Therefore enumerate all the parts of a chariot as you may, and you still have no chariot.The Tao te Ching is hundreds of years older (conservatively 150, but more likely 450 years), and yet we have this reference to the chariot. Perhaps this shouldn't be alarming. After all, Plato had a parable about the chariot and we can't lay this at his footsteps. Still, it could be a case of historical revisionism. It likely is, as other translations use a completely different line that does not even mention chariots.
The story begins with King Milinda visiting the Sankheyya hermitage. Milinda was an Indo-Greek king from northern India, and after traveling to the hermitage, he was greeted by Nagasena.
King Milinda: How is your reverence known and what is your name, sir?
Nagasena: I am known as Nagasena, great king, and everyone calls me Nagasena. Even though my parents named me Nagasena, the word 'Nagasena' is just a name, a label, a series of sounds, a concept. It is just a name. There is no real person to be apprehended.
King: (addresses everyone) Listen up everyone, Nagasena tells me that he is not a real person. How can I agree to that? (to Nagasena) If no person can be apprehended, then who gives you alms? Who eats and takes medicine? Who meditates and guards morality? Who kills, steals, and rapes? If someone were to kill you, Nagasena, wouldn't that be murder? What is this 'Nagasena'? Are you the hairs on your head?
Nagasena: No, great king.
King: The hair on your body?
Nagasena: No, great king.
King: What about your muscles, bone, brain, organs, or any other part of your physical body? Is this Nagasena?
Nagasena: No, great king.
King: Perhaps it is this whole form, or a combination of this form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness?
Nagasena: No, great king.
King: Is it something outside of the combination of things?
Nagasena: No, great king.
King: (to everyone) I can discover no Nagasena at all. Just a sound, but who is the real Nagasena? Everyone, your reverence has told a lie. There is no Nagasena!
Nagasena: Your majesty, I notice that you have been brought up in great comfort. If you walked here under the noon sun, on the sharp rocks and burning sands, then your feet would be hurt and you would be tired. So how did you come, on foot or on a horse?
King: I came on a chariot.
Nagasena: If you came on a chariot, please explain what a chariot is. Is the pole the chariot?
King: No, reverend sir.
Nagasena: Is it the wheels, or the frame, or the yoke, or any of the parts?
King: No, reverend sir.
Nagasena: Is it the combination of the parts? If we laid out the wheels and the frame and the yoke and all the parts, would that be a chariot?
King: No, reverend sir.
Nagasena: Then is it outside of this combination of parts?
King: No, reverend sir.
Nagasena: Then, ask as I do, I can't discover a chariot. Chariot seems to be just a mere sound. Where is this chariot? Your majesty has told a lie!
Greeks: (applaud) How will you get out of this, your Majesty?
King: Nagasena, I have not told a lie. It is in the dependency and interworking of all the parts that you have a chariot. A pile of parts isn't enough. It is when they all work together that you have this conceptual term, sound, and name of a chariot.
Nagasena: Your majesty is exactly right about the chariot. It is just so with me. Nagasena is the working of all the parts of the body and the five skandhas that make me. But in ultimate reality, however, the person still isn't caught.
King: Well played sir. Well played.
I paraphrased it from my books, and there is a decent online copy here: The Questions of King Milinda.
I'll refer to this post when we get to dependent arising and Buddhism, but I wanted to explain the reference so that it could be seen in the context of chapter 39. He's saying, like Nagasena, that a pile of parts does not make up a chariot. You have to have the base before you have the thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment