ABSTRACT
It is generally accepted that there are two nirvanas in early Buddhism and they are differentiated as nirvana with a remainder of clinging and nirvana without a remainder of clinging. There are, however, unsolved problems in their descriptions: not only are they spelt differently, sa-upAdisesanibbAnadhAtu and anupAdisesanibbAnadhAtu in Pali, as against sopadhiUeLanirvAOadhAtu and nir/an-upadhiUeLanirvAOadhAtu in Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit,1 but they also have different meanings according to what the word upAdi, or upadhi in Sanskrit, refers to.
