Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c8.36

c8.36

(156) Śīlāṅka does not shed any more light on what the Sceptics considered as the defects or disadvantages (doṣa-) of knowledge but as we shall see the accounts in the Pāli Nikāyas pay a good deal of attention to this aspect of their scepticism. But since we shall be dealing with each school of Sceptics mentioned in the Brahmajāla Sutta separately, we may briefly state here what the Sceptics seem to have considered to be the defects or disadvantages of knowledge. The sense in which the term dosa- is used by Śīlāṅka in elucidating the views of the Sceptics is not very clear. In the passage in which knowledge was condemned ((*v. supra*, 148) as giving rise to a multitude of dosa- (bahutaradosasambhavāt), it was apparent from the context that the word meant 'intellectual confusions' and not 'moral injuries' as suggested by Barua (*v. supra*, 148), who was probably influenced by the picture of the Sceptic as drawn in the Buddhist texts The other uses (e g 'the greater the knowledge the greater the dosa', yathā yathā ca jñānātiśayas tathā tathā ca dosātireka-, *op. cit.*, Vol. I, fol. 35 on Sū 1.1.2.17) were less clear and dosa- could here have meant (ambiguously) 'moral disadvantages'. In the Brahmajāla Sutta, however, we find that the first two schools of Sceptics held that there were undesirable psychological and moral consequences of claiming knowledge under conditions, when it was impossible to know the facts for certain According to the first school (*v. infra*, 159), we have a liking or bias for (chando, rāgo) a proposition and a dislike or a bias against its contradictory (doso, paṭigho), when we come to accept it as true without valid grounds. Since this is grounded on one's prejudices for and against, the proposition itself is said to be false and its acceptance wrong or mistaken (musā). Now, uttering a falsehood or doing a wrong thing is a source of remorse (vighāto) and is a moral danger (antarāyo). According to the second school (*v. infra*, 166), the bias for or against is an entanglement (upādānam) which is again a moral danger (antarāyo) The third school (*v. infra*, 167) seems to have been impressed by the psychologically and morally disastrous consequences of debating their theories, on the part of those who claimed to know and believe in them. We must not forget that during this period not only were there a variety of theories but a good many of them were being hotly debated (*v. infra*, Ch. V), resulting in one party having to undergo the miseries of defeat. Sometimes these debates seem to have given rise to bickering and quarrels among the contending parties. This third school of Sceptics, if not the first and second as well, seem to have concluded that all this self-imposed unhappiness was due to baseless claims to knowledge and that Scepticism was superior to making such claims It is probable that these were among the defects or disadvantages (dosa-) of knowledge spoken of in some of Śīlāṅka's quotations from the Sceptics. If so it would be seen that there were both pragmatic as well as intellectual grounds for their scepticism (157) As we have mentioned (*v. supra*, 151) Śīlāṅka speaks of sixty-seven 'types' of Sceptics in order to make up the figure three hundred and sixty-three, the number of schools of thought, mentioned in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga. But they are neither schools nor types and the list is artificially made up mainly but not solely out of the concepts of Jainism itself. He takes the nine categories (navapadārtha-) of Jainism, each according to the seven forms of predication (saptabhaṅgakāḥ). This gives sixty three (i.e. 9×7) forms of sceptical questions, which are considered to represent sixty three 'types' of Sceptics asking these questions. The last four 'types' are more interesting and possibly represent a kind of question, which the Sceptics themselves asked. They are as follows: