Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c13.147

c13.147

(687) This appeal to purely rationalist considerations is, for instance, in utter contrast to the spirit of the Tevijja Sutta, where the Buddha addressing the brahmins appears to take the brahmin Weltanschauung for granted and preaches 'the path leading to companionship with Brahmā' (Ayam pi .. Brahmānam sahavyatāya maggo, D. I.151). It is this character of the Buddha in adjusting his sermons to suit the predilections and temperament of his listeners that comes to be known as the *upāya-kauśalya* or 'the skill in (devising) means (to convert people)' (*s.v.* BHS. *Dictionary*) which Edgerton says is 'extremely common everywhere' (*loc cit.*) in the BHS literature There is a reference to upāya-kosallam in the Canon as well (D I 220), it is not clear whether this refers to the Buddha's technique of preaching but reference is made to 'the ability to comprehend the predilections of beings' (sattānām nānādhimuttikatam yathābhūtam pajānāti, M I 70) as one of the intellectual faculties of the Buddha (*v. infra*, 805) The content of these different methods of preaching is however self-consistent as far as the Nikāyas are concerned. The brahma-loka (world of Brahma) is part of the Buddhist cosmos as described in the 'thousand-fold world-system' (cūlanikā-loka-dhātu, A. I.227, 228, IV 59, 60) and it is not incompatible with the Buddhist thesis to say that all that reason can do is to point out that it is better to adopt the sammādiṭṭhi (the right view) than its opposite, without being able to demonstrate that this was true. This means that reason was of limited value.