The History of Buddhist Thought c18.35

c18.35

It is evident from the *Sutta of the simile of the snake* (*Majjh.*, i, 139) that the Buddhists were accused of nihilism, not merely on account of any denial like that of Ajita’s, but because their doctrine of release was held to imply it. Buddha is there made to say that not all the gods with Indra, Brahmā, and Pajāpati are able to track out a monk with mind released and say, “there rests the consciousness of a Tathāgata.” Then follows a repudiation of the charge of annihilationism: “some ascetics and brahmins accuse me wrongly, baselessly, falsely, and groundlessly, saying that the ascetic Gotama is a nihilist, and preaches the annihilation, destruction, and non-existence of an existent being. That is what I am not and do not affirm. Both previously and now I preach pain and the cessation of pain.”