The Connected Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Bodhi

  11 Eḷagalāgumbha. PED identifies eḷagalā as the plant Cassia tora. Spk: This bush grows where there is a constant supply of flowing water. People made a bower with four posts, over which they let the bush grow, forming a pavilion. Below this they made a seat by placing bricks down and strewing sand over them. It was a cool place during the day, with a fresh breeze blowing from the water.

  12 Spk: Gone abroad (nānāverajjagataṃ): Gone to a realm different from the realm of one king. A foreign realm (virajja) is another realm; for as a region different from one’s own is called a foreign region (videsa), so a realm different from the one where one normally resides is called a foreign realm. That is what is meant by “abroad.”

  13 See II, n. 72.

  14 Spk says that all these terms should be understood as synonyms of craving (taṇhā). I deliberately translate pariḷāha in two ways: as “passion” when it is used as a synonym for craving (as here), and as “fever” (just below) when it is used to signify a severe degree of suffering.

  15 Spk: This passage is introduced to show the danger facing one who is not devoid of lust for the five aggregates, and the benefits won by one who is devoid of lust.

  16 Mahākaccāna was the Buddha’s foremost disciple in the detailed exposition of brief sayings, a skill he displays in this sutta and the next, and elsewhere in SN at 35:130, 132. For a concise account of his life and teachings, see Bodhi, “Mahākaccāna: The Master of Doctrinal Exposition,” in Nyanaponika and Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha, pp. 213-44. Avantī, his native region, was to the far southwest of the Ganges basin. This entire sutta is quoted verbatim at Nidd I 197-200 in place of a commentary on the verse below.

  17 Sn 844. In analysing the first line of the verse, Mahākaccāna does not simply explain the literal meaning of the words, which taken literally make perfectly good sense. Instead he treats the terms as metaphors bearing figurative meanings, and then draws out these meanings by plotting the terms on to a technical system of exegesis not evident in the verse itself. This approach to interpretation was to become characteristic of the later commentaries.

  18 The first line of the verse reads: okaṃ pahāya aniketasārī. No mention is made of okasārī or anokasārī, “one who roams in a home” and “one who roams about homeless,” but Mahākaccāna introduces these terms as implicit in the absolutive construction okaṃ pahāya. The use of dhātu as a synonym for khandha is unusual; more often the two are treated as headings for different schemes of classification. But see 22:45, 53, 54, etc., where we also meet this usage.I follow the reading of the text in Se and Ee, rūpadhāturāgavinibaddhaṃ , also supported by Spk (Be), as against Be -vinibandhaṃ. Spk resolves the compound, rūpadhātumhi rāgena vinibaddhaṃ, and explains this consciousness as the kammic consciousness (kammaviññāṇa). The passage confirms the privileged status of consciousness among the five aggregates. While all the aggregates are conditioned phenomena marked by the three characteristics, consciousness serves as the connecting thread of personal continuity through the sequence of rebirths. This ties up with the idea expressed at 12:38-40 that consciousness is the persisting element in experience that links together the old existence with the new one. The other four aggregates serve as the “stations for consciousness” (viññāṇaṭṭhitiyo; see 22:53-54). Even consciousness, however, is not a self-identical entity but a sequence of dependently arisen occasions of cognizing; see MN I 256-60.

  19 Spk: Why isn’t the consciousness element mentioned here (as a “home for consciousness”)? To avoid confusion, for “home” is here spoken of in the sense of a condition (paccaya ). An earlier kammic consciousness is a condition for both a later kammic consciousness and a resultant consciousness, and an (earlier) resultant consciousness for both a (later) resultant consciousness and a (later) kammic consciousness. Therefore the confusion could arise: “What kind of consciousness is intended here?” To avoid such confusion, consciousness is not included, and the teaching is expressed without disorder. Further, the other four aggregates, as objects (or bases: ārammaṇavasena), are said to be “stations for the kammically generative consciousness” (abhisaṅkhāraviññāṇaṭṭhitiyo), and to show them thus consciousness is not mentioned here.

  20 Engagement and clinging (upay′ upādāna), etc. See 12:15 and II, n. 31. Spk explains that although all arahants abandon these, the Tathāgata, the Perfectly Enlightened One, is mentioned as the supreme example because his status as an arahant is most evident to all the world.

  21 Spk: Why is consciousness mentioned here? To show the abandoning of defilements. For defilements are not fully abandoned in relation to the other four aggregates only, but in relation to all five.

  22 I read the long compound with Be and Se rūpanimittaniketavisāravinibandha . Ee has -sāra- in place of -visāra-. The interpretation is as difficult as it looks. I have unravelled it with the aid of Spk, which explains: “Form itself is the ‘sign’ (nimitta) in the sense that it is a condition for defilements, and it is also the abode (consisting in) the ‘sign of forms,’ being an abode in the sense of a dwelling place, namely, for the act of objectification. By the two terms ‘diffusion and confinement’ (visāra-vinibandha) what is meant is the expansion of defilements and their confining (or binding) nature. (Thus the full compound should be resolved:) ‘diffusion and confinement in the abode (consisting in) the sign of forms.’ Hence the meaning is: ‘by the diffusion of defilements, and by the bondage of defilements arisen in the abode (consisting in) the sign of forms.’ One is called ‘one who roams about in an abode’: one is called ‘one who roams about in a dwelling place’ by making (forms) an object.”

  23 Spk: Why are the five aggregates here called “home” (oka), while the six objects are called “an abode” (niketa)? Because of the relative strength and weakness of desire and lust, respectively. For though they are similar in being places of residence, “home” means one’s house, a permanent dwelling place, while “abode” is a place where one dwells for a special purpose, such as a park, etc. As desire and lust are strong in relation to one’s home, which is inhabited by one’s wife, children, wealth, and possessions, so too they are strong in regard to the internal aggregates. But as lust and desire are weaker in regard to such places as parks, etc., so too in relation to external objects.Spk-pṭ: Because desire and lust are strong in relation to the internal five aggregates, the latter are called “home,” and because desire and lust are weaker in relation to the six external objects, the latter are called “an abode.”

  24 Such intimacy with lay people in the affairs of lay life is considered unsuitable for a monk; see 9:7 and 35:241 (IV 180,17-21).

  25 Se: purekkharāno; Be and Ee: purakkharāno. Sn reads as in Se. The word usually means “honouring, revering,” but the text here plays on the literal meaning “putting in front,” interpreted as projecting into the future through desire. Spk glosses it with vaṭṭaṃ purato kurumāno, “putting the round of existence in front.” The negative apurekkharāno is here glossed vaṭṭaṃ purato akurumāno, and at Pj II 547,6-7 āyatiṃ attabhāvaṃ anabhinibbattento, “not producing individual existence in the future.” Mahākaccāna’s explanation echoes the Buddha’s exegesis of the Bhaddekaratta verses at MN III 188,15-26.

  26 This passage is also found at 56:9, also at DN I 8,9-16 and elsewhere. The expressions used are probably taken from the arsenal of rhetoric used in the heated philosophical debates that took place between the wanderers of different sects. The mood of these debates, and the Buddha’s evaluation of them, is effectively conveyed by a number of suttas in the Aṭṭhakavagga; see Sn IV, 8, 12, 13.

  27 The quote is from DN II 283,9-13, but the words seṭṭhā devamanussānaṃ are not found there. They are, however, attached to the partly parallel statement, also addressed to Sakka, at MN I 252,3-5.

  28 Spk: “Liberated in the extinction of craving (taṇhāsaṅkhayavimuttā ): Liberated in Nibbāna, the extinction of craving, by the liberation of the fruit, which takes Nibbāna as object.” This explan
ation, it seems, is supported by the texts. While simple khaya, in relation to vimutta, usually occurs in the ablative (see e.g. MN III 31,1-2 foll.), saṅkhaya is in the locative (e.g., at 4:25: anuttare upadhisaṅkhaye vimutto).

  29 See II, n. 58.

  30 Here the text speaks of the diachronic or distal origination of the five aggregates, in contrast to the synchronic or proximal origination shown below at 22:56, 57. The concluding portion of the passage shows that we have here a compressed statement of dependent origination. To “seek delight, welcome, and remain holding” is the work of craving (taṇhā). The delight (nandi) obtained is clinging (upādāna), from which the remaining links of the series flow. The passage thus demonstrates how craving for the present five aggregates is the efficient cause for the arising of a fresh batch of five aggregates in the next existence. The section on passing away should be understood in the converse manner: when craving for the present five aggregates ceases, one has eliminated the efficient cause for the arising of the five aggregates in a future existence.

  31 Paṭisallāna. Spk: The Blessed One saw those bhikkhus falling away from physical seclusion (kāyaviveka) and spoke to them thus because he knew that their meditation would succeed if they would obtain physical seclusion.

  32 A nearly identical passage is incorporated into MN No. 138 (III 227,25-229,9). The reading here shows that anupādā paritassanā and anupādāya paritassati there are ancient errors which had crept into the texts even before the age of the commentators, who were beguiled into devising bad explanations of the bad reading. The MN text should be corrected on the basis of SN.

  33 Spk explains paritassanādhammasamuppādā as a dvanda compound: taṇhāparitassanā ca akusaladhammasamuppādā ca; “the agitation of craving and a constellation of unwholesome states.” The long compound might also have been construed as a tappurisa: “a constellation of states (arisen from, associated with) agitation.” While both Spk and Spkpṭ understand paritassanā in the sense of craving, it seems to me that the text emphasizes bhaya-paritassanā, “agitation through fear.” On how paritassanā has come to bear two meanings, see II, n. 137.

  34 While the preceding sutta is framed solely in terms of identity view, this one is framed in terms of the “three grips” (gāha): “this is mine” (etaṃ mama) is the grip of craving; “this I am” (eso ’ham asmi), the grip of conceit; and “this is my self” (eso me attā), the grip of views. A shift also occurs in the implications of paritassanā, from craving and fear to sorrow and grief.

  35 Collins translates bhārahāra as “the bearing of the burden,” contending that hāra must here be understood as an action noun rather than as an agent noun (Selfless Persons, p. 165). MW, however, lists “a carrier, a porter” as meanings of hāra, and it seems clear that this is the sense required here.

  36 Spk: In what sense are these “five aggregates subject to clinging” called the burden? In the sense of having to be borne through maintenance. For their maintenance—by being lifted up, moved about, seated, laid to rest, bathed, adorned, fed and nourished, etc.—is something to be borne; thus they are called a burden in the sense of having to be borne through maintenance.

  37 The puggalavāda or “personalist” schools of Buddhism appealed to this passage as proof for the existence of the person (puggala) as a real entity, neither identical with the five aggregates nor different from them. It is the puggala, they claimed, that persists through change, undergoes rebirth, and eventually attains Nibbāna. This tenet was bluntly rejected by the other Buddhist schools, who saw in it a camouflaged version of the ātman, the self of the non-Buddhist systems. For an overview of the arguments, see Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India, pp. 184-206. The mainstream Buddhist schools held that the person was a mere convention (vohāra) or concept (paññatti) derivative upon (upādāya) the five aggregates, not a substantial reality in its own right. For the Theravāda response, see the first part of Kvu, a lengthy refutation of the “personalist” thesis.Spk: Thus, by the expression “the carrier of the burden,” he shows the person to be a mere convention. For the person is called the carrier of the burden because it “picks up” the burden of the aggregates at the moment of rebirth, maintains the burden by bathing, feeding, seating, and laying them down during the course of life, and then discards them at the moment of death, only to take up another burden of aggregates at the moment of rebirth.

  38 Bhārādāna. This formula is identical with the definition of the second noble truth (see 56:11). So too, the explanation of the laying down of the burden (bhāranikkhepa) is identical with the definition of the third truth.Spk: Seeking delight here and there (tatratatrābhinandinī): having the habit of seeking delight in the place of rebirth or among the various objects such as forms. Lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure is craving for sensual pleasures (kāmataṇhā). Lust for form-sphere or formless-sphere existence, attachment to jhāna, and lust accompanied by the eternalist view: this is called craving for existence (bhavataṇhā ). Lust accompanied by the annihilationist view is craving for extermination (vibhavataṇhā).

  This explanation of the last two kinds of craving seems to me too narrow. More likely, craving for existence should be understood as the primal desire to continue in existence (whether supported by a view or not), craving for extermination as the desire for a complete end to existence, based on the underlying assumption (not necessarily formulated as a view) that such extermination brings an end to a real “I.”

  39 Spk: All these terms are designations for Nibbāna. For it is contingent upon this (taṃ hi āgamma) that craving fades away without remainder, ceases, is given up, is relinquished, and released; and here there is no reliance on sensual pleasures or views. For such a reason Nibbāna gains these names.

  40 Spk: The root of craving is ignorance. One draws out craving along with its root by the path of arahantship.

  41 The explanation of pariññā, full understanding, in terms of the destruction of lust (rāgakkhaya), etc., initially seems puzzling, but see MN I 66-67, where pariññā is used as a virtual synonym for pahāna. Spk specifies pariññā here as accantapariññā, ultimate abandonment, which it glosses as samatikkama, transcendence, and identifies with Nibbāna. Apparently accantapariññā is distinct from the usual three kinds of pariññā, on which see the following note.

  42 Anabhijānaṃ, etc., are present participles, glossed anabhijānanto , etc. Spk: By “directly knowing” (abhijānaṃ), the full understanding of the known (ñātapariññā) is indicated; by “fully understanding” (parijānaṃ), full understanding by scrutinization (tīraṇapariññā); by “becoming dispassionate” and “abandoning,” the full understanding as abandonment (pahānapariññā).On the three kinds of full understanding, see I, n. 36. In sutta usage, the distinction between abhijānāti and parijānāti is drawn more sharply than in the commentaries. In the suttas, abhijānāti (and its cognates) indicates direct knowledge of phenomena in accordance with the pattern established by the Four Noble Truths. This knowledge is shared by both the sekha and the arahant. In contrast, parijānāti (and its cognates) is generally used only in relation to the arahant, and signifies the consummation of the knowledge initiated by abhijānāti. The Mūlapariyāya Sutta, for example (at MN I 4,7-34), stresses that the sekha “has directly known” (abhiññāya) each of the twenty-four bases of “conceiving,” but must still train further in order to fully understand them (pariññeyyaṃ tassa). Only of the arahant is it said “he has fully understood” (pariññātaṃ tassa).

  43 The next three suttas are composed on the pattern of 14:31-33. Just below, 22:29-30 correspond to 14:35-36. Spk explains that in the former three texts, the Four Noble Truths are discussed (see II, n. 249); in the latter two, the round of existence and its cessation. The parallel of 14:34 in embedded in 22:60.

  44 Agha, glossed dukkha by Spk.

  45 Pabhaṅga, glossed pabhijjanasabhāva, “subject to breaking apart.” Spk: Here the characteristic of impermanence is discussed.

  46 The parallel at MN I 1
40,33-141,19 includes dīgharattaṃ, “for a long time”; 35:101 also omits this. Spk says that form and the other aggregates are abandoned by the abandoning of desire and lust, confirmed by 22:25 and 22:111.

  47 Yaṃ kho bhikkhu anuseti tena saṅkhaṃ gacchati. The verb anuseti implies anusaya, the seven underlying tendencies (see 45:175), or, more simply, the three underlying tendencies of lust, aversion, and ignorance (see 36:3). Spk: If one has an underlying tendency towards form by way of sensual lust, etc., then one is described in terms of that same underlying tendency as “lustful, hating, deluded.” But when that underlying tendency is absent, one is not reckoned thus.Additionally, we might suppose, one is reckoned not only by way of the defilements, but even more prominently by way of the aggregate with which one principally identifies. One who inclines to form is reckoned a “physical” person, one who inclines to feeling a “hedonist,” one who inclines to perception an “aesthete” (or fact-gatherer?), one who inclines to volition a “man of action,” one who inclines to consciousness a thinker, etc.