Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c10.s2.5

v1.c10.s2.5

The topic of anattā forms the subject-matter of Buddha's second discourse to his five comrades (Vin. I, pp. 13-14) and constitutes the keynote of Buddhism. In this discourse, when Buddha denied the existence of attā, i.e., of any permanent substance apart from the khandhas, he cannot be expected to solve the 'indeterminable' (avyākata) problems, as all of them hinge on nature and existence of attā.