Outlines of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007308
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M Hiriyanna
Publisher: George Allen and Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 419
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 40 MB

Page 135

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EARLY BUDDHISM
possibly also elements older than Buddha, which, though not included by him in the teaching, were afterwards incorporated in it by his followers responsible for the canon. These old works which serve as the basis for our knowledge of early Buddhism are written in Pali, a literary dialect like Sanskrit, connected in all probability with the spoken language of Magadha. They are often in the form of dialogues and there is no methodical discussion in them of any topic in the modern sense of that expression. Thoughts are couched in metaphor and allegory, and to this circumstance also must in some part be attributed the indefiniteness of our knowledge of Buddha's doctrines. The works, if we exclude the large body of commentaries upon them, are three-fold and are described as the Tri-pitaka, the 'Three Baskets of Tradition, i.e. the three-fold canon or 'Bible of sacred documents.' They are Suttas or utterances of Buddha V himself,' Vinaya or 'rules of discipline' and Abhidhamma 'philosophic discussions.' Though the doctrine of these works is in essential matters different from and even opposed to that of the Upanisads, there is a general resemblance between the two. Indeed it could not have been otherwise, for each of them is equally an expression of the same Indian mind1 Upanisadic speculation may in a sense be regarded as having prepared the way for the peculiar teaching of Buddhism2; and often Buddha simply carried to their logical conclusions tendencies which we discover already in the Upanisads. Thus the whole tenor of the early Upanisads is against belief in a personal God; Buddha dismisses that conception altogether. Again according to many statements in them, the self is to be negatively conceived-as devoid of all attributes; Buddha eliminates the conception of self altogether. There are also other points of resemblance between the two, but the belief in the karma doctrine found in Buddhism serves as the clearest proof of its connection with Upanisadic thought. However much transformed in its new application, this belief finds a place in Buddha's
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1 See Rel. V. pp. 2-3; Oldenberg: op. cit., p. 53.
See Bhandarkar: Peep into the Early History of India, p. 361; Prof. Stcherbatsky: Central Conception of Buddhism, pp. 68-69.