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.
Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative, Steven Collins, Cambridge University Press,
Paperback, 197 pp, $38.99
Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative, Steven Collins,
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)
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Contents: Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative |
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Introduction |
1 |
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What is this book, and who is it for? |
1 |
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The discourse of felicity: imagining happiness |
3 |
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The Pali imaginaire |
4 |
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Eu-topia and ou-topia |
7 |
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Notes on the words 'Theravada' and 'religion' |
8 |
| 1 |
Systematic and narrative thought: eternity and closure in structure and story |
12 |
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Closure in systematic thought |
16 |
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Closure in narrative thought |
19 |
| 2 |
Nirvana as a concept |
29 |
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Action, conditioning, time, and timeliness |
29 |
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Nirvana in life and after death |
39 |
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Nirvana exists |
47 |
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Can one desire nirvana? |
55 |
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Silence and the production of meaning |
58 |
| 3 |
Nirvana as an image |
61 |
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The words (pari)nirvana and (pari)nibbana; other referring terms and definite descriptions |
63 |
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Two aporias: consciousness and happiness |
69 |
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Imagery and expressibility |
78 |
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Appendix: happiness in meditation |
94 |
| 4 |
Nirvana, time, and narrative |
100 |
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The myth of 'the Myth of the Eternal Return' |
100 |
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Individual versus collective time: can history end? Was Gotama unique? |
105 |
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The sense of an ending |
110 |
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Ending(s) in narrated time (erzahlte Zeit)1: non-repetitive time |
112 |
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Ending(s) in narrated time (erzahlte Zeit)2: repetitive time |
114 |
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Ending as an event in the time of narration (Erzahlzeit) |
122 |
| 5 |
Past and future Buddhas |
126 |
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Vamsa as a genre |
136 |
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Voice and temporal perspective in the Chronicle of Buddhas: repetitive and non-repetitive time interwoven |
139 |
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The Story of the Elder Maleyya and The History of the Future: unprecedented well-being |
148 |
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Appendix 1: Selections from the Buddhavamsa |
153 |
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Appendix 2: The Anagatavamsa |
172 |
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Conclusion: modes of thought, modes of tradition |
185 |
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Notes |
189 |
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Index |
194 |
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