Quest for Nirvana in Kim and Buddhacharitam

Abstract

This dissertation compares the quest for nirvana, the supreme state of bliss, the main characters the Lama in Rudyard Kipling‟s Kim on the on hand and the Buddha in Ashwaghosa‟s Buddhacharitam on the other. In the both texts the protagonists the Lama in the novel Kim and the Buddha in biographical text Buddhacharitam are in the quest for nirvana despite the fact that there is a vast gap of time of the publication, location of the authors and other issues between these texts. There are some distinct features of these characters and texts as well. Kim‟s quest is a journey to fulfill his worldly ambition and confined with the pursue of his identity in comparison with the quest of the Lama who is detached from the worldly attachments and indulged in the journey for finding out the „river of arrow‟ in order to clean his sins and to transform him from ignorance into the „fountain of wisdom‟. The quest of Buddha as it represents in Ashwaghosa‟s Buddhacharitam is much wider and meaningful to talk about the journey of nirvana in the sense that he gets nirvana through the self-meditation, and enlightenment attained through transcendental meditation has been further used for liberating the mankind form sufferings. The quest for the nirvana and its achievement in Kim is particularly in order to get our body or life released from the sins which is closer to the Christian narration of sins associated to the Adam and Eve. Both texts are closer to the Mahayani cult of Buddhism that tells that nirvana is not only for the one who attains it, it is for others as well as Buddha in Buddhacharitam and the Lama in Kim believe and get inclined to this mission of enlightening others too after attaining the nirvana.