In MN 54 we have a dialogue between the Buddha and the householder Potaliya. Potaliya takes offence when the Buddha addresses him as “householder”, at which the Buddha, reasonably enough, points out that he dresses and looks like a householder. Potaliya responds by making two claims. First, that he has given up working for a living (sabbe kammantā paṭikkhittā), and second, that he has cut off all vohārā (sabbe vohārā samucchinnā). As usual in these essays, I will leave the term in question untranslated for now.
The Buddha asks him what he means by this. Then, passing over the first comment, he takes up the second and subjects it to a lengthy rebuttal. This consists essentially of two presentations. The first gives and ethical interpretation of cutting off vohārā, which consists of fairly regular teachings for lay people, although the phrasing is unique. This section is presented in brief and in detail. The second section presents teachings more normally associated with renunciants—the dangers of sensual pleasures, jhanas, and awakening.
Here the Buddha is, as so often, taking a normal term and extending it with a spiritual meaning. It seems reasonable to suppose that the first section, intended as a direct teaching to Potaliya, remains closer to the basic meaning of the word, while the second section, whose purpose seems to be to humble Potaliya and give him faith in the Saṅgha, presents more stereotypical teachings, less closely connected with the basic metaphor.
Now, the Pali term vohārā corresponds to two distinct Sanskrit terms, with somewhat overlapping meanings. Normally in Pali vohārā means “communication”, corresponding to Sanskrit vyāhāra. Occasionally, however, we find it in the sense of “trade, business, legal proceedings, affairs” where it corresponds with the Sanskrit vyavahāra.
Ven Bodhi translates vohārā here as “affairs”, which is certainly preferable to Horner’s “avocations”. The Chinese parallel at MA 203 has 俗事, which has a similar meaning. As pointed out by Analayo in his Comparative Studies (vol 1, p 314, note 25), this harks back to vyavahāra, as opposed to vyāhāra.
Nevertheless, I am still not entirely convinced. The first problem is that vohārā in the sense of “communications” is very well established in early Pali, while the sense of “affairs” is not. In fact I am only aware of a couple of passages where it corresponds to vyavahāra in the sense of “trade”, and a couple where it means “judge”.
The second problem is that this reading is not clearly supported by the commentary. The commentary says there are four senses of vohārā, which it defines as follows:
- byavahāravohāro: trade
- paṇṇattivohāro: designation
- vacanavohāro: speech
- cetanāvohāro: intention (with reference to AN 8.67, AN 8.68, where, however, “expression” is better, but the idea is that it deals with the intention underlying speech.)
This shows that the commentary was well aware of the different senses in Sanskrit. However, the commentary continues by explaining that all four senses are relevant here, which does not help all that much. In any case, it is not clear that the sense “affairs” is really covered here. Remember, Potaliya has already stated that he has given up working for a living, so it is superfluous to have the meaning “trade”.
Finally, the meaning “affairs” has only a loose connection with the themes of the sutta. Sure, you can take the Dhamma teachings as referring to cutting off affairs, but it is pretty slim. If this really was the point, why not mention, say, the opening of the gradual training, which does in fact speak of the cutting off of affairs, leaving behind family, wealth, and so on?
Let’s look a little more closely at what the text actually says.
When describing how he has refused to work and cut off vohārā, Potaliya says:
Idha me, bho gotama, yaṃ ahosi dhanaṃ vā dhaññaṃ vā rajataṃ vā jātarūpaṃ vā sabbaṃ taṃ puttānaṃ dāyajjaṃ niyyātaṃ, tatthāhaṃ anovādī anupavādī ghāsacchādanaparamo viharāmi.
Master Gotama, all the money, grain, gold, and silver I used to have has been handed over to my children as their inheritance. And in this matter I do not advise or reprimand them, but live provided with food and clothes at best.
The interesting part here is the bit about “not advising or reprimanding” (anovādī anupavādī). Evidently Potaliya, as a wealthy patrician used to telling everyone what to do, is very pleased with himself for not bossing around his children, even though, as he acknowledges himself, the money is theirs now, not his. And it is this aspect that is picked up in the Buddha’s response.
As mentioned above, the Buddha’s initial response is to mention some fairly typical qualities, in fact a list of eight things. These begin with ethical practices (killing, stealing, lying, or divisive speech), then psychological qualities (greed, abuse, anger, arrogance), each of which is to be overcome by its opposite. While the things themselves are standard, the selection of these eight is not, and is clearly a personal teaching for Potaliya. It is not clear, however, in what sense this constitutes a “cutting off of affairs”. Again, sure, we can stretch the metaphor to cover this, but it has pretty much lost all meaning.
After presenting these in brief, the Buddha goes on to analyze them in detail, and here he presents how a noble disciple would reflect on the fact that if they were to indulge in these bad practices, it would have these results:
- They’d reprimand themselves
- Wise people would criticize them
- After death they go to a bad destiny.
- The things are intrinsically bad.
Now, in the first case, the text reads attāpi maṃ upavadeyya “I would reprimand myself”. The term here is identical with that used above, when Potaliya says he does not “reprimand” his children. The next line uses the word garahati, which has a similar meaning, but tends to be used in a more positive sense, i.e. justified criticism.
Maybe this is just a coincidence. But given that the thematic connections within the text are tenuous, surely we should not ignore the explicit linguistic links that the text offers us.
I mentioned in passing earlier that one of the sense of vohāra is “judge”. The Sanskrit form is in fact a regular legal term. We find vohārika used in the specific sense of judge in Pārājika 2, where the Buddha seeks legal advice from a former judge. It also appears in this sense at Snp 2.2, which refers to a corrupt judge. So at least this sense is better attested in the EBTs than “affairs”. Of course, if this was to apply in our current text it would not be in a strictly legal sense, just the ordinary arrogance of a rich patrician who believes he knows best for everyone else.
This detail is of considerable psychological interest. One of the hypotheses of some schools of psychology is that an important source of moral sensitivity—whether sage reflection or obsessive guilt—is internalized admonitions, especially from the father, received as a child. And here we have an explicit example where such “judgments” are described with the same word, whether they are one’s own inner voice of guilt and self-doubt, or the admonitions expressed by the father.
If we are right in connecting this sense of “reprimanding” (upavadati) with the use of vohāra as the overarching theme of the text, the point is not about cutting off “affairs” in the sense of ending involvement with worldly activities, but the cutting off of “judgments”, since one is no longer doing anything that might incur blame.
And this is the difference between the two levels of cutting off described in the text. The basic level—the eight things—avoids blameworthy behavior, but the higher level—arahantship—ends forever the possibility of doing anything that might be blameworthy.