History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

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The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gitā [cH. not the man who indulges in desires. The Gītā, of course, again and again emphasizes the necessity of uprooting attachments to pleasures and antipathy to pains and of controlling desires (kāma); but, though the Upanişads do not emphasize this idea so frequently, yet the idea is there, and it seems very probable that the Gitā drew it from the Upanişads. Hindu tradition also refers to the Upanişads as the source of the Gitā. Thus the Gitā-māhātmya describes the Upanisads as the cows from which Kışna, the cowherd boy, drew the Gitā as milk1.
But the similarity of Buddhist ethical ideas to those of the Gitā is also immense, and, had it not been for the fact that ideas which may be regarded as peculiarly Buddhistic are almost entirely absent from the Gītā, it might well have been contended that the Gitā derived its ideas of controlling desires and uprooting attachment from Buddhism. Tachibana collects a long list of Buddhist vices as follows: anganam, impurity, lust, Sn. 517. ahankāro, selfishness, egoism, A. 1. 132; M. III. 18, 32. mamankaro, desire, A. 1. 132; M. 11. 18, 32. mamāyitam, selfishness, S.N. 466. mamattam, grasping, egoism, S.N. 872, 951. apekhā, desire, longing, affection, S.N. 38; Dh. 345. iccha, wish, desire, covetousness. ejā, desire, lust, greed, craving, S.N. 751; It. 92. āsā, desire, longing, S.N. 634, 794, 864; Dh. 397. pipāsā, thirst. esā, esanā, wish, desire, thirst, Dh. 335. ākāňkhā, desire, longing, Tha. 20. kiñcanam, attachment, S.N. 949; Dh. 200. gantho, bond, tie, S.N. 798; Dh. 211. ādāna-gantho, the tied knot of attachment, S.N.794. giddhi, greed, desire, Sn. 328; M. 1. 360, 362. gedho, greed, desire, Sn. 65, 152. gahanam, entanglement, Dh. 394. gāho, seizing, attachment. jālini, snare, desire, lust, Dh. 180; A. 11. 211. pariggaho, attachment, Mahānid. 57chando, wish, desire, intention, S.N. 171, 203, etc. jațā, desire, lust, S.N. 1. 13; V.M. 1. jëgimsanatā, covetousness, desire for, Vibhanga, 353. nijigimsanatā, covetousness, V.M. 1. 23. tanhā, tasinā, lust, unsatisfied desire, passion.
1 Sarvopanişado gāvo dogdhā gopala-nandanaḥ. 2 The Ethics of Buddhism, by S. Tachibana, p. 73.