Aggregates and Chariots - Greco-Buddhist Contemplations on the Nature of "Self"

Greco-Buddhist Contemplations ...

You may recall one of our previous posts entitled "Intro to Emptiness" outlining a set of five overlapping factors of experience that are often mistaken for a metaphysically substantial self or what pertains to a self. While that may be a bit of a mouthful, perhaps biting off more than one can chew in a single article, we wish to follow up on this subject here in simpler terms.

Understanding these "aggregates," as they're called, in terms of emptiness and dependent origination may feel like an abstract endeavor. Fortunately, however, several useful similes from the Buddhist tradition exist (conventionally) to help contextualize the nature of these so-called aggregates, the building blocks of our experience, and their relationship to a presumed self.

Here, we thus examine a segment of the Milinda Pañha, a nexus of Greco-Buddhist contemplative philosophy and practice. Considered canonical in Burmese Buddhism, it claims to document an exchange between the Buddhist sage Nāgasena and a king of the Indo-Greco empire, Menander the First of Bactria - spanning modern Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. A historical figure, Menander ruled from roughly 160 to 130 BCE. His name is "Pāli-cized" as Milinda. Among their dialogue's major motifs is the image of the chariot, tracing itself to the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, now widely used as an analogy for the concept of "self" in Buddhism.

Aggregates and Chariots

The simile of aggregates and chariots surfaces in a series of questions posed by King Milinda to the sage Nāgasena. Most of these questions orbit around the notion of selfhood. Prompting the chariot simile, in the middle of this discussion, Nāgasena remarks that "Nāgasena" is but a name, while in actuality, there is no Nāgasena. Befuddled, the king presses further, to which Nāgasena responds by employing the simile of the chariot. Their dialogue unfolds with Nāgasena asking King Milinda how he was able to come to their present location in the first place.

"How did you come here, by foot or in a chariot?"

"In a chariot, venerable sir."

"Then, explain sir, what that is. Is it the axle? Or the wheels, or the chassis, or reins, or yoke that is the chariot? Is it all of these combined, or is it something apart from them?"

"It is none of these things, venerable sir."

(trans. Bhikkhu Pesala)

Here, we find Nāgasena pressing King Milinda to identify exactly what it is that he calls a chariot, positing each of its parts as possible identifiers. The king is unable to pin it down. Nāgasena asks if the chariot is the sum of its parts, or if it extends beyond them. Seemingly elusive, the king replies with none of the above.



Clearly the wheels of thought were set in motion here. As the king searches for a rational response to give to his questioner, he arrives fully to their present exchange, prompting his invocation of the chariot as simile. Certainly he had some notion of what made the chariot a chariot despite his struggles to put it into words. After a brief interlude, the chariot again takes center stage as the king, after much reflection, finally formulates an answer.

"It is because it has all these parts that it comes under the term chariot."

"Very good, sir, your majesty has rightly grasped the meaning. Even so it is because of the thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body and the five aggregates of being that I come under the term ‘Nāgasena’. As it was said by Sister Vajīra in the presence of the Blessed One, ‘Just as it is by the existence of the various parts that the word “Chariot” is used, just so is it that when the aggregates of being are there we talk of a being’."

(trans. Bhikkhu Pesala)

Importantly, the sense of self arising from the aggregates is comparable to a constellation, assemblage, conglomeration. A whole comprised of parts, "self" serves as a conventional appellation for an aggregation of bodily form, feeling, perception, volitional activities, and consciousness. "Self" is an at-times useful tool that humans have constructed (like a chariot) to serve conventional ends, but need not be mistaken for an ultimate identity or ultimate reality.

Given that the self is constructed, it has only a conventional existence. In the same sense that a chariot consists of its component parts - which alone are not the chariot and even together amount to no ultimate chariot - the conventional self is likewise made up of five aggregates: form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness. Like a chariot, explains the Buddhist nun Vajīra in the Vajīra Sutta (SN 5.10) referenced by Nāgasena, the self is a conventional designation for an assemblage of parts, a heap of phenomena.

"Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
The word 'chariot' is used,
So, when the aggregates are present,
There's the convention 'a being.'"

(trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi)

Indeed, Vajīra's remarks here are the origin for the chariot analogy within Buddhism. The image also traces itself to the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, a text of the Vedanta tradition, a precursor to and modern Hindu schools. It's unclear where its exact origins lie, but the chariot is nonetheless a familiar image with significant symbolic value in Indic contemplative circles.

As we can observe from the Buddhist nun Vajīra's remarks, a distinction is drawn between conventional language and ultimate reality, although the latter is not mentioned explicitly. Acknowledging the widely accepted worldly usage of "chariot" and other terms to refer to compounded objects, Vajīra clarifies that no one is denying the utter existence of chariots all together. Rather, the chariot does not exist as it appears to exist.

The Nature of "Self"

Unpacking the nature of "self" can be a thorny issue in Buddhism, for these very reasons. On one hand, the self is a conventionally experienced process, but on the other, it is not an ultimately existing thing. Notice the difference, which we hope to draw out through these key terms.

• Conventionally
• Experienced
• Process

vs.

• Ultimately
• Existing
• Thing

The second set of descriptors (ultimately existing thing) helps convey that what we grasp as self appears relatively unchanging, a lasting identity, some kind of persistent entity that remains the same from moment to moment.

The first set of descriptors (conventionally experienced process) helps convey that upon scrutinizing its supposed solidity, the sense of self is in actuality instantaneously arising and subsiding, changing from moment to moment, flowing onward like a stream.

Certainly not all see it this way. The Buddhist theory of self (or theory of "not-self") is definitely an outlier among other philosophies and world religions. Further, it has been variously interpreted throughout history and up to the present. We offer these reflections as a means of framing the question differently, not as whether there is or is not a self, but by offering two angles from which one may contemplate the situation, consistent with the "two truths" of conventional and ultimate reality.



We now turn the question to you. Does the chariot have a driver? Who or what has hold of the reins? Let us know below.