ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the strange paradoxes of early Buddhism, especially in connexion with the concept of Nirvana and the chain of transmigration. The religion of Buddhism emerged at a time when civilization was advancing in India, and when the area of civilized culture was rapidly expanding. From the tenth to the seventh centuries b.c. the main focus of religious thought and activity had been the great sacrificial rituals, very expensive and complicated. The Buddhism of the Greater Vehicle built up a whole new mythology of divine beings, but even the Lesser Vehicle is not atheistic. All forms of Buddhism admit the existence of mighty supernatural powers. The ethics of the abandonment of desire are, of course, primarily intended for the Buddhist Order, the monks, who give up their family ties and live together in monasteries, simply but not very austerely, to work out their salvation.
