In the earliest period of Buddhism more attention was paid
to the four noble truths than to systematic metaphysics. What
was sorrow, what was the cause of sorrow, what was the cessation
of sorrow and what could lead to it? The doctrine of _pa@ticcasamuppada_
was offered only to explain how sorrow came in and
not with a view to the solving of a metaphysical problem. The
discussion of ultimate metaphysical problems, such as whether
the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a Tathagata
existed after death or not, were considered as heresies in early
Buddhism. Great emphasis was laid on sila, samadhi and panna
and the doctrine that there was no soul. The Abhidhammas
hardly give us any new philosophy which was not contained in
the Suttas. They only elaborated the materials of the suttas with
enumerations and definitions. With the evolution of Mahayana
scriptures from some time about 200 B.C. the doctrine of the
non-essentialness and voidness of all _dhammas_ began to be preached.
This doctrine, which was taken up and elaborated by Nagarjuna,
Aryyadeva, Kumarajiva and Candrakirtti, is more or less a corollary
from the older doctrine of Buddhism. If one could not
say whether the world was eternal or non-eternal, or whether a
Tathagata existed or did not exist after death, and if there was
no permanent soul and all the dhammas were changing, the only
legitimate way of thinking about all things appeared to be to
think of them as mere void and non-essential appearances. These
appearances appear as being mutually related but apart from
their appearance they have no other essence, no being or reality.
The Tathata doctrine which was preached by As'vagho@sa oscillated
between the position of this absolute non-essentialness of all
dhammas and the Brahminic idea that something existed as the
background of all these non-essential dhammas. This he called
tathata, but he could not consistently say that any such permanent
entity could exist. The Vijnanavada doctrine which also
took its rise at this time appears to me to be a mixture of the
S'unyavada doctrine and the Tathata doctrine; but when carefully
examined it seems to be nothing but S'unyavada, with an attempt
at explaining all the observed phenomena. If everything was

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non-essential how did it originate? Vijnanavada proposes to give an
answer, and says that these phenomena are all but ideas of the mind
generated by the beginningless vasana (desire) of the mind. The