, have you an accountant or a mint-master who could count the sands of Ganges and lay the figure before you?”
“Venerable Lady, no.”
“Or who could measure the drops in the ocean?”
“Again no, venerable Lady.”
“And why? Because the ocean is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable. So also is it if the existence of the Perfect One be measured by any human category, for all statements of bodily form are abolished in the Perfect One; their root is severed; they are done with and can germinate no more. The Perfect One is released from the possibility that his being can be gauged in any human terms. He is now deep, immeasurable and unfathomable as the ocean, and neither the terms of existence or of non-existence as understood by the world fit him any more.”
Then there was a long silence and the King having heard the nun Khema’s words with approbation, rose and bowed reverently before her and went his way.