ignorance loses its clearness in some degree, and originates action intellect (karma-vijñāna), which evolves by thinking the bliss and enjoyment bodies. Further, by virtue of previous impressions (vāsanā), intellect develops into the state of discriminating particulars (vastuprativikalpa), in which it creates for itself the whole material world and the world of desire. Ordinary men, Çrāvakas, and solitary Buddhas thus generate inumerable magic bodies. The same power of creation is seen in the imagination which creates a real self, pleasant and unpleasant things, the great gods. Such people have no true idea of a Buddha; they have not mastered the truth of existence and non-existence; they believe in a human Buddha and his Nirvana, which they desire for themselves. The Bodhisattvas on the contrary appreciate reality; they are aware of their substantial identity with the body of the law, but they have not realized it as they are still conscious of their identity. Though they are undefiled by the world, owing to their equipment of knowledge, they practise an equipment of merit which results in an unreal but purifying activity.

CHAPTER XVII

THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION, BODHISATTVAS, AND BUDDHAS

1. The Problem of Salvation

THE metaphysics of the Mahayana in the incoherence of its systems shows clearly enough the secondary interest attaching to it in the eyes of the monks, whose main interest was concentrated on the attainment of release; the Mahāyāna no less than the Hinayana is concerned vitally with this practical end, and its philosophy is of value merely in so far as it helps men to attain their aim.

Now the knowledge of the ultimate truth, whatever the system, is not to be regarded as adequate to secure for man the release for which he hopes. It is true that both Vijñānavāda and Madhyamaka assert that release is possible, despite the formidable or insuperable difficulties which the metaphysics of either system presents to such an event. But both realize far too clearly the substantial existence of the world of phenomena to be under the impression that mere knowledge is always and in every case the mode of attaining enlightenment. There is a precise parallel between their view and that of the Vedanta; at a definite stage in the progress of the saint, there comes the period when the true knowledge is of decisive value in winning him release, but it is at the due stage only that such a result can be achieved. The Vedantin must not neglect the duties of the world in which he lives, or ignore the devotion due to Brahma; the Buddhist equally must not think that mere knowledge of the void dispenses him from the practice of the noblest of virtues, that of charity. Granted that

Or of the Brahman in the case of the Vedantin. Compare the Bhagavadgītā doctrine of action; Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 385 ft. See C., p 117, citing the Ratnacuda Sutra.

it is true that in ultimate truth there is no distinction between virtue and vice, between infection of thought and purification, the vicious man so taught will pursue the way to destruction, while the good man will realize that all action is unreal, and will continue to do good, but with absolute detachment and freedom from desire of any kind.

The end, it is true, is the destruction of the illusion which veils the absolute void, or the void intellect, but it is impossible to deal with the illusion by the simple process of denying its reality. If there is no reality in consciousness, as the Madhyamaka asserts, nonetheless we must face the necessity of removing the illusion of reality, and the problem therefore is not seriously altered or simplified. We must lay aside our knowledge that experience is false, because it is experience, and that all ideas on examination prove unreal because of the antinomies they contain, and pursue a knowledge (darçana), inferior indeed but indispensable, which will take account of the facts of experience, and find a path or vehicle or means to attain to the deliverance which is desired.

In a concrete form the problem may be posed as the method of reversing the chain of causation, and thus terminating the constant stream of lives. In the Hinayana the process, as we have seen, is simple enough in its operation. Each intellectual series or individual stands by himself as a causal sequence; there is no room in the conception for either the intervention of a deity, for freedom of will, or for human solidarity. It is the great achievement of the Mahayana that it has succeeded without too great violence to earlier ideas in finding a place both for human freedom and for solidarity among men and beings of higher order of merit. The method to attain such an end was presented by the floating character of the distinction between relative truth and imaginary knowledge; either was, from the point of view of absolute truth, without validity, and the boundary line between the two classes was difficult to draw, affording the Mahayana the opportunity to redefine the conception of truth and advance to the rank of relative reality matters once relegated to the position of mere imagination. In accord with the Hinayana, the Mahayana holds that the mode

1 BCA. ix. 4 ff.

of stopping the activity of the chain of causation demands essentially the co-operation of intuition (prajñā) and merit (punya). Intuition, viewed as the cause of release, involves study, reflection, meditation, and the diverse forms of applications of active attention (smṛty-upasthāna); merit includes the inferior perfections of morality, generosity, and patience, and with this are connected the taking of refuge in the jewels, the Buddha, the law, and the order. Strictly speaking, merit is a means, but intuition as cause and merit are reciprocally means to each other, and their common aim is the attainment of intuition as fruition-that is, illumination (bodhi), the definite cessation of the activity of thought, or release.'

2. The Equipment of Knowledge

The essential cause of transmigration and bondage is the act accomplished with belief in the self; this delusion is the source of false views, of passion; it leads men to believe in the eternity or the destruction of the self, to love it or hate it. It is, then, essential to extirpate the delusion, to clear the mind of all the desires in which the self finds pleasure, and to realize the nothing. ness of all phenomena. But the task is a difficult one, for to achieve it directly involves an antinomy. The Vedantin may desire release directly without injury, and may declare his identity with the absolute, because he is a believer in reality. But the Buddhist who seeks to be rid of the illusion of the self, or asserts boldly that he is void, is falling into the fatal error of holding as real, if not the self, at least the illusion of the self, and his action is in effect egoistic. The desire for non-existence (vibhava-tṛṣṇā) leads directly into the fatal heresy of belief in existence. The Jinas have declared the vacuity as the remedy for all false views, but those who falsely attach themselves to vacuity they have declared beyond redemption. What does not exist cannot be the subject of a negation; to deny unreal appearances is really to

1 See Mvy. 38; Dharmasamgraha, 44; Ç., ch. xiii, xiv for details.

2 BCAP. ix. 1. The possibility of a sterile act is recognized in KV. xii. 2. Udāna, iii. 10; Itivuttaka, 49; AN. i. 83, ii. 11; MKV., p. 531; xxv. 10; BCAP. ix. 33; Subhāṣitasamgraha, JA. 1903, ii, 398; VP. i. 10; SN. v. 421; MN. i. €5; DN. ii. 308, iii. 216; DS., § 1314; SBB. ii. 340, n. 1; Beckh, Buddhismus, ii. 123. The sense is really clear.

affirm them. Employed untimely, the idea of vacuity is no better than poison; it is to practise negation, which is in essence affirmation and involves the heresy of the doctrine of destruction, an idea utterly repugnant to the schools, which agree that, if the illusion of the self really existed, it would be eternal.

The destruction of the idea of the self is, therefore, hardly to be achieved by direct means; it must in some degree come about by itself, as the result of far back causes, and as the outcome of follow. ing the methods laid down by ancient teachers. Meditation on the void is necessary, despite the danger of the method, for mere insistence on the void is even more evil than insistence on reality. Properly managed, like a magic rite duly accomplished, it attains its end, for, after causing the idea of existence to disappear, it ends with producing the disappearance of the idea of non-existence also. Just so a man who suffers from ophthalmia, if he learns that there are no real hairs floating before his eyes, first conceives the idea of the non-existence of the hairs, but, acting as if he saw none, finally comes to ignore even the illusion. Similarly, meditation on non-existence leads on to further advance culminating in the realization of the voidness of the void (çünyatāçūnyatā), and the mind freed from the ideas of existence and nonexistence will rest for ever in the absence of any content or categories. The essential aim is to repudiate either affirmation or negation, or the combination of both or the denial of both; this is as ever the true middle way of the Buddhist.1

Nonetheless, it must be recognized that even the attainment of this way is not the absolute truth, for that is silence, unconsciousness, neither to be described in words nor to be comprehended by thought, which is burned in seeking to penetrate it.2 The absolute is beyond speech, beyond knowledge, even that of the completely equipped Buddha, but it reveals itself to the Arya, a conception closely parallel to the doctrine of the revelation of the absolute in the Vedanta."

It is, however, fully realized in the Mahāyāna that, despite all

BCA. ix. 32, 35; BCAP. ix. 2; Mvy. 37; Dharmasamgraha, 41; MKV., p. 1; cf. BCA. ix 78.

MKV., p. 57; BCA. ix. 2.

BCAP. ix. 2; MKV., p. 373 (with n. 2).