Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s4.12

c8.s4.12

In keeping with the Brahmanic tradition is the frequent use of Dhamma in the sense of truth or reality, though Dhamma actually appears alongside of truth (*sacca*), in which case it denotes something superior to ordinary accuracy. In this sense we may best take the common phrase ‘he sees the Dhamma’ and the term ‘insight into Dhamma’ (*dhamma-vipassanā*), and ‘the eye of the Dhamma (*dhamma-cakkhu*).’ But of course such passages admit of the interpretation of Dhamma as denoting more than mere truth, as signifying the essence of things. That Dhamma has this sense appears clearly enough from its obvious substitution for the idea of Brahman, or its use alongside of the older expression; thus the way of the Dhamma replaces the path of the Brahman, though that also occurs;¹ he who thinks of the Tathāgata dwells with the Brahman or Brahmā;² the eightfold path which leads to Nirvāṇa is styled indifferently either the Brahmayāna or the Dhammayāna; the followers of the Buddha are sons and heirs of the Dhamma, even as the Brahmins claim to be born of and heirs of the Brahman; the Tathāgata is said to have the Dhamma as his body, the Brahman as his body, to be one with the Dhamma, one with the Brahman.³ Very rarely the Dhamma seems to be regarded as replacing the Ātman in the Brahmanic use as a synonym of the absolute.⁴