I think it is important to distinguish between the Vedic teaching and the Sutta teaching; otherwise one becomes a follower of the Vedic teachings; which includes the vibhava of dismissing these concepts as “mythology”.
If we read SN 29 to SN 32 carefully, we will find they are about kamma:
The Naga engage in mixed kamma, serve the Supaṇṇa, but also can aspire to good kamma & to the other world/heaven.
The Supaṇṇa are the most powerful; engaged in mixed kamma; not seeking the other world. The Supaṇṇa seem content with their worldly power in their world.
Therefore, in general, it seems the Gandhabba is some type creative power (deva) for the good; seeking to preserve/advance life rather than destroy/harm life.
A term search work that expends effort has been performed. The Buddha did reuse a lot of terms commonly used at that time, such as the terms karma, jhana, vinnana and practices such as worship to the the eight winds direction; which of course the Buddha gave the meaning and the right way of practice according the dhamma. As for the term gandhabba which is the factor of birth, the meaning of the gandhabba according to the dhamma is not clearly explained (except for the term gandhabba, which has a different context, namely the type of god who lives at the root of the fragrant tree). After reading Bhante Sujato’s description of the meaning of the term gandhabba by following the meaning of the existing scriptures of the Brahmanism sects at that time, it gave rise to the thought that for totality and consistency, all the terms in the Sutta Pitaka must be interpreted with the same method, where all the terms in the sutta pitaka are interpreted according to what is in the books of brahmanism.
This also means the SN/SA texts came first in the first Buddhist council, and then the MN/MA texts developed later from it in the second Buddhist council.
In terms of good kamma, did the Buddha really want human beings to be reborn into nagas, suppannas, gandhabbas, and valahakas?
I think in the studies in EBTs one may need to consider why did early Buddhists need to have adaptations of Vedic mythical beliefs regarding nāgas “mythical dragons/snakes”, supaṇṇas “mythical birds”, gandhabbas “fragrant plant devas”, and valāhakas “cloud devas".
To my mind, this line of thinking might have some really interesting implications for all of the various okkantis and avakkantis being discussed of late. (See the thread here.) Are we perhaps looking at an extension of the “sexual euphemism”?
“Human eggs release chemicals called chemoattractants, which leave a sort of chemical breadcrumb trail that sperm use to find unfertilized eggs,” said study author John Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor in the department of zoology at Stockholm University in Sweden. “What we didn’t know until this study is those chemical breadcrumbs act differently on sperm from different males, in effect choosing which sperm is successful,” Fitzpatrick added. “What this is suggesting is that these fluids are giving females one extra chance — long after she’s picked her partner — to bias the number of sperm that are going to be coming towards the eggs.”
And here’s the extraordinary finding: A woman’s egg doesn’t always agree with her choice of partner. “We expected to see some sort of partner effect, but in half of the cases the eggs were attracting more sperm from a random male,” said Fitzpatrick.
It’s a funny intuition, isn’t it.
"The journey is so arduous that of the tens of millions of sperm a male might deposit, “our best estimate is that only about 250 total sperm get to the site of fertilization where the egg is,” Fitzgerald said. “On top of all of that, only about 10% of the 250 sperm are able to fertilize at any given time — they sort of blink on and off in their capacity to fertilize eggs,” he added.“So of that 250, it’s more like 20 or 30 cells that can actually fertilize an egg at any different time.”
Finally, the egg can affect which sperm wins the race with the chemicals it releases in the follicular fluid that surrounds the egg. That’s the part which contains the chemical breadcrumbs eggs use to attract and guide sperm to their goal. “And it’s only in the last two centimeters between a sperm and the egg that these chemical signals matter since it’s the final phase of this long journey where females continue weeding out sperm,” Fitzgerald said.
Upaniṣad did not originally mean “sitting around” or a “session” of students assembled around a teacher. Rather, it meant “connection” or “equivalence” and was used in reference to the homology between aspects of the human individual and celestial entities or forces that increasingly became primary features of Indian cosmology.
Animism could mean so many different things that it’s not really a meaningful descriptor of what the Upanishads are trying to accomplish, which is basically an exercise in esoteric Vedic homologous equivalence (the latter being my preferred term). I think they are just trying to say what they want to say about merit, rebirth, the descent of consciousness, but to express it in the language of the final sacrifice (antyesti). And any sacrifice, as a creative act, is mirrored in nature, because of the origin of the world in the primal sacrifice. It’s meant to be a “hidden” teaching, I don’t think you’re really meant to be able to take the texts on face value and go “rightio, I lived on the moon before I was born”. You’re meant to be able to look at the homology and understand that the moon means “periodic waning” and the exhaustion of the sacrifice. It’s advanced Veda- what kings would go to learn. Not the type of animism where villagers worship a random tree in the courtyard as Shiva (not that I really have anything against tree worship TBH).
I also think the term “animism” can (wrongly) imply that the concepts involved are primitive, thereby over-stating the distance between the Upanishads and Buddhist thought. I was struck, for example, when I read the Tibetan version of the Agganna Sutta, which includes tantric symbolism related to conception on top of an early Buddhist version of an Upanishadic motif: for some Buddhist communities, especially Tantric ones, there has never actually been a clear marker for the end of the Upanishadic textual period. Prior to the end of the Buddhist university period in India, nobody seemed to have thought that the Upanishads were operating on a wildly different wavelength to Buddhists about the mechanics of rebirth (metaphysics yes, but mechanics, no). That’s kind of what I meant by “reception history”.
I dunno, it seems to me that’s exactly what they say. There are plenty of Buddhists even today who say hell is under the ground, and heaven is in the sky, and that mark on the moon is a rabbit.
The Upanishads are a mixed bag. I’d not describe Yajnavalkya as an “animist”, but plenty of stuff is.
There’s plenty of animism in the suttas: eg sn32.57
“Sir, what is the cause, what is the reason why sometimes it rains?” ",
“Mendicant, there are what are called gods of the rainy clouds. Sometimes they think: ‘Why don’t we revel in our own kind of enjoyment?’ Then, in accordance with their wish, it becomes rainy. This is the cause, this is the reason why sometimes it rains.”
I see your point, Bhante. I was just very concerned about all the souls that get trapped as plants and never get eaten & trying to find a way to evade the terrifying consequences of a literal reading.
This is from this book by Johannes Bronkhorst. I’m currently slowly reading through it, and it’s interesting.
Does Bhante @sujato or anyone in the thread find this pertinent to the subject matter? Perhaps the entire gandhabba concept, imported from Brahmanism, was never discussed by the Buddha? Or maybe certain references in the texts only demonstrate its lateness as a completed composition, but the central dialogues still reflect an earlier time?
Yes, I certainly agree with your suggestion. The entire gandhabba concept was never presented by the Buddha, but still regarded as an early Buddhist adaptation of Brahmanism and Vedic religious beliefs.
To me, ‘the Greeks’ is certainly a smoking gun; but, for me, there are so many smoking guns pointing to lateness of various suttas. However, I personally doubt the lateness of a sutta is related to its potential validity.
Before making such (unexamined) claims (anyone can easily dismiss ancient texts), its probably best to first examine whether or not the gandhabba concept is essential to the Teachings. The Theravadins have taken the gandhabba concept from MN 38; then broadly linked it to the consciousness in the mother’s womb in DN 15; thus transforming the gandhabba concept into a core doctrine of not only Theravada but also of the Buddha. This seems the gist of the matter. What makes you confidently conclude the gandhabba concept is ‘relinking consciousness’ or a ‘being seeking birth’ ? What impels you to impute this interpretation upon MN 38?
Check out our Authenticity of Early Buddhist texts where we debunk this argument, based, IIRC on research by Analayo.
The argument is a weird one. We know that Alexander reached India a century or so after the Buddha, and it is from that time that close and deep connections between Europe and India began. But is it necessary, or even remotely plausible, that up until that time there were simply no connections at all? That it went from literally nothing to “here, let’s settle in your country and you can marry our queen”?
And that Ashoka does not mention varnas? So? How many addresses of the Australian Prime Minister in the last year mention the upper, middle, and working class of Australia? I have no idea, but I’m guessing none. Does that tell you there are no such classes? No, it tells you that the PM didn’t talk about it.
I find these kinds of arguments just back to front. You need to look at what is there, not argue from what is not.
“I demand that the texts talk about the thing that I want them to talk about in the way that I think they should talk about them, and if they don’t, I will postulate a systematic rejigging of the entire edifice of ancient scripture until it satisfies my demand.”
It’s a funny intuition, isn’t it.
