As a translator, I am routinely forced to make hard decisions about ambiguous or difficult passages. It’s part of the process to try to make sense of everything, but sometimes also important to sometimes acknowledge the limits of knowledge.
The verses starting with viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ in DN 11 are especially replete with textual issues, which I note here for the sake of reference.
terminology
There are a few difficult terms, which scholars have differed over. In most cases, I think these can be resolved satisfactorily. (Forgive my repetitions from previous threads!)
- anidassana - “where no form appears”, a synonym for arūpa.
- pabhaṁ means “radiance”, other senses suggested in the commentary and elsewhere are spurious.
pali parallels
Every couplet in the verses has parallels elsewhere in Pali, sometimes with slight variations such as different pronouns.
- The viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ couplet appears as an independent saying by Baka the Divinity in MN 49.
- The couplet on where the elements find no footing appears in SN 1.27:2.1 and Ud 1.10:14.1, where it describes Nibbana.
- The couplet beginning with long and short appears at MN 98:11.55 and Snp 3.9:45.1.
- The final verse on the cessation of name and form and consciousness appears at Snp 5.2:6.6.
It is notable that the meaning of these lines is clear in the other contexts, and it is only when assembled as a patchwork here that the sense is confused.
structure
The question has six lines, the answer ten; neither fit in the regular four-line verse structure, leaving the structure somewhat ambiguous.
But we can, I think, resolve this:
- The question consists of one four-line verse (unified by a single verb), then a couplet.
- this is because the final couplet comes from a separate source. And if we compare with the answer, this couplet is the first half of a full four-line verse.
- The answer consists of a couplet, then two four-line verses.
- Clearly the viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ couplet is separate.
chinese parallel
@cdpatton’s translation of the Chinese shows a more straightforward sense:
The answer is that consciousness is formless,
Measureless, and has its own radiance.
When it ceases, the four elements cease;
What’s coarse, fine, beautiful, and ugly ceases.
When these names and forms cease,
Consciousness ceases, and the rest ceases, too.
The Chinese suggests that the cessation of consciousness is meant to indicate especially, or at least include, the formless consciousness.
It seems that the Pali patchwork is intended to convey the same sense, but the order of ideas is unclear. In this way, whether deliberate or not, it echoes the form of the Upanishadic sources to which it is a response. Normally the suttas are very clear, but here it seems almost willfully obscure.
the oddness of the answer
There’s a strange structure in the answer. It adds a couplet both before and after the original question.
To illustrate, with the added lines in bold.
“Consciousness where no form appears,
infinite, luminous all-round—Here water and earth,
fire and air find no footing;
here long and short,
fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly.Here name and form
cease with nothing left over—
with the cessation of consciousness,
here they cease.”
This is very odd, and I think unique. Normally an answer like this might simply rephrase the original, or add something following. In the related verses at SN 1.27:1.1, the answer is given at the beginning.
But we do not find an answer that adds a pre-existing couplet to both beginning and end. Remember that the final couplet appears as part of the full verse at Snp 5.2:6.6, so it is clearly more integral to the answer than the opening couplet.
Note too that that context makes it clear that the verb “cease” in the final line does, in fact, refer to name and form. (In the Pali, “name and form” is usually compounded and treated in singular. In this verse, the compound is resolved, but the verb is still singular.)
one question or two?
Since there are three question words and two verbs, it is not easy to determine whether the lines should be treated as one complex question or as a series; both styles are attested elsewhere in Pali.
- the two verbs, and the division of the couplets based on parallels suggests two questions, two answers.
- but the lines on “find no footing” elsewhere refer to Nibbana, tying them to the final couplet. OTOH, they are poetic and evocative and could easily be used in different ways in different contexts.
I go back and forth on this one, but right now I’m inclined to think that there is one complex question, which is repeated (with change of pronoun) in the answer, and the actual answer added as the final couplet. One reason for this is syntactic unity.
syntactic unity
If we look at the syntax, it is striking that apart from the viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ couplet, every other couplet in both question and answer is grammatically coordinated with pronouns in the locative case, forming a strongly unified text with a clear question and answer. Here’s an illustration of this.
“Consciousness where no form appears,
infinite, luminous all-round—Here water and earth,
fire and air find no footing;
here long and short,
fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly.Here name and form
cease with nothing left over—
with the cessation of consciousness,
here they cease.”
This unity is best served by adopting the more literal translation of ettha as “here” rather than “there”, which tends to refer back to the opening couplet more.
lack of relative pronoun
Pali has a strong tendency to organize itself around relative and demonstrative pronouns: where this happens, there that happens too.
In the parallels at SN 1.27 and Ud 1.10, we find the expected relative pronoun:
yattha āpo ca pathavī
This makes the syntax straightforward. DN 11, however, has ettha, a demonstrative pronoun that has no relative to coordinate with. This is by no means ungrammatical or impossible, as such structures are used very widely and with much variation, especially in verse, but it is unidiomatic.
resolution
These problems go away if we simply assume that the viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ couplet was introduced from MN 49.
The viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ couplet is found in the Chinese parallel, which suggests that, if it was added, it was before the separation of these two textual transmissions.
Perhaps it was added to emphasize the Brahmanical context, with the sense that even this most sublime form of consciousness ceases.
We could paraphrase thus:
(Brahma speaks of) “Consciousness where no form appears,
infinite, luminous all-round—(But in my teaching it is) Here water and earth,
fire and air find no footing;
here long and short,
fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly.Here name and form
cease with nothing left over—
with the cessation of (even that most sublime) consciousness,
here they cease.”
Regardless, it is hardly likely that the Buddha would have relegated a crucial question on the nature of the goal to such an obscure and difficult verse. Clearly the final teaching in this sutta is the same as that taught countless times elsewhere, that Nibbana is cessation.
I would kindly appreciate it if the “Nibbana is consciousness” folks would refrain from commenting on this thread.
