2. The concept of Reality in the Four Buddhist Schools

After Buddha’s Enlightenment (Mahaparinirvāṇa), Buddhism got divided into many schools. Of them the most important division of Buddhism on religious matters was into the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna. The followers of Theravāda School mostly are from south. This School was an orthodox school. They believed or followed the teachings of Buddha as it is. The literature of this School is vast and is written in Pāli language. The Mahāyāna School spreads mostly in the North and the followers of Mahāyāna School are from Tibet, China, and Japan. This school is not as orthodox as Theravāda School. Most of the Literature of the Mahāyāna School was in Sanskrit and they are also translated into Tibetan and Chinese language.^[1]

Buddhism, firstly a moral-religious teaching divided into many sects or schools. Of these some important schools are

(a) Mādhyamika or Śūnyavādi-The philosophers of this school are called Nihilists.

(b) Yogācāra or Vijñānavādi-In this school philosophers are subjective idealists.

(c) Sautrāntika or Bāhyānumeya-vādi-The philosophers of this school are representationists or critical realists.

(d) Vaibhāṣika or Bāhyapratyakṣa-vādi-The philosophers of this school are directly realists or presentationist.^[2]

The first two schools Mādhyamika and Yogācāra come under Mahāyāna school and the last two Sautrāntika and Vaibhāṣika come under Theravāda School.

This fourfold division of Bauddha philosophy is based upon two main questions, one metaphysical (dealing with reality) and the other epistemological (dealing with the knowing of reality). To the metaphysical question “Is there at all any reality, mental or non-mental?” three different answers are given: (a) the Mādhyamikas hold that there is no reality, mental or non mental; that all is void (śūnya). Therefore, they have been called the nihilists (śūnya-vadins). (b) The Yogācāras state that only the mental is real, the non-mental or the material world is all void of reality. They are, therefore, called subjective idealists (vijñānavādins). (c) Still another class of Bauddhas hold that both the mental and the non-mental are real. They may, therefore, be called realists.

Sometimes they are styled Sarvāstivādins (i.e. those who hold the reality of all things), though this term is often used in a narrower sense by some Buddhist writers.^[3] But when the further epistemological question is asked: “How is external reality known to exist?” this third group of thinkers, who believe in external reality, give two different answers. Some of them, called Sautrāntikas, hold that external objects are not perceived but known by inference. Others, known as Vaibhāṣikas, hold that the external world is directly perceived. Thus we have the four schools, representing the four important standpoints. This classification has much philosophical importance, even in the light of contemporary Western thought, where we find some of these different views advocated with great force. Let us consider these four schools.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

D.T. Ṣụẓuki, Outlines of Mahāyāna Buddhism, p. 3.

[2]:

Y. Sōgen, Systems of Buddhistic Thought, p.102.

[3]:

Th. Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism, pp. 63-76.