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Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c3: Preface

Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c3

Language
English

Preface

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The origins of the Indian empiricist tradition and its development in Early Buddhism are largely unknown to Western scholarship, despite the fact that T. W. Rhys Davids at a very early date compared Buddhism with Comtism¹ and Radhakrishnan went so far as to say that 'Early Buddhism was positivist in its outlook and confined its attention to what we perceive'.² However, modern Western thinkers, who have dipped into the literature of Buddhism, have sometimes been struck by its analytical and positivist turns of thought. H. H. Price, who was the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, remarked that 'there are indeed some passages in the early part of the *Questions of King Milinda* which have a very modern ring, and might almost have been written in Cambridge in the 1920's'.³ Aldous Huxley was of the opinion that Early Buddhism for the most part respected the principle of verification and confined its statements to verifiable propositions. In his own words: 'Among the early Buddhists, the metaphysical theory (i.e. of Brahman of the Upanishads) was neither affirmed nor denied, but simply ignored as being meaningless and unnecessary. Their concern was with immediate experience, which, because of its consequences for life, came to be known as "liberation" or "enlightenment". The Buddha and his disciples of the southern school seemed to have applied to the problems of religion that "operational philosophy" which contemporary scientific thinkers have begun to apply in the natural sciences . . . Buddha was not a consistent operationalist; for he seems to have taken for granted, to have accepted as something given and self-evident, a variant of the locally current theory of metempsychosis Where mysticism was concerned, however, his operationalism was complete. He would not make assertions about the nature of ultimate reality because it did not seem to him that the corresponding set of mystical operations would admit of a theological interpretation'.⁴

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¹ *Origin and Growth of Religion*, London, 1881, p. 31.

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² S Radhakrishnan, *Indian Philosophy*, Vol. II, London, 1931, p. 472.

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³ 'The Present Relations between Eastern and Western Philosophy' in *The Hibbert Journal*, Vol LIII, April 1955, p 229.

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⁴ *Grey Eminence*, London, 1942, pp. 47-8.

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Huxley's qualification that 'the Buddha was not a consistent operationalist' may not have been made had he been aware of the epistemological basis and the nature of the Buddha's positivism and had he not been misled by scholars to think that the Buddha had dogmatically accepted the doctrine of rebirth from the prevalent tradition (v. Ch. VIII).

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Our findings about the Early Buddhist theory of knowledge are based primarily on the source material afforded by the Pāli Canon, studied historically and philosophically in the light of the contemporary, earlier and later literary evidence bearing on the subject The literary, linguistic, ideological, sociological and historical evidence still points to the high antiquity and authenticity of the Pāli Canon¹, although what we learn from it about Early Buddhism may have to be supplemented and, perhaps, even modified at times in the light of what we can glean from the other literary traditions of Buddhism². We may refer here to the recent opinion of a student of religion, Dr Robert H Thouless, who says that 'it seems more likely that Hīnayāna was Buddhism as originally taught and the Mahāyāna was a product of development and conventionalisation'³.

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¹ *v Dialogues of the Buddha*, Part 1, Tr T. W. Rhys Davids, SBB, Vol II, London, 1956, pp ix-xx, cp M Winternitz, *A History of Indian Literature*, Tr. S Ketkar and H Kohn, University of Calcutta, 1933, p 18.

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² E Lamotte grants a primitive core of remarkably uniform material common to the Pāli Nikāyas and the Āgamas, *v. Histoire du bouddhisme indien*, Vol I, Louvain, 1958, p 171 For a sceptical view, *v* J Brough, *The Gāndhārī Dharmapada*, London, 1962, pp 31 ff

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³ "Christianity and Buddhism" in *Milla wa-Milla*, No 2, November 1962, p 3

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The present work seeks to evaluate the thought of the Pāli Canon from a new point of view and in the light of new material. In it an attempt is made to uncover the epistemological foundations of Pāli Canonical thought. One of the main problems of epistemology is that of the means whereby our knowledge is derived. In this work the questions pertaining to the means of knowledge known to, criticized in and accepted by the Buddhism of the Pāli Canon are fully discussed. A comprehensive survey of the historical background (Chs I, II and III) was indispensable for this purpose partly because this throws considerable light on the Buddhist theory of knowledge and also because part of the material for the study of this background is to be found in the Canon itself.

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Apart from the inquiry into the means of knowledge, a number of questions relating to the problem of knowledge have been dealt with. Thus we have endeavoured to show the kind of logic adopted by the Buddhists in contradistinction to that of the Jains (Ch VII). While Wittgenstein's⁴ imaginary tribes played hypothetical language games showing the various possibilities in the use of language, we find here actual instances in which different systems of logic were employed in order to cope with certain conceptual situations. We have also investigated the rôle of analysis, the theories of meaning and truth and the problem of the limits of knowledge, as they appear in the Canon.

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⁴ The author had the privilege of being admitted to Wittgenstein's classes held in his rooms at Whewell's Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, in the years 1945-47

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The student of Indian philosophy should find here material pertaining to the 'prehistory' of systematic Indian logic and epistemology and the origins of the Indian empiricist tradition. A student of Greek thought may be able to see in these pages some parallel developments to his own field, as well as the differences. Of particular interest to the student of Western philosophy would be Chapters VI and VII dealing with 'Analysis and Meaning' and 'Logic and Truth' respectively, the anticipation of two theorems of the propositional calculus (Ch. VIII, sections 702-710), the theory of causation (Ch. IX, sections 758-782), the empiricism of the Materialists (Ch. II) and the Buddhists (Ch. IX).

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I would express my gratitude to Dr D. L. Friedman for patiently reading through this thesis and offering many valuable comments, criticisms and suggestions. I am also grateful to him for introducing me to literature pertaining to this subject which I had failed to consult at the time of writing my first draft. My thanks are also due to Professor A. L. Basham, who evinced an interest in this work and very kindly read through the whole of Chapter III. I must also place on record my indebtedness to Professor O H de A. Wijesekera of the University of Ceylon, from whom I learnt the first lessons in research, and who encouraged me to work on this subject.

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I am grateful to Mr D. J. Kalupahana, my pupil and colleague who was kind enough to undertake the task of preparing the index and to my wife and other colleagues and friends for assisting me with the proof-reading and advice. I must also thank the University of Ceylon, which with the generous assistance of the Asia Foundation defrayed a small portion of the cost of this publication.

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University Park, Peradeniya, Ceylon. *19 May 1963* K. N. JAYATILLEKE

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