tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 219

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Buddhism
187
asaṁskṛtadharmas."'! It becomes thus a state of utter insensibility.
The Sautrantika (eitaifa ) School — The Sautrāntika school (Hinayāna) holds that bondage or bandha, which is phenomenal life (samsāra), is a positive fact. The saṁsāra is real because it is the outcome of causes and conditions which are absolutely real. According to them, bondage is nothing but the presence of avidyā or ignorance in the chain of consciousness from beginningless time. They believed that Nirvăņa can be attained by completely terminating avidyā with all its effects. Nirvāņa, according to them, consists in ending all manifestations, the passions and life for ever. They mean by Nirvāna the cessation of the process of life with all its experiences leaving nothing behind. They mean by Nirvana the negation of active life. The Sautrāntika Nirvāna is described as follows - "Nirvana was the absolute end of manifestations, the end of passion and life (kleslajanmanorkşayaḥ), without any positive counterpart. It is decidedly insisted upon the fact that nirvana means only the end of the process of life, without any lifeless substance (dharma) as the residue or the substratum in which life has been extinguished. Nirvana thus loses its materialistic character."2 It is obvious from the above passage that the Sautrāntika Nirvāņa differs from that of
1 Stcherbatsky Th, : The Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 53.
2 Stcherbatsky Th. : The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana,
P. 29.
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