Person Properties and Candrakīrti’s Concept of Selflessness
James Duerlinger2015
During the lifetime of the Buddha and in subsequent centuries, the philosophical traditions of India commonly accepted the existence of an eternal, substantive self (ātman). Among Buddhism’s most novel and noteworthy tenets was the rejection of this view and the acceptance of the doctrine of selflessness or the non-existence of the self (anātman). The non-existence of the self was, however, controversial even among Buddhists, due in part to the Buddha’s conflicting comments on the question and to the Buddha’s use of personal pronouns. This led some to believe that he endorsed the existence of the self. As a consequence, various schools interpreted the doctrine in various ways. Several schools, particularly the Vātsīputrīyas and the Saṃmmitīyas, maintained that some sort of ›inexpressible person‹ (pudgala) must exist in order to make sense of personal continuity and rebirth and that this inexpressible person did not contradict the nonexistence of the self. These schools became collec...
