In my account of early Buddhism, I attempted to make out that it is only a restatement of the thought of the Upanishads with a new emphasis. In spite of the absence of any specific reference to the Upanishads, it is admitted that the teaching of Buddha is considerably influenced by the thought of the Upanishads. Indifference to Vedic authority and ceremonial piety, belief in the law of karma, rebirth and the possibility of attaining moksha, nirvana and the doctrine of the non-permanence of the world and the individual self are common to Upanishads and Budha. While Buddha adopts the position of the Upanishads in holding that absolute reality is not the property of anything on earth, that the world of samsara is a becoming without beginning or end, he does not delinitely affirm the reality of the absolute, the self and the state of liberation. He does not tell us about the state of the enlightened after death, whether it is existent, non-existent, both or neither, about the nature of the self and the world, whether they are eternal, non-eternal, both or neither, whether they are self-made, made by another, both or neither. As a matter of fact these questions were reserved issues on which Buddha did not allow any speculation. While there is no doubt that Buddha refused to dogmatise on these problems, it is still an interesting question, if it can be answered at all, what exactly the implications of this refusal are.
-Indian Philosophy - S Radhakrishnan
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