re little to be wished for; and the less so, at any price to
be shunned.'[83]

What was the original meaning of Nirva_n_a may perhaps best be seen
from the etymology of this technical term. Every Sanskrit scholar
knows that Nirva_n_a means originally the blowing out, the extinction
of light, and not absorption. The human soul, when it arrives at its
perfection, is blown out,[84] if we use the phraseology of the
Buddhists, like a lamp; it is not absorbed, as the Brahmans say, like
a drop in the ocean. Neither in the system of Buddhist philosophy, nor
in the philosophy from which Buddha is supposed to have borrowed, was
there any place left for a Divine Being by which the human soul could
be absorbed. Sankhya philosophy, in its original form, claims the name
of an-i_s_vara, 'lordless' or 'atheistic' as its distinctive title.
Its final object is not absorption in God, whether personal or
impersonal, but Moksha, deliverance of the soul from all pain and
illusion, and recovery by the soul of its true nature. It is doubtful
whether the term Nirva_n_a was coined by Buddha. It occurs in the
literature of the Brahmans as a synonyme of Moksha, deliverance;
Nirv_r_itti, cessation; Apavarga, release; Ni_hs_reyas, summum bonum.
It is used in this sense in the Mahabharata, and it is explained in
the Amara-Kosha as having the meaning of 'blowing out, applied to a
fire and to a sage.'[85] Unless, however, we succeed in tracing this
term in works anterior to Buddha, we may suppose that it was invented
by him in order to express that meaning of the summum bonum which he
was the first to preach, and which some of his disciples explained in
the sense of absolute annihilation.

[Footnote 83: See Burnouf, 'Introduction,' p. 441; Hodgson, 'Asiatic
Researches,' vol. xvi.]

[Footnote 84: 'Calm,' 'without wind,' as Nirva_n_a is sometimes
explained, is expressed in Sanskrit by Nirvata. See Amara-Kosha, sub
voce.]

[Footnote 85: Different views of the Nirva_n_a, as conceived by the
Tirthakas or the Brahmans, may be seen in an extract from the
Lankavatara, translated by Burnouf, p. 514.]

The earliest authority to which we can go back, if we want to know the
original character of Buddhism, is the Buddhist Canon, as settled
after the death of Buddha at the first Council. It is called
Tripi_t_aka, or the Three Baskets, the first containing the Sutras, or
the discourses of Buddha; the second, the Vinaya, or his code of
morality; the third, the