The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
The questions in regard to Buddha's view of soul, immortality, and
religion are answered to our mind as clearly in the following passages
as Buddha desired they should be. 'Unwisely does one consider: "Have I
existed in ages past ... shall I exist in ages yet to be, do I exist
at all, am I, how am I? This is a being, whence is it come, whither
will it go?" Consideration such as this is walking in the jungle of
delusion. These are the things one should consider: "This is
suffering, this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of
suffering, this is the way that leads to the cessation of suffering."
From him that considers thus his fetters fall away' (_Sabb[=a]sava_).
In the _Vang[=i]sa-sutta_ Buddha is asked directly: "Has this good
man's life been vain to him, has he been extinguished, or is he still
left with some elements of existence; and how was he liberated?" and
he replies: "He has cut off desire for name and form in this world. He
has crossed completely the stream of birth and death." In the
_Salla-sutta_ it is said: "Without cause and unknown is the life of
mortals in this world, troubled, brief, combined with pain.... As
earthen vessels made by the potter end in being broken, so is the life
of mortals." One should compare the still stronger image, which gives
the very name of _nir-v[=a]na_ ('blowing out') in the
_Upas[=i]vam[=a]navapucch[=a]_: "As a flame blown about by wind goes
out and cannot be reckoned as existing, so a sage delivered from name
and body disappears, and cannot be reckoned as existing." To this
Upas[=i]va replies: "But has he only disappeared, or does he not
exist, or is he only free from sickness?" To which Buddha: "For him
there is no form, and that by which they say he is exists for him no
longer." One would think that this were plain enough.
Yet must one always remember that this is the Arhat's death, the death
of him that has perfected himself.[49] Buddha, like the Brahmans,
taught hell for the bad, and re-birth for them that were not
perfected. So in the _Kok[=a]liya-sutta_ a list of hells is given, and
an estimate is made of the duration of the sinner's suffering in them.
Here, as if in a Brahman code, is it taught that 'he who lies goes to
hell,' etc. Even the names of the Brahmanic hells are taken over into
the Buddhist system, and several of those in Manu's list of hells are
found here.
On the other hand, Buddha teaches, if one may trust tradition, that a
good man may go to heaven. 'On the dissolution of the body after death
the well-doer is re-born in some happy state in heaven'
(_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na,_ i. 24).[50] This, like hell, is a temporary
state, of course, before re-birth begins again on earth. In fact,
Buddhist and Brahmanic pantheists agree in their attitude toward the
respective questions of hell, heaven, and _karma_. It is only the
emancipated Arhat that goes to Nirv[=a]na.[51]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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