One of the most common phrases in Pali is nāparaṁ itthattāya, which appears at the end of one of the stock phrases for arahantship.
‘Khīṇā jāti, vusitaṁ brahmacariyaṁ, kataṁ karaṇīyaṁ, nāparaṁ itthattāyā’ti pajānāti.
They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, nāparaṁ itthattāya.’
The exact meaning and translation of this phrase is a little trickier than you might expect, so let’s break it down.
itthatta
This is a neuter compound, often found in the accusative with the verb āgacchati having the sense “come back to this state of existence”. Eg.:
So tato cuto anāgāmī hoti, anāgantā itthattaṁ
When they pass away from there, they’re a non-returner, not coming back to this state of existence.
rarely we find the dative used in the same sense:
nāmarūpaṁ itthattāya abhinibbattissatha
would name and form be reborn into this state of existence?
nāpara
This resolves to na + apa + ra, where apara is a common word meaning “after”, often found in such phrases as pubbāpararatta, “the first and final parts of the night”.
This usage is pre-Buddhist, for in Brihadarannyaka Upanishad 2.5.19 we find Brahma described as:
apūrvam anaparam anantaram abāhyam
without before, without after, without inside, without outside
Thus apara can have the sense of “after”, “further”, “more”, etc.
putting them together
The phrase was helpfully discussed by O. H. de A. Wijesekera in his masterful Syntax of the Cases in the Pali Nikayas under the so-called “dative of destination”.
itthattāya is the old dat. sg. of the abstract noun itthattaṁ (*itthattvaṁ); cp. itthattaṁ paññāpanāya D II.64. On the strength of this conclusion it is evident that we have the same dat. sg. in the stock phrase ‘nâparaṁ itthattāya’ D II.68,153, which Rhys Davids rendered as “after this present world there is no beyond”. It should rather be translated “there is no further (coming back) to this state of being”.
Rhys Davids apparently interpreted itthattāya as feminine ablative, allowing the sense, “after this life”, but that is grammatically unsupportable.
However, Wijesekera finds he cannot render the phrase as-is satisfactorily, so resorts to inserting an extra phrase in his recommended translation. Perhaps he was influenced by the fact that itthattaṁ is, as we have noted, commonly used with āgacchati in this exact sense.
But it is doctrinally unsatisfactory. It is the non-returner who, well, does not return to this realm, whereas the arahant is not reborn at all.
It is perhaps because of this problem that Ven Bodhi rendered the phrase:
there is no more coming back to any state of being
I have followed this in my translations, under the assumption it was a mere idiom. But again, it is not satisfactory, as itthatta really means “this state of being”, not “any state of being”.
Hence our problem.
sanskrit
As often happens, this phrase appears in a few different Sanskrit forms, but one predominates:
nāparam asmād bhavaṁ
no further from this (“than this”) existence
This seems to support the Rhys Davids reading. It makes good doctrinal sense, there is nothing for an arahant after this life, i.e. they are not reborn. However the Sanskrit, by deviating substantively from the Pali, raises the question whether they are truly cognate phrases. It is just in such tricky cases that we expect some differences to arise.
Note that in this case itthatta has been dropped. In fact this word does not seem to occur at all in Sanskrit, while itthattva or else icchattva occurs only in renderings of these same phrases in Mahasanghika Hybrid Sanskrit. The fact that the term is found in both the Pali and the Mahasanghika traditions shows that it is probably a genuinely early word, and that it is dropped from the later classical Sanskrit of the Sarvastivada suggests they were not entirely confident or comfortable with it. But the Hybrid Sanskrit is no help beyond this, as it is merely an alternate spelling of the Pali (noparim itthatvam).
the passage
If we return for a moment to the stock passage, it seems there are two basic ideas expressed:
- Rebirth is ended,
- the spiritual journey has been completed,
- what had to be done has been done,
- nāparaṁ itthattāya.
The first phrase is about the ending of rebirth, and thus appears equivalent to the reading nāparam asmād bhavaṁ. The next two phrases, however, don’t speak of rebirth at all, but rather of the fulfillment of the practice.
Generally, we expect that in such stock phrases, there are either synonyms or a progression of ideas. Thus it would be unexpected to find the sequence ABBA, and more likely ABBB. It is possible that nāparaṁ itthattāya is another phrase expressing the fulfillment of the practice?
That is, in fact, exactly what the Pali commentary says:
n’āparaṃ itthattāyā 'ti idāni puna itthabhāvāya evaṃsoḷasakiccabhāvāya, kilesakkhayāya vā maggabhāvanākiccaṃ me n’atthī’ti abbhaññāsi
No more for this state of being means: they understand that now I have nothing further for this state of existence, and thus for the state of the sixteen duties, for the ending of defilements, or for the duty of developing the path.
But the commentaries also offer the alternative, itthabhāvato imasmā, reading once again the ablative here, and explaining as the continuation of the aggregates in another rebirth.
the two readings
We have essentially two options:
- “nothing more after this life” (per commentary, Sanskrit, Wijesekera, Bodhi)
- “nothing more to be done in this life” (also per commentary, and apparently the Pali)
Both senses are found in the stock passage, so the choice does not substantially alter the meaning of the passage as a whole.
poetic uses
Perhaps we can solve this by looking more closely at Pali usages. We have already seen most of them.
- itthattāya (dative singular) in the sense “(born) into this state”
- itthattaṁ (accusative singular) in the sense "(return) to this state)
- nāparaṁ occurs nearly 300 times in the stock phrase, and almost never elsewhere.
- the adjectival form nāparo occurs once in the Sutta Nipata; i’ll return to this below.
A rare, possibly unique, use of nāparaṁ is found in Snp 5.11, which is, in fact, the context that started me on this whole journey. Here we find an interesting linguistic feature (thanks to @Sunyo for pointing this out).
The questioner asks to be taught an “island” (i.e. refuge):
Yathāyidaṁ nāparaṁ siyā
Bodhi: so this might occur no more
The Buddha declares Nibbana to be that island, saying that nothingness and non-grasping:
etaṁ dīpaṁ anāparaṁ
Bodhi: this is the island with nothing further
Now, nāparaṁ and anāparaṁ are the same word, with a mere inversion of na to an; as we have seen, anapara is the older Sanskritic form. This is the only occurrence of anāparaṁ in early Pali.
We have in the Niddesa a very old commentary on these lines, to whit:
- nāparaṁ is explained as suffering is ended with no rebirth in any realm. (The listing of all the realms here provides an early justification for taking itthatta as “any realm”, although that word does not appear here.)
- anāparaṁ is explained, “from that there is no other island beyond”, where once again we see the ablative sense. But the meaning is further identified as “best”, so “nothing beyond” means “nothing better”.
The sense “best” might be applicable for nāparaṁ in Snp 5.10:
Vimokkho tassa nāparo
Bodhi: there is no further emancipation for him
But here the Niddesa is interesting. In its gloss it says:
Kataṁ tassa vimokkhena karaṇīyanti
for him through this liberation is done what must be done
This draws in the phrase kataṁ karaṇīyaṁ, which is one of the four phrases in the chief stock idiom. Clearly Niddesa wants us to read nāparaṁ and by extension nāparaṁ itthattāya as having the same sense, i.e. there is nothing further to be done for this life.
Thus the confusion, or perhaps creative ambiguity, between these two senses goes back to the very earliest commentary.
what to do?
Given the variety of interpretations in our oldest sources, it seems acceptable to render in a somewhat vague way to preserve that ambiguity. I think we can use “further” in all these senses for nāparaṁ and anāparaṁ.
Yathāyidaṁ nāparaṁ siyā
so this might occur no further
etaṁ dīpaṁ anāparaṁ
this is the island with nothing further
Vimokkho tassa nāparo
for him there is no liberation that is further
As for our main idiom, I’m wondering if rather than the abstract “this state of being” or “this state of existence” we might be so bold as to render the Pali itthatta, literally “hereness” simply as “place”. It feels quite idiomatic in most contexts.
nāparaṁ itthattāya
there is nothing further for this place
