tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 158

126
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Atman and Moksa
consciousness is a modification of the corporeal body which conditions the former's appearance. So far as he makes consciousness depend on the matter or body, Buddhism agrees with the Carvaka system which also makes consciousness depend upon body for its appearance. Of course body is neither the generator nor the substratum of consciouness, even then the dependence of consciousness upon the physical organism is suggested. Paul Dahlke goes so far in asserting that consciousness is a product or a modification of the corporeal body. It will be difficult, nay, impossible to admit that consciousness is a direct and actual product of the body for many reasons. If they are related causally, consciousness will change in magnitudes and forms in proportion to the magnitudes and forms of the body; thereby physical deformities will cause corresponding deformities in consciousness which arises out of it. It will be difficult, in that case, to explain the absence of consciousness in a dead body, for, cause and effect will have to be permanently related. Dahlke is not going beyond the limits when he makes consciousness dependent upon the corporeal body.
For Private And Personal
Suzuki, another authority on Buddhism, also states the same dependence. He writes-"To postulate an independent Atman outside a combination of the five Skandhas, of which an individual being is supposed by the Buddhists to consist, is to unreservedly welcome egoism with all its pernicious corollaries. It is a religion without soul." It becomes therefore
1 Suzuki D. T.: Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 32.