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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Apart from its importance as an illustration of the earlier intellectual life of humanity, the Buddhist Ontology, the most wonderful, perhaps, the world has seen, possesses a paramount interest for all who would arrive at a right understanding of the religion and ethics with which, it is associated.
page 367 note 1 Vinaya Texts, vol. i. pp. 74–84.
page 367 note 2 “Of all objects which proceed from a Cause
The Tathāgatha has explained the cause,
And he has explained their cessation also;
This is the doctrine of the great Samana.”— Vinaya Texts, i. 146.
page 368 note 1 This famous stanza, says ProfessorDavids, Rhys (Vinaya Texts, i. 146)Google Scholar, doubtless alludes to the formula of the twelve Nidanas. “The Chain of Causation, or the doctrine of the twelve nidānas (causes of existence), contains, as has often been observed in a more developed form, an answer to the same problem to which the second and third of the four Noble Truths (Ariya Sacca) also try to give a solution, viz. the problem of the origin and destruction of suffering. The Noble Truths simply reduce the origin of Suffering to Thirst or Desire (Tanhā) in its three-fold form, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity (see i. 6, 20). In the system of the twelve nidānas Thirst also has found its place among the causes of suffering, but it is not considered as the immediate cause. A concatenation of other categories is inserted between tanhā and its ultimate effect; and, on the other hand, the īnvestige of causes is carried on further bey. tanhā. The question is here asked, what does tanhā come from? and thus the series of causes and effects is led back to Aviggā (Ignorance) as its deepest root. We may add that the redactors of the Pitakas who, of course, could not but observe this parallelity between the second and third Ariya Saccas and the system of the twelve nidānas go so far in one instance (Anguttara Nikāya, Tika Nipāta, fol. Ke of the Phayre MS.) as to directly replace in giving the text of the four Ariya Saccas the second and third of these by the twelve nidānas in direct and reverse order respectively.”—Vinaya Texts, i. 75.
page 368 note 2 Colebrooke's, Mis. Essays, 2nd ed. ii. 453seq.Google Scholar
page 368 note 3 Buddha, etc., Eng. trans, by Dr. W. Hoey, p. 226. Recently Mr. Warren, H. C., of Cambridge, Mass. (Proc. American Oriental Society, Ap. 6–8, 1893, p. xxvii.)Google Scholar, has advocated a looser meaning for the word paccaya, usually translated ‘cause’, without, however, getting rid of the more serious difficulties which beset the interpretation of the chain.
page 369 note 1 Pāli Dict. p. 453.
page 369 note 2 p. 503.
page 369 note 3 These last four authors are quoted through Köppen, i. 604.
page 369 note 4 Buddhism, p. 91, where the fifty-two divisions are enumerated.
page 370 note 1 As current in mediæval Indian Buddhism.
page 370 note 2 Buddha seems to have propounded the same truth which Plato and latterly Kant were never tired of repeating, that “this world which appears to the senses has no true Being, but only ceaseless Becoming; it is and it is not, and its comprehension is not so much knowledge as illusion.”
page 371 note 1 Burgess, , in Rock Temples, 309Google Scholar.
page 371 note 2 And now at Sam-yas Monastery. For a technical description of it by me see J.A.S.B. lxi. p. 133 seq. A confused copy of the picture was figured by Georgi (Alphab. Tibet), and partly reproduced by Foucaux (Annales du Musée Guimet), but in neither case with any description of its details.
page 372 note 1 Pāli, Aniccaṃ Dnkhaṃ Anattaṃ; in Tibetan mi-rtag-pa sdug bsngal-ba, bdag-med-ba.
page 373 note 1 But see hereafter.
page 374 note 1 See Journal, 1892, p. 1 seq. for a tabular abstract by Prof. Rhys Davids on the authorities for such conflicting views.
page 374 note 2 Ekotíbhava is another crux of Buddhism. Childers, in quoting Thero Subhuti's etymology from eko udeti, writes, “Ekodibhāvo, the second Jhāna, is said to be cetaso ekodibhavo, which Burnouf renders ‘Unity of the mind’; but that this is its true meaning is very doubtful, as will he seen from the full extract sent me. … In accordance with this gloss I would be inclined to render ekodibhāvo by ‘predominance ’ rather than by unity, but I do not feel competent to give a decided opinion as to its meaning.”— Dict, p. 134. DrMorris, (in the Academy, 27th 03, 1886, p. 222Google Scholar ) has a note on the subject, followed by ProfMüller, Max (Academy, 3rd 04, 1886, p. 241)Google Scholar, who would derive it from eko+kodi; and Prof. Eggeling has a supplementary note in the Pali Text Soc. Jour. (p. 32, 1885), in which it is considered a mental state, and rendered by Prof. Rhys Davids as ‘exaltation.’ Prof. Kern (Introd. to his translation of the Saddharma Pundarīka, xvii.) in noting the occurrence of the word ekotibhāva in the Lalita Visitara (p. 147, 8, and 439, 6), rejects Subhuti's etymology of the word, without assigning any reasons. The Tibetan etymology, however, entirely supports Subhuti. It is translated rGyud-gchig-tu-gyur-pa, which means ‘to become or to be transformed+one+a thread, continuous, uninterrupted’; and my Manuscript Tibeto-Sanskrit Dictionary restores the word to Eka+urthānan+bhāva.
page 377 note 1 Buddhism, p. 90.
page 378 note 1 In this particular Tibetan picture the sixth and seventh links have been transposed.
page 378 note 2 The Light of Asia, p. 165.
page 380 note 1 This same difference is observed by Tibetan authors. Pratitya is rendered by rkyen, denned by Jaeschke (Diet. p. 17) as ‘a Co-operating Cause’ of an event as distinguished from its proximate (or, rather, primary original) Cause rgyu (Skt. hetu).
page 380 note 2 Loc. cit. He writes: “Now a great deal of the difficulty experienced by scholars on this subject appears to me to arise from the too strict way in which they use the word ‘cause,’ and from the idea which they labour under that Time plays an important part here, whereas it would appear to have but a secondary rôle.
“The term ‘cause’ should be used in a very loose and flexible way, and in different senses, in discussing different members of this series. The native phrase of which Chain of Causation is supposed to be a translation is paticcasamuppāda. Paticca is a gerund, equivalent to the Sanskrit pratitya, from the verbal root i ‘go,’ with the prefix prafix ‘back’; and samuppāda stands for the Sanskrit samutpāda, meaning ‘a springing up.’ Therefore the whole phrase means ‘a springing up’ [into existence] with reference to something else, or, as I would render it, ‘origination by dependence.’ The word ‘chain’ is a gratuitous addition, the Buddhist calling it a wheel, and making Ignorance depend on Old Age, etc. Now it is to be noted that, if a thing springs up—that is to say, comes into being—with reference to something else, or in dependence on something else, that dependence by no means needs to be a causal one. In the Pāli, each of these members of the so-called Chain of Causation is said to be the puccaya of the one next following, and paccaya is rendered ‘cause.’ But Buddhaghosa, in the Visuddhi-Magga, enumerates twenty-four different kinds of paccaya, and in discussing each member of the paticca-samuppāda, states in which of these senses it is a paccaya of the succeeding one.
“The Pāli texts very well express the general relation meant to be conveyed by the word paccaya when they say ‘If this one [member of the series] is not, then this [next following] one is not.’”
page 382 note 1 Buddhism, p. 14; also O. Frankfurter, Ph.D., in Jour. 1893, p. 549.
page 382 note 2 Although it is a common belief amongst the Burmese that Upagupta still survives in this way, and, in consequence, is an object with them almost of worship, the monks cannot point to any ancient scripture in support of this popular belief.
page 382 note 3 The World as Will and Idea, by Schopenhauer, A., Eng. trans, by Haldane, and Kemp, , 1883, ii. p. 371Google Scholar. Schopenhauer indeed claims to have arrived at such agreement independently of Buddha's teaching. He writes: “This agreement, however, must be the more satisfactory to me because in my philosophising I have certainly not been under its influence. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there were very few exceedingly incomplete and scanty accounts of Buddhism to he found in Europe, which were almost entirely limited to a few essays in the earlier volumes of ‘Asiatic Researches,’ and were principally concerned with the Buddhism of the Burmese” (loc. cit. 371). It is, however, probable that Schopenhauer, such an omnivorous reader and withal so egotistic, minimizes his indebtedness to Buddha. For the Vedanta philosophy with which Schopenhauer admits familiarity is very deeply tinged by Buddhist beliefs. Even the Yoga of Patanjali is traced to a Buddhist origin (Banerji, , Hindu Philosophy, pp. 313–391)Google Scholar, and the fact remains that Schopenhauer's system generally follows the lines of Buddhism; and in his later writings he frequently uses Buddhist works to illustrate his speculations. Thus “We find the doctrine of metempsychosis …in its most subtle form, however, and coming nearest to the truth. … in Buddhism” (loc. cit. iii. 302). And illustrating his theme of ‘Denial of the Will to Live,’ he refers (loc. cit. iii. 445) to Fausböll's Dhammapadam, and Burnouf'S Introduction; and (p. 303) Spence Hardy's Manual, Obry's Du Nirvana Indien; (p. 308) Colebrooke, Sangermano, St. Petersburg Academy Transactions; and frequently to the Asiatic Researches.
page 383 note 1 Schopenhauer's, Will and Idea, Eng. trans, iii. 300Google Scholar.
page 384 note 1 “All Sentient beings exist in the essence (garbha) of the Tathāstaga.” — Auguli naliya Sutra (Kah-gyar; Dô, xvi. f. 208, transl. by Rockhill, W. in Life of the Buddha, etc., p. 196Google Scholar.