Jain Journal 1995 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 35

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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXX, No. 2. October 1995
system explains this journey of the human soul towards achieving such an ultimate religious identity, namely the Tirthankara-hood.
EARLY BUDDHIST UNDERSTANDING OF A HUMAN PERSON
While Lord Mahāvīra gave a definite answer to many metaphysical questions pertaining to the body, the soul, the world etc.. Lord Buddha did not care to reply to any such question (He only said that they were not useful for the ultimate purpose of life, namely attaining Nirvāna). The silence of Buddha was taken as 'Avyālrta', in-expressible. Buddha and Mahāvīra, though they were contemporary Śramaņa thinkers, differed from each other regarding the foundamental question on Ātman.
Buddha after he took up mendicancy visited the brāhmanic teachers Alara kālāma and others in order to discuss with them the prevalent belief on Ātman. Buddha was not convinced by their arguments and his personal experience was different. He thought that the world sought to passify itself insatiable, because of the belief in the theory of Atman (Buddha seemed to have identified realization of Ātman with Egoism). Moreover the experience of dissatisfaction caused by the sight of a man suffering from extreme old age, a sick man and a corpse being carried out to burning ghat, brought Buddha to the realization that desire to be has to be curbed in order to be freed from all forms of dukkha.
His first preaching at the Deerpark of Benares to certain ascetics who had formerly been his companions contains some of the fundamental principles of early Buddhist thought and practice. This discourse mentioned in the Dhamma Cakkappavattana sutta of Sutta Nipāta33 enumerates the Four Noble Truths regarding dukkha. samudaya, dukkha nirodha and dukka nirodha marga (the cause and origin of pain and its extinction), and the Eightfold path of ethical, mental and bodily discipline to attain the End.
Buddha spent nearly six years in extreme ascetic practices, got dis-illusioned with it34 and he then sat down for meditation at the foot of the Bodhi tree at Uruvela beside river Niranjana. The only
33. Sutta-Nipāta V. 420. 34. The reason for Buddha's avoidance and condemnation of extreme
ascetic practices like self-inflicted pain etc. was that instead of achieving the purpose or the end, they increased more pain and hence they were considered 'Dukkha' (Majjima-Nikāya, ii. 93, 212; i.237): 'Not by this better cause of painful hardship shall I arrive at that separate and supreme vision of all-suffering, noble (ārya) knowledge, passing human
. Might there be another path of enlightenment?' (Majjima-Nikāya, i. 307).