Sassatavada is a kind of thinking rejected by the Buddha in the nikayas (and agamas). One example of it is the belief that the individual has an unchanging Self

Atman (Hinduism)

Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means 'self'. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism it refers to one's true self beyond identification with phenomena...

. Views of this kind were held at the Buddha's time by a variety of groups.

The Buddha rejected this and the opposite concept of ucchedavada (materialism) on both logical and epistemic grounds. He proposed a middle way

Middle way

The Middle Way or Middle Path is the descriptive term that Siddhartha Gautama used to describe the character of the path he discovered that led to liberation. It was coined in the very first teaching that he delivered after his enlightenment...

 between these extremes, relying not on ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 but on causality

Causality

Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....

.

Eternalism included the belief that the extinction of things means their latency and the production of things means their manifestation — this violates the Buddha's principle of the middle way.

Eternalism is one of the corners or limits of the 'Four Limits' (Sanskrit: Caturanta), a particular configuration of the Catuskoti

Catuṣkoṭi

Catuṣkoṭi is a logical argument of a 'suite of four discrete functions' or 'an indivisible quaternity' that has multiple applications and has been important in the Dharmic traditions of Indian logic and the Buddhadharma logico-epistemological traditions, particularly those of the Madhyamaka...

.

External links

• The Buddhist Critique of Sassatavada and Ucchedavada