@dhiyati_) [Footnote ref 1]. The earth
ball (_pa@thavi_) is however still the object of the jhana.

In the fourth or the last jhana both the sukha (happiness) and
the dukkha (misery) vanish away and all the roots of attachment
and antipathies are destroyed. This state is characterized by
supreme and absolute indifference (_upekkha_) which was slowly
growing in all the various stages of the jhanas. The characteristics
of this jhana are therefore upekkha and ekaggata. With the
mastery of this jhana comes final perfection and total extinction
of the citta called cetovimutti, and the sage becomes thereby an
arhat [Footnote ref 2]. There is no further production of the khandhas,
no rebirth, and there is the absolute cessation of all sorrows and
sufferings--Nibbana.

Kamma.

In the Katha (II. 6) Yama says that "a fool who is blinded
with the infatuation of riches does not believe in a future life; he
thinks that only this life exists and not any other, and thus he
comes again and again within my grasp." In the Digha Nikaya
also we read how Payasi was trying to give his reasons in support
of his belief that "Neither is there any other world, nor are there
beings, reborn otherwise than from parents, nor is there fruit or
result of deeds well done or ill done [Footnote ref 3]." Some of his
arguments were that neither the vicious nor the virtuous return to tell
us that they suffered or enjoyed happiness in the other world, that
if the virtuous had a better life in store, and if they believed
in it, they would certainly commit suicide in order to get it at
the earliest opportunity, that in spite of taking the best precautions
we do not find at the time of the death of any person that
his soul goes out, or that his body weighs less on account of
the departure of his soul, and so on. Kassapa refutes his arguments
with apt illustrations. But in spite of a few agnostics of

_______________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikaya_, I.p. 296, and _Visuddhimagga_, pp.
167-168.]

[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 349; _D. N._ II. pp. 317
ff.]

107

Payasi's type, we have every reason to believe that the doctrine
of rebirth in other worlds and in this was often spoken of in the
Upani@sads and taken as an accepted fact by the Buddha. In
the _Milinda Panha_, we find Nagasena saying "it is through a
difference in their karma tha