The History of Buddhist Thought c18.57

c18.57

a Tathāgata is profound, immeasurable, hard to fathom, like the great ocean.”¹ Does the idea, says Oldenberg, which Buddhism had about that Beyond imply an absolutizing of individual being as in later Sānkhya, or had they floating in their minds a universal, absolute being in which the secret of achievement is realized? “From the way in which Buddhism treats this class of problems, or rather refuses to treat them, it follows that the ideas here in question can only be traced through a haze. But the traces that can be made out indicate rather that a universal being reaching far beyond the limits of the individual floated in their minds: an absolute, naturally not as *Weltgrund*, because in fact they had no impulse to ask about a *Weltgrund*, either openly or covertly, but an absolute as final highest goal.” This is a withdrawal of the charge that if Buddha had drawn the last conclusion of his own principles, he would have arrived at annihilation.