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THE TWO NIRVANA THEORY IN THE EARLY CANON O monks, all feelings, in which he takes no delight will become cool right here; this is called, monks, the element of nirvana without a remainder of clinging. 49 Although this sutta is frequently referred to as textual evidence, it does not actually mention the five aggregates expected from the metaphorical structure as well as the Theravada exegetical tradition. This could be the reason why scholars like Husita Koudazu have said that upAdi as meaning the five aggregates could not be found within the early canon. 50 In fact, its description of saupAdisesa nibbAnadhAtu refers to the five faculties ( pañcindriyAni), as in the above mentioned Fditta-pariyAya. 51 How he uses the five faculties (pañcindriyAni) seems to differentiate a saint (arahant) from an ordinary monk. Through the going out (nibbAna) of the triple fires, a monk leaps into the state of a saint (arahant) in whom there is no more impurity left (khCOAsava). Nirvana is, as Gombrich says, ‘not a “thing” but the experience of being without greed, hatred and delusion’. 52 The outcome of his experience, ‘going out’, is the firm belief that he is no longer bound to endless rebirth. 53 This is why what comes after the description of nirvana is always ‘the cry of jubilation’, 54 seen here as ‘whose impurities are destroyed, who has reached perfection, who has done what should be done’. On emerging from this experience this monk is a saint (arahant). Although he is back to normal, he is different from before: he has a firm control of his mind (manoindriya). However, he still is in contact with the outside world through his five sense organs and, as a consequence, he sometimes experiences suffering or happiness. The Buddha, the best example of a saint (arahant), for example, in the Avassutasutta in the SaNyuttanikAya feels pain in his back and wants to stretch it. 55 Since a saint (arahant) has firm control over his mind, he, unlike an ordinary monk, no longer forms any attachment to external objects. When the Itivuttaka passage says ‘In him, the five faculties still remain, . . . he experiences happiness and suffering’, we can see that a cognitive process is going on, even after this nirvana with a remainder of clinging. In the early Chinese canon, 56 our cognitive process is explained as follows: consciousness (vijñAna) arises by reason of faculty (indriya) and of object (viLaya); the coming together of the three is contact (sparUa); conditioned by contact, feeling (vedanA), apperception (saNjñA ) and volition (cetanA ) arise. Although the typical passages in the Pali canon tend to omit apperception and volition and go directly to thirst (taOhA), 57 one passage in the MajjhimanikAya 58 shows what is missing between feeling (vedanA) and thirst (taOhA). After ‘feeling (vedanA)’, it says ‘what one feels one perceives, what one perceives (sañjAnati) one reflects about (vitakketi), what one reflects about one is obsessed with (papañceti)’. 59 Thus the cognitive process described in the Pali canon could be more or less the same as that in the Chinese canon. 21
THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIRVANA Table 2.1 Five aggregates and cognitive process Five aggregates Cognitive process indriya rEpa viLaya vedanA [sparUa] = vedanA saNjñA coming together of saNjñA saNskAra three cetanA vijñAna vijñAna Note: This table is based on typical passages in SA (TD2: 71c9; TD2: 87c–88a). In Sue Hamilton’s book Early Buddhism: A New Approach the human cognitive process in terms of the five aggregates is mentioned in this context. She understands rEpa in the sense of both the living locus of subjectivity and the sense organs, vedanA in the sense of the initial feeling of awareness, saNjñA in the sense of being the process of identifying what that initial feeling of awareness is and vijñAna in the sense of cognising something. 60 Later she explains saNskAra in the cognitive process as one’s affective response to whatever one is experiencing. 61 These volitional activities correspond to volition (cetanA ) seen in the above Chinese passage explaining the human cognitive process. Table 2.1 shows how this cognitive process is related to the five aggregates. The significance of no-self (anAtman) in terms of the cognitive theory could be that there is no need for a self (Atman), the subject of cognition, behind the five aggregates to explain the cognitive process. In other words, our cognitive process could be represented through the collective operation of the five aggregates and, in this respect, the Itivuttaka’s description of saupAdisesa nibbAnadhAtu seems to keep the objective sense of the word upAdi. Nirvana without a remainder of clinging is explained here as ‘for him, O monks, all feelings (vedanA) in which he takes no delight will become cool right here’. This clearly shows that there is no more cognitive process going on at this stage, the final moment of the saint (arahant). That is to say, the remaining aggregates are finally extinguished. Peter Masefield has argued in his paper ‘The nibbana-parinibbana controversy’ that the idea ‘that the Buddha taught dhamma merely for the sake of what must now be seen as some lesser, or at least intermediate, goal would seem somewhat out of keeping with the teachings of the Nikayas’. 62 Bronkhorst has also argued in his book The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India that ‘the distinction between Nirvaoa with and without 22
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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 20 and 21: INTRODUCTION to reach it was descri
Page 22 and 23: INTRODUCTION two nirvana theory in
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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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