his good
man's life been vain to him, has he been extinguished, or is he still
left with some elements of existence; and how was he liberated?" and
he replies: "He has cut off desire for name and form in this world. He
has crossed completely the stream of birth and death." In the
_Salla-sutta_ it is said: "Without cause and unknown is the life of
mortals in this world, troubled, brief, combined with pain.... As
earthen vessels made by the potter end in being broken, so is the life
of mortals." One should compare the still stronger image, which gives
the very name of _nir-v[=a]na_ ('blowing out') in the
_Upas[=i]vam[=a]navapucch[=a]_: "As a flame blown about by wind goes
out and cannot be reckoned as existing, so a sage delivered from name
and body disappears, and cannot be reckoned as existing." To this
Upas[=i]va replies: "But has he only disappeared, or does he not
exist, or is he only free from sickness?" To which Buddha: "For him
there is no form, and that by which they say he is exists for him no
longer." One would think that this were plain enough.

Yet must one always remember that this is the Arhat's death, the death
of him that has perfected himself.[49] Buddha, like the Brahmans,
taught hell for the bad, and re-birth for them that were not
perfected. So in the _Kok[=a]liya-sutta_ a list of hells is given, and
an estimate is made of the duration of the sinner's suffering in them.
Here, as if in a Brahman code, is it taught that 'he who lies goes to
hell,' etc. Even the names of the Brahmanic hells are taken over into
the Buddhist system, and several of those in Manu's list of hells are
found here.

On the other hand, Buddha teaches, if one may trust tradition, that a
good man may go to heaven. 'On the dissolution of the body after death
the well-doer is re-born in some happy state in heaven'
(_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na,_ i. 24).[50] This, like hell, is a temporary
state, of course, before re-birth begins again on earth. In fact,
Buddhist and Brahmanic pantheists agree in their attitude toward the
respective questions of hell, heaven, and _karma_. It is only the
emancipated Arhat that goes to Nirv[=a]na.[51]

When it is said that Buddha preaches to a new convert 'in due course,'
it means always that he gave him first a lecture on morality and
religion, and then possibly, but not necessarily, on the 'system.' And
Buddha has no narrow-minded aversion to Brahmans; he accepts 'Brahman'
as he accepts 'Brahm[=a],' onl