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

3 anupaddya, this kind of upadana is termed in the Nyaya system a pratiyogin. This realistic system admits absolute nou-existence (atyanta-abham) and relative non-existfnce (anyonya-abhdva).

4 From the Buddhist point of view the terms pratltya « relative to a cause# and updddya «relative to a substratum# are equivalents. The realistic Vaisegika system imagines that the substratum ( upadana) is a cause ( samavdyi-karana ) really producing (arambhaka) the result. In Hinayana the real existence of a durable substratum, of a stuff or substance, is denied aud the

13*

NIRVANA

529. 3 . (The phenomenal world) is here the run of life, hither and thither, the come and go of life, the concatenation of births and deaths. This phenomenal world is imagined as existing in the sense that (its separate entities) are dependent upon a complex of causes and'conditions , 1 (they are relatively real) as, e. g., the long (is real) as far as there is something short (with which it is contrasted). Sometimes they are imagined as produced by causes, e. g. the light (is supposed to be produced) by the lamp, the sprout (is con¬ ceived as produced) by a seed etc. But in any case, whether it be only ima¬ gined as relatively coordinated, or whether they be considered as produced by causes, when the continuity of birth and death has ceased, when there are neither relations nor causality, this (same world as motionless and eter¬ nal) is then called Nirvana . 2 Now, the mere cessation (of aspect) can neither be considered as an Eus, nor as a non-Ens. Thus it is that Nirvana is nei¬ ther an Ens, nor a non-Ens.

529. 9 . Another (interpretation of this aphorism is also possible; it would then intimate that the manner of conceiving Nirvana by the Hlnayanists is much the same, although they aver that their Nirvana is an Ens)

They indeed maintain (either, like the Sarvastivadins, that there is in the Universe no abiding central principle 3 at all, that the world-process consists)

duration of an object is converted into an uninterrupted sequence of momentary flashes without any substratum, every preceding moment is the substratum ( upadana-bhuta) of every following one. Cause and effect are thus declared to be correlated concepts, just as the long is correlated with the short (dirgha-hrasva-vat), causation is replaced by coordination, and the causes con¬ verted into coordinates. Nagarjuna here says that whether we, with the Vaisegikas, imagine causation as a production of one thing by the other (pratitya), or wether we, with the Hlnayanists, imagine mere coordination (updddya), there nevertheless is a Whole (sv xai itiv) in which these causes and coordinates are merged. Otherwise, pratitya as a part of the term pratitya-samutpada refers also to causation in the sense of coordination, it then is synonymous with updddya , but here both terms are contrasted from a special view-point.

1 hetu-pratynya-samagri. Since among the Lotus we must include the karanu-hetu, cp. above p. 41 n. 6, the state of the whole Universe with respect to a given point-instant is inclu¬ ded in the totality of its causes and conditions.

2 Lit., p. 529. 5-7. «In any case whether it be established that it is imagined prajfiap - yate) as coordinated {upadayn), or produced as caused (pratitya), in any case the non operation (apravrtti) of this duration of a lineage of births and deaths, whether as non-caused or as noucoordinated, is established as the Nirvana ». The non-operation or cessation of an imagined con¬ struction (prajnapti — kalpana) i3 nothing but a change of aspect, Nirvana is thus the Universe sub specie aeternit atis.

3 The anatman principle is an equivalent of samskdrah samsaranti, cp. my Central Concep¬ tion p. 25, 52 etc.

appendix: candrakIrti’s comment on relativity, xxv 197 in the evolution 1 of coordinated energies. 2 (They maintain that this world in which every momentary) origination and (every) destruction, obeys, in -every case, to causal laws, 3 when these causal laws have ceased to operate, 4 when all energies are extinct, 5 is called Nirvana. 6

Or they (like the Vatsiputrivas) maintain (that there is such a central principle, termed by them) «personality» 7 which migrates (out of one existence into an other). It escapes definition. 8 It neither is the eternal (Soul of the Brahmans), nor is it momentary 9 (like the energies of the Buddhists). (Phenomenal life consists) in its coming and going, 10 dependent every time upon a changing substratum 11 (of elements). It then evolves obeying to causal laws. 12

This very (principle) which evolves on the basis of changing elements, 13 530. when the time comes 14 for it to assume no new substratum 15 and its evolution stopps, 16 is said (to have entered) Nirvana. 17

1 samsaranti.