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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS
anywhere near it. All conceptions of nirvana are misconceptions.14
THE NEGATIVE ASPECT OF NIRVĀŅA
The ancient Buddhist scholars have tried to describe nirvāṇa under its negative as well as positive aspects. Those words that suggest the negation of something such as nirodha, nirmokşa, nirvṛti amṛta, anitika and nirveda, etc. are different synonyms of negative aspect of nirvāņa. The summum bonum of Buddhism is spoken of in negative and transcendental synonyms for nirvana. In some of the later Pali Texts we find nirvana described as the uninterrupted (accanta), the uncreated (akata), the infinite (ananta), the inextinguishable (apalokita), the cessation of suffering (dukkha-kkhaya), the freedom from longing (anāsa), the uncompounded (asamkkhata), the farther shore, the beyond (pāra), the deliverance (mokkha), the extinction (nirodha), the indiscernible (anidassana), the unoppressed (avyāpajja), the absolute (kevala), the unendangered (anitika), the unattached (analaya), the deathless (accuta), the release (vimutti), the final deliverance (apavagga), the dispassionate (viraga), the stillness (sänti) the purity (visuddhi) and the allayment (nibbuta) 15.
In the Udana, nirvana is sought to be described, not in terms of what it is, but in terms of what it is not.
14.
15.
16.
"There is, monks, the stage where there is neither earth nor water nor fire nor wind nor the stage of the infinity of space nor the stage of the infinity of consciousness nor the stage of neither consciousness nor the stage of neither consciousness nor nonconsciousness; neither this world not the other world nor sun and moon. There, monks, I say, is neither coming nor going, nor staying nor passing away nor arising. Without support or going on or basis is it. This indeed is the end of suffering.
There is, monks, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an uncompounded; if monks, there were not here this unborn, unbecome, unmade, uncompounded, there would not here be an escape from the born, the become, the made, the compounded. But because there is an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an uncompounded, therefore, there is an escape from the born, the become, the made, the compounded."16
E. Conze, Buddhist Thought in India, p. 57.
Bhikshu Sangharakkshita, A Survey of Buddhism, p. 62.
Udana, VIII. 1 and 3. E.J. Thomas's translation in Early Buddhist Scriptures, pp. 110-111.
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