The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)

7 prahana. * kle$a-gana.

9 avidya. 10 rdgadi.

nirvana

I

appendix: candrakTrti\s comment on relativity, xxv 185 liing one’s own life. 1 The word «residual substratum)) thus refers to that foun¬ dation of our belief in personal identity 2 which is represented by the ultimate elements of our mundane existence, 3 which are systematized in five different groups. A residue is what is left. A substratum is left (in a partial Nirvana). It exists with a residual substratum, hence its name.

519 . li. "What is the thing (in which there still is a residue of personal ieeling)?

It is Nirvana. It is a residue consistiug of the pure elements 4 of existence alone, delivered from the illusion of an abiding personality 5 and other stealthy defilers. 0 a state comparable to that of a town in which all criminal gangs have been executed. This is a Nirvana at lifetime with some residue (of personal feeling).

520 . i. A Nirvana in which even these purified elements themselves are absent is termed (final Nirvana), a Nirvana without any residue (of personal feeling), because of the idea that here 7 the residue (of personal feeling) is gone, (it is impersonal). It is a state comparable to that of a destroyed town, a town which, after all the criminal gangs have been executed, has been itself also annihilated. It has been said about this (Nirvana),

520. 4 . The body has collapsed,

Ideas 8 gone, all feelings vanished.

All energies 9 quiescent.

And consciousness 10 (itself) extinct.

520 . 6. And likewise,

With his body still at life,

(The Saint) enjoys some feeling,

1 dtma-sneha. 2 dtma-prajnapti.

3 updddna-skandhdh — sasrava-dharmdh, the elements of mundane existence as contrasted with the elements composing the Saint and the Buddha; skandha can be translated as « element» and as agroup of elements)) because three skandhas ( vedana , samjnd, vijndna ) contain one dharma each, rupa-skandha contains 10 dharmas , and samskdra-skandha the remaining 59 ones, except the eternal ones asamskrta, not included in this classification at all; skandha is also a group in the sense of containing past, present future etc. dharmas , cf. my Central Conception, p. 6.

4 skandha-mdtraka = anasrava-dharmah.

5 sat-kdya-drsti. 6 klesa-taskara.

7 nir-upadhi-Sesa is thus an adhikarana-sddhana madhyanva-pada-lopin composite word implying that when all the elements of life are gone there still remains something lifeless t« what there has formerly been life, cp. below p. 525. 6.

* hdu-Ses = sarnjnd. 9 hdu-byed — samska.ro.

1° mam-par-§es-pa — vijndna .

But in Nirvana consciousness 1 is gone, 2
Just as a light (when totally extinct).

This (lifeless) Nirvana, whit-out any residue, is attained through an extinction of all elements of life. 3

(The Mahayanist). Now. how are we to understand the possibility of 520. 10 this double Nirvana?

(The Hlnayanist). (Nirvana is only possible) through the annhilation of desires 4 and all (active) elements (producing life). 5 If everything is rela¬ tive, 0 if nothing (really) originates, nothing (really) disappears, where is the source of illusion and desires, 7 where all the elements 8 which must vanish, in order that Nirvana should take place ? It is therefore clear that (separate) entities must really exist 9 (in order that something should really vanish).

1 cetah = vijndna-skandha.

2 vimoksah — nivrttih, cp. p. 525. 7.

3 skandhdnam nirodhdt. These two Nirvanas are well known in European science since the time of Childers. Of them only the second is the real and final Nirvana, it is defined by Childers, according to the Pali school, as annihilation of all the skandhas. But the classification of existence as skandhas does not include nirodlia or asamskrta-dharma. The Sarvastivadins and Vaibhasikas, as we have seen, assume this nirodha to represent a separate reality — satya , vastu, dharma , it is a lifeless dharma-svabhdva as contrasted with the living dharma-laksana = samskdrdh. The Mahayanist, from his higher, monistic point of view, brushes both these Nirvanas aside. But there cannot be the slightest doubt that Nagarjuna accepts their contin¬ gent reality. He thus has three Nirvanas. The first represents the world sub specie aeternitatis, it is defined below, XXV. 9. The second is the condition of the Mahayanistic Saint, the arya, the bodhisattva. The third corresponds to his disappearance in final Nirvana. The first alone is ulti¬ mately real, the two others are immanent in it, they are not separately (svabhdvatah) real. To these three Nirvanas the Yogacaras have added a fourth one, called by them apratistlritanirvana « altruistic » Nirvana, it represents the pure condition of their eternal Conscious Principle, that principle which they have inherited from the Sautrantikas and the latter from earlier schools with similar theistic tendencies, the Vatslputrlyas and the MahUsanghikas, cp. above p. 30 and J. Masuda, Der Idealismus der Yogacara Schule,p.52 ff. (Heidelberg, 1926) According to conse¬ quent Mahayanism this fourth Nirvana should be also regarded as merely an aspect of the first, but this question appears never to have been finally decided, at least among some of the fol¬ lowers of that school. It is a moot point among the Tibetans, even now, whether the Absolute of an author like Dharmaklrti represents a Conscious Principle (Ses-pa) or Impersonal Eternity (rtag-pa). According to the early Yogacaras the dharma-kdya is divided into svabhdvakdya ( no-bo-did-sku ) and jiidna-kdya ( je-Ses-kyi-sJcu ), the first is the motionless ( nitya ) sub¬ stance of the Universe, the second is anitya , i. e., changing, living.