A Story of No Self: Literary and Philosophical Observations on Aśvaghoṣa’s Life of the Buddha

Abstract

Responding to Galen Strawson’s skepticism about narrative “selves” and also to Nussbaum’s claims that literary form may be inseparable from philosophical content, the author considers the role of selfhood in the context of the set of narrative cultural traditions which arguably have pursued the notion of “no-self” to its greatest extent: the various forms of Buddhist narrative. The essay begins with a peculiar (and to contemporary ears, somewhat difficult-to-appropriate) scene from Aśvaghoṣ̣a’s Life of the Buddha which, he argues, gives insight into how Buddhism’s famous “middle way” avoids claims both of permanence of self that would allow no change and annihilation of the self that would allow no responsibility.