Comments on Max Müller's Interpretation of the Buddhist

COMMENTS ON MAX MÜLLER'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BUDDHIST

NIRVANA BY

G. R. WELBON Rochester, U.S.A.

Close, analytical study of ancient Indian religious terminology is a demanding discipline today engaged in by only a few scholars 1). Compounding the impressive difficulties encountered in such investiga- tions, it will be noticed, some of the terms have become incorporated into the vocabulary of contemporary non-Indians. Sanctified by several decades of inclusion in dictionaries of the various Western European languages, they have acquired an uncritical significance which makes it all the more difficult to assess their "original" and contextual signifi- cations in the Indian thought schemata. Among the terms most bedeviling in its complexity of nuance is that of nirvdna according to Buddhist usage. Recently, the distinguished Belgian scholars, Ludo and Rosane Rocher, have expressed some of the frustrations shared by many who have tried to analyse that term:

Qu'on conqoive les bouddhistes comme les antagonistes conscients de l'hindouisme ou comme les "freres des brahmanes des Upanishads", il n'en reste pas moins que le concept bouddhiste de nirvti1la a ete construit sur ou a r6agi contre des elements de 1'hindouisme plus ancien, et qu'a son tour l'hindouisme plus recent s'est enrichi de ou a r6agi contre des elements du nirvana. Nous ne traiterons pas du Nirvana dans la presente 6tude, tout d'abord, parce que le concept hindouiste de mok,?a pose à lui seul, un tel nombre de problemes qu'ils ne pourront être discutés dans leur totalite, et ensuite parce que les bouddhologues, eux-memes, n'en ont resolu les problemes fondamen-

1) Among the most distinguished must be mentioned Louis Renou and Jan Gonda. See especially the latter's suggestive article, "Some Notes on the Study of Ancient-Indian Religious Terminology," History of Religions, vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter, 1962), pp. 243-273. 2) Ludo and Rosane Rocher, "Moksa : le concept hindou de la deliverance," Re- ligions de Salut (Bruxelles : Université libre de Bruxelles, Institut de sociologie, 1962), pp. 186-187. 180

taux. Pour ne citer qu'un seul exemple. on ne sait pas trop si le Bouddha lui-mcme envisageait le nirvdna comme une veritable extinction, un an6antis- sement complet, ou bien simplement comme le bonheur supreme et la d6li- vrance en dehors de tout notion d'aneantissement.2) Now, the term nirvctna has been under examination and discussion - for nearly a century and a half a period which has witnessed the birth and development of scientific (= text-based) Buddhist studies in Western Europe. Most Sanskrit scholars (and many "laymen") have wrestled with the term; and it is a truism to insist that any con- ception of Buddhism is intimately involved with the meaning or meanings which one assigns to the Buddhist Nirvana. The present essay will not solve the puzzling Buddhist nirvana nor, indeed, even approach the questions directly. Rather is it my intention to review the opinions and conclusions reached concerning Buddhism and its nirvana by one of the foremost Western European Sanskritists, one of the founders of comparative philological, religious, and mytho- logical studies: F. Max Muller. Buddhist nirvana is thickly encrusted with interpretations of various sorts, and it is hoped that an examination of some of the more influential and cogent of those judgments may assist in the recovery of the term itself.

It was in the Times of April 17 and 20 of this year [1857] that a review appeared by Max Miiller of Stanislas Julien's Voyages des P èlèrins Boud- dhistes. It was afterwards published as a pamphlet, together with a letter on Nirvana called forth by a protest printed in the Times of April 24, against Max Muller's view of Nirvana as utter annihilation, whereas the writer of the protest maintained that Nirvana meant union and communion with God... The article on Stanislas Julien's book was almost Max Miiller's first introduction to Buddhism. Pali he had studied at Berlin. 3)

3) The Life and Letters of the Right Honorable Friederich Max Miiller, ed. His wife (2 vols.; London: Longman's Green, and Co., 1902), I, 202-203. Cited hereafter as Life and Letters. The articles mentioned - "Buddhist Pilgrims" and "The Meaning of Nirv�na" - appeared originally in the Times. They are available in the following three sources: i. Buddhism and Buddhist Pilgrims: A Review o f M. Stanilas Julien's "Voyages des Pèlèrins Bouddhiques" Together with A Letter on the Original Meaning of "Nirv�na" (London: Williams and Norgate, 1857). ii. Chips from a German Workshop (various editions; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1867-1894). iii. Selected Essays on Language, Mythology, and Religion (2 vols. ; London : Longmans, Green, & Co., 1881). Vol. II of this work contains all the essays on Buddhism and complete notes which are lacking in other editions. The most convenient reference, it will be cited hereafter as Selected Essays, II.