Background

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Buddhism was not a completely new phenomenon in the religious history of India; it was built upon the basis of ideas that were already current, both Brahmanic and non-Brahmanic. Protests against the Brahmanic doctrines of atman, karma, and moksha were being voiced in the 6th century bce, prior to preaching of the Buddha, by various schools of thought: by naturalists, such as Purana (“The Old One”) Kassapa, who denied both virtue and vice (dharma and adharma) and thus all moral efficacy of human deeds; by determinists, such as the Ajivika Makkhali Gosala, who denied sin and freedom of will; and by materialists, such as Ajita Keshakambalin, who, besides denying virtue, vice, and afterlife, resolved being into material elements. Protests were also voiced by Nigantha Nataputta, who believed in salvation by an ascetic life of self-discipline and hence in the efficacy of deeds and the possibility of omniscience, and, finally, Sanjaya Belathiputta, the skeptic, who, in reply to the question “Is there an afterlife?” would not say “It is so” or “It is otherwise,” nor would he say “It is not so” or “It is not not so.”

Of these six, the Jain tradition identifies Nigantha with Mahavira; the designation “Ajivika” is applied, in a narrow sense, to the followers of Makkhali and in a loose sense to all nonorthodox sects other than the Jainas—the skeptics and the Charvakas.

Buddhism, Jainism, and the Ajivikas rejected, in common, the sacrificial polytheism of the Brahmanas and the monistic mysticism of the Upanishads. All three of them recognized the rule of natural law in the universe. Buddhism, however, retained the Vedic notions of karma and moksha, though rejecting the other fundamental concept of atman.

The Four Noble Truths and the nature of suffering

In such an intellectual climate, Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama), the historical Buddha, taught his Four Noble Truths: (1) dukkha (Sanskrit duhkha; generally but misleadingly translated as “suffering,” as it implies a broader sense of dissatisfaction with existence in the phenomenal world); (2) the origination of dukkha in tanha (“desire” or “craving”); (3) the cessation of dukkha; and finally (4) the way leading to that cessation by following the Eightfold Path.

Although the word dukkha in common parlance means suffering, its use by the Buddha was meant to include both pleasure and pain, both happiness and suffering. There are three aspects of this conception: dukkha as suffering in the ordinary sense; dukkha arising out of the impermanence of things, even of a state of pleasure; and dukkha in the sense of five aggregates meaning that the “I” constituted by any individual is nothing but a totality of five aggregates—i.e., form, feeling, conception, disposition, and consciousness. In brief, whatever is noneternal—i.e., whatever is subject to the law of causality—is characterized by dukkha; for the Buddha, this is the human situation. One who recognizes the nature of dukkha also knows its causes. Dukkha arises out of craving (tanha; Sanskrit trishna), craving arises out of sensation (vedana), and sensation arises out of contact (sparsha), so that a human being is faced with a series of conditions leading back to ignorance (avijja; avidya)—a series in which the rise of each succeeding member depends upon and originates from the preceding one (paticca-samuppada; pratityasamutpada; literally “dependent origination”).

The path of liberation: methods of the Eightfold Path

The Four Noble Truths follow the middle way (madhyamika) between the two extremes of sensual indulgence and ascetic self-torture, both of which the Buddha rejected as spiritually useless. Only the middle path consisting in the eight steps—called the Eightfold Path—leads to enlightenment (bodhi) and to nibbana (nirvana). The eight steps are (1) right views, (2) right intention, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. Of these eight, steps 3, 4, and 5 are grouped under right morality (sila; shila); steps 6, 7, and 8 under right concentration (samadhi); and steps 1 and 2 under right wisdom (prajna).

The concepts of anatta and nibbana

Two key notions, even in early Buddhism, are those of anatta (Sanskrit anatman; “no-self”) and nibbana. The Buddha apparently wanted his famed doctrine of anatta to be a phenomenological account of how things are rather than a theory. In his discourse to the wandering monk Vacchagotta, he rejected the theories of both eternalism and annihilationism. The former, he stated, would be incompatible with his thesis that all laws (dhammas; Sanskrit dharmas) are selfless (sabbe dhamma anatta); the latter would be significant only if one had a self that is no more in existence. Thus, by not taking sides with the metaphysicians, the Buddha described how the consciousness “I am” comes to constitute itself in the stream of consciousness out of the five aggregates of form, feeling, conception, disposition, and consciousness. The doctrine of “no-self” actually has two aspects: as applied to puggala (pudgala), or the individual person, and as applied to the dhammas, or the elements of being. In its former aspect, it asserts the fact that an individual is constituted out of five aggregates (khandas; skandhas); in its latter aspect it means the utter insubstantiality of all elements. Intuitive realization of the former truth leads to the disappearance of passions and desires, realization of the latter removes all misconceptions about the nature of things in general. The former removes the “covering of the passions”; the latter removes “the concealment of things.” Together, they result in nibbana.

Both negative and positive accounts of nibbana are to be found in the Buddha’s teachings and in early Buddhist writings. Nibbana is a state of utter extinction—not of existence but of passions and suffering; it is a state beyond the chain of causation, a state of freedom and spontaneity. It is in addition a state of bliss. Nibbana is not the result of a process; were it so, it would be but another perishing state. It is the truth—not, however, an eternal, everlasting substance like the atman of the Upanishads but the truth of utter selflessness and the insubstantiality of things, of the emptiness of the ego, and of the impermanence of all things. With the realization of this truth, ignorance is destroyed, and, consequently, all craving, suffering, and hatred is destroyed with it.