The Venerable
Nagasena stayed at the Sankheyya hermitage together with 80,000
monks. King Milinda, accompanied by a
retinue of 500 Greeks, went up to where he was, gave him a friendly
and courteous greeting, and sat on one side. Nagasena returned his greetings, and his courtesy
pleased the king’s heart.
The Doctrine of
Not-Self
2a. The Chariot
And King Milinda
asked him: “How is your Reverence known, and what is your name,
Sir?”
Nagasena: “As
Nagasena I am known, O great king, and as Nagasena do my fellow
religious habitually address me. But
although parents give such names as Nagasena … nevertheless this
word ‘Nagasena’ is just a denomination, a designation, a conceptual
term, a current appellation, a mere name. For no real person can here be
apprehended.”
Milinda:
(addressing the assembly) “Now listen, you 500 Greeks and 80,000
monks, this Nagasena tells me that he is not a real
person. How can I be expected to agree
with that?” (Turns to Nagasena) “If,
most reverend Nagasena, no person can be apprehended in reality,
who, then, I ask you, gives you what you require by way of robes,
food, lodging, and medicines? What is it that consumes them? Who is
it that guards morality, [and] practices meditation? Who is it that kills living beings, takes what is
not given, commits sexual misconduct, tells lies, drinks
intoxicants? Who is it that commits the
Five Deadly Sins? For, if there were no
person, there could be no merit or demerit; no doer of meritorious
or demeritorious deeds, and no agent behind them; … and no reward
or punishment for them. If someone
should kill you, O Venerable Nagasena, he would not commit any
murder…. What then is this ‘Nagasena’?
Are perhaps the hairs of the head ‘Nagasena’?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Or
perhaps the hairs of the body?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Or
perhaps the nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones, marrow,
kidneys, heart, liver, serous membranes, spleen, lungs, intestines,
mesentery, stomach, excrement, the bile, phlegm, pus, blood,
grease, fat, tears, sweat, spittle, snot, fluid of the joints,
urine, or the brain in the skull – are they this
‘Nagasena’?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Or is
form this ‘Nagasena,’ or feeling, or perceptions, or impulses, or
consciousness?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Then
is it the combination of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and
consciousness?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Then
is it outside the combination of form, feelings, perceptions,
impulses, and consciousness?”
Nagasena: “No,
great king!”
Milinda: “Then,
ask as I may, I can discover no Nagasena at all. Just a mere sound is this ‘Nagasena,’ but who is
the real Nagasena? Your Reverence has told a lie, has spoken a
falsehood! There really is no
Nagasena!”
Nagasena: “As a
king you have been brought up in great refinement and you avoid
roughness of any kind. If you would
walk at midday on this hot, burning, and sandy ground, then your
feet would have to tread on the rough and gritty gravel and
pebbles, and they would hurt you, your body would get tired, your
mind impaired, and your awareness of your body would be associated
with pain. How, then did you
come: on foot, or on a
mount?”
Milinda: “I did
not come, Sir, on foot, but on a chariot.”
Nagasena: “If you
have come on a chariot, then please explain to me what a chariot
is. Is the pole the
chariot?”
Milinda: “No,
reverend Sir!”
Nagasena: “Is
then the axle the chariot?”
Milinda: “No,
reverend Sir!”
Nagasena: “Is
it then the wheels, or the framework, or the flag-staff, or the
yoke, or the reins, or the goadstick?”
Milinda: “No,
reverend Sir!”
Nagasena: “Then
is it the combination of pole, axle, wheels, framework, flag-staff,
yoke, reins, and goad?”
Milinda: “No,
reverend Sir!”
Nagasena: “Then
is this ‘chariot’ outside the combination of pole, axle, wheels,
framework, flag-staff, yoke, reins, and goad?”
Milinda: “No,
reverend Sir!”
Nagasena:
“Then, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all. Just a mere sound is this ‘chariot’. But what is
the real chariot? Your Majesty has told a lie, has spoken a
falsehood! There really is no
chariot! Your Majesty is the greatest
king in the whole of India. Of whom
then are you afraid, that you do not speak the truth?”
(To Assembly) “Now
listen, you 500 Greeks, and 80,000 monks, this king Milinda tells
me he has come in a chariot. But when
asked to explain to me what a chariot is, he cannot establish its
existence. How can one possibly approve
of that?”
The five hundred
Greeks thereupon applauded the Venerable Nagasena and said to King
Milinda: “Now let your Majesty get out
of this if you can!”
Milinda: “I
have not, Nagasena, spoken a falsehood.
For it is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the wheels, the
framework, the flag-staff, etc., that there takes place this
denomination ‘chariot,’ this designation, this conceptual term, a
current appellation, and a mere name.”
Nagasena: “Your
Majesty has spoken well about the chariot. It is just so with me.
In dependence on the thirty-two parts of the body and the five
Skandhas there takes place this denomination ‘Nagasena,’ this
designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation, and a
mere name. In ultimate reality,
however, this person cannot be apprehended.”
Milinda: “It is
wonderful, Nagasena, it is astonishing, Nagasena! Most brilliantly
have these questions been answered!
Were the Buddha himself here, he would approve what you have said.
Well spoken, Nagasena, well spoken!”
2b. Personal Identity and Rebirth
Milinda: “When
someone is reborn, Venerable Nagasena, is he the same as the one
who just died, or is he another?”
Nagasena: “He is
neither the same nor another.”
Milinda: “Give
me an illustration!”
Nagasena: “What do
you think, great king: when you were a tiny infant, newly born and
quite soft, were you then the same as the one who is now grown
up?”
Milinda: “No, that
infant was one; I, now grown up, am another.”
Nagasena: “If that
is so, great king, you have had no mother, no father, no teaching,
and no schooling! Do we then take it
that there is one mother for the embryo in the first stage, another
for the second stage, another for the third, another for the
fourth, another for the baby, another for the grown-up
man? Is the schoolboy one person, and
the one who has finished school another? Does one commit a crime, but the hands and feet of
another are cut off?”
Milinda:
“Certainly not! But what would you say,
Reverend Sir, to all that?”
Nagasena: “I
was neither the tiny infant, newly born and quite soft, nor am I
now the grown-up man; but these comprise one unit depending on this
very body.”
Milinda: “Give
me a simile!”
Nagasena: “If a
man were to light a lamp, could it give light throughout the whole
night?”
Milinda: “Yes,
it could.”
Nagasena: “Is
not the flame which burns in the first watch of the night the same
as the one which burns in the second?”
Milinda: “It is
not the same.”
Nagasena: “Or is
the flame that burns in the second watch the same as the one which
burns in the last one?”
Milinda: “It is
not the same.”
Nagasena: “Even so
must we understand the collocation of a series of successive
dharmas. At rebirth one dharma arises,
while another stops; but the two processes take place almost
simultaneously (i.e., they are continuous). Therefore the first act of consciousness in the
new existence is neither the same as the last act of consciousness
in the previous existence, nor is it another.”
Milinda: “Give
me another simile!”
Nagasena: “Milk,
once the milking is done, turns after some time into curds; from
curds it turns into fresh butter, and from fresh butter into ghee.
Would it now be correct to say that the milk is the same thing as
the curds, or the fresh butter, or the ghee?”
Milinda: “No,
it would not. But they have been
produced because of it.”
Nagasena: “Just
so must be understood the collocation of a series of successive
dharmas.”
NOTE: The use of “Dharma” here is
meaningful. “Dharma” often means
something like “duty”, the right thing to do, or the
law. But it is more: the word comes
from Sanskrit for “to hold together” or “to bear, support, or
sustain”. Dharma is the universal
cosmic law that holds things together.
Dharma is how things are held together; there is no right or wrong
way for things to be, since dharma is lawful and controls change,
and causes things to unfold the way the do. One dharma is the law
of karma. Another is the unity of all sentient beings.