The Way to Nirvana Six Lectures on Ancient Buddhism As A Discipline of Salvation

This is an academic monograph on Nirvana by a French scholar. Poussin contrasts the Hindu and Buddhist views on the cycle of rebirth, and makes a case for original Buddhist concepts of reincarnation as being subtly different than the Hindu, where the soul remains essentially intact across incarnations. He compares the Buddhist view of rebirth to a forest fire (the soul) jumping a river (death), creating an entirely new fire on the other side of the river. He demonstrates the intersection of this topic with Buddhist cosmology, logic, philosophy and ethics.