Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c10.s8.5

c10.s8.5

A further and important result is derived from this rationalizing of the conception of action. The morality of action predominates in the Buddhist view, and ritual practices such as sacrifice² and purification, nay even offerings to the dead, become merely surplusage, superstitious usages (sīlabbata), which have no value. But it must be admitted that there is no attempt to demonstrate the principles which render an act moral or immoral; it is not until late that we have the suggestion that an act is good or bad according as it benefits one’s neighbour or injures him, and even then there is no more far-reaching criterion than the mere idea of goodness as pleasure and evil as pain. Moreover, the true Buddhist essentially seeks release, and that has nothing in itself to do with either goodness or badness. The monk, indeed, is compelled to attain his end to concentrate his interest on himself alone;³ his actions like those of the sage of the Upaniṣads are essentially for the sake of the self; and the path of salvation requires that he should lay aside, as did the Buddha, all the human class of duty towards wife or children, since family life is a barrier to the attainment of release.