________________
44
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
II, 1, 1.
No, Sir.'
But is there anything outside them that is the chariot?'
And still he answered no.
*Then thus, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot. Chariot is a mere empty sound. What then is the chariot you say you came in? It is a falsehood that your Majesty has spoken, an untruth! There is no such thing as a chariot ! You are king over all India, a mighty monarch. Of whom then are you afraid that you speak untruth? And he called upon the Yonakas and the brethren to witness, saying: 'Milinda the king here has said that he came by carriage. But when asked in that case to explain what the carriage was, he is unable to establish what he averred. Is it, forsooth, possible to approve him in that?'
When he had thus spoken the five hundred Yonakas shouted their applause, and said to the king : Now let your Majesty get out of that if you can ?'
And Milinda the king replied to Nagasena, and said: 'I have spoken no untruth, reverend Sir. It is on account of its having all these things—the pole, and the axle, the wheels, and the framework, the ropes, the yoke, the spokes, and the goad-that it comes under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “chariot."
Very good! Your Majesty has rightly grasped the meaning of “chariot.” And just even so it is on account of all those things you questioned me about -[28] the thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body, and the five constituent elements of being—that I come under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “Nâgasena."
Digitized by
Diglized by Google
