Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s3.1

c15.s3.1

It is in the Sautrāntika, to all appearance, that the doctrine of the self as a continuum first definitely takes shape, but the idea is certainly contained in germ in the *Milindapañha*.¹ The point is there quite explicitly raised; is the infant the same as the man? Is the mother of the child the same as the mother of the man? The boy before and after his course of school? The man who commits crime and he who has suffered punishment? The answer is given by the simile of the flame of a lamp which burns throughout the three watches of the night, and yet the lamp remains the same. Just so is the continuity of a person or thing maintained; one comes into being, another passes away, and the rebirth is, as it were, simultaneous. Thus neither as the same, nor as another does man go on to the last phase of his self-consciousness. So milk turns into curds, but the purchaser who has left it in the hand of the seller cannot next day repudiate the purchase; the thief of a mango cannot escape mutilation because the mango he stole was not the mango the owner planted; if a girl is given in marriage for a price when a child, and her husband goes abroad, he is entitled on his return to demand her back from another who has married her, nor will he be allowed to evade his obligation by pleading that the maiden is quite other than the girl.