A History of Indian Philosophy Part 17

[email protected] and Buddhism.

The [email protected] had discovered that the true self was ananda (bliss) [Footnote ref 1]. We could suppose that early Buddhism tacitly presupposes some such idea. It was probably thought that if there was the self (_atta_) it must be bliss. The [email protected] had a.s.serted that the self(_atman_) was indestructible and eternal [Footnote ref 2]. If we are allowed

______

[Footnote 1: Tait, II.5.]

[Footnote 2: [email protected] IV. 5. 14. [email protected] V. 13.]

110

to make explicit what was implicit in early Buddhism we could conceive it as holding that if there was the self it must be bliss, because it was eternal. This causal connection has not indeed been anywhere definitely p.r.o.nounced in the [email protected], but he who carefully reads the [email protected] cannot but think that the reason why the [email protected] speak of the self as bliss is that it is eternal. But the converse statement that what was not eternal was sorrow does not appear to be emphasized clearly in the [email protected] The important postulate of the Buddha is that that which is changing is sorrow, and whatever is sorrow is not self [Footnote ref 1]. The point at which Buddhism parted from the [email protected] lies in the experiences of the self. The [email protected] doubtless considered that there were many experiences which we often identify with self, but which are impermanent. But the belief is found in the [email protected] that there was a.s.sociated with these a permanent part as well, and that it was this permanent essence which was the true and unchangeable self, the blissful. They considered that this permanent self as pure bliss could not be defined as this, but could only be indicated as not this, not this (_neti neti_) [Footnote ref 2]. But the early Pali scriptures hold that we could nowhere find out such a permanent essence, any constant self, in our changing experiences. All were but changing phenomena and therefore sorrow and therefore non-self, and what was non-self was not mine, neither I belonged to it, nor did it belong to me as my self [Footnote ref 3].

The true self was with the [email protected] a matter of transcendental experience as it were, for they said that it could not be described in terms of anything, but could only be pointed out as "there," behind all the changing mental categories. The Buddha looked into the mind and saw that it did not exist. But how was it that the existence of this self was so widely spoken of as demonstrated in experience? To this the reply of the Buddha was that what people perceived there when they said that they perceived the self was but the mental experiences either individually or together. The ignorant ordinary man did not know the n.o.ble truths and was not trained in the way of wise men, and considered himself to be endowed with form (_rupa_) or found the forms in his self or the self in the forms. He

________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: [email protected] Nikuya_, III. pp. 44-45 ff.]

[Footnote 2: See [email protected] IV. iv. Chandogya, VIII. 7-12.]

[Footnote 3: [email protected] Nikaya_, III 45.]

111

experienced the thought (of the moment) as it were the self or experienced himself as being endowed with thought, or the thought in the self or the self in the thought. It is these kinds of experiences that he considered as the perception of the self [Footnote ref 1].

The [email protected] did not try to establish any school of discipline or systematic thought. They revealed throughout the dawn of an experience of an immutable Reality as the self of man, as the only abiding truth behind all changes. But Buddhism holds that this immutable self of man is a delusion and a false knowledge.

The first postulate of the system is that impermanence is sorrow.

Ignorance about sorrow, ignorance about the way it originates, ignorance about the nature of the extinction of sorrow, and ignorance about the means of bringing about this extinction represent the fourfold ignorance (_avijja_) [Footnote ref 2]. The avidya, which is equivalent to the Pali word avijja, occurs in the [email protected] also, but there it means ignorance about the atman doctrine, and it is sometimes contrasted with vidya or true knowledge about the self (_atman_) [Footnote ref 3]. With the [email protected] the highest truth was the permanent self, the bliss, but with the Buddha there was nothing permanent; and all was change; and all change and impermanence was sorrow [Footnote ref 4]. This is, then, the cardinal truth of Buddhism, and ignorance concerning it in the above fourfold ways represented the fourfold ignorance which stood in the way of the right comprehension of the fourfold cardinal truths (_ariya sacca_)--sorrow, cause of the origination of sorrow, extinction of sorrow, and the means thereto.

There is no Brahman or supreme permanent reality and no self, and this ignorance does not belong to any ego or self as we may ordinarily be led to suppose.

Thus it is said in the _Visuddhimagga_ "inasmuch however as ignorance is empty of stability from being subject to a coming into existence and a disappearing from existence...and is empty of a self-determining Ego from being subject to dependence,--...or in other words inasmuch as ignorance is not an Ego, and similarly with reference to Karma and the rest--therefore is it to be understood of the wheel of existence that it is empty with a twelvefold emptiness [Footnote ref 5]."

___________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: _Samyutta Nikaya_, II. 46.]

[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikaya_, I.p. 54.]

[Footnote 3: Cha. I.i. 10. [email protected] IV. 3.20. There are some pa.s.sages where vidya and avidya have been used in a different and rather obscure sense, I's'a 9-11.]

[Footnote 4: [email protected] Nikaya_, III. 85.]

[Footnote 5 Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_ (_Visuddhimagga_, chap.

XVII.), p. 175.]

112

The Schools of Theravada Buddhism.

There is reason to believe that the oral instructions of the Buddha were not collected until a few centuries after his death.

Serious quarrels arose amongst his disciples or rather amongst the successive generations of the disciples of his disciples about his doctrines and other monastic rules which he had enjoined upon his followers. Thus we find that when the council of Vesali decided against the [email protected] monks, called also the Vajjiputtakas, they in their turn held another great meeting ([email protected]) and came to their own decisions about certain monastic rules and thus came to be called as the [email protected] [Footnote ref 1]. According to Vasumitra as translated by Va.s.silief, the [email protected] seceded in 400 B.C. and during the next one hundred years they gave rise first to the three schools Ekavyavaharikas, Lokottaravadins, and Kukkulikas and after that the Bahus'rutiyas. In the course of the next one hundred years, other schools rose out of it namely the Prajnaptivadins, Caittikas, Aparas'ailas and Uttaras'ailas. The Theravada or the Sthaviravada school which had convened the council of Vesali developed during the second and first century B.C.

into a number of schools, viz. the Haimavatas, Dharmaguptikas, Mahis'asakas, Kas'yapiyas, [email protected] (more well known as Sautrantikas) and the Vatsiputtriyas which latter was again split up into the Dharmottariyas, Bhadrayaniyas, Sammitiyas and Channagarikas.

The main branch of the Theravada school was from the second century downwards known as the Hetuvadins or Sarvastivadins [Footnote ref 2]. The [email protected]_ identifies the Theravada school with the Vibhajjavadins. The commentator of the _Kathavatthu_ who probably lived according to Mrs Rhys Davids sometime in the fifth century A.D. mentions a few other schools of Buddhists. But of all these Buddhist schools we know very little.

Vasumitra (100 A.D.) gives us some very meagre accounts of

[Footnote 1: The [email protected]_ differs from [email protected]_ in holding that the Vajjiputtakas did not develop into the [email protected], but it was the [email protected] who first seceded while the Vajjiputtakas seceded independently of them. The [email protected]_, which according to Professor Geiger was composed 975 A.D.--1000 A.D., follows the [email protected] in holding the [email protected] to be the first seceders and Vajjiputtakas to have seceded independently.

Vasumitra confuses the council of Vesali with the third council of [email protected] See introduction to translation of _Kathavatthu_ by Mrs Rhys Davids.]

[Footnote 2: For other accounts of the schism see Mr Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids's translation of _Kathavatthu_, pp. x.x.xvi-xlv.]

113

certain schools, of the [email protected], Lokottaravadins, Ekavyavaharikas, Kakkulikas, Prajnaptivadins and Sarvastivadins, but these accounts deal more with subsidiary matters of little philosophical importance. Some of the points of interest are (1) that the [email protected] were said to believe that the body was filled with mind (_citta_) which was represented as sitting, (2) that the Prajnaptivadins held that there was no agent in man, that there was no untimely death, for it was caused by the previous deeds of man, (3) that the Sarvastivadins believed that everything existed. From the discussions found in the _Kathavatthu_ also we may know the views of some of the schools on some points which are not always devoid of philosophical interest. But there is nothing to be found by which we can properly know the philosophy of these schools. It is quite possible however that these so-called schools of Buddhism were not so many different systems but only differed from one another on some points of dogma or practice which were considered as being of sufficient interest to them, but which to us now appear to be quite trifling. But as we do not know any of their literatures, it is better not to make any unwarrantable surmises.

These schools are however not very important for a history of later Indian Philosophy, for none of them are even referred to in any of the systems of Hindu thought. The only schools of Buddhism with which other schools of philosophical thought came in direct contact, are the Sarvastivadins including the Sautrantikas and the [email protected], the Yogacara or the Vijnanavadins and the Madhyamikas or the S'unyavadins. We do not know which of the diverse smaller schools were taken up into these four great schools, the Sautrantika, [email protected], Yogacara and the Madhyamika schools. But as these schools were most important in relation to the development of the different systems in Hindu thought, it is best that we should set ourselves to gather what we can about these systems of Buddhistic thought.

When the Hindu writers refer to the Buddhist doctrine in general terms such as "the Buddhists say" without calling them the Vijnanavadins or the Yogacaras and the S'unyavadins, they often refer to the Sarvustivudins by which they mean both the Sautruntikas and the [email protected], ignoring the difference that exists between these two schools. It is well to mention that there is hardly any evidence to prove that the Hindu writers were acquainted with the Theravuda doctrines

114

as expressed in the Pali works. The [email protected] and the Sautrantikas have been more or less a.s.sociated with each other. Thus the _Abhidharmakos'as'astra_ of Vasubandhu who was a [email protected] was commented upon by Yas'omitra who was a Sautrantika. The difference between the [email protected] and the Sautrantikas that attracted the notice of the Hindu writers was this, that the former believed that external objects were directly perceived, whereas the latter believed that the existence of the external objects could only be inferred from our diversified knowledge [Footnote ref 1].

[email protected] (fourteenth century A.D.) in his commentary _Tarkarahasyadipika on @[email protected]'anasamuccaya_ says that the Vaibhasika was but another name of the aryasammitiya school. According to [email protected] the [email protected] held that things existed for four moments, the moment of production, the moment of existence, the moment of decay and the moment of annihilation. It has been pointed out in Vastlbandhu's _Abhidharmakos'a_ that the [email protected] believed these to be four kinds of forces which by coming in combination with the permanent essence of an ent.i.ty produced its impermanent manifestations in life (see Prof. Stcherbatsky's translation of Yas'omitra on _Abhidharmakos'a karika_, V. 25). The self called pudgala also possessed those characteristics. Knowledge was formless and was produced along with its object by the very same conditions (_arthasahabhasi ekasamagryadhinah_). The Sautrantikas according to [email protected] held that there was no soul but only the five skandhas. These skandhas transmigrated. The past, the future, annihilation, dependence on cause, akas'a and pudgala are but names ([email protected]_), mere a.s.sertions (_pratijnamatram_), mere limitations ([email protected]_) and mere phenomena (_vyavaharamatram_).

By pudgala they meant that which other people called eternal and all pervasive soul. External objects are never directly perceived but are only inferred as existing for explaining the diversity of knowledge. Definite cognitions are valid; all compounded things are momentary ([email protected]@nikah [email protected]_).

___________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: Madhavacarya's [email protected]_, chapter II.

_S'astradipika_, the discussions on [email protected], Amalananda's commentary (on _Bhamati_) _Vedantakalpataru_, p 286. "[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]@h, sautrantikasya [email protected] [email protected]_." The nature of the inference of the Sautrantikas is shown thus by Amalananda (1247-1260 A.D.) "_ye yasmin satyapi [email protected] te [email protected]@h_" (those [i.e. cognitions] which in spite of certain unvaried conditions are of unaccounted diversity must depend on other things in addition to these, i.e. the external objects) _Vedantakalpataru_, p. 289.]

115

The atoms of colour, taste, smell and touch, and cognition are being destroyed every moment. The meanings of words always imply the negations of all other things, excepting that which is intended to be signified by that word ([email protected] [email protected]_).

Salvation ([email protected]_) comes as the result of the destruction of the process of knowledge through continual meditation that there is no soul [Footnote ref 1].

One of the main differences between the Vibhajjavadins, Sautrantikas and the [email protected] or the Sarvastivadins appears to refer to the notion of time which is a subject of great interest with Buddhist philosophy. Thus _Abhidharmakos'a_ (v. 24...) describes the Sarvastivadins as those who maintain the universal existence of everything past, present and future. The Vibhajjavadins are those "who maintain that the present elements and those among the past that have not yet produced their fruition, are existent, but they deny the existence of the future ones and of those among the past that have already produced fruition."

There were four branches of this school represented by Dharmatrata, [email protected], Vasumitra and Buddhadeva. Dharmatrata maintained that when an element enters different times, its existence changes but not its essence, just as when milk is changed into curd or a golden vessel is broken, the form of the existence changes though the essence remains the same. [email protected] held that "when an element appears at different times, the past one retains its past aspects without being severed from its future and present aspects, the present likewise retains its present aspect without completely losing its past and future aspects," just as a man in pa.s.sionate love with a woman does not lose his capacity to love other women though he is not actually in love with them. Vasumitra held that an ent.i.ty is called present, past and future according as it produces its efficiency, ceases to produce after having once produced it or has not yet begun to produce it. Buddhadeva maintained the view that just as the same woman may be called mother, daughter, wife, so the same ent.i.ty may be called present, past or future in accordance with its relation to the preceding or the succeeding moment.

All these schools are in some sense Sarvastivadins, for they maintain universal existence. But the [email protected] finds them all defective excepting the view of Vasumitra. For Dharmatrata's