Whenever religious faith ventures furthest with bold affirmation, it is
obliged in the last resort to express this affirmation in negative as well as
in positive terms. A Yes is uncomfortably joined with a No. This union
may appear in one challenging proposition, or the Yes and the No may be
found in separate passages related to the same symbol. In either case, the
union is regarded as indissoluble, and a distinction is drawn between the
language of religious paradox and the language of logical opposition. The
logician makes ready with his knife to sever or prune the apparently
discordant terms and thus relieve the tension. But his surgery is refused.
"There can be no going behind or pretending to resolve the paradox. To
evade the paradox is to lose the truth."² Whether this refusal is justified
is one of the questions in debate. What perhaps is indicated by religious
paradox is an imaginative contrast rather than a logical opposition, a
contrast derived from the fact that the imaginative language of analogy
is joined with the language of negation.

Any adequate discussion of the problems involved, however, depends
upon a wide survey of the context of religious paradox, a survey not
limited to the Christian tradition. This present inquiry may be regarded
as a contribution towards such a survey, for the situation which gives
rise to religious paradox is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than it is
by the Buddhist symbol of Nirvana.

The essentially religious character of this Nirvana symbol, however,
has been questioned, especially with reference to its statement in the
context of Southern or Hīnayāna Buddhism, where the negative empha-
sis appears to obscure the basic affirmation.

Our inquiry, therefore, has two aspects. In the first place we are con-
cerned to show that Burmese religion is a living tradition of Hīnayāna
Buddhism in which Nirvana is the religious ultimate term, paradoxically
affirmed. We begin in the field of historical interpretation.

Secondly, in order to exhibit the significance of the Nirvana paradox
for Buddhism, we shall relate this expression to similar expressions of
other religious ultimates in other traditions. This excursion into the field
of comparative religion will raise the question of the significance of the
language of paradox for the study of religion generally.

The more detailed examination of Burmese Buddhism which will con-
cern us in the earlier chapters may seem to some a narrow and laborious
approach to the larger questions which confront us in our comparative
survey. But there is much to be said for such an approach to the problems
presented by the study of Comparative Religion. Just as the traveller or
missionary comes first into contact with some one, particular religion, so.

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