Studies in Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 30

Attitude of uddha towards Metaphysics
corporal organism and disintegrates with the destruction of body in death. And if both are different, the soul exists independently of the body, and is thus eternal noumenal entity.
The metaphysical speculations are grounded in the human thirst for the real, permanent, security and have bearing upon the issue of the means and end in spiritual persuasion. As the questions are of far-reaching import and profound religious interest, Buddha's silence throws ample light on his attitude towards the metaphysical problems, though he did not explicitly stated as to why he refused to answer those questions But necessarily, it was not due to his agnosticism or sheer ethical bias or mere indifference; it was, as Lama Anagarika Govinda puts it, "due to his profouud insight into the real nature of things.”3
Metaphysical Speculations of his time
Buddba was very much conversant with the metaphysical speculations of his time. In the Brahmajāla Sutta, he presented an account of such speculations, sixtytwo in all, advocated by the Eternalists and the Nihilists. They are the assertions regarding the world and the soul and are as follows : 1. The soul and the world are eternal; 2. The soul and the world are partly eternal; 3. The world is infinite or finite; 4. Escape any definite reply by resorting to equivocation; 5. The soul and the world are fortuitous in origin; 6. The soul after death is conscious; 7. The soul after death is unconscious;
The soul after death is neither conscious nor unconscious; 9. A being is annihilated in death; 10. A being may attain complete salvation in this life.
These speculations deal with more or less the same problems of the eternality of the soul and the world and their antimonies. Commenting on these, Buddha said that the Tatbā. gata knew how those speculations were arrived at and what