Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c8.3

c8.3

(144) Traces of scepticism and agnosticism we find from the time of the Ṛgveda onwards (*v. supra*, 7). These instances are sporadic and there is no evidence of any widespread scepticism. Radhakrishnan says that the hymn to faith (śraddhā, R.V. 10.151) 'is not possible in a time of unshaken faith'¹ but there is nothing in the hymn itself to indicate the presence of scepticism at the time. This scepticism, as we said, found its latest expression in the *Nāsadīya* hymn (*v. supra*, 8-10), where it was extended to the very possibility of arriving at a final solution to a specific problem. This Ṛgvedic scepticism did not develop any further but we found certain undercurrents of doubt (vicikitsā) in the Brāhmaṇas (*v. supra*, 15). The doubt with regard to survival was first mooted in the Brāhmaṇas and appears in the Early Upaniṣads, where it was asked whether man can survive death, when nothing is left over to germinate in a next life (*v. supra*, 15). On the other hand, we found in the Upaniṣads a rational agnosticism approaching Kantian agnosticism, where Yājñavalkya rationally demonstrated the impossibility of knowing the ultimate reality or the ātman (*v. supra*, 43). Nevertheless, it was not an agnosticism proper in that it differed from Kantian agnosticism in one significant respect. For, although it was not possible to apprehend ultimate reality conceptually it was still considered possible to have some sort of direct acquaintance with it in deep sleep, in the next life or in a mystical state