Buddhism in India

Conclusion 269

to cross is the morass of sensual desire. A sage does not deviate from

truth, a brahmana stands on firm ground; renouncing all, he is truly

called ‘calmed’.

Having actually experienced and understood the Dhamma he has realized

the highest knowledge and is independent. He comports himself

correctly in the world and does not envy anyone here. He who has left

behind sensual pleasures, an attachment difficult to leave behind, does

not grieve nor have any longing; has cut across the stream and is unfet-

tered. Dry out that which is past, let there be nothing for you in the

future. If you do not grasp at anything in the present you will go about

at peace. One who, in regard to this entire mind–body complex, has no

cherishing of it as ‘mine’, and who does not grieve for what is nonexis-

tent truly suffers no loss in the world. For him there is no thought of

anything as ‘this is mine’ or ‘this is another’s; not finding any state of

ownership, and realizing ‘nothing is mine’, he does not grieve.

To be not callous, not greedy, at rest and unruffled by circumstances –

that is the profitable result I proclaim about one who does not waver.

For one who does not crave, who has understanding, there

is no production (of new kamma). Refraining from initiating (new

kamma) he sees safety and prosperity everywhere. A sage does not

speak in terms of being equal, lower or higher. Calmed and without

selfishness, he neither grasps nor rejects’ (Sutta Nipata 945–54).

Thus modern translations either just write ‘nibbana’ or use such

words as ‘unbinding’ or ‘freedom’.

The Question of the Karma/Rebirth rame

There is another word that has a great history of ambiguity within the

Buddhist tradition, and that is the word kamma/karma. On the one

hand, it means simply ‘action’ and was very often used by the Buddha

to contrast with ‘birth’ as a criteria for identifying a person. On the

other hand, it was identified by the time of Buddha himself, and after-

wards in the mainstream of historical Buddhism, from Theravada on

through Mahayana, Vajrayana and almost all schools, with the

cosmological–ideological framework of rebirth. The ‘law of karma’

then is thought to indicate a chain of causal relations in which the fail-

ure to extinguish passion and achieve nibbanain one lifetime leads to

an inevitable uprising of another human individual in another birth.

Ambedkar has decisively rejected this notion, and as we have

already seen scholars like Grace Burford have also attacked it very

strongly. Burford centers her argument on a logical contradiction

268 Buddhism in India

(1998: 223)! ‘Extinction of desire’ is close to the original meaning
but ‘extinction of individual consciousness’ is not; nor are ‘death’
and ‘calamity’. All this indicates a linguist history in which the
original Buddhist (Pali) meaning has been overlaid not so much by
developments within Buddhism itself as by reinterpretations deriving
from Brahman hostility to the whole doctrine.
In The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar gave a succinct
definition, significantly in a section entitled ‘Living in Nibbana’:

There are three ideas which underlie his conception of Nibbana. Of

these the happiness of a sentient being as distinction from the salvation

of the soul is one. The second idea is the happiness of the sentient

being in Samsara while he is alive.... The third idea which underlies

his conception of Nibbana is the exercise of control over the flames of

the passions which are always on fire (Ambedkar 1992: 234).

Contemporary Pali and Buddhist scholarship seems to broadly
agree with this. First, what was meant by the final goal of Buddhist
effort cannot mean ‘extinction’ simply because not only the
Buddha, but so many others following him (and in legend, before
him) have been described as attaining it in their lifetimes. (For this
reason the word mahaparinibbanacame to be used for the death of
the Buddha). The liberated person is not out of his consciousness,
or perceptions, or even feelings of pain and happiness—but is not
attached to these through craving.
This is expressed very frequently in early Pali literature. An
important text here is the Atthakavaggaof the Sutta Nipata, which
is considered to be one of the oldest texts of Buddhism. It records
what are probably the Buddha’s earliest teachings in a period before
the establishment of the Sangha when bhikkus were largely solitary
wanderers. The term ‘nibbaana’ itself appears only once, but the
major terms of the karma and rebirth frame (e.g. jatimaran) do not;
instead the term bhavaand correlates is often taken to refer to
‘future lives’, though this interpretation of the word can be con-
tested. The terms ‘Buddha’ and ‘Tathagata’ hardly appear; instead
the words used for the person who has achieved the goal include
muni(sage) ‘bhikku’, ‘Brahman’ and ‘sant’ (from the Pali correlate
of shant, one who has achieved peace, the calmed one). All of these
clearly refer to a person who has stilled his passions, not to one who
gives up all relation to the world, all perceptions, all consciousness.

Greed, I say, is a great flood; it is a whirlpool sucking one down, a

constant yearning, seeking a hold, continually in movement; difficult