The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
‘ Lit., p. 89. 10-12. «Here he says, let there be no result, but there is a regularity of conditions and non-conditions. Accordingly you say «if a non-existent result appears after its conditions, after its non-conditions also why does it not evidently appear » ? And if the result called cloth or mat does not exist, the conditionality of the conditions, of the threads or the straw, is impossible)).
3 vicaryamana.
4 Lit., p. 90.1. «Cau8es and non-causes is a ( dvandva ) compound)).
5 samulpatti =pratitya-samutpdda. The first chapter thus winds up with a rejection of the Hlnayanistic pratitya-samutpdda.
G svabhdvatah = tattvatah.
7 Cp. L. Feer, Index du Kandjour, p. 248.
$ siinya-vid. cp. Tib.
APPENDIX! CANDRAKlRTI’S comment ON RELATIVITY, I 181
What independently at all does not exist, oo. 6 .
How can it have a cause , 1 without itself existing.
Without itself existing, how can it be efficient ? 2
Such is Causality as taught by Buddha.
All (supposed) forces 3 are (like) mountains , 4 90. s.
They are (immovable) and firmly seated,
Not changing, never suffering, (ever) quiescent
Unconscious 5 are they like aerial Space.
Just as a mountain can be never shaken 90. io.
So Liotionless are all the elements 0 (of nature).
They never go and never come!
Thus (should we understand) these elements
Revealed by the Victorious (Buddha)
And moreover, 91. 1.
This one Reality (eternal ) 7
Has been revealed by the Victorious (Buddha),
The lion of this mankind:
It is not born, it does not live , 3
It does not die, does not decay.
And merged 9 in it are all the beings!
If something has no essence in itself, 91. 6 .
How can it then receive an essence from without ? 10
1 para-paccayah, possibly as bahuvrlhi.
2 Lit. «give birth to something else».
3 sarva-dharma = sarve samskardh , the totality of all the active elements of existence
4 or « motionless », acala.
5 ajanaka Tib. ses-pa-med-pa does not mean that dharma-kaya is an unconscious ma¬ terialistic principle, but that no individual things are cognized, since they are lost in the all-em¬ bracing whole, cp. 185 n. 3.
6 dharma.
7 dharma evidently in the sense of dharma~kdya = dharmatd — tathdtd. But the mean¬ ing of dharma «the doctrine of Buddha» is also suggested.
* upapadyt, here probably in the sense of sthita as a member of the series utpddo , sthiti, jara , anityata.
9 niveSayi — Tib. bkod-pa = aamniveHa « arrangement)), i. e.. the whole is an arrangement of parts, the parts disappear in the whole.
10 para-bhdvatu.
NIRVANA
There are, therefore, no things internal,
There also are no things external.
But everywhere is present our Lord. 1
91 . 6. This (absolute) condition 2 of Quiescence
(Where every individual disappears),
Has been revealed by the real Buddha. s
There is in it no (individual) life whatever.
There you will stroll 4 from birth delivered!
You will then be yourself the Saviour,
And you will save the hosts of living beings!
There is no other Path discernable whatever.
There you will live, from birth 5 delivered,
And free yourself, deliver many beings! etc.
Finished the ((Examination of Causality» the first chapter of the «Clear worded» Comment upon Relativity, the work of the venerable Master Candraklrti.
1 Lit.. 91. 4-5. « With whom some self-existence is not found, through something it is not reached as other-existence, it is not being reached neither from within, nor from without, in it is the Lord inherent». natha — dharma-ldya ; nivelayi in the same sense as in 91.2.
2 The term yati signifying the six kinds of worldly existence is here applied to Nirvana which is not a gati, but the ultimate aim of all gatis.
3 The term su-gata is here evidently being interpreted as the man who has entered the « best yati», i. e., who is lost in the Absolute.
4 voharasl is here also used pointedly for a condition which is the negation of vyaxahara . hut. at the same time the ultimate aim of all vyavahdra.
5 gati.
CHAPTER XXV
EXAMINATION OF NIRVANA
I. The HInayanistic Nirvana rejected.
On this (subject Nagarjuna) says, f>m
I. If everything is relative, 1
No (real) origination, no (real) annihilation,
How is Nirvana then conceived?
Through what deliverance. 2 through what annihilation? 3
With regard to this point the Buddha has taught that personalities 4 who have lived a pure life and have been initiated into Buddha’s religion, 5 who have acquired a knowledge of (ontology, i. e.,) of the elements of existence as taught in that religion, 6 can attain a double kind of Nirvana, a Nirvana at lifetime, (being an annihilation) with some residual substratum, and a (final) Nirvana, (being an annihilation) without any residue.
(The first) of them is conceived as something attainable by a complete 519 deliverance 7 from the whole catalogue of the defiling elements, 8 e. g., the illusion (of personal identity), 9 desires 10 etc. etc. A substratum is what underlies (all these defiling agencies), it is (the inveterate instinct^ of cheris-
1 Sunya. 2 prahana.
2 nirodha. 4 pudgala.
1 tathdgata-Sdsana-pratipanna.
6 dharma-anu-dharma-pratipatti-yukta] noteworthy the use of the term dharma in its two chief significations side by side, the first dharma refers to the doctrine, or religion, the second to the 75 elements of existence, or ontology.