367 Spk: The Dasārahas were a khattiya clan, so called because they took a tenth portion from a hundred (satato dasabhāgaṃ gaṇhiṃsu—reference not clear). The Summoner (ānaka) was the name of a drum, made from the claw of a giant crab. It gave off a sound that could be heard for twelve yojanas all around and was therefore used to summon the people to assembly on festival days.
368 Spk: Deep (gambhīra) by way of the text (pāḷivasena), like the Salla Sutta (Sn III, 8; Se: Sallekha Sutta = MN No. 8); deep in meaning (gambhīrattha), like the Mahāvedalla Sutta (MN No. 43); supramundane (lokuttara), i.e., pointing to the supramundane goal; dealing with emptiness (suññatāpaṭisaṃyutta ), explaining mere phenomena devoid of a being (sattasuññata-dhammamattam eva pakāsakā), like the Saṅkhittasaṃyutta (?).This passage recurs at 55:53, in commenting on which Spk cites as examples texts that sometimes differ from those cited here. See V, n. 366.
369 Spk glosses sāvakabhāsitā as tesaṃ tesaṃ sāvakehi bhāsitā, referring back to the outsiders (bāhiraka). Spk-pṭ clarifies: “By the disciples of any of those who were not known as the Buddha’s disciples.”
370 “Block of wood” is kaliṅgara. Spk: In the first period of the Buddha’s ministry the bhikkhus would practise meditation from the time they finished their meal (before noon) through the first watch of the night. They would sleep in the middle watch, resting their heads on pieces of wood (kaṭṭhakaṇḍa, a gloss on kaliṅgara); then they would rise early and resume their walking meditation.The mood of this sutta is similar to the “fears of the future” suttas, AN III 105-10.
371 The elephant simile is also at Vin II 120, used in relation to Devadatta.
372 Pasannākāraṃ karonti. Spk: They give the four requisites. See n. 275.
373 See the following sutta for an explanation.
374 Sandhisamalasaṅkaṭīre. Spk explains sandhi as an alley between two detached houses; samala as a channel for the discharge of waste from a house; and saṅkatīra as a rubbish bin; see too Ps III 418,16 (commenting on MN I 334,27). At MLDB p. 433 the compound was translated, “by a door-post or a dust-bin or a drain,” but it seems these last two nouns should be inverted.
375 Aññataraṃ saṅkiliṭṭhaṃ āpattiṃ āpajjati yathārūpāya āpattiyā vuṭṭhānaṃ paññāyati. An offence motivated by a defilement (in this case lust) but of a kind that can be expiated by undergoing the appropriate penalty (as opposed to an offence of the pārājikā class, which does not allow for expiation but requires permanent expulsion from the Saṅgha).
376 See 17:8 and n. 322 above. Spk identifies the “certain person” as Devadatta. I understand Sakyaputtiya to be an adjective meaning “following the Sakyan son,” not a noun meaning “Sakyan son.” The Sakyan son is the Buddha himself, who went forth from the Sakyan clan (see 55:7, V 352,18). Thus a samaṇa sakyaputtiya (see 28:10 (III 240,3-4) and 42:10 (IV 325,19-21)) is an ascetic following the Sakyan son, i.e., a Buddhist monk.
377 Spk: This too is said with reference to the behaviour of Devadatta. Spk relates an anecdote about a jackal who had been rescued from a python by a farmer. When the python grabbed the farmer, the jackal, out of gratitude, went to the farmer’s brothers and led them to the scene, thereby enabling them to rescue the farmer.21. Bhikkhusaṃyutta
378 Kolita was Mahāmoggallāna’s personal name, Moggallāna being derived from his clan name. The present sutta is nearly identical with 40:2 and must be simply a variant on the latter, formulated in terms of noble silence rather than the second jhāna. As Spk makes clear, the sutta refers back to Moggallāna’s week of striving for arahantship.
379 Spk explains that the second jhāna is called noble silence (ariya tuṇhībhāva) because within it thought and examination (vitakka-vicārā) cease, and with their cessation speech cannot occur. At 41:6 (IV 293,24-26) thought and examination are called the verbal formation (vacīsaṅkhāra), the mental factors responsible for articulation of speech. But, Spk adds, when the Buddha says “either speak on the Dhamma or observe noble silence” (e.g., at MN I 161,32-33), even attention to a meditation subject can be considered noble silence.
380 Spk: It is said that by this means, over seven days, the Teacher helped the elder to develop concentration on occasions when it was tending to decline (hānabhāgiya) and thus led him to “greatness of direct knowledge” (mahābhiññatā), i.e., to the six direct knowledges.
381 Upatissa was Sāriputta’s personal name.
382 We should read simply āvuso with Be and Se, as against Ee āvuso Sāriputta.
383 Spk: For a long time: he says this referring to the time that had passed since the Buddha taught the wanderer Dīghanakha “The Discourse on the Discernment of Feelings” at the door of the Boar’s Cave. For it was on that day that these defilements inherent in the round of existence were uprooted in the elder. See n. 97 above.
384 Spk: The dwelling is called gross on account of its object. For he dwelt in the exercise of the divine eye and divine ear element, which take gross objects, namely, the form base and the sound base.
385 I translate the peculiar Pāli idiom here a little freely to bring out the meaning. My rendering follows Spk’s paraphrase: “The elder wondered, ‘Where is the Blessed One now dwelling?’ Having extended light, he saw him with the divine eye sitting in his Fragrant Cottage in Jeta’s Grove; then he heard his voice with the divine ear element. The Teacher did the same, and thus they could see each other and hear each other’s voices.”
386 As at 12:22 (II 28,24-28).
387 See 51:10 (V 259,18-20). Spk glosses kappa here as āyukappa, meaning the full human life span of 120 years. However, there seems to be no textual basis for taking kappa in this passage as meaning anything other than a cosmic aeon, the full extent of time required for a world system to evolve and dissolve. See V, n. 249.
388 The word “nāga” here is used in the sense of arahant.
389 Jetvā Māraṃ savāhanaṃ. Spk does not comment on the “mount,” but other commentaries explain it as either the elephant Girimekha (Pj II 392,3 to Sn 442) or Māra’s army (Mp III 18,26 to AN II 15,29). At Ja I 72, Māra is shown mounting his elephant Girimekha before going to attack the future Buddha under the Bodhi Tree.
390 His name means “Bhaddiya the Dwarf.” The prose portion is at Ud 76; see too Ud 74,20-75,6. Spk notes that it was the monks of the “gang of six” (chabbhagiyā bhikkhū, the mischief-makers of the Saṅgha often mentioned in the Vinaya Piṭaka) who had been ridiculing him. Bhaddiya’s ugliness, according to Spk, was the kammic result of his behaviour in a previous life when he was a king who mocked and harassed old people. Though ugly in appearance, he had a lovely voice, which resulted from another past life when he was a cuckoo who offered a sweet mango to the Buddha Vipassī. The Buddha declared him the foremost of bhikkhus having a sweet voice (mañjussara; AN I 23,24). His verses at Th 466-72 do not include the verses here.
391 His verses are at Th 209-10. The same description is given of Sāriputta’s talk at 8:6. This entire sutta is at AN II 51.
392 We should read with Be (and Ee at AN II 51,29): nābhāsamānaṃ jānanti. The readings no bhāsamānaṃ (Ee) and na bhāsamānaṃ (Se) give a meaning opposite to the one required. The BHS parallel of the verse at Uv 29:43-44 supports Be: nābhāṣamānā jñāyante.
393 He was the son of the Buddha’s father Suddhodana and his aunt and foster mother, Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī. Hence, though he was also the Buddha’s half-brother through their common father, the text refers to him as mātucchāputta, “maternal cousin.” His story is at Ud 21-24 and, more elaborately, at Dhp-a I 115-22; see BL 1:217-23.Spk: Why did the elder behave thus? To find out what the Teacher thought about it, thinking: “If the Teacher says, ‘My half-brother is beautiful like this,’ I’ll conduct myself in this way all my life. But if he points out a fault here, I’ll give this up, wear a rag-robe, and dwell in a remote lodging.”
394 Aññātuñchena yāpentaṃ. Spk: Scraps gained by one seeking delicious, well-seasoned food at the homes of
affluent and powerful people are called “scraps of known people” (ñātuncha, lit. “known scraps”). But the mixed food obtained by standing at the doors of houses is called “scraps of strangers” (lit. “unknown scraps”).
395 He was the Buddha’s pitucchāputta, son of the Buddha’s paternal aunt, Amitā (DPPN, s.v. Tissa Thera (14)).
396 Spk explains that while he was still a novice, when elders arrived at the monastery from distant regions to see the Buddha he remained seated and did not perform any services to them or show them due respect. This was all because of his khattiya pride and his pride of being the Buddha’s cousin. The other bhikkhus had surrounded him and censured him sharply for his lack of courtesy. A variant of this incident is recorded at Dhp-a I 37-39; see BL 1:166-67.
397 Aññataro bhikkhu theranāmako. Spk does not explain this peculiar name or further identify the monk.
398 Spk: The past is said to be abandoned (pahīnaṃ) by the abandoning of desire and lust for the five aggregates of the past; the future is relinquished (paṭinissaṭṭhaṃ) by the relinquishing of desire and lust for the five aggregates of the future. Cp. MN III 188-89, 195-98. The plural attabhāvapaṭilābhesu is hard to account for; perhaps it means the five aggregates taken individually, though this would be an unusual use of the expression. See n. 346.
399 The first three pādas are at Sn 211 and, with a variation, at Dhp 353. Spk: All-conqueror (sabbābhibhuṃ): one who abides having overcome all aggregates, sense bases, and elements, and the three kinds of existence. Unsullied (anupalittaṃ , or “unstuck”) among those very things by the paste (lepa) of craving and views. Liberated in the destruction of craving (taṇhakkhaye vimuttaṃ): liberated in Nibbāna, called the destruction of craving by way of the liberation that takes this as its object.
400 He was the foremost bhikkhu disciple among those who exhort bhikkhus (bhikkhu-ovādaka; AN I 25,13). His verses are at Th 547-56, and he is commended by the Buddha at 54:7. Spk: He had been a king who ruled over the city of Kukkuṭavatī. As soon as he heard about the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha from a group of travelling merchants he left his kingdom for Sāvatthī together with his thousand ministers, intending to go forth. His queen Anojā followed him, accompanied by the ministers’ wives, all with the same intention. The Buddha came out to meet both parties. He first ordained the men as bhikkhus with the “Come, bhikkhu” ordination, and then he had the women ordained as bhikkhunīs by the elder nun Uppalavaṇṇā.
401 Spk: It is said that they had been companions in five hundred past births.
Part III
The Book of the Aggregates (Khandhavagga)
Introduction
The Khandhavagga, The Book of the Aggregates, continues along the trail of philosophical exposition opened up by The Book of Causation, but this time breaking into another major area of early Buddhist discourse, the five aggregates. Like its predecessor, the Khandhavagga is named after its opening saṃyutta, which dominates the entire collection. Though the Vagga contains thirteen saṃyuttas, none of the minor ones even approaches the length of the Khandhasaṃyutta, which in the PTS edition takes up 188 of the 278 pages in this volume. But even more, within this Vagga three minor saṃyuttas—SN 23, 24, and 33—focus on the aggregates as their point of interest. These chapters seem to be offshoots from the original Khandhasaṃyutta which at some point were broken off and made into autonomous saṃyuttas. Thus the theme of the five aggregates leaves its stamp throughout this whole collection.
22. Khandhasaṃyutta
The Khandhasaṃyutta contains 159 suttas arranged into three divisions called paññāsakas, “sets of fifty.” Each paññāsaka is made up of five vaggas consisting of approximately ten suttas each, though several vaggas have slightly more than ten. The length and character of the suttas vary widely, ranging from texts several pages long with a unique flavour of their own to extremely terse suttas that merely instantiate a common template.
The topic of this saṃyutta is the five aggregates (pañcakkhandha ), the primary scheme of categories the Buddha draws upon to analyse sentient existence. Whereas the teaching on dependent origination is intended to disclose the dynamic pattern running through everyday experience that propels the round of birth and death forward from life to life, the teaching on the five aggregates concentrates on experience in its lived immediacy in the continuum from birth to death.
Examination of the five aggregates plays a critical role in the Buddha’s teaching for at least four reasons. First, because the five aggregates are the ultimate referent of the first noble truth, the noble truth of suffering (see 56:13), and since all four truths revolve around suffering, understanding the aggregates is essential for understanding the Four Noble Truths as a whole. Second, because the five aggregates are the objective domain of clinging and as such contribute to the causal origination of future suffering. Third, because the removal of clinging is necessary for the attainment of release, and clinging must be removed from the objects around which its tentacles are wrapped, namely, the five aggregates. And fourth, because the removal of clinging is achieved by wisdom, and the kind of wisdom needed is precisely clear insight into the real nature of the aggregates.
The five aggregates are at once the constituents of sentient existence and the operative factors of lived experience, for within the thought world of the Nikāyas existence is of concern only to the extent that it is implicated in experience. Thus the five aggregates simultaneously serve the Buddha as a scheme of categories for analysing human identity and for explicating the structure of experience. However, the analysis into the aggregates undertaken in the Nikāyas is not pursued with the aim of reaching an objective, scientific understanding of the human being along the lines pursued by physiology and psychology; thus comparisons of the Buddhist analysis with those advanced by modern scientific disciplines can easily lead to spurious conclusions. For the Buddha, investigation into the nature of personal existence always remains subordinate to the liberative thrust of the Dhamma, and for this reason only those aspects of human existence that contribute to the realization of this purpose receive the spotlight of his attention.
The word khandha (Skt skandha) means, among other things, a heap or mass (rāsi). The five aggregates are so called because they each unite under one label a multiplicity of phenomena that share the same defining characteristic. Thus whatever form there is, “past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near,” is incorporated into the form aggregate, and so for each of the other aggregates (22:48). Two suttas in the Khandhasaṃyutta (22:56, 57) spell out the constituents of each aggregate, doing so in much simpler terms than the later, more elaborate analyses found in the Visuddhimagga and the commentaries. The breakdown of the aggregates according to the suttas is shown in Table 5. Another sutta (22:79) explains why each aggregate is called by its assigned name, and it is revealing that these explanations are phrased in terms of functions rather than fixed essences. This treatment of the aggregates as dynamic functions rather than substantial entities already pulls the ground away from the urge to grasp upon them as containing a permanent essence that can be considered the ultimate ground of being.
TABLE 5
The Five Aggregates according to the Suttas (based on SN 22:56 and 57)
Aggregate Contents Condition
form 4 great elements and form derived from them nutriment
feeling 6 classes of feeling: feeling born of contact through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind contact
perception 6 classes of perception: perception of forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tactiles, and mental phenomena contact
volitional formations 6 classes of volition: volition regarding forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tactiles, and mental phenomena contact
consciousness 6 classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousness name-and-form
The Khandhasaṃyutta stresses in various ways that the five aggregates are dukkha,
suffering, a point clearly articulated by the Buddha already in his first sermon when he states, “In brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering” (56:11). The aggregates are suffering because they tend to affliction and cannot be made to conform with our desires (22:59); because attachment to them leads to sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair (22:1); because their change induces fear, distress, and anxiety (22:7). Even more pointedly, the five aggregates are already suffering simply because they are impermanent (22:15) and thus can never fulfil our hopes for perfect happiness and security. While they give pleasure and joy, which is the gratification (assāda) in them, eventually they must change and pass away, and this instability is the danger (ādīnava) perpetually concealed within them (22:26). Though we habitually assume that we are in control of the aggregates, in truth they are perpetually devouring us, making us their hapless victims (22:79). To identify with the aggregates and seek fulfilment in them is to be like a man who employs as his servant a vicious murderer out to take his life (22:85).
The five aggregates are the objective domain of the defilements that bind living beings to the round of existence, particularly the taints (āsava) and clinging (upādāna). Whatever in the world one might cling to, it is only form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness that one clings to (22:79). For this reason the aggregates that make up our mundane experience are commonly called the five aggregates subject to clinging (pañcupādānakkhandha). Clinging, it will be recalled, is one of the links in the chain of dependent origination, the link that leads into the production of a new existence in the future. In 22:5, the five aggregates are spliced into the second half of the formula for dependent origination, thereby revealing how clinging to the five aggregates in this existence brings forth a new birth and thus the reappearance of the five aggregates in the next existence. Sutta 22:54 states that because of attachment to the five aggregates, consciousness grows and thrives from life to life; but with the destruction of lust, consciousness becomes unsupported and is then peaceful and liberated. This sutta assigns to consciousness a special place among the five aggregates, since consciousness stands supported by the other aggregates and passes away and undergoes rebirth in dependence on them. This dictum accords with the suttas on dependent origination (such as 12:12, 38, and 64) that treat consciousness as the channel or vehicle of the rebirth process.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 90