Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c14.24

c14.24

(725) This difference in valuation is clearly brought out when we compare the views of Pūraṇa Kassapa and the Buddha on the nature of knowledge. Both claim to belong to the same class of thinkers on epistemological grounds. Pūraṇa Kassapa is a ñāṇa-vādin (*v. supra*, 720) and so is the Buddha (*v. supra*, 718). But their theories with regard to the genesis of knowledge are utterly different. Pūraṇa holds that 'there is no cause or condition for the lack of knowledge and insight . . . or for the presence of knowledge and insight' (natthi hetu natthi paccayo aññāṇāya adassanāya . . . ñāṇāya dassanāya, S. III. 126), while the Buddha holds that 'there was a cause and reason' (atthi hetu atthi paccayo, *loc. cit.*) for both. This is partly due to the fact that Pūraṇa was a niyati-vādin or a Strict Determinist (*v. supra*, 199), but even the Middle and Late Upaniṣadic thinkers in claiming that the arising of the final intuition of reality was due to the grace of Ātman or God (*v. supra*, 73) subscribe to a similar view.