What is Mahanirvana in Buddhist Culture Is it Buddhadeb in Buddha Gaya earned mahanirvana under the tree of Bodhibriksha?

Answer 1

Mahanirvana means the great nirvana( maha meaning great). Then what is nirvana? We are attached to the world through The five aggregates (Skt. skandhas) : 1) bodily form; 2) feeling; 3) perception; 4) mental formations; 5) consciousness.

1. body form-this is the way we look or in other words our figure. It is believed that our body form or appearance is determined by our speech, by how clean it is.

2. feeling- is received through the five sense organs- smelling organ, taste organ, hearing organ, seeing organ and the touch organ. Here, one should add the sixth organ- the mind organ

3. perception- this is the experiences we get through our feelings which is kept within us and ignites near actions. Say you eat an ice cream and you like then you will eat it again and again. Say some other person eats an ice cream and he/she had a stomach problem then at the second trail similar problems arise. Will this second person eat ice cream again?))). So, accumulated experience determines the subsequent action.

4. mental formations- this is information stored as images in our mind. It is believed that the mind has a direct impact on the mental formations. In our daily lives we think about many things, but, although we do not always implement them, every thought, however, is reflected in the mind as mental formations or images.

5 consciousness- here, by consciousness we mean distinction (between say good or bad)

If there were no distinction, there would have not been any need to be born in this world of Passion.

Then what is distinction? Distinction - that is what lies at the base of our consciousness, which decides what is good and what is bad or what is beautiful and what is ugly. So, if perception has a direct influence on our actions, then distinguishing has a directly effect on our mind. The attachment to these five aggregates, push us into having more and more worldly desires and make us suffer.

If we clean up the Five aggregates and abandon them, we will never be reborn in any world of Passion nor on other worlds like the worlds of form and non form. The stage above the three worlds -passion, form, and non form is called nirvana.

Say a soul has not experienced enough in life then it's experience will be small. But, nevertheless, if such a soul destroys it's experience or knowledge, at this time it reaches a state called " great calm". This is Nirvana. Here we have a great soul, and it is capable of knowing the whole universe. Its experience extends to the entire universe. When such a soul completely eliminates all its knowledge and experience, this is called the elimination of great knowledge and great experience of eradication. This is the MahaNirvana. This the state Gautama the Buddha attained under the tree and He teaches all of us to attain Mahanirvana.