as a distinct being, a kind of thing-in-itself, and a meta-physical agent assumed to be the soul.
Buddhism is monistic. It claims that man's soul does not consist of two things, of an ātman (self) and of a manas (mind or thoughts), but that there is one reality, our thoughts, our mind or manas, and this manas constitutes the soul. Man's thoughts, if anything, are his self, and there is no ātman, no additional and separate "self" besides. Accordingly, the translation of ātman by "soul", which would imply that the Buddha denied the existence of the soul, is extremely misleading.
Representative Buddhists, of different schools and of various countries, acknowledge the correctness of the view here taken, and we emphasize especially the assent of Southern Buddhists because they have preserved the tradition most faithfully and are very punctilious in the statement of doctrinal points.
"The Buddhist, the Organ of the Southern Church of Buddhism," writes in a review of The Gospel of Buddha:
"The eminent feature of the work is its grasp of the difficult subject and the clear enunciation of the doctrine of the most puzzling problem of ātman, as taught in Buddhism. So far as we have examined the question of ātman ourselves from the works of the Southern canon, the view taken by Dr. Paul Carus is accurate, and we venture to think that it is not opposed to the doctrine of Northern Buddhism."
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