564 Mr. CoLEBROOKE on the Philosophy of Indian Sectaries. 



' Nor can entity be an effect of non-entity. If the one might come of 

 the other, then might an effect accrue to a stranger without effort on his 

 part : a husbandman would have a crop of corn without tilhng and sowing ; 

 a potter would have a jar without moulding the clay ; a weaver would 

 have cloth witliout weaving the yarn : nor would any one strive for heavenly 

 bliss or eternal deliverance.'* 



To confute another branch of the sect of Buddha, the Veddntiiu argue, 

 that ' the untruth or non-existence of external objects is an untenable 

 position ; for there is perception or apprehension of them : for instance, a 

 stock, a wall, a jar, a cloth ; and that, which actually is apprehended, 

 cannot be unexistent. Nor does the existence of objects cease when the 

 apprehension does so. Nor is it like a dream, a juggle, or an illusion ; for 

 the condition of dreaming and waking is quite different. When awake a 

 person is aware of the illusory nature of the dream which he recollects. 



' Nor have thoughts or fancies an independent existence : for they are 

 founded on external and sensible objects, tiie which, if unapprehended, 

 imply that thoughts must be so too. These are momentary : and the same 

 objections apply to a world consisting of momentary thoughts, as to one of 

 instantaneous objects. 



' The whole doctrine, when tried and sifted, crumbles like a well sunk 

 in loose sand. The opinions advanced in it are contradictory and incom- 

 compatible : they are severally untenable and incongruous. By teaching 

 them to his disciples, Buddha has manifested either his own absurdity and 

 incoherence, or his rooted enmity to mankind, whom he sought to delude.'t 



A few observations on the analogy of the doctrine, above explained, to 

 the Grecian philosophy, may not be here out of place. 



It has been already remarked, in former essays, that the Bauddhas, like 

 the Vais eshicas, admit but two sources of knowledge (p. 445 of this volume). 

 Such likewise appears to have been the opinion of the more ancient Greek 

 philosophers ; especially the Pythagoreans : and accordingly Ocellus, in 

 the beginning of his treatise on the universe, declares that he has written 

 such things, concerning the nature of the universe, as he learned from 

 nature itself by manifest signs, and conjectured as probable, by thought 



* ganc. and other Com. on Br. Sutr. 2. 2. § 4 (s. 18-27). 

 t Com. on Br. Sutr. 2. 2. § 5 (s. 28-32). 



