The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana c8.5

c8.5

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