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

With regard to Nirvana or the Absolute, Indian philosophy, just as, in a broader sense, the philosophy of all mankind, is divided between two diametri¬ cally opposed solutions. The absolute end is either eternal death, or it is eternal life. 1 2 The first is materialism, the second some kind of idealism. Both theo¬ ries are represented in India, in Buddhism as well as in Brahmanism. The theory of eternal death is represented on the Buddhist side by Early Buddhism and the Vaibhasikas, on the Brahmanical side, as will be seen later on, by the early Nyaya-Vaisesika. The theory of eternal life is represented on the Buddhist side by the Mahayana and its precursors, on the Brahmanical side by the Ve¬ danta, Sankhya, Yoga and the later Nayayikas. Nirvana is a reality (dharma, vastu) in the sense of a materialistic, lifeless ( yasmin sati cetaso vimoksah == = acetanahy reality in the majority of the schools of Early Buddhism and in the Vaibhasika school. They are also atheists and treat their Buddha as essentially human. 3 * Such reality is denied by all those schools which adhere to the conception of a divine Buddha, i. e., by the Mahayanists and their precursors in the Hinayana. The conception of Buddha’s Cosmical Body (i dharma-kdya ) is shared by all the schools of Mahayana and by the interme¬ diate school of the Sautrantikas. According to the modern Mongol’s way of expressing it, in Hinayana the Supreme Buddha ( burhan-bagshi ) has no body, in the Mahayana and with the Sautrantikas he has a Body, and a better one (than before becoming Buddha), a glorious, all-embracing Body.

1 I find in modern popular works attaining to biology the conception of a lifeless Nirvana and the term itself applied to describe that condition of the Universe which will obtain when all energies will be exhausted (entropy). There is assumed a biological a Lusttrieb» and a «Todestrieb», the first would correspond to heyopadeya-hanopadana, the second to sarvam heyam or sarvam duhlcham, cp. Sigm. Freud, Jenseits des Lustprincips (Vienna 1925), pp. 52, 80.

2 Cp. Madhy. vr., p. 525. 9, cp. transl. in the Appendix.

3 This, of course, does not mean that exceptional, supernatural powers were not ascribed to him., but he belonged to the manusya-loka.

As regards the reality or ideality of Nirvana the relative position of the contending schools may be roughly represented in the following sche¬ matic way.

Vaibhasika and early schools — both samsara and nirvana real.

Madhyamika—both samsara and nirvana unreal (sc. separately unreal).

Sautrantika — samsara real, nirvana unreal (sc. separately unreal).

Yogacara or Vijhanavada — samsara unreal, nirvana real.

The meaning of this schema will emerge from the arguments advanced by each of the schools.

VIII. The Vaibhasikas

As mentioned above, they are the continuators of the early school of the Sarvastivadins and may be here treated as the representatives of Early Buddhism in general. Their tenets which concern us at this place are the following ones. Existence is of a double kind, either transient and pheno¬ menal, or eternal and absolute. Both parts are then analyzed into their ele¬ ments, classified as elements of Matter, Mind and Forces for the pheno¬ menal part, and as Space and Nirvana for the eternal one. The elements of phenomenal life are divided into past, present and future, and are all con¬ ceived as realities, the past and the future ones are as real as the present ones. This leads to the construction of two sets of elements, the one repre¬ senting their everlasting nature (i dharma-svabhava ), the other their mo¬ mentary manifestation in actual life ( dharma-laksana ). 1 It is clear that this theory brings the Sarvastivadin very near to the Sankhya system which assumes an eternal matter and its momentary manifestations. Therefore stu¬ dents are specially warned not to confound both doctrines, and not to over¬ look their difference. 8 When all manifestations are stopped, all forces extinct, remains the lifeless residue. It is impersonal, eternal death, and it is a sepa¬ rate element, a reality, the reality of the elements in their lifeless condition. This reality is very similar to the reality of the Sankhya’s undifferentiated