The History of Buddhist Thought c17.53

c17.53

Buddhism by making the ethical character of an action depend upon the motive and not upon the external performance transformed the doctrine of karma. The aim was no longer to attend to external actions, but to the motives that inspire them. As Buddhaghosa puts it, the Buddhas are like lions which when shot attack the hunter; they make the pain to cease and teach the cessation of pain by referring to the cause. The heretics are like dogs which attack the stick that hit them; they teach the cessation of pain by teaching the application of self-mortification and such things; they refer to the effect, not the cause.¹ Doubtless this teaching was not entirely new. We find truly ethical concepts in the Upanishads. But it was an important protest against a rival view of karma, which was carried to its extreme by the Jains.