Buddhism in India

Conclusion 275

exposition of this has been given by Kalupahana, who stresses that in

terms of knowledge and understanding, the Buddha’s teaching found

a middle way between the extremes of absolutism and skepticism

(Kalupahana 1994: 30–59). There is no absolute; at the same time,

relative knowledge can be achieved, sufficient at least to free a person

from psychological bondage in the world.

Anti-absolutism is expressed in a major theme of the

Athakkavagga, an extended critique of ditthi—which generally

means ‘views’ but which might best be translated as ‘ideology’. The

Buddha found in the tumultuous period of his search for freedom

and understanding that a wide variety of views were being put

forward, all of them apparently being clung to passionately and

fiercely. He began to see that the very clinging to these, the need to

have certainty of knowledge—knowledge of any kind, even know-

ledge about liberation—was itself a form of bondage. Again, as the

Atthakavaggaputs it, in John Ireland’s translation,

A person who associates himself with certain views, considering them

as best and making them supreme in the world, he says, because of that,

that all other views are inferior; therefore he is not free from contention

(with others). In what is seen, heard, cognized and in ritual obser-

vances performed, he sees a profit for himself. Just by laying hold of

that view he regards every other view as worthless. Those skilled (in

judgement) say that (a view) becomes a bond if, relying on it, one

imagines everything else as inferior....In whom there is no inclination

to either extreme, for becoming or non-becoming, here or in another

existence, for him there does not exist a fixed viewpoint on investi-

gating the doctrines assumed (by others). Concerning the seen, the heard

and the cognized he does not form the least notion. That brahmana

who does not grasp at a view, with what would he be identified in the

world?’ (Sutta Nipata 796–98, 801–02).

The opposition to ditthiis not an opposition to forming opinions

or having ‘viewpoints’ — it cannot be, after all, since the first point

on the ‘eightfold path’ to the cessation of sorrow (the fourth ‘noble

truth’) is sammaditthi, or ‘right views’. Rather it is a warning

against clinging to views, grasping at them, being attached to them,

seizing on them: in other words, it is an injunction against taking

any framework in an absolutist fashion.

Over 2000 years later, Jotirao Phule made a similar point. In an

era that was also one of transition and tumult, both socio-economic

and ideological, he wrote,

or unpleasant); this from phassa (sense-impression or contact);
this from nama-rupa(the mental and the material) (Sutta Nipata,
#862–71). The sutta then goes on to say that ‘Grasping has its
source in wanting (something)....By the disappearance of material
objects sense-impression is not experienced’ (Sutta Nipata, #872).
Then it is said that ‘materiality’ and ‘pleasure and discomfort’
cease to be real for a person when

His perception [sanna] is not the ordinary kind, nor is his perception

abnormal; he is not without perception nor is his perception (of mate-

riality) suspended—to such a one materiality ceases. Perception is

indeed the source of the world of multiplicity (Sutta Nipata #875;

translation by John Ireland).

John Gombrich translates a very similar passage from the
Atthakavaggaas follows:

There are no ties for one who is dispassionate towards his perceptions.

There are no delusions for one who is released by insight. Those who

have taken hold of perceptions and views go around in the world

clashing (Sutta Nipata #847; in Gombrich 1997: 119).

This appears almost contradictory, it suggests that the teacher here is
groping to express what was difficult in the language available to
him. The difficulty apparently remained even when words evolved
specifically to express this, for these words themselves became dis-
torted and corrupted. But still the point seems clear: there is a
strong conditioning link between the ‘material’ (external) world
and subjective perceptions which are part of the whole psychological
binding that prevents a person from a free and joyous existence.
Still these links can be broken; that is, achieving freedom from
passion is an empirical, psychological state (not a transcendental
one) and the possibility of achieving it implies sufficient freedom of
action to break through conditioning.

Ideologies and Science

Buddhist teachings do not deal with the nature of the social and
physical world, and to this degree can be called pre-scientific, or a-
scientific. In the theory of knowledge they do, however, come very
close to what today would be called a scientific outlook. The clearest

274 Buddhism in India