Introduction to the Sâmañña-phala Sutta
Reading tools
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
SÂMAÑÑA-PHALA SUTTA.
THE first Dialogue deals with the most fundamental conceptions that lay at the root of the Buddha's doctrine, his Dharma, his ethical and philosophical view of life--the second puts forth his justification for the foundation of the Order, for the enunciation of the Vinaya, the practical rules of canon law by which life in the Order is regulated. The Rules themselves are not discussed. It is only certain ethical precepts that are referred to in so many words. The question is a larger and wider one than the desirability of any particular injunction. It is as to the advantage, as to the use, of having any Order at all.
King Agâtasattu of Magadha, after pointing out the advantages derived from their occupations by a long list of ordinary people in the world, asks whether the members of the Order, who have given up the world, derive any corresponding advantage, visible in this life, from theirs. The answer is a list of such advantages, arranged in an ascending scale of importance, each one mentioned being said to be better and sweeter than the one just before described.
The list of ordinary occupations given in the question is interesting evidence, especially as compared with the later lists of a similar kind referred to in the notes, of social conditions in the Ganges valley at the time when this Dialogue was composed. And the introductory story, in which the king explains how he had put a similar question to the founders of six other orders, and gives the six replies he received, is interesting evidence of the views held by the authors of the Dialogue as to beliefs current at the time.
The replies are no less interesting from the fact, pointed out by the king, that they are not to the point. Each of the six teachers goes off into a general statement of his theory instead of answering the question put. But as the works, if any, of all these teachers save one--Nigantha Nâta-putta--have been irretrievably lost, the summary here given of their doctrines is of great importance as evidence of the sort of
speculation they favoured. The six paragraphs are short and obscure, and this is just what we should expect. As is the case with the accounts given by early Catholic writers of opinions they held to be heretical, the versions of these six sets of belief are neither adequate nor clear. But a number of other references to these six theories are found, as pointed out in the notes, both in the Buddhist and in the Gain records. And it would be premature to discuss our six paragraphs until the whole of the available evidence is made accessible to scholars. It is noteworthy that in at least two of these answers some of the expressions used seem to be in a Prâkrit differing in dialect from the Pâli of the Pitakas. And these are not the only instances of the preservation in the Pitakas of ancient dialectical varieties.
The answer which the Buddha is represented to have given, in his turn, to the question raised by the king, takes (as is so often the case) the form of a counter-question. 'The very man whom, under ordinary circumstances, you would treat as slave or servant--what treatment would you mete out to him after he had joined an Order?' The king confesses that he would treat him as a person worthy of honour and respect. And neither in question nor answer is there any reference specially to the Buddhist Order. It is taken for granted, alike by the Buddha and the king, that any one who had devoted himself to the religious life, whatever the views or opinions he held, or the association he had joined, would, in accordance with the remarkable tolerance of that age and country, be treated with equal respect and courtesy. And the same note runs all through the Dialogue. The Buddha shows the advantages of the 'life of a recluse,' not necessarily of a follower of his own. And most of what he says would apply as much to his strongest opponents as to the members of his own Order.
The following, in a constantly ascending order of merit, are the advantages, visible in this life, which he claims for such a recluse:--
1. The honour and respect shown to a member of a religious order.
2. The training in all those lower kinds of mere morality set out in the very ancient document called 'The Sîlas.' The importance of this document has been discussed above, in the Introduction to the Brahma-gâla. The details of it may be summarised here as follows:--
| a. | Mercy and kindness to all living things; § 43{1}. |
{1. Details a-d (though the fact is not referred to here) are the opposites of the three bad acts of the body, and the four bad acts of speech, kâya- and vakî-dukkaritâni, so often referred to in the Suttas, and in the Abhidhamma. The three others (of the mind), making up the ten given in my manual, p. 142, are omitted here because they belong to the higher morality.}
| b. | Honesty. |
| c. | Chastity. |
| d. | Truthfulness, peacefulness, courtesy, and good sense in speech; § 44. |
| e. | Abstinence from luxury of twelve different kinds, and freedom from trickery and violence; § 45. |
| f. | Not injuring plants; § 46. |
| g. | Not laying up treasure, of seven kinds; § 47. |
| h. | Not frequenting shows, of twenty-six specified kinds; § 48. |
| i. | Not playing games, eighteen being mentioned by name; § 49. |
| j. | Not using luxurious rugs, &c., of twenty different kinds; § 50. |
| k. | Not using toilet luxuries, of which twenty-two are specified;§51. |
| l. | Not talking vain things, of which twenty-seven instances are given; § 52. |
| m. | Not using sophistical and rude phrases when talking of higher things; § 53. |
| n. | Not acting as go-between; § 54. |
| o. | Not practising trickery and mystery under the guise. of religion; § 55. |
| p. | Not gaining a living by low arts, such as auguries (§ 56); advising as to the best sorts of various things (§ 57); prophesying as to war and its results (§ 58); astrology (§ 59); foretelling famine or plague or the reverse (§ 60); arranging marriages, using spells, or worshipping gods (§ 61); various sorts of medical trickery (§ 62). |
3. The confidence of heart, absence of fear, resulting from the consciousness of right doing; § 63.
4. The habit of keeping guarded the door of his senses; § 64.
5. The constant self-possession he thus gains; § 65.
6. The power of being content with little, with simplicity of life; § 66.
7. The emancipation of heart from the Five Hindrances to self-mastery--covetousness, ill-temper, laziness, worry and flurry, and perplexity; §§ 68-74.
8. The joy and peace that, as a result of the sense of this emancipation, fills his whole being; § 75.
9. The practice of the Four Ghânas; §§ 75-82{1}.
10. The Insight arising from knowledge (ñâna-dassana); §§ 83, 84.
11. The power of projecting mental images; §§ 85, 86.
12. The five modes of mystic Insight (abhiññâ); §§ 87-96--
| a. | The practice of Iddhi. |
| b. | The Heavenly Ear-hearing heavenly sounds. |
| c. | Knowledge of others' thoughts. |
| d. | Memory of his own previous births. |
| e. | Knowledge of other people's previous births (the Heavenly Eye). |
13. The realisation of the Four Truths, the destruction of the Âsavas, and attainment of Arahatship; §§ 97, 98.
Now it is perfectly true that of these thirteen consecutive propositions, or groups of propositions, it is only the last, No. 13, which is exclusively Buddhist. But the things omitted, the union of the whole of those included into one system, the order in which the ideas are arranged, the way in which they are treated as so many steps of a ladder whose chief value depends on the fact that it leads up to the culminating point of Nirvâna in Arahatship--all this is also distinctively Buddhist. And further, the whole statement, the details of it, the order of it, must have soaked very thoroughly into the minds of the early Buddhists. For we find the whole, or nearly the whole, of it repeated (with direct reference by name to our Sutta as the oldest and most complete enumeration of it) not only in all the subsequent dialogues translated in this volume, but also in many others.
In these repetitions the order is always the same, and the details (so far as they occur) are the same. Kut one or other of the thirteen groups is often omitted, and the application of those of them that remain is always different--that is to say, they are enumerated in support, or in illustration; of a different proposition.
A comparison of some of these other applications of the list is full of suggestion as to its real meaning here.
In the Ambattha the point is as to caste. The Kshatriya caste is the most honourable, but wisdom and conduct are higher still. What then is the right conduct, what the right
{1. Buddhaghosa (p. 219) says that though the Four Arûpa Vimokkhas are not explicitly mentioned they are to be understood (thus making up the Eight Samâpattis). This may be so: but it looks like a later writer reading his own opinion into the older text. They are put into the text at Potthapada, pp. 183, 184, and it is difficult to see why they should not have been also inserted here, if they were really implied.}
wisdom? The conduct (karana) is all the above paragraphs from 2-9 inclusive; the wisdom (viggâ) is the rest, 10-13{1}.
In the Sonadanda the question is: 'What is the true Brahman?' After, by his usual Socratic method, leading Sonadanda to acknowledge that the only two essential requisites are goodness and intelligence, these last are explained as above (2-9 and 10-13).
In the Kûtadanta the question is as to the right sort of sacrifice. After rejecting animal sacrifice we have generosity (of various kinds, each better than the last), faith, training in the precepts, and 2-13, set forth as each of them abetter sacrifice than the last.
In the Gâliya the question is whether the soul is the same as, or is other than, the body. The answer is a counter-question. Repeating our sections 2-13 (omitting 11 and 12) the Buddha asks, at the end of each subdivision, whether men who do that would be likely to trouble themselves as to speculations about the soul? And the answer being, of course, 'No,' rejoins that neither does he.
In the Potthapâda the question is as to the way in which various recluses attain to mystic trance. The Buddha's answer is that it is by training; and the training should be first in morals (our groups 2 and 3) then in the things mentioned in our groups 4-9, and then in the Four Arûpa Vimokkhas. The Dialogue then takes up other questions, omitting our groups 10-13.
In the Kevaddha the talk is on miracles, mystic powers. And the Buddha, disparaging all others, calls attention to our groups 2-13.
In the Lohikka the question is as to who is the right sort of teacher; and the answer is that it is the one whose pupil carries out our groups 2-13.
In the Tevigga the question is as to the way by which one can attain to union with God (Brahmâ-sahavyatâ). The answer gives our groups 1-8, and then adds the Four Brahma-vihâras.
In the shorter of the two Hatthipadopama Suttas
{1. Possibly Nos. 11 and 12 are meant, both here and in all the other Suttas, to be omitted. The wording is ambiguous. Buddhaghosa, who talks here (see p. 268) of Nos. 10-13 as the Eightfold paññâ, apparently means to include them (he could not otherwise get eight). But the argument of the Mahâli seems to exclude them. The texts always jump from the last words of 10 to the last words of 13. Now as in the Mahâli No. 12 is excluded, it is clear that at least there only Nos. 10 and 13 are meant. And there is no difference between tile phraseology in the Mahâli and that used in the other Suttas.}
(No. 27 in the Magghima), the question discussed between a Brahman and an ascetic is as to the ascendancy of the Buddha over the other teachers of the time. The Buddha himself giving afterwards the full reason, repeats our group 2 (omitting however clauses f to p inclusive{1}), then repeats our groups 6, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, then omitting groups 1O and 11, quotes two only, the last two (omitting the first three){2} of the five Abhiññâs in group 12, and concludes with group 13 in full.
In the Mahâ Tanhâ-sankhaya Sutta (No. 38 in the Magghima), we have the same sequence--our group 2 (omitting f to p), then 6, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. The rest is omitted.
In the next Sutta, the longer of the Assapuras, after a summary in different words of most of the contents of our group 2, we have our group 4, then two paragraphs not in our Sutta, then our groups 5, 7, 8, 9, and the last two only out of group 12, and then (as a climax) our group 13--all enumerated to show what is the true Brahman, the true samana.
Then again in the Sakuludâyi, No. 79 of the Magghima, it is declared to be not for the sake of realising happiness that recluses take up the celibate life in the Order under the Buddha; but for the sake of those matters set forth in our groups 2-9 inclusive 3, of the two last of the Abhiññâs, and above all for the sake of the attainment of Arahatship.
Besides the differences pointed out above between the Suttas preserved in the Digha, and in the Magghima, respectively--differences due, I think, solely to the difference in the subjects under discussion--there are also a few verbal differences, amounting to scarcely more than 'various readings,' due, perhaps, to the divergent traditions of the Digha-bhânakâ and the Magghima-bhânakâ (the students and repeaters of the two collections in which the Dialogues are handed down to us).
However this may be, it is clear that the sum and the sequence of the paragraphs in our Sutta is regarded as of
{1. From which we may infer that, as respects those matters, he saw no difference between himself and the other teachers.
2. So that the power of Iddhi, of hearing heavenly sounds, and of knowing other people's thoughts, are apparently supposed to be common ground between the Buddhists and the other sects. They are included in our Sutta because they are supposed to be part of the advantage of life in an Order--in any Order, that is, not only the Buddhist.
3. Magghima II, 37, 38. Perhaps the pe is meant to be supplied from the twenty-seventh Sutta just quoted--the difference, however, as we have seen, is not of great importance.}
great importance, not as a statement of Buddliist ethics, or of Buddhist philosophy, or of the Buddhist religion, but as a statement of the advantages that may be looked for as the result of life in an Order. And further that the statement has to be slightly modified and shortened when the question is the narrower one of life in the particular community which we call the Buddhist Order.
The difference is interesting--in the scheme for the Buddhist Order the ñâna-dassana, the power of projecting a mental image (apparently of oneself, which seems like the earliest germ of the modern Yoga ideas about the astral body), the powers of Iddhi, the power of hearing heavenly sounds (something like hearing the music of the spheres), and the power of knowing the thoughts of others, are all omitted.
In the abstract given above, I have called these last three, together with the power of calling to mind one's own, and other peoples', previous births, the Five Abhiññâs, or Intuitions. And this is in accord with the passages on which Childers's article sub voce is based. But these powers are not so called either in our text, or in any other Dialogue yet published. The use of the word abhiññâ in this technical sense would seem therefore (to judge from the published texts) to be a sign of the later date of the book in which it occurs{1}. In the oldest portions of the Pitakas the word is always used in the general sense of insight, and if any special limitation is hinted at, it is simply the insight of Arahatship that is emphasised (as in Dhammapada 423, which is a quotation from Iti-Vuttaka, No. 99, and is quoted also at Anguttara I, 165){2}.
The Eightfold Path is not mentioned in our Sutta. This is not merely because it is not possible always to mention
{1. The oldest case of the technical use of the word, so far as I know. is in the introductory story of the Mahâ Vibhanga on the fourth Pârâgika (Vin. III, 87). This is later than the Old Commentary on the Pâtimokkha, from which it incorporates many passages, and this again is later, of course, than the Pâtimokkha itself.
Neither the Five nor the Six Abhiññâs are given as groups among the groups of Fives and Sixes in the Anguttara. The word Abhiññâ is used in the divisions containing the Fives and Sixes exclusively in its ordinary sense (III, 277, 451; comp. IV, 348). And this is the more instructive as what were afterwards called the Six Abhiññâs are actually given in full (IV, 17-19, §§ 6-11) in the same words as in the Âkankheyya Sutta. (No. 6 of the Magghima, translated in my 'Buddhist Suttas'), and very nearly as in our Sutta, here under discussion. But they are not called Abhiññâs.
2. Compare also A. I, 100; II, 249; III, 3, 9, 277.}
everything. The Path does not come within the special advantages of life in the Order. To enter upon the Path to Arahatship, to walk along it, is not peculiar to members of the Order. A bhikshu might reach the goal either along that path, open also to laymen{1}, or by the process set out in our Sutta. They are two quite distinct methods of training, of which our Sutta deals only with one
It is essential, in order to understand Buddhist ethics, to bear in mind that there are (and must be in such a system) several different lines along which both speculation and edifying teaching run. These are:
1. The course of conduct laid down for the ordinary Buddhist layman, contained in the Gahapati-vaggas found in the various nikâyas{2}.
2. The rules as to the outward conduct of the members of the Order, laid down in the Pâtimokkha and in the Khandhakas{3}.
3. The system of self-training in higher things prescribed for members of the Order. Of this our present Sutta is a striking example.
4. The method of self-training laid down for those who have entered upon the Path to Arahatship. (The Four Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Âsavas.)
In the first of these Buddhism goes very little beyond the current ethics of the day. In the second a very great deal has been simply incorporated from the rules found expedient by previous recluses, both Brahman and non-Brahman, though there are numerous differences, both of the positive regulations included, and also of things deliberately omitted. Even the third, as we have seen, cannot be considered, except in a very limited sense, as exclusively Buddhist. It is in the fourth that the essential doctrines of Buddhism are to be found. All four have, no doubt, become welded together into a more or less consistent whole. But to understand the whole, the relation of its various parts has to be kept constantly in view.
This will explain an apparent contradiction. The last Sutta quoted, the Sakuludâyi, states that the aim of the religious or celibate life as led in the Buddha's Order, is the attainment, in order, of the various things set out in our Sutta (groups 2-9, 12 and 13).
{1. For a list of twenty-one laymen Arahats see A. III, 451; and there are other instances recorded.
2. A good summary of this is in the Sigâlovada Sutta, an abstract of which is given in my Manual, pp. 143 foll.
3. Translated in 'Vinaya Texts' (S. B. E.).}
Now in other passages other things are stated to be the aim.
Thus in the Samyutta (IV, 51) the Buddha himself is represented as explaining that the celibate life (the brahma-kariyâ){1} is led by his followers for the sake of the complete understanding of pain (dukkha-pariññâ). Further on in the same book (VI, 253 = V, 6, 27) this is three times repeated, with the suggestive addition that there is one way to this, to wit, the Noble Eightfold Path.
Again, in the Anguttara (IV, 7) the higher life is said to be for the sake of getting rid of, of cutting through, seven Bonds which prevent one from attaining Arahatship. The argument on pp. 88, 99 (though the word brahma-kariyâ does not occur) comes to much the same thing. And further on in the same book (IV, 272) the object is stated to be for the sake of getting rid of five particular sorts of envy.
Nâgasena is therefore quite right when he says that the object of renouncing the world to live in the Order is for the sake of righteousness and peace{2}; and in another place that it is to the end that sorrow may pass away{3}. All these explanations belong to the Path, not to the rules of the Order. They are not really inconsistent with the other aim that our Sutta sets out. And they are only additional proof, if such were needed, that it is no more possible to sum up in a single phrase (as some writers have tried to do) the aim of Buddhism, or the object of life in the Order, than it would be to sum up in a similar way the aim of Christianity, or the object for which men enter a Christian Order. The aims are necessarily as various as the character and circumstances of the various individuals who take them up. And Nâgasena does not hesitate to add--and to add in speaking to a king--that some had joined the Order in terror at the tyranny of kings, some in fear of robbers, some because they were harassed by debt, and some perhaps merely to gain a livelihood.
This also would apply to other Orders both in India and elsewhere, and is quite consistent with our Sutta, which only purports to set forth the advantages the early Buddhists held to be the likely results of joining, from whatever motive, such an Order as their own.
{1. That is, of course, 'the best course of life' with the connotation of celibacy. The German 'Wandel' is a good rendering of Kariyâ. We have no expression so good. See Samyutta V, 16, 17.
2. Milinda I, 31 (of my translation).
3. Ibid. I, 51; compare I, 101.}
Ask PRATIBHA about this text
Answers quote this scripture directly and show their sources.
Reflect on this passage
Only you can see these notes. They stay on this device.