I’ve been steadily working on annotating and revising the suttas of the Majjhima Nikaya, and just reached the end, sutta number 152! The final set of notes will appear on SC when next we update (usually every week).
My usual process for MN has been to first read the Sutta, writing notes as I go, and looking up in primary sources anything that strikes me as interesting. Then I check Ven Bodhi’s notes to see if I’ve missed anything crucial, and finally refer to Ven Analayo’s Comparative Study of the Majjhima Nikaya for information about parallels. Of course, in individual cases there is often a lot of meandering in-between!
This is a long-term and evolving project, and I am learning a lot every day I work on it. It lets me dig deep into terms and ideas whereas previously I had mostly followed the consensus view (if I may name it such). Of course in most cases there is no change, and in some cases my translation reverses, where I realize my former attempt at revision was poorly founded so I revert to the consensus view. But on the whole the revisions tend towards a more independent wording.
This is mostly because, where Ven Bodhi and most other translators look forward to the commentaries, I prefer to look back to the pre-Buddhist texts.
This different attitude is most evident in the notes. Take MN 140, for example. Ven Bodhi’s note summarizes the extensive and fascinating commentarial story:
According to MA, Pukkusāti had been the king of Takkasilā and had entered into a friendship with King Bimbisāra of Magadha through merchants who travelled between the two countries for purposes of trade. In an exchange of gifts Bimbisāra sent Pukkusāti a golden plate on which he had inscribed descriptions of the Three Jewels and various aspects of the Dhamma. When Pukkusāti read the inscription, he was filled with joy and decided to renounce the world. Without taking formal ordination, he shaved his head, put on yellow robes, and left the palace. He went to Rājagaha intending to meet the Buddha, who was then in Sāvatthı̄, about 300 miles away. The Buddha saw Pukkusāti with his clairvoyant knowledge, and recognising his capacity to attain the paths and fruits, he journeyed alone on foot to Rājagaha to meet him. To avoid being recognised, by an act of will the Buddha caused his special physical attributes such as the marks of a Great Man to be concealed, and he appeared just like an ordinary wandering monk. He arrived at the potter’s shed shortly after Pukkusāti had arrived there intending to leave for Sāvatthı̄ the next day in order to meet the Buddha.
The idea that the Suttas were written down as a gift between kings on golden plates is really interesting, and even though there is no evidence apart from this passage, it is an intriguing possibility.
The more I looked into it, however, the less probable the story seemed. So here is my note on the same passage:
Buddhist texts of the middle period—starting a few centuries after the Buddha—share the story that Pukkusāti had been the king of Taxila in Gandhāra, who went forth out of faith upon reading texts of the Dhamma sent by his friend and ally, Bimbisāra. This story is found in detail in the Pali commentary to this Sutta, and more briefly in several canonical texts of the northern traditions (T 211 at T IV 580c19; T 511 at T XIV 779a; Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya 3.2.26, which spells his name puṣkarasāri, the same name as the brahmin known in Pali as Pokkharasāti). Texts of this period also know of a script called puṣkarasāri (Lalitavistara 10, Vaidya 87; Mahāvastu 14, Senart 1.135). This would presumably have been the writing system in the city of Puṣkarāvati, another city in Gandhāra, the region where the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts have been found. The details of the Pukkusāti legend are improbable and it is mostly likely an origin myth suggested by the similarity of his name with Puṣkarāvati, authorizing the establishment of the Dhamma in Gandhāra in the post-Ashokan period, as well as offering a precedent for the writing down of the Dhamma.
But I’m learning not just about the background, but about how the background applies in the context of the texts themselves. In the same sutta, for example, I looked at the different ways the “elements” (dhātu) are spoken of. Now, the Pali uses two quite distinct terms, dhātu and mahābhūta. Dhātu is used very widely for all sorts of “elements”, whereas mahābhūta is used exclusively for the four material elements and derived materiality. Previously, following most translators, I rendered both as “element”. The commentary, after all, says that mahābhūta is just a name for the elements, and ascribes no particular significance to the term.
But the name means “great truths”, “principle realities”. It seems like a strong term to be merely a synonym. Greater than what? Buddhist texts offer no explanation.
Looking deeper, mahābhūta appears in a prominent passage at Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.12, where it is contrasted with the non-prefixed bhūta. Here is the translation from Wisdomlib, lightly modified to bring out the connections with Buddhist terminology.
As a lump of salt dropped into water dissolves with (its component) water, and no one is able to pick it up, but whencesoever one takes it, it tastes salt, even so, my dear, this great reality (mahadbhūta), endless, infinite, is but a sheer mass of consciousness. (The self) comes out (as a separate entity) from these realities (elements, bhūtā), and is destroyed with them. Afterwards there is no more perception. This is what I say, my dear. So said Yājñavalkya.
This is the crux of Yājñavalkya’s philosophy, and a passage that is referred to implicitly many times in the suttas. Yājñavalkya contrasts the plural “realities”, “elements”, the “things of the world” with the singular “great reality” which is the unconditioned and infinite Self of pure consciousness.
Here we find the clear distinction between the ordinary conditioned “realities” and the “great reality” that we are missing in the suttas.
As so often, it seems the Buddha is adopting the terms of his forerunners, especially Yājñavalkya (in whose school, I believe, he studied before awakening), and shifting the meaning: ‘What the Upanishad takes as the “great reality” is actually multiple “great realities”, all of which are merely varieties of conditioned elements.’
The fact that it is matter that is so described is pointed, as that specific passage of Yājñavalkya has been interpreted in a materialistic fashion. If we take his reference to saṁjñā at the end as referring to mind in general, he seems to be saying there is no consciousness after death, and thus that reality is primarily material. This is, it seems to me, clearly a misreading of the passage—it is, rather, contrasting particular, limited knowledge (saṁjñā) with infinite consciousness (vijñāna)—but it is one that one encounters today. Indeed, in the Upanishad itself, it is this point that throws Maitreyī into confusion.
This passage also sheds light on why, when the four mahābhūtas are mentioned in the suttas, they usually appear in a passage that speaks of “the four principle realities, or form derived from the four principle realities”. The notion of “derived form” is solely associated with this wording, and surely harks back to the Upanishadic passage, where the lesser “realities” emerge from the “great reality”.
It also sheds light on DN 11 Kevaṭṭasutta, where the misguided mendicant searches up through the heavens for an understanding of where the four “primary realities” cease without remainder, a search that ends with Brahmā, who advises him to ask the Buddha.
Anyway, I ended up revising my translation and offering the following note:
The Buddha’s use of mahābhūtā (“principle realities”) responds to Yājñavalkya’s core teaching at Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.12, where the several “realities” (bhūtā)—namely the diverse manifestations of creation—arise from and dissolve into the “principle reality” (mahābhūta) of the Self, singular and infinite. For the Buddha, the “principle realities” are themselves plural, as there is no underlying singular reality.
Maybe back then it was the only source he could find regarding the background history of Sutta. I know in his Aṅguttara Nikāya Sutta class, Bhante Bodhi always use his Pali search engine to check a word carefully and compare them with other sutta rather than with the commentaries.
These have been a real treat and very helpful in elucidating the often forgotten cultural context of the suttas. I’ve really enjoyed browsing the comments in the discourses I’ve read. It will definitely be a great resource. I also appreciate connecting place names, people names, etymology, historical context, etc.