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The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana c8: II Buddhism and Yoga

The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāṇa c8

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English

II Buddhism and Yoga

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In the VI-V century B C at the time immediately preceding the rise of Buddhism, India was seething with philosophic speculation A great variety of views and systems were springing up and actively propagated among the different classes of its population¹ Materialistic doctrines, denying every survival of the individual after death and every retribution for his moral or immoral deeds were widely spread. The orthodox Brahmanical community was also divided. A part of it stuck to the old sacrificial religion which promised to its votaries the reward of a blissful existence in a celestial paradise Another part of it favoured, from an early date, a monistic view of the universe, and interpreted the reward of supreme bliss as the dissolution of the personality in an impersonal all-embracing Absolute. Later on some Brahmanical circles developed the idea of an eternal individual soul¹ which after having been bound up in many existences would return to its genuine condition of a pure spirit as a reward for accumulated merit.

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¹ This period coincides with a period of philosophic activity in China and in Greece, cf P Masson Oursel ‘ La Philosophie Comparee, p 56

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¹ Cp. H Jacobi. Die Ind. Philosophie in Das Licht des Ostens, p 150 f.

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Between the materialists who denied retribution and the eternalists who imagined a return to a pure spiritual condition, Buddha took a midd'e course From the eternalists he borrowed the doctrine of a gradual accumulation of spiritual merit through a series of progressing existences, but he was averse to their doctrine of an eternal spiritual principle.

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As far as we can understand his philosophic position, it seems that he was deeply impressed by the contradiction of assuming an eternal, pure. spiritual principle which. for incomprehensible reasons, must have been polluted by all the filth of mundane existence in order, later on, to revert to its original purity. He was thus led to a denial of every permanent principle. Matter and mind appeared to him as split in an infinite process of evanescent elements (Dharmas), the only ultimate realities, besides space and annihilation The conception of an impersonal world-process was probably prepared by the idea of an impersonal unique substance of the world, as developed in the Upaniṣads. The analysis of the world into its elements of matter and mind was probably, to a certain extent, prepared by the work of the Sāṅkhya school. The originality of Buddha's position consisted in denying substantiality altogether, and converting the world-process in a concerted appearance of discrete evanescent elements. Forsaking the monism and the dualism of the Sāṅkhyas, he established a system of the most radical pluralism. That the essence and the starting point of Buddhism were speculative appears very clearly, if we give credit to the records about the other wandering teachers who were the contemporaries of Buddha and often engaged in controversies with him. The questions at issue between them were of a speculative nature. Ethical questions, the explanation of retribution, were predominant, but they always were narrowly linked together with some system of ontology and some doctrine of a final release¹

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¹ Cf the information about the wandering teachers collected by B C Law, Historical Gleanings, ch II and III (Calcutta, 1922)

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If we make an effort wholly to realise the position of a philosopher to whom the universe presented itself as an infinite process of separate elements of matter and mind, appearing and disappearing, without any real personalities, nor any permanent substances, and if we bear in mind that this philosopher was eagerly seeking for a theoretical basis on which to establish morality, we must confess that for our habits of thought, his position was not an easy one. Striving to escape the contradiction of eternality, of monism and of Materialism he was landed in what, from our standpoint, was a fresh contradiction, the contradiction of a mere law without a personality on whom this law would be binding, and of a salvation without altogether the existence of somebody entitled to reach that goal which, we, more or less generally, understand under salvation.

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We will better understand the solution at which Buddha arrived, if we take into account a specific Indian habit of mind, its idea of quiescence as the only real bliss which life can afford. The Buddhist saint (ārya) regards the life of the worldling as an unhappy existence of constant turmoil. His aim is to escape from the movement of phenomenal life into a state of absolute quiescence, a condition in which all emotion and all concrete thought is stopped for ever. The means of attaining this quiescence is profound meditation (yoga), the technique of which was developed in India at a very early date.

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The picture of the universe which suggested itself to the mental eye of the Buddha, represented thus an infinite number of separate evanescent entities in a state of beginningless commotion, but gradually steering to quiescence and to an absolute annihilation of all life, when all its elements have been, one after another, brought to a standstill. This ideal received a multitude of designations among whom the name of Nirvāna was the most appropriate to express annihilation. The term was probably pre-Buddhistic and was formerly applied to the Brahmanical ideal of the dissolution of the individual in the universal whole (brahma-nirvāṇa)¹.

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¹ Cf the information by E Senart in Album Kern, p 101, and J Dahlman, in Nirvāṇa (Berlin 1896) and in Die Sānkhya Philosophie (Berlin 1902) Senart's characteristic "un simple equivalent de brahma" is right, as will be seen, in regard of the Mahāyānistic Nirvāṇa only

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The reward for a virtuous life and a strict observance of all religious duties consisted for the orthodox Brahmin in a blissful survival in heaven. For the Brahmanical monist it consisted in being merged in the impersonal absolute The Buddhist could promise nothing else than quiescence of life and its final annihilation, a result which, taken by itself, was not very remote from what was offered by simple materialism The latter promised annihilation after every life. Buddha promised likewise annihilation but after a long series of efforts in virtue and concentrated meditation. This result could not but strike as strange, not to European scholars alone. Although the denial of a soul as a separate substance is quite familiar to them, yet they were not prepared to find it clearly stated at so early a date, in so remote a country and not in a system of scepticism, but in a religion Numerous were also the Indian voices which protested against such radical denial of personal identity.

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In the Buddhist community itself, it provoked opposition which grew ever stronger and resulted, 500 years after the demise of the master, in what may be called a quite new religion, reposing on a quite different philosophic foundation.

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The apparent contradictions of early Buddhism have been variously explained. It was assumed either that Buddha did not care for speculation or that he, like many other founders of religion, was incapable of clear logical thinking. We are now presented with an attempt to reconstruct a kind of Buddhism which had no speculative tendencies at all and to ascribe the philosophic part of it to a later date to which the final constitution of the Pali canon belongs.

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It is thus assumed that there has been a primitive Buddhism, very much different, even, as it would seem quite contrary to what later on finds its expression in the Pali canon. Pessimism, nihilism, soul-denial, psychology without a soul, annihilation as ultimate end, all these features that mark out Buddhism among other religions, Indian as well as non-Indian, did not exist¹. It was the Buddhism of Buddha himself which was so radically different from anything that appeared later, in historical times, as Buddhism. The consequence of the hypothesis of a simple creed preceding historical Buddhism, is an attempt to interpret the latter in the light of the former.

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¹ pp. 17, 27, 32-34, 46, 52, 115-116, 125, 129, 132, etc

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But if all, or almost all, the doctrines contained in our oldest documents are later inventions, what is it then that Buddha has taught and what in the III and II century B.C.—for this is probably the date which is assigned to the Pali canon in its final form—was superseded by another, reconstructed, Buddhism? We have a definite answer. It is Yoga. This only partly solves the difficulty, because if we are asked what Yoga is, we are told that one feels uneasy when asked such a question, "arien de plus malaise." Nevertheless, on the next page, we are informed that Yoga is nothing but vulgar magic and thaumaturgy coupled with hypnotic practices. This would mean that Buddha was not a follower of some philosophic system in the genre of Patañjali's where the psychology of trance plays a conspicuous part for the solution of definite problems, but that he was an ordinary magician who certainly did not think of denying the existence of a soul or of establishing a psychology without a soul or of being a pessimist. Not only is it asserted that yoga practices existed in India previously to the rise of Buddhism—thus of course, is very probable—but it looks as though the author were prepared to maintain that Buddhism itself, the genuine Buddhism of Buddha, nay, that even the Pali canon, contains nothing but obscure thaumaturgy¹. How else could one understand the following very explicit deliverances? "The yoga out of which Buddhism was produced had no speculative tendencies" (p 53), i e it was "a technical routine in itself quite foreign to every moral religious or philosophic view’ (p. 12)¹ It was, in a word, magic and thaumaturgy. “In this condition, i.e. in the condition of a yoga without speculative tendencies, “has the Buddhism of the Hinayāna remained, beginning from the Mahāvagga up to Buddhaghosa, viz. it was a yoga almost without any alloy” (p. 53)².

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¹ A similar tendency is displayed in another recent book, A. B. Keith, Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon (Oxford, 1923) Buddhism is here represented as a product of a "barbarous age" (p 267), Buddha as a "magician of a trivial and vulgar kind" (p 29) Buddhist philosophical conceptions as lacking "both system and maturity, a fact historically reflected in the Negativism of the Mahāyāna" (p 4)

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¹ Similar opinions were expressed by H Beck ‘Der ganze Buddhismus durch und durch nichts als Yoga, (Buddhismus, II, p 11) Ed Lehmna (Buddhismus p 49) N. Soderblom (La vie future, p. 397 f), Fr Heiler (Die Buddhistische Versenkung, p. 7 et passim) They are all more or less mystics They imagine to have found in Buddhism something congenial with their own emotions Buddhist mysticism is for them hardly distinguishable from Christian devotion, (cp Heiler. op cit, p 51 f, p 61 f, p 66) The identification of Buddhism and Yoga by M. de la V P seems to be inspired by quite different feelings, he therefore converts Buddhism into magic or sorcery

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² M. de la Vallee Poussin tries to impress on his readers that he finds himself in agreement with M E Senart, as far as I can see, with but little foundation The origin of Buddhism was formerly sought in some kind of Upanisad ideology or some Sānkhya ideas M Senart has shown (R H.R mt 42, p 345) that the coincidences with the yoga of Patañjali are much more numerous and striking Although this work is now proved (by H Jacobi, see J A O.S 31, I ff) to be much later than M. Senart assumed and, in some points at least, had itself been influenced by Buddhism, nevertheless the coincidences pointed out by M Senart are solid facts which nobody is likely to deny. They can be now supplemented, in that sense the yoga ideas have found their way into many other Indian systems as well. Senart's main result (ibid p 364) I understand to refer to pre-Buddhistic conditions

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Here we beg leave to remark that the case of Indian philosophy would really be a desperate one if a conception so familiar in it, so fundamental, so thoroughly developed in every possible detail, a conception to which a whole system is specially devoted, were something vague and undefinable. Yoga is defined as concentrated thought (*samādhi*) or fixing the attention on a single point (*ekāgratā*) and doing it persistently (*punaḥ punaḥ cetasi niveśanam*). It is synonymous with *dhyāna* and *samāpatti* which mean the same¹ According to a peculiarity of the Sanskrit language all these terms can be used in an objective sense (*karma-sādhana*) in an instrumental sense (*karaṇa-sādhana*) or in a locative sense (*adhikaraṇa-sādhana*)² Yoga and *samādhi* thus mean either the concentrated thought itself, as a psychical condition, or this same thought, as the method through which the condition has been created, or as the place where it has been produced It is usual to apply in the latter sense, as a designation of the mystic worlds, where the denizens are eternally merged in trance, the term *samāpatti* It is applicable to all the eight planes of mystic existence, of whom the denizens are, so to say, born mystics. In this sense the term is contrasted with the worlds of gross bodies and carnal desire (*kāma-dhātu*) where the denizens possess thoughts non-concentrated, disturbed. This is its more general acceptation. In a more special sense it is applicable to the four highest planes of existence alone, the immaterial worlds (*arūpa-dhātu*), It then is contrasted with the four lower mystic worlds which are specially called the four *dhyānas* The word *samādhi* has also a general and a special sense It can mean the usual faculty of concentrated attention, or it may mean cultivated, developed concentration It then becomes a mystical power which can transfer the meditator into higher worlds and change life altogether. Yoga is usually applied in the latter kind of connotation, but it would not be inconsistent with the spirit of Sanskrit language to use it in all the three senses: (*yujyate etaditi yogaḥ, yujyate anena iti yogaḥ, yujyate asminn iti yogaḥ*) A complaint, if any, can be only about the detailed and subtle precision with which this notion is analysed, not about its vagueness. For supernatural power the term *ṛddhi* is used. But, of course, when concentration is supposed to produce supernatural mystic powers, then, by a metaphor the former may be mentioned instead of the latter. The context will always indicate to the careful reader what is the meaning intended.

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¹ The subtle difference between these terms asumed in Y S II 29 and III 2-4, 11, rendered by Prof. J. H Woods as "singleness of intent, contemplation and concentration,' as well as the definition of yoga as the "restriction of the fluctuations of the mind-stuff ' ibid. I 2 are a peculiarity of that system Prof M Anesaki and Prof J Takakusu, ERE S V *dhyāna*, assume that *samādhi* is the result, *arhatship*, and *dhyāna* one of the means But that is against Ab Kosabh ad VIII 1, where *samāpatti-dhyāna* "concentration" is distinguished from *upapatti-dhyāna* "existence in a mystic world" That *samādhi* has also a general meaning is clear from its position among the *cullā mahā-bhūmilas* where it is defined as *culla ekāgratā*, cf my Central Conception, p 100

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² When concentrated meditation here on earth is contrasted with that in an imagined higher world the terms *samāpatti* and *upapatti* are respectively used, the first is explained, by Keith, *Buddhism* 14 as *apatti* smoms par hjug-pa, cf below the opinion of (1923) But the confusion wrought by the inadequate translation of *samskāra* is likewise due to a failure of realising its barbarous age "vulgar kind" later, it either means a force, *samskriyate anena* "both system *bhūya-kārī*, or it means an element, *samskriyate* Negativism of the *arma*

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¹ The theory of separate elements (dharma) is exposed in detail by Prof. O. Resenberg, 'Problems of Buddhist Philosophy (now translated into German from Russian by his widow (Heidelberg 1924) and also by myself in my 'Central Conception of Buddhism' (London 1923). R.A.S.)

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Very far from being vulgar magic and thaumaturgy, the Buddhist teaching about Yoga contains the following philosophic construction which, in my opinion, the historian of philosophy can neither disregard nor fail to appreciate.

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Its fundamental idea consists in the fact that concentrated meditation induces a condition of quiescence. The meditative man is the opposite of the active man. Life is then dissected into active elements (saṃskāras) with a view to be one after the other reduced to final quiescence and extinction.

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A personality (pudgala), in which other systems imagine the presence of a permanent spiritual principle a soul (ātmā) is in reality a bundle of elements or forces (saṃskāra-samūha) and a stream of thought (santāna). It contains nothing permanent or substantial, it is anātma. This means that according to the general idea of radical pluralism, the spiritual part of an individual consists of separate elements (dharma). Just as its physical frame consists of atoms. Although separate, these elements are linked together by causal laws (hetu-pratyaya). Some of them always appear simultaneously, they are satellites (sahabhū). Or they follow one another in consecutive moments, they are then homogeneous (niṣyanda-phala); they constitute chains of moments (kṣaṇa-santāna). The law of causation is therefore called the law of dependently-together-origination (pratītya-sam-utpāda). The number of psychical elements (arūpino-dharmāḥ) at every given moment of an individual life is variable. It may be very considerable, because undeveloped; dormant faculties are also reckoned as actually present. This circumstance has even provoked gibes from the side of Sautrāntikas in regard to the impossibility of an actual co-existence of so huge a quantity of separate elements at a single moment. However some of them are constant, always present every moment, others appear only under certain conditions. Faculties of ten different kinds¹ are supposed always to be present. They are termed the general faculties (citta-mahā-bhūmika). Among them we find the faculty of concentration samādhi or yoga. They are morally indifferent. To them are added either a certain number of faculties morally good, or a certain number of faculties morally bad. But not only do the elements which combine in one moment vary in number, they can vary also in intensity (*utkarsa*). In a certain individual¹, at a certain time, a certain element may predominate, while in another individual or at another time in the same individual another element may reach prominence².

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¹ Yaśomitra, ad Ab. Kośa II 40, computes that, if in the first moment 27 dharmas are present, there will be 486 elements in the sixth one, and so on, iti ananta-dravyā (Prāṇinaḥ) pratisantāna-śarīrakṣaṇe bhavanti. If these elements were resistent stuff, says Vasubandhu, there would be not enough room for them in the whole universe.

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¹ Cf the tables appended to my ‘Central Conception’ p 100

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² We accordingly say “I remember”, “I wish”, but this does not mean that at the moment when I wish I do not think, or that in the moment when I remember I do not wish All mind is regarded consisting at every moment of an assemblage of mental atoms, faculties (*samskāra*) elements (*dharma*)

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Among the constantly present elements, there are two exceedingly precious ones which, when given the proper opportunity of full development become predominant and change the character of the individual and his moral value altogether They are the faculty of appreciative analysis (*prajñā*) and the faculty of concentrating our thoughts upon the single point to the exclusion of all other disturbing considerations and occurrences, it is just *samādhi* or *yoga* These elements may be quite undeveloped and insignificant. *Prajñā* is then called *mati*, but it is the same faculty When fully developed it becomes transcendent wisdom (*prajñā amalā*) Life in ordinary men is controlled by ignorance (*avidyā*) which is the reverse of *prajñā*, but not its mere absence It is a separate element which can be and, in every ordinary man really is, present at the same time with his dormant faculty of wisdom But it is not a constant faculty; it can be suppressed (*prahīna*) and thrown out of the mental stream altogether which then becomes purified or saintly (*ārya*)

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Now, the moral law or moral progress or moral education of mankind is conceived as a struggle within the stream (santāna) between the good (kuśala), the noble faculties of man and his bad (akuśala) defiling inclinations. Since the elements are ex hypothesi separate and momentary, they cannot really influence one another. Nevertheless the presence of defiling ignorance and other disturbing qualities makes the whole stream impure. All the elements are then impure, even the central element, bare consciousness, or pure sensation (viññāna), becomes affected (kliṣṭa, sāsrava). A special law of causation (sarvatraga-hetu) is imagined to account for the fact that the elements of the stream are either all of them pure in the saint, or all impure (kliṣṭa) in the ordinary man¹

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¹ Ab Kośa, II 54, 57; IV 12,

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It is part of the system; it is also a deep belief in all Buddhist countries that the noble and sublime faculties will finally, in the long run, triumph. The defiling faculties (kleśa) are divided into two classes, so far as one class can be remedied by insight so to say, by reason, and the other by concentrated attention only. The first are called dṛṣṭi-heya, the other bhāvanā-heya² It is of course a natural, and even a trivial, fact that some of our shortcomings and vices can be eradicated by knowledge, and others by concentrated attention only. But the faculty of concentration, if fully developed, has a greater force³. It then becomes a mystic power. It can stop life altogether. In the path of salvation, it is the last and most decisive step. It can also transfer the individual into a higher plane of existence He is then reborn or transferred into the realm of ethereal (accha, bhā svara)⁴ bodies, into the sphere of purified matter (rūpa-dhātu), or into the still higher regions of pure spirits (arūpa-dhātu).

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² Ibid. I 40

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³ When samādhi has reached full development, it becomes the predominant element in the bundle of elements (saṃskārasamūha)

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⁴ Cp Ab Kośabh, ad II 12

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Here we forsake the ground of reality and enter into the worlds of the mystic From this point of view, existence is divided into three different spheres. The division is in reality bipartite, into the mystic worlds (samā-patti) and into the non-mystic zones, i e. our gross worlds of carnal desire, (kāma-dhātu). The latter includes the hells, earth and the lower heavens, where the gods are living and enjoying themselves in a very human way. The position which is assigned to the gods in this sphere is very characteristic for the Buddhist as well as for the Jaina religions. These gods are not superior beings in a moral sense, For the sake of moral progress and salvation, the condition of man is preferable. Speaking technically, the gods of the kāma-dhātu represent assemblages of elements of all the 18 categories (dhātu). Not a single of them is brought to a standstill by yoga They are full of passions and are superior to man by

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which make up an individual The single term samādhi may then be used for this element together with its satellites, it then becomes synonymous with the individual or his 5 skandhas. cp Ab Kośabh ad VIII 1 The same applies to the developed prajñā their power, but not by their conduct¹. The mystic worlds are further divided into two classes, those in which the denizens possess ethereal bodies and those in which they have no physical frame. The faculty of concentration (*samādhi, yoga*) has here attained predominance, it has become the central element; the others are their satellites. Imagination has built up above the heavens of the carnal gods a series of mystic worlds They correspond exactly to the degrees of trance which are gradually reached or supposed to be reached, by the mystic. The purely spiritual realms (*arūpa-dhātu*) are four. Their denizens are merged in contemplation (*samāpatti*) of some unique idea, either the idea of the infinity of space, or of the infinity of thought, or of the void, or in a dreamy semi-conscious state Their condition is nearly catalepsy, a state where consciousness is quite arrested. The worlds of ethereal bodies are also four in number, exactly corresponding to the initial four degrees of trance (*dhyāna*) and are accordingly designated as the worlds of the first, the second, the third and the fourth *dhyāna*.

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¹ The higher planes of these carnal gods, however, are morally purer than the lower ones; they gradually approach to the still higher moral standard of the worlds of trance, cp. Ab. Kośa III. 70.

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Whereas our material frame consists of elements of 18 kinds, four of them are in abeyance in the worlds of ethereal bodies. The sense-data of smell and taste and the corresponding two sets of sensations do not exist It is because these beings do not want any hard food, no food which is taken piecemeal, chewed and swallowed². Their nutrition is spiritual. Here imagination evidently is founded upon the fact that the mystic, when deeply engaged in meditation, forgets all about his meals. Therefore olfactory and gustatory sense-data lose their raison d'etre They are by the mystic power of yoga extinct altogether. But the physical organs, the nose and the tongue remain, because, their absence would make the body ugly All the bodies are beautiful, one is mutilated Their faculties of sight and audition are un-limited, they possess *divya-caksuh* and *divya-śrotram*¹ Their tactile sensations are the same as the characteristic agreeable feeling of bodily ease and lightness (*praśrabdhi*) which produces levitation in the mystic. Their movements are, therefore, extremely swift and dexterous But the faculties of smelling and taste are absent altogether, because their food is immaterial They have no need for clothes,² they are born with a light ethereal covering that lasts all their very long life through. Neither do they want any dwellings Every new born finds a house provided for him by *karma*, i e by nature The phenomenon of sex is spiritualised The bodies are without the members of physical procreation This does not make them mutilated Gross sexual passion does not exist at all But total indifference does neither exist The feelings are delicate The birth of a new being is quite free from all pain and filth The new born child does not come out of the matrix of a female, it is apparitional (*upapāduka*). Those who happen to be nearest to the place of his birth are his parents³. No government,⁴ of course, is needed in such a community, because there are no crimes, no gross passions Total absence of passion would mean total absence of volitions, and this, according to the Indian conceptions, would stop life altogether; it would be Nirvāna. But all the feelings have a mild form. The feeling of hatred (*pratigha*) is totally absent. Other feelings are veiled indifference (*nivṛta-avyākṛta*)⁵

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² Ab Kośa I 30, III, 39.

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¹ They have, as a monk in Mongolia expressed himself in a conversation with me, telescopes and telephones

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² Ab Kośa, III 70

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³ Ibid III 71

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⁴ Ibid III. 98

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⁵ A full account of the Buddhist heavens and their denizens is given in Prof H Kirfel, Die Kosmographie der Inder (Bonn, 1920),

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The imagination of the man who has drawn this picture, whether it be Buddha or another, seems to have been guided by the idea that manual work is the curse of humanity. Therefore a state is imagined where there is no need for it, because food, clothes and homes are naturally provided. The other debasing feature of mankind, the gross sexuality of love, is quite absent. Thus from the three incentives of human action on earth, wealth, love and duty (artha-kāma-dharma) the last alone continues its unimpeded sway in the mystic world. However, there is no absolute equality between the denizens. There are lofty and ordinary characters. The quality of being a "worldling" (prthag-jana) can occasionally appear in these regions. At least some of the schools are quarrelling about this question¹. The details of this picture have given rise to a great deal of controversy, and even now we can come across Buddhist monks who will, with extraordinary vivacity, debate some of the moot points.

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¹ p. 190 ff, but their connection with the degrees of absorption in yoga-meditation is mentioned only in regard to the 4 sampattis on p 198. Cp also B C. Law, Heaven and Hell (Calcutta 1925). The Vātsīputrīyas explained the fact that person having reached in a higher world the condition of a Saint (ārya) could sometimes nevertheless fall back into ordinary humanity and become again a common worldling, by the circumstance that some element of this common worldliness (prthagjanatva) was left dormant in him, it had not been quite eradicated at the time when he became a saint, op. Ab. Kośabh I 40 II 40.

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The Abhidharma discusses the question whether in order to possess all supernatural forces existing in the mystic worlds it is a necessary condition to be clearly seen out of the following discussion in the Abhidharma¹.

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¹ Condensed from Ab Kośa bh. pp 52 2-53 8 (B.B XX). cp. M. de la V, P.'s translation p. 54 ff.

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"It has been determined that 18 kinds (*dhātu*) of elements are cooperating in making up life in all the three spheres of existence². It is then asked how many cooperate in the whole worlds of gross bodies, how many in the worlds of ethereal bodies, and how many in the spiritual worlds It is answered—18 in the first, 14 in the second and 3 in the last. All the 18 elements combine in creating life in the sphere of gross bodies. "They combine" means that they are inseparable from it, they constitute this world. In the plane of ethereal bodies, the fragrant and savoury stuff, as well as the corresponding sensations (*viññāna*) are excluded. They represent physical food (*kavali-kāra-āhāra*). But ethereal bodies belong to beings who can live without such food; they have no desire for it. The olfactory and gustatory sensations are thus absent, because their objects—that physical food which contains the fragrant and savoury stuff—do not exist

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² Cp. the tables in Central-Conception, p. 97.

c8.53

"Objection. But in this case neither the resistant stuff would exist in these worlds, since it is also a part of the nutriment stuff?

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"Answer. That part of it alone exists which is not nutriment.

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Objection: The fragrant and 'the savoury stuffs are in the same condition (a part of them is not nutriment)?

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"Answer The resistant stuff is necessary as a support for the sense faculties, as a support for the bodies and as clothes for them But for the fragrant and savoury stuffs there is no necessity, because there is no physical food. Therefore, since the instinct for such food is absent, neither do the corresponding stuffs exist (i'e. they are not produced by *karma*) The case of the resistant stuff is different.

c8.57

"Opinion of Śrīlābha: If some body here (on earth) by concentrated meditation reaches ecstasy, he continues to see colours, to hear sounds and his sense of touch is agreeably affected by some special tangible stuff which is produced simultaneously with the production in him of a high degree of levitation (*prasrabdhi*), but odours and tastes are in abeyance For this reason, when beings are reborn in these worlds of trance, the first three sense data exist, but smells and tastes are absent.”

c8.58

It is seen out of this passage that the conditions of life in the sphere of ethereal bodies are imagined by transferring personal mystic experiences into a separate plane of existence.

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A very interesting discussion then follows about that driving force of nature called *karma* which, in this connection, corresponds to our conception of evolution, or *elan vital*¹.

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¹ What confusion arises from a wrong translation of the term *karma* appears clearly from M de la V P.’s translation of this passage, Ab Kośa II 30, p. 56 “Quelle est la cause de la naissance d’un organe, sinon un certain acte aommandé par un dèsir relatif a cet organe”. This can only mean that there has been once upon a time, a man who evidently did not possess this organ, or did possess no organs at all, but he manifested a desire to possess some and committed an action in consequence After that all men, who peacefully existed without any organs at all, suddenly acquired them No wonder that Indian philosophy, when presented in such a garb, ceases to be attractive About *karma* in Buddhism cp O. Rosenberg, Problems, XVI.

c8.61

It produces, according to a regular plan and answering to necessities, all the varieties of life in the plane of gross bodies and *mutatis mutandis* in the imagined planes of existences constructed according to mystic experiences.

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Such is the theory of Yoga in Hinayāna. It is quite different in Mahāyāna where the philosophic foundation is different All the devices which are employed for helping the mind to concentrate upon a single point are more or less the same in all philosophic systems. There is absolutely nothing Buddhistic in them¹. The psychological fact of concentration which is at the bottom of them is a very simple one². When carried on systematically they induce special mystic states of mind. Patañjali has given their explanation according to the principles of Sāṅkhya philosophy In Hīnayāna Buddhism they are explained in a manner fitting the system of radical pluralism, i.e that theory of separate elements (*dharma*) which has been established with a view to their gradual extinction in Nirvāṇa Very characteristic for Buddhism is the system of heavens or paradises in which, at their middle and highest stages, imaginary beings are lodged, who are also called gods, but are nothing but born mystics, beings in whom the condition of trance is a natural one. This distinguishes Buddhism from all other religions and philosophical systems¹. It is also inseparable from the conception of the Hinayānist Nirvāṇa or the so-called Nirvāṇa of the Śrāvakas. According to the teaching of some schools the highest cataleptic states of trance are eternal (asamskṛta), i.e they do not differ from Nirvāṇa² But, according to the majority of schools, Nirvāṇa is beyond even that It is the absolute limit of life, the extinction even of this kind of the thinnest vestige of consciousness which is still left in the highest of all imaginable worlds of cataleptic trance.

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¹ Fr. Heiler, op cit p 47, following Prof Rhys Davids, thinks that (brahmanical) yoga is predominantly physical and hypnotic, whereas the Buddhist method of meditation is intellectual and moral I would not venture to endorse this opinion In this respect the difference, if any, is negligible Heiler evidently overlooks, in his Buddhist fervour, the devotion to God (*īśvara-praṇidhāna*) of the brahmanical Yogi The process of moral purification of the latter is very vividly described by Prof S N Dasgupta, The Study of Patañjali, p 142 ff (Calcutta, 1920) and his other works

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² The late Prof O Rosenberg has himself practised some yoga-meditation in a Zen Monastery in Japan He used to compare the agreeable feeling of ease which he then experienced to the effect produced by music, especially when executed personally. Attention is then fixed and a light feeling of ecstasy makes you forget all troubles of life The warlike Samurai before going to war used to go through a course of yoga-experiences in some Zen monastery, and this had the most beneficial influence upon their moral condition in strengthening their courage and endurance.

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¹ It is interesting to note that the gods of Epicurus are also quiescent, inactive and also possess ethereal bodies of a special atomic structure

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² Cp. Kathā-vatthu, VI 4. The yogācāras likewise reckon catalepsy among the asamskṛta elements.

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