the discussion was not profitable.  And the modern investigator, who is not so submissive as the Buddha’s disciples, asks why not?  Can it be that the teacher knew of things transcendental not to be formulated in words?  Once[404] he compared the truths he had taught his disciples to a bunch of leaves which he held in his hand and the other truths which he knew but had not taught to the leaves of the whole forest in which they were walking.  And the story of the blind men and the elephant[405] seems to hint that Buddhas, those rare beings who are not blind, can see the constitution of the universe.  May we then in chance phrases get a glimpse of ideas which he would not develop?  It may be so, but the quest is temerarious.  “What I have revealed[406] hold as revealed, and what I have not revealed, hold as not revealed.”  The gracious but authoritative figure of the Master gives no further reply when we endeavour to restate his teaching in some completer form which admits of comparison with the ancient and modern philosophies of Europe.

The best introduction to his theory of existence is perhaps the instruction given to the five monks after his first sermon.  The body[407] is not the self, he says, for if it were, it would not be subject to disease and we should be able to say, let my body be or not be such and such.  As the denial of the existence of the self or ego (Atta in Pali, Atman in Sanskrit) is one of the fundamental and original tenets of Gotama, we must remember that this self whose existence is denied is something not subject to decay, and possessing perfect free will with power to exercise it.  The Brahmanic Atman is such a self but it is found nowhere in the world of our experience[408].  For the body or form is not the self, neither is sensation or feeling (vedana) for they are not free and eternal.  Neither is perception (sanna)[409] the self.  Neither, the Buddha goes on to say, are the Sankharas the self, and for the same reason.

Here we find ourselves sailing on the high seas of dogmatic terminology and must investigate the meaning of this important and untranslateable word.  It is equivalent to the Sanskrit samskara, which is akin to the word Sanskrit itself, and means compounding, making anything artificial and elaborate.  It may be literally translated as synthesis or confection, and is often used in the general sense of phenomena since all phenomena are compound[410].  Occasionally[411] we hear of three Sankharas, body or deed, word and thought.  But in later literature the Sankharas become a category with fifty-two divisions and these are mostly mental or at least subjective states.  The list opens with contact (phasso) and then follow sensation, perception, thought, reflection, memory and a series of dispositions or states such as attention, effort, joy, torpor, stupidity, fear, doubt, lightness of body or mind, pity, envy, worry, pride.  As European thought does not class all these items under