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Principled Atheism in the Buddhist Scholastic Tradition

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
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In their systematic presentations of religious philosophy, the Indian Buddhists consistently defended the position that belief in an eternal creator god who superintends his creation and looks after the concerns of his creatures is a distraction from the central task of the religious life.


This was clearly the position taken in the early Pali literature and in the Theravada philosophy based on that literature, but even in the later Mahayana writings such as the Lotus Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra,

in which buddhahood is portrayed not as a feature of the isolated career of Siddhartha Gautama but rather as a constant feature of the entire cosmos at all times, great care is taken to try to distinguish the concept of the cosmic Buddha-nature in the forms of Dharmakaya or Tathagatagarbha from the concept of a creator god.

The Buddhists were, for whatever reasons, eager to avoid falling into a theistic position.

The motivation behind the present paper has been to discover what those reasons were.

Section 1 will outline how the issue of God’s existence is treated in the early Buddhist literature, especially in the Sutta Pitaka, where systematic Buddhist philosophy begins.

Section 2 will review the treatment of the question of divine creation as an issue in the systematic philosophy of such thinkers as Vasubandhu (400—480), Dharmakirti (600—660), Santaraksita (725—788) and Kamalasila (740—795).

And section 3 will show how the arguments for atheism are isomorphic with the arguments for a variety of other positions to which the Buddhist philosophers were committed.


1.0. Buddhist Agamas on the Question of God

In the Nikaya literature, the question of the existence of God is treated primarily from either an epistemological point of view or a moral point of view.

As a problem of epistemology, the question of God’s existence amounts to a discussion of whether or not a religious seeker can be certain that there is a greatest good and that therefore his efforts to realize a greatest good will not be a pointless struggle towards an unrealistic goal.

And as a problem in morality, the question amounts to a discussion of whether man himself is ultimately responsible for all the displeasure that he feels or whether there exists a superior being who inflicts displeasure upon man whether he deserves it or not.


An instance of the epistemological treatment of the question of the highest good occurs in the Tevijja Sutta, the thirteenth sutta of the Digha Nikaya.

In this sutta there is an account of a dispute between two young brahmins, Vasettha and Bharadvaja, over the issue of which religious practices lead most directly to union with Brahma.

Brahma is typically treated in the Nikaya literature as an object of brahmanical devotion who is believed by his devotees to be the master over whom no other being has mastery (abhibhu anabhibhuto), who sees everything (annad-atthu-daso),

the mighty one (vasavatti), who is lord, maker, designer, chief, creator, master and father of all beings that have been and of all beings that shall be (issaro katta nimatta settho sanjita vasi pita bhutabhavyanam).

1 Moreover, companionship with Brahma (Brahma-sahavyata) is believed to be the state of salvation, and so whatever set of practices leads most directly to companionship with Brahma may be considered the most direct path to salvation (anjasayano niyyaniko).

2 But the brahmin students Vasettha and Bharadvaja have heard from their respective teachers differing accounts on which practices lead to the goal that they both desire.

And so they decide to approach Gotama the Buddha to see whether he can decide which party is right in this very important dispute.

On being told the nature of the dispute between Vasettha and Bharadvaja, Gotama Buddha begins by asking the disputants a few questions of his own,

and the answers to the questions show that the young brahmins believe that there are many alternative paths that lead to Brahma, but the dispute is really over which path is most direct.


On learning this much, Gotama Buddha then pursues the supposition that there are paths that lead men to meet Brahma face to face.

What, asks the Buddha, entitles us to believe that anyone meets Brahma face to face.


Journal of Indian Philosophy 16 (1988) 5—28. © 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.