Thought this deserved a new topic:
My thought precisely, venerable. Sometimes there are precise letter constraints in verse - I’m not knowledgeable of the exact details - but my understanding is that even these can be overridden on occasion. And in a case of such import they surely should and would be. If it were such a heretical error to conceive of nibbāna as a surfaceless consciousness I’d hope & imagine the Buddha would have taken the pain of an errant consonant to clarify beyond doubt that it is not.
Implausible, I’m afraid. It’s obviously about nibbāna, that much the Commentary is certainly right about. If
viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ anantaṃ sabbato pabhaṃ’…sabbassa sabbattena ananubhūtaṃ".
“‘Surfaceless consciousness, endless and radiant all-around’… isn’t partaken of through the Allness of the All.”
MN 49
isn’t enough for you - and I’m assuming that for some reason it isn’t, even though it clarifies that neither manāyatana or viññāṇakkhandha are involved in this experience - then hopefully SN 27 will be:
kuto sarā nivattanti,
kattha vaṭṭaṃ na vattati,
kattha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhatī"ti.From where do the arrows [streams?] turn back?
Where does the cycle not spin?
Where do name and form
Cease without trace?yattha āpo ca pathavī,
tejo vāyo na gādhati,
ato sarā nivattanti,
ettha vaṭṭaṃ na vattati,
ettha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhatī"ti.Where water and earth,
Fire and wind find no footing,
From there the arrows turn back,
There the cycle stops spinning,
There name and form
Cease without trace.
It makes clear that when the Buddha refers to “where water, earth, wind & fire find no footing” he’s talking about nibbāna, not formless concentration.
The “two separate answers” theory was already one of those explanations that require viewing the Buddha as breathtakingly careless in expressing himself, in more ways than one, regarding a matter of utmost importance (the Commentary’s theory - as traditionally interpreted - is likely another, as Ven. Dhammanando has shown, though I’ll come to that). The existence of SN 27 compounds that problem.
Interesting you should say that, venerable. I’ve recently come across the Commentaries doing almost exactly this, but in reverse. It shows that you could actually read the Commentary as supporting the reading of viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ as “surfaceless consciousness,” even - at a stretch - the Sub-Commentary. I’m not naive enough, however, to expect much approval of such a reading, but it still makes an important point. If you’re interested here’s a copy-paste from some research I’m doing:
Firstly, let’s look at Ven. Sāriputta’s analysis of viññāṇaṃ in MN 42:
vijānāti vijānātī’ti kho, āvuso, tasmā viññāṇanti vuccati.
“‘(It) cognises’, friend, thus it’s called consciousness.”The following long compound then appears in MN 102: diṭṭhasutamutaviññātabbasaṅkhāramattena
HoL: “a modicum of fabrication with regard to what is seen, heard, sensed, or cognized” (MLDB essentially the same)
Without us going into detail on the meaning of the compound, the Commentaries give their analysis of the component in question:
A: ettha ca vijānātīti viññātabbaṃ
“Here, viññātabbaṁ means ‘cognises’.”So just this much shows clearly that the A holds it possible for viññātabbaṃ to mean “cognises” and not necessarily “should be cognised”.
Thus,
“viññātabbanti viññāṇaṃ (nibbānassetaṃ nāmaṃ.)”
could very well be identical - in Commentarial Pali - to saying
vijānātī’ti viññāṇaṃ
which is consistent with V. Sāriputta’s analysis of the word.
The t completes this by fully circling back to viññāṇaṃ: consciousness.
t: vijānātīti viññātabba"nti, vijānanaṃ viññāṇanti attho.
" ‘viññātabbaṁ means ‘cognises’.’ The meaning of this is cognisance, i.e. consciousness."And, as many who have formally studied Pali grammar will know, using a -tabbaṁ gerund is in fact one way to form an active noun in a word analysis. Meaning that the Commentary could very well be read as saying “consciousness means cognisance, it is a name for nibbāna.”
So, assuming that it’s possible the t might have misinterpreted the A, it remains a possibility that the A is not in fact suggesting a completely unprecedented use of the word viññāṇaṃ, simply giving a slightly unorthodox analysis of it but still intending it to mean consciousness. This would in fact be the more generous way in which to understand the A’s exegesis, the one that doesn’t paint it as contriving to make the Buddha appear to be saying something he’s obviously not.
At the very least it further confirms how likely it was that the average, even above-average, Pali speaker would have understood the Buddha - and indeed the commentary itself - to mean that nibbāna is a transcendent consciousness, and thus highlights how irresponsible and careless it would have been for the Buddha to choose the term viññāṇaṃ if he had not intended for it to mean what it always means everywhere else in his teaching - consciousness.
