‘Venerable Nāgasena, your people say: “The Tathāgata is a person whose following can never be broken up.” And again they say: “At one stroke Devadatta seduced five hundred of the brethren.” If the first be true the second is false, but if the second be correct then the first is wrong. This too is a double-pointed problem, profound, hard to unravel, more knotty than a knot. By it these people are veiled, obstructed, hindered, shut in, and enveloped. Herein show your skill as against the arguments of the adversaries.’
‘Both statements, O king, are correct. But the latter is owing to the power of the breach maker. Where there is one to make the breach, a mother will be separated from her son, and the son will break with the mother, or the father with the son and the son with the father, or the brother from the sister and the sister from the brother, or friend from friend. A ship pieced together with timber of all sorts is broken up by the force of the violence of the waves, and a tree in full bearing and full of sap is broken down by the force of the violence of the wind, and gold of the finest sort is divided by bronze. But it is not the intention of the wise, it is not the will of the Buddhas, it is not the desire of those who are learned that the following of the Tathāgata should be broken up. And there is a special sense in which it is said that that cannot be. It is an unheard-of thing, so far as I know, that his following could be broken up by anything done or taken, any unkindly word, any wrong action, any injustice, in all the conduct, wheresoever or whatsoever, of the Tathāgata himself. In that sense his following is invulnerable. And you yourself, do you know of any instance in all the ninefold word of the Buddha of anything done by a Bodisat which broke up the following of the Tathāgata?’
‘No, Sir. Such a thing has never been seen or heard in the world. It is very good, Nāgasena, what you say: and I accept it so.’
Here ends the dilemma as to schism.
Here ends the Second Chapter.