z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 04.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 270
270 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
III
be in ages to come? (7) What shall I then be? (8) How shall I then be ? (9) From what shall I pass to what? Or, again, it is Self today about which he is in doubt, asking himself—(1) Am I? (2) Am I not? (3) What am I ? (4) How am I ? (5) Whence came my being ? (6) Whither will it pass ? ”
As regards the Universe various questions were raised. Some of them were as follows :—
“How was the Universe created ? Is it everlasting ?”
In answer to the first question some said everything was created by Brahma—others said it was created by Prajapati.
In answer to the second question some said it was everlasting. Others said it was not. Some said it was finite. Others said it was infinite.
These questions the Buddha refused to entertain. He said that they could only be asked and entertained by wrong-headed people.
To answer these questions required omniscience which nobody had.
He said that he was not omniscient enough to answer these questions. No one could claim to know all that is to be known nor what we wish to know at any time is known at the time. There is always something that is unknown.
It is for these reasons that the Buddha excluded such doctrines from his religion.
He regarded a religion which made such doctrines a part of it as a religion not worth having.
(ii)
The doctrines with which the contemporaries of the Buddha had made the basis of their religion were concerned with (1) Self ; and (2) the origin of the Universe.
They raised certain questions about the self. They asked : “(1) Was I in ages past? (2) Was I not in ages past ? (3) What was I then ? (4) From what did I pass to what? (5) Shall I be in ages to come ? (6) Shall I not be in ages to come ? (7) What