Chap. VII. How a Bodhisattwa merges all natural attributes into vacuity.
Chap. XII. The doctrine of Mahâyâna and its advantages, derived principally, if not entirely, from its recognition of the greatness of S'unyavâda (Nihilistic doctrine of the Brahmin sect of S'unyavâdis).
Chap. XIII. To the Bodhisattwa there is nothing eternal, nothing transient, nothing painful, nothing pleasant. All qualities are unreal as a dream.
Chap. XIV.-XVI. The principle of the Prajnâ Paramitâ imparted by Buddha to Indra. The end sought is the attainment of vacuity.
Chap. XXXV. All objects attainable by the study of Nihilism. ("Nepalese Buddhist Literature," p. 180.)
Hodgson gives a bit of what he calls this "pure Pyrrhonism" from the same book. Buddha is made to talk thus:—
"The being of all things is derived from belief, reliance, in this order: from false knowledge, delusive impression; from delusive impression, general notions; from them, particulars; from them, the six seats of the senses; from them, contact; from it, definite sensation and perception; from it, thirst or desire; from it, embryolic (physical) existence; from it, birth or actual existence; from it, all the distinctions of genus and species among animate things; from them, decay and death, after the manner and period peculiar to each. Such is the procession of all things into existence from delusion (avidyâ), and in the inverse order to that of their procession they retrograde into non-existence." (p. 79.)
Another book, the "Suvarna Prabhâsa," makes "grand non-existence," the Bodhi, the divine knowledge. "I now instruct you on the means of acquiring the knowledge of nothingness," Buddha is made to say to his disciples. (Rajendra Lala Mitra, p. 243.)
But there is a third school of Buddhism, the Madhyamika, or "Middle Pathway." Unless all this is definitely understood, Buddhism will remain a riddle. For a long time the "Great" and the "Little" Vehicles fought furiously. I believe that the "Middle Pathway" was a rude attempt at conciliation. No one can read many Buddhist writings without observing flat contradictions at every page. Thus the Brahmajâla Sûtra, much quoted by missionaries, who are plainly unaware that it belongs to the literature of the "Carriage that drives to Nowhere," announces that the existence of the soul after death in a conscious or even an unconscious state is impossible. But there is a passage which the missionaries do not quote. Buddha also tells his disciples that the statement of the Brahmins and Buddhist teachers, that "existing beings are cut off, destroyed, annihilated," is founded on their ignorance and want of perception of the truth. (See my "Popular Life of Buddha," p. 223.)