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

NIRVANA IN THE THERAVf DA BUDDHIST TRADITION
for this abhidharmic introduction of it among Northern Buddhists. This new
development seems to cause the later conceptual change of the word nirodha
(extinction). We need to see briefly how this abhidharmic system, which
became dominant among Northern Buddhist schools, works in the
Sarvastivada.
The Sarvastivadins on the one hand insist on the existence of all dharmas
in the three time periods, while on the other hand they accept the momentariness
of conditioned dharmas. What changes momentarily is not the
intrinsic nature (svabhAva) of a dharma but its activities – arising, duration,
decay and ceasing – through its inherent characteristic (svalakLaOa) of impermanence.
As long as a conditioned dharma is connected to the series of
aggregates through an acquisition (prApti), it renews its four activities until
the connection is finally cut. This continual ceasing is one of four characteristics
of impermanent conditioned (saNskKta) dharmas and is technically
called extinction as impermanence (anityatAnirodha).
Whereas for the Sautrantikas all three extinctions are not real existents,
for the Vibhajyavadins they are unconditioned things. Later in the
MahAvibhALAUAstra, the Vibhajyavadins insisted that if the nature of four characteristics
is a conditioned thing, it could be too weak to continue its four
activities. 149 For the Sarvastivadins, this repeated extinction was different
from the two unconditioned extinctions: extinction without knowledge
(apratisaNkhyAnirodha) and extinction through knowledge (pratisaNkhyAnirodha).
For them the former is the perpetual non-existence of the future
dharmas within a series of aggregates, while the latter is the perpetual separation
of an impure dharma from a series of aggregates through the antidote,
‘acquisition of disjunction’ (visaNyogaprApti). 150
This latter extinction is the Sarvastivadins’ equivalent of nirvana and is
paradoxically not an eventual extinction or non-existence of a dharma but
an acquisition of a dharma, technically ‘the acquisition of disjunction’
(visaNyogaprApti). Since all dharmas exist for the three time periods, this
dharma that arises from knowledge (pratisaNkhyA) works as an antidote
( pratipakLa) to prevent henceforward any connection between defilement
and this series.
Thus, the Sarvastivadins should explain how extinction could in reality
have the opposite meaning. The Sarvastivadins seem to use the genitive case
to solve this paradox. 151 The position of the Sarvastivada was explained in
the AbhidharmakoUabhALya in the following way: ‘The cessation (nirodha)
which is acquired through the cutting of the acquisition of a defilement,
even in another existence, is designated as “of that [thing]”.’ 152 We can see a
similar explanation of the Sarvastivadins in the NyAyAnusAraUAstra 153 and in
the PrasannapadA. 154 What has been explained here is that nirodha is only a
name given to a dharma that consists of the non-existence (abhAva) of something.
As long as it is the final extinction of a dharma, it should mean that
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