It is interesting that Buddhist scriptures never mention the word craving—they go straight from “Suffering Has a Cure,” (the Fourth Noble Truth)” to “The Eight-fold Path.” They only refer to suffering. It’s hard to explain. All the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads celebrate soma, a plant which seems to have had no bad side effects like hangovers. The Tankas picture the pig, the snake, and the cock—ignorance, hatred, and desire. But craving, the source and heart of the problem of existence, receives no mention.
Perhaps it is only a matter of word choice and translation. But still, it is interesting that Buddhist scriptures plunge right into the Eight-fold Path without attempting to analyze the nature of craving. Now, of course, we understand craving in its Darwinian context of survival of the individual and the species.