THE DOCTRINE

In the Buddha’s question cited above, “Were it not better if ye sought the Self?” the contrast of the plural verb with its singular object is precise. It is One that the many are to find. Let us consider some of the many other Buddhist contexts in which our selves, respectively composite and mortal and single and immortal, are contrasted. The question is asked, just as it had been in the Brahmanical books, “By which self (kena tman)195 does one attain the Brahma-world?” The answer is given in another passage, where the usual formula descriptive of the Arhat’s attainment concludes “with the Self that is Brahma-become” (brahma-bhtena tman); just as in the Upanishad “It is as Brahma that he returns to Brahma”.¹⁹⁶ From that world there is no returning (punar vartana) by any necessity of rebirth.¹⁹⁷ Other passages distinguish the Great Self (mahtman) from the little self (alptman), or Fair Self (kalytman) from foul (pptman); the former is the latter’s judge.¹⁹⁸ “The Self is the Lord of the self, and its goal”.¹⁹⁹ In the saying “For one who has attained, there is naught dearer than Self”²⁰⁰ we recognize the doctrine of the Upanishads that the “Self alone is truly dear”²⁰¹ the Hermetic “Love thy Self”,²⁰² and the Christian doctrine that “A man, out of charity, ought to love himself more than he loves any other person”,²⁰³ i.e. that Self for whose sake he must deny himself.

In the Brahmanical doctrine, our immortal, impassible, beatific inner Self and Person, one and the same in all beings, is the immanent Brahma, God within you.²⁰⁴ He does not come from anywhere nor become anyone.²⁰⁵ “That” is; but nothing else that is true can be said of it: “Thou canst not know the maker-to-know what is known, who is your Self in all things”.²⁰⁶ Just as God himself does not know what he is, because he is not any what.²⁰⁷ The Buddhist doctrine proceeds in the same way, by elimination. Our own constitution and that of the world is repeatedly analysed, and as each one of the five physical and mental factors of the transient personality with which the “untaught manyfolk” identify “themselves” is listed, the pronouncement follows, “That is not my self” (na me so tm). You will observe that amongst these childish mentalities who identify themselves with their accidents, the Buddha would have included Descartes, with his Cogito ergo sum. ²⁰⁸

There is, in fact, no more an individual than there is a world soul. What we call our “consciousness” is nothing but a process; its content changes from day to day and is just as much causally determined as is the content of the body.²⁰⁹ Our personality is constantly being destroyed and renewed;²¹⁰ there is neither self nor anything of the nature of self in the world; and all this applies to all beings, or rather becomings, whether of men or Gods, now and hereafter. Just as it expressed by Plutarch, “Nobody remains one person, nor is one person ... Our senses, through ignorance of reality, false tell us that what appears to be, actually is”.²¹¹ The old Brahmanical (and Platonic) symbol of the chariot is made use of; the chariot, with all its appurtenances, corresponds to what we call our self; there was no chariot before its parts were put together, and will be none when they fall to pieces; there is no “chariot” apart from its parts; “chariot” is nothing but a name, given for convenience to a certain percept, but must not be taken to be an entity (sattva); and in the same way with ourselves who are, just like the chariot, “confections”. The Comprehensor has seen things “as they have become” (yath bhtam), causally arising and disappearing, and has distinguished himself from all of them; it is not for him, but only for an ignoramus to ask such questions as “Am I?”, “What was I once?”, “Whence did I come?”, “Whither am I going?”.²¹² If the Arhat is expressly permitted still to say “I”, this is only for convenience; he has long since outgrown all belief in a personality of his own.²¹³ But none of all this means, nor is it anywhere said that “There is no Self”. On the contrary, there are passages in which when the five constituents of our evanescent and unreal “existence” have been listed, we find, not the usual formula of negation, “That is not my Self”, but the positive injunction, “Take refuge in the Self”;²¹⁴ just the Buddha also says that he himself has done.²¹⁵

The empirical personality of this man, So-and-so, being merely a process, it is not “my” consciousness or personality that can survive death and be born again.²¹⁶ It is improper to ask “Whose consciousness is this?”; we should ask only, “How did this consciousness arise,”.²¹⁷ The old answer is given,²¹⁸ “The body is not ‘mine’, but an effect of past works”.²¹⁹ There is no “essence” that passes over from one habitation to another; as one flame is lit from another, so life is transmitted, but not a life, not “my” life.²²⁰ Beings are the heirs of acts;²²¹ but it cannot be said exactly that “I” now reap the rewards of what “I” did in a former habitation. There is causal continuity, but no one consciousness (vijñna), no essence (sattva) that now experiences the fruits of good and evil actions, and that also recurs and reincarnates (sandhvati sasarati) without otherness (ananyam )”,to experience in the future the consequences of what is now taking place.²²² Consciousness, indeed is never the same from one day to another.²²³ How, then, could “it” survive and pass over from one life to another? Thus the Vedanta and Buddhism are in complete agreement that while there is transmigration, there are no individual transmigrants. All that we see is the operation of causes, and so much the worse for us if we see in this fatally determined nexus our “self”. We can find the same thing in Christianity, where it is asked, “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” to which the remarkable answer is made that “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but the works of God might be made manifest in him”.²²⁴ In other words, the blindness has “arisen” by the operation of those mediate causes of which God is the First Cause and without which the world would have been deprived of the perfection of causality.²²⁵

The Buddha’s purpose is to save us from our selves and their mortality. He would go on to say that our subjection to such fatal accidents as blindness is a part and parcel of our identification of “consciousness” with “self”. We altogether misunderstand the value and importance of “consciousness”; “that is not my Self”; and the Parable of the Raft applies as much to consciousness as to ethical procedure; like the raft, consciousness is a valuable tool, a means of operation, but like the raft not to be held on to when the work has been done.²²⁶ If this alarms us, as Ariha was frightened because he thought that the peace of Nirvana implied a destruction of something real in himself,²²⁷ we must not overlook that what we are asked to substitute for our consciousness of things pleasant and unpleasant—or rather, subjection to feelings of pleasure and pain—is not a simple unconsciousness but a superconsciousness, none the less real and beatific because it cannot be analysed in the terms of conscious thought. At the same time we ought, perhaps, to point out that this superconsciousness, or what in Christian theology is called the “divine manner of knowing, not by means of any objects external to the knower”, is by no means to be equated with the subconsciousness of modern psychology, with respect to which it has been very truly said that while “nineteenth century materialism closed the mind of man to what is above him, twentieth century psychology opened it to what is below him”.²²⁸

Our conscious “life” is a process, subject to corruption and death. It is this life that must be “arrested” if we are to live immortally. It will be useless to deal with symptoms; it is the cause or occasion (hetu, nidna) that must be sought if we are to find the “medecine” that the Buddha sought and found. It is the understanding of things “as become” (yath bhtam), and the realisation that “personality” (tmabhva) is one of these things, that liberates man from himself. The gist of the Buddhist gospel is resumed in the often and triumphantly repeated words,

Of all things that spring from a cause,
The cause has been told by him “Thus-come”;
And their suppression, too,
The Great Pilgrim has declared.

In this chain of causes, to understand which is to have come Awake, it is emphasised hat nothing whatever happens by chance but only in a regular sequence—“That being present, this becomes; that not being present, this does not become”.²²⁹ To have verified this is to have found the Way. For in “all things that spring from a cause” are included “old age, sickness, and death”; and when we know the cause, we can apply the cure. The application is stated in the cycle of “causal origination” mastered on the night of the Great Awakening. All the ills that flesh is heir to are inseparable from and essential to the process of existence and unavoidable by any individual; individuality is “consciousness”; consciousness is not a being, but a passion, not an activity but only a sequence of reactions in which “we”, who have no power to be either as or when we will, are fatally involved; individuality is motivated by and perpetuated by wanting; and the cause of all wanting is “ignorance” (avidy),—for we “ignore” that the objects of our desire can never be possessed in any real sense of the word, ignore that even when we have got what we want, we still “want” to keep it and are still “in want”. The ignorance meant is of things as they really are (yathbhtam), and the consequent attribution of substantiality to what is merely phenomenal; the seeing of Self in what is not-Self.²³⁰

In making ignorance the root of all evil, Buddhism concurs with all traditional doctrine.²³¹ But we must guard ourselves from supposing that an ignorance of any particular things is meant, and especially against a confusion of the traditional “ignorance” with what we mean by “illiteracy”; so far from this, our empirical knowledge of facts is an essential part of the very ignorance that makes desire possible. And no less must another misunderstanding be avoided; we must not suppose that the traditional wisdom is opposed to the knowledge of useful facts; what it demands is that we should recognize in what are called “facts” and “laws of science”, not absolute truths but statements of statistical probability. The pursuit of scientific knowledge does not necessarily imply an “ignorance”; it is only when the motive is a curiosity, only when we pursue knowledge for its own sake, or art for art’s sake, that we are behaving “ignorantly”. In Brahmanical terms, “ignorance” is of Who we are; in Buddhist, language, of what we are not; and these are only two ways of saying the same thing, what we really are being definable only in terms of what we are not.

It is only by making stepping stones of our dead selves, until we realise at last that there is literally nothing with which we can identify our Self, that we can become what we are. And hence the Buddhist emphasis on what in Christian terms is called “self-naughting”, an expression based on Christ’s denegat seipsum. “Behold the Arhats’ beatitude! No wanting can be found in them; excised the thought ‘I am’; unmoving, unoriginated, uncontaminated, very Persons, God-become (brahma-bht), great heroes, natural sons of the Wake; unshaken in whatever plight, released from further becoming (punar bhava), on ground of dompted-self they stand, they in the world have won their battle; they roar the ‘Lion’s roar’; incomparable are the Wake” (buddh).²³² There is no question here of a post mortem deliverance, but of “Persons” triumphant here and now; nor will it be overlooked that the epithet “Buddha” is used in the plural, and applied to all who have reached their goal.

Of such it is often said that they are “despirated” (nirvta). The word Nirvana, “despiration”, which plays so large a part in our conception of Buddhism, where it is one of the most important of the many terms that are the referents to “man’s last end”, demands some further explanation. The verb nirv is, literally, to “blow out”, not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw, i.e. “draw breath”.²³³ The older texts employ the nearly synonymous verb udv, to “blow out” or “go out”;²³⁴ “when the Fire blows out (udvyati) it is into the Gale that it expires”;²³⁵ deprived of fuel, the fire of life is “pacified”, i.e. quenched,²³⁶ when the mind has been curbed, one attains to the “peace of Nirvana”, “despiration in God”.²³⁷ In the same way Buddhism stresses the going out of the fire or light of life for want of fuel;²³⁸ it is by ceasing to feed our fires that the peace is reached, of which it is well said in another tradition that “it passeth understanding”; our present life is a continuity of coming to be and passing away and immediate rebirth, like a flame that goes on burning and is not the same nor yet another flame; and in the same way with rebirth after death, it is like the lighting of one flame from another; nothing concrete passes over, there is continuity, but not sameness;²³⁹ But “the contemplatives go out like this lamp” which, once out, “cannot pass on its flame”.²⁴⁰ Nirvana is a kind of death, but like every death a rebirth to something other than what had been. Pari in parinirva merely adds the value “complete” to the notion of a despiration.

We say “a kind of death” because the word nirva can be used of still living things. The Bodhisattva is “despirated” when he becomes the Buddha. Even more significant, we find that each of the stages completed in the training of a royal steed is called a Parinirva.²⁴¹ The Buddha uses the word chiefly in connection with the “quenching” of the fires of passion, fault and delusion (rga, doa and moha). But there is a distinction involved here; the despiration is a present (sadikam) experience in two ways, ethical inasmuch as it implies the eradication of passion and fault, and eternal, i.e. metaphysical, in that it is a liberation from delusion, or ignorance (avidy); from both points of view it involves an unselfishness, but on the one hand in practise, on the other in theory.²⁴² thus while the denotation is that of the Greek ποσβννμι (be still, go out, be quenched, of wind, fire or passion), the connotation is that of Greek τελω and τελευτω (to be perfected, to die). All these meanings can be resumed in the one English word “finish”; the finished product is no longer in the making, no longer becoming what it ought to be; in the same way the finished being, the perfected man has done with all becoming; the final dissolution of the body cannot affect him, however affecting it may be to others, themselves imperfect, unfinished. Nirvana is a final end, and like Brahma, a matter about which no further questions can be asked by those who are still on fire.²⁴³

In other words, the Way involves on the one hand a practical and on the other a contemplative discipline. The contemplative corresponds to the athlete, who does not contest for the prize unless he is already “in training”. When the Indians speak of the Comprehensor (evavit) of a given doctrine, they do not mean by this merely one who grasps the logical significance of a given proposition; they mean one who has “verified” it in his own person, and is what he knows; for so long as we know only of our immortal Self, we are still in the realm of ignorance; we only really know it when we become it; we cannot really know it without being it. There are ways of life dispositive to such a realisation, and other ways that must prevent it. Let us, therefore, pause to consider the nature of the “mere morality”, or as it is now called, “Ethics”, apart from which the contemplative life would be impossible. What we should call a “practical holiness” is called alike in the old Indian books and in Buddhist a present and timeless “Walking with God” (brahmacariya).²⁴⁴ But there is also a clear distinction of the Doctrine (dharma) from its practical Meaning (artha), and its is with the latter that we are for the moment concerned.

In agreement with the old Indian theory of the relation of the Regnum to the Sacerdotium, we find a Buddhist king who requests the Bodhisattva to give him instruction both in Ethics (artha) and in Doctrine (dharma),²⁴⁵ and this context will enable us to grasp the distinction very clearly. We find that Ethics is a matter of liberality (dna) and of commandments (la). More in detail, the king is to provide for all his subjects’ needs, and to make honorable provision for both men and animals when superannuated and no longer able to do what they did in their prime. On the other hand, the whole of what is here called the Doctrine is stated in the form of the “chariot simile”, of which more later.

The terms “commandments” demands a further analysis. These rules of what is sometimes styled “mere morality”—“mere” because although indispensible if we are to reach man’s last end, morality is not in itself an end, but only a means—are not quite rigidly fixed; in general, the reference is to the “five” or “ten virtuous habits”. As five, these are (1) not to kill, (2) not to steal, (3) not to follow the lusts of the flesh, (4) to refrain from lying and (5) to refrain from the use of intoxicants. These are essential preliminaries for any spiritual development, and are expected of all laymen. The set of ten includes the first four of the five, and (5) to avoid slander, (6) to refrain from abusive speech, (7) to avoid frivolous converse, (8) not to covet, (9) not to bear malice and (10) to entertain no false views. The last has particular reference to the avoidance of heresies such as the belief in “soul”, the view that causal determination cancels moral responsibility, the view that there is “no other world”, the view that the Buddha has taught a novel doctrine, the view that he teaches an annihilation or cutting off of anything but sorrow. The foregoing five or ten rules are to be distinguished from the five or ten “bases of training” of the monastic rule; the first five of these are the same as the five already listed, to which are added (6) not to eat at irregular hours, (7) not to attend musical and theatrical performances, (7) to refrain from the use of unguents and ornaments, (9) not to sleep on luxurious beds, and (10) not to accept gold or silver.²⁴⁶

Before we return to the Doctrine we must carefully guard ourselves from thinking that the Buddha attaches an absolute value to moral conduct. We must not, for example, suppose that because the means are partly ethical, Nirvana is therefore an ethical state. So far from this, un-self-ishness, from the Indian point of view is an amoral state, in which no question of “altruism” can present itself, liberation being as much from the notion of “others” as it is from the notion of “self”;²⁴⁷ and not in any sense a psychological state, but a liberation from all that is implied by the “psyche” in the word “psychology”. “I call him a Brahman indeed,” the Buddha says, “who has passed beyond attachment both to good and evil; one who is clean, to whom no dust attaches, a-pathetic”.²⁴⁸In the well known Parable of the Raft (of ethical procedure) by means of which one crosses the river of life, he asks very pointedly “What does a man do with the boat when he has reached the other side of the river? Does he carry it about on his back, or does he leave it on the shore?”²⁴⁹ Perfection is something more than an infantile innocence; there must be knowledge of what are folly and wisdom, good and evil, and of how to be rid of both these values, wrong and “right without being righteous” (lavat no ca lamaya, M.II.27). For the Arhat, having “done all that was to be done” (kta-karayam), there is nothing more that should be done, and therefore no possibility of merit or demerit; injunctions and prohibitions have no longer any meaning where there is no longer anything that ought or ought not to be done. For there indeed, as Meister Eckhart says of the Kingdom of God, “neither vice nor virtue ever entered in”; just as in the Upanishad, where neither vice nor virtue can pass over the Bridge of Immortality.²⁵⁰ The Arhat is “no longer under the Law”; he is “not under the Law”,²⁵¹ but a “Mover-at-will” and a “Doer of what he will”; if we find that he acts unselfishly in our ethical sense of the word, that is our interpretation, for which he is not responsible. Only the Patripassian can offer any objection to these points of view.

It must also be clearly realised that it will be convenient at this point to ask, “Who is the Wake?”^250a For the answer to this question will tell us as much as can be told of the those who have followed in his footsteps to the end, and can be spoken of as “World-enders”. Who is the Great Person, the Kinsman of the Sun, the Eye in the World,²⁵² the descendant of Angirasa, the God of Gods, who says of himself that he is neither a God, nor a Genius nor a man, but a Buddha, one in whom all the conditions that determine particular modes of existence have been destroyed.²⁵³ What are these Arhats, who like the Vedic immortals, have won to being what they are by their “dignity”?

The question can be approached from many different angles. In the first place, the Buddha’s names and epithets are suggestive; in the Vedas, for example, the first and most of Angirases are Agni and Indra,²⁵⁴ to whom also the designation of “Arhat” is oftenest applied. Agni is, like the Buddha, “awakened at dawn” (uarbudh): Indra is urged to be “of waking mind” (bodhin-manas),²⁵⁵ and when overcome by pride in his own strength he actually “awakens” himself when reproached by his spiritual alter-ego.²⁵⁶ That the Buddha is called “Great Person” and “Most Man” (maha purua, ntama) by no means tells us that he is “a man”, since these are epithets of the highest Gods in the oldest Brahmanical books. My is not a woman’s name, but Natura naturans, our “Mother Nature”. ²⁵⁷ Or if we consider the miraculous life, we shall find that almost every detail, from the free choice of the time and place of birth²⁵⁸ to the lateral birth itself²⁵⁹ and the taking of the Seven Strides,²⁶⁰ and from the Going Forth to the Great Awakening on the strewn altar at the foot of the World-tree at the Navel of the Earth, and from the defeat of the Dragons to the miraculous kindling of the sacrificial firewood,²⁶¹ can be exactly paralleled—and in saying “exactly” we mean just that—in the Vedic mythology of Agni and Indra, priest and king in divinis. For example, and the single instance must suffice, if the Vedic Dragon fights with fire and smoke,²⁶² and also with women with weapons,²⁶³ so does Mra, Death, whom the Buddhist texts still refer to as “Holdfast”; if the Vedic Dragon-slayer is deserted by the Gods and must rely upon his own resources, so is the Bodhisattva left alone, and can only call upon his own powers to assist him.²⁶⁴ In saying this we do not mean to deny that the Buddha’s defeat of Mra is an allegory of self-conquest, but only to point out that this is a very old story, one that has always and everywhere been told; and that in its Buddhist setting the story is not a new one, but derived immediately from the Vedic tradition, where the same story is told, and where it has the same significance.²⁶⁵

That the perfected possess the power of motion and manifestation at will is familiar in Christian teaching, where they “shall pass in and out and find pasture”;²⁶⁶ and such powers are naturally proper to those who, being “joined unto the Lord, are one spirit”.²⁶⁷ The like is repeatedly enunciated in the Brahmanical scriptures, and often in nearly the same words. In an often recurring context the Buddha describes the four stages of contemplation (dhyna) of paths of power (ddhipda) that are the equivalent of the “Aryan Path” and are means to Omniscience, Full Awakening and Nirva. ²⁶⁸ When all these stations of contemplation (dhyna) have been so mastered that the practitioner can pass from one to another at will, and similarly commands the composure or synthesis (samdhi) to which they lead, then in this state of unification (eko’vadhi-bhva) the liberated Arhat is at once omniscient and omnipotent; the Buddha, describing his own attainment, can remember his “former habitations” (prva-nivsa), or as we should be apt to say, “past births”, in every detail; and describing his powers (ddhi), he says that “I, brethren, can realise (pratyanubh)¹⁸⁸ whatever countless powers I will; being many, I become one, and having been many become also one; seen or unseen, I can pass through a wall or a mountain as if it were air; I can sink into the earth or emerge from it as though it were water; I can walk on the water as if it were solid earth;²⁶⁹ I can move through the air like a bird; I can touch with my hands the sun and moon; I have power with respect to my body even so far as unto the Brahma-world”. ²⁷⁰ The same powers are exercised by other adepts to the extent that they have perfected themselves in the same disciplines and are masters of composure (samdhi); it is only when concentration (dhyna) fails that the power of motion-at-will is lost.²⁷¹ The Buddha employs the old Brahmanical formula²⁷² when he says that he has taught his disciples to extract from this material body another body of intellectual substance, as one might draw an arrow from its sheath, a sword from its scabbard, or a snake from its slough; it is with this intellectual body that one enjoys omniscience and is a mover-at-will as far as the Brahmaloka.²⁷³

Before we ask ourselves what all this means, let us remark that supernatural no more implies unnatural than super-essential implies unessential; and that it would be unscientific to say that such attainments are impossible, unless one has made experiment in accordance with the prescribed and perfectly intelligible disciplines. To call these things “miraculous” is not to say “impossible”, but only “wonderful”; and as we said before, following Plato, “Philosophy begins in wonder”. Furthermore, it must be clearly understood that the Buddha, like other orthodox teachers, attaches no great importance to these powers and very strongly deprecates a cultivation of powers for their own sake and in any case forbids their public exhibition by monks who possess them. “I do, indeed,” he says, “possess these three powers (ddhi) of motion-at-will, mind-reading, and teaching; but there can be no comparison of the first two of these marvels (pratihrya) with the much farther-reaching and far more productive marvel of my teaching”.²⁷⁴ It will profit us more to ask what such marvels, or those of Christ imply,^{269, 273} than to ask whether they “really” took place on some given occasion; just as in the exegesis of other hero-tales it will be much more useful to ask what “seven-league boots” and “tarn caps” mean, than to point out that they cannot be bought in department stores.

In the first place, we observe that in the Brahmanical contexts, omniscience, particularly of births, is predicated of Agni (jtavedas), the “Eye in the World”, and of the “all-seeing” Sun, the “Eye of the Gods”, and for the very good reason that these consubstantial principles are the catalytic powers apart from which no birth could be; and further, that the power of motion at will, or what is the same thing, motion without locomotion, is predicated in the Brahmanical books of the Spirit or Universal Self (tman) on the one hand, and of liberated beings, knowers of the Self and assimilated to the Self, on the other. Once we have understood that the Spirit, universal solar Self and Person, is a timeless omnipresence, it will be recognized that the Spirit, by hypothesis, is naturally possessed of all the powers that have been described; the Spirit is the “knower of all births” in saecula saeculorum precisely because it is “where everywhere and every when are focussed” and is present undivided as well in all past as in all future becomings;²⁷⁵ and by the same token, we find it spoken of also as “Providence (prajñ) or as “Compendious Providence” (prajñã-ghana) for the very good reason that its knowledge of “events” is not derived from the events themselves, but the events derived from its knowledge of itself. In all the Brahmanical books the powers that have been described are the Lord’s: if the Comprehensor can change his form and move at will, it is ”even as Brahma can change his form and move at will;²⁷⁶ it is the Spirit, ultimately solar Self (tman) that itself not moving yet outruns others.²⁷⁷ All these things are powers of the Spirit and of those who are “in the spirit”; and if by far the greatest of all these miracles is that of the teaching, that is simply to say with St Ambrose that “All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, is from the Holy Ghost”.²⁷⁸ If the “signs and wonders” are lightly dismissed, it is not because they are unreal, but because it is an evil and adulterous generation that asketh for a sign.

The Buddha describes himself as unknowable (ananuvedya) even here and now; neither Gods nor men can see him; those who see him in any form or think of him in words do not see him at all.²⁷⁹ “I am neither priest nor prince nor husbandman nor anyone at all; I wander in the world a learned Nobody, uncontaminate by human-qualities (alipyamna . . . mnavebhya); useless to ask my family name (gotra)”.²⁸⁰ He leaves no trace by which he can be tracked.²⁸¹ Even here and now the Buddha cannot be taken hold of, and it cannot be said of this Supernal Person (parama-purua) after the dissolution of the body and psychic complex that he becomes or does not become, nor can both these things be affirmed or denied of him; all that can be said is that “he is”; to ask what or where he is would be futile.²⁸² “He who sees the Law (dharma) sees me”;²⁸³ and that is why in the early iconography he is represented, not in human form, but by such symbols as that of the “Wheel of the Law”, of which he is the immanent mover. And that is all just as it was in the Brahmanical books, where it is Brahma that has no personal or family name²⁸⁴ and cannot be tracked, the Spirit (tman) that never became anyone—Who knows where he is?²⁸⁵—the interior Self that is uncontaminated,²⁸⁶ the supreme Self of which nothing true can be said (neti, neti) and that cannot be grasped except by the thought “It is”. It is assuredly with reference to that ineffable principle that the Buddha says that “There is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, incomposite, and were it not for that unborn, unbecome, unmade, incomposite, no way could be shown of escape from birth, becoming, making, composition”;²⁸⁷ and we do not see what that “unborn” can be but “That” in-animate (antmya) Spirit (tman) were it not for whose invisible being (sat) there could be no life anywhere.²⁸⁸ The Buddha flatly denies that he ever taught the cessation or annihilation of an essence; all that he teaches is the putting of a stop to sorrow.²⁸⁹

In a famous passage of the Milinda Questions the old symbol of the chariot is used by Nagasena to break down the King’s belief in the reality of his own “personality”.²⁹⁰ We need hardly say that throughout the Brahmanical and Buddhist literature (as also in Plato and Philo)²⁹¹ the “chariot” stands for the psycho-physical vehicle, as which or in which—according to our knowledge of “who we are”—we live and move.²⁹² The steeds are the senses, the reins their controls, the mind the coachman, and the Spirit or real Self (tman) the charioteer (rath),²⁹³ i.e. passenger and owner, who alone knows the vehicle’s destination; if the horses are allowed to run away with the mind, the vehicle will go astray; but if they are curbed and guided by the mind in accordance with its knowledge of the Self, the latter will reach home. In our Buddhist text it is strongly emphasized that all that composes the chariot and team, or body-and-soul, is devoid of any essential substance; “chariot” and “self” are only the conventional names of constructed aggregates, and do not import existences independent of or distinguishable from the factors of which they are composed; and just as one confection is called a “chariot” for convenience, so ought the human personality to be called a “self” only for convenience. And just as the repeated expression “That is not my Self” has so often been misinterpreted to mean “There is no Self”, so the destructive analysis of the vehicular personality has been held to mean that there is no Person! It is complained that “the charioteer is left out”.²⁹⁴

Actually, however, nothing is said for or against the imperceptible presence in the composite vehicle of an eternal substance distinct from it and one and the same in all such vehicles. Ngasena, who refuses to be regarded as a “somebody” and maintains that “Nga-sena” is nothing but a name for the inconstant aggregate of the psycho-physical phenomenon, could surely have said, “I live, yet not ‘I’, but the Law in me.” And if we take into consideration other Pali texts we shall find that a charioteer is taken for granted, and who and what he is, namely one that “has never become anyone”. The Eternal Law (dharma) is, in fact, the charioteer;²⁹⁵ and while “the king’s chariots age, and just so the body ages, the Eternal Law of existences does not age”.²⁹⁶ The Buddha identifies himself—that Self that he calls his refuge²⁹⁷—with this Law²⁹⁸ and calls himself the “best of charioteers”,²⁹⁹ one who tames men, as though they were horses.³⁰⁰ And finally we find a detailed analysis of the “chariot” concluding with the statement that the rider is the Self (tman), in almost the very words of the Upanishads.³⁰¹ The statement of a Buddhist commentator, that the Buddha is the Spiritual Self (tman) is assuredly correct.³⁰² That “Great Person” (mahpurua ) is the charioteer in all beings.

We believe that enough has now been said to show beyond any possible doubt that the “Buddha” and “Great Person”, “Arhat”, “Brahma-become” and “God of Gods” of the Pali texts is himself the Spirit (tman) and Inner Man of all beings, and that he is “That One” who makes himself manifold and in whom all beings again “become one”; that the Buddha is Brahma, Prajpati, the Light of Lights, Fire or Sun, or by whatever other name the older books refer to the First Principle; and to show that insofar as the Buddah’s “life” and deeds are described, it is the doings of Brahma as Agni and Indra that are retold. Agni and Indra are the Priest and King in divinis, and it is with these two possibilities that the Buddha is born, and these two possibilities that are realised, for although his kingdom is in one sense not of this world, it is equally certain that he as Cakravartin is both priest and king in the same sense that Christ is “both priest and king”. We are forced by the logic of the scriptures themselves to say that Agnendrau, Buddha, Krishna, Moses and Christ are names of one and the same “descent” whose birth is eternal; to recognize that all scripture without exception requires of us in positive terms to know our Self and by the same token to know what-is-not-our-Self but mistakenly called a “self”; and that the Way to become what-we-are demands an excision from our consciousness-of-being, every false identification of our being with what-we-are-not, but think we are when we say “I think” or “I do”. To have “come clean” (uddha) is to have distinguished our Self from all its psycho-physical, bodily and mental accidents; to have identified our Self with any of these is the worst possible sort of pathetic fallacy and the whole cause of “our” sufferings and mortality, from which no one who still is anyone can be liberated. It is related that a Confucian scholar besought the twenty-eighth Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, “to pacify his soul”. The Patriarch retorted, “Produce it, and I will pacify it”. The Confucian replied “That is my trouble, that I cannot find it”. Bodhidharma replied, “Your wish is granted”. The Confucian understood, and departed in peace.³⁰³

It is altogether contrary to Buddhist, as it is to Vedantic doctrine to think of “ourselves” as wanderers in the fatally determined storm of the world’s flow (sasra). “Our immortal Self” is anything but a “surviving personality”. It is not this man So-and-so that goes home and is lost to view,³⁰⁴ but the prodigal Self that recollects itself; and that having been many is now again one, and inscrutable, Deus absconditus. “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven”, and therefore “If any man would follow me, let him deny himself”.³⁰⁵ “The kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead”.³⁰⁶ The realisation of Nirvana is the “Flight of the Alone to the Alone”.³⁰⁷

NOTES TO BUDDHISM

159

Vinaya, 1.235 and passim; D.I.52, 68 f.; S.III.208; A.I.62 (Gradual Sayings, p. 57, where Woodward’s Footnote 2 is completely mistaken). The Buddha teaches that there is an ought-to-be-done (kiriya) and an ought-not-to-be-done (akiriya) ; these two words never refer to “the doctrine of Karma (retribution) and its opposite”. Cf. HJAS.IV.1939, p.119. That the Goal (as in Brahmanical doctrine) is one of liberation from good and evil both (see Notes 248, 249) is quite another matter; the doing of good and avoidance of evil are indispensible to Wayfaring. The view that there is no-ought-to-be-done (a-kiriya), however argued, is heretical: responsibility cannot be evaded either (1) by the argument of a fatal determination by the causal efficacy of past acts or (2) by making God (issaro) responsible or (3) by a denial of causality and postulation of chance; ignorance is the root of all evil, and it is upon what we do now that our welfare depends (A.I.173 f). Man is helpless only to the extent that he sees Self in what is not-Self; to the extent that he frees himself from the notion “This is I”, his actions will be good and not evil; while for so long as he identifies himself with soul-and-body (saviññna-kya) his actions will be “self”-ish.

160

D.III.135 tath‘eva hoti no aññath; A.II.23, D.III.133, Sn.357 yath vd tath kr (cf. RV.IV.33.6 satyam cur nara ev hi cakru); hence Sn.430, Itiv.122, tathvdin. In this sense tathgato can be applied to Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, Sn.236-238.

161

The Dhamma taught by the Buddha, beautiful from first to last, is both of present application (sadihiko) and timeless (akliko), passim.

It follows that the same applies to the Buddha himself, who identifies himself with the Dhamma.

162

D.I.150 sayam abhiññ sacchikatv; D.III.135 sabbam . . . abhisambuddham; Dh. 353 sabbavid’ham asmi.

163

M.I.68 f., the Buddha “roars the Lion’s roar” and having recounted his supernatural powers, continues: “Now if anyone says of me, Gotama the Pilgrim, knower and seer as aforesaid, that my eminent Aryan gnosis and insight have no superhuman quality, and that I teach a Law that has been beaten out by reasoning (takkapariyhatam) experimentally thought out and self-expressed (sayam-paibhnam), if he will not recant, not repent ( cittam pajahati = μετανοεν ) and abandon this view, he falls into hell”: “These profound truths (ye dhamm gambbr) which the Buddha teaches are inaccessible to reasoning (atakkvacar), he has verified them by his own super-knowledge” (D.I.22); cf. KU.II.9 “it is not by reasoning that that idea can be reached” (nai tarkea matir paney). Mil.217 f. explains that it is an “ancient Way that had been lost that the Buddha opens up again”. The reference is to the brahmacariya, “walking with God” ( = ϑε) σνοπαδειν, Phaedrus 248 C ) of RV.X.109.5, AV., Brhmaas, Upaniads and Pali texts, passim.

The “Lion’s roar” is originally Brhaspati’s, RV.X.67.9, i.e. Agni’s.

164

S.II.106.

165

S.IV.117; Sn.284. In Ittivuttaka 28,29 those who follow this (ancient) Way taught by the Buddhas are called Mahatmas.

166

BU.IV.4.8. As Mrs. Rhys Davids has also pointed out, the Buddha is a critic of Brahmanism only in external matters; the “internal system of spiritual values” he “takes for granted” (“Relations between Early Buddhism and Brahmanism”, IHQ., X,1934, p.282).

In view of the current impression that the Buddha came to destroy, not to fulfil an older Law, we have emphasized throughout the uninterrupted continuity of Brahmanical and Buddhist doctrine (e.g. in Note 299). Buddhist doctrine is original (yoniso manasikro) indeed, but certainly not novel.

167

Sn.284 f (cf. RV.X.71.9) ; D.III.81, 82 and 94 f; exceptions, 5.11.13; Sn.1082.

168

E.g. MU.VI.29 “This deepest mystery . . .”; BU.VI.3.12; BG.IV.3, XVIII.67. Yet the Upaniads were actually “published”; and just as the Buddha “holds nothing back”, so we are told that “nothing whatever was omitted in what was told to Satyakma, a man who cannot prove his ancestry, but is called a Brahman because of his truth speaking (CU.IV.4.9). There is no more secrecy, and now whoever is a Comprehensor can properly be called a Brahman (SB.XII.6.1.41).

169

Cf. SB.IV.1.4.5.

170

BD.VII.54.

171

BD.VII.57.

172

RV.X.48.5.

173

BU.VI.2.8; CU.V.3-11; Kaus. Up. IV.9 (where the situation is called “abnormal”, pratiloma).

174

D.III.40, cf. S.1.136, D.1.12.

175

Winifred Stephens, Legends of Indian Buddhism, 1911, p. 7. Similarly M. V. Bhattacharya maintains that the Buddha taught that “there is no Self, or tman” (Cultural Heritage of India, p.259). Even in 1925 a Buddhist scholar could write ”The soul . . . is described in the Upanisads as a small creature in shape like a man . . . Buddhism repudiated all such theories” (PTS. Dictionary., s.v. attan). It would be as reasonable to say that Christianity is materialistic because it speaks of an “inner man”. Few scholars would write in this manner today, but ridiculous as such statements may appear, (and it is as much an ignorance of Christian doctrine as it is of Brahmanism that is involved), they still survive in all popular accounts of “Buddhism”.

It is of course, true that the Buddha denied the existence of a “soul” or “self” in the narrow sense of the word (one might say, in accordance with the command, denegat seipsum, Mark, VIII. 341) but this is not what our writers mean to say, or are understood by their readers to say; what they mean to say is that the Buddha denied the immortal, unborn and Supreme Self of the Upanishads. And that is palpably false. For he frequently speaks of this Self or Spirit, and nowhere more clearly than in the repeated formula na me so att, “That is not my Self”, excluding body and the components of empirical consciousness, a statement to which the words of Sakara are peculiarly apposite, “Whenever we deny something unreal, it is with reference to something real” (Br. Stra 111.2.22); as remarked by Mrs. Rhys Davids, “so, ‘this one’, is used in the Suttas for utmost emphasis in questions of personal identity” (Minor Anthologies, I, p. 7, note 2). It was not for the Buddha, but for the natthika, to deny this Self! And as to “ignoring God” (it is often pretended that Buddhism is “atheistic”), one might as well argue that Meister Eckhart “ignored God” in saying “niht, daz ist gote gelich, wande beide niht sind” (Pfeiffer, p.506)!.

176

See Marco Pallis, Peaks and Lamas, 1939, pp.79-81.

177

See the various books of T. Suzuki.

178

Dh. 74 mam‘eva kata . . . iti blassa sakappo, “ ‘I did it’, an infantile idea”, Cf. Note 163.

179

Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, p.65. Cf. A.II.38,39 where the Buddha says that he has destroyed all the causes by which he might become a God or a man, etc., and being uncontaminated by the world, “Therefore I am Buddha” (tasm buddbo’smi).

180

Saddharma Puarka, XV.1, in reply to the bewilderment of his audience, who cannot understand the Buddha’s claim to have been the teacher of countless Bodhisattvas in bygone aeons. In just the same way Arjuna is bewildered by Krishna’s eternal birth (BG.IV.4), and the Jews could not understand the saying of Christ, “before Abraham was, I am”.

181

Libri adv. jovinianum, I.42.

182

This is a technicality. See my “Symbolism of the Dome” (Part 3) in IHQ. XIV, 1938 and “Svayamt; Janua Coeli” in Zalmoxis II, 1939 (1941).

183

Vin.I.23 (Mahvagga I.14). Cf. Vis.393 rjna gavesitum udhu attnam? CU.VIII.7.1 tm . . . anveavya.

184

Vin.I.25 (Mahvagga I.15). Cf. the similar story of Mogallna’s conflict with the Dragon Rrapla, Vis.399 f.

185

S.I.169. See also my “tmayajña; Self-sacrifice” in HJAS.VI.1942.

¹⁸⁶ Cf. Keith, Aitareya rayaka, 1908, p.xi.

One must assume that it is in ignorance of the Brahmanical literature that Mrs. Rhys Davids finds something novel in the Buddha’s Internal Agnihotra (Gotama the Man, p.97). In just the same way I. B. Horner (Early Buddhist Theory of Man Perfected, Ch.II, esp. p.53) can discuss the history of the word arabat at great length without mentioning that in RV.X.63.4 we are told that the Gods (who, in their plurality, had never been thought of as originally immortal) “by their worth (arha) attained their immortality”! And in the same way the PTS. Pali Dictionary knows of arabant “before Buddhism” only as an “honorific title of high officials”. Buddhist exegesis by scholars who do not know their Vedas is never quite reliable.

186

^a S.III.120

187

D.II.101 atta-dp vibaratha atta-sara . . . dhamma-dp dhammasara. Cf. Sn. 501 ye atta-dp vicaranti loke akican sabbadhi vippamutt; Dh.146, 232 andbakrena onaddh padpa na gavessatha . . . so karohi dpam attano. The admonition “Make the Self your refuge” (kareyya saraattano, S.III.143) enjoins what the Buddha himself has done, who says “I have made the Self my refuge” (katam me saraam attano, D.II.120); for, indeed, “as he teaches, so he does” (yatha vadi, tatha kari, A.II.23, III.135, Sn,357); which tatb is often made the basis of the epithet “Tathgata”.

The Buddhist “lamp” texts correspond to Svet. Up. II.15 “When the bridled man by means of his own Self-suchness, as if by the light of a lamp (tma-tatvena . . . dpopamena), perceives the Brahma-suchness, unborn, steadfast, clean of all other suchnesses, then knowing God he is liberated from all ills”. The Spirit (tman) is our light when all other lights have gone out (BU.IV.3.6).

188

On sati (smti) as “watching one’s step”, cf. I.Cor.10.31, cf. D.I.70,SBB.III.233 etc. Thus an inadvertent sin is worse than a deliberate sin (Mil.84, cf. 158).

But like the Brahmanical smti, the Buddhist sati means more than this mere heedfulness, the padasaññam of J.VI.252. Recollection is practised with a view to omniscience or super-gnosis (abbiññ, pajnan, πoμθεια, πóνoια). The fullest account is given in Vis.407 f. In Mil.77-79, this is a matter either of intuitive, spontaneous and unaided super-gnosis, or occasioned (kaumika=ktrima); in the latter case we are merely reminded by external signs of what we already know potentially. Comparing this with Pra.Up.IV.5, CU.VII.13, VII.26.1 and MU.VI.7 (“The Self knows everything”), and taking account of the epithet Jtavedas=Pali jtissaro, it appears that the Indian doctirne of Memory coincides with the Platonic doctrine in Meno 81 (μθησις=νμνησς).

189

Laws 644, 645.

190

Republic 431 A, B, 604 B; Laws, 959 B; Phaedo, 83 B, etc.

191

John XIII.36; Mark VIII.34. Those who do follow him have “forsaken all”, and this naturally includes “themselves”.

192

Heb. IV.12.

193

Luke XIV.26, “who hateth not father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, cf. MU.VI.28 “If to wife and family he be attached, ffor such a man, no, never at all” and Sn.60 “Alone I fare, forsaking wife and child, mother and father”, cf. 38. Cf. Note 94.

194

Meister Eckhart and William Blake. Cf. Behmen, Sex Puncta Theosophica, VIII.10 “Thus we see how a life perishes ... namely, when it will be its own lord. . . If it will not give itself up to death, then it cannot obtain any other world.” Matth. XV.25; Phaedo, 67,68. “No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I.63.3). Cf. Schiller, “In error only there is life and knowledge must be death”; and what has been said above on Nirvana as a being finished. What lies beyond such deaths cannot be defined in terms of our kind of living.

195

Sn.508 Ko sujjhati muccati . . . ken’attan gacchati brahmalokam? It is characteristic of Lord Chalmers’ attenuations that he renders ken’attan only as “Whereby?”. In the same way the PTS. Dictionary carefully omits the positive references s.v. att and ignores mahatt. Mrs Rhys Davids has discussed mahatt = mahtm (e.g. Review of Religion VI.22f), but ignores the nature of the mahiman on which the epithet depends.

196

A.II.211 brahma-bhtena attan viharati; like BU.IV.4.6 brahmaiva san brahm pyeti. Cf. Sn.508 bhagav hi me sakkhi brahma’jja diho (not, as in Lord Chalmer’s version “Brahm”, but Brahma); sakkhi as in BU.111.4.2 skd-aparokd-brahma).

197

DA.I.313 tato brahma-lok paisandhi-vasena na vattana-dhammo, expanding D.I.156 anvatti-dhammo; as in BU.VI.2.15 te teu brahmalokesu ... vasanti, te na punarvtti; CU.IV.15.6 imam mnavam-varta nvartante; CU.VIII.15. The only condition superior to this is that of the attainment of the last end here and now, rather than post mortem.

198

A.I.57, 58, 149, 249, V.88; Sn.778, 913, cf. Manu XI.230; Republic 440 B; I Cor.4.4. This is the “Ayenbyte of Inwyt”.

199

Dh.160 att hi attano ntho; 380 att hi attano gati (cf. BU.IV.3.32; KU.III. 11; MU.VI.7 tmano’tm net amtkhya; RV.V.50.1 vivo devasya netu, viz. Savitr). But in Dh.62 att hi attano n’atthi, “In self there’s naught of Self”, cf. S.III.82, 83 yad anatt . . . na me so att, “What is not-Self, that’s not my Self”, the referents are reversed; the Self (tman) is selfless (antmya) as in TU.II.7.

200

S.I.75 n’ev’ajjhag piyataramattan kvaci ... attakmo; Udna 47; A.12.91 (cf. 11.21) attakmena mahattam abhikkhakat. S.I.71,72, like BG.VI.5-7, explains when the Self is dear (piyo) and not dear (appiyo) to self. On the other hand in A.IV.97 att hi paramo piyo, the man “too fond of himself” is what is ordinarily meant by the “selfish” man.

201

BU.I.4.8, 11.4, IV.5.

202

Hermes, Lib. IV.6 B.

203

St Thomas Aquinas, Sum Theol., II-II.26.4; cf. Dh.166 (man’s first duty to work out his own salvation).

204

RV.I. 115.1 tm jagata tastbuta ca; B.X.4.2.27 sarvem bhutnm tm; BU.II.5.15 sarvem . . . adhipati; III.5 brahma ya tm sarvntara; MU.V.1 vifvtm; BG.VI.29 sarvabhtastham tmnam, VII.9 jivana sarvabhteu; Manu I.54 sarvabhttm, etc. This doctrine of one “Soul” or “Self” behind what appear to be our many different souls or selves can be recognized in Plato (notably Meno 81, describing the universal birth and consequent omniscience of the “Immortal Soul,” cf. Note 188), Plotinus (notably Enneads IV.9 passim, on the “reduction of all souls to one”) and Hermes (notably, Lib. V.10. A “bodiless and having many bodies, or rather present in all bodies”, cf. KU.II.22 aarra arreu; and X.2 “the essence of all beings”. It survives in Dionysius. “Being that pervades all things at once though not affected by them”. (De div. nom. II.10)

205

KU.II.18 nya kutacin na babhva kacit; II.25 ka itth veda yatra sa? VI.13 asti. Cf. Mil.73 bhagav atthi . . . na sakk. . . . nidassetum idba v idha; and Sankara (on BU.III.3) muktasya ca na gati kvacit.

206

BU.III.4.2; cf. II.4.14, IV.5.15; AA.III.2.4.

207

Erivgena.

208

A.II.177 “I am naught of an anyone anywhere, nor is there anywhere aught of mine”; similarly M.II.263, 264. Plotinus, Enneads VI.9.10 “But this man has now become another, and is neither himself nor his own”. Cf. my kicaññ: Self-naughting” in NIA.III,1940.

209

S.II.13, III.165 etc.

210

S.II.95, viññnam . . . rattiy ca divassassa ca ãnnad eva upajjati añña nirujjbati.

211

Moralia 392 D, based on Plato, Symposium 207 D, E. See previous Note.

212

S.II.26, 27. The enlightened disciple does not think of himself as transmigating, but only recognizes the incessant operation of mediate causes in accordance with which contingent personalities arise and cease.

213

S.I.14.

214

S.III.143. See Note 187.

215

D.II.120. See Note 187.

216

M.I.256 (Sti’s heresy).

217

S.II.13, 11.61 etc.

218

AA.II.1.3 “Man is a product of works”, i.e. of things that have been done up to that moment at which we speak (karma-ktam ayam purua). Cf. Notes 78, 211, 225.

219

S.II.64; A.V.88.

220

Mil.71/2. That nothing but the “fire” of life is transmitted is in perfect agreement with the Vedantic “The Lord is the only transmigrant” and with Heracleitus, for whom the flux is only of the fontal and inflowing fire, π aνιoς =Agni, vivyus. Not therefore in disagreement with Plato et al., who certainly did not reject the “flux”, but presumes a Being from which all becoming proceeds, a Being that is not itself a “thing”, but from which all “things” incessantly flow.

221

M.I.390; S.II.64; A.V.88 “My nature is of works (kammassako’mhi), works I inherit, I am born of works, the kinsman of works, one to whom works revert; whatever work, or fair or foul, I do, I shall inherit”. The last must not, of course, be taken to mean that an “I” really incarnates, but only that a future “I” will inherit and perceive, just as “I” do, its own causally determined nature. Cf. Note 212.

222

M.I. 256 f.; Mil.72 n‘atthi koci satto yo imamh ky añña kya sakamati.

223

S.II.95, cf. Notes 210, 211.

224

John IX.2.

225

Fate is nothing but the series or order of second causes, and lies in these causes themselves and not in God (except Providentially, i.e. in the same way that the Buddha “knows whatever is to be known, as it has been and will be,” Sn. 658 etc., cf. Pra. Up. IV.5) who does not govern directly but through these causes, with which he never interferes (St Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Tbeol., 1.22.3, 1.103.7 ad 2, I.116.2,4 etc.). “Nothing happens in the world by chance” (St Augustine, QQ LXXXIII.qu.24) ; “As a mother is pregnant with unborn offspring, so is the world itself with the causes of unborn things” (De Trin., III.9,—both statements endorsed by St Thomas Aquinas). “Why then should miserable men venture to pride themselves on their freewill before they are set free?” St Augustine, De spir. et lit., 52). The Buddha clearly demonstrates that we can neither be as nor when we will, and are not free (S.III.66,67), though “there is a Way” (D.I.156) to become so. It is the grasp of the very fact that “we” are mechanisms, causally determined (as stated in the repeated formula, “This being so, that arises; or not being so, does not arise”)—the very ground of “scientific materialism”—that points out the Way of escape; all our trouble arises from the fact that like Boethius we have “forgotten who we are”, and ignorantly see our Self in-what-is-not-our-Self (anattani attnam), but only a process.

226

M.I.261 nittharaatthya na gahaatthya. Cf. Note 249.

227

M.I.137, 140 “Naughtily, vainly, falsely, and against the fact am I charged with being a misleader and a teacher of the cutting off, destruction and non-entity of what really is” (sato satassa = τò ντως ν); there is here a play on the double meaning of the word venayika, (1) leader-away, destroyer (e.g. of the Ego-heresy, but not of what “really is”) and (2) leader-forth, guide, as in M.I.386. similarly S.III.110f.

Cf. BU.IV.5.1 (Maitrey’s fear); KU.I.20.22 (even the Gods had doubt of this, “Is, or is not”, after passing over); CU.VIII.5.3, VIII.9.1. “Yet it would be improper to say even of a Buddha after death that ‘He knows not, he sees not’ (D.II.68). His nature cannot be expressed by any antithesis or combination of the terms “Is” or “Is not”. He “is”, but not in any “place” (Mil.73).

228

René Guénon, “L’Erreur du psychologisme”, Etudes Traditionelles, 43, 1938. “The most evil type of man is he who, in his waking hours, has the qualities we found in his dream state” (Plato, Republic, 567 B).

229

M.II.32; S.II.28 and passim.

230

S.III.162.164 etc. “Ignorance” is failure to distinguish body-and consciousness from Self.

231

A.IV.195, Dh.243, avijj param malam; cf. M.I.263. With D.I.70 on the infatuation that results from the indulgence of vision and other senses, cf. Plato, Protagoras, 356 D, “It is the power of appearance (τ ϕαινομνον = Pali rpa) that leads us astray”, 357 E “To be overcome by pleasure is ignorance in the highest degree”, 358 C “This yielding to oneself is just ‘ignorance’, and just as surely is mastery of oneself ‘wisdom’ “ ( σσϕα = Pali kusalat ). Similarly Hermes, Lib.X 8.9 “The vice of the soul is ignorance, its virtue knowledge”, Lib.XIII.7 B where “ignorance” is the first of the “twelve torments of matter” (as in the Buddhist Chain of Causes, cf. Hartmann in JAOS. 60, 1940, 356.360), and Lib.I.18 “The cause of death is desire”.

232

S.III.83,84.

233

In AB.III.4 Agni, when he “draws and burns” (pravn dahati) is identified with Vayu. In KB.VII.9 the Breaths “blow” (νnti) in various directions, but “do not blow out” (na nirvnti). In JUB.IV.12.6 “Agni, becoming the Breath, shines” (pro bhtv agnir dpyate). In RV.X.129.2 nd avtam, “not blowing” is very near in meaning to nirvtam: cf. BU.III.8.8 avyu . . . apra. The word nirva does not occur in the Brahmanical literature before BG.

234

TS.II.2.4.7 udvyet, “if the fire goes out”; KB.VII.2 udvte’nagnau “in what is not fire, but gone out”.

235

CU.IV.3.1 yad agnir udvyati vyum apyeti. In having thus ”gone to the wind’ the fire has “gone home” (JUB.III.1.1.7), cf. Note 304.

236

Pra.Up.III.9; MU.VI.34.

237

BG.VI.15; BG.II.72 brahma-nirvam cchati.

238

M.I.487 etc. and as in MU.VI.34.1. cf. Rm Mathnaw 1.3705:

239

Mil.40,47,71.72.

240

Sn.135 nibbanti dhr yathiyam padpo (deictic); Sn.19 vivat kui, nibbuto gini. “Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out” (Heracleitus, fr. LXXVII).

241

M.I.446.

242

A.I.156. In the series rgo, doso and moho, moho (delusion) can be replaced by its equivalent avijj, ignorance (e.g. Itivuttaka,57) and it will be the more readily seen that freedom from rgo and doso is a moral virtue, and freedom from moho= avijj an intellectual virtue.

In nearly the same way Itivuttka 38,39 distinguishes between the two Nibbnas, (1) present, with some residue of the factors of existence, and (2) ultimate, without any residue of factors of existence. This, also, marks the distinction of Nibbna from Parinibbna, so far as this can be really made.

243

M.I.304; S.III.188. Cf. BU.III.6 (Brahma). Cf, James III, 6,

244

Sn.567 brahmacariya sadihikam aklikam. Cf. AV.XI.5; CU.VIII.5.

245

J.VI.251/2.

246

PTS. Pali Dic., s.v. sl. In greater detail M.I.179,180.

247

Udna 70.

248

Dh.412; cf. Sn.363, Mil.383 and next Note. “Apathetic”, i.e. “not pathological”, as are those who are subject to their own passions or sym-pathise with those of others.

249

M.I.135; like the raft, “right is to be abandoned, and a fortiori wrong”. “I need no further rafts” (Sn.21). Cf. Dh.39,267,412; Sn.4,547; M.II.26,27: TB.III.12.9.8; Kaus.Up.III.8; KU.II.14; Mund.Up.III.1.3; MU.VI.18 etc.; Meister Eckhart, passim.

Similarly St Augustine, De spir. et lit., 16, “Let him no longer use the Law as a means of arrival when he has arrived”; Meister Eckhart, “If I intend to cross the sea and want a ship, that is part and parcel of wanting to be over, and having gotten to the other side I do not want a ship” (Evans 11.194). In the same way the discriminating consciousness (viññnam=saññ, S.III.140,142=sajñ, BU.II.4.12 and wholly inferior to paññ, prajñ) is a very useful means of crossing over, but nothing to hold on to thereafter (M.I.260, see Note 226). “Consciousness” is a kind of “ignorance”, ceasing at our death (BU.IV.4.3) ; accordingly avidyay mtyu trtv, vidya’ mtam anute (I Up.11, MU.VII.9).

250

CU.VIII.4.1 etc. Meister Eckhart, “There neither vice nor virtue ever entered in”.

^250a It will be seen that this is, strictly speaking, an improper question; a Buddha is no longer anyone.

251

Gal.V.18.

252

Cf. TS.II.9.3, II.3.8.1,2 II.5.8.2. The expression “Eye in the World” amounts to an equation of the Buddha with Agni and the Sun.

253

A.II.37.

254

RV.I.31.1 (Agni), I 130.3 (Indra).

255

RV.V.75.5 (in order that he may overcome Vrtra). Bodhin-manas suggests the Buddhist bodhi-citta. Mil.75 assimilates buddhi, Buddha.

256

BD.VII.57 sa (Indra) buddhv tmnam. The Jataka tales include many of the Buddha’s former births as Sakka (Indra). In the Nikayas Sakka acts as the Buddha’s protector, just as Indra acts for Agni; but it is the Buddha himself that overcomes Mra. In other words the Buddha is comparable to that Agni who is “both Agni and Indra, brahma and ksatra”. In M.I.386 the Buddha seems to be addressed as Indra (purindado sakko); but elsewhere, e.g. Sn.1069 and when his disciples are callea rakya-puttiyo, “sons of the Sakyan”, the reference is to the Sakya dan, whose name like Indra’s implies a “being able”.

257

My is “magic” only in the sense of Behmen, Sex Puncta Mystica, V.1.f. (“The Mother of eternity; the original state of Nature; the formative power in the eternal wisdom, the power of imagination, a mother in all three worlds; of use to the children for God’s kingdom, and to the sorcerers for the devil’s kingdom; for the understanding can make of it what it pleases”). Maya, in other words is the Theotokos and mother of all living. As Maia was the mother of Hermes (Hesiod, Theog.938). Of whom else could the Buddha have been born? That the mothers of Bodhisattvas die young is really because as Heracleitus says (Fr.X), “Nature loves to hide”. My “vanishes” just as Urva, mother of Ayus (Agni) by Pururavas, vanished, and as Saranyu vanished from Vivasvn; Maya’s svamrti Pajpati taking her place (BC.I.18, II.19,20) as Sarany’s savarn took hers. The eternal Avatra has, indeed, always “two mothers”, eternal and temporal, sacerdotal and royal. See also my “Nirmna-kya”, JRAS.1938. My, being the “art” by which all things or any thing is made (nirmita, “measured out”), and “art” having been originally a mysterious and magical knowledge, acquires its other and pejorative sense (e.g. MU.IV.2) in the same way that art, artifice, craft, cunning and sleight, are not only virtues essential to the maker by art (artifex), but can also imply artfulness, artificiality (falsity), craftiness, guile and trickery; it is the bad sense, for example that “Consciousness is a glamour” (my viya viññnam, Vis.479, S.III.142). while on the other hand Wycliffe could still render our “wise as serpents” (Matth.X.16, cf. RV.VI.52.15 abimyh) by “sly as serpents”.

258

Cf. JUB.III.28.4, yadi brhmaya-kule yadi rja-kule, like J.I.49, khattiya-luh v bshmana-kule.

259

RV.IV.18.2 (Indra) prvt nirgamni; BC.I.25 (Buddha) prvt sutah. So too both Agni (RV.VI.16.35 garbbe mätu ... vididyutna) and the Buddha (D.II.13 kucchi-gatam passati) are visible in the womb. Many other parallels could be drawn.

260

RV.X.8.4 (Agni) sapta dadhie padni, X.122.3 (Agni) sapta dhmni pariyan; J.I.53 (Bodhisattva) satta-pada-vtihrena agamsi.

261

TS.II.5.8.3. cf. I Kings 18.38.

262

RV.I.32.13.

263

RV.V.30.9, X.27.10.

264

RV.VIII.96.7; AB.III.20 etc.

265

Cf. RV.III.51.3 where Indra, elsewhere vtra-han, etc., is abhimti-han, similarly IX.65.15 and passim. Abhimti (=abhimna, MU.VI.28, i.e. asmi-mna), the Ego-notion, is already the Enemy, the Dragon to be overcome.

266

John X.9,14; Purgatorio XXVII.131. Cf. SA.VII.22; Taitt. Up. III.10.5.

267

I Cor.6.17.

268

S.II.212 f., V.254 f., A.I.170, I.254 f., etc.

Iddbi (Skr. ddhi, from ddb, to prosper, emporwachsen) is virtue, power (in the sense of Mark V.30, δναµις), art (e.g. skill of a hunter, M.I.152), talent or gift. The iddhis of the Iddhi-pda, “Footing of Power”, are supernormal rather than abnormal. We cannot take up here at any length the apparent difficulty presented by the fact that iddhis are also attributed to the Buddha’s Adversary (Mra, Namuci, Ahi-Nga), except to point out that “Death” is also (in the same sense that Satan remains an “angel”) a spiritual being and the “powers” are not in themselves moral, but much rather intellectual virtues. The Buddha’s powers are greater than the Adversary’s because his range is greater; he knows the Brahmaloka as well as the worlds up to the Brahmaloka (i.e., under the Sun), while “Death’s” power extends only up to the Brahmaloka and not beyond the Sun.

269

For the earlier history of this power see W. N. Brown, Walking on the Water, Chicago, 1928. This is primarily the power of the Spirit (Genesis, I.2). It is typically of the unseen Gale (Vayu) of the Spirit that motion at will is predicated (RV.X.168.4 tm devnm yath vaa carati ... na rpa tasmai). In AV.X.7.38 the primal Yaksa (Brahma) “strides” upon the ridge of the sea; and so, accordingly, the brahmacr, ib.XI.5.26, for “Even as Brahma can change his form and move at will, so amongst all beings can he change his form and move at will who is a Comprehensor thereof” (5A.VII.22); “The One God (Indra) stands upon the flowing streams at will” (AV.III.3.4, TS.V.6.1.3). “Self-motion (τ ατ ινoν) is the very word and essence of the Soul” (Phaedrus 245 C f.).

This is like all other forms of levi-tation, a matter of light-ness. Thus in S.I.1 the Buddha “crossed the flood only when I did not support myself or make any effort” (appatiiham anyham ogham atari); i.e. not bearing down upon the surface of the water, cf. St Augustine, Conf.XIII.4 superferebatur super aquas, non ferebatur ab eis, tamquam im eis requiesceret.

Mil.84,85 explains the power of travelling through the air, “even to the Brahma-world”, as like that of one who jumps (langhayati), resolving (cittam uppdeti) “There will I alight”, with which intention his “body grows light” (käyo me labuko hoti), and it is similarly “by the power of thought” (citta-vasena) that one moves through the air. Lightness (laghutva) is developed by contemplation (Svet.Up.II.13) ; all the powers (iddhi) are resultants of contemplations (jhna, cf. Note 270) and depend upon it, so that it can be asked “Who sinks not in the gulf without support or stay?” and answered “One who is prescient, fully synthesised (susamhito), he may cross the flood so hard to pass” (ogha tarati duttaram, S.I.53, where the application is ethical). The notion of “lightness” underlies the ubiquitous symbolism of “birds” and “wings” (RV.VI.9.5, PB.V.3.5, XIV.I.13, XXV.3.4 etc.). And conversely, to reach the world of the unembodied one must have cast away “the heavy weight of the body” (rpa-garu-bhram, Sdhp.494), cf. Phaedrus 246 B, 248 D where it is the “weight of forgetfulness and evil” that arrests “the soul’s flight”, and St. Augustine Conf.XIII.7 quomodo dicam de pondere cupiditatis in abruptam abyssum et de sub. levatione caritatis per spiritum tuum qui superferebatur super aquas.

Otherwise stated, the power of levitation is exercised “by an envelopment of the body in the (tarn-) cloak of contemplation” (jhna-vehanena sarra vehetv, J.V. 126), where the power is at the same time one of dis-appearance.

270

S.V.25- f., A.I.254, S.I.212, M.I.34 and passim: explanations, Vis.393 f.

271

Failure follows want of “faith”; or any distraction from contemplation, as in J.V.125-127.

272

RV.IX.86.44; JB.II.34; SB.IV.3.4.5; AB.II.39-41; VI.27-31; KU.VI.17 etc.

273

As akara explains in connection with Pra.Up.IV.5 it is the mano-maya tman that enjoys omniscience and can be where and as it will. This “intellectual self or body” (ñño att dibbo rp manomayo, D.I.34, cf. 1.77, M.II.17) the Buddha has taught his disciples how to extract from the physical body; and it is clearly in this “other, divine, intellectual body”, and not in his human capacity, not at all times or under all conditions “whether in motion or at rest, or sleeping or waking” (carato ca me tihato ca suttassa ca jgarassa ca) but “when he will” (yvade akakhmi, as in the iddhi contexts) that the Buddha himself can recall (anussarmi) his own former births, without limit, can survey “with the divine eye, transcending human vision” the births and deaths of other beings, here and in other worlds, over and beyond which he has verified here and now the double liberation (M.I.482). The expression “sleeping or waking” lends itself to a lengthy exegesis. Note that the order of words connects motion with sleep and immobility with waking. This means that as in so many Upaniad contexts, “sleep”, that sleep in which one “comes into one’s own” (svapiti =svam apta, CU.VI.8.1, SB.X.5.2.14) it is not the sleep of exhaustion, but the “sleep of contemplation” (dhyna) that is intended; it is precisely in this state of “sleep” in which the senses are withdrawn that there is motion-at-will (supto ... prn ghtv sve arre yath-kmam parivartate, BU.II.1.17), in this contemplative sleep that “striking down what is physical, the Sunbird, the Immortal, goes where he will” (dbyyatva ... svapno bhlv ... sarram abhiprahatya ... yate‘mto yatra kmam, BU.IV.3.7,11.12).

274

A.I.171,172 (of the three powers, of remembrance of births, reading the thoughts of others, and teaching (desa-pihriyam), the latter is the most considerable and most productive (abikkakataram ca paitatara ca).

275

AV.X.8.1,12; KU.IV.13; Pra.Up.IV.5, etc.

276

SA.VII.22.

277

BU.IV.3.12; Up. 4; MU.II.2.

278

St Ambrose, gloss on I Cor.12.3.

279

M.I.140, 141 The Buddha is ananuvejjo, “past finding out”, similarly other Arahats are traceless (vaa tesa n’atthi paññpanya). S.I.23; Vajracchedika Stra; cf. S.III.IIIf., and Hermes Lib. XIII.3.

280

Sn.455,456,648.

281

Dh.179 (tam buddham anantagocaram apadam, kena padena nessatha) ; like Brahma, BU.III.8.8, Mu.Up.I.2.6; Devas JUB.III.35.7 (na ... padam asti, padena ha vai punar mtyur anveti); Gyatr, BU.V.14.7 (apad asi, na bi padyase, Syaa netinety-tmalvat). All this has to do with the originally and ultimately footless (ophidian) nature of the Godhead, whose vestigia pedis mark the Way only so far as up to the Sundoor, Janua Coeli. Cf. Note 279.

282

S.III.118 tathgato anupalabbhiyamno.

283

S.III.120 yo kho dhammam passati mam passati.

284

BU.III.8.8; Mund Up.I.1.6; JUB.III.14.1; Rm, Mathnauwi I.3055-65

285

KU.II.18,25; cf. Mil.73, the Buddha “is”, but “neither here nor there”; in the Dhamma-body alone can he be designated.

286

BU.IV.4.23; KU.V.11; MU.III.2 etc.

287

Udna 80; CU.VIII.13.

288

Taitt. Up. II.7, cf. Note 197.

289

M.I.137-140, cf. D.II.68 and passim.

290

Mil.26-28; S.I.135; Vis 593,594.

291

E.g. Laws 898 D f., Phaedrus 246 E-256 D, cf. Note 293.

292

“As which” if we identify ourselves with the “personality”; “in which” if we recognize our Self as the Inner Person.

293

The charioteer is either Agni (RV.X.51.6), or the Breath (prna=Brahma, tman, Sun), the Breath to which “no name can be given” (AA.II.3.8), or the Spiritual Self (tman, KU.III.3; J.V.252) or Dhamma (S.I.33) The skilled charioteer (susrathi) guides his horses where he will (RV.VI.75.6),—just as we might now speak of the skilled driver of a motorcar or aeroplane as roaming where he likes.

So Boethius, De consol., IV.1:

Hic regum sceptrum dominus tenet
Orbisque habenas temperat
Et volucrem currum stabilis regit
Rerum coruscus arbiter.

The contrast of good and vicious horses (the senses) in KU.III.6, Dh.94 and vet. Up.II.9, cf. RV.X.44.7 parallels Phaedrus 248 E.

294

Mrs Rhys Davids, Milinda Questions, 1930, p.33. [It must be remembered that Mrs. Rhys Davids was a spiritualist. In answer to her words on the title page of Skya might be cited Vis.594 “There are Gods and men who delight in becoming. When they are taught the Law for the cessation of becoming, their mind does not respond”].

295

S.I.33 dhammha srathim brmi: cf. Jtaka No. 457. dhammo na jara upeti; Sn.1139 dhammam ... sandihikam aklikam.

296

D.II,120 katam me saraam attano.

297

298

S.III.120 Yo kho dhammam padsati so mam passati, yo mam passati so dhammam passati. Similarly D.III,84 Bhagavato‘mhi ... dhammajo ... Dhammakyo iti pi brahmakyo it pi, dhammabhto iti pi; S.II.221 Bhagavato’mhi putto . . . dhammajo; S.IV.94 dhammobbto brabmabhto ... dhammasmi tathgato: A.II.11 brahmabhtena attan; S.III.83 brahmabht . . . buddh. There can be no doubt whatever of the equations dhamma=brahma=buddha=att: as in BU.II.5.11 aya dharma . . . ayam tm idam amtam idam brahma ida sarvam. In Dh.169, 364, (II.25.2) dhamma is clearly the equivalent of brahma, tman. A Buddha is whatever all or any of these terms denote, and by the same token “not any what” (akicano, Dh.421, Sn.1063), and “without analogy” (yassa n‘atthi upam kvaci, Sn.1139).

“That which the Buddha preached, the Dhamma ατ’ ξoν, was the order of law of the universe, immanent, eternal, uncreated, not as interpreted by him only, much less invented or decreed by him” (PTS. Pali Dic., s.v. Dhamma).

299

Sn.83 buddha dhammasmina vtataha dipaduttama srathinam pavaram. Dhammasmi=RV.X.129.3 Satyadharmendra, RV.X.129.3,8,9 “the one King of the world, God of Gods, Satyadharm”, cf. 1.12.7, X.34.8; and the dhrmas-tejomayo’mta puruah ... tm . . . brahma of BU.II.5.11. The Buddhist Dhamma (νóµoς, λóγoς, ratio) is the eternal Dharma of BU.I.5.2; (“him, Vayu, Pra the Gods made their Law”) ; and BU.1.4.14 “There is nothing beyond this Law, this Truth”; Sn. 884 “The Truth is one, indeed, there is no other”.

300

Vin. I.35 etc.

301

J.VI.252 kyo te ratha . . . att v srathi, like KU.III.3 tmna rathina viddni, arra ratham. Cf. Plato, Laws 898 C.

302

Udna 67 Commentary.

303

Suzuki in JPTS. 1906/7, p.13.

304

Sn.1074-6 nmaky vimutto, attham paleti, na upeti sakham . . . attha gatassa na pamam atthi.

Mu.Up.III.2.8,9 nmarpd vimukta. . . abto bhavati; Bg.XV,5 dvandvair vimukta

305

John XIII.36; Mark VIII.34. Whoever would follow must be able to say with St. Paul, “I live, yet not I, but Christ in me” (Gal.II.20). There can be no return to God but as of like to like, and that likening, in the words of Cusa, demands an ablatio omni; alteritatis et diversitatis.

306

Meister Eckhart.

307

Enneads VI.9.11.

The foregoing notes and references are far from exhaustive. They are intended to assist the reader to build up a meaning content for several terms that could not be fully explained in the lectures as delivered, and to enable the scholar to follow up some of the sources. In the lectures, Pali words are given in their Sanskrit forms, but in the Notes the Pali is quoted as such. I have taken pains to collate the Buddhist and Brahmanical sources throughout: it might have been even better to treat the whole subject as one, making no distinction of Buddhism from Brahmanism. Indeed, the time is coming when a Summa of the Philosophia Perennis will have to be written, impartially based on all orthodox sources whatever.

Some notable Platonic and Christian parallels have been cited (1) in order to bring out more clearly, because in more familiar contexts, the meaning of certain Indian doctrines and (2) to emphasize that the Philosophia Perennis, Santana Dharma, Akaliko Dhammo, is always and everywhere consistent with itself. These citations are not made as a contribution to literary history; we do not suggest that borrowings of doctrines or symbols have been made in either direction, nor that there has been an independent origination of similar ideas, but that there is a common inheritance from a time long antedating our texts, of what St Augustine calls the “wisdom that was not made, but is at this present, as it hath ever been, and so shall ever be” (Conf.IX.10). As Lord Chalmers truly says of the parallels between Christianity and Buddhism, “there is here no question of one creed borrowing from the other; the relationship goes deeper than that” (Buddha’s Teachings, HOS.37, 1932, p.xx).

The following abbreviations are employed:

RV., Rg Veda Sahit; T.S., Taittirya Sahit (Black Yajur Veda); A.V., Atharva Veda Sahit; TB., PB., SB., AB., KB., JB., JUB., the Brhmaa, respectively the Taittirya, Pañcavia, alapatha, Aitareya, Kautaki, Jaiminya, Jaiminya Upanisad ; AA., TA., SA., the rayakas, respectively the Aitareya, Taittirya and khyana; BU., CU., TU., Ait., KU., MU., Pras., Mund., I., the Upaniads, respectively the Bhadirayaka, Chndogya, Taittirya, Aitareya, Kaha, Maitri, Prana, Muaka and Slvsya; BD., Bhad Devat; BG., Bhagavad Gt; Vin., Vinaya Piaka; A., M., S., the Nikyas, respectively the Anguttara, Majjhima and Sayutta; Sn., Sutta Nipta; DA., Sumagala Vilsini; Dh., Dhammapada; DhA., Dhammapada Atthakath; Itiv., Itivuttaka; Vis., Visuddhi Magga; Mil., Milinda Pañho; BC., Buddhacarita; HJAS., Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies; JAOS., Journal of the American Oriental Society; NIA., New Indian Antiquary; IHQ., Indian Historical Quarterly; SBB., Sacred Books of The Buddhists; HOS., Harward Oriental Series.

Uttihata jgrata prpya varin nibodhata (KU.III.l4)
Ye sutt te pabbujjatha (Itiv., p.41)