Studies in Indian Philosophy

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

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Studies in Indian Philosophy
and 'other'. !f we have to translate attā as 'self in these contexts, then for the sake of consistency we must do the same elsewhere. To distinguish it from the normal reflexive use of 'self' for attā, which is, of course, widely used in Pāli, we should rather adopt the translation 'permanent self' for the individual attā whose existence the Buddha rejected.
As E. J. Tho nas states, 27 in the Anattalakkhana-sutta the Buddha does not specifically deny the existence of the attā. The sutta is merely a denial that the khandhas were ātman, whatever that term means. It may be true to say that the Buddha does not specifically deny the existence of the atta anywhere in the Pāli canon, in the sense that he does not state explicitly 'The attā does not exist. As stated above, however, in the AS he does speak of the men who grieves over the loss of his attā as grieving about something which does not exist internally. He also draws attention to the folly of someone who holds the view that the world and the attā are the same if it can be shown that attā and some thing nging to attā are not to be found, and he then goes on to prove to the satisfaction of his audiance that they are not to be found.
I think it is correct to conclude that by implication, if not explicitly, the Buddha denied the existence of the permanent individual self
Notes
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1 Abbreviations of Pāli texts are those adopted by the Critical Pali
Dictionary (=CPD). Editions quoted are those of the Pali Text Society.
Cties-commentaries. 2 MI 130-42. 3 The Pāli word attă is usually translated as either ‘self' or 'soul. I
leave it untranslated here, but try to decide between the two at the
end of this article. 4 I think E. J. Thomas is too cautious when he states: There may be
here some reference to upanishadic doctrine, though it is still not the identity of self and Brahma' (History of Buddhist Thought, London 1933, p. 103).