The Doctrine of the Upanisads and the Early Buddhism

The opening section studies the otherworldly order of things in ancient Indian thought, beginning with land, people, the Brāhmaṇa caste, sacrificial science, Vedic gods, magical power in sacrifice, death, re-death, karman, immortality, and deliverance. Chapter I, “The Older Upanisads,” analyzes the early Upaniṣadic doctrines of Brahman, Ātman, the identity of Brahman and Ātman, the Absolute and its relation to the world, metempsychosis, karman, the value or burden of existence, deliverance through knowledge, desirelessness, the beginnings of Yoga, and the literary form of the Upaniṣads. Chapter II, “The Later Upanisads and the Beginnings of Sāṃkhya and Yoga,” discusses the Kathaka, Śvetāśvatara, and Maitrāyaṇa Upaniṣads, then traces the emergence of Sāṃkhya through dualism, prakṛti, the three guṇas, puruṣa, evolution, bondage, and liberation, before turning to Yoga through breath discipline, bodily postures, sense-control, meditation, miraculous powers, Nirvāṇa, and the relation between Yoga and Sāṃkhya. Chapter III, “The Early Buddhism,” examines Buddhism in relation to Brahmanism and the Upaniṣads, considering chronology, geography, the Buddha’s intellectual environment, the rejection of merely theoretical knowledge, possible Sāṃkhya and Yoga influences, the Buddhist position on Ātman, causality, the conditioned and unconditioned, the supramundane, Nirvāṇa, and the distinctive doctrinal and religious innovations of early Buddhism.