Uber den Tod

Über

den Tod

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Prague

Über den Tod: dimensions: 93 mm X 63 mm (3.66" X 2.48") A. Schopenhauer 1818/1844 - first issue: 1819 - Hyper Onverlag München Germany

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

Some 10 years ago on a fair in Prague, Czech Republic Europe, I discovered an interesting tiny book: Über den Tod (about death) from Arthur Schopenhauer.
It seems that the text is an excerpt (adaptation) of his famous 'World As Will And Idea' (Germany -1819), maybe ment to be a 'popular scientific' (or populistic) version of his philosophy, easy to carry and cheap to obtain. Though the text isn't exactly 'easy' to read - partly due to the difficult to read German language of that time.

Origin

The origins of the booklet is unknown, but it is a very old copy, maybe from about 1845 or just a bit later.

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info@abandon.nl

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The assumed origin of the essay

In a first issue approximately 1818 and additional issue(s) approximately 1844.

Schopenhauer refers on page 11 of the 187 pages in the small book, to the year 1844: '...sehen wir eben jetzt (1844) in England unter verdorbenen Fabriksarbeitern die Socialisten und in Deutschland unter verdorbenen Studenten die Junghegelianer...' --- in rough translation: 'Now (1844) we are seeing the depraved Socialists among the factory workers in England and in Germany among scholars the perverted young Hegelians...' --- and all the way to the end on page 187; 'In der Auflage von 1819 schrieb auch ich Nieban...' - 'In the issue of 1819 I also wrote Nieban...'

Nieban

('Nieban' was the translation of the word 'Nirvana' [sanskrit] in Burmanian language, with the meaning: vollständige Verschwindung - total disappearance - on which Schopenhauer had based [on etymological semantics] his understanding of the Buddhist notion of a hereafter: a total disappearance. In the first issue Schopenhauer used the Burmanian 'Nieban' just because the word Nirvana was unknown to him, while most of the information about Buddhism at the time came from Burmanian sources)

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Nirvana

The etymology of the word Nirvana (Nirwana) has multiple descriptions depending on the traditions in the cultures of people who used the word and the translations of the semantics.

One description is:

Wa (from Wana > Vana) means 'Wehen' - aerate > of wind - Nir means 'Nicht' - not > negation of ---
The meaning then would be 'windlessness'

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One other:

Nirvana in sanskrit means: 'Extinetion' - extinction - 'telle que celle d'un feu' - 'like a cinder of a fire'

The next:

Nirvana > actually 'Nera-Wana' - Nera means without - Wana means' life' - and the meaning of the combined words: Nerawana means: annihilation > destruction - of life.

Just Another:

Nirvana > Nirwana derived from 'Wana', means 'sinful thoughts', with 'Nir' as not > negation of ---
The meaning would be 'No sinful thoughts [anymore] '

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And one:

from Sanskrit Translated to (early-) Mongolian language: from a phrase - not the notation of Nirvana but only the notion: Nirvana means 'separated from misery' or 'escaped from misery'

Yet another one:

Nirwana is the contrary of 'Sansara', which is the world of the constant re-birth, the lust and longing, the reflecting deception and changeable form of the reborn; of what is ageing, ailing, and dying.

And the last:

'Nieban' was the translation of the word 'Nirvana' [sanskrit] in Burmanian language, with the meaning: 'total disappearance'

(translated from the reference to the word Nirwana in: Über den Tod - A. Schopenhauer - 1844)

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