Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c10.s5.5

c10.s5.5

On the other hand, as Buddhaghosa¹ puts it, the chain of causation serves to negative the existence of any permanent self, the passive recipient of pleasure and of pain; the process is possible without the idea of a self, even if it does not absolutely exclude such an underlying reality. It excludes also the idea that rebirth is due to the intervention of a personal deity, such as Brahmā, who from the exoteric point of view appears in the Vedānta as allotting fresh lives to souls according to their merit, for the process works mechanically. The fact of the essential dependence of misery also opens the possibility at least of its destruction, which would be inconceivable if there were a thing in itself. On the other hand, to make misery dependent on the chain of causes avoids the danger of asserting that it is caused by another, which would import the doctrine of annihilation (ucchedavāda) of the destruction of action without the fruit being realized.