In the earliest period of Buddhism more attention was paid to the four noble truths than to systematic metaphysics. What was sorrow, what was the cause of sorrow, what was the cessation of sorrow and what could lead to it? The doctrine of _pa@ticcasamuppâda_ was offered only to explain how sorrow came in and not with a view to the solving of a metaphysical problem. The discussion of ultimate metaphysical problems, such as whether the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a Tathâgata existed after death or not, were considered as heresies in early Buddhism. Great emphasis was laid on sîla, samâdhi and paññâ and the doctrine that there was no soul. The Abhidhammas hardly give us any new philosophy which was not contained in the Suttas. They only elaborated the materials of the suttas with enumerations and definitions. With the evolution of Mahâyâna scriptures from some time about 200 B.C. the doctrine of the non-essentialness and voidness of all _dhammas_ began to be preached. This doctrine, which was taken up and elaborated by Nagârjuna, Âryyadeva, Kumârajîva and Candrakîrtti, is more or less a corollary from the older doctrine of Buddhism. If one could not say whether the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a Tathâgata existed or did not exist after death, and if there was no permanent soul and all the dhammas were changing, the only legitimate way of thinking about all things appeared to be to think of them as mere void and non-essential appearances. These appearances appear as being mutually related but apart from their appearance they have no other essence, no being or reality. The Tathatâ doctrine which was preached by As'vagho@sa oscillated between the position of this absolute non-essentialness of all dhammas and the Brahminic idea that something existed as the background of all these non-essential dhammas. This he called tathatâ, but he could not consistently say that any such permanent entity could exist. The Vijñânavâda doctrine which also took its rise at this time appears to me to be a mixture of the S'ûnyavâda doctrine and the Tathatâ doctrine; but when carefully examined it seems to be nothing but S'ûnyavâda, with an attempt at explaining all the observed phenomena. If everything was 167