# Light and Silence: 4 We are forever casting nets into an ocean we do not understand. Each catch—a word, a concept, a moment of clarity—we hold aloft as though it were the whole of truth. But the ocean returns what it will, and what returns is often not what we sought. Language, that miraculous prison, allows us to speak of the unspeakable. Yet in speaking, we diminish. A sunset described is a sunset betrayed. The ineffable becomes merely difficult to say. We trade mystery for meaning, and call it knowledge. There is a silence beneath all speech—not the absence of sound, but the presence of what cannot be uttered. The mystics knew this. They sat in their caverns and caves, not because words had failed them, but because they had glimpsed something that words could only wound. Better to say nothing and preserve the wound as sacred. But we are not mystics, most of us. We are creatures of the marketplace, the classroom, the hurried street. We must speak to live. We must explain ourselves or dissolve into irrelevance. So we gather our broken syllables, our approximate metaphors, and we call them truth. And perhaps—here lies a strange mercy—we are right. Perhaps the broken always were the truest form of utterance. Perhaps God too speaks in stammers and hesitations, reaching for what even divinity cannot fully name. In the space between what we say and what we mean, something sacred lives. In that gap dwells all genuine communication, all true encounter. The listener who hears not the words but the silence behind them—that listener has understood everything.

(2) The Precise Meaning of 'Attā' and 'Anattā'


Those who wish to prove the Buddha a closet Vedantist have a favorite strategy: treating the Pali word 'attā' (attā) as synonymous with the Upanishadic 'ātman'. Glasenapp identifies this very error.


In the Pali texts, the word 'attā' carries two entirely distinct meanings. First meaning: in everyday usage, 'one's own person'—when the Dhammapada (twelfth chapter, Attavagga) says 'attānaṃ rakkhatu'—'protect yourself'—this is no metaphysical pronouncement but ordinary practical counsel, like saying in Bengali, 'look after yourself.' Second meaning: in philosophical terminology, the eternal self postulated by Jains and other schools—which the Buddhists categorically reject. 'Anattā' is thus a noun meaning 'non-self' (that which is not a self) and an adjective meaning 'selfless' (that which contains no self).


Glasenapp reveals an exceptionally important subtlety. In verse 279 of the Dhammapada it is said: 'Sabbe saṅkhārā anicca... Sabbe dhammā anattā.' Notice—in the first line, 'saṅkhārā' (conditioned processes) are called impermanent, but in the second line, 'dhammā' (all phenomena, including nirvana) are called anattā. That is, non-self applies not merely to the conditioned world—nirvana too is not a self. This is the precise opposite of Vedanta, where moksha or Brahman itself *is* the self.


Another sūtra: in the Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN 35.85) it is said: 'Rūpā suññā attena vā attanīyena vā'—'Forms are empty both of self and of what belongs to self.' Here the word 'empty' (suññā) is notable—the seed of Nāgārjuna's later doctrine of emptiness lies already in this ancient Pali usage.


Glasenapp offers an elegant counter-argument as well: those who claim that 'Buddhism contains a self, but hidden,' ought to know that the term 'anātman' appears in Brahmanical texts too—in the Bhagavad Gīta (6.6), in Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya (1.1.1), in the Vedāntasāra (158). There, 'anātman' means 'that which is not a self'—namely, the world, body, mind, and so forth. If then 'anattā' in Buddhism means the same—'this is not a self'—then it is rejecting self-theory, not affirming it in disguise.


(3) Rebirth Without an Eternal Self


Those seeking a hidden self within Buddhism offer a favorite argument: 'Without a self, how is rebirth possible? Who is born? Whose rebirth occurs?' Glasenapp refutes this objection.


He shows that even in Western philosophy, the idea of rebirth without an eternal self is no novelty. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras (circa 6th century BCE) and Empedocles (circa 5th century BCE) both believed in rebirth, yet neither possessed precisely the notion of an indestructible self-substance in the way the Upanishads present it.


In Buddhism, rebirth occurs through dependent origination—through conditioned co-arising. The Buddha himself offered a parable: the flame of a lamp. A burning lamp's flame changes moment by moment—the flame of one second is not physically identical to the flame of the next, because fuel is consumed and fresh fuel supplied. Yet we say 'the same flame burns'—because each moment causes the next. Similarly, at the moment of death, the final moment of the consciousness-stream conditions the first moment of the next birth—as when one candle lights another, the fire does not 'transfer,' a new flame is born from the cause of the old. No 'self' passes from one body to another—a causal continuum persists, as when a seal's impression falls upon wax, no part of the seal passes into the wax, yet the imprint appears exact and entire.


(4) The Specific Refutation of Gunther and Jennings


In the mid-twentieth century, two European scholars attempted to prove the Buddha a secret Vedantist: Herbert Gunther (*The Soul Problem of Early Buddhism*, Constance, 1949) and J.G. Jennings (*The Vedantic Buddhism of the Buddha*, Oxford, 1947). Glasenapp systematically refutes their three principal arguments.


First refutation: In the commentary (Aṭṭhakathā) to the Udāna (Ud 8.2), Dhammapāla explains nirvana as 'anattaṃ'—'devoid of self' (lacking in self).

In the Vinaya Pitaka too (Vin V, p. 86), the same thing is stated. That is, in two separate places in the Pali tradition—the Commentaries and the Vinaya—nirvana is called ‘not-self.’ Even after this, there remains no opportunity to call nirvana the self.

The Second Refutation: In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (DN 16), the Buddha says: ‘Attadipa viharatha, dhammadipha’—’Take yourself as refuge, take the dharma as refuge.’ Gunter and Jennings wish to present this sentence as proof of selfism—’Look, the Buddha himself instructed people to take the self as refuge!’ Glasenapp shows: this is a practical instruction—’Do not depend on others, advance by your own effort’—not a metaphysical proclamation. The Buddha said this just before his death, when Ananda was weeping—the context is entirely practical: ‘I am departing; you yourselves must find your own path.’

The Third Refutation—the most elegant of all. Gunter has translated the phrase ‘atta hi attano natho’ from Dhammapada 160—’the self is the self’s lord (protector/refuge)’—as: ‘Nirvana is man’s leader’ (meaning ‘atta’ = nirvana/the supreme self). Glasenapp shows: if this translation were true, then the very next verse—Dhammapada 161—’attana va katam papam’—would mean: ‘Sin is created by nirvana.’ This is so absurd that Gunter’s entire method of translation collapses. The actual meaning is simple: ‘You yourself are your own lord’—that is, you must yourself bear responsibility for your own actions.

(5) The Complete Absence of the Upanishadic Self in the Pali Canon

Glasenapp’s fifth argument is a straight challenge: point out a single place in the Pali Canon—in the thousands of pages of the Tipitaka—where the word ‘atta’ is used positively in the Upanishadic sense—’the universal self, the ultimate ground of all things, being-consciousness-bliss.’ No one has succeeded in meeting this challenge.

Glasenapp further demonstrates: the term ‘atman’ exists in many schools of Indian philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Jainism—but none of their conceptions of ‘atman’ means the Upanishadic ‘universal self identical with the supreme Brahman.’ The Nyaya self is a substance, the Samkhya Purusha is inert consciousness, the Jain jiva is a limited being—none of them is the Upanishadic ‘tat tvam asi’ self. This particular meaning belongs to Vedanta alone. Then why would Buddhism seek that particular meaning—which does not exist in any other non-Vedantic community in India?

(6) The Fallacy in Georg Grimm’s Grand Syllogism

The German scholar Georg Grimm attempted to uncover selfism in the Buddha through a cunning three-part argument. His reasoning: the Buddha said, ‘Form is not the self, feeling is not the self, perception is not the self, mental formations are not the self, consciousness is not the self’—that is, nothing known is ‘my ego.’ Grimm contends: then there must exist an eternal ego beyond knowledge—because to say ‘this is not I,’ one needs an ‘I’ to say it, does one not?

Glasenapp shows: this argument rests on a fundamental logical error. From ‘it does not exist here’ to ‘it must exist elsewhere’—this conclusion is not supported by logic. From ‘there is no elephant in this room’ one cannot conclude ‘then the elephant must be outside the room’—perhaps the elephant does not exist anywhere.

Glasenapp offers an elegant counter-analogy from the Bible: in Mark 13.22, Jesus says ‘false Christs will arise.’ Following Grimm’s logic, one would have to say: because there are ‘false Christs,’ there must be a ‘true Christ.’ But an atheist or unbeliever could say: no, there are only false claimants, no ‘true’ one exists. Similarly, when the Buddha says, ‘this is not the self, that is not the self’—he is not saying, ‘the real self is hiding somewhere else’—he is saying, ‘there is no such thing as a self anywhere.’

Glasenapp further shows that even the Pudgalavadins—that minority sect within Buddhism who believed in a ‘pudgal’ or personhood—could never produce a single proof from the foundational texts of the Pali Canon that the self exists.

All the Hīnayāna schools (Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda, Sautrāntika, and others) and all the Mahāyāna schools (Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and others)—all are unanimous on this point: the doctrine of anātman (non-self) is the unbroken and immutable foundation of Buddhism.

(7) Nirvāṇa is not ātman—Another Argument

We discussed this matter in detail in the fourth section, but Glazenapp presents those arguments in a more concentrated form.

Ātman is mental and conscious (chit)—nirvāṇa cannot be called ‘conscious,’ because in Buddhist philosophy consciousness (vijñāna) is itself a conditioned skandha. Ātman is the original cause of the world (Aitareya 1.1: ‘Ātman alone existed; he alone created all’)—nirvāṇa creates nothing. Ātman is the sustainer of cosmic order (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.8.9: by the command of this imperishable one, the sun and moon stand, rivers flow)—nirvāṇa does not govern the universe. Ātman is the innermost essence of all things—nirvāṇa does not exist ‘within’ anything.

Glazenapp also raises a question of common sense: if Buddha had truly been an ātmavādin, why did he not use the word ‘ātman’? Among his contemporaneous listeners, many were Brahmins who understood the word ‘ātman.’ Had Buddha been an ātmavādin, using that word would have made his meaning transparent to his audience. But he deliberately avoided it—because his teaching ran counter to ātmavāda, and using that word would have created false associations in the minds of his listeners.

(8) The Final Verdict of Modern Scholarship

Glazenapp’s last argument rests on the history of learning. He shows that in the first three decades of the twentieth century, three fundamental works of scholarship definitively established the true nature of Buddhist philosophy—and after these three works, the claim that ‘Buddha was actually an ātmavādin’ could no longer hold sway in scholarly circles.

First: the Russian scholar Otto Rosenberg’s Problems of Buddhist Philosophy (in Russian, 1918; German translation, 1924)—wherein he demonstrates that the fundamental structure of Buddhist philosophy is dharma theory, which is the complete opposite of ātmavāda.

Second: the two epoch-making works of the Russian-Polish scholar Theodor Stcherbatsky—The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word ‘Dharma’ (1923) and Buddhist Logic (two volumes, 1932)—wherein he proves that in Buddhist philosophy ‘dharma’ (the momentary elements) is ultimate reality, not any permanent entity.

Third: the Belgian scholar Louis de la Vallée Poussin’s French translation of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa (L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, 1923–1931)—wherein the entire structure of Buddhist Abhidharma is, for the first time, systematically unveiled to Western scholarship, and it becomes clear that all Buddhist communities—from Theravāda to Yogācāra—are founded upon the doctrine of non-self and dharma theory.