A section from the journey

The Indo-Greeks and King Milinda

After Alexander, Greek kings ruled lands in the far northwest for a time. The greatest was Menander, whom Indian texts call Milinda. A beautiful old book, the Milindapanha, sets down his questions to the wise monk Nagasena. With the simple image of a chariot, the sage shows the king that there is no single thing we can point to and call the self. It is one of the loveliest meetings of two worlds in all our story.

Remember the storm that was Alexander, passing through the northwest and leaving little behind. Yet far to his west, the generals who came after him built kingdoms of their own. And from one of those kingdoms, Greek kings later turned and pushed back east, into the high lands we now call Afghanistan and the valleys beyond.

We call these rulers the . For a while they held cities in the northwest, in the old region of , a meeting-place of roads. They struck beautiful coins, with a Greek face on one side and Indian writing on the other — small metal signs of two worlds touching.

The greatest of these kings reigned around 150 BCE. The Greeks called him . Indian memory gives him a softer name: Milinda. And Milinda is remembered, above all his wars, for a single beautiful book.

The book is called the — the Questions of King Milinda. It sets down, as a long conversation, what passed between the king and a wise Buddhist monk named . The king is clever and proud, and he asks hard questions. The monk answers with patience and with images a child could follow.

It begins with a small shock. The king greets the monk and asks his name. And the monk gives an answer that turns the whole talk on its head.

“I am known as Nâgasena, O king, and it is by that name that my brethren in the faith address me. But although parents, O king, give such a name as Nâgasena … yet this, Sire,—Nâgasena and so on—is only a generally understood term, a designation in common use. For there is no permanent individuality (no soul) involved in the matter.”

The king is puzzled, even troubled. If there is no lasting "someone" called Nagasena, then who is standing before him? Who keeps the vows? Who is talking? So the sage offers an image. He asks the king how he came — and the king says he came in a chariot. Then the sage asks, gently, what a chariot really is.

Is the pole the chariot, he asks? No. Are the wheels the chariot? No. The axle, the frame, the reins — is any one of these the chariot? No, says the king, to each. Then is the chariot something apart from all these parts? No, again. Then where, asks the sage, is the chariot?

And the king sees it. The word "chariot" is just a name we give to the parts when they are joined and used together. There is no extra, hidden "chariot-thing" beneath them. The sage smiles, and turns the lesson back to himself and his own name.

“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 … that I come under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of ‘Nâgasena.’”

This is a teaching of the Buddhist path, which holds its own view of the self — a view that differs from the older teaching of the atman we met long ago. We honor it here as its own wisdom, given in its own words. We do not fold it into something else.

But hold, too, the larger picture of this scene. A king born of Greece, far from this land, sits down with a sage of the East. He does not conquer him or silence him. He asks, and he listens, and his mind is changed by an argument. Tradition says Milinda himself came to honor the path Nagasena taught. Two worlds met here, not with the sword, but with a question. That is the gift of this age.

Think of your own name, and all that you call "yourself." When you look closely, can you find one single thing that is the "you" — or is it many things, joined and moving together? Sit with that question gently, the way King Milinda did.