Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative

by Steven Collins

Overview

The idea of nirvana (Pali nibbāna) 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 narrating both linear and cyclical time. Exploring nirvana from literary and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to provide 'the sense of an ending' in both the systematic and the narrative thought of the Pali imaginaire. Translations from a number of texts, including some dealing with past and future Buddhas, enable the reader to access source material directly. This book will be essential reading for students of Buddhism, but will also have much to teach anyone concerned with Asia and its religions, or indeed anyone with an interest in the ideas of eternal life or timelessness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521708340
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/25/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Steven Collins is Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

What is this book, and who is it for? 1

The discourse of felicity: imagining happiness 3

The Pali imaginaire 4

Eu-topia and ou-topia 7

Notes on the words 'Theravada' and 'religion' 8

1 Systematic and narrative thought: eternity and closure in structure and story 12

Closure in systematic thought 16

Closure in narrative thought 19

2 Nirvana as a concept 29

Action, conditioning, time, and timelessness 29

Nirvana in life and after death 39

Nirvana exists 47

Can one desire nirvana? 55

Silence and the production of meaning 58

3 Nirvana as an image 61

The words (pari)nirvana and (pari)nibbana; other referring terms and definite descriptions 63

Two aporias: consciousness and happiness 69

Imagery and expressibility 78

Appendix: happiness in meditation 94

4 Nirvana, time, and narrative 100

The myth of 'the Myth of the Eternal Return' 100

Individual versus collective time: can history end? Was Gotama unique? 105

The sense of an ending 110

Ending(s) in narrated time (erzählte Zeit)₁: non-repetitive time 112

Ending(s) in narrated time (erzählte Zeit)₂: repetitive time 114

Ending as an event in the time of narration (Erzählzeit) 122

5 Past and future Buddhas 126

Vamsa as a genre 136

Voice and temporal perspective in the Chronicle of Buddhas: repetitive and non-repetitive time interwoven 139

The Story of the Elder Maleyya and The History of the Future: unprecedented well-being 148

Appendix 1 Selections from the Buddhavamsa 153

Appendix 2 The Anagatavamsa 172

Conclusion: modes of thought, modes of tradition 185

Notes 189

Index 194

Editorial Reviews

'… an academically thorough and, I would dare to say, passionate exploration into a concept that invites description and evocation but is beyond both.' Buddhist Studies Review

'… for those whose main interest is in appreciating or teaching Collins's creative ways of engaging with the enigmatic yet fundamental Buddhist motif of nirvana, this new presentation of his work is really just perfect.' The Journal of Religion

'The book remains an indispensable addition to courses on Buddhism.' Natalie Gummer, Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher