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

This unique reality, although declared to be uncharacterisable (anirvacaniya ), has been variously characterised as the «element of the elements)) (dharmdndm dharmata or dharma-dhdtu), as their relativity (sunyata), as «thisness» (i idamtd ), as their «relation to thisness» (idampratyayatd), as «suchness» (tathata), as the «suchness of existences (bhuta-tathata), as the matrix of the Lord (i tathdgata-garbha ), and lastly as the «Cosmical 'Body of the Lord », as Buddha’s Dharmakaya 4 . In this last attribution the Unique Es¬ sence of the universe becomes personified and worshiped under the names of Vairocana, Amitabha, the goddess Tara and others, as a Supreme God. Bud-

1 P. L. Vaidya, Catuhsataka (Paris, 1923), Kar. 184.

2 Ibid. Kar. 289.

3 Prof. H. Kern, Manual p. 127, seems also to have been terror-stricken, he exclaims with what sounds like genuine solicitude, «there is no birth, there is no Nirvana! etc.» and makes responsible for this disaster «the principles underlying ancient Buddhism ».

4 The terms prajnd-pdramitd and abhisamaya, when used in an objective sense ( karmasadhana), mean the same. The Yogacaras would add as synonymous citta-dharmata , vijnaptimatrata, parinispannata , cp. Trimsika, p. 42.

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NIRVANA

XVII. CONDEMNATION OF LOGIC dhism becomes at once pantheistic and theistic or, as prof. M. Anesaki prefers to put it, Cosmotheistic . 1

Buddha and Nirvana are different names for the same thing. But Nagarjuna treats the same thing under four or five different headings, his object being to show that whatever be the verbal designation (prapanca — vdk ), 2 from whatever side the problem of the absolute be tackled, the result is the same. If the phenomenal world is not real, neither can it have a real end . 4 To suppose that the phenomenal world really existed before Nirvana, in order to be changed so as not to exist after Nirvana, is an illusion which must be given up the sooner the better . 5 Whether we take the Vaibhasika view and maintain that Nirvana is something real (dharma) in which consciousness and life are extinct for ever , 6 or if we, with the Sautrantika, admit that it is the simple cessation of the world process , 7 in both cases something real is assumed to exist before Nirvana and to dis¬ appear afterwards. This makes Nirvana not only relative, but a product of causes (samskrta ). 8 In full accordance with the idea of a monistic universe it is now asserted that there is not a shade of difference between the Abso¬ lute and the Phenomenal, between nirvana and samsara . 9 The universe viewed as a whole is the Absolute, viewed as a process it is the Phenomenal. Nagarjuna declares , 10

«ya djavamjavibhdva updddya pratitya vd so ’pratUydnupaddya nirvdnam upadisyatev.

This may be rendered thus—«having regard to causes or conditions (constituting all phenomena, we call this world) a phenomenal world. This same world, when causes and conditions are disregarded, (i. e., the world as a whole, specie aeternitatis) is called the Absolute.»

1 In a very interesting book prof. M. Anesaki, Buddhist Art in its relation to Buddhist Ideals. (Boston and New York, 1915) shows how the perfection of that Japanese art which has evoked the admiration of the world is due to the influence of Mahayana ideals, to this genuine feeling of communion with the eternal, all-pervading principle of life, the Dharmakaya, realised by the artist in mystic intuition in every flower, every plant and every living creature he was painting. Is it not strange that the philosophy which establishes these ideals has been so utterly misunderstood by European scholarship ?

2 M. vr. 373. 9.

4 Ibid. XXV. 1.

8 Ibid. p. 225. 10.

8 Ibid. XXV. 5, 13.

3 Ibid. p. 175.

5 Ibid. p. 522. 6.

7 Kleia-janmanor abhavah, ibid. p. 527.7.
9 Ibid. XXV. 20.

Ibid. XXV. 9

XVII. Is RELATIVITV ITSELF RELATIVE? CONDEMNATION OF ALL LOGIC
FOR THE COGNITION OF THE ABSOLUTE