Can nonhumans can attain nibbāna?

Nonhumans can & do attain nibbāna.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30969

Digha Nikaya 21

Sakkapanha Sutta

The Questions of Sakka

Sakka, the deva-king, asks the Buddha about the sources of conflict, and about the path of practice that can bring it to an end. This discourse ends with a humorous account about Sakka’s frustration in trying to learn the Dhamma from other contemplatives. It’s hard to find a teacher when you’re a king.

Then Sakka, the deva-king, touched the earth with his hand and said three times, “Homage to the Worthy One, the Blessed One, the Rightly Self-awakened One! Homage to the Worthy One, the Blessed One, the Rightly Self-awakened One! Homage to the Worthy One, the Blessed One, the Rightly Self-awakened One!”

While this explanation was being given, there arose to Sakka the dustless, stainless Dhamma eye — “Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation” — as it also did to [his following of] 80,000 other devas.

Such were the questions that the Blessed One answered at Sakka’s bidding. And so this discourse is called “Sakka’s Questions.”

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.21.2x.than.html

then is it possible?

Nonhumans can & do attain nibbāna ???

:anjal:

It appears he became a Sotapanna not an Arahant.
Perhaps Ven @Dhammanando can help in this matter.

2 Likes

Look at the formula “tattha parinibbāyī anāvattidhammo tasmā lokā”, basically describing a non-returner. A normal passage would be

with the utter destruction of the five lower fetters, some person is of spontaneous birth, due to attain final nibbāna there without ever returning from that world.

It appears about 40 times in the suttas. “There” is mostly a heavenly deva realm.

1 Like

Being a human is a requirement for a Buddha, not Arahat.

Otherwise as long as the being has access to wisdom (this excluded the 4 lower worlds) and 5 khandhas (this excluded the arupa brahmas and the one world without perception), they can achieve enlightment.

2 Likes