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Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t5: The First and Second Links of the Causal-Chain

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t5

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The First and Second Links of the Causal-Chain

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From the end of the formula of causality we must turn back to its beginning, to speak of the two first members of the series.

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“From ignorance (avijjâ),” the formula begins, “come conformations (sankhârâ).

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“From conformations comes consciousness.”

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If ignorance be designated the ultimate source of suffering, the question must arise: Who is here the ignorant? What is that of which this ignorance is ignorant?

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It is tempting, by the place assigned to the category of “ignorance,” at the beginning of the whole line of causality, to allow one’s self to be carried away by interpretations which see in this idea, as it were, a cosmogonical power working at the primitive foundation of things. Or one might be tempted to read in it the history of a crime preceding all time, an unlucky act by which the non-bëent had doomed itself to be bëent, that is to suffer. The philosophy of later Brahmanical schools speaks in similar fashion of Mâyâ, that power of delusion, which causes the deceptive picture of the created world to appear to the One, the uncreated, as if it were bëent. “He, the knowing, gave himself up to confused fancies, and when he fell into the slumber prepared for him by Mâyâ, he beheld in amazement multiform dreams : I am, this is my father, this my mother, this my field, this my kingdom.” Some have compared the ignorance of Buddhism with this Mâyâ of the Brahmanical theosophy; only with this note that, as Mâyâ is the deceptive reflection of the true everlasting bëent, so ignorance is the reflection of that which, as they thought, took the place of the everlasting bëent for the Buddhists, that this, the Nothing.

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Interpretations of this kind, which find in the category of ignorance an expression for the deceptive Nothing appearing as a bëent, completely correspond in fact with the explicit utterances of later Buddhist texts. The construction alluded to is met with in the great standard text-book of mystic-nihilistic speculation, which was an authority among Buddhist theologians in the first century after Christ. In this most sacredly esteemed text, the “Perfection of Knowledge” (Prajnâpâramita), we read as follows :—*

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Buddha said to Sâriputra : “Things, O Sâriputra, do not exist as ordinary and ignorant men, clinging closely to them, fancy, who are not instructed on the subject.” Sâriputra said : “How then, sire, do they exist?” Buddha answered : “They exist, O Sâriputra, in so far that they do not exist in truth. And inasmuch as they do not exist, they are called Avidyâ, that is, the non-existent, or ignorance.† To this ordinary, ignorant men, who are not instructed on the matter, cling closely. They represent to themselves all things, of which in truth not one has any existence, as existent.”

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∗ The passage is quoted by Burnouf, “Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme indien,” p. 473 seq. 478.

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† This is the same term which occurs at the beginning of the formula of causality (avidyâ = Pâli, avijjâ).

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Then Buddha asks the holy disciple Subhûti: “What thinkest thou now, Subhûti, is illusion one thing and material form another? Is illusion one thing and sensations another? perceptions another? conformations another? consciousness another?” Subhûti answered: “Nay, Master, nay; illusion is not one thing and material form another. Material form is itself the illusion and the illusion itself is material form, sensations, perceptions, conformations, and consciousness.” And Buddha says: “It is in the nature of the illusion that that lies which makes beings what they are. It is, O Subhûti, as if a clever magician, or the pupil of a clever magician, caused a vast concourse of men to appear at a cross road, where four great thoroughfares meet, and, having caused them to appear, caused them again to vanish.”

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Thus the speculations contained in the treatise on the “Perfection of Knowledge,” make ignorance the ultimate cause of the appearing of the world and at the same time the essential character of its state of being, which is in truth rather not-being: ignorance and not-being here coincide.

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We have taken this glance at this later phase of the development of Buddhist thought merely with the intention of being put on our guard against assigning any of these ideas to ancient Buddhism and against framing any interpretation of the old texts, especially of the formula of causality, influenced by such a process. Inquirers, who had access to the propositions of the chain of causes and effects only in the garb of that later period, found themselves in fact in a not very different position from that in which a historian of Christianity would be placed, if he were directed to string together some account of the teaching of Jesus from the phantasms of the Gnostics.

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The course, which we must follow, is clearly enough indicated: we have only to inquire from the oldest tradition of Buddhist dogmatics, obtainable in the Pâli texts, what is that ignorance, the ultimate ground of all suffering.

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Wherever in the sacred Pâli literature this question is mooted, as well in the addresses which Buddha himself and his chief disciples are said to have delivered, as in the systematizing compilations of a later generation of dogmatists, the answer is invariably the same. The ignorance is not declared to be anything in the way of a cosmic power, nor anything like a mysterious original sin, but it is within the range of earthly, tangible reality. The ignorance is the ignorance of the four sacred truths. Sâriputta says :* “Not to know suffering, friend, not to know the origin of suffering, not to know the extinction of suffering, not to know the path to the extinction of suffering : this, O friend, is called ignorance.” “Not seeing the four sacred truths as they are, I have wandered on the long path from one birth to another. Now have I seen them : the current of being is stemmed. The root of suffering is destroyed : there is henceforward no re-birth.”†

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The method and procedure of old-Buddhist dogmatic is here clearly exemplified : when it tracks personality back on its way through the world of sorrow beyond that moment when consciousness clothes itself with “name and material form,” that is, to the moment of conception, their thought is not on that account lost in the arcanum of pre-existence prior to all consciousness, but it makes this empirical existence take root in another equally empirical conceivable existence. That ignorance, which is stated to be the ultimate ground of your present state of being, involves that, at an earlier date, a being who then occupied your place, a being who has lived in not less tangible reality than you now do, on earth or in a heaven or in a hell, has failed to possess a specific knowledge, definable in certain words, and bound for that reason in the bonds of transmigration, must have brought about your present state of being. We saw (p. 52) that old-Brahman speculation, in reply to the question, what is the power which holds the spirit bound in impermanence, what enemy must be overcome in order that deliverance may be obtained, has answered with the very same conception, that of ignorance. With the Brahmans this ignorance was the ignorance of the identity of the particular ego with that great ego, which is the source and the sum of all egoity. Buddhism has given up these thoughts and all metaphysical hypotheses which rendered them possible, but still the word proved itself more lasting than the thought: now, as before, the ultimate root of all suffering continues to be called "ignorance." And there it was natural, when inquiry was made as to the illatent import of this idea of "ignorance," it should be described as non-possession of that knowledge, the possession of which appeared to the Buddhist the highest aim of every struggle for deliverance, the knowledge of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the extinction of suffering, and of the path to the extinction of suffering. The ultimate root of all suffering is the delusion which conceals from man the true being and the true value of the system of the universe. Being is suffering: but ignorance totally deceives us as to this suffering: it causes us to see instead of suffering a phantom of happiness and pleasure.

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∗ “Sammâdiṭṭhisuttanta” (Majjhima Nikâya). Similar passages occur frequently.

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And the next consequence of this delusion? The formula of causality expresses it in its first proposition: "From ignorance come conformations (Sankhâra)."

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Here the impossibility of Buddhist terminology finding adequate expression in our language makes itself keenly felt.

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The word Sankhâra is derived from a verb which signifies to arrange, adorn, prepare. Sankhâra is both the preparation and that prepared; but these two coincide in Buddhist conceptions much more than in ours, for to the Buddhist mind—we shall have more to say on this point later on—the made has existence only and solely in the process of being made; whatever is, is not so much a something which is, as the process rather of a being, self-generating and self-again-consuming being. Now, nothing can be imagined at any time any how coming under observation in this world of becoming and decease, to which the idea of forming or of becoming formed does not attach, and thus we shall farther on meet with the word Sankhâra as one of the most general expressions for everything that is in it. In our formula, however, which has not to do with the universe, but with the origin and decease of personal life, the idea of Sankhâra suitable to the connection is a much narrower one: here a forming is meant which is consummated in the domain of the personal body-cum-spirit existence. We might translate Sankhâra directly by "actions," if we understand this word in the wide sense in which it includes also at the same time the internal "actions," the will and wish. The old scholastic teachers divide "conformations" or "actions" under two heads, always in three classes, either viewing them as corresponding to the three categories of thought, word, and deed, or proceeding on the basis of a moral principle of division, into conformations which have a pure end in view (good actions), those which have an impure end in view, and those which have a neutral end in view. "Pure" and "impure," in the language of Indian theology, are nothing more than moral merit, which will be rewarded hereafter, and guilt, which finds its punishment hereafter. Thus the category of "conformations" brings us to the doctrine of Kamma, i.e., the law of moral retribution, which traces out for the wandering soul its path through the world of earthly being, through heaven and hell.

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What we are, is the fruit of that which we have done. As an acquisition of pre-Buddhist speculation we have already come across the proposition: "whatsoever he does, to a corresponding state he attains;"* and Buddhism teaches: "My action is my possession, my action is my inheritance, my action is the womb which bears me. My action is the race to which I am akin, my action is my refuge."† What appears to man to be his body is in truth "the action of his past state, which then assuming a form, realized through his endeavour, has become endowed with a tangible existence."‡ The law of causality, substantially regarded by Buddhist speculation as a natural law, here assumes the form of a moral power influencing the universe. No man can escape the effect of his actions. "Not in the heavens," it is said in the Dhammapada,§ "not in the midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thyself away in the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou find a place on earth where thou canst escape the fruit of thy evil actions."|| "Him, who has been long

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* *Vide* supra, p. 49. † "Anguttara Nikâya," Pañcaka Nipâta. ‡ "Saṃyutta Nikâya," vol. i, fol. jhe'. § Verses 127, 219 seq.

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|| He who obtains deliverance does not thereby escape punishment for the evil which he has not yet expiated. Yet this punishment assumes a form for the delivered, in which none of its terrors remain for them. The history of the robber Angulimâla gives an illustration. This man, who had on his conscience countless deeds of robbery and murder, is converted by Buddha and obtains sanctity. When he goes into the city of Sâvatthi to collect alms, he sustains injuries from the populace by stone-throwing and the hurling of other objects at him. Covered with blood, with broken alms-bowl and torn garments, he comes to Buddha. The latter says to him: "Seest thou not, O Brahman? The reward of evil actions,

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travelling and who returns home in safety, the welcome of relatives, friends and acquaintances, awaits. So him, who has done good works, when he passes over from this world into the hereafter, his good works welcome, like relatives a home-returning friend." Through the five regions of transmigration, through divine and human existence, and through the realms of goblins, of animal-life and hells, the power of our actions leads us. The exaltation of heaven awaits the good. The warders of hell bring up the wicked before the throne of king Yama; who asks him, whether he, when he lived on earth, did not see the five messengers of the gods who are sent for the admonition of men, the five visions of human weakness and human suffering; the child, the old man, the sick man, the criminal suffering punishment, and the dead man. Of course he has seen them. "And hast thou, O man, when thou reachedst riper years and becamest old, not thought within thyself: 'I also am subject to birth, old age, and death; I am not exempt from the dominion of birth, old age, and death. Well, then! I will do good in thought, word and deed?'" But he answers: "I was unable to do it, sire; I neglected it, sire, in my frivolity." Then king Yama addresses him: "These thy evil deeds thy mother hath done, nor thy father, nor thy brother, nor thy sister, nor thy friends and advisers, nor thy connections and blood-relations, nor ascetics, nor Brahmans, nor gods. It is thou alone that hast done these evil actions; thou alone shalt gather their fruit." And the warders of hell drag him to the places of torment. He is riveted to glowing iron, plunged in

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for which thou shouldst otherwise have had to suffer for long years and many thousands of years in hell, that thou art now receiving already in this life." (Angalimâla Suttanta, Majjh. Nikâya. The extract given in Hardy's Manual, p. 260 seq., does not fully meet the theological points of the narrative.)

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glowing seas of blood, or tortured on mountains of burning coals, and he dies not until the very last residue of his guilt has been expiated.*

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It is quite in keeping with the spirit of the old dogmatic, when a later text† compares the cycle of ever-recurring existence, connected throughout by Kamma, by merit and demerit, to a wheel which recoils upon itself, or with the reciprocal generation of the tree from the seed, of the seed corn from the fruit of the tree, of the hen from the egg, and of the egg from the hen. Eye and ear, body and spirit, move into contact with the external world; thus arises sensation, desire, action (kamma); the fruit of the action is the new eye, and the new ear, the new body and the new spirit, which will go to make up the being in the coming existence.

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† "Milinda Panha," seq., etc.

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It is this group of thoughts, associated with the idea of Kamma, which we must next take up in order to render intelligible the *róle* which the category of the Sankhâras plays in the formula of causality. Yet the sacred texts point also to another more distinct interpretation of this category, which lies somewhat in another direction.

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In one of the great collections of Buddha's addresses, we meet a sermon "on re-birth according to the Sankhâras."‡ Now this very "re-birth according to the Sankhâras" is that with which the formula of causality has to do at the place, where we are now arrived, for this formula speaks here precisely of the Sankhâras, in so far as they cause the consciousness of the dying being to become the germ of a new being ("from the Sankhâras comes consciousness. From consciousness come name and material form"). We are thus entitled to expect in the expositions of this Sûtra a commentary upon this part of the formula of causality: and in fact we find it.

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∗ Devadûta Sutta.

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‡ Sankhâruppati Suttanta in the Majjhima Nikâya.

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It runs as follows:—

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“It happens, my disciples, that a monk, endowed with faith, endowed with righteousness, endowed with knowledge of the doctrine, with resignation, with wisdom, communes thus with himself: ‘Now then, could I, when my body is dissolved in death, obtain re-birth in a powerful, princely family.’ He thinks this thought, dwells on this thought, cherishes this thought. These Sankhâras and internal conditions (vihârâ), which he has thus cherished within him and fostered, lead to his re-birth in such an existence. This, disciples, is the avenue, this the path, which leads to re-birth in such an existence.”

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The train of thought is then similarly repeated in detail with reference to the several classes of men and gods. The believing and righteous monk, who has in his lifetime directed his thoughts and wishes to these forms of existence, will be re-born in them. So on up to the highest classes of gods, who are separated from Nirvâna by a diminishing residuum of the earthly, the “gods of the spheres, in which there is neither perception nor absence of perception.” And finally, in the last place, the Sûtra speaks of the monk “who thus reflects: ‘Now then, were I but able by the destruction of sinful existence, to discover and behold for myself the sinless state of deliverance in action and in knowledge even in this present life, and find in it my abode.’ He will, by the destruction of sinful existence, discover and behold for himself the sinless state of deliverance in action and in knowledge even in this present life, and will find in it his abode. This monk, O disciples, will never be re-born.”

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We see what are here the Sankhâras, which have a decisive influence on the re-birth of man: the inner form of the spirit, which anon readily contents itself with the aspirations of the spheres of earthly greatness, raises itself anon with purer energy to the worlds of the gods, even to the highest altitudes, and soars in re-birth to existence actually in these altitudes. Still, however, sorrow pushes even into the most exalted regions. The wise man, therefore, aspires neither to human nor divine happiness; his self-forming directs itself only to the cessation of all conformations. The ignorant, on the contrary, led astray by lies, ignorance of the suffering of all states of being, becomes a settler in the world of impermanence. As the fuel will not permit the flame to be extinguished, so this inner forming of one's self, this hankering after an impermanent object, holds the dying being fast bound to existence. The spirit clothes itself with a new garment of name and material form, and in a new existence repeats the old cycle of birth and old age, of sorrow and death.

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