The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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In the closing chapter of his Abhidharmakosa Vasubandhu mentions the Mahayanist view that all separate elements, the dharmas of the Hina¬ yana, have no ultimate reality. 11 At that time he rejects this view, but later
1 Ibid. p. 41. 2,
2 Ibid. p. 41. 14.
3 Ibid. p. 41.18, cp. p. 16. lQ.vijnanam pratitya-samutpannatvdd dravyato'sti.
4 Ibid. p. 41. 23-24.
5 Ibid. p. 40. 6.
6 Ibid. p. 42. 16.
7 Ibid. p. 40. 4.
8 Ibid. p. 43. 25.
0 Ibid. p. 41. 26.
10 Ibid. p. 42. 20.
11 Cp. the transl. of M. de la Y. P., IX, p. 273, and my Soul Theory, p. 858.
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NIRVANA
on, near to the close of his long life, he changes his stand point, and ac¬ cepts the idealistic theory of his elder brother x4sanga. Asanga himself seems also to have, at a certain period of his life, fluctuated between the two main lines in which Mahayana was split. 1 But at the end of their career both brothers definitely settled in the conviction, that the universe was a logical construction, 2 that all its separate elements were relative, not real in themselves, but that they possessed another reality, the parinispanna, a reality in the Absolute, they were real when regarded sub specie aeternitatis. The theory of Salvation, of this transition from samsara into nirvana, out of the phenomenal world into the Absolute — this greatest puzzle of the Indian mind — underwent a complete change as a consequence of the change in the ontological view. In Hinayana where, as we have seen, both samsara and nirvana were considered as realities, the mystic power of yoga was called upon to achieve the transition out of the one into the other. Actual experience in transic meditation suggested to the Buddhist philo¬ sophers that yoga was capable of arresting some functions of the senses and of the intellect. And since the world was analysed in bits of senses and sense data, it seemed only logical to admit that yoga could achieve the task of arresting the life of the Universe for ever.
The great change produced by the Mahayana consisted in the view that the Absolute was immanent to the World. There was consequently no need of converting the elements of the phenomenal world into eternal ele¬ ments, the samskrta-dharmas into asamskrta-dharmas , the samsara into nirvana. The change consisted in the change of aspect. The mystic power of yoga was now invoked not in order to produce a real change in the consti¬ tution of the Universe, but in order to replace the wrong views of unso¬ phisticated humanity by an intuition of what was the absolutely real. To the yogi the world appeared in a quite different aspect, he viewed every separate object as unreal separately, but real sub specie aeternitatis. For him the elements (dharmas) of the Universe needed no conversion into eternal ones, they were themselves eternally «quiescent».
1 According to the Tibetans, among the 5 works of Maitrey a-Asanga some are written from the Yogacara standpoint, some from Madhyamika-svatantrika, and one from the Madhyamikaprasangika view.
2 Trimsika, XVII, sarvam vijnaptimdtralam , and Sthiramati remarks, p.35, thatsorvam includes both the phenomenal world and the Absolute, sarvam iti traidhatukam asam - skrtam ca.
The Hinayanistic conception of separate elements ( dharma ) which were active in phenomenal life and quiescent (santa) or extinct ( niruddha ) in Nirvana was, according to the Yogacaras, contrary to reason. If they were real they could not disappear totally. They were, accordingly, declared to have been always quiescent, quiescent or extinct from the outset (adi-santa). 1 To regard them as active, in the transcendental sense, is an illusion. In that sense, it can be asserted, that nirvana is real and samsara unreal.