Sassatavada (
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist '' Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Bud ...
) also śāśvata-dṛṣṭi (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
), usually translated "eternalism" is a kind of thinking rejected by the Buddha in the
nikayas (and
agamas). One example of it is the belief that the individual has an unchanging
self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...
. Views of this kind were held at the Buddha's time by a variety of groups.
The Buddha rejected this and the opposite concept of ''ucchedavada'' (
annihilationism) on both logical and epistemic grounds. He proposed a
Middle Way
The Middle Way ( pi, ; sa, ) as well as "teaching the Dharma by the middle" (''majjhena dhammaṃ deseti'') are common Buddhist terms used to refer to two major aspects of the Dharma, that is, the teaching of the Buddha.; my, အလယ်� ...
between these extremes, relying not on
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...
but on
causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...
.
Eternalism included the belief that the extinction of things means their latency and the production of things means their manifestation — this violates the Buddha's principle of the middle way.
[K. Venkata Ramanan, ''Nagarjuna's Philosophy: As Presented in the Maha-Prajnaparamita-Sastra.'' Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1993, page 60.]
References
{{Buddhism-stub
Buddhist philosophical concepts