Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c7.s1.1

c7.s1.1

WHEN we are asked to treat Buddhism as a rationalism, it is well to remember that in the words of Kern,¹ ‘Buddhism is professedly no rationalistic system, it being a superhuman (*uttarimanussa*) Law, founded upon the decrees of an omniscient and infallible Master.’ It is characteristic that in the Bhābrū edict Asoka commits himself to the assertion that whatever has been said by the Blessed Buddha is well said; the same sentiment is preserved in a passage of the Aṅguttara Nikāya² where the Buddha appears as the granary whence men bring every good word. The Kevaddha Sutta neatly emphasizes the supreme authority of the Buddha; the searcher after the truth appeals successively to the various ranks of gods to learn the answer to his inquiry where the four great elements cease; the Great Brahmā himself censures his folly in seeking him, ignoring the Buddha, and the Buddha himself gently rebukes the penitent inquirer. Yet again the Buddha contrasts himself in his embracing wisdom with other teachers, who are likened to the blind men whom a king bade describe an elephant, and who gave accounts of the monster based on the partial knowledge attained by contact with a portion only of the quadruped.³ The Blessed One can never lie, though the sky fall and the earth mount to the heaven.⁴