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136 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY teaching, and it appears, we know, already as an important element in the doctrine of the Upanişads.
There are some general features characterizing Buddhistic thought which we may note before speaking of its details:
(I) It is pessimistic. The burden of its teaching is that all is suffering (sarvam duḥkham). 'All the waters of all the seas are not to be compared with the flood of tears which has flowed since the universe first was.': Evil or the misery of samsāra is most real and the foremost aim of man is to effect an escape from it. When we describe Buddha's teaching as pessimistic, it must not be taken to be a creed of despair. It does not indeed promise joy on earth or in a world to come as some other doctrines do. But it admits the possibility of attaining peace here and now, whereby man instead of being the victim of misery will become its victor.
It
emphasis merely shows that life as it is commonly led is marred by sorrow and suffering and not that they are its inalienable features. If Buddha in his discourses dwells upon the fact of evil, he also points to the way out of it.
Just this have I taught and do I teach,' he is recorded to have stated, 'ill and the ending of ill.'?
(2) It is positivistic. Speculation was almost rampant in the period just preceding the time of Buddha and an excessive discussion of theoretical questions was leading to anarchy in thought. His teaching represents a reaction, and in it we meet with a constant effort to return to the hard
life. Following the traditional belief of his time, Buddha frequently referred in his discourses to worlds other than ours and to the beings supposed to inhabit them. That was partly a mode of popular expression which it would have been impossible to avoid for anybody using the language of the day. It was also partly due to his belief in the karma doctrine with its definite eschatological reference. Yet his teaching in its essence may be described as excluding whatever was not positively known. The authority of Vedic tradition, especially as regards ritual, he wholly repudiated.
* Cf. Oldenberg: op. cit., pp. 216-17. * Mrs. Rhys Davids: Buddhism, p. 159.
