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

where the denizens are eternally merged in trance, the term samdpatti. It is applicable to all the eight planes of mystic existence, of whom the denizens are, so to say, born mystics. In this sense the term is contrasted with the worlds of gross bodies and carnal desire ( kdma-dhatu ) where the denizens possess thoughts non-concentrated, disturbed. This is its more general acceptation. In a more special sense it is applicable to the four highest planes of existence alone, the immaterial worlds ( arupa-dhatu ). It then is contrasted with the four lower mystic worlds which are specially called the four dhydnas. The word samadhi has also a general and a special sense. It can mean the usual faculty of concentrated attention, or it may mean cultivated, developed concentration. It then becomes a mystical power which can transfer the meditator into higher worlds and change life alto¬ gether. Yoga is usually applied iu the latter kind of connotation, but it would not be inconsistent with the spirit of the Sanscrit language to use it in all the three sences (yujyate etad iti yog ah, yujyate anena iti yogah , yujyate tasminn iti yogah). 1 A complaint, if any, can be only about the detailed and subtle precision with which this notion is analysed, not about its vagueness. For supernatural power the term rddhi is used But, of course, when concentration is supposed to produce supernatural mystic powers, then, by a metaphore, the former may be mentioned instead of the latter.

s. v. dhyana, assume that samadhi is the result, arhatsbip, and dhyana one of the means. But that is against Ab. Kosabh. ad VIII. 1, where samapatti-dhyana a concentration)) is distinguished from upapatti-dhyana ((existence in a mystic world*. That samadhi has also a general meaning is clear from its position among the citta-mahd-bhumikas where it is defined as citta-ekagratd, cf. my Central Conception, p. 100. When concentrated meditation here on earth is contrasted with a birth in an imagined higher world of eternal trance the terms samdpatti and upapatti are respectively used, the first is explained as sama-apatti—shoms-par-hjvg-pa, cf. below the opinion of Srilabha , p. 14.

1 Much of the confusion wrought by the inadequate translation of the term samkara is likewise due to a failure of realising its double character, it either means a force, samskriyate anena=sar>iskdra=8am-bhuya-kdri, or it means an element, samskriyate etad=samskrtadharma.

fc NIRVANA

The context will always iudicate to the advertised reader what is the meaning intended.

Very far from being vulgar magic and thaumaturgy, the Buddhist teaching about Yoga contains the following philosophic construction which, in my opinion, the historian of philosophy can neither disregard nor fail to appreciate.

Its fundamental idea consists in the fact that concentrated meditation induces a condition of Quiescence. The meditative man is the opposite of the active man. Life is then dissected in its active elements (samskdras) with a view to be one after the other reduced to final quiescence and extinction.

A personality ( pudgala ), in which other systems imagine the presence of a permanent spiritual principle, a Soul ( dtma ), is in reality a bundle of elements or forces (samskdra-samuha) and a stream of thought ( santdna ). It contains nothing permanent or substantial, it is ancitma. This means that, according to the general idea of radical pluralism, the spiritual part of an individual consists of separate elements ( dharma ), just as its physical frame consists of atoms. 1 Although separate, these elements are linked together by causal laws (, hetu-pratyaya ). Some of them always appear simultaneously, they are satellites (sahabhu). Or they follow one another in consecutive moments, they are then homogeneous (nisyanda-phala). they consti¬ tute chains of moments (ksana-santdna). The law of causation is therefore called the law of dependently-together-origination (pratltya-sam-utpada ;). The number of psychical elements (arupino dharmdli) at every given moment of an individual life is variable. It may be very considerable, because undeveloped, dormant faculties are also reckoned as actually pre¬ sent. This circumstance has even provoked gibes from the side of Sautrantikas in regard to the impossibility of an actual coexistence of so huge a quantity of separate elements at a single moment . 2 However some of them are constant, always present at every moment, others appear only under

1 The theory of separate elements (dharmas) is exposed im detail by prof. 0. Rosenberg, Problems of Buddhist philosophy (now translated from the Russian into German by his widow (Heidelberg 1924), and also by myself in my Central Conception of Buddhism (London 1923, R. A. S.).