The History of Buddhist Thought c14.27

c14.27

So far the questions have been concerning the origin of the soul. The rest deal with its future destiny. The next two classes are not clear as they stand. It is said that the self if conscious after death may have form, be finite, have one mode of consciousness, be happy or miserable, or it may be without form, etc., and varied in other ways. If the self is unconscious, it may have form or not form, and be varied in eight ways. Buddhaghosa takes these cases to refer to the supposed state of the liberated self as held by certain theorists, and explains some of the alternatives as being held by the Ājīvikas, Jains, and others. The third class is only a logical refinement. The fourth is the annihilation doctrine of Ajita, but it is elaborated by stating that extinction may take place (1) with the death of the body according to the materialistic view, or (2) with the death of a “divine self” in the world of sense, or (3) in the world of form, or (4–7) in one of the stages of the formless world. The last class (Nirvāṇa in this life) looks at first like the doctrine held both by Buddhists and brahmin schools that release may be attained in this life. But here the Nirvāṇa meant is the full enjoyment of the pleasures of sense, not the bliss attained by complete separation from them, or rejecting such sensualism the heretic thinks to find it in one of the four trances.