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xxvi Gaudapadu-Karika There need be no hesitation in admitting that Gauda pada has borrowed several ideas from his predecessors, both Buddhists and Vedāntins. Various passages in the Paramarthasära and Yogavāsıştha can be shown to bear striking similarity with those in Gaudapāda's work. (6) The expression in its various forms (बुद्धैः,बुद्धानां etc.) has been used to refer to the Buddhists and Gautama Buddha is directly mentioned in IV-99. It has been shown in the Notes, how the expression बुद्ध is in most cases used by Gaudapāda merely in the sense of the wise one' and it is unfair to read too much in it. (7) The चातुष्कोटिक idea mentioned in (IV-83, 84) is borrowed by Gaudapāda from Samjaya Belattiputta, a pre-Buddhist heretic. Even if Gauda pāda is taken to have been a borrower as suggested above, that does not prove anything. (8) Agrayāna in Kārikā IV-90 means Mahāyāna. It may very well mean the Purvamimāīsā '.12 It would thus be seen that the attempt of certain scholars to prove that Gaudapāda was a Buddhist and that he preached Buddhistic philosophy or that he incorporated Buddhistic ideas in the Upanişadic philosophy, can not be said to be successful in the least. There is no doubt that Gaudapāda studied very carefully the various philosophical systems current in his own time ( such as the Sankhya, Buddhistic, Gitā) in addition to the Upanişads and evolved his famous doctrine of Ajātivāda, which is certainly far removed from the main tenets of Buddhist philosophers, viz. (1) Momentariness ( kşanikatva ) and (2) Dependent origination (pratityasamutpāda ) which all schools of Buddhistic philosophy accept. The teachings of Gauda pāda can under no circumstances be described as identical with or approximating to those of Śünyavāda of Nagarjuna. Gauda pada thus seems to have been neither a Buddhist nor a Buddhist in disguise, but one who had a profound respect for 10 See notes p. 149.
