Nirvana

NIRVANA. - N., in Pāli "nibbāna", means "extinction", in both a proper and a figurative sense. In this latter acceptation it is a word of Buddhist dogmatics, and designates the state of perfect inner peace of the monk who, through the observance of the eight forms of rectitude indicated by the fourth sacred truth (v. BUDDHISMO), has attained arahatta, holiness.

These forms of rectitude constitute the "eightfold path" and lead to the extinction of the fire of sensuality (rāga), of the flame of hatred (dvesa) and of the consequent blinding (moha). This kind of n., called "visible", can be acquired during life, and must not be confused with "absolute n." or parinirvāṇa, also inexactly called n., which is the extinction of life as well. And since the action of the saint who partakes of the visible n., being devoid of attachment and egoism, no longer produces new harman (v.), the parinirvāṇa is annihilation, death without rebirth. Clear on this point are the words attributed to the Buddha at the death of the Elder Godhika: "He has entered n. (absolute) without his consciousness (viññāna) being found any longer anywhere (Samyutta N., v. I, p. 120 ff.). Once consciousness is extinguished, sensation too ceases. Having the venerable Sāriputta defined absolute n. as ineffable delight, his brother Udāyī raises the objection: "But how can there be delight in a state devoid of sensation?". "In this precisely consists the delight", replies Sāriputta, that there is no sensation (Anguttara N., v. V, p. 414 ff.). For the pain of existence depends on sensation. Sāriputta nevertheless does not share the opinion of those who believe in the annihilation of the saint; indeed in another place of the canon (Samyutta N., v. III, p. 109 ff.) he confutes this doctrine professed by his brother Yamaka, calling it a "sinful heresy". Of one who has attained the parinirvāṇa, one can only affirm that he has freed himself from rebirth; the rest is a mystery that the Buddha refused to reveal even when the presumptuous Maluṇyaputta asked him for an explanation on this point (Majjhima N., v. I, p. 426). Not that the canonical literature itself is devoid of obscure allusions to something immobile and eternal, capable of offering the saint a refuge after death; in the Itivuttaha, a collection of the so-called apophthegms of the Buddha, the veil of mystery seems to be lifted: "There is, O disciples, an Unborn, Unbecome, Unmade, Uncompounded. If it did not exist, there would be no escape for the Born, Made, Become, Compounded (43)". And in the Suttanipata, answering a question of Kappa who asks him to point out an island where one who is about to be submerged by the waves may save himself, the Buddha replies: "An incomparable island I name to you, Kappa, where solitude reigns and where every desire fails; I call it n., destruction of old age and of death" (V, 11).

As regards the "Great Vehicle", the parinirvāṇa, conceived as supreme and unknowable Reality, continued to be considered as the crowning of the Bodhisattva's career, but was postponed to the joys of Amitābha's paradise and relegated to the end of three incalculable periods, little short of equivalent to eternity.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi