MN 122, the Longer Discourse on Emptiness, ends with a memorable simile. The Buddha has just given a long teaching to Ānanda, a long term student, who he found to be overly socializing together with other monks in a layperson’s home. After giving a monumental dressing-down, the Buddha caps it off with a simile. However, the simile and its explanation don’t make much sense in Pali, and appear to be corrupt. In Ven Bodhi’s translation:
I shall not treat you as the potter treats the raw damp clay. Repeatedly restraining you, I shall speak to you, Ānanda. Repeatedly admonishing you, I shall speak to you, Ānanda. The sound core will stand [the test].”
His note on this says:
The contrast in this simile is between the way the potter treats the raw damp clay and the way he treats the baked pots produced from the clay. MA paraphrases: “After advising once I shall not be silent; I shall advise and instruct by repeatedly admonishing you. Just as the potter tests the baked pots, puts aside those that are cracked, split, or faulty, and keeps only those that pass the test, so I shall advise and instruct by repeatedly testing you. Those among you who are sound, having reached the paths and fruits, will stand the test.” MA adds that the mundane virtuous qualities are also intended as a criterion of soundness.
Analayo, in his Comparative Studies, p. 701 note 80, remarks, I think rightly, that “The commentarial explanation does not fit the discourse too well, since the simile does not allude to a difference between raw and baked products and also does not relate the Buddha’s way of handling disciples to the way a potter handles his finished products.”
He supplies some other references, but does not offer a solution. However, one of the references he offers seems to shed some light on the subject. In the Sanghabhedavastu, which is the chapter of the Mūlsarvāstivādin Vinaya that deals with Devadatta, we have the following, which I give beside the relevant portion of the Pali:
nigṛhya nigṛhya vo ’haṃ bhikṣavaḥ pravakṣyāmi, prasahya prasahya; na ca vo dhanayiṣye, kumbhakāra ivāmabhājanānāṃ; yat sāraṃ tat sthāsyati
Na vo ahaṃ, ānanda, tathā parakkamissāmi yathā kumbhakāro āmake āmakamatte. Niggayha niggayhāhaṃ, ānanda, vakkhāmi; pavayha pavayha, ānanda, vakkhāmi. Yo sāro so ṭhassatī”ti.
Despite a few differences in the syntax, it is recognizably the same passage. But there are two substantive differences. Where the Pali has the verb parakkamati, the Sanskrit has dhanayiṣye. Now, parakkamati usually has quite a forceful meaning: “treat roughly, force, exert”. I can’t locate dhanayiṣye in the Sanskrit dictionaries, but I presume it is a verbal form of dhana in the sense “to treasure, pamper, mollycoddle”. This makes good sense in the context: “I shall not mollycoddle you!” But this seems to be the exact opposite of the Pali verb.
I propose that the Pali should have an additional negative, which has been elided due to sandhi, i.e. tathā [a]parakkamissāmi. The sense then becomes, “I shall not refrain from tough treatment”, yielding the same meaning as the Sanskrit.
The second substantive difference is that where the Pali has āmaka, which means “raw material”, the Sanskrit has bhājanānā “pots”. I propose that āmaka in this context is an idiom meaning “unfired pots”. (Āmakamatta means “a bit damp”).
Thus the translation should read:
I shall not mollycoddle you like a potter their damp, unfired pots. I shall speak, pushing you again and again, pressing you again and again. The core will remain.