Reading section 14

[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikâya_, I.p. 296, and _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 167-168.]

[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 349; _D. N._ II. pp. 317 ff.]

107

Pâyâsi'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 Upani@sads and taken as an accepted fact by the Buddha. In the _Milinda Pañha_, we find Nâgasena 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 Upani@sad 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 (_ta@nhâ_) is incapable of bearing good or bad fruits. Thus we read in the _Mahâsatipa@t@thâna 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 ârya 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 (_ta@nhâ_) 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.]

108

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 Moggallâna 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 (_kâyika_, _vâcika_ and _mânasika_). The root of this kamma is however volition (_cetanâ_) 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 (_vâcika_) 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 (_mânasika_) [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 (_nibbâna_) 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 Pâli texts Nibbâna 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 _Kathâvatthu_ and Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, pp, 221 ff.]

[Footnote 2: _Atthasâlinî_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 3: See _Atthasâlinî_, p. 90.]

[Footnote 4: See _Atthasâlinî_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 5: Prof. De la Valláe Poussin's article in the _E. R.E._ on Nirvâ@na. See also _Cullavagga_, IX. i. 4; Mrs Rhys Davids's _Psalms of the early Buddhists_, I. and II., Introduction, p. xxxvii; _Dîgha_, II. 15; _Udâna_, VIII.; _Sa@myutta_, III. 109.]

109

Mr Schrader, in discussing Nibbâna 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 (_âkâsa_) or consciousness (_viññâna_) attained to a state in which they had a corresponding feeling of infiniteness without having really lost their individuality. This latter interpretation of Nibbâna 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 Nibbâna 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 Tathâgata as existing eternally (_s'âs'vata_) or not-existing (_as'âs'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 Nibbâna 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 Nâgârjuna and Candrakîrtti 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 (_sa@msâra_) and Nibbâna, for as all appearances are non-essential, they never existed during the sa@msâra so that they could not be annihilated in Nibbâna.

Upani@sads and Buddhism.

The Upani@sads had discovered that the true self was ânanda (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 (_attâ_) it must be bliss. The Upani@sads had asserted that the self(_âtman_) was indestructible and eternal [Footnote ref 2]. If we are allowed

__________________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: Tait, II.5.]

[Footnote 2: B@rh. IV. 5. 14. Ka@tha V. 13.]

110

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 Upani@sads, but he who carefully reads the Upani@sads cannot but think that the reason why the Upani@sads 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 Upani@sads. 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 Upani@sads lies in the experiences of the self. The Upani@sads doubtless considered that there were many experiences which we often identify with self, but which are impermanent. But the belief is found in the Upani@sads 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 Upani@sads 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 (_rûpa_) or found the forms in his self or the self in the forms. He

________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: _Sa@myutta Nikûya_, III. pp. 44-45 ff.]

[Footnote 2: See B@rh. IV. iv. Chândogya, VIII. 7-12.]

[Footnote 3: _Sa@myutta Nikaya_, III 45.]

111

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 Upani@sads 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 (_avijjâ_) [Footnote ref 2]. The avidyâ, which is equivalent to the Pâli word avijjâ, occurs in the Upani@sads also, but there it means ignorance about the âtman doctrine, and it is sometimes contrasted with vidyâ or true knowledge about the self (_âtman_) [Footnote ref 3]. With the Upani@sads 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 (_âriya 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 Nikâya_, II. 46.]

[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikâya_, I.p. 54.]

[Footnote 3: Châ. I.i. 10. B@rh. IV. 3.20. There are some passages where vidyâ and avidyâ have been used in a different and rather obscure sense, I's'â 9-11.]

[Footnote 4: _A@ng. Nikâya_, III. 85.]

[Footnote 5 Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_ (_Visuddhimagga_, chap. XVII.), p. 175.]

112

The Schools of Theravâda 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 Vesâli decided against the V@rjin monks, called also the Vajjiputtakas, they in their turn held another great meeting (Mahâsa@ngha) and came to their own decisions about certain monastic rules and thus came to be called as the Mahâsa@nghikas [Footnote ref 1]. According to Vasumitra as translated by Vassilief, the Mahâsa@nghikas seceded in 400 B.C. and during the next one hundred years they gave rise first to the three schools Ekavyavahârikas, Lokottaravâdins, and Kukkulikas and after that the Bahus'rutîyas. In the course of the next one hundred years, other schools rose out of it namely the Prajñaptivâdins, Caittikas, Aparas'ailas and Uttaras'ailas. The Theravâda or the Sthaviravâda school which had convened the council of Vesâli developed during the second and first century B.C. into a number of schools, viz. the Haimavatas, Dharmaguptikas, Mahîs'âsakas, Kâs'yapîyas, Sa@nkrântikas (more well known as Sautrântikas) and the Vâtsiputtrîyas which latter was again split up into the Dharmottarîyas, Bhadrayânîyas, Sammitîyas and Channâgarikas. The main branch of the Theravâda school was from the second century downwards known as the Hetuvâdins or Sarvâstivâdins [Footnote ref 2]. The _Mahâbodhiva@msa_ identifies the Theravâda school with the Vibhajjavâdins. The commentator of the _Kathâvatthu_ 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 _Mahâva@msa_ differs from _Dîpava@msa_ in holding that the Vajjiputtakas did not develop into the Mahâsa@nghikas, but it was the Mahâsa@nghikas who first seceded while the Vajjiputtakas seceded independently of them. The _Mahâbodhiva@msa_, which according to Professor Geiger was composed 975 A.D.--1000 A.D., follows the Mahava@msa in holding the Mahâsa@nghikas to be the first seceders and Vajjiputtakas to have seceded independently.

Vasumitra confuses the council of Vesali with the third council of Pâ@taliputra. See introduction to translation of _Kathâvatthu_ by Mrs Rhys Davids.]

[Footnote 2: For other accounts of the schism see Mr Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids's translation of _Kathâvatthu_, pp. xxxvi-xlv.]

113

certain schools, of the Mahâsa@nghikas, Lokottaravâdins, Ekavyavahârikas, Kakkulikas, Prajñaptivâdins and Sarvâstivâdins, but these accounts deal more with subsidiary matters of little philosophical importance. Some of the points of interest are (1) that the Mahâsa@nghikas were said to believe that the body was filled with mind (_citta_) which was represented as sitting, (2) that the Prajñaptivâdins 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 Sarvâstivâdins believed that everything existed. From the discussions found in the _Kathâvatthu_ 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 Sarvâstivâdins including the Sautrântikas and the Vaibhâ@sikas, the Yogâcâra or the Vijñânavâdins and the Mâdhyamikas or the S'ûnyavâdins. We do not know which of the diverse smaller schools were taken up into these four great schools, the Sautrântika, Vaibhâ@sika, Yogâcâra and the Mâdhyamika 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.