“If there be no permanent self involved in the matter, who is it, pray, who gives to you members of the Order your robes and food and lodging and necessaries for the sick? Who is it who enjoys such things when given? Who is it who lives a life of righteousness? Who is it who devotes himself to meditation? Who is it who attains to the goal of the Excellent Way, to the Nirvâna of Arhatship? And who is it who destroys living creatures? who is it who takes what is not his own? who is it who lives an evil life of worldly lusts, who speaks lies, who drinks strong drink, who in a word commits any one of the five sins which work out their bitter fruit even in this life? If that be so, there is neither merit nor demerit; there is neither doer nor cause of good or evil deeds; there is neither fruit nor result of good or evil karma. If we are to think that were a man to kill you there would be no murder,[72] then it follows that there are no real masters or teachers in your Order, that your ordinations are void. You tell me that your brethren in the Order are in the habit of addressing you as Nâgasena. Now, what is that Nâgasena? Do you mean to say that the hair is Nâgasena?” This last query being denied by the Buddhist sage, the King asks: “Or is it the nails, the skin, the flesh, the nerves, the bones, the marrow, the kidneys, {155} the heart, the liver, the abdomen, the spleen, the lungs, the larger intestines, the smaller intestines, the faeces, the bile, the phlegm, the pus, the blood, the sweat, the fat, the tears, the serum, the saliva, the mucus, the oil that lubricates the joints, the urine, or the brain or any or all of these, that is Nâgasena? “Is it the material form that is Nâgasena, or the sensations, or the ideas, or the confections (deeds), or the consciousness, that is Nâgasena?” To all these questions, the King, having received a uniform denial, exclaims in excitement: “Then, thus, ask as I may, I can discover no Nâgasena. Nâgasena is a mere empty sound. Who then is the Nâgasena that we see before us?[73] It is a falsehood that your Reverence has spoken, an untruth?” Nâgasena does not give any direct answer, but quietly proposes some counter-questions to the King. Ascertaining that he came in a carriage to the Buddhist philosopher, he asks: “Is it the wheel, or the framework, or the ropes, or the spokes of the wheels, or the goad, that are the chariot?” To this, the king says, “No,” and continues: “It is on account of its having all these things that it {156} comes under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of ‘chariot.’” “Very good,” says Nâgasena, “Your Majesty has rightly grasped the meaning of ‘chariot.’ And just even so it is on account of all these things you questioned me about the thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body, and the five skandhas (constituent elements of being) that I come under the generally-understood term, the designation in common use, of ‘Nâgasena.’”