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Art. VIII.—On the Will in Buddhism1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Rhys Davids
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Extract

It is only to be expected, while the ancient literature of Buddhist philosophy is inaccessible to the general critic, and still to some extent also to the Indianist, that many hasty generalizations and one-sided conclusions concerning the nature of Buddhist ideals and discipline should continue to prevail. Enough, however, has already been accomplished in the editing of texts to render some revision of what may be called common errors not altogether premature. There is, for instance, much that is misleading, or downright false, in labelling Gotama's doctrine as Pessimism, Pantheism, Atheism, Nihilism, Quietism, or Apatheia. Nor is that recent criticism altogether discriminating which finds in it the closest coincidences with that of Schopenhauer, or characterizes it bluntly as an ethic rooted in egoism, or as “the crassest eudaemonism,” and aspiring to moral stultification.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 1898 , pp. 47 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1898

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References

page 47 note 2 e.g. Drs. Hecker (“Schopenhauer u. die indische Philosophie”) and Neumann.

page 47 note 3 Hecker, , op. cit., p. 221Google Scholar. Cf. Oldenberg, Buddha, Abschn. ii, Kap. iii; and Nietzsche, Der Antichrist.

page 47 note 4 Hecker, , op. cit., p. 221Google Scholar, “Stumpfheit is das buddhistische Ideal.”

page 48 note 1 J.R.A.S., April, 1897.

page 49 note 1 pp. 11, 77.

page 49 note 2 The only quasi-exception known to me is the case of the so-called Four Agatis, where Chando, standing in company with three bad qualities, has a negative moral value, signifying partiality in a judge. This technical meaning, borrowed from jurisprudence, occurs in one or two passages in the Pitakas (see Cullaragga, iv, 9; Ang., ii, p. 18).

page 50 note 1 Cf. the statement by one of the most recent of these, Crozier, J. B., in his “History of Intellectual Development,” p. 118Google Scholar —“The object of Buddhism is the suppression of all desire”—and his distorted view of Buddhism resulting (partly) therefrom.

page 50 note 2 Majihima Nikāya, No. 70, p. 480.

page 50 note 3 Majjh., i, 480.

page 50 note 4 Ang., i, 50; S., ii, 276.

page 50 note 5 Jāt., i, 71.

page 51 note 1 Majjh., 32nd Sutta.

page 51 note 2 Majjhima, No. 65, now in the press, of which, by the courtesy of the editor, Mr. Robert Chalmers, I have seen the proofs.

page 51 note 3 Cf. Ang., ii, 194–5: “Desire, effort, exertion, endeavour, persistence.”

page 51 note 4 Ang., iii, 108.

page 51 note 5 i.e. in the Powers, the Principles, and the Eight-fold Path; omitting only the Meditations.

page 51 note 6 Iddhipādā.

page 51 note 7 Even in the list of the ten Highest States (Pāramiyo) insisted on in the later Buddhism as the condition requisite for a Bodhisatva's attaining Buddhahood, we find resolution (adhiṭṭhāna) included. Cf. also the term abhinīhāro.

page 52 note 1 See the whole passage, “Milinda,” 325–7.

page 52 note 2 Sully, , “Pessimism,” p. 212Google Scholar. See also p. 290, where the author sketches a plan of will-culture by which, “in the economic management of all the existing material of pleasure,” etc., all evitable suffering maybe eliminated from life. The learned author of this interesting work declares at its outset that Buddhism is pure pessimism. Yet the meliorative discipline he describes is very like pure Buddhism.

page 53 note 1 Cf. Höffding, , “Psychology,” p. 338Google Scholar.

page 54 note 1 W. K. Clifford.

page 55 note 1 German writers have much to say on this connection between tropics and torpor. English writers, more intimate, directly or indirectly, with the valley of the Ganges, and the amount of strenuous work and play got through by their countrymen, as well as by Indians, say less.

page 56 note 1 Majjh., 21st Sutta.

page 57 note 1 The madness of the diṭṭhummattako, mohummattako.

page 58 note 1 At other times better rendered by him as Begierden. So in places rāgo is better rendered by Gier.

page 59 note 1 Cf. §§ 33, 34; pp. 160, 370–2, etc., etc.

page 59 note 2 S. iii, p. 26.

page 59 note 3 Mr. Warren twice renders adhiṭṭhānaṃ (insistence, persistent resolve) by ‘affirmation’ (pp. 163, 165), but whether with implicit Schopenhauerism or not I cannot say.