APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.

PASSAGES IN THE PUBLISHED PARTS OF THE PITAKAS IN

WHICH THE WORD NIBBANA (PĀLI FOR NIRVĀNA) OCCURS.

1. Dhamma-pada, v. 23.-These wise people (speaking of Arahats) meditative, persevering, ever full of strength, attain to Nirvana, the highest bliss.

2 Dhp. v. 32.-The mendicant who delights in diligence, and looks with terror on sloth, cannot fall away,-he is in the very presence of Nirvana.

3. Dhp. v. 134.-If thou keepest thyself as silent as a broken gong, thou hast attained Nirvāna ; no angry clamour is found in thee. (The preceding verse condemns harsh speaking.)

4. Dhp. v. 184.-The Buddhas declare the best self-mortification to be patience, long-suffering; the best (thing of all) to be Nirvāna; for he is no (true) monk who strikes, no (true) mendicant who insults others.

5. Dhp. vv. 202, 203.-There is no fire like lust, there is no sin like hate, there is no misery like the Skandhas, there is no happiness like peace. Hunger is the worst disease, the Sanskāras the worst suffering: knowing this as it really is, is Nirvāna, the highest bliss.'

6. Dhp. v. 226.-Those who are ever on the watch, who study day and night, whose heart is set on Nirvāna, their sinfulness dies away (literally, their Asavas go to an end).

On the Skandhas and Sanskāras see above, pp. 89-90. 'Hunger' surely alludes to taṇhā (thirst).

The Āsavas are 4; sensual pleasure, lust after life, delusion (about the soul), and ignorance (of the four 'Nobie Truths'). Burnouf, 'Lotus,' 823, says they are three, and omits delusion; but this is probably a slip, for his authority is the Parinibbāna Sutta; and the text itself (Childers's ed. J. R. A. S., 1876, pp. 228-230, &c.) gives the same four as Hardy, Manual, 496, E. M., 290. Anāsava is a synonym for the Arahat, who has entered the fourth Path.

7. Dhp. v. 283.-Cut down lust, not a tree; from lust springs fear having cut down with (all) its undergrowth (vanatha), the forest of lust (vana) become Nir-vana'd, (dis-lusted, free from yearning,) oh! mendicants.'

8. Dhp. v. 285.-Cut off the love of self, as (you might) an autumn lotus with your hand—devote yourself to the 'Path' of peace alone, (for) by the Blessed One, Nirvana has been revealed."

9. Dhp. v. 289.-The wise man, restrained according to the Precepts, seeing the force of this truth, should at once clear the 'Path' leading to Nirvana.

10. Dhp. v. 369. -Bail out, O! mendicant, this boat; when bailed out it will go quickly when you have cut off lust and hatred, thou shalt go to Nirvāna.

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11. Dhp. v. 372.-There is no meditation (Dhyana), without wisdom, no wisdom without Dhyāna; he who has both wisdom and Dhyāna, is in the presence of Nirvāna.

12. Mangala Sutta, v. 11.-Temperance and chastity, to discern the Noble Truths, to experience Nirvana, that is the greatest blessing.

This curious pun is repeated at v. 344, almost exactly in the same form. As there is a doubt about the reading, however, I do not quote the latter verse.

2 The idea, perhaps, is that though Gautama revealed the 'Noble eight-fold Path' leading to Nirvāna, yet only personal exertion can bring one to it. Compare v. 276, quoted above, p. 107. 3 The Precepts (Silas) are the ten commandments (Hardy, E. M., 23). See below p. 141.

At Kāma Sutta, v. 6, the same figure is used. I take the water as the Āsavas; the water-logged boat to be the sinful man; the sea to be Sansāra, transmigration; and Nirvāna to be the island, the other shore, having reached which one is safe from being tossed about again in future births, the waves of the ocean of transmigration. Compare Nāvā Sutta, 4 (below, p. 155).

5 The four Dhyanas are four stages of religious meditation, whereby the believer's mind is gradually purged from all earthly emotions. See Childers's Dict. s. v. Jhānam, and below, P. 176.

13. Ratana Sutta, v. 12.-(Beautiful) as groves and thickets covered with blossoms in the first hot month of summer (the Buddha), preached for the good of all his glorious Law, which leads to Nirvāna.

14. Nidhikanda Sutta, v. 13.-All earthly glory, and heavenly joy, and the gain of Nirvāna, can be procured by this treasure, (charity, piety, and self-control).

15. The passage quoted above, p. 118, from the Buddhavansa. 'And as where heat is, there is also cold; so where the threefold fire (of lust, hatred, and ignorance) is, there Nirvāna must be sought.'

16. Lastly, the passage quoted from the Maha Vagga of the first Pitaka, by Gogerly, ' on Buddhism,' p. 6. 'This is a matter hard to understand, the suppression of all the Sanskaras, the forsaking of all sin, the destruction of yearning (taṇhā), the absence of lust, the cessation (of sorrow), Nirvāna.'

The above are all the passages in which Nirvana is mentioned in published texts from the Pitakas. It would be possible to strengthen the case by quoting all those passages in which the moral condition called, in those just quoted, Nirvana, is expressed by some other figure. Such are the Heavenly Drink (by which the wise are nourished), the Tranquil State, the Unshaken Condition (alluding to the final perseverance' theory), Cessation (of sorrow), Absence (of sin, the four Āsavas), Destruction (of taṇhā), and other expressions. It would also be possible to strengthen the case by quoting all passages mentioning Parinibbāna, which is also something that takes place here on earth, viz. the 'going out,' the death, of an Arahat, of a man without the Asavas, of one who has attained Nirvana. 66 Some people are reborn as men ; evil doers in hell; the wellconducted go to heaven, but the arahats go out altogether" ('Parinibbanti Anāsavā,' Dhp., v. 126). But I will only mention the important fact that in the Mahā Parinibbāna Sutta, giving a long account of Gautama's death, the word Nibbāna standing alone in its ethical or figurative sense, does not once occur.1

'It occurs once in its literal sense (like the going out of a lamp, pajjotass’ eva nibbānam, J. R. A. S., 1876, viii. 252).

Some passages in the later books in which the word Nibbāna occurs are as follows:

'Patimokkha,' pp. 3, 4, 5.

'Jina Alankāra,' apud Burnouf, 'Lotus,' pp. 332, 516, 545, 831. Compare 376.

'Rasavāhini,' p. 29.

'Mahāvansa,' p. 22, and also ch. xxx. (J. R. A. S., 1874), verse 30. Compare Pari-nibbāna, pp. 15, 118.

'Dhamma-pada Commentary,' the passages referring to the quoted verses, and compare pp. 118, 282.

'Jātaka' (Commentary), pp. 4, 14, 61, 393, 401. Compare Vimutti, pp. 77, 78, 80. Also Ten. Jāt., 91.

'Madurattha Vilasini' J. Bengal A. S. vii. 796-797.

The word Nirvana occurs in 'Saddharma Pundarika,' Burnouf's translation, pp. 11, 45, 63, 69, 73, 76, 77, 80, 88, 108, 109, 120.

'Saddharma Lankāvatara,' apud Barnouf, Introduction, &c., 516, 520.

'Avadāna Ṣataka,' ibid., 509.

[I have preferred to leave the above note as it stood. For passages on Nirvana in the Pāli Pitakas, published since the note was written, see my 'Buddhist Suttas,' pp. 311, 312, and 'Hibbert Lectures, 1881,' p. 260; and the passages given by Oldenberg in his 'Buddha' (Dritter Excurs.). They confirm in every instance the views above expressed.]

CHAPTER V.

THE GENERAL MORAL PRECEPTS OF BUDDHISM.

In the last chapter an attempt has been made to put into clear and distinct language the principles of the intricate and obscure system of Buddhist metaphysics. The task has been no easy one; not only on account of the inherent difficulty of the subject, but because of the confusion arising from the utter strangeness of ideas, which are nevertheless expressed in words capable of being used in a Christian sense. Our present object, to give a sketch of Buddhist morality, will be more easily attained.

In the Buddhist age the humility of confessed ignorance was as yet impossible. To use a Buddhist expression, there was an upādāna, or grasping state of mind, which was the standing cause of a delusion' the grasping, the lust, namely, after certainty, after absolute knowledge. From this upādāna the Buddha never freed himself, and it produced in him the 'delusion' of the great theory of Karma. To free himself and the world from the supposed effects of this non-existent hypothetical cause, he thought he had discovered a 'Path' which he called 'Noble,' an epithet it most assuredly deserves. Never in the whole history of the world has the bare and barren tree of metaphysical inquiry put forth, where one would least expect it, a more lovely flower-the