The History of Buddhist Thought c18.19

c18.19

“The term which the Bauddhas, as well as Jainas, more particularly affect, and which, however, is also used by the rest, is nirvāṇa, profound calm. In its ordinary acceptation, as an adjective, it signifies extinct, as a fire which is gone out; set, as a luminary which has gone down; defunct, as a saint who has passed away; its etymology is from vā, to blow as wind, with the preposition nir used in a negative sense: it means calm and unruffled. The notion which is attached to the word, in the acceptation now under consideration, is that of perfect apathy . . . Perpetual uninterrupted apathy can hardly be said to differ from eternal sleep. The notion of it as of a happy condition seems to be derived from the experience of ecstacies, or from that of profound sleep from which a person awakes refreshed. The pleasant feeling is referred back to the period of actual repose . . . the vedānta considers the individual soul to be temporarily, during the period of profound sleep, in the like condition of reunion with the Supreme, which it permanently arrives at on its final emancipation from body.