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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Buddhism
117
accept the idea of a self over and above the various states of consciousness like perception, memory, imagination, emotion, volition, etc. It did not find it necessary to project any separate entity that would hold together all the different states of consciousness, and would appropriate the things as one's own, and would act as a unified and a synthetic agent of actions and enjoyer of their fruits. It, on the contrary, holds that everything is 'anatta' ( SAFT)--non-self. Buddha addresses Bādarāyaṇa in the 'Scriptural Chips' while elucidating the concept of self in the following manner ".. But a self in the sense of the real Self does not exist. By false (imputation the elements of consiousness) is fancied (to represent a Self). There is here neither a Self nor a sentient Being. There are elements which depend (upon other elements acting as) causes. If we carefully examine them, we do not find among all of them any Individual." i The Buddhists, therefore, do not recognise the Self as a spiritual entity. The Self according to Buddhism is only a name given to a bundle of certain mental states like perception, thought, feeling, memory, emotion, volition. It understood the various orderly and unified states of consciousness, by the name 'Self' when, in actuality, it did not believe in any such a thing existing. A. B. Keith describes it in the following way-"The conclusion is, therefore, that there is no real Self; the term is accordingly merely a convention. We never know the self as such, but merely have Knowledge of psychic happenings, sensations,
1 Stcherbatsky Th. : The Soul Theory of the Buddhists, p. 839.
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