BUDDHA OR KARL MARX 445
“Then, in the same terms, Potthapada asked (the Buddha) each of the following questions:
Is the world not eternal?
Is the world finite?
Is the world infinite?
Is the soul the same as the body?
Is the soul one thing, and the body another?
Does one who has gained the truth live again after death?
Does he neither live again, nor not live again, after death?
And to each question the exalted one made the same reply: It was this.
“That too, Potthapada, is a matter on which I have expressed no opinion”.
- “But why has the Exalted One expressed no opinion on that?” (Because) ‘This question is not calculated to profit, it is not concerned with (the Dhamma) it does not redound even to the elements of right conduct, nor to detachment nor to purification from lust, nor to quietude, nor to tranquilisation of heart, nor to real knowledge, nor to the insight (of the higher stages of the Path), nor to Nirvana. Therefore it is that I express no opinion upon it.”
On the second point I give below a quotation from a dialogue between Buddha and Pasenadi King of Kosala :
“Moreover, there is always strife going on between kings, between nobles, between Brahmins, between house holders, between mother and son, between son and father, between brother and sister, between sister and brother, between companion and companion...”
Although these are the words of Pasenadi, the Buddha did not deny that they formed a true picture of society.
As to the Buddha’s own attitude towards class conflict his doctrine of Ashtanga Marga recognises that class conflict exists and that it is the class conflict which is the cause of misery.
On the third question I quote from the same dialogue of Buddha with Potthapada;
“Then what is it that the Exalted One has determined?”
“I have expounded, Potthapada, that sorrow and misery exist!”
I have expounded, what is the origin of misery. I have expounded what is the cessation of misery; I have expounded what is method by which one may reach the cessation of misery.
- ‘And why has the Exalted One put forth a statement as to that?’
‘Because that questions Potthapada, is calculated to profit, is concerned with the Dhamma redounds to the beginnings of right