also Nirvana, Nirwana, 1836, in Buddhism, "the condition of a Buddha," from Sanskrit nirvana-s "extinction, disappearance" (of the individual soul into the universal), literally "to blow out, a blowing out" ("not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw" [Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, "Hinduism and Buddhism," 1943]; a literal Latinization would be de-spiration), from nis-, nir- "out" + va- "to blow" (from PIE root *we- "to blow"). Figurative sense of "perfect bliss" is from 1895.