Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c10.1

v1.c10.1

Most of the doctrines discussed in the previous two chapters relate to the notions current among the imperfect Buddhists and the non-Buddhists about the nature of the soul and its existence. Buddhism wholly denies the existence of the soul which is permanent, immaculate, unaffected by karma, and in this denial (i.e. pudgalanairātmya) there is no difference of opinion between the Hīnayānists and the Mahāyānists. The Pāli texts aver that the belief in the existence of the soul, or in other words, the heresy of individuality (sakkāyadiṭṭhi) is due to the misapprehension¹ of one of the five khandhas as soul in the following four ways: