Death, immortality and nirvana in Buddhist traditions: A study in the hermeneutics of contemplation

Buddhist traditions have not been entirely neglected in the philosophy of religion in the Western academy, but it remains rare for philosophical discussions to devote sustained attention to Buddhist themes. Considerable diversity and complexity have obtained in relation both to Buddhist understandings of death, immortality and nirvana and to scholarly interpretations of those understandings. By bringing out the possibilities of sense within a variety of interpretations of nirvana, the approach to philosophy of religion that may be termed a hermeneutics of contemplation has been exemplified. A helpful framework for analysing the concept of nirvana is a fourfold typology of interpretations offered by Carl Becker. In Becker’s words, the four types interpret nirvana to be, respectively, “annihilation”, "eternal life", “an ethical state in this world” and “a transcendent, ineffable state in which time and person are superceded”.