WORLD AND INDIVIDUAL body it receives At the time of death, so they hold, the soul is the first to go out of the body But these views are not proper For, anything that has a shape and is physical is made of the four fimdamental physical elements and is causally born and is not therefore anything permanent or substantial.26 To imagine on the contr�ry that the person is utterly impermanent is to entertain the error of negativism (IV) Is soul the subtle body? Some distinguish between two kinds of body, gross and subtle, and say that while the gross body (*Jlt) is impermanent, the subtle body (*WJlt) is the same as the soul and that in every span of life, the subtle body emerges out of one gross body and e!1ters into another, thus revolving in the five states of existence 26 The Siistra observes that, first of all, such a subtle body cannot be found anywhere Suppose there is the subtle body as you imagine ; it should have a location ; actually whether in the five kosas or in the four bodies (.nil 119ft), searching everywhere no (such) subtle body can be found (which can answer to the notion of soul) 68 (I49b) But these people say that the subtle body is too subtle to be seen ; at the time of death it will have already left the previous habitation, and when alive one cannot fmd it by searching for it So how can one "see" it? Moreover this subtle body is not an object of the five physical senses ; only the sages with extraordinary powers can see it To this the Siistra replies that a thing which is not an object of experience is as good as non-existent Further one can add that anything that is a "body" is impermanent and non-substantial The Sastra observes that in fact what these people are speaking of as subtle body (�Jlt) is simply the complex of the subtle skandhas of the intermediary state (ifllll ) , i.e., the state be tween death and rebirth.27 The physical element, whether internal or external, subtle or gross, is all impermanent, subject to birth and death It is not any real substantial entity.28 But can the soul be anything non-physical? Of the non-physical, there are on the one hand the four kinds of mental elements, i.e., the four 22 NAGARJUNA'S PHILOSOPHY skandhas, and on the other, there are the incomposite elements The mental elements are subject to birth and death; they not endure even for a moment ; they owe their being to causes and conditions and are not self-possessed So these canno t answer to their notion of soul Of the incomposite also there is nothing that can answer to their notion of soul, for the incomposite is not anything that could be seized as 'I" or "mine."1lII In this way between heaven and earth, inside or outside, in any of the three times or any of the ten directions, searching for the soul, one can not find it (*�;;r;:PJ�) (I49c) (V) Is soul an object of inference? The existence of soul cannot even be inferred as th,ere are no characteristic signs of its own by which it can be inferred Anything known as existent is known by virtue of its characteristic sign (;ffllJMcJlIj�;ff ) Seeing the sm oke and feeling the heat, one can know that there is fire As there are different kinds of sense objects one can know that there must be the different senses to perceive them By reason of the different activities of considering and under standing things, one can know that there are the mind and the mental states But the -soul is devoid of characters and how can it be known that it exists?30 The soul-theorists argue: Are there not breathings in and out (iliA @,)? Can they not serve as the marks of soul? Again, the opening and closing of the eyes (ilI.llfU ) , the duration of hfe (81llt ) , the different states of mind like the feeling of pain and pleasure, love and hatred, and effort, all these can serve as the marks of soul (;IUUH ) 31 If �ere is no soul who has all these? Therefore it should be known that inside the body there is the soul Because the soul impels from within , the vital principle functions It is the soul that directs and puts into action even the mind; without a soul it would be like an ox without a driver If there is no soul who directs the mind? It is the soul that experiences pleasure and pain Devoid of soul, the body would just be like wood, without the capacity to distinguish things Although the soul is subtle and cannot therefore be cognized through the five senses, still through these signs of soul one 224 WORLD AND INDIVIDUAL can infer that it exists (OO;@:;f:H$:IiJ��1f) Here the Stistra observes that all these marks mentioned above as the signs of soul are truly the signs of vijfiiina (�;@:mMa), the self-conscio us principle of intellection, the indi vidual centre of personality 32 When vijfiiina is present then there are the activities of breathing in and out, the opening of the eyes to see etc., as well as the duration of life When vijfiiina leaves the body, then none of these marks can be found Further, as these people maintain that the soul is eternal and all-pervasive,33 and hold that breathing etc are its characteristic marks so, even the "dead" person should have the ac tivities of breathing, seeing, etc In truth, breathi ng etc., are the physical activities that take place due to the power of the wind which functions according to (the direction it receives from) the citta or vijfiiina These are truly the marks of citta or vijfiiina and not of any soul (J!t;@:$m:n: �;f:H) Although sometimes there are cases of temporal lapse (fi1!) of the explicit sense of self, it is not altogether extinct ; it continues even then iIi a subtle form, but soon after the state of lapse, the element of self-consciousness becomes explicit This is comparable to a person going out of his house for some time ; just because he has been away for some time it cannot be said that the house is devoid of a master Similarly although sometimes there is a temporary lapse of self-con sciousness still it cannot be said that it is totally absent at any time Even elements like pain and pleasure, love and hatred, and effort belong essen tially to citta; they have their common object with it, and they function a long with it They are there when citta is there ; when it is not there even these will not be Therefore these are the characters of vijfitina and are not pertinent ·to any eternal entity called soul.34 , (VI) The substantialist and the organismic views of self: In the course Qf the p resent discussion there has emerged the important point of distinc tion between what can b e described as the substantialist view of self and the org anism ic dynamic conception of se1£ While it is undeniable that the dynamic system of bodily and mental events constituting personali ty is taken even by the substantialists as a system of conclitioned events, they entertain the notj.on of a sep a r ate substantial entity called "soul" "I a� its ground, and consider that as the true object of the sense of , to 225 NAGARJUNA'S PInLOSOPHY This substantial entity or soul, is thought to be eternal and all-pervasive, while at the same time being many and separate Not only is each soul separate from the other souls, but each soul is separate also from the complex of bodily and mental events with which it is associated Still it does deeds, experiences pleasure and pain and transmigrates from one set of bodily and mental elements to another It is evident that this notion is a mixture of contradictory ideas, and as the Buddhist would hold, it is really an imagination of unconditionedness and permanence in regard to the complex of skandhas, which is in truth a detenninate system of conditioned events If this rejection of "soul" were to lead one to the other extreme of imagining that personal life is altogether devoid of a basis, that would be to swing to the error of negativism Both alike deprive personal life of its significance and deny its very possibility The Middle Way consists in the recognition that the complex system of personality is not absolute, that there is no element in it which forever remains the same, as well as that no element in the system of personal life ever perishes totally The course of persollal life is a continuous organic system of events But still, what gives it the unique character ofbe�g personal is the Sense of "I, " the fundamental fact of subjectivity, the experi�ncing of the inner life as "I" and "mine," in other words, the principle of self-