thy or venerable man, and the person enjoying it is
alive. The idea that the emancipated saint who has attained the goal
still lingers in the world, though no longer of the world, and teaches
others, is common to all Indian religions. With the death of an arhat
comes the state known as an-upadi-sesa-nibbanam in which no skandhas
remain. It is also called Parinibbanam and this word and the participle
parinibbuto are frequently used with special reference to the death of
the Buddha[492]. The difference between the two forms of nirvana is
important though the second is only the continuation of the first.
Nirvana in this life admits of approximate definition: it is the goal of
the religious life, though only the elect can even enter the struggle.
Nirvana after death is not a goal in the same sense. The correct
doctrine is rather that death is indifferent to one who has obtained
nirvana and the difficulty of defining his nature after death does not
mean that he has been striving for something inexplicable and illusory.

Arhatship is the aim and sum of the Buddha's teaching: it is associated
in many passages with love for others, with wisdom, and happiness and is
a condition of perfection attainable in this life. The passages in the
Pitakas which seem to be the oldest and the most historical suggest that
the success of the Buddha was due to the fact that he substituted for
the chilly ideal of the Indian Munis something more inspiring and more
visibly fruitful, something akin to what Christ called the Kingdom of
Heaven. Thus we are told in the Vinaya that Bhaddiya was found sitting
at the foot of a tree and exclaiming ecstatically, O happiness,
happiness. When asked the reason of these ejaculations, he replied that
formerly when he was a raja he was anxious and full of fear but that
now, even when alone in the forest, he had become tranquil and calm,
"with mind as peaceful as an antelope's."

Nirvana is frequently described by such adjectives as deathless, endless
and changeless. These epithets seem to apply to the quality, not to the
duration of the arhat's existence (for they refer to the time before the
death of the body) and to signify that in the state which he has
attained death and change have no power over him. He may suffer in body
but he does not suffer in mind, for he does not identify himself with
the body or its feelings[493].

Numerous passages could be quoted from the poetical books of the Pali
Canon to the ef