Buddhist philosophy

The teachings of Gautama Buddha (6th century BC - 5th century BC), because of its non-theistic nature, have been described as more of a philosophy than a religion. However, adherents of Buddhism contest that even these two categories lack in defining Buddhist teaching. For them, Buddhism presents itself as way to attain understanding and direct insight into the true nature of existence, and not mere speculation nor a theoretical basis of a branch of knowledge.

The early history of Buddhist thought in India can better be characterized as a shift from primarily moral and religious teachings concerned with the attainment of enlightenment to a more comprehensive system of thought, in the midst of which philosophical schools and systems gradually came into existence.

This process is wound up with internal dynamics of the Buddhist religion as well as with more general developments in ancient Indian intellectual environs. After the death of the Buddha, attempts were made to gather his teachings and transmit them in a commonly agreed form, first orally, then also in writing (The Tripitaka). In addition to collecting the Buddha's speeches and rules for monastic life (Vinaya[?]), monks soon undertook it to condense what they considered the essential elements of Buddhist doctrine into lists of categories, provided with extensive commentary. This process took shape from about the 2nd century BC to probably the 2nd century AD.

In roughly the same period there also emerged the oldest Brahmanic philosophical systems, the dualistic Sankhya[?] as well as the Vaisheshika[?], whose outlook can be described as that of a "nature philosophy" aiming to provide explanations for natural phenomena and addressing philosophical problems such as motion, processes of change and transformation, or the relation between mind and body.

At some point, philosophical activity seems to have turned towards categorizing all that exists, towards providing a set of categories into which all possible entities or objects could be subsumed. In Buddhism, the ancient concept of a "constituent factor" (Sanskrit dharma), perhaps originally conceived of as a constituent factor of Buddhist doctrine, came to fulfill this role of an ontological category, in the sense of a constituent factor of mind as well as matter.

This increasing focus on questions of ontology, of existence, led to a reshaping of older teachings that had primarily concentrated on ethics and liberation. Questions to which the Buddha is reported to have refused an answer, such as whether a soul exists, whether it is permanent, or whether it is identical with or different from the body, now came to be addressed. Scholars have different views about what is probably the most famous teaching of Buddhism, that of anatta or "not-self"; it appears plausible to interpret older, canonical teachings as aiming mainly at a supression or neglect of clinging to the notion of an eternal, blissful and world-removed self, because such clinging would stand in the way of realizing universal impermanence and inherent suffering, necessary preconditions for attaining enlightenment. These teachings do not address the issue of whether a soul exists; such questions are often dismissed as fruitless speculations.

The philosophical schools of Buddhism, amongst which the so-called Sarvastivada school is the most important historically in this context, soon came to furnish the teaching that bodily or mental factors are not the self with the additional connotation "because no self exists as a permanent substrate of mental states". History of logic

Buddhist Philosophers:

• Nagarjuna

See also:

• List of Buddhist terms and concepts
• Middle way