The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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When the divine Buddhas have entered blissful Nirvana in which all 538. 9. Plurality has vanished, they are like regal swans soaring in the sky without any support, 7 they are hovering in the wind produced by their (two) wings, 8 the wing of accumulated virtue 9 and the wing of accumulated wisdom, 10 or they are hovering in the wind of Space, (that Space which) is the Void. 11 Then (from this elevation), all separate objects having become undistinguishable, 12 the Buddhas have not preached, neither about the defiling elements 13 (of life), nor about its purifying elements, 14 neither in the divine worlds, nor in the human world, neither to gods, nor to men. This should be realized.
nor a purifying one ( vaiyavadanika ), i. e., prajnd and samddhi, has been taught by the real Buddha, i. e. by the Buddha conceived as Dharma-kaya, the Cosmos. The whole catalogue of the dharmas is evidently meant, and their relativity and unreality from the transcendental point of view. But since Hinayana is Pluralism, i. e., a doctrine about the elements, a Dharma about the dharmas , dharmanudharma, both meanings are so interwoven that in many contexts both will apply. On p. 537. 13 the general meaning is evidently intended.
1 iha.
2 apravrtti.
3 prapaiica, prapanco vdJc.
4 nimitta.
5 janman.
6 vdsand, explained as purvam jhdnam, but conceived as a cosmical Force, transcendental illusion.
7 asthdna-yogena.
s paksa-pata , the meaning of bias or, fervour, towards a special doctrine is equally here intended.
9 punya-tambhara.
10 jnana-sambhara.
11 akimcana, an allusion to the doctrine of &unyata\ the lofty Bodhisattva is hovering in the regions of Relativity, which is here poeticaily compared with the Void (smbhdvo-Sungaa).
12 sarva-nimitta-anupalambha.
13 samkleSika-dharma.
14 vaiyavadanika-dharma.
NIRVANA
539. 3. Accordingly it has been declared in the Arya-tathagata-guhya. «The night when, 0 Santamati, the Buddha has reached the highest abso¬ lute enlightment, the night he was about to pass into Final Nirvana, at that occasion the Buddha did not pronounce even one syllable, he has not spo¬ ken, nor does he speak, nor will he speak. But since all living beings, accor¬ ding to the intensity of their religions fervour , 1 appear as different characters 2 with different aims , 3 they imagine 4 the Buddha proferring on different occa¬ sions a variety of discourses. On separate occasions it occurs to them «this Buddha teaches us about such a topic », 5 «we listen to his teaching about this topicw. But the (real) Buddha 6 is never engaged in thought-construction, in thought-division. 0 Santamati, the Buddha is averse to all plurality which is produced by our habits of thought , 7 (that Plurality which is the cause) of an en¬ tanglement of thought constructions 8 and of the dismemberment 9 (of the world’s Unity ). 10
689 . io. Indeed,
Unspeakable, unpronounceable are all (elements),
Relational , 11 quiescent, pure!
Those are (real) Buddhas and Bodhisattvas 12
Who realize them in this (their pure condition).
539. 13 . But if the Buddha has preached no doctrine (of separate elements) no¬ where and to nobody, how is it then that we hear abdut his various discour¬ ses, constituting the Scriptures?
539. 14. We answer. Mankind is plunged in the slumber of ignorance, they
1 yathadhimuktah.
2 vividha-dhatu, dhatu evidently in the sense of gotra.
3 (t rividha)-a$aya. 4 samjananti.
s or element, dharma. 6 i. e. Dharma-Kdya.
7 vasana = pwrvam jnanam. 8 kalpand = yojana.
9 vikalpa = dvaidhikarana.
10 This is a purely Mahayanistic doctrine, viz. that Buddha, as soon as he became a real Buddha, did not speak, because human speech is not adapted to express, and human knowledge incapable t<j realize conceptually, that unique Substance of the Universe with which Buddha himself is identified as dharma-kaya and which appears directly to the intuition of the mystic. The logical value of the tenets sarvajno na vaktd and asarvajho vaktd is analysed with much subtlety by Dharmottara in the Nyayabiudut., p. 66.19 ff. and by Vacaspatimisra in the Nyayakanika, p. 110.16 and 112.21 ff. M. de la V. P., p. 366 n. 1 of his edition, thinks that this doctrine is in glaring contradiction with what -is repeatedly stated in the Pali Canon. No wonder, since Mahayana is Monism and Ilinayana Pluralism. Spinoza can hardly be ex¬ pected to agree with Aristotle!
11 §unya.
12 kumura-=jina-putra.
appendix: candrakIrtts comment on RELATIVITY, XXV 211 are as though in a dream, they have a wealth of constructive imagination . 1 It occurs to them «this Buddha, this Lord over all gods, demons and human beings in all the three worlds, teaches us about this topic».
Accordingly it has been said by Buddha, 539. 10.
The Buddha is but a reflexion
Of the pure, passionless principle.
He is not real, he is not the Buddha,
’Tis a reflexion that all creatures see.
This is likewise explained at length in the chapter about the «Secret 540. 5 . meaning of the Buddha's words».