tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 151

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Buddhism
119
terms and ideas called Sammuti, or of conventional usage'. The Buddhist scholar used it as such. Philosophically speaking, it did not mean for him an ultimate unitary principle, continuous and self-identi. cal amid a stream of transient manifestations. Contrariwise it was merely a name-and-concept binding together and labelling a transient aggregate of factors. For him the ultimate principles, material and psychical, were not in the bond or lable, but among those factors. But even they were evanescent, ever-changing."1 Thus Self is merely a name, an arbitrary designation by means 'of which certain psychical uni. fied experiences are understood. The Self as such is an ever-flowing stream or process renewing itself every moment, because it is constituted of momentary existences which are ever-changing. Therefore, there is nothing permanent in the Self, but the name 'Self'. The names alone have a permanent and abiding existence. Mrs. Rhys Davids points out in the further passage the nominalist view of Reality of the Buddhists --"These are merely names, expressions, terms of speech, designations in common use in the world. Of these he who has won truth makes use indeed, but is not led astray by them."2
Mrs. Rhys Davids says the that Buddhists seem to admit a higher self that is not momentary, that is a conscient and moral self. This self has a dura
1 Davids Rhys : Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XI, p. 351. Article on Buddhistic Self.
2 Digha Nik ya, i. 202.
3 Davids Rhys : Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XI, p. 351.
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