The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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consist of parts. 1 They are themselves modifications of their own parts, they are no ultimate realities. 2 Therefore what is the use of maintaining that the result designated as a cloth consists of threads, when these threads themselves are no ultimate realities, 3 they are not «self possessors)). 4 This has been expressed (in the following aphorism),
Cloth is existent in its threads,
The threads again in something else.
How cau these threads, unreal themselves,
Produce reality in something else? 5
XIY. There is therefore no cause-possessor, so.
Nor is there a result without a cause.
Nor causes are there, nor non-causes,
If (altogether) no results.
Therefore there is no cause-possessing result. Then perhaps there may 89. be a result without causes? No, there is no result outside its (material) cause. If the (reality) of a piece of cloth is not (sufficiently explained by) the reality of its component threads, this does not mean that it will be ex¬ plained any better by the reality <>f the straw (of which mats are made). 6
(The Hlnayanist) objects. Let us admit (for the sake of argument) 89. that there are no results (i. e., no production and no preexistence of sup¬ posed results)! 7 There is however a regularity 8 (in the phenomenal world
1 amSumnya, possessing particles or filaments. 2 asvabhava-siddha.
3 aswzbhava. 4 asvayatnmaya.
5 This is against the Vaise§ika view that the reality of the whole is conditioned by the reality of the parts in which the whole is supposed to inhere, the atoms being the ultimate, eternal reality. For the Madhyamikas atoms will be relative realities, constructed realities (samvrti ). For the identification of this stanza cf. M. de la V. P.’s note in his ed.
6 Lit., p. 89.9. «If there is no cloth consisting of threads how can there be one con¬ sisting of tara»a-straw»?
7 The theory of ■ the non existence or the non-pre-existence of the result in its causes (ma bhut phalam = asat-phulam — asat-karyam) is also admitted by the Vaise§ikas, but they admit a new creation (arambha) of the results by the causes. The illnayauists have substituted for & notion of efficient causality (utpadn) a notion of coordination (pratitya-samutpada) and converted efficient causes (hetu, karana), into conditions or coordinates (pratyaya). At the same time they have here converted every entity, every durable object, into a series of discrete mo¬ mentary existences following one anoiher with strict regularity. They have thus replaced cau¬ sality by a regularity or uniformity in nature (pratyaya-niyama). The Mahayanist rejects this theory from the standpoint of absolute reality, but this does not prevent him to accept the realistic view for phenomenal reality, cp. above p. 163.
* niyama.
12*
NIRVANA
according to which some facts appear asj coordinated and others are not so coordinated. You yourself admit it. Indeed you ask us the following ques¬ tion: if there are no results (produced by causes and if all existence con¬ sists of discrete moments following one another) why is it that (certain facts) appear only after those with which they are (serially) coordinated, why is it that they do not appear with the same evidence 1 after facts with which they are not (serially) coordinated? (By putting this question you implicitly admit a strict regularity in the phenomenal world). If the (sup¬ posed) results, called a cloth or a mat, were not existent, their coordinates, tlie threads and the straw, would never have been called causes. In this sense we (the Hlnayanists) maintain the reality of results. 2
89. 13 . We answer. There would have been a (real) result, if conditions and non-conditions themselves(really)existed. We would then distinguish that, given a certain result, such and such facts are its conditions, such and such facts are not its conditions. But if we critically examine 3 these (conceptions, they reveal themselves) as non real. Therefore,
No causes are there, no non-causes,
Since (altogether) no result. 4
Thus we couclude that there is no coordination 5 among separate entities, when considered from the transcendental point of view. 0
90 . 3. Accordingly it is stated in the Arva-Ratnakara-sutra, 7
90 . 4 . Where the adept of Relativity 8 himself is lost,
What (vanishes) like a bird’s flight in air,
What independently nowhere exists,
Will never be a cause producing something!
1 abhipravartate — abhimukham pravartate.