The Ambāṣṭha Sutra (DĀ 20 and DN 3): Chiastic Story-Telling and the Parables of the Gradual Path

Essays
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This week I’m in editing mode, working on releases of three more DĀ sutras, the largest of which is DĀ 20, the Ambāṣṭha Sutra. As I compare it to the Pali parallel, I’ve noticed a couple issues that I thought I’d stop and write about. The first is the story of Ambāṣṭha and Puṣkarasārin’s encounter with the Buddha, and the second is the presentation of the gradual path found in DĀ 20.

A Chiastic Story: Ambāṣṭha and the Buddha

Briefly for those who may be unfamiliar with the concept, a chiasm is a type of parallelism found in many ancient stories which creates a satisfying conclusion that harkens back to the opening events. Chiastic stories can happen naturally as an author resolves early conflicts, but ancient authors also sometimes constructed long and complex chiastic story structures. These structures have been found to exist in Biblical tales and many Buddhist stories. (See for instance some of the papers by Dr. Matt Orsborn who has studied Buddhist chiasms in early Mahayana texts.)

A simple chiastic story will usually have a central climax which serves as a pivot for the events leading up to it and then descending down to its conclusion. Usually, the parallelisms are strongest for the initial and concluding events of a story. A chiastic story can be diagrammed like this:

Node Description
A Hero departs to defeat a growing threat
B Hero encounters a helper who gives him an item
C Hero encounters a villain and is stymied
D Hero makes his way to the villain’s lair
X Hero defeats the villain
'D Hero leaves the villains lair
'C Hero is celebrated as the kingdom’s savior
'B Hero repays the helper for their kindness
'A Hero returns home and all is well

The parallelisms often involve the same characters, places, or similar events, but also represent opposites or ironies when compared to each other. The result is a story that’s easier to remember for oral reciters and which achieves a satisfying conclusion as loose strings from the beginning are tied up one by one at the end in reverse order.

When I look at DĀ 20 (which has a few more dramatic details and slightly different arrangement as DN 3), I can detect this type of story structure, which places the gradual path in the middle as a large climax.

It goes like this:

Node Description
A Puṣkarasārin sends Ambāṣṭha to Investigate the Buddha
B Ambāṣṭha Behaves Badly
C The Buddha Humbles Ambāṣṭha
D The Buddha Explains the Superiority of the Warriors
X The Gradual Path (Leaving home up to the eight knowledges)
'D Ambāṣṭha Sees the Buddha’s Signs and Returns (Gets Kicked by Puṣkarasārin: ‘We’re going to Hell because of you!’)
'C Puṣkarasārin Sees the Buddha for Himself and Converts
'B Puṣkarasārin and Ambāṣṭha Ask For Forgiveness
'A Puṣkarasārin Attains Stream-Entry

If I break up the gradual path into its sections and include it, we end up with the five excellent attainments (the first five of the eight knowledges) as the pivot point. Interestingly, it adds an equal number of nodes to the first and second halves of the chiasm if I separate Ambāṣṭha seeing the Buddha’s signs from his return to his teacher.

Node Description
A Puṣkarasārin sends Ambāṣṭha to Investigate the Buddha
B Ambāṣṭha Behaves Badly
C The Buddha Humbles Ambāṣṭha
D The Buddha Explains the Superiority of the Warriors (ksatriya)
E Leaving Home and Practicing Precepts
F Criticism of Other Ascetics and Priests
G The Noble Precepts and Faculties
H The Four Dhyānas
X The Five Excellent Attainments
'H The Three Vidyas
'G Four Superficial Methods (of Priests)
'F Ancient Priests
'E Ambāṣṭha Sees the Hidden Signs
'D Ambāṣṭha Returns and Gets Kicked by Puṣkarasārin (‘We’re going to Hell because of you!’)
'C Puṣkarasārin Sees the Buddha’s Signs for Himself and Converts
'B Puṣkarasārin and Ambāṣṭha Ask For Forgiveness
'A Puṣkarasārin Attains Stream-Entry

It’s more forced when I break it down into this many nodes, but there’s a clear parallelism between the events of Ambāṣṭha’s encounter with the Buddha and the conclusion with Puṣkarasārin’s rejection of his behavior and conversion to the Buddha’s teaching.

The Gradual Path and the Parables of the Four Dhyānas

Another aspect of DĀ 20 that’s interesting is its inclusion of the gradual path. This is because it seems that DN 3 and DĀ 20 are that texts in common between DĀ and DN that include it. It’s abbreviated out of the DN 3 as a repetition of DN 2, but DĀ’s parallel to DN 2 (DĀ 27) lacks the gradual path.

Instead, it’s DĀ 20 and DĀ 21 (Brahmajāla sutra) that include a partial overlap of the gradual path (mainly the criticisms of the ascetics and priests), which is likely why they occur next to each other in the Dīrgha Āgama (and why DN 3 follows DN 2 in the Dīgha Nikāya). The implication may be that it’s actually DN 3/DĀ 20 that originally included the gradual path and that it was copied into DN 2 and DĀ 21 later. It would be interesting to know whether the Sarvâstivāda’s version of DN 3/DĀ 20 also contains the gradual path. If so, we might conclude that the Ambāṣṭha Sutra is where it first appeared in Buddhist canons (or at least the different Dīrgha/Dīgha collections). [Edit: There is another Chinese translation of DN 2/DĀ 27, Taisho 22, which includes the gradual path like DN 2.]

Which brings me to the controversial (in modern times) parables associated with the four jhānas/dhyānas. One of the unique features of the gradual path as its found in DN and DĀ is it’s extensive use of parables and metaphors to illustrate various attainments and insights. The four dhyānas are only one example of this.

Something I can’t help but notice is that in some cases, a series of metaphors will be listed for some items, like those describing the miraculous powers or the mind-made body insight. This a feature of later literary Buddhist texts like the Mahayana Nirvana Sutra and Avataṃsaka Sutra in which creative writers indulge in collecting together poetic expressions of the same philosophical point (though on much grander scales).

This makes the entire passage seem like a late literary work to me, or perhaps an old passage that has been ornamented by the addition of these concrete metaphors. In either case, it suggests to me that the parables of the four dhyānas are later metaphors for ecstatic experiences that may have little to do with the original intent of the dhyānas. It may be these parables first appeared in this text and were later copied into other texts to embellish the dhyānas elsewhere.

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A correction to this essay from back in 2021:

Recently, I was editing the synopses of the Dīrgha Āgama sūtras, and I noticed a detail that had somehow slipped by me back when I translated DĀ 27 (the Fruits of the Ascetic): The gradual path is included, but it has been abbreviated away. It was apparently abbreviated out of texts that repeated the gradual path after its first occurrence in both collections. DĀ 20 Ambāṣṭha was the first sūtra in DĀ that contained the entire gradual path.

The close parallel between DN and DĀ is shown in this small example. The difference in which sūtra abbreviated the gradual path was probably the result of how these two collections were reorganized at a later date.

That said, the gradual path is not included in EĀ 43.7 where the parallel passage only mentions ending the contaminants and becoming liberated after practicing as mendicants. This still serves as evidence that the gradual path has been inserted as an detailed expansion of the process between keeping the precepts and liberation.

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I think it cetrainly serves as evidence that it may have been appended to DN2, but the issue is not so much that it is attached to any given frame, but that every frame through the whole silakhandhavagga is attached to it.

So for another example, the content of the brahmajala is, like the samanaphala, more or less unrelated to the sila that makes up the parralel passage occuring in all subsequent chapters of the silakhandhavagga, but when we look at the suttas that the silakhandhavagga in DN has in parallel with DA it is clear that all ten do in fact aggregate around the sila-patipada text.

This text therefore is more likely to pre-date any individual frame story that contains it.

The sila-jhana-patipada is the thing that the reciters of the long collection where repeating in presectarian times, the frame stories count as buddhism because they where concidered important enough to attach to the core chant.

The core chant was the buddhist creed par excellence for the long reciters.

Sure there is embroidery, and theres a good chance the metaphors are an example of this since they dont seem to recur, but every other part of the text recurs throughout the middle collection, and more or less every individual part of it is repeated in S and E.

Anyway, love your work @cdpatton ! I basically would not be in a position to hold any of my controversial opinions without you and @sujato :slight_smile:

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Thanks for re-upping, I missed this when you first posted.

The chiastic analysis is really interesting. As others, eg. Maurice Walshe, have noted, there are more than a few ways the suttas of DN pre-empt the complex literary structures of Mahayana sutras.

The Ambāṣṭha Sutra, even though it was less prominent in later days, plays such a crucial role in the whole Digha that i would not be surprised if it were the original starting point. I’ve discussed many of the details in my comments, but basically the conversion of Pokkharasati was a seismic event that reverberated through many of the subsequent texts of the Digha.

Now, the Theravada says the Brahmajala was the first recited at the First Council, and it’s notable that it is also cited in the commentarial story of the Third Council. I think it was placed first then, to emphasis the importance of doctrinal purity when purging the Sangha. The Sāmaññaphala is obviously another important text, but the proliferation of versions with and without the gradual training suggests that it did not have an early fixed placement. In fact both of these could work as narratives without the gradual training at all.

Leaving these aside, the Ambāṣṭha is the first of the collection. And it leaves us closer to the expected ten suttas in the vagga. So yeah, I think there’s a good case to be made that this is the original context for the extended version of the Gradual Training.

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It’s interesting though that none of them actually ordain in DN do they? all the actual occurrences of pabbajjaṃ are of wanderers of other sects (like DN8 and DN9) until MN7 when sundarikabhāradvājo ordains.

All the Brahmins in DN become lay followers and patrons, not monastics.
In fact apart from DN9, almost every occurrence of pabbajjaṃ is in the trope of the four month probation period for conversions of from other sects.

At both MN81 and DN14 the conversions by non wanderers are to previous Buddhas.

I guess MN82 is one example, assuming Raṭṭhapāla is a Brahmoin but it is sort of the exception that proves the rule, because it is precicely about how hard it is to get Brahmin parents to permit Brahmin youths to ordain.

Then I suppose MN86, but Aṅgulimāla is not a Brahmin, but I guess he isn’t a wanderer either.

I guess Sela makes up for it in MN92, the only other case in MN where a Brahmin actually ordains, when he and 300 other Brahmins ordain, in verse!

So I guess in the whole of DN and MN, only sundarikabhāradvājo, sela, and the 300 nameless followers of sela actually ordain into Buddhism from Brahminism.

Whereas we frequently see wandereres convert, and Brahmins become lay follower-patrons.

Not sure what all this has to do with things, but the thought occured to me so I thought I would put it out there.

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No you’re right, it’s not so much for the Sangha, but it must have been a reputation thing. It seems to me to represent a key moment when Buddhism became a or even the philosophy of note, overcoming the old divide between samanas and brahmins by enlisting the brahmins on “our” side.

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