Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s3.20

c8.s3.20

In an interesting conversation³ between King Pasenadi of Kosala and the nun Khemā we find again the refusal to answer the question as to the continued existence of the Tathāgata after death, and an emphatic assertion of the deep nature of the Tathāgata, illustrated by the impossibility of reckoning the sands of the Ganges or the water drops in the ocean. Is this not to argue that the Tathāgata apart from the mortal constituents is something real but ineffable? True, it is possible to explain the doctrine in the light of the negativism of the Madhyamaka; if all be void (śūnya), the nature of the Tathāgata is a specially deep void, and especially ineffable. But it is unwise to insist on seeing negativism in passages where another explanation is not merely possible, but probably more in accordance with the ideas of the teachers of the early Canon.