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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
218
Ātmap and Moksa
It is worthwhile to see how Paul Dahlke contrasts Parinibbāņa with Nibbāya. He writes"Parinibbāņa is only Nibbāna free from this corporeality; Nibbāna, from which this body has been dried up, withered away; sorrowlessness without an organ by which to become aware of itself-that is, the transition of sorrowlessness into changelessness---perfect peace. As sorrow is simply the concept of transiency as coloured by the individual, so sorrowlessness is nothing but the concept of timelessness while still coloured by the last dregs of this individuality. Nibbāna is the timeless, so long as it finds its echo in the individual. Parinibbāņa is the timeless--pure, uncoloured, unbesmirched of individuality." From the distinction between the two Nibbāņas drawn above, it appears that they are the two forms of Mukti-one the Jivanmukti and the other Videhamukti. Parinibbāņa seems to be akin to Videhamukti, the highest possible attainment which cannot be even touched by the space-time categories. It is said that in the Parinibbāņa even the consciousness of nothingness itself disappears. The Yogācāra Mahāyānists change the original nature of Nirvana by depicting it as a positive state of bliss and fulfilment. Suzuki says -- "This moral practice leads to the unalloyed joy of Nirvana, not as the tranquillisation of human aspirations, but as the fulfilment or unfolding of human life."2 Thus, to certain Buddhists Nirvana is not the extinction of consciousness and Karma but
Ibid. p. 98. 2 Suzuki D. T.: Outlines of Mahayāna Buddhism, p. 341.
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