Nirvânî
(Sk.)
One who has attained Nirvana—an emancipated soul. That Nirvâna means nothing of the kind asserted by Orientalists every scholar who has visited China, India and Japan is well aware. It is “escape from misery” but only from that of matter, freedom from Klêsha, or Kâma, and the complete extinction of animal desires. If we are told that Abidharma defines Nirvâna “as a state of absolute annihilation”, we concur, adding to the last word the qualification “of everything connected with matter or the physical world”, and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion, mâyâ. Sâkya‐mûni Buddha said in the last moments of his life that “the spiritual body is immortal” (See Sans. Chin. Dict.). As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: “The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvâna negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence; to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility” and he might have added “death of all compassion for the world of suffering”. And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmânakâya to the Dharmakâya vesture, stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvânîs. But the same scholar adds that: “Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvâna as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the soul (spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvâna, may reappear on earth”—i.e., in the future Manvantara (TG).
DATA
To show: Nirvânî; sortable: Nirvani
Lifetime:
Shortly: One who has attained Nirvana—an emancipated soul. That Nirvâna means nothing of the kind asserted by...