SOURCE: "Numen, Nirvana, and the Definition of Religion," in Concept and Empathy: Essays in the Study of Religion, edited by Donald Wiebe, Macmillan, 1986, pp. 40-48.
In the following essay, originally published in 1959 in The Church Quarterly Review, Smart contends that Otto misunderstood the notion of nirvana, thus throwing into confusion his notion of the numinous in religious experience.
