Volume 1

Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars.

Date:
1908-1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    discontinuance of things, that things do really undergo the states of origination and cessation, and that things are really capable of being counted as one or many ; but they are wholly unconscious of the fact tliat all those ideas are limited, relative, conditional, and therefore not the truth, but merely the production of our imperfect subjective state. There nestles in those ideas the principle of misery, and as the people cling to them, their life is a perpetual prey to the changing feelings of exulta- tion and mortification. The world is nothing but an aggregate of con- ditions.* Now, the conditions themselves are not self-existent, but are dependent upon one another. Those which do not possess self-existence are not real, but merely illusory. Therefore the whole world, as an aggregate of conditions, is a mere illusion. To look upon the world as real is mere folly on our part. Where conditionality is, there is no truth; truth and conditionality are incompatible. Therefore, to attain to truth, conditionality must be com- pletely cast aside. The eight conditional notions mentioned before must be thoroughly removed, and we should try to see the world as freed from all conditions. When our subjective mind is purified from the taint of conditionality, our ignorance will vanish away and the serene moonlight of ‘ Such-ness ’ or ‘ Transcendental Reality,’ otherwise known as the ‘Absolute,’ will illumine us. Here questions may be raised as to whether there is actually anything called ‘Such-ness,’ ‘Transcendental Reality,’ or the ‘Absolute.’ In answer to these questions, the Buddhists have said t that ‘ is ’ and ‘ is not ’—that is, ‘ Being ’ and ‘Non-being’ or existence and non-existence—are conditional terms. Tlie Transcendental Reality or the Absolute, which lies beyond all conditions, cannot be expressed in terms of ‘is’ and ‘is not.’ The Absolute lies beyond both ‘ Being ’ and ‘ Non- being.’ It is, in fact, the unification or har- monization of the two. As the Absolute cannot be cognized in terms of our notions of the sense, understanding, or reason, we must be satisfied with describing it in our imperfect language as ‘Unnameable’ and ‘Unknowable’ (avdchya and avijnaptika). The Nihilists, we have found, sayj that there is no permanent reality underlying the world. The Realists, on the other hand, affirm that there is at least one eternal Reality from which the world has emanated. The Buddhists, who abhor all sophisms, say that the Nihilists and Realists are holders of extreme views. The philosophy of ‘ is ’ or Being and the philosophy of ‘is not’ or Non- being are equally false. As the Buddhists avoid the philosophy of ‘Being’ as well as ‘Non-being,’ and choose a middle path, their ethical doctrine is often called the Middle Path Doctrine. The Middle Path is to be understood from four standpoints : (1) the Middle Path in contradistinc- tion to one-sidedness, (2) the Middle Path as the abnegation of one-sidedness, (3) the Middle Path in the sense of the absolute truth, and (4) the Middle Path as unity in plurality.! The philosophy of Being held by the Realists and the philosophy of Non-being held by the Nihilists are both of them one-sided and therefore imperfect, because neither the Being nor the Non- being is possible, independently of the other. The doctrine of the Middle Path stands free from one- sidedness, as it repudiates and avoids the two extremes of Being and Non-being. This is the first aspect of the doctrine. * Mddkyamikd-nritti, ch. i. t Lalitavistara (Rajendralal’s ed., Calcutta, p. 510; Samad- hirdja-sutra (CBTS), p. 30. t Madhyamika-vntti {CBTS ed.), p. 41, etc. § J. Suzuki in JBTS, vol. vi. pt. 4. A Middle Path reveals itself when the two extremes are completely out of sight; in other words, the harmonization or unification of them leads to the perfect solution of existence. Neither the philosophy of Being nor the philosophy of Non-being should be adhered to. They condi- tion eacli other, and anything conditional means imperfection, so the transcending of one-sided- ness constitutes the second aspect of the Middle Path. But when we forget that the doctrine of the Middle Path is intended for the removal of the intellectual prejudices, and cling to or assert the view tliat there is something called Middle Path beyond or between the two extremes of Being and Non- being, we commit the fault of one-sidedness over again, by creating a third statement in opposition to the two. As long as the truth is absolute and discards all limitations, clinging even to the Middle Path is against it. Thus we must avoid not only the two extremes but also the middle, and it should not be forgotten that the phrase ‘Middle Path’ has, from the deficiency of our language, been pro- visionally adopted to express the human conception of the highest truth. The final aspect of the Middle Path is that it does not lie beyond the plurality of existence, but is in it underlying all. The antithesis of Being and Non-being is made jMssible only through the conception of the Middle Path, which is the unify- ing principle of the Avorld. Remove this principle and the world will fall to pieces, and the parti- culars will cease to be. The Middle Path doctrine does not deny the existence of the world as it appears to us; it condemns, on the contrary, the doctrine which clings to the conception of Absolute Nothing. What the doctrine most emphatically maintains is that the world must be conceived in its totality—in its oneness, that is, from the stand- point of the Middle Path. Nirvana, according to the Vedantists, is the absorption of the smf into the Absolute. The Absolute, we have found, is something which is free from all contradictions, and which cannot be expressed in terms of ‘ is ’ and ‘ is not.’ As soon as one reaches the Absolute, conditionality vanishes. This state is called Nirvana. It is the harmonization of all contradictions. In this state, unity is harmonized with plurality, origi- nation and cessation are accomplished in one and the same way, persistence is imified with dis- continuance, and one and the same law operates in the acts of coming and going. It is, in fact, an unconditional condition in which Being and Non- being are unified. All conditionality having dis- appeared, our veil of ignorance is withdrawn. The fabric of the world, including that of the self, breaks up, leaving us to be identified with the Infinite, the Eternal, the Uncreated, the Uncon- ditioned, the Formless, the Void. This is the state of Nirvana. The finite mind altogether fails to comprehend this state, and no language can give adequate expression to it. Literature.—The Pali works of the Sutta-pitaka and Ab- hidhamma-pitaha published by the London Pali Text Society ; Mddhyamika-sutra, Lankdvatara-sutra, and the Journal, etc., published by the Buddhist Text Society of Calcutta; Lalita- vistara (ed. by Rajendralal Mitra in Bibl. Indim, 1853-1S77 [French tr. by E. Foucaux, AMG xis. 1892]), Asta^sdhasrika ^ nd-pdramitd (ed. Max MhUer and B. Nanjio in Ante. ,., Aryan ser., i. 3, 0.xf. 1884 [and tr. in SBE xlix., Oxf. ), etc., published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal; Veddnta- translated by Dr. Thibaut in SBE; Max MfiUer, Six J of Indian Philosophy-, P. Deuss j-- F. Max Miilier, Upanishads, t.. , - n; Sarva-dar^ana-saiigraha, tr. Cowell and Gough, 2nd London, 1894, p. 12ff., Bauddha System-, T. W. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, London, 1899, pp. 39 f., 44 ff., 187 ff. Satis Chandra Vidyabhgsana.