Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/163

 v] V ijfianavada and Vedilnta 147 All phenomena both being and non-being are illusory (sada- santa!z mayopamii!z). When we look deeply into them we find that there is an absolute negation of all appearances, including even all negations, for they are also appearances. This would make the ultimate truth positive. But this is not so, for it is that in which the positive and negative are one and the same (blzavabllaVaSa- manata)l. Such a state which is complete in itself and has no name and no substance had been described in the LaIi.kavatara- si1tra as thatness (tatkatar. This state is also described in another place in the Lankavatara as voidness (Sitllyata) which is one and has no origination and no essence 3 . In another place it is also designated as tathagatagarbha 4. It may be supposed that this doctrine of an unqualified ultimate truth comes near to the Vedantic atman or Brahman like the tathata doctrine of Asvaghoa; and we find in LaIi.ka- vatara that Ravat:ta asks the Buddha "How can you say that your doctrine of tathagatagarbha was not the same as the at man doctrine of the other schools of philosophers, for those heretics also consider the at man as eternal, agent, unqualified, all-per- vading and ullchanged?" To this the Buddha is found to reply thus-" Our doctrine is not the same as the doctrine of those heretics; it is in consideration of the fact that the instruction of a philosophy which considered that there was no soul or sub- stance in anything (1wiriitlllya) would frighten the disciples, that I say that all things are in reality the tathagatagarbha. This should not be regarded as atman. Just as a lump of clay is made into various shapes, so it is the non-essential nature of all phenomena and their freedom from all characteristics (sarvavikal- palakalavinivrtta1/l) that is variously described as the garbha or the nairatmya (essencelessness). This explanation of tathaga- tagarbha as the ultimate truth and reality is given in order to attract to our creed those heretics who are superstitiously inclined to believe in the atman doctrine 5 ." So far as the appearance of the phenomena was concerned the idealistic Buddhists (vijilanavadi1ZS) agreed to the doctrine of pratttyasamutpada with certain modifications. There was with them an external pratityasamutpada just as it appeared in the 1 Asailga's lVlahtiyiinasz/trlilal!lkiira, p. 65. 2 La1ikiivattirasz/tra, p. 7 0 . 4 Ibid. p. 80. 3 Ibid. p. 7 8 . ii Ibid. pp. 80-81.