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64
THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA.
[1, 2, 1.
Suppose a man, O king, were to light a lamp, would it burn the night through ?'
Yes, it might do so. 'Now, is it the same flame that burns in the first watch of the night, Sir, and in the second?' 'No.'
Or the same that burns in the second watch and in the third ?''
No. 'Then is there one lamp in the first watch, and another in the second, and another in the third ?'
No. The light comes from the same lamp all the night through.'
Just so, O king, is the continuity of a person or thing maintained. One comes into being, another passes away; and the rebirth is, as it were, simultaneous. Thus neither as the same nor as another does a man go on to the last phase of his self-consciousness ?.'
Give me a further illustration.'
· Hardy (p. 429) renders this as follows: 'In the same way, great king, one being is conceived, another is born, another dies; when comprehended by the mind, it is like a thing that has no before, and no after; no preceding, no succeeding existence.
Thus the being who is born does not continue the same, nor does he become another; the last winyâna, or consciousness, is thus united with the rest.' (1) He confesses himself in doubt as to the last few words, but is quite unconscious of having completely misinterpreted the whole paragraph.
The meaning is really quite plain in both the Pâli and the Simhalese. A man, at any one moment, is precisely all that he is then conscious of. The phase of his self-consciousness, the totality of that of which he is conscious, is always changing; and is so different at death from what it was at birth that, in a certain sense, he is not the same at the one time as he was at the other. But there is a continuity in the whole series ;-a continuity dependent
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