I truly believe that Buddha couldn’t have change from being humble to later giving discourse to monks about Jain views. believe in the Buddha in suttanipata. My intuition tells me trust the Buddha in Suttanipata although so many teachings in the other Nikāyas.
Example, which suttas? What does this mean? Humble doesn’t mean can’t declare some views as wrong views.
Actually, I hardly see humbleness in the Buddha who from the start roared the lion’s roar that he is the awakened one, the highest in the world, the best in the world, and see no grounds for criticism to him by anyone. It took some time for me after reading enough to be able to take his claim seriously.
Yes sir what you said feels actually more correct!Buddha actually roared lions roar, even if it looks humbleness from surface it actually may not be the case!
In suttanipata we see him saying “abandoning all Judgements” and prefering non-dispute.
And in Anguttara Nikaya 10.78 which is probably a later suttas he says,
Mendicants, Jain ascetics have ten bad qualities.
Although found in chinese also it doesn’t give it validation. We should know better that it is a later work. The only discourse that mentions about a creator being. That’s enough to understand it as later work. In the beginning Buddha doesn’t even go against people calling him Brahma. So humble he was.
Reading only a single ebt in isolation from the others is a serious mistake in interpretation.
Even the earliest commentary is for suttanipata
In MAHĀVIYŪHA SUTTA we find
For they each say the other’s teaching is inferior,
while firmly advocating their own.
Excerpt From
The Suttanipata
Bodhi
This material may be protected by copyright.
Therefore he has overcome disputes,
since he does not regard another teaching as supreme.
Excerpt From
The Suttanipata
Bodhi
This material may be protected by copyright.
You truly believe that the Buddha from outside the Sutta Nipata is not the real Buddha. This is a belief. A belief that you are ready to advocate on a Buddhist forum against people who do not share your views, which does not exactly sound like “overcoming disputes” to my ear.
To me, this is a serious contradiction to what the Lord Buddha actually teaches in these Sutta Nipata talks. You may or may not be correct but if you take the Sutta Nipata teachings to heart, posts like this one are superfluous at best.
Well Bhante Sujato mentions still that Anguttara Nikāya came later. So still the topic should be that why still believe in the Jain sutta being so early to be on suttacentral? Bhante @sujato
Sounds like what I heard from Christians. To be honest. Because they insist you need to go back in old testament etc
He has overcome disputes since his teaching is supreme. Not because he backs away from them.
Thannisaro addresses this specific issue frequently. The Buddha calls out the Jains because they advocate for self harm, and the Ajivaka because they indirectly supported harming others through the doctrine of amoralism. Why wouldn’t he point out that it is wrong to harm yourself or others, and address those who say otherwise?
he does not grasp anything here as supreme.
Excerpt From
The Suttanipata
Bodhi
This material may be protected by copyright.
It’s a basic rule of Hermeneutics actually. Contextuality, that is, understanding the broader context of a specific passage or text, is very important in understanding what a text is saying.
Ok. But we have to agree that certain text are later inventions. And don’t forget what Buddha said in Kalamas Sutta.
Yes but there’s no solid evidence that Nikayas are all later than the versified texts.
I’m interested that they analyze the words so they identify later or earlier suttas
Example of the Buddha not conforming to the traditional notion of “humbleness” we have.
Also, there’s plenty of instance in the canon and tradition where the Buddha laid down rules and other advices for others, but he himself is above the rules.
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Public display of psychic powers (he displayed the twin miracles), but he made a rule for monks not to display it to lay people.
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When the drunken elephant goes towards him, he asked his disciples to move aside as nothing can kill a Buddha.
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One of the 5 heavy evil kammas is wounding Buddha with a evil mind, whereas wounding arahants is not sufficient to count as the 5 heavy evil kammas.
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The Buddha at one point no longer conduct the uposatha and recite the Pātimokkha SuttaCentral
The Buddha also scolds people when he sees fit. He scolded his misbehaved monks quite a lot of times. As long as the words helps the listener, whether it’s pleasant to hear or not is secondary importance.
Example of another of the 6 heretical teachers critiqued by the Buddha. Makkhali Gosala.
It might be good to read the whole of the suttas without having prior bias of what you want the Buddha to be, but see if the whole picture is consistent.
In making conclusions, I would suggest looking deeply at the ways we know things. We can know things by reasoning, faith, intuition, feeling etc. None of which is superior to the other. In modern times, we hold reasoning in high regard, but it’s just as liable to be wrong as the rest. So there’s nothing wrong with using intuition to interpret the suttas. But like all the other ways of knowing, it is only as strong as the mind producing it.
So if you just came out of a deep Jhana state, and saw clearly that the Buddha’s humility is absolutely at odds with his criticism of the Jains, then it’s worth investigating. But if the intuition came in an ordinary state of mind, or after a mundanely peaceful meditation; how would you know if you can trust it? I don’t know about you, but to me it seems far safer to not close any doors unless you can be absolutely sure you’re correct.
It’s not that simple. The Anguttara was clearly compiled over the same period as the rest of the EBTs, and any doctrinal differences between them are slight at best. There are a few indications that certain portions of the Anguttara were somewhat later than the bulk of the EBTs. But this is a tricky problem, because the chronological problem of dating overlaps with non-chronological issues, for example, social strata. The Anguttara has more emphasis on the lay community; does that mean that it represents a later period, when Buddhism became more of a popular religion? Or does it simply mean it had a different focus? It’s complicated.
The Sutta Nipata, likewise, has early and later portions, and the late portions are probably as late as any of the EBTs.
Within purely the early portions of the Atthakavagga, I don’t really think there’s a lot of solace for the idea that he didn’t criticize other religions. On the contrary, while it’s true that he doesn’t address specific religions by name, or address the doctrinal issues, he is pretty scathing about the practices and assumptions of sectarians.
Did the Ven notice that both sutta you provided is from AN same as the Jain sutta? Can you respond the same using other Nikāyas?