________________
Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Buddhism
127
clear that the Self does not exist prior to the states of consciousness. Both the main Buddhist schools the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna agree in holding that the appearance of what is known as the Self is conditioned by the five Skandhas operating together in a combination. It is, however, clear that the Buddhists named all the states of consciousness following in a series, as Self and thus, the Self came to be identified with all these momentary states of consciousness taken in their entirety in their succession. One thing is certain, that Buddhism never admitted any spiritual substratum or agent holding the mental states together. In the idea of Self, Poussin writes — “The physico-psychical life does not depend upon a living principle (jīva ) or a Self; in itself it is not a something; it is lacking both in substance and in unity; it is only a series of physical states and states of consciousness generated in succession, depending one upon another, although each of them lasts only for a moment. "?
The Self is momentary and ever-changing in so far as it is composed of momentary existences which have only a single moment's duration, but it is also a continuous process of a series of moments. It lives as a unitary whole, not as a fixed and unchanging entity, but as a continuous series ever renewing itself at every moment. It has no identical nature of itself. All its permanent attributes and identical nature are merely appearances. In fact, it
1 Stcherbatsky: The Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 27. Poussip L. D. V.: The Way to Nirvana, p. 53.
For Private And Personal
