‘Venerable Nāgasena, your people say: “Whosoever deprives a living being of life, without knowing that he does so, he accumulates very serious demerit.” But on the other hand it was laid down by the Blessed One in the Vinaya: “There is no offence to him who acts in ignorance.” If the first passage is correct, the other must be false; and if the second is right, the first must be wrong. This too is a double-pointed problem, hard to master, hard to overcome. It is now put to you, and you have to solve it.’

‘Both the passages you quote, O king, were spoken by the Blessed One. But there is a difference between the sense of the two. And what is that difference? There is a kind of offence which is committed without the co-operation of the mind, and there is another kind which has that co-operation. It was with respect to the first of the two that the Blessed One said: “’There is no offence to him who acts in ignorance.”’

‘Very good, Nāgasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.’

Here ends the dilemma as to sins in ignorance.