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 217

LATER BUDDHISTIC SCHOOLS
217 in the Jaina or Vaiseșika doctrine. As regards the inner world of mind, a parallel classification is adopted with citta and caitta corresponding to bhūta and bhautika. Of the five skandhas, which together stand for personality (p. 139), the vijñāna-skandha is what is known as citta; and the other four are explained as caitta or 'derived from citta.' The idea is that self-consciousness as a succession of momentary ideas is fundamental and that the other psychical features are modifications which show themselves therein. They depend not merely on outside factors presented at the time, but also on the predispositions of the individual so that in mental life the past has always a very important part to play in determining the present. While the description as caitta is quite intelligible in the case of feeling (vedana), perception (samjñā) and mental dispositions (samskāra), it presents a difficulty in regard to rūpa-skandha because it stands for the material frame and cannot, therefore, be represented as psychical. The difficulty is noticed by Hindu writers and their explanation is that matter, in so far as it constitutes the senses which are the apparatus of thought, may justifiably be included in the knowing subject. Or perhaps, we should say, its inclusion implies a view of personality which comprehends within it not only the mind and its organs, but also that aspect of the physical universe which the individual perceives and which, being relative to his ends, may be regarded as his world. 3
An obvious criticism of the Vaibhāşika world-view is that a sva-lakşaņa of the kind in which it believes is as good as nothing and may as well be dispensed with. It is, as the exponents of the other Indian systems point out, an unwarranted addition of which really nothing can be said or known. The Vaibhāṣika no doubt claims for it knowability: but its knowledge, as Uddyotakara puts it, resembles a dumb man's dream.'4 The doctrine however, so far as it the Vaibhāşika view on a more secure basis, would remove it very far from the spirit of early Buddhism, which insists upon change being fundamental. Cf. Aristotelian Society Proceedings (1919-20), p. 161. · NM. p. 74; PP. P. 48.
Cf. Bhāmati, II. ii. 18. 3 Cf. Prof. Stcherbatsky: Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 7. • Mūka-svapna-sadrśam: NV. p. 43.