The Chandogya Upanisad is believed to have been written around the eight to sixth century BCE. The Milindapanho is traced to the first century BCE. With so much time between the two works, it seems only fitting that the two passages given state the direct opposite of one another. The passage given from Chandogya Upanisad clearly defines that there is a life essence in everything, while Milindapanho shows Nagasena rejecting that Upanisad thought in favor of Buddhism. However, though a very important difference, is not what ends the discrepancies between the two texts, because they also have differing views on what brahman is. We can see these differences between the Upanisads and the Buddhists when we compare excerpts from the Chandogya Upanisad and Milindapanho. Both passages question and answer what makes up one’s “self”. In Nagasena’s position within Milindapanho, nothing does. His hair, eyes, nose, mind, nothing about him makes up who he is because he is constantly changing from one second to the next. Nagasena believes you are different from one moment to another, which would mean he is not any one part or whole of his physical being. To Nagasena (and …show more content…
Aruni also explains that just because the clay has taken on an altered form, doesn’t mean it is no longer clay. This is the exact opposite of what Nagasena was teaching the king. Aruni teaches his grandson that no matter the form something may take, it is still what it was before, which is seen when he states, “the transformation is a verbal handle, a name – while the reality is just this: ‘It’s clay’”. Unlike Nagasena’s position of anatman, Aruni takes the position of having atman. Nagasena flatly rejects the Upanisad position of having a life essence, instead saying that everything in impermanent, whereas Aruni would say that he is