Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s3.8

c8.s3.8

To deny that the teaching of the Buddha himself stopped at this attitude of agnosticism appears contrary to every sound principle of criticism. It is true that it has been suggested that it is impossible to conceive that the master would be contented with offering nothing more positive in the way of a hope for the future, but this is obviously to beg the question. By leaving the matter unexplained the Buddha allowed men to frame their own conceptions of the future of the enlightened man after death; those who entertained strong desires for some permanent form of life, even after liberation, were as entitled to cherish the hope, as were others to accept utter annihilation as the due result, and we really have no means of saying to what proportion of the disciples either prospect would appeal; western analogies show sufficiently that there are many earnest thinkers who believe in the reality and purpose of the universe—which the Buddha did not—and yet accept the destruction of the individual on death with satisfaction or resignation. It has, however, been urged¹ that we cannot suppose that so able a thinker as the Buddha was without personal convictions on such a vital issue, even though he may have deemed on good grounds that it was neither advantageous nor necessary to explain his opinions to his disciples. Here again we are confronted with bare possibilities; it is quite legitimate to hold that the Buddha was a genuine agnostic, that he had studied the various systems of ideas prevalent in his day without deriving any greater satisfaction from them than any of us to-day do from the study of modern systems, and that he had no reasoned or other conviction on the matter. From the general poverty of philosophical constructive power exhibited by such parts of the system as appear essentially Buddha's, one is inclined to prefer this explanation.