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804
GĪTA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
Form, and is perishable; and its unobstructed activity continues as a result of Causality (karma-vipäka).
kammanā vattati loko kammanā vattati pajā (prajā ) 1 kammanibandhanā sattā (satvāni),rathassā 'niva yāyato 11
(Suttani. Vāsethasutta, 61). that is; "the world, as also its inhabitants, continue in life as a result of Karma ; just as the course of the moving chariot is regulated by its axis, so also is every created being bound by Karma". This principle of the Jñāna-kānda of the Vedic religion, or perhaps even the idea of the cycle of birth and death, as also the Vedic deities, Brahmā, Indra, Maheśvara, Isvara, Yama etc., and their various spheres, such as, suarga, (heaven). pātāla (antipodes) etc., described in the Brahmin religion, were accepted by Buddha; and on that account, such technical words of Vedānta and Sāmkhya philosophy, as 'nāma-rūpa' 'karma-vipāka', 'avidyā', 'upādana', 'praksti' etc., as also the traditions about Brahmā and other Vedic deities (maintaining always the superiority of Buddha) are always to be found with some difference or other in Buddhistic literature. But, although the doctrines of the Vedic religion, regarding the world of Action, that the visible world is perishable and non-permanent, and that its activities are going on as a result of Causality, were accepted by Buddha, yet, the doctrine of the Vedic religion or of the Upanisads, that there is some eternal, all-pervasive, element like Parabrahman, which is uniform with the Ātman, and is undefined by Name and Form, and which is the foundation of the perishable universe defined by Name and Form, was not accepted by Buddha. This is the crucial difference between the two religions. Gautama Buddha has clearly said (Sabbāsava-sutta 9-13), that the Ātman or the Brahman does not exist in reality, but is a mere illusion; and that, therefore, no one should waste his time in thinking about the Atman and the Non-Ātman, or on the meditation of the Brahman. That Buddha did not admit any theory about the Ātman, is patent from the Brahmajāla-sutta out of the Digghanikāyā. *
* The Brahmajāla sutta has not been translated into English; but a summary of it has been given by Prof. Rhys-Davids in the Sacred Books of the East Series Vol. XXVI. Intro. pp. xxiii.xxv, to which the reader is referred,
