Milinda’s Questions

Examination Chapter

9. Distinguishing Characteristic of Feeling Question

“Venerable Nāgasena, what is the distinguishing characteristic of feeling?”

“Being felt and experiencing, your majesty, are the distinguishing characteristics of feeling.”

“Please give me an analogy.”

“Just as, your majesty, some person or other might perform a service for the king, and the king, satisfied, would repay that service. And that person, because of that service, would go about provided with and possessed of the five strands of sensual pleasure, and it might occur to him ‘previously I performed a service for the king and he, satisfied, repaid me for that service, and for that reason I experience such and such feelings.’

Or just as, your majesty, some person or other might perform a good deed and at the beak up of the body after dying, might be reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world, and there would go about provided with and possessed of the five strands of divine sensual pleasure, and it might occur to him ‘previously I performed a good deed, and for that reason I experience such and such feelings.’

In the same way, your majesty, being felt and experiencing are the distinguishing characteristics of feeling.”

“You are clever, Venerable Nāgasena!”

Distinguishing Characteristic of Feeling Question ninth