language, of rebirth and of a man dying and being born[434]
in such and such a state. Only we must not suppose that the man's self
is continued or transferred in this operation. There is no entity that
can be called soul and strictly speaking no entity that can be called
body, only a variable aggregation of skandhas, constantly changing. At
death this collocation disperses but a new one reassembles under the
influence of tanha, the desire of life, and by the law of karma which
prescribes that every act must have its result. The illustration that
comes most naturally is that of water. Waves pass across the surface of
the sea and successive waves are not the same, nor is what we call the
same wave really the same at two different points in its progress, and
yet one wave causes another wave and transmits its form and movement. So
are beings travelling through the world (samsara) not the same at any
two points in a single life and still less the same in two consecutive
lives: yet it is the impetus and form of the previous lives, the desire
that urges them and the form that it takes, which determine the
character of the succeeding lives.

But Buddhist writers more commonly illustrate rebirth by fire than by
water and this simile is used with others in the Questions of Milinda.
We cannot assume that this book reflects the views of the Buddha or his
immediate followers, but it is the work of an Indian in touch with good
tradition who lived a few centuries later and expressed his opinions
with lucidity. It denies the existence of transmigration and of the soul
and then proceeds to illustrate by metaphors and analogies how two
successive lives can be the same and yet not the same. For instance,
suppose a man carelessly allows his lamp to set his thatch on fire with
the result that a whole village is burnt down. He is held responsible
for the loss but when brought before the judge argues that the flame of
his lamp was not the same as the flame that burnt down the village. Will
such a plea be allowed? Certainly not. Or to take another metaphor.
Suppose a man were to choose a young girl in marriage and after making a
contract with her parents were to go away, waiting for her to grow up.
Meanwhile another man comes and marries her. If the two men appeal to
the King and the later suitor says to the earlier, The little child whom
you chose and paid for is one and the full grown girl whom I paid for
and married is another, no one would