is implied by our words self
and personality. The word commonly used to signify an individual is
puggalo. Thus in one sutta[419] the Buddha preaches of the burden, the
bearer of the burden, taking it up and laying it down. The burden is the
five skandhas and the bearer is the individual or puggalo. This, if
pressed, implies that there is a personality apart from the skandhas
which has to bear them. But probably it should not be pressed and we
should regard the utterance as merely a popular sermon using language
which is, strictly speaking, metaphorical.

2

The doctrine of Anatta--the doctrine that there is no such thing as a
soul or self--is justly emphasized as a most important part of the
Buddha's teaching and Buddhist ethics might be summarized as the
selfless life. Yet there is a danger that Europeans may exaggerate and
misunderstand the doctrine by taking it as equivalent to a denial of the
soul's immortality or of free will or to an affirmation that mind is a
function of the body. The universality of the proposition really
diminishes its apparent violence and nihilism. To say that some beings
have a soul and others have not is a formidable proposition, but to say
that absolutely no existing person or thing contains anything which can
be called a self or soul is less revolutionary than it sounds. It
clearly does not deny that men exist for decades and mountains for
millenniums: neither does it deny that before birth or after death there
may be other existences similar to human life. It merely states that in
all the world, organic and inorganic, there is nothing which is simple,
self-existent, self-determined, and permanent: everything is compound,
relative and transitory. The obvious fact that infancy, youth and age
form a series is not denied: the series may be called a personality and
death need not end it. The error to be avoided is the doctrine of the
Brahmans that through this series there runs a changeless self, which
assumes new phases like one who puts on new garments.

The co-ordination and apparent unity observable in our mental
constitution is due to _mano_ which is commonly translated mind but is
really for Buddhism, as for the Upanishads, a _sensus communis_. Whereas
the five senses have different spheres or fields which are independent
and do not overlap, _mano_ has a share in all these spheres. It receives
and cognizes all sense impressions.

The philosophy of early Buddhism deals with psychol