Proceedings and papers of National Seminar on Jainology

Author(s): Yugalkishor Mishra
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 189

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Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin No. 8
thought, perfect speech, perfect action, perfect way of living, perfect endeavour and perfect mindfulness perfect concentration.
In the above explanation of the Sakkāya, the word kāya' has been
ined as khandha (group). The mention of material shape (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), etc., which are reals according to the Therevāda Buddhism, indicates that the word Sakkaya stood for “reals etymologically and ontologically, stood for reals that were separate factors, and not parts of a single independent eternal entity.
In the same place of the Majhimanikāya, the word sakkāyaditthi is explained as the view of the unenlightened persons who ‘regard the material shape as self (rūpam attato samanupassati), or self as having material shape (rūpavantam vā attānam), or material shape in self (attani vā rūpam), or self in material shape (rūpasmim vā attānam); and so on, about vedanā, saññā, sarikhāra and viññāna.'
The above-mentioned explanations of the words Sakkāya and sakkāyaditthi clearly demonstrate that the Buddha did not reject the concept of Sakkāya, but refuted sakkāyaditthi as a wrong doctrine. The self or soul as an eternal substance was not endorsed by the Buddha.
Buddhaghosa in his Atthasālini (Bapat's Edition), V.13, explains the word sakkāyaditthi as the view referring to the five Khandhas that are real existents. Such view, however, is only an imaginary concept that is not based on anything real.
sakkāyaditthi ti vijjamānatthena satikhandhapañcakasarikhāte
kāye; sayam vā sati tasmiņ kāye ditthi ti sakkāyaditthi.
In the Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya, V7, of Vasubandhu, the satkāyadrsti is explained as the view about the self and what belongs to the self. The word sat means what is decaying (sidat di sat), the word kāya' means group, assemblage (caya), mass (sa mghāta), conglomarate (skandha). The word satkāya stands for the five groups that are objects of clinging. The word sat and kāya are used for refuting the ideas of 'eternity' and 'extended whole respectively. The wrong notion of eternal self or soul is produced by the concept of eternity and the concept of an extended whole. The view attached to what is sat (eternal) and kāya (extended whole) is satkāyadrsti. All views attached to the polluted objects are grounded on the Satkāya. The satkāyadrsti has been propounded as the wrong view about the soul and what belongs to the soul, in order to show that the satkāyadrsti is in fact not in respect of the soul or what belongs to the soul. It has been said by the Lord that the mendicants, the śramaņas and brāhmaṇas who imagine that they perceive the soul do in fact perceive the five grasping groups: