Parinirvana
Parinirvana (Skt. parinirvāṇa; P. parinibbāna; T. yongs su mya ngan las 'das pa ཡོངས་སུ་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་; C. banniepan 般涅槃) is translated as "final nirvana," "complete nirvana," "nirvana-after-death," etc. Parinirvana occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained nirvana during their lifetime. It implies a complete release from samsara, karma and rebirth as well as the dissolution of the skandhas.
The parainirvana of Gautama Buddha is a significant event in Buddhist literature, and it is described in multiple texts.
Explanation
In the Buddhist view, when an ordinary person dies and their physical body disintegrates, the person's consciousness passes onto a new birth in one of the six realms of samsara. (The realm of re-birth is determined by the unresolved karma associate with that consciousness.) However, when a person attains nirvana during their lifetime, they are liberated from future karmic rebirth. When such a person dies, their physical body disintegrates and this is the end of the cycle of rebirth.
The Dharmachakra Translation Committee states:
- [Parinirvana] refers to what occurs at the end of an arhat’s or a buddha’s life. When nirvāṇa is attained at awakening, whether as an arhat or buddha, all suffering, afflicted mental states (kleśa), and causal processes (karman) that lead to rebirth and suffering in cyclic existence have ceased, but due to previously accumulated karma, the aggregates of that life remain and must still exhaust themselves. It is only at the end of life that these cease, and since no new aggregates arise, the arhat or buddha is said to attain parinirvāṇa, meaning “complete” or “final” nirvāṇa. This is synonymous with the attainment of nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣanirvāṇa).[1]
Rupert Gethin states:
- Eventually ‘the remainder of life’ will be exhausted and, like all beings, such a person must die. But unlike other beings, who have not experienced ‘nirvāṇa’, he or she will not be reborn into some new life, the physical and mental constituents of being will not come together in some new existence, there will be no new being or person. Instead of being reborn, the person ‘parinirvāṇa-s’, meaning in this context that the five aggregates of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being cease to occur. This is the condition of ‘nirvāṇa without remainder [of life]’ (nir-upadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa/an-upādisesa-nibbāna): nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the aggregates (skandha/khandha) of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being; or, for short, khandha-parinibbāna. Modern Buddhist usage tends to restrict ‘nirvāṇa’ to the awakening experience and reserve ‘parinirvāṇa’ for the death experience.[2]
Mahayana view
- According to the Mahāyāna view of a single vehicle (ekayāna), the arhat’s parinirvāṇa at death, despite being so called, is not final. The arhat must still enter the bodhisattva path and reach buddhahood (see Unraveling the Intent, Toh 106, 7.14.) On the other hand, the parinirvāṇa of a buddha, ultimately speaking, should be understood as a display manifested for the benefit of beings; see The Teaching on the Extraordinary Transformation That Is the Miracle of Attaining the Buddha’s Powers (Toh 186), 1.32.[1]
Parinirvana of Gautama Buddha
Accounts of the Buddha's own parinirvāṇa are found in a wide range of Buddhist literature. Two of the most well-known accounts are found in:
- Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali tradition
- Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra of the Sanskrit tradition
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1
Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2024), The Four Boys’ Absorption, glossary.143, 84000 Reading Room
- ↑ Gethin 1998, p. 76.
- ↑ "Buddha attaining Parinirvana". The Walters Art Museum.
Sources
- Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2024), The Four Boys’ Absorption, 84000 Reading Room
Gethin, Rupert (1998), Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press
External links
- Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, nirvanasutra.net
Maha-parinibbana Sutta - Last Days of the Buddha, Access to Insight
Parinirvana, Wikipedia
