I recently made a post on dhammawheel, but I thought I’d post here as well. I’ll just copy/past my question:
Hi, everyone,
I just wanted to draw attention to a 2013 article by Tse-Fu Kuan, The Pavāraṇā Sutta and “liberation in both ways” as against “liberation by wisdom” (Link: https://www.academia.edu/11788537/The_ … by_wisdom_). It’s a very good article, so I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen more discussion of it.
Basically, he analyzes the Pavāranā Sutta, which talks about “500 Arhats” being present, although the Arhats have different attainments. This Sutta is often used to argue that there are multiple types of Arhats, the most common of which become enlightened purely by insight and without the Three/6 Knowledges, formless attainments, etc. Tse-Fu points out that there are various parallels in the Agamas, with mostly minor discrepancies (e.g., some say there was 1 non-Arhat present). Importantly, however, the Ekottarika Agama version of the text (EA 32.5) has no mention of the list of different types of Arhats, but just says that the 500 people present were at least stream-winners. He concludes that the references to multiple types of Arhat are interpolations.
He also scavenges the Pali Suttas and Agamas for various references to Arhats between divided between those “liberated both ways” and ones “liberated by wisdom.” He says all these references have a shaky textual foundation — that is, if it’s mentioned in the Pali, it’s missing in some Agama collection, or if it’s in an Agama collection, it’s missing in the Pali (the only example of the latter is SN 55.24, about the drinker Sarakaani). He also says the EA has no references to Arhats “liberated both ways” at all. He comes to a conclusion the the notion of “multiple degrees of arhatship” is a later development, one that resulted when the definition of “Arhat” was expanded to include more people.
Anyway, I do encourage people to read the article and not just my summary. I’m curious what other people think of his argument.