The phrase fourteen unanswerable questions (Avyakrta in Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

), in Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, refers to fourteen common philosophical questions that Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

 refused to answer, according to Buddhist Sanskrit texts. Pali texts give only ten.
Questions referring to the world: concerning the existence of the world in time

• Is the world eternal
  Eternity
  While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
  
  ?
• or not?
• or both?
• or neither?

Pali texts omit "both" and "neither".

Questions referring to the world: concerning the existence of the world in space

• Is the world finite?
• or not?
• or both?
• or neither?

Pali texts omit "both" and "neither".
Questions referring to personal experience

• Is the self
  Self (philosophy)
  The philosophy of self defines the essential qualities that make one person distinct from all others. There have been numerous approaches to defining these qualities. The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of consciousness. Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the...
  
   identical with the body?
• or is it different from the body?

Questions referring to life after death

• Does the Tathagata
  Tathagata
  Tathāgata in Pali and Sanskrit) is the name the Buddha of the scriptures uses when referring to himself. The term means, paradoxically, both one who has thus gone and one who has thus come . Hence, the Tathagata is beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena...
  
   exist after death?
• or not?
• or both?
• or neither?

The Buddha remained silent when asked these fourteen questions.