The idea of nirvana (Pali nibbana) 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.

Steven Collins is Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities at University of Chicago. He is the author of Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Uotopias of the Pali Imaginaire (Cambridge, 1998)

	Contents: Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative
	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 timeliness	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 (erzahlte Zeit)1: non-repetitive time	112
	Ending(s) in narrated time (erzahlte Zeit)2: repetitive time	114
	Ending as an event in the time of narration (Erzahlzeit)	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