T H E RELATION BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND

T H E UPANISHADS

T H E greatest want under which Buddhism has been

suffering for a long time is perhaps the restoration of
its spiritual background. Much has been written about
the teaching of Buddha; an increasingly large amount of
work has been done by way of translating original texts;

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the career of Buddhism has been accurately traced in all
its vicissitudes; and even the conditions of life, economi-
cal, political, social and religious, which prevailed in
Buddha's days, have been more or less ascertained. But
the animating spirit, the fundamental principles, and the
guiding ideas, which made Buddha give a particular form
to his teaching, have yet to be precisely determined. Un-
less this is done it will not be possible to view Buddhism
in correct perspective, much less to appreciate it prop-
erly.
It is in the absence of such an inquiry—owing to a
deficiency in scholarship, if one may say so—that the
world has come to possess a false notion of Buddhism.
The illusion was created that Buddha's teaching was di-
rected not only against Brahmanism but against the Upa-
nishads also. One illusion begot many. That Buddha
was atheistic or at least agnostic, that he denied the real-
ity of soul, and that he characterised the supreme quest
444 THE MONIST

of life as a condition of utter annihilation, are only prom-

inent examples of these. The result is that, at the pres-
ent day, Buddhism is understood to be an odd mixture of
high moral teachings and thorough-going denial of the
very basis of moral life. How these illusions arose is
not in question here. Unfortunately Buddhists them-
selves are blamable in large measure for this state of
affairs. And our gratitude to Dr. Rhys Davids for all
the good things that he has done in the cause of Budd-
hism, should not forbid us to point out, with regret, that

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he, more than any one else, is responsible for the spread
of these illusions in English-speaking lands. If Buddha
were to visit the earth today, and talk with his followers
on the various aspects of their beliefs or read the books
written by eminent orientalists, he would be shocked to
learn that views are attributed to him which he never
held, and consequently he would have no hesitation in dis-
owning and repudiating them altogether.
That Buddha was anti-Brahmanical in spirit admits
of no doubt. In no measured terms he condemned the sac-
rifices, the meaningless rites, the extravagant ceremon-
ials, the hocus pocus of magic, and the vulgar supersti-
tions associated with the religion of the vedas. But so
also did the Upanishads! As a matter of historical fact
Buddha fully entered into the spirit of the Upanishads
in his attitude towards the popular religion.1
Whether this sympathy between the two was confined
to the negative attitude of condemning a third, or
whether it was wider in scope, is a problem which does
not seem to have been raised seriously in the history of
Buddhistic thought. The doctors of earlier days, As-
vaghosha, Nagarjuna, and Asanga who were more in
touch with the sources than we can ever aspire to be,
1
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 3.5.1; 4.1; 2.6.2; and particularly 1.4.10; and
Chandogya: 1.12; 4.1.3; 5.3-10; 6.1; 6.1.
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 445

understood and interpreted Buddhism in terms of the

ideas developed in the Upanishads. But time and human
perversity did their worst. The old doctors were for-
gotten, and a false view of Buddhism was allowed to
creep in. In modern times it was only recently that at-
tention was called to this question. Mr. Edmund Holmes
pointed out, "that Buddhism had been deeply influenced
by the ideas of the ancient seers can scarcely be
doubted."2 More recently still, Prof. Radhakrishnan
adopted this view: "Buddha did not look upon himself as

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an innovator, but only as the restorer of the ancient way,
i. e., the way of the Upanishads."2 The Professor would
appear to hold that, "while the only metaphysics that can
justify Buddha's ethical discipline is the metaphysics un-
derlying the Upanishads,"4. Buddha carried out the
teaching of the latter only partially; for "the central de-
fect of Buddha's teaching is that in his ethical earnest-
ness he took up and magnified one half of the truth and
made it look as if it were the whole."5 Mr. Holmes' view
is wider; to him Buddhism is as complete an expression
of the Upanishads as the limitations of practical life
would allow.6 Thus it is held that the relation between
Buddhism and the Upanishads is that of one-sided depen-
dence, viz., of the former on the latter.
But when all the facts are envisaged the relation
would seem to be one of mutual dependence. Chrono-
logically, the Upanishads were anterior to Buddhism.
This should not mean that the former in no wise depend
upon the latter. When considered from the point of view
of development, the two seem to be organically connected.
The theoretical basis of Buddha's scheme of life is the
2 3
The Creed of Buddha, p. viii. and 4 Indian Philosophy, p. 470.
^6 Ibid., p. 471.
The Creed of Buddha, Ch. V.
446 T H E MONIST

teaching contained in the Upanishads; and separated

from the latter the former would appear like a jack in
the box in the history of thought, in flagrant violation of
the law of continuity. Conversely, for the practical appli-
cation of the Upanishads we' have to turn to Buddha's
teaching. To add to this, Buddhism contains a reasoned
explanation of the negative value of empirical existence,
an explanation which is essential to complete the teach-
ing of the Upanishads themselves, but which, if at all
present in them, is present only in the form of scattered

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hints. If life is one, if its theoretical side, however dis-
tinguished, is not separate from the practical—if, that is
to say, the two are complementary to each other, then
the Upanishads and Buddhism are incomplete if taken
separately, but form one concrete whole if taken together.
This view is not as innocent as it might at first sight
appear. It has, serious implications, and it is well that
they should be brought out explicitly. Scholars are in
the habit of contrasting the metaphysics of the Upan-
ishads with the ethics of Buddhism. This is, to say the
least, an absurd convention. Certainly the Upanishads
contain a metaphysics; but as certainly they have also an
ethics. The disciplines which the older as well as the
later Upanishads advocate are, if anything, moral. The
supreme end of life in the view of the Upanishads is not
merely noetic in character; it is, to be sure, a spiritual
condition; and to attain it the will is also pressed and
transmuted into service. Now look at Buddhism. It is
admittedly ethical; but—pace scholars—it is also meta-
physical in that it has a definite and coherent view of real-
ity and of phenomenon. The morality which it teaches is
only a preparatory discipline in the sense in which it is
understood in the Upanishads. And the goal presented
by Buddha is not the realisation of the moral ideal in a
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 447

narrow sense, but the attainment of a perfect spiritual

state—the same as in the Upanishads—for which know-
ledge is also used, transcended, and sublimated. Thus
each is metaphysical and ethical at the same time; and,
as we shall show, they share the same presuppositions,
present the same goal, adopt the same methods, and use
the same ideas for scaffolding purposes.
How then shall we distinguish the one from the
other? The Upanishads have three distinct marks. First,
they move on the plane of theory, loftily indifferent to the

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facts of life; secondly, they contain profound thoughts
which are conveyed in highly technical and learned lan-
guage; thirdly, though in Buddha's days they were just re-
luctantly emerging from the seclusion of hermitages, they
still retained their original esoteric character, and were
still protected, as it were, from the vulgar gaze of com-
mon men. Buddha took hold of their teaching, gave it a
distinctly practical turn, brought it into touch with the
work-a-day world, translated it into the language of daily
life, and thus made it available even for the man in the
street. In this attempt it was necessary to make some
adjustments and even certain modifications—not, indeed,
in fundamental principles, but in matters of details. In
this way what was taught in the Upanishads as a theory
of life was converted by Buddha into a regular pro-
gramme.

II
One presupposition which is generally considered to
be common to both is the doctrine of transmigration.
Strictly speaking, this is not a presupposition at all, for
it is not organic to the teachings themselves. It was tak-
en as the starting-point merely because it served the pur-
448 T H E MONIST

pose of summing up the popular beliefs of the day and of

stating the problem in clear terms.
The doctrine as understood in the days of the Upan-
ishads was derived from two primary beliefs, viz.,
the reality of self and the theory of Karma. The aver-
age Hindu, like the average man anywhere, took it for
granted that, behind all the manifestations of individual
life, there is an entity, a mysterious being, called the self,
and that it is the substrate of all the qualities and the
source of all the deeds. Side by side with this, another

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interesting belief was developed. It is a matter of daily
experience that nothing happens without bringing about
something else, and that anything happens because of
something else which happened before. This rule, if it
be so, was applied to the moral life; and hence resulted the
theory of Karma, i. e., the law of causation in the moral
sphere. As you sow, so shall you reap; and what you
reap is what you sowed. This looks simple enough.
But there is a difficulty. There are facts which can-
not be easily fitted into the theory. Variations in con-
genital tendencies and abilities, inexplicable privations
like the one which puzzled Nicodemus, the undeserved
happiness of the vicious in contrast with the misery of
the virtuous: these are baffling mysteries of life. If any-
thing could account for them, it must lie somewhere be-
yond the realm of experience. In the manner of the
philosopher Kant, who posited immortality on grounds of
ethical necessity, the Hindu of ancient days deduced not
only future existence but also pre-existence on the same
grounds. The theory of Karma was elaborated in such
a manner as to include complicated processes of trans-
cendental psychology. The distinctions of birth and
death were swept aside at one bold stroke and reduced to
stages in one continuous process of the life of the soul.
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 449

It would appear that every deed leaves on the self a per-

manent effect which is bound to manifest itself in due
time, and that, at the expiration of visible life, the self
takes its accumulated burden with it, like a snail carrying
its house on its back, to be born again on the earth in
order to reap the fruits of its own deeds. Transmigra-
tion is a self-propelled circular activity: birth, deeds,
death; birth, deeds, death, and so on. The soul is caught
in it, and it gets nowhere.
This was the form in which the doctrine was held

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even in Buddha's days. But Buddha eliminated the idea
of self, and described transmigrations in terms of char-
acter: there are deeds and no doer. In this he made no
departure from the teaching of the Upanishads; for even
in the latter human individuality was condemned as an
illusion. In the statement of popular beliefs it was allowed
to stand where it was, only in the confidence that all em-
pirical forms, including self, could be transcended to-
gether in one act by the inculcation of correct knowledge.
Moreover, the circumstances under which the Upanishads
were taught permitted the teacher to explain, and the dis-
ciple to understand, the precise sense in which the term
soul was used in various contexts. Buddha had a diffi-
culty in this respect. He had to deal with the men of
the world; and they had no sort of philosophic discipline.
To introduce, in talking with them, a term of protean
meanings would be only adding to the confusion. He per-
ceived also that there was an advantage in his way of
presenting the matter. The average man would under-
stand much more clearly what it is to reform his char-
acter than what it is to transcend empirical individual-
ity. The problem was thus made simpler and reduced to
manageable dimensions.
450 T H E MONIST

III
The second presupposition is the belief in the expul-
sive power of knowledge. The ancient sages as well as
Buddha took for granted that wordly life, with its im-
plied egoism, selfishness and misery, is rooted in Avidya,
and that Vidjya is capable of bringing about a spiritual
transformation. By Avidya the Upanishads meant, not
indeed intellectual privation, but positive knowledge of
empirical forms. Correspondingly Vidya was defined as

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intellectual intuition, as direct perception of reality. The
intellectual gives a twisted view of things so that the
more intellectual we become the farther away we are
from reality. Hence scientific knowledge is worse than
even ignorance.7 Real knowledge is acquired neither
through instruction, nor through erudition,8 but only
through an act of sympathetic insight.
Buddha did not think it necessary to give a systematic
exposition of the nature of knowledge. He did not look
upon himself as a philosopher who should propound doc-
trines, educe conclusions, and offer proofs, but as a re-
former whose mission lay in the application of the old
teaching to the facts of daily life. Nevertheless, he ex-
horted his disciples to free themselves from ignorance and
to cultivate knowledge. "Buddhists are introduced into the
realm of truth by faith, they possess truth only by sight.
They walk by sight and not by faith."9 On occasions
when he lapsed, into philosophical mood, Buddha made
himself very explicit. It was in such a mood that he
once told the Bikkus that, while ignorance of the four
noble truths and of the three characteristics of the Un-
7
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 4.4.11.
8(7/. Katha: 2.3.3.
9
Poussin, The Way of Nirvana, p. 156.
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 451

manifest would confine them to the path of transmigra-

tion, knowledge of these would effect a sure release.10
It was not rational knowledge. "In mere rationality
there is no room for truth, though it be the instrument that
masters the things of the world." Thus Paul Carus11
summed up the negative aspect of Buddhist knowledge.
All notions are illusions; for they are intellectual pro-
ducts; and in accordance with the derivation of forms,
taught by Buddha, intellect is ultimately rooted in Avidya.
Buddha himself did not use the word intuition, but as-

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sumed it whenever he asked men to seek knowledge. He
was very fond of saying that mind enthroned in right-
eousness gives truth. It would seem then that the kind
of knowledge which he had in mind is the cognitive fac-
tor in righteousness; and it is intuition, direct insight
into reality.
In the Upanishads the actual imparting of the higher
knowledge was deferred to the very end of a long period
of discipleship; while in the case of Buddha's teaching it
was not so. The ancient sages were in a privileged posi-
tion. Pupils sought them, resided with them, and it was
only after being gradually prepared that they were taught
the secret lore. Buddha had neither a hermitage nor a
school. None sought him at first; instead, he went out,
like Jesus, in search of lost sheep. It was not possible
for him to put men through a course of discipline before
imparting knowledge. Even if it were possible, laymen
could not have patience enough to undergo a preliminary
training in order to gain something of which they could
have no idea. Naturally they would ask what it was all
about. So Buddha told them what is was about, and then
suggested how they should cultivate it, establish them-
10 Cf. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 148.
» The Gospel of Buddha, p. 230.
452 T H E MONIST

selves in it, and make it their own. This explains the

fact that in the Upanishads knowledge is the ruling
theme, while in Buddhism it looks like a means.
In this context we have to raise a very interesting
problem. The Upanishads taught that all notions are
illusions, and that knowledge is concerned with reality as
such. Buddha accepted these propositions, but instead of
adopting them as they were, he gave them a particular
character. Throughout his teaching egoism is described
as illusion, and it is insistently contrasted with reality.

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We may be allowed to remark parenthetically that the
original word for reality has been mistranslated by many
as truth. The opposite of illusion is not that but reality.
Be it as it may. Why did Buddha mark out the self for
special treatment as if it were the only illusion? In ask-
ing this question we are perhaps asking for the very se-
cret of Buddha's teaching. General propositions were
propounded in the Upanishads in an admirable way. But
Buddha wanted to work them out in life. The only way
in which he could go about this was to concentrate atten-
tion on the self. Among illusions, egoism occupies a pe-
culiar position. In the first place, it is a term in every
illusion, the subject, as it were, of all of them. Destroy
it, and they lose all significance. In the second place, the
self is the breeding place of every kind of illusion, and
there is a great advantage in applying a caustic remedy to
the very source of infection. In this manner Buddha ad-
justed the knowledge which he learnt from the Upani-
shads to the needs of a programme of life.

IV
It was in the presentation of the supreme end of life
as Nirvana that Buddha was most conscious of his heri-
tage. Nirvana is a spiritual entrance into Reality which
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 453

comprehends all and which is comprehended by none. The

difficulty in grasping its import was foreseen by Buddha
himself. While he was resting under the Shepherd's
Nyagrodha tree on the bank of the Nairanjana, as de-
picted in the Arcadian scene in the story of the third
temptation, he was taking stock of the situation and
working out his plans for the future. Then the fear
crept into him that his mission might end in failure; for
the worldling might not grasp the meaning of Nirvana,
but might, on the other hand, mistake the joy of selfless-

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ness for abject surrender, and eternal life for annihila-
tion.12 This fear has been fully justified by history.
Nothing which Buddha taught has been so fruitful of
controversies as the idea of Nirvana. Diverse interpre-
tations have been put upon it; and Prof. Poussin13 has
done a service in classifying them under three heads, viz.,
annihilation, immorality, and "unqualified deliverance."
The last is his own view, and the other two belong to
Rhys Davids, Childers, Pischel, and the rest, whom he
has criticized.
It is neither possible nor necessary in this paper to
give an exposition of these views or even to appraise their
values. It may, however, be pointed out that their auth-
ors have allowed themselves to be carried away by cer-
tain undetected assumptions. They seem to have assumed
that a reference to conditions after physical death is
essential for the full explanation of Nirvana, and there-
fore they have shifted the venue of enquiry from this life
to the other. They seem to have assumed further that
there should be continuity of empirical self even after
Nirvana has been attained; and this has made them anx-
ious to find out the how and the where of this post-Nir-
12 13
Cf. Mahavagga: 1.5. Cf. The Way of Nirvana, p. 115.
454 T H E MONIST

vanic individuality. If it is not there, Nirvana is annihi-

lation; if it is there, it is immortality; if it is there, and
if nothing positive can be predicated of it, it is "unquali-
fied deliverance." Neither assumption has any founda-
tion in the teaching of Buddha. In the first place, Nir-
vana is a spiritual state; to the life of the spirit as such
the presence or the absence of a body is not a vital mat-
ter. It is not a far-off goal lying beyond the gates of
death but a level of life which is attained here and now.
Did not Buddha himself declare explicitly, in his sermon

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at Benares,14 that he had attained Nirvana even as he
was? In the second place, it is enough to observe that
any casual student of Buddhism can see for himself that
the reality of self, either here or hereafter, is repudiated,
in spirit and in letter, in every page of the scriptures.
In one sense, Nirvana is extinction; but what is ex-
tinguished is not the fundamental reality of life. "When-
ever Buddha denies existence to the Ego, what he is
really doing is to deny reality to the individual Ego, to
the ordinary surface self."15 This is not a surmise. When
General Simha asked in the most straightforward manner
if it was true that he was preaching the annihilation of
the soul and the extinction of life's very essence, the mas-
ter gave the plainest answer16 that he was preaching the
annihilation of egoism and all the evils which issue there-
from, but not the annihilation of love, truth and chari-
ty. Again in the course of a sermon he told the Jatilas
that a disciple of his should free himself from selfish-
ness and thus attain Nirvana.17
Self is the attempt to split reality into incompatible
forms. The values it creates in order to consolidate and
14
Cf. Buddhacharita, verses 1217-79.
15
Holmes, The Creed of Buddha, p. 164.
18
Cf. Mahavagga: 6.81.
» Cf. Buddhacharita, verses 1300-34.
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 455

perpetuate itself, are imparticipable and competitive. So

long as they are allowed to remain life is a war of each
against all. Destruction then is of negative values, partic-
ularly of selfishness which is the home of all negative
values. In other words, the old Adam has to die in order
that the new may live.
In another and real sense Nirvana is preservation of
life. In his discussion with Simha, to which refrence was
made earlier, Buddha gave the assurance that his teach-
ing was intended to preserve the soul and not to destroy

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it. On another occasion he told the Brahman Kutadanta
that his mission was to teach life and not death.18 Self is
the epidermis of life; scratch it, and you find eternal val-
ues within the derm. The pursuit of truth, disinterested
service, benevolent affections, the holiness of disposition,
love, charity, wisdom, righteousness: these abide for-
ever. In addition to the conservation of values, Nirvana
brings with it Abhinna and Idhi—supernatural wisdom
and power.19 The former would appear to be a kind of
omniscience, and the latter a kind of omnipotence. When
life takes these forms it attains a measure of divinity,
and reaches the last degree of spirituality. It then moves
on the plane of the eternal. According to the law of
evolution taught by Buddha, change and formation are
illusory notions created by Avidya.20 When these are re-
moved, life soars to the highest altitude possible, trans-
cending all limits and distinctions. "There is, O Monks,
a state where there is neither earth nor water, nor heat,
nor air; neither infinity of space, nor infinity of consci-
ousness, nor nothingness, nor perception, nor non-percep-
tion; neither this world nor that world; neither sun nor
moon. It is the Uncreate. That, O Monks, I term neither
18
Cf. Carus, The Gospel of Buddha, p. 133.
i» Cf. Rhys Davids' Buddhism, pp. 173-176.
20
See Section IX below.
456 T H E MONIST

coming nor going, nor standing; neither death, nor birth.

It is without stability, without change, it is the eternal
which never originates and never passes away. There is
the end of sorrow." This was Buddha's way of express-
ing that Nirvanic life is atonement with ultimate reality,
whatever be its name—over-soul, Absolute, Brahma,
God. It is the sublimation of human life into the divine.
It is metalogical; there is neither feeling nor emotion in
it. Though, as is often done, it may be asymptotically
described in terms of the highest spiritual values known

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to us, it still remains incomprehensible, baffling the cate-
gories of ordinary knowledge.

V
Buddha's discourses on Nirvana remind us naturally
of the goal presented by the Upanishads. The culmina-
tion of all spiritual discipline, in the view of the latter,
is Brahma-Vidya. This knowledge is summed up in the
cryptic formula, "Everything is Brahman." Of course
it does not fit into our habitual scheme of things. Life as
we live it is superficial: it is enveloped by Maya, illusion.
Hence the world appears to us to consist of a plurality
of separate persons and things; it appears too as the
arena on which one thing is pitched against another, and
the human self against all the rest. In this way life is
riddled with false conceptions, and we are being daily
cheated out of reality. But knowledge has a saving grace.
When it pervades the mind, the veil of Maya is lifted,
appearances vanish, and we stand face to face with real-
ity itself. This is Emancipation.
Like Nirvana, Emancipation is in a sense extinction.
All evils, whether they be physical or moral, have their
roots ultimately in the false conception of individualities.
The world of individuals is a world of conflict. Even the
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 457

so-called amity, peace and goodwill, are only forms of

truce; because the disposition which makes for war is
still there. Individuality tends to separate; to individual-
ise is to exclude; and the greater the attempt to exclude
things from one another, the more likely they are to come
into conflict. This looks paradoxical; it is none the less
true. From the human point of view, to be an individual is
to move between two poles, self on the one side and all ob-
jects on the other. These objects constitute a system of
means to satisfy certain personal interests; they are to be

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desired or avoided, loved or hated; and in this way their
values are determined by their capacity to purvey to human
needs. No wonder that they lead to feverish excitements
and maddening activities. But when knowledge is ac-
quired life is given a new orientation, desire and pain
vanish, activities cease, and egoism is extinguished.
The dead ego is only the stepping-stone on which we
ascend to higher life. With the shifting of the old stand-
point, the conception of the world undergoes a radical
alteration. The well defined physiognomy of things
changes, their clear-cut forms coalesce, nay, their very
concreteness melts away. The emancipated man sees all
things quivering with one life, the same as his; he mir-
rors everything in himself, and is in turn reflected in it;
he recognises his essential unity with the universe and
feels one with it.21 To him the distinctions of mine and
thine, friend and foe, higher and lower, animate and inani-
mate, have absolutely no meaning. He maintains what,
in the absence of a better expression, may be called spirit-
ual impartiality. He loves not only his neighbour, but
also the neighbour's dog and the plants which grow in
his garden. He is patient and self-restrained; and there
is about him an atmosphere of repose, calmness and
21 Cf. ha, 6 and 7.
458 T H E MONIST

peace.22 His being the way of sight and not of logic, his
certitude is not assailed by any kind of doubt.23 He has
broken the rough shell of Maya and is serenely contem-
plating the pearl of Reality.
The condition of atonement is indeed ineffable. It
may be called neither existence nor non-existence, neither
stability nor change,24 neither consciousness nor unconsci-
ousness.25 "There no sun shines, no moon, nor glimmering
star; nor yonder lightning; the fire of earth is
quenched."26 It is not to be comprehended, either by the

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senses or by thought; and weak human language is ut-
terly inadequate to describe it. It is beyond all empirical
distinctions; and for this reason it is capable of definite
formulation.
A Buddhist reading the Upanishads will be surprised
at the similarity between their teaching and that of his
master. When he comes to the topic of Emancipation,
the surprise will grow into astonishment, for Nirvana
and Emancipation are not merely similar but almost identi-
cal. Both are spiritual existences to be realised here on
earth; both involve the annihilation of the ego and the
transcending of ordinary life; in both, permanent spirit-
ual values are conserved, and both are states of atone-
ment with the Supreme Reality. Naturally the sugges-
tion would occur to him that the ancestral home of his
own spiritual life is in the Upanishads. If a counter-
suggestion were also to occur, that it might after all be
a case of the coincidence of genius, he will recall how
the utterances of Buddha on the Uncreate tally, word for
word, with those of the Upanishads on Brahman. He will
22
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 4.4.23.
23
Chtmdhogya: 3.14.4.
24
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 2.3.1. 25 Cf. Taittiriya: 2.7.
2e
Mundaka: 2.2.10 (Rendered by Deussen).
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 459

recall also how Buddha met two young scholars,27 Vas-

etta and Bhawaja, in a mango grove near Kosala; how
he pointed out to them that the Brahman priests of those
days were not practising what was necessary to gain
Brahma-Vidya; and how he assured them that he could
put them on the straightest path to the kingdom of
Brahman; because he was already residing there and was,
as it were, a native of it. These two considerations
would clench the argument; and our inquirer would be led
to the inevitable conclusion that the voice which spoke of

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Nirvana was the voice of Buddha, but that the thought
was that of the Upanishads.
But in translating Emancipation into Nirvana Buddha
gave it a practical turn by emphasising the normal and the
psychical aspects of it. The Upanishads, it is well known,
were addressed to men who had retired from the world,
and who for this reason were not distracted by the needs
for action. Relatively speaking, what they suffered from,
or thought they suffered from, was a false conception of
things, rather than a wrong direction of the will. To
them salvation meant the discovery of truth; so they
longed for knowledge. This the teachers recognised;
hence they laid stress on the perfection of intelligence,
and described Emancipation as a kind of higher knowl-
edge. Buddha's atmosphere was altogether different.
He had to teach men of the world, men who were more
concerned with action than with thought. The will being
dominant in practical life, Emancipation, in their case,
was tantamount to moral regeneration; so the teacher
caught hold of their will, gave it the right direction, and
explained Nirvana as a kind of moral perfection.
The other aspect which was emphasised by Budhha
was selflessness. The men who had gone into forest-
2* Cf. Rhys Davids, Buddhist Suttas, pp. 157-203.
460 T H E MONIST

retreats were mellow with age and experience; and those

who were not, were put through a course of special dis-
cipline, so that none of them was obsessed with egoism
to any dangerous extent. In that situation it was possi-
ble for the teachers to adopt a standpoint which was
universal, at any rate, not merely human. Therefore
Emancipation became the relinquishment of the individ-
ualising tendency in general and not the overcoming of
egoism in particular. Whether the ancient sages were
conscious of the inadequacy of the geocentric point of

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view in the realm of knowledge, is more than we can say,
but they taught as if they were so conscious. How could
Buddha do likewise? His men had all the defects of
worldliness, to them life was not geocentric, not even
anthropocentric, but essentially egocentric. With pene-
trating insight Buddha realised that, if he could get them
to discard selfishness, other good things would follow
as a matter of course. This accounts for the fact that
he specially argued against the notion of egoism, as if
it were the gravamen of the charge. Naturally Nirvana
appeared as a state of extinction.
Thus both lead the same goal in view. But the Upan-
ishads gave it the appearance of a theory, stated it is a
proposition describing the nature of reality, and advo-
cated it as a truth which ought to be grasped. Buddha, on
the other hand, attempted to work it out in life and pre-
sented it as a task, as a condition which ought to be
reached by ordinary men. He did it in the only way pos-
sible, viz., by addressing the will rather than the intel-
ligence.
VI
Brahma-Vidya was the prerogative of a spiritual aris-
trocracy. As a rule it was not imparted either to a
woman or to an outcaste; and even in the case of the elig-
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 461

ibles it was laid down as a precondition that they should

have fulfilled all social obligations and have then with-
drawn from participation in worldly affairs.28 Life in the
days of the Upanishads was one long spiritual discipline;
it was divided into successive periods of studentships, of
a householder, and of retirement, and each was regulated
by strict rules of conduct. It is very likely that those
who had lived life in that way looked forward, like Rabbi
Ben Ezra, to a glorious old age in the belief that "the best
is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made."

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It is likely also that they got a vision of something of
permanent value, of an eternal verity, dim, vague, nebu-
lous, yet definite enough to attract. Its power must have
been so compelling that they determined to pursue it at
any cost, even by sacrificing everything which they hith-
erto cherished most dear. Impelled by this motive they
actually renounced the world, went into forest retreat,
and there commenced a new spiritual life in a purer at-
mosphere and on a higher plane.
The sages taught them how to translate the faint
vision into vivid reality. The restraint of the senses, the
subdual of passions, contentment, endurance, concentra-
tion: these were the prescribed means.29 Some or all
of these were emphasised according to the special needs
of the disciples. Thus one might need, more than any-
thing else, the subdual of his passions;30 another, freedom
also from distractions;31 and a third, subdual, freedom,
and peace.32 Sometimes they were described in general
terms, as the suspension of the activities of the mind,33
or as purification of nature by the purification of the in-
28
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 4.4.22; and Mundaka: 1.2.11.
29
Cf. Brihadaranyaka: 4.4.23.
80
Cf. Svetasvatara: 6.22.
31 Cf. Mundaka: 1.2.13.
32 Cf. Katha: 1.2.24.
33 Cf. ibid.: 4.6.10.
462 THE MONIST

tellect,34 or even as mental serenity.35 In addition, faith in

the end was everywhere presupposed, so much so that it
was taken as a separate means in a later Vedantic work.86
The Maitrayana Upanishad summed up all this in one
clear statement; "Control of breath, restraint of the
senses, attention, discrimination, meditation, and absorp-
tion: these are the methods of realisation."37
This Upanishad has a peculiar historical value. It came
into existence at a time when the atmosphere was charged
with ideas prophetic of Buddhism. To us, therefore, it

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serves as the connecting link between Buddhism on the
one hand, and the earlier Upanishads on the other; and to
Buddha himself it must have been a source of inspiration
more direct than the older ones. It has so much in com-
mon with Buddha's teaching that Cowell opined that it
might indeed be post-Buddhistic in point of date. Even
so it is an argument in favour of the view that Buddhism
and the Upanishads are interdependent. But as a matter
of fact it was anterior to Buddha, as has been convinc-
ingly proved by Max Muller.38
The Maitrayana was also the main basis of Patanjali's
Yoga-Sutras. Patanjali lived after Buddha; and some of
his fundamental conceptions are patently Buddhistic. And
yet, astonishingly enough, he claimed the authority of the
Upanishads for his teaching. In his view there was noth-
ing extraordinary in incorporating the teaching of Buddha
in a work which was explicitly intended to give a practical
turn to the ideas taught in the Upanishads. This lends
a powerful support to the views adopted in this paper. Be
it remembered that Yoga is one of the orthodox systems,
34
Cf. Chandogya: 7.26.2.
35
Cf. Maitrayana: 6.29.
36
Cf. Vedantasara.
37
Maitrayana: 6.18.
38
In Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XV, pp. xlvii-li.
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 463

which has had a widely formative influence on Hindu life

and thought.
To return to the methods. To be able to understand
and to appreciate them, it is necessary to have some notion
of the metaphysical psychology from which they were but
practical deductions. It would appear that man consists
of a purusha and a prakriti, i. e., soul bottled up in world-
stuff. While the former is static, change is inherent in
the latter. Originally the purusha was independent of
prakriti. But something happened—we need not inquire

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what; and the mischief started. Prakriti began to evolve,
first into a sort of sub-consciousness; next, into conscious-
ness in its dual aspect of subject and object; then, in di-
vergent channels, into the sensorium commune called mind,
into the five organs of action, into the five sense organs,
into the various kinds of protomatter; and, finally, in a
linear direction from protomatter, into the gross matter of
which the body is composed. It is prakriti which really
sees, thinks, and feels; grows or decays; laughs at a joke
or weep tears. These are reflected in the soul, and the
poor thing deludes itself into the idea that all this really
belongs to it. In a weak moment the Prince drinks him-
self away into intoxication and forgetfulness; and under
the delusion that he is really poor, he goes about the street
begging from door to door. The soul has fallen from a
high estate and allowed itself to be caught in the wiles of
prakriti.
But the seers prescribed a heroic remedy. Pra-
kriti could be turned back the way it came, and the soul
could be restored to its original glory. To control breath,
senses, and mind is to involute them into their undifferen-
tiated condition in consciousness. The result is that the
external world disappears altogether. Nevertheless, will
it not come back in the shape of images? But then we
464 T H E MONIST

forget that mind is a sensorium commune, and that the

control of it is the control also of the sensory areas of the
brain. In the language of autosuggestion, it is the state
of the full outcropping of the subconscious. Conscious-
ness grows by what it feeds on; and when all its objects
have been removed it shrinks almost into nothingness. In
this state some ideas may come and go and thus disport
themselves in imagination. If at this juncture the sub-
conscious is directed towards Brahman, it would attend
to it exclusively as though wanting to monopolize it. This

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is what the Upanishads mean by discrimination. But
Brahman has no form and cannot be presented as an idea
or image. The difficulty is overcome by substituting a
symbol. The word Aum has no meaning in particular;
for this reason it is eminently fitted to represent Brahman.
The symbol has thus a dual function; it serves to focus
attention and it is also the gateway through which Brah-
man is reached. It is important to remember that medi-
tation is not on the symbol itself but on its significance.
As meditation progresses, the symbol vanishes in the back-
ground, and what is left is a deep, dead silence,—the soul
in communion with Brahman, or, what means the same
thing, in communion with itself. Life in this condition is
disembodied spirit, and it is described as pure freedom
and unconditioned bliss. Prakriti has been rolled back,
distinctions and limits have been transcended, the old de-
lusion has gone; and the Prince has come to his own. After
emerging from this experience the individual finds a new
significance in the facts of daily life. It is in this manner
that self-control and self-direction are used to attain one-
ness with the universe. "There is not leather enough to
cover the surface of the earth to make it smooth. But
put on a shoe and the whole earth will be smooth." 39
39
Path to Nirvana, p. 152 (Barnett, quoted by Poussin).
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 465

VII
Buddha was a spiritual democrat. He did not contem-
plate the exclusion of any from discipleship. Nirvana
should be the privilege of all, the caste Jew as well as the
outcaste Gentile, man as well as woman. He was not par-
ticular about the renunciation of the world on the part of
the seekers, though he retained it as an essential condition
for admission into the higher fellowship of the Sanga.
Nor did he insist that they should have fulfilled the round
of duties prescribed by the Brahmanical canons, for to

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insist on this would amount to telling them that they could
not enter into the path till they were fifty or sixty years
of age; moreover, there was no sense in requiring them
to be good already, when his plan was to transform their
lives. Good conduct would come as a stage in realisation
rather than as a condition for admission. The doors were,
therefore, thrown wide open; no questions were asked;
and whosoever came was admitted.
However, it was in the treatment of the methods that
Buddha's teaching came out most distinctly as a pro-
gramme of life. The methods, as they stood in the Upani-
shads, were deficient on the practical side: they presup-
posed a high degree of spirituality in the disciples, and
also a peculiarly secluded atmosphere; worse still, they
were abstract and sketchy, and could be used only in the
immediate presence of a teacher; and the worst was that
they were intended to be taken together, and applied in a
single sitting, to bring about the highest spiritual condi-
tion, as it were, in one sweep. How could Buddha accept
them as they were? His disciples were a heterogeneous
lot,—carpenters, weavers, husbandmen, and so on. Most
of them had to begin spiritual life at the bottom. They
did not have the quietness of a secluded life, or the imme-
diate guidance of a teacher. They would make a mess of
466 T H E MONIST

the whole affair, unless they were told in concrete terms

what exactly they had to achieve. Further, their lungs
were not powerful enough to breathe the rarified atmos-
phere of dizzy heights before being accustomed to lower
altitudes. In other words, they needed a programme of
life, spread out in time and divided into manageable
stages, so that they could live it out step by step, each
step leading to the next higher, gradually, naturally, and
with ease. In the light of these considerations Buddha
applied the old methods in an original way, without in the

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least impairing their integrity.
Buddhaghosha's Visudhimagga, a compendium of or-
thodox beliefs, gives an exposition of this programme un-
der two heads, sila and samadhi. The former is a pre-
liminary discipline, and it occupies one stage; while the
latter forms the main part of the programme, and it is
worked out in four stages. In the Upanishads empirical
reality is conceived progressively as physical, as organic,
as mental, and as conscious; accordingly spiritual life
consists in a successive criticism and refinement of these
conceptions. On the other hand, Buddha recognised that
corresponding to these conceptions there are different
kinds of lives; in his view, therefore, the path which leads
to Nirvana is the path of reformation. At every stage of
it one kind of life is attended to, and by means of a par-
ticular method, it is overcome and the next higher life
brought into being. This is the programme. In the first
stage, self-control keeps the individual on the plane of or-
dinary morality; in the second, faith weans him out of the
desire for material goods; in the third, he practises breath-
control, and ceases to have any relish for mere living as
such; in the fourth, he subdues the passions and lives a
life of love; and in the last, concentration raises him even
above consciousness, and he realises his oneness with the
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 467

universe. It is in this manner that the standpoints of ma-

terialism, of realism, of idealism, and of the intellect itself
are successively transcended, and an ascending scale of
life built up.
Sila is conduct. It includes overt action as well as the
disposition from which action issues. In order that it may
continue to be good it should be something more than mere
intention. Whether hell is paved with good intentions is
more than one can say; but there is no doubt that the path
of many a failure is strewn with them. Like any other

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idea, intention is dynamic, and if it does not come out in
action, it is because of certain impedimental tendencies.
The failure of intention, and it may be added, much of
the evil in conduct, arises from impulsiveness. More than
half the criminals in the world belong to the impulsive
variety. Examined more closely, impulse is seen to have
its genesis in perceptual attractions, oversensitiveness, im-
patience, and thoughtlessness. The impulsive man flings
the reins away, and abandons himself to the mad careering
of animal propensities. To check the impulses, that is to
say, to exercise some control over the senses, to develop
a certain amount of indifference to unpleasant situations,
to cultivate a little of patience, and to be occasionally mind-
ful of the other side of the question: these would appear
to be, in Buddha's view, the essential means by which life
is maintained at the moral level. Through Sila the indi-
vidual controls and organises the mind, and thus keeps
himself in the path of rectitude.
Disciplined in this way he enters into a life of faith.
Faith leads to meditation. As he practises it from day to
day he feels the presence of Buddha more and more, first
as an idea, next as an influence, and then as a living re-
ality. Occasionally he sees a vision; gradually it becomes
468 T H E MONIST

more and more vivid; and every time it brings the same
figure clothed in the same rags and holding the same beg-
gar's bowl. The vision haunts, and our inquirer is stirred
with questionings. Why did the prince exchange a king-
dom for a beggar's bowl ? Why did he discard royal robes
and put on rags ? Does he hunger and thirst as other men
do?
Thinking on these things he grows into them; the mes-
sage of poverty has gone home; and Buddha has con-
quered. The outlook of the disciple changes, and life ac-

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quires a new significance. Pleasure palls, and he develops
an aversion to his old life. Food, drink, and worldly pos-
sessions: how vulgar and nauseating they are! Yet how
much of energy is spent in their pursuits; what competi-
tion, worry and travail! How sad to think that the spirit
is being immolated daily at their altars! How humiliat-
ing to contemplate that nan forgets the high destiny to
which he is called, and transforms himself into an ani-
mal to wallow in filth and mire! And what of the dear
thing called his body? A putrid mass of flesh and bones,
so frail that it needs constant repair, and so perishable
that nothing can save it from decay and dissolution! Yet
what a great value is attached to it, as if it were an idol
cast for eternity! Not for him this life; henceforth he
would live as if he has no body; in competition he would
be generous; and what he 'accumulated he would give
away.
This aversion is not enough. Freud notwithstanding,
of all the instincts the strongest is the instinct to live. It
is the goddess of strife incarnate in the individual, it is the
principle of dehumanisation in man, and it is the root of
struggles. So long as it is not kept well under control,
not completely eradicated, spiritual life is not possible.
Therefore the seeker begins to practise breath-control.
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 469

Breath is life, at least symptomatic of it, and the control

of it is the control of life itself. When he has advanced
far enough in this, he gets a queer experience: he can
bring about all symptoms of death and yet be alive. Thus
he discovers that real life, though veneered by physical
vitality, is something more subtle and elusive. He has yet
to give this knowledge a concrete, objective expression.
At the sight of actual death, he still feels a sadness and a
regret. These sentiments are overcome only by the for-
mation of a habit of indifference. To this end he makes

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constant excursions to the crematory, and daily witnesses
death and the funeral pyre. Friends and foes, relatives
and strangers, rich men and poor men, go in regular pro-
cession to inevitable death, and the voracious fire swallows
them all. But yesterday his neighbour was healthy,
strong, and powerful, and today hie jacet! Not even that.
There is no stone to mark the spot where he lies, for he
has been burnt away, and the ashes sent down the sacred
river, to be conveyed to the ocean, there to be dissolved—
symbolic of the fact that he has merged himself in the
Great Ocean of Life. Our friend has become wiser for
his weird experience, and he has realised that to live, in
a true sense, is not merely to prolong one's physical ex-
istence. He has pitched life one stage higher.
He has still a far way to go. The virtue that he has
acquired is of a parochial sort. It is confined within
definite geographical limits, and is governed by considera-
tions of race, nationality, and creed. Thus confined it
remains crippled and defective. In the eyes of the world,
he is a good man, but real goodness he has not attained.
After all, the world's view of these things is superficial.
Love the members of your family; be a friendly neighbor;
discharge your civic duties; do not violate conventional
rules; for the rest, your morality may go holidaying; and,
470 T H E MONIST

to be sure, the world will credit you with enough good-

ness. To be good, in the highest sense of the term, means
to extend the range of obligations everywhere, uncondi-
tionally, without limits, without stint. Unfortunately,
however, there is a vein of Hellenism in almost every
man^ which makes it difficult for him to extend the appli-
cation of his virtues beyond his own particular Hellas,
physical and mental. Moreover, crippled virtue contains
a radical evil. There are circumstances under which it
casts a dark shadow; and the bulk of the shadow is pro-

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portional to the density of the original. War-time patri-
otism is a prominent example: the more patriotic a man
is the greater is his readiness to kill and be killed. Cer-
tainly there is something fundamentally wrong in conduct
which is hailed as virtuous on one side and at the same
time as vicious on the other. Shadowless virtue is possible
only in the meridian of goodness. This is attained by lift-
ing the veil that blinds the view, by pulling down all par-
tition walls, and by visioning an ideal immeasureably great.
Love friends and foes alike; have compassion for even
those who do not seem to deserve it, namely, the power-
ful and the rich; work loyally and sincerely for the hap-
piness of all; give thine own dear self a seat in a back
row; these are the commandments of Buddha's universal
spirituality. They are graces which flow freely from the
human spirit, but are inhibited by lust, anger, cupidity
and ambition. To curb these is to help the spirit live. It
is for this purpose that the control of passions is advo-
cated at this stage.
By the time the seeker gets to the final stage, he has
attained a high degree of spirituality. But the self is
still there, and in contrast with it the world is still an
other, separate and distinctive. It may be kept in the back-
ground, its activities suspended, but it is there. As long
 BUDDHISM AND THE UPANISHADS 471

as it is allowed to remain separate there is the possibility

of mischief. To do away with its separateness is to
transcend consciousness itself, and this is achieved by the
method of concentration and of higher meditation. The
methods used earlier are applied again, and it is only after
they have brought about mental collectedness that concen-
tration has to enter. Any object will serve to focus atten-
tion. In the Upanishads, it is the Syllable Aum: here it is
a tiny ball of earth. As the process advances, the con-
crete object is removed and attention is directed to the

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representation of perfect spiritual life,—universal love,
universal good-will, universal pity, absolute disinterested-
ness. It is not without significance that this meditation
is called Brahma-Vihara, i. e., the temple of Brahman. The
mind, in the ordinary sense of the term, becomes absorbed
in it; the distinction between the ego and the non-ego van-
ishes; and the highest degree of life is attained. The
human spirit has become one with the universe; it is at-one-
ment, Nirvana.

VIII
Apart from the goal and the methods by which it is
attained, even the organisation and regulation of religious
life in Buddhism are based on the life and teaching advo-
cated in the Upanishads. The Vihara is a convenient edi-
tion of the hermitage; and the Sanga, i. e., the brother-
hood of monks, is a practical version of the fellowship of
the sages in the forest. The renunciation of the world and
the three vows required of a candidate for ordination,
are, if at all, but slight variants of the renunciation and
the vows demanded of a man before he takes to the life of
an ascetic. The rules which Buddha established for the
monks and nuns seem to be but reproductions of the rules
laid down in the Upanishads for the conduct of ascetics.
472 T H E MONIST

"Absolute continence; no private property; a very strict

regime which . . . seems very favourable for moral
mortification while avoiding any corporeal pain; the life
of a wandering mendicant during the dry season, and dur-
ing rains, a cenobitic life with all the mutual concessions
and admonitions this life implies. On the whole an aristo-
cratic form of asceticism, very much resembling the as-
ceticism of the Brahmins."40

IX

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The two teachings agree even in such a fundamental
matter as the conception of reality. Everything is Brah-
man; Brahman is Soul: these two propositions sum up the
view of the Upanishads. It is not Idealism. Idealism
makes no distinction in kind between reality and appear-
ance; it explains everything in terms of consciousness;
and in it there is always the distinction between the know-
ing subject and the object known. Even when some form
of Idealism, like that of Kant, distinguishes soul from
consciousness, it is not treated as a foundational concept,
and it therefore remains inoperative for purposes of ex-
planation; and when reality as such is also posited in con-
tradistinction from phenomenon, it is shelved back into the
region of the unknown. In the Upanishads, on the con-
trary, there is a fundamental distinction between reality
and phenomenon; the latter is explained in terms of con-
sciousness and is condemned as an illusion, while the for-
mer is described in terms of a superconscious entity called
Soul; and, what is more important, no dualism of any kind
is tolerated, no opposition between the ego and the non-
ego, the knower and the known. Reality is one, and there
is no second real; it is beyond limits, beyond distinctions,
beyond consciousness; it is nothing in particular, but it is
the basis of everything that exists. As the cosmic prin-
40
Poussin, Path to Nirvana, p. 149.
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 473

ciple, it is called Brahman, and, as the psychic principle,

Atman.
Buddha too held this view. That he did not give any
formal exposition of root-conceptions, is obvious; that he
adopted the human point of view necessary in practical
life, is admitted; that he attended mainly to reality as dis-
closed in selflessness, is also undisputed. Nevertheless
there are enough utterances of his which bring out his con-
ceptions most clearly. All things are one in essence, as
pots and pitchers are in essence clay, and they progress

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towards one goal, namely, Nirvana. To attain Nirvana is
to know that all things are one, and then to live accord-
ingly. This is what Buddha told Kassapa.41 What is the
nature of the real? This question was put by one of the
followers of General Simha to Buddha himself; and the
answer was that everything is spiritual, even what is per-
ceived by the senses. However, it was Aswaghosha, a
later Buddhist philosopher, who systematised the master's
views in what has come to be called by the infelicitous
name of the doctrine of Thatness. "All things in their
fundamental nature are not nameable or explicable. They
cannot be adequately expressed in any form of language.
They possess absolute sameness. . . . They are noth-
ing but one soul—thatness. This "thatness" has no at-
tribute . . . it is the pure soul that manifests itself as
eternal, permanent, immutable."42
And what of the phenomenon? In the view of the
Upanishads all forms of empirical reality are labelled by
one epithet and condemned as Maya, illusion. To talk of
change and causality, of plurality and distinctions, is to
talk of something which does not really exist. Thus the
objective world, the individual self, and even the person-
ality of god, are illusions which man cherishes in vain.
41
Cf. Dammapada, Ch. V.
42
Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, p. 130 f.
474 T H E MONIST

Maya has various aspects. Objectively, it is illusion; in

respect of knowledge, it is Avidya or nescience; and from
the point of view of origins, it is Prakriti or power inhe-
rent in Brahman. Very well; but what is the constitution
of the empirical world? How account for this riot of
forms? Even as illusion the world appears to possess an
order. Further, common-sense would predilect in favour
of life that it sees. Why should it be asked to give it up ?
What is wrong with it? These are questions which will
naturally occur to every one. The Upanishads do not

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seem to attach importance to these questions; at any rate,
in comparison with the attention bestowed on the positive
side of the teaching, the explanation of phenomena seems
to be practically neglected. It was centuries later that
Gaudapada handled the problem in the interest of ortho-
dox Vedanta; but he was much influenced by Buddhism,
if he was not actually a Buddhist. It was Buddha who
made the first attempt in the direction of an explanation;
and his teaching" in this respect forms a valuable supple-
ment to the teaching contained in the Upanishads.
In his view also, empirical life has the status of only
a dream. Somewhere and somehow nescience supervened
and the process started. The dream-pictures, however,
maintain an order of succession. It is to explain this or-
der that Buddha correlated the ideas scattered in the
Upanishads, and fused them into a doctrine of the evolu-
tion of forms, i. e., a process of successive differentiation.
A vague activity; the emergence of consciousness, with
its dualism of subject and object; thereafter the crystal-
ising of mental and material forms; the various fields of
sensation; sense-feeling; hedonic feeling; the association
of this with objects; the desire for them; the conservation
of this desire in the organism, giving it a particular in-
clination; re-birth, decay, and death. Thus the self and
 BUDDHISM AND T H E UPANISHADS 475

the world have evolved together as two correlative terms.

After they have come into being they sustain each other;
the mind thinks as the world is, and the world behaves
as the mind thinks. This dependence was explained, later,
by Aswaghosha and Asanga, in the manner of idealism.
Why not accept the world as it is? Common sense
agrees with James in thinking that life as we see it is
worth living. Buddha dissents. He seems to think that
the question involves large issues. Eternal values are at
stake, and the very reality of higher life is challenged.

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How can a phenomenon satisfy the demands of reason?
It is an aggregate of parts, and what is aggregated may
also be dissolved. It is transient—one form now, and
another the next moment. It has no identity,43 for it is ever
shifting. After all a thing is what it does; and if its ef-
fects are ever changing, there is no way of describing it
in terms of any predicate. It may even be that it involves
contradictory predications.44 Further, it is a world of
clashing individualities. How can it be the home of uni-
versal love? It is full of evil and sorrow. How can it be
the expression of bliss? All that is highest and the best
in man demands that it should be treated as only mimic
reality.
This is not pessimism. Pessimism is made of weaker
stuff. Even complacent optimists are not satisfied with
the world as it is. They would have us believe that, in
spite of much that is ugly, evil, and irrational, the world
is sound at heart. In this way their optimism is allied to
a deeper view of things. It is so with Buddha. Life as
it really is, not as it merely appears, is worth living. It
alone answers to our highest ideals. It is in Buddhism, in
the Upanishads, and also in Christianity, if by this is
meant the teaching of Jesus, and in no other religion or
43
Cf. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXV, pp. 83-85.
44
Cf. Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 160.
476 T H E MONIST

system of philosophy, that the conception of the funda-

mental reality of the universe is in perfect accord with
the conception of the highest ideal of man.
Buddhism has been woefully misunderstood. It is a
system of rationalism, says one; no, it is a system of mor-
ality, says another; a third joins issue and calls it a system
of religion; how can it be so, since it is atheistic? asks a
fourth. "An inadequate knowledge of Indian mysticism
. . . is responsible for the confusion that is implied in
such a view," explains Professor Poussin.45 And he con-

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cluded his Hibbert lectures by an allusion to a beautiful
confession: "I venture to think that it is worth while to
consider anew these important and controverted points.
. . . My late friend Cecil Bendall willingly confessed
that the only means to a right understanding of a relig-
ion is to believe in this religion."46 Bendall must have been
a noble soul; and his confession should search many a
heart and be a warning to many a complacent scholar. But
one need not be a professed Buddhist to understand Bud-
dhism. An openness of mind, a sympathy of understand-
ing, and sufficient acquaintance with the teaching of the
Upanishads, are conditions sufficient, for practical pur-
poses, for adequately grasping the teachings of Buddha.
"The Upanishads are to my mind the germs of Bud-
dhism," declared Max Muller, "while Buddhism is in many
respects the doctrine of the Upanishads carried out to its
last consequences. In doctrine the highest goal of the
Vedanta and the knowledge of the true self is no more
than the Buddhist Samyaksambodhi; in practice the san-
yasin is the bikshu, the friar, only emancipated alike from
the tedious discipline of the Brahminic student, the duties
of the Brahminic householder, and the yoke of useless pen-
ances imposed upon the Brahminic dweller in the forest.
45
and 4 6 Path to Nirvana, p. 167.
 NOTES AND NEWS 477

. . . In fact there is no break between the India of the

Veda and the India of the Tripitaka, but there is an his-
torical continuity between the two, and the connecting link
between extremes that seem widely separated must be
sought in the Upanishads."47
When the two are examined it would become more and
more evident that the Upanishads taught a theory of life
and Buddha a corresponding programme.
A. K. SHARMA.

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MOHINDRA COLLEGE, PATIOLA, INDIA.

« Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XV, lii.