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EARLY BUDDHISM
141 Menander and a Buddhistic sage of the name of Nagasena. One day when Milinda went to see Nāgasena, the sage discoursed upon the doctrine of no-self; but finding him unconvinced said: 'Great king, hast thou come on foot or on a chariot?' 'I do not travel on foot, sire: I have come on a chariot.' 'If thou hast come on a chariot, great king, then define the chariot. Is the pole the chariot? Are the wheels the chariot?' When similar questions were put about the axle and so forth, the prince was able to see that none of its component parts, when examined singly, is the chariot and that the word is a mere symbol for those parts 'assembled' or placed together in a particular way. Then the sage added: In the same way, the word 'self' also is only a label for the, aggregate of certain physical and psychical factors. Not one of the objects of experience stands for an entity apart from the constituent parts. The important thing to bear in mind here is the sameness of the explanation given of both the self and the material world. The doctrine of nairātmya should not accordingly be understood as applicable to the soul alone as it is apt to be done. Both soul and matter exist only as complexes and neither is a single self-contained entity.
(2) So far we have looked at reality in a section as it were, ignoring altogether the element of time. When we take the same in time, this aggregate according to Buddhism does not continue the same for even two moments, but is constantly changing. So the self and the material world are each a flux (samtāna). Two symbols are generally used to illustrate this conception the stream of water and 'the self-producing and the self-consuming' fame, the latter being particularly appropriate in respect of the self in that it suggests also suffering through its tormenting heat. It will be seen thus that every one of our so-called things is only a series (vithi)-a succession of similar things or happenings and the notion of fixity which we have of them is wholly fictitious. This theory of the ceaseless movement of all things with no underlying constancy is obviously a compromise between the two opposite views current at the time-one
See Oldenberg: op. cit., pp. 254 ff.
