Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T13:47:56.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Logical and Scientific Method in Early Buddhist Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

G. S. P. Misra
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

By rejecting animism and ritualism and emphasizing a rational outlook which treats reality as a causally and functionally determined system of plural synergies (saṁskāras), the emergence of Buddhism marks an important event in the history of Indian thought. The most distinctive feature of Buddhist ethics is its freedom from theism, which leaves room for rationalism and rules out submission to some superhuman power controlling the world-process. Prior to the advent of Buddhism even the Upaniṣads were not completely free from theistic influence in their speculations. It is proposed here to point to the Buddhist contribution to the growth of scientific outlook and methodology in India.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 100 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 54 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In the Cūḷahatthipadopamasutta of the Majjhima Nikāya Buddha compares the way-farer with a clever elephant-tracker who for himself treads the path and knows the truth: The middle length sayings (Tr. of the Majjhima Nikāya, P.T.S. Edition), I, 47: “Dhamma is well-taught by Lord…it is a come-and-see thing…to be understood individually by the wise”.

2 This attitude is well exemplified in regard to what have been termed “avyākata” questions.

3 Mahāvagga (Nālandā Edition, Nālandā-Devanāgarī-Pāli series, Pāli Publication Board, Bihar Government; henceforth abbreviated as Nāl. Ed.), 11.

4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, sixth impression, 1955, 189Google Scholar.

5 Vidyabhusana, S. C., History of the mediaeval school of Indian logic, Calcutta, 1909, 4Google Scholar.

6 Dīgha Nikāya (Nāl. Ed.), I, p. 16; also pp. 20, 22, 27. Prof. Rhys Davids translates takka as “logic”, see Dialogues of the Buddha (Tr. of the Dīgha Nikāya, S.B.B. Series), I, 28–29.

7 Aṅguttara Nikāya (Nāl. Ed.), I, 176.

8 Jayatilleke, K. N., Early Buddhist theory of knowledge, 1963, 206Google Scholar.

9 See e.g. Dīgha Nikāya (Nāl. Ed.), I, 16; Majjhima Nikāya (Nāl. Ed.), I, 96; ibid., II, 219.

10 See e.g. S. C. Vidyabhusana, op. cit., 59.

11 Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, ed. Hastings, VIII, 132.

12 Dialogues of the Buddha (Tr. of the Dīgha Nikāya by T. W. Rhys Davids, S.B.B. Series), I, 3.

13 See e.g. Pārājika (Nāl. Ed.), 220; Pācittiya (Nāl. Ed.), 380; Book of the Discipline (Tr. of the Vinaya Piṭaka by I. B. Horner), I, 254, III, 286.

14 Poussin, De la Vallée, Le Bouddhisme, 3rd ed., Paris, 1925, 129Google Scholar.

15 Majjhima (Nāl. Ed.), II, 469.

16 The book of the Discipline (Tr. of the Vinaya by I. B. Horner), IV, 20.

17 ibid.

18 Pācittiya (Nāl. Ed.), 463.

19 Pācittiya (Nāl. Ed.), 363.

20 Pārājika (Nāl. Ed.), 57.

21 cf. Pande, G. C., Studies in the origins of Buddhism, University of Allahabad, 1957, 25 ffGoogle Scholar.

22 The book of the kindred sayings (Tr. of Saṁyutta Nikāya, P.T.S. edition), IV, 173.

23 Mahāvagga (Nāl. Ed.), 13.

24 Majjhima Nikāya (Nāl. Ed.), II, 63 ; also Gradual sayings (Tr. of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, Pali Text Society), II, 238; Dialogues of the Buddha (Tr. of the Dīgha Nikāya, Sacred Books of the Buddhists), III, 221.

25 Majjhima (Nāl. Ed.), II, 375, III, 117, etc.

26 Pācittiya (Nāl. Ed.), 55. cf. Homer, I. B., The book of the Discipline, II, 227–229Google Scholar.

27 Pācittiya (Nāl. Ed.), 10–12; Book of the Discipline, II, 173–178.

28 Cullavagga (Nāl. Ed.), 408–410.

29 cf. Taylor, A. C. in JRAS, 1894, 560–566Google Scholar, and Davids, Rhys, Sacred books of the East, Vol. 36, 237Google Scholar; Winternitz, , History of Indian literature, Vol. II, Calcutta, 1933, 165, n. 1.Google Scholar

30 See Mrs.Davids, Rhys, The birth of Indian psychology and its development in Buddhism, 1936, 356–357Google Scholar.

31 ibid., 356.

32 Dhammasaṅgaṇi, ed. P. V. Bapat and R. D. Vadekar (Bhandarkar Oriental Series No. 2), Poona, 1940, xi.

33 e.g. 1050, 1084, 1087, 1421, 1437, 1440.

34 Vibhaṅga (Nāl. Ed.), 5–8.

35 Vibhaṅga, 6–7.

36 Puggalapaññatti (Nāl. Ed.), 21.

37 ibid., 42.

38 Mrs. Rhys Davids, The birth of Indian psychology and its development in Buddhism, 369.

39 Yamaka (P.T.S. Edition), xvi.

40 Keith, , Buddhist philosophy, 1923, 304Google Scholar.

41 op. cit, 306–310.

42 Yamaka (Nāl. Ed.), I, 3.

43 Yamaka (Nāl. Ed.), I, 30.

44 Bhikkhu J. Kashyap (ed.), Paṭṭhāna I (Nāl. Ed.), Intro., x.

45 The points of controversy (Tr. of the Kathāvatthu, P.T.S. edition), 8 ff.

46 See The points of controversy, Introduction, xlviii ff.

47 Questions of King Milinda (tr. of the Milindapañho, S.B.E., Vol. XXV), 155–162.

48 ibid., 169.

49 See e.g. Majjhima (Nāl. Ed.), I, 323, 325; Book of the kindred sayings (tr. of the Saṁyutta Nikāya, P.T.S. Ed.), II, 66.

50 Mahāvagga (Nāl. Ed.), 3. For the translation, see Book of the discipline (tr. of the Vinaya by I. B. Horner), IV, 1–2.

51 Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. and Horner, I. B. (comp. and tr.), The living thoughts of Gotama the Buddha, Bombay, repr. 1958, Intro., 29Google Scholar.

52 Mahāvagga (Nāl. Ed.), 16–17.

53 ibid.

54 Milindapañho (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXV), 43–44.

55 Hobhouse, L. T., Morals in evolution, 3rd ed., 1915, 504Google Scholar.

56 Questions of King Milinda (tr. of the Milindapañho, S.B.E., Vol. XXXV), 64–65, 74.