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THE BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION
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Some people raise the objection about the negative side of nirvāṇa; they think that its negative aspect expresses self-annihilation. But nirvana is certainly no annihilation of self because there is nothing like self to annihilate. It is the annihilation of illusion, of the wrong notion of self, "the extinction of passion, of aversion, of confusion, is called nirvāṇa."'17
A text describes the state of nirvana in the following words:
"Here the four elements of solidity, fluidity, heat and motion have no place; the notions of length and breadth, the subtle and the gross, good and evil, name and form are altogether destroyed, neither this world nor the other, nor coming, going or standing, neither death nor birth, nor sense objects are to be found."*18
It is not right to say that nirvana has negative or positive side. It is completely free from all concepts and terms of duality. Moreover, the negative word does not necessarily mean negative side. It is the way of expressing the truth. Just as the word freedom which is known in Pali as mutti and in Sanskrit mukti means absolute emancipation from all evils, craving, illusions and passions, etc. It is the freedom from all obstructions. Although no one will say that the word freedom has a negative side, yet it has something in a negative way. Similarly the words arogya (health), amṛta (immortal) do not state the negative side.
THE POSITIVE ASPECT OF NIRVĀŅA
The Buddhist scriptures contain a number of positive names of nirvana. This state is described with a wealth of epithets; for example, it is:
"The harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amidst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the supreme, the transcendental, the uncreated, the tranquil, the home of ease, the calm, the end of suffering, the medicine for all evil, the unshaken, the ambrosia, the immaterial, the imperishable, the abiding, the further shore, the unending, the bliss of effort, the supreme joy, the ineffable, the detachment, the holy city."19
Edward Conze has collected several words describing nirvāņa. He rightly points out that:
17. Samyuttanikaya, IV. 251. Horner's translation in A Survey of Buddhism, p. 61. 18. W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p. 37; Dīghanikāya, vol. I, p. 190. 19. Rhys Davids, Early Buddhism, p. 172; Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, p. 74.
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