The History of Buddhist Thought c18.32

c18.32

The first two of these views are given in the *Brahmajāla-sutta*, and the first is there combined with the doctrine that also the self is eternal. In this list the question about the self is included in the third and fourth views, but is stated in quite different language. The assertion that the vital principle is the same as the body would involve the doctrine of annihilation as stated by Ajita, that both fools and wise at the dissolution of the body are cut off and destroyed. But here the word for body is neither the usual *kāya* nor *rūpa*, but *sarīra*. The word for the spiritual part is also different, *jīva* merely meaning life. The phrase *tam jīvam tam sarīram* looks like the statement of a tenet expressed in the words of the teacher who held it. It occurs separately in the *Jāliya-sutta* (*Dīgha*, i, 159), where it was put as a question to Buddha by two wandering ascetics. Their purpose, according to Buddhaghosa, was to get either a positive or a negative answer, and thus to accuse him of annihilationism or eternalism. His reply is to describe the attaining of the four trances and enlightenment, and to conclude that for one who thus knows and thus perceives it is not fitting for him to say either.