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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 3
INTRODUCTION of apratiLMhita-nirvAOa was one of the ten differences between the Mahayana and the traditional Buddhist schools. 17 According to Louis de La Vallée Poussin, there could be one more, anAdikAlika-prakKtiUuddha-nirvAOa in the VijñaptimAtratAUAsiddhi, so that together there were four nirvanas in the Yogacara tradition. 18 Comparing these three or possibly four nirvanas with the traditional two nirvana theory could be interesting, yet in order to do this we would need look at all the relevant Mahayana materials from the doctrinal and historical perspective. I want to leave this task for further research, hoping that the current study will become a firm base from which ventures upon the Mahayana territory and their equivalent of the two nirvana theory can be Launched. Outline of the chapters In Chapter 1, I deal briefly with the word nirvAOa, its etymological meaning and original reference. Despite its established definition, the cessation of the triple fires of passion, hatred and delusion, later Buddhists in both Northern and Southern traditions were searching for other explanations of the word nirvAOa. What I show in this chapter is that missing nirvana’s historical and metaphorical context at an early stage could be one of the main causes for the later developments of diverse etymological explanations of nirvana seen in the Pali exegesis and Chinese treatises (UAstra). The main issue dealt with in Chapter 2 is the two nirvana theory. The traditional explanation of the two nirvana theory, nirvana during life and nirvana at death, was challenged by such scholars as Hermann Oldenberg, 19 A. O. Lovejoy 20 and Peter Masefield 21 and by one sEtra in the Chinese Ekottara- Agama. 22 In this chapter, I deal with this problem of the two nirvana theory by examining the etymology of upAdi in terms of its subjective and objective meanings, the usage of upAdisesa within the context of nirvana and the usage of upAdisesa within the context of the four noble persons, and by establishing the differences between the non-returner and the two nirvana elements. The early canon in both Pali and Chinese traditions is the main material in this chapter. With the help of a computer-aided search of three CD- ROMs 23 and the electronic version of the Pali canon on the web 24 for the Southern tradition, and one CD-ROM 25 for the Northern tradition, finding words and clauses related to nirvana is nowadays far easier and more convenient. Although I used these electronic materials for the Pali canon to retrieve data, my main source is the PTS editions. I also use the Chinese Fgamas to compare corresponding passages in the Pali NikAyas. Chapter 3 deals with the development of the nirvana concept in both the Pali abhidhamma tradition, and the Chinese abhidharma tradition, and then examines how this development affects the two nirvana theory in the JñAnaprasthAna and in the Theravada exegetical traditions. I also trace Buddhaghosa’s seemingly Northern Buddhist originated explanation of the 4
Page 2 and 3: METAPHOR AND LITERALISM IN BUDDHISM
Page 4 and 5: TEACHING BUDDHISM IN THE WEST Edite
Page 6 and 7: METAPHOR AND LITERALISM IN BUDDHISM
Page 8 and 9: FOR DONGJE MY ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE D
Page 10 and 11: CONTENTS List of figures and tables
Page 12 and 13: PREFACE I am glad to be able to tha
Page 14 and 15: ABBREVIATIONS The abbreviations for
Page 16 and 17: ABBREVIATIONS RV Rgveda. SA SaNyukt
Page 18 and 19: INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION In the Ab
Page 22 and 23: INTRODUCTION two nirvana theory in
Page 24 and 25: NIRVANA AND ITS REFERENCE Part 1 TH
Page 26 and 27: NIRVANA AND ITS REFERENCE 1 NIRVANA
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Page 32 and 33: THE TWO NIRVANA THEORY IN THE EARLY
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NIRVANA IN THE THERAVf DA BUDDHIST
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NIRVANA IN NORTHERN BUDDHIST SCHOOL
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Table 5.4 Summary of the doctrinal
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CONCLUSION The term anAgAmin was of
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CONCLUSION passion, hatred and delu
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CONCLUSION The Sautrantikas probabl
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SELECTED SOURCES FOR THE NIRVANA CO
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NOTES Indians; and also because we
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NOTES 13 Huzita (1988: 8). 14 La Va
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NOTES 70 See Dutt (1960: 252-71), L
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NOTES 146 Akanuma (1929: 126). 147
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NOTES 39 yaP sAsravair dharmair vis
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NOTES 5 Harvey (1990: 66-7). 6 DN I
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NOTES 65 Tr. Norman (1992: 120): ac
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NOTES 132 Bareau (1955: 285). 133 B
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NOTES 15 Life faculty is one of the
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NOTES 77 Akb-h pp. 67-8. 78 Accordi
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NOTES 149 SA (TD2 57c8), SN IV 109.
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NOTES 6 SN IV 251-2. 7 The Chinese
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NOTES (1969: 378-82), which was mad
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BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY S
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BIBLIOGRAPHY SECONDARY SOURCES Adik
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Pasadika, Bhikkhu (198
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faculty see indriya fetters see saN
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