Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

INTRODUCTION
to reach it was described as a successive destruction of fetters (saNyojana) 13
or the cessation of all cankers (Asava); 14 and why the lack of attachment,
generally accepted as the reference of the word upAdi, or upadhi in Sanskrit
within mainstream Buddhist tradition, when used in the context of nirvana
during life and nirvana at death, applied equally to nirvana with a remainder
of clinging (sa-upAdisesanibbAnadhAtu / sopadhiUeLanirvAOadhAtu) and
nirvana without a remainder of clinging (anupAdisesanibbAnadhAtu / nir/anupadhiUeLanirvAOadhAtu).
The answer to my questions was that I had completely missed nirvana’s
historical and metaphorical contexts. According to Gombrich, to number
three could be to juxtapose the three sacrificial fires of a Brahman householder
with the triple fires of passion, hatred and delusion, 15 while the word
upAdi or upadhi when used in a metaphorical structure that embraces
Enlightenment and its opposite could mean ‘fuel’ with an underlying reference
to the five aggregates. 16 That is to say, understanding nirvana’s historical
and metaphorical contexts could reveal surprisingly rich information to
solve some of the exegetical and ontological problems concerning nirvana
from a different perspective.
The aim of this book is to clarify the early doctrinal history of the nirvana
concept and the two nirvana theory, which flourished under the image of a
fire extinguished, by tracing the term nirvAOa back to its origin in terms of
its metaphorical structure, then following its early developments in the
Abhidharma by checking its technical uses with its philosophical developments,
and elucidating diverse interpretations and doctrinal developments
in the exegeses and treatises of the Southern and Northern Buddhist schools
by examining which school kept the original references of the nirvana concept
and the two nirvana theory expressed in the early metaphorical structure.
The scope of this book ends around the fourth or fifth century CE, when
the Visuddhimagga was composed by Buddhaghosa in the Southern tradition,
while the AbhidharmakoUabhALya was composed by Vasubandhu and
as a response the NyAyAnusAraUAstra was composed by Sawghabhadra in the
Northern tradition. From the exegeses and treatises at around this time we
can reconstruct the fully developed form of the nirvana concept and the two
nirvana theory in three major Indian Buddhist schools: the Theravadins, the
Sarvastivadins and the Sautrantikas. By examining their views on nirvana,
established from their own exegetical and ontological perspectives, we may
well determine at the end of the thesis which school was of the original
meaning of nirvana, especially through their interpretation of the last stanza
of the Anuruddha’s famous verse, believed to have been uttered at the time
of the Buddha’s final release at Kuuinagara.
The Mahayana interpretations of the nirvana concept and their equivalent
of the two nirvana theory are beyond the scope of this book, owing to their
different approaches to early Buddhist materials and different doctrinal
perspectives. According to Asawga in his MahAyAnasaNgraha, the acceptance
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