A good example of the teaching of Anatta is to be found in the Milindapana which purports to be an account of the meeting between a Bactrian king `Menander' who ruled from about 166 to 150 BCE and the monk, Nagasena.

The first meeting is concerned with the chariot simile. The king politely enquires about Nagasena's name and Nagasena replies to Milinda's question by saying: "I am known as Nagasena and it is by that name that my brethren in the faith address me. But although parents give such a name as Nagasena, this is only a designation used, for there is no permanent individuality involved." The king is unable to accept this denial of individuality and retorted with a practical counter-argument.

"Who then is it who gives you monks your robes, your food, your lodging and what you need? To whom is it given, and who devotes himself to a life of righteousness and meditation? Who wins Arahatship and who commits a sin by destroying life? If what you say were true, a man would not commit a murder by taking someone else's life and there would be no teachers in the Sangha and the ordinations would be void."

The king then asks what it is, that the name Nagasena does denote. Is it his body or a part of it, is it his sensations, his ideas, his consciousness? Nagasena denies all that. Milinda then says: "Then, I can detect no Nagasena. Nagasena is a mere sound. Who is it that I see before me?" and he accuses Nagasena of having offered an untruth rather than a word of wisdom.

Instead of giving an answer to the king's
question, Nagasena begins to question the king in return. He innocently asks how the king had come to the meeting place, whether on foot or in a chariot. Almost offended, Milinda answers that of course he had come in a chariot as befits a king. Now Nagasena goes into details: what is a chariot? Is it the wheels, the framework, the ropes, the spokes of the wheel? The king has to say no to all these questions. If, Nagasena concludes, neither all the parts nor anything outside the parts are the chariot, the chariot does not exist, it is a mere word. And he accuses the king of having spoken an untruth by saying that he had come in a chariot that did not exist.

Milinda tries to extricate himself by saying that the composite of all things mentioned by Nagasena is commonly understood as a chariot and that is what he came in. Nagasena approves of the King's grasp of the matter: the same, he says, applies to the term' individuality'. It is a conventional designation for the aggregate of components mentioned in connection with a name.

The Sankharas start when we are children and someone points to an animal and says `cat' or, more usually, `pussy-cat'. So the sound is associated with the image in a Sankhara. The child will later point to objects which it thinks are similar, say the word and seek for confirmation. This Sankhara changes through out life, as the individual has more and different experiences associated with the Sankhara. Each Sankhara will be individual to the person.

In addition to Sankharas of objects, animate and inanimate, there exists in most individuals a Sankhara of the self and a Sankhara of Personal volition or freewill. Some people will have a Sankhara of God and some will have as Sankhara of Soul and some will have a Sankhara of Freewill.

According to Buddhist philosophy, it is pointless to argue over the reality or unreality of Sankharas. One should aim to become aware of one's own Sankharas without imagining that they have any ultimate reality and to encourage others who have similar aims.

The discussion centred around the distinction between Vinnana, consciousness and Sati, awareness; whether the use of Pati or Sanskrit terms was necessary or justified, and the question of Free will.

Questions concerning the moral implications of the philosophy were not dealt with as the speaker considered them to be appropriate for a different discussion.

Source: BRLSI