It may be significant that in the Nikāyas the precise meaning of the formula is never explicated, which suggests it may have functioned as an open-ended guide to reflection to be filled in by the meditator through personal intuition. As to the actual word meaning, the commentaries take the opening particle c’ to represent ce, “if,” glossed sace by Spk and yadi by Spk-pṭ. On this basis they interpret each part of the formula as a conditional. Spk explains the formula in the present sutta on the basis of the questionable reading c’ assaṃ, though its second alternative conforms to the superior reading c’ assa. I translate here from Spk very literally, rendering the lemma in the way favoured by the explanation: “If I were not, it would not be for me: If I were not (sace ahaṃ na bhaveyyaṃ), neither would there be my belongings (mama parikkhāro). Or else: If in my past there had not been kammic formation (kammābhi-saṅkhāro), now there would not be for me these five aggregates. I will not be, (and) it will not be for me: I will now so strive that there will not be any kammic formation of mine producing the aggregates in the future; when that is absent, there will be for me no future rebirth.”
I part with the commentaries on the meaning of c’, which I take to represent ca; the syntax of the phrase as a whole clearly requires this. The Skt parallels actually contain ca (e.g., at Uv 15:4, parallel to Ud 78). If we accept this reading, then (in the present sutta) the first “it” can be taken to refer to the personal five aggregates, the second to the world apprehended through the aggregates. For the worldling this dyad is misconstrued as the duality of self and world; for the noble disciple it is simply the duality of internal and external phenomena. On this basis I would interpret the formula thus: “The five aggregates can be terminated, and the world presented by them can be terminated. I will so strive that the five aggregates will be terminated, (and) so that the world presented by them will be terminated.” Alternatively, the first “it” might be taken to refer to craving, and the second to the five aggregates arisen through craving. In the additional rider, “what exists, what has come to be” denotes the presently existent set of five aggregates, which are being abandoned through the abandonment of the cause for their continued re-manifestation, namely, craving or desire-and-lust.
My understanding of this passage has been largely influenced by discussions with VĀT and Bhikkhu Ñāṇatusita. I am also indebted to Peter Skilling for information on the Skt and Tibetan versions of the formula.
76 Rūpaṃ vibhavissati, etc. Spk glosses: rūpaṃ bhijjissati, “form will break up,” and Spk-pṭ: rūpaṃ vinasissati, “form will perish.” The commentators seem to understand “extermination” here as the incessant momentary cessation of the aggregates, but I believe the verb refers to the final cessation of the aggregates with the attainment of the anupādisesanibbānadhātu . This meaning harmonizes better with the opening formula, and also seems supported by Th 715cd: saṅkhārā vibhavissanti, tattha kā paridevanā, “formations (only) will be exterminated, so what lamentation can there be over that.”
77 Spk: With the extermination of form (rūpassa vibhavā): by the seeing of extermination, together with insight [Spk-pṭ: for the word “extermination” in the text is stated by elision of the word “seeing”]. For the four paths together with insight are called “the seeing of the extermination of form, etc.” This is said with reference to that.On the interpretation that I prefer (as stated in the preceding note), “the extermination of form,” etc., refers to the ultimate cessation of the aggregates in Nibbāna, and thus the realization that such cessation takes place functions as the spur implicit in the meditation formula that inspires the bhikkhu to break the five fetters.
78 Anantarā āsavānaṃ khayo. Here “the destruction of the taints” refers to arahantship, and it seems the bhikkhu is asking how one can attain arahantship directly, without being detained at the stage of nonreturner. Spk explains that there are two types of immediacy (anantara), proximate and distant. Insight is the proximate immediate cause for the path (since the supramundane path arises when insight has reached its peak), and the distant immediate cause for the fruit (since the fruit directly follows the path). Thus the bhikkhu is asking: “How should one know and see, with insight as the immediate cause, to attain the fruit of arahantship called ‘the destruction of the taints’?”
79 Spk: The worldling becomes frightened with the arising of weak insight (dubbalavipassanā); for he cannot overcome self-love and thus he becomes afraid, thinking, “Now I will be annihilated and won’t exist any more.” He sees himself falling into an abyss (see MN I 136,30-37,4 and n. 181 below). But when strong insight occurs to the instructed noble disciple, he doesn’t become frightened but thinks, “It is formations only that arise, formations only that cease.” Spk-pṭ: When the good worldling sees, with the knowledge of appearance as fearful, that formations are fearful, he doesn’t become afraid.“Knowledge of appearance as fearful” (bhayat’ upaṭṭhānañāṇa ) is an advanced stage of insight knowledge which lays bare the fearful nature of formations in all three periods of time; see Vism 645-47; Ppn 21:29-34.
80 Catuparivaṭṭa, lit. “four turnings.” Spk-pṭ: By way of turning round the Four Noble Truths with respect to each of the five aggregates.
81 Strangely, the Nikāyas do not offer an analysis of the form derived from the four great elements (catunnaṃ mahābhūtānaṃ upādāya rūpaṃ). This analysis first appears only in the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, according to which such form includes the five sense faculties, four sense objects (the tactile object being assigned to three of the great elements, excluding the water element), the space element, sexual determination, physical nutriment (= edible food), etc.; see CMA 6:2-5. On nutriment as a condition for the physical body, see II, n. 18. In this sutta the proximate condition for the origination of each of the five aggregates is shown, in contrast with 22:5, which shows the collective distal or remote condition for all five aggregates. For the distinction of the two types of conditions, see II, n. 58.
82 This paragraph shows trainees (sekha), who have directly known the Four Noble Truths and are practising for attainment of Nibbāna, the ultimate cessation of the five aggregates. For this reason the trainees are said to have “gained a foothold (gādhanti) in this Dhamma and Discipline,” in contrast to the arahants, who have completed their work.
83 This paragraph shows those beyond training (asekha), the arahants. Spk: They are well liberated (suvimuttā) by the liberation of the fruit of arahantship; consummate ones (kevalino ), complete, having done all their duties. There is no round for describing them (vaṭṭaṃ tesaṃ natthi paññāpanāya): there is no remaining round (of rebirths) for the description of them. Or else “round” means basis (kāraṇa), so there is no basis for description. At this point the plane of the one beyond training (asekhabhūmi, i.e., of the arahant) has been discussed.On “consummate one,” see I, n. 446. On the idea of the arahant as beyond description or free from reckoning, see 22:35 and n. 47 above. The expression vaṭṭaṃ tesaṃ natthi paññāpanāya recurs at 44:6 (IV 391,10); see too DN II 63,30-64,1. The phrase might also have been translated, “There is no round for their manifestation.”
84 Contact (phassa) is the coming together of sense object and consciousness via a sense faculty. When this occurs, the other mental factors arise, most notably feeling, perception, and volition.
85 The fact that there is a difference between the name of the aggregate (saṅkhārakkhandha) and the term of definition (sañcetanā) suggests that this aggregate has a wider compass than the others. In the Abhidhamma Piṭaka and the commentaries, the saṅkhārakkhandha is treated as an “umbrella category” for classifying all mental factors other than feeling and perception. Volition is mentioned only as the most important factor in this aggregate, not as its exclusive constituent.
86 It is significant that while contact is the proximate condition for feeling, perception, and volitional formations, name-and-form in its entirety is the proximate condition for consciousness. This ties up with the idea, as s
tated in 22:3, that the other four aggregates are the “home” of consciousness. See too in this connection 12:65 and 12:67.
87 The seven cases (sattaṭṭhānā) are obtained by merging the tetrad of the preceding sutta with the triad of 22:26. Spk: This sutta is a statement of both congratulations (ussadanandiya ) and enticement (palobhanīya). For just as a king who has won a battle rewards and honours his victorious warriors in order to inspire the other soldiers to become heroes, so the Blessed One extols and praises the arahants in order to inspire the others to attain the fruit of arahantship.
88 A triple investigator (tividhūpaparikkhī). This may be understood by way of the Dhātusaṃyutta (SN 14), the Saḷāyatanasaṃyutta (SN 35), and the Nidānasaṃyutta (SN 12). See too MN No. 115, where skill in the elements, sense bases, and dependent origination is explained in detail, augmented by the skill of knowing the possible and the impossible.
89 It seems that here bhikkhu paññāvimutto should be understood as any arahant disciple, not specifically as the paññāvimutta contrasted with the ubhatobhāgavimutta type, as in MN I 477-78. See II, n. 210.
90 This is the second discourse of the Buddha, recorded at Vin I 13-14. The five bhikkhus are the first five disciples, who at this point are still trainees (sekha). They attain arahantship by the end of the discourse. Spk: Following the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (the first sermon), given on the full-moon day of Āsaḷha (July), the five were gradually established in the fruit of stream-entry. On the fifth of the following fortnight, he addressed them, thinking, “Now I will teach them the Dhamma for the destruction of the taints.”
91 The sutta offers two “arguments” for the anattā thesis. The first demonstrates the selfless nature of the five aggregates on the ground that they are insusceptible to the exercise of mastery (avasavattitā). If anything is to count as our “self” it must be subject to our volitional control; since, however, we cannot bend the five aggregates to our will, they are all subject to affliction and therefore cannot be our self. For a fuller presentation of this argument, see MN I 230-33. The second argument for anattā is introduced just below, beginning with the words “What do you think?…” This argument demonstrates the characteristic of nonself on the basis of the other two characteristics, impermanence and suffering, taken conjointly.
92 In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta this view is ascribed to the Ājīvika teacher Makkhali Gosāla (DN I 53,24-28). The same source ascribes to Pūraṇa Kassapa the theory of the inefficacy of action (akiriyavāda; DN I 52,21-53,2), stated at 24:6 but without ascription. At 46:56 a different noncausality doctrine (ahetukavāda) is ascribed to Pūraṇa Kassapa.
93 See 14:34.
94 This is a compressed version of the fuller Āditta Sutta at 35:28, which applies the metaphor of burning to the twelve sense bases. Perhaps the present sutta was composed by simply replacing the sense bases with the aggregates, and was then compressed so that it would not “steal the show” from the more famous sutta, popularly known as the Fire Sermon, regarded by the Pāli tradition as the third formal discourse of the Buddha’s ministry.
95 Niruttipathā adhivacanapathā paññattipathā. Spk: Language (nirutti, linguistic expression) is itself the pathway of language; or alternatively, language is called the pathway of language because it is the pathway for the communication of meanings to be understood through language. The other two terms should be understood in the same way; the three are synonyms.Dhs §§1306-8 distinguishes between nirutti, adhivacana, and paññatti on the one hand, and their respective patha on the other. There nirutti and the other two are treated as synonymous, but their respective patha are said to comprise all phenomena (sabb’ eva dhammā). At DN II 63,28-64,2, name-and-form together with consciousness is said to be adhivacanapatha, niruttipatha, paññattipatha. On the basis of these texts it seems that Spk has gone astray here, and we should understand that the three pathways of language, etc., are the five aggregates pertaining to the three time periods, and the corresponding temporal “term, label, description” applied to them is “language, designation, description.”
The sutta is quoted at Kv 150 as support for the Theravādin argument against the Sarvāstivādins, who held that past and future phenomena exist in some way.
96 Spk explains ukkalā as residents of the country of Ukkala (also called Okkala, according to CPD corresponding to modern Orissa). Spk treats vasabhaññā as a dvanda, vasso ca bhañño ca, and explains that the two held the three wrong views found at 24:5-7. I read the last expression with Se and Ee, nindabyārosa-uparambhabhayā. Be includes an additional term in the second place, ghaṭṭana, not found in the other eds. See the parallel at MN III 78,12-16, which reads as Se and Ee do here. In Spk, ghaṭṭana is the gloss on byārosa, which Be apparently has absorbed into the text.
97 Spk: Clinging (upādiyamāno): seizing by way of craving, conceit, and views. In the next two suttas, conceiving (maññamāno ) and seeking delight (abhinandamāno) are explained in the same way.
98 This sutta is identical with 18:21 (and 22:91), the next with 18:22 (and 22:92). A whole saṃyutta (SN 23) consists of suttas spoken to the Venerable Rādha.
99 Nine abodes of beings (sattāvāsa) are enumerated at AN IV 401 (= DN III 263). The “pinnacle of existence” (bhavagga) is presumably the sphere of neither-perception-nor-nonperception, the highest realm of sentient existence. The term is used in this sense at Vibh 426,8 and regularly in the commentaries.
100 We should read with Be and Se: anejaṃ te anuppattā. Spk: This is arahantship, the abandoning of craving, which is known as “the stirring” (ejā). See 35:90, 91.
101 Sattasaddhammagocarā. The seven good qualities: faith, moral shame, fear of wrongdoing, learning, energy, mindfulness, and wisdom; see MN I 356,1-21; DN III 252,10-12.
102 The seven gems (sattaratana) are the seven factors of enlightenment (satta bojjhaṅgā); see 46:42. The threefold training (tisikkhā) is the training in the higher virtue, the higher mind, and the higher wisdom; see AN I 235-36.
103 The ten factors (dasaṅga): the eight perfected factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, augmented by right knowledge and right liberation. They are known more specifically as the ten factors of the one beyond training (asekha); see MN I 446,29-447,6, II 29,2-12, etc. On nāga, see I, n. 84.
104 Vidhāsu na vikampati. Spk: This refers to the three modes of conceit (superior, equal, inferior).
105 Spk elaborates point-by-point on the comparison between the lion’s emerging from his lair and roaring, and the Buddha’s arising in the world and teaching the Dhamma. The lion’s sounding his roar is like the Buddha’s “setting in motion” the Wheel of the Dhamma in the Deer Park, and the terror of the smaller animals like the “arising of the terror of knowledge” (ñāṇasantāsassa uppatti) in the long-lived deities when they hear the Buddha expound the Four Noble Truths.
106 Also at 12:21, etc.; see II, n. 58. Spk refers to 22:56 for an explanation of the origin and passing away of the five aggregates.
107 Spk: “For the most part” (yebhuyyena) is said to make an exception of those devas who are noble disciples. For no fear at all arises in the arahants, though they experience “urgency of knowledge” (ñāṇasaṃvega) because they have attained what should be attained through careful striving by one stirred by a sense of urgency. The other devas, as they attend to impermanence, experience both fear as mental fright (cittutrāsabhaya) and, at the time of strong insight, the fear of knowledge (ñāṇabhaya: probably the advanced stage of insight called bhayat’ upaṭṭhānañāṇa, “knowledge of appearance as fearful”; see n. 79). Included within identity (sakkāyapariyāpannā): included in the five aggregates. Thus, when the Buddha teaches them the Dhamma stamped with the three characteristics, exposing the faults in the round of existence, the fear of knowledge enters them.
108 Spk says that this does not refer to recollection by direct knowledge (i.e., by retrocognition of the past) but to the recollection of one’s past abodes by way of insight. Spk seems to understand the purpo
rt of the Buddha’s statement to be that they deliberately recollect the past in terms of the aggregates. I take the point differently, i.e., that though these ascetics imagine they are recalling the past experience of a permanent self, they are only recollecting past configurations of the five aggregates. This interpretation seems to be confirmed by the next paragraph, which reduces first-person memories (evaṃrūpo ahosiṃ) to experiences framed solely in terms of the aggregates (rūpaṃ yeva). It can also draw support from the parallel paragraph opening 22:47. Spk entitles this passage “the emptiness section” (suññatāpabba). A parallel commentary on the passage, slightly more elaborate, is at Vibh-a 3-6.
109 Spk: Even though emptiness has been discussed, the discussion is not yet definitive because the characteristic of emptiness (suññatālakkhaṇa) has not been discussed. The present passage is introduced to show the characteristic of emptiness. Spk-pṭ: Since form, etc., are neither a self nor the belongings of a self, but are insubstantial and ownerless, they are empty of that (self). Their nature is emptiness, their characteristic is “being deformed,” etc.
110 Ruppatī ti kho bhikkhave tasmā rūpan ti vuccati. I have tried, though clumsily, to capture the subtle word play of the Pāli, which capitalizes on the apparent correspondence between the verb ruppati and the noun rūpa. Etymologically, the two are not related. Ruppati is a passive verb from the root rup (= Skt lup), “to break, injure, spoil.” MW lists rupyate (s.v. rup), “to suffer violent or racking pain.” See too PED, s.v. ruppati. Spk glosses: Ruppatī ti kuppati ghaṭṭīyati pīḷīyati, bhijjatī ti attho; “It is deformed: it is disturbed, stricken, oppressed, meaning ‘it is broken.’”At KS 2:73, n. 1, Woodward has misunderstood the point of the commentary. It is not the case that Buddhaghosa misconstrues “these various contacts not as referring to this life, but as ‘informing’ creatures in other spheres.” Rather, he merely cites the cold hells, hot hells, etc., as the realms where the different types of “deformation” are most evident (pākaṭa). Spk adds that being “deformed” is the specific characteristic (paccattalakkhaṇa) of form, which distinguishes it from feeling and the other aggregates; but the general characteristics (sāmaññalakkhaṇa) are what they have in common, namely, impermanence, suffering, and nonself.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 116