Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c17.s3.10

c17.s3.10

The *Kathāvatthu*¹ also is strictly orthodox regarding the career of a Bodhisattva. The idea encouraged by the Jātaka literature that the Buddha adopted deliberately in the past for the benefit of men such evil dooms as existence in hell, rebirth, the performance of hard tasks, and of penance under alien masters, is emphatically rebuked as a heresy of the Andhakas. The reality of the experiences of the Bodhisattva could not, of course, be denied without repudiating the tradition, but to claim that these experiences were voluntarily undergone implies a doctrine which is wholly unacceptable to the Vibhajyavādins. The school denies also the belief of the Andhakas founded on a Sutta that Çākyamuni entered on the path of assurance under the dispensation of the Buddha Kassapa; if this were true, then he must have been a disciple of Kassapa, and this contradicts the essential nature of a Buddha which is to be self-developed.