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

Page 178

Momentariness
161
all things to be momentary, for this is more an attempt to refute the doctrines of Nyāya than an elaboration of the Buddhist principles.
The doctrine of momentariness ought to be a direct corollary of the Buddhist metaphysics. But it is curious that though all dharmas were regarded as changing, the fact that they were all strictly momentary (ksanika-i.e. existing only for one moment) was not emphasized in early Pāli literature. Aśvaghoṣa in his Sraddhotpādaśāstra speaks of all skandhas as kşaņika (Suzuki's translation, p. 105). Buddhaghosa also speaks of the meditation of the khandhas as khanika in his Visuddhimagga. But from the seventh century A.D. till the tenth century this doctrine together with the doctrine of arthakriyākāritva received great attention at the hands of the Sautrāntikas and the Vaibhāsikas. All the Nyāya and Vedānta literature of this period is full of refutations and criticisms of these doctrines. The only Buddhist account available of the doctrine of momentariness is from the pen of Ratnakīrtti. Some of the general features of his argument in favour of the view have been given above. Elaborate accounts of it may be found in any of the important Nyāya works of this period such as Nyāyamasjari, Tātparyyațīkā of Vācaspati Miśra, etc.
Buddhism did not at any time believe anything to be permanent. With the development of this doctrine they gave great emphasis to this point. Things came to view at one moment and the next moment they were destroyed. Whatever is existent is momentary. It is said that our notion of permanence is derived from the notion of permanence of ourselves, but Buddhism denied the existence of any such permanent selves. What appears as self is but the bundle of ideas, emotions, and active tendencies manifesting at any particular moment. The next moment these dissolve, and new bundles determined by the preceding ones appear and so on. The present thought is thus the only thinker. Apart from the emotions, ideas, and active tendencies, we cannot discover any separate self or soul. It is the combined product of these ideas, emotions, etc., that yield the illusory appearance of self at any moment. The consciousness of self is the resultant product as it were of the combination of ideas, emotions, etc., at any particular moment. As these ideas, emotions, etc., change every moment there is no such thing as a permanent self.
The fact that I remember that I have been existing for
D.