The History of Buddhist Thought c25.4

c25.4

We find the first stage of the transformation of the metaphysical basis already completed in the doctrine of the Void. This doctrine belongs to several schools, but the earliest formulation found is the doctrine which came to be known as the Mādhyamika, the teaching of Nāgārjuna. We do not know the actual circumstances of the transformation, and it is useless to attempt to trace in the abstract the supposed course of this change. Such changes do not occur in the abstract. They are due to the intellectual ability of individuals, and there must have been many original minds in the Buddhist schools of the two or three centuries before the Christian era. But the last thing that such minds wanted was to appear original. What they claimed to be expounding was the teaching of Buddha, and that this was their teaching they always maintained. If it was pointed out that Buddha’s discourses contained different teaching, then they explained it as teaching meant only for the simple, or they replied that the higher doctrine had been proclaimed by Buddha in one of the heavens and was intended to be promulgated later. They already had the example of the Abhidharma, which was first taught in this way. They were further enabled to justify their position by producing discourses in Buddha’s actual words, which gave them a basis for all that they wished to say.