Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c7.s2.10

c7.s2.10

Then follow seven doctrines preaching the annihilation out-and-out of the soul, the divergences depending on the state of the soul when it is annihilated. The simplest view is that the soul perishes with the body, the opinion of the Cārvākas who were probably represented by the Lokāyatas¹ in early Buddhist times.² In the next view the soul is more than human, but possesses form, belongs to the sensuous sphere and feeds on solid food, though it is not perceptible; this soul also dies with the body though it is different from it. The next is a divine soul, having form, made of mind, complete in all parts; the next one that has passed beyond all ideas of form into the realm of the infinity of space; the next one that has advanced still further to the infinity of consciousness; the next one that has attained the realm of no resistance or nothingness; and the last one that is in the realm where there is neither consciousness nor yet unconsciousness. The division here is again scholastic; the last four states are clearly taken from the four Jhānas or conditions of meditation which are a valuable aid on the path of Nirvāṇa;³ the first three remind us faintly of the first of the five divisions of the soul in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad,⁴ the material, the breath, and the mind souls, which in the Upaniṣad are followed by the soul whose essence is intelligence and the inmost soul, which is pure joy.