The Way to Nirvana: Six Lectures on Ancient Buddhism as a Discipline of Salvation

The book is organized into six lectures. Chapter I, “Origins of the Indian Disciplines of Salvation,” explains the religious and intellectual background of Indian liberation movements, including old Aryan beliefs, sacrifice, Brahman speculation, ritualism, re-death, and the doctrine of ātman. Chapter II, “The Buddhist Soul,” studies Buddhist rationalism, Buddhist psychology, the denial of Self, the analogy of man as a chariot, the problem of reward after death, rebirth without a migrating soul, and the question of whether Buddhism admits a functional form of soul. Chapter III, “Buddhist Definition of Karman,” defines karma through its ancient development, its identification with volition and voluntary action, and its moral character. Chapter IV, “The Doctrine of Karman and Transmigration, Cosmogony, Theogony,” analyzes the mechanism of rebirth, the classification and fruition of actions, destiny, free will, solidarity, cosmology, and gods. Chapter V, “Nirvana,” examines pessimism, deliverance, the meaning of Nirvana, competing views of the saint after death, annihilation, unqualified deliverance, and scholastic attempts to reconcile scriptural contradictions. Chapter VI, “The Path to Nirvana,” presents liberation through the destruction of desire, the Middle Way between asceticism and indulgence, threefold training in Buddhist truths, meditative trances, and the practical discipline leading to final release.