Indian Philosophy v1.c17.4

v1.c17.4

Page 615.—The self or living being is not an ultimate fact, while the real elements (dharmas) are. Nairātmya or soullessness is the negative way of expressing the existence of ultimate reality (dharmatā); only what we call the soul is not that. Cp. Yaśomitra on *Abhidharmakośa*, ix. *Pravacanadharmatā punar atra nairātmyam buddhānuśāsanī vā*. Stcherbatsky says: "Buddhism never denied the existence of a personality or a soul, in the empirical sense; it only maintained that it was no ultimate reality (not a dharma)" (see *The Central Conception of Buddhism*, pp. 25–26).