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Reconciliation of Buddhist and Vedantic Notion of Self
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purely imaginary and does not exist.27 It may be argued that, in some places Buddha himself has preached the pudgala or 'self'. But it must be kept in mind that Buddha had preached the existence of self' only to attract the simple minded and to encourage them to perform good, and to refrain from evil, deeds; without teaching pudgala, it is not possible to preach its consequences and pudgala-nairātmya. Excepting this, it has no other significance.28
For Vasubandhu, the follower of Asanga, too, the notion of 'self' is the root cause of suffering and it is an unreal entity. He avers that the individual self' depends on the ālaya and is accompanied by four kinds of suffering : self-notion, self-delusion, self-pride, and self-love.29 It ceases to function when the false notion of the self is destroyed and when the categories of intellect are transcended. Consciousness transcends the duality of the subject (pudgala-nairātmya) and the object (dharma-nairātmya) both of which ultimately are unreal. 30
Even for later vijñānavādins like Dharmakirti (active c. A. D. 620-550) and śāntarakṣita (c. A. D. 705-762), the notion of Ātman is the root cause of misery and attachment. As long as one is attached to the Ātman so long will one revolve in the cycle of birth and death. Sāntarakṣita clearly maintained that Ātman is nothing but consciousness associated with ego; ultimately it denotes nothing. 31
Thus, it is clear that the Buddhists, right from the Buddha to śāntarakṣita, severely criticise the notion of 'self' and it is generally understood in the sense of an individual ego, root cause of passion, misery and attachment and its ultimate existence is denied on that ground. It is variously called, Ātman, Pudgala and Satkāyadssti.
Let us, then, examine how far this non-soul theory is justifiable and how far Buddha and the Mahāyānists had understood the notion of Ātman of the Vedāntins.
The Hinayānists taking literal meaning of the word 'non-ego' or 'not-self' took a sort of materialist approach reducing Ātman to mere mind and body complex or component of certain elements. It logically derives that the destruction of misery follows the destruction of self or certain component parts. Now this is nothing but sheer materialism. The Mahāyānists adopting idealistic view criticise the existence of self saying that it is an unreal entity or merely an illusory idea. They misunderstood or only partially understood the notion of Ātman of the Upanişads and based their criticism on that limited understanding. It is already mentioned in the previous pages that, for the Hinayānists, 'self' is a mere aggregate of five skandhas. There is no permanent self which is the perceiver. Sankara rightly pointed out that without a permanent soul acts of perception and memory become impossible. If self is a mere aggregate of five skandhas (collection of bodily and mental processes),--these being unconscious, -how can they combine
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