Explaining the astounding lack of interest by other schools in the Parayanavagga

josephzizys · February 25, 2023, 10:30am

I have a spreadsheet that maybe @Snowbird sent me? That i think is from suttacentral, butnim not sure how up to date it is, i will pm it to you next time im at my computer.

Vaddha · February 25, 2023, 6:38pm

Thanks to @Danny , I remembered to check some of the references in the āgamas and post them here. Has anyone pointed these out?

SA 982, SA 1164, and SA 983 all contain references to the Pārāyanavagga as paralleled in their AN counterparts. It also seems like the other version of SA 983, SA3 8, contains the traces of the same reference. So these are potentially untranslated parallel passages preserved in external sutta quotations from the Northern Tradition, furthering the presence of this collection in the pre-sectarian period and its popularity.

Mettā

Raftafarian · February 25, 2023, 6:47pm

Sorry, I meant to respond to you, but got caught up in other things.

Can we agree on the following?

Sanna is not identical to vinnana.
Sanna is not logically equivalent to vinnana.
The state of the cessation of sanna is not identical to the state of the cessation vinnana.
When sanna ceases, one can still be conscious and discern the passing of phenomena. The cessation of sanna is the state described to Bahaya Ud 1.10. It is the state where in the seen is merely the seen, in the heard is merely the heard, etc… and it is the end of suffering. Some say it is the state of seeing things as they really are.
When consciousness ceases, one is not mindful and cannot even discern.

The liberations described in the Atthakavagga and the Parayanavagga differ because liberation in the Atthakavagga meant the end of being in the world, the end of sanna. Liberation in the Parayanavagga meant an end to consciousness. The 12 links is anachronistic to the Atthakavagga, but consistent with the Parayanavagga. That is the reason why so many people here seem to view the Atthakavagga as the Satanic Verses of Buddhism. Deep down inside they know it is not the Buddhism they are accustomed to.

I think to hold the belief that the 12 links is part of every Buddhist tradition is to ignore:

The Buddha’s undeclared answers to certain questions.
The no views approach to the Atthakavagga.
The fact that consciousness is not even mentioned in the Atthakavagga.
The four conditional consolations of Buddhism given to the Kalama people.

I think that the whole of the canon makes a great deal more sense and requires a lot less creative exegesis mental gymnastics when you realize that certain things are not consistent because Buddhism evolved for hundreds of years after the death of the Buddha just like Christianity did after the death of Jesus.

One thing that changed is that sanna went from something similar to apperception to something very different, discernment. This is the switch that all harmonizers of the Pali canon rely on, but once you see it the magician’s trick, the trick no longer works.

Quite frankly, I much prefer the simple, self consistent, and complete in itself Atthakavagga. I think it is more intelligible, more achievable in practice, and therefore a more satisfying practice. In any event, it does not require cognitive dissonance which I prefer not to bear.

Danny · February 25, 2023, 7:10pm

Thanks wanted to look that up as well!
To add to this SN12.31 has a parallel in SA 345 and a Sanskrit parallel (from manuscript fragments of the Northern Silk Road [turpan/turfan])

Vaddha · February 25, 2023, 7:45pm

This is mistaken. You’ve confused the cessation of papañca with the cessation of saññā. ‘The seen’ is a percept. It is just not complicated and proliferated with concepts and identity via papañca. You can check out MN 18, DN 21, and other mentions of ‘papañca’ or ‘papañcita.’

Both texts go on and on about the end of rebirth. Which is the end of perception and consciousness, because there is nothing reborn. So whatever you think about a living arahant, the final goal of nibbāna is identical. As for the living arahant, both mention the end of craving, possessiveness, etc.

And Snp 4.11 mentions the same types of sequence of dependent arising as is expected, it just applies it to meditation. It’s extremely similar to DN 11 and DN 15.

To be completely honest with you, I find the only people who think this are those who don’t actually understand the Dhamma, but understand surface appearances and statements. It takes 0 mental gymnastics, like lifting a paper clip, to reconcile the texts. It’s only difficult if the underlying principle is missed. So I just find this whole attitude of radical differences and the EB community completely misunderstanding kind of silly, but there are certain points to be addressed. If you want to find examples of places in the EBTs where there are seeming disagreements or shifting views, the AN is a good place, as is the DN and the Abhidhamma/commentaries. The Aṭṭhakavagga is just another example of how the Early Buddhists related to the various ascetics and their doctrines of the time, and their disentanglement from the world.

It’s good you’re looking into things and questioning similarities/differences. Always good to check our assumptions and deeper details of the texts.

Mettā

Raftafarian · February 26, 2023, 4:18am

Sanna most definitely alters the merely seen and turns it into the seen. It is what recognizes and places into context based on past experience and it is most definitely conceptual. That is why Snp 4.11 says the in liberation there is no saññasaññī and Snp 4.2 says that sañña must be completely understood which includes it ceasing. Paññā, on the other hand, would not alter the merely seen. That is why sanna must cease for the seen to be merely the seen. Your reading is anachronistic. Your proof texting is cross strata.

The following is from the Online Pali English Dictionary. I have bolded and italicized the pertinent part.

Sanna in this context is what recognizes and assimilates. It is what builds the world and puts a “you in that”.

Consciousness and nibbana are never mentioned in the Atthakavagga. The chain of causality given never crosses between lives in it. You are reading into it something that is not there.

With regard to Snp 4.11 and death and rebirth, there is no mention of consciousness ceasing. What follows after death could be an eternity of conscious nonduality as far as the text implies. You are injecting into it what you expect to see. You need to read Snp 4.3

There is a reason why the Buddha does not declare what happens to the Buddha after death. That would be a formulated view.

You are reading into the Atthakavagga what Buddhism eventually became. You have to read the Atthakavagga as it is and not make inferences that it does not support.

sujato · March 6, 2023, 9:14am

Let me spell it out.

You link to your essay “Some Issues of Pali Chronology”, so let me consider that.

The article begins by claiming that the “first scholar” to look systematically at textual chronology in the Pali sutta-pitaka was CAF Rhys Davids. This is at best misleading, as there was plenty of work before her.

Apart from a circle of students for a few decades at the PTS in the mid-20th century, she has had a minimal influence on textual criticism. I learned this as a young monk in Thailand when I referred innocently to one of her ideas and Ajahn Jayasaro just said, witheringly, “You’re reading Caroline Rhys Davids?” Thanks Ajahn!

You then go on to argue that her work was motivated by her grief over the loss of her son. You slight a woman’s work due to her emotional distress and then accuse Theravadin monks of misogyny.

You say:

the very aim of the project—to produce a chronology—determines what kind of outcome we get, i.e. a chronology .

The very act of fixing a car determines what kind of outcome we get, i.e. a fixed car.

Other explanations for the same facts are never even considered as far as I can see.

This is simply not true. Historical scholars consider all kinds of things all the time. You can see with a quick glance on this forum that we constantly discuss matters of geography, social context, and so on, and this is totally normal for historical scholars.

Having dismissed the work of historical scholars as “fanciful” and “conjectures”, you go on to do your own bits of textual work which you then declare yield results that are “clear” and “almost certain”. This despite the fact that almost every paragraph is mistaken or misleading. Here are just a few random samples.

We do know that Pāli was a somewhat artificial language built on one or more Prakrit languages.

No we do not: the origins of Pali are a matter of ongoing debate. You assert that things well-established are “conjectures” then claim that a disputed and unclear hypothesis is “known”.

People say that the Pali canon was written down in the first century, but this is conjecture based on internal references in documents that post-date the suttas by several centuries.

Of course the texts that say the Pali canon was written down must postdate the Pali canon. You’re just trying to stir up dust. Here are the facts:

The Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa say the Pali canon was written down in the time of Abhaya Vaṭṭagāmani.
The Mahavamsa adds the detail that this was done in the Alokavihara.
Dates and facts in the Mahavamsa have been shown to be reliable when compared with the archaeological and other evidence.
Based on this Mahavamsa chronology, scholars conclude the date is about 20 BCE.
Gandhari texts have proven by carbon-dating and other methods to stem from about a century after this.
The reason we have old Gandhari manuscripts is because of climate, and there is no reason to think texts were written in Gandhari before anywhere else.
The earliest translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese were not long afterwards, in 148 CE, based on manuscripts brought from India.
We therefore infer that Buddhist texts in the greater Indian sphere were written down starting around the beginning of the Common Era.
This agrees with the independently established chronology of the Mahavamsa.
There is widespread evidence for writing in Sri Lanka at that time.
Thus the account in the Mahavamsa is inferred to be probably accurate.

This is not a “conjecture”, it is a reasoned argument leading to an inferred conclusion.

Scholars have, until recently, simply accepted the emic accounts of Buddhist history, adopted emic terminology and time periods

This is untrue; from the beginning scholars have investigated and questioned traditional accounts.

If anyone reading this is not really aware of how historical scholars have worked, here is an example. This is the introduction to the Vinaya by Hermann Oldenberg, published in 1879 (long before CAF Rhys Davids’ work). He considered various matters of chronology, arguing (against the tradition) that there was a “Dvipitaka” before the “Tipitaka”, arguing (against the tradition) that the patimokkha is older than the Vibhanga, cautioning against too ready acceptance of traditional accounts, and weighing multiple considerations before drawing cautious conclusions. This is part of a movement of genuine scholarship that has established findings that are still being built on today. Have a read, it’s good!

Like I said, almost every paragraph has errors, and I won’t list them all. It is not the case that every other scholar simply ignores everything except a self-referential chronology and that somehow you have been the first person to notice this and discover actual facts. The entire argument is tilting at windmills.

I used to believe that there was a scholar named Jayarava who made sometimes interesting analyses of Buddhist texts from a critical perspective. But looking at this, I realize I have accepted much too credulously the existence of a person of that name. After all, the name “Roar of Victory” is suspiciously apt for someone who dismisses the work of others and thinks he has found the truth everyone else has missed. Given that we have no external evidence to prove the existence of a “Jayarava”, and given that we know that most of the internet is made by bots, it is fanciful to conjecture that such a person really exists. Previous readers simply assumed the real existence of “Jayarava” based on nothing more than incoherent assumptions about authenticity. This is all we know.

Jayarava · March 8, 2023, 10:18am

I stopped reading after the first insult. That you feel the need to resort to insults and put downs tells me everything I need to know about you and your opinions of me, Sujato.