Note 91 — Chapter III · THE ÁRHATA SYSTEM.

This passage is very difficult and not improbably corrupt, and my interpretation of it is only conjectural. The ordinary nirjará is when an action attains its end (like the lulling of a passion by the gratification), this lull is temporary. That nirjará is "ancillary" which is rendered by asceticism a means to the attainment of the highest good. The former is akámá, "desireless," because at the moment the desire is satisfied and so dormant; the latter is sakámá, because the ascetic conquers the lower desire under the overpowering influence of the higher desire for liberation.