179 The mutual cessation of consciousness and name-and-form is also found in the version at DN II 34,21-35,13. Spk does not comment on the expression “I have discovered the path to enlightenment” (adhigato kho myāyaṃ maggo bodhāya), but the corresponding passage of DN is commented upon at Sv II 461,5-8 thus: “Path: the path of insight. To enlightenment: for the awakening to the Four Noble Truths, or for the awakening to Nibbāna. Further, enlightenment is so called because it becomes enlightened (bujjhatī ti bodhi); this is a name for the noble path. What is meant is (that he has discovered the path) for the sake of that. For the noble path is rooted in the path of insight. Now, making that path explicit, he says, ‘With the cessation of name-and-form,’ and so forth.”This explanation hinges upon the distinction (only implicit in the Nikāyas) between the mundane preliminary portion of the path (pubbabhāgapaṭipadā), which is the “path of insight,” and the noble supramundane path (lokuttaramagga ), which directly realizes Nibbāna. Since the supramundane path is identical with enlightenment, the commentary holds that “the path to enlightenment” the Bodhisatta discovered must be the mundane path of insight. In the DN version, having discovered the path to enlightenment, the Bodhisatta Vipassī continues to contemplate the rise and fall of the five aggregates, as a result of which “his mind was liberated from the taints by not clinging.”
180 Spk elaborates minutely upon the parable of the ancient city and then draws extensive correspondences between the elements of the parable and their counterparts in the Dhamma.
181 At this point saṅkhārā, omitted earlier, are finally introduced, and avijjā, their condition, is implied by the mention of “their origin.”
182 This passage is also at 51:10 (V 262,9-14). I follow Spk in its explanation of yāva devamanussehi suppakāsitaṃ. The point is that, despite the use of the instrumental form -ehi, the Dhamma is not proclaimed by devas and humans, but “throughout the region (inhabited) by devas and humans in the ten-thousandfold galaxy, within this extent it is well proclaimed, well taught, by the Tathāgata” (yāva dasasahassacakkavāḷe devamanussehi paricchedo atthi, etasmiṃ antare suppakāsitaṃ sudesitaṃ tathāgatena). It is possible -ehi here is a vestigial Eastern locative plural; see Geiger, Pāli Grammar, §80.3.
183 Spk: Why did he address the bhikkhus? Because a subtle Dhamma discourse, one stamped with the three characteristics, had presented itself to him. In this country (the Kuru country), it is said, the people had good roots [Spk-pṭ: supporting conditions for achievement of the noble Dhamma] and were wise [Spk-pṭ: with the wisdom of a three-rooted rebirth-consciousness and pragmatic wisdom]. They were capable of penetrating a deep Dhamma talk stamped with the three characteristics. Therefore the Buddha taught here the two Satipaṭṭhāna Suttas (DN No. 22, MN No. 10), the Mahānidāna Sutta (DN No. 15), the Āneñjasappāya Sutta (MN No. 106), the Cūḷanidāna Sutta (12:60), and other deep suttas.
184 Sammasatha no tumhe bhikkhave antaraṃ sammasan ti. Spk explains “inward exploration” as internal exploration of conditions (abbhantaraṃ paccayasammasanaṃ). In the exegetical literature, sammasana-ñāṇa is a technical term for the comprehension of the five aggregates by way of the three characteristics (see Paṭis I 53-54, quoted at Vism 607-8; Ppn 20:6-20). Here, however, sammasana is used in a sense that comes closer to the exegetical notion of paccayapariggaha , “discernment of conditions,” as at Vism 598-600; Ppn 19:1-13.
185 Spk: The Blessed One wanted him to answer by way of conditionality, but he could not grasp the Master’s intention and answered by way of the thirty-two aspects (of bodily foulness).
186 As at 12:51, but with a different sequel. I read with Be idaṃ kho dukkhaṃ kiṃnidānaṃ. Ee here is unsatisfactory.
187 Idaṃ kho dukkhaṃ upadhinidānaṃ, etc. Spk: It has its source in “acquisition as the aggregates” (khandhupadhinidānaṃ); for here the five aggregates are intended by “acquisition.” On upadhi, see I, n. 21. The standard exegetical analysis of upadhi is fourfold: as defilements, aggregates, sensual pleasures, and volitional formations. As upadhi is conditioned by taṇhā, one might contend that here upadhi is synonymous with upādāna. Spk, however, does not endorse this interpretation, and the fact that upadhi is declared the basis for aging-and-death and the other types of suffering supports Spk’s gloss khandhupadhi. Possibly a double meaning is intended: upadhi as the aggregates is the immediate condition for aging-and-death, while upadhi as equivalent to upādāna is the remote condition for existence and birth, which in turn is the remote condition for aging-and-death. On upadhi as the origin of suffering, see Sn p. 141,7-8: yaṃ kiñci dukkhaṃ sambhoti sabbaṃ upadhipaccayā.
188 Upadhinirodhasāruppagāminī paṭipadā. As at 12:51; see n. 135.
189 For a more elaborate treatment, see the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, DN II 308,6-309,11.
190 The same simile, but with slight differences in wording, is at MN I 316,10-23.
191 Spk: The bronze cup of beverage represents worldly objects of a pleasant and agreeable nature. The man oppressed by the heat represents the worldling attached to the round; the man who invites him to drink, the people who invite the worldling to enjoy objects in the world with a pleasant and agreeable nature. The man in charge of the drink, who explains its virtues and dangers, is like a spiritual friend, one’s preceptor, teacher, etc., who explains the gratification and danger in the five cords of sensual pleasure. Just as the man in the simile suddenly, without reflection, drinks the beverage and meets death or deadly suffering, so the worldling, eager to enjoy sensual pleasures, spurns the advice of his preceptor and teacher, gives up the training, and reverts to the lower life. There he commits a crime and is punished by the king, and in the next life he experiences great suffering in the four realms of misery.
192 Spk: In the counterpart, the man oppressed by the heat represents the meditator at the time he is still attached to the round. When he reflects, rejects the beverage, and dispels his thirst with some other drink, this is like the bhikkhu’s abiding by the advice of his preceptor and teacher, guarding the sense doors, gradually developing insight, and attaining the fruit of arahantship. The other four beverages are like the four paths. As the man dispels his thirst with the other four beverages and goes happily wherever he wants, so the arahant, having drunk of the four paths, dispels craving and goes to the region of Nibbāna.
193 Mahākoṭṭhita was the foremost disciple in the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā). He often appears in dialogue with Sāriputta. As C.Rh.D remarks (KS 2:79, n. 1), since both elders were arahants it is likely these dialogues were intended as “lessons” for their students rather than as genuine inquiries.
194 The underlying presuppositions of the four alternatives are eternalism, annihilationism, partial-eternalism, and fortuitous origination; see n. 37.
195 On the reciprocal conditionality of consciousness and name-and-form, see 12:65.
196 Cp. 12:16. Spk: On thirty-six grounds: for thirty-six reasons, obtained by taking three cases in relation to each of the twelve terms. The first is the quality of being a speaker on the Dhamma, the second the practice, the third the fruit of the practice. By the first method the excellence of the teaching is discussed, by the second the plane of the trainee (sekha), by the third the plane of the arahant (asekha, one beyond training).
197 Spk does not identify these elders. Saviṭṭha appears at AN I 118-19, Nārada at AN III 57-62.
198 These five grounds for the acceptance of a thesis recur at 35:153 and are examined critically by the Buddha at MN II 170,26-171,25; see too MN II 218,15-21. Here they are being contrasted with personal knowledge (paccattameva ñāṇa). For a detailed discussion, see Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, pp. 182-88, 274-76.Spk: One person accepts something through faith (saddhā) by placing faith in another and accepting what he says as true. Another accepts something through personal preference (ruci) when he approves of some thesis by reflecting on it and then takes it to be true. One accepts a thesis by oral traditi
on (anussava) when one thinks: “This has come down from ancient times by oral tradition, so it must be true.” For another, as he thinks, a certain thesis appears valid, and he concludes, “So it is”: he accepts it by reasoned reflection (ākāraparivitakka). (Jayatilleke discusses ākāra as meaning “reason” at p. 274.) In the fifth case, as one reflects, a view arises by pondering some hypothesis; this is acceptance of a view after pondering it (diṭṭhinijjhānakkhanti).
199 Bhavanirodho nibbānaṃ. Spk: Nibbāna is the cessation of the five aggregates.
200 Spk: The elder Musīla was an arahant, but without saying whether or not it was so he just kept silent.
201 Spk: Why did he speak up? It is said that he reflected thus: “This proposition—‘Nibbāna is the cessation of existence’—can be understood even by trainees. But this elder (Saviṭṭha) places that one (Musīla) on the plane of the arahant. I will make him understand this matter correctly.”
202 Spk: Clearly seen ... with correct wisdom: clearly seen with path wisdom together with insight. I am not an arahant: he indicates this because he stands on the path of nonreturning. But his knowledge that “Nibbāna is the cessation of existence” is a type of reviewing knowledge (paccavekkhaṇañāṇa ) apart from the nineteen (regular) types of reviewing knowledge (see Vism 676; Ppn 22:19-21).
203 Na ca kāyena phusitvā vihareyya, lit. “but he would not dwell having contacted it with the body.” Spk glosses: “He would not be able to draw out the water.”
204 Spk: The seeing of water in the well represents the seeing of Nibbāna by the nonreturner. The man afflicted by heat represents the nonreturner; the water bucket, the path of arahantship. As the man oppressed by heat sees water in the well, the nonreturner knows by reviewing knowledge, “There exists a breakthrough to the path of arahantship” (reading with Se arahattaphalābhisamaya). But as the man lacking the bucket cannot draw out the water and touch it with the body, so the nonreturner, lacking the path of arahantship, cannot sit down and become absorbed in the attainment of the fruit of arahantship, which has Nibbāna as its object.It would be a misunderstanding of Nārada’s reply to take it as a rejoinder to Musīla’s tacit claim that he is an arahant (the interpretation adopted by Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, pp. 128-29). The point is not that Musīla was unjustified in consenting to that title, but that Saviṭṭha drew an incorrect inference, for he held the wrong belief that the defining mark of an arahant is the understanding of dependent origination and the nature of Nibbāna. This understanding, rather, is common property of the trainee and the arahant. What distinguishes the arahant from the trainee is not his insight into dependent origination (and other principles of the Dhamma) but the fact that he has used this insight to eradicate all defilements and has thereby gained access to a unique meditative state (called in the commentaries arahattaphalasamāpatti, the fruition attainment of arahantship) in which he can dwell “touching the deathless element with his body.” At 48:53, too, the expression kāyena phusitvā viharati highlights the essential difference between the sekha and the asekha; see V, n. 238. For parallel texts on the difference between the stream-enterer and the arahant, see 22:109-110 (stated in terms of the five aggregates) and 48:2-5, 26-27, 32-33 (in terms of the faculties).
205 In all three eds. the question begins with evaṃvādī tvaṃ and the reply with evaṃvādāhaṃ. However, since it was Nārada who just spoke, it seems we should read the question portion as evaṃvādiṃ tvaṃ and resolve evaṃvādāhaṃ in the reply into evaṃvādiṃ ahaṃ. Neither Spk nor Spk-pṭ offers any help here, but a note in Be of the text suggests this amendation. The Ee reading of a parallel passage at 55:23 (V 374,24-27) has the reading I prefer, though there Be and Se have the same reading as here. At MN II 214,14 foll. we find evaṃvādāhaṃ in a context where it would have to be resolved as an accusative plural, evaṃvādino (nigaṇṭhe) ahaṃ, which further supports my proposal regarding the present passage.
206 This sutta is discussed in relation to its Chinese counterpart by Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, pp. 123-27. Spk: Susīma had approached the Venerable Ānanda, thinking, “He is the most learned disciple, and also the Teacher frequently reports to him the Dhamma he has spoken on various occasions; under him I will be able to learn the Dhamma quickly.” Ānanda brought him to the Buddha because he knew that Susīma had been a teacher in his own right and he was apprehensive that after going forth he might try to bring discredit to the Dispensation. The Buddha understood that Susīma’s motive in taking ordination was “theft of the Dhamma,” which made his entry into the Dispensation impure, but he foresaw that Susīma would shortly undergo a change of heart and attain arahantship. Hence he instructed Ānanda to give him the going forth.
It is puzzling that here, when it was most necessary to do so, the Buddha makes no mention of the probationary period normally imposed on wanderers of other sects who wish to enter the Buddhist order; perhaps the Buddha had foreseen that Susīma would have been discouraged by such a stipulation and would not have applied for admission, thus losing the chance to gain liberation.
207 Spk: Those bhikkhus, having received a meditation subject from the Teacher, entered upon the three-month rains residence, and during the rains, striving and struggling, they attained arahantship. At the end of the rains they went to the Teacher and informed him of their attainment. When Susīma heard about this he thought: “Final knowledge (aññā) must be the supreme standard in this Dispensation, the essential personal transmission of the teacher (paramappamāṇaṃ sārabhūtā ācariyamuṭṭhi, lit. ‘teacher’s fist’). Let me inquire and find out about it.” Therefore he approached those bhikkhus.The stock description of the five abhiññās that follows is commented upon in detail in Vism, chaps. 12 and 13.
208 Spk-pṭ: The formless jhānas and deliverance from perception (āruppajjhāna-saññāvimokkhā).
209 The text enclosed in brackets in Ee should be deleted and the question read as in Be and Se thus: Ettha dāni āyasmanto idañ ca veyyākaraṇaṃ imesañ ca dhammānaṃ asamāpatti, idaṃ no āvuso kathan ti. I take the no to be merely an interrogative particle (= nu).
210 Paññāvimuttā kho mayaṃ āvuso Susīma. Spk: He shows: “Friend, we are without jhāna, dry-insighters, liberated simply by wisdom” (āvuso mayaṃ nijjhānakā sukkhavipassakā paññāmatten’ eva vimuttā). Spk-pṭ: Liberated simply by wisdom: not both-ways-liberated (na ubhatobhāgavimuttā).While Spk seems to be saying that those bhikkhus did not have any jhānas, the sutta itself establishes only that they lacked the abhiññās and āruppas; nothing is said about whether or not they had achieved the four jhānas. It is significant that Susīma’s questions do not extend to the jhānas, and it is even possible (though contrary to the commentaries) that nijjhānaka should be understood, not as the deprivative “without jhāna,” but as an agent noun from nijjhāna, pondering, hence “ponderers.” In any case, the sutta goes no further than to distinguish the paññāvimutta arahant from other arahants who have the six abhiññās and the formless attainments, and thus it offers nothing radically different from the Nikāyas as a whole.
The commentaries explain the paññāvimutta arahant to be of five kinds: those who attain one or another of the four jhānas, and the “dry-insighter” (sukkhavipassaka) who lacks mundane jhāna but still has the supramundane jhāna inseparable from the noble path (see Sv II 512,19-28). On the contrast between paññāvimutta and ubhatobhāgavimutta arahants, see MN I 477-78; Pp 14, 190-91.
211 Pubbe kho Susīma dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ, pacchā nibbāne ñāṇaṃ. Spk: Insight knowledge is “knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma,” which arises first. At the end of the course of insight, path knowledge arises; that is “knowledge of Nibbāna,” which arises later. Spk-pṭ: The “stability of the Dhamma” is the stableness of phenomena, their intrinsic nature (dhammānaṃ ṭhitatā taṃsabhāvatā): namely, impermanence, suffering, nonself. Knowledge of that is “knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma.” See too n. 51, n. 105. A chapter on dhammaṭṭhiti
ñāṇa is at Paṭis I 50-52, where it is explained as the knowledge of the relations between each pair of factors in paṭicca-samuppāda.
212 Spk: Why is this said? For the purpose of showing the arising of knowledge thus even without concentration. This is what is meant: “Susīma, the path and fruit are not the issue of concentration (samādhinissanda), nor the advantage brought about by concentration (samādhi-ānisaṃsā), nor the outcome of concentration (samādhinipphatti). They are the issue of insight (vipassanā), the advantage brought about by insight, the outcome of insight. Therefore, whether you understand or not, first comes knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma, afterwards knowledge of Nibbāna.”Spk-pṭ: Even without concentration (vinā pi samādhiṃ): even without previously established (concentration) that has acquired the characteristic of serenity (samathalakkhaṇappattaṃ ); this is said referring to one who takes the vehicle of insight (vipassanāyānika).
If understood on its own terms, the text establishes only that arahantship can be attained without the supernormal powers and the formless attainments. Read in the light of Spk and Spk-pṭ, it may be seen to affirm the existence of a “vehicle of bare insight” which begins directly with mindful contemplation of mental and physical phenomena, without depending on a base of concentration by means of the jhānas or access concentration (upacārasamādhi). Though the suttas themselves say nothing about a system of bare insight meditation, some contemporary teachers regard the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta as propounding such a method and appeal to Spk and Spk-pṭ for additional support.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 85