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WHY DID JAINISM NOT DEVELOP THE VIEW
THAT SAMSĀRA=NIRVANA
Arvind Sbarma
In the first part of the paper I will try to demonstrate how, like Buddhism, Jainism could have developed the view that Samsāra-Nirvana. In the second part I will try to show why it did not.
The position that Samsāra = Nirvāṇa is one of the basic ontological propositions of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The classical formulation of this position is found in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna in verses 19 and 20 of the Twentyfifth chapter, which translate as follows:
19. There is nothing whatever which differentiates
the existence-in-flux (sansara) from nirvana; And there is nothing whatever which differen-.
tiates nirvāna from existence-in-flux. 20. The extreme limit (koți) of nirvana is also the
extreme limit of existence-in-flux; There is not the slightest bit of difforence
between these two.2 How does Nāgārjuna arrive at this conclusion ? Nāgārjuna argues that “There are no existing phenomena (bhāvas) anywhere ... which occur (ut-pad, we may also understand originate', usually sam-ut-pad) out of themselves (svatas) or out of an other (paratas) or out of both or without any cause (a etutas)3 ... everything (all this) is empty...".. Now "If everything is einpty then what of extinction (nirvāņa)? In his chapter 25 Nagarjuna argues that it is not an existing phenomenon, not non-existing, not both existing and non-existing, not neither existing nor non-existing ... But we have learned above that the supposed phenomena' of the universe are equally none of these things...”,5 Thus there is no distinction between Nicvāna and Samsāra, "for ultimately both of them are empty śünya)!'. It should be noted that they represent afnegative identity".7
Nagarjuna has used the catuṣkoti to demonstrate this idontity. A closer inspection reveals that although four options are utilized in this technique it really offers six options as follows:
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