2 : An Ancient Controversy
It’s hard to understand why modern scholars keep repeating the idea that everyone in India during the Buddha’s time believed in rebirth. Actually, the Pāli discourses provide clear evidence to the contrary, evidence that has been available in Western languages for more than a century.
The Buddha frequently referred to two extremes of wrong view that blocked progress on the path: eternalism and annihilationism. “Annihilationism” is the term he used to describe those who denied rebirth. Apparently he didn’t invent the term himself, as MN 22 reports that other teachers sometimes accused him of being an annihilationist as well.
Other passages in the Canon depict some of the more colorful ways in which annihilationism was taught in his time. In particular, they mention two people who were famous for their annihilationist views. One was Ajita Kesakambalin, the leader of a materialist sect. DN 2 reports him saying this:
“‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings [beings born without the need for parents in heaven or hell]; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves.
“‘A person is a composite of four primary elements. At death, the earth (in the body) returns to and merges with the (external) earth-substance. The fire returns to and merges with the external fire-substance. The liquid returns to and merges with the external liquid-substance. The wind returns to and merges with the external wind-substance. The sense-faculties scatter into space. Four men, with the bier as the fifth, carry the corpse. Its eulogies are sounded only as far as the charnel ground. The bones turn pigeon-colored. The offerings end in ashes. Generosity is taught by idiots. The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the breakup of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death.’” — DN 2
Another famous annihilationist was a prince named Pāyāsi. DN 23 states that he held a materialist view similar to Ajita Kesakambalin, and that he used his power to execute criminals as an opportunity to conduct gruesome, quasi-scientific experiments to test whether any part of a human being survived death. He reported these experiments to one of the Buddha’s followers, a monk named Kumara Kassapa, and two of the experiments were these:
“There is the case, Master Kassapa, where my men—having caught a thief, a wrong-doer—present him to me, (saying,) ‘Here is a thief, a wrong-doer for you, lord. Decree for him whatever punishment you wish.’ And I say, ‘Very well, then, masters, having placed this man while still alive in a clay jar, having sealed the mouth, having covered it with a damp skin, having plastered it with a thick layer of damp clay, having set it in a furnace, light the fire.’
“They—responding, ‘Very well,’ to me—having placed the man while still alive in a clay jar, having sealed the mouth, having covered it with a damp skin, having plastered it with a thick layer of damp clay, having set it in a furnace, light the fire. When we know, ‘The man has died,’ then—removing the jar, breaking through the seal, opening the mouth—we look carefully, (thinking,) ‘Maybe we’ll see his soul escaping.’ But we don’t see his soul escaping….’
“There is the case, Master Kassapa, where my men—having caught a thief, a wrong-doer—present him to me, (saying,) ‘Here is a thief, a wrong-doer for you, lord. Decree for him whatever punishment you wish.’ And I say, ‘Very well, then, masters, having weighed this man with a scale while still alive, having strangled him to death with a bowstring, weigh him with the scale again.’
“They—responding, ‘Very well,’ to me—having weighed the man with a scale while still alive, having strangled him to death with a bowstring, weigh him with the scale again. When he is alive, he is lighter, more flexible, and more malleable. But when he has died, he is heavier, stiffer, and less malleable.
“This is the reason, Master Kassapa, for which I believe, ‘There is no other world, there are no spontaneously reborn beings, there is no fruit or result of good or bad actions.’” — DN 23
DN 1 gives a more comprehensive picture of annihilationist views current at the time, classifying them by how they define the self annihilated at death. There were seven types in all. Three of them defined the self as a body: either the physical body composed of the four material elements, a divine physical body, or an astral body. The view espoused by Ajita Kesakambalin and Prince Pāyāsi would fall under the first of the three. Four other annihilationist views, however, defined the self as formless: experiencing the dimension of infinite space, of infinite consciousness, of nothingness, or of neither perception nor non-perception. In each of the seven cases, these doctrines state that the self, however defined, perishes and is annihilated at death.
As for the non-Buddhist schools that affirmed the idea of rebirth, the Pāli Canon explicitly names at least four: Brahmans (SN 42:6; AN 10:177), Jains (MN 101), and two contemplative (samaṇa) schools—one led by Makkhali Gosāla, and the other by Pakudha Kaccāyana. We know from other sources that the Jains and some Brahmans affirmed that action played a role in shaping rebirth; the Canon shows, however, that the other two teachers denied that action played any role in rebirth at all.
“[Makkhali Gosāla:] ‘Though one might think, “Through this morality, this practice, this austerity, or this holy life I will ripen unripened karma and eliminate ripened karma whenever touched by it”—that is impossible. Pleasure and pain are measured out; the wandering-on is fixed in its limits. There is no shortening or lengthening, no accelerating or decelerating. Just as a ball of string, when thrown, comes to its end simply by unwinding, in the same way, having transmigrated and wandered on, the wise and the foolish alike will put an end to pain.’” — DN 2
“[Pakudha Kaccāyana:] ‘There are these seven substances—unmade, irreducible, uncreated, without a creator, barren, stable as a mountain-peak, standing firm like a pillar—that do not alter, do not change, do not interfere with one another, are incapable of causing one another pleasure, pain, or both pleasure and pain. Which seven? The earth-substance, the liquid-substance, the fire-substance, the wind-substance, pleasure, pain, and the soul as the seventh. These are the seven substances—unmade, irreducible, uncreated, without a creator, barren, stable as a mountain-peak, standing firm like a pillar—that do not alter, do not change, do not interfere with one another, and are incapable of causing one another pleasure, pain, or both pleasure and pain.’” — DN 2
In addition to these named exponents of rebirth, DN 1 provides an overview of the different types of views it attributes to “eternalists” and “partial eternalists.” Eternalists, like Pakudha Kaccāyana, maintained that the soul was not changed in the least as it went through the round of rebirth. Partial eternalists held that some souls changed their position in the cosmos—and thus their experience of pleasure and pain as they went through different lives—whereas others never changed their position in the cosmos at all.
Although the Pāli Canon doesn’t discuss these rebirth theories in great detail, we know from other contemporary sources that the Jains and Brahmans took great pains to define what sort of self or essence was reborn—and it’s likely that Makkhali Gosāla and Pakudha Kaccāyana did as well, for their theories of rebirth require a soul or substance in a person that takes birth after death. The most detailed discussions of what a soul might be are the Brahmanical Upaniṣads, which advance many theories about what is reborn: The self becomes consciousness and leaves the body (BAU VI.4.2); the self is bodiless, immortal breath-energy, and is identical with Brahman, the underlying force of the cosmos (BAU IV.4.7); one’s supreme self is an astral body (ChU VIII.12) that can be detected by the faculty of the mind (KathU II.3.9).
The Upaniṣads also record many different descriptions of the soul’s progress after death, the most interesting being the account in ChU V.3-10, which divides living beings into three classes. Those in the most developed class gain union with Brahman after death. Those in the intermediate class go stage by stage to the moon, on which they feed. Then they return to earth as rain, becoming plants and then being reborn as the sort of animal that eats the plants: Those with good karma get to be eaten by human beings; those with worse karma, by lower sorts of animals. The lowest class of beings—which includes tiny insects—suffers a fate that the Upaniṣad doesn’t even describe.
So it’s clear that when discussing rebirth, both sides of the issue felt called upon to take a stand on two issues. The first was the nature of what a person is, and, from there, an explanation of how that person is or is not annihilated at death. In other words, both sides assumed that they had to explain their positions by taking a stand on the metaphysics of personal identity.
The second issue—among those who accepted rebirth—was the relationship between human action and rebirth: whether the course of rebirth was affected by human action or not.
Given such a wide variety of views on both sides of these questions, it’s obvious that the idea of rebirth was not an unexamined assumption in Indian culture. It was one of the most controversial issues of the Buddha’s time.
And the controversy wasn’t confined only to the philosophers. In one of his most famous discourses, the Buddha addresses the Kālāmas, a skeptical group of villagers, telling them that by avoiding unskillful actions and developing a mind free from ill will, a person gains four assurances in the here and now.
“‘If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the breakup of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.’ This is the first assurance one acquires.
“‘But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease—free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.’ This is the second assurance one acquires.
“‘If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?’ This is the third assurance one acquires.
“‘But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both respects.’ This is the fourth assurance one acquires.” — AN 3:66
If the idea of rebirth—and its connection with karma—had been universally accepted in ancient India, the Buddha wouldn’t have had to offer these assurances to the Kālāma villagers.
This means that we can’t write off the Buddha’s teachings on karma and rebirth simply as an undigested remnant from his culture. In teaching rebirth, he was consciously addressing an issue that was hotly debated, in a culture that expected him to articulate clearly his explanation for how and why rebirth did or didn’t happen.
