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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS
What is nirvana ? It is impossible to describe nirvana in words. No human language can describe the depth of Truth. Words are powerless to fathom the nature of nirvana. Lord Buddha remained silent when the question was asked 'what is nirvana'? His observance of silence proved the fact, as Lord Buddha taught and explained, that an answer was neither useful nor possible.
It is generally believed that the truth that can be comprehended is not truth; "the Tao (Way) that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;" and 'a God comprehended is no God."8
The Buddhist thought recognizes two standpoints: the one is phenomenological or worldly standpoint and the other is wholly transcendental or absolute standpoint. For the Buddhist, nirvāņa is the only truth which is real in the ultimate sense. From the standpoint of absolute Truth, nirvana is the ultimate holy truth. Phenomenal or conventional truth only relates to words, symbols, concepts and conventional things and not to Absolute Truth. From the standpoint of conventional truth we can know only something imperfectly about Absolute Truth or nirvana."
The Buddha declares nirvāņa to be the highest of all things. It is the greatest happiness (paramam sukham). It is stated in the Dhammapada :
"Health is the greatest of gifts, contentedness the best of riches, trust is the best of relationships, nirvana the highest happiness." 10
With the attainment of nirvāṇa everything which is sinful vanishes for ever. Nirvāņa is only attainable when one has perfected both knowledge and meditation. The Dhammapada clearly points out:
"Without knowledge, there is no meditation; without meditation there is no knowledge; he who has both knowledge and meditation is near unto nirvāṇa." 3
It is the blissful and the tranquil state.
Nirvana is the cessation of all sufferings. It is the extinction of five khandhas (constituent elements). It is the total destruction of
7. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-tsit Chan, p. 139.
Quoted in Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey, P. 25.
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*
L.M. Joshi in The Journal of Religious Studies, vol. IV, p. 73.
Dhammapada, verse 204. Tr. by Max Müller.
Ibid., verse 372.
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