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

2 Cp. Nyayabindu, p. 33.6 ff.

3 We find here an eloquent expression of that genuine conviction very much spread, even in our days, among the pandits of India who have studied the various systems of their country that Monism is superior to all other systems by the fact of reaching the limit of all philoso¬ phic construction. The realism of Nyaya-Vaisesika and Mimamsa, the dualism of the Sankhya, the radical pluralism of Hinayana Buddhism — all were engaged in constructing a skeleton of the Universe out of a limited number of ultimate data and have then stopped before them, re¬ fusing to go deeper into them and to reduce them to their still deeper root. Should they have embarked on a further analysis of those ultmate principles at which they had arrived they would have been inevitably landed in Monism. Only in Monism does philosophic analysis reach its real limit — yathd yatha vicdryate tatha tathd brahmany eva ekasmin sarvam paryavasyati. In modern philosophy, as far as I am aware, a similar view has been taken by Ladd,Introd. to philos.p.403.

4 viparyasa.

5 Lit. «like (non-existing) hair etc. by the ophthalmic>».

Ill

appendix: candrakirti’s comment on RELATIVITY, I there is (in this plurality) not the slightest bit of what is (absolutely) real. 1 But if there is no (transcendental) illusion, if it is not a mirage, 2 if (we perceive) a real 8 (pluriverse), not the one constructed (by our imagination), then there is not the slightest vestige of something unreal (in pluralism), (nothing at all to justify the claim) that a phenomenal reality has been established (by us). 4

Our venerable Master (Nagarjuna) has therefore said, 30. 6.

If I did really cognize some (separate) things, 30. 7.

I could then make an affirmation or denial

Upon the basis of these things perceived or (inferred).

But these (separate) things do not exist for me!

Therefore I cannot be assailed on such a basis. 5

Since it is so since (transcendental) illusion is one thing and (trans- 30. 9. cendental) reality another, since for the transcendentalist, 6 in what (he con¬ siders to be) absolutely real, there is no room for non-reality, (what is then the meaning of Bhavaviveka’s syllogism? He takes) the phenomenal visual sensations and other (mental phenomena) as a minor term, (the subject of his deduction). He thus cannot escape from the criticism that his thesis is logically impossible, since it refers to a non-entity, or that his middle term is contradictory, because it appertains to an unreal substratum. (The syllogism would be equivalent to the assertion that non-existing things do not arise out of themselves, «because they exist*).

As to the analogy (with the discussions about the nature of the word), 30. 12. it does not exist. In those (discussions there always) is an agreement be¬ tween (every) pair of contending views about what sound, in general, and what evanescence, in general, are, without entering into details (about the

1 sad-bhuta-padartha-leSa, a hint at Dignaga’s ksana = svalaksana —paramar tha-sa and at his claim to have vindicated phenomenal reality, cp. below, text page 66 ff.

2 Lit., «like (real) hair etc. by the non-ophtbalmic».

3 Read bhutam in stead of abhutam.

4 Lit., p. 30. 1-5. « Because just when the denial of origination is here intended to be a characteristic to be established, just then the negation of the characterized, of its substratum, which has reached its own existence only through an illusion, is admitted just by himself Different are indeed illusion and non-illusion. Therefore if, owing to illusion, non-Ens is taken as Ens, just as by the ophthalmic (non-existing) hair etc., then wherefrom would even a bit of a really existing thing be apprehended? But if through non-confusion, the real, non-imagiued (is perceived), like by the non-ophthalmic (real) hair etc., then wherefrom the perception of even a bit of a non-really-existing thing, so as then there would be phenomenalism ( samvrttih )?».

5 This stanza from the Vigraha-vyavartani has been quoted above, text p. 16.9.

6 vidusam, they are identified with the aryas, cf. above p. 90 n. 4.

NIRVANA

APPENDIX! CANDEAKlRTl’S COMMENT ON RELATIVITY, 1

nature of the sound). There is no such agreement between the radical Re¬ lativist 1 and the non-Relativist (or Realist ), 2 iu regard of what visual sensations in general are, either from the phenomenal or the transcen¬ dental point of view. For this reason the (two) cases are not comparable.

30. is. All that has been said about the logical impossibility of a thesis which refers to a non-entity is applicable ( mutatis mutandis) as the proof of the futility of (the conception of) «existence)) as a logical reason.

XXII. Bhavaviveka also avails himself of the argument that for

THE MONIST ALL INDIVIDUAL EXISTENCE IS UNREAL.

si. i. Such is (the force) of this (argument ) 3 that even (Bhavaviveka) him¬ self, this champion of logic , 4 is (obliged) to admit (the condemnation of logic) which we have exposed.