Note 130 — THE NIDĀNAKATHĀ OR THE THREE EPOCHS.

The following is what I take to be the meaning of this passage: “If I chose I could at once enter the Buddhist priesthood, and by the practice of ecstatic meditation (Jhāna) free myself from human passion, and become an Arhat or saint. I should then at death at once attain Nirvāna and cease to exist. But this would be a selfish course to pursue, for thus I should benefit myself only. Why should I thus slip unobserved and in the humble garb of a monk into Nirvāna? Nay, let me rather qualify myself to become a Buddha, and so save others as well as myself.” This is the great Act of Renunciation by which the Bodhisattva, when Nirvāna was within his grasp, preferred to endure ages of heroic trials in the exercise of the Pāramitās, that he might be enabled to become a Buddha, and so redeem mankind. See D’Alwis’s Introduction to Kachchāyana’s Grammar, p. vi.