On the two elements of Nibbāna, see the General Introduction, p. 50.
9 Spk: “Life is swept along” (upanīati jīvitaṃ) means: “(Life) is destroyed, it ceases; or it moves towards, i.e., gradually approaches, death” (upanīyatī ti parikkhīyati nirujjhati; upagacchati vā; anupubbena maraṇaṃ upetī ti attho). “Short is the life span” (appam āyu): “The life span is limited in two ways: first, because it is said, ‘One who lives long lives for a hundred years or a little longer’ (see 4:9); and second, because in the ultimate sense the life-moment of beings is extremely limited, enduring for a mere act of consciousness.” Spk continues as at Vism 238 (Ppn 8:39).
10 Spk: This deva had been reborn into one of the brahmā worlds with a long life span. When he saw beings passing away and taking rebirth in realms with a short life span, he was moved to pity and urged them to do “deeds of merit” (puññāni)—to develop the form-sphere and formless-sphere jhānas—so that they would be reborn into the form and formless realms with a long life span. The Buddha’s verse is a rejoinder intended to show that the deva’s advice is still tied to the round of existence and does not lead to emancipation. The peace (santi) which the Buddha commends is Nibbāna.Spk explains two denotations of lokāmisa, literally “carnal things”: (i) figuratively (pariyāyena), it denotes the entire round of existence with its three planes, the objective sphere of attachment, “the bait of the world”; (ii) literally (nippariyāyena), it signifies the four requisites (clothing, food, dwelling, and medicines), the material basis for survival. For the figurative use of āmisa, see v. 371d, v. 480, and 35:230; in the last text, however, the six sense objects are compared to baited hooks rather than to the bait itself.
11 Vayoguṇā anupubbaṃ jahanti. Spk: Youth deserts one who reaches middle age; both youth and middle age desert one who reaches old age; and at the time of death, all three stages desert us.
12 Spk: One must cut off (chinde) the five lower fetters (identity view, doubt, the distorted grasp of rules and vows, sensual desire, ill will). One must abandon (jahe) the five higher fetters (lust for form, lust for the formless, conceit, restlessness, ignorance). In order to cut off and abandon these fetters one must develop a further five (pañca cuttari bhāvaye), namely, the five spiritual faculties (faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom). The five ties (pañcasaṅgā) are: lust, hatred, delusion, conceit, and views. A bhikkhu who has surmounted these five ties is called a crosser of the flood (oghatiṇṇo), that is, a crosser of the fourfold flood (see n. 1).Strangely, although the verses refer to the five ties as if they are a standard doctrinal set, no pentad of saṅgas can be found as such in the Nikāyas; the five saṅgas are mentioned at Vibh 377,16-18.
13 Spk says, “When the five faculties are awake the five hindrances are asleep, and when the five hindrances are asleep the five faculties are awake,” but this seems redundant; the explanation would be more satisfactory if we take the first phrase to be stating that when the five faculties are asleep the five hindrances are awake, thus making more explicit the relationship of diametric opposition and mutual exclusion between the two pentads. Spk continues: “It is by the same five hindrances that one gathers dust, i.e., the dust of the defilements; and it is by the five faculties that one is purified.”
14 Spk identifies the dhammā of pāda a as the catusaccadhammā , “the things (or teachings) of the four (noble) truths.” Who may be led into others’ doctrines: Spk: The doctrines of the other spiritual sects apart from the Buddha’s Teaching are called “others’ doctrines” (paravādā); specifically, the doctrines of the sixty-two views (DN I 12-38). Some tend to these doctrines of their own accord, some are led into them and adopt them through the influence of others.
15 Those awakened ones (sambuddhā). Spk: There are four kinds of awakened ones: omniscient Buddhas, paccekabuddhas, “four-truth awakened ones” (i.e., arahant disciples), and those awakened through learning. The first three types are indicated in the present context. They fare evenly amidst the uneven: they fare evenly amidst the uneven common domain of the world, or amidst the uneven community of sentient beings, or amidst the uneven multitude of defilements.
16 Spk: Here taming (dama) signifies the qualities pertaining to concentration. Sagehood (mona) is the knowledge of the four supramundane paths, so called because it experiences (munātī ti monaṃ); that is, it knows the four truths. The realm of Death (maccudheyya) is the round with its three planes, so called because it is the domain of Death; its beyond or far shore (pāra) is Nibbāna.
17 Spk sees this couplet as an implicit formulation of the threefold training: by the abandoning of conceit the higher virtue (adhisīla) is implied; by well concentrated (susamāhitatto ), the training in concentration or the higher mind (adhicitta); and by lofty mind (sucetaso), denoting a mind endowed with wisdom, the training in the higher wisdom (adhipaññā). To this we might add that the last phrase, everywhere released (sabbadhi vippamutto), points to the culmination of the threefold training in liberation (vimutti). See DN II 122,15-123,12.
18 Spk: This verse was spoken by an earth-bound deva who dwelt in that forest. Each day he would see the bhikkhus who inhabited the forest sitting in meditation after their meal. As they sat, their minds would become unified and serene, and the serenity of their minds would become manifest in their complexion (vaṇṇa). Puzzled that they could have such serene faces while living under these austere conditions, the deva came to the Buddha to inquire into the cause. The facial complexion (mukhavaṇṇa) or complexion of the skin (chavivaṇṇa) is understood to indicate success in meditation; see 21:3 (II 275,20-21), 28:1 (III 235,22); and Vin I 40,14, and 41,2.
19 Tāvatiṃsa, “the realm of the thirty-three,” is the third sense-sphere heaven. It is so named because thirty-three youths, headed by the youth Magha, had been reborn here as a result of their meritorious deeds. Magha himself became Sakka, ruler of the devas. Nandana is the Garden of Delight in Tāvatiṃsa, so called because it gives delight and joy to anyone who enters it. According to Spk, this deva had just taken rebirth into this heaven and, while wandering through the Nandana Grove, he spoke the verse as a spontaneous paean of joy over his celestial glory. Spk glosses naradevānaṃ with devapurisānaṃ, “devamales”; it is clearly not a dvanda compound. Tidasa, “the Thirty” (lit. “triple ten”), is a poetic epithet for Tāvatiṃsa.
20 Spk ascribes this rejoinder to a female deva who was a noble disciple (ariyasāvikā). Thinking, “This foolish deva imagines his glory to be permanent and unchanging, unaware that it is subject to cutting off, perishing, and dissolution,” she spoke her stanza in order to dispel his delusion. The “maxim of the arahants” is pronounced by the Buddha at 15:20 (II 193, also at DN II 199,6-7); the deva-king Sakka repeats it on the occasion of the Buddha’s parinibbāna (see v. 609). The first line usually reads aniccā vata saṅkhārā rather than, as here, aniccā sabbasaṅkhārā. An identical exchange of verses occurs below at 9:6, with the goddess Jālinı̄ and the Venerable Anuruddha as speakers. The feminine vocative bāle in pāda b implies that the latter dialogue was the original provenance of the verse, or in any case that the first devatā is female.Spk: Formations here are all formations of the three planes of existence (sabbe tebhūmakasaṅkhārā), which are impermanent in the sense that they become nonexistent after having come to be (hutvā abhāvaṭṭhena aniccā). Their appeasement is blissful (tesaṃ vūpasamo sukho): Nibbāna itself, called the appeasement of those formations, is blissful.
21 Upadhi, “acquisitions” (from upa + dhā, “to rest upon”) means literally “that upon which something rests,” i.e., the “foundations” or “paraphernalia” of existence. The word has both objective and subjective extensions. Objectively, it refers to the things acquired, i.e., one’s assets and possessions; subjectively, to the act of appropriation rooted in craving. In many instances the two senses merge, and often both are intended. The word functions as a close counterpart of upādāna, “clinging,
” to which, however, it is not etymologically related. See in this connection 12:66 and II, n. 187, and Sn p. 141.Spk (along with other commentaries) offers a fourfold classification of upadhi: (i) kāmūpadhi, acquisitions as sensual pleasures and material possessions; (ii) khandhūpadhi, the five aggregates; (iii) kilesūpadhi, defilements, which are the foundation for suffering in the realm of misery; and (iv) abhisaṅkhārūpadhi, volitional formations, accumulations of kamma, which are the foundation for all suffering in saṃsāra. In the deva’s verse upadhi is used in the first sense.
In his reply the Buddha turns the devatā’s expression “one without acquisitions” (nirupadhi) on its head by using the term as a designation for the arahant, who is free from all four kinds of upadhi and thus completely free from suffering. The pair of verses recurs below at 4:8, with Māra as the interlocutor.
22 Spk: There is no affection like that for oneself because people, even if they discard their parents and neglect to care for their children, still care for themselves (see v. 392). There is no wealth equal to grain because people, when famished, will give away gold and silver and other assets in order to obtain grain. There is no light like wisdom because wisdom can illumine the ten-thousandfold world system and dispel the darkness concealing the three periods of time, which even the sun cannot do (see AN II 139-40). Among the waters the rain is supreme because if the rainfall were to be cut off even the great ocean would dry up, but when the rain continues to pour down the world becomes one mass of water even up to the Ābhassara deva world.
23 From this point on, wherever the text does not specify the identity of the speakers, it is implied that the first verse is spoken by a devatā and the reply by the Buddha.
24 In pāda b, Be and Se read sannisīvesu, a word not encountered elsewhere, while Ee1 & 2, following SS, read sannisinnesu , which may be a “correction” of the original reading; the text available to the subcommentator evidently read sannisīvesu. Spk glosses: yathā phāsukaṭṭhānaṃ upagantvā sannisinnesu vissamānesu. [Spk-pṭ: parissamavinodanatthaṃ sabbaso sannisīdantesu; d-kārassa hi v-kāraṃ katvā niddeso.] The gist of this explanation is that at noon all the birds (and other animals), exhausted by the heat, are quietly resting in order to dispel their fatigue.In pāda c the resolution of saṇateva is problematic. Spk glosses: saṇati viya mahāviravaṃ viya muccati, “it seems to make a sound, it seems as if it releases a great roar.” This implies that Spk divides the sandhi into saṇate iva. Ee2 apparently accepts this with its reading saṇate va. Following a suggestion of VĀT, I resolve it saṇati eva, taking the sense to be that the forest itself is emitting the sound. The verb saṇati means merely to make a sound, and is elsewhere used to describe a noisy creek (Sn 720-21), so here the sound might be more appropriately described as a murmur than as a roar. In pāda d the verb is paṭibhāti, glossed by Spk as upaṭṭhāti.
Spk: In the dry season, at high noon, when the animals and birds are all sitting quietly, a great sound arises from the depths of the forest as the wind blows through the trees, bamboo clusters, and hollows. At that moment an obtuse deva, unable to find a companion with whom to sit and converse amiably, uttered the first stanza. But when a bhikkhu has returned from his alms round and is sitting alone in a secluded forest abode attending to his meditation subject, abundant happiness arises (as is expressed in the rejoinder).
25 Arati, tandi, vijambhikā, and bhattasammada recur at 46:2 (V 64,31-32) and 46:51 (V 103,13-14). Formal definitions are at Vibh 352. Spk: The noble path (ariyamagga) is both the mundane and supramundane path. The clearing of the path comes about when one expels the mental corruptions by means of the path itself, with the energy (viriya) conascent with the path.On the distinction between the mundane and supramundane paths, see the Introduction to Part V, pp.1490-92.
26 Spk explains pade pade, in pāda c, thus: “In each object (ārammaṇe ārammaṇe); for whenever a defilement arises in relation to any object, it is just there that one founders (visīdati). But the phrase can also be interpreted by way of the modes of deportment (iriyāpatha); if a defilement arises while one is walking, (standing, sitting, or lying down), it is just there that one founders. Intentions (saṅkappa) should be understood here by way of the three wrong intentions, i.e., of sensuality, ill will, and harming.”
27 The simile of the tortoise is elaborated at 35:240, followed by the same verse. Spk: One is independent (anissito) of the dependencies of craving and views, and fully quenched by the quenching of defilements (kilesaparinibbāna). He would not reprove another person for defects in conduct, etc., from a desire to humiliate him, but he would speak out of compassion, with the idea of rehabilitating him, having set up in himself the five qualities (speaking at the right time, about a true matter, gently, in a beneficial way, with a mind of lovingkindness; see AN III 244,1-3).
28 Be and Se read the verb in pāda c as apabodhati, Ee1 as appabodhati, Ee2 as appabodheti. Apparently the latter readings arose on the supposition that the word is formed from a + pabodh. Spk’s gloss—apaharanto bujjhati, “who, pulling back, knows”—supports apabodhati (apa + bodh). The Skt parallel at Uv 19:5 has a different pāda altogether, sarvapāpaṃ jahāty eṣa. Though the verse includes no ostensible interrogative, Spk interprets it as posing a question. I take koci to be equivalent to kvaci, though Spk glosses it as a personal pronoun.Spk: As a good thoroughbred who knows to pull back from the whip does not let it strike him, so a bhikkhu who is keen to avoid blame—who knows to pull back from it—does not let any genuine ground for abuse strike him. The deva asks: “Is there any such arahant?” But no one is wholly free from abuse on false grounds. The Buddha answers that such arahants, who avoid unwholesome states from a sense of shame, are few.
29 Spk: The deva refers to one’s mother as a “little hut” because one dwells in her womb for ten months; to a wife as a “little nest” because, after a hard day’s work, men resort to the company of women in the way that birds, after searching for food during the day, resort to their nests at night; to sons as “lines extended” (santānakā) because they extend the family lineage; and to craving as bondage. The Buddha replies as he does because he will never again dwell within a mother’s womb, or support a wife, or beget sons.
30 Spk: The deva asked these additional questions because he was astonished by the Buddha’s quick replies and wanted to find out if he had really grasped the meaning.Although three eds. employ the singular santānakaṃ in pāda c of this verse, SS and Ee2 have the plural santānake, which seems preferable for maintaining consistency with the other verses. Kintāham should be resolved kin te ahaṃ.
31 The opening portion of this sutta appears, with elaboration, in the prologue to the Samiddhi Jātaka (Ja No. 167), which includes the first pair of verses as well. MN No. 133 opens in a similar way, with Samiddhi as the protagonist. The bhikkhu Samiddhi was so named because his body was splendid (samiddha), handsome and lovely. Spk makes it clear that this is a female devatā (called a devadhītā in the Jātaka), an earth-deity (bhummadevatā) who resided in the grove. When she saw Samiddhi in the light of the early dawn, she fell in love with him and planned to seduce him. Samiddhi appears below at 4:22 and 35:65-68.
32 The verses revolve around a pun on the double meaning of bhuñjati, to eat food and to enjoy sense pleasures. The devatā is ostensibly telling Samiddhi to eat before going on alms round (i.e., to get his fill of sensual pleasures before taking to the monk’s life), but Samiddhi insists he will not abandon the monk’s life for the sake of sensual enjoyment.Spk: The devatā had spoken of time with reference to the time of youth, when one is able to enjoy sensual pleasures. In pādas ab of his reply Samiddhi speaks with reference to the time of death (maraṇakāla), which is hidden (channa) in that one never knows when it will arrive. In pāda d he refers to the time for practising the duty of an ascetic (samaṇadhammakaraṇakāla), as it is difficult for an old person to learn the Dhamma, practise austerities, dwell in the forest, and develop the
meditative attainments. The vo in pāda a is a mere indeclinable (nipātamatta).
33 At 4:21 Māra offers the same advice to a group of young bhikkhus, who reply in words identical with those of Samiddhi. The Buddha’s exposition of the dangers in sensual pleasures may be found at MN I 85-87, 364-67, 506-8, and elsewhere. Samiddhi’s answer reiterates the standard verse of homage to the Dhamma, omitting only the first term (“well expounded”), which is not relevant here. Spk interprets the “immediate” or “timeless” (akālika) character of the Dhamma by way of the Abhidhamma doctrine that the fruit (phala) arises in immediate succession to its respective path (magga), but this idea certainly seems too narrow for the present context, where the contrast is simply between the immediately beneficial Dhamma and “time-consuming” sensual pleasures. For more on akālika, see II, n. 103.A few words are called for in explanation of my translation of opanayika as “applicable,” which departs from the prevalent practice of rendering it “leading onward.” CPD points out that “the context in which [the word] occurs shows clearly that it cannot have the active sense of ‘leading to’ … but must rather be interpreted in a passive sense (gerundive) in accordance with the commentaries.” To be sure, Vism 217,10-12 (Ppn 7:84) does allow for an active sense with its alternative derivation: nibbānaṃ upanetīti ariyamaggo upaneyyo … opanayiko, “it leads on to Nibbāna, thus the noble path is onward-leading … so it is leading onwards”; this derivation, however, is almost surely proposed with “edifying” intent. Earlier in the same passage the word is glossed by the gerundive upanetabba, “to be brought near, to be applied,” so I follow the derivation at Vism 217,3-9 (Ppn 7:83), which is probably correct etymologically: bhāvanāvasena attano citte upanayanaṃ arahatī ti opanayiko … asaṅkhato pana attano cittena upanayanaṃ arahatī ti opanayiko; sacchikiriyāvasena allīyanaṃ arahatī ti attho; “The Dhamma (as noble path) is applicable because it deserves application within one’s own mind by way of meditative development….But the unconditioned Dhamma (i.e., Nibbāna) is applicable because it deserves application with one’s own mind; that is, it deserves being resorted to by way of realization.”While the word opanayika does not occur in any other context that allows us to draw inferences about its meaning, the cognate expression att’ ūpanāyiko (at 55:7 (V 353,21, 26) and Vin III 91,33-34) clearly means “applicable to oneself.” On the other hand, to indicate that the Dhamma conduces to Nibbāna the texts use another expression, niyyānika upasamasaṃvattanika (see, e.g., 55:25 (V 380,11) and upasamasaṃattanika (see, e.g., 55:25 (V 380,11)and MN I 67,13), which would not fit the contexts where the above formula appears.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 35
