Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Indian Philosophy v1.c15: Chapter VII

Indian Philosophy v1.c15

Language
English

Chapter VII

v1.c15.1

Page 342.—Cp. K. J. Saunders: “The great keynotes of our modern scientific thinking, causality and the unity of the universe, even if Gautama did not first formulate them, were popularised by him” (*Epochs in Buddhist History*, p. ix).

v1.c15.2

Page 343.—The Tipiṭaka contains products of different ages. Whether or not the Canon of the Dharma and the Vinaya as found to-day were composed at the first Council, it is clear that the elders of the faith gathered together soon after the demise of Buddha and discussed questions of doctrine and discipline. We are on more certain ground with regard to the second Council at Vesali, dated a hundred years after the death of Buddha, which was aimed specifically at the repudiation of the ten errors which crept into the doctrine in the meantime. It may well be that the Canon was actually drawn up at the third Council of Pataliputra, presided over by Tissa, which met during Aśoka’s time, and by then different sects developed on the basis of the master’s teaching. Aśoka’s edicts protest against the schismatic tendencies of his age. The Ceylonese tradition relates that the Canon composed at the third Council was carried to Ceylon by Mahinda, the pupil of Tissa and the younger brother or the son of Aśoka (according to another tradition), and committed to record under Vattagāmani. See Keith: *Buddhist Philosophy*, pp. 3, 13–32.

v1.c15.3

Page 344.—Professor Keith thinks that the *Abhidhamma Pitaka* is the work of Vibhajyavādins. See *Buddhist Philosophy*, pp. 152–3.

v1.c15.4

Page 346.—Buddhaghoṣa wrote a commentary on the *Dīgha Nikāya* called *Sumaṅgalavilāsinī*.

v1.c15.5

Page 353.—See Śīlācāra: *Discourses of Gotama, the Buddha*, vol. ii, xxxv and xxxvi.

v1.c15.6

Page 353, *n.* 1.—See *Cūlasaccaka Sutta*, M.N. (35), i. 237.

v1.c15.7

Page 354.—We read from the *Jātakas* of cow sacrifices (i. 144) and even human sacrifices (iii. 314).

v1.c15.8

Page 356.—The *Jātakas* refer frequently to the degeneration of the Brahmin and his eagerness for money. In i. 77, the king’s chaplain persuades a young Brahmin, who is opposed to the sacrifice, in these words: “My son, this means money to us, a great deal of money.” Similarly, when the disciple of the royal priest protests against animal sacrifices, he is told: “We shall have abundance of dainties to eat; only hold your peace” (iii. 314). The jackal in the *Srigala Jātaka* says, “The Brahmins are full of greed for wealth” (i. 142; see also iv. 496).

v1.c15.9

Page 360, *n.* 1.—M.N., i. 265.

v1.c15.10

Page 362.—Cp. the four truths of Buddhism with the division of medical topics into disease, origin of disease, health and healing. Y.B., ii. 15.

v1.c15.11

Page 370.—Though the idea of orderly development is contained in the Upaniṣads (see *Kaṭha*), the Buddhist formula of causality emphasises it.

v1.c15.12

Later Buddhist texts make the important distinction between causes generally (paccaya) and the cause proper (hetu), which is the real producer of the result, the other causes being conditions, coefficients or auxiliaries. The *Paṭṭhāna* classifies conditions under twenty-four heads. The power of one idea to affect another is called, in later Buddhism, satti or ability.

v1.c15.13

Page 371, *n.*—See A.N., i. 286; S.N., ii. 25; D.N., ii. 198.

v1.c15.14

Page 373.—*Mahāvagga*, i. 21; S.N., i. 133; iv. 157 and 399. It is difficult to say definitely when the theory of momentariness (kṣaṇikavāda) was formulated. *Kathāvattu* (viii. 8) seems to be familiar with it. *Ekacitta kṣaṇikā sabbe dhammā*. All things are momentary like mental states. Disappearance is the very essence of existence. Whatever exists perishes at the next moment. Everything comes out of nothing and vanishes into nothing. *Nyāyabinduṭīkā*, p. 68; see also Ratnakīrti’s *Kṣaṇabhaṅgasiddhi*.

v1.c15.15

Page 374.—On the view of momentariness, causation is neither the evolution of the cause into the effect, nor the creation by the cause of an effect different from itself, but is the necessary succession of determined effects. No real causality can be attributed to the strictly momentary.

v1.c15.16

*Kathāvattu* (xvii. 3; xxi. 7 and 8) seems to admit the possibility of acts without fruits. See also xii. 2; xvii. 1. In *Milinda*, the arhat is said to suffer pain over which he has no mastery (pp. 134 ff.). It expressly asserts chance (animitta); pp. 180 ff.

v1.c15.17

Page 376, n. 1.—*Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society*, 1919, p. 236.

v1.c15.18

Page 380.—The doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda or the formula of causation, which has for its first member avidyā (ignorance), lends support to the subjective view of the world.

v1.c15.19

Page 381.—The doctrine of perception suggested in the early literature (*Majjhima N.*, iii. 242) supports a realistic view of the world.

v1.c15.20

The Abhidhamma regards the four elements as underived matter and makes ether (ākāśa) a derived one (*Dhammasaṅgaṇi*, M.N., i. 423; ii. 17). We find sometimes mention of six real elements where space and consciousness are added to the ordinary four elements (see *Itivuttaka*, 44, 51 and 73).

v1.c15.21

Page 382, n. 1.—M.N., i. 426.

v1.c15.22

Page 384, n. 1.—See also *Mahanidāna Sutta*, D.N., ii. 66; M.N., i. 138, 300; S.N., iii. 66, iv. 34.

v1.c15.23

Page 385.—In the *Alagaddūpama Sutta* (M.N., i. 140), Buddha repudiates the pantheistic view which identifies the self with the world.

v1.c15.24

Page 386.—For the dialogue of Vacchagotta, see *Aggivacchagotta Sutta*, M.N., 72; i. 484-489. See Dahlke: *Buddhism and its Place in the Mental Life of Mankind*, pp. 37 ff.

v1.c15.25

Page 387.—The Vajjiputtakas adopt the view of pudgala or person over and above the impermanent factors of empiric individuality. They maintain that the person, though implicated in the elements of empiric individuality, is quite distinct from them, even as fire is neither the same as nor different from the burning stick, but is something more than the stick. M. Poussin writes: "I cannot help thinking that the pudgalavāda is more in harmony with the duḥkhasatya and the law of karman than the nairātmyavāda" (J.R.A.S., 1901, p. 308). Vasubandhu, the Sautrāntika, objects to the view of an uncaused, eternal, changeless self, inactive and inefficient.

v1.c15.26

Mrs. Rhys Davids summarises her views on this question thus: "(1) So far as we can trace it, the earliest teaching we call Buddhist did not deny the *very man, or self*. To see this, we must shed our own standpoint of the eighteenth century in force still with us; we must imagine the power of the word *ātman*, *attan* for an educated Indian of the seventh century B.C., when invited by a religious teacher that he would do well to ‘seek the *attan*.’ Almost it was tantamount to bidding him ‘seek God,’ or, ‘seek the Holy Spirit within yourselves.’ This is said to have been one of the earliest addresses of the founder of Buddhism. Vinaya, i. 23 (*Mahāvagga*, i. 14); *Buddhist Psychology*, pp. 28 ff. It is historically of deep significance. And it is supported by many passages in the four chief books (Nikayas) and the Dhammapada, where the subject is man's communing with and knowing himself—ways, too, of wording which are not maintained in later teaching.

v1.c15.27

“What was denied from the very first was that man, the spirit, the attan, could rightly be considered as either body or mind. Were he either or both, then as being things so weak and transient as either of these, he could not will-to-become (as will he did); he could not be chooser of his destiny. This is not to deny that the ‘man-in-man’ is. It is to say: ‘Form not so wrong a notion of what you really are.’ But to have said, at that day in India, ‘You are neither the one nor the other, therefore you are not at all, you, that is, are just only a hundle of both,’ would have made the new gospel an absurdity, an insult on the intelligence of the hearer.

v1.c15.28

“(2) Yet even now the Southern Buddhist in Asia and the very latest writers on Buddhism in the West fail to discern the change which spread like a very canker over Buddhism in this matter.

v1.c15.29

“(3) Is there none who will vindicate this helper of men, noble and wise? Is there none who will understand that he who brings the new message, which we call a religion, to men is one who, whatever he did teach, did not teach certain things because he simply could not, being who he was, so teach. If we have what I have put forward above as a right perspective in contemplating the relation: Mandater of gospel; the mandate or gospel; the mandated (viewed as the two terms of the relation and the bond between them), then shall we be sure that the mandater, in appealing to the very ‘man-in-man,’ could not tell the mandated that this ‘he’ was not real, was non-existent. We shall be sure that he would, on the contrary, strengthen man's belief in his reality by enlarging man's knowledge about himself. No less sure shall we be, that the mandater could not, in so enlarging man's knowledge, and thereby bringing about a new becoming, a fresh change in man, tell the mandated that there was, in man, that which was unchangeable.”—Calcutta Review, November 1927.

v1.c15.30

Page 387, n. 1.—M.N., i. 256.

v1.c15.31

Page 399, n. 3.—See D.N., ii. 62.

v1.c15.32

Page 403.—According to M.N., i. 190, three factors are involved in perception, objects, senses and the acts of attention.

v1.c15.33

Page 404.—In the Dhammasaṅgaṇi, citta includes the five forms of sense cognition, activity of mind and representative cognition, while cetasika covers the other three aggregates of feelings, perceptions and dispositions.

v1.c15.34

Page 406.—Buddhaghoṣa regards perception (saṃjñā), intelligence (vijñāna) and intuition (prajñā) as successive steps in a staircase comparable to the different reactions provoked by the sight of precious metals in a child who sees in them coloured objects, in a citizen who recognises their exchange value, and in an expert who knows all about their origin and development. See Buddhaghoṣa on M.N., i. 292.

v1.c15.35

We have no systematic account of the emotions in the Buddhist Canon. Lobha or attraction or appetite, doṣa or aversion, and moha or delusion are mentioned along with their opposites of alobha, adoṣa, and amoha, disinterestedness, amity and right knowledge. Feelings of friendship or love (metta), sympathy with suffering (karuṇa) and sympathy with happiness or joy (muditā) are also mentioned. The idea of continuity (saṃtati) is found in the Abhidhamma (Dhamma-saṅgaṇi, 585, 643, 734; Kathāvattu, x. 1; xi. 6 and xxi. 4; Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, v. 12, 15 and 16). Experiences of objects leave behind their seeds or impressions in the consciousness-continuum, and in the fulness of time the seed ripens and rises into consciousness and we have recognition. This consciousness-series reaches its end only at liberation. This view of continuity is developed by the Sautrāntikas, who regard the person as equivalent to cittasaṃtāna.

v1.c15.36

Page 409.—Though rebirth is new birth, there is, however, continuity between the consciousness which appears at birth and the consciousness at the time of death (Milinda, p. 47). This is why it is often urged that the last thought at the time of death has an essential influence on the form of rebirth.

v1.c15.37

Page 410.—The individual carries with him at every moment his future (Milinda, p. 101). Each moment of our life is charged with the satti or the force of the past, and the present impresses itself on all that follows, perfuming it, as it were, as the term vāsana indicates.

v1.c15.38

Page 411.—The first moment of the new life is called vijñāna, but it is the third member on the list. Its antecedents are the good and the bad dispositions sticking to it from the beginning. They are called saṃskāras or prenatal forces. Avidyā, the first member, represents the defiling character of ignorance.

v1.c15.39

Page 411, n. 1.—S.N., ii. 10.

v1.c15.40

Page 411, n. 3.—V. 388; A.N., i. 177.

v1.c15.41

Page 414.—While consciousness is said to pass from life to death, we are not sure whether it is visible in itself or is accompanied by a subtle body.

v1.c15.42

Page 414, n. 1.—D.N., ii. 63.

v1.c15.43

Page 415.—For the different views about the chain of causation, see Keith: Budd. Phil., pp. 105–111.

v1.c15.44

Page 417, n. 1.—Dhammapada, 60.

v1.c15.45

Page 421.—See Śīlācāra: Discourses of Gotama, the Buddha, vol. i, p. 41.

v1.c15.46

Page 422.—Milinda (pp. 95, 117) refers to the doctrine that a man may transfer his merit to another instead of keeping it to himself.

v1.c15.47

Page 423.—Intuition is intimately related to intelligence. See Majjhima N., i. 292 ff.

v1.c15.48

Page 432, n. 4.—D.N., i. 124.

v1.c15.49

Page 438.—"There is nothing to show that Buddha tried to abolish caste as a social institution. There was no reason why he should do so in so far as his teaching could be enforced that the true Brahmin was the virtuous brahmin. And within the order, caste did disappear, and there are many instances of low-caste persons being admitted as monks" (E. J. Thomas: *The Life of Buddha*, 128; see also *Udāna*, v. 5). One of Buddha's early disciples is a barber who later became a leader in the Order. In the *Aggañña Suttanta* (D.N., iii. 80 ff.), the claims of the Brahmins to pre-eminence on the ground of birth are contemptuously set aside.

v1.c15.50

*Page 440.*—We, however, come across statements, though they are very few, that accidental happenings which do not apparently conform to the law of karma are possible. *Kathāvattu*, xvii. 3; xvi. 8; *Milinda*, pp. 135 ff., 180. These are really exceptions which prove the rule. See *Majjhima N.*, ii. 104.

v1.c15.51

*Page 443.*—Early Buddhism admits the reality of invisible world systems each containing three regions or worlds, those of desire (kāma), of material form (rūpa) and the formless ones (arūpa). The first are the abodes of ghosts (pretas), of demons (asuras), of men and of gods. The second includes the brahmalokas, sixteen in number, distinguished according to the gods freed from desires, who abide there. Those who practice the four meditations and are freed from rebirth remain there until they attain nirvāṇa. The world without form is the dwelling of those who carry out the formless meditations.

v1.c15.52

*Page 446.*—The Vaibhāṣikas accept this intermediate state with a quasi-material transporting (ātivāhika) body.

v1.c15.53

*Page 447.*—The beautiful poetry of the Thera and the Therī gāthas is inspired by ideas of the happiness of nirvāṇa, which is capable of attainment even in this life (see *Dīgha N.*, i. 84).

v1.c15.54

*Page 448.*—For Nāgasena there is temporal experience for the individuals who are reborn; for those freed from saṃsāra there is no temporal experience. Time belongs to the stuff of worldly life (see *Milinda*, pp. 50 ff.).

v1.c15.55

*Page 449.*—See M.N., i. 487; S.N., iv. 347; iii. 109. Cp. also *Patisambhidāmagga*, i. 143-5.

v1.c15.56

*Page 450.*—According to *Milinda* (p. 271), space and nirvāṇa last independently of all forms of causation.

v1.c15.57

*Page 452.*—See M.N. (63), i. 427-432.

v1.c15.58

*Page 453 n.*—*Alagaddūpama Sutta*, M.N., i. 140-1.

v1.c15.59

*Page 455.*—In the cosmic evolution, men of great merit secure the rank of gods. Even the appearance of Brahmā with the delusion that he is self-created (svayambhū) is in accordance with this principle.

v1.c15.60

*Page 456 n.*—See Lakshminarasu: *Essence of Buddhism*, pp. 261-2, 275-6.

v1.c15.61

*Page 465.*—See Pratt: *The Pilgrimage of Buddhism*, chap. v.

v1.c15.62

*Page 472.*—The Sāṃkhya conception of the constant process of nature is analogous to the Buddhist conception of the world as a perpetual becoming. In both, the law of causality governs the process. The stress on avidyā as the cause of all misery is common to the two systems.

v1.c15.63

*Page 473.*—The ideas of the Yoga system had a powerful hold on early Buddhism. Ālārakālāma and Uddaka, two teachers of Buddha, were adepts in the practice of Yoga. It is quite possible and very probable that Buddha borrowed his ideas of the discipline of mind from the Yoga system, as the use of the words citta (thought), nirodha (suppression) suggests. The Yoga makes ignorance the cause of misery and regards it as a kleśa or defilement which is at the root of all others. The four stages of samādhi or concentration may have been the original of the Buddhist view of the four ordinary meditations (Y.S.I., 17). The four brahmavihāras of friendship, sympathy with sorrow, sympathy with happiness and indifference have also their parallel in the Yoga system (Y.S.I., 33). It is not difficult to trace the chain of causation to the Yoga philosophy (iv. 11). See also Stcherbatsky: *The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāṇa*, pp. 2 ff.

v1.c15.64

*Page 476.*—See also Keith: *Buddhist Philosophy*.

v1.c15.65

*Page 480.*—The conception of "trimūrti" is often regarded as of a much later date. See Hopkins: *The Great Epic*, pp. 46, 184. We can trace it, however, to the *Maitri Up.*, iv and v, though the part of the Upaniṣad in which it occurs is regarded as a late addition.

v1.c15.66

*Page 483.*—The passage in which Buddha is mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa* is said to be an interpolation.

v1.c15.67

*Page 490.*—In the first two stages of the development of the Epic, Viṣṇu with his Vedic ancestry, Nārāyaṇa, the cosmic god controlling the whole evolution of the universe, Vāsudeva, the saviour god, and Kṛṣṇa, the friend and comforter, meet and coalesce. See *Śānti P.*, 341. 20–6. 342. 129.

v1.c15.68

*Page 492, n. 2.*—“Āpo nārā iti proktā āpo vai narasūnavaḥ ayanam tasyatāḥ pūrvam tena nārāyaṇa smṛtaḥ.”

v1.c15.69

*Page 496.*—Dr. Jhā quotes an ingenious suggestion that “the system (pañcarātra) is so called by reason of the fact that it was promulgated for the purpose of meeting the religious cravings of men during the five days the Vedas remained with the demon from whom they were rescued by Viṣṇu before the recreation of the world after pralaya” (*Hindustan Review*, January 1924, p. 219).

v1.c15.70

*Page 504, n. 5.*—Cakṣuḥ paśyati rūpāṇi manasā na cakṣuṣā.

v1.c15.71

*Page 505, n. 3.*—Duḥkhād udvijate sarvas sarvasya sukham īpsitam.

v1.c15.72

*Page 508, n. 10.*—

v1.c15.73

Pāpam karma kṛtam kiñcid yadi tasmin na dṛśyate,
Nṛpate tasya putreṣu pautreṣvapi ca napṛṣu.

v1.c15.74

*Page 511.*—Time and nature are not peculiarly Buddhistic. They belong to the early naturalistic speculations as well. See *Atharva Veda*, xix. 53, where time is deified.

v1.c15.75

Page 531 *n.*—Ānandagiri, who refers to a Vṛttikāra twice in his *Tīkā*, S.B.G. (pp. 6 and 27 of the Ānandāśrama ed.), does not identify him with Bodhāyana.

v1.c15.76

Page 538 *n.*—See also R.V., x. 129.

v1.c15.77

Page 542.—Lālane tāḍane mātur nākāruṇyam yathā’rbhake Tadvad eva maheśasya niyantur guṇadoṣayoh.

v1.c15.78

Page 544.—*Bhāgavata*, i. 3. 2. 8.

v1.c15.79

Page 555 *n.*—Bradley: *Appearance and Reality*, pp. 5–6.

v1.c15.80

Page 565.—“The worship of the Blessed One does not express itself in mere ecstasy. In it the whole of one’s being is engaged. ‘He is of right purpose.’ In this rightness of purpose there is the guarantee of righteousness in deed” (McKenzie: *Hindu Ethics*, p. 131).

v1.c15.81

Page 569.—Cp. Nivṛttir api mūḍhasya pravṛttir upajāyate Pravṛttir api dhīrasya nivṛtti-phalabhāginī.

v1.c15.82

Page 572.—See M.B., *Śānti P.*, 320. 36 and 38.

v1.c15.83

Page 576.—See B.G., v. 23–5.

Cites (33)