Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c7.s2.17

c7.s2.17

In the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta¹ again we have a list of ten important questions which are left undetermined by the Buddha. They raise the eternity or the reverse of the world; its finiteness or infinity; the identity or difference between the body and the soul; and the questions whether the enlightened man lives after bodily death, does not live, both lives and does not live, and neither lives nor does not live. These questions are included in those of the Brahmajāla save those concerning the identity of the soul and the body. Knowledge of these things, it is insisted, does not tend to tranquillization of heart or purification from lusts or to Nirvāṇa. Such an attitude, it is obvious, must raise controversy and provoke ridicule, and in the Pāsādika Suttanta¹ the Tathāgata expounds, with special emphasis and fervour, his own position in response to such attacks, which are treated as taking in part the form of astonishment that the Tathāgata, omniscient as to the past, is less well informed as to the future. On the contrary, the Tathāgata, while able to remember all the past, has enlightenment as to the future to the effect: ‘This is the last birth; there is no more coming to be.’ Nor does the Tathāgata reveal all that is past; what is not true, what is not fact, what does not redound to the good of mankind, he leaves alone; nor does he reveal what is true, what is fact, but what does not redound to good; but he reveals what redounds to the benefit of man desirous of salvation, both as regards the past, the present, and the future. He knows whatever throughout the world is discerned, striven for, accomplished, or devised, by gods or men; all that he spoke between his enlightenment and his passing away was true; as he does according to his word, and his word is according to his going, he is styled Tathāgata.² We must accept, therefore, from him the decision that no explanation is to be given to a long series of issues: Is the enlightened one existent after death, non-existent, both or neither? Are the soul and the world eternal, not eternal, both, neither? Are they self-made, made by another, both, or neither, having come into existence fortuitously? Do these descriptions apply to pleasure and pain? Does the soul possess after death visible form, or is it invisible, both, or neither? Is it conscious, unconscious, both, or neither? An important new reason is given for the reticence of the Buddha on these issues. He is silent,³ not merely because knowledge of these matters does not tend to Nirvāṇa, but because men hold various opinions regarding them. What perhaps is more important is that we find that the Buddha admits that he does not reveal the past even when true and in accordance with fact, when it does not tend to edification, and we are driven to admit that these doctrines may, in his view, actually represent the truth without being worthy of exposition. This leads clearly to the conclusion that agnosticism in these matters is not based on any reasoned conviction of the limits of knowledge; it rests on the two-fold ground that the Buddha has not himself a clear conclusion on the truth on these issues, but is convinced that disputation on them will not lead to the frame of mind which is essential for the attainment of Nirvāṇa.