[MD] Nagasena & King Milinda - part 2

[MarshaV]

Notice that Milinda goes through each of the different parts of the body first, before coming to rupa, or the body as a whole; in each case he asks if this is what  'Nagasena is the name of.  He next asks about the four nama skandhas.  Nagasena says 'no' in each case, though he doesn't say why.  We can imagine that he has the same reasons as those that the Buddha gave in his two arguments for non-self.  The next possibility Milinda suggests is the five skandhas taken collectively.  It is noteworthy that Nagasena denies this as well.  Nagasena's denial is tantamount to the exhaustiveness claim: there isn't anything else.  Finally, note that Milinda takes this all to mean that 'Nagasena' is a 'mere empty sound', a meaningless bit of nonsense.  This is not what Nagasena said the name is.  He called it a 'convenient designator'.  The two views about what the name is have very different consequences.  If Milinda is right that 'Nagasena' is a mere empty sound, then all the absurd consequences Milinda mentioned will follow.  As we'll see in a bit, though, they don't follow if Nagasena is right and the name is a convenient designator.  
 
Nagasena now tries to get Milinda to see the difference between a name's being a mere empty sound and its being a convenient designator.  He does this by turning Milinda's own logic back on him, applying it to the word 'chariot'.  This reasoning leads Milinda into absurdities.  Milinda will then realize that the way out of those absurdities involves distinguishes between a word's being a mere empty sound, and its being a convenient designator.  The absurdities don't follow if we think of the word as a convenient designator:
 
 
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          "Then the venerable Nagasena spoke to King Milinda as follows:  'Your majesty, you are a delicate prince, an exceedingly delicate prince; and if your majesty, you walk in the middle of the day on hot sandy ground, and you tread on rough grit, gravel and sand, your feet become sore, your body tired, the mind is oppressed, and the body-consciousness suffers.  Pray, did you come on foot, or riding?
          'Sir, I do not go on foot.  I came in a chariot.'
          'Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, tell me what the chariot is.  Pray, your majesty, is the pole the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'  
          'Is the axle the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the wheels the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the chariot-body the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the banner-staff the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the yoke the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the reins the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is the goading-stick the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Pray, your majesty, are the pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner-staff, yoke, reins, and goad unitedly the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Is it, then, your majesty, something else besides  pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner-staff, yoke, reins, and goad which is the chariot?'
          'Indeed not, sir.'
          'Your majesty, although I question you very closely, I fail to discover any chariot.  Verily now, your majesty, you speak a falsehood, a lie:  there is no chariot.  Your majesty, you are the chief king of all the continent of India; of whom are you afraid that you speak a lie?  Listen to, my lords, you five hundred Yonakas, and eighty thousand monks!  King Milinda here says thus:  "I came in a chariot;"' and being requested, "Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, tell me what that chariot is," he fails to produce any chariot.  Is it possible, pray, for me to assent to what he says?' "
 
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When Nagasena accuses Milinda of telling a lie, he is just driving home to Milinda the consequences of following Milinda's reasoning about the name 'Nagasena' when that reasoning is applied to the case of the word 'chariot'.  Nagasena is being a skillful teacher.  He wants Milinda himself to come up with the resolution of the difficulty.  This is just what happens next:
 
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        "When he had thus spoken, the five hundred Yonakas applauded the venerable Nagasena and spoke to King Milinda as follows:  'Now, your majesty, answer, if you can.'   
         'Then King Milinda spoke to the venerable Nagasena as follows:  Nagasena, I speak no lie: the word "chariot" functions as a counter, an expression, a convenient designator, a mere name for pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, and banner-staff.'
          'Thoroughly well, your majesty, do you understand a chariot.  In exactly the same way, your majesty, in respect of me, "Nagasena" functions as just a counter, an expression, convenient designation, mere name for the hair of my head, hair of my body ... Brain of the head, rupa, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness.  But ultimately there is no person to be found.  And the nun Vajira, your majesty, said this before the Blessed One.
          'Just as there is the word "chariot" for a set of parts, so when there are skandhas it is the convention to say, "There is a living being".'
          'It is wonderful, Nagasena!  It is marvelous Nagsena!  Brilliant and prompt is the wit of your replies.'
 
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Notice how Milinda agrees that 'chariot' is not mere empty sound, but a convenient designator, a useful way of referring to the parts when they are put together in a certain way.  So when Milinda said he came in a chariot, what he said was true, he was referring to something  --- just not a chariot.  But why is this?  Why not simply say 'chariot' is the name for a chariot?  The answer is that a chariot is not a real thing.  The parts are real, but the whole that is made up of the parts is not.  The whole can be reduced to its parts, it isn't anything over and above its parts.  This is the view known as 'mereological reductionism'.
 
This was the view of early Buddhism.  This view was systematically developed and argued for in the Abhidharma. ... In early Buddhism we just have what looks like a kind of ontological bias against wholes:  wholes are not really real, only the parts are.  There is a way of making sense of that bias though.  Consider a set of all the parts needed to make a chariot.  Suppose those parts are arranged in what would be called the  'assembled-chariot' way:  rim attached to spokes, spokes connected to felly, felly connected to axle, axle to body, etc.  In this case we have one word we apply to the set, 'chariot'.  Now suppose those parts are arranged in a different way, the 'shrewn-across-the-battlefield' way: rim partly submerged in the mud, one spoke wrapped around a tree root, another spoke lying on the ground three meters north-eat of the first, etc.  In this case we do not have a single name for the set.  The best we can do is 'all the parts that used to be make up the chariot'.  This difference is reflected in another difference.  In the first case we think of parts as one thing; in the second case we think of parts as many things.  Why this difference in attitude?  Is it just because in the first case the parts are all in immediate proximity to one another?  But if the parts were all jumbled together in a heap, we still wouldn't think of them as one thing, we'd think what we had then was just a bunch of parts in a pile.  No, the difference in our ontological attitude (thinking of them as one thing in one case but many things in the other) stems from the fact that we have a single word for the parts in the first case but not in the second.  And why do we have a single word in one case?  Because we have an interest in the parts when they are arranged in that way.  When the set of parts is arranged in the assembled-chariot way, they serve our need for a means of transportation 'across the hot sandy ground'.
 
 
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