Summary
if only there were a viable alive alternative to the Buddhadhamma
what exactly is ariya savako?
b.bodhi seems to always translate that as “noble disciple”.
thanissaro sometimes translates that as “disciple of the noble one” in contexts where it doesn’t seem to require a stream enterer.
does pali grammar support both translations?
Interesting, thanks. i don’t know much about this, but it’s curious that the script itself is called ariya. Coincidentally or not, the earliest Indic script is called brahmi. These suggest to me that both these terms were associated with civilized., learned culture.
1 Like
Interesting, i didn’t know that. But wait: surely the four castes appear in the Rig Veda?
In the EBTs, too, it has a sense that overlaps with that of rāja, although khattiya is usually used of the caste in general, while rāja usually applies to those khattiyas who are actually in power.
1 Like
Sorry, tommit, but you’ve been misinformed. The term sangha is constantly used in the early texts to refer to the community of ordained monks and nuns. Many, doubtless most, of these were not on any of the stages of awakening.
On the other hand, many lay people, apparently numbering in the hundreds, were on the various stages of awakening.
Nevertheless, in the early texts the lay people consistently take refuge in the sangha of ordained monks and nuns, i.e. the bhikkhusangha.
You might disagree with this, or think we should do something differently today. But the texts themselves are perfectly clear.
1 Like
Indeed a script can only arise in a civilized, learned culture that is likely to refer to itself as such
No, I do not disagree on anything.
Only in the primal suttas, I have been watching all, appears what I have exposed. Fundamentally a single case that is repeated in three suttas.
I would be delighted that you would give me a list of suttas in which one clearly identifies “sangha” with “community of bhikkhus”.
On the contrary, there I have risen, in almost all suttas refers to the Ariya Sangha.
But, I tell you, give me the list, please.
Tommit, please give yourself a try and check the pali. This formula is found everywhere:
Esāhaṃ, (…) , taṃ bhavantaṃ gotamaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi dhammañca bhikkhusaṅghañca
My thesis goes further:
There are nine kinds of people.
There is a single class of ordinary people and eight of ariyas.
What sense does a person take refuge in a group of ordinary humans?
If that person is a normal human, he does not earn anything.
If that person is an ariya … is that a joke?
The Buddha said that in his sangha of monks, in his, there were individuals of the eight types of nobles. Of the eight. There could be, there would be, ordinary people. But he never mentions it.
In the Sangha of the Buddha, full of nobles, it is normal that one can take shelter even being an ariya.
Now we come to this day.
Is there the Buddha’s Sangha? In that Sagha there are the eight types of nobles?
If not, what kind of Sangha is that?
Sorry for my bad English.
Tommit,
No one is disputing who is in or out of the ariya sangha. Indeed this is what one is supposed to remind himself when doing sanghanussati.
All we are doing is pointing you that the early buddhist texts do depict people taking refuge in Buddha, the Dhamma and the Bhikkhu-Sangha.
An important reminder is that refuge does not mean we believe or expect anything from these things. It means we go for these when seeking a shelter from the suffering of samsara, for these inspire us in finding ourselves a way out of it - i.e. fullfill the third noble task of verifying ouselves, through our own cultivation of the path, the end of suffering.
Hence, when one take refuges in the Bhikkhu-Sangha he/she acknowledges the vital role and special pureness of the livelihood it preserves, and makes a humble move of putting the people totally invested in it above his/her selfish interests when it comes to allocating the material resources he/she may find myself with and therefore helping in anyway possible with their four basic requisites: food, shelter, medicines and clothing.
P.S.: Is it the case we split this topic?
@tommit check our these nice words of wisdom from Ajah Sumedho on the very issue you are bringing to the conversation:
In the Buddhist tradition, the third refuge is in Sangha, which for us means this community. Sangha is the Pali word for ‘community.’ Then you might say, ‘Well, that means only the Ariyan Sangha: the sotapannas, sakadagamis, anagamis, arahants. So I need to find a community where I’m only living with sotapannas at least; and if there’s sotapannas, hopefully a few arahants will be around too.’ But then, try to find a community where that exists…
With a grasping mind, even if you found it, you wouldn’t recognise it, because even arahants can be irritating. So instead of trying to find the ideal community, I use the community that I’m in.
When living in this community, people affect me; thus my personality arises, together with various emotional reactions.
The refuge, however, is in the awareness of this, in trusting our ability to be aware.
When we are committed to awareness, then whatever happens, it belongs. When we are confident in awareness, there’s nothing that can be an obstruction except ignorance and forgetfulness.
Source: Ajahn Sumedho - Self-view, Personality and Awareness
1 Like
Gnlaera:
Analyzing literal only two sentences of your text:
“It means that we go for them when we seek refuge from the suffering of samsara, because they inspire us to find a way out of it”
The suffering of the Samsara is eradicated when you reach the third / sixth level of enlightenment. With the eradication of craving and aversion, suffering is already impossible.
1-Please explain to me the mechanism by which “through the inspiration brought about by the bhikkhus” you come to no return. Without going through the entrance into the stream. Nor by sakadagami: Direct,
“Therefore, when one takes refuge in the Bhikkhu-Sangha, he recognizes the vital role and special purity of the means of life which he preserves”
That way of life is no more than a justification for the economic effort of a devout people, employed so that some of their mendicant members can dedicate themselves full-time to the task of enlightenment: full time, low cost.
Now, regarding “special purity”:
The goal is their complete enlightenment, which for that is maintained, okay?
(I do not want to talk about what they are engaged in buying and selling luck and spells and blessings and those typical theravadines stuff).
2-What percentage achieves ?.
3-How long must an incompetent bhikkhu keep himself who does not?
4-How many are employed full-time to practice?
5-How many other activities?
6-Y When they do, do they get to work?
7-Are they still maintained by the people?
8-and if so, why?
I hope you respond with sincerity and logic. Not with devotion.
There is a strange tendency to see priests in the bhikkhus. Intercessors of the people before whom? The Buddha? Any deities?
And if you mean they are “masters”, either. None is master. No arahant of the Buddha is, and still less a current bhikkhu. None can lead anyone to enlightenment. Not even themselves.
In the Buddha-Dhamma the only teacher is the Buddha, and it is because he is a Sammasambuddha. The arahants he produced do not have the capacity to teach.
That is why:
- The Buddha did not leave his Sangha to anyone.
- One of the six great evils is to take as teacher to someone other than the Buddha himself. The most terrible kamma of all. At the height of killing the father, the mother, killing an arahant, wounding the Buddha himself or provoking a schism in the Sangha.
When the Buddha instituted the sangha he did so in order to transmit the intact Dhamma to the next generations, at a time of prehistory since writing did not exist, but the Buddha already foresaw the problem of ceasing to practice the jhānas. He knew that when that succeeds the Dhamma would corrupt and become Dhamma black, beautiful in words but leading to hell.
If they are not ariyas, nor priests, nor teachers, nor transmitters of the White Dhamma
9- What are they, besides being privileged that the people hold?
10- What “spiritual” gift generates the rite and ceremony of ordination?
(A sotapanna would laugh here very much).
They are only ten questions, I think with all logic.
Try to answer me.
Just type the number and answer.
Thank you.
Sorry again for my poor English.
I was looking for serious articles about it, but couldn’t find any. The translators’ introduction is pretty clear though that the four varnas are not clearly defined in the Rigveda yet (The Rigveda: the earliest religious poetry of India / Translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton. 2014). Also, in the examples below we have brahmin and rā́ja (not kshatriya).
There is no evidence in the R̥gveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided, and overarching caste system such as pertains in classical Hinduism. There is some evidence in the late R̥gveda for the fourfold division of society into varṇas, the large social classes so prominent in the later legal texts. But even this system seems to be embryonic in the R̥gveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality. The clearest evidence for it is found in the so-called Puruṣasūkta or “Hymn of the Man” (X.90)
X.90.12. The brahmin (brāhmano) was his mouth. The ruler (rājanyah) was made his two arms. As to his thighs—that is what the freeman (vaisyah) was. From his two feet the servant (sudro) was born.
But this hymn is generally considered to have been a quite late addition to the text… Otherwise, the late R̥gveda provides some evidence for the beginnings of a formal contrast between brahmaṇic and kṣatriyan powers; for example, in the final verses of VIII.36 and VIII.37, which are identical save for brahmāni “priestly formulations” in VIII.36.7 and kṣatrā́ṇi “lordly powers” in VIII.37.7
The rest of the R̥gveda does attest to a division of labor and complementary and reciprocal relationship between rā́jan “kings”… and the poets and priests.
I choose not to answer you and kindly recommend you to consider opening a new topic.
Best of luck! 
For what?
Again, they do not answer me.
Sorry again for my poor English.
@sujato Bhante, are you aware of Vinaya III 27 (35–37)?
If an ariyaka renounces the training in the presence of a milakkhuka and he does not understand, the training is not renounced.
It seems that ariyaka here is meant as a lingo-ethnical term. I found the reference in “Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures” by Bryan Levman, here.
It’s probably not the earliest layer of the Vinaya, but maybe still interesting to you…
Hi Tommit,
Thanks so much for your contribution.
I can’t say why gnlaera prefers not to answer here, and I can only speak for myself. But when there are very many questions all at once, each one of which is difficult, then it is very hard to answer! Remember that here on an internet forum we all have a small amount of time. If you keep to one or two questions per post, perhaps you’ll have better luck getting the answers you’re looking for.
To address your first question I would like to firstly point to this topic:
It is also worth checking the Upanisa sutta (SN12.23) in which one finds the crucial linkage between faith/confidence and suffering/stress in the transcendental dependent origination of the way to Enlightenment.
The other questions I would leave unanswered here but repeat my recommendation a separate topic is created to address / explore them.
In support of this theory I looked up the places where in Anguttara it says ‘This is suffering, this is the origin of suffering…’ i.e. the four truths without the label ‘noble truths’
AN 2.45, AN 3.12, AN 3.20, AN 3.24, AN 3.25, AN 3.58, AN 3.61, AN 3.73, AN 3.89, AN 3.96, AN 3.133, AN 3.140, AN 4.102, AN 4.103, AN 4.104, AN 4.105, AN 4.107, AN 4.181, AN 4.186, AN 4.190, AN 4.191, AN 4.196, AN 4.198, AN 4.259, AN 5.75, AN 5.76, AN 8.11, AN 9.13, AN 9.22.
So it appears 29x which in my opinion shows that the formula “this is suffering, this is the origin…” has been the original and the label ‘noble truths’ was a superimposition, or rather a label for the concept, an abbreviation. If it was original, then at least not frequent.
The Samyutta is still mysterious. I mentioned that before SN 56 we find ‘noble truths’ only in two instances. Yet also the formula ‘This is suffering’ is not frequent before SN 56. It appears only 5x:
SN 16.12, SN 36.2, SN 46.30, SN 48.10, SN 48.53
Yet the ‘This is suffering’ formula appears more often, i.e. 14x:
MN 2, MN 4, MN 10, MN 27, MN 36, MN 39, MN 43, MN 51, MN 63, MN 65, MN 76, MN 79, MN 101, MN 112
I draw the conclusion that the label ‘Four Noble Truths’ indeed represents a less significant substitute label. Additionally I see it as less relevant as well - When I think/say ‘The Four Noble Truths’ it emphasizes more a monolithic dogmatic religious aspect of the dhamma, as if these were words chiseled into the fabric of existence. Whereas when I think/say ‘This is suffering, this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering’ - then the mind resonates much more with its intrinsic reality and need for practice. At least for me.
4 Likes
It is worth noting that accross the Sutta Pitaka you will find often repeated the occurrence of suttas focused on approaching from different angles the four noble tasks - pariñña, pahīna, sacchikata, bhavetabba.
This repetition somehow confirms the doctrinal importance of this fourfold approach to the spiritual problem of suffering and its solution - which in my view is the most important implication of the four noble truths brought up by the Buddha to the world in the sermon which kick-started the Sasana.
2 Likes