AN 5.100: alternative interpretation?

Q & A
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Here is the relevant part of AN 5.100:

idha, moggallāna, ekacco satthā aparisuddhasīlo samāno ‘parisuddhasīlomhī’ti paṭijānāti ‘parisuddhaṃ me sīlaṃ pariyodātaṃ asaṃkiliṭṭhan’ti. tamenaṃ sāvakā evaṃ jānanti: ‘ayaṃ kho bhavaṃ satthā aparisuddhasīlo samāno parisuddhasīlomhī’ti paṭijānāti ‘parisuddhaṃ me sīlaṃ pariyodātaṃ asaṃkiliṭṭhan’ti. mayañceva kho pana gihīnaṃ āroceyyāma, nāssassa manāpaṃ. yaṃ kho panassa amanāpaṃ, kathaṃ naṃ mayaṃ tena samudācareyyāma: ‘sammannati kho pana cīvara-piṇḍapāta-senāsana-gilāna-paccaya-bhesajja-parikkhārena; yaṃ tumo karissati tumova tena paññāyissatī’ti.

Here is Ven. Bodhi’s take:

“Here, some teacher whose behavior is unpurified claims: ‘I am one whose behavior is purified. My behavior is purified, cleansed, undefiled.’ His disciples know him thus: ‘This honorable teacher, though of unpurified behavior, claims: “I am one whose behavior is purified. My behavior is purified, cleansed, undefiled.” Now he would not like it if we were to report this to the laypeople. How can we treat him in a way that he would not like? Further, he is honored with robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicines and provisions for the sick. A person will be known by what he himself does.’

The commentary explains sammannati as sammanam karoti, which ven. Bodhi interprets as “do honor to” and then translates “he is honored”. But is there a grammatical justification why we should translate sammanati in the passive voice?

As for interpretation, I guess it means the disciples who depend on donations made to their master do not want to tarnish his reputation because it would also affect them if he starts receiving less.

I have looked up other usages of the term, and it seems to come up either as meaning “to appoint”, “to agree upon”, “to consent”, “to authorize” to perform a particular task. Here are two examples from the suttas, which seem to reflect most uses found in the Vinaya:

AN 5.272

“pañcahi, bhikkhave, dhammehi samannāgato bhattuddesako sammannitabbo.
Bhikkhus, one possessing five qualities may be appointed an assigner of meals.

AN 8.52

“katihi nu kho, bhante, dhammehi samannāgato bhikkhu bhikkhunovādako sammannitabbo””ti?
“Bhante, how many qualities should a bhikkhu possess to be agreed upon as an exhorter of bhikkhunīs?

From the Vinaya:

Nissaggiya Pc 18

saṅgho itthannāmaṃ bhikkhuṃ rūpiyachaḍḍakaṃ sammannati.
The Order agrees upon the monk so and so as silver-remover.

Sg 8

“tena hi, bhikkhave, saṅgho dabbaṃ mallaputtaṃ senāsanapaññāpakañca bhattuddesakañca sammannatu. evañca pana, bhikkhave, sammannitabbo: etc.
“Monks, let the Order consent that Dabba, the Mallian, should assign the lodgings, and should distribute the meals. Monks, this should be authorised thus: etc.

I first thought it might mean something like “assign” but that would be “paññāpeti”. However it seems to me that it could have a related meaning such as he “agrees to” or “authorizes” the use of robes, almsfood etc.

Understood in this way, it would mean that the disciples shut up about their master because they depend on his authority to get from him robes, almsfood etc.

The translation would then be:

Now he would not like it if we were to report this to the laypeople. How could we treat him in a way that he would not like when he gives authorization with regards to robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicines and provisions for the sick

The only thing is that an accusative would make better sense than an instrumentative in the compound cīvara-piṇḍapāta-etc. But then again can the passive voice on sammanati in the alternative interpretation be grammatically justified?

Is there an element that I am missing that shows a clear reason to choose one interpretation over the other?

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2

Good point. Not only is the syntax problematic, but the sense also.

A few extra details.

The PTS dict gives the sense “to esteem, honor” as one meaning of sammannati, but gives no examples, and I cannot in fact find a clear example of such a meaning in the Pali canon. It always seems to be used in the sense of “appoint, determine, assign”. “Honor” is, however, accepted as a meaning in Sanskrit, so it’s possible that it’s a unique case in this context.

Note that the identical passage also occurs in Kd 17, where it is translated by Horner thusly:

Moreover he consents to (accept) the requisites of robes, almsfood, lodgings and medicines for the sick.

The explanatory term in parentheses is a clear sign that she, too, struggled with this sentence.

It seems to me we can get a little clearer by looking at the syntax of the context. Leave aside the difficult term, and look at the overall sense.

Mayañceva kho pana gihīnaṃ āroceyyāma, nāssassa manāpaṃ.
He wouldn’t like it if we were to tell the laypeople.
Yaṃ kho panassa amanāpaṃ, kathaṃ naṃ mayaṃ tena samudācareyyāma
And how could we treat him in a way that he doesn’t like?
‘sammannati kho pana cīvarapiṇḍapātasenāsanagilānappaccayabhesajjaparikkhārena;
But sammannati (with) robes, alms-food, lodgings, and medicines and supplies for the sick.
yaṃ tumo karissati tumova tena paññāyissatī’ti
A person will be recognized by their own deeds.

The first two phrases form a pair; one answers the other, so they should belong together.

The phrase with sammannati begins in an emphatic form, with the verb at the start of the sentence, and kho pana indicating a (likely adversarial) connection with the previous sentence.

Note that the MS edition inserts an open quote here. This doesn’t seem justified, and in fact the quotes throughout this passage seem confused. This is yet another indication that the editors of the Pali struggled with this paragraph. Let me illustrate this by comparing the Pali of AN 5.100 with that of Kd 17.

Screenshot from 2017-11-06 09-51-11
Screenshot from 2017-11-06 09-51-111061×206 27.3 KB

As you can see, the punctuation in the two cases is quite different, especially when it comes to the use of quotes. The Vinaya text is preferable.

On the whole I am inclined to agree with Horner’s reading here. Neither the exact sense of the verb, nor the use of the instrumental appears clear to me, so I’m missing something, or it is just an idiom, or the text is corrupt. It may be worth noting that the term tuma in the last line is extremely rare, possibly indicating an idiomatic or colloquial usage.

The sense is, I think, that as a bad monk, consenting to offerings is bad kamma, so he will get what he deserves.

Mayañceva kho pana gihīnaṃ āroceyyāma, nāssassa manāpaṃ.
He wouldn’t like it if we were to tell the laypeople.
Yaṃ kho panassa amanāpaṃ, kathaṃ naṃ mayaṃ tena samudācareyyāma
And how could we treat him in a way that he doesn’t like?
‘sammannati kho pana cīvarapiṇḍapātasenāsanagilānappaccayabhesajjaparikkhārena;
But he consents to robes, alms-food, lodgings, and medicines and supplies for the sick.
yaṃ tumo karissati tumova tena paññāyissatī’ti
A person will be recognized by their own deeds.

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Thank you, Bhante

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Bhante, I have applied this principle to a slightly larger chunk of the text, that is:

Mayañceva kho pana gihīnaṃ āroceyyāma, nāssassa manāpaṃ.
He wouldn’t like it if we were to tell the laypeople.
Yaṃ kho panassa amanāpaṃ, kathaṃ naṃ mayaṃ tena samudācareyyāma
And how could we treat him in a way that he doesn’t like?
‘sammannati kho pana cīvarapiṇḍapātasenāsanagilānappaccayabhesajjaparikkhārena;
But sammannati (with) robes, alms-food, lodgings, and medicines and supplies for the sick.
yaṃ tumo karissati tumova tena paññāyissatī’ti
A person will be recognized by their own deeds.
Evarūpaṃ kho, moggallāna, satthāraṃ sāvakā sīlato rakkhanti;
His disciples cover up such a teacher regarding his virtue;
evarūpo ca pana satthā sāvakehi sīlato rakkhaṃ paccāsīsati.
such a teacher expects cover-up from his disciples regarding his virtue.

It occurred to me that if “such a teacher” expects his disciples to cover up for him, it is probably seen as a counterpart for a service rendered by “such a teacher” that is providing them with requisites and gifts.

And this way the whole process appears as a concerted scam where the teacher fakes high attainments to get more/better requisites and gifts and uses his disciples to cover him up, for which he pays them by sharing some of said requisites and gifts.

It seems to me then that the motivation of the disciples is double:

  1. they don’t want to displease their teacher
  2. they cover him up because they have a stake in the status quo

I initially thought that the sentence “And how could we treat him in a way that he doesn’t like?” would make better sense being the main clause for “But sammannati (with) robes, alms-food, lodgings, and medicines and supplies for the sick”, as follows: “How could we treat him in a way that he would not like when he gives authorization with regards to robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicines and provisions for the sick”.

But it seems to me that “kho pana” would not be used in such a case, and therefore those two should be in separate sentences. Am I correct?

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That’s right, yes, it sets up an adversarial relationship, “And yet …”

I think your interpretation is possible, but I’m not convinced. It seems to me to be reading a little too much between the lines. Normally a monk will get requisites offered by laypeople, not channeled through another monk. Now, it’s possible that this happens, and it’s obviously not an implausible scenario, yet it seems to me a significant inference.

On the other hand, to say that a bad monk who accepts offerings incurs bad karma is a standard principle in the suttas. So this reading doesn’t require anything unusual. This is an example of what I call the “principle of least meaning”, to try to read things in their plainest sense.

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Thank you, Bhante

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Bhante, I appreciate very much your main remark, and it seems like a very sound principle, but I have been thinking about it a little and it seems to me that even if the requisites are offered directly and not to another monk first, the disciples still benefit from the reputation of the monastery or teacher with whom they live.

For example, I have seen that it is well-known among monks if food and accommodation is good or not in a particular monastery (there are even pdf files detailing the subject, among others). Now in a poor country, for people who might have become monks to escape poverty, going one step further to protect the teacher and make sure good food will be kept on the table would not be totally unheard of.

I agree this is reading between the lines, perhaps excessively, but at the same time it is difficult to understand properly the motives of the disciples, which seems to be a key element of this explanation why disciples cover up for their corrupt teacher. I think I might offer it in a footnote as translator’s speculation aiming at trying to clarify the text.

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That is another weird thing about this passage. If the disciples cover up for their teacher, it is precisely because they think they can all get away with it, don’t they? Why then would they say that one will be recognized for their actions?

Is it possible that so many unanswered questions might be a mark that the text is somewhat corrupt?

9

Oh, yes, that’s certainly true.

It seems to me they’re like, “Oh, well, we don’t have to do anything, kamma will deal with him …”

I think it’s really mainly the one line, but yes, it to me it may be corrupt.

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But then how come they would apply this logic only to their teacher and not to themselves, since they also lie and deceit when they cover him up?

11

doublethink?

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Is it really possible to think at the same time that kamma will deal with other people but not oneself? Doublethink usually happens in separate occasions with distinct context. It seems to me that such a feat would presuppose mental illness and not just mere corruption. Is it the case then that the majority of people who cover up for their corrupt teacher have some sort of cognitive impairment or rather that they are just corrupt, see the immediate gratification and don’t care that much about future results?