y perceived the self was but the mental experiences
either individually or together. The ignorant ordinary man did
not know the noble truths and was not trained in the way of wise
men, and considered himself to be endowed with form (_rupa_)
or found the forms in his self or the self in the forms. He

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[Footnote 1: _Sa@myutta Nikuya_, III. pp. 44-45 ff.]

[Footnote 2: See B@rh. IV. iv. Chandogya, VIII. 7-12.]

[Footnote 3: _Sa@myutta Nikaya_, III 45.]

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experienced the thought (of the moment) as it were the self or
experienced himself as being endowed with thought, or the thought
in the self or the self in the thought. It is these kinds of
experiences that he considered as the perception of the self
[Footnote ref 1].

The Upani@sads did not try to establish any school of discipline
or systematic thought. They revealed throughout the dawn of an
experience of an immutable Reality as the self of man, as the only
abiding truth behind all changes. But Buddhism holds that this
immutable self of man is a delusion and a false knowledge.
The first postulate of the system is that impermanence is sorrow.
Ignorance about sorrow, ignorance about the way it originates,
ignorance about the nature of the extinction of sorrow, and ignorance
about the means of bringing about this extinction represent
the fourfold ignorance (_avijja_) [Footnote ref 2]. The avidya, which
is equivalent to the Pali word avijja, occurs in the Upani@sads also,
but there it means ignorance about the atman doctrine, and it is
sometimes contrasted with vidya or true knowledge about the self
(_atman_) [Footnote ref 3]. With the Upani@sads the highest truth
was the permanent self, the bliss, but with the Buddha there was
nothing permanent; and all was change; and all change and impermanence
was sorrow [Footnote ref 4]. This is, then, the cardinal truth of
Buddhism, and ignorance concerning it in the above fourfold ways
represented the fourfold ignorance which stood in the way of the
right comprehension of the fourfold cardinal truths (_ariya
sacca_)--sorrow, cause of the origination of sorrow, extinction of
sorrow, and the means thereto.

There is no Brahman or supreme permanent reality and no
self, and this ignorance does not belong to any ego or self as we
may ordinarily be led to suppose.

Thus it is said in the _Visuddhimagga_ "inasmuch however
as ignorance is empty of stability fr