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BUDDHISM
perfect one not exist after death, Venerable lady?" inquired the king. But Khema still replied, "This also, O great king, the Exalted one has not declared that the perfect one does not exist after death."
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This shows that Gautama's religion was a perfect agnosticism, which did not and could not look beyond factur. We know that according to Gautama's theory there is nothing permanent in man, that every particle mental, spiritual or physical, perishes every moment and new aggregates come into existence by reason of the influence left by the or action of the former aggregates. Everything is momentary, and if a man leads a perfectly holy life he would not collect new
which will lead him into new birth; and therefore the aggregates of which he is composed come to an end without the new aggregates coming into existence. So although Gautama might not have said in so many words that the future state after fair is a state of annihilation, still the natural conclusion is that the state must be that of total annihilation. In an article in the Lucifer of March 1874, Mr. G. R. Meads tries to save Buddhism from the charge of propounding a theory of annihilation and quotes a passage by Col. Olcott sanctioned by the High Priest of Ceylon. He says that although soul according to Buddhism is impermanent and changeable, still there is in man the permanent part called spirit. He says, "Buddhism does not deny the imperishble nature of an ultimate spiritual reality in man, of a true transcendental subject, of an immortal changeless self." Now this self or transcendental subject has been known in all Indian philosophy by the name of आत्मा or ब्रह्म. With reference to Brahma, Gautama has distinctly said in Tevijja Sutta that the talk of the Brahmins about that Brahma is a foolish talk and that there existed no such state as Brahma. With reference to T, I have
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