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Another sophistical school led by Ajita Kesakambali taught
that there was no fruit or result of good or evil deeds; there is no
other world, nor was this one real; nor had parents nor any
former lives any efficacy with respect to this life. Nothing that
we can do prevents any of us alike from being wholly brought to
an end at death [Footnote ref 2].
There were thus at least three currents of thought: firstly the
sacrificial Karma by the force of the magical rites of which any
person could attain anything he desired; secondly the Upanisad
teaching that the Brahman, the self, is the ultimate reality and
being, and all else but name and form which pass away but do
not abide. That which permanently abides without change is the
real and true, and this is self. Thirdly the nihilistic conceptions
that there is no law, no abiding reality, that everything comes
into being by a fortuitous concourse of circumstances or by some
unknown fate. In each of these schools, philosophy had probably
come to a deadlock. There were the Yoga practices prevalent in
the country and these were accepted partly on the strength of
traditional custom among certain sections, and partly by virtue
of the great spiritual, intellectual and physical power which they
gave to those who performed them. But these had no rational
basis behind them on which they could lean for support. These
were probably then just tending towards being affiliated to the
nebulous Sāmkhya doctrines which had grown up among certain
sections. It was at this juncture that we find Buddha erecting
a new superstructure of thought on altogether original lines which
thenceforth opened up a new avenue of philosophy for all posterity
to come. If the Being of the Upanisads, the superlatively motionless,
was the only real, how could it offer scope for further new
speculations, as it had already discarded all other matters of
interest? If everything was due to a reasonless fortuitous concourse
of circumstances, reason could not proceed further in the
direction to create any philosophy of the unreason. The magical
[Footnote 1: _Sāmańńaphala-sutta_, _Dīgha_, II. 20. Hoernlé's article on
the Ājīvakas, E.R.E.]
[Footnote 2: _Sāmańńaphala-sutta_, II. 23.]
force of the hocus-pocus of sorcery or sacrifice had but little that
was inviting for philosophy to proceed on. If we thus take into
account the state of Indian philosophic culture before Buddha,
we shall be better able to understand the value of the Buddhistic
contribution to philosophy.
Buddha: his Life.
Gautama the Buddha was born in or about the year 560 B.C.
in the Lumbini Grove near the ancient town of Kapilavastu in
the now dense terai region of Nepal. His father was Suddhodana,
a prince of the Sākya clan, and his mother Queen Mahāmāyā.
According to the legends it was foretold of him that he would
enter upon the ascetic life when he should see "A decrepit old
man, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk." His father tried
his best to keep him away from these by marrying him and
surrounding him with luxuries. But on successive occasions,
issuing from the palace, he was confronted by those four
things, which filled him with amazement and distress, and
realizing the impermanence of all earthly things determined to
forsake his home and try if he could to discover some means to
immortality to remove the sufferings of men. He made his "Great
Renunciation" when he was twenty-nine years old. He travelled
on foot to Rājagrha (Rajgir) and thence to Uruvelā, where in
company with other five ascetics he entered upon a course of
extreme self-discipline, carrying his austerities to such a length
that his body became utterly emaciated and he fell down senseless
and was believed to be dead. After six years of this great
struggle he was convinced that the truth was not to be won by
the way of extreme asceticism, and resuming an ordinary course
of life at last attained absolute and supreme enlightenment. Thereafter
the Buddha spent a life prolonged over forty-five years in
travelling from place to place and preaching the doctrine to
all who would listen. At the age of over eighty years Buddha
realized that the time drew near for him to die. He then entered
into Dhyana and passing through its successive stages attained
nirvāna [Footnote ref 1]. The vast developments which the system of this
great teacher underwent in the succeeding centuries in India and in
other countries have not been thoroughly studied, and it will
probably take yet many years more before even the materials for
[Footnote 1: _Mahāparinibbānasuttanta_, _Dīgha_, XVI. 6, 8, 9.]
such a study can be collected. But from what we now possess
it is proved incontestably that it is one of the most wonderful and
subtle productions of human wisdom. It is impossible to overestimate
the debt that the philosophy, culture and civilization
of India owe to it in all her developments for many succeeding
centuries.
Early Buddhist Literature.
The Buddhist Pāli Scriptures contain three different collections:
the Sutta (relating to the doctrines), the Vinaya (relating to the
discipline of the monks) and the Abhidhamma (relating generally
to the same subjects as the suttas but dealing with them in a
scholastic and technical manner). Scholars of Buddhistic religious
history of modern times have failed as yet to fix any definite dates
for the collection or composition of the different parts of the
aforesaid canonical literature of the Buddhists. The suttas were
however composed before the Abhidhamma and it is very
probable that almost the whole of the canonical works were
completed before 241 B.C., the date of the third council during
the reign of King Asoka. The suttas mainly deal with the doctrine
(Dhamma) of the Buddhistic faith whereas the Vinaya deals
only with the regulations concerning the discipline of the monks.
The subject of the Abhidhamma is mostly the same as that
of the suttas, namely, the interpretation of the Dhamma.
Buddhaghosa in his introduction to _Atthasālinī_, the commentary
on the _Dhammasangani_, says that the Abhidhamma is so called
(_abhi_ and _dhamma_) because it describes the same Dhammas as are
related in the suttas in a more intensified (_dhammātireka_) and
specialized (_dhammavisesatthena_) manner. The Abhidhammas
do not give any new doctrines that are not in the suttas, but
they deal somewhat elaborately with those that are already found
in the suttas. Buddhaghosa in distinguishing the special features
of the suttas from the Abhidhammas says that the acquirement
of the former leads one to attain meditation (_samādhi_) whereas
the latter leads one to attain wisdom (_pańńāsampadam_). The force
of this statement probably lies in this, that the dialogues of the
suttas leave a chastening effect on the mind, the like of which is
not to be found in the Abhidhammas, which busy themselves in
enumerating the Buddhistic doctrines and defining them in a
technical manner, which is more fitted to produce a reasoned insight into the doctrines than directly to generate a craving
for following the path of meditation for the extinction of sorrow.
The Abhidhamma known as the _Kathāvatthu_ differs from the
other Abhidhammas in this, that it attempts to reduce the views
of the heterodox schools to absurdity. The discussions proceed
in the form of questions and answers, and the answers of the
opponents are often shown to be based on contradictory
assumptions.
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The suttas contain five groups of collections called the Nikāyas.
These are (1) _Dīgha Nikāya_, called so on account of the length
of the suttas contained in it; (2) _Majjhima Nikāya_ (middling
Nikāya), called so on account of the middling extent of the
suttas contained in it; (3) _Samyutta Nikāya_ (Nikāyas relating
to special meetings), called samyutta on account of their being
delivered owing to the meetings (_samyoga_) of special persons which
were the occasions for them; (4) _Anguttara Nikāya_, so called because
in each succeeding book of this work the topics of discussion
increase by one [Footnote ref 1]; (5) _Khuddaka Nikāya_ containing
_Khuddaka pātha, Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttaka, Sutta Nipāta,
Vimāna-vatthu, Petavatthu, Theragathā, Therīgathā, Jātaka, Niddesa,
Patisambhidāmagga, Apadāna, Buddhavamsa, Caryāpitaka._
The Abhidhammas are _Patthāna, Dhammasangani, Dhātukathā,
Puggalapańńatti, Vibhanga, Yamaka_ and _Kathāvatthu_.
There exists also a large commentary literature on diverse parts
of the above works known as atthakathā. The work known as
_Milinda Pańha_ (questions of King Milinda), of uncertain date, is
of considerable philosophical value.
The doctrines and views incorporated in the above literature
is generally now known as Sthaviravāda or Theravāda. On the
origin of the name Theravāda (the doctrine of the elders)
_Dīpavamsa_ says that since the Theras (elders) met (at the first council)
and collected the doctrines it was known as the Thera Vāda [Footnote ref
2]. It does not appear that Buddhism as it appears in this Pāli literature
developed much since the time of Buddhaghosa (4OO A.D.), the
writer of _Visuddhimagga_ (a compendium of theravāda doctrines)
and the commentator of _Dīghanikāya, Dhammasangani_, etc.
Hindu philosophy in later times seems to have been influenced
by the later offshoots of the different schools of Buddhism, but
it does not appear that Pāli Buddhism had any share in it. I
[Footnote 1: See Buddhaghosa's _Atthasālini_, p. 25.]
[Footnote 2: Oldenberg's _Dīpavamsa_, p. 31.]
have not been able to discover any old Hindu writer who could
be considered as being acquainted with Pāli.
The Doctrine of Causal Connection of early Buddhism [Footnote ref 1].
The word Dhamma in the Buddhist scriptures is used generally
in four senses: (1) Scriptural texts, (2) quality (_guna_), (3) cause
(_hetu_) and (4) unsubstantial and soulless (_nissatta nijjīva_ [Footnote
ref 2]). Of these it is the last meaning which is particularly important,
from the point of view of Buddhist philosophy. The early Buddhist
philosophy did not accept any fixed entity as determining all
reality; the only things with it were the unsubstantial phenomena
and these were called dhammas. The question arises that
if there is no substance or reality how are we to account for the
phenomena? But the phenomena are happening and passing
away and the main point of interest with the Buddha was to find
out "What being what else is," "What happening what else
happens" and "What not being what else is not." The phenomena
are happening in a series and we see that there being
certain phenomena there become some others; by the happening
of some events others also are produced. This is called
(_paticca-samuppāda_) dependent origination. But it is difficult to
understand what is the exact nature of this dependence. The question as
_Samyutta Nikāya_ (II. 5) has it with which the Buddha started
before attaining Buddhahood was this: in what miserable condition
are the people! they are born, they decay, they die, pass away
and are born again; and they do not know the path of escape
from this decay, death and misery.
How to know the Way to escape from this misery of decay
and death. Then it occurred to him what being there, are decay
and death, depending on what do they come? As he thought
deeply into the root of the matter, it occurred to him that decay
and death can only occur when there is birth (_jāti_), so they depend
[Footnote 1: There are some differences of opinion as to whether one could
take the doctrine of the twelve links of causes as we find it in the
_Samyutta Nikāya_ as the earliest Buddhist view, as Samyutta does not
represent the oldest part of the suttas. But as this doctrine of the
twelve causes became regarded as a fundamental Buddhist doctrine and
as it gives us a start in philosophy I have not thought it fit to enter
into conjectural discussions as to the earliest form. Dr E.J. Thomas drew
my attention to this fact.]
[Footnote 2: _Atthasātinī_, p. 38. There are also other senses in which
the word is used, as _dhamma-desanā_ where it means religious teaching.
The _Lankāvatāra_ described Dharmma as _gunadravyapūrvakā dharmmā_, i.e.
Dharmmas are those which are associated as attributes and substances.]
on birth. What being there, is there birth, on what does birth
depend? Then it occurred to him that birth could only be if
there were previous existence (_bhava_) [Footnote ref 1]. But on what does
this existence depend, or what being there is there _bhava_. Then it
occurred to him that there could not be existence unless there
were holding fast (_upādāna_) [Footnote ref 2]. But on what did upādāna
depend? It occurred to him that it was desire (_tanhā_) on which upādāna
depended. There can be upādāna if there is desire (_tanhā_) [Footnote ref
3]. But what being there, can there be desire? To this question it
occurred to him that there must be feeling (_vedanā_) in order that
there may be desire. But on what does vedanā depend, or rather
what must be there, that there may be feeling (_vedanā_)? To this
it occurred to him that there must be a sense-contact (_phassa_)
in order that there may be feeling [Footnote ref 4]. If there should be no
sense-contact there would be no feeling. But on what does sense-contact
depend? It occurred to him that as there are six sense-contacts,
there are the six fields of contact (_āyatana_) [Footnote ref 5]. But on
what do the six āyatanas depend? It occurred to him that
there must be the mind and body (_nāmarūpa_) in order that there
may be the six fields of contact [Footnote ref 6]; but on what does
nāmarūpa depend? It occurred to him that without consciousness
(_vińńāna_) there could be no nāmarūpa [Footnote ref 8].
But what being there would there
[Footnote 1: This word bhava is interpreted by Candrakīrtti in his
_Mādhyamīka vrtti,_ p. 565 (La Vallée Poussin's edition) as the deed
which brought about rebirth (_punarbhavajanakam karma samutthāpayali
kāyena vācā manasā ca_).]
[Footnote 2: _Atthasālinī_, p. 385, upādānantidalhagahanam.
Candrakīrtti
in explaining upādāna says that whatever thing a man desires he holds fast
to the materials necessary for attaining it (_yatra vastuni
satrsnastasya vastuno 'rjanāya vidhapanāya upādānamupādatte tatra
tatra prārthayate_). _Mādhyamīka vrtti_, p. 565.]
[Footnote 3: Candrakīrtti describes trsnā as
_āsvadanābhinandanādhyavasānasthānādātmapriyarūpairviyogo mā bhūt,
nityamaparityāgo bhavediti, yeyam prārthanā_--the desire that there
may not ever be any separation from those pleasures, etc., which
are dear to us. _Ibid._ 565.]
[Footnote 4: We read also of phassāyatana and phassakāya. _M. N._ II. 261,
III. 280, etc. Candrakīrtti says that _sadbhirāyatanadvāraih
krtyaprakriyāh pravarttante prajńāyante. tannāmarūpapratyayam
sadāyatanamucyate. sadbhyas`cāyatanebhyah satspars`akāyāh
pravarttante. M.V._ 565.]
[Footnote 5: Āyatana means the six senses together with their objects.
Āyatana literally is "Field of operation." Salāyatana means six
senses
as six fields of operation. Candrakīrtti has _āyatanadvāraih_.]
[Footnote 6: I have followed the translation of Aung in rendering nāmarūpa
as mind and body, _Compendium_, p. 271. This seems to me to be fairly
correct. The four skandhas are called nāma in each birth. These together
with rūpa (matter) give us nāmarūpa (mind and body) which being developed
render the activities through the six sense-gates possible so that there
may be knowledge. Cf. _M. V._ 564. Govindānanda, the commentator on
S'ankara's bhāsya on the _Brahma sūtras_ (II. ii. 19), gives a different
interpretation of Namarūpa which may probably refer to the Vijńanavada
view though we have no means at hand to verify it. He says--To think
the momentary as the permanent is Avidya; from there come the samskaras
of attachment, antipathy or anger, and infatuation; from there the first
vijńana or thought of the foetus is produced, from that alayavijnana,
and the four elements (which are objects of name and are hence called nama)
are produced, and from those are produced the white and black, semen
and blood called rūpa. Both Vacaspati and Amalananda agree with
Govindananda in holding that nama signifies the semen and the ovum
while rūpa means the visible physical body built out of them. Vijńańa
entered the womb and on account of it namarupa were produced through
the association of previous karma. See _Vedantakalpataru_, pp 274,
275. On the doctrine of the entrance of vijńańa into the womb compare
_D N_ II. 63.]
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be vińńāna. Here it occurred to him that in order that there
might be vińńāna there must be the conformations (_sankhāra_) [Footnote
ref 1]. But what being there are there the sankhāras? Here it occurred
to him that the sankhāras can only be if there is ignorance
(_avijjā_). If avijjā could be stopped then the sankhāras will be
stopped, and if the sankhāras could be stopped vińńāna could be
stopped and so on [Footnote ref 2].
It is indeed difficult to be definite as to what the Buddha
actually wished to mean by this cycle of dependence of existence
sometimes called Bhavacakra (wheel of existence). Decay and
death (_jarāmarana_) could not have happened if there was no
birth [Footnote ref 3]. This seems to be clear. But at this point the
difficulty begins. We must remember that the theory of rebirth was
[Footnote 1: It is difficult to say what is the exact sense of the word
here. The Buddha was one of the first few earliest thinkers to introduce
proper philosophical terms and phraseology with a distinct philosophical
method and he had often to use the same word in more or less different
senses. Some of the philosophical terms at least are therefore rather
elastic when compared with the terms of precise and definite meaning
which we find in later Sanskrit thought. Thus in _S N_ III. p. 87,
"_Sankhatam abdisankharonta_," sankhara means that which
synthesises
the complexes. In the _Compendium_ it is translated as will, action.
Mr. Aung thinks that it means the same as karma; it is here used
in a different sense from what we find in the word sankhāta khandha
(viz mental states). We get a list of 51 mental states forming sankhāta
khandha in _Dhamma Sangam_, p 18, and another different set of 40 mental
states in _Dharmasamgraha_, p. 6. In addition to these forty
_cittasamprayuktasamskāra_, it also counts thirteen
_cittaviprayuktasamskara_. Candrakirtti interprets it as meaning
attachment, antipathy and infatuation, p 563. Govindananda, the
commentator on S'ankara's _Brahma sutra_ (II. ii. 19), also interprets
the word in connection with the doctrine of _Pratityasamutpada_ as
attachment, antipathy and infatuation.]
[Footnote 2: _Samyutta Nikaya_, II. 7-8.]
[Footnote 3: Jara and marana bring in s'oka (grief), paridevanā
(lamentation), duhkha (suffering), daurmanasya (feeling of wretchedness
and miserableness) and upayasa (feeling of extreme destitution) at
the prospect of one's death or the death of other dear ones. All
these make up suffering and are the results of jāti (birth). _M. V._
(B.T.S.p. 208). S'ankara in his bhāsya counted all the terms from
jarā, separately. The whole series is to be taken as representing
the entirety of duhkhaskandha.]
enunciated in the Upanisads. The Brhadāranyaka says that just
as an insect going to the end of a leaf of grass by a new effort
collects itself in another so does the soul coming to the end of
this life collect itself in another. This life thus presupposes
another existence. So far as I remember there has seldom been
before or after Buddha any serious attempt to prove or disprove
the doctrine of rebirth [Footnote ref 1]. All schools of philosophy
except the Cārvākas believed in it and so little is known to us of
the Cārvāka sūtras that it is difficult to say what they did to
refute this doctrine. The Buddha also accepts it as a fact and does
not criticize it. This life therefore comes only as one which had an
infinite number of lives before, and which except in the case of
a few emancipated ones would have an infinite number of them
in the future. It was strongly believed by all people, and the
Buddha also, when he came to think to what our present birth
might be due, had to fall back upon another existence (_bhava_).
If bhava means karma which brings rebirth as Candrakīrtti takes
it to mean, then it would mean that the present birth could only
take place on account of the works of a previous existence which
determined it. Here also we are reminded of the Upanisad note
"as a man does so will he be born" (_Yat karma kurute
tadabhisampadyate_,
Brh IV. iv. 5). Candrakīrtti's interpretation of "bhava"
as Karma (_punarbhavajanakam karma_) seems to me to suit
better than "existence." The word was probably used rather
loosely for _kammabhava_. The word bhava is not found in the
earlier Upanisads and was used in the Pāli scriptures for the
first time as a philosophical term. But on what does this
bhava depend? There could not have been a previous existence
if people had not betaken themselves to things or works they
desired. This betaking oneself to actions or things in accordance
with desire is called upādāna. In the Upanisads we read,
"whatever one betakes himself to, so does he work" (_Yatkraturbhavati
tatkarmma kurute_, Brh. IV. iv. 5). As this betaking to
the thing depends upon desire {_trsnā_}, it is said that in order
that there may be upādāna there must be tanhā. In the Upanisads
also we read "Whatever one desires so does he betake
himself to" (_sa yathākāmo bhavati tatkraturbhavati_). Neither
the word upādāna nor trsnā (the Sanskrit word corresponding
[Footnote 1: The attempts to prove the doctrine of rebirth in the Hindu
philosophical works such as the Nyāya, etc., are slight and inadequate.]
to tanhā) is found in the earlier Upanisads, but the ideas contained
in them are similar to the words "_kratu_" and "_kāma_."
Desire
(tanhā) is then said to depend on feeling or sense-contact.
Sense-contact presupposes the six senses as fields of operation [Footnote
ref 1]. These six senses or operating fields would again presuppose the
whole psychosis of the man (the body and the mind together)
called nāmarūpa. We are familiar with this word in the Upanisads
but there it is used in the sense of determinate forms and
names as distinguished from the indeterminate indefinable
reality [Footnote ref 2]. Buddhaghosa in the _Visuddhimagga_ says that by
"Name" are meant the three groups beginning with sensation
(i.e. sensation, perception and the predisposition); by "Form"
the four elements and form derivative from the four elements [Footnote
ref 3]. He further says that name by itself can produce physical
changes, such as eating, drinking, making movements or the like. So
form also cannot produce any of those changes by itself. But like
the cripple and the blind they mutually help one another and
effectuate the changes [Footnote ref 4]. But there exists no heap or
collection of material for the production of Name and Form; "but just
as when a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound;
and when the sound comes into existence it does not come from
any such store; and when it ceases, it does not go to any of the
cardinal or intermediate points of the compass;...in exactly the
same way all the elements of being both those with form and
those without, come into existence after having previously been
non-existent and having come into existence pass away [Footnote ref 5]."
Nāmarūpa taken in this sense will not mean the whole of mind and
body, but only the sense functions and the body which are found
to operate in the six doors of sense (_salāyatana_). If we take
nāmarūpa in this sense, we can see that it may be said to depend
upon the vińńāna (consciousness). Consciousness has been compared
in the _Milinda Pańha_ with a watchman at the middle of
[Footnote 1: The word āyatana is found in many places in the earlier
Upanisads in the sense of "field or place," Chā. I. 5, Brh. III. 9.
10, but sadāyatana does not occur.]
[Footnote 2: Candrakīrtti interprets nāma as _Vedanādayo'
rūpinas'catvārah skandhāstatra tatra bhave nāmayantīli nāma. saha
rūpaskandhena ca nāma rūpam ceti nāmarūpamucyate._ The four skandhas
in each specific birth act as name. These together with rūpa make
nāmarūpa. _M. V._ 564.]
[Footnote 3: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 184.]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 185, _Visuddhimagga_, Ch. XVII.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ pp. 185-186, _Visuddhimagga_, Ch. XVII.]
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the cross-roads beholding all that come from any direction [Footnote ref
1]. Buddhaghosa in the _Atthasālinī_ also says that consciousness means
that which thinks its object. If we are to define its characteristics
we must say that it knows (_vijānana_), goes in advance (_pubbangama_),
connects (_sandhāna_), and stands on nāmarūpa (_nāmarūpapadatthānam_).
When the consciousness gets a door, at a place the objects of sense
are discerned (_ārammana-vibhāvanatthāne_) and it goes first as the
precursor. When a visual object is seen by the eye it is known only
by the consciousness, and when the dhammas are made the objects of
(mind) mano, it is known only by the consciousness [Footnote ref 2].
Buddhaghosa also refers here to the passage in the _Milinda Pańha_
we have just referred to. He further goes on to say that when states
of consciousness rise one after another, they leave no gap between
the previous state and the later and consciousness therefore appears
as connected. When there are the aggregates of the five khandhas it
is lost; but there are the four aggregates as nāmarūpa, it stands on
nāma and therefore it is said that it stands on nāmarūpa. He further
asks, Is this consciousness the same as the previous consciousness or
different from it? He answers that it is the same. Just so, the sun shows
itself with all its colours, etc., but he is not different from those
in truth; and it is said that just when the sun rises, its collected
heat and yellow colour also rise then, but it does not mean that
the sun is different from these. So the citta or consciousness
takes the phenomena of contact, etc., and cognizes them. So
though it is the same as they are yet in a sense it is different
from them [Footnote ref 3].
To go back to the chain of twelve causes, we find that jāti (birth)
is the cause of decay and death, _jarāmarana_, etc. Jāti is the
appearance of the body or the totality of the five skandhas [Footnote
ref 4]. Coming to bhava which determines jāti, I cannot think of any
better rational explanation of bhava, than that I have already
[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 182, _Milinda Pańha_
(628).]
[Footnote 2: _Atthasālinī_, p. 112...]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._ p. 113, _Yathā hi rūpādīni upādāya pańńattā
suriyādayo na atthato rūpādīhi ańńe honti ten' eva yasmin samaye
suriyo udeti tasmin samaye tassa tejā-sankhātam rūpam pīti evam
vuccamāne pi na rūpādihi ańńo suriyo nāma atthi. Tathā cittam
phassādayo dhamme upādāya pańńapiyati. Atthato pan' ettha tehi
ańńam eva. Tena yasmin samaye cittam uppannam hoti ekamsen eva
tasmin samaye phassādihi atthato ańńad eva hotī ti_.]
[Footnote 4: "_Jātirdehajanma pańcaskandhasamudāyah,_"
Govindānanda's
_Ratnaprabhā_ on S'ankara's bhāsya, II. ii. 19.]
suggested, namely, the works (_karma_) which produce the birth [Footnote
ref 1]. Upādāna is an advanced trsnā leading to positive clinging
[Footnote ref 2]. It is produced by trsnā (desire) which again is
the result of vedanā (pleasure and pain). But this vedanā is of course
vedanā with ignorance (_avidyā_), for an Arhat may have also vedanā
but as he has no avidyā, the vedanā cannot produce trsnā in turn. On
its development it immediately passes into upādāna. Vedanā means
pleasurable, painful or indifferent feeling. On the one side it leads
to trsnā (desire) and on the other it is produced by sense-contact
(_spars'a_). Prof. De la Vallée Poussin says that S'rīlābha distinguishes
three processes in the production of vedanā. Thus first there is the
contact between the sense and the object; then there is the knowledge
of the object, and then there is the vedanā. Depending on _Majjhima
Nikāya_, iii. 242, Poussin gives the other opinion that just as in
the case of two sticks heat takes place simultaneously with rubbing,
so here also vedanā takes place simultaneously with spars'a for they
are "produits par un mźme complexe de causes (_sāmagrī_) [Footnote
ref 3]."
Spars'a is produced by sadāyatana, sadāyatana by nāmarūpa,
and nāmarūpa by vijńāna, and is said to descend in the womb
of the mother and produce the five skandhas as nāmarūpa, out
of which the six senses are specialized.
Vijńāna in this connection probably means the principle or
germ of consciousness in the womb of the mother upholding the
five elements of the new body there. It is the product of the
past karmas (_sankhāra_) of the dying man and of his past
consciousness too.
We sometimes find that the Buddhists believed that the last
thoughts of the dying man determined the nature of his next
[Footnote 1: Govindananda in his _Ratnaprabhā_ on S'ankara's bhāsya, II.
ii. 19, explains "bhava" as that from which anything becomes, as merit
and demerit (_dharmādi_). See also _Vibhanga_, p. 137 and Warren's
_Buddhism in Translations_, p. 201. Mr Aung says in
_Abhidhammatthasangaha_, p. 189, that bhavo includes kammabhavo (the
active side of an existence) and upapattibhavo (the passive side).
And the commentators say that bhava is a contraction of "_kammabhava_"
or Karma-becoming i.e. karmic activity.]
[Footnote 2: Prof. De la Vallée Poussin in his _Théoric des Douze Causes_,
p. 26, says that _S'ālistambhasūtra_ explains the word "upādāna"
as
"trsnāvaipulya" or hyper-trsnā and Candrakīrtti also gives
the
same meaning, _M. V._ (B.T.S.p. 210). Govmdānanda explains
"upādāna"
as pravrtti (movement) generated by trsnā (desire), i.e. the active
tendency in pursuance of desire. But if upādāna means "support" it
would
denote all the five skandhas. Thus _Madhyamaka vrtti_ says _upādānam
pańcaskandhalaksanam...pańcopādānaskandhākhyam upādānam. M.V._ XXVII.
6.]
[Footnote 3: Poussin's _Théorie des Douze Causes_, p. 23.
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birth [Footnote ref 1]. The manner in which the vijńāna produced in the
womb is determined by the past vijńāna of the previous existence is
according to some authorities of the nature of a reflected image,
like the transmission of learning from the teacher to the disciple,
like the lighting of a lamp from another lamp or like the impress
of a stamp on wax. As all the skandhas are changing in life,
so death also is but a similar change; there is no great break,
but the same uniform sort of destruction and coming into being.
New skandhas are produced as simultaneously as the two scale
pans of a balance rise up and fall, in the same manner as a lamp
is lighted or an image is reflected. At the death of the man the
vijńāna resulting from his previous karmas and vijńānas enters
into the womb of that mother (animal, man or the gods) in which
the next skandhas are to be matured. This vijńāna thus forms
the principle of the new life. It is in this vijńāna that name
(_nāma_) and form (_rūpa_) become associated.
The vijńāna is indeed a direct product of the samskāras and
the sort of birth in which vijńāna should bring down (_nāmayati_)
the new existence (_upapatti_) is determined by the samskāras [Footnote
ref 2], for in reality the happening of death (_maranabhava_) and the
instillation of the vijńāna as the beginning of the new life
(_upapattibhava_) cannot be simultaneous, but the latter succeeds just
at the next moment, and it is to signify this close succession that
they are said to be simultaneous. If the vijńāna had not entered
the womb then no nāmarūpa could have appeared [Footnote ref 3].
This chain of twelve causes extends over three lives. Thus
avidyā and samskāra of the past life produce the vijńāna, nāmarupa,
[Footnote 1: The deities of the gardens, the woods, the trees and the
plants, finding the master of the house, Citta, ill said "make your
resolution, 'May I be a cakravarttī king in a next existence,'"
_Samyutta_, IV. 303.]
[Footnote 2: "_sa cedānandavijńānam mātuhkuksim nāvakrāmeta, na
tat
kalalam kalalatvāya sannivartteta_," _M. V._ 552. Compare _Caraka,
S'ārīra_, III. 5-8, where he speaks of a "upapīduka sattva" which
connects the soul with body and by the absence of which the character
is changed, the senses become affected and life ceases, when it is
in a pure condition one can remember even the previous births;
character, purity, antipathy, memory, fear, energy, all mental
qualities are produced out of it. Just as a chariot is made by the
combination of many elements, so is the foetus.]
[Footnote 3: _Madhyamaka vriti_ (B.T.S. 202-203). Poussin quotes from
_Dīgha_, II. 63, "si le vijńāna ne descendait pas dans le sein maternel
la namarupa s'y constituerait-il?" Govindānanda on S'ankara's commentary
on the _Brahma-sūtras_ (II. ii. 19) says that the first consciousness
(vijńāna) of the foetus is produced by the samskāras of the previous
birth, and from that the four elements (which he calls nāma) and from that
the white and red, semen and ovum, and the first stage of the foetus
(_kalala-budbudāvasthā_} is produced.]
sadāyatana, spars'a, vedanā, trsnā, upādāna and the bhava
(leading to another life) of the present actual life. This bhava
produces the jāti and jarāmarana of the next life [Footnote ref l].
It is interesting to note that these twelve links in the chain
extending in three sections over three lives are all but the
manifestations of sorrow to the bringing in of which they naturally
determine one another. Thus _Abhidhammatthasangaha_
says "each of these twelve terms is a factor. For the composite
term 'sorrow,' etc. is only meant to show incidental consequences
of birth. Again when 'ignorance' and 'the actions of the
mind' have been taken into account, craving (_trsnā_), grasping
(_upādāna_) and (_karma_) becoming (_bhava_) are implicitly accounted
for also. In the same manner when craving, grasping
and (_karma_) becoming have been taken into account, ignorance
and the actions of the mind are (implicitly) accounted for, also;
and when birth, decay, and death are taken into account, even
the fivefold fruit, to wit (rebirth), consciousness, and the rest are
accounted for. And thus:
Five causes in the Past and Now a fivefold 'fruit.'
Five causes Now and yet to come a fivefold 'fruit' make up
the Twenty Modes, the Three Connections (1. sankhāra and
vińńāna, 2. vedanā and tanhā, 3. bhava and jāti) and the four
groups (one causal group in the Past, one resultant group in the
Present, one causal group in the Present and one resultant
group in the Future, each group consisting of five modes) [Footnote ref
2]."
These twelve interdependent links (_dvādas'ānga_) represent
the paticcasamuppāda (_pratātyasamutpāda_) doctrines (dependent
origination) [Footnote ref 3] which are themselves but sorrow and lead to
cycles of sorrow. The term paticcasamuppāda or pratītyasamutpāda has
been differently interpreted in later Buddhist literature [Footnote ref
4].
[Footnote 1: This explanation probably cannot be found in the early Pāli
texts; but Buddhaghosa mentions it in _Sumangalavilāsinī_ on _Mahānidāna
suttanta_. We find it also in _Abhidhammatthasangaha_, VIII. 3. Ignorance
and the actions of the mind belong to the past; "birth," "decay
and death"
to the future; the intermediate eight to the present. It is styled as
trikāndaka (having three branches) in _Abhidkarmakos'a_, III. 20-24.
Two in the past branch, two in the future and eight in the middle "_sa
pratītyasamutpādo dvādas'āngastrikāndakah pūrvāparāntayordve dve
madhyestau_."]
[Footnote 2: Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids' translation of
_Abhidhammatthasangaha_, pp. 189-190.]
[Footnote 3: The twelve links are not always constant. Thus in the list
given in the _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. 23 f., avijjā and sankhāra
have been omitted and the start has been made with consciousness, and it
has been said that "Cognition turns back from name and form; it goes
not beyond."]
[Footnote 4: _M. V._ p. 5 f.]
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Samutpāda means appearance or arising (_prādurbhdāva_) and pratītya
means after getting (_prati+i+ya_); combining the two we
find, arising after getting (something). The elements, depending
on which there is some kind of arising, are called hetu (cause) and
paccaya (ground). These two words however are often used in
the same sense and are interchangeable. But paccaya is also
used in a specific sense. Thus when it is said that avijjā is the
paccaya of sankhāra it is meant that avijjā is the ground (_thiti_)
of the origin of the sankhāras, is the ground of their movement,
of the instrument through which they stand (_nimittatthiti_), of
their ayuhana (conglomeration), of their interconnection, of their
intelligibility, of their conjoint arising, of their function as cause
and of their function as the ground with reference to those which
are determined by them. Avijjā in all these nine ways is
the ground of sankhāra both in the past and also in the future,
though avijjā itself is determined in its turn by other grounds [Footnote
ref 1]. When we take the betu aspect of the causal chain, we cannot
think of anything else but succession, but when we take the
paccaya aspect we can have a better vision into the nature of the
cause as ground. Thus when avijjā is said to be the ground
of the sankhāras in the nine ways mentioned above, it seems
reasonable to think that the sankhāras were in some sense
regarded as special manifestations of avijjā [Footnote ref 2]. But as this
point was not further developed in the early Buddhist texts it would
be unwise to proceed further with it.
The Khandhas.
The word khandha (Skr. skandha) means the trunk of a tree
and is generally used to mean group or aggregate [Footnote ref 3]. We
have seen that Buddha said that there was no ātman (soul). He said
that when people held that they found the much spoken of soul,
they really only found the five khandhas together or any one of
them. The khandhas are aggregates of bodily and psychical
states which are immediate with us and are divided into five
[Footnote 1: See _Patisambhidāmagga_, vol. I.p. 50; see also _Majjhima
Nikāya_, I. 67, _sankhāra...avijjānidānā avijjāsamudayā avijjājātikā
avijjāpabhavā_.]
[Footnote 2: In the Yoga derivation of asmitā (egoism), rāga (attachment),
dvesa (antipathy) and abhinives'a (self love) from avidyā we find also
that all the five are regarded as the five special stages of the growth
of avidyā (_pańcaparvī avidyā_).]
[Footnote 3: The word skandha is used in Chāndogya, II. 23 (_trayo
dharmaskandhāh yajńah adhyayanam dānam_) in the sense of branches
and in almost the same sense in Maitrī, VII. II.]
classes: (1) rūpa (four elements, the body, the senses), sense
data, etc., (2) vedanā (feeling--pleasurable, painful and indifferent),
(3) sańńā (conceptual knowledge), (4) sankhāra (synthetic
mental states and the synthetic functioning of compound
sense-affections, compound feelings and compound concepts),
(5) vińńāna (consciousness) [Footnote ref 1].
All these states rise depending one upon the other (_paticcasamuppanna_)
and when a man says that he perceives the self he only deludes himself,
for he only perceives one or more of these. The word rūpa in rūpakhandha
stands for matter and material qualities, the senses, and the sense
data [Footnote ref 2]. But "rūpa" is also used in the sense of pure
organic affections or states of mind as we find in the _Khandha Yamaka_,
I.p. 16, and also in _Samyutta Nikāya_, III. 86. Rūpaskandha according
to _Dharmasamgraha_ means the aggregate of five senses, the five
sensations, and the implicatory communications associated in sense
perceptions _vijńapti_).
The elaborate discussion of _Dhammasangani_ begins by defining
rūpa as "_cattāro ca mahābhūtā catunnańca mahābhntanam
upādāya rūpam_" (the four mahābhūtas or elements and that
proceeding from the grasping of that is called rūpa) [Footnote ref 3].
Buddhaghosa explains it by saying that rūpa means the four mahābhūtas
and those which arise depending (_nissāya_) on them as
a modification of them. In the rūpa the six senses including
their affections are also included. In explaining why the four
elements are called mahābhūtas, Buddhaghosa says: "Just as a
magician (_māyākāra_) makes the water which is not hard appear
as hard, makes the stone which is not gold appear as gold;
just as he himself though not a ghost nor a bird makes himself
appear as a ghost or a bird, so these elements though not themselves
blue make themselves appear as blue (_nīlam upādā rūpam_),
not yellow, red, or white make themselves appear as yellow, red
or white (odātam upādārūpam), so on account of their similarity
to the appearances created by the magician they are called
mahābhūta [Footnote ref 4]."
In the _Samyutta Nikāya_ we find that the Buddha says, "O
Bhikkhus it is called rūpam because it manifests (_rūpyati_); how
[Footnote 1: _Samyutta Nikāya_, III. 86, etc.]
[Footnote 2: _Abhidhammatthasangaha_, J.P.T.S. 1884, p. 27 ff.]
[Footnote 3: _Dhammasangani_, pp. 124-179.]
[Footnote 4: _Atthasālinī_, p. 299.]
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does it manifest? It manifests as cold, and as heat, as hunger and
as thirst, it manifests as the touch of gnats, mosquitos, wind, the
sun and the snake; it manifests, therefore it is called rūpa
[Footnote ref 1]."
If we take the somewhat conflicting passages referred to above
for our consideration and try to combine them so as to understand
what is meant by rūpa, I think we find that that which manifested
itself to the senses and organs was called rūpa. No distinction
seems to have been made between the sense-data as colours, smells,
etc., as existing in the physical world and their appearance as
sensations. They were only numerically different and the appearance
of the sensations was dependent upon the sense-data and the senses
but the sense-data and the sensations were "rūpa." Under certain
conditions the sense-data were followed by the sensations. Buddhism
did not probably start with the same kind of division of matter and
mind as we now do. And it may not be out of place to mention that
such an opposition and duality were found neither in the Upanisads
nor in the Sāmkhya system which is regarded by some as pre-Buddhistic.
The four elements manifested themselves in certain forms and
were therefore called rūpa; the forms of affection that appeared
were also called rūpa; many other mental states or features
which appeared with them were also called rūpa [Footnote ref 2]. The
āyatanas or the senses were also called rūpa [Footnote ref 3]. The
mahābhūtas or four elements were themselves but changing manifestations,
and they together with all that appeared in association with them were
called rūpa and formed the rūpa khandha (the classes of sense-materials,
sense-data, senses and sensations).
In _Samyutta Nikāya_ (III. 101) it is said that "the four
mahābhūtas were the hetu and the paccaya for the communication
of the rūpakkhandha (_rūpakkhandhassa pańńāpanāya_). Contact
(sense-contact, phassa) is the cause of the communication of
feelings (_vedanā_); sense-contact was also the hetu and paccaya
for the communication of the sańńākkhandha; sense-contact is
also the hetu and paccaya for the communication of the
sankhārakkhandha. But nāmarūpa is the hetu and the paccaya for
the communication of the vińńānakkhandha." Thus not only feelings
arise on account of the sense-contact but sańńā and sankhāra
also arise therefrom. Sańńā is that where specific knowing or
[Footnote 1: _Samyutta Nikāya_, III. 86.]
[Footnote 2: _Khandhayamaka_.]
[Footnote 3: _Dhammasangani_, p. 124 ff.]
conceiving takes place. This is the stage where the specific distinctive
knowledge as the yellow or the red takes place.
Mrs. Rhys Davids writing on sańńā says: "In editing the
second book of the Abhidhamma pitaka I found a classification
distinguishing between sańńā as cognitive assimilation on occasion
of sense, and sańńā as cognitive assimilation of ideas by way of
naming. The former is called perception of resistance, or opposition
(_patigha-sańńā_). This, writes Buddhaghosa, is perception on
occasion of sight, hearing, etc., when consciousness is aware of the
impact of impressions; of external things as different, we might
say. The latter is called perception of the equivalent word or
name (_adhivachānā-sańńā_) and is exercised by the _sensus communis_
(mano), when e.g. 'one is seated...and asks another who
is thoughtful: "What are you thinking of?" one perceives through
his speech.' Thus there are two stages of sańńā-consciousness,
1. contemplating sense-impressions, 2. ability to know what they
are by naming [Footnote ref 1]."
About sankhāra we read in _Samyutta Nikāya_ (III. 87) that it
is called sankhāra because it synthesises (_abhisankharonti_), it is
that which conglomerated rūpa as rūpa, conglomerated sańńā
as sańńā, sankhāra as sankhāra and consciousness (_vińńāna_)
as consciousness. It is called sankhāra because it synthesises
the conglomerated (_sankhatam abhisankharonti_). It is thus a
synthetic function which synthesises the passive rūpa, sańńā,
sankhāra and vińńāna elements. The fact that we hear of 52
sankhāra states and also that the sankhāra exercises its synthetic
activity on the conglomerated elements in it, goes to show
that probably the word sankhāra is used in two senses, as mental
states and as synthetic activity.
Vińńāna or consciousness meant according to Buddhaghosa,
as we have already seen in the previous section, both the stage
at which the intellectual process started and also the final
resulting consciousness.
Buddhaghosa in explaining the process of Buddhist psychology
says that "consciousness(_citta_)first comes into touch (_phassa_) with
its object (_ārammana_) and thereafter feeling, conception (_sańńā_)
and volition (_cetanā_) come in. This contact is like the pillars of
a palace, and the rest are but the superstructure built upon it
(_dabbasambhārasadisā_). But it should not be thought that contact
[Footnote 1: _Buddhist Psychology_, pp. 49, 50.]
is the beginning of the psychological processes, for in one whole
consciousness (_ekacittasmim_) it cannot be said that this comes
first and that comes after, so we can take contact in association
with feeling (_vedanā_), conceiving (_sańńā_) or volition (_cetanā_);
it is itself an immaterial state but yet since it comprehends
objects it is called contact." "There is no impinging on one side
of the object (as in physical contact), nevertheless contact causes
consciousness and object to be in collision, as visible object and
visual organs, sound and hearing; thus impact is its _function_; or
it has impact as its _essential property_ in the sense of attainment,
owing to the impact of the physical basis with the mental object.
For it is said in the Commentary:--"contact in the four planes of
existence is never without the characteristic of touch with the
object; but the function of impact takes place in the five doors.
For to sense, or five-door contact, is given the name 'having the
characteristic of touch' as well as 'having the function of impact.'
But to contact in the mind-door there is only the characteristic
of touch, but not the function of impact. And then this Sutta is
quoted 'As if, sire, two rams were to fight, one ram to represent
the eye, the second the visible object, and their collision contact.
And as if, sire, two cymbals were to strike against each other, or
two hands were to clap against each other; one hand would
represent the eye, the second the visible object and their collision
contact. Thus contact has the characteristic of touch and the
function of impact [Footnote ref 1]'. Contact is the manifestation of the
union of the three (the object, the consciousness and the sense) and its
effect is feeling (_vedanā_); though it is generated by the objects
it is felt in the consciousness and its chief feature is experiencing
(_anubhava_) the taste of the object. As regards enjoying the taste
of an object, the remaining associated states enjoy it only
partially. Of contact there is (the function of) the mere touching,
of perception the mere noting or perceiving, of volition the mere
coordinating, of consciousness the mere cognizing. But feeling
alone, through governance, proficiency, mastery, enjoys the taste
of an object. For feeling is like the king, the remaining states
are like the cook. As the cook, when he has prepared food of
diverse tastes, puts it in a basket, seals it, takes it to the king,
breaks the seal, opens the basket, takes the best of all the soup
and curries, puts them in a dish, swallows (a portion) to find out
[Footnote 1: _Atthasālinī_, p. 108; translation, pp. 143-144.]
whether they are faulty or not and afterwards offers the food of
various excellent tastes to the king, and the king, being lord,
expert, and master, eats whatever he likes, even so the mere tasting
of the food by the cook is like the partial enjoyment of the object
by the remaining states, and as the cook tastes a portion of the
food, so the remaining states enjoy a portion of the object, and
as the king, being lord, expert and master, eats the meal according
to his pleasure so feeling being lord expert, and master, enjoys
the taste of the object and therefore it is said that enjoyment or
experience is its function [Footnote ref 1]."
The special feature of sańńā is said to be the recognizing
(_paccabhińńā_) by means of a sign (_abhińńānena_). According to
another explanation, a recognition takes place by the inclusion
of the totality (of aspects)--_sabbasangahikavasena_. The work of
volition (_cetanā_) is said to be coordination or binding together
(_abhisandahana_). "Volition is exceedingly energetic and makes
a double effort, a double exertion. Hence the Ancients said
'Volition is like the nature of a landowner, a cultivator who taking
fifty-five strong men, went down to the fields to reap. He was
exceedingly energetic and exceedingly strenuous; he doubled his
strength and said "Take your sickles" and so forth, pointed out
the portion to be reaped, offered them drink, food, scent, flowers,
etc., and took an equal share of the work.' The simile should be
thus applied: volition is like the cultivator, the fifty-five moral
states which arise as factors of consciousness are like the fifty-five
strong men; like the time of doubling strength, doubling effort
by the cultivator is the doubled strength, doubled effort of
volition as regards activity in moral and immoral acts [Footnote ref 2]."
It seems that probably the active side operating in sankhāra was
separately designated as cetanā (volition).
"When one says 'I,' what he does is that he refers either to
all the khandhas combined or any one of them and deludes himself
that that was 'I.' Just as one could not say that the
fragrance of the lotus belonged to the petals, the colour or the
pollen, so one could not say that the rūpa was 'I' or that the
vedanā was 'I' or any of the other khandhas was 'I.' There is
nowhere to be found in the khandhas 'I am [Footnote ref 3]'."
[Footnote 1: _Atthasālinī_, pp. 109-110; translation, pp. 145-146.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 111; translation, pp. 147-148.]
[Footnote 3: _Samyutta Nikāya_, III. 130.]
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Avijjā and Āsava.
As to the question how the avijjā (ignorance) first started
there can be no answer, for we could never say that either
ignorance or desire for existence ever has any beginning [Footnote ref 1].
Its fruition is seen in the cycle of existence and the sorrow that comes
in its train, and it comes and goes with them all. Thus as we
can never say that it has any beginning, it determines the elements
which bring about cycles of existence and is itself determined by
certain others. This mutual determination can only take place
in and through the changing series of dependent phenomena, for
there is nothing which can be said to have any absolute priority
in time or stability. It is said that it is through the coming into
being of the āsavas or depravities that the avijjā came into
being, and that through the destruction of the depravities (_āsava_)
the avijjā was destroyed [Footnote ref 2]. These āsavas are classified in
the _Dhammasangani_ as kāmāsava, bhavāsava, ditthāsava and avijjāsava.
Kāmāsava means desire, attachment, pleasure, and thirst
after the qualities associated with the senses; bhavāsava means
desire, attachment and will for existence or birth; ditthāsava
means the holding of heretical views, such as, the world is eternal
or non-eternal, or that the world will come to an end or will not
come to an end, or that the body and the soul are one or are
different; avijjāsava means the ignorance of sorrow, its cause, its
extinction and its means of extinction. _Dhammasangani_ adds
four more supplementary ones, viz. ignorance about the nature of
anterior mental khandhas, posterior mental khandhas, anterior
and posterior together, and their mutual dependence [Footnote ref 3].
Kāmāsava and bhavāsava can as Buddhaghosa says be counted as one, for
they are both but depravities due to attachment [Footnote ref 4].
[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_ (_Visuddhimagga_, chap.
XVII.), p. 175.]
[Footnote 2: _M. N._ I.p. 54. Childers translates "āsava" as
"depravities"
and Mrs Rhys Davids as "intoxicants." The word "āsava" in
Skr. means
"old wine." It is derived from "su" to produce by
Buddhaghosa and the
meaning that he gives to it is "_cira pārivāsikatthena_" (on
account
of its being stored up for a long time like wine). They work through the
eye and the mind and continue to produce all beings up to Indra.
As those wines which are kept long are called "āsavas" so these are
also
called āsavas for remaining a long time. The other alternative that
Buddhaghosa gives is that they are called āsava on account of their
producing samsāradukkha (sorrows of the world), _Atthasālinī_, p. 48.
Contrast it with Jaina āsrava (flowing in of karma matter). Finding it
difficult to translate it in one word after Buddhaghosa, I have
translated it as "depravities," after Childers.]
[Footnote 3: See _Dhammasangani_, p. 195.]
[Footnote 4: Buddhaghosa's _Atthasālinī_, p. 371.]
The ditthāsavas by clouding the mind with false metaphysical
views stand in the way of one's adopting the true Buddhistic doctrines.
The kāmasāvas stand in the way of one's entering into
the way of Nirvāna (_anāgāmimagga_) and the bhavāsavas and
avijjāsavas stand in the way of one's attaining arha or final
emancipation. When the _Majjhima Nikāya_ says that from the
rise of the āsavas avijjā rises, it evidently counts avijjā there as
in some sense separate from the other āsavas, such as those of
attachment and desire of existence which veil the true knowledge
about sorrow.
The afflictions (_kilesas_) do not differ much from the āsavas
for they are but the specific passions in forms ordinarily familiar
to us, such as covetousness (_lobha_), anger or hatred (_dosa_),
infatuation (_moha_), arrogance, pride or vanity (_māna_), heresy
(_ditthi_), doubt or uncertainty (_vicikicchā_), idleness (_thīna_),
boastfulness (_udhacca_), shamelessness (_ahirika_) and hardness of heart
_anottapa_); these kilesas proceed directly as a result of the āsavas.
In spite of these varieties they are often counted as three (lobha,
dosa, moha) and these together are called kilesa. They are
associated with the vedanākkhandha, sańńākkhandha, sankhārakkhandha
and vińńānakkhandha. From these arise the three kinds
of actions, of speech, of body, and of mind [Footnote ref 1].
Sīla and Samādhi.
We are intertwined all through outside and inside by the
tangles of desire (_tanhā jatā_), and the only way by which these
may be loosened is by the practice of right discipline (_sīla_),
concentration (_samādhi_) and wisdom (_pańńā_). Sīla briefly means
the desisting from committing all sinful deeds (_sabbapāpassa
akaranam_). With sīla therefore the first start has to be made,
for by it one ceases to do all actions prompted by bad desires
and thereby removes the inrush of dangers and disturbances.
This serves to remove the kilesas, and therefore the proper performance
of the sīla would lead one to the first two successive
stages of sainthood, viz. the sotāpannabhāva (the stage in which
one is put in the right current) and the sakadāgāmibhāva (the
stage when one has only one more birth to undergo). Samādhi
is a more advanced effort, for by it all the old roots of the old
kilesas are destroyed and the tanhā or desire is removed and
[Footnote 1: _Dhammasangani,_ p. 180.]
by it one is led to the more advanced states of a saint. It
directly brings in pańńā (true wisdom) and by pańńā the saint
achieves final emancipation and becomes what is called an
arhat [Footnote ref 1]. Wisdom (_pańńā_) is right knowledge about the
four āriya saccas, viz. sorrow, its cause, its destruction and its cause
of destruction.
Sīla means those particular volitions and mental states, etc.
by which a man who desists from committing sinful actions
maintains himself on the right path. Sīla thus means 1. right
volition (_cetanā_), 2. the associated mental states (_cetasika_),
3. mental control (_samvara_) and 4. the actual non-transgression
(in body and speech) of the course of conduct already in the mind
by the preceding three sīlas called avītikkama. Samvara is
spoken of as being of five kinds, 1. Pātimokkhasamvara (the
control which saves him who abides by it), 2. Satisamvara (the
control of mindfulness), 3. Ńānasamvara (the control of knowledge),
4. Khantisamvara (the control of patience), 5. Viriyasamvara
(the control of active self-restraint). Pātimokkhasamvara
means all self-control in general. Satisamvara means
the mindfulness by which one can bring in the right and good
associations when using one's cognitive senses. Even when
looking at any tempting object he will by virtue of his mindfulness
(_sati_) control himself from being tempted by avoiding to
think of its tempting side and by thinking on such aspects of it
as may lead in the right direction. Khantisamvara is that by
which one can remain unperturbed in heat and cold. By the
proper adherence to sīla all our bodily, mental and vocal activities
(_kamma_) are duly systematized, organized, stabilized (_samādhānam,
upadhāranam, patitthā_) [Footnote ref 2].
The sage who adopts the full course should also follow a
number of healthy monastic rules with reference to dress, sitting,
dining, etc., which are called the dhūtangas or pure disciplinary
parts [Footnote ref 3]. The practice of sīla and the dhūtangas help the
sage to adopt the course of samādhi. Samādhi as we have seen means
the concentration of the mind bent on right endeavours (_kusalacittekaggatā
samādhih_) together with its states upon one particular
object (_ekārammana_) so that they may completely cease to
shift and change (_sammā ca avikkhipamānā_) [Footnote ref 4].
[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga Nidānādikathā_.]
[Footnote 2: _Visuddhimagga-sīlaniddeso_, pp. 7 and 8.]
[Footnote 3: _Visuddhimagga_, II.]
[Footnote 4: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 84-85.]
The man who has practised sīla must train his mind first
in particular ways, so that it may be possible for him to acquire
the chief concentration of meditation called jhāna (fixed and
steady meditation). These preliminary endeavours of the mind
for the acquirement of jhānasamādhi eventually lead to it
and are called upacāra samādhi (preliminary samādhi) as distinguished
from the jhānasamādhi called the appanāsamādhi (achieved samādhi)
[Footnote ref 1]. Thus as a preparatory measure, firstly he
has to train his mind continually to view with disgust the appetitive
desires for eating and drinking (_āhāre patikkūlasańńā_) by
emphasizing in the mind the various troubles that are associated
in seeking food and drink and their ultimate loathsome transformations
as various nauseating bodily elements. When a man
continually habituates himself to emphasize the disgusting
associations of food and drink, he ceases to have any attachment
to them and simply takes them as an unavoidable evil,
only awaiting the day when the final dissolution of all sorrows
will come [Footnote ref 2]. Secondly he has to habituate his mind to the
idea that all the parts of our body are made up of the four elements,
ksiti (earth), ap (water), tejas (fire) and wind (air), like the carcase
of a cow at the butcher's shop. This is technically called
catudhātuvavatthānabhāvanā (the meditation of the body as being
made up of the four elements) [Footnote ref 3]. Thirdly he has to
habituate his mind to think again and again (_anussati_) about the
virtues or greatness of the Buddha, the sangha (the monks following
the Buddha), the gods and the law (_dhamma_) of the Buddha, about
the good effects of sīla, and the making of gifts (_cāgānussati_),
about the nature of death (_maranānussati_) and about
the deep nature and qualities of the final extinction
of all phenomena (_upasamānussati_) [Footnote ref 4].
[Footnote 1: As it is not possible for me to enter into details, I follow
what appears to me to be the main line of division showing the
interconnection of jhāna (Skr. _dhyāna_) with its accessory stages
called parikammas (_Visuddhimagga,_ pp. 85 f.).]
[Footnote 2: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 341-347; mark the intense pessimistic
attitude, "_Imań ca pana āhāre patikulasańńām anuyuttassa
bhikkhuno
rasatanhāya cittam patilīyati, patikuttati, pativattati; so,
kantāranittharanatthiko viya puttamamsam vigatamado āhāram āhāreti
yāvad eva dukkhassa nittharanatthāya_," p. 347. The mind of him who
inspires himself with this supreme disgust to all food, becomes free from
all desires for palatable tastes, and turns its back to them and flies off
from them. As a means of getting rid of all sorrow he takes his food
without any attachment as one would eat the flesh of his own son to
sustain himself in crossing a forest.]
[Footnote 3: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 347-370.]
[Footnote 4: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 197-294.]
Advancing further from the preliminary meditations or preparations
called the upacāra samādhi we come to those other
sources of concentration and meditation called the appanāsamādhi
which directly lead to the achievement of the highest samādhi.
The processes of purification and strengthening of the mind
continue in this stage also, but these represent the last attempts
which lead the mind to its final goal Nibbāna. In the first part
of this stage the sage has to go to the cremation grounds and
notice the diverse horrifying changes of the human carcases and
think how nauseating, loathsome, unsightly and impure they are,
and from this he will turn his mind to the living human bodies
and convince himself that they being in essence the same as the
dead carcases are as loathsome as they [Footnote ref.1] This is called
asubhakammatthāna or the endeavour to perceive the impurity of our
bodies. He should think of the anatomical parts and constituents of the
body as well as their processes, and this will help him to enter
into the first jhāna by leading his mind away from his body.
This is called the kayagatasati or the continual mindfulness
about the nature of the body [Footnote ref 2]. As an aid to concentration
the sage should sit in a quiet place and fix his mind on the inhaling
(_passāsa_) and the exhaling (_āssāsa_) of his breath, so that instead
of breathing in a more or less unconscious manner he may be
aware whether he is breathing quickly or slowly; he ought to
mark it definitely by counting numbers, so that by fixing his
mind on the numbers counted he may fix his mind on the whole
process of inhalation and exhalation in all stages of its course.
This is called the anapānasati or the mindfulness of inhalation
and exhalation [Footnote ref 3]
Next to this we come to Brahmavihāra, the fourfold meditation
of metta (universal friendship), karunā (universal pity),
muditā (happiness in the prosperity and happiness of all) and
upekkhā (indifference to any kind of preferment of oneself, his
friend, enemy or a third party). In order to habituate oneself to
the meditation on universal friendship, one should start with thinking
how he should himself like to root out all misery and become
happy, how he should himself like to avoid death and live cheerfully,
and then pass over to the idea that other beings would also
have the same desires. He should thus habituate himself to think
that his friends, his enemies, and all those with whom he is not
[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga,_ VI.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ pp. 239-266.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._ pp. 266-292.]
connected might all live and become happy. He should fix himself
to such an extent in this meditation that he would not find any
difference between the happiness or safety of himself and of others.
He should never become angry with any person. Should he at any
time feel himself offended on account of the injuries inflicted on
him by his enemies, he should think of the futility of doubling
his sadness by becoming sorry or vexed on that account. He
should think that if he should allow himself to be affected by
anger, he would spoil all his sīla which he was so carefully practising.
If anyone has done a vile action by inflicting injury,
should he himself also do the same by being angry at it? If he
were finding fault with others for being angry, could he himself
indulge in anger? Moreover he should think that all the dhammas
are momentary (_khanikattā_); that there no longer existed the
khandhas which had inflicted the injury, and moreover the infliction
of any injury being only a joint product, the man who was
injured was himself an indispensable element in the production
of the infliction as much as the man who inflicted the injury, and
there could not thus be any special reason for making him responsible
and of being angry with him. If even after thinking
in this way the anger does not subside, he should think that by
indulging in anger he could only bring mischief on himself through
his bad deeds, and he should further think that the other man
by being angry was only producing mischief to himself but not
to him. By thinking in these ways the sage would be able to
free his mind from anger against his enemies and establish himself
in an attitude of universal friendship [Footnote ref 1]. This is called
the mettā-bhāvana. In the meditation of universal pity (_karunā_)
also one should sympathize with the sorrows of his friends and
foes alike. The sage being more keen-sighted will feel pity for
those who are apparently leading a happy life, but are neither
acquiring merits nor endeavouring to proceed on the way to
Nibbāna, for they are to suffer innumerable lives of sorrow [Footnote
ref 2].
We next come to the jhānas with the help of material things
as objects of concentration called the Kasinam. These objects of
concentration may either be earth, water, fire, wind, blue colour,
yellow colour, red colour, white colour, light or limited space
(_parīcchinnākāsa_). Thus the sage may take a brown ball of earth
and concentrate his mind upon it as an earth ball, sometimes
[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 295-314.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ pp. 314-315.]
with eyes open and sometimes with eyes shut. When he finds
that even in shutting his eyes he can visualize the object in his
mind, he may leave off the object and retire to another place to
concentrate upon the image of the earth ball in his mind.
In the first stages of the first meditation (_pathamam jhānam_)
the mind is concentrated on the object in the way of understanding
it with its form and name and of comprehending it with its diverse
relations. This state of concentration is called vitakka (discursive
meditation). The next stage of the first meditation is that in
which the mind does not move in the object in relational terms
but becomes fixed and settled in it and penetrates into it without
any quivering. This state is called vicāra (steadily moving). The
first stage vitakka has been compared in Buddhaghosa's _Visuddhimagga_
to the flying of a kite with its wings flapping, whereas
the second stage is compared to its flying in a sweep without the
least quiver of its wings. These two stages are associated with
a buoyant exaltation (_pīti_) and a steady inward bliss called sukha
[Footnote ref 1] instilling the mind. The formation of this first
jhāna roots out five ties of avijjā, kamacchando (dallying with
desires), vyāpādo (hatred), thinamiddham (sloth and torpor),
uddhaccakukkuccam (pride and restlessness), and vicikicchā (doubt).
The five elements of which this jhāna is constituted are vitakka,
vicāra, plti, sukham and ekaggata (one pointedness).
When the sage masters the first jhāna he finds it defective
and wants to enter into the second meditation (_dutiyam jhānam_),
where there is neither any vitakka nor vicāra of the first jhāna,
but the mind is in one unruffled state (_ekodibhāvam_). It is a
much steadier state and does not possess the movement which
characterized the vitakka and the vicāra stages of the first jhāna
and is therefore a very placid state (_vitakka-vicārakkhobha-virahena
ativiya acalatā suppasannatā ca_). It is however associated
with pīti, sukha and ekaggatā as the first jhāna was.
When the second jhāna is mastered the sage becomes disinclined
towards the enjoyment of the pīti of that stage and becomes
indifferent to them (_upekkhako_). A sage in this stage sees the
objects but is neither pleased nor displeased. At this stage all
the āsavas of the sage become loosened (khīnāsava). The
enjoyment of sukha however still remains in the stage and the
[Footnote 1: Where there is pīti there is sukha, but where there is sukha
there may not necessarily be pīti. _Vīsuddhimagga_, p. 145.]
mind if not properly and carefully watched would like sometimes
to turn back to the enjoyment of pīti again. The two characteristics
of this jhāna are sukha and ekaggatā. It should however
be noted that though there is the feeling of highest sukha here,
the mind is not only not attached to it but is indifferent to it
(_atimadhhurasukhe sukhapāramippatte pi tatiyajjhāne upekkhako,
na tattha sukhābhisangena ākaddhiyati_) [Footnote ref 1]. The earth
ball (_pathavī_) is however still the object of the jhāna.
In the fourth or the last jhāna both the sukha (happiness) and
the dukkha (misery) vanish away and all the roots of attachment
and antipathies are destroyed. This state is characterized by
supreme and absolute indifference (_upekkhā_) which was slowly
growing in all the various stages of the jhānas. The characteristics
of this jhāna are therefore upekkhā and ekaggatā. With the
mastery of this jhāna comes final perfection and total extinction
of the citta called cetovimutti, and the sage becomes thereby an
arhat [Footnote ref 2]. There is no further production of the khandhas,
no rebirth, and there is the absolute cessation of all sorrows and
sufferings--Nibbāna.
Kamma.
In the Katha (II. 6) Yama says that "a fool who is blinded
with the infatuation of riches does not believe in a future life; he
thinks that only this life exists and not any other, and thus he
comes again and again within my grasp." In the Digha Nikāya
also we read how Pāyāsi was trying to give his reasons in support
of his belief that "Neither is there any other world, nor are there
beings, reborn otherwise than from parents, nor is there fruit or
result of deeds well done or ill done [Footnote ref 3]." Some of his
arguments were that neither the vicious nor the virtuous return to tell
us that they suffered or enjoyed happiness in the other world, that
if the virtuous had a better life in store, and if they believed
in it, they would certainly commit suicide in order to get it at
the earliest opportunity, that in spite of taking the best precautions
we do not find at the time of the death of any person that
his soul goes out, or that his body weighs less on account of
the departure of his soul, and so on. Kassapa refutes his arguments
with apt illustrations. But in spite of a few agnostics of
[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, p. 163.]
[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikāya_, I.p. 296, and _Visuddhimagga_, pp.
167-168.]
[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 349; _D. N._ II. pp. 317
ff.]
Pāyāsi's type, we have every reason to believe that the doctrine
of rebirth in other worlds and in this was often spoken of in the
Upanisads and taken as an accepted fact by the Buddha. In
the _Milinda Pańha_, we find Nāgasena saying "it is through a
difference in their karma that men are not all alike, but some
long lived, some short lived, some healthy and some sickly, some
handsome and some ugly, some powerful and some weak, some
rich and some poor, some of high degree and some of low degree,
some wise and some foolish [Footnote ref 1]." We have seen in
the third chapter that the same soil of views was enunciated by the
Upanisad sages.
But karma could produce its effect in this life or any
other life only when there were covetousness, antipathy and infatuation.
But "when a man's deeds are performed without covetousness, arise
without covetousness and are occasioned without covetousness, then
inasmuch as covetousness is gone these deeds are abandoned, uprooted,
pulled out of the ground like a palmyra tree and become non-existent
and not liable to spring up again in the future [Footnote ref 2]."
Karma by itself without craving (_tanhā_) is incapable of bearing good
or bad fruits. Thus we read in the _Mahāsatipatthāna sutta_, "even
this craving, potent for rebirth, that is accompanied by lust and
self-indulgence, seeking satisfaction now here, now there, to wit,
the craving for the life of sense, the craving for becoming (renewed
life) and the craving for not becoming (for no new rebirth) [Footnote
ref 3]." "Craving for things visible, craving for things audible,
craving for things that may be smelt, tasted, touched, for things in
memory recalled. These are the things in this world that are dear,
that are pleasant. There does craving take its rise, there does it
dwell [Footnote ref 4]." Pre-occupation and deliberation of sensual
gratification giving rise to craving is the reason why sorrow comes.
And this is the first ārya satya (noble truth).
The cessation of sorrow can only happen with "the utter
cessation of and disenchantment about that very craving, giving
it up, renouncing it and emancipation from it [Footnote ref 5]."
When the desire or craving (_tanhā_) has once ceased the
sage becomes an arhat, and the deeds that he may do after
that will bear no fruit. An arhat cannot have any good or bad
[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 215.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ pp. 216-217.]
[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 340.]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 341.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ p. 341.]
fruits of whatever he does. For it is through desire that karma
finds its scope of giving fruit. With the cessation of desire all
ignorance, antipathy and grasping cease and consequently there
is nothing which can determine rebirth. An arhat may suffer the
effects of the deeds done by him in some previous birth just as
Moggallāna did, but in spite of the remnants of his past karma
an arhat was an emancipated man on account of the cessation of
his desire [Footnote ref 1].
Kammas are said to be of three kinds, of body, speech and
mind (_kāyika_, _vācika_ and _mānasika_). The root of this kamma
is however volition (_cetanā_) and the states associated with it
[Footnote ref 2]. If a man wishing to kill animals goes out into
the forest in search of them, but cannot get any of them there
even after a long search, his misconduct is not a bodily one, for
he could not actually commit the deed with his body. So if he gives
an order for committing a similar misdeed, and if it is not actually
carried out with the body, it would be a misdeed by speech (_vācika_)
and not by the body. But the merest bad thought or ill will alone whether
carried into effect or not would be a kamma of the mind (_mānasika_)
[Footnote ref 3]. But the mental kamma must be present as the root of
all bodily and vocal kammas, for if this is absent, as in the case
of an arhat, there cannot be any kammas at all for him.
Kammas are divided from the point of view of effects into
four classes, viz. (1) those which are bad and produce impurity,
(2) those which are good and productive of purity, (3) those
which are partly good and partly bad and thus productive of
both purity and impurity, (4) those which are neither good nor
bad and productive neither of purity nor of impurity, but which
contribute to the destruction of kammas [Footnote ref 4].
Final extinction of sorrow (_nibbāna_) takes place as the natural
result of the destruction of desires. Scholars of Buddhism have
tried to discover the meaning of this ultimate happening, and
various interpretations have been offered. Professor De la Vallée
Poussin has pointed out that in the Pāli texts Nibbāna has
sometimes been represented as a happy state, as pure annihilation,
as an inconceivable existence or as a changeless state [Footnote ref 5].
[Footnote 1: See _Kathāvatthu_ and Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, pp,
221 ff.]
[Footnote 2: _Atthasālinī_, p. 88.]
[Footnote 3: See _Atthasālinī_, p. 90.]
[Footnote 4: See _Atthasālinī_, p. 89.]
[Footnote 5: Prof. De la Vallįe Poussin's article in the _E. R.E._ on
Nirvāna. See also _Cullavagga_, IX. i. 4; Mrs Rhys Davids's _Psalms
of the early Buddhists_, I. and II., Introduction, p. xxxvii; _Dīgha_,
II. 15; _Udāna_, VIII.; _Samyutta_, III. 109.]
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Mr Schrader, in discussing Nibbāna in _Pali Text Society Journal_,
1905, says that the Buddha held that those who sought to become
identified after death with the soul of the world as infinite space
(_ākāsa_) or consciousness (_vińńāna_) attained to a state in which
they had a corresponding feeling of infiniteness without having
really lost their individuality. This latter interpretation of
Nibbāna seems to me to be very new and quite against the spirit
of the Buddhistic texts. It seems to me to be a hopeless task
to explain Nibbāna in terms of worldly experience, and there
is no way in which we can better indicate it than by saying that
it is a cessation of all sorrow; the stage at which all worldly
experiences have ceased can hardly be described either as positive
or negative. Whether we exist in some form eternally or do not
exist is not a proper Buddhistic question, for it is a heresy to
think of a Tathāgata as existing eternally (_s'ās'vata_) or not-existing
(_as'ās'vata_) or whether he is existing as well as not
existing or whether he is neither existing nor non-existing. Any
one who seeks to discuss whether Nibbāna is either a positive
and eternal state or a mere state of non-existence or annihilation,
takes a view which has been discarded in Buddhism as heretical.
It is true that we in modern times are not satisfied with it, for
we want to know what it all means. But it is not possible to
give any answer since Buddhism regarded all these questions as
illegitimate.
Later Buddhistic writers like Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrtti
took advantage of this attitude of early Buddhism and interpreted
it as meaning the non-essential character of all existence.
Nothing existed, and therefore any question regarding the existence
or non-existence of anything would be meaningless. There
is no difference between the worldly stage (_samsāra_) and Nibbāna,
for as all appearances are non-essential, they never existed during
the samsāra so that they could not be annihilated in Nibbāna.
Upanisads and Buddhism.
The Upanisads had discovered that the true self was ānanda
(bliss) [Footnote ref 1]. We could suppose that early Buddhism tacitly
presupposes some such idea. It was probably thought that if there was
the self (_attā_) it must be bliss. The Upanisads had asserted that
the self(_ātman_) was indestructible and eternal [Footnote ref 2]. If we
are allowed
[Footnote 1: Tait, II.5.]
[Footnote 2: Brh. IV. 5. 14. Katha V. 13.]
to make explicit what was implicit in early Buddhism we could
conceive it as holding that if there was the self it must be bliss,
because it was eternal. This causal connection has not indeed
been anywhere definitely pronounced in the Upanisads, but he
who carefully reads the Upanisads cannot but think that the
reason why the Upanisads speak of the self as bliss is that it is
eternal. But the converse statement that what was not eternal
was sorrow does not appear to be emphasized clearly in the
Upanisads. The important postulate of the Buddha is that that
which is changing is sorrow, and whatever is sorrow is not self
[Footnote ref 1]. The point at which Buddhism parted from the
Upanisads lies in the experiences of the self. The Upanisads
doubtless considered that there were many experiences which we often
identify with self, but which are impermanent. But the belief is
found in the Upanisads that there was associated with these a
permanent part as well, and that it was this permanent essence
which was the true and unchangeable self, the blissful. They considered
that this permanent self as pure bliss could not be defined
as this, but could only be indicated as not this, not this (_neti
neti_) [Footnote ref 2]. But the early Pali scriptures hold that we could
nowhere find out such a permanent essence, any constant self, in our
changing experiences. All were but changing phenomena and
therefore sorrow and therefore non-self, and what was non-self
was not mine, neither I belonged to it, nor did it belong to me
as my self [Footnote ref 3].
The true self was with the Upanisads a matter of transcendental
experience as it were, for they said that it could not
be described in terms of anything, but could only be pointed out
as "there," behind all the changing mental categories. The
Buddha looked into the mind and saw that it did not exist. But
how was it that the existence of this self was so widely spoken
of as demonstrated in experience? To this the reply of the
Buddha was that what people perceived there when they said
that they perceived the self was but the mental experiences
either individually or together. The ignorant ordinary man did
not know the noble truths and was not trained in the way of wise
men, and considered himself to be endowed with form (_rūpa_)
or found the forms in his self or the self in the forms. He
[Footnote 1: _Samyutta Nikūya_, III. pp. 44-45 ff.]
[Footnote 2: See Brh. IV. iv. Chāndogya, VIII. 7-12.]
[Footnote 3: _Samyutta Nikaya_, III 45.]
experienced the thought (of the moment) as it were the self or
experienced himself as being endowed with thought, or the thought
in the self or the self in the thought. It is these kinds of
experiences that he considered as the perception of the self
[Footnote ref 1].
The Upanisads did not try to establish any school of discipline
or systematic thought. They revealed throughout the dawn of an
experience of an immutable Reality as the self of man, as the only
abiding truth behind all changes. But Buddhism holds that this
immutable self of man is a delusion and a false knowledge.
The first postulate of the system is that impermanence is sorrow.
Ignorance about sorrow, ignorance about the way it originates,
ignorance about the nature of the extinction of sorrow, and ignorance
about the means of bringing about this extinction represent
the fourfold ignorance (_avijjā_) [Footnote ref 2]. The avidyā, which
is equivalent to the Pāli word avijjā, occurs in the Upanisads also,
but there it means ignorance about the ātman doctrine, and it is
sometimes contrasted with vidyā or true knowledge about the self
(_ātman_) [Footnote ref 3]. With the Upanisads the highest truth
was the permanent self, the bliss, but with the Buddha there was
nothing permanent; and all was change; and all change and impermanence
was sorrow [Footnote ref 4]. This is, then, the cardinal truth of
Buddhism, and ignorance concerning it in the above fourfold ways
represented the fourfold ignorance which stood in the way of the
right comprehension of the fourfold cardinal truths (_āriya
sacca_)--sorrow, cause of the origination of sorrow, extinction of
sorrow, and the means thereto.
There is no Brahman or supreme permanent reality and no
self, and this ignorance does not belong to any ego or self as we
may ordinarily be led to suppose.
Thus it is said in the _Visuddhimagga_ "inasmuch however
as ignorance is empty of stability from being subject to a coming
into existence and a disappearing from existence...and is empty
of a self-determining Ego from being subject to dependence,--...or
in other words inasmuch as ignorance is not an Ego, and
similarly with reference to Karma and the rest--therefore is it
to be understood of the wheel of existence that it is empty with
a twelvefold emptiness [Footnote ref 5]."
[Footnote 1: _Samyutta Nikāya_, II. 46.]
[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikāya_, I.p. 54.]
[Footnote 3: Chā. I.i. 10. Brh. IV. 3.20. There are some passages where
vidyā and avidyā have been used in a different and rather obscure sense,
I's'ā 9-11.]
[Footnote 4: _Ang. Nikāya_, III. 85.]
[Footnote 5 Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_ (_Visuddhimagga_, chap.
XVII.), p. 175.]
The Schools of Theravāda Buddhism.
There is reason to believe that the oral instructions of the
Buddha were not collected until a few centuries after his death.
Serious quarrels arose amongst his disciples or rather amongst
the successive generations of the disciples of his disciples about
his doctrines and other monastic rules which he had enjoined
upon his followers. Thus we find that when the council of Vesāli
decided against the Vrjin monks, called also the Vajjiputtakas,
they in their turn held another great meeting (Mahāsangha) and
came to their own decisions about certain monastic rules and thus
came to be called as the Mahāsanghikas [Footnote ref 1]. According to
Vasumitra as translated by Vassilief, the Mahāsanghikas seceded in
400 B.C. and during the next one hundred years they gave rise
first to the three schools Ekavyavahārikas, Lokottaravādins, and
Kukkulikas and after that the Bahus'rutīyas. In the course of the
next one hundred years, other schools rose out of it namely the
Prajńaptivādins, Caittikas, Aparas'ailas and Uttaras'ailas. The
Theravāda or the Sthaviravāda school which had convened the
council of Vesāli developed during the second and first century B.C.
into a number of schools, viz. the Haimavatas, Dharmaguptikas,
Mahīs'āsakas, Kās'yapīyas, Sankrāntikas (more well known as
Sautrāntikas) and the Vātsiputtrīyas which latter was again split up
into the Dharmottarīyas, Bhadrayānīyas, Sammitīyas and Channāgarikas.
The main branch of the Theravāda school was from
the second century downwards known as the Hetuvādins or
Sarvāstivādins [Footnote ref 2]. The _Mahābodhivamsa_ identifies the
Theravāda school with the Vibhajjavādins. The commentator of the
_Kathāvatthu_ who probably lived according to Mrs Rhys Davids sometime
in the fifth century A.D. mentions a few other schools of
Buddhists. But of all these Buddhist schools we know very little.
Vasumitra (100 A.D.) gives us some very meagre accounts of
[Footnote 1: The _Mahāvamsa_ differs from _Dīpavamsa_ in holding that
the Vajjiputtakas did not develop into the Mahāsanghikas, but it was
the Mahāsanghikas who first seceded while the Vajjiputtakas seceded
independently of them. The _Mahābodhivamsa_, which according to
Professor Geiger was composed 975 A.D.--1000 A.D., follows the
Mahavamsa in holding the Mahāsanghikas to be the first seceders
and Vajjiputtakas to have seceded independently.
Vasumitra confuses the council of Vesali with the third council of
Pātaliputra. See introduction to translation of _Kathāvatthu_ by
Mrs Rhys Davids.]
[Footnote 2: For other accounts of the schism see Mr Aung and Mrs Rhys
Davids's translation of _Kathāvatthu_, pp. xxxvi-xlv.]
certain schools, of the Mahāsanghikas, Lokottaravādins,
Ekavyavahārikas, Kakkulikas, Prajńaptivādins and Sarvāstivādins, but
these accounts deal more with subsidiary matters of little philosophical
importance. Some of the points of interest are (1) that the
Mahāsanghikas were said to believe that the body was filled with
mind (_citta_) which was represented as sitting, (2) that the
Prajńaptivādins held that there was no agent in man, that there was
no untimely death, for it was caused by the previous deeds of man,
(3) that the Sarvāstivādins believed that everything existed. From
the discussions found in the _Kathāvatthu_ also we may know the
views of some of the schools on some points which are not always
devoid of philosophical interest. But there is nothing to be found
by which we can properly know the philosophy of these schools. It
is quite possible however that these so-called schools of Buddhism
were not so many different systems but only differed from one
another on some points of dogma or practice which were considered
as being of sufficient interest to them, but which to us now
appear to be quite trifling. But as we do not know any of their
literatures, it is better not to make any unwarrantable surmises.
These schools are however not very important for a history of later
Indian Philosophy, for none of them are even referred to in any
of the systems of Hindu thought. The only schools of Buddhism
with which other schools of philosophical thought came in direct
contact, are the Sarvāstivādins including the Sautrāntikas and
the Vaibhāsikas, the Yogācāra or the Vijńānavādins and the
Mādhyamikas or the S'ūnyavādins. We do not know which of the
diverse smaller schools were taken up into these four great schools,
the Sautrāntika, Vaibhāsika, Yogācāra and the Mādhyamika
schools. But as these schools were most important in relation
to the development of the different systems in Hindu thought,
it is best that we should set ourselves to gather what we can
about these systems of Buddhistic thought.
When the Hindu writers refer to the Buddhist doctrine in
general terms such as "the Buddhists say" without calling them
the Vijńānavādins or the Yogācāras and the S'ūnyavādins,
they often refer to the Sarvūstivūdins by which they mean
both the Sautrūntikas and the Vaibhūsikas, ignoring the difference
that exists between these two schools. It is well to
mention that there is hardly any evidence to prove that the
Hindu writers were acquainted with the Theravūda doctrines as expressed in the Pāli works. The Vaibhāsikas and the Sautrāntikas
have been more or less associated with each other. Thus
the _Abhidharmakos'as'āstra_ of Vasubandhu who was a Vaibhāsika
was commented upon by Yas'omitra who was a Sautrāntika. The
difference between the Vaibhāsikas and the Sautrāntikas that
attracted the notice of the Hindu writers was this, that the former
believed that external objects were directly perceived, whereas
the latter believed that the existence of the external objects could
only be inferred from our diversified knowledge [Footnote ref 1].
Gunaratna (fourteenth century A.D.) in his commentary
_Tarkarahasyadīpikā on Saddars'anasamuccaya_ says that the Vaibhāsika
was but another name of the Āryasammitīya school. According to
Gunaratna the Vaibhāsikas held that things existed for four moments,
the moment of production, the moment of existence, the moment of
decay and the moment of annihilation. It has been pointed out
in Vastlbandhu's _Abhidharmakos'a_ that the Vaibhāsikas believed
these to be four kinds of forces which by coming in combination
with the permanent essence of an entity produced its impermanent
manifestations in life (see Prof. Stcherbatsky's translation
of Yas'omitra on _Abhidharmakos'a kārikā_, V. 25). The self called
pudgala also possessed those characteristics. Knowledge was
formless and was produced along with its object by the very
same conditions (_arthasahabhāsī ekasamāgryadhīnah_). The Sautrāntikas
according to Gunaratna held that there was no soul but
only the five skandhas. These skandhas transmigrated. The past,
the future, annihilation, dependence on cause, ākās'a and pudgala
are but names (_samjńāmātram_), mere assertions (_pratijńāmātram_),
mere limitations (_samvrtamātram_) and mere phenomena (_vyavahāramātram_).
By pudgala they meant that which other people called eternal
and all pervasive soul. External objects are never directly
perceived but are only inferred as existing for explaining the
diversity of knowledge. Definite cognitions are valid; all
compounded things are momentary (_ksanikāh sarvasamskārāh_).
[Footnote 1: Mādhavācārya's _Sarvadars'anasamgraha_, chapter II.
_S'āstradīpikā_, the discussions on Pratyaksa, Amalańanda's commentary
(on _Bhāmatī_) _Vedāntakalpataru_, p 286. "_vaibhāsikasya
bāhyo'rthah
pratyaksah, sautrāntikasya jńānagatākāravaicitryen anumeyah_." The
nature of the inference of the Sautrāntikas is shown thus by
Amalānanda (1247-1260 A.D.) "_ye yasmin satyapi kādācitkāh te
tadatiriktāpeksāh_" (those [i.e. cognitions] which in spite of certain
unvaried conditions are of unaccounted diversity must depend on other
things in addition to these, i.e. the external objects)
_Vedāntakalpataru_, p. 289.]
The atoms of colour, taste, smell and touch, and cognition are
being destroyed every moment. The meanings of words always
imply the negations of all other things, excepting that which is
intended to be signified by that word (_anyāpohah s'abdārthah_).
Salvation (_moksa_) comes as the result of the destruction of the
process of knowledge through continual meditation that there
is no soul [Footnote ref 1].
One of the main differences between the Vibhajjavādins, Sautrāntikas
and the Vaibhāsikas or the Sarvāstivādins appears to
refer to the notion of time which is a subject of great interest
with Buddhist philosophy. Thus _Abhidharmakos'a_ (v. 24...)
describes the Sarvāstivādins as those who maintain the universal
existence of everything past, present and future. The Vibhajjavādins
are those "who maintain that the present elements and
those among the past that have not yet produced their fruition,
are existent, but they deny the existence of the future ones and
of those among the past that have already produced fruition."
There were four branches of this school represented by Dharmatrāta,
Ghosa, Vasumitra and Buddhadeva. Dharmatrāta maintained
that when an element enters different times, its existence
changes but not its essence, just as when milk is changed into curd
or a golden vessel is broken, the form of the existence changes
though the essence remains the same. Ghosa held that "when
an element appears at different times, the past one retains its
past aspects without being severed from its future and present
aspects, the present likewise retains its present aspect without
completely losing its past and future aspects," just as a man in
passionate love with a woman does not lose his capacity to love
other women though he is not actually in love with them. Vasumitra
held that an entity is called present, past and future according
as it produces its efficiency, ceases to produce after having
once produced it or has not yet begun to produce it. Buddhadeva
maintained the view that just as the same woman may
be called mother, daughter, wife, so the same entity may be
called present, past or future in accordance with its relation to the
preceding or the succeeding moment.
All these schools are in some sense Sarvāstivādins, for they
maintain universal existence. But the Vaibhāsika finds them all
defective excepting the view of Vasumitra. For Dharmatrāta's
[Footnote 1: Gunaratna's _Tarkarahasyadīpikā_, pp. 46-47.]
view is only a veiled Sāmkhya doctrine; that of Ghosa is
a confusion of the notion of time, since it presupposes the coexistence
of all the aspects of an entity at the same time, and
that of Buddhadeva is also an impossible situation, since it would
suppose that all the three times were found together and included
in one of them. The Vaibhāsika finds himself in agreement
with Vasumitra's view and holds that the difference in time
depends upon the difference of the function of an entity; at the
time when an entity does not actually produce its function it is
future; when it produces it, it becomes present; when after having
produced it, it stops, it becomes past; there is a real existence
of the past and the future as much as of the present. He thinks
that if the past did not exist and assert some efficiency it could
not have been the object of my knowledge, and deeds done in
past times could not have produced its effects in the present
time. The Sautrāntika however thought that the Vaibhāsika's
doctrine would imply the heretical doctrine of eternal existence,
for according to them the stuff remained the same and the time-difference
appeared in it. The true view according to him was,
that there was no difference between the efficiency of an entity,
the entity and the time of its appearance. Entities appeared
from non-existence, existed for a moment and again ceased to
exist. He objected to the Vaibhāsika view that the past is to
be regarded as existent because it exerts efficiency in bringing
about the present on the ground that in that case there should
be no difference between the past and the present, since both
exerted efficiency. If a distinction is made between past, present
and future efficiency by a second grade of efficiencies, then we
should have to continue it and thus have a vicious infinite. We
can know non-existent entities as much as we can know existent
ones, and hence our knowledge of the past does not imply
that the past is exerting any efficiency. If a distinction is
made between an efficiency and an entity, then the reason why
efficiency started at any particular time and ceased at another
would be inexplicable. Once you admit that there is no difference
between efficiency and the entity, you at once find that
there is no time at all and the efficiency, the entity and the
moment are all one and the same. When we remember a thing
of the past we do not know it as existing in the past, but in the
same way in which we knew it when it was present. We are never attracted to past passions as the Vaibhāsika suggests, but
past passions leave residues which become the causes of new
passions of the present moment [Footnote ref.1].
Again we can have a glimpse of the respective positions of
the Vātsiputtrīyas and the Sarvāstivādins as represented by
Vasubandhu if we attend to the discussion on the subject of
the existence of soul in _Abhidharmakos'a_. The argument of
Vasubandhu against the existence of soul is this, that though
it is true that the sense organs may be regarded as a determining
cause of perception, no such cause can be found which
may render the inference of the existence of soul necessary.
If soul actually exists, it must have an essence of its own and
must be something different from the elements or entities of a
personal life. Moreover, such an eternal, uncaused and unchanging
being would be without any practical efficiency (_arthakriyākāritva_)
which alone determines or proves existence. The
soul can thus be said to have a mere nominal existence as a
mere object of current usage. There is no soul, but there are
only the elements of a personal life. But the Vātsiputtrīya
school held that just as fire could not be said to be either the
same as the burning wood or as different from it, and yet it is
separate from it, so the soul is an individual (_pudgala_) which has
a separate existence, though we could not say that it was
altogether different from the elements of a personal life or the
same as these. It exists as being conditioned by the elements
of personal life, but it cannot further be defined. But its existence
cannot be denied, for wherever there is an activity, there must
be an agent (e.g. Devadatta walks). To be conscious is likewise
an action, hence the agent who is conscious must also exist.
To this Vasubandhu replies that Devadatta (the name of a
person) does not represent an unity. "It is only an unbroken
continuity of momentary forces (flashing into existence), which
simple people believe to be a unity and to which they give the
name Devadatta. Their belief that Devadatta moves is conditioned,
and is based on an analogy with their own experience,
but their own continuity of life consists in constantly moving
from one place to another. This movement, though regarded as
[Footnote 1: I am indebted for the above account to the unpublished
translation from Tibetan of a small portion of _Abhidharmakoia_ by
my esteemed friend Prof. Th. Stcherbatsky of Petrograd. I am grateful
to him that he allowed me to utilize it.]
belonging to a permanent entity, is but a series of new productions
in different places, just as the expressions 'fire moves,'
'sound spreads' have the meaning of continuities (of new productions
in new places). They likewise use the words 'Devadatta
cognises' in order to express the fact that a cognition (takes place
in the present moment) which has a cause (in the former moments,
these former moments coming in close succession being called
Devadatta)."
The problem of memory also does not bring any difficulty,
for the stream of consciousness being one throughout, it produces
its recollections when connected
with a previous knowledge of
the remembered object under certain conditions of attention,
etc., and absence of distractive factors, such as bodily pains or
violent emotions. No agent is required in the phenomena of
memory. The cause of recollection is a suitable state of mind
and nothing else. When the Buddha told his birth stories saying
that he was such and such in such and such a life, he only
meant that his past and his present belonged to one and the
same lineage of momentary existences. Just as when we say
"this same fire which had been consuming that has reached this
object," we know that the fire is not identical at any two
moments, but yet we overlook the difference and say that it is
the same fire. Again, what we call an individual can only be
known by descriptions such as "this venerable man, having this
name, of such a caste, of such a family, of such an age, eating
such food, finding pleasure or displeasure in such things, of such
an age, the man who after a life of such length, will pass away
having reached an age." Only so much description can be
understood, but we have never a direct acquaintance with the
individual; all that is perceived are the momentary elements of
sensations, images, feelings, etc., and these happening at the
former moments exert a pressure on the later ones. The individual
is thus only a fiction, a mere nominal existence, a mere
thing of description and not of acquaintance; it cannot be
grasped either by the senses or by the action of pure intellect.
This becomes evident when we judge it by analogies from other
fields. Thus whenever we use any common noun, e.g. milk, we
sometimes falsely think that there is such an entity as milk, but
what really exists is only certain momentary colours, tastes, etc.,
fictitiously unified as milk; and "just as milk and water are conventional names (for a set of independent elements) for some
colour, smell (taste and touch) taken together, so is the designation
'individual' but a common name for the different elements
of which it is composed."
The reason why the Buddha declined to decide the question
whether the "living being is identical with the body or not" is
just because there did not exist any living being as "individual,"
as is generally supposed. He did not declare that the living
being did not exist, because in that case the questioner would
have thought that the continuity of the elements of a life was
also denied. In truth the "living being" is only a conventional
name for a set of constantly changing elements [Footnote ref 1].
The only book of the Sammitīyas known to us and that by
name only is the _Sammitīyas'āstra_ translated into Chinese between
350 A.D. to 431 A.D.; the original Sanskrit works are however
probably lost [Footnote ref 2].
The Vaibhāsikas are identified with the Sarvāstivādins who
according to _Dīpavamsa_ V. 47, as pointed out by Takakusu,
branched off from the Mahīs'āsakas, who in their turn had
separated from the Theravāda school.
From the _Kathāvatthu_ we know (1) that the Sabbatthivādins
believed that everything existed, (2) that the dawn of right attainment
was not a momentary flash of insight but by a gradual
process, (3) that consciousness or even samādhi was nothing but
[Footnote 1: This account is based on the translation of
_Astamakos'asthānanibaddhah pudgolavinis'cayah_, a special appendix
to the eighth chapter of Abhidharmakos'a, by Prof Th. Stcherbatsky,
_Bulletin de l' Académie des Sciences de Russie_, 1919.]
[Footnote 2: Professor De la Vallée Poussin has collected some of the
points of this doctrine in an article on the Sammitīyas in the _E. R.E._
He there says that in the _Abhidharmakos'avyākhyā_ the Sammitīyas have
been identified with the Vātsīputtrīyas and that many of its texts were
admitted by the Vaibhāsikas of a later age. Some of their views are as
follows: (1) An arhat in possession of nirvāna can fall away; (2) there is
an intermediate state between death and rebirth called _antarābhava_; (3)
merit accrues not only by gift (_tyagānvaya_) but also by the fact of the
actual use and advantage reaped by the man to whom the thing was given
(_paribhogānvaya punya_); (4) not only abstention from evil deeds but a
declaration of intention to that end produces merit by itself alone; (5)
they believe in a pudgala (soul) as distinct from the skandhas from
which it can be said to be either different or non-different. "The pudgala
cannot be said to be transitory (_anitye_) like the skandhas since it
transmigrates laying down the burden (_skandhas_) shouldering a new burden;
it cannot be said to be permanent, since it is made of transitory
constituents." This pudgala doctrine of the Sammitīyas as sketched by
Professor De la Vallée Poussin is not in full agreement with the pudgala
doctrine of the Sammitīyas as sketched by Gunaratna which we have
noticed above.]
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a flux and (4) that an arhat (saint) may fall away [Footnote ref 1].
The Sabbatthivādins or Sarvāstivādins have a vast Abhidharma literature
still existing in Chinese translations which is different from the
Abhidharma of the Theravāda school which we have already mentioned
[Footnote ref 2]. These are 1. _Jńānaprasthāna S'āstra_ of
Kātyāyanīputtra which passed by the name of _Mahā Vibhāsā_ from which
the Sabbatthivādins who followed it are called Vaibhāsikas [Footnote ref
3]. This work is said to have been given a literary form by As'vaghosa.
2. _Dharmaskandha_ by S'āriputtra. 3. _Dhātukāya_ by Pūrna.
4. _Prajńaptis'āstra_ by Maudgalyāyana. 5. _Vijńānakāya_ by Devaksema.
6. _Sangītiparyyāya_ by Sāriputtra and _Prakaranapāda_ by Vasumitra.
Vasubandhu (420 A.D.-500 A.D.) wrote a work on the Vaibhāsika [Footnote
ref 4] system in verses (_kārikā_) known as the _Abhidharmakos'a_,
to which he appended a commentary of his own which passes by the name
_Abhidharma Kos'abhāsya_ in which he pointed out some of the defects
of the Vaibhāsika school from the Sautrāntika point of view [Footnote
ref 5]. This work was commented upon by Vasumitra and Gunamati and
later on by Yas'omitra who was himself a Sautrāntika and called his
work _Abhidharmakos'a vyākhyā_; Sanghabhadra a contemporary of Vasubandhu
wrote _Samayapradipa_ and _Nyāyānusāra_ (Chinese translations of which
are available) on strict Vaibhāsika lines. We hear also of other
Vaibhāsika writers such as Dharmatrāta, Ghosaka, Vasumitra and
Bhadanta, the writer of _Samyuktābhidharmas'āstra_ and _Mahāvibhāsā_.
Dinnāga(480 A.D.), the celebrated logician, a Vaibhāsika
or a Sautrāntika and reputed to be a pupil of Vasubandhu,
wrote his famous work _Pramānasamuccaya_ in which he
established Buddhist logic and refuted many of the views of Vātsyāyana
the celebrated commentator of the _Nyāya sūtras_; but we regret
[Footnote 1: See Mrs Rhys Davids's translation _Kathāvatthu_, p. xix,
and Sections I.6,7; II. 9 and XI. 6.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahāvyutpatti_ gives two names for Sarvāstivāda, viz.
Mūlasarvāstivāda and Āryyasarvāstivāda. Itsing (671-695 A.D.) speaks
of Āryyamūlasarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda. In his time he found
it prevailing in Magadha, Guzrat, Sind, S. India, E. India. Takakusu
says (_P.T.S._ 1904-1905) that Paramārtha, in his life of Vasubandhu,
says that it was propagated from Kashmere to Middle India by Vasubhadra,
who studied it there.]
[Footnote 3: Takakusu says (_P.T.S._ 1904-1905) that Kātyāyanīputtra's
work
was probably a compilation from other Vibhāsās which existed before the
Chinese translations and Vibhāsā texts dated 383 A.D.]
[Footnote 4: See Takakusu's article _J.R.A.S._ 1905.]
[Footnote 5: The Sautrāntikas did not regard the Abhidharmas of the
Vaibhāsikas as authentic and laid stress on the suttanta doctrines
as given in the Suttapitaka.]
to say that none of the above works are available in Sanskrit,
nor have they been retranslated from Chinese or Tibetan into
any of the modern European or Indian languages.
The Japanese scholar Mr Yamakami Sogen, late lecturer at
Calcutta University, describes the doctrine of the Sabbatthivādins
from the Chinese versions of the _Abhidharmakos'a, Mahāvibhāsās'āstra_,
etc., rather elaborately [Footnote ref 1]. The following is a short sketch,
which is borrowed mainly from the accounts given by Mr Sogen.
The Sabbatthivādins admitted the five skandhas, twelve
āyatanas, eighteen dhātus, the three asamskrta dharmas of
pratisamkhyānirodha apratisamkhyānirodha and ākās'a, and the
samskrta dharmas (things composite and interdependent) of rūpa
(matter), citta (mind), caitta (mental) and cittaviprayukta (non-mental)
[Footnote ref 2]. All effects are produced by the coming together
(samskrta) of a number of causes. The five skandhas, and the
rūpa, citta, etc., are thus called samskrta dharmas (composite
things or collocations--_sambhūyakāri_). The rūpa dharmas are
eleven in number, one citta dharma, 46 caitta dharmas and 14
cittaviprayukta samskāra dharmas (non-mental composite things);
adding to these the three asamskrta dharmas we have the seventy-five
dharmas. Rūpa is that which has the capacity to obstruct the
sense organs. Matter is regarded as the collective organism or
collocation, consisting of the fourfold substratum of colour, smell,
taste and contact. The unit possessing this fourfold substratum
is known as paramānu, which is the minutest form of rūpa. It
cannot be pierced through or picked up or thrown away. It is
indivisible, unanalysable, invisible, inaudible, untastable and intangible.
But yet it is not permanent, but is like a momentary
flash into being. The simple atoms are called _dravyaparamānu_
and the compound ones _samghātaparamānu_. In the words of
Prof. Stcherbatsky "the universal elements of matter are manifested
in their actions or functions. They are consequently more
energies than substances." The organs of sense are also regarded
as modifications of atomic matter. Seven such paramānus combine
together to form an anu, and it is in this combined form
only that they become perceptible. The combination takes
place in the form of a cluster having one atom at the centre and
[Footnote 1: _Systems of Buddhistic Thought_, published by the Calcutta
University.]
[Footnote 2: S'ankara in his meagre sketch of the doctrine of the
Sarvāstivādins in his bhāsya on the _Brahma-sūtras_ II. 2 notices some
of the categories mentioned by Sogen.]
others around it. The point which must be remembered in connection
with the conception of matter is this, that the qualities
of all the mahābhūtas are inherent in the paramānus. The special
characteristics of roughness (which naturally belongs to earth),
viscousness (which naturally belongs to water), heat (belonging
to fire), movableness (belonging to wind), combine together to
form each of the elements; the difference between the different
elements consists only in this, that in each of them its own special
characteristics were predominant and active, and other characteristics
though present remained only in a potential form. The
mutual resistance of material things is due to the quality of
earth or the solidness inherent in them; the mutual attraction of
things is due to moisture or the quality of water, and so forth.
The four elements are to be observed from three aspects, namely,
(1) as things, (2) from the point of view of their natures (such as
activity, moisture, etc.), and (3) function (such as _dhrti_ or
attraction, _samgraha_ or cohesion, _pakti_ or chemical heat, and
_vyūhana_ or clustering and collecting). These combine together
naturally by other conditions or causes. The main point of distinction
between the Vaibhāsika Sarvāstivadins and other forms of Buddhism
is this, that here the five skandhas and matter are regarded
as permanent and eternal; they are said to be momentary
only in the sense that they are changing their phases constantly,
owing to their constant change of combination. Avidyā is not
regarded here as a link in the chain of the causal series of
pratītyasamutpāda; nor is it ignorance of any particular individual,
but is rather identical with "moha" or delusion and
represents the ultimate state of immaterial dharmas. Avidyā,
which through samskāra, etc., produces nāmarūpa in the case of
a particular individual, is not his avidyā in the present existence
but the avidyā of his past existence bearing fruit in the present
life.
"The cause never perishes but only changes its name, when
it becomes an effect, having changed its state." For example,
clay becomes jar, having changed its state; and in this case the
name clay is lost and the name jar arises [Footnote ref 1]. The
Sarvāstivādins allowed simultaneousness between cause and effect only in
the case of composite things (_samprayukta hetu_) and in the case of
[Footnote 1: Sogen's quotation from Kumārajīva's Chinese version of
Āryyadeva's commentary on the _Mādhyamika s'āstra_ (chapter XX. Kārikā 9).]
the interaction of mental and material things. The substratum
of "vijńāna" or "consciousness" is regarded as permanent
and
the aggregate of the five senses (_indriyas_) is called the perceiver.
It must be remembered that the indriyas being material had a
permanent substratum, and their aggregate had therefore also a
substratum formed of them.
The sense of sight grasps the four main colours of blue, yellow,
red, white, and their combinations, as also the visual forms of
appearance (_samsthāna_) of long, short, round, square, high, low,
straight, and crooked. The sense of touch (_kāyendriya_) has for
its object the four elements and the qualities of smoothness,
roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger and thirst. These
qualities represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by
the objects of touch, hunger, thirst, etc., and are also counted
under it, as they are the organic effects produced by a touch
which excites the physical frame at a time when the energy of
wind becomes active in our body and predominates over other
energies; so also the feeling of thirst is caused by a touch which
excites the physical frame when the energy of the element of fire
becomes active and predominates over the other energies. The
indriyas (senses) can after grasping the external objects arouse
thought (_vijńāna_); each of the five senses is an agent without
which none of the five vijńānas would become capable of perceiving
an external object. The essence of the senses is entirely
material. Each sense has two subdivisions, namely, the principal
sense and the auxiliary sense. The substratum of the principal
senses consists of a combination of paramānus, which are extremely
pure and minute, while the substratum of the latter is
the flesh, made of grosser materials. The five senses differ from
one another with respect to the manner and form of their respective
atomic combinations. In all sense-acts, whenever an act is
performed and an idea is impressed, a latent energy is impressed
on our person which is designated as avijńapti rūpa. It is called
rūpa because it is a result or effect of rūpa-contact; it is called
avijńapti because it is latent and unconscious; this latent energy
is bound sooner or later to express itself in karma effects and is
the only bridge which connects the cause and the effect of karma
done by body or speech. Karma in this school is considered
as twofold, namely, that as thought (_cetana karma_) and that as
activity (_caitasika karma_). This last, again, is of two kinds, viz. that due to body-motion (_kāyika karma_) and speech (_vācika
karma_). Both these may again be latent (_avijńapti_) and patent
(_vijńapti_), giving us the kāyika-vijnńpti karma, kāyikāvijńapti
karma, vācika-vijńapti karma and vācikāvijńapti karma. Avijńapti
rūpa and avijńapti karma are what we should call in modern
phraseology sub-conscious ideas, feelings and activity. Corresponding
to each conscious sensation, feeling, thought or activity
there is another similar sub-conscious state which expresses itself
in future thoughts and actions; as these are not directly known but
are similar to those which are known, they are called avijńapti.
The mind, says Vasubandhu, is called cittam, because it
wills (_cetati_), manas because it thinks (_manvate_) and vijńāna
because it discriminates (_nirdis'ati_). The discrimination may be
of three kinds: (1) svabhāva nirdes'a (natural perceptual discrimination),
(2) prayoga nirdes'a (actual discrimination as present,
past and future), and (3) anusmrti nirdes'a (reminiscent discrimination
referring only to the past). The senses only possess the
_svabhāva nirdes'a_, the other two belong exclusively to manovijńāna.
Each of the vijńānas as associated with its specific sense discriminates
its particular object and perceives its general characteristics;
the six vijńānas combine to form what is known as the
Vijńānaskandha, which is presided over by mind (_mano_). There
are forty-six caitta samskrta dharmas. Of the three asamskrta
dharmas ākās'a (ether) is in essence the freedom from obstruction,
establishing it as a permanent omnipresent immaterial substance
(_nīrūpākhya_, non-rūpa). The second asamskrta dharma, apratisamkhyā
nirodha, means the non-perception of dharmas caused
by the absence of pratyayas or conditions. Thus when I fix my
attention on one thing, other things are not seen then, not because
they are non-existent but because the conditions which would
have made them visible were absent. The third asamskrta
dharma, pratisamkhyā nirodha, is the final deliverance from
bondage. Its essential characteristic is everlastingness. These
are called asamskrta because being of the nature of negation
they are non-collocative and hence have no production or dissolution.
The eightfold noble path which leads to this state consists of right
views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood,
right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture [Footnote ref 1].
[Footnote 1: Mr Sogen mentions the name of another Buddhist Hīnayāna
thinker (about 250 A.D.), Harivarman, who founded a school known as
Satyasiddhi school, which propounded the same sort of doctrines as
those preached by Nāgārjuna. None of his works are available in Sanskrit
and I have never come across any allusion to his name by Sanskrit writers.]
Mahāyānism.
It is difficult to say precisely at what time Mahāyānism took
its rise. But there is reason to think that as the Mahāsanghikas
separated themselves from the Theravādins probably some time in
400 B.C. and split themselves up into eight different schools, those
elements of thoughts and ideas which in later days came to be
labelled as Mahāyāna were gradually on the way to taking their
first inception. We hear in about 100 A.D. of a number of works
which are regarded as various Mahāyāna sūtras, some of which
are probably as old as at least 100 B.C. (if not earlier) and others
as late as 300 or 400 A.D.[Footnote ref 1]. These Mahāyānasūtras, also
called the Vaipulyasūtras, are generally all in the form of instructions
given by the Buddha. Nothing is known about their authors or
compilers, but they are all written in some form of Sanskrit and
were probably written by those who seceded from the Theravāda
school.
The word Hīnayāna refers to the schools of Theravāda, and
as such it is contrasted with Mahāyāna. The words are generally
translated as small vehicle (_hīna_ = small, _yāna_ = vehicle) and great
vehicle (_mahā_ = great, _yāna_ = vehicle). But this translation by
no means expresses what is meant by Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna
[Footnote ref 2]. Asanga (480 A.D.) in his _Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra_ gives
[Footnote 1: Quotations and references to many of these sūtras are found in
Candrakīrtti's commentary on the _Mādhyamīka kārikās_ of Nāgārjuna; some
of
these are the following: _Astasāhasrikāprajńāpāramitā_ (translated into
Chinese 164 A.D.-167 A.D.), _S'atasāhasrikāprajńāpāramitā, Gaganagańja,
Samādhisūtra, Tathāgataguhyasūtra, Drdhādhyās'ayasańcodanāsūtra,
Dhyāyitamustisūtra, Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra, Mahāyānasūtra,
Māradamanasūtra, Ratnakūtasūtra, Ratnacūdāpariprcchāsūtra,
Ratnameghasūtra, Ratnarās`isūtra, Ratnākarasūtra,
Rāstrapālapariprcchāsūtra, Lankāvatārasūtra, Lalitavistarasūtra,
Vajracchedikāsūtra, Vimalakīrttinirdes'asūtra, S'ālistambhasūtra,
Samādhirajasutra, Sukhāvatīvyūha, Suvarnaprabhāsasūtra,
Saddharmapundarika (translated into Chinese A.D. 255),
Amitāyurdhyānasūtra, Hastikākhyasūtra, etc.]
[Footnote 2: The word Yāna is generally translated as vehicle, but a
consideration of numerous contexts in which the word occurs seems to
suggest that it means career or course or way, rather than vehicle
(_Lalitavistara_, pp. 25, 38; _Prajńāpāramitā_, pp. 24, 319;
_Samādhirājasūtra_, p. 1; _Karunāpundarīka_, p. 67;
_Lankāvatārasūtra_,
pp. 68, 108, 132). The word Yāna is as old as the Upanisads where we read
of Devayāna and Pitryāna. There is no reason why this word should be
taken in a different sense. We hear in _Lankāvatāra_ of S'rāvakayāna
(career of the S'rāvakas or the Theravādin Buddhists), Pratyekabuddhayāna
(the career of saints before the coming of the Buddha), Buddha
yāna (career of the Buddhas), Ekayāna (one career), Devayāna (career of
the gods), Brahmayāna (career of becoming a Brahmā), Tathāgatayāna
(career of a Tathāgata). In one place _Lankāvatāra_ says that ordinarily
distinction is made between the three careers and one career and no career,
but these distinctions are only for the ignorant (_Lankāvatāra_, p. 68).]
us the reason why one school was called Hīnayāna whereas the
other, which he professed, was called Mahāyāna. He says that,
considered from the point of view of the ultimate goal of religion,
the instructions, attempts, realization, and time, the Hīnayāna
occupies a lower and smaller place than the other called Mahā
(great) Yāna, and hence it is branded as Hīna (small, or low).
This brings us to one of the fundamental points of distinction
between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna. The ultimate good of an
adherent of the Hīnayāna is to attain his own nirvāna or salvation,
whereas the ultimate goal of those who professed the Mahāyāna
creed was not to seek their own salvation but to seek the
salvation of all beings. So the Hīnayāna goal was lower, and in
consequence of that the instructions that its followers received,
the attempts they undertook, and the results they achieved were
narrower than that of the Mahāyāna adherents. A Hīnayāna man
had only a short business in attaining his own salvation, and this
could be done in three lives, whereas a Mahāyāna adherent was
prepared to work for infinite time in helping all beings to attain
salvation. So the Hīnayana adherents required only a short period
of work and may from that point of view also be called _hīna,_ or
lower.
This point, though important from the point of view of the
difference in the creed of the two schools, is not so from the point
of view of philosophy. But there is another trait of the Mahāyānists
which distinguishes them from the Hīnayānists from the
philosophical point of view. The Mahāyānists believed that all
things were of a non-essential and indefinable character and
void at bottom, whereas the Hīnayānists only believed in the
impermanence of all things, but did not proceed further than
that.
It is sometimes erroneously thought that Nāgārjuna first
preached the doctrine of S'ūnyavāda (essencelessness or voidness
of all appearance), but in reality almost all the Mahāyāna sūtras
either definitely preach this doctrine or allude to it. Thus if we
take some of those sūtras which were in all probability earlier than
Nāgārjuna, we find that the doctrine which Nāgārjuna expounded with all the rigour of his powerful dialectic was quietly accepted
as an indisputable truth. Thus we find Subhūti saying to
the Buddha that vedanā (feeling), samjńā (concepts) and the
samskāras (conformations) are all māyā (illusion) [Footnote ref 1]. All
the skandhas, dhätus (elements) and āyatanas are void and absolute
cessation. The highest knowledge of everything as pure void
is not different from the skandhas, dhātus and āyatanas, and this
absolute cessation of dharmas is regarded as the highest knowledge
(_prajńāpāramitā_) [Footnote ref 2]. Everything being void there is in
reality no process and no cessation. The truth is neither eternal
(_s'ās'vata_) nor non-eternal (_as'ās'vata_) but pure void. It should
be the object of a saint's endeavour to put himself in the "thatness"
(_tathatā_) and consider all things as void. The saint (_bodhisattva_)
has to establish himself in all the virtues (_pāramitā_), benevolence
(_dānapāramitā_), the virtue of character (_s'īlapāramitā_), the virtue
of forbearance (_ksāntipāramitā_), the virtue of tenacity and strength
(_vīryyapāramitā_) and the virtue of meditation (_dhyānapāramitā_).
The saint (_bodhisattva_) is firmly determined that he will
help an infinite number of souls to attain nirvāna. In reality,
however, there are no beings, there is no bondage, no salvation;
and the saint knows it but too well, yet he is not afraid
of this high truth, but proceeds on his career of attaining for
all illusory beings illusory emancipation from illusory bondage.
The saint is actuated with that feeling and proceeds in his
work on the strength of his pāramitās, though in reality there
is no one who is to attain salvation in reality and no one who
is to help him to attain it [Footnote ref 3]. The true prajńapāramitā is
the absolute cessation of all appearance (_yah anupalambhah
sarvadharmānām sa prajńāpāramitā ityucyate_) [Footnote ref 4].
The Mahāyāna doctrine has developed on two lines, viz. that
of S'ūnyavāda or the Mādhyamika doctrine and Vijńānavāda.
The difference between S'ūnyavāda and Vijńānavāda (the theory
that there is only the appearance of phenomena of consciousness)
is not fundamental, but is rather one of method. Both of them
agree in holding that there is no truth in anything, everything
is only passing appearance akin to dream or magic. But
while the S'ūnyavādins were more busy in showing this
indefinableness of all phenomena, the Vijńānavādins, tacitly accepting
[Footnote 1: _Astesāhasiihāprajńāpāramita_, p. 16.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid p. 177.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid p. 21.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid p. 177.]
the truth preached by the S'ūnyavādins, interested themselves in
explaining the phenomena of consciousness by their theory of
beginningless illusory root-ideas or instincts of the mind (_vāsanā_).
As'vaghosa (100 A.D.) seems to have been the greatest teacher
of a new type of idealism (_vijńānavāda_) known as the Tathatā
philosophy. Trusting in Suzuki's identification of a quotation in
As'vaghosa's _S'raddhotpādas'āstra_ as being made from
_Lankāvatārasūtra_, we should think of the _Lankāvatārasūtra_ as
being one of the early works of the Vijńānavādins [Footnote ref 1].
The greatest later writer of the Vijńānavāda school was Asanga
(400 A.D.), to whom are attributed the _Saptadas'abhūmi sūtra,
Mahāyāna sūtra, Upades'a, Mahāyānasamparigraha s'āstra, Yogācārabhūmi
s'āstra_ and _Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra_. None of these works excepting the
last one is available to readers who have no access to the
Chinese and Tibetan manuscripts, as the Sanskrit originals are
in all probability lost. The Vijńānavāda school is known to
Hindu writers by another name also, viz. Yogācāra, and it does
not seem an improbable supposition that Asanga's _Yogācārabhūmi
s'āstra_ was responsible for the new name. Vasubandhu,
a younger brother of Asanga, was, as Paramārtha (499-569) tells
us, at first a liberal Sarvāstivādin, but was converted to Vijńānavāda,
late in his life, by Asanga. Thus Vasubandhu, who
wrote in his early life the great standard work of the Sarvāstivādins,
_Abhidharmakos'a_, devoted himself in his later life to Vijńānavāda
[Footnote ref 2]. He is said to have commented upon a number of
Mahāyāna sūtras, such as _Avatamsaka, Nirvāna, Saddharmapundarīka,
Prajńāpāramitā, Vimalakīrtti_ and _S'rīmālāsimhanāda_, and
compiled some Mahāyāna sūtras, such as _Vijńānamātrasiddhi,
Ratnatraya_, etc. The school of Vijńānavāda continued for at
least a century or two after Vasubandhu, but we are not in
possession of any work of great fame of this school after him.
We have already noticed that the S'ūnyavāda formed the fundamental
principle of all schools of Mahāyāna. The most powerful
exponent of this doctrine was Nāgārjuna (1OO A.D.), a brief account
of whose system will be given in its proper place. Nāgārjuna's
kārikās (verses) were commented upon by Āryyadeva, a disciple
of his, Kumārajīva (383 A.D.). Buddhapālita and Candrakīrtti
(550 A.D.). Āryyadeva in addition to this commentary wrote at
[Footnote 1: Dr S.C. Vidyābhūshana thinks that _Lankāvatāna_ belongs to
about 300 A.D.]
[Footnote 2: Takakusu's "A study of the Paramārtha's life of
Vasubandhu,"
_J.R.A.S_. 1905.]
least three other books, viz. _Catuhs'ataka, Hastabālaprakaranavrtti_
and _Cittavis`uddhiprakarana_ [Footnote ref 1]. In the small work called
_Hastabālaprakaranavrtti_ Āryyadeva says that whatever depends
for its existence on anything else may be proved to be illusory;
all our notions of external objects depend on space perceptions
and notions of part and whole and should therefore be regarded
as mere appearance. Knowing therefore that all that is dependent
on others for establishing itself is illusory, no wise man
should feel attachment or antipathy towards these mere phenomenal
appearances. In his _Cittavis'uddhiprakarana_ he says
that just as a crystal appears to be coloured, catching the reflection
of a coloured object, even so the mind though in itself
colourless appears to show diverse colours by coloration of imagination
(_vikalpa_). In reality the mind (_citta_) without a touch
of imagination (_kalpanā_) in it is the pure reality.
It does not seem however that the S'ūnyavādins could produce
any great writers after Candrakīrtti. References to S'ūnyavāda
show that it was a living philosophy amongst the Hindu writers
until the time of the great Mīmāmsā authority Kumārila who
flourished in the eighth century; but in later times the S'ūnyavādins
were no longer occupying the position of strong and active disputants.
The Tathataā Philosophy of As'vaghosa (80 A.D.) [Footnote ref 2].
As'vaghosa was the son of a Brahmin named Saimhaguhya
who spent his early days in travelling over the different parts of
India and defeating the Buddhists in open debates. He was probably
converted to Buddhism by Pārsva who was an important
person in the third Buddhist Council promoted,
according to some authorities, by the King of Kashmere
and according to other authorities by Punyayas'as [Footnote ref 3].
___________________________________________________________________
[Footnote 1: Āryyadeva's _Hastabālaprakaranavrtti_ has been reclaimed by
Dr. F.W. Thomas. Fragmentary portions of his _Cittavis'uddhiprakarana_
were published by Mahāmahopādhyāya Haraprasāda s'āstrī in the Bengal
Asiatic Society's journal, 1898.]
[Footnote 2: The above section is based on the _Awakening of Faith_, an
English translation by Suzuki of the Chinese version of
_S'raddhotpādas`āstra_ by As'vaghosa, the Sanskrit original of which
appears to have been lost. Suzuki has brought forward a mass of evidence
to show that As'vaghosa was a contemporary of Kaniska.]
[Footnote 3: Tāranātha says that he was converted by Aryadeva, a disciple
of Nāgārjuna, _Geschichte des Buddhismus_, German translation by Schiefner,
pp. 84-85. See Suzuki's _Awakening of Faith_, pp. 24-32. As'vaghosa wrote
the _Buddhacaritakāvya_, of great poetical excellence, and the
_Mahālamkāras'āstra_. He was also a musician and had invented a musical
instrument called Rāstavara that he might by that means convert the
people of the city. "Its melody was classical, mournful, and melodious,
inducing the audience to ponder on the misery, emptiness, and non-ātmanness
of life." Suzuki, p. 35.]
130
He held that in the soul two aspects may be distinguished
--the aspect as thatness (_bhūtatathatā_) and the aspect as the cycle
of birth and death (_samsāra_). The soul as bhūtatathatā means
the oneness of the totality of all things (_dharmadhātu_). Its essential
nature is uncreate and external. All things simply on account
of the beginningless traces of the incipient and unconscious
memory of our past experiences of many previous lives (_smrti_)
appear under the forms of individuation [Footnote ref 1]. If we could
overcome this smrti "the signs of individuation would disappear and
there would be no trace of a world of objects." "All things in their
fundamental nature are not nameable or explicable. They cannot
be adequately expressed in any form of language. They
possess absolute sameness (_samatā_). They are subject neither to
transformation nor to destruction. They are nothing but one soul"
--thatness (_bhūtatathatā_). This "thatness" has no attribute and
it can only be somehow pointed out in speech as "thatness."
As soon as you understand that when the totality of existence is
spoken of or thought of, there is neither that which speaks nor
that which is spoken of, there is neither that which thinks nor
that which is thought of, "this is the stage of thatness." This
bhūtatathatā is neither that which is existence, nor that which is
non-existence, nor that which is at once existence and non-existence,
nor that which is not at once existence and non-existence;
it is neither that which is plurality, nor that which is
at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity
and plurality. It is a negative concept in the sense that it is
beyond all that is conditional and yet it is a positive concept
in the sense that it holds all within it. It cannot be comprehended
by any kind of particularization or distinction. It is
only by transcending the range of our intellectual categories of
the comprehension of the limited range of finite phenomena that
we can get a glimpse of it. It cannot be comprehended by the
particularizing consciousness of all beings, and we thus may call
it negation, "s'ūnyatā," in this sense. The truth is that which
[Footnote 1: I have ventured to translate "_smrti_" in
the sense of vāsanā in preference to Suzuki's "confused
subjectivity" because smrti in the sense of vāsanā is not unfamiliar to
the readers of such Buddhist works as _Lankāvatāra_. The word
"subjectivity" seems to be too European a term to be used as a word to
represent the Buddhist sense.]
subjectively does not exist by itself, that the negation (_s'ūnyatā_) is
also void (_s'ūnya_) in its nature, that neither that which is negated
nor that which negates is an independent entity. It is the pure
soul that manifests itself as eternal, permanent, immutable, and
completely holds all things within it. On that account it may be
called affirmation. But yet there is no trace of affirmation in it,
because it is not the product of the creative instinctive memory
(_smrti_) of conceptual thought and the only way of grasping the
truth--the thatness, is by transcending all conceptual creations.
"The soul as birth and death (_samsāra_) comes forth from
the Tathāgata womb (_tathāgatagarbha_), the ultimate reality.
But the immortal and the mortal coincide with each other.
Though they are not identical they are not duality either. Thus
when the absolute soul assumes a relative aspect by its self-affirmation
it is called the all-conserving mind (_ālayavijńāna_).
It embraces two principles, (1) enlightenment, (2) non-enlightenment.
Enlightenment is the perfection of the mind when it is
free from the corruptions of the creative instinctive incipient
memory (_smrti_). It penetrates all and is the unity of all
(_dharmadhātu_). That is to say, it is the universal dharmakāya of all
Tathāgatas constituting the ultimate foundation of existence.
"When it is said that all consciousness starts from this fundamental
truth, it should not be thought that consciousness had any
real origin, for it was merely phenomenal existence--a mere imaginary
creation of the perceivers under the influence of the
delusive smrti. The multitude of people (_bahujana_) are said to be
lacking in enlightenment, because ignorance (_avidyā_) prevails
there from all eternity, because there is a constant succession of
smrti (past confused memory working as instinct) from which
they have never been emancipated. But when they are divested
of this smrti they can then recognize that no states of mentation,
viz. their appearance, presence, change and disappearance, have
any reality. They are neither in a temporal nor in a spatial relation
with the one soul, for they are not self-existent.
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"This high enlightenment shows itself imperfectly in our corrupted
phenomenal experience as prajńā (wisdom) and karma
(incomprehensible activity of life). By pure wisdom we understand
that when one, by virtue of the perfuming power of dharma,
disciplines himself truthfully (i.e. according to the dharma), and
accomplishes meritorious deeds, the mind (i.e. the _ālayavijńāna_) which implicates itself with birth and death will be broken down
and the modes of the evolving consciousness will be annulled, and
the pure and the genuine wisdom of the Dharmakāya will manifest
itself. Though all modes of consciousness and mentation are
mere products of ignorance, ignorance in its ultimate nature is
identical and non-identical with enlightenment; and therefore
ignorance is in one sense destructible, though in another sense
it is indestructible. This may be illustrated by the simile of the
water and the waves which are stirred up in the ocean. Here
the water can be said to be both identical and non-identical
with the waves. The waves are stirred up by the wind, but the
water remains the same. When the wind ceases the motion of
the waves subsides, but the water remains the same. Likewise
when the mind of all creatures, which in its own nature is pure and
clean, is stirred up by the wind of ignorance (_avidyā_), the waves
of mentality (_vijńāna_) make their appearance. These three (i.e.
the mind, ignorance, and mentality) however have no existence,
and they are neither unity nor plurality. When the ignorance is
annihilated, the awakened mentality is tranquillized, whilst the
essence of the wisdom remains unmolested." The truth or the
enlightenment "is absolutely unobtainable by any modes of relativity
or by any outward signs of enlightenment. All events in
the phenomenal world are reflected in enlightenment, so that they
neither pass out of it, nor enter into it, and they neither disappear
nor are destroyed." It is for ever cut off from the hindrances both
affectional (_kles'āvarana_) and intellectual (_jńeyāvarana_), as well
as from the mind (i.e. _ālayavijńāna_) which implicates itself with
birth and death, since it is in its true nature clean, pure, eternal,
calm, and immutable. The truth again is such that it transforms
and unfolds itself wherever conditions are favourable in the form
of a tathāgata or in some other forms, in order that all beings
may be induced thereby to bring their virtue to maturity.
"Non-elightenment has no existence of its own aside from its
relation with enlightenment _a priori_." But enlightenment _a priori_
is spoken of only in contrast to non-enlightenment, and as
non-enlightenment is a non-entity, true enlightenment in turn loses
its significance too. They are distinguished only in mutual relation
as enlightenment or non-enlightenment. The manifestations
of non-enlightenment are made in three ways: (1) as a disturbance
of the mind (_ālayavijńāna_), by the avidyākarma (ignorant action), producing misery (_duhkha_); (2) by the appearance of an
ego or of a perceiver; and (3) by the creation of an external world
which does not exist in itself, independent of the perceiver. Conditioned
by the unreal external world six kinds of phenomena
arise in succession. The first phenomenon is intelligence (sensation);
being affected by the external world the mind becomes
conscious of the difference between the agreeable and the disagreeable.
The second phenomenon is succession. Following upon
intelligence, memory retains the sensations, agreeable as well
as disagreeable, in a continuous succession of subjective states.
The third phenomenon is clinging. Through the retention and
succession of sensations, agreeable as well as disagreeable, there
arises the desire of clinging. The fourth phenomenon is an attachment
to names or ideas (_samjńā_), etc. By clinging the mind
hypostatizes all names whereby to give definitions to all things.
The fifth phenomenon is the performance of deeds (_karma_). On
account of attachment to names, etc., there arise all the variations
of deeds, productive of individuality. "The sixth phenomenon
is the suffering due to the fetter of deeds. Through deeds suffering
arises in which the mind finds itself entangled and curtailed of
its freedom." All these phenomena have thus sprung forth through
avidyā.
The relation between this truth and avidyā is in one sense
a mere identity and may be illustrated by the simile of all kinds
of pottery which though different are all made of the same clay
[Footnote ref 1]. Likewise the undefiled (_anāsrava_) and ignorance
(_avidyā_) and their various transient forms all come from one and the
same entity. Therefore Buddha teaches that all beings are from all
eternity abiding in Nirvāna.
It is by the touch of ignorance (_avidyā_) that this truth assumes
all the phenomenal forms of existence.
In the all-conserving mind (_ālayavijńāna_) ignorance manifests
itself; and from non-enlightenment starts that which sees, that
which represents, that which apprehends an objective world, and
that which constantly particularizes. This is called ego (_manas_).
Five different names are given to the ego (according to its different
modes of operation). The first name is activity-consciousness
(_karmavijńāna_) in the sense that through the agency of
ignorance an unenlightened mind begins to be disturbed (or
[Footnote 1: Compare Chāndogya, VI. 1. 4.]
awakened). The second name is evolving-consciousness (_pravrttiivijńāna_)
in the sense that when the mind is disturbed, there
evolves that which sees an external world. The third name is
representation-consciousness in the sense that the ego (_manas_}
represents (or reflects) an external world. As a clean mirror
reflects the images of all description, it is even so with the
representation-consciousness. When it is confronted, for instance,
with the objects of the five senses, it represents them instantaneously
and without effort. The fourth is particularization-consciousness,
in the sense that it discriminates between different things defiled
as well as pure. The fifth name is succession-consciousness, in the
sense that continuously directed by the awakening consciousness
of attention (_manaskāra_) it (_manas_) retains all experiences and
never loses or suffers the destruction of any karma, good as well
as evil, which had been sown in the past, and whose retribution,
painful or agreeable, it never fails to mature, be it in the present
or in the future, and also in the sense that it unconsciously
recollects things gone by and in imagination anticipates things
to come. Therefore the three domains (_kāmaloka_, domain of
feeling--_rūpaloka_, domain of bodily existence--_arūpaloka_, domain
of incorporeality) are nothing but the self manifestation of the
mind (i.e. _ālayavijńāna_ which is practically identical with
_bhūtatathatā_). Since all things, owing the principle of their
existence to the mind (_ālayavijńāna_), are produced by smrti,
all the modes of particularization are the self-particularizations
of the mind. The mind in itself (or the soul) being however free from
all attributes is not differentiated. Therefore we come to the conclusion
that all things and conditions in the phenomenal world, hypostatized
and established only through ignorance (_avidyā_) and memory
(_smrti_), have no more reality than the images in a mirror. They
arise simply from the ideality of a particularizing mind. When
the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced; but
when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears.
By ego-consciousness (_manovijńāna_) we mean the ignorant mind
which by its succession-consciousness clings to the conception of
I and Not-I and misapprehends the nature of the six objects of
sense. The ego-consciousness is also called separation-consciousness,
because it is nourished by the perfuming influence of the
prejudices (_āsrava_), intellectual as well as affectional. Thus believing
in the external world produced by memory, the mind becomes oblivious of the principle of sameness (_samatā_) that underlies all
things which are one and perfectly calm and tranquil and show no
sign of becoming.
Non-enlightenment is the _raison d'étre_ of samsāra. When
this is annihilated the conditions--the external world--are also
annihilated and with them the state of an interrelated mind is also
annihilated. But this annihilation does not mean the annihilation
of the mind but of its modes only. It becomes calm like an unruffled
sea when all winds which were disturbing it and producing
the waves have been annihilated.
In describing the relation of the interaction of avidyā (ignorance),
karmavijńāna (activity-consciousness--the subjective mind),
visaya (external world--represented by the senses) and the tathatā
(suchness), As'vaghosa says that there is an interperfuming of
these elements. Thus As'vaghosa says, "By perfuming we mean
that while our worldly clothes (viz. those which we wear) have no
odour of their own, neither offensive nor agreeable, they can yet
acquire one or the other odour according to the nature of the substance
with which they are perfumed. Suchness (_tathatā_) is likewise
a pure dharma free from all defilements caused by the perfuming
power of ignorance. On the other hand ignorance has nothing to
do with purity. Nevertheless we speak of its being able to do the
work of purity because it in its turn is perfumed by suchness.
Determined by suchness ignorance becomes the _raison d'étre_ of
all forms of defilement. And this ignorance perfumes suchness
and produces smrti. This smrti in its turn perfumes ignorance.
On account of this (reciprocal) perfuming, the truth is misunderstood.
On account of its being misunderstood an external world
of subjectivity appears. Further, on account of the perfuming
power of memory, various modes of individuation are produced.
And by clinging to them various deeds are done, and we suffer
as the result miseries mentally as well as bodily." Again "suchness
perfumes ignorance, and in consequence of this perfuming
the individual in subjectivity is caused to loathe the misery of
birth and death and to seek after the blessing of Nirvāna. This
longing and loathing on the part of the subjective mind in turn
perfumes suchness. On account of this perfuming influence we
are enabled to believe that we are in possession within ourselves
of suchness whose essential nature is pure and immaculate; and
we also recognize that all phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestations of the mind (_ālayavijńāna_) and
have no reality of their own. Since we thus rightly understand
the truth, we can practise the means of liberation, can perform
those actions which are in accordance with the dharma. We
should neither particularize, nor cling to objects of desire. By
virtue of this discipline and habituation during the lapse of innumerable
āsankhyeyakalpas [Footnote ref 1] we get ignorance annihilated. As
ignorance is thus annihilated, the mind (_ālayavijńāna_) is no longer
disturbed, so as to be subject to individuation. As the mind is no
longer disturbed, the particularization of the surrounding world
is annihilated. When in this wise the principle and the condition
of defilement, their products, and the mental disturbances are all
annihilated, it is said that we attain Nirvāna and that various
spontaneous displays of activity are accomplished." The Nirvāna
of the tathatā philosophy is not nothingness, but tathatā (suchness
or thatness) in its purity unassociated with any kind of disturbance
which produces all the diversity of experience.
To the question that if all beings are uniformly in possession
of suchness and are therefore equally perfumed by it, how is it
that there are some who do not believe in it, while others do,
As'vaghosa's reply is that though all beings are uniformly in
possession of suchness, the intensity of ignorance and the principle
of individuation, that work from all eternity, vary in such
manifold grades as to outnumber the sands of the Ganges, and
hence the difference. There is an inherent perfuming principle
in one's own being which, embraced and protected by the love
(_maitrī_) and compassion (_karunā_) of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
is caused to loathe the misery of birth and death, to believe
in nirvāna, to cultivate the root of merit (_kus'alamūla_), to habituate
oneself to it and to bring it to maturity. In consequence
of this, one is enabled to see all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and, receiving
instructions from them, is benefited, gladdened and induced
to practise good deeds, etc., till one can attain to Buddhahood and
enter into Nirvāna. This implies that all beings have such perfuming
power in them that they may be affected by the good wishes
of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for leading them to the path
of virtue, and thus it is that sometimes hearing the Bodhisattvas
and sometimes seeing them, "all beings thereby acquire (spiritual)
benefits (_hitatā_)" and "entering into the samādhi of purity, they
[Footnote 1: Technical name for a very vast period of time.]
destroy hindrances wherever they are met with and obtain all-penetrating
insight that enables them to become conscious of the absolute oneness
(_samatā_) of the universe (_sarvaloka_) and to see innumerable Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas."
There is a difference between the perfuming which is not in
unison with suchness, as in the case of s'rāvakas (theravādin
monks), pratyekabuddhas and the novice bodhisattvas, who only
continue their religious discipline but do not attain to the state
of non-particularization in unison with the essence of suchness.
But those bodhisattvas whose perfuming is already in unison with
suchness attain to the state of non-particularization and allow
themselves to be influenced only by the power of the dharma.
The incessant perfuming of the defiled dharma (ignorance from
all eternity) works on, but when one attains to Buddhahood one
at once puts an end to it. The perfuming of the pure dharma
(i.e. suchness) however works on to eternity without any interruption.
For this suchness or thatness is the effulgence of great
wisdom, the universal illumination of the dharmadhātu (universe),
the true and adequate knowledge, the mind pure and clean in its
own nature, the eternal, the blessed, the self-regulating and the
pure, the tranquil, the inimitable and the free, and this is called
the tathāgatagarbha or the dharmakāya. It may be objected that
since thatness or suchness has been described as being without
characteristics, it is now a contradiction to speak of it as embracing
all merits, but it is held, that in spite of its embracing all merits,
it is free in its nature from all forms of distinction, because all
objects in the world are of one and the same taste; and being
of one reality they have nothing to do with the modes of particularization
or of dualistic character. "Though all things in their
(metaphysical) origin come from the soul alone and in truth are
free from particularization, yet on account of non-enlightenment
there originates a subjective mind (_ālayavijńāna_) that becomes
conscious of an external world." This is called ignorance or
avidyā. Nevertheless the pure essence of the mind is perfectly
pure and there is no awakening of ignorance in it. Hence we assign
to suchness this quality, the effulgence of great wisdom. It is
called universal illumination, because there is nothing for it to
illumine. This perfuming of suchness therefore continues for ever,
though the stage of the perfuming of avidyā comes to an end with
the Buddhas when they attain to nirvāna. All Buddhas while at the stage of discipline feel a deep compassion (_mahākarunā_) for all
beings, practise all virtues (_pāramitās_) and many other meritorious
deeds, treat others as their own selves, and wish to work out a
universal salvation of mankind in ages to come, through limitless
numbers of _kalpas_, recognize truthfully and adequately the
principle of equality (_samatā_)among people; and do not cling
to the individual existence of a sentient being. This is what is
meant by the activity of tathatā. The main idea of this tathatā
philosophy seems to be this, that this transcendent "thatness" is
at once the quintessence of all thought and activity; as avidyā veils
it or perfumes it, the world-appearance springs forth, but as the
pure thatness also perfumes the avidyā there is a striving for the
good as well. As the stage of avidyā is passed its luminous
character shines forth, for it is the ultimate truth which only
illusorily appeared as the many of the world.
This doctrine seems to be more in agreement with the view
of an absolute unchangeable reality as the ultimate truth than
that of the nihilistic idealism of _Lankāvatāra_. Considering the
fact that As'vaghosa was a learned Brahmin scholar in his early
life, it is easy to guess that there was much Upanisad influence in
this interpretation of Buddhism, which compares so favourably
with the Vedānta as interpreted by S'ankara. The _Lankāvatāra_
admitted a reality only as a make-believe to attract the Tairthikas
(heretics) who had a prejudice in favour of an unchangeable self
(_ātman_). But As'vaghosa plainly admitted an unspeakable reality
as the ultimate truth. Nāgārjuna's Mādhyamika doctrines which
eclipsed the profound philosophy of As'vaghosa seem to be more
faithful to the traditional Buddhist creed and to the Vijńānavāda
creed of Buddhism as explained in the Lankāvatāra [Footnote ref 1].
The Mādhyamika or the S'ūntavāda school.--Nihilism.
Candrakīrtti, the commentator of Nāgārjuna's verses known as
"_Mādhyamika kārikā_," in explaining the doctrine of dependent
origination (_pratītyasamutpāda_) as described by Nāgārjuna starts
with two interpretations of the word. According to one the word
pratītyasamutpāda means the origination (_utpāda_) of the nonexistent
(_abhāva_) depending on (_pratītya_) reasons and causes
[Footnote 1: As I have no access to the Chinese translation of
As'vaghosa's _S'raddhotpāda S'āstra_, I had to depend entirely on
Suzuki's expressions as they appear in his translation.]
(hetupratyaya). According to the other interpretation pratītya
means each and every destructible individual and pratītyasamutpāda
means the origination of each and every destructible individual.
But he disapproves of both these meanings. The second meaning does
not suit the context in which the Pāli Scriptures generally speak
of pratītyasamutpāda (e.g. _caksuh pratītya rūpāni ca utpadyante
caksurvijńānam_) for it does not mean the origination of each and
every destructible individual, but the originating of specific
individual phenomena (e.g. perception of form by the operation in
connection with the eye) depending upon certain specific conditions.
The first meaning also is equally unsuitable. Thus for example
if we take the case of any origination, e.g. that of the visual percept,
we see that there cannot be any contact between visual
knowledge and physical sense, the eye, and so it would not be
intelligible that the former should depend upon the latter. If we
interpret the maxim of pratītyasamutpāda as this happening that
happens, that would not explain any specific origination. All
origination is false, for a thing can neither originate by itself nor
by others, nor by a co-operation of both nor without any reason.
For if a thing exists already it cannot originate again by itself.
To suppose that it is originated by others would also mean
that the origination was of a thing already existing. If again
without any further qualification it is said that depending on
one the other comes into being, then depending on anything any
other thing could come into being--from light we could have darkness!
Since a thing could not originate from itself or by others,
it could not also be originated by a combination of both of them
together. A thing also could not originate without any cause,
for then all things could come into being at all times. It is therefore
to be acknowledged that wherever the Buddha spoke of this
so-called dependent origination (_pratītyasamutpāda_) it was referred
to as illusory manifestations appearing to intellects and
senses stricken with ignorance. This dependent origination is
not thus a real law, but only an appearance due to ignorance
(_avidyā_). The only thing which is not lost (_amosadharma_) is
nirvāna; but all other forms of knowledge and phenomena
(_samskāra_) are false and are lost with their appearances
(_sarvasamskārās'ca mrsāmosadharmānah_).
It is sometimes objected to this doctrine that if all appearances are false, then they do not exist at all. There are then no
good or bad works and no cycle of existence, and if such is the
case, then it may be argued that no philosophical discussion
should be attempted. But the reply to such an objection is that the
nihilistic doctrine is engaged in destroying the misplaced confidence
of the people that things are true. Those who are really
wise do not find anything either false or true, for to them clearly
they do not exist at all and they do not trouble themselves with
the question of their truth or falsehood. For him who knows thus
there are neither works nor cycles of births (_samsāra_) and also he
does not trouble himself about the existence or non-existence of
any of the appearances. Thus it is said in the Ratnakūtasūtra that
howsoever carefully one may search one cannot discover consciousness
(_citta_); what cannot be perceived cannot be said to exist,
and what does not exist is neither past, nor future, nor present, and
as such it cannot be said to have any nature at all; and that which
has no nature is subject neither to origination nor to extinction.
He who through his false knowledge (_viparyyāsa_) does not comprehend
the falsehood of all appearances, but thinks them to be
real, works and suffers the cycles of rebirth (_samsāra_). Like all
illusions, though false these appearances can produce all the harm
of rebirth and sorrow.
It may again be objected that if there is nothing true
according to the nihilists (_s'ūnyavādins_), then their statement that
there is no origination or extinction is also not true. Candrakirtti
in replying to this says that with s'ūnyavādins the truth is absolute
silence. When the S'ūnyavādin sages argue, they only accept for
the moment what other people regard as reasons, and deal with
them in their own manner to help them to come to a right
comprehension of all appearances. It is of no use to say, in spite
of all arguments tending to show the falsehood of all appearances,
that they are testified by our experience, for the whole thing that
we call "our experience" is but false illusion inasmuch as these
phenomena have no true essence.
When the doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda is described as "this
being that is," what is really meant is that things can only be
indicated as mere appearances one after another, for they have
no essence or true nature. Nihilism (_s'ūnyavāda_) also means just
this. The true meaning of pratītyasamutpāda or s'ūnyavāda is
this, that there is no truth, no essence in all phenomena that appear [Footnote ref 1]. As the phenomena have no essence they are neither
produced nor destroyed; they really neither come nor go. They
are merely the appearance of maya or illusion. The void (_s'ūnya_)
does not mean pure negation, for that is relative to some kind of
position. It simply means that none of the appearances have any
intrinsic nature of their own (_nihsvabhāvatvam_).
The Madhyamaka or S'ūnya system does not hold that anything
has any essence or nature (svabhāva) of its own; even
heat cannot be said to be the essence of fire; for both the heat
and the fire are the result of the combination of many conditions,
and what depends on many conditions cannot be said to be the
nature or essence of the thing. That alone may be said to be the
true essence or nature of anything which does not depend on
anything else, and since no such essence or nature can be pointed
out which stands independently by itself we cannot say that it
exists. If a thing has no essence or existence of its own, we cannot
affirm the essence of other things to it (_parabhāva_). If we
cannot affirm anything of anything as positive, we cannot consequently
assert anything of anything as negative. If anyone first
believes in things positive and afterwards discovers that they are
not so, he no doubt thus takes his stand on a negation (_abhāva_),
but in reality since we cannot speak of anything positive, we cannot
speak of anything negative either [Footnote ref 2].
It is again objected that we nevertheless perceive a process
going on. To this the Madhyamaka reply is that a process of
change could not be affirmed of things that are permanent. But we
can hardly speak of a process with reference to momentary things;
for those which are momentary are destroyed the next moment
after they appear, and so there is nothing which can continue to
justify a process. That which appears as being neither comes
from anywhere nor goes anywhere, and that which appears as destroyed
also does not come from anywhere nor go anywhere,
and so a process (_samsāra_) cannot be affirmed of them. It cannot
be that when the second moment arose, the first moment had
suffered a change in the process, for it was not the same as the
second, as there is no so-called cause-effect connection. In fact
there being no relation between the two, the temporal determination
as prior and later is wrong. The supposition that there is a
self which suffers changes is also not valid, for howsoever we
[Footnote 1: See _Mādhyamikavrtti_ (B.T.S.), p. 50.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. pp. 93-100.]
may search we find the five skandhas but no self. Moreover if
the soul is a unity it cannot undergo any process or progression,
for that would presuppose that the soul abandons one character
and takes up another at the same identical moment which is
inconceivable [Footnote ref 1].
But then again the question arises that if there is no process,
and no cycle of worldly existence of thousands of afflictions, what
is then the nirvāna which is described as the final extinction of
all afflictions (_kles'a_)? To this the Madhyamaka reply is that it does
not agree to such a definition of nirvāna. Nirvāna on the Madhyamaka
theory is the absence of the essence of all phenomena, that
which cannot be conceived either as anything which has ceased
or as anything which is produced (_aniruddham anntpannam_}. In
nirvāna all phenomena are lost; we say that the phenomena cease
to exist in nirvāna, but like the illusory snake in the rope they
never existed [Footnote ref 2]. Nirvāna cannot be any positive thing or
any sort of state of being (_bhāva_), for all positive states or things
are joint products of combined causes (_samskrta_) and are liable to
decay and destruction. Neither can it be a negative existence, for since
we cannot speak of any positive existence, we cannot speak of a
negative existence either. The appearances or the phenomena are
communicated as being in a state of change and process coming
one after another, but beyond that no essence, existence, or truth
can be affirmed of them. Phenomena sometimes appear to be
produced and sometimes to be destroyed, but they cannot be
determined as existent or non-existent. Nirvāna is merely the
cessation of the seeming phenomenal flow (_prapańcapravrtti_). It
cannot therefore be designated either as positive or as negative for
these conceptions belong to phenomena (_na cāpravrttimatram
bhāvābhāveti parikalpitum pāryyate evam na bhāvābhāvanirvānam_,
M.V. 197). In this state there is nothing which is known,
and even the knowledge that the phenomena have ceased to
appear is not found. Even the Buddha himself is a phenomenon,
a mirage or a dream, and so are all his teachings [Footnote ref 3].
It is easy to see that in this system there cannot exist any
bondage or emancipation; all phenomena are like shadows, like
the mirage, the dream, the māyā, and the magic without any real
nature (_nihsvabhāva_). It is mere false knowledge to suppose that
[Footnote 1: See _Madhyamikavrtti_ (B.T.S.), pp. 101-102.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. p. 194.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_. pp.162 and 201.]
one is trying to win a real nirvāna [Footnote ref 1]. It is this false
egoism that is to be considered as avidyā. When considered deeply it is
found that there is not even the slightest trace of any positive existence.
Thus it is seen that if there were no ignorance (_avidyā_), there
would have been no conformations (_samskāras_), and if there were
no conformations there would have been no consciousness, and so
on; but it cannot be said of the ignorance "I am generating the
samskāras," and it can be said of the samskāras "we are being
produced by the avidyā." But there being avidyā, there come the
samskarās and so on with other categories too. This character of
the pratītyasamutpāda is known as the coming of the consequent
depending on an antecedent reason (_hetūpanibandha_).
It can be viewed from another aspect, namely that of dependence
on conglomeration or combination (_pratyayopanibandh_).
It is by the combination (_samavāya_) of the four elements, space
(_ākās'a_) and consciousness (_vijńāna_) that a man is made. It is
due to earth (_prthivī_) that the body becomes solid, it is due to
water that there is fat in the body, it is due to fire that there is
digestion, it is due to wind that there is respiration; it is due
to ākās'a that there is porosity, and it is due to vijńāna that
there is mind-consciousness. It is by their mutual combination
that we find a man as he is. But none of these elements think
that they have done any of the functions that are considered to be
allotted to them. None of these are real substances or beings or
souls. It is by ignorance that these are thought of as existents and
attachment is generated for them. Through ignorance thus come
the samskāras, consisting of attachment, antipathy and thoughtlessness
(_rāga, dvesa, moha_); from these proceed the vijńāna and
the four skandhas. These with the four elements bring about name
and form (_nāmarūpa_), from these proceed the senses (_sadayatana_),
from the coming together of those three comes contact (_spars'a_);
from that feelings, from that comes desire (_trsnā_) and so on.
These flow on like the stream of a river, but there is no essence
or truth behind them all or as the ground of them all [Footnote ref 2].
The phenomena therefore cannot be said to be either existent or
non-existent, and no truth can be affirmed of either eternalism
(_s'ās'vatavāda_) or nihilism (_ucchedavāda_), and it is for this reason
[Footnote 1: See _Mādhyamikavrtti_ (B.T.S.), pp. 101-108.]
[Footnote: _Ibid._ pp. 209-211, quoted from _Sālistambhasūtra_.
Vācaspatimis'ra also quotes this passage in his _Bhāmatī_ on
S'ankara's _Brahma-sūtra_.]
that this doctrine is called the middle doctrine (_madhyamaka_) [Footnote
ref 1]. Existence and non-existence have only a relative truth
(_samvrtisatya_) in them, as in all phenomena, but there is no true
reality (_paramārthasatya_) in them or anything else. Morality
plays as high a part in this nihilistic system as it does in any
other Indian system. I quote below some stanzas from Nāgārjuna's
_Sukrllekha_ as translated by Wenzel (P.T.S. 1886) from
the Tibetan translation.
6. Knowing that riches are unstable and void (_asāra_) give according to
the moral precepts, to Bhikshus, Brahmins, the poor and friends for there
is no better friend than giving.
7. Exhibit morality (_s'īla_) faultless and sublime, unmixed and spotless,
for morality is the supporting ground of all eminence, as the earth is of
the moving and immovable.
8. Exercise the imponderable, transcendental virtues of charity, morality,
patience, energy, meditation, and likewise wisdom, in order that, having
reached the farther shore of the sea of existence, you may become a Jina
prince.
9. View as enemies, avarice (_mātsaryya_), deceit (_s'āthya_), duplicity
(_māyā_), lust, indolence (_kausīdya_), pride (_māna_), greed (_rāga_),
hatred (_dvesa_) and pride (_mada_) concerning family, figure, glory,
youth, or power.
15. Since nothing is so difficult of attainment as patience, open no door
for anger; the Buddha has pronounced that he who renounces anger shall
attain the degree of an anāgāmin (a saint who never suffers rebirth).
21. Do not look after another's wife; but if you see her, regard her,
according to age, like your mother, daughter or sister.
24. Of him who has conquered the unstable, ever moving objects of the
six senses and him who has overcome the mass of his enemies in battle, the
wise praise the first as the greater hero.
29. Thou who knowest the world, be equanimous against the eight worldly
conditions, gain and loss, happiness and suffering, fame and dishonour,
blame and praise, for they are not objects for your thoughts.
37. But one (a woman) that is gentle as a sister, winning as a friend,
careful of your well being as a mother, obedient as a servant her (you
must) honour as the guardian god(dess) of the family.
40. Always perfectly meditate on (turn your thoughts to) kindness, pity,
joy and indifference; then if you do not obtain a higher degree you
(certainly) will obtain the happiness of Brahman's world (_brahmavihāra_).
41. By the four dhyānas completely abandoning desire (_kāma_), reflection
(_vicāra_), joy (_prīti_), and happiness and pain (_sukha, duhkha_) you
will obtain as fruit the lot of a Brahman.
49. If you say "I am not the form, you thereby will understand I am
not endowed with form, I do not dwell in form, the form does not dwell in
me; and in like manner you will understand the voidness of the other four
aggregates."
50. The aggregates do not arise from desire, nor from time, nor from
[Footnote 1: See _Mādhyamikavrtti_ (B.T.S.), p. 160.]
nature (_prakrti_), not from themselves (_svabhāvāt_), nor from the Lord
(_īs'vara_), nor yet are they without cause; know that they arise from
ignorance (_avidyā_) and desire (_trsnā_).
51. Know that attachment to religious ceremonies (_s'īlabrataparāmars'a_),
wrong views (_mithyādrsti_) and doubt (_vicikitsā_) are the three
fetters.
53. Steadily instruct yourself (more and more) in the highest morality,
the highest wisdom and the highest thought, for the hundred and fifty one
rules (of the _prātimoksa_) are combined perfectly in these three.
58. Because thus (as demonstrated) all this is unstable (_anitya_) without
substance (_anātma_) without help (_as'arana_) without protector
(_anātha_) and without abode (_asthāna_) thou O Lord of men must become
discontented with this worthless (_asāra_) kadali-tree of the orb.
104. If a fire were to seize your head or your dress you would extinguish
and subdue it, even then endeavour to annihilate desire, for there is no
other higher necessity than this.
105. By morality, knowledge and contemplation, attain the spotless dignity
of the quieting and the subduing nirvāna not subject to age, death or
decay, devoid of earth, water, fire, wind, sun and moon.
107. Where there is no wisdom (_prajńā_) there is also no contemplation
(_dhyana_), where there is no contemplation there is also no wisdom; but
know that for him who possesses these two the sea of existence is like a
grove.
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Uncompromising Idealism or the School
of Vijńānavāda Buddhism.
The school of Buddhist philosophy known as the Vijńānavāda
or Yogācāra has often been referred to by such prominent teachers
of Hindu thought as Kumārila and S'ankara. It agrees to a great
extent with the S'ūnyavādins whom we have already described.
All the dharmas (qualities and substances) are but imaginary
constructions of ignorant minds. There is no movement in the
so-called external world as we suppose, for it does not exist. We
construct it ourselves and then are ourselves deluded that it exists
by itself (_nirmmitapratimohi_) [Footnote ref 1]. There are two functions
involved in our consciousness, viz. that which holds the perceptions
(_khyāti vijńāna_), and that which orders them by imaginary constructions
(_vastuprativikalpavijńāna_). The two functions however mutually
determine each other and cannot be separately distinguished
(_abhinnalaksane anyonyahetuke_). These functions are set to work
on account of the beginningless instinctive tendencies inherent
in them in relation to the world of appearance
(_anādikāla-prapańca-vāsanahetukańca_) [Footnote ref 2].
All sense knowledge can be stopped only when the diverse
[Footnote 1: _Lankāvatārasūtra_, pp. 21-22.]
[Footnote 2 _Ibid._ p. 44.]
unmanifested instincts of imagination are stopped
(_abhūta-parikalpa-vāsanā-vaicitra-nirodha_)
[Footnote ref 1]. All our phenomenal knowledge
is without any essence or truth (_nihsvabhāva_) and is but a
creation of māyā, a mirage or a dream. There is nothing which
may be called external, but all is the imaginary creation of the
mind (_svacitta_), which has been accustomed to create imaginary
appearances from beginningless time. This mind by whose movement
these creations take place as subject and object has no
appearance in itself and is thus without any origination, existence
and extinction (_utpādasthitibhangavarjjam_) and is called the
ālayavijńāna. The reason why this ālayavijńāna itself is said to be
without origination, existence, and extinction is probably this,
that it is always a hypothetical state which merely explains all
the phenomenal states that appear, and therefore it has no existence
in the sense in which the term is used and we could not
affirm any special essence of it.
We do not realize that all visible phenomena are of nothing
external but of our own mind (_svacitta_), and there is also the
beginningless tendency for believing and creating a phenomenal world
of appearance. There is also the nature of knowledge (which
takes things as the perceiver and the perceived) and there is also
the instinct in the mind to experience diverse forms. On account
of these four reasons there are produced in the ālayavijńāna (mind)
the ripples of our sense experiences (_pravrttivijńana_) as in a lake,
and these are manifested as sense experiences. All the five skandhas
called _pańchavijńānakāya_ thus appear in a proper synthetic
form. None of the phenomenal knowledge that appears is either
identical or different from the ālayavijńāna just as the waves cannot
be said to be either identical or different from the ocean. As
the ocean dances on in waves so the citta or the ālayavijńāna
is also dancing as it were in its diverse operations (_vrtti_). As
citta it collects all movements (_karma_) within it, as manas it
synthesizes (_vidhīyate_) and as vijńāna it constructs the fivefold
perceptions (_vijńānān vijānāti drs'yam kalpate pańcabhih_) [Footnote
ref 2].
It is only due to māyā (illusion) that the phenomena appear in their
twofold aspect as subject and object. This must always be regarded as
an appearance (_samvrtisatyatā_) whereas in the real aspect we could
never say whether they existed (_bhāva_) or did not exist [Footnote ref 3].
[Footnote 1: _Pańcāvatārasūtra_, p. 44.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., pp. 50-55.]
[Footnote 3: Asanga's _Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra_, pp. 58-59.]
All phenomena both being and non-being are illusory (_sadasantah
māyopamāh_). When we look deeply into them we find that
there is an absolute negation of all appearances, including even
all negations, for they are also appearances. This would make the
ultimate truth positive. But this is not so, for it is that in which
the positive and negative are one and the same (_bhāvābhāvasamānatā_)
[Footnote ref 1]. Such a state which is complete in itself and has no
name and no substance had been described in the Lankāvatārasūtra
as thatness (_tathatā_) [Footnote ref 2]. This state is also described in
another place in the _Lankāvatāra_ as voidness (_s'ūnyatā_) which is one
and has no origination and no essence [Footnote ref 3]. In another place
it is also designated as tathāgatagarbha [Footnote ref 4].
It may be supposed that this doctrine of an unqualified
ultimate truth comes near to the Vedantic ātman or Brahman
like the tathatā doctrine of As'vaghosa; and we find in Lankavatāra
that Rāvana asks the Buddha "How can you say that
your doctrine of tathāgatagarbha was not the same as the ātman
doctrine of the other schools of philosophers, for those heretics
also consider the ātman as eternal, agent, unqualified, all pervading
and unchanged?" To this the Buddha is found to reply
thus--"Our doctrine is not the same as the doctrine of those
heretics; it is in consideration of the fact that the instruction
of a philosophy which considered that there was no soul or substance
in anything (nairatmya) would frighten the disciples, that
I say that all things are in reality the tathāgatagarbha. This
should not be regarded as ātman. Just as a lump of clay is made
into various shapes, so it is the non-essential nature
of all phenomena and their freedom from all characteristics
(_sarvavikalpalaksanavinivrttam_) that is variously described as
the garbha or the nairātmya (essencelessness). This explanation of
tathāgatagarbha as the ultimate truth and reality is given in order to
attract to our creed those heretics who are superstitiously
inclined to believe in the ātman doctrine [Footnote ref 5]."
So far as the appearance of the phenomena was concerned,
the idealistic Buddhists (_vijńānavādins_) agreed to the doctrine of
pratītyasamutpāda with certain modifications. There was with
them an external pratītyasamutpāda just as it appeared in the
[Footnote 1: Asanga's _Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra_, p. 65.]
[Footnote 2: _Lankāvatārasūtra_, p. 70.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._ p. 78.]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 80.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ pp. 80-81.]
objective aspect and an internal pratītyasamutpāda. The external
pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination) is represented in the
way in which material things (e.g. a jug) came into being by the
co-operation of diverse elements--the lump of clay, the potter,
the wheel, etc. The internal (_ādhyātmika_) pratītyasamutpāda
was represented by avidyā, trsnā, karma, the skandhas, and the
āyatanas produced out of them [Footnote ref 1].
Our understanding is composed of two categories called the
_pravichayabuddhi_ and the
_vikalpalaksanagrahābhinives'apratisthapikābuddhi_. The
pravicayabuddhi is that which always seeks to take things in either
of the following four ways, that they are either this or the other
(_ekatvānyaiva_); either both or not both (_ubhayānubhaya_), either
are or are not (_astināsti_), either eternal or non-eternal (_nityānitya_).
But in reality none of these can be affirmed of the phenomena. The second
category consists of that habit of the mind by virtue of which it
constructs diversities and arranges them (created in their turn by
its own constructive activity--_parikalpa_) in a logical order of diverse
relations of subject and predicate, causal and other relations. He who
knows the nature of these two categories of the mind knows that there
is no external world of matter and that they are all experienced only
in the mind. There is no water, but it is the sense construction of
smoothness (_sneha_) that constructs the water as an external substance;
it is the sense construction of activity or energy that
constructs the external substance of fire; it is the sense construction
of movement that constructs the external substance of air.
In this way through the false habit of taking the unreal as the
real (_mithyāsatyābhinives'a_) five skandhas appear. If these were
to appear all together, we could not speak of any kind of causal
relations, and if they appeared in succession there could be
no connection between them, as there is nothing to bind them
together. In reality there is nothing which is produced or
destroyed, it is only our constructive imagination that builds up
things as perceived with all their relations, and ourselves as
perceivers. It is simply a convention (_vyavahāra_) to speak of things
as known [Footnote ref 2]. Whatever we designate by speech is mere
speech-construction (_vāgvikalpa_) and unreal. In speech one could not
speak of anything without relating things in some kind of causal
[Footnote 1: _Lankāvatārasūtra_, p. 85.]
[Footnote 2: _Lankāvatārasūtra_, p. 87, compare the term
"vyavahārika" as
used of the phenomenal and the conventional world in almost the same
sense by S'ankara.]
relation, but none of these characters may be said to be true;
the real truth (_paramartha_) can never be referred to by such
speech-construction.
The nothingness (_s'ūnyata_) of things may be viewed from
seven aspects--(1) that they are always interdependent, and hence
have no special characteristics by themselves, and as they cannot
be determined in themselves they cannot be determined in terms
of others, for, their own nature being undetermined, a reference
to an "other" is also undetermined, and hence they are all indefinable
(_laksanas'ūnyata_); (2) that they have no positive essence
(_bhāvasvabhāvas'ūnyatā_), since they spring up from a natural
non-existence (_svabhāvābhāvotpatti_); (3) that they are of an unknown
type of non-existence (_apracaritas'ūnyatā_), since all the skandhas
vanish in the nirvana; (4) that they appear phenomenally as connected
though non-existent (_pracaritas'ūnyatā_), for their skandhas
have no reality in themselves nor are they related to others, but
yet they appear to be somehow causally connected; (5) that none
of the things can be described as having any definite nature,
they are all undemonstrable by language (_nirabhilapyas'ūnyatā_);
(6) that there cannot be any knowledge about them except that
which is brought about by the long-standing defects of desires
which pollute all our vision; (7) that things are also non-existent
in the sense that we affirm them to be in a particular place and
time in which they are not (_itaretaras'ūnyatā_).
There is thus only non-existence, which again is neither eternal
nor destructible, and the world is but a dream and a māyā; the
two kinds of negation (_nirodha_) are ākās'a (space) and nirvana;
things which are neither existent nor non-existent are only
imagined to be existent by fools.
This view apparently comes into conflict with the doctrine of
this school, that the reality is called the tathāgatagarbha (the
womb of all that is merged in thatness) and all the phenomenal
appearances of the clusters (_skandhas_), elements (_dhātus_), and
fields of sense operation (_āyatanas_) only serve to veil it with
impurities, and this would bring it nearer to the assumption of a
universal soul as the reality. But the _Lankāvatāra_ attempts to
explain away this conflict by suggesting that the reference to
the tathāgatagarbha as the reality is only a sort of
false bait to attract those who are afraid of listening
to the nairātmya (non-soul doctrine) [Footnote ref 1].
[Footnote 1: _Lankāvatārasūtra_, p. 80.
The Bodhisattvas may attain their highest by the fourfold
knowledge of (1) _svacittadrs'hyabhāvanā_, (2)
_utpādasthitibhangavivarjjanatā_,
(3) _bāhyabhāvābhāvopalaksanatā_ and
(4) _svapratyāryyajńānādhigamābhinnalaksanatā_. The first means
that all things are but creations of the imagination of one's mind.
The second means that as things have no essence there is no origination,
existence or destruction. The third means that one should
know the distinctive sense in which all external things are said
either to be existent or non-existent, for their existence is merely
like the mirage which is produced by the beginningless desire
(_vāsanā_) of creating and perceiving the manifold. This brings us
to the fourth one, which means the right comprehension of the
nature of all things.
The four dhyānas spoken of in the _Lankāvatāra_ seem to be
different from those which have been described in connection with
the Theravāda Buddhism. These dhyānas are called (1) _bālopacārika_,
(2) _arthapravichaya_, (3) _tathatālambana_ and (4) _tathāgata_.
The first one is said to be that practised by the s'rāvakas
and the pratyekabuddhas. It consists in concentrating upon the
doctrine that there is no soul (_pudgalanairātmya_), and that everything
is transitory, miserable and impure. When considering all
things in this way from beginning to end the sage advances on
till all conceptual knowing ceases (_āsamjńānirodhāt_); we have
what is called the vālopacārika dhyāna (the meditation for beginners).
The second is the advanced state where not only there is
full consciousness that there is no self, but there is also the
comprehension that neither these nor the doctrines of other heretics
may be said to exist, and that there is none of the dharmas that
appears. This is called the _arthapravicayadhyāna_, for the sage
concentrates here on the subject of thoroughly seeking out
(_pravichaya_) the nature of all things (_artha_).
The third dhyāna, that in which the mind realizes that the
thought that there is no self nor that there are the appearances,
is itself the result of imagination and thus lapses into the thatness
(_tathatā_). This dhyāna is called _tathatālambana_, because it has for
its object tathatā or thatness.
The last or the fourth dhyāna is that in which the lapse of
the mind into the state of thatness is such that the nothingness
and incomprehensibility of all phenomena is perfectly realized; and nirvāna is that in which all root desires (_vāsanā_) manifesting
themselves in knowledge are destroyed and the mind with knowledge
and perceptions, making false creations, ceases to work. This
cannot be called death, for it will not have any rebirth and it cannot
be called destruction, for only compounded things (_samskrta_)
suffer destruction, so that it is different from either death or
destruction. This nirvāna is different from that of the s'rāvakas
and the pratyekabuddhas for they are satisfied to call that state
nirvāna, in which by the knowledge of the general characteristics
of all things (transitoriness and misery) they are not attached to
things and cease to make erroneous judgments [Footnote ref 1].
Thus we see that there is no cause (in the sense of ground)
of all these phenomena as other heretics maintain. When it is
said that the world is māyā or illusion, what is meant to be
emphasized is this, that there is no cause, no ground. The phenomena
that seem to originate, stay, and be destroyed are mere
constructions of tainted imagination, and the tathatā or thatness
is nothing but the turning away of this constructive activity or
nature of the imagination (_vikalpa_) tainted with the associations
of beginningless root desires (_vāsanā_) [Footnote ref 2]. The tathatā has
no separate reality from illusion, but it is illusion itself when the
course of the construction of illusion has ceased. It is therefore
also spoken of as that which is cut off or detached from the mind
(_cittavimukta_), for here there is no construction of imagination
(_sarvakalpanavirahitam_) [Footnote ref 3].
Sautrāntika Theory of Perception.
Dharmottara (847 A.D.), a commentator of Dharmakīrtti's [Footnote ref 4]
(about 635 A.D.) _Nyāyabindu_, a Sautrantika logical and epistemological
work, describes right knowledge (_samyagjńāna_) as an
invariable antecedent to the accomplishment of all that a man
[Footnote 1: _Lankāvatarasūtra_, p. 100.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 109.]
[Footnote 3: This account of the Vijńanavada school is collected mainly
from _Lankāvatārasūtra_, as no other authentic work of the Vijńānavāda
school is available. Hindu accounts and criticisms of this school may be
had in such books as Kumarila's _S'loka vārttika_ or S'ankara's bhasya,
II. ii, etc. Asaknga's _Mahāyānasūtralamkāra_ deals more with the duties
concerning the career of a saint (_Bodhisattva_) than with the metaphysics
of the system.]
[Footnote 4: Dharmakīrtti calls himself an adherent of Vijńanavāda in his
_Santānāntarasiddhi_, a treatise on solipsism, but his _Nyāyabindu_ seems
rightly to have been considered by the author of _Nyāyabindutīkātippani_
(p. 19) as being written from the Sautrāntika point of view.]
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desires to have (_samyagjńānapūrvikā sarvapurusārthasiddhi_) [Footnote
ref 1]. When on proceeding, in accordance with the presentation of any
knowledge, we get a thing as presented by it we call it right
knowledge. Right knowledge is thus the knowledge by which one
can practically acquire the thing he wants to acquire (_arthādhigati_).
The process of knowledge, therefore, starts with the perceptual
presentation and ends with the attainment of the thing
represented by it and the fulfilment of the practical need by it
(_arthādhigamāt samāptah pramānavyāpārah_). Thus there are
three moments in the perceptual acquirement of knowledge:
(1) the presentation, (2) our prompting in accordance with it,
and (3) the final realization of the object in accordance with
our endeavour following the direction of knowledge. Inference
is also to be called right knowledge, as it also serves our practical
need by representing the presence of objects in certain connections
and helping us to realize them. In perception this presentation
is direct, while in inference this is brought about indirectly
through the linga (reason). Knowledge is sought by men for the
realization of their ends, and the subject of knowledge is discussed
in philosophical works only because knowledge is sought
by men. Any knowledge, therefore, which will not lead us to
the realization of the object represented by it could not be called
right knowledge. All illusory perceptions, therefore, such as the
perception of a white conch-shell as yellow or dream perceptions,
are not right knowledge, since they do not lead to the realization
of such objects as are presented by them. It is true no doubt
that since all objects are momentary, the object which was perceived
at the moment of perception was not the same as that
which was realized at a later moment. But the series of existents
which started with the first perception of a blue object finds itself
realized by the realization of other existents of the same series
(_nīlādau ya eva santānah paricchinno nilajńānena sa eva tena
prāpitah tena nilajńānam pramānam_) [Footnote ref 2].
When it is said that right knowledge is an invariable antecedent
of the realization of any desirable thing or the retarding
of any undesirable thing, it must be noted that it is not meant
[Footnote 1: Brief extracts from the opinions of two other commentators of
_Nyāyaybindu_, Vinītadeva and S'antabhadra (seventh century), are found in
_Nyāyabindutīkātippanī_, a commentary of _Nyayabindutikā_ of Dharmmottara,
but their texts are not available to us.]
[Footnote 2: _Nyāyabindutīkātippanī_, p. 11.]
that right knowledge is directly the cause of it; for, with the rise
of any right perception, there is a memory of past experiences,
desire is aroused, through desire an endeavour in accordance with
it is launched, and as a result of that there is realization of the
object of desire. Thus, looked at from this point of view, right
knowledge is not directly the cause of the realization of the object.
Right knowledge of course directly indicates the presentation, the
object of desire, but so far as the object is a mere presentation it
is not a subject of enquiry. It becomes a subject of enquiry only in
connection with our achieving the object presented by perception.
Perception (_pratyaks'a_) has been defined by Dharmakīrtti as
a presentation, which is generated by the objects alone, unassociated
by any names or relations (_kalpanā_) and which is not erroneous
(_kalpanāpodhamabhrāntam_) [Footnote ref 1]. This definition does not
indeed represent the actual nature (_svarūpa_) of perception, but only
shows the condition which must be fulfilled in order that anything
may be valid perception. What is meant by saying that a perception
is not erroneous is simply this, that it will be such that
if one engages himself in an endeavour in accordance with it,
he will not be baffled in the object which was presented to him
by his perception (_tasmādgrāhye arthe vasturūpe yadaviparyastam
tadabhrāntamiha veditavyam_}. It is said that a right perception
could not be associated with names (_kalpanā_ or _abhilāpa_). This
qualification is added only with a view of leaving out all that is not
directly generated by the object. A name is given to a thing
only when it is associated in the mind, through memory, as being
the same as perceived before. This cannot, therefore, be regarded
as being produced by the object of perception. The senses present
the objects by coming in contact with them, and the objects also
must of necessity allow themselves to be presented as they are
when they are in contact with the proper senses. But the work
of recognition or giving names is not what is directly produced
by the objects themselves, for this involves the unification of
previous experiences, and this is certainly not what is presented
[Footnote 1: The definition first given in the _Pramānasamucaya_ (not
available in Sanskrit) of Dinnāga (500 A.D.) was "_Kalpanāpodham_."
According to Dharmakirtti it is the indeterminate knowledge (_nirvikalpa
jńāna_) consisting only of the copy of the object presented to the senses
that constitutes the valid element presented to perception. The determinate
knowledge (_savikalpa jńāna_), as formed by the conceptual activity of
the mind identifying the object with what has been experienced before,
cannot be regarded as truly representing what is really presented to
the senses.]
to the sense
(_pūrvadrstāparadrstańcārthamekīkurvadvijńānamasannihitavisayam
pūrvadrstasyāsannihitatvāt_). In all illusory perceptions it is the
sense which is affected either by extraneous or by inherent physiological
causes. If the senses are not perverted they are bound to present the
object correctly. Perception thus means the correct presentation through
the senses of an object in its own uniqueness as containing only those
features which are its and its alone (_svalaksanam_). The validity of
knowledge consists in the sameness that it has with the objects presented
by it (_arthena saha yatsārūpyam sādrs'yamasya jńānasya
tatpramānamiha_).
But the objection here is that if our percept is only
similar to the external object then this similarity is a thing which
is different from the presentation, and thus perception becomes
invalid. But the similarity is not different from the percept which
appears as being similar to the object. It is by virtue of their
sameness that we refer to the object by the percept (_taditi sārūpyam
tasya vas'āt_) and our perception of the object becomes possible.
It is because we have an awareness of blueness that we speak of
having perceived a blue object. The relation, however, between
the notion of similarity of the perception with the blue object and
the indefinite awareness of blue in perception is not one of
causation but of a determinant and a determinate
(_vyavasthāpyavyavasthāpakabhāvena_). Thus it is the same cognition
which in one form stands as signifying the similarity with the object
of perception and is in another indefinite form the awareness as the
percept (_tata ekasya vastunah kińcidrūpam pramānam kińcitpramānaphalam
na virudhyate_). It is on account of this similarity
with the object that a cognition can be a determinant of the
definite awareness (_vyavasthāpanaheturhi sārūpyam_), so that by
the determinate we know the determinant and thus by the
similarity of the sense-datum with the object {_pramāna_) we come
to think that our awareness has this particular form as "blue"
(_pramānaphala_). If this sameness between the knowledge and its
object was not felt we could not have spoken of the object from
the awareness (_sārūpyamanubhūtam vyavasthāpanahetuh_). The
object generates an awareness similar to itself, and
it is this correspondence that can lead us to the realization
of the object so presented by right knowledge [Footnote ref l].
[Footnote 1: See also pp. 340 and 409. It is unfortunate that, excepting
the _Nyāyabindu, Nyāyabindutīkā, Nyāyabindutīkātippanī_ (St
Petersburg,
1909), no other works dealing with this interesting doctrine of perception
are available to us. _Nyāyabindu_ is probably one of the earliest works in
which we hear of the doctrine of _arthakriyākāritva_ (practical fulfilment
of our desire as a criterion of right knowledge). Later on it was regarded
as a criterion of existence, as Ratnakīrtti's works and the profuse
references by Hindu writers to the Buddhistic doctrines prove. The word
_arthakriyā_ is found in Candrakīrtti's commentary on Nāgārjuna and also
in such early works as _Lalitavistara_ (pointed out to me by Dr E.J.
Thomas of the Cambridge University Library) but the word has no
philosophical significance there.]
Sautrāntika theory of Inference [Footnote ref 1].
According to the Sautrāntika doctrine of Buddhism as described
by Dharmakīrtti and Dharmmottara which is probably the
only account of systematic Buddhist logic that is now available to
us in Sanskrit, inference (_anumāna_) is divided into two classes,
called svārthānumāna (inferential knowledge attained by a person
arguing in his own mind or judgments), and parārthānumāna (inference
through the help of articulated propositions for convincing
others in a debate). The validity of inference depended, like the
validity of perception, on copying the actually existing facts of
the external world. Inference copied external realities as much
as perception did; just as the validity of the immediate perception
of blue depends upon its similarity to the external blue thing
perceived, so the validity of the inference of a blue thing also,
so far as it is knowledge, depends upon its resemblance to the
external fact thus inferred (_sārūpyavas'āddhi tannīlapratītirūpam
sidhyati_).
The reason by which an inference is made should be such
that it may be present only in those cases where the thing to
be inferred exists, and absent in every case where it does not
exist. It is only when the reason is tested by both these joint
conditions that an unfailing connection (_pratibandha_) between
the reason and the thing to be inferred can be established. It is
not enough that the reason should be present in all cases where
the thing to be inferred exists and absent where it does not
exist, but it is necessary that it should be present only in the
above case. This law (_niyama_) is essential for establishing the
unfailing condition necessary for inference [Footnote ref 2]. This
unfailing natural connection (_svabhāvapratibandha_) is found in two types
[Footnote 1: As the _Pramānasamuccaya_ of Dińnāga is not available in
Sanskrit, we can hardly know anything of developed Buddhist logic except
what can be got from the _Nyāyabindutīkā_ of Dharmmottara.]
[Footnote 2: _tasmāt niyamavatorevānvayavyatirekayoh prayogah karttavyah
yena pratibandho gamyeta sādhanyasa sādhyena. Nyāyabindutīkā_, p. 24.]
of cases. The first is that where the nature of the reason is contained
in the thing to be inferred as a part of its nature, i.e. where
the reason stands for a species of which the thing to be inferred
is a genus; thus a stupid person living in a place full of tall pines
may come to think that pines are called trees because they are
tall and it may be useful to point out to him that even a small
pine plant is a tree because it is pine; the quality of pineness
forms a part of the essence of treeness, for the former being
a species is contained in the latter as a genus; the nature of the
species being identical with the nature of the genus, one could
infer the latter from the former but not _vice versa_; this is called
the unfailing natural connection of identity of nature (_tādātmya_).
The second is that where the cause is inferred from the effect
which stands as the reason of the former. Thus from the smoke
the fire which has produced it may be inferred. The ground of
these inferences is that reason is naturally indissolubly connected
with the thing to be inferred, and unless this is the case, no
inference is warrantable.
This natural indissoluble connection (_svabhāvapratibandha_),
be it of the nature of identity of essence of the species in the
genus or inseparable connection of the effect with the cause, is
the ground of all inference [Footnote ref 1]. The svabhāvapratibandha
determines the inseparability of connection (avinābhāvaniyama) and
the inference is made not through a series of premisses, but
directly by the linga (reason) which has the inseparable connection
[Footnote ref 2].
The second type of inference known as parārthānumāna
agrees with svārthānumāna in all essential characteristics; the
main difference between the two is this, that in the case of
parārthānumāna, the inferential process has to be put verbally in
premisses.
Pandit Ratnākarasānti, probably of the ninth or the tenth century
A.D., wrote a paper named _Antarvyāptisamarthana_ in which
[Footnote 1: _na hi yo yatra svabhāvena na pratibaddhah sa tam
apratibaddhavisayamavs'yameva na vyabhicaratīti nāsti
tayoravyabhicāraniyama. Nyāyabindutīkā_, p. 29.]
[Footnote 2: The inseparable connection determining inference is only
possible when the linga satisfies the three following conditions,
viz. (1) paksasattva (existence of the linga in the paksa--the thing
about which something is inferred); (2) sapaksasattva (existence of the
linga in those cases where the sādhya oc probandum existed), and
(3) vipaksāsattva (its non-existence in all those places where the sādhya
did not exist). The Buddhists admitted three propositions in a syllogism,
e.g. The hill has fire, because it has smoke, like a kitchen but unlike
a lake.]
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he tried to show that the concomitance is not between those
cases which possess the linga or reason with the cases which
possess the sādhya (probandum) but between that which has the
characteristics of the linga with that which has the characteristics
of the sādhya (probandum); or in other words the concomitance
is not between the places containing the smoke such as kitchen,
etc., and the places containing fire but between that which has the
characteristic of the linga, viz. the smoke, and that which has the
characteristic of the sādhya, viz. the fire. This view of the nature
of concomitance is known as inner concomitance (_antarvyāpti_),
whereas the former, viz. the concomitance between the thing
possessing linga and that possessing sādhya, is known as outer
concomitance (_bahirvyāpti_) and generally accepted by the Nyāya
school of thought. This antarvyāpti doctrine of concomitance is
indeed a later Buddhist doctrine.
It may not be out of place here to remark that evidences of
some form of Buddhist logic probably go back at least as early
as the _Kathāvatthu_ (200 B.C.). Thus Aung on the evidence of
the _Yamaka_ points out that Buddhist logic at the time of As'oka
"was conversant with the distribution of terms" and the process
of conversion. He further points out that the logical premisses
such as the udāharana (_Yo yo aggimā so so dhūmavā_--whatever is
fiery is smoky), the upanayana (_ayam pabbato dhūmavā_--this
hill is smoky) and the niggama (_tasmādayam aggimā_--therefore
that is fiery) were also known. (Aung further sums up the
method of the arguments which are found in the _Kathāvatthu_ as
follows:
"Adherent. Is _A B_? (_thāpanā_).
Opponent. Yes.
Adherent. Is _C D_? (_pāpanā_).
Opponent. No.
Adherent. But if _A_ be _B_ then (you should have said) _C_ is _D_.
That _B_ can be affirmed of _A_ but _D_ of _C_ is false.
Hence your first answer is refuted.")
The antecedent of the hypothetical major premiss is termed thāpanā,
because the opponent's position, _A_ is _B_, is conditionally
established for the purpose of refutation.
The consequent of the hypothetical major premiss is termed
pāpanā because it is got from the antecedent. And the conclusion is termed ropana because the regulation is placed on the
opponent. Next:
"If _D_ be derived of _C_.
Then _B_ should have been derived of _A_.
But you affirmed _B_ of _A_.
(therefore) That _B_ can be affirmed of _A_ but not of _D_ or _C_ is
wrong."
This is the patiloma, inverse or indirect method, as contrasted
with the former or direct method, anuloma. In both methods the
consequent is derived. But if we reverse the hypothetical major
in the latter method we get
"If _A_ is _B_ _C_ is _D_.
But _A_ is _B_.
Therefore _C_ is _D_.
By this indirect method the opponent's second answer is reestablished
[Footnote ref 1]."
The Doctrine of Momentariness.
Ratnakīrtti (950 A.D.) sought to prove the momentariness of
all existence (_sattva_), first, by the concomitance discovered by the
method of agreement in presence (_anvayavyāpti_), and then by the
method of difference by proving that the production of effects
could not be justified on the assumption of things being permanent
and hence accepting the doctrine of momentariness
as the only alternative. Existence is defined as the capacity of
producing anything (_arthakriyākāritva_). The form of the first
type of argument by anvayavyāpti may be given thus: "Whatever
exists is momentary, by virtue of its existence, as for example
the jug; all things about the momentariness of which we are discussing
are existents and are therefore momentary." It cannot
be said that the jug which has been chosen as an example of an
existent is not momentary; for the jug is producing certain
effects at the present moment; and it cannot be held that these
are all identical in the past and the future or that it is producing
no effect at all in the past and future, for the first is impossible,
for those which are done now could not be done again in the
future; the second is impossible, for if it has any capacity to
[Footnote: 1: See introduction to the translation of _Kathāvatthu_
(_Points of Controversy_) by Mrs Rhys Davids.]
produce effects it must not cease doing so, as in that case one
might as well expect that there should not be any effect even at
the present moment. Whatever has the capacity of producing
anything at any time must of necessity do it. So if it does produce
at one moment and does not produce at another, this
contradiction will prove the supposition that the things were
different at the different moments. If it is held that the nature
of production varies at different moments, then also the thing at
those two moments must be different, for a thing could not have
in it two contradictory capacities.
Since the jug does not produce at the present moment the
work of the past and the future moments, it cannot evidently do
so, and hence is not identical with the jug in the past and in the
future, for the fact that the jug has the capacity and has not the
capacity as well, proves that it is not the same jug at the two
moments (_s'aktās'aktasvabhavatayā pratiksanam bhedah_). The
capacity of producing effects (_arthakriyās'akti_), which is but the
other name of existence, is universally concomitant with momentariness
(_ksanikatvavyāpta_).
The Nyāya school of philosophy objects to this view and says
that the capacity of anything cannot be known until the effect
produced is known, and if capacity to produce effects be regarded
as existence or being, then the being or existence of the effect
cannot be known, until that has produced another effect and
that another _ad infinitum_. Since there can be no being that has
not capacity of producing effects, and as this capacity can
demonstrate itself only in an infinite chain, it will be impossible
to know any being or to affirm the capacity of producing effects
as the definition of existence. Moreover if all things were
momentary there would be no permanent perceiver to observe
the change, and there being nothing fixed there could hardly be
any means even of taking to any kind of inference. To this
Ratnakirtti replies that capacity (_saāmarthya_) cannot be denied,
for it is demonstrated even in making the denial. The observation
of any concomitance in agreement in presence, or agreement in
absence, does not require any permanent observer, for under
certain conditions of agreement there is the knowledge of the
concomitance of agreement in presence, and in other conditions
there is the knowledge of the concomitance in absence. This
knowledge of concomitance at the succeeding moment holds within itself the experience of the conditions of the preceding moment,
and this alone is what we find and not any permanent observer.
The Buddhist definition of being or existence (_sattva_) is
indeed capacity, and we arrived at this when it was observed that
in all proved cases capacity was all that could be defined of
being;--seed was but the capacity of producing shoots, and
even if this capacity should require further capacity to produce
effects, the fact which has been perceived still remains, viz. that
the existence of seeds is nothing but the capacity of producing
the shoots and thus there is no vicious infinite [Footnote ref l].
Though things are momentary, yet we could have concomitance between
things only so long as their apparent forms are not different
(_atadrūpaparāvrttayoreva sādhyasādhanayoh pratyaksena
vyāptigrahanāt_). The vyāpti or concomitance of any two things
(e.g. the fire and the smoke) is based on extreme similarity and not
on identity.
Another objection raised against the doctrine of momentariness
is this, that a cause (e.g. seed) must wait for a number of other
collocations of earth, water, etc., before it can produce the effect
(e.g. the shoots) and hence the doctrine must fail. To this Ratnakīrtti
replies that the seed does not exist before and produce the
effect when joined by other collocations, but such is the special
effectiveness of a particular seed-moment, that it produces both
the collocations or conditions as well as the effect, the shoot.
How a special seed-moment became endowed with such special
effectiveness is to be sought in other causal moments which
preceded it, and on which it was dependent. Ratnakīrtti wishes to
draw attention to the fact that as one perceptual moment reveals
a number of objects, so one causal moment may produce a number
of effects. Thus he says that the inference that whatever has
being is momentary is valid and free from any fallacy.
It is not important to enlarge upon the second part of
Ratnakīrtti's arguments in which he tries to show that the production
of effects could not be explained if we did not suppose
[Footnote 1: The distinction between vicious and harmless infinites
was known to the Indians at least as early as the sixth or the seventh
century. Jayanta quotes a passage which differentiates the two clearly
(_Nyāyamańjarī_, p. 22):
"_mūlaksatikarīmāhuranavasthām hi dūsanam.
mūlasiddhau tvarucyāpi nānavasthā nivāryate._"
The infinite regress that has to be gone through in order to arrive
at the root matter awaiting to be solved destroys the root and is hence
vicious, whereas if the root is saved there is no harm in a regress
though one may not be willing to have it.]
all things to be momentary, for this is more an attempt to refute
the doctrines of Nyāya than an elaboration of the Buddhist
principles.
The doctrine of momentariness ought to be a direct corollary
of the Buddhist metaphysics. But it is curious that though all
dharmas were regarded as changing, the fact that they were all
strictly momentary (_ksanika_--i.e. existing only for one moment)
was not emphasized in early Pāli literature. As'vaghosa in his
_S'raddhotpādas'āstra_ speaks of all skandhas as ksanika (Suzuki's
translation, p. 105). Buddhaghosa also speaks of the meditation
of the khandhas as khanika in his _Visuddhimagga._ But from the
seventh century A.D. till the tenth century this doctrine together
with the doctrine of arthakriyākāritva received great attention at
the hands of the Sautrāntikas and the Vaibhāsikas. All the
Nyāya and Vedānta literature of this period is full of refutations
and criticisms of these doctrines. The only Buddhist account
available of the doctrine of momentariness is from the pen of
Ratnakīrtti. Some of the general features of his argument in
favour of the view have been given above. Elaborate accounts of it
may be found in any of the important Nyāya works of this period
such as _Nynyamanjari, Tātparyyatīkā_ of Vācaspati Mis'ra, etc.
Buddhism did not at any time believe anything to be permanent.
With the development of this doctrine they gave great
emphasis to this point. Things came to view at one moment and
the next moment they were destroyed. Whatever is existent is
momentary. It is said that our notion of permanence is derived
from the notion of permanence of ourselves, but Buddhism denied
the existence of any such permanent selves. What appears as
self is but the bundle of ideas, emotions, and active tendencies
manifesting at any particular moment. The next moment these
dissolve, and new bundles determined by the preceding ones
appear and so on. The present thought is thus the only thinker.
Apart from the emotions, ideas, and active tendencies, we cannot
discover any separate self or soul. It is the combined product of
these ideas, emotions, etc., that yield the illusory appearance of
self at any moment. The consciousness of self is the resultant product
as it were of the combination of ideas, emotions, etc., at any
particular moment. As these ideas, emotions, etc., change every
moment there is no such thing as a permanent self.
The fact that I remember that I have been existing for a long time past does not prove that a permanent self has been
existing for such a long period. When I say this is that book, I
perceive the book with my eye at the present moment, but that
"this book" is the same as "that book" (i.e. the book
arising in
memory), cannot be perceived by the senses. It is evident
that the "that book" of memory refers to a book seen in the
past, whereas "this book" refers to the book which is before
my eyes. The feeling of identity which is adduced to prove permanence
is thus due to a confusion between an object of memory
referring to a past and different object with the object as perceived
at the present moment by the senses [Footnote ref 1]. This is true not only
of all recognition of identity and permanence of external objects but
also of the perception of the identity of self, for the perception of
self-identity results from the confusion of certain ideas or emotions
arising in memory with similar ideas of the present moment. But
since memory points to an object of past perception, and the perception
to another object of the present moment, identity cannot
be proved by a confusion of the two. Every moment all objects
of the world are suffering dissolution and destruction, but yet
things appear to persist, and destruction cannot often be noticed.
Our hair and nails grow and are cut, but yet we think that we
have the same hair and nail that we had before, in place of old
hairs new ones similar to them have sprung forth, and they leave
the impression as if the old ones were persisting. So it is that
though things are destroyed every moment, others similar to
these often rise into being and are destroyed the next moment
and so on, and these similar things succeeding in a series produce
the impression that it is one and the same thing which has been
persisting through all the passing moments [Footnote ref 2]. Just as the
flame of a candle is changing every moment and yet it seems to us as
if we have been perceiving the same flame all the while, so
all our bodies, our ideas, emotions, etc., all external objects
around us are being destroyed every moment, and new ones are
being generated at every succeeding moment, but so long as the
objects of the succeeding moments are similar to those
of the preceding moments, it appears to us that things
have remained the same and no destruction has taken place.
[Footnote 1: See pratyabhijńānirāsa of the Buddhists, _Nyāyamańjarī_,
V.S.
Series, pp. 449, etc.]
[Footnote 2: See _Tarkarahasyadīpikā_ of Gunaratna, p. 30, and also
_Nyāyamańjarī,_ V.S. edition, p. 450.]
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The Doctrine of Momentariness and the Doctrine
of Causal Efficiency (Arthakriyākāritva).
It appears that a thing or a phenomenon may be defined from
the Buddhist point of view as being the combination of diverse
characteristics [Footnote ref 1]. What we call a thing is but a
conglomeration of diverse characteristics which are found to affect,
determine or influence other conglomerations appearing as sentient or
as inanimate bodies. So long as the characteristics forming the
elements of any conglomeration remain perfectly the same, the
conglomeration may be said to be the same. As soon as any of
these characteristics is supplanted by any other new characteristic,
the conglomeration is to be called a new one [Footnote ref 2]. Existence or
being of things means the work that any conglomeration does or
the influence that it exerts on other conglomerations. This in
Sanskrit is called _arthakriyākāritva_ which literally translated
means--the power of performing actions and purposes of some
kind [Footnote ref 3]. The criterion of existence or being is the
performance of certain specific actions, or rather existence means
that a certain effect has been produced in some way (causal efficiency).
That which has produced such an effect is then called existent or _sat_.
Any change in the effect thus produced means a corresponding
change of existence. Now, that selfsame definite specific effect
[Footnote 1: Compare _Milindapańha,_ II. I. 1--The Chariot Simile.]
[Footnote 2: Compare _Tarkarahasyadīpikā_ of Gunaratna, A.S.'s edition,
pp. 24, 28 and _Nyāyamańjarī,_ V.S. edition, pp. 445, etc., and also the
paper on _Ksanabhangasiddhi_ by Ratnakīrtti in _Six Buddhist Nyāya
tracts_.]
[Footnote 3: This meaning of the word "arthakriyākāritva" is
different
from the meaning of the word as we found in the section "sautrāntika
theory of perception." But we find the development of this meaning both
in Ratnakīrtti as well as in Nyāya writers who referred to this doctrine.
With Vinītadeva (seventh century A.D.) the word
"_arthakrīyāsiddhi_"
meant the fulfilment of any need such as the cooking of rice by fire
(_arthas'abdena prayojanamucyate purusasya praycjanam dārupākādi
tasya siddhih nispattih_--the word _artha_ means need; the need of
man such as cooking by logs, etc.; _siddhi_ of that, means accomplishment).
With Dharmottara who flourished about a century and a half later
_arthasiddhi_ means action (anusthiti) with reference to undesirable
and desirable objects (_heyopādeyārthavisayā_). But with Ratnakīrtti
(950 A.D.) the word _arthakriyākāritva_ has an entirely different sense.
It means with him efficiency of producing any action or event, and as
such it is regarded as the characteristic definition of existence
_sattva_). Thus he says in his _Ksanabhangasiddhi,_ pp. 20, 21, that
though in different philosophies there are different definitions of
existence or being, he will open his argument with the universally accepted
definition of existence as _arthakriyākāritva_ (efficiency of causing any
action or event). Whenever Hindu writers after Ratnakīrtti refer to the
Buddhist doctrine of _arthakriyākāritva_ they usually refer to this
doctrine in Ratnakīrtti's sense.]
which is produced now was never produced before, and cannot
be repeated in the future, for that identical effect which is once
produced cannot be produced again. So the effects produced in
us by objects at different moments of time may be similar but
cannot be identical. Each moment is associated with a new effect
and each new effect thus produced means in each case the coming
into being of a correspondingly new existence of things. If things
were permanent there would be no reason why they should be
performing different effects at different points of time. Any
difference in the effect produced, whether due to the thing itself
or its combination with other accessories, justifies us in asserting
that the thing has changed and a new one has come in its place.
The existence of a jug for example is known by the power it
has of forcing itself upon our minds; if it had no such power
then we could not have said that it existed. We can have no
notion of the meaning of existence other than the impression
produced on us; this impression is nothing else but the power
exerted by things on us, for there is no reason why one should
hold that beyond such powers as are associated with the production
of impressions or effects there should be some other
permanent entity to which the power adhered, and which existed
even when the power was not exerted. We perceive the power
of producing effects and define each unit of such power as
amounting to a unit of existence. And as there would be
different units of power at different moments, there should also
be as many new existences, i.e. existents must be regarded as
momentary, existing at each moment that exerts a new power.
This definition of existence naturally brings in the doctrine of
momentariness shown by Ratnakīrtti.
Some Ontological Problems on which the Different Indian Systems Diverged.
We cannot close our examination of Buddhist philosophy
without briefly referring to its views on some ontological problems
which were favourite subjects of discussion in almost all philosophical
circles of India. These are in brief: (1) the relation of
cause and effect, (2) the relation of the whole (_avayavi_) and the
part (_avayava_), (3) the relation of generality (_samanya_) to the
specific individuals, (4) the relation of attributes or qualities and
the substance and the problem of the relation of inherence, (5) the relation of power (_s'akti_) to the power-possessor (_s'aktimān_). Thus
on the relation of cause and effect, S'ankara held that cause alone
was permanent, real, and all effects as such were but impermanent
illusions due to ignorance, Sāmkhya held that there was no
difference between cause and effect, except that the former was
only the earlier stage which when transformed through certain
changes became the effect. The history of any causal activity is
the history of the transformation of the cause into the effects.
Buddhism holds everything to be momentary, so neither cause nor
effect can abide. One is called the effect because its momentary
existence has been determined by the destruction of its momentary
antecedent called the cause. There is no permanent reality
which undergoes the change, but one change is determined by
another and this determination is nothing more than "that
happening, this happened." On the relation of parts to whole,
Buddhism does not believe in the existence of wholes. According
to it, it is the parts which illusorily appear as the whole, the
individual atoms rise into being and die the next moment and
thus there is no such thing as "whole [Footnote ref 1]. The Buddhists
hold again that there are no universals, for it is the individuals alone
which come and go. There are my five fingers as individuals but there
is no such thing as fingerness (_angulitva_) as the abstract universal
of the fingers. On the relation of attributes and substance we
know that the Sautrāntika Buddhists did not believe in the existence
of any substance apart from its attributes; what we call a
substance is but a unit capable of producing a unit of sensation.
In the external world there are as many individual simple units
(atoms) as there are points of sensations. Corresponding to each
unit of sensation there is a separate simple unit in the objective
world. Our perception of a thing is thus the perception of the
assemblage of these sensations. In the objective world also there
are no substances but atoms or reals, each representing a unit of
sensation, force or attribute, rising into being and dying the next
moment. Buddhism thus denies the existence of any such relation
as that of inherence (_samavāya_) in which relation the attributes
are said to exist in the substance, for since there are no
separate substances there is no necessity for admitting the relation
of inherence. Following the same logic Buddhism also does not believe in the existence of a power-possessor separate from the
power.
Brief survey of the evolution of Buddhist Thought.
In the earliest period of Buddhism more attention was paid
to the four noble truths than to systematic metaphysics. What
was sorrow, what was the cause of sorrow, what was the cessation
of sorrow and what could lead to it? The doctrine of _paticcasamuppāda_
was offered only to explain how sorrow came in and
not with a view to the solving of a metaphysical problem. The
discussion of ultimate metaphysical problems, such as whether
the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a Tathāgata
existed after death or not, were considered as heresies in early
Buddhism. Great emphasis was laid on sīla, samādhi and pańńā
and the doctrine that there was no soul. The Abhidhammas
hardly give us any new philosophy which was not contained in
the Suttas. They only elaborated the materials of the suttas with
enumerations and definitions. With the evolution of Mahāyāna
scriptures from some time about 200 B.C. the doctrine of the
non-essentialness and voidness of all _dhammas_ began to be preached.
This doctrine, which was taken up and elaborated by Nagārjuna,
Āryyadeva, Kumārajīva and Candrakīrtti, is more or less a corollary
from the older doctrine of Buddhism. If one could not
say whether the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a
Tathāgata existed or did not exist after death, and if there was
no permanent soul and all the dhammas were changing, the only
legitimate way of thinking about all things appeared to be to
think of them as mere void and non-essential appearances. These
appearances appear as being mutually related but apart from
their appearance they have no other essence, no being or reality.
The Tathatā doctrine which was preached by As'vaghosa oscillated
between the position of this absolute non-essentialness of all
dhammas and the Brahminic idea that something existed as the
background of all these non-essential dhammas. This he called
tathatā, but he could not consistently say that any such permanent
entity could exist. The Vijńānavāda doctrine which also
took its rise at this time appears to me to be a mixture of the
S'ūnyavāda doctrine and the Tathatā doctrine; but when carefully
examined it seems to be nothing but S'ūnyavāda, with an attempt
at explaining all the observed phenomena. If everything was non-essential how did it originate? Vijńānavāda proposes to give an
answer, and says that these phenomena are all but ideas of the mind
generated by the beginningless vāsanā (desire) of the mind. The
difficulty which is felt with regard to the Tathatā doctrine that
there must be some reality which is generating all these ideas
appearing as phenomena, is the same as that in the Vijńānavāda
doctrine. The Vijńānavādins could not admit the existence of such
a reality, but yet their doctrines led them to it. They could not
properly solve the difficulty, and admitted that their doctrine was
some sort of a compromise with the Brahminical doctrines of
heresy, but they said that this was a compromise to make the
doctrine intelligible to the heretics; in truth however the reality
assumed in the doctrine was also non-essential. The Vijńānavāda
literature that is available to us is very scanty and from that we
are not in a position to judge what answers Vijńānavāda could give
on the point. These three doctrines developed almost about the
same time and the difficulty of conceiving s'ūnya (void), tathatā,
(thatness) and the ālayavijńāna of Vijńānavāda is more or less
the same.
The Tathatā doctrine of As'vaghosa practically ceased with
him. But the S'ūnyavāda and the Vijńānavāda doctrines which
originated probably about 200 B.C. continued to develop probably
till the eighth century A.D. Vigorous disputes with S'ūnyavāda
doctrines are rarely made in any independent work of Hindu
philosophy, after Kumārila and S'ankara. From the third or
the fourth century A.D. some Buddhists took to the study of
systematic logic and began to criticize the doctrine of the Hindu
logicians. Dinnāga the Buddhist logician (500 A.D.) probably
started these hostile criticisms by trying to refute the doctrines
of the great Hindu logician Vātsyāyana, in his Pramānasamuccaya.
In association with this logical activity we find the
activity of two other schools of Buddhism, viz. the Sarvāstivādins
(known also as Vaibhāsikas) and the Sautrāntikas. Both the
Vaibhāsikas and the Sautrāntikas accepted the existence of the
external world, and they were generally in conflict with the
Hindu schools of thought Nyāya-Vais'esika and Sāmkhya which
also admitted the existence of the external world. Vasubandhu
(420-500 A.D.) was one of the most illustrious names of this school.
We have from this time forth a number of great Buddhist
thinkers such as Yas'omitra (commentator of Vasubandhu's work), Dharmmakīrtti (writer of Nyāyabindu 635 A.D.), Vinītadeva and
S'āntabhadra (commentators of Nyāyabindu), Dharmmottara
(commentator of Nyāyabindu 847 A.D.), Ratnakīrtti (950 A.D.),
Pandita As'oka, and Ratnākara S'ānti, some of whose contributions
have been published in the _Six Buddhist Nyāya Tracts_, published
in Calcutta in the _Bibliotheca Indica_ series. These Buddhist
writers were mainly interested in discussions regarding the nature
of perception, inference, the doctrine of momentariness, and
the doctrine of causal efficiency (_arthakriyākāritva_) as demonstrating
the nature of existence. On the negative side they were
interested in denying the ontological theories of Nyāya and
Sāmkhya with regard to the nature of class-concepts, negation,
relation of whole and part, connotation of terms, etc. These
problems hardly attracted any notice in the non-Sautrāntika and
non-Vaibhāsika schools of Buddhism of earlier times. They of
course agreed with the earlier Buddhists in denying the existence
of a permanent soul, but this they did with the help of their
doctrine of causal efficiency. The points of disagreement between
Hindu thought up to S'ankara (800 A.D.) and Buddhist thought
till the time of S'ankara consisted mainly in the denial by the
Buddhists of a permanent soul and the permanent external world.
For Hindu thought was more or less realistic, and even the
Vedānta of S'ankara admitted the existence of the permanent
external world in some sense. With S'ankara the forms of the
external world were no doubt illusory, but they all had a permanent
background in the Brahman, which was the only reality
behind all mental and the physical phenomena. The Sautrāntikas
admitted the existence of the external world and so their quarrel
with Nyāya and Sāmkhya was with regard to their doctrine
of momentariness; their denial of soul and their views on the
different ontological problems were in accordance with their
doctrine of momentariness. After the twelfth century we do not
hear much of any new disputes with the Buddhists. From this
time the disputes were mainly between the different systems of
Hindu philosophers, viz. Nyāya, the Vedānta of the school of
S'ankara and the Theistic Vedānta of Rāmānuja, Madhva, etc.
Suggested Further Reading
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| Source:
A History Of Indian Philosophy Surendranath Dasgupta Volume I
First Edition: Cambridge, 1922. Produced by Srinivasan Sriram
and sripedia.org, William Boerst and PG Distributed
Proofreaders. While we have made every effort to reproduce the
text correctly, we do not guarantee or accept any responsibility
for any errors or omissions or inaccuracies in the reproduction
of this text. Please refer the original text for any academic or
serious studies. |
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