Kūtadanta said: "I am told that thou teachest the law, yet thou
tearest down religion. Thy disciples despise rites and abandon
immolation, but reverence for the gods can be shown only by
sacrifices. The very nature of religion consists in worship and
sacrifice." 5
Said the Buddha: "Greater than the immolation of bullocks is the
sacrifice of self. He who offers to the gods his evil desires
will see the uselessness of slaughtering animals at the altar.
Blood has no cleansing power, but the eradication of lust will
make the heart pure. Better than worshiping gods is obedience to
the laws of righteousness." 6
Kūtadanta, being of a religious disposition and anxious about his
fate after death, had sacrificed countless victims. Now he saw
the folly of atonement by blood. Not yet satisfied, however, with
the teachings of the Tathāgata, Kūtadanta continued: "Thou
believest, O Master, that beings are reborn; that they migrate
in the evolution of life; and that subject to the law of karma we
must reap what we sow. Yet thou teachest the non-existence of the
soul! Thy disciples praise utter self-extinction as the highest
bliss of Nirvāna. If I am merely a combination of the sankhāras,
my existence will cease when I die. If I am merely a compound of
sensations and ideas and desires, wither can I go at the
dissolution of the body?" 7
Said the Blessed One: "O Brahman, thou art religious and earnest.
Thou art seriously concerned about thy soul. Yet is thy work in
vain because thou art lacking in the one thing that is needful. 8
"There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of a self.
Thy thought-forms reappear, but there is no ego-entity
transferred. The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the
scholar who repeats the words. 9
"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream
that their souls are separate and self-existent entities. 10
"Thy heart, O Brahman, is cleaving still to self; thou art
anxious about heaven but thou seekest the pleasures of self in
heaven, and thus thou canst not see the bliss of truth and the
immortality of truth. 11
"Verily I say unto thee: The Blessed One has not come to teach
death, but to teach life, and thou discernest not the nature of
living and dying. 12
"This body will be dissolved and no amount of sacrifice will save
it. Therefore, seek thou the life that is of the mind. Where self
is, truth cannot be; yet when truth comes, self will disappear.
Therefore, let thy mind rest in the truth; propagate the truth,
put thy whole will in it, and let it spread. In the truth thou
shalt live forever. 13
"Self is death and truth is life. The cleaving to self is a
perpetual dying, while moving in the truth is partaking of
Nirvāna which is life everlasting." 14