The History of Buddhist Thought c16.55

c16.55

Although the Buddhist believed in the survival of the individual in the next existence as firmly as any Christian, it may be asked whether his theory of the khandhas justified him in doing so. No explanation is ever given why the khandhas should be always combined in separate personalities. There is no principle of individuation, nor even any recognition of what Kant called the synthetic unity of apperception. It is probable that the opponents of the theory of khandhas only were feeling after some such principle, and there is no doubt that the orthodox Hindu theories of the ātman depended on more than the instinctive rejection of the thought of personal annihilation. But this principle was never separated out from dogmatic concepts of the soul, and it was always possible to reject these and at the same time to neglect the principle of truth which they contained. In any case the doctrines of immortality (eternal life as distinct from mere survival after death), the existence of a permanent spiritual substance, and of a being thinking and feeling apart from material conditions, did not come within the range of evidence recognized by the Buddhists. The critical question for the Buddhists was not the survival of the individual at death, which they held and defended against the doctrine of annihilation (ucchedavāda), but the existence of the individual when the aggregation of the khandhas has finally ceased. That question depends upon the much disputed meaning of Nirvāṇa.