The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana c8.40

c8.40

Whereas our material frame consists of elements of 18 kinds, four of them are in abeyance in the worlds of ethereal bodies. The sense-data of smell and taste and the corresponding two sets of sensations do not exist It is because these beings do not want any hard food, no food which is taken piecemeal, chewed and swallowed². Their nutrition is spiritual. Here imagination evidently is founded upon the fact that the mystic, when deeply engaged in meditation, forgets all about his meals. Therefore olfactory and gustatory sense-data lose their raison d'etre They are by the mystic power of yoga extinct altogether. But the physical organs, the nose and the tongue remain, because, their absence would make the body ugly All the bodies are beautiful, one is mutilated Their faculties of sight and audition are un-limited, they possess *divya-caksuh* and *divya-śrotram*¹ Their tactile sensations are the same as the characteristic agreeable feeling of bodily ease and lightness (*praśrabdhi*) which produces levitation in the mystic. Their movements are, therefore, extremely swift and dexterous But the faculties of smelling and taste are absent altogether, because their food is immaterial They have no need for clothes,² they are born with a light ethereal covering that lasts all their very long life through. Neither do they want any dwellings Every new born finds a house provided for him by *karma*, i e by nature The phenomenon of sex is spiritualised The bodies are without the members of physical procreation This does not make them mutilated Gross sexual passion does not exist at all But total indifference does neither exist The feelings are delicate The birth of a new being is quite free from all pain and filth The new born child does not come out of the matrix of a female, it is apparitional (*upapāduka*). Those who happen to be nearest to the place of his birth are his parents³. No government,⁴ of course, is needed in such a community, because there are no crimes, no gross passions Total absence of passion would mean total absence of volitions, and this, according to the Indian conceptions, would stop life altogether; it would be Nirvāna. But all the feelings have a mild form. The feeling of hatred (*pratigha*) is totally absent. Other feelings are veiled indifference (*nivṛta-avyākṛta*)⁵