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

In Hinayana the process of illumination is described as a double mo¬ ment, it consists iu a moment of feeling and a moment of knowledge. The feeling is satisfaction (ksdnti=ruci), after which in the next following moment comes intuition, the vision of the elements of existence (dharmajhdna). The intuition refers at first to the surrounding gross world, and then, as is always the case, it is transferred to the imagined worlds of trance (anvaya-jhdna). Thus in sixteen consecutive moments 4 the intuition of the future Saint has run through the whole universe, its real and imaginary worlds, and has viewed them in the light of the four stages of their evolution towards quiescence. The supreme moment of illumination is the central point of the teaching about the Path to Salvation. An enormous literature, especially in Mahayana, is devoted to this conception of mystic intuition. 5

When in later times the study of Abhidharma has been superseded by the study of logic and epistemology, the mystic perception of the Saint has retained its place among the different categories of direct cognition which were then established. Direct cognition was then defined as containing no synthetic thought (kalpanapodha). It was pure sensation which could ap¬ prehend an indefinite moment of sensation only. The four truths, i. e. ontology, were at first studied and ascertained by sound logic (pramdnena viniscita) and then suddenly perceived-as vividly as a grain of corn on the

1 About the «four truths® iu Nyaya-Vaisegika see below p. 55.

2 It is samskara-duhkhatd or parinama-duhkhatd the counterpart of asamskrta=nirodha, cp. Ab. Kosabh. VI. 3. This kind of duhkha is much nearer to onr ordinary conception of joy, than of suffering.

3 In Nyaya-Vaise§ika the yogi perceives at that moment of illumination the atoms and all categories directly, cp. Prasastp., p. 187. 7.

4 About the 16 moments cp. Ab. Kosa, YI. 18, 25 ff. and M. de la Y. P. in his edition of Madhy. vj, p. 479 n. 4.

5 The text book for the study of this part ofMahayana is theAbhisamayalankaraofMaitreya- Asanga, of which 21 Indian commentaries alone existed besides a huge indigenous Tibetan litera¬ ture. Among the sect of the «yellow caps® the chief commentary studied is the Lam-rim-chen-po by the great Tson-kha-pa, partly translated into Russian by G. Tsibikoff.

NIRVANA

HI. YOGI - PRATYAKSA

palm of the hand. 1 The number of moments was then reduced to three. In the Madhyamika system, where logic was denied altogether, the preparation consisted in a course of negative dialectic, after which the intuition of the transcendental truth springs up as an inward conviction ( pratyatma-vedya ) 2 In both the philosophic systems which are represented in Buddhism — the pluralism of the Hlnayana and the monism of Mahay ana — there is a course of preparation and meditation and a moment of sudden illumi¬ nation. 3

If we now try to answer the question about the age and the history of this Buddhist doctrine of Yoga, we must, first of all, wholly appreciate the fact that it is an inseparable, inherent part of the pluralistic universe of separate elements ( dharma ) gradually evolving towards extinction. 4 The possibility is not excluded, as we have stated elsewhere, 5 that the germ of this theory is older than Buddha himself. In any case there is no historically authenticated Buddhism without this theory, without the mystic worlds and, its inherent part, the philosophic explanation of Yoga. All yoga practices which had not this philosophic and moral aim, all sorcery and thaumaturgy, the brahmanical sacrifices not excepted, were strongly con¬ demned by the Buddha. They were considered as one of the cardinal sins. 6 The details of the conditions in the worlds of the mystic and the degrees of mystic concentration have always given opportunities to much scholastic

1 Cp. Nyaya-bindu and tika, p. 11 (B. B. VII).

2 Madhy.vr, p. 493. 11.

3 According to H. Bergson (De l’intution philosophique) every great philosopher has once had a vision of the Universe to which he then remains faithful the rest of his life in a series of attempts to formulate it ever clearer and clearer. This will then be the drsti-marga of that philo¬ sopher. In the life of Kant it will be the time when after years of literary activity and medita¬ tion the central conception of the Critique of Pure Reason revealed itself to him and he then wrote, «das Jahr 69 gab rnir grosses LichtU. The rest of his life was indeed spent in repeated attempts at a clear formulation of that vision. The preceding study and meditation were, so to say, his sambhara- and prayoga-marga.