Came across the below about “4 types of Buddha”. would be great if anyone could comment on which SN sutta the Sāratthappakāsinī is commenting on (so that to know the background of such classification). I tried to see if there is a S-a translation available online but seems that there is not one done yet. (Am a beginner student and have zero knowledge on the commentaries so pls forgive me if this question sounds elementary.)
“… attains perfect enlightenment, is called an omniscient Buddha… Paccekabuddha…The remaining ones who have destroyed the evil influences are called four-truths-Buddhas. And those who are very leared (are called) learned Buddhas”. (S-a I 25)
“The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic”, Kloppenborg, 1983: 29
It looks like it is SN 1.7. Bodhi mentions the commentary list of four Buddhas in the footnotes to his translation. The full commentary on the sutta is brief (the list of four types of buddhas in bold):
sabbaññubuddho - All-knowing (“Omniscient”) Buddha paccekabuddho - Private Buddha catusaccabuddho - Buddha of the Four Truths sutabuddhoti - Learned Buddha
“Attaining Samyaksambodhi through mastering the thirty perfections, he’s called All-Knowing Buddha.”
“The one who’s attained after mastering the perfections for Immesurable* Eons is called Private Buddha.”
“The remaining ones who’ve destroyed the taints are called the Buddhas of the Four Truths.”
"The one who’s very learned is called Learned Buddha. "
“In this case, the three former ones also apply.”
“‘Sammadaññāti’ means having known by the correct cause and reason.”
“They walk straight in the crookedness. They walk straight whether in a crooked world system, in a realm of crooked beings, in a crooked mass of taints.”
I’m inclined to think there’s a scribal error with the commentary.
Match the verse for explanation in a standard commentary fashion. Then it abruptly cuts to talk about Four Buddhas, out of nowhere. And then with the “Sammadaññāti” part, it goes back to glossing the verse again.
The commentator is glossing sambuddhā. Since we are only up to the seventh sutta of the SN, this is the very first occurrence of this word in the text.
Now it’s just normal commentarial practice that when an important term with a plurality of meanings occurs for the first time, the commentator will give it a fairly comprehensive treatment, i.e., will list all the things the term can mean before stipulating what it does mean in the present sutta.
Later, if the same word occurs again but in a different sense, the commentator can give a more succinct answer, like “Here four-truths Buddha is the meaning”, without needing to spell out every possible meaning.
Does anyone know if this list of four appears anywhere else? It’s very interesting. The first three map rather well onto the three yānas, no? It has an archaic feel to it: maybe something from before the three yānas teaching was standardized; an early attempt to account for awakened one outside the precincts of the Saṅghā.
would you mind sharing which/ where the text is from please? Unlike the Nikaya-s which I can find English and root texts from Bodhi/ suttacentral, I am still finding my way on which/ where to quote/ use the commentaries (I know that there are a few commentaries I could find on suttacentral, but not S-a, so still trying to understand the standard referencing, bibliography-wise).
I used this site: CSCD Tipiṭaka (Roman) and did a text search for pacchekabuddha in the commentary on SN.
Although, it’s search results are not always comprehensive. If the commentaries were in Bilara, I would use the bilara-data repo and Microsoft Code … That seems to be the best search method for Pali I’ve been able to find.
Thx for sharing your search results. The term is mentioned by S-a, a Theravadin commentary commenting on a Pāli SN sutta. Of course, there are parallels in the Chinese Āgama (SĀg) to SN, yet since the term itself is not mentioned originally in the SN sutta, so it is not a surprise to find nothing in SĀg. And since S-a was not translated into Chinese hence did not enter the Chinese system (abhi), so it is also not a surprise to find nothing .
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that’s what eventually became the paññāvimutta–if we’re going to say it’s pointing to someone within the tradition.
If it’s someone outside the tradition, then maybe it’s just the recognition that even study, intellectual pursuit of some sort, could be enough to bring about liberation.
The subject of the traditional ‘three types of buddhas’ has been of interest to me, and i’m beginning to delve more into the Pāli commentaries, so when this came into my inbox this morning, of curiosity, I looked up suttabuddho.
This list of four appears in the commentaries to the Dīgha, Majjhima, Saṁyutta and Aṅguttara Nikāyas
(the already mentioned) Saṃyuttanikāya Aṭṭhakathā (4201. Sagāthāvagga Aṭṭhakathā)
Aṅguttaranikāya Aṭṭhakathā (5201. Ekakanipāta Aṭṭhakathā) as well as the subcommentary on the Aṅguttaranikāya:
Aṅguttaranikāya Ṭīkā (5301. Ekakanipāta Ṭīkā)
For a person who has contemporary-traditional Pāli-text Studies which include a lot of commentarial study, that appears to be quite a strong and consistent ‘traditional’ presentation.
In the Dīgha and Majjhima commentaries, a story is told related two Tipitaka masters, one the student of the other. It was the turn of the younger Tipitaka master Ācariya Cūḷanāga to give the Eighth-day (Half-moon) Uposatha Dhamma talk. While he was discoursing on the Satipaṭṭhāna, his teacher, the senior Tipitaka Ācariya Cūḷasumana (who is introduced as being bahusuto–‘highly learned’ and sutabuddho), suddenly had the thought that the way his student was explaining it was more proper than the way he himself had been teaching it. The text explains that the culture of the ‘masters of yore’ (Porāṇakattherā) was that they loved and treasured to listen to and discuss the Dhamma so much that they had no hesitation to be forthright and bring up such matters for discussion and clarification with one another, and there was no resentment or hesitation among them to do so.
So the senior master immediately mentioned this, interrupting the junior master’s Dhamma talk to do so. The junior master expressed his thought that for clarity and non-confusion for the bhikkhus of the future there should be only one presentation on this topic preserved. A point of his concern is made that even though the senior master is so extremely very highly textually-learned and knowledgeable, that such confusion could still arise in his mind. The senior master reflected privately while in the bath house about it. Then the two of them met subsequently, and the senior ācariya agreed the presentation given by his student the junior ācariya was, on reflection, the preferable one. The topic of exposition with the meaning of ekāyanamaggo and the ‘seven year guarantee,’ and the matter is recorded as having been settled in favor of the exposition which was being taught be the junior Tipitakācariya from the text known as the Paṭisambhidāmagga.
In the Saṃyuttanikāya Aṭṭhakathā as already mentioned, this is the Commentary on the Appaṭividita Sutta of the Sagāthāvagga. The discussion is about ‘penetration of the Four Noble Truths,’ and whether they have been penetrated or not. It is in this context that the term Sambuddhā is brought up. Here the commentary relates that there are said to be ‘four types of buddha,’ and then lists them. The Sammasambuddha and the Paccekkabuddha are expounded, and then the text says that all the remaining arahantas ‘who have ended afflictions without remainder’ are known as ‘Four Truths buddhas’: avasesā khīṇāsavā catusaccabuddhā nāma.* After that, it is says that “one of great learning is called a 'sutabuddhā:” bahussuto ‘sutabuddho’ nāma. And that in this context (that is, the context of the penetration of the Four Noble Truths), only first three (not the fourth) meet the criteria: imasmiṃ atthe tayopi purimā vaṭṭanti.
[Noting that what is called a catusaccabuddhā here, is in other commentarial and traditional Theravāda contexts, called a sāvakabuddha or an anubuddha–one who is, as in the as in the Thai daily Pāli Chanting: buddhānubuddhaṁ– ‘awakened following the Awakened One.’]
The Aṅguttaranikāya Aṭṭhakathā in the ‘Ekakanipāta Aṭṭhakathā’ – Commentary on the Book of the Ones, in the context of defining ‘one who is without a second’ or ‘without peer’ repeats the same list of four in the opposite order, beginning with the sutabuddha. It begins: “A ‘learned bhikkhu’ is called ‘sutabuddhā’ (bahussuto bhikkhu sutabuddho nāma). One whose taints are destroyed is called a ‘catusaccabuddha’ (khīṇāsavo catusaccabuddho nāma).” The then paccekabuddhas, and finally the Sammasambuddha–who the commentary says is the only ‘one who is without a second,’ ‘without peer.’ Although the Sammasambuddha does keep companionship with trainees, adepts, and arahants–still they are incomparable.
Last in the Aṅguttaranikāya Ṭīkā addresses the question of whether those great arahants who attained to arahatship while listening to part or all of a four line teaching verse from the Buddha are not sutabuddhā?
Here the point is made that while this is technically correct, the term sutabuddhā is to be used with regards to those who have sutamaya ñāṇa, which we often these days call ‘sutamaya paññā’: 'sutabuddho’ nāma sutamayena ñāṇena bujjhitabbassa buddhattā. That is, they have knowledge based on their hearing or reading or study of the suttas, aka intellectual learning.
It then goes on to make the explicit point that the other three types of ‘buddhas’ are different–these three are ALL termed 'Catusaccā buddhās’ due to their all having penetrated the Four Noble Truths:
Emerging from the commentaries and subcommentaries to lived experience:
I will say also, as someone who has lived in Asia and listened for many hours to traditional Buddhist monastic Dhamma talks in Theravāda, Seon, Chan, Zen and Mahāyana traditions (sometimes reasonbly well translated into English and sometimes not), this is a topic that has come up many times.
Just from listening, until today, i thought this sometimes humorously expounded sutabuddhā that i’d heard of was actually a “sutta-buddha” (with 2 't’s) – that’s how i heard it!
Because in the Dhamma talks, this was given as a kind of kindly humorous nickname for someone who studied a lot and memorized or learned a lot, but who had not yet necessarily gained any ‘higher knowledges’ of the other sort – through direct experiences of insight. We were warned of the dangers of increasing pride from such learning, or thinking that it was the ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ of the Path.
Surely i think there must be discussion about it in some Chinese-language commentaries, because the point is (or at least used to be) brought up so often in East Asian meditation-tradition Dhamma talks, exhortations, and meditation instructions. It was a core part of the ‘basic instructions’ given to monastic trainees and those going for basic training in meditation.
Thank you for this very well-supported, penetrating, and comprehensive answer. I’ll look at the sources myself, but I’d like to first see if I’m understanding your reading of them correctly: what you are saying, then, is that the difference between the sutabuddha and the other three is that the sutabuddha’s taints are not destroyed?
If so, then it would seem that “buddha” in this context refers to great but nonetheless mundane intelligence rather than transcendent and liberating wisdom.
Greetings–I’m glad you were able to make it through all the typos alright!
I’d like to first see if I’m understanding your reading of them correctly: what you are saying, then, is that the difference between the sutabuddha and the other three is that the sutabuddha’s taints are not destroyed?
Yes, that’s what the commentaries say. Even while the AN subcommentary acknowledges those who say it seems literal and not unreasonable to use the term sutabuddha to apply to those who become arahants while listening to the Buddha speak Dhamma. Still, it affirms that even so, they too fall into the category of ‘Four Truths Buddhas’–those who have become arahantas through the complete penetration of the Four Noble Truths and the utter ending of all afflictions.
If so, then it would seem that “buddha” in this context refers to great but nonetheless mundane intelligence rather than transcendent and liberating wisdom.
Yes, noting that buddhi is also commonly used in Indian languages and culture for ‘intelligence’ or ‘bright intellect’ even to this day–and the ability to learn a lot, memorize a lot, and expound that learning articulately is still admired in the culture.
However, the point being here in the commentaries that, while one who is bright, intelligent, and has a good memory can memorize a lot (as so for the Venerable Ānanda Thero prior to arahatship) and expound on a discourse ‘knowledgeably’ and impressively; it’s still not the same thing as awakening. Because their knowledge comes from great intellectual learning, rather than from direct personal experience via penetrating insight into and awakening to the Truths–seeing them directly for oneself.
Noting that for years prior to his arahatship, the venerable Ānanda Thero had seen the noble Truths for himself as a stream enterer; the point in “khīṇāsavo catusaccabuddho nāma” is, as you say, the khīṇāsavo part–that is, the complete cutting of and ending of the āsavas.
Well, I would say this seems to confirm my suspicions regarding some possible connection between the sutabuddha and the paññāvimutta (and, perhaps, by extension, the sukkhavipassaka as well) as categories of arahat/buddha liberated through study as opposed to meditation. These accomplishments were always controversial, and I suspect the ambiguity in the AN surrounding the sutabuddha is reflective of the early community still working things out.
(I should include the proviso that there’s little we can say definitively about exactly what constitutes a paññāvimutta or distinguishes one from a sukkhavipassaka.)
