On the doctrine of rebirth in the Milindapanha

 

On the doctrine of rebirth in the Milindapanha

In the Buddhist text Milindapanha, a text that is preserved in the Pali Canon of the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, there is an exchange between the Buddhist monk named Nagasena and a king named Milinda (who, perhaps, was the Greek Menander), about the topic of rebirth. In particular, the king is perplexed on how to reconcile the Buddhist denial of a stable ‘self’ with the doctrines of karma and rebirth. At one point, there is the following exchange:

“‘Suppose, O king, a man were to choose a young girl in marriage, and give a price for her and go away. And she in due course should grow up to full age, and then another man were to pay a price for her and marry her. And when the first one had come back he should say: “Why, you fellow, have you carried off my wife?” And the other were to reply: “It’s not your wife I have carried off! the little girl, the mere child, whom you chose in marriage and paid a price for is one; the girl grown up to full age whom I chose in marriage and paid a price for, is another.” Now if they, thus disputing, were to go to law about it before you, O king, in whose favour would you decide the case?’

‘In favour of the first.’

‘But why?’

‘Because, in spite of whatever the second might say, the grown-up girl would have been derived from the other girl.’

‘Just so, great king, it is one name-and-form which has its end in death, and another name-and-form which is reborn. But the second is the result of the first, and is therefore not set free from its evil deeds.’” (Milindapanha 3.2.6, T.W. Rhys Davids translation, source: https://suttacentral.net/mil3.2.6/en/tw_rhysdavids?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false )

Nagasena’s point is quite clear: just as there is a continuity during one lifetime, there is the same continuity between successive lifetimes. So, if the Buddhist doctrine of ‘non-self’ (Pali ‘anatta’, Sanskrit ‘anatman’) can explain the continuity within a lifetime, the doctrine is unaffected by the continuity between successive lifetimes. The ‘little girl’ and the ‘girl grown up’ are, after all, commonly considered the ‘same person’. Soon after, Nagasena also used a rather famous analogy to explain the continuity of the successive lives:

“‘Suppose a man, O king, were to buy of a herdsman a vessel of milk, and go away leaving it in his charge, saying: “I will come for it to-morrow;” and the next day it were to become curds. And when the man should come and ask for it, then suppose the other were to offer him the curds, and he should say: “It was not curds I bought of you; give me my vessel of milk.” And the other were to reply: “Without any fault of mine your milk has turned to curds.” Now if they, thus disputing, were to go to law about it before you, O king, in whose favour would you decide the case?’

‘In favour of the herdsman.’

‘But why?’

‘Because, in spite of whatever the other might say, the curds were derived from the milk.’

‘Just so, great king, it is one name-and-form that finds its end in death, and another that is reborn. But that other is the result of the first, and is therefore not thereby released from its evil deeds (its bad Karma).’” (ibid.)

Curds is different from milk, yet there is continuity between curds and milk. A full grown man or woman is different from a little boy or a little girl and yet there is continuity between them. In both instances, the Buddhist argues we can’t say that the two ‘entities’ are distinct nor that they remain the same.

I agree with the Buddhist reasoning. The existence of a chain of successive deaths and rebirths doesn’t give additional problems to the doctrine of ‘non-self’ than the continuity we observe within a single lifetime. At the same time, though, I do believe that the Buddhist argument here fails to properly address the real problem: the reason why we identify, say, an adult man with the young boy that existed some decades ago is that we generally assume that there is an enduring ‘who’ that remains the same. The little boy and the grown man do not seem to be just causally connected ‘states’ but the same individual.

Now consider the case of sexual reproduction. A father and a mother have sexual intercourse and a child is born. The child, of course, isn’t the same individual as his or her father and mother and yet there is a causal continuity between them. Arguably, many factors that characterize the child derive from his or her parents. We know that, for instance, half of his of her genetic material is from his or her mother and the other half is from his or her father. Yet, despite this continuity we easily recognize the child as a different person from the parents. Mere causal continuity, therefore, isn’t enough, it seems to me, to preserve the continuity of identity and yet the Buddhist metaphysics doesn’t seem to posit something else.

Of course, there is the idea of ‘mind-streams’, i.e. that while there is no ‘unchanging self’ there is a succession of mental states that continues even from a lifetime to another. This continuity is seen as providing the reason why (provisionally) we can say that, for instance, the good or bad results of good or bad actions fall to the ‘same’ person. To me the problem here is that even within this model, it just seems to me that there is an unchanging self. Even after their enlightenment the Buddha Gautama and his disciple Sariputta were distinct individuals. How is this consistent with the almost universally accepted doctrine of ‘non-self’? That is, how can one maintain that there are distinctions if there are no distinguishable ‘people’?[1]


[1] It should be noted here that there was a somewhat popular ancient Buddhist sect that maintained the existence of an ‘inexpressible person’ that endures from a life to another. Within that system, it is not merely ‘provisionally’ or ‘conventionally’ true that the same person undergoes change within one lifetime and also successive lifetimes. For more details see:  . At the same time, though, this position is a rare exception.

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