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Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s3.t14: Is Nirvāṇa Eternal Death?

Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c7.s3.t14

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Is Nirvāṇa Eternal Death?

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Prof. Stcherbatsky thinks that Nirvāṇa being allied to Saṃjñāvedayitanirodha, it may be regarded as a state without a vestige of consciousness. In the account of Buddha's parinirvāṇa, Buddha enters into the Saṃjñāvedayitanirodha but he does not stay there permanently. He comes down to the lowest and then rises again to attain parinirvāṇa in the fourth dhyāna.² If Nirvāṇa had been a permanent form of Saṃjñāvedayitanirodha, then Buddha would have remained there and attained mahāparinirvāṇa.

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² Dīgha, II, p. 156.

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To prove his contention that Nirvāṇa is eternal death, Prof. Stcherbatsky takes support from another statement in the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta commented upon in the Mādhyamika-Vṛtti.³ The passage is:

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³ M. Vr., p. 525.

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Pradotyasy eva nirvāṇam vimokṣas tasya cetasaḥ.

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He attributes to the Vaibhāṣikas the comment which follows this passage in the Vṛtti. The Vaibhāṣikas,⁴ as is supposed by him, assert in refuting the abhāva theory of the Sautrāntikas that there is something ‘in which desire is extinct’, and that it is not merely ‘extinct desire’ as the Sautrāntikas think.¹ In the Sanskrit text there is no word or hint about the extinction of consciousness. All that is said is about tṛṣṇā. Prof. Stcherbatsky, however, in his translation says that every desire (also consciousness) is extinct (at final Nirvāṇa).² Probably his addition “and consciousness” in the line was suggested by the line that follows, viz., “yasmin sati cetaso vimokṣo bhavati.” He translates cetaso vimokṣaḥ as “consciousness is quite extinct.” It is difficult to accept his English rendering and it is not at all clear why he should prefer “consciousness” to “mind” as the English equivalent of cetas. The Pāli version of the line, “Pajjotass’ eva nibbāṇaṃ vimokho cetaso ahū ti”,³ was uttered by Anuruddha to describe Buddha’s Nirvāṇa. Buddhaghosa in commenting upon this passage says that vimokkho means the removal of all screens hindering vision, and that the extinction of the flame indicates the state of non-manifestation.⁴ Prof. Stcherbatsky may have other reasons for such an opinion, but it is difficult to agree with him in regard to the fact that the early Buddhists generally, including the Theravādins, regarded Nirvāṇa as an inanimate reality. In the Kathāvatthu and the Dhammasaṅgaṇi, Nibbāna has been qualified as acetasika, the English rendering of which, according to Mrs. Rhys Davids, should be “not a property of the mind”, or according to Prof. Poussin, “where mind does not function any more”.⁵ Here acetasika does not mean inanimate substance, but it is a state where the individual citta (=manoviññāṇa)

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⁴ Con. of N., p. 191.

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¹ Nirvāṇa as Kṣayamātra is discussed in the Vis. M., p. 508; see infra, p. 173.

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² Con. of N., App., p. 191.

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³ Dīgha, II, p. 157; see Otto Franke, Z.D.M.G., xlix, p. 476.

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⁴ Sum. Vil. (Burmese ed., Rangoon, 1903), p. 168: Vimokkho ti kenaci dhammena anāvaraṇo vimokkho, sabbaso apaññattibhāvupagamo pajjotanibbāṇasadiso jāto.

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⁵ Also “Unmental, automatic” see Points of the Controversy, pp. 57ff., 249.

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or the *abhisankhāraviññāṇa* of Buddhaghosa¹ ceases to exist; hence Nirvāṇa is not eternal death.

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¹ See *ante*. Prof. Stcherbatsky himself writes elsewhere (*Central Con. of B.*, p. 15) that citta=mano=manovijñāna.

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Prof. Stcherbatsky in interpreting Nirvāṇa as an eternal state of death has attached too much importance to the influence of Sāṃkhya on Buddhism.² He almost identifies the Vaibhāṣika with the Sāṃkhya School excepting for the conception of Puruṣa in the latter.³ He says that Nirvāṇa is a lifeless reality corresponding to the undifferentiated matter (*Prakṛti*)⁴ of Sāṃkhya. The position of Prof. Stcherbatsky reduces itself to this that the phenomenal world issued out of Nirvāṇa to return to it again by the removal of Avidyā (ignorance), and that Nirvāṇa is the same as the five skandhas in their original undifferentiated state. This is unsupported by the canonical as well as the non-canonical texts. The Sarvāstivādins in enumerating the various ‘elements’ mention Nirvāṇa as an Asaṃskṛta-dhātu existing side by side with the elements constituting a being. The Theravādins also hold that the five khandhas⁵ are nothing but masses of five kinds of elements, out of which a being is constituted through Avidyā. Both the Sarvāstivādins and the Theravādins are emphatic in their statement that a being once constituted out of the seventy-two elements or five khandhas passes through innumerable existences, until by the removal of Avidyā, he enters into the Asaṃskṛtadhātu or Nirvāṇa, which is an element existing by itself. According to the Sāṃkhya School of philosophy, the mokṣa (emancipation) of a being consists in his realisation of the fact that Puruṣa and Prakṛti remain ever apart (*viveka-khyāti*) and not by a being passing from the constituted to the unconstituted state. In Sāṃkhya, the emancipated being is one of the innumerable Puruṣas while in Buddhism he is after death indistinguishable from Nirvāṇa. The agreement between Sāṃkhya and early Buddhism lies in the fact that the undifferentiated matter (Prakṛti)¹ of Sāṃkhya corresponds in its differentiated form to the five khandhas and not to Nirvāṇa, as inferred by Prof. Stcherbatsky. If an analogue for Nirvāṇa be sought for in Sāṃkhya we may say that it could have been found in Puruṣa if the innumerable Puruṣas were one Asaṃskṛtadhātu.

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² See his *Soul Theory of the Buddhists*, p. 824.

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³ *Con. of N.*, pp. 27-8.

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⁴ *Ibid.*

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⁵ Nowhere in the Buddhist texts, any statement is made that the five khandhas were originally in an undifferentiated state. All that they say is that the material elements of all beings of all times of the Kāmadhātu and Rūpadhātu are collectively called Rūpakkhandha, so also Vedanā, Saññā, Saṅkhārā, and Viññāṇa of all beings taken together are called Vedanākkhandha, Saññākkhandha, Saṅkhārākkhandha and Viññāṇakkhandha. *Vis. M.*, pp. 443, 452.

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¹ Buddhaghosa refers to Pakati-Purisa but does not compare them with Buddhist khandhas. See Vis. M., pp. 518, 525.

Cites (5)