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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
constituent members, placed in a certain relation to each other; but, when we come to examine the members one by one, we discover that, in an absoluto sense, there is no chariot ;** ...... ..in exactly the same way, the words 'living being' and 'ego' are only modes of expression for a complex of bodily and nonbodily constituents."! Bhāvanā is meditation or cultivation, the highest of the three stages of spiritual training recognised by the Buddhists, the other two being sraddha (faith) and darsana (sight, personal inquiry). As Poussin says, “That is Faith, adhesion to the word of the Master. To ascertain this statement by personal inquiry is what is called Sight. Finally, to ponder over it until it becomes not only familiar, but actually always present to the mind, that is Cultivation."
Somadeva ridicules the doctrine of bhāvanā as a means to salvation. Anything and everything may flash across the mind in the course of thāvana or meditation; if salvation were to result from meditation, any swindler would obtain it. Somadeva in this connection quotes a verse which describes an imprisoned thief as declaring that he can clearly see his beloved's face (by force of meditation), even though his eyes are closed and the prison locked up and it is pitchy dark inside.*
The doctrine of nairātmya is set forth also in the episode of Caņdakarman (Book V) by the Buddhist Sugatakirti, one of the interlocutors. He maintains that the belief in a Self is nothing but the certain blindness of a great delusion', and quotes two verses which declare the notion of the Self to be the source of all evils :
यः पश्यत्यात्मानं तस्यात्मनि भवति शाश्वतः स्नेहः । स्नेहात्सुखेषु तृष्यति तृष्णा दोषांस्तिरस्कुरुते ॥
आत्मनि सति परसंज्ञा स्वपरविभागात्परिग्रहद्वेषौ । अनयोः संप्रतिबद्धाः सर्वे दोषाः प्रजायन्ते ॥ “Whoso believes in a Self conceives lasting affection for it; from affection arises desire for pleasures, and desire hides all blemishes. Once there is the notion of the Self, there arises that of the not-Self, and from the distinction between one's own self and others arise attachment and hatred. All evils originate, dependent on these two." Vol. II, p. 252.
Sugatakīrti goes on to define the Buddhist view of salvation and calls it nirodha or cessation. He quotes a verse which says that, just as the flame of a lamp goes out without leaving any trace when the oil is used up,
i Visuddhimagja cited in Poussin: The Way to Nirvāṇa, p. 42. 2 Ibid. p. 159. 3 w gah HÀ TI #748791 1924 1 71ERTO Ich glttiRafaeftail P. 271. 4 fagtilfafea PITT TAPE 7 otc. See Chap XVIIJ.
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