Arhatship is the aim and sum of the Buddha’s teaching:  it is associated in many passages with love for others, with wisdom, and happiness and is a condition of perfection attainable in this life.  The passages in the Pitakas which seem to be the oldest and the most historical suggest that the success of the Buddha was due to the fact that he substituted for the chilly ideal of the Indian Munis something more inspiring and more visibly fruitful, something akin to what Christ called the Kingdom of Heaven.  Thus we are told in the Vinaya that Bhaddiya was found sitting at the foot of a tree and exclaiming ecstatically, O happiness, happiness.  When asked the reason of these ejaculations, he replied that formerly when he was a raja he was anxious and full of fear but that now, even when alone in the forest, he had become tranquil and calm, “with mind as peaceful as an antelope’s.”

Nirvana is frequently described by such adjectives as deathless, endless and changeless.  These epithets seem to apply to the quality, not to the duration of the arhat’s existence (for they refer to the time before the death of the body) and to signify that in the state which he has attained death and change have no power over him.  He may suffer in body but he does not suffer in mind, for he does not identify himself with the body or its feelings[493].

Numerous passages could be quoted from the poetical books of the Pali Canon to the effect that nirvana is happiness and the same is stated in the more dogmatic and logical portions.  Thus we hear of the bliss of emancipation and of the happiness which is based on the religious life[494] and the words “Nirvana is the greatest happiness” are put into Gotama’s own mouth[495].  The middle way preached by him is declared to be free from all distress, and those who walk in it make an end of pain even in this life[496].  In one passage[497] Gotama is found meditating in a wood one winter night and is asked if he feels well and happy.  The night is cold, his seat is hard, his clothes are light and the wind bitter.  He replies emphatically that he is happy.  Those who live in comfortable houses suffer from the evils of lust, hatred and stupidity but he has made an end of those evils and therefore is happy.  Thus nirvana is freedom and joy:  it is not extinction in the sense we give the word but light to them that sit in darkness, release to those in prison and torture.  But though it is legitimately described in terms which imply positive happiness it transcends all human standards of good and evil, pleasure and pain.  In describing the progress to it we all—­whether Indians or Europeans—­necessarily use such words as better, higher, happier, but in truth it is not to be expressed in terms of such values.  In an interesting sutta[498] a Jain argues that happiness is the goal of life.  But the Buddha states categorically first that perfect happiness is only attainable by abandoning the conscious pursuit of happiness and secondly that even absolute happiness when attained is not the highest goal:  there is a better state beyond, and that state is certainly not annihilation or extinction of feeling, for it is described in terms of freedom and knowledge.