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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s6: 7. Vedānta Criticisms of Realism

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s6

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7. Vedānta Criticisms of Realism

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Çaṅkara in his exposition of the *Brahma Sūtra*¹ is explicit in his refutation of the whole Sarvāstivādin doctrine, which he summarizes with sufficient practical accuracy. He points out that there is no possible explanation of the aggregates which make up the empiric individual; the material aggregates are unintelligent; they cannot, therefore, unite themselves with the psychic elements, and the lighting up of intelligence is dependent on the prior existence of a body. The denial of the Lord deprives the Buddhists of any means of explanation *ab extra*; the series of consciousness as momentary cannot be the cause of motion in the atoms; the atoms and the aggregates cannot be self active, else they could never be brought to rest and release would be impossible. It is impossible to avoid this difficulty by reference to the chain of causation as sufficient explanation; even admitting that each member of the chain explains the next, still there is no explanation of the formation of aggregates. Moreover, the chain itself is open to grave criticism; as its elements are momentary, release itself subserves no purpose save itself, and, therefore, is in no sense true release. Further, it is really quite impossible for anything truly momentary to have any causal efficiency at all; that involves its persisting into the effect, which is wholly incompatible with momentariness. The Buddhists, indeed, abandon the doctrine of momentariness in admitting stages of origination, duration, and destruction, for these assume a certain degree of permanence. Nor will it avail to deny origination and destruction, for that will mean that the thing is everlasting. Similarly it is useless to deny causality, thus saving momentariness, for then there would be no regularity in the universe, and the view contradicts the whole Sarvāstivādin theory of causation. The whole doctrine, however, is ruined by the facts of experience which no philosopher can dispose of. All memory and recollection need a permanent and abiding subject, of which we are conscious in fact as every one admits, and the judgements ‘this is similar to that’ and ‘this is the same as that’, if analysed, reveal equally the existence of permanent objects.

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¹ ii. 2. 18-27; cf. Rāmānuja, *Çrībhāṣya*, ii. 2. 17-26.

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The three uncompounded things of the Sarvāstivādins receive equally short shrift.¹ These entities are represented as non-substantial, merely negative (*abhāva-mātra*), devoid of positive characteristics. Cessation, dependent on a sublative act of mind, or not so dependent, denotes destruction preceded by an act of thought and not so preceded,² and either is absolutely impossible of acceptance. For both forms must refer either to the series of momentary entities as destroyed or to the entities themselves. The former is impossible; analysed, it means that the last link in the series has no effect; that means, on the Buddhist doctrine of causal efficiency as existence, that it does not exist; if so, the preceding member of the series equally does not exist, and so the whole series is reduced to nothingness. The second alternative is equally impossible; utter destruction of a momentary existence is inconceivable; experience shows us always persistence amid change, and, even where empirical investigation does not actually reveal the permanent element, analogy proves that it is still in existence, an argument possibly suggested by the case of light or chemical compounds. Moreover, the destruction of nescience, which is included in the cessations above-mentioned, must either take place in consequence of perfect intuition or without such intuition. In the former case then it is caused, and destruction can no longer be assigned to a special class of uncompounded and uncaused things; in the latter, the Buddhist teaching is waste of words.

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¹ Acc. to TRD., p. 46 space or ether (*ākāśa*) and caused destruction (*sahetuka vināśa*) are mere names (*samjñā, pratijñā, samvṛti, vyavahāra*). The same doctrine is asserted of space and Nirvāṇa in MKV., p. 389, a remodelling of the citation. Cf. *Çrībhāṣya*, ii. 2. 21 ff.

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² On uncaused cessation see NB., p. 106; NK., p. 78; *Bhāmatī*, p. 360; *Tantravārttika*, p. 171; *Çlokavārttika*, p. 736; NVT., p. 383: MKV., pp. 29, 414; AKV., JRAS. 1902, p. 371.

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Space is equally unable to sustain examination as conceived by the Buddhist; it must be real in view of the quality of sound belonging to it, for earth and other things with qualities are real. It is useless to maintain that it is really the absence of any covering or occupying body, for what is it that enables us to declare that there is the absence of a covering body in one place, and not in another? The answer can only be space, or rather ether, on which in point of fact the Buddhists themselves assert air to rest,¹ implying its material character and its positive nature. Moreover to the case of space, and the two forms of cessation or destruction alike the objection applies that the Buddhists treat them as not positively definable, and yet as eternal, an impossible position, for eternity or non-eternity can be asserted only of real entities, not of mere negations.

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¹ Cf. DN. ii. 107; Mil., p. 68; MKV., p. 166; AKV. in Burnouf, *Introd.*, p. 448.

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