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Appendix - E: Buddhism
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our sufferings are not without reason; there is a cause which generates our suffering. Our intellectual awareness demands that we should try to find out these causes. The problem cannot be over simplified by saying that our sufferings are the punishments inflicted on us by some superior power which rules the destiny of the whole universe. Like Mahāvīra Buddha also did not believe in a super power ruling the destiny of the universe and Mahavira and Buddha both believed in the theory of Karma as shaped by ethical earnestness and personal efforts. In answer to a question seeking reason for the inequalities found in life everywhere, the master replied -
"Every living being has Karma as its master, its inheritance, its congenial cause. its kinsman. its refuge. It is karma that differentiates all beings into low and high states."
( Milinda, 65 ) Like Mahāvīra, Buddha also believed that it is the annihilation of all karmas-good as well as bad-which leads one to the state of Arhatship and Nirvāṇa, and that after attaining Nirvana, which literally means extinction, one is not born again.
What is the main cause of suffering? 'Desires' is the answer of the Master. Our desires - desires for the things which are constantly vanishing, desires which are born out of our ignorance about the transient character of the things desired, constitute the root cause of all our sufferings.
To understand the process by which the causes of our sufferings operate, Buddhism has propounded the theory of "conditioned origination or dependent origination' which is known as the doctrine of 'Pratītya-samutpada' according to which each preceeding link ( Nidana ) is responsible for ushering in the next one. These links ( Nidānas ) are twelve. The first link is Avidya, i. e., ignorance. Conditioned by this ignorance, arise karma formations ( Samskāra ). They in turn give rise to consciousness ( Vijñāna ); Vijñāna gives rise to name and form (Nama-Rūpa ) which in turn gives rise to six sense-organs (Şadāyatana ). Then arises contact ( Sparśa ),
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