Even more terms

[Brahmali]

@Sylvester

The Buddha was not beyond borrowing terms originally smacking of hypostatis, eg the Upanisadic sarvaṃ/sabbaṃ but using it without all those connotations. How else do we explain the suttas’ use of what sound like reifying language to describe Nibbana as ajātaṃ abhūtaṃ akataṃ asaṅkhataṃ (the Thinginess in the passage comes through from the existential verb atthi used in conjunction with these words).

This passage is frequently invoked to thingify Nibbāna, but it doesn’t have to be read in this way, nor probably should it. In Pali the prefix a is often simply privative, that is, negating the meaning of the unprefixed word. As such ajāta probably only means “freedom from the born” and asaṅkhata “freedom from the conditioned”. Moreover, the fact that these statements are only found in the Udāna make them slightly suspect. They may well stem from a time post Buddha.