Found! It is found! O Cause of Individuality! No longer shalt thou make a house for me: Broken are all thy beams. Thy ridge-pole shattered! Into Nirvāna now my mind has past: The end of cravings has been reached at last![1]
1 The train of thought is explained at length in my "Buddhism," pp.
100-112. Shortly, it amounts to this. The Unconscious has no pain: with-
out Consciousness, Individuality, there would be no pain. What gives men
Consciousness? It is due to a grasping, craving, sinful condition of heart.
The absence of these cravings is Nirvāna. Having reached Nirvāna, Con-
sciousness endures but for a time (until the body dies), and it will then no
longer be renewed. The beams of sin, the ridge-pole of care, give to the
house of individuality its seeming strength: but in the peace of Nirvāna
they have passed away. The Bodisat is now Buddha: he has reached
Nirvāna: he has solved the great mystery; the jewel of salvation sought
through so many ages has been found at last; and the long, long struggle
is over.
The following is Spence Hardy's literal translation given in his "Manual of Buddhism," p. 180, where similar versions by Gogerly and Turnour will be found: but they scarcely seem to me to express the inner meaning of these difficult and beautiful verses: —
Through many different births I have run (to me not having found), Seeking the architect of the desire resembling house, Painful are repeated births!
O house-builder! I have seen (thee). Again a house thou canst not build for me. I have broken thy rafters. Thy central support is destroyed. To Nirvāna my mind has gone. I have arrived at the extinction of evil-desire.
The figure of the house is found also in Manu (vi. 79-81); in the "Lalita Vistara" (p. 107 of Foucaux's Gya Tcher Rol Pa); and in the Ādi Granth (Trumpp, pp. 215, 216, 471). The last passage is as follows: —
A storm of divine knowledge has come! The shutters of Delusion all are blown away — are there no longer; The posts of Double-mindedness are broken down; the ridge-pole of spiritual Blindness is shattered; The roof of Craving has fallen on the ground ; the vessel of Folly has burst!
- ↑ 1
