You noted yourself that the label upādānakkhandh* could be late - wouldn’t it make sense then to specifically look for rupa, vedana, etc. without the label in order to find the earlier instances?
Maybe, but I feel you’re a bit too fast with the conclusion:) We have to be careful not to fill blanks with our neat image.
I think you’re right in that both DO and 5Kh target a similar field, like ‘identification’. But DO doesn’t make 5Kh obsolete. The DO is more dynamic phenomenologically, yes. I’d argue though that the 5Kh are more relevant for the meditative practice of dis-identification. It’s no coincidence that of the meditation saññās none refers to DO but fit well with the 5Kh. Are the categories of the khandhas clumsy and vague? Yes. At least we don’t get a rationale that demarks the five. And in contrast to the salayatanas for example there is no strong reason to map the khandhas exactly like that, there could easily be 7 or 10 or 3 khandhas.
But again, maybe the focus of the DO was more conceptual/philosophical while the 5Kh were geared towards the actual meditative practice of dis-identification. It certainly would make sense that the Buddha provided one framework for understanding/wisdom in the DO, and another for a quick ‘not-me’ ‘not-me’ practice, where it’s more relevant to cover the most important phenomena than to have clean boxes of phenomena without overlap. In this sense, albeit related, both DO and 5Kh (in some form) might have been necessary from the start.
I do not really know what texts are early and late EBT. But just to inform. I post it because i think it might be useful:
@josephzizys: Snp3.12 talks about dukkha, the cause, the end, the way leading to the end of dukkha. It does not mention literally: four noble truths but it talks about them.
It also gives dependend origination cycle that is not very different from the sutta Pitaka.
If one wants to understand this in real time:
With the destruction of avijja (and passion) there is still sense-vinnana ofcourse but kamma-vinnana does not arise anymore, this is the vinnana which grows upon abhisankhara’s, morally and immoral loaded kammic formations. An arahant has no avijja and abisankhara’s (still sankhara’s) but has sense-vinnana’s.
So, in real time, the cessation of avijja does not mean that all vinnana’s end. There are still vinnana’s of the six senses. What ends is kamma-vinnana. The vinnana that grows upon meritorious and demeritorious kammic formations (abhisankhara, second factor in PS).
In the same way, when avijja ends, an arahant has still sense-impressions which are felt as painful and pleasant and neutral (vedana’s). So , with the ending of avijja and tanha not all vedana’s end. Which vedana’s end? Those accomponing reactions of likes and dislikes, i.e. the somannasa and domanassa vedana’s are absent when avijja and tanha is absent but not the dukkha and sukha and neutral vedana’s. Those are present in any vinnana moment. That does not change for an arahant.
So vedana is also a complex topic, like vinnana. To understand Paticca Samuppada one needs such deeper knowledge of these concepts. At least, i find it very useful.
Sorry @Green but I think we may be getting off topic, if you like you can message me any questions you have regarding my thoughts in which suttas come before which
I take your points @Gabriel and I should warn you, I am prone to hyperbole In the heat of the moment- so I often tend to overstate my conclusions, really the reason that I haven’t addressed the occurrences of “form… feeling… etc” is because I would have to manually identify every formula that repeats with those words in sequence and it would simply be too much work for me! As you say, a proper assessment of the place of the 5A in the 4N probably requires that at minimum.
A small note on this: paṭiccasamuppāda is comfortable with having overlaps too: phassa makes an appearance as an element of nāma in nāma-rūpa, but also is an element on its own dependent on saḷāyatana (not to mention the two types of samphassa—paṭigha and adhivacana—within nāma-rūpa). Here too, as with elsewhere in Dhamma, the focus seems to be on what facilitates understanding rather than logical rigour—to be expected in an atakkāvacara teaching that deals with the irrationality of existence/experience.
You might be able to save a lot of that work by searching for feelings and consciousness. Form and perception are used outside the context of the aggregates.
I agree with you here. In his book “Rebirth in Early Buddhist Studies" Analayo writes:
“Name-and-form conditions consciousness and consciousness conditions name-and-form.
This statement requires some unpacking. In early Buddhist thought, “consciousness” stands for the mind’s ability to be conscious of something. “Form” represents the material side of experience, which also includes the fine-material dimension of celestial realms recognized in early Buddhist cosmology. “Name” stands for the functions of the mind apart from consciousness. In the context of dependent arising an understanding of name as including consciousness, such as found in later tradition, would not work. On such a reading, the reciprocal conditioning relationship between consciousness and name-and-form would result in presenting consciousness as self conditioning.”
An interesting little Sutta is SN 22.78, the Sutta seems to be an explanation of the verses mentioned below the prose text. This Sutta is interesting because it has a parallel in the AN. The version in the AN doesn’t talk about the khandhas, will the SN version does.
The version in the AN seems to best fit the verses, because the verses talk about identity, its origin and cessation and not the khandhas directly. So it might be that the khandhas are a very early tool to analyse and explain sutta passages. In this specific Sutta they actually replaced the original content. Similarly when MahaKaccana explains Suttas he uses the five khandhas to draw out the meaning.
It is also interesting to note that the khandhas are the first topic in the Vibhanga (Abhidhamma; book of analysis), and apparently (according to the reconstruction) it was also the first Vagga of the Samyukta Agama. So it obviously was an important topic.
I belief the rebirth vinnana mentioned in DN15 exists independendly of the nama-rupa, but it needs nama-rupa to enter a new state of existence.
I belief, we have to understand vinnana can have different meanings. It can refer to rebirth-vinnana (patisandhi vinnana) such as in DN15 and uppatti akusala paticca samuppada cylce. It can also refer to sense-vinnana and that is something different. It can also refer to kamma-vinnana, which is again something different because that is, unlike sense-vinnana, loaded or grown upon moral and immoral kammic formations (punna and apunnabhisankhara).
In DN15 the uppatti PS cycle is described and here vinnana refers to rebirth-vinnana, a link to former lives and nama-rupa referrs to the developing mind and body which in human bhava called the foetus.
Not only DN15 describes how a link to a former life is needed for a firtilized egg to develop but also MN93 and MN38 describes this process of birth. Seed and egg are not enough for birth to take place.
That is the message which is expressed in these sutta’s.
The being to reborn is also called gandhabba. In MN note 411 Bodhi relates to the commentary : “The gandhabba is the being to be reborn. It is not someone (i.e., a disembodied spirit) standing nearby watching the future parents having intercourse, but a being driven on by the mechanism of kamma, due to be reborn on that occasion”
The two parallel suttas SN 22.78 and AN 4.33 are an excellent example! Taken together it seems that
a) the khandhas are indeed an explication of sakkāya identity / transient embodyment
b) sakkāya is an alternative term for dukkha in the 4NT (also in SN 35.136 in other words)
ergo c) the (upādānak)khandhas are an alternative description of dukkha - a connection made also in SN 56.11, AN 3.61, AN 6.63, MN 9, MN 10, MN 28, MN 141 (“In brief, the five grasping aggregates are suffering.”)
The entanglement of these terms (khandhas, sakkāya, and rebirth-dukkha) seems neither random nor arbitrary, but also not trivial. The connection with DO comes on top of that. It’s not a simple teaching conveyed to lay people or followers of other sects, but rather “Dhamma teaching special to the Buddhas” (AN 8.12, AN 8.21, AN 8.22, MN 56, MN 91, DN 3, DN 5, DN 14).
This could attribute for the rare occurrences in the DN - based on the assumption that followers of other sects are an important target of its suttas. The rariry in the AN remains puzzling, but following the discussions above it seems like the AN is a collection that remained ‘open’ longer and was surely addressing more lay and every-day needs. I feel that I need to see/make more research into the nature of the AN, e.g. how sakkāya, 4NT, and DO are treated there.
just to play devils advocate, taken together it COULD seem that;
a) the poem came first and mentions sakkaya
b) the AN prose commentary came second, still mentioning sakkaya
c) the SA comes late, deleting sakkaya from the prose but keeping it in the verse
there is even a good reason or motive that teachers of the dhamma might have for performing this operation; similarly to my 10DO annihilationists argument there where almost certainty “sakkaya eternalists” who would say “see!? sakkaya!, even the Buddha says I am a special snowflake, my mother was right!” and so there was a need to explicate talk of identity in a way that made it clear that the constituents of it where annica annata dukkha.
really @Gabriel the SN 22.78 AN 4.33 seems on its face to make a strong case for the evolution of doctrine, especially the disappearance of the key term from the prose but not the poem.
Also the first refrence you give to "teaching special to the Buddhas” at AN 8.12 is not the 5A but the 4NT:
And when the Buddha knew that Sīha’s mind was ready, pliable, rid of hindrances, elated, and confident he explained the special teaching of the Buddhas:
Yadā bhagavā aññāsi sīhaṁ senāpatiṁ kallacittaṁ muducittaṁ vinīvaraṇacittaṁ udaggacittaṁ pasannacittaṁ, atha yā buddhānaṁ sāmukkaṁsikā dhammadesanā taṁ pakāsesi—
suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.
dukkhaṁ samudayaṁ nirodhaṁ maggaṁ.
Just as a clean cloth rid of stains would properly absorb dye,
Seyyathāpi nāma suddhaṁ vatthaṁ apagatakāḷakaṁ sammadeva rajanaṁ paṭiggaṇheyya;
in that very seat the stainless, immaculate vision of the Dhamma arose in General Sīha:
evamevaṁ sīhassa senāpatissa tasmiṁyeva āsane virajaṁ vītamalaṁ dhammacakkhuṁ udapādi:
“Everything that has a beginning has an end.”
“yaṁ kiñci samudayadhammaṁ sabbaṁ taṁ nirodhadhamman”ti.
In fact every occurance I can find in the canon of “buddhānaṃ sāmukkaṃsikā dhammadesanā” gives the special teaching as dukkhaṃ samudayaṃ nirodhaṃ maggaṃ.
Your comments state the obvious, actually: 1. poem 2. prose, first AN, second SN. I don’t see, however, that the SN version would have to be ‘late’ or much later than the AN. It could easily come slightly later too.
I don’t understand your sakkaya comments, as sakkaya(ditthi) is one of the traditional fetters. So I doubt that monastics would mistake sakkaya for a legitimate identification.
The “teaching special to the Buddhas” is a stock passage around the 4NT. I didn’t bring it up for the khandhas directly but rather to suggest that:
The 4NT were teachings disclosed only to special individuals
And through the conceptual link of the 4NT to sakkaya, and from sakkaya to the khandhas it could follow that
also the khandhas were taught only to special lay individuals or to monastics
And that could be part of an explanation why the khandhas appear so rarely in the AN
I was further considering the conceptual differences between SN and AN. The three main vaggas of the SN - Nidanas, Khandhas, Salayatanas - are deconstructions of the individual.
In contrast, the AN mostly deals with individuals as units, as people who strive, overcome obstacles, and finally - as individuals, overcoming individuality - realize liberation.
This can be seen also in the fact that DO occurs even more rarely than the khandhas, namely only in AN 3.61 and AN 10.92.
The salayatanas are similarly rare, occuring in the aforemoentioned AN 3.61 & AN 10.92, and in AN 6.55, AN 10.27, and AN 10.60. We may add to this occurrences of phassāyatana in AN 4.10, AN 4.173, AN 5.30, and AN 10.29 - which still amounts to only 10 mentions of the ayatanas.
In regards to the original question my current understanding is that
paṭiccasamuppāda, khandhas, and salayatanas are important contents of the SN, and negligible in the AN
This may be due to a division of content between SN and AN, or due to the AN being a ‘leftover’ collection as it’s been suggested
But it is also probable that SN vaggas 2-4 had a different perspective on humans altogether, collecting the suttas that deconstruct the human experience, while the AN mainly treats humans on their quests as they are, i.e. from the mundane perspective of self-identified units.
Therefore, to assume that khandhas are late would be to similarly assume that paṭiccasamuppāda and salayatanas would be late. At this point this seems to me to be a too risky proposition. In other words: It would be a big undertaking to show convincingly that the Dhamma started out with a humans-as-units perspective and that at some later point proto-Abhidhammists developed a curriculum of deconstruction which they canonized in the SN. It’s not impossible that this was the case, but I think that would be very difficult to show.
I really like your thoughts on the AN, @Gabriel . It’s what I’ve been thinking/alluding to, though more fleshed out.
The more I consider this topic, the more I wonder if teachers and practitioners aren’t giving enough respect to context when they are using suttas. That is, perhaps they ought to pay more attention to the particular sutta’s Nikaya and the purpose to that Nikaya — or even the section of the Nikaya — when interpreting its meaning and utility.
I was surprised to read your question, whether khandhas are early or late EBT. Because the Buddha not only mentioned them in his first discourse when explaining dukkha, but taught in more detail about their characteristics to the group of his first disciples in his second discourse, the Anattalakhana sutta.
