The doctrine of momentariness ought to be a direct corollary of the Buddhist metaphysics.  But it is curious that though all dharmas were regarded as changing, the fact that they were all strictly momentary (k@sa@nika—­i.e. existing only for one moment) was not emphasized in early Pali literature.  As’vagho@sa in his S’raddhotpadas’astra speaks of all skandhas as k@sa@nika (Suzuki’s translation, p. 105).  Buddhaghosa also speaks of the meditation of the khandhas as kha@nika in his Visuddhimagga. But from the seventh century A.D. till the tenth century this doctrine together with the doctrine of arthakriyakaritva received great attention at the hands of the Sautrantikas and the Vaibha@sikas.  All the Nyaya and Vedanta literature of this period is full of refutations and criticisms of these doctrines.  The only Buddhist account available of the doctrine of momentariness is from the pen of Ratnakirtti.  Some of the general features of his argument in favour of the view have been given above.  Elaborate accounts of it may be found in any of the important Nyaya works of this period such as Nynyamanjari, Tatparyya@tika of Vacaspati Mis’ra, etc.

Buddhism did not at any time believe anything to be permanent.  With the development of this doctrine they gave great emphasis to this point.  Things came to view at one moment and the next moment they were destroyed.  Whatever is existent is momentary.  It is said that our notion of permanence is derived from the notion of permanence of ourselves, but Buddhism denied the existence of any such permanent selves.  What appears as self is but the bundle of ideas, emotions, and active tendencies manifesting at any particular moment.  The next moment these dissolve, and new bundles determined by the preceding ones appear and so on.  The present thought is thus the only thinker.  Apart from the emotions, ideas, and active tendencies, we cannot discover any separate self or soul.  It is the combined product of these ideas, emotions, etc., that yield the illusory appearance of self at any moment.  The consciousness of self is the resultant product as it were of the combination of ideas, emotions, etc., at any particular moment.  As these ideas, emotions, etc., change every moment there is no such thing as a permanent self.

The fact that I remember that I have been existing for

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a long time past does not prove that a permanent self has been existing for such a long period.  When I say this is that book, I perceive the book with my eye at the present moment, but that “this book” is the same as “that book” (i.e. the book arising in memory), cannot be perceived by the senses.  It is evident that the “that book” of memory refers to a book seen in the past, whereas “this book” refers to the book which is before my eyes.  The feeling of identity which is adduced to prove permanence is thus due to a confusion between an object of memory referring