Parinirvana

In Buddhism, parinirvana (Sanskrit: parinirvāṇa; Pali: parinibbāna) describes the state entered after death by someone who has attained nirvana during their lifetime.

In the Buddhist view, when ordinary people die, each person's unresolved karma passes on to a new birth; and thus the karmic inheritance is reborn in one of the Six Paths of samsara.

This is the condition of 'nirvāṇa without remainder [of life]' (nir-upadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa/an-up ādisesa-nibbāna): nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the aggregates (skandha/khandha) of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being; or, for short, khandha-parinibbāna.

The historical event of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa is also described in a number of later works, such as the Sanskrit Buddhacarita and the Avadāna-śataka, and the Pāli Mahāvaṃsa.

Because of its attention to detail, this Theravada sutta, though first committed to writing hundreds of years after his death, has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard studies of the Buddha's life.

[3] In contrast to these works which deal with the Buddha's parinirvāṇa as a biographical event, the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra was written hundreds of years later.

According to the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra (also called the Nirvana Sutra), the Buddha taught that parinirvāṇa is the realm of the Eternal, Bliss, the Self, and the Pure.