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46 / Lord Mahavira
7. Doctrine of Self in Buddhism
Buddhism differs from all other systems of Indian thought in its attitude to the notion of Self or soul. One of its cardinal teachings is the doctrine of nonself.
The belief in the existence of an eternal and substantial self is regarded as false view by the Buddhists. Dhammapada says—“All conditioned things are impermanent, all conditioned things are suffering, and all phenomenal things are not-self." The doctrine of conditioned co-operation is a universal law of causation, which according to Buddhism, relentlessly operates in the whole universe. The Buddhist dictum teaches that whatsoever is a rising thing that is a ceasing thing." All those things that are produced by causes or originate dependently. They are lacking in self nature or self-hood. To seek for an eternal self in this realm of causally related and changing phenomena is a mis-search or wrong effort. The Buddha analysed the human personality and taught that it is an aggregate of five groups material form or body; feeling; perception, volitional forces and consciousness. According to Nagarjuna-"Buddha has taught self as well as non-self but he has also taught neither self nor non-self what-so-ever." According to Buddha there is neither self nor non-self in nirvana.
