liness), and the like phrase in 177. 22:
_pratibuddho 'smi_.[59] Of especial importance is the shibboleth
Nirv[=a]na which is often used in the epic. There seems, indeed, to be
a subtile connection between Civaism and Buddhism. Buddhism rejects
pantheism, Civaism is essentially monotheism. Both were really
religions of the lower classes. It is true that the latter was
affected and practiced by those of high rank, but its strength lay
with the masses. Thus while Vishnuism appealed to the contemplative
and philosophical (R[=a]maism), as well as to the easy-going middle
classes (Krishinaism), Civaism with its dirty asceticism, its orgies
and Bacchanalian revels, its devils and horrors generally, although
combined with a more ancient philosophy, appealed chiefly to the
magic-monger and the vulgar. So it is that one finds, as one of his
titles in the thirteenth book, that Civa is 'the giver of Nirv[=a]na,'
(xiii. 16. 15). But if one examines the use of this word in other
parts of the epic he will see that it has not the true Buddhistic
sense except in its literal physical application as when the
_nirv[=a][n.]a_ (extinguishing) of a lamp, iv. 22. 22, is spoken of;
or the _nirv[=a][n.]a_ of duties (in the Pancar[=a]tra 'Upanishad,'
xii. 340. 67). On the other hand, in sections where the context shows
that this must be the case, Nirv[=a]na is the equivalent of 'highest
bliss' or 'highest _brahma_,' the same with the felicity thus named in
older works. This, for instance, is the case in xii. 21. 17; 26. 16,
where Nirv[=a]na cannot mean extinction but absorption, _i.e_., the
'blowing out' of the individual flame (spirit) of life, only that it
may become one with the universal spirit. In another passage it is
directly equated with _sukham brahma_ in the same way (_ib_. 189. 17).
If now one turn to the employment of this word in the third book he
will find the case to be the same. When the king reproaches his queen
for her atheistic opinions in iii. 31. 26 he says that if there were
no reward for good deeds hereafter "people would not seek Nirv[=a]na,"
just as he speaks of heaven ('immortality') and hell, _ib_. 20 and 19,
not meaning thereby extinction but absorption. So after a description
of that third heaven wherein is Vishnu, when one reads that Mudgala
"attained that highest eternal bliss the sign of which is Nirv[=a]na"
(iii. 261. 47), he can only suppose that the word means here
absorption into _brahma_ or union with Vishnu.