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Essential Philosophy of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
utterers of the ancient verse, which the Brahmans of to-day so carefully intone and recite precisely as they have been handed down, even they did not pretend to know or to have seen where or whence or whither Brahman is. So that the Brahman versed in the three Vedas have for sooth said thus : “To a state of union with that which we know not and have not seen we can show the way and can say : "this is the straight path, this is the direct way which leads him who acts according to him, into a state of union with Brahman."
"Now what do you think, Vasettha? Does it not follow, this being so, that the talk of the Brahmans, versed though they be in the three Vedas, is foolish talk? Verily Vasettha that Brahmans versed in the three Vedas should be able to show the way to a state of union with that which they do not know, neither has seen -such a condition of thing has no existence. As when a string of blind men are clinging one to the other, neither can the foremost see nor can the middle one see, nor can the hindmost see, just so is the talk of the Brahmans versed in the three Vedas."
What explanation then does Ponddha offer as to the nature of man and his relation to the world around him. In fact, Buddhism does not attempt to solve the problem of the primary origin of all things when Malunka asked Buddha whether the existence of the world is eternal or not - eternal, he made him no reply; the reason of this was that it was considered by him as an inquiry which tended to no profit. Buddhism takes as its ultimate fact the existence of the material world and of conscious beings living with in it and it holds that everything is subject to the law of cause and effect, and that everything is constantly though imperceptibly changing. The whole cosmos-earth, heavens and hell is always tending to renovation or destruction; is always in a course of change, a series of revolutions, or of cycles, of which the beginning and end are unknowable and unknown.
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