Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative

205 Pages·2010·0.9 MB·English

by  Collins Steven

This page intentionally left blank
nirvana: concept, imagery, narrative
The idea of nirvana (Pali: nibba¯na) is alluring but elusive for non-
specialists and specialists alike. Offering his own interpretation of key
texts, Steven Collins explains the idea in a new, accessible way – as a
concept, as an image (metaphor) and as an element in the process of
narratingbothlinearandcyclicaltime.Exploringnirvanafromliterary
and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to
provide‘thesenseofanending’inboththesystematicandthenarrative
thought of the Pali imaginaire. Translations from a number of texts,
includingsomedealingwithpastandfutureBuddhas,enablethereader
toaccesssourcematerialdirectly.Thisbookwillbeessentialreadingfor
students of Buddhism, but will also have much to teach anyone con-
cernedwithAsiaanditsreligions,orindeedanyonewithaninterestin
theideasofeternallifeortimelessness.
STEVENCOLLINSisChesterD.TrippProfessorintheHumanitiesatthe
UniversityofChicago.HeistheauthorofNirvanaandOtherBuddhist
Felicities:UtopiasofthePaliImaginaire(Cambridge,1998).

NIRVANA
Concept, Imagery, Narrative
STEVEN COLLINS
CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521881982
© Steven Collins 2010
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the
provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2010
ISBN-13 978-0-511-67762-5 eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-88198-2 Hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-70834-0 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Introduction page 1
1
Whatisthisbook,andwhoisitfor?
3
Thediscourseoffelicity:imagininghappiness
4
ThePaliimaginaire
7
Eu-topiaandou-topia
8
Notesonthewords‘Therava¯da’and‘religion’
1 Systematicandnarrativethought:eternityandclosurein
structureandstory 12
16
Closureinsystematicthought
19
Closureinnarrativethought
2 Nirvanaasaconcept 29
29
Action,conditioning,time,andtimelessness
39
Nirvanainlifeandafterdeath
47
Nirvanaexists
55
Canonedesirenirvana?
58
Silenceandtheproductionofmeaning
3 Nirvanaasanimage 61
Thewords(pari)nirva¯naand(pari)nibba¯na;otherreferringterms
˙ 63
anddefinitedescriptions
69
Twoaporias:consciousnessandhappiness
78
Imageryandexpressibility
94
Appendix:happinessinmeditation
4 Nirvana,time,andnarrative 100
100
Themythof‘theMythoftheEternalReturn’
Individualversuscollectivetime:canhistoryend?WasGotama
105
unique?
110
Thesenseofanending
v
vi Contents
112
Ending(s)innarratedtime(erza¨hlteZeit)1:non-repetitivetime
114
Ending(s)innarratedtime(erza¨hlteZeit)2:repetitivetime
122
Endingasaneventinthetimeofnarration(Erza¨hlzeit)
5 PastandfutureBuddhas 126
136
Vamsaasagenre
˙
VoiceandtemporalperspectiveintheChronicleofBuddhas:
139
repetitiveandnon-repetitivetimeinterwoven
TheStoryoftheElderMa¯leyyaandTheHistoryoftheFuture:
148
unprecedentedwell-being
Appendix1:SelectionsfromtheBuddhavamsa 153
Appendix2:TheAna¯gatavamsa ˙ 172
˙
Conclusion:modesofthought,modesoftradition 185
Notes 189
Index 194
Introduction
what is this book, and who is it for?
This book is a rewritten version of Part I in my Nirvana and Other
Buddhist Felicities, published by Cambridge University Press in
1998(paperback2006).Thatbookislong,complex,expensive,and
noteasytouseinteaching.InthisbookIaimtotaketheattemptat
understanding nirvana offered in the earlier one, and present it in
whatIhopeisamoreaccessibleform;themaintextislesscrowded
with details, all direct references to Pali texts have been removed,
and most references to secondary works have been placed in the
endnotes. All translations are my own. Although it is intended for
that mythical beast, the General Reader, I have had primarily in
mind university classes, at either the undergraduate or graduate
level, in courses on Buddhism, comparative Religious Studies,
History, Anthropology, or other. It is intended to provoke discus-
sion rather than to present unalterable conclusions. In my experi-
ence with students at the University of Chicago to whom I have
taughtwhatispresentedhere,theoverallmethods,arguments,and
conclusions are quite comprehensible, when explained pedagogi-
cally,whetherornotindividualshappentobepersuaded.Readers,
and teachers using the book in classes, might consult the longer
bookformoredetail,andfortheoverallargumentaboutnirvanaas
apartofwhatIcalltherethediscourseoffelicity(explainedbriefly
1
2 nirvana: concept, imagery, narrative
below),andas partofwhat thesubtitle ofthat bookcalled Utopias
of the Pali Imaginaire. But this is by no means necessary.
To suggest in what vein I would like this book to be read, or at
least one of them, I would point to a body of work on the early
Christian and medieval European worlds produced by Caroline
Walker Bynum, collected in the volumes entitled Fragmentation
and Redemption (1991), The Resurrection of the Body in Western
Christianity, 200–1336 (1995), and Metamorphosis and Identity,
(2001).1 Bynum achieves a combination of two things, inter alia,
whichitwouldbepresumptuousofmetoclaimalso,althoughIcan
atleastsaythat itis myaspiration: shedeals with fundamental and
timelessexistentialissues–thenatureofembodiment,itsrelationto
death and the possibility of life thereafter, the conceivability of
eternal life, and much else besides – but in a manner which
exemplifies the intellectual and academic virtues, again inter alia,
of detailed linguistic (and other) analysis, meticulous care, and
lucid exposition, in reading and discussing texts produced in an
historicalperiodquitedifferentfromourown.Whatispresentedin
this book, from the Pali imaginaire, was produced in roughly the
samehistoricalperiodsasthetextsdealtwithinBynum’swork,and
it responds to many of the same timeless issues, but in an overall
ideology different from the Christian in some very fundamental
ways(thoughonecouldalsoargue,perhaps,thatasacivilizational
ideologyinprescientificpremodernity,itisthesame,orsimilar,in
some equally fundamental ways; that is one thing readers might
discuss). What I have to say about what I will call systematic and
narrative thought, and about the philosophical and cultural-
historical importance of imagery and metaphor, and their capacity
to be a connecting bridge between systematic and narrative
thought, might also be thought through in relation to other tradi-
tions (and here Bynum’s work will also be helpful). But that is an