Page 154 - Islam and Buddhism

Islam and Buddhism

referred, in addition, to "many parallelisms of Stoicism and
Buddhism.". . . 8

Rajapakse notes that some other 18th and 19th century atheists
or agnostics were also great admirers of Buddhism. Parallels between
Buddhism and the materialist Western philosophy of the time form
part of the thought of David Hume, an 18th century Scottish philoso-
pher and atheist with an antipathy towards religion. Rajapakse

writes, "Interestingly enough, the parallelisms that exist between
Buddhist and Humean standpoints on the question of a substantial
soul were duly noted by certain early commentators on Buddhism"
and continues:
Mrs. Rhys Davids [a pioneer translator of early Buddhist texts from
Paali into English], for example, remarked that "with regard to the
belief in an indwelling spirit or ego, permanent, unchanging, unsuf-
fering, Buddhism took the standpoint two thousand, four hundred
years ago of our own Hume of two centuries ago." 9
As Rajapakse maintains in his article,

Buddhism intrigued many thinkers in
Victorian England because they found
it in harmony with the ascendant
philosophies of the 19th century—
atheism and Darwinism. Friedrich
Nietzsche, the famous German
philosopher, looked with favor on

Buddhism for the same reason.

Nietzsche's Sympathy
N i e t z s c h e ' s S y m p a t h y
d
d
B
u
s
m
h
i
o
f for Buddhism

r
Nietzsche, one of the 19th century's
most avid atheist thinkers, nurtured a passion-
David Hume
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