Are khandhas early or late EBT?

Discussion
166

You will have to give me time to read your entire post in detail, but just on this, I agree, however I am not sure it goes to much more than to the idea that DN22 and MN10 are late additions to those Nikayas. DN22 does not even make it into DA, and come to that, the Satipatthanavibhanga quite possibly gives us an even earlier picture of cattāro satipaṭṭhānā than either MN10 or DN22 and we do not for that reason think that the Vibhanga is an earlier work than MN for example.

In fact it is a major point of mine that outside of those 2 suttas and the cattāro satipaṭṭhānā cattāro sammappadhānā cattāro iddhipādā pañcindriyāni pañca balāni satta bojjhaṅgā ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo pericope cattāro satipaṭṭhānā hardly ever even occurs in DN and MN, it being mentioned in SN more often than the other 3 principle Nikayas combined, and it’s even worse if you remove the 37 wings, which account for 4 out of 10 in DN and 4 out of 11 in MN (DN22 and MN10 accounting for 2 more each, leaving DN with 4 mentions, in DN18, DN29 DN33(sariputta) and DN34(sariputta), and MN with 5, at MN44 (dhammadina) MN51 (no parallel) MN118 (all parallels in SA) MN125 and MN151 (parallel in EA))

MN125 refers to MN107 by name, replicating the sekkha patipada sequence from there (which in turn seems to take it from DN2 etc) and inserting the cattāro satipaṭṭhānā after the hinderances but before the jhanas. It is, again, the only mention of cattāro satipaṭṭhānā outside of the 37 wings pericope and MN10 that is 1. taught by the Buddha, 2. Has an Agama parallel and 3. Has that parallel in the same collection.

So DN18, DN29 from DN, MN125 from MN, nothing in the first 7 books of AN before AN8.19 mentions the 37 wings, AN8.28 is the same pericope modified, AN9.63 gives the bare “what four?” pericope, the next 9 suttas merely repeat the previous with permutations of other doctrines, AN10.61 and AN10.62 give a unique sequence of dependence, and AN10.90 gives the modified wings pericope again.

KN has 1 mention out of 44 in Ud, the rest are in the late books.

All mentions in AB are in Vibahnga or Kathu except for one mention of the wings in Dhātuk

All 3 mentions in VN are the wings.

basically when one compares and contrasts sati/aggregates/annata with jhana/asava/kamma a clear pattern emerges whereby all the common core of all 4 collections share once cluster of ideas, while SN/SA have the vast preponderance of the other.

I am simply not convinced that this can be explained by audience.

Metta.

167

Obviously you are unable to see both the structure and content of the EBTs.

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I am not sure what you mean by that @thomaslaw , I have a great respect for your tireless promotion of the thought of Mun-keat Choong and Yin Shun, but I have a different assesment to those scholars as to the structure and content of the EBT’s, and so I do not expect agreement from you on these matters, however I also do not expect unsubstantiated hostility amd denigration, which I think are beneath you.

If you have actual arguments about the points I raise, please post them, of not, please restrain yourself.

Metta.

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Your criticism has no substantive content at all. You merely make the blanket claim that what I put forward is not logical or coherant.

Obviously I disagree with you.

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The discussion on early or late nikayas, the audience-hypothesis etc suffer, IMO, from a simplified view on the construction and development of the material.

Leaving aside the orthodox dogma that most suttas directly came from Buddha or Ananda, we’d have to assume that all nikayas are late. Bhanakas were distributing the suttas organized in nikayas. And bhanakas were a very late institution.

So what happened before that? Was there a pile of old palm leaves or bark lying around and a senior monastic divided it and said “You, āyasma, take this pile, learn it by heart, and preach it to the monastics. And you āyasma take this pile and convert…”? Or who “invented” the late suttas? Who dared to, or had the authority to do it?

I think we have to engage in these speculations because we’re otherwise stuck in the early/late debate, guided by our personal proclivities. 100 years ago the DN was seen as the earliest, lately it was more the SN, or it fizzles into the level of individual suttas or sutta clusters.

We’ll never find out how and when exactly the suttas were composed, but those of us speculate on the development of the material can’t limit ourselves to sutta parallels and doctrinal concepts. We need to come up with hypotheses of transmission and the organization of the proto-sanghas in order to make sense of the differences in the nikayas. People have done this before: Salomon, Allen, Gethin, Cousins, Prebish, Ellis, Choong, and so many others, and it’s necessary to continue these informed speculations.

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you are surely pulling my leg here no? If you are refering to SN53 then the 5 “whole chapters” amount to about one printed page of text, it just gives the jhana formula and then literally says, “do it like SN45” and that’s the whole samyutta!

but again, this is exactly what SN does do it repeats the formulas mechanically, in permutation with other formulas, over, and over, again.

Here we will have to disagree. jhānas are to my mind the buddhist doctrine that is indesputibly common to all the 4 principle NIkaya/Agamas, and the (relative) lack of the formula in SN is something that absolutely cries out for explanation.

people keep telling me that word counts are meaningless, I have yet to hear one single reason why they are meaningless, with your efforts probably coming closest to actually articulating a position around the “leveling” and “audience” arguments. I do not in the end find even your picture of this convincing, and I am growing somewhat tired of people repeating the phrase, so I will try to be as clear and succinct here as possible: if a string of text occurs 10 times as often as another string, it is never, ever, ever, ever, ever meaningless it is always meaningful. Numbers matter. It matters if the first jhana is mentioned in DN more than twice as often as the four foundations, because it begs the question why is the culmination of the eightfold path mentioned twices as often as the preceding step in DN, but the preceding step mentioned more than twice as often as the final one in SN? btw if you control for the wings it is more like 4 times as often that DN mentions the first jhana than the four foundations, again, if the numbers are meaningless why is there this difference between the occurrences in DN MN and AN with the occurrences in SN, why is SN the odd one out? ALL the other Nikayas mention first jhana more than twice as often as the four foundations, ONLY SN reverses this pattern, what is the “leveling” argument that makes sense of that?

When you decide to look deeper because these numbers strike you as being definitely not meaningless and actually very hard to explain you look deeper and find that the four foundations in the other three Nikayas practically evaporate before your eyes with just about any constraint you care to put on them: insist on parallels, you lose instances, insist on parallels form the same collection (the debate is about this after all), you lose more, insist on the Buddha as the speaker, more still, it just goes on and on. (exclude the 37 wings for example, as being most likely an insertion of the earliest matrika, and you lose well over half of them in a single stroke, including their entire presence in the Vinaya, you don’t, strangely enough, lose a single instance from SN, I wonder why that would be?)

As I showed above, this simply does not occur with the jhanas, which you can easily find in all 4 principle collections, spoken by the Buddha, with parallels that sit in the same collection in both traditions.

This point is well made, however I think it really only shows that DN is open later than SN, MN, and does not really speak to beginnings of it as a collectoin, where I think one has to look to the sekkha patipada as the nucleus or “ur text” that really stands at the heart of the entire narrative sutta collection (i.e DN and MN combined.)

Likewise @Vaddha !! you are a breath of fresh air here, I am very much enjoying having someone with whom I can get stuck into these issues in a robust but still respectful way!

Metta.

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And it’s my point that this is intentional: SN is meant for the containing the formulas on the bodhipakkhiyā dhammā. So in other words, rather than saying they are later, I am saying they are intentionally separated into different types of collections in content and structure. It’s important we keep in mind that the SN/SA material is extremely well attested across several early schools too of course.

The fact that it is found in e.g. MN 118 which has a parallel in SA is something relevant that came up earlier. All this points to is that the redactors saw these formulas as primarily part of the bodhipakkhiyā dhammā and as patterning with them, and that those were primarily SN/SA-type formulas. We of course can observe the importance given to it though, considering the MN 10 / Satipatthāna Sutta has so many parallels. The difference is that the play of formulas and dynamics between them is different in the different parallels. We don’t need to set aside the discourse as irrelevant; we just need to look closer, beyond the level of ‘discourse’ and more at the level of ‘formulas and dynamics of their arrangement.’

As I mentioned earlier, the gradual training, jhāna, asava, kamma, etc. sequence is the basic fundamental outline for the holy life. It does not go into technical detail or into much analysis of experience. It also contains much more pan-contemplative ideas: sense restraint, begging, solitude, developing deep meditation, seeing rebirth and ending it. None of this is really unique to Buddhism apart from the specific details of it including the four noble truths for instance. But the four noble truths aren’t ever explained except in the SN/SA-type formulas! And ending the āsavas requires insight knowledge of the 4NT/anicca/dukkha/anattā/etc.

Well, we’ve gone over why this would be abbreviated, considering it is only one formula already prevalent in the DN/MN as part of their gradual path-emphasis. I agree that it is somewhat strange the jhānas themselves don’t appear as often, but recitation shortening comes from a later time to some extent by definition, otherwise the suttas and their unique names just wouldn’t exist. When we add in the fact that the SN talks about samādhi, defined as the 4 jhānas, in the pañcindriya, pañcabala, bojjhanga, etc. it also helps shed light on the fact that the SN is offering a more detailed, technical analysis for getting into deep meditation — just as you said you would hope to see if this collection were for containing more advanced formulas!

I apologize if the statement was unclear and came off this way. That’s not what I’m saying. Obviously the appearance and occurrence of words is meaningful. What I was referring to is if we look at word counts as mere statistics, rather than the content that covers related subject matter. When we do this, the SN/SA contains less statistical occurrences of the jhāna formulae, but it contains lots of content on detailed, deep samādhi and meditation / insight for liberation in a way that is compatible and complementary to the gradual training of say, MN.

It sure is hard to explain other than ‘the SN must be later than the DN,’ which almost overwhelmingly looks like later apocryphal literature, unless you start to see that there is a rhyme and reason to the distribution and structure of content and formulas in each nikāya. And this method is not just a fix-it for the SN/SA fans. It is something we can observe starting from multiple methodological angles and from really any nikāya or avenue within the nikāyas.

Apart from the arguments I’ve presented here, have we really read through the suttas in the DN? It’s so blatant how only a handful of suttas are in line with the Buddha’s message of dukkha and its cessation. Much of the collection literally assumes a later date, considering it is about the Buddha’s death and the community’s effort after his death to have a lasting identity, memory of the teacher, powerful spiritual guide accessible through story and myth, etc. This is not to overstate my case: I still think the SN, like all the nikāyas, contains late material and some of the time the common formulas may be relatively later than other ones found more prominently in the DN. But these are more details and nuances than the types of broad generalizations we can see when observing the collections as a whole IMO.

Let’s not forget that many of the verses in the Sagāthāvagga of the SN have been said, e.g. by Warder, to be just as early as those of the Pārāyana- and Atthakavagga. These verses often repeat throughout the canon in different places and collections. On the other hand, the verse in the DN is radically different, later, often not shared throughout the canon, and extremely devotional (again pointing to it assuming the Buddha’s death and physical absence in many ways).

Could you mention the suttas in the DN where you find this to be the case? As I mentioned, DN 1 is an obviously intentional placement of the sutta, length, etc. It’s an outlier. DN 2 is a natural candidate. But apart from that, which do you have in mind? It would be good to do some actual surveying of that material, considering much of it, as we’ve discussed, is late. It’s also not just that it was ‘open later,’ because it’s the majority of the relatively few discourses. Long recitations are also much less accessible than shorter narratives and formulas like those of the SN/AN/MN. While the DN is very sporadic in lots of different complex mythological subjects, the MN is full of repeating stock passages and formulas which make it easy to memorize, recite, and practice with. Same for the SN and AN. The DN stands out in this impracticality again, and once again it’s fundamental purpose as a more literary collection can shine through if we take notice, IMO.

Mettā! :slight_smile:

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once again I will need time to read your post in detail, however I did come across something in the meantime, and perhaps others know more about this than me, but at DA18, the parallel to DN28, the parallel to the 37 wings gives a different list, including the 4 jhanas to give 41 “wings”. This also occurs at DA2.

So there is no occurrence of the 37 wings in the “common core” of DN/DA.

I have since re-read the wikipedia article and see that this is well know, once again, I feel given my stance, someone could have told me! :slight_smile:

So, we have evidence that this list at least, was a disputed one in the early schools, with the dharmaguptas claiming it included jhana, while the sarvistavada/theravada claimed it did not.

I note in contrast that all three schools agreed on the wording of the 4 jhana formula.

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josephzizys
Anumodana
Your dhamma-chanda, dhamma-vicaya, and expression of willingness to share (compassion) is much appreciated.

Please continue to challenge the current sthit (established) assumptions of the EBTs in the service of those of us who are seeking an authentic base of the heartwood of the dhamma as taught by the Buddha.

Now that we have been empowered to use digital tools for investigating (dhamma (vicaya) the EBTs in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and Gandhari, it behooves us to make use of them in the quest to identify the core teachings of the Buddha, so that we may have confidence in our understanding of Right View as the basis for practice of the Eight-Fold Path.

Back to the topic of this thread: Are khandas early or late EBT?

One might inquire: Why is it important if khandhas are early or late EBT? Since we all accept the [Nikaya/Agama] EBTs, what difference does it make if a particular (EBT) doctrine is early or late EBT in terms of our practice for liberation? However, if some of the EBTs in the Sutta Pitaka or the Agamas might be fake or distortions of the teachings of the Buddha, then it is important to identify them and set them aside.

Serious Buddhists are seeking the “Authentic Teachings of the Buddha”, and we have narrowed down the target to the EBTs. It is like an archeologist digging to find evidence of the roots of a civilization.

For us passionate seekers like Joseph, we seek the Truth as revealed by the Buddha.

The major obstacle to seekers of the Truth as revealed by the Buddha is access to accurate translations of his teachings into current language – THIS is what brings us together on this site.

It might be useful to step back and reflect upon our identification as an EBT enthusiast.

Since we have been given the gift of access to English translations of the Agamas, Sanskrit and Tibetan translations of the suttas, the information provided by the Buddha seems to exceed our ability to process and apply in our daily lives.

The Buddha taught for 45 years and it would only be natural that he learned how to better communicate his vision throughout his lifetime, learning from his experiences in trying to communicate the ineffable to Brahmins, Sramana followers of other teachers, advanced practitioners, and to the dedicated laypeople.

Starting with the 4 elements + space + Atman (Upanishads),
He taught 4 elements + space + Vinnana.

So the main issue was: How is Atman different from Vinnana?
Thus began an exercise in packaging of information for behavior change communication:

Rupa (4 elements) + Nama (vedana, sanna, sancetana, phassa, manasikhara) + Vinnana = Purusa, the individual person

3 components of the purusa: (nama-rupa) + vinnana

Superseded by Theravada Abhidhamma + Buddhagosa such that nama became (vedana, sanna, sankhara, + vinanna)

Then vinnana was demoted to function as one of the khanda as 6 types of perception according to 5 senses + mano.

“At first man was simply analysed into body and mind. Citta or vinnana covered the latter entirely. This is the stage revealed in the expression "Savinnake kaye”, and in the six Dhatu conception. In several texts the Kaya- citta distinction is the only one present.”

With the growth of analysis man came to be conceived as a quincunx; vinnana then became its centre.

The lateness of the Khandha theory . -Still later, vinnana tended to lose its centrality. This is the stage represented by the full-fledged Khandha theory.

Pande: Studies in the Origins of Buddhism, page 496-497

What happened to vinnana as the essential counterpart of nama-rupa, as the “stream of consciousness” that provides continuity? Or that which descends into the womb? How did vinnana become the 6 types of knowing/perception?

These types of questions might be more important than issues about the distribution of dhamma doctrines among the Nikayas.

It seems that the EBTs are fixed temporally with the closure of the Theravadin Canon.
At this point in the life of Digital Buddha Dhamma, let us continue to engage in dhamma-vicaya and share the results of our investigation for the benefit of all beings.

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In the Visuddhimagga, when discussing dependent origination, Ācariya Buddhaghosa defines nāma in the same way as it is in the suttas.

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This is again where we seem to disagree I think, the purpose of the Nikayas/Agamas is to collect the teachings of the Buddha, the collections themselves may have evolved to serve different needs in the community, but the original purpose was simply to record teachings.

anyway, lets recap a bit:

cattāro satipaṭṭhānā in DN

DN16 (the 37 wings, DA2 gives a different list)
DN18 (DA4)
DN22 (no DA parallel)
DN28 (37 wings, DA18 differs as per DA2)
DN29 (DA17 in both versions the occurrences are first the wings, and then the forfold observation at the very end of the sutta)
DN33 (sariputta)
DN34 (sariputta)

So DN has DN18 /DA4 and DN29 /DA17

cattāro satipaṭṭhānā in MN

MN10 (the satipatthana sutta)
MN44 (dhammadina)
MN51 (no parallel)
MN103 (no parallel)
MN104 (the 37 wings, parallel at MA196)
MN118 (all parallels in SA; SA815 SA803 SA812 SA811 SA810)
MN125 (MA198 has substantial differences in the extended similie)
MN151 (parallel at EA45.6)

So outside MN10, MN has only one sutta that is paralleled in MA that discusses cattāro satipaṭṭhānā, MN125 /MA198

cattāro satipaṭṭhānā in AN

AN8.19 (the wings, parallel at EA42.4 disagrees about their location in the numerical simile)
AN8.28 (parallel at SA694-SA698)
AN9.63-72 (no parallel)
AN10.61-62 (parallel at MA51-MA53)
AN10.90 (parallel at SA694-SA698)

So AN has no suttas that discuss cattāro satipaṭṭhānā that have parallels in EA.

OK, now of course the string cattāro satipaṭṭhānā is not the only pericope related to the practice, so if we add

kāye kāyānupassī viharati:

this phrase gives us the following additional suttas:

DN26 (DA6)
MN77 (parallel MA207 omits the passage)
MN141 (MA31 MA98 Sariputta)
AN1.382 (no parallel)
AN3.157 (no parallel)
AN4.274 (no parallel)

So we are able to add DN26 as a sutta spoken by the Buddha with a parallel in the same Agama collection.

SO to summarize the summary,
Outside of SN, the phrases cattāro satipaṭṭhānā or kāye kāyānupassī viharati are spoken by the Buddha, in a sutta with a parallel in the same collection in the Agamas, in a context that is not simply a list of doctrinal topics, at

DN18 /DA4
DN26 /DA6
DN29 /DA17
MN125 /MA198

And as I understand your claim, we should be entirely unsurprised by this fact.

I will spend some time on the other side of this picture in the coming days and try to show how often we see jhana mentioned in the “common core” since I think this is an elegant and germaine contrast between the two most prominent meditation systems in the EBT’s.

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Well said. There are many layers in the Pali Canon and wanting to dig to get to the earliest layer is a good thing.

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Thanks for your support @Jimh with regards to the above, I see no reason to think that the 5A are “fake” or “distortions”, nor do I see any real reason to set them aside, I just think they may be somewhat later on the timeline of Buddhism than the jhana/asava/kamma picture, and that seeing how these pictures fit together and evolve give us a better appreciation of the broader contours of the teaching.

If the aggregates teaching developed somewhat after the lifetime of the Buddha as a way of clarifying certain aspects of the teaching or as a response to external critiques, I see no reason why this should render those elaborations problematic, it would merely mean that the are what they appear to be; somewhat later, more scholastic, elaborations consistent with earlier presentations of the teachings.

My interest is not to get to “what the Buddha really said” in the NIkayas, I suspect that the NIkayas are more or less entirely post the lifetime of the Buddha, and as it was said a hundred or more years ago by Rhys Davids, in all likelihood the things that where actually said by the Buddha are those short statements of doctrine that recur in all the 4 principle collections.

Even these, IMV, could well be the collective product of the first generation of the Buddhist community, and may not really get us back to the actual teaching career of the Buddha themselves, we simply have no way of knowing sans a time machine or a miraculous archaeological find.

Having said that the question becomes what are the “short statements of doctrine that recur in all the 4 principle collections”? And I beleive that there is a pretty strong case to make that 5A/anatta/satipathanna do not succeed in meeting this criteria.

Once again, I don’t really see this as a problem, as the dhamma is self verifying, comprehensible to the intelligent for themselves, so if it was the Buddha who spoke the 5A, fine, if it was a teacher in the line of Sariputta a generation later, fine, whats the problem?

I guess all this is to say that I am simply not motivated by a desire to get to the “true” teaching of the “historical Buddha”, I merely want to understand the contents of the earliest teaching we do have, which outside cryptic and very brief poetry, are the 4 principle collections shared between the Nikayas and Agamas, and their fragmentary parallels in other languages.

I think a clear advancement is possible in our understanding of the strata of these texts based on the evidence in this thread, and that to comprehensively maker that case would constitute an advancement in Buddhist Studies and be of interest in it’s own right.

Metta.

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I am responding here simply out of respect for the fact that you tagged me. I have nothing constructive to offer here, though. While the questions are fascinating, I find the answers dizzying. I have a bewildered admiration for people like you and @josephzizys who can sift through all of this. I know when to defer to better men.

Peace.

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So to start our comparison; paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ occurs at:

THE TRIPITAKA:

paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ (cattāro satipaṭṭhānā)

VN: 46 (3)
DN: 24 (10)
MN: 52 (11)
SN: 24 (48)
AN: 61 (18)
KN: 61 (44)
AB: 313 (7)
VM: 26 (7)

THE FOUR NIKAYAS:

DN: DN1 DN2 DN3 DN4 DN5 DN6 DN7 DN8 DN9 DN10 DN11 DN12 DN16 DN17 DN22 DN26 DN29 DN33 DN34

MN: MN4 MN8 MN10 MN13 MN19 MN25 MN26 MN27 MN30 MN31 MN36 MN38 MN39 MN43 MN44 MN45 MN51 MN52 MN53 MN59 MN60 MN64 MN65 MN66 MN76 MN77 MN78 MN79 MN85 MN94 MN99 MN100 MN101 MN107 MN108 MN111 MN112 MN113 MN119 MN122 MN138 MN139 MN141

SN: SN6.15 SN16.9 SN16.10 SN16.11 SN28.1 SN36.11 SN36.15 SN36.17 SN36.19 SN36.31 SN40.1 SN41.8 SN41.9 SN45.8 SN48.10 SN53.1 SN54.8

AN: AN1.382 AN2.11 AN3.59 AN3.64 AN3.75 AN3.95 AN4.123 AN4.124 AN4.163 AN4.169 AN4.190 AN4.200 AN5.14 AN5.28 AN5.94 AN5.256 AN5.264 AN6.60 AN6.73 AN6.74 AN7.53 AN7.67 AN7.69 AN8.11 AN8.30 AN9.31 AN9.32 AN 9.33 AN9.34 AN9.35 AN9.36 AN9.38 AN9.39 AN9.40 AN9.41 AN9.42 AN9.43 AN9.44 AN9.45 AN9.46 AN9.47 AN9.51 AN9.52 AN9.61 AN9.93 AN10.85 AN10.99 AN11.16 AN11.502

THE COMMON CORE:

DN1 DA21
DN2 DA27
DN3 DA20
DN4 DA22
DN5 DA23
DN8 DA25
DN9 DA28
DN11 DA24
DN12 DA29
DN16 DA2
DN26 DA6
DN29 DA17
DN33 DA9 DA10
DN34 DA10 DA11

MN8 MA91
MN10 MA98 MA31 MA81
MN13 MA99
MN19 MA102
MN25 MA178
MN26 MA204
MN27 MA146
MN31 MA185
MN38 MA201
MN39 MA182
MN43 MA211
MN44 MA210
MN45 MA174
MN52 MA217
MN64 MA205
MN65 MA194
MN66 MA192
MN77 MA207
MN78 MA179
MN79 MA208
MN85 MA204
MN99 MA152 MA170
MN101 MA19
MN107 MA144
MN108 MA145
MN112 MA187
MN113 MA85
MN119 MA81 MA98
MN122 MA191
MN138 MA164
MN139 MA169
MN141 MA31 MA98

SN6.15 SA1197
SN16.9 SA1142
SN16.10 SA1143
SN16.11 SA1144
SN36.11 SA473
SN36.17 SA473
SN36.19 SA485
SN36.31 SA483
SN41.8 SA574
SN41.9 SA573
SN45.8 SA770 SA784
SN48.10 SA655 SA658
SN54.8 SA814

AN7.67 EA39.4
AN7.69 EA39.2
AN8.30 EA42.6

I have not yet begun to check the parallels, I will start this tomorrow, it should already be apperant that this is a significantly more monumental task than in the case of cattāro satipaṭṭhānā due to the sheer volume of occurrences.

Stay tuned.

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Starting at EA,

AN7.67 EA39.4 (the parallel omits the full formula but refers to the jhanas)
AN7.69 EA39.2 (the parallel contains the full four jahna formula)
AN8.30 EA42.6 (the parallel replaces the 4 jhana with mahayana interpolation)

EA39.4:
“思惟四增上心之法，亦不脫漏，是謂比丘成就此第五之法，弊魔波旬不得其便，”,
“This is the fifth quality of a bhikṣu’s supernormal knowledge that enables him to concentrate on the four kinds of higher mental states without getting rid of their influence. This is how a bhikṣu accomplishes the fifth quality, which is not accessible to Mārapāpīyān.”
T02n0125_033:0730c03_30
“如彼城郭，多諸薪草，外人不能來觸嬈。”,
“It’s like that castle, which has plenty of firewood and grass, and outsiders can’t come to disturb it.”
T02n0125_033:0730c05_31

AN7.67
And what are the four absorptions—blissful meditations in the present life that belong to the higher mind—that they get when they want, without trouble or difficulty?
Katamesaṁ catunnaṁ jhānānaṁ ābhicetasikānaṁ diṭṭha­dhamma­sukha­vi­hārā­naṁ nikāmalābhī hoti akicchalābhī akasiralābhī?

Just as a king’s frontier citadel has much hay, wood, and water stored up for the enjoyment, relief, and comfort of those within and to repel those outside,
Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, rañño paccantime nagare bahuṁ tiṇakaṭṭhodakaṁ sannicitaṁ hoti abbhantarānaṁ ratiyā aparitassāya phāsuvihārāya bāhirānaṁ paṭighātāya.

in the same way a noble disciple, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected.
Evamevaṁ kho, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako vivicceva kāmehi …pe… paṭhamaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati

This is for their own enjoyment, relief, and comfort, and for alighting upon extinguishment.
attano ratiyā aparitassāya phāsuvihārāya okkamanāya nibbānassa.

EA39.2
“比丘當知，若賢聖弟子無貪欲想，除不善法，念持歡喜，遊志一禪”
“Monks"
T02n0125_033:0729c06_13
“「復次，賢聖弟子有覺、有觀息，內有歡喜，專其一心，無覺、無觀、遊心二禪，”
“Furthermore, the noble disciple has initial thought and sustained thought with breathing. With joy within, he concentrates his mind on onepointed concentration; having neither thought nor sustained thought, he enters the second meditative state of absorption in which there is neither thought nor sustained thought:"
T02n0125_033:0729c08_15
“如似彼樹而生羅網。”
“It’s like a net that resembles those trees and gives rise to a silhouettering net.”
T02n0125_033:0729c10_16
“「復次，賢聖弟子念而有護，自覺身有樂，諸賢聖所救，護念具足，遊在三禪，”
“Furthermore, the disciples of the wise and saintly ones are disciplined with mindfulness; they realize for themselves that their bodies are blissful. The wise and saintly ones who are disciplined are endowed with mindfulness and can abide in the third meditative state of absorption."
T02n0125_033:0729c10_17
“如似彼樹而生雹節。
“It’s like when a hailstorm arises like that tree.”
T02n0125_033:0729c12_18
“「復次，賢聖弟子苦樂已盡，先無愁憂，無苦無樂，護念清淨，遊志四禪，”
“Furthermore, the noble disciple who has ended suffering and happiness, first has no sorrow, no pain and no pleasure, is mindful and pure, and wanders in the fourth meditation.”
T02n0125_033:0729c13_19

AN7.69
When a noble disciple, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected,
Yasmiṁ, bhikkhave, samaye ariyasāvako vivicceva kāmehi …pe… paṭhamaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati, they’re like the Shady Orchid Tree when its foliage starts to regrow. jālakajāto, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako tasmiṁ samaye hoti devānaṁva tāvatiṁsānaṁ pāricchattako koviḷāro.

When, as the placing of the mind and keeping it connected are stilled, a noble disciple enters and remains in the second absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of immersion, with internal clarity and confidence, and unified mind, without placing the mind and keeping it connected,
Yasmiṁ, bhikkhave, samaye ariyasāvako vitakkavicārānaṁ vūpasamā …pe… dutiyaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati, they’re like the Shady Orchid Tree when it’s ready to grow flowers and leaves separately. khārakajāto, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako tasmiṁ samaye hoti devānaṁva tāvatiṁsānaṁ pāricchattako koviḷāro.

When, with the fading away of rapture, a noble disciple enters and remains in the third absorption, where they meditate with equanimity, mindful and aware, personally experiencing the bliss of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, one meditates in bliss’,
Yasmiṁ, bhikkhave, samaye ariyasāvako pītiyā ca virāgā …pe… tatiyaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati, they’re like the Shady Orchid Tree when its buds start to form. kuṭumalakajāto, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako tasmiṁ samaye hoti devānaṁva tāvatiṁsānaṁ pāricchattako koviḷāro.

When, giving up pleasure and pain, and ending former happiness and sadness, a noble disciple enters and remains in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness,
Yasmiṁ, bhikkhave, samaye ariyasāvako sukhassa ca pahānā dukkhassa ca pahānā …pe… catutthaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati, they’re like the Shady Orchid Tree when its buds burst. korakajāto, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako tasmiṁ samaye hoti devānaṁva tāvatiṁsānaṁ pāricchattako koviḷāro.

Will do DN next I think.

184

Ceisiwr
In the Visuddhimagga, when discussing dependent origination, Ācariya Buddhaghosa defines nāma in the same way as it is in the suttas.

Yes, when Buddhaghosa discusses dependent origination, which may be because viññāṇa conditions nāmarūpa. On the other hand, he groups the arūpakhandhas together as nāma, as seen below.

Ross Reat in The Origins of Indian Psychology (1990: 303-4) says:

“Even Buddhaghosa, who is normally careful to avoid this oversimplification of nāma-rūpa, does at one point in the Visuddhimagga suggest that nāma-rūpa is a twofold designation of the five aggregates (14.11).”

CHAPTER XIV THE AGGREGATES

(Khandha-niddesa)

[A. UNDERSTANDING]

  1. (iv) HOW MANY KINDS OF UNDERSTANDING ARE THERE?
    1. Firstly, as having the characteristic of penetrating the individual essences of states, it is of one kind.
    1. As mundane and supramundane it is of two kinds.
    1. Likewise as subject to cankers and free from cankers, and so on,
    1. As the defining of mentality and of materiality,
  1. 4. In the third dyad, when a man wants to begin insight, his understanding of the defining of the four immaterial aggregates (arūpakhandha) is understanding as defining of mentality, [439] and his understanding of the defining of the material aggregate is understanding as defining of materiality. So it is of two kinds as the defining of mentality and of materiality.

Sue Hamilton, in Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism (page 124) says:

“In the chapter in the Visuddhimagga entitled ‘Description of the Purification of View’ (Ditthi-visuddhi-niddesa), Buddhaghosa discusses definitions of nāmarūpa at some length. Quoting several canonical passages which illustrate the selflessness of the human being in terms of the khandhas, the body, and dukkha, he goes on to state that all such passages are in fact saying that the human being is only nāmarūpa, and that no self is found therein because in the ultimate sense there is only nāmarūpa. This clearly equates nāmarūpa with the five khandhas as representing the individual as a whole, analysed according to body and mind.”

CHAPTER XVIII

PURIFICATION OF VIEW

(Ditthi-visuddhi-niddesa)

[NO BEING APART FROM MENTALITY-MATERIALITY]

  1. He defines the four immaterial aggregates (arūpakhandha) that have thus become evident through contact, etc., as “mentality.” (nāma)

  2. “This is mere mentality-materiality, there is no being, no person”.

Namarupamattam ev’ idam na satto, na puggalo atthi .

  1. So in many hundred suttas it is only mentality-materiality that is illustrated, not a being, not a person.

Evam anekasatehi suttantehi namarupam eva dipitam, na satto, na puggalo.

Metta

185

DN1 DA21 (both contain the jhana sequence)
DN2 DA27 (the parallel elides the jhanas but has the sekkha passage)
DN3 DA20 (both contain the jhana sequence)
DN4 DA22 (parallel employs the elison " attains the rapture of the four dhyānas in the present life)
DN5 DA23 (parallel contains the sekkha passage, elides the jhana part)
DN8 DA25 (parallel refers to the four jhanas)
DN9 DA28 (parallel contains the full sequence)
DN11 DA24 (contains the sekkha with elison)
DN12 DA29 (omits the sequence)
DN16 DA2 (contains the full sequnce and adds jhana to the wings)
DN26 DA6 (contains the full sequence)
DN29 DA17 (contains the full sequence and adds jhana to the wings)
DN33 DA9 DA10 (sariputta)
DN34 DA10 DA11 (sariputta)

So our refined common core is:

DN1 DA21
DN2 DA27
DN3 DA20
DN4 DA22
DN5 DA23
DN8 DA25
DN9 DA28
DN11 DA24
DN16 DA2
DN26 DA6
DN29 DA17

even if we decide that we should not include the suttas where the sekkha patipada is elided to omit explicit mention of the jhanas, although still obviously referring to them by citing the passage for recitation occurring earlier in the Agama, we would still have

DN1 DA21
DN3 DA20
DN4 DA22
DN8 DA25
DN9 DA28
DN16 DA2
DN26 DA6
DN29 DA17

Metta.

SN6.15 SA1197 (omits jhana)
SN16.9 SA1142 (both contain the jhana sequence)
SN16.10 SA1143 (Mahākāśyapa)
SN16.11 SA1144 (Mahākāśyapa)
SN36.11 SA473 (both contain jhana)
SN36.17 SA474 (both contain jhana)
SN36.19 SA485 (both contain the jhana sequence)
SN36.31 SA483 (both contain the jhana sequence)
SN41.8 SA574 (Citta, tho both parallels mention jhana)
SN41.9 SA573 (Citta)
SN45.8 SA784 (omits jhana, is actually very interesting)
SN48.10 SA658 (parallel contains 謂四禪。, the four jhanas)
SN54.8 SA814 (both contain jhana)

SA784:
“何等為正念？”
“What’s right mindfulness?”
T02n0099_028:0203a15_19
“謂念隨順，念不妄、不虛。”
“It’s mindfulness of following, and mindfulness that’s not false or pointless.”
T02n0099_028:0203a15_20
“何等為正定？”
“What’s right concentration?”
T02n0099_028:0203a15_21
“謂住心不亂、堅固、攝持、寂止、三昧、一心。」”
"It’s abiding in mind that’s unconfused, resolute, collected, tranquil, concentrated, and single-minded."
T02n0099_028:0203a16_22

So our “common core” for SN is:

SN16.9 SA1142
SN36.11 SA473
SN36.17 SA473
SN36.19 SA485
SN36.31 SA483
SN41.9 SA573
SN48.10 SA658
SN54.8 SA814

Next up MN, but since that will be a heap of work, lets look at our cumulative total so far:

DN1 DA21
DN2 DA27
DN3 DA20
DN4 DA22
DN5 DA23
DN8 DA25
DN9 DA28
DN11 DA24
DN16 DA2
DN26 DA6
DN29 DA17

SN16.9 SA1142
SN36.11 SA473
SN36.17 SA473
SN36.19 SA485
SN36.31 SA483
SN41.9 SA573
SN48.10 SA658
SN54.8 SA814

AN7.67 EA39.4
AN7.69 EA39.2

Metta

186

@josephzizys

I’ll be away from the forum, but you might want to check out the lack of the 12 nidānas outside SN 12/SA 3. Much like the aggregates, the 12 links basically have close to no strong basis outside the SN/SA. There has already been some surveying with Chinese parallels in the thread here.

I, like you (I think), get the feeling that the SN/SA is the Sangha’s more technical, oral manual for grouping advanced dhamma category teachings together and making these philosophical systems consistent and more inclusive of the thought-world expressed elsewhere in less concise formats. It’s very likely some of this systematization occurred later on, whether in the Buddha’s teaching career or slightly after. It would have to be very early on though. I do think there is also a clear intentional grouping of types of content though as well at play, and a gathering of discourses into one collection to keep them together.

Mettā

1 Like
187

Yes I think your right, I mean, including the AN/EA common core sets a very high bar, but even sans that i am comming round to thinking that the 12 links might fall under the knife if we insist on “spread”.

I am coming to the idea that the samyutta was the original abhidhamma, and the original samyutta was the mahavagga, so probably all 3 of nidana, aggregates, and sense bases are somewhat later technicalities.