Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the
Pali imaginaire. By Steven Collins. Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions, No. 12.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, xxiv + 684 pages, ISBN 0-521-57054-9, US
$85.00 (cloth).
- Reviewed by
- James P. McDermott
Professor of Religious Studies and
Dean of Arts and Sciences
Canisius College
mcdermot@canisius.edu
The dust jacket of Collins' book proclaims that it "presents a new answer to the
question: what is nirvana?" It does. In accomplishing this task, Collins' goal has
been to understand nirvana from an "external (etic) point of view which preserves the
internal (emic) characterization of it, without simply restating what that is" (p.
188). He is concerned both with what Buddhist systematic thought says nirvana is and with
the way in which its meaning is expressed through images and in narrative. Collins
considers imagery to be a bridge between systematic and narrative thought, and goes so far
as to suggest that the meaning of nirvana is perhaps even better expressed imagistically
than through concepts (p. 213). He thus provides extensive treatment of such images of
nirvana as fire, the ocean, the further shore, and the City of Nibbaana.
The result of this study, then, is not an update of Guy Welbon's historical survey, The
Buddhist Nirvaa.na and Its Western Interpreters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1968). Neither is it a mere alternative to the classic interpretations of Louis de la
Valleé Poussin and Th. Stcherbatsky, nor to the more recent analyses by Rune Johansson
and Peter Harvey, although Collins enters into debate with each of them. Rather, Collins'
subject matter is much more broadly defined, ranging from consideration of Buddhist
utopianism and Buddhist historiography to the question of whether millennialism precisely
understood is a category which can be properly applied to Buddhist phenomena.
In defining the concept of nirvana, Collins explicitly disavows the quest for the
"original Buddhism," "what the Buddha taught," and "what Buddhism
'teaches,' essentially and ahistorically" (p. 418). At the outset he spells out what
Buddhist systematic thought says about the concept of nirvana:
It is a real, external and timeless Existent, not merely a concept…. It is the
ultimate goal of Buddhist soteriology, to be attained both experientially, in this
life…[and] an object of consciousness for those on the Path…. It is also the
state or condition (metaphorically, the place) which is the destiny of an Arahant or
Buddha after death (but it is not a Destiny within the universe). It is ontologically, but
is not the origin of things, the ground of being. For Buddhists, whether practitioners of
the Path or ordinary people, the appropriate response is to accept on faith -- better,
with confidence or trust, saddhaa -- that nirvana exists as described, and to
aspire to achieve it, in the shorter or longer term (p. 188).
An important analytic concept around which Collins constructs his thought is what he
calls "the Pali imaginaire." Scholarly use of the term "imaginaire"
initially derives, as Collins notes, from French historians and Marxists. Virtually
impossible to translate into English precisely, "the noun imaginaire can refer to
objects of the imagination, the ensemble of what is imagined, without implying falsity; it
can also refer to specific imagined worlds, and so can be used in this sense in the
plural" (p. 73). The "Pali imaginaire," then, may be somewhat loosely said
to refer to the world as it is imagined to be in the entire range of extant, premodern
Pali texts of which there are Western editions. Among the key interests pursued in this
volume is the place of the Pali imaginaire in Southern Asian society and history. Collins'
aim is not to produce "a comprehensive, or somehow uniquely privileged history,"
but rather a study that complements other works on Southern Asia (p. 81).
One of the main themes of the book is that "narrative is as important a cognitive
function, a mode of culture-making, and a mode of truth-claiming, as is systematic
thought" (p. 60). Thus Collins turns to a consideration of nirvana as it relates to
time and history. He breaks new ground in attempting to define and understand Buddhist
historiography in contradistinction to Western approaches to historiography. In this
context he rejects the common dichotomy which sees the "Western" conception of
time as linear in contrast to an "Eastern" concept of time which is frequently
supposed to be cyclical. His "concern here is with the way the Pali imaginaire
textualizes time, and with nirvana as a narrative closure-marker, both in narrated time
and in the time of narration" (p. 234). This discussion is based on a close reading
and careful analysis of passages from the Buddhava.msa and Mahaava.msa.
Collins recognizes the importance of both repetitive and non-repetitive time in these
materials. New translations of the relevant sections of these texts are included as
appendices one and two.
Part two of the volume deals with what Collins has broadly termed "other Buddhist
felicities" -- that is, the wide range of things which can be seen as forms of
salvation. As he understands them, "Buddhist felicities are not a random collection
of good things, but a coherent imaginaire structured and completed by narratively
unimaginable nirvana" (p. 116). In this part of the study, one finds extensive
treatment of Buddhist utopias -- both in the sense of eu-topias (good places) and
ou-topias (no-places). The theoretical issues raised in this discussion are related
comparatively to Western utopian writing and its study. Chapter four deals with Buddhist
cosmogony -- particularly its various heavens -- and the "celestial pleasures of
meditation." These are related to the Western concepts of Arcadia and the Land of
Cockaigne. Chapter five deals with the future Buddha Metteyya, and the possibility of
multiple Buddhas, past and future. This discussion raises the theoretical issue of
Buddhist millennialism. In formulating his thinking on this topic, Collins begins with the
useful typologies proposed by Jan Nattier's "The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A
Typological Analysis," in Maitreya, the Future Buddha (A. Sponberg and H.
Hardacre, eds. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988]) and N. Cohn's "Medieval
Millenarism: Its Bearing on the Comparative Study of Millenarian Movements," in Millennial
Dreams in Action (S. Thrupp, ed. [The Hague: Mouton, 1962]). This theoretical
discussion, then, is concretized with reference to both premodern ideas and modern
movements in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. In chapter six Collins discusses kingship and
the perfect moral commonwealth, focusing on the concept of the Wheel-turning King (cakkavatti).
Collins argues that "the closest the Pali imaginaire comes to a social utopia is in
the image of the Wheel-turning King, whose beneficent guidance maximizes mundane felicity
for all and the possibility of the ultimate felicity of nirvana for some" (p. 562).
In addition to proposing new interpretations for well known sutta texts from the Diigha
Nikaaya, for example, Collins' analysis makes extensive use of narratives from the Jaataka
collection, as well as the much more rarely utilized niiti texts, which played a
central role in traditional monastic education. The niiti texts are
"collections of aphoristic verses of practical wisdom...which together [with the Jaataka]
constitute the largest and most widespread fund of practical advice and exempla in
Buddhism" (p. 419). He shows how these texts were used by the sangha at times to
justify and at others to contest military and political power.
A close reading and original textual analysis of the Cakkavatti-siihanaada Sutta,
or The Discourse (Containing) a Lion's Roar on the Wheel-turning King serves as a
foundation for and supplement to this discussion. In his reading of this sutta, as well as
in his understanding of the Kuu.tadanta and Mahaasudassana Suttas Collins,
like Richard Gombrich, recognizes moments of comedy and satire not admitted by other
interpreters. Collins sees these "as giving voice to a transcendentalist wisdom
oriented towards trans-temporal (and/or timeless) values of asceticism..." (p. 496).
An extensive analysis of the highly popular Vessantara Jaataka concludes part
two of the book. Collins sees the Vessantara as both a realist drama and as an
allegory. The story "highlights and insists on conflicts of value" (p. 500). He
characterizes the Vessantara as "a tragedy as well as a utopian fantasy (or
better, a concatenation of utopian fantasies)" (p. 529), "a summa
felicitatium" (p. 500).
In his conclusions, Collins addresses both "narrower issues concerning the
typology of ideal societies" (p. 555) and broader theoretical issues related to the
transferability of categories and concepts from one culture to another.
The concluding scholarly apparatus includes an extensive bibliography, a glossary and
index of Pali and Sanskrit words, and name and subject indexes.
Every once in a while a book comes along that deserves a lasting scholarly reputation.
This is one of those masterful books. In many ways it is a treasure trove. It breaks new
theoretical ground in its consideration of such matters as Buddhist utopianism and
Buddhist millennialism, as well as the comparative study of cultures. It offers perceptive
new interpretations of both popular and seldom considered Pali texts. In passing it drops
enticing suggestions for possible future research agendas. Even those with whose ideas
Collins argues will find here stimulation to further thought and possibly (or rather,
likely) on-going debate. This is a book to read, to savor, to reflect upon, and to return
to as a source of ideas.