for this contradicts the statements of the Buddha that reject this interpretation. Jayatilleke holds that the early texts clearly proclaim that nothing can be said about the state of the Buddha after paranibbana (the end of his psycho-physical personality) because "we do not have the concepts or words to describe adequately the state of the emancipated person." This transcendent reality which our normal minds cannot grasp is not located in time or space, it is not causally conditioned, and beyond existence and non-existence. Because trying to explain nibbana by means of logic is impossible, the only thing to be done is to explain how to reach it, instead of dwelling on what it "is". Explaining what happens to the Buddha after nibbana is thus said to be an unanswerable. A similarly apophatic position is also defended by Walpola Rahula, who states that the question of what nirvana is "can never be answered completely and satisfactorily in words, because human language is too poor to express the real nature of the Absolute Truth or Ultimate Reality which is Nirvana." Rahula affirms that nibbana is most often described in negative terms because there is less danger in grasping at these terms, such as "the cessation of continuity and becoming (bhavanirodha)", "the abandoning and destruction of desire and craving for these five aggregates of attachment", and "the extinction of "thirst" (tanhakkhayo)." Rahula also affirms however that nibbana is not a negative or an annihilation, because there is no self to be annihilated and because 'a negative word does not necessarily indicate a negative state'. Rahula also notes that more positive terms are used to describe nibbana such as "freedom" (mutti) and "truth" (sacca). Rahula also agrees that nirvana is unconditioned. The American Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has defended the traditional Theravada view which sees nirvana as "a reality transcendent to the entire world of mundane experience, a reality transcendent to all the realms of phenomenal existence." The Sri Lankan philosopher David Kalupahana has taken a different position, he argues that the Buddha's "main philosophical insight" is the principle of causality (dependent origination) and that this "is operative in all spheres, including the highest state of spiritual development, namely, nirvana." According to Kalupahana "later scholars attempted to distinguish two spheres, one in which causation prevailed and the other which is uncaused. This latter view was, no doubt, the result of a confusion in the