The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)
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to animals and into ghosts is fancied exclusively by the imagination of fools and simple people. By error and imputation they imagine that they suffer, that they live a life of misery in these three inferior planes of existence)), si. g. «These tortures of the hell exist, o Blessed One, only as far as I ima¬ gine them. Let us, e. g., suppose, o Blessed One, that somebody in a dream imagines himself gone down to the hell. He will then imagine that he is cast in an iron vessel, boiling (amidst) blazing fires, quite filled with many human beings . 1 There he will be tormented by a strong, acute, intense pain. This awful suffering he will imagine in his mind. He (nevertheless) will be frightened, will be terror stricken. Having then awakened , 2 he will cry out
51. li. «Oh, how awful! how awful!» He will be distressed and lament. His friends, acquaintances and relatives will ask, «who has made you suffer so much»? He will reply to these friends, acquaintances and relatives. «I have suffered the tortures of the hell». He will then revile and repeat, «I am suffering the tortures of the hell, and you ask me to tell you who has made me so suffer!» Then these friends, acquaintances and relatives will address the man in the following way. «Be not afraid, o man, vou were asleep, you have not left this house». He will then regain memory (and think), ■(yes, T have been asleep, this is all wrong, it is my imagination))! And he will again recover his good spirits*).
52. 4. «Thus it is, o Blessed One, that this man dreaming in sleep has ima¬ gined, through a wrong imputation, that he has been in the hell. It is in the same maimer, o Blessed One, that all simple and foolish people are saturated with an imagined sexual appetite. They construct (for themselves the idea of) a woman as the target (of their desires). Having constructed it, they ima¬ gine that they are enjoying themselves in her company. To such a foolish and simple man it occurs, «I am a man, she is a woman, she is my wife!» His mind is overcome by lust and delight, he allows his mind to indulge in pleasure. Moved by such (feelings) he (might) produce a row, a dispute, an altercation. His senses become obscured, he breathes hate. With these illusions he then imagines himself passing away and suffering in the hells during
52 . li. many thousands of eons. The friends, acqaintances and relatives of this man, o Blessed One, will speak to him in the following way. «Don’t fear, don’t be frightened, o man! You were asleep, you did not leave this house!»
1 eka-paurusa, cp. Tib.
2 samunah, «with self assurance**, accord, to Tib.
APPENDIX: CANDRAKIRTI’S comment ON RELATIVITY. I
«0 Blessed One! it is just according to this (relativity of the pheao- 52 . 12. menal world) that the divine Buddhas have preached their doctrine to the living creatures who are imbued with the fourfold 1 illusion (of the world’s reality). «There is here (in this world, they teach,) neither man nor woman; no living creature, no Soul, no Spirit, no Personality! All this plurality of the ultimate elements 2 of existence is an illusion. They do not exist. They are misleading, they are like a trick, they are like a dream, they are like magic, they are like the reflection of the moon in water etc.». Having received this instruction of the Buddha the (living creatures) perceive the plurality of elements without their enticement, without their illusive character, without considering them as separate existences, without this covering (of plurality). They pass away with their mind merged in Space.
After having passed away they will be completely merged in the Final
Reality of Nirvana . 0 Thus, 0 Blessed One, do I regard the hells»!
It is also said in the ((Questions of the Venerable Upali », 4 «I have 53 . g. seen the many terrors of the hell, by which thousands of creatures are tor¬ mented. But there are no creatures in this world who after death go to the tortures of the hell. There are there no swords, 110 arrows and no spears, by which torture is inflicted. In imagination they fancy them falling upon their bodies. There are no (real) weapons. (And in the heavens) delightful 54. 1. golden palaces decorated with beautiful variegated flowers appear before us, but nobody has constructed them. They are also constructed by imagination.