Note f50 — ENLIGHTENMENT AND IGNORANCE

It is highly doubtful that the Buddha had a very distinct and definite scheme for the theory of Causation or Dependence or Origination, as the Paṭicca-samuppāda is variously translated. In the present Sutra, he does not go beyond Viññāna (consciousness or cognition), while in its accepted form now the Chain starts with Ignorance (avijjā). We have however no reason to consider this tenfold Chain of Causation the earliest and most authoritative of the doctrine of Paṭicca-samuppāda. In many respects the Sutra itself shows evidence of a later compilation. The point I wish to discuss here mainly concerns itself with the Buddha’s intellectual efforts to explain the realities of life by the theory of causation. That the Buddha regarded Ignorance as the principle of birth-and-death and therefore of misery in this world, is a well-established fact in the history of Buddhism.