The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas, with Particular Reference to Their Trainee Member, the Person ‘Practising for the Realization of the Stream-Entry-Fruit’

BSRV 30.1 (2013) 3–70 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (print) 0256-2897 doi: 10.1558/bsrv.v30i1.3 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (online) 1747-9681

The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas, with Particular Reference to their Trainee Member, the Person ‘Practising for the Realization of the Stream-entry-fruit’

Peter Harvey

University of Sunderland, Emeritus

[email protected]

ABSTRACT All Buddhists go to the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha as the ‘three refuges’, but who exactly are the ‘the eight types of persons’ that are referred to in the standard passage on the nature and qualities of the third refuge? Four of these persons are clearly the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and Arahat, but who are the others, especially the lowest of them, the one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit? This article aims to develop greater clarity on these eight persons and their relationship to each other, and especially to focus on the first, who comes in the forms of the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower. It aims to get at the original meaning of such terms, and trace how these changed. In particular, it questions the appropriateness of the developed Pali tradition’s mapping of him/her as existing only for one moment, immediately prior to stream-entry, and seeks to gauge, from the suttas, at what point in a person’s practice they become such a person, and hence a member of the sāvaka-Saṅgha. In the process, the practices of the person practising for stream-entry are explored and the sutta meaning of terms such as ariya, ariya-sāvaka, sekha and sappurisa are also examined.

Keywords Abhidhamma, Dhamma-eye, Dhamma-follower, faith-follower, magga, stream- enterer, once-returner, non-returner, Arahat, noble persons, sāvaka, Saṅgha

INTRODUCTION How do the various layers of the Pali texts identify the nature of the ‘eight types of persons’ that are referred to in the standard passage on the Saṅgha refuge? Might it be that some of these have become almost invisible by the commentarial period, by being seen to last for no more than one moment? The various layers of texts that the relevant ideas evolved through are: 1) most of the texts of the five Nikāyas, 2) Abhidhamma-piṭaka texts with the Kathāvathu as probably the latest, 3) the fifth Nikāya’s Niddesa and Abhidhamma-like Paṭisambhidāmagga, an early systematising text on the path, 4) early post-canon- ical texts: Milindapañha, Peṭakopadesa and Nettipakaraṇa, 5) the commentaries and Visuddhimagga, the latter extensively citing the Paṭisambhidāmagga. Warder sees the Patis as composed in stages between around 237 BCE, which he sees as the date of the schism that produced the Sarvāstivāda, and around 100 BCE (1982, xxxix). He sees it as ‘the Śāstra (Textbook) of the Theravāda. Composed during the period of great schisms, the Paṭisambhidāmagga appears to be the positive counterpart to the Kathāvatthu’ (p. xxiii). To give an overview of this article, its sections are: The Saṅgha refuge: the eight kinds of sāvaka; Persons who are neither ordinary persons nor sāvakas; The person practising for the fruit that is stream-entry; The Abhidhamma idea of the momentary magga; Problems raised by the Abhidhamma understanding of the magga when this is used by the commentaries as a basis for understanding those who are practising for the realization of the fruit stages; Stream-enterers (The factors of stream- entry, The five faculties, Fetters overcome, The three kinds of stream-enterer, Remaining imperfections of a stream-enterer); The seven kinds of persons; The Dhamma-follower and Faith-follower; At what point does a person become one practising for stream-entry? (Standing before the door to the deathless, The arising of the Dhamma-eye, The ‘lesser stream-enterer’ and the attainment of the end of the fourth purification); Is the person practising for stream-entry any of anari - yan person, an ariya-sāvaka, a trainee, or a genuine person?; What kind of magga is the firstpaṭipanna person practising?; Progression amongst noble ones (Life-spans and remaining dukkha of the noble ones); Conclusion. THE SAṄGHA REFUGE: THE EIGHT KINDS OF SĀVAKA When people go for refuge, the standard pericope (e.g. DN I 110, SN I 161, 173) runs: ‘I, venerable sir, go for refuge to the Blessed One, and the Dhamma and the Saṅgha of monks’. Hence the third refuge is seen as the monastic Saṅgha. Respect and support is especially due to any monastic who causes one to take the refuges, keep the precepts, or indeed become a stream-enterer (MN III 254). Nevertheless, when the qualities of the Saṅgha refuge are contemplated, the focus is not so much on the monastic community as on key kinds of person of which it is comprised: The Saṅgha of disciples (sāvaka-saṅgho) of the Blessed One is practising well (su-paṭipanno), practising straightly (uju-paṭipanno), practising with method (ñāya- paṭipanno), practising properly (sāmīci-paṭipanno); that is, the four pairs of persons (purisa-yugāni), the eight types of persons (purisa-puggalā) — this Saṅgha of disciples of the Blessed One is worthy of gifts (āhuneyyo), worthy of hospitality (pāhuneyyo), worthy of offerings (dakkhiṅeyyo), worthy of reverential salutation (añjali-kāraṇīyo), the unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness (anuttaram puñña-

khettaṃ) for the world (e.g. DN III 227). Those who are thus ‘worthy of gifts … the unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness for the world’ are identified at AN IV 292 (cf. DN III 255) as: The stream-enterer (sotāpanno), one practising for realization of the stream-entry- fruit (sotāpatti-phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanno), the once-returner, one practising for realization of the once-returner-fruit, the non-returner, one practising for realization of the non-returner-fruit, the Arahat, one practising for Arahatship. 1 Hence the monastic Saṅgha is especially to be respected as it contains such people: the Saṅgha in a spiritual sense, which came to be known as the ariya, or noble Saṅgha (Vism 218). This spiritual Saṅgha is not identical with the monastic Saṅgha, as: • there are also lay-people who are stream-enterers, once-returners, non- returners2 and perhaps also Arahats.3 • there are devas who belong to these categories.4 • there are monks who are not stream-enterers etc., such as the quarrelling monks of MN I 321, or those that commit the parājika offence of making deliberately false claims to higher states such as realising fruits such as stream-entry, or developing the magga (explained as the thirty-seven factors conducive to awakening; Vin III 92–93). Nevertheless, the monastic Saṅgha can be seen as the symbol of the noble Saṅgha, as it is the group most likely to contain such people, and is based on a way of life aimed at producing them. Indeed, in the earliest phase of the monastic Saṅgha, all members were probably at least stream-enterers. The basic definitions of the four main types of the above (i.e. discounting those ‘practising for’) is given at DN I 156: 1) ‘a monk, from the elimination (parikkhayā) of three fetters,5 is a stream- enterer, no longer bound to the nether world (avinipāta-dhammo),6 fixed in destiny (niyato), with awakening as his destination (sambodhi- parāyano)’; 2) ‘again, a monk, from the elimination of three fetters and the reduction of attachment,7 hatred and delusion,8 is a once-returner; coming to this world (imaṃ lokaṃ) once (more), he makes an end of dukkha (becomes an Arahat)’. 1. The Dhamma is said to be the ‘home’ of all eight (AN IV 204, Ud 56).There are more non- returners than Arahats, more once-returners than non-returners, and more stream-enterers than once-returners (SN V 406). 2. MN I 467–68, 490–491; AN III 347–348, and see Bluck, 2002. 3. For example Yasa, at Vin I 17. 4. Such as Sakka, who was a stream-enterer (DN II 284, 288), as is a yakkha (DN II 206), and Brahmā Sahampati seems to be a non-returner (SN V 232-33; Sn-a 476 confirms this). 5. DN III 216: views on the existing group (as related to a Self) (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), vacillation (vicikicchā), and clinging to rules and vows (sīlabbata-parāmāsa). 6. Sub-human rebirth, as an animal, ghost, or hell being. 7. Rāga, often translated as ‘lust’, but this suggests only sexual desire, whereas rāga can also be directed at subtle meditative states. All kinds of rāga are forms of attachment, or lusting after. 8. Implying the reduction of the next two fetters, sense-desire (kāma-cchanda) and ill-will (vyāpāda).

3) ‘again, a monk, from the elimination of the five lower fetters (orambhāgiyānaṃ)9 will be of spontaneous rebirth;10 he is one who attains Nibbāna (parinibbāyi) without returning from that world’. 4) ‘again, a monk, from the destruction of the tainting inclinations11 (āsavānaṃ khayā) reaches in this very life the liberation of mind without tainting inclinations and liberation by wisdom which he has realized by his own higher knowledge (abhiññā sacchikatvā), and having attained (this), dwells (in it)’.12 In addition to the eight kinds of beings making up the sāvaka-saṅgha, there is the ‘ordinary person’ (puthujjana); in total, these are the nine kinds of person in the world (AN IV 372). The ordinary person is one who has destroyed no fetters, has an indeterminate number of future rebirths, with no limit on their kind. The ‘uninstructed ordinary person (assutavā puthujjano)’ is variously characterized: • as one ‘who is not a seer of the noble ones (ariyānam adassāvī) and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma, who is not a seer of genuine persons (sappurisānaṃ adassāvī) and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma’, and who identifies with one or other of thekhandha s as Self (i.e. a permanent, substantial self), possessed by Self, containing Self, or being contained in Self (the sakkāya-diṭṭhis); the ‘instructed ariya-sāvaka’ has the opposite qualities (e.g. SN III 16–17, MN I 300, Dhs 1003). • he or she does not know what things should be cultivated (sevitabbe), unlike the instructed ariya-sāvaka (MN I 310); he does not know that the mind ‘is brightly shining (pabhassaraṃ), but is defiled by defilements which arrive’, and so does not meditatively develop the mind (AN I 10).13 • he may be endowed with distrust (appasāda) in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha and with lack of virtue (dussīla), so as to have a bad rebirth (SN V 362–63). • one who completely lacks the five faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom is ‘an outsider, one who stands in the faction of ordinary persons’ (puthujjana-pakkhe; SN V 202), which may not mean that all ordinary persons lack them, but that those that do lack them certainly are ordinary persons. 14

9. The first three, plus sense-desire and ill-will (DN III 234). 10. Beyond the realm of sense-desire, in the form or formless realms. 11. This seems the most appropriate translation of āsavā, for two reasons: 1) kāmāsava, bhavāsava, avijjāsava and diṭṭhāsava are surely not such that bhava — being, becoming, existence — is itself a kind of ‘taint’, 2) it is said that avijjā, spiritual ignorance, is the condition for the āsavas, including avijjāsava (MN I 54-5) — this would make little sense if avijjā was itself an āsava. Both these problems disappear if the āsavas are problematic, tainting, ways in which the mind, conditioned by apiritual ignorance, tends to flow or incline towards sense-pleasures, being, (more) spiritual ignorance and views. 12. Of course he has no further rebirths, and has destroyed five remaining fetters, the ‘higher’ ones: attachment to the form and formless realms, conceit, restlessness and spiritual ignorance (DN III 234). AN I 63–5 sees these fetters as ‘external’ and five ‘lower’ ones as ‘internal’. 13. However, an ordinary person can in fact meditatively develop the mind, and attain jhāna, so this must simply mean that an ordinary person’s outlook makes this less likely to occur. 14. My thanks to Ven. Anālayo for this suggestion.

We thus have a clear contrast between the ordinary person and eight kinds of person comprising the ‘sāvaka-Saṅgha of the Blessed One’. These eight ‘sāvakas’ are literally ‘hearers’. But as some people might hear what the Buddha taught without positively responding to this, or not to a sufficient level, the term clearly means ‘one who has truly heard’, a ‘true listener’, hence a disciple. That the 15 term refers only to a follower of the Buddha of a relatively advanced level, one of the eight kinds of person, is shown by the fact that these eight make up the ‘Community of sāvakas of the Blessed One’. It is also reflected in the fact that at DN II 142, the people seen as worthy of a stūpa are a perfect Buddha, a Pacceka- buddha, a sāvaka of the Tathāgata, or a Cakkavatti ruler. As for the term ariya-sāvaka, this could mean: 1) (any of the eight kinds of ) ‘disciple of the noble one’ — at SN V 435 the Buddha is called ‘the noble one’ — or perhaps ‘disciple of the noble ones’, 2) ‘noble disciple’, so all eight kinds of sāvaka would also be noble ones, or 3) ‘disciple who is noble’, so that only some would be, with the one practising for stream-entry the most likely exclusion. We shall later return to the question of the meaning of ‘ariya-sāvaka’, and for the time being shall not translate it. PERSONS WHO ARE NEITHER ORDINARY PERSONS NOR SĀVAKAS The ordinary person, of course, can still be a good person, and in the suttas, it is not always the case that only sāvakas are no longer ordinary persons, as in the later tradition. This is seen from MN III 255, in the Dakkhiṇā-vibhaṅga Sutta, which gives a list of beings and the relative amount of karmic fruitfulness (good karma) that comes from giving to them: 1) to an animal, giving repays x 100, 2) to an unvirtuous (dussīla) ordinary person, x 1000, 3) to a virtuous (sīlavant) ordinary person, x 100,000, 4) to one outside who is free from lust for sense-pleasures (bāhirake kāmesu vītarāge),16 x 100,000 x 100,000, 5) to one practising for realization of the fruit that is stream-entry, the result is incalculable, immeasurable, 6) how much more so to a stream-enterer and the other six of the eight sāvaka-Saṅgha members, or to a Pacceka-buddha or a Buddha. The 4) category is an interesting ‘in-between’ one, neither in the ordinary nor sāvaka category, which parallels the fact that in the first sermon (SN V 420), the conduct of the person of the ascetic extreme is not said to be ‘pertaining to the ordinary person’ (puthujjanīko), as is the conduct of person on the sensual extreme, but both kinds of conduct are ignoble (anariya).17

15. Though at MN I 379–380, Upāli, a former Jain supporter, describes his having taken refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha in terms of having become a sāvaka of the Buddha; though he then repeats this after he attains the Dhamma-eye. 16. MN-a V 71 explains this person as one who teaches karma and effective action and has attained the five lokiya higher knowledges (which assumes mastery of jhāna). 17. Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta might fall into this ‘in-between’ category, though their

The term puthujjana comes from puthu + ( j)jana meaning ‘one of the many folk’.18 While it later acquired a technical meaning, as one who was not a noble person, one who has not seen Nibbāna, it seems that in the suttas, it just meant something like ‘average person’, ‘one of the crowd’, one with the beliefs and attitudes of ‘most people’, an unexceptional person, an ordinary person. Hence, someone who was a non-Buddhist renunciant, as in 4) above, would not be a puthujjana, and nor would a Buddhist renunciant, whether or not they had reached the level of 5) above. Of course, in terms of the later meaning, a Buddhist monk might be a puthujjana (e.g. Vibh-a 383): just as the term ariya came to have a technical Buddhist meaning, so, in later Buddhism, did puthujjana. This may have developed out of an early situation in which the meaning of ‘ordinary person’ varied with context, according to who the ordinary person was contrasted with: renunciants, or sāvakas. It is also probable that by way of contrast to a ruler, all others could be seen as ‘ordinary persons’ in a social sense. Another kind of person, also sometimes included in those ‘worthy of gifts ... the unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness for the world’, along with the eight sāvakas, is the gotrabhū, ‘one who has become a member of the clan’ (AN IV 373, cf. AN V 23).19 This seems to mean, in the suttas, simply someone who has become a member of the Buddhist monastic Saṅgha: not an ordinary person, but not necessarily one who was one of the eight kinds of sāvaka. The Dakkhiṇā-vibhaṅga Sutta uses the term in this sense when it says (MN III 256): In future times … there will be members of the clan (gotrabhuno) who are ‘yellow- necks’, unvirtuous, of evil character. People will give gifts to those unvirtuous persons for the sake of the Saṅgha. Even then, I say, an offering made to the Saṅgha is incalculable, immeasurable. And I say that in no way does a gift given to a person individually ever have greater fruit than on offering made to the Saṅgha. Here, the meaning must be that a gift to the Saṅgha made via a badly behaved member of it is of great fruit as it is made to the Saṅgha as a whole, including its sāvaka members.20 Moreover, as the passage goes on to say, a gift may be ‘purified’ by the (virtue of) the giver, if not by the receiver. Early in the Buddha’s teaching career, it is probable that all members of the monastic Saṅgha were at least stream-enterers, but as the new movement grew, the Saṅgha would soon have

conduct is perhaps better termed unnoble (i.e. non-noble) than ignoble (the opposite of noble). 18. Gombrich 2009, 204–205 suggests that Pali puthu may correspond to Sanskrit pṛthak, ‘separated, individual’ rather than pṛthu, ‘many’ or ‘broad’ (indeed the Sanskrit version is pṛthag-jjana), as this accounts for the double jj with jana, but it is notable that at Dhp 320, the parallel word bahujana appears as bahujjana, and Nd1 308 explains puthujjana as puthu-nānā-janā. 19. For discussion of the etymology and possible meanings of this term, see Ruegg (1968, 1974, 1981), Wijesekera (1979) Norman (1992), von Hinüber (1994). Wijesekara sees it as meaning (p. 382) ‘one who discards his worldly (lit. clan) status’; von Hinüber similarly as ‘destroying the lineage’ (p. 98); Ruegg casts doubt on this kind of meaning (1981, 175) and sees it as ‘(one) having the state of the lineage’ (1974, 206–207); and Norman sees the merging of what may originally have been two separate words, meaning ‘gotra-han “destroying the [religious] family” and gotra-bhṛt, “supporting the family”‘ (p. 164). All struggle to reconcile the meaning at MN III 256 and AN IV 373, though my above explanation seems to cover both. 20. Cf. Miln 162–164, which says that a stream-enterer layperson should bow to a monk or novice who is a puthujjana (showing by the time of this text that puthujjana had come to mean, simply, not a sāvaka, indeed not a noble one). This is because the layperson is showing respect to the qualities of the monastic way of life, which help lead on to Arahatship, and because monastics are teachers.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 9 contained both people seriously practising to attain this level, and then people of lesser motivation. That gotrabhū originally meant, in Buddhist texts, simply a Buddhist renunciant is also suggested by the fact that when a Buddhist monk or nun breaks a pārājika rule, it is said that he ‘is one who is defeated … not a (true) renunciant (asamaṇo), not a (true) son of the Sakyan (asakya-puttiyo)’ (Vin III 28), and at DN III 84, it is said, ‘Vāseṭṭha, all of you, though of different birth, name, clan (-gottā) and family, who have gone forth from home into homelessness, if you are asked who you are, should reply, “We are renunciants, sons of the Sakyan”’. That is, to have gone forth from one’s social clan to be a renunciant under the Buddha is to have joined a new kind of ‘clan’, the Buddha’s spiritual ‘family’. However, the term gotrabhū, as it was contrasted with the eight sāvakas, seemed to have meant ‘simply a member of the clan of Buddhist renunciants, but not yet a sāvaka’. Hence the suttas seem to envisage four kinds of people: 1) an ordinary person, 2) an ‘outsider’ (non-Buddhist) renunciant, 3) a gotrabhū or a Buddhist renunciant who was not yet a sāvaka, and 4) a sāvaka, who might be a Buddhist renunciant or found among Buddhist laypeople or devas. In the Abhidhamma, though, the term gotrabhū definitely has a high meaning. The Puggala-paññatti, says, ‘The person endowed with those states immediately after which there is entry into the noble state (samanantarā ariya-dhammassa ava- kanti) is called a gotrabhū’ (Pug I 10, 12–13). Its commentary (Pug-a 184) actually says that he is to be counted as a noble one. Asl 43 explains the gotrabhū as one who is like a man who goes to a king on business, sees him going about, but says he has not yet ‘seen him’ as he has yet to conduct his business with him: he has in a certain way ‘seen Nibbāna’, but does not have real insight (dassana), so no defilements have been destroyed. His knowledge ‘stands at the point of turning towards the magga’ (Asl 43) but is not lasting enough to bring about the realization of the noble magga (Asl 231). In the Paṭisambhidāmagga (I 66–8) and then the Visuddhimagga, the term gotrabhū, in the sense of ‘change of lineage’ is used for a particular kind of mental state: either for the moment immediately before entering jhāna (Vism 138) or the moment immediately before attaining the magga moment (Vism 672). Asl 231 holds that the gotrabhū moments (there are between two and four of them) do not cut off anything, but the magga moment does. This idea builds on Patis I 66, which says of it, ‘having overcome the sign of conditioned things externally (bahiddhā-saṅkhāra-nimittaṃ), it enters into cessation, Nibbāna’, ‘for the purpose of attaining the stream-entry-magga, it overcomes arising’ (p. 68).21 THE PERSON PRACTISING FOR THE FRUIT THAT IS STREAM-ENTRY From the ordering of the listing of sāvaka-Saṅgha members at AN IV 292, above, as ‘The stream-enterer, one practising for realization of the stream-entry-fruit …’,22 one might think that those practising for realization of a fruit are more advanced than the ones listed before them. That this is not so is shown by the fact that in 21. Cf. Abhidh-s IX.34 (Bodhi 1993, 354). 22. Ven.Anālayo has suggested to me that this ordering may be due to the influence of the principle of waxing syllables. The order is perhaps also the most natural one when introducing the group of eight persons as a whole, rather than talking about the order within them. That is: ‘the person who has attained X, and the one practising to attain this …’.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 10 Peter Harvey the Dakkhiṇā-vibhaṅga Sutta, in the listing of kinds of people to whom gifts given lead to greater karmic fruitfulness, the person practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit is listed before the stream-enterer and the other six of the eight sāvakas. Moreover, when SN V 202 lists the eight types of persons, it says that their five faculties (faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom) are ‘complete and fulfilled’ in theArahat (no.1) or progressively more weak (mudu-) in: 1. 2) one practising for the realization of the fruit that is Arahatship (arahatta- phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanno, or in a parallel passage at AN IV 293 ‘for Arahatship’) 3) the non-returner 4) one practising for the realization of the fruit that is non-returning 5) the once-returner 6) one practising for the realization of the fruit that is once-returning 7) the stream-enterer 8) one practising for the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry (sotāpatti-phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanno). This makes it clear that the one practising for the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry is the lowest kind of sāvaka-Saṅgha member. Above, I have translated sotāpatti-phala as ‘fruit that is stream-entry’ rather than the more common ‘fruit of stream-entry’, as it is clear that stream-entry is itself the fruit: at SN V 397 and 408, one who has declared himself to have the factors of stream-entry is said to have ‘declared the stream-entry-fruit’.23 This point is reinforced by a passage in which the eight persons are also grouped as: The four who are practising (paṭipanno) and the four stationed in the fruit (phale ṭhitā), this is the Saṅgha that has become upright (ujubhūto), endowed with virtue and wisdom (paññā-sīla-samāhhito). What is given to this Saṅgha is of great fruit. (SN I 233 AN IV 292) Pug 1.9 (Pug p. 12) sees the person practising for the fruit that is stream-entry as neither an ordinary person24 nor one who has abandoned the first three fet- 23. In her extensive survey of passages on the four main kinds of sāvaka, Joy Manné (1995) sees this point but misconstrues its significance. At first she translatessotāpatti-phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanno as ‘one who has attained to the realization of the fruit of stream-entry’ (1995, 44), and refers to the fruits as something different from the ‘stages’, i.e. stream-entry etc. (p. 45). Then, however, noting that the paṭipanna person may be listed either after or before the stream-enterer, she seeks to explain this as arising from a misunderstanding of the wording sotāpanno sotāpatti-phala-sacchikiriyāya paṭipanno, which she postulates as originally meaning ‘the Stream-Enterer, who has entered upon … the experience of the fruit of stream-entry’ (p. 87), i.e., it referred to one kind of person, not two. Thus she says: It makes sense that if one has attained something, one will, by definition, enjoy its fruit, i.e. the reward for one’s effort … Both the grammar of the formula and the inconsist- ency of the ordering of the stages and their fruit indicate that the division into stage and fruit is spurious (p. 87–88). Thus she sees that the ‘stages’ (stream-entry etc.) are the fruits, but fails to see that a paṭipanna person is one who is still practising to attain the relevant fruit. She does, though, recognize the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower, which are discussed below, as ‘pre-stages’ prior to stream-entry (1995, 46 and 89). 24. Here, ‘ordinary person’ has the sense of ‘not a sāvaka’, indeed, not a noble one.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 11 ters, i.e. not yet a stream-enterer: The person of whom the three fetters are not abandoned (appahīnāni), and who is not practising (na … paṭipanno) for the abandonment (pahānāya) of these dhammas: this is called a puthujjana person. SN V 23 (SN.45.32) sees one who is ‘rightly practising (sammā-paṭipanno)’ as having right view through to right concentration, which in the next sutta (SN V 23–4) comprise the noble eight-factored magga. These eight are are right practice (sammā-paṭipatti, SN.45.31), the right way of practice (sammā-paṭipadā, SN V 19), and SN V 25 sees the noble eight-factored magga of these as what being a renunciant (sāmañña), a samaṇa, entails, whose fruits are the stream-entry-fruit up to the Arahatship-fruit. SN IV 26 says the same of the holy life (brahmacariya). As the magga leads to not only the three higher fruits, but the first one, stream-entry, then those engaged in the magga include the first kind ofpaṭipanna person. Such a person is endowed with its eight factors to some degree. AN IV 11–13 talks of seven kinds of person as being like those in water, as in Table 1. Table 1. Seven kinds of person as at AN IV 11–13.

1. ‘One who sinks once, and is sunk’. One whose ways are entirely black and unwholesome. 2. ‘One who comes up then sinks’. One who thinks ‘good is faith in wholesome states, good is moral integrity, concern for consequences, energy, wisdom as regards wholesome states’, but these five states then fade. 3. ‘One who comes up and stays’. One who thinks as above, but these states do not fade, but stay. 4. ‘One who comes up, looks and sees (vipassati A stream-enterer viloketi)’. 5. ‘One who comes up and crosses (patarati)’. A once-returner 6. ‘One who comes up, won to firm ground A non-returner (patigādhipatto)’. 7. ‘One who comes up, has crossed over (tiṇṇo), An Arahat gone to the beyond (pāragato), and stands on high ground (thale), a Brahmin’. Here it seems that 1 is the bad ordinary person, 2 the good ordinary person, 3 is the firstpaṭipanna person, and 4–7 are the four who have destroyed some or all of the fetters. THE ABHIDHAMMA IDEA OF THE MOMENTARY MAGGA The developed Theravādin view sees the one practising for the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry as one who is stationed in a momentary magga. The developed Abhidhamma-cum-commentarial conception of the noble (ariya) magga is that it lasts only one moment, pertains to either the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner or Arahat, and is immediately followed by some fruit (phala) moments of the appropriate level.25 After the magga and fruit moments, 25. Abhidh-s IV 22 (Bodhi, 1993: 177). Kvu III 2 (pp. 232-41) sees noble states as: the magga, the fruit, Nibbāna, the maggas and fruits pertaining to the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 12 Peter Harvey which are lokuttara — transcendent, supra-mundane, with Nibbāna as object — a person then returns to lokiya (worldly, with conditioned objects) consciousness, though they can re-experience the relevant fruit experience.26 Whenever each of the four magga-cittas arises, it simultaneously accomplishes four functions:27 it understands the first sacca (true reality); it abandons the second, it experiences the third, and develops the fourth (MN-a II 338). The commentaries affirm that when a magga eradicates defilements, there is no lokuttara level which lasts for more than one moment: This development (bhāvanā) is of one citta moment, this cultivation (bahulīkammaṃ) is of one citta moment. There is no lokuttara magga, going to destruction, of many moments; it is of one citta moment (MN-a II 364, cf. 230, 404). Asl 388 compares the first three maggas to flashes of lightning that illuminate a path to a man travelling on a cloudy night: Here, like the man who can see’s setting out on the path (magga-paṭipajjanaṃ) in the darkness is the keen insight of the ariya-sāvaka which has the stream-entry- magga as goal (ariyasāvakassa sotāpatti-maggatthāya vipassanārambho) … Like the moment when the lightning flashes is the moment when the light of the stream- entry-magga arises and dispels the darkness covering the true realities (sacca-). This builds on a simile at AN I 123, which says the ‘lightning-minded’ person is one who understands, as it really is, ‘This is dukkha’ etc. (with the Arahat as a ‘diamond-minded’ one), this being like a man seeing things in the dark during a flash of lightning. In the developed Theravādin view, the lokuttara magga, as it only lasts one moment, is more a wafer-thin doorway, a way out, than a path or pathway to go along and actually practise on: a process that would normally be seen to take some time. Indeed the commentaries identify the lokuttara magga with the ‘door to the Deathless’ (SN-a II 59, on SN II 43). Hence, particularly in this Abhidhamma usage, it is better to translate magga as a ‘way’ than a ‘path’. This also suggests that it is a way of being: a way of being with eight factors to it (cf. Gethin, 2001: 223–24). The noble eight-factored magga is also identified with the ‘stream’ that the stream- enterer enters (SN V 347–48, cf. Ud-a 306): it is a flow towards something (the Deathless), an orientation. Gethin sees the development of sīla, samādhi and wisdom as culminating in the noble eight-factored magga that, even in the suttas, is ‘a reflection and crystallization of the way one has come’ (2001: 212), even though it does not as such contain the full scope of these three qualities (MN I 301), as these

and Arahat, and seven sets of the bodhipakkhiya dhammas, and to have the empty (suññata), the signless (animitta) or the aim-free (appaṇihitā) (three aspects of Nibbāna) as object. Those who did not agree that a magga lasts one moment are called Vitaṇḍavādins according to MN-a II 363. They are said to assert that there is no magga-citta which lasts only for a moment (eka-citta-kkhaṇiko maggo nāma natthi). Their reason is that the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta says, ‘whoever, monks, should practise these four applications of mindfulness for just seven years may expect one of two results: either Arahatship in this life or, if there should be some grasping remaining, the state of a non-returner’ (DN II 314). Based on this passage, the ‘Vitaṇḍavādins’ said that the development (-bhāvanā ) of the magga could last seven years. 26. According to the commentaries, the Buddha can abide in the fruit attainment (phala-samāpatti) during the time an audience expresses appreciation at the end of one of his sermons. He can even abide in this state in the time between breathing in and out (MN-a II 292). 27. Cf. SN V 436–437, and Harvey 2009, 203 and 208.

28 are also developed in the various aspects of the prior lokiya practice. We can now see that, in the later tradition, all actual practice and development of the magga is really done at the lokiya level; at the lokuttara level, there is not enough time to do any actual ‘practice’, even though the commentaries see the ‘practising’ stage as at the moment of the lokuttara magga. This is seen as the true magga, when the magga factors briefly reach full development (as an end product of a process of development at the lokiya level), so as to be aware of Nibbāna, and destroy some fetters. This might be compared to the way, at the start of the TV programme ‘Star Trek’, the space-ship first powers up, then, once the ‘warp drive’ is ready and is engaged, it moves away in a flash (though in this case, for more than one moment). The idea of a lokuttara magga builds on MN III 72, which makes a clear distinction between two kinds of right view (sammā-diṭṭhi): Right view, I say, is twofold: there is right view that is affected by tainting inclinations (sāsavā), partaking of karmic fruitfulness (puñña-bhāgiyā), ripening on the side of attachment (upadhi-vepakkā); and there is right view that is noble (ariyā), without tainting inclinations (anāsavā), transcendent (lokuttarā), a factor of the magga (maggaṅgā). The first of these two is belief in the value of giving, in the results of actions, that there is another world, that some beings are reborn spontaneously, and that some people have direct knowledge of such things. The second is: Wisdom (paññā), the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the investigation- of-states factor of awakening, the magga-factor (maggaṅgā) of right view in one whose mind is noble (ariya-cittassa), whose mind is without tainting inclinations (anāsava-cittassa), who possesses the noble magga (ariya-maggassa samaṅgino) and is developing the noble magga (ariya-maggaṃ bhāvayato). Right resolve, speech, action and livelihood are also divided in the above way (affected by tainting inclinations etc. or noble and without tainting inclinations etc.), with the first kinds being explained in the usual way as the three right resolves, the four forms of right speech, the three forms of right action, and having a right livelihood, but the second kind being the mental application (vitakka), or the abstinence from wrong speech, action or livelihood, of one ‘whose mind is noble, whose mind is without tainting inclinations, who possesses the noble magga and is developing the noble magga’ (MN III 73–75). There is no explicit reference to two forms of the last three magga factors in this sutta, but one-pointedness of mind equipped with right view through to right mindfulness is called noble right concentration (MN III 71). As mindfulness of dhammas includes mindfulness of the four True Realities for the Noble Ones (ariya-saccas, DN II 305), this could occur at the time of the lokuttara magga, and the right effort that sustains skilful states could likewise exist at this time. Now it is possible that the above description of two kinds of right view is one that has itself been influenced byAbhidhamma concepts. Bhikkhu Bodhi points out that:29 The counterpart in the Chinese Madhyama Āgama does not make a distinction between two kinds of path, lokiya/upadhivepakka and lokuttara/anāsava. This arouses a suspicion that the Pali sutta is actually the refurbished version of a more archaic 28. MN-a I 236 says that when the lokiya applications of mindfulness are developed, they lead on to reaching the lokuttara magga. 29. Email correspondence.

original, modified under the influence of the emergent Pali Abhidhamma system. Look at the Vibhaṅga, chapter on the Magga (235–243). Note that the Suttanta section simply gives the standard definitions of the path factors [on right view, as knowledge of the four saccas], while the Abhidhamma section gives definitions that correspond closely (almost fully) with those of MN 117 (MN III 71–78) [as wisdom, etc.]. This suggests that this Abhidhamma way of treating the path factors had fed back into the older version of MN 117 and resulted in the newer, modified version that we now have in MN Bhikkhu Anālayo (2011b, 660–661) notes the same MN/MA difference as Bhikkhu Bodhi, but adds: A somewhat similar exposition of the path factors in their supramundane manifes- tations can be found in a discourse in the Sayṃukta-āgama [SĀ 785 at T II 203a21] … [showing] that different Buddhist traditions gave importance to this type of pres- entation. Its occurrence further supports the assumption that this type of treat- ment could stem from an early Indian exegetical tradition … Elsewhere, Anālayo (2012, 312–324) translates the Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama passage, noting that this Āgama probably stems from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, and sees here and in the MN passage traces of ‘the beginning stages of Abhidharmic thought’ (2012, 324). So this may not be a case of fully-formed Abhidhamma ideas feeding back into into a sutta, but the ‘beginning stages’ of Abhidhamma influencing a sutta. Accordingly, while the wording on noble right view corresponds to developed Abhidhamma ideas on it, the meaning may not be the same. Certainly the idea that such a magga is momentary need not be intended, and hence the lokuttara magga may there refer to something that can be experienced as part of a practice over some period of time, at least when the mind is free of active tainting inclinations. That a person who still has tainting inclinations can at least momentarily be ‘without tainting inclinations’ is of course accepted in the developed idea of the momentary magga. In the commentaries, the two kinds of right view at MN III 72 are expanded into four: those of the ownership of karma (kammassasakata-), jhāna, vipassanā, and magga and fruit (AN-a II 24 and 162). That is, the second kind at MN III 72 is seen as magga and fruit right view, and MN III 72’s first kind, that affected by tainting inclinations, has two kinds added, to include the right view of samatha and vipassanā meditative states which lead up to attainments of magga and fruit states. Similarly, Patis I 167 talks of four kinds of ‘unity (ekattā) (of mind)’, those: 1) ‘consisting in the will-to-relinquish a gift’, 2) ‘consisting in establishing (-upaṭṭhān-) the sign of samatha’, 3) ‘consisting in establishing the characteristic of falling away (vaya-)’ which ‘belongs to those practising insight (vipassakānaṃ)’, and 4) ‘consisting in establishing cessation’ which ‘belongs to noble persons’. PROBLEMS RAISED BY THE ABHIDHAMMA UNDERSTANDING OF THE MAGGA WHEN THIS IS USED BY THE COMMENTARIES AS A BASIS FOR UNDERSTANDING THOSE WHO ARE PRACTISING FOR THE REALIZATION OF THE FRUIT STAGES At Pug 1.17–18 (p. 13), we see that: What kind of person is the one who is practising (paṭipannako)? The four persons

who are magga-endowed (-samaṅgino) are ones who are practising; the four per- 30 sons fruit-endowed are stationed in a fruit (phale ṭhitā). If a (lokuttara) magga lasts only one moment, and the paṭipanna persons are to be identified with those endowed with such amagga , this implies that these types of persons last for only one moment each. In the Pug itself, there is no definite evidence that its authors saw a magga as lasting only one moment, as in the later tradition, but the general idea of momentariness is seen, within the Abhidhamma-piṭaka, in the Vibh 320 idea that the five sense-consciousnesses do not arise simultaneously in one moment (khaṇa),31 and the Kvu XI 6 (p. 458) reference to ‘one moment of citta’. The idea of a (lokuttara) magga as lasting only one moment is alluded to at Patis I 69 and 105–106, which talk of ‘at the moment of the stream-entry magga (sotāpatti-magge-khaṇe)’, though as Patis II 145 refers to the moment of the Arahatship-fruit, this might still mean the firstmoment of such a stage.32 Warder, though, sees the Patis’s ‘main theme’ as ‘the sudden attainment of enlightenment’ (1982, xxiv), with another main theme being the ‘impermanence, in other words the momentariness, of all dhammas’ (p. xxvi). The idea of a momentary magga also seems to be envisaged at Kvu II 9 (212–220), which critiques the idea of gradual penetration (anupubbābhisamayo). The view of what we may conventionally call that of the Theravāda33 holds that each of the four maggas is not developed gradually. The first paṭipanna one has a seeing (dassana) of the four saccas, and an abandoning the first three fetters, all at once. They do not do this bit by bit, so as to be a quarter stream-enterer after seeing the first sacca, etc. (213–216). The paṭipanna persons are ‘seeing’ (dakkhanto) dukkha etc., and are called ‘paṭipannako’, ‘one practising’, and when dukkha etc. has been seen (diṭṭha), they are stationed in the fruit (phale ṭhito) — but they don’t see dukkha, then samudaya, etc. separately (216–217).34 This seems to equate a paṭipanna person with someone in a magga moment, that is immediately followed by the fruit state of the stream-enterer etc.. That the magga moment could simply be the last moment of the paṭipanna person does not here seem to be a possibility that is entertained. The above Kvu discussion assumes that it is in the magga moment prior to stream-entry that the first three fetters are rapidly being destroyed, and the 30. On this, Pug-a 186 says, ‘“endowed with (a) magga”: persons stationed in a magga (maggaṭṭha- puggalā), practising from the state of practising for those fruits as goal (tehi phalatthāya) are called practising’. 31. And at Dhs 441, 467, 496, when any of mano or the six kinds of consciousness are present, the others are absent. 32. On the ‘fruit’ state, Patis I 71 says: ‘At the moment of the stream-entry magga: Right view in the sense of seeing emerges from wrong view … Right view that arises because of the tranquillizing of that task (taṃpayoga-paṭipassaddhattā): this is the fruit of the magga’. This does not itself imply that a ‘fruit’ state lasts only a few moments, as in developed Abhidhamma. 33. That is, the branch of the Vibhajjavāda school that became established in Sri Lanka and later became known as the Theravāda. 34. SN V 436 is cited in support: one who sees any of the four saccas sees all the others. The non-Theravādin opponent (the commentary refers to Sarvāstivādins and others) thinks the paṭipanna person is seeing the magga, then is stationed in the fruit when the magga has been seen, but are not stationed in the fruit just from having seen only one of the saccas. It is certainly Sarvāstivāda doctrine that the four saccas are successively known in fifteen moments of the ‘mārga of seeing’ and one final moment that brings stream-entry(AKB VI 29).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 16 Peter Harvey four saccas are being seen, so that the stream-enterer is one in whom the fetters have been destroyed, and the saccas have been seen. That the (momentary) magga is what destroys the first three fetters is also affirmed by various passages: • Patis I 63 says, ‘An ordinary person sees equanimity about conditioned things with insight (vipassati) in order to gain the stream-entry-magga for the abandoning (pahānāya) of the three fetters’. • Ud-a 306 say, ‘It is a “magga” since it murders (mārento) the defilements as it goes along (gacchati)’. • Ud-a 32–3 (cf. Vibh-a 114) talks of ‘liberation (vimutti) through cutting off (samuccheda-)’ as ‘that which, on account of (one or other of) the four noble maggas having been brought into being, is being liberated by way of abandoning in the form of cutting off (samuccheda-pahāna-vasena) … of defilements’, as well as ‘liberation through tranquillization (paṭipassaddhi-)’ as ‘the tranquillized state of the defilements at the moment of a fruit’.35 The commentarial understanding of the first paṭipanna person, which sees his or her ‘practising’ for the end of the first three fetters as simultaneous with their elimination, is seen in Buddhaghosa’s explanation of the eight persons of what he calls the noble Saṅgha (Vism 218): Here, those stationed in the magga (magga-ṭṭhā) can be understood to be su-paṭipanna as they are endowed with the right practice (sammā-patipatti-samangitāta). And those stationed in the fruit (phala-ṭṭhā) can be understood to be supaṭipanna with respect to the practice (paṭipadā) that is now past since by means of the right practice they have realized what should be realized. ... The eight types of person: taking them by types of person, there is one stationed in the firstmagga (-magga-ṭṭho) and one stationed in the first fruit, in this way they are eight persons (Vism 219). Dhammapāla says (Ud-a 306): ‘Stream-enterer’: the one steadfast (ṭhito) after entering upon, after reaching (āpajjitvā pāpuṇitvā), the stream reckoned as the magga, meaning the one stationed in the stream-entry-fruit (sotāpatti-phalaṭṭho). ‘The one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit’: the one practising (paṭipajjamāno) with the aim of setting before him at first hand (attano pacakkha-karaṇāya) the stream-entry-fruit, the one stationed in the first magga (paṭhama-maggaṭṭho) who is also called ‘the eighth one (aṭṭhamako)’. The term paṭipanna is the past participle of paṭipajjati, and the PTS Pali-English Dictionary defines it as ‘(having) followed or following up, reaching, going along

35. These are two of five liberations, the others being: 1) ‘liberation through suppression (vikkhambhana-)’, which is being temporarily free of the hindrances in access samādhi and jhāna, or of certain jhāna factors in those jhānas lacking these; 2) ‘liberation through escaping (nissaraṇa-)’, which is Nibbāna, as that which is the escape from all conditioned things, and 3) (listed first), ‘liberation through (an opposing) factor to it(tad-aṅga-)’, which includes: being liberated from greed by giving; from killing etc.. by sīla; from sakkāya-diṭṭhi by investigating name and form; from (wrong) views of non-causality and randomness by understanding conditions; and at a later stage, from the state of indulging in inquisitive talk by crossing over doubt (kaṅkhāvitarana); from the grip of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ by comprehending in groups; from mistaking what the magga is by investigating what is the magga and what is not the magga; from various wrong views and responses to conditioned things by developing the eight knowledges of the purification by knowing and seeing the way of practice (paṭipadā); and through change-of-lineage from the state with the signs of conditioned things.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 17 by (i.e. practising), entering on, obtaining…’. Paṭipajjati means ‘to enter upon (a path), to go along, follow out (a way or plan), to go by; fig. to take a line of action’, and is from paṭi + pad, as is paṭipadā, which means ‘means of reaching a goal or destination, path, way, means, method, mode of progress … course, practice’. Of course the first sermon explains thepaṭipadā going to the cessation of dukkha as being the noble eight-factored magga (SN V 421–22). It seems that the Abhidhamma, and certainly the commentaries, in effect see the paṭipanna person as one who ‘is practising’ for the realization of the stream- entry-fruit only in the sense of ‘has been practising, but has now momentarily brought this to perfection’, rather than one who is currently practising for this. Or if one takes paṭipajjati, as meaning ‘to enter upon (a path)’, then the later tradition sees such a path as the momentary magga, while the suttas do not seem to talk in these terms. In the later tradition, any actual practising is done prior to the magga moment, which is immediately followed by stream-entry. When AN II 157 talks of ‘the magga is born (sañjāyati). He now pursues, develops and cultivates that magga, and while he is doing so the fetters are abandoned and the latent tendencies eliminated’, its commentary (AN-a III 143) says ‘there is no pursuit etc of the magga that lasts one mind-moment, but bringing into being the second magga etc: of that, surely it is said “he pursues, develops and cultivates”’. Bhikkhu Bodhi adds (2012, 1706, n.859), Mp [AN-a III 143]and Mp-ṭ [AN sub-commentaty], read together, say that because there is no development and cultivation of the world-transcending path, which lasts for only one mind-moment, he develops and cultivates the preparatory mundane path (pubbabhāgiyo lokiyamaggo) for the purpose of attaining the higher world-transcending paths. In this view, the person ‘practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit’ of the suttas would be in effect practising to attain the first magga, practising to attain a level of practice that then becomes the first magga, which immediately leads on to the attainment of streamentry in the next moment. The developed Theravādin view, then, seems to primarily reserve the term ‘paṭipanna’ for the very last moment of someone who is ‘practising’ in the sutta sense. But to talk of a ‘kind of person’ that lasts only one moment is rather odd, and has the effect of reducing the scope of the sāvaka-Saṅgha. This is because its first member is seen to disappear as soon as he or she has arisen, rather than being a kind of person who lasts for some time, during which he or she is actually engag- ing in some kind of practice. He is reduced to a kind of momentary vestigial existence. Nevertheless, Buddhaghosa sometimes envisages the firstpaṭipanna person in broader terms. At MN-a V 72, on the MN III 255 reference to gifts to one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit, he says: Here, in the lowest place, the upāsaka who has taken the refuges is called (nāma) one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit. A gift given to him is unreckonable, immeasurable (in fruit). But there is a greater fruit beyond that (in giving) to one established in the five precepts, and then to one established in the ten precepts. Then to a samaṇera who had just gone forth, then to a monk with higher ordination, then to one who keeps all the observances of one with higher ordination, then to an insight-practitioner (vipassakassa), then to a keen (āraddha) insight-practitioner. But in highest place (uttama-koṭiyā) one endowed with (-samaṅganī) the magga is called one practising for the realization of the

stream-entry-fruit. A gift given to him is surely of great fruit beyond that. But how is one able to give a gift to one endowed with the magga? It is possible. A keen insight-practitioner, having taken his bowl and robes goes out for alms. Taking the bowl from his hands when he is standing at the door of a house, they place solid food (in it). At that moment there is the arising of the magga for that monk. This is called giving a gift to one endowed with the magga. Or then he is seated in a sitting-hall. People going (there) put solid food in (his) bowl. At that moment there is the arising of the magga. This gift is called a gift to one endowed with the magga. Or then of one seated in the sitting-hall, upāsakas take the bowl, take it to their own house and place solid food (in it). At that moment there is the arising of the magga. This gift is called a gift to one endowed with the magga. This has a very wide conception of the person practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit — even a layperson who takes the refuges but is not established in the five precepts is included — yet the highest kind is a person in the magga moment. Hence Buddhaghosa’s trying to say how a gift might be given to such a person. However, in Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi’s translation, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, a note on MN III 255 (at p. 1350) says that ‘MA and MṬ [MN commentary and sub-commentary] explain that this term can be loosely extended to include even a lay follower who has gone for refuge … In the strict technical sense it refers only to those possessing the supramundane path of stream-entry’ (italics mine). To extend it to include anyone who has gone for refuge does seem to go too far — but it still seems too restrictive to reserve the ‘strict’ meaning of the term, as used in the suttas, to a supposed kind of person that lasts for only one moment. There is also some suggestive evidence that the Abhidhamma-piṭaka sometimes sees the first paṭipanna person as one who is not yet in the magga moment. This is seen in discussions of whether this person has yet destroyed any fetters. At Kvu III 5 (pp. 243–47), the Theravādin critiques a view (which the commentary ascribes to the Andhaka and Sammitiya schools) that holds that one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit, while they have not abandoned any latent tendencies (anusayas), so as not to be a ‘stream-enterer attained to the stream-entry-fruit (sotāpanno sotāpatti-phalappatto)’, has abandoned the ‘mental bias (-pariyuṭṭhāna)’, i.e. conscious experience, of view ((sakkāya-)diṭṭhi) and vacillation (vicikicchā), i.e. of two of the first three fetters. The opponent accepts that this person has not yet developed (bhāvito) the magga for the abandoning of these two mental biases, nor developed any of the sets of the bodhipakkhiya dhammas. The Theravādin agrees that the above person, while he has not yet abandoned any latent tendencies, and the two mental biases will not arise again for him, nevertheless has not yet developed the lokuttara, without tainting inclinations, magga, and so has not yet destroyed these. Thus both agree that the one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit has not yet developed the (lokuttara) magga, and has latent tendencies of the first three fetters (and of the other fetters too), but the opponent thinks such a one has abandoned the conscious experience of the first two fetters, and the Theravādin thinks not. This differs from Kvu II 9 (pp. 212–220), above, in that II 9 seems to assume that the first paṭipanna person exists just in the magga moment, when he sees the four saccas, and abandons the first three fetters, all at once.36 Thus, while one might natu-

36. In the Pug, the matter is ambiguous. Pug 1.47 (p. 17) says: The person practising for (paṭipanno) for the abandoning of the three fetters is the one

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 19 rally read the Theravādin view at Kvu III 5 as talking about an extended paṭipanna period in which fetters have not yet been abandoned, it may in fact still be about a momentary magga in which fetters are being abandoned, but have not yet been abandoned, as is the case with the stream-enterer, as is said by the commentary. It evident that the Abhidhamma and commentaries see the first magga as a momentary event in which the first three fetters are eliminated. What there seem to be differences of view on is if the first paṭipanna person: 1) only exists in the magga moment (Pug 1.17–18 (?), Kvu II 9 (?), Vism 219, Ud-a 306, Pug-a 183), or 2) exists just prior to this moment (Kvu III 5 (?)), or 3) the magga moment is the last moment of this kind of person (MN-a V 72). It is evident, though, that view and usage 1) became the dominant one, as expressed in the commentaries. On this point, Rupert Gethin asks, I think rightly, whether the later tradition had imposed, ‘entirely inappropriate technical interpretations upon the termi- nology of the Nikāyas?’(2001, 129). It is clear in the suttas that the one practising for stream-entry lasts for some time. We have seen above that at MN III 255 (point 5), donations can be made to such a person — but for this to happen, they would need to exist for longer than it takes for a person to see a person, think of making a donation, and doing so, despite Buddhaghosa’s above explanations. Again, at AN IV 215, when the Saṅgha has been invited for a meal, devatās identify, to the donor, which monk is unvirtuous, virtuous, or of various kinds of person upwards from the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower, which, as we shall see, are two types of persons practising for stream-entry. MN I 439 also says that these two kinds of people would lay down in the mud for the Buddha to walk across them, if asked.37 38 Gethin comments: The strict Abhidhamma understanding is not altogether satisfactory for the Nikāyas here. In this instance the clothes of the Abhidhamma seem to hang a little awkwardly upon the Nikāyas (2001: 131). Likewise Bhikkhu Bodhi says: practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit (sotāpatti-phala-sacchakiriyāya paṭipanno); for which person the three fetters are (i.e. have been) abandoned (pahīnāni), this is called the person who is a stream-enterer. Pug 1.9 (p. 12) says: The person of whom the three fetters are not abandoned (appahīnāni), and who is not practising (na … paṭipanno) for the abandonment (pahānāya) of these dhammas: this is called a puthujjana person. Without assuming other Abhidhamma ideas, these can be read to allow that the paṭipanna person as still aiming for a future ending of the first three fetters, and not just existing in the moment when they are eliminated. Pug-a 183 (on Pug 1.9) says, though: These (first three fetters) are called abandonedpahīnāni ( ) in the moment of the fruit (phala-kkhaṇe). … In the magga moment, indeed, one is said to be practising for the abandoning of those. This does see the paṭipanna person as only existing at the magga moment. 37. MN-a III 151 (see Gethin, 2001: 131), on MN I 439 acknowledges the problem of these types of person as lasting for only one moment, but its attempted resolution of this seems ineffective. 38. For the Sarvāstivādins (AKB VI 29), it is said that the noble mārga, over a period of fifteen moments of the ‘mārga of seeing’ (rather than the one moment magga of the Theravādins), arises in the faith-follower and Dharma-follower, whose faculties are respectively weak and strong. After this they become stream-enterers.

According to the Abhidhamma system, with its conception of the supramundane path as lasting for only a single mind-moment, both the faith-follower and the Dhamma-follower should be such for only the one mind-moment of the path. This interpretation, however, is difficult to reconcile with the Nikāyas. (2000, 1099, n.268) Gethin holds, though, that, ‘No doubt the tighter technical definition of termi- nology should be seen as the end product of a gradual and continuous process, and not as what amounts to a radical reinterpretation of earlier material’ (p. 129) and that the gap between the Nikāya and early Abhidhamma usages of the terms faith-follower and Dhamma-follower is not vast, but represents ‘quite a subtle’ shift in meaning (p. 132). The Abhidhamma focuses down to ask what is the precise moment ‘when one becomes a stream-attainer? When exactly does a person change from one who can die without realising the fruit of stream-attainment to one who cannot?’ (p. 132). Of course this is an important question, but it does not necessitate the later tradition’s kind of answer. As we shall see, SN III 225 describes the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower — who are those ‘practising’ for stream-entry — as in the stage that entails that one cannot die without realizing stream-entry. The last moment of this stage must be the one followed by stream-entry; but one need not assume that the first moment of this stage is the same as its final one, i.e. that it lasts only one moment! This issue might be compared to that of deciding when a person has bought goods from a supermarket. One 1) stands in a queue with goods in a trolley, 2) their cost is totalled by the cashier and the goods are packed up ready to take away, 3) one takes one’s money or credit card out, 4) one puts the money in the cashier’s hand, or puts the credit card in the reader and confirms one’s pin number, 5) one takes the goods away. From an Abhidhamma way of looking at this process, the goods have been ‘bought’ only after 4), indeed, within 4), the crucial moment is that of one’s money touching the cashier’s hand, or one confirming one’s pin number. Indeed in the Abhidhammika style of thinking, this moment is that of ‘buying’ the goods, rather than ‘buying’ being a process lasting from 2) to 4). What the commentaries identify as the first paṭipanna person is simply the final moment of thepaṭipanna person in the sutta sense. This, of course, raises the question of what initiates the state of being a paṭipanna person in the sutta sense? Before addressing this point, it will be helpful to become clearer on the state of stream-entry, the state that the first paṭipanna person is practising to attain. STREAM-ENTERERS The ‘stream’ (sota) is the noble eight-factored magga and a stream-enterer (sotāpanna) is one ‘endowed (samannāgato)’ with this (SN V 347–348).39 However, as the first paṭipanna person is already said to have right view through to right concentration (SN V 23–25, above), then the stream-enterer must ‘enter’ this in a stronger sense. It is said at AN III 441 that, ‘Monks, there are six advantages in realising the fruit that is stream-entry. What six? There is certainty in the true Dhamma (sad- dhamma-niyato), there is no liability to fall away (aparihāna-dhammo), there is no

39. When anyone, including the stream-enterer, has confidence in the Dhamma, he or she has confidence in the noble eight-factored magga and Nibbāna, respectively the best of all conditioned things, and the best of all things (AN II 34–35).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 21 dukkha of the restricted (person) (pariyantakassa), he is endowed with the knowledge that cannot be imparted (asādhāraṇena ñāṇena), cause (hetu) is well seen by him, and dhammas that arise from a cause (hetu-samuppannā)’. The factors of stream-entry The four ‘factors of stream-entry’ (sotāpattyaṅgas) are such that one endowed with them is ‘a stream-enterer, no longer bound to the nether world, fixed in destiny (niyato), with awakening as his destination’(SN V 343).40 A person who has affirmed that they have these four factors of stream-entry has ‘declared the fruit that is stream-entry (sotāpatti-phalam)’ (SN V 397, 408). The four are an ariya-sāvaka, freed (parimutta) from sub-human rebirths, being endowed with four dhammas: 1) He possesses firm confidenceaveccappasādena ( ) in the Buddha thus: ‘The Blessed one is an Arahat, perfectly awakened, accomplished in true knowledge and conduct, fortunate, knower of worlds, unsurpassed leader of persons to be tamed, teacher of devas and humans, the Awakened One, the Blessed One’. 2) He possesses firm confidence in the Dhamma thus: ‘The Dhamma is well expounded by the Blessed One, directly visible, immediate, inviting one to come and see, applicable/onward-leading, to be personally experienced by the wise’. 3) He possesses firm confidence in the Saṅgha thus: ‘The Saṅgha of disciples of the Blessed One is practising well … the unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness for the world’. 4) He possesses the virtues dear to the noble ones (ariya-kantehi sīlehi) — unbroken, untorn, unblemished, unmottled, freeing (bhūjissehi), praised by the wise, unclung to (aparāmaṭṭhehi), leading to concentration (samādhi-saṃvattanikehi) (SN V 343). At SN V 351, said to a lay person, the fourth factor of stream-entry is replaced by: 5) He dwells at home with a mind devoid of the stain of stinginess, freely generous, open-handed, delighting in relinquishment, one devoted to charity, delighted in giving and sharing. The four standard factors of stream-entry are also described as ‘four streams of karmic fruitfulness (puññābhisandā), streams of the wholesome (kusalābhisanā), nutriments of happiness’ (SN V 391).41 The same is said of the standard set with

40. To have these factors is ‘the practice (paṭipadā) going upwards, which leads to utter disenchantment (ekanta-nibbidāya), to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to awakening, to Nibbāna’ (SN V 362). Just as rain flows down, filling pools, then streams, then rivers, to eventually reach the ocean, the four factors of stream-entry ‘flow onwards and, having gone beyond, they lead to the destruction of the tainting inclinations’ (SN V 396). 41. One with any of the four streams of karmic fruitfulness has immeasurable karmic fruitfulness (SN V 400–02), and just as rivers flow to the ocean, the streams of karmic fruitfulness reach the wise person who is generous (SN V 400). The four standard factors are also described as ‘four divine tracks of the devas for the purification of beings who have not been purified’ (SN V 392). At SN V 391, the first factor of stream-entry is said to be an ‘internal bath’ rather than an external one and, at SN V 402, one with the four factors is said to be rich. It is interesting that qualities of a stream-enterer are still ones that generate karmic fruitfulness, even though

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 22 Peter Harvey the fourth replaced by lack of stinginess etc. (SN V 392) or with: vi) An ariya-sāvaka is wise, he possesses wisdom directed to arising and passing away (udayattha-gāminiyā), which is noble and penetrative (ariyāya nibbedhikāya), leading to the complete destruction of dukkha (SN V 392). One who totally lacks the four standard factors of stream-entry is described as ‘an outsider (bāhiro), one who stands in the faction of the ordinary person (puthujjana-pakkhe)’ (SN V 397). This of course implies that one practising for stream- entry, who is not an ordinary person, has them to some extent, or has some of them. Indeed it is said that from the cause of possessing any of the four factors, ‘some beings here (idhekacce) are stream-enterers’ (SN V 368).42 The five faculties The stream-enterer is also endowed with the five faculties (indriyas), as, to vary- ing degrees, are all eight sāvaka-Saṅgha members, including the one practising for stream-entry; while one who is ‘an outsider, one who stands in the faction of the ordinary person’ (SN V 202) lacks all or some of them. SN V 196–97 defines the faculties thus: • the faith (saddhā) faculty: ‘Here, monks, the ariya-sāvaka is a person of faith (saddho), one who places faith in the awakening of the Tathāgata, thus: “The Blessed one is an Arahat, perfectly awakened, accomplished in true knowledge and conduct, … the Blessed One”’. • the energy (viriya) faculty: ‘Here, monks, the ariya-sāvaka dwells with energy aroused for the abandonment of unwholesome states and the acquisition of wholesome states; he is strong, firm in exertion, not shrink- ing from the responsibility of cultivating wholesome states’ (and at SN V 199, is ‘the energy that one obtains on the basis of the four right endeavours (sammappadhāne)’). • the mindfulness (sati) faculty: ‘Here, monks, the ariya-sāvaka is mindful, possessed of supreme mindfulness and discretion, one who remembers and recollects what was done and said long ago’ (and at SN V 200, ‘the mindfulness that one obtains on the basis of the four applications of mindfulness’). • the faculty of concentration (samādhi): ‘Here, monks, the ariya-sāvaka gains concentration, gains one-pointedness of mind, having made release (his) object (vossaggārammaṇaṃ)’.43 • the wisdom (paññā) faculty: ‘Here, monks, the ariya-sāvaka is wise; he possesses wisdom directed to arising and passing away, which is noble and penetrative (ariyāya nibbedhikāya), leading to the complete destruction of dukkha’ — i.e. the fourth of the ‘streams of karmic fruitfulness’, which seem equivalent to factors of stream-entry (SN V 392, above).

MN III 72 sees the magga factors that are ‘affected by tainting inclinations … ripening on the side of attachment’ as ones which are ‘partaking of karmic fruitfulness (puñña-bhāgiyā)’. It must be that the karmic fruitfulness generated by the factors of stream-entry arise as a side-effect, rather than being deliberately sought. 42. Though of course the others might refer to once-returners etc.. 43. Patis II 97 sees vossaggārammaṇata as the samatha of those who practise samatha preceded by vipassanā.

SN V 203 holds that each of the faculties ‘leads to peace, leads to awakening’ and SN IV 365–66 that each is a quality ‘based on cessation (nirodha-nissitaṃ), maturing in release (vosagga-parināmiṃ)’. As the SN V 196–97 descriptions of the five faculties sees them as qualities of the ariya-sāvaka, this implies that to be actual faculties (indriyas), the qualities of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom must be of a certain kind. In the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta are said to have these five qualities, but they were surely notariya-sāvaka s. However, the idea that one can have faith etc. but not as faculties is criticized at Kvu III 6 (pp. 247–51). Here the Theravādin critiques the view (ascribed by the commentary to the Andhakas) that the person practising for the stream-entry-fruit: • though they do have some faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom, and so are not actually ‘without faith, of inferior energy, muddled mindfulness and without clear comprehension, of wandering mind, with poor wisdom, deaf and dumb (asaddho, hīnaviriyo, muṭṭhassati asampajāno, vibbhanta-citta, dupañño eḷamūgo; p. 249)’. • and their faith etc. are ‘leading out’ (niyyānika) from saṃsāra, • these are not yet in the form of faculties (indriyas). Moreover, Patis II 3 says, ‘In the seven kinds of trainee and in the good (-kalyāṅakassa) ordinary person: there is the development (-bhavanā) of the faculties in these eight kinds of persons’. Also, they have ‘been developed (bhāvita-)’ in an Arahat, Pacceka-Buddha and Perfect Buddha.44 45 Thus the early Theravāda tradition saw the faculties as not exclusive to the stream-enterers and other sāvakas.46 That said, it also saw the state of the ordinary person as lasting up to just before the moment of the stream-entry-path; in sutta terms, the later stages of this would actually be those of the first paṭipanna person. The stream-enterer, while having the five faculties, also knows what lies beyond them: When, monks, an ariya-sāvaka understands as they really are the gratification, the danger, and escape in the case of these five faculties, then he is called an ariya- sāvaka who is a stream-enterer (SN V 194).

Fetters overcome The stream-enterer, of course, has overcome three fetters, which are always enu- merated in this order:

44. Patis II 3 also says, ‘At the moment of the stream-entry-magga the five faculties are being developed; at the moment of the stream-entry-fruit the five faculties have been developed, and also tranquillized, quite tranquillized’, and likewise for the other maggas and fruits. 45. Gethin (2001, 124) says that in the Vibhaṅga, when the seven sets of the bodhipakkhiya dhammas are treated according to the Abhidhamma method, all except the faculties ‘are treated exclusively from the point of view of the lokuttara mind’, whereas the faculties are only sometimes treated as associated with this. The commentaries do accept the other sets can have lokiya forms, but ‘Strictly speaking, from the Abhidhamma point of view’ the other six sets ‘function truly and fully when brought to the stage of lokuttara-citta; this is their natural and proper level’, while the faculties naturally can be of any level. 46. Though SN-a III 237 says that the ordinary person lacks the lokuttara faculties. On the views of different schools on this issue, see Gethin 2001, 125–126.

1) sakkāya-diṭṭhi: views on the existing group (or Self-identity view): ‘regarding (samanupassati)’ any of the khandhas as Self, possessed by a Self, containing a Self, or being contained in a Self (e.g. MN I 300). 2) vicikicchā: vacillation or uncertainty: as to what is wholesome (DN III 49); as to the teachings (dhammas) (SN III 106); as to the views in the undeter- mined questions on the Tathāgata after death, so the ‘stopping of views’ ends it (AN IV 68); as to the Buddha, Dhamma, Saṅgha, the precepts, the ultimate beginning or end of things, Conditioned Arising (Vibh 364–365, cf. Dhs 1003) 3) sīla-bbata-parāmāsa: clinging to rules and vows, based on the view that spiritual purification is by these alone, especially by Brahmins and non- Buddhist renunciants (Vibh 365); such as the practice of ascetics who act like dogs or oxen (Vism 569, Vibh-a 181, Khp-a 189, the practices being described at MN I 387–389); SN IV 117–118 contrasts the true virtue of ancient Brahmins with contemporary ones given to fasting, sleeping on the ground, bathing at dawn, ‘rough hides, matted locks and dirt, hymns, rules and vows, austerities’, but with sense-doors unguarded’; AN I 225 says that only some rules and vows and brahmacariya are of good fruit: those that increase wholesome states and decrease unwholesome ones, not those that do the opposite. Of course Buddhists can also have a clinging and dogmatic attitude to their rules and vows (cf. Anālayo 2003, 220). These first three fetters are eliminated as a set, which implies that they are in some way mutually supportive, tied up with one another. In their different ways, they are based on wrong or unclear seeing, clinging to views. One can relate these fetters to the positive qualities of the stream-enterer: 1) sakkāya-diṭṭhi will be overcome by their wisdom faculty, aided by the other faculties, so that the stream-enterer is ‘wise, he possesses wisdom directed to arising and passing away, which is noble and penetrative, leading to the complete destruction of dukkha’ (SN V 392). 2) vicikicchā will also be overcome by the investigative quality of their wisdom faculty,47 aided by the other faculties, especially faith, and being replaced by the stream-enterer’s firm confidence in the Buddha,Dhamma and Saṅgha. 3) sīla-bbata-parāmāsa will be overcome perhaps particularly by the mindfulness faculty, aided especially by wisdom, as AN V 113–116 says that mindfulness and clear comprehension supports guarding the sense- doors, which supports right conduct of body, speech and mind. Also the concentration faculty, as this suspends the hindrances, which would otherwise lead to inappropriate conduct, will be of particular help. This fetter is replaced by a stream-enterer’s ‘virtues dear to the noble ones — 47. Cf. at SN V 106, that which prevents the hindrance of vicikicchā from arising or increasing is identical with that which nourishes the awakening factor of dhamma-investigation, i.e. wisdom (SN V 104): frequent attention to the difference between wholesome and unwholesome states. Anālayo 2003, 199–200 gives a summary of MN-a I 281–286 on what opposes the five hindrances. For vicikicchā, it is: ‘good knowledge of the discourses, clarification of the discourses through questioning, being well versed in ethical conduct, strong commitment, virtuous and wise friends and suitable conversation’. ‘Strong commitment’ (adhimokkha- bahulatā) is linked to faith at MN-a 286.

unbroken, untorn, unblemished, unmottled, freeing , praised by the wise, unclung to (aparāmaṭṭhehi), leading to concentration’ (SN V 343–344). So he does not have clinging (parāmāsa) to any kind of sīla and vows, but has unblemished yet unclung to (aparāmaṭṭha) sīla. He knows that sīla is only part of the path (Dhp 271–72), and has generally pure, but not rigid conduct, so as not to have mental rigidity and clinging to certain ways of doing things (by means of craving and views: Vism 222). The three kinds of stream-enterer At SN V 204–205, it is said that the five faculties become weaker as one goes from the Arahat stage down to the once-returner, and then, respectively to: the one- seeder (ekabījī), clan-to-clanner (kolaṃkolo), seven-lives-at-moster (satta-kkhattu- paramo), Dhamma-follower (Dhammānusārī), then faith-follower (saddhānusārī). AN V 120 sees the one-seeder, clan-to-clanner and seven-lives-at-moster as stream- enterers. AN I 233 explains them, in ascending order, as: Such a one, from the elimination (parikkhayā) of the three fetters, is a seven-lives- at-most-er: seven times more at most, having fared and wandered amongst devas and humans, he makes an end of dukkha. Or, such a one again, from the elimination of the three fetters, is a clan-to-clanner: having fared and wandered on in two or three families (i.e. good human rebirths), he makes an end of dukkha. Or, such a one again, from the elimination of the three fetters, is a one-seeder: having produced just one human existence, he makes an end of dukkha.48 It then continues with the once-returner, five sorts of non-returner, then the Arahat. Remaining imperfections of a stream-enterer A stream-enterer, of course, still has the fetters that are desire for sense pleasures and ill will, along with the five higher fetters. He or she is also capable of negligence (Sn 230), as are all sāvakas other than Arahats. This is seen when it is said that an ariya-sāvaka who dwells in negligence (pamāda) has the four factors of stream-entry, but: he does not make further effort for solitude by day nor for seclusion at night. When he thus dwells negligently, there is no gladness (pāmujjaṃ). When there is no gladness, there is no joy (pīti). When there is no joy, there is no tranquillity. When there is no tranquillity, he dwells in dukkha. The mind of one who suffers does not become concentrated. When the mind does not become concentrated, dhammas do not become manifest (pātubhavanti; SN V 398, cf. SN IV 78–79). We see that when the layman Sarakāni dies, the Buddha says he was a stream- enterer, though some people doubted this as ‘he was too weak for the training, he drank intoxicating drink’ (SN V 375). The Buddha emphasizes, though, that he had gone for refuge for a long time, so could have no bad rebirth, and had under- taken the training at the time of his death (SN V 377). This may mean, though, that he only became a stream-enterer late in life, having changed his ways. This does show, though, that sīla need not be perfected prior to stream-entry, as also 48. Pug I 37–38 (p. 15–16) has the same explanations, though the one it gives (1.37) of the seven-lives- at-moster-er describes him as ‘practising from the elimination (parikkhayā) of the three fetters’.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 26 Peter Harvey indicated by AN V 140 (cf. AN III 348–351), which says that whether a person is unvirtuous or virtuous, he is the more excellent if he ‘comprehends, as it really is, that mind-liberation and liberation by wisdom whereby his lack of virtue (or virtue, for the virtuous person) ceases without remainder’. Certainly, the murder- ous Aṅguḷimāla did not have perfect sīla prior to stream-entry (MN 86). Once a stream-enterer, a person has ‘virtues dear to the noble ones — unbroken, untorn, unblemished, unmottled, freeing’, though AN I 231–232 says that stream- enterers can at least have minor lapses from the monastic code, even if these are immediately regretted and made good. Sn 231–232 also says that a stream-enterer is ‘incapable of committing the six great offences cābhiṭhānāni)49… Although (if) he commits an evil deed by body, speech or by mind, he is incapable of hiding it’. At SN V 369–371, Mahānāma worries about how he will be reborn if he dies when his mindfulness regarding the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha is muddled (mussati) due to the busy nature of a town, where one might bump into a stray animal, a vehicle or a person. The Buddha reassures him that the citta of one that has long been fortified with faith,sīla learning, generosity and wisdom will, at death, go ‘upwards … to distinction’; as ghee rises to the surface of water, or as a felled tree falls in the direction it is leaning, so one with the four factors of stream-entry ‘slants, slopes and inclines towards Nibbāna’. THE SEVEN KINDS OF PERSONS Another classification of persons, equivalent to members of thesāvaka-saṅgha, as they are the ‘seven persons worthy of offerings (dakkhiṇeyyā)’ (DN III 254; AN IV 10), are discussed at MN I 477–479, in the Kīṭāgiri Sutta (MN 70). This explains that Arahats have ‘done their work with diligence; they are no more capable of being negligent’, while ‘those monks who are trainees (sekhā), whose minds have not yet reached the goal (appatta-mānasā), and are still aspiring to the supreme security from bondage … they still have work to do with diligence’. That is: when those venerable ones make use of suitable resting places and associate with virtuous and wise friends (kalyāṇa-mitte) and balance their spiritual faculties, they may by realizing for themselves with direct knowledge and here and now enter upon and abide in that supreme goal of the holy life (p. 477). The seven persons are then introduced,50 being differentiated in terms of whether or not they have destroyed any tainting inclinations (āsavas) by seeing with wisdom and whether or not they ‘contact with the body and abide in those deliver- ances (vimokhā) that are peaceful and formless, transcending forms’ (cf. DN II 70–71). Those who still have some tainting inclinations (towards sense-desire, becoming,

49. Khp-a 189 sees these as intentionally killing one’s mother, father, or an Arahat, drawing the blood of a Buddha, causing a schism in the Saṅgha, or having anyone but the Buddha as one’s teacher. It is surely the case that one practising for stream-entry also cannot do any of the first five of these (SN III 225 says the faith- and Dhamma-follower cannot do any deed that would lead to a bad rebirth), but he might perhaps, at least for a time, do the sixth. 50. Gombrich (1996: 131–132) points out that the Kīṭāgiri Sutta (MN 70) has similarities with the Bhaddāli Sutta (MN 65), in that both refer to the same seven kinds of person, and in a context of monks who are neglecting the rule on not eating after noon. As the Bhaddāli Sutta says that this kind of rule was only introduced once the Saṅgha became large and had reached ‘the acme of long-standing renown’ (MN I 445), he argues that ‘the texts with our list of seven types do not belong to the earliest stratum’.

Table 2. Seven kinds of person as in the Kiṭāgiri Sutta (MN I 477–479).

Type of person: Tainting Contacts Other qualities: inclinations deliver- (āsavas) destroyed: ances? 1. liberated-both-ways all: an Arahat Yes (ubhato-bhāga- vimutto)52 2. liberated-by- all: an Arahat No54 wisdom (paññā- vimutto)53 3. body-witness Some (so must be Yes (kāya-sakkhi) at least a stream- enterer) 4. attained-to-view Some (so must be No ‘the teachings (dhammā) proclaimed by the (diṭṭhi-ppato) at least a stream- Tathāgata have been reviewed (vodiṭṭhā) and enterer) examined (vocaritā) with wisdom by him’.55 5. liberated-by-faith Some: must be at No ‘his faith in the Tathāgata is planted, (saddhā-vimutto) least a stream- rooted and established (niviṭṭhā … mūlajātā enterer patiṭṭhitā)’.56 6. Dhamma-follower None No ‘but the teachings proclaimed by the (dhammānusārī) Tathāgata are accepted with a measure of appreciative understanding (mattaso nijjhānaṃ khamanti) through his wisdom. Furthermore he has these qualities: the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom’. 7. faith-follower None No ‘but he has a (sufficient) measure of faith (saddhānusārī) in and love for (saddhā-mattaṃ … pema- mattaṃ) the Tathāgata. Furthermore he has these qualities: the faculties of faith, energy mindfulness, concentration, wisdom’. ignorance and views: DN II 81) still have work to do with diligence, as in Table 2.51 MN I 225–226 refers to the seven types of people in Table 2 in a comparison in which the Buddha says that, just as he is skilful and leads various kinds of disciples across the ‘stream’ of Māra, a skilful herdsman drives various kinds of cattle across a ford in the Ganges to the further shore:52 53 54 55 56

51. Cf. Gethin 2001, 130. At AN I 73–74, it is emphasized that those assemblies of monks who honour Dhamma do not, to laypeople, sing each other’s praises by saying that particular monks belong to one of the seven types, or are virtuous or unvirtuous. 52. ‘Both’ = liberated-by-wisdom (paññā-vimutta) and mind-liberated (ceto-vimutta); respectively from fading of ignorance and attachment (AN I 61). Being ceto-vimutta on its own is not seen as Arahatship, though; in effect, it relates to the state of the ‘body-witness’. 53. These first get knowledge (ñāṇa) of Dhamma-stability (-ṭṭhiti), i.e. Conditioned Arising, then of Nibbāna (SN II 124–28). They have none of the first five of the six ‘higher knowledges’ or the formless attainments (SN II 120). 54. AN IV 452–453 refers to liberated-by-wisdom persons as having some or all of the four jhānas, and even to some with the formless attainments or the cessation of perception and feeling, though the relevant sutta is not listed in the uddāna at the end of the section. 55. Pug-a 192 (on Pug 1.33–34 (p. 15)) reads vo diṭṭhā’ti and vo caritā’ti and explains: ‘well seen and well conducted’. 56. On the attained-to-view and liberated-by-faith, Pug 1.33–34 (p. 15) repeats the description

• Arahats are like bulls who are herd-leaders who cross the Ganges, and they have reached the further shore. • non-returners, once-returners and stream-enterers are respectively like sturdy bullocks, half-grown bull-calves and heifers, and weaker calves and, ‘by breasting Māra’s stream they will get safely across to the further shore’. • the Dhamma-follower and faith-follower are compared to: ‘a young new- born calf which, by following the lowing of its mother, also cuts across the stream’. They too, ‘by breasting Māra’s stream will get safely across to the further shore’. AN I 118–119 discusses the liberated-by-faith, body-witness and attained-to- view persons, who all must be at least stream-enterers, as they have destroyed some tainting inclinations.57 One monk prefers the first, as he has the faith faculty in great measure (adhimatta),58 another prefers the second, as he has the concentration faculty in great measure, and a third monk, Sāriputta, prefers the attained-to-view, as he has the wisdom faculty in great measure. At AN I 120, it is also said to be difficult to say which is the most excellent between the liberated- by-faith, attained-to-view and body-witness. Any of them might be practising (paṭipanno) for Arahatship while the other two being either non-returners or once-returners.59 AN IV 451–453 says that in a qualified sense (pariyāyena), one is a body witness by attaining any of the jhānas or formless states and abiding in it attuned to it with one’s body (kāyena phassitvā; i.e. body of mental states, and felt in the physical body), but without qualification if one does this in the state of the cessation of perception and feeling, and ends (all) the tainting inclinations. Parallel things are then said of the liberated-by-wisdom entering these states and understanding them by wisdom, and the liberated-both-ways entering them and both being attuned to them with his body and understanding then by wisdom. On the Dhamma-follower, Pug 1.35 (p. 15) says: For the person practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit who has the wisdom-faculty in great measure (adhimattaṃ), he develops the noble magga con- veyed by (-vāhiṃ) wisdom, with wisdom as the forerunner (paññā-pubbaṅgamaṃ): this person is called the Dhamma-follower; he is one practising for the realization of the stream-entry fruit, (and when) stationed in the fruit is one attained-to-view.

given here but adds that they each ‘understands as it really is “This is dukkha” … “This is the origin of dukkha” … “This is the cessation of dukkha” … “This is the way of practice (paṭipadā) leading to the cessation of dukkha”’, though in the case of the liberated-by-faith, it is added , ‘though not in the same way as one attained-to-view’. 57. Patis II 52 says ‘he is liberated by having faith, thus he is liberated-by-faith; he first touches the touch of jhāna and afterwards realizes cessation, Nibbāna, thus he is a body-witness; it is known, seen, recognized, realized, and contacted (phassitaṃ) by wisdom that conditioned things are dukkha and cessation is sukha, thus he is attained-to-view’. 58. At AN I 25, among monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen noted for particular qualities is the nun Sigālamātā, noted for being chief of those who are liberated-by-faith. The commentary, AN-a I 381, says that she ordained, and when she heard the Buddha teach, gazed at the perfection of his physical frame (sarīra-nipphatti). She went on to become an Arahat. Vakkali is the monk noted (AN I 24) for being chief in resolving on faith (saddhādhimutta). 59. That it is not said that they could be stream-enterers is perhaps because the point at issue is how the three kinds of people may advance on from being stream-enterers

Table 3. Cross-tabulation of lists of sāvaka-Saṅgha members. The 8 sāvakas by level of Sub-types of sāvaka The 7 sāvakas differentiated by attainment (e.g. SN V 202 ) qualities (e.g. MN I 477–79) 1. Arahat MN I 477–79: 1. liberated-both-ways 1. liberated-both-ways 2. liberated-by-wisdom 2. liberated-by-wisdom 2. One practising for realiza- AN I 118–20 & Patis II 53–5: tion of (the fruit that is) 3. body-witness Arahatship 4. attained-to-view 5. liberated-by-faith 3. Non-returner SN V 201 & AN IV 379–82 AN I 118–20 & Patis II 53–5: Five types, who respectively attain 6. body-witness Nibbāna: 7. attained-to-view 3. ‘in-between’, 8. liberated-by-faith 4. ‘cutting short’, 5.‘without activities (of effort)’, 6. ‘with activities (of effort)’, 7. going ‘upstream’ (through the five pure abodes ) to Akaniṭṭha. 4. One practising for realiza- Patis II 53–5: tion of the fruit that is 9. body-witness non-returning 10. attained-to-view 11. liberated-by-faith 5. Once-returner 8. Once-returner AN I 118-20 & Patis II 53–5: 12. body-witness 13. attained-to-view 14. liberated-by-faith 6. One practising for realiza- Patis II 53–5: tion of the fruit that is 15. body-witness once-returning 16. attained-to-view 17. liberated-by-faith 7. Stream-enterer AN IV 379–82 MN I 477-79 Patis II 53–5: Three types: 18. body-witness 9. one-seeder 19. attained-to-view 10. clan-to-clanner 20. liberated-by-faith 11. seven-lives-at-moster 8. One practising for realiza- SN V 201 Patis II 53–5: tion of the fruit that is 12. Dhamma-follower 21. body-witness (plus 22. stream-entry 13. faith-follower and 23.) MN I 47-79 & Patis II 53–5: 22. Dhamma-follower 23. faith-follower Pug 1.36 explains the person who is a ‘faith-follower’ in the same way, except that their faith-faculty is the strong one, and they go on to become one liberated-by-faith.60 That MN I 477–479 sees them as not having destroyed any tainting inclinations supports the idea that they have not yet destroyed any fetters, and so both are forms of the person practising for the realization of the stream- entry-fruit, but we see below that SN III 225 regards them as bound to become

60. For the Sarvāstivādins (AKB VI 29), it is said that the noble mārga arises in the faith-follower and Dharma-follower, whose faculties are respectively weak and strong. After this they become stream-enterers.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 30 Peter Harvey stream-enterers before they die. Patis II 53–4 says: with the faith faculty outstanding, he attains the stream-entry-magga; hence he is called a faith-follower … with the faith faculty outstanding, he attains the stream- entry-fruit; hence he is called the liberated-by-faith [the same is then said with regard to the magga and fruit of the once-returner and non-returner and the magga of Arahatship]. It is then said that one with the concentration faculty outstanding is called a body-witness at the time of the four maggas61 and first three fruits; one who has the wisdom faculty outstanding is called a Dhamma-follower at the time of the first magga, and one attained-to-view at the time of the remaining three maggas and the first three fruits. We can, now, cross-tabulate the various ways of classifying the members of the sāvaka-Saṅgha, as in Table 3. THE DHAMMA-FOLLOWER AND FAITH-FOLLOWER From the above, we can see that these two are varieties of the person practising for stream-entry. It is of course conceivable that they are only the two highest kind of person practising for realization of the fruit that is stream-entry, rather than the only kinds,62 but this is unlikely. At AN V 23, a list of people of decreas- ing attainments goes from the Arahat down to the fistpaṭipanna person, then the gotrabhū, while one at AN V 23 runs from the both-ways-liberated Arahat down to the two ‘followers’ then the gotrabhū. Thus it seems clear that the two ‘followers’ are equivalent to the first paṭipanna person and are the least advanced kind of sāvakas. They are respectively strongest in the wisdom and faith faculties, with the first relatively more focused on theDhamma , and the second relatively more focused on the Buddha. What else do we know about them? MN I 141–142, in a descending list of attainments, refers, after stream-enterers, to ‘Dhamma-followers, faith-followers … all headed for enlightenment (sambodhi- parāyanā)’,63 and then to monks ‘who have a (sufficient) measure of faith in me, a (sufficient) measure of love for me (saddhā-mattaṃ pema-mattaṃ), … are headed for heaven’. The description of the last of these partly corresponds to the description of the faith-follower at MN I 477–479, though they are here seen as separate types. As MN I 477–479 also says that the faith-follower has the five faculties — though SN V 200 says that the five faculties are stronger in a Dhamma-follower than in a faith-follower — the implication is that those ‘who have a (sufficient) measure of faith in me, a (sufficient) measure of love for me’64 at MN I 141–142 have not yet established all these. MN-a II 120 sees the one who has only ‘a (suf- 61. So the body-witness, in this text, also includes those on the firstmagga , while at MN I 477–479, this kind of person is only listed amongst those who have destroyed some tainting inclinations (as they have already attained a tainting-inclinations-destroying magga). However, the Patis seems to be talking in terms of a momentary ‘magga’, immediately prior to actual stream- entry, while MN I 477–479 is talking of one in any stage of ‘practising for’ stream-entry. 62. It is interesting that the suttas mention no precursor to the ‘body-witness’ as a ‘practising for realization’ person whose forte is samādhi. 63. Gombrich 1996, 107–108 sees the form of the Pali here, with no ca or vā, ‘and’ or ‘or’, between these two, as entailing that they were originally two terms for one kind of person. But as they are two sub-types of one kind of person, the first paṭipanna person, this need not follow. 64. These are also referred to at MN I 444, where they are likened to a person with one eye, and

Table 4. SN V 376–377 on levels of attainment regarding wisdom and faith.

Those who have confirmed confidence 1) those who have joyous and swift wisdom (aveccappasāda) in the Buddha, Dhamma and (hasa-pañño javana-pañño) are Arahats or non- Saṅgha (i.e. they are at least stream-enterers) and returners, are freed (parimutto) from sub-human rebirths 2) those without joyous and swift wisdom are once-returners or stream-enterers. Those who lack confirmed confidence as well 1) one for whom the Buddha’s teachings ‘are as joyous and swift wisdom; they have the five accepted with a measure of appreciative faculties and do not go to a sub-human rebirth, understanding (mattaso nijjhānaṃ khamanti) though are not described as ‘freed’ from these. through his wisdom’ (i.e. the Dhamma- follower) , 2) one who ‘has a (sufficient) measure of faith in and love for ( saddhā-mattaṃ … pema-mattaṃ) the Tathāgata’ (i.e. the faith-follower). ficient) measure of faith in me’ as one who practises vipassanā but has not yet reached any noble state, with the Dhamma-follower and faith-follower as stationed in the magga-moment. As we will see, though, in the suttas, it is the two followers that are better seen as keen practitioners of vipassanā, with those who just have love for the Buddha being at a lower level. SN V 376–377 has an interesting classification of types of people, as in Table 4. Table 4 implies that the faith of the Dhamma-follower and even faith-follower, while still a form of the faith-faculty, is something that is not yet firm confidence, as with the stream-enterer. That the two ‘followers’ do not go to a bad rebirth but are not yet ‘freed’ from these is interesting. This distinction is illuminated by SN III 225, which says of both the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower, ‘he is incapable of passing away without having realized the fruit that is stream-entry (abhabbo ca tāva kālaṃ kātuṃ yāva na sotāpatti-phalaṃ sacchikaroti)’. Now SN-a II 346 sees this as meaning that the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower are in the (momentary) noble magga, such that there is no cause that can prevent the immediate (anantarāya) arising of the stream-entry-fruit, and it cites Pug I 20 (p. 13), which says that an eon cannot end before one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit attains that fruit, such that this may even hold up the end of an eon. That is, these texts see ‘he is incapable of passing away without having realized the fruit that is stream-entry’ as meaning that stream-entry must immediately follow attainment of the state of faith- or Dhamma-follower, so that if death is close, it cannot arrive until a person has attained stream-entry. This seems a rather strained interpretation, though. If the sutta had meant that stream-entry would be attained in the next moment, it could have said so. It is most natural to read abhabbo ca tāva kālaṃ kātuṃ yāva na sotāpatti-phalaṃ sacchikaroti as meaning that once a person is a faith- or Dhamma- follower, they must attain stream-entry at some time before they are dead — just as a stream-enterer must become an Arahat within no more than seven lives. That is, however their practice might fluctuate in this life, they will definitely attain stream-entry — such that there is then definitively ‘no liability to fall away (aparihāna-dhammo; AN III 441) — along with its freedom from any bad rebirths and its assurance of liberation within seven lives at most, some time in the pre-

it is said that they make progress due to these qualities, and so should not be discouraged by being repeatedly admonished over failings in minor monastic rules.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 32 Peter Harvey sent life. Hence to have attained the state of the first paṭipanna person is a very significant transition. As MN I 141–142 says, such a person is among those ‘headed for enlightenment (sambodhi-parāyanā)’. SN III 225 associates the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower with contemplation of things as impermanent. It says that the six senses are impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise, and then that: One who places faith in these realities and resolves on them (saddahati adhimuc- cati) is called a faith-follower, one who has entered the fixed course of rightness (okkanto sammatta-niyāmaṃ), entered the plane of genuine persons (sappurisa- bhūmim), transcended the plane ordinary persons (puthujjana-bhūmiṃ).65 He is incapable of doing any deed by reason of which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal realm, or in the domain of ghosts; he is incapable of passing away without having realized the fruit that is stream-entry. One for whom these realities are accepted with a measure of appreciative understanding through his wisdom (ime dhammā evaṃ paññāya mattaso nijjhānaṃ khamanti) is called a Dhamma-follower, one who has entered the fixed course of rightness, … he is incapable of passing away without having realized the fruit 66 that is stream-entry. One who knows and sees (jānāti passati) these realities thus is called a stream- enterer, no longer bound to the nether world, fixed in destiny (niyato), with awakening as his destination (sambodhi-parāyano). [SN III 226–28 repeats the same with regard to the impermanence of the six kinds of: sense-object, consciousness, sensory contact, feeling, perception, volition, and craving, and of the six elements and five khandhas.] Of course as no one can do any kind of deed in a momentary state, that the two ‘followers’ are described as ‘incapable of doing any deed by reason of which he might be reborn in hell’, must, to be significant, be talking about a non-momentary state. SN III 225 sees the faith-follower as one who has ‘faith in and resolves on’ the teachings on impermanence, with the Dhamma-follower as one for whom these teachings ‘are accepted with a measure of appreciative understanding through wisdom’. By implication, the faith-follower ‘accepts’ these teachings, but more through faith, due to his or her faith in the Buddha. Perhaps the point is that they do use their mindfulness and wisdom to recognize impermanence in various observed states, but their generalization from this to regard all conditioned things as impermanent is based on faith. Patis II 53–4, in fact, sees the faith-follower as particularly focused on impermanence among the three marks: When he attends to things (manasikaronto) as impermanent, the faith faculty is outstanding (adhimattaṃ) in him; with the faith faculty outstanding, he attains the stream-entry-magga; hence he is called a faith-follower …

65. Here ‘ordinary person’ must refer to one who is spiritually ‘ordinary’, rather than just a non- samaṇa. 66. Cf. Netti 112: one of views temperament (diṭṭhi-carita), as a (well-practising) monk, lives with continuous ‘effacement’ (sallekha), and when he ‘enters the fixed course of rightness (sammatta-niyāmaṃ okkamanto)’, he becomes a Dhamma-follower. One of craving-temperament (taṇhā-carita), as a (well-practising) monk, lives having keen regard for the training (sikkha), and when he ‘enters the fixed course of rightness’, he becomes a faith-follower.

This focus on impermanence is then said to apply with the liberated-by-faith in the stages from stream-entry up to the magga of Arahatship. It is then said that one who attends to things as dukkha has the concentration faculty outstanding, and is called a body-witness at the time of the four maggas and first three fruits.67 One who attends to things as non-Self has the wisdom faculty outstanding, and is called a Dhamma-follower at the time of the firstmagga , and one attained-to-view at the time of the remaining three maggas and the first three fruits (Patis II 54–55). However, Patis II 52–53 says that the liberated-by-faith, body-witness and attained-to-view, while having the faith, concentration and wisdom faculties outstanding, may attain their state by attending to any of the three marks. Thus the Patis’s overall position seems to be that the faith-follower particularly attends to things as impermanent, while also attending to the other two marks, the body-witness particularly attends to things as dukkha, and the Dhamma-follower particularly attends to things as non-Self. Buddhaghosa, though, focuses on the Patis II 54–55 point, and so seems to talk only in terms of the above three kinds of people as exclusively focused on one of the three marks: When a person attends to things (manasikaronto) as impermanent and, having great resolution (adhimokkha-), acquires the faith faculty, he becomes a faith-follower at the moment of the magga of stream-entry and, in the other seven instances (of the remaining three maggas and the four fruits68), he becomes one liberated-by-faith. When a person attends to things as a dukkha and, having great tranquillity (passad- dhi), acquires the faculty of concentration, he is called a body-witness in all eight instances. He is called liberated-both-ways when he has reached the highest fruit after having attained the formless jhānas. When a person attends to things as non-Self and, having great inspiration (veda), acquires the faculty of wisdom, he becomes a Dhamma-follower at the moment of the magga of stream-entry; in the next six instances he becomes one attained- to-view; and in the case of the highest fruit he becomes one liberated-by-wisdom (Vism 659, cf. Pug-a 194–195). At AN IV 77–78, an ex-monk Brahmā (probably a non-returner) describes the first six of the seven kinds of people of theKīṭāgiri Sutta, with the last four of these six still in need of further practice to reach the goal. The Buddha then points out that he had not mentioned the seventh person. In the description of him that the Buddha then gives, he is not called the faith-follower (though the commentary identifies him as such), but the ‘dweller in the signless animitta-vihāriṃ( )’, who ‘does not attend to any sign, but dwells in the signless ceto-samādhi’. Patis II 64 links this to contemplation on impermanence: ‘When he attends to things as impermanent, his citta emerges from the sign [of permanence]; his citta enters into the signless’.69 Such a state may be a stable one, or one in which consciousness still slips back into 67. That the body-witness is particularly associated with contemplation of things as painful perhaps relates to the fact that the body-witness masters the jhānas and formless states, all of which are subtle and beyond the cruder dukkha of normal consciousness, so that the dukkha of this would be more apparent when returning to it. 68. Though Patis II 53–54 does not include the Arahatship-fruit. 69. Asl 223 sees there as not being, strictly speaking, any signless (animitta) magga, as this relates to insight into impermanence, for which a person is strong in faith. Faith is not a factor of the magga, unlike the qualities of wisdom and concentration, which are strong in those who have insight into non-Self and dukkha, and who attain maggas which are respectively known as empty (suññata) and aim-free (appaṇihita).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 34 Peter Harvey following signs (nimittānusari-)’ (SN IV 269). AN IV 77–78 may be an indication that either the Buddha or some sutta compilers felt the need to emphasize that the faith- follower did not only have faith: he also had the other faculties, including wisdom.70 That the Patis sees the faith-follower, the person with the weakest of the five faculties from those practising for stream-entry, as particularly contemplating impermanence, the first of the three marks, is perhaps significant. The three marks are always given in the order impermanent, dukkha, non-Self, and a common refrain is: ‘But is that which is impermanent dukkha or pleasurable?’. ‘Dukkha, venerable sir’. ‘But is it appropriate to consider that which is impermanent, dukkha, of a nature to change, as ‘“This is mine, this am I, this is my Self”?’. ‘It is not, venerable sir’ (e.g. Vin I 14). We also see that in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, used by many as a guide to insight meditation, the refrain only mentions contemplating arising and passing away (MN I 56) — impermanence, and although dukkha is referred to as part of the contemplation of the four True Realities for the Noble Ones (ariya-saccas) there is no explicit reference to non-Self. Thus we see that the ‘entry-level’ paṭipanna person is seen in some texts to particularly have insight into the first of the three marks, the others marks being seen to be further consequences of this. That said, the association of the faith-follower and liberated-by-faith with contemplation of impermanence is not one that would naturally spring to mind. The marks of dukkha and non-Self are also key aspects of the Dhamma that one with faith has faith in, and while some faith is involved in generalising observed impermanence to accepting the impermanence of all conditioned things, the same applies to dukkha, and non-Self with regard to all dhammas. Faith is involved in looking for and opening towards something that is beyond impermanence, beyond change, beyond time: the Deathless, Nibbāna. But the same applies with dukkha. Moreover, at SN II 31, it is dukkha which is the proximate cause of faith, and there is frequent reference to those who have ‘gone forth out of faith into the homeless life’ (MN I 123) in the hope of making a complete end of dukkha.71 Further information relating to the one practising for stream-entry is given at MN I 322–325 (cf. Fuller 2005, 103–105). This praises the ‘view that is noble and emancipating (ariyā niyyānikā), and leads (niyyāti) one who practises in accordance with it (takarassa) to the complete destruction of dukkha’ (p. 322).72 It is then explained how it does this, so as to have seven knowledges that are ‘noble, emancipating, transcendent (lokuttaraṃ), not shared by ordinary people (asādhāraṇaṃ puthujjanehi)’ (pp. 323–325): 1) after seeking to be like this, a meditating monk knows that his mind is

70. Gombrich (1996, 104) sees the change as indicating a move by those who were trying to strengthen the role of concentration, by replacing the faith-follower by a person rich in concentration. He sees the signless state as synonymous with the formless states, though while it is sometimes associated with these, they also refers to states of insight (Harvey, 1986). 71. My thanks to Bhikkhu Bodhi for this last point. 72. Elsewhere, it is said of each of various other things that it is, ‘noble and emancipating and leads one who practises in accordance with it to the complete destruction of dukkha’: thoughts (vitakkas) of renunciation, non-ill-will and non-cruelty (i.e. right resolve) (MN III 114); the seven factors of awakening, when developed and cultivated (SN V 82), and similarly for the four applications of mindfulness (SN V 166) and the four bases of success (SN V 255).

free from hindrances and other mental biases (pariyuṭṭhānas), so as to know, ‘“My mind is well disposed (suppaṇihitaṃ me mānasaṃ) for awakening (bodhāya) to the true realities (saccas)”’; 2) an ariya-sāvaka likewise knows, after reflecting on himself, that when he cultivates this (noble and emancipating) view, he obtains calm and still- ness (samatha and nibbuti); 3) he knows, after reflecting on this, that there is no-one outside the Buddha’s dispensation that has such a view; 4) he knows, after reflecting on this, that he has the nature of a person accomplished in view (diṭṭhi-sampannassa dhammatā), namely: if he breaks any monastic rule, he immediately confesses it and aims for restraint in the future (a quality of a stream-enterer at AN I 231); and 5) he knows, after reflecting on this, that he has the nature of a person accomplished in view, namely: he has keen regard for training in higher sīla, the higher mind, and higher wisdom, and is not distracted from these by activities relating to companions in the holy life; 6) he knows, after reflecting on this, that he has two strengths balatā( ) of a person accomplished in view, namely he listens to Dhamma with eager ears, and 7) when Dhamma is taught, ‘he gains inspiration (-vedaṃ) in the meaning, gains inspiration in the Dhamma, gains gladness connected with the Dhamma (dhammūpasaṃhitaṃ pāmujjaṃ)’. Hence, Monks, when thus the nature (dhammatā) of the ariya-sāvaka possessed of seven factors is well sought (susamanniṭṭhā), it is for the realization of the stream-entry- fruit (sotāpatti-phala-sacchikiriyāya). When one is thus possessed of the seven factors, one is an ariya-sāvaka who is possessed of the fruit of stream-entry’ (p. 325). Seeking to have such noble, emancipating knowledges is thus the practice of one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit, and to have them is to be a stream-enterer. By implication, what the person practising for stream-entry 73 has is the view that is noble and emancipating. As to the way the Dhamma-follower and faith-follower conduct themselves, we also know that one practising for stream-entry must have the four factors for stream-entry, called sotāpattiyaṅgas,74 for these are things that ‘when developed and cultivated lead to the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry’, or to the other three noble fruits, or the growth of wisdom. These four factors, which must surely arise in sequence, are (SN V 410–411): • association with genuine persons (sappurisas). • hearing the true Dhamma (sadhamma). • probing attention75 (yoniso-manasikāra), i.e. meditative practice or mindful reflection.

73. MN-a I 401 sees the ‘view that is noble and emancipating’ as the ‘view of the stream-entry- magga’. 74. DN III 227 makes clear that the above four ‘factors of stream-entry’, also sotāpattiyaṅgas, mean factors of the stream-enterer (sotāpannassa aṅgāni). 75. As opposed to attention to surface impressions.

• practice of Dhamma in accordance with Dhamma (dhammānudhamma- paṭipatti) (SN V 347, DN III 227). Elsewhere, it is said that right view76 comes from both the ‘utterance of another’ and probing attention, as well as being aided by: sīla, learning, discussion, samatha and vipassanā (MN I 294).77 At MN III 37–45, the genuine person respects a monk because he has the fourth of the above qualities. It 81–82 explains a dhammānudhamma-paṭipanna monk as one who speaks only of Dhamma when he speaks, and thinks only of Dhamma when he thinks (vitakketi), so as to have equanimity and be mindful and with clear comprehension. Hence he is delighting in Dhamma (Dhammārāmo) and one who ponders (anuvicintayaṃ) and recollects (anussaraṃ) Dhamma. Whatever he is doing, he causes his citta to settle internally. We also see that DN III 241–43 describes five domains in which liberation (vimutti) may be attained, namely when gladness (pāmojja), joy (pīti), bodily tran- quility (passaddha-kāya), happiness (sukha) and then samādhi arise when: • listening to someone else teach Dhamma, • while teaching it oneself, • while making a detailed repetition (vittārena sajjhāyam karoti) of Dhamma, • while thinking and pondering on and attentively considering (anuvitak- keti anuvicāreti manasānupekkhati) Dhamma, or • when a samādhi-nimitta (a ‘sign’ or mental image in samatha meditation78) is grasped, well attended to and is penetrated with wisdom. One who ‘practises’ has a way of practice, a paṭipadā, of one of four types (DN III 106): a painful paṭipadā with slow or quick comprehension (abhiññā), and a pleasant paṭipadā with slow or quick comprehension. Vibh 331–32 sees the paṭipadā as concerning samādhi and the comprehension as concerning wisdom. The paṭipadā is painful because a person has dense (tibba-) attachment, hatred or delusion, and experiences the dukkha that comes from these, otherwise it is pleasant (AN II 149– 50); or it is painful as it concerns contemplation of the unloveliness of the body, the repulsiveness of food, distaste for the world, the impermanence of all conditioned things (the faith-follower perhaps focuses particularly on this) and perception of death (contemplations needed to counteract dense attachment or delusion), while it is pleasant if based on the four jhānas (AN II 150–52). Contemplation of unloveliness etc. is an approach ‘with activities (of effort)’ (sasaṅkhāra) and that of the jhānas is one ‘without activities’ (asaṅkhāra) (AN II 155–56). Comprehension is slow due to the five faculties being dully manifested (mudūni pātubhavanti; as in the faith-follower, SN V 204–05) and quick due to them being manifested in great measure (adhimattāni pātubhavanti; AN II 149–50 and 150–52). 76. MN-a II 346 sees such right view as that of either vipassanā or the (lokuttara) magga. 77. At SN V 29–31, just as dawn is the precursor of the rising of the sun, so various qualities are specified as precursors of the arising (uppādāya) of the noble eight-factored magga: ‘friendship with the virtuous and wise (kalyāṇa-mittatā) … accomplishment (-sampanna) in sīla, accomplishment in desire-to-do (chanda), accomplishment in self, accomplishment in view, accomplishment in diligence, accomplishment in probing attention (yonisa manasikāra)’. One with any of these qualities can be expected to ‘develop and cultivate the noble eight-factored path’ by developing and cultivating right view through to right concentration, each being ‘based in seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release’. 78. Though at MN I 301, the four satipaṭṭhānas are described as the samādhi-nimitta, in the sense of the cause of samādhi. My thanks to Ven. Anālayo for pointing this out.

Table 5. Netti on temperaments and the nature of their progress.

By the faculty of By the paṭipadā that is Supported by One of craving temperament mindfulness painful with slow the applications of (taṇhā-carito) who is dull (mando) comprehension, mindfulness finds the outlet (niyyāti) (from the world) One of craving temperament samādhi painful with quick the jhānas who is intelligent (uddato) finds comprehension the outlet One of views temperament energy pleasant with slow the right endeav- (diṭṭhi-carito) who is dull finds comprehension ours the outlet One of views temperament who wisdom pleasant with quick the saccas is intelligent finds the outlet comprehension Netti 7, though, says what is set out in Table 5. The ideas in Table 5 differ from AN II 150–152 in that they associates the jhānas with a painful, not pleasant paṭipadā, seeing the pleasant paṭipadā as associated with the person of views temperament, and energy or wisdom. By AN II 150–152, the body-witness, who is strong in samādhi, would have a pleasant paṭipadā, while from Netti 7, he would have a painful one, but would have quick comprehension. Netti 112–113 says that the one of craving-temperament has a painful paṭipadā due to not having given up sense-desires, while the one of views temperament has a pleasant paṭipadā as ‘from the very beginning, he is no seeker of sense- desires’. Netti 7, moreover, says: Both kinds of craving temperament find the outlet, by way of vipassanā preceded by samatha, to the liberation of mind due to the fading of attachment (rāga-virāgāya ceto-vimuttiyā). Both kinds of views temperament find the outlet by way ofsamatha preceded by vipassanā, to the liberation-by-wisdom due to the fading of ignorance (avijjā- virāgāya paññā-vimuttiyā). This clearly claims that an approach by samatha first is that which has a dif- ficultpaṭipadā, and one by vipassanā first as that which has a pleasantpaṭipadā : a change from the view of the suttas, perhaps reflecting an increasing importance being attached to vipassanā. This in turn may have been because the jhāna states of samatha, while being seen as pleasant to be in, were seen by some as hard to attain for the craving type who was seen as especially in need of developing them. On the other hand the Nettipakaraṇa, as a text probably from North India, like the Peṭakopesa and Milindapañha (Norman 1997, 140), may contain ideas of a school or schools other than what became the Theravāda of Sri Lanka. The above Netti 7 passage does not associate any of the four types with the faith faculty, but Netti 112 says that the person of craving temperament becomes the faith-follower and then the liberated-by-faith, and the one of views temperament becomes the Dhamma-follower and then the attained-to-view. Pug-a 192–93 sees the attained-to-view person as having been able to eliminate defilements with little dukkha, little trouble, without weariness, while the liberated-by-faith does so with dukkha, trouble and weariness. They also respectively have and lack sharp (tikkha) insight-knowledge. This then seems to regard the Dhamma-follower as

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 38 Peter Harvey one with a pleasant paṭipadā and quick comprehension and the faith-follower as one with a painful paṭipadā and slow comprehension. These passages say nothing on the body-witness, who is only mentioned once, incidentally, in the Netti. Pet 30 says that the Dhamma-follower with sharp (tikkh-) faculties gains insight by a condensed teaching, and goes on to become a one-seeder stream-enterer. The Dhamma-follower with dull (mud-) faculties and the faith-follower with sharp faculties gain insight by an expanded teaching, and go on to become clan-to-clan stream-enterers. The faith-follower with dull faculties is guidable (neyya), and goes on to become a seven-lives-at-moster stream-enterer. As to when these kinds of people attain stream-entry, Pet 232 (cf.p. 28) says that the Dhamma-follower with sharp faculties ‘reaches (pāpuṇāti)’ (presumably the stream-entry-fruit) in the normal course of life, but one with dull faculties does so when ill. The faith- follower with sharp faculties reaches it at the time of death, but the one with dull faculties does so when he is a deva, or if not, by attachment to and delight for Dhamma, (eventually) attains individual79 awakening (pacceka-bodhi). The explanation of the destiny of the faith-follower with dull faculties contradicts SN III 225, which says a faith-follower cannot die without becoming a stream-enterer, though it is possible that what is said to be ‘reachied’ is Arahatship. AT WHAT POINT DOES A PERSON BECOME ONE PRACTISING FOR STREAM-ENTRY? Given that the one practising for stream-entry will attain stream-entry before they die (SN III 225), it seems to be a stage from which a person cannot fall away (except temporarily?) in this life. Given this, it is pertinent to ask: when does this crucial transition start? It is notable that SN III 225 and the following similar suttas make up the Okkantika-saṃyutta: the saṃyutta related to okkanti, or ‘entry’, i.e. entry into the ‘fixed course of rightness … the plane of genuine persons’. One clue is that at MN I 479–480 (Kīṭāgiri Sutta), the Buddha, after describing the seven kinds of people from both-ways-liberated down to faith-follower, emphasizes that final knowledge is not attained all at once (ādiken’eva), but by gradual (anupubba-) training (-sikkhā), activity (-kiriyā) and practice (-paṭipadā). As it says at AN IV 200–201:80 Just as the great ocean slopes away gradually, falls gradually, inclines gradually, with a sudden drop off only after a long stretch (na āyatakena’eva papāto81); even so 79. Or perhaps ‘due to a condition’. The term pacceka-buddha may originally have been pacceya- buddha, pacceya being related to Sanskrit pratyaya, ‘cause’, not pratyeka, i.e. prati-eka, ‘individually’. Indeed some Sanskrit texts write the term as pratyaya-buddha and the Chinese translation means ‘awakened by conditions’ (Norman 1983, 96–99). Norman thus holds that the original meaning of the term may have been ‘one who is awakened by a specific cause, a specific occurrence (not by a Buddha’s teaching)’ (1997, 104). In the Jātaka commentary, a person becomes a pratyekabuddha by insight into the three marks on the occasions such as seeing a withered leaf falling, a mango tree ruined by greedy people, bracelets making a noise when placed together on a wrist, birds fighting over a piece of meat, and bulls fighting over a cow (Jat III 239, 377, V 248). 80. Also Vin II 238 and Ud 54. 81. Here I translate following Ṭhānissaro’s translation in his Access to Insight translation of the parallel Ud 53 passage (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.5.05.than.html). His justification as as follows: n’āyataken’eva papāto hoti: Ireland translates this passage as: ‘There is no sudden precipice’. Horner, in her translation of the identical passage at Cv.IX.1.3 [Vin II 238], renders it as: ‘with

… in this Dhamma, this discipline: there is gradual training, gradual activity, gradual practice; with penetration to final knowledge (aññā-paṭivedho; i.e. Arahatship) only after a long stretch. The gradual way described at MN I 479–480 is by: 1) having faith in a teacher, visiting and paying respect to him, listening to him and hence hearing Dhamma, then memorising this. He then ‘examines the meaning (atthaṃ upaparikkhati) of the teachings he has memo- rized’,

no abruptness like a precipice’. Both translators are following the second definition given for āyataka in the PTS Dictionary as an adjective meaning ‘sudden, abrupt’, and the instrumental, āyatakena, as an adverb meaning ‘abruptly’. These definitions are supported by citations only to this passage in its two locations, and are based on the relevant commentaries. The Udana Commentary [Ud-a 299] explains this passage as meaning ‘Not (having) a cut-off bank like a great lake with a drop-off from the very beginning’. It then goes on to explain how the ocean floor gradually slopes off, starting in inch-by-inch increments, until it reaches the depth of 8,400 leagues at the base of Mount Sineru. The Commentary to Cv.IX explains the passage as meaning, ‘Not deep at right at first; gradually deep’. There are, however, several problems with these translations and interpretations. (1) They are directly contrary to all the other meanings of āyataka and its cognate forms as used elsewhere in the Canon. (2) They do not follow the grammar and syntax of the sentence in Pali. (3) They ignore a basic fact about the continental shelf off the coast of India. And (4) they do not allow for a proper understanding of the specific analogy being drawn between the ocean and the Dhamma-Vinaya. (1) In Cv.V 3.1, āyataka clearly means stretched, drawn-out, or prolonged. This is the first definition for the word given in the PTS Dictionary. This word is an adjective related to the verb āyamati, which means to stretch or stretch out, both in the transitive and the intransitive sense. To take a word meaning ‘stretched’ in all other contexts and to force it to mean ‘sudden’ in this one context flies in the face of common sense. (2) Ireland treats āyataken’eva as an adjective modifying papāto. If this were the correct interpretation, though, both words would have to be in the same case, which they are not. Horner’s translation is hard to unpack grammatically. Either she is taking the instrumental adverb āyatakena as ‘abruptness’, which turns it into a nominative form, while moving the eva from the abruptness to modify the precipice. Or else she treats papāto as abruptness and keeps the eva with the āyatakena, in which case she is again turning an adverb into a noun. (3) The continental shelf off the coast of India, like that off the eastern coast of the United States, actually slopes gradually for a long distance and then falls away in a sudden drop-off. (4) These two translations make it sound as if there is no drop-off at all off the coast of India. Transferring this point to the analogy drawn from the ocean to the Dhamma-Vinaya, the analogy would work only if we infer that there is no penetrative of gnosis in the Dhamma- Vinaya. Other passages in the Canon, such as Ud I 10, indicate that this is clearly not the case. For these reasons, I have chosen to re-think the passage in the following way: (1) The indeclinable adverb āyatakena, in order to maintain its commonality with its cog- nates and their uses in other passages, should be translated as ‘after a stretch’. Āyataken’eva would then mean ‘after just a stretch’; n’āyataken’eva, ‘not after just a stretch’. This would open the possibility that the papāto, the precipice or sharp drop-off, could happen after a long distance or a gradual slope. (2) This would fit with the actual state of the ocean off the coast of India. (3) This would also allow for a correct understanding of the analogy in line with other passages in the Canon. For instance, Bahiya in Ud I 10 clearly has a sudden insight into the Dhamma, a sudden penetration of gnosis. However, this penetration is not totally unpre- pared for. There is a gradual slope leading up to it, however short … . (4) Thus the correct interpretation of this analogy between the ocean and the Dhamma-Vinaya would seem to be that there is a precipice in the ocean, preceded by a gradual slope, just as there is a penetration of gnosis in the Dhamma-Vinaya, preceded by a stepwise practice.

2) ‘when he examines the meaning, the teachings are accepted with appreciative understanding (nijjhānaṃ khamanti )’. 3) thence desire-to-do (chanda) arises, then applying his will (ussahati), then scrutinising (tuleti), then striving (padaheti), 4) so that ‘resolutely striving, he realizes (sacchikaroti) with the body the ultimate reality (paramaṃ saccaṃ) and sees it by pondering it with wisdom’ (p. 480). Here, the phase of ‘the teachings are accepted with appreciative understanding (nijjhānaṃ khamati)’ corresponds with the description of the Dhamma-follower, one of the kinds of person practising for stream-entry. At AN I 36, most of the above stages are also referred to when it is said that more numerous are those who having heard Dhamma do not memorize it, compared to those that do, and likewise as regards: examining the meaning; being one ‘who from knowledge (aññāya) of the meaning and Dhamma, practises Dhamma in accordance with Dhamma (dhammānudhammaṃ paṭipajjanti); being stirred (saṃvijjanti) by topics worthy of this; and striving profoundly due to being stirred (saṃviggā yoniso pada- hanti)’. Here the place of accepting with appreciative understanding is taken by being one ‘who from knowledge of the meaning and Dhamma, practises Dhamma in accordance with Dhamma’: a factor for stream-entry at SN V 347. We also note that in the Kīṭāgiri Sutta, on the seven kinds of people, the five who are not Arahats move closer to Arahatship when they balance their spiritual faculties (MN I 477). From Vism 129, at least, balancing the faculties is needed to attain access samādhi, so this seems crucial for attaining or developing on from the firstpaṭipanna stage. Certainly attaining the meditative sign (nimitta), which is associated with access samādhi, is crucial, as AN III 422–423 says that to aban- don fetters, one needs to have fulfilled rightsamādhi , and for this one must have fulfilled right view, for this one must have grasped the ‘sign of the mind (cittassa nimittaṃ)’, and for this one must find delight in seclusion. Nevertheless, access samādhi as such does not seem sufficient to have reached the firstpaṭipanna stage, if we look carefully at the description of the faculties at SN V 196–197. In particular, the samādhi faculty is where ‘an ariya-sāvaka gains concentration, gains one-pointedness of mind, having made release (his) object (vossaggārammaṇaṃ)’: samādhi alone is not enough — it must be done with a view to release from saṃsāra (and AN I 36 says it is rare to have such samādhi). Also the wisdom faculty is where an ariya-sāvaka ‘possesses wisdom directed to arising and passing away’; that is, it must at least involve insight into impermanence. What of entering ‘the fixed course of rightness okkanto( sammatta-niyāmaṃ)’ that SN III 225 says the faith- and Dhamma-follower have done? MN I 141–142 includes the two ‘followers’ amongst those ‘headed for enlightenment (sambodhi-parāyanā)’, and it seems clear that their state of being so headed starts when they enter the ‘fixed course of rightness’. AN III 441–442 has further information on this, as well as talking of ‘acceptance (khanti)’ which links to the Dhamma-follower as one for whom teachings on impermanence are ‘are accepted with a measure of appreciative understanding (mattaso nijjhānaṃ khamanti)’ at SN III 225 and the Kīṭāgiri Sutta (MN I 477–479): Truly (so vata) monks, ‘a monk regarding (samanupassanto) any conditioned thing (saṅkhāraṃ) as permanent will be endowed (samannāgato bhavissatī ti) with acceptance in accordance (anulomikāya khantiyā)’, this is not possible (n’etaṃ ṭhānaṃ vij-

jati); ‘not being endowed with acceptance in accordance, he will enter the fixed course of rightness (sammatta-niyāmaṃ okkamissatīti)’, this is not possible; ‘not entering the fixed course of rightness, he will experience the stream-entry-fruit or the once-returner-fruit or the non-returner-fruit or the Arahatship-fruit’, this is not possible. Truly, monks, ‘a monk regarding all conditioned things as impermanent will be endowed with acceptance in accordance’, this is possible; ‘being endowed with acceptance in accordance, he will enter the fixed course of rightness’, this is possible; ‘entering the fixed course of rightness, he will experience the stream-entry-fruit or the once-returner-fruit or the non-returner-fruit or the Arahatship-fruit’, this is possible. In the next three suttas, this is then repeated with respect to: regarding any conditioned thing as sukha (happiness-bringing, blissful), or regarding them all as dukkha; regarding any dhamma as Self, or regarding them all as non-Self; and regarding Nibbāna as dukkha or regarding it as sukha. If we tabulate this, we see:

If one regards all con- One will be endowed One will enter the One will experience ditioned things as with acceptance fixed course of right- stream-entry or any of impermanent, and as in accordance ness (sammatta- the other three fruit dukkha, and all dham- (anulomikāya khantiyā). niyāmaṃ okkamissatīti). states. mas as non-Self, and If so, it is possible If so, it is possible Nibbāna as sukha and that-> that-> not dukkha, it is possible that -> From the use of the future tense, ‘will be’, in these suttas, the above seems to be portrayed as a temporal sequence, rather than a series of pre-requisites that could all fall into place simultaneously. The ‘is possible’ wording suggests that some or all of the transitions are not inevitable. As the stage before stream-entry, entering ‘fixed course of rightness’ is likely to be the start of thepaṭipanna stage, with that of ‘acceptance’ as its pre-requisite. The ‘rightness’ is surely that of the eight factors of the magga as, at DN III 255, right view through to right concentration are referred to as the eight ‘rightesses (sammattā)’. Moreover, Sn 55 talks of, ‘attained to the fixed course (patto niyāmaṃ), having gained the magga’, with Nd2 entry 358 explaining niyāma here as the four maggas, the noble eight-fold 82 83 magga. Hence the ‘fixed course of rightness’ is the magga. The contents of the four AN III 441–442 suttas is also found, word for word, at Patis II 236–37, in the chapter on vipassanā. There, ‘acceptance in accordance’ and ‘entering the fixed course of rightness’ are then explained as having forty aspects (pp. 238–242). These relate to various characteristics pertaining to one or other

82. SN I 196 says that the Buddha attained awakening for those who ‘have reached and seen the fixed course (ye niyāma-gata-ddasā)’. Bodhi (2000, 468) reports that the sub-commentary on SN-a I 287 here says ‘“have reached the fixed course” by abiding in the fruit and have “seen the fixed course” by abiding in the magga’. 83. At Kvu IV 8 (pp. 286–290), a non-Theravādin holds that the Bodhisatta, under the past Buddha Kassapa, had ‘entered the fixed course okkanta-niyāmo( )’, but the Theravādin argues that, if so, as Gotama Buddha, he would only have had to attain three fruits of renunciation under the Bodhi-tree, rather than all four (pp. 286–287). Hence it is clear that it sees the ‘fixed course’ as attaining the stream-entry fruit and/or its magga. Kvu V 4 (pp. 307–309) has an obscure debate on whether one who is not certain (aniyata) has the knowledge for going to the fixed course. Pug I 15–16 (p. 13) adds, ‘The five persons (who have done a deed) with immediate effect (rebirth in hell) and those with wrong view have a fixed course (niyatā), and the eight noble persons; other persons do not have a fixed course’.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 42 Peter Harvey of the three marks, with each treated according to this pattern: Seeing (passanto) the fivekhandha s as impermanent, he gains acceptance in accordance (anulomikaṃ khantiṃ paṭilabhati);84 seeing ‘the cessation of the fivekhandha s is Nibbāna, which is permanent’, he enters the fixed course of rightness. This clearly links entry to the ‘fixed course of rightness’ with some kind of seeing of the nature of Nibbāna, and as a complement to knowing that conditioned phenomena have (in most cases85) the opposite nature, this being the gaining of ‘acceptance in accordance’. This certainly sees the state of the faith- and Dhamma-follower as requiring insight (vipassanā) into how the three marks apply to conditioned things, and how they do not, or in a limited set of cases relating to non-Self still do, relate to Nibbāna. Does, though, the Patis see the ‘fixed course of rightness’ as involving direct seeing of Nibbāna, which might be seen to imply the one-moment magga of stream-entry? Not necessarily, as the use of quota- tion marks around ‘the cessation of the five khandhas is Nibbāna …’ perhaps just implies a knowledge by inference.86 The role of both vipassanā and samatha in preparing for the noble stages is seen at AN II 156–157. Here Ānanda says that those who have become Arahats have done so by one of four ways: 1) ‘he develops (bhāveti) vipassanā preceded by samatha’, 2) ‘he develops samatha preceded by vipassanā’, 3) ‘he develops samatha and vipassanā yoked together (yuganaddhaṃ), or 4) ‘his mind is gripped by Dhamma excitement (dhammuddhacca-viggahīta-manā, but as quoted at Patis II 93, -viggahītaṃ mānasaṃ). There is, friend, (later) a time (so āvuso samayo) when his citta is internally steadied, composed, unified and concentrated’. In each case, in the person doing this, ‘the magga is born (sañjāyati).87 He now pursues, develops and cultivates that magga, and while he is doing so the fetters are abandoned and the latent tendencies eliminated’.88 Here one can say that while vipassanā attends to things as having the three marks, the calm of samatha aids the acceptance of these, so that the magga can be born, and then cultivated on to Arahatship. The 84. Pati I 106 adds: ‘How is it that understanding due to what is recognized (viditattā paññā) is knowledge as acceptance (khanti-ñāṇa)? “Material form is recognized (viditaṃ) as impermanent, recognized as painful, recognized as non-Self; whatever is recognized, that he accepts (khamatīti)”; thus understanding due to what is recognized is knowledge as acceptance’ (this is then repeated for the other khandhas and various other categories such as the six senses and the twelve nidānas). ‘Knowledge is in the sense of that being known and understanding is in the sense of the act of understanding that’. 85. In the case of the characteristics related to non-Self, the pattern of conditioned things and Nibbāna simply having opposite characteristics breaks down (Harvey, 1995: 51–2). 86. Nevertheless, Vism sees anuloma-knowledge (Vism 669–670) as at the end of the sixth purification, immediately before the gotrobhū moments then the magga moment of the seventh purification (Vism 672). 87. Bodhi (2012, 1706, n.858), here says: ‘Mp [AN-a III 142] explains this [magga] as the first world- transcending path, but Mp-ṭ says: “This is said with reference to the path of stream-entry (sotāpattimagga), but the meaning of this passage can be understood simply by way of the mundane (preparatory) path” (lokiyamaggavasen’eva)’. 88. These four ways are discussed at Patis I 93–103, with the fourth (pp. 100–101) being seen as concerning the state of a person who attends to things as having the three marks, but does not correctly understand how what is present (upaṭṭthānaṃ) is impermanent etc. due to the arising of illumination (obāso), knowledge, joy, tranquillity, happiness, resolution, exertion, alertness, equanimity and attachment (nikanti) — later known as the ten defilements of insight of the fifth purification (Vism 633)–, though he then overcomes the excitement and regains concentration. This thus sees the ‘birth’ of the magga as beyond the fifth purification.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 43 birth of the magga, as it is prior to the elimination of any fetters, must be the entry to the ‘fixed course of rightness’ that leads on to stream-entry, and later to the three higher attainments, culminating in Arahatship. As the first paṭipanna person has the eight factors of the magga (SN V 23–25), their state is that in which the magga is first born. From the above, this is from some combination ofsamatha and vipassanā, with the fourth case most likely referring to what happens in the preparation for the arising of the Dhamma-eye (usually meaning stream-entry) when the Dhamma-eye only arises at a later time. At Ud 49, after the Dhamma-eye has arisen to Suppabuddha, the Buddha says that the latter had been one ‘who had been made to bristle with excitement (sampahaṃsito)’. Perhaps with most people for whom the Dhamma-eye arises, there is an initial excitement that is quickly calmed, allowing the Dhamma-eye to arise, but for others this takes time. However, does the transition to becoming the first kind ofsāvaka correspond to any crucial attainment flagged in the suttas? Possible candidates for this are being one who stands before the door to the Deathless, and the arising of Dhamma-eye. Or do these signify the attainment of stream-entry? Standing before the door to the Deathless At MN I 350–53 and AN V 343–47, Ānanda talks of eleven ‘doors to the Deathless’ (amata-dvāras), like eleven exits from a burning house: various attainments which are then seen as ‘constructed and thought out (abhisaṅkhataṃ abisañcetayitaṃ) … impermanent and subject to cessation’, these attainments being the four jhānas, liberation of mind by the four immeasurables, and the first three formless states. In each case, it is said, ‘standing upon that (tattha ṭhito), he attains the destruction of tainting inclinations’, i.e. Arahatship, or, due to attachment (-raga) to and delight (-nandi) in Dhamma, non-returnerhood. Here, a ‘door to the Deathless’ is a way beyond the conditioned realm in the form of insight into the conditioned and impermanent nature of various states of samādhi. MN-a III 13–14 sees this as using vipassanā preceded by samatha. Clearly it would aid seeing all conditioned things as impermanent and dukkha if even subtle states of samādhi, which are accompanied by bliss or equanimity, are seen thus. In the Nidāna-saṃyutta, there are four identical passages that talk of the ‘door to the Deathless’: an ariya-sāvaka who is accomplished in view (diṭṭhi-sampanno), accomplished in vision (dassana-sampanno), who has arrived (āgato) at this true Dhamma, who sees (passato) this true Dhamma, who possesses a trainee’s knowledge (sekhena ñāṇena), a trainee’s true knowledge (sekhena vijjāya), who has entered the stream of the Dhamma (dhamma-sotaṃ samāpanno), a noble one (ariyo) with penetrative wisdom (nibbedhika-pañño), one who stands squarely before the door to the Deathless (amata-dvāram āhacca tiṭṭhati). At SN II 58, such a person is one who has ‘purified and cleansed’ ‘knowledge of the principle (dhamme ñāṇaṃ) — understanding the four ariya-sacca structure applied to each nidāna — and ‘knowledge of entailment (anvaye ñāṇaṃ)’ — knowledge that this direct knowledge could equally be known by others in the past and future, i.e. that its content is always true. At SN II 78–79 and 79, such a person is an instructed ariya- sāvaka who has knowledge (ñāṇa), independent of others, of Conditioned Arising in both arising and cessation mode, so as to have knowledge of the arising and passing away of the world. At SN II 43, such a person is one who understands (pajānāti) the

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 44 Peter Harvey twelve nidānas in arising and cessation mode, and the nature of each of the twelve, so that he ‘thus understands the condition; thus understands the origin of the condition; thus understands the cessation of the condition; thus understands the way of practice (paṭipadā) leading to the cessation of the condition’. The view of the commentaries (SN-a II 59, on SN II 43) is that the ‘door’ to the Deathless (Nibbāna) is the (lokuttara) magga. This is certainly plausible, but is one who stands before this ‘door’ yet in the magga itself, or simply practising in such as way as to be well set to do so? What of the import of being ‘accomplished in view (diṭṭhi-sampanno)’ in the suttas? At SN V 29–31, just as dawn is the precursor of the rising of the sun, so being ‘accomplished in view’ is a precursors of the arising (uppādāya) of the noble eight-factored magga. This makes it sound as if this accomplishment might come prior to stream-entry, or even prior to being in the stage of practising for this (as a person of this stage has the factors of the magga: SN V 23–25). AN IV 394–396 gives a series of people to whom a gift given produces progressively more karmic fruitfulness: one accomplished in view, a once-returner, non-returner, Arahat, Pacceka-buddha, Buddha, then various practices that produce even more karmic fruitfulness, up to contemplation of impermanence. This places the one accomplished in view where one might expect the stream-enterer — or perhaps the one practising for this:89 that the sutta ends with a reference to contemplating impermanence, the focus of the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower, is perhaps significant. However, AN V 119–120 explains those ‘accomplished in view’ as the three kinds of stream-enterers, the once-returner, the five kinds of non-returner, and the Arahat. Moreover, at MN I 325, one of the qualities of a person who possesses the stream-entry fruit, but not yet of one who is practising to realize this, is to have ‘the strength of a person accomplished in view’. Again, ‘sees this true Dhamma’ and ‘entered the stream of the Dhamma’, sounds like stream-entry90 and ‘penetrative wisdom’ is the fourth of the ‘floods on karmic fruitfulness’, above, which seem equivalent to the factors of stream-entry.91

89. Note that in the Dakkhiṇā-vibhaṅga Sutta (MN III 255), above, in a series of people to whom gifts might be given, with progressively better fruits, the one practising for stream-entry is the first of the sāvakas mentioned. 90. At AN V 140 (cf. AN III 348–351), whether a person is unvirtuous or virtuous, they are the more excellent if they act in a certain way, as ‘the Dhamma-sota carries one forward (nibbahati)’. The relevant way of acting, here, is, ‘He comprehends, as it really is, that mind-release and release by wisdom whereby his lack of virtue (or virtue, for the virtuous person) ceases without remainder. He has given ear, he has used deep knowledge, he has penetrated by view (diṭṭhiyā pi supaṭividdhaṃ), he wins temporary liberation (sāmāyikaṃ pi vimuttiṃ). When his body breaks up, after death, he tends to excellence’. MN III 110–111 contrasts the ceto-vimutti that is ‘temporary and pleasing (sāmāyikā kantā)’ with that which is ‘not temporary, unshakeable (asamāyikā akuppā)’ and Patis II 40 defines the first as the four jhānas and formless states, and the latter as the four maggas, four fruits and Nibbāna, though Arahatship alone is more likely, so that a temporary liberation could be stream-entry. AN-a III 375 (on AN III 348–351) here explains temporary liberation as occasional joy and gladness (pīti-pāmojjaṃ) from listening to the Dhamma. It also says, on Dhamma-sota, ‘being courageous (sūraṃ), he produces the proceeding insight knowledge, causing the attainment of the noble stage (ariya-bhūmiṃ sampāpeti)’. This seems to relate to MN I 325 on a strength of a person accomplished in view: ‘he gains inspiration (-vedaṃ) in the meaning, gains inspiration in the Dhamma, gains gladness connected with the Dhamma (dhammūpasaṃhitaṃ pāmujjaṃ)’. 91. SN-a II 59, on SN II 43, sees being diṭṭhi-sampanno as attaining the view of the magga and dhamma-sota as a term for the magga.

Thus ‘standing squarely before (āhacca tiṭṭhati)’, or ‘standing knocking on’ or ‘reaching’ the ‘door to the Deathless’ seems to be the attainment of stream-entry, rather than being paṭipanna for realizing this. The latter, rather, would be the stage of approaching such a ‘door’. From what has been said above, it would be to regard and have accepted all conditioned things, including the jhānas, as impermanent and dukkha, and all dhammas as non-Self, but not yet to ‘know and see (jānāti passati)’ these (SN III 225). The firstpaṭipanna person will not yet have seen the cessation as well as arising mode of Conditioned Arising, though he or she will certainly see the logic of this, and will regard, i.e. think of, cessation, Nibbāna, as sukha. He will, though, have real knowledge of the arising mode of Conditioned Arising. Here one notes that in the Susīma Sutta, which concerns how wisdom-liberated Arahats understand Conditioned Arising but are without the first five higher knowledges or the formless attainments, it is said, ‘First, Susīma, comes knowledge of the stability of Dhamma (dhamma-ṭṭhiti-ñāṇaṃ), afterwards knowledge of Nibbāna’ (SN II 124). Now ‘Dhamma-stableness (dhamma-ṭṭthitatā), Dhamma- regularity (dhamma-niyāmatā)’ is explained elsewhere as the twelve nidānas in arising mode (SN II 25–6) and all conditioned things being impermanent and dukkha, and all dhammas being non-Self (AN I 286). The Susīma Sutta then goes on to talk of the three marks, but clearly the other sense of Dhamma-stability is relevant, too. Indeed the arising mode of Conditioned Arising is called its ‘anuloma’ mode: the ‘with the grain’ way (Vin I 1). Now, as we have seen above, AN III 441–42 sees ‘acceptance in accordance (anulomikāya khantiyā)’ of the three marks as the immediate pre-requisite for entering the ‘fixed course of rightness’, i.e. becoming a faith- or Dhamma-follower. Hence knowledge of Nibbāna, the cessation, or paṭiloma, mode of Conditioned Arising, whether by an Arahat or stream-enterer, comes after knowledge of the three marks and the arising, anuloma, mode of Conditioned Arising, and the two kinds of the firstpaṭipanna person are attuned to and accept the three marks and have knowledge of Conditioned Arising’s arising mode. Note that for the stream-enterer, there is a ‘noble method (ariyo ñāyo) that he has clearly seen and thoroughly penetrated with wisdom’: attending closely and carefully to the abstract principle of Conditioned Arising, and the twelve nidānas in both arising and cessation mode (SN II 70).92 Now the first paṭipanna person is a member of the sāvaka-Saṅgha, who are all described as ‘practising with method (ñāya-paṭipanno)’ (e.g. DN III 227). Does this mean that he also has ‘seen’ Conditioned Arising even in its cessation mode? Probably not, as there is another kind of ‘method’: SN V 19 says that when anyone undertakes right view through to right concentration (‘the right way of practice’: sammā-paṭipadā), from this cause, he ‘attains the method, the Dhamma that is wholesome (ñāyaṃ dhammaṃ kusalaṃ)’.93 As the first paṭipanna person already has the eight magga factors, his ‘method’ may be just that of the magga, not of directly seeing Conditioned Arising even in its cessation mode.

92. Here SN-a II 73 says ‘The method is both Conditioned Arising and the stable knowledge (ṭhita- ñāṇan) after one has known the conditionally arisen. As he says, “It is Conditioned Arising that is called the method; the method is also the noble eight-factored magga”’ (untraced). 93. Cf. AN I 122 says that the Buddha teaches especially for the benefit of anyone who from seeing the Tathāgata and hearing the Dhamma and discipline taught by him, ‘enters the fixed course that is rightness in regard to wholesome dhammas (okkamati niyāmaṃ kusalesu dhammesu sammattaṃ).

The arising of the Dhamma-eye The classic description of this has these aspects:94 1) hearing step-by-step discourse: ‘a talk on giving, moral virtue, heavenly rebirth’, 2) ‘showing the disadvantage, degradation and stain (saṃkilesaṃ) of sense- pleasures, and the advantage of non-sensuality’, so that a person’s ‘mind was ready (kalla-), pliable (mudu-), without hindrances (vinīvaraṇa- cittaṃ),95 exalted (udagga-cittaṃ), calm and clear (pasanna-)’, 3) hearing the Buddha teach on the four True Realities for the Noble Ones (ariya-saccas); 4) ‘and just as a clean cloth from which all stains have been removed receives the dye perfectly, so in [name of person], as he sat there, the Dhamma-eye, dustless, stainless arose to him that: “whatever is of the nature to arise (samudaya-dhammaṃ), all that is of the nature to cease (nirodha-dhammaṃ)”’; 5) so that he becomes one who has ‘seen (diṭṭha-) Dhamma, attained to (patta-) Dhamma, known (vidita-) Dhamma, fathomed/plunged into (pariyogāḷha-) Dhamma, having passed beyond vacillation (tiṇṇa-vicikicco), one for whom perplexity has completely disappeared (vigata-kathaṃkatho), having reached confidence vesārajja-patto( ) in the Teacher’s sāsana without rely- ing on another’; 6) and the person describes this as if something has been put upright again, a way found by one who is lost, a light brought into a dark place; 7) going for refuge to the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha; 8) becoming a lay follower, or ordaining as a monk or nun. In the above eight-phase sequence, one could say that: 1) relates to giving, moral virtue, ordinary right view, 2) concerns the mind letting go of sense-pleasures, and becoming concentrated, stilled, not from formal meditation but from intent listening, so as to be poised for a break-through, intently open to the truth, 3) concerns receiving a teaching productive of liberating insight, 4) concerns the arising of liberating insight, 5) which brings an experiential change based on overcoming vacillation (previously suspended, along with the other hindrances), one of the first three fetters, 6) concerns a consequent sense of having been illuminated and trans- formed, 7) leading to commitment and faith, 8) and appropriate action and livelihood. That the arising of the Dhamma-eye is the attainment of at least stream-entry is implied by SN II 133–134: 94. E.g. at DN I 110, and see Anderson 2001, 133–142. 95. I e. free of desire for sense-pleasures, ill-will, dullness and lethargy, restlessness and worry, and vacillation.

for an ariya-sāvaka, a person accomplished in view (diṭṭhi-sampannassa) who has penetrative insight (abhisametāvino),96 the dukkha that has been destroyed and eliminated is more, while that which remains is trifling. …. as there is a maxi- mum of seven more lives. Of such great benefit, monks, is penetration ofDhamma (dhammābhisamayo), of such great benefit is it to obtain the Dhamma-eye.97 It seems that attaining the Dhamma-eye is the crucial break-through, the penetration (abhisamaya), that brings the qualities of stream-entry.98 In effect, it is much the same as what is mapped in the later system as the momentary magga. Patis II 215 says, ‘“Abhisamaya”. How does he penetrate (abhisameti)?’. It answers by saying that this is done by citta plus knowledge (ñāṇa), but not by citta that is in accordance with true reality (saccānulomika-).99 ‘He penetrates by means of pres- ently-arisen citta at the moment of the lokuttara magga and by means of knowledge’. Accordingly, Bhikkhu Bodhi commented on an earlier draft of this article: Long ago (circa 1995) I had written up a hypothesis to the effect that the dhammacakkhu corresponds to the single-moment magga of the Abhidhamma and commentaries. Both have an instantaneous quality, though the idea that the gaining of the dhammacakkhu is an instantaneous event need not commit one to the thesis of a single mind-moment magga. The experience could be experienced as instantaneous while actually extending over a few seconds or even a few minutes. The single mind-moment hypothesis is founded on the basis of the Abhidhamma theory. I personally find it difficult to see how a cognitive event of such depth and significance could occur in a moment lasting only a hundred millionth part of a lightning flash. I agree, though the precise detailing of how long a ‘moment’ lasts is only given in the commentaries. Nevertheless, it was certainly intended to be very short. At AN I 242, when the Dhamma-eye arises, the first three fetters are abandoned, and Sn 231 says the first three fetters, which it names, are abandoned with the ‘attainment of seeing (dassana-sampadāya)’. Moreover Kvu I 4 and II 9 also cite another, untraced, sutta as stating that with the arising of the Dhamma-eye, the first three fetters are abandoned. These passages show that the arising of the Dhamma-eye does not come earlier than stream-entry (or the magga moment immediately before it100). How do the commentaries interpret the arising of the Dhamma-eye?:

96. SN V 438: it is impossible to completely make an end of dukkha without ‘penetrating (anabhisamecca)’ the four True Realities for the Noble Ones. 97. SN V 458 is the same, except that after the reference to seven lives more, it says, ‘He is one who understands, as it really is: “This is dukkha” … “This is the origin of dukkha” … . “This is the cessation of dukkha” “This is the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha”’. Pug 1.33-34 (p. 15) says that the attained-to-view and liberated-by-faith (both stream-enterers) have this understanding, but does not say this of the faith- and Dhamma-follower (Pug 1.35– 6). Again, at Ud 49–50, the Dhamma-eye arises for Suppabuddha, and when he is killed soon after this, the Buddha says that he had ‘practised that Dhamma that accords with Dhamma (paccapādi dhammass’ānudhammaṃ) (a factor for stream-entry)’, was a stream-enterer and had been reborn in the heaven of the Thirty-three. 98. At AN I 106, it is said that crucial places for a monk should remember are: where he ordained, where he realized ‘This is dukkha’ etc, i.e. saw the four True Realities for the Noble Ones at stream-entry, and where he ended tainting inclinations (āsavas). 99. Cf. AN III 441–442 and Patis II 236–242, above, which say that acceptance ‘in accordance’ prepares the way for entry to the ‘fixed course of rightness’. Yet, the latter only prepares the way for stream-entry. 100. The commentaries, though, see this as the time when the first paṭipanna person exists.

‘The Dhamma-eye arose’ — for some the magga of stream-entry, for some the magga of once-returning, for some the magga of non-returning; these three maggas are called the Dhamma-eye (Vin-a 971, on Vin I 23). Carol Anderson comments on this, summarising the commentarial view (2001, 138): The commentary indicates that the cultivation of the dhamma-eye refers to the first three stages of the path. The commentaries on the suttas that parallel these enlightenment stories in the Sutta-piṭaka explain that the dhamma-eye (dhamma-cakkhu) denotes the four paths and the four fruits …101 Dhammacakkhu is also explained as the first three paths;102 as the destruction of the corruptions for an arahat103 but, most commonly, it is understood as the attainment of the path of the stream-enterer.104 That is, the most common commentarial view is that the arising of the Dhamma- eye denotes the single ‘magga’ moment immediately before stream-entry, which in principle might mean, to the commentators, either the last moment of the ‘practising’ person, or a way of referring the ‘practising’ person as a (one-moment) whole. As to what the ‘Dhamma-eye’ sees, at SN III 135, a monk wanting to ‘see’ Dhamma is given a teaching on Conditioned Arising in its arising and cessation modes, such that Dhamma was ‘penetrated (abhisameto)’ by him. That ‘seeing’ Dhamma is ‘seeing’ Conditioned Arising is shown at MN I 190–191, where Sāriputta says: ‘This was said by the Blessed One: ‘Who sees Conditioned Arising sees Dhamma; who sees Dhamma sees Conditioned Arising’. That ‘seeing’ Dhamma is also ‘seeing’ the cessation mode of Conditioned Arising, Nibbāna, is shown by references to seeing ‘the stainless Dhamma, Nibbāna, the unshaken state’ (Thig. 97). Stream-enterers are surely among those who are a ‘jewel in the Saṅgha’ who have ‘attained an attainment (pattipattā), having plunged into the deathless (amataṃ vigayha)’ (Sn 228). Again, after Sāriputta attains the Dhamme-eye, he says that he has ‘attained the Deathless’ (Vin I 40–41) and at MN I 510, the ‘noble eye’ (ariya cakkhu) enables one to see Nibbāna. Thus the Dhamma-eye is a seeing of the ‘difficult to see’ Dhamma fully known by the Buddha at his awakening, namely Conditioned Arising and Nibbāna (MN I 167). One can say that the Dhamma-eye’s insight into phenomena as ‘of the nature to arise’ can be seen as knowledge of Conditioned Arising, and insight into them as ‘of the nature to cease’ can be seen as knowledge of Nibbāna, the cessation of all the links of Conditioned Arising (SN II 70). Such insight would be focused on the arising (samudaya) of dukkha from craving, and its cessation with the cessation of craving, as with the True Realities for the Noble Ones. It seems appropriate to say that the arising of the Dhamma-eye signifies the attaining, at stream-entry or higher, of the full scope of right view, the first paṭipanna person having right view of a lesser scope. The latter has right view in that he regards (samanupassati) things in terms of the three marks, but the stream-enterer is one who has the right view that fully sees (passati) the imper-

101. SN-a II 392, on SN IV107. 102. MN-a III 92, on MN I 380. Anderson’s n.16, on p. 161, gives details on what this passage says on the referents of the arising of the Dhamma-eye. 103. MN-a III 92, on MN I 380. It is also notable that at Vin I 15–17, when the Buddha gives a step-by-step discourse to Yasa’s father, so that the Dhamma-eye arises for him, Yasa, who had already had the Dhamma-eye arise to him, attained Arahatship due to the discourse and reflection on his new found knowledge. 104. AN-a II 356, on AN I 242; AN-a IV 102, on AN IV 186; SN-a II 392, on SN IV 107; MN-a III 92, on MN I 380; MN-a V 99, on MN III 277–279.; DN-a I 237, on DN I 86; cf. AN A II 356 on A I 242.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 49 manence of the khandhas in their entirety (SN III 51), or of the six senses (SN IV 142), and that understands (pajānāti) dukkha, its origin, its cessation, and the way of practice going to its cessation (MN I 48), his right view being knowledge (ñāṇa) in regard to these (DN II 312). In the Sammādiṭṭḥi Sutta (MN I 46–55), the right view of an ariya-sāvaka ‘whose view is straight (ujugatā), who has firm confidence (aveccappasādena) in the Dhamma, and has arrived (āgato) at this true Dhamma’ — i.e. of one who is at least a stream-enterer — is explained as: • understanding what is akusala, and its root, what is kusala, and its root. • understanding, within the structure of the four ariya-saccas: dukkha, nutriment, each of the twelve nidānas, and the tainting inclinations.105 We can thus see that the arising of the Dhamma-eye signifies at least the attainment of stream-entry, when there is a direct breakthrough to knowing Conditioned Arising and Nibbāna, and an ending of the first three fetters. When it arises due to someone receiving a teaching, having not been introduced to Dhamma previously, though, the phase of being ‘practising’ for stream-entry must be briefly encom- passed in the stages immediately leading up to its arising. This would most likely be after the hindrances are suspended and a person is intently listening to a discourse on the four True Realities for the Noble Ones, poised for a break-through. The ‘lesser stream-enterer’ and the attainment of the end of the fourth purification The Visuddhimagga is structured on the basis of seven purifications that are referred to briefly in theRathavinīta Sutta. This outlines (MN I 149–150, cf. DN III 288) a series of seven kinds of ‘purification’ (visuddhi) as being like seven stages of a chariot-relay, with only the final destination being the true goal of the holy life, and each purification being ‘for the sake of (yāvad’eva … -atthā)’ reaching the next: 1) purification of sīla106 2) purification of citta 3) purification of view (diṭṭhi) 4) purification by overcoming doubt (kaṅkhā-vitaraṇa-) 5) purification by knowledge and vision of what is the magga and what is not the magga (maggāmagga-ñāṇa-dassana-) 6) purification by knowledge and vision of the way of practice (paṭipadā- ñāṇa-dassana-) 7) purification by knowledge and vision ñāṇa-dassana( -) The final purification is ‘for the sake of reaching finalNibbāna without clinging 105. And at SN II 17, right view is understanding, with wisdom, the origin and cessation of the world, in terms of Conditioned Arising, and so avoiding the wrong views of (substantial) existence and (total) non-existence. 106. At SN IV 46–47, the Buddha is asked to go to a gravely ill, newly ordained monk. The latter explains that he has nothing to reproach himself with as regards sīla, yet he has remorse and regret; he knows that the Dhamma has not been taught by the Buddha just for purification of sīla — it has been taught for the fading away of attachment (rāga). The Buddha then teaches him on the impermanence of each of the six senses, and that what is impermanent should be regarded as dukkha and not as ‘this is mine, this I am, this is my Self’. A monk, ‘the instructed ariya-sāvaka’, seeing this is said to experience disenchantment, become dispassionate and be liberated. The sick monk is elated and delighted (atamano … abhinandi), and the Dhamma-eye arises for him.

(anupādā parinibbāna-); it is for the sake of reaching finalNibbāna without clinging that the holy life is lived under the Blessed One’. A possible logging of the start of the sutta stage of being one practising for stream-entry is pointed out by Gethin (2001: 133–138). Vism 605, at the end of ch. XIX, on the fourth purification — the seventh being seen as the attainment of the magga moment (Vism 672) — says: When a man practising vipassanā has become possessed of this knowledge (as at Patis II 62–63: see below), he has found comfort (laddha-ssāso) in the Buddha’s dispensation, he has found a foothold (laddha-patiṭṭho), he is fixed in his destiny (niyata-gatiko), he is called a ‘lesser stream-enterer’ (culla-sotāpanno).107 Note that when MN I 141–142 refers to a list of monks of descending attainments, down to the faith-follower and then to monks ‘who have a (sufficient) measure of faith in me, a (sufficient) measure of love for me, … are headed for heaven’, MN-a II 120 sees the last of these as those who practise vipassanā but have not yet reached any noble state, and adds, ‘but the elder monks of old say that such a monk is a lesser stream-enterer (cūḷa-sotāpanno)’. Of course the commentaries see anyone who has not yet reached the firstmagga moment, at the seventh purification, as not yet the first kind of noble person, and not yet a faith-follower or Dhamma-follower, so the ‘lesser stream-enterer’ must for them be at a lesser stage than these. However, the ‘lesser stream-enterer’ is described at Vism 605 as ‘fixed in his destiny (niyata-gatiko)’, and this actually corresponds with SN III 225 saying that the faith- and Dhamma-followers have ‘entered the fixed course of rightness (okkanto sammatta-niyāmaṃ)’. Consequently, the Vism description of the ‘lesser stream-enterer’ seems to better fit thesutta concept of the firstpaṭipanna person, rather than someone at a lower stage who in the suttas has only faith. Gethin points out that ‘in terms of strict Abhidhamma one who has com- pleted the fourth visuddhi has not finally and completely abandoned the three saṃyojanas which include doubt (vicikicchā)’ (p. 137) — a quality that a stream- enterer is completely without. One could add that in the Nikāyas, the person practising for stream-entry has also not abandoned these fetters. Gethin adds: What seems to be envisaged with the notion of the cūḷa-sotāpanna is that the completion of the fourth purification marks a definite beginning of the process that culminates in the magga of stream-attainment proper, the lokuttara magga- moment. One might then put it that, loosely speaking, the magga of stream-attainment extends from the conclusion of the fourth purification (i.e. the acquisition of the knowledge that causes one to pass beyond doubt), up to the seventh purification (‘by knowing and seeing’). This can perhaps be understood as paralleled in the relationship of access concentration (upacāra-samādhi) to full absorption (appanā). Just as the distinction between access and absorption is in a sense glossed over in the Nikāya concept of and usage of the term jhāna, so too is the distinction between the cūḷa-sotāpanna (= a person who is well on the way to becoming a sotāpanna) and the full sotāpanna glossed over in the Nikāya notion of sotāpanna, saddhānusarin and dhammānusārin (p. 137). Here, while there is indeed a parallel between access to jhāna and access to 107. This term may perhaps be used as, at SN III 202–208, it is the stream-enterer who is said to have abandoned doubt (kaṅkhā) that the fivekhandha s and what is sensed and ranged over by the mind is impermanent, dukkha, subject to change, so that one should not cling to them and have various wrong views. Of course a stream-enterer will still have any attainment of one lower down the scale of spiritual progression.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 51 stream-entry, I think it more accurate to say that: the distinction between the cūḷa-sotāpanna (= a person who is well on the way to becoming a sotāpanna) and the full sotāpanna reproduces if somewhat obscures the Nikāya notion of sotāpanna, saddhānusarin and dhammānusārin. The commentarial view, having generally shrunk the firstpaṭipanna person — the first member of thesāvaka-Saṅgha , represented by the faith- and Dhamma-follower — down to existing for only one magga moment, then had to reinvent the earlier idea of this person in the idea of the ‘lesser stream-enterer’, though it saw such a person as still being an ordinary person. The supposedly ‘loosely speaking’ way of talking is closer to the sutta concept of the firstpaṭipanna person. Nevertheless, we see in the Visuddhimagga, and in the Paṭisambhidāmagga that it extensively quotes from, considerable attention given to the stage which in the suttas is that of the paṭipanna person, even though they reserve the title ‘practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit’ for one who is in the moment when this practising has reached completion, and is about to be immediately followed by stream-entry. It seems to be at the stage of having overcome doubt that a definite fork in the road is reached, as described at SN III 108–109. This gives a simile and its explanation in which a man unskilled in the magga (amagga-kusalo: an ‘ordinary person’) asks one skilled in the magga (the Buddha) about the magga, and is told to proceed a little way until he comes to a fork in the road (vacillation: vicikicchā). He should avoid the left-hand branch (the wrong eight-factored magga of wrong view etc.) and take the right hand one (the noble eight-factored magga of right view etc.). Avoiding the wrong fork, after overcoming vacillation, would seem to correspond to the fifth purification, purification by knowledge and vision of what is the magga and what is not the magga, after the fourth purification, that by overcoming doubt (kaṅkhā-vitaraṇa). The Patis II 62–63 passage that Vism 605 cites as regards the end of the fourth purification is as follows:108 When he attends (to things) as impermanent, he knows and sees (jānati passati) the sign (nimittaṃ) as it really is. Hence ‘right seeing’ (sammā-dassanaṃ) is said. Thus, by entailment (-anvayena) from that, all conditioned things (saṅkhārā ) are clearly seen as impermanent. Herein, doubt (kaṅkhā) is abandoned. When he attends (to things) as dukkha, he knows and sees occurrence (pavattaṃ) as it really is. Hence ‘right seeing’ is said. Thus, by entailment from that, all conditioned things are clearly seen as dukkha. Herein, doubt is abandoned. When he attends (to things) as non-Self, he knows and sees the sign and occurrence as they really are. Hence ‘right seeing’ is said. Thus, by entailment from that, all dhammas are clearly seen as non-Self. Herein, doubt is abandoned. Knowledge (ñāṇaṃ) of things as they really are and right seeing (-dassanaṃ) and overcoming doubt (kaṅkhā-vitaraṇā) … these things are one in meaning and only the letter is different. The reference to ‘by entailment’ here connects to the above SN II 58 passage on standing before the door to the Deathless, where one who so stands is one who has ‘purified and cleansed’ ‘knowledge of the principle (dhamme ñāṇaṃ) — understanding the four ariya-sacca structure applied to each nidāna — and ‘knowledge

108. Patis I 57–66 discusses knowledges which become the eight insight knowledges in the Vism (p. 659) as part of the sixth purification.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 52 Peter Harvey of entailment (anvaye ñāṇaṃ)’ — knowledge that this direct knowledge could equally be known in the past and future. However, we have argued that standing before the door of the Deathless refers to stream-entry, not a lower state. Hence this stage of overcoming doubt must refer to seeing the universality of the three marks, and the arising mode of Conditioned Arising. It is, though, notable, that the above passage says that one who has overcome doubt ‘knows and sees (jānati passati)’, as these are qualities normally attributed only to a person who is at least a stream-enterer, even with regard to knowing impermanence (SN III 225), never mind knowing Nibbāna. Perhaps the point is that at this stage, some things are directly seen as impermanent, dukkha, and non-Self, but belief in the universality of these marks is only based in inference, not direct seeing. Again at SN V 159–161, Sāriputta’s confidence that there never has been, is, or will be anyone more knowledgeable than the Buddha is due to ‘entailment from the Dhamma (dhammanvayo)’, this being his inferential knowledge that any Buddha of past, present or future will attain awakening by suspending the hindrances, then practising the four applications of mindfulness so as to develop the seven factors of awakening. The Buddha says that he should repeat such teachings so that people overcome ‘doubt (kaṅkhā) and uncertainty (vimati)’ regarding the Tathāgata. DN III 217 explains the three doubts (kaṅkhā) as ‘one doubts (kankhati), vacillates (vicikicchati), is undecided, is unsettled, about the past, the future, the present’. At SN IV 327–328, the Buddha gets a layperson to overcome doubt and uncertainty about the past and future by first seeing, in the present, that dukkha arises from desire and attachment (chanda-rāga); he then sees that this was so in the past and will be so in the future. Thus we see that overcoming kaṅkhā is about gaining the assurance that what one has seen to be true in the present will surely have been also true in the past and will be true in the future, i.e. that one’s insight is of universal applicability. This aligns with the idea of entry to the ‘certainty of rightness’ being dependent on the prior ‘acceptance’ that all conditioned things are impermanent and dukkha, and all dhammas are non-Self. That a person may not consciously experience vacillation (vicikicchā) but not yet have got rid of the fetter and latent tendency of vacillation, as at stream- entry, is seen in the above Kvu III 5 (p. 243–247) debate on whether the first paṭipanna person has destroyed any fetters. Gethin (1998, 188–194) gives a clear summary of how the Vism explains the seven purifications. If we compare these with the stages of the step-by-step discourse and then the arising of the Dhamma-eye, the correspondence in Table 6, seem appropriate. There also seem to be an alignment with the different kinds of right view described in the commentaries, those of: the ownership of karma (kammassasakata-) (cf. purification 1); jhāna (cf. 2); vipassanā (cf. 3–6); and magga and fruit (cf. 7) (AN-a II 24 and 162). In the Sarvāstivāda scheme of fivemārga s, the mārga of seeing (i.e. the moments immediately leading up to stream-entry) is preceded by that of application (prayoga), and before that, the mārga of equipment (sambhāra) (Gethin 1998, 194– 98; 2001, 337). The mārga of equipment goes up to the development of samatha. In the mārga of application, based on samādhi and the applications of mindfulness, insight is cultivated so as to develop four successive ‘stages of penetrating insight’ (nirvedha-bhāgiya), the first three of which come in weak, medium and strong

Table 6. The step-by-step discourse sequence of stages and the seven purifications. Step-by-step discourse etc. 7 purifications 1. Hearing step-by-step discourse: ‘a talk on 1. of moral virtue giving, moral virtue, heavenly rebirth,’ 2. ‘showing the disadvantage, degradation and 2. of citta (as in samatha meditation: to over- stain of sense-pleasures, and the advantage come the hindrances and develop the jhānas) of non-sensuality’, such that the hearer’s ‘mind was ready, pliable, without hindrances, exalted, calm and clear’, 3. Hearing about the four True Realities for 3. of view: analysis of conditioned things into the Noble Ones interdependent nāma and rūpa processes. 4. of crossing over doubt: comprehension of conditionality as applying in past, present and future; the stage of the ‘lesser stream- enterer’ (Vism 605). 5. by knowing and seeing what is the magga and not the magga: seeing the world as ephemeral processes with the three marks (& 10 defilements of vipassanā occur) 6. by knowing and seeing the way of practice: deepening insight and turning away from empty phenomena. 4. ‘the Dhamma-eye, dustless, stainless arose 7. by knowing and seeing — the ‘magga’109 so as to him that: “whatever is of the nature to to no longer be an ordinary person (though arise, all that is of the nature to cease”, so in the sutta understanding, one stops being that a (spiritually) ordinary person when one 5. he becomes one who has ‘seen Dhamma, becomes the first paṭipanna person). attained to Dhamma, known Dhamma, fathomed/plunged into Dhamma, having passed beyond vacillation (tiṇṇa-vickicco)…’. forms. In the first of the four stages, known as the ‘heat’, ‘glow’ or ‘sparks’(uṣmā) of wisdom, there is an initial direct seeing of the four saccas. Then there are the stages of ‘summit’ (mūrdhan), acceptance (kṣānti) and the single-moment ‘highest worldly state’ (laukikāgra-dharma). There then follow fifteen moments of the mārga of seeing, in which the four saccas are progressively, if swiftly known, and one ‘fruit’ moment. Here the language of ‘acceptance’ mirrors the fact that for the Dhamma-follower ‘the teachings proclaimed by the Tathāgata are accepted with a measure of appreciative understanding (mattaso nijjhānaṃ khamanti)’, and the reference to ‘stages of penetrating insight’ (nirvedha-bhāgiya) mirrors the fact that the wisdom faculty, which even the one practising for stream-entry has, is defined as where an ariya-sāvaka ‘possesses wisdom109… which is noble and penetrative (ariyāya nibbedhikāya)’ (SN V 200). Moreover, Gethin points out that the Sarvāstivādins saw ‘each of the seven sets [of the bodhipakkhiya dhammas 110] as

109. The seven purification sequence is seen, in the Vism to culminate not only in the magga of stream-entry, but also, in a later occurrence of it, in those of once-returner, non-returner and Arahatship. Of course at MN I 149–150, the seventh purification is not the final step, but the one that is taken for the sake of the final stage, ‘final Nibbāna without clinging’, i.e. Ara- hatship. Similarly at DN III 288, purification of wisdom and of liberation (vimutti) follow the seventh purification. 110. The four applications of mindfulness, the four right endeavours (sammā-ppadhānas), the four bases of success (iddhi-pādas) — that involve the forces of endeavour, which are surely close to right effort and energy, along with samādhi gained by means of desire (chanda), energy

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 54 Peter Harvey characteristic of successive stages of the path. So according to the Abhidharmakośa the indriyas characterize the stage of acceptance (kṣānti)’ (2001, 145, cf. 338–340). Prior to the faculties are the four bases of success (iddhi-pādas), so this implies that attaining ‘acceptance’ is an important kind of ‘success’. In support of this idea is the fact that that at AN I 118–19, while the liberated- by-faith, body-witness and attained-to-Dhamma are respectively seen as strong in faith, concentration and wisdom, no kind of sāvaka is said to particularly excel in either the faculties of effort or mindfulness.111 Why might this be? One could say that the one who excels in samādhi also needs to excel in these, and indeed that at MN I 301, right effort (cf. energy), mindfulness and samādhi make up the khandha of samādhi. Yet at MN III 71–75, while the first five of the eightmagga factors are said to have one version that is affected by tainting inclinations (sāsava) and one that is without tainting inclinations, noble, and right concentration is also referred to as noble, there is no differentiating of kinds of right effort or mindfulness, though these are both needed, alongside right views, in developing the other magga factors. In the usual order of the seven sets of the thirty-seven bodhipakkhiya dhammas, sets emphasising mindfulness and effort/energy come before the five faculties. Given that it is said that ordinary persons lack some or all of the five faculties, and that all of the eight kinds of sāvaka have them all to some degree (SN V 202), it may be that the order of the seven sets indeed represents a sequence of emphasis, with the faculties marking the start of the stage of being practising for stream-entry. Of course the earlier sets would continue to be of use — with, for example, the applications of mindfulness developing the factors of awakening, which lead to knowledge and liberation (MN III 82). These facts suggest that the Sarvāstivādin ‘mārga of application’, especially its ‘acceptance’ stage, corresponds to the sutta idea of one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit, even though the Sarvāstivāda system actually saw certainty of stream-entry as only coming at a later point, at the fifteen moments of the darśana-mārga, during which brief time the firstpaṭipanna person is seen to exist. IS THE PERSON PRACTISING FOR STREAM-ENTRY ANY OF AN ARIYAN PERSON, AN ARIYA-SĀVAKA, A TRAINEE, OR A GENUINE PERSON? The eight sāvakas, from the one practising for stream-entry up to the Arahat, are identified at Pug 1.21–22 (p. 14) with noble ones: ‘What kind of person is a noble one (ariyo)? The eight noble persons (ariya-puggalā) are noble ones, the rest are unnoble persons’. Vibh 259 also says that noble ones are Buddhas and Buddha- sāvakas. Asl 349 and MN-a I 21 say that Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas and sāvakas of the Buddha are noble ones. Pug-a 184 equates entering the noble state (dhamma) with entering the lokuttara state, thus entering the noble clan (ariya-gotta), beyond the clan of the ordinary person (puthujjana-gotta). Thus it is clear that the first paṭipanna person in the Abhidhamma sense is a noble one in the Abhidhamma sense. It is also clear that the firstpaṭipanna person in the sutta sense is not a noble one in the Abhidhamma sense, except in the last moment of his

(viriya), thought (citta) or investigation (vīmaṃsā) — the five faculties, five powers, seven factors of awakening and noble eight-factored magga. 111. Cf. Netti 7 associates four of the faculties (excluding faith) with the four modes of progress (painful or pleasant, and with slow or quick comprehension, see above), associating those who ‘find the outlet’ by mindfulness or energy with types with slow comprehension.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 55 existence, immediately prior to stream-entry. What is not yet clear is whether the firstpaṭipanna person in the sutta sense is a noble person in the sutta sense of this term. In the suttas, the plain term ‘noble one’ is not used much,112 but: • SN II 43 refers to ‘an ariya-sāvaka who is accomplished in view … who possesses a trainee’s knowledge (sekhena ñāṇena), a trainee’s true knowledge (sekhena vijjāya … a noble one (ariyo) with penetrative wisdom, one who stands squarely before the door to the Deathless’. We have argued that this concerns stream-entry, not the stage of practising for this. • the unnoble assembly (parisā) does not understand, as it really is, ‘This is dukkha’ etc., while the noble one does (AN I 71–72): this surely implies stream-entry. • Aṅguḷimāla, once he had taken refuge and ordained, but before he was an Arahat, alludes to his change of status as his ‘noble birth’ (MN II 103). This is after his sudden attainment of stream-entry after being confronted by the Buddha; but he would at this point also have had a brief ‘practising’ stage while listening to what the Buddha taught him. • all the eight sāvakas have the five faculties to some degree (SN V 202), and the fifth, the wisdom faculty, is where ‘anariya-sāvaka is wise; he possesses wisdom directed to arising and passing away, which is noble (ariyāya) and penetrative, leading to the complete destruction of dukkha’.113 These points make it most likely that while the stream-enterer is, in the suttas, certainly a noble one, the one practising for stream-entry, while he or she has noble wisdom, is not yet fully a noble one. He is certain to become a noble one in the present life, but is not quite there yet. Here a relevant simile is that of being a crown prince who is set to be a ruler, but is not yet one. Indeed at AN II 68, this simile is used of an ‘unshaken samaṇa’ (samaṇamacalo): Here a monk is a trainee (sekho), one who practises (paṭipado; commentary: paṭipannako), he dwells aspiring for the supreme security from bondage. Just like the eldest son of a head-anointed khattiya rāja, who is not consecrated by conse- cration (but) has attained unshaken (confidence) in this 114 This simile seems not to be applied to the firstpaṭipanna person as such, as AN II 88–89 sees the unshaken samaṇa as a stream-enterer, and AN I 108–109 compares the consecrated rāja to an Arahat. Nevertheless, a similar kind of relationship seems to pertain between the first paṭipanna person and the stream-enterer. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the later tradition defined the first paṭipanna person as existing only in the moment before stream-entry. This way, it could be certain that he or she was a noble one, a kind of plus for them; the price of this, though, was that they only existed for one moment, rather a negative implication. The above also implies that, in the suttas, ariya-sāvaka means either ‘disciple of the noble one(s)’ or ‘kind of disciple who is also a noble one’, and not ‘noble disciple’ in the sense that anyone who is a disciple is a noble one. However, as all

112. Though of course there is plenty of references to ariya-saccas, True Realities for the Noble Ones, and the ariya eight-factored magga. 113. It is also said that one is a noble one by being far from evil, unwholesome states that defile, ripen in suffering, and lead to rebirth (MN I 280), but this does not give a clear indication of who the first kind of noble person is. 114. abhisek’anabhisitto-m-acalapatto: PTS dictionary correction from abhiseko anabhisitto-m-acalapatto.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 56 Peter Harvey eight sāvakas have the five faculties, and these, at least as defined at SN V 196– 197, are qualities of ariya-sāvakas, then all sāvakas are ariya-sāvakas. Hence, the meaning of ariya-sāvaka is most likely to be ‘disciple of the noble one(s)’.115 Indeed Sn-a 166 says, ‘one is an ariya-sāvaka on account of having heard the characteristics (of renunciants) in the presence of the noble ones’. Seven of the sāvakas are themselves noble ones, but the referent of ariya in ariya-sāvaka is probably to the Buddha, said to be the noble one at SN V 435. That is, the ‘sāvaka-Saṅgha of the Blessed One’ is the community of ariya-sāvakas, ‘disciples of the Noble One’. Another ambiguous term is sekha, or trainee. As the Arahat is the ‘non-trainee’ (asekha; DN III 218), as he/she has reached the end of the path of spiritual training, one might expect that the other seven sāvakas, including the person practising for the fruit that is stream-entry, would be included in the ones who are sekhas. Indeed, Pug 1.23–25 (p. 14) says: The four who are magga-endowed (-samaṅgino) and the three persons who are fruit-endowed are trainees. Arahats are non-trainees; the remaining persons are neither trainees nor non-trainees. This is how the Abhidhamma sees things. Patis II 3 also refers to seven kinds of sekhas. However, if the lowest kind is only the person in the ‘magga of stream- entry’, this would include only the last moment of the person practising for stream-entry, in the sutta sense. Patis I 173 says that a sekha is one who trains in right view through to right concentration, right knowledge and right liberation. It is implausible to see anyone lower than a stream-enterer, or at least one on the momentary ‘magga of stream-entry’, as having the latter two qualities. Patis I 63 says that an ordinary person sees equanimity about conditioned things with insight in order to attain the stream-entry magga by abandoning three fetters. A sekha sees equanimity about conditioned things with insight in order to attain a higher (magga), the three fetters having been abandoned’. That is, a sekha is one in the first magga moment, or seeking to attain a higher magga. In the suttas, there is a difference of usage over whether the first paṭipanna person is included in the sekhas. Some passages imply that they are included: • At MN I 477–479, Arahats have nothing more to do but ‘those monks who are sekhas, whose minds have not yet reached the goal (appatta-mānasā), and are still aspiring to the supreme security from bondage … they still have work to do with diligence’. As the seven are then listed, the first two being Arahats and the last two the faith- and Dhamma-followers, this implies the latter two are sekhas, especially as it is explicitly said that each one ‘still has work to do with diligence’. • At AN I 63, both the sekha and asekha are ‘worthy of offerings (dakkhiṇeyyā)’, ‘worthy of gifts (āhuṇeyyā)’ and are ‘become straight (ujju-bhūtā)’, and are a field to which a gift is of great fruit, which makes it sound like all members of the sāvaka-saṅgha are either sekhas or asekhas. • At AN I 231, a sekha is one who trains in higher sīla, higher citta and higher wisdom. He is ‘following the straight magga (uju-maggānusārino)’, which

115. The wording at MN I 325 does not help one decide the issue: ‘Monks, when thus the nature (dhammatā) of the ariya-sāvaka possessed of seven factors is well sought, it is for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit. When one is thus possessed of the seven factors, one is an ariya-sāvaka who (or should that be: ‘an ariya-sāvaka, one who’ ?) is possessed of the fruit of stream-entry’.

would surely include the two ‘followers’ (anusārins); though at It 53 the term is used of a sekha who is just about to attain an Arahat’s knowledge (aññā). • At AN I 1–2, the powers (bālas) of the sekha are faith, moral integrity, concern for consequences, energy and wisdom, with such faith as expressed in the Iti pi so formula on the qualities of the Buddha, but not expressed as ‘firm confidence’, as with a stream-enterer, and wisdom expressed as with the wisdom faculty, that of course the first paṭipanna person has. • MN I 356, in the Sekha Sutta, says that the sekho pāṭipādo116 has seven qualities: the five of AN I 1–2 plus he has learnt and remembered much, and has the highest mindfulness and skill, which makes a set which is very similar to that of the seven noble treasures (ariya-dhanāni) of DN III 251: faith, sīla, moral integrity, concern for consequences, learning, renunciation (cāgo) and wisdom. On the other hand, passages which imply that the sekhas do not include the first paṭipanna person, but refer to the stream-enterer upwards, are: • At Vin I 17 (cf. p. 248), Yasa’s attainment of the Dhamma-eye, which as we have seen means at least stream-entry, is referred to as a sekha’s knowledge (ñāṇa) and insight (dassana). That said, Yasa would have also had a brief paṭipanna stage in the lead up to the Dhamma-eye arising. • SN II 43 refers to ‘an ariya-sāvaka who is accomplished in view … who possesses a trainee’s knowledge (sekhena ñāṇena), a trainee’s true knowledge (sekhena vijjāya) … a noble one’. As we have argued, this concerns stream-entry. • At SN V 229-230, a sekha can understand he is a sekha as, amongst other things, he ‘understands (pajānāti), as it really is: “This is dukkha” and the statements on the other three saccas; he understands the five faculties, and as regard their final goal, ‘having pierced it through wisdom, he sees (passati)’, with the asekha, the Arahat, as one who has contacted the final goal with his body. • SN II 48 explains that sekhas are those who have seen as it really is, with correct wisdom: ‘This has come to be’, and ‘Its origination occurs with that as nutriment’ and ‘With the cessation of that nutriment, what has come to be is subject to cessation’ and so ‘is practising (paṭipanno) for the purpose of disenchantment (nibbidāya) with X, for its fading away and cessation’, where ‘X’ is ‘what has come to be’, then ‘its origination through nutriment’ and ‘what is subject to cessation’. One who has ‘comprehended Dhamma (saṅkhāta-dhammo)’, though, knows the above with right wisdom, is liberated by non-clinging, as such disenchantment etc. has been attained. Here the ‘practising’ seems to be that done between stream-entry and Arahatship. • AN II 86–91 has four suttas that each give explanations of four kinds of samaṇas: the ‘unshaken samaṇa (samaṇamacalo)’, the ‘red-lotus samaṇa (samaṇa-puṇḍarīko)’, the ‘white-lotus one (samaṇa-padumo)’, and the one ‘exquisite among samaṇas (samaṇesu samaṇa-sukhumālo)’. While the first sutta specifies the first kind of person as ‘asekha , one who practises (paṭipado;

116. Cf. It 79.

commentary: paṭipannako)’, the second specifies him as a stream-enterer.117 Bhikkhu Bodhi comments:118 It seems to me that the Nikāyas use the term ‘sekha’ in two senses: a narrow sense and a broad sense. In the broad sense, the sekha includes the two anusāris [followers]; in the narrow sense, it begins only with the attainment of sotāpatti. … I wonder if there is a sutta that states explicitly that the anusāri is a sekha, rather than that he has reached sekhabhūmi, which might sound like that same thing but might be construed differently, i.e., as one who has arrived at JFK airport can be said to have ‘arrived in the U.S.’, but until he passes through immigration and customs can’t really be said to have entered the U.S. The above simile of a crown prince also seems appropriate here. It could perhaps be said, then, that the first paṭipanna person is a kind of trainee trainee, and also a trainee noble one. Spiritually, he parallels the situation of a novice, a samaṇera, compared to a bhikkhu, a full samaṇa. Indeed we have seen that MN I 225–226 compares the faith- and Dhamma-follower, two forms of the firstpaṭipanna person, to a young new-born calf following its mother’s lowing, with the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner and Arahat as respectively compared to a weak calf, a half-grown bull-calf, a sturdy bullock, and a herd-leading bull. Another related term is sappurisa. SN III 225 says that the faith- and Dhamma- followers have each ‘entered the plane of sappurisas (sappurisa-bhūmim), transcended the plane ordinary persons (puthujjana-bhūmiṃ)’. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s above simile may apply here too: the first paṭipanna person is a sāvaka who is a trainee sappurisa.119 ‘Sappurisa’ comes from purisa, person, with the prefixsat (sant): existing, good, true. The Abhidhamma does not seem to take the term in a very technical sense as Pug IV 1 (p. 39) simply defines the sappurisa as one who keeps the five precepts and one who is even more a sappurisa as one who does this and also urges others to do so, implying that sappurisa mean a ‘good person’. The suttas see him as more than this; he is a ‘genuine person’: one who values what is most important, is attuned to what is real and true: • as a monk, he is a knower (-aññū) of Dhamma, of meanings, of himself, of moderation, of the right time, of groups and of persons (DN III 252), these being hard to penetrate (duppaṭivijjhā; DN III 283). • a sappurisa monk, unlike an asappurisa one, does not laud himself as superior to other monks due to his social background, fame, or whether he is an expert in Dhamma or Vinaya, or an ascetic practitioner, but he respects another monk according to whether he is ‘practising Dhamma in accordance with Dhamma (dhammānudhamma-paṭipanno), is practising properly (sāmīci-paṭipanno), and is one who conducts himself according to Dhamma (anudhammacārī)’. Nor, if he has attained one of the four jhānas or formless states, does he look down on other monks who have not done so (MN III 37–45). • Only a genuine person can tell if another person is a genuine person or not (MN III 20–24) — hence the ‘uninstructed ordinary person’, ‘who is 117. Passages on the sekha which contain no clue as to whether or not he includes the first paṭipanna person are at SN V 144-145, 175, 327, MN III 76 and It 71–73. 118. In an email communication regarding an earlier draft of this article. 119. Though Asl 349 and MN-a I 21 say that Paccekabuddhas and sāvakas of the Buddha are suppurisas, which would mean that the first of the eight sāvakas, in the Abhidhamma sense, was one of the sappurisas.

not a seer of genuine persons’ (e.g. SN III 16–17) may mean ‘who cannot recognize genuine persons’, or similarly with ‘not a seer of noble ones’.120 Clues as to the level attained by a sappurisa are given by these passages: • he/she grows in noble sīla, samādhi, wisdom, and liberation (vimutti; AN II 239). • he/she has right view through to right concentration — we have seen that even the first paṭipanna person has these –, and the person who is even more a sappurisa also has right knowledge (ñāṇa) and right liberation (vimutti) (just as the worse kind of asappurisa also has wrong knowledge and wrong liberation121; SN V 20). • unlike the asappurisa, he/she keeps the five precepts; has faith, moral integrity (hiri), concern for consequences (ottappa), is learned, energetic, mindful and wise, as with the sekho pāṭipādo at MN I 356; he has right speech and is free of wrong view, covetousness and malice, and has right view through to right concentration, plus right knowledge and right liberation; he also encourages others in all these qualities (AN II 217–222). MN III 23–24 says much the same and adds that the sappurisa is reborn to greatness among devas or humans. • he is one whose concentration is not shaken, which would lead to (actions leading) to hell, due to either receiving respect or lack of respect, and is a ‘persevering meditator, practising vipassanā by way of subtle view (sukhuna-diṭṭhi-vipassakaṃ), one delighting in the destruction of grasping’ (It 74–75). Here we see that the sappurisa is endowed with the eight qualities of the magga, as is the first paṭipanna person, but may even be endowed with right knowledge and liberation. Now it is sometimes said that one who also has these last two factors is an Arahat (MN III 76, cf. DN III 271). Nevertheless, stream-enterers are sometimes seen to have some kind of right knowledge and right liberation. At SN V 381– 385, Sāriputta, talking to the gravely ill Anāthapiṇḍika, says he has the four factors of stream-entry, right view to right concentration and also right knowledge and right liberation; the Buddha then says he has explained the ‘four factors of stream-entry in ten modes’. Patis II 173 also calls all ten factors the ‘ten powers/ strengths’(bālas) for both trainees and Arahats. Again, at AN III 450–451, it is said: Monks, by being endowed with six dhammas, the housefather Tapussa has come to the goal in the Tathāgata (tathāgate niṭṭhaṃ gato), seen the Deathless, conducts himself having experienced the Deathless. What six? Firm confidence in the Buddha, in the Dhamma and in the Saṅgha (qualities of a stream-enterer), noble sīla, noble knowledge and noble liberation. Clearly the stream-enterer has some liberating knowledge, and is liberated from the first three fetters, at least. Thus the sappurisa with right knowledge and liberation might be the stream-

120. Asl 350 (cf. SN-a II 252) talks of both seeing with the eye and knowing but says that seeing with the eye does not discern the nature of a noble person: see Masefield 1987, 103. 121. At DN III 254, wrong view through to wrong concentration are called the eight wrongnesses (micchattā).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 60 Peter Harvey enterer, with the less advanced sappurisa being the first paṭipanna person, or he might be the Arahat, with the less advanced ones being sāvakas down to stream- enterers, or perhaps down to the one practising for this. WHAT KIND OF MAGGA IS THE FIRST PAṬIPANNA PERSON PRACTISING? We have seen that the first paṭipanna kind of person has the eight factors of the magga (SN V 23–25) and that they have entered the ‘fixed course of rightness’ (SN III 225) and had the magga ‘born’ in them (AN II 156–157). Is the magga that they practise lokiya or lokuttara, though? Of course as understood by the later tradition, they exist only in the lokuttara magga moment. But as understood in the suttas, is their magga lokuttara? When MN III 72 distinguishes two kinds of right view (sammā-diṭṭhi), the second is ‘right view that is noble (ariyā), without tainting inclinations (anāsavā), lokuttara, a factor of the magga (maggaṅgā)’, that is: Wisdom (paññā), the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the investigation- of-states factor of awakening, the magga-factor (maggaṅgā) of right view in one whose mind is noble (ariya-cittassa), whose mind is without tainting inclinations (anāsava-cittassa), who possesses the noble magga (ariya-maggassa samaṅgino) and is developing the noble magga (ariya-maggaṃ bhāvayato). As the first paṭipanna person has the faculty of wisdom, which is described as ‘noble’, and can experience states at least temporarily free of tainting inclinations, do they have this? We have seen that the ‘fixed course of rightness’ is a magga, and will definitely lead to stream-entry in this life, which makes it very unlikely that it could be the lokiya magga of MN III 72. It is far more likely to be the lokuttara one, though not in the later sense of this as a state lasting only one moment. The commentarial idea of a vipassanā right view is perhaps appropriate, though the commentaries do not see this as lokuttara in their sense due to it not yet being at the level of the momentary lokuttara magga. What kind of meaning, though, is ascribed to lokuttara in the suttas? At SN V 407 (cf. SN II 267), the Buddha urges the layman Dhammadinna to from time to time ‘enter and dwell upon those discourses spoken by the Tathāgata that are deep, deep in meaning, lokuttara, dealing with emptiness (suññata-)’, but Dhammadinna says that it is not easy for laypeople to do this, so the Buddha urges him to develop the four factors of stream-entry, which Dhammadinna says he already has. The commentary (SN-a III 291) says those that deal with the lokuttara are such as the Asaṅkhata-saṃyutta (SN 43). At MN III 111–115, in the Mahā-suññata Sutta, it is said that the Buddha has discovered an abiding that is ‘to enter and abide in emptiness internally by giving no attention to any sign’ (p. 111). A monk con- centrates his mind by developing the four jhānas and four formless states, then gives attention to emptiness, both internally and externally. If his mind does not enter into internal or external emptiness, he has full awareness (samajāno) of this. If it does so enter into internal or external emptiness, he has full awareness of this. Abiding thus, he knows that whether he walks, stands, sits or lies down, he has no unwholesome states, and has full awareness of this. He resolves to avoid low talk, and, when he talks, to talk of things related to disenchantment, peace and Nibbāna, and has full awareness of this. When thinking, he avoids the three kinds of wrong thought and resolves on the three right thoughts, that are ‘noble and emancipating’ and lead to the end of dukkha; and he has full awareness of

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 61 this. He has full awareness of whether desire and lust for the five sense-objects that may excite these is still sometimes present in him, or completely abandoned. He abides contemplating the rise and fall of the khandhas, and thus ends the ‘I am’ conceit, and has full awareness of this. Accordingly, ‘These states have an entirely wholesome basis; they are noble, lokuttara, and inaccessible to Māra’ (MN III 115). Here, the context implies that this statement applies to all the above forms of full awareness. Such passages indicate that what is lokuttara deals with what is empty, i.e. empty of Self (SN IV 54) and tending beyond the world, not that they are themselves beyond the world or necessarily include direct awareness of Nibbāna, as with the Abhidhamma lokuttara magga, though they may do.122 Thus, in the suttas, the firstpaṭipanna person can be said to practise a lokuttara magga, and in doing so hence to have a noble mind, if not yet fully being a noble one. As at MN I 323–325 above, he has the ‘noble and emancipating’ view, if not yet the stream-enterer’s ‘noble, emancipating, lokuttara’ knowledge. PROGRESSION AMONGST NOBLE ONES Once a person is a stream-enterer, one who is definitely a noble one, how does such a person progress? AN IV 379–382 indicates, as in Table 7, what needs to be further developed. It describes nine persons who die while still with a remainder of grasping (sa-upādisesā) but are freed (parimuttā) from any sub-human rebirth, that is, thy are neither Arahats or puthujjanas. The end of the AN IV 379–82 passage says that this teaching had not been previously given in case it encouraged negligence (pamādo). We have seen above that at SN V 398 and MN I 477–479, it is emphasized that Arahats are beyond negligence, but the other sāvakas are not. As the one-seeder is more advanced than the other two kinds of stream-enterers, the Table 7 phrase mattasokārī must mean that these two have only a small amount of samādhi and wisdom, but not as much as the one-seeder, and not as much again as the noble ones who have completely fulfilled one or both of these. Using the phrase in a slightly different way, though also in a form that is not a compound (mattaso kārī), AN I 231–232 explains that: 1) stream-enterers and once-returners have completely fulfilled (paripūrakārī) sīla, so as to re-establish their adherence to the monastic training rules after any small lapses from them, and have some measure (mattaso kārī) of samādhi and wisdom. 2. non-returners have also completely fulfilled their samādhi, and have a measure of wisdom, 3. Arahats have completely fulfilled all three. Stream-enterers, then, have some degree of wisdom — they have the wisdom faculty and ‘The four who are practising and the four stationed in the fruit, … are

122. In the Abhidhamma, Vibh 229, in its Abhidhamma analysis of the seven awakening factors, describes them as existing when a monk develops a ‘lokuttara jhāna tending to release’, while Dhs 1094 says that the lokuttara states are the four maggas that are unincluded, the four fruits, and the unconditioned element. At Patis I 166–167, lokuttara states are said to be the thirty- seven bodhipakkhiya dhammas, the four noble maggas, the four fruits, and Nibbāna. They are lokuttara as ‘they cross from the world … they do not stand in the world … they are purified from the world … they emerge from the world … they turn away from the world …’.

Table 7. AN IV 379–382 on qualities still to develop by non-Arahat noble ones.

Someone who has completely ful- any of the five kinds of people who have eliminated the five filled (paripūrakārī) sīla and samādhi, lower fetters (i.e. non-returners), from those who attain but not wisdom: Nibbāna (-parinibbāyī) ‘in-between’ (probably meaning in- between lives: see Harvey, 1995: 98–102), to one who does so ‘cutting short’, without-saṅkhāra, with-saṅkhāra, down to one going ‘upstream’ (through the five pure abodes ) to Akaniṭṭha (the last of them). Someone who has completely 1. the once-returner, who has eliminated the three lowest fulfilled sīla but not samādhi or fetters and reduced attachment, hatred and delusion, wisdom: who, having returned to this world (imaṃ lokaṃ) once, makes an end of dukkha. 2. one who has eliminated the three fetters (is a stream- enterer) and is a one-seeder. Someone who has completely 1. who has eliminated the three fetters and is a clan-to- fulfilled sīla and to (only) a small clanner. measure (mattasokārī) fulfilled 2. one who has eliminated the three fetters and is a seven- samādhi and wisdom: lives-at-moster. endowed with sīla and wisdom (paññā-sīla-samāhito)’ (SN I 233 AN IV 292)123 — but not the completely fulfilled wisdom of an Arahat. Their level of wisdom, though, is that of their right view, which comes before and enables all their other magga factors (MN III 72–75, DN II 217, cf. SN V 1), and indeed the Buddha said of Ānanda that it was hard to find his equal in wisdom (AN I 225), though he was a stream- enterer until after the Buddha’s death (Vin II 286). While a stream-enterer has the sīla, samādhi and wisdom embodied in the eight-factored magga, the second and third of these still need to be further cultivated, so as to be completely fulfilled. In Abhidhamma terms, one can perhaps say that while their momentary lokuttara magga may have had these at an equal level, their lokiya magga and general mind- state needs strengthening in samādhi and wisdom. While the stream-enterer has some liberating knowledge, and is liberated from the first three fetters — hence terms such as ‘liberated-by-faith’ — the probable reason why the Arahat is said to have wisdom which is completely fulfilled is that his knowledge and liberation go deeper. For the sāvakas, the important thing is to first see the four saccas, the four key realities, and how each needs to be responded to, with the fourth needing ‘to be developed’ (SN V 422). Dhs sees the first three fetters as to be abandoned by seeing (dassana; 1002), and the remaining unwholesome states by development (bhāvanā; 1007), and Netti 189–190 sees suttas ‘dealing with seeing (dassana-)’ as concerning the one-seeder, clan-to-clanner and seven-lives-at-moster — i.e. the three kinds of stream-enterer — and the faith- and Dhamma-followers, i.e. the two kind of people practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit. Those suttas dealing with development (bhāvanā) concern the once-returner and one practising for this fruit, the five kinds of non-returner and one practising for the non-returner-fruit, along with the liberated-by-faith, view-attainer, and body- witness, presumably meaning these three once they engage themselves to attain a higher fruit. Pet 42 adds that suttas on development also concern one practising for the Arahatship-fruit. Likewise Kvu II 9 (p. 216) says that the first paṭipanna

123. DN I 124 says that sīla and wisdom are like two hands washing each other, and they naturally accompany each other.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 63 persons are ‘seeing’ (dakkhanto) dukkha etc.. These emphases align with the fact that MN III 72 stresses that ‘right view comes first’, with all the other magga factors dependent on it. The sequence of proceeding from seeing to developing is also reflected in the Sarvāstivāda model of the five mārgas, in which the mārga of seeing, equivalent to stream-entry, is followed by the mārga of development, and then that of the non-trainee, the Arahat. That seeing the saccas is not the same as an Arahat’s full experience of the third, Nibbāna, is clear from SN II 118. Here the monk Nārada says that, apart from faith and e.g., ‘acceptance of a view after pondering it’ (diṭṭhi-nijjhāna-khanti), he knows and sees the arising and cessation modes of Conditioned Arising. Nevertheless, though ‘I have clearly seen as it really is with correct wisdom, “the cessation of becoming (is) Nibbāna”, I am not an Arahat, with tainting inclinations destroyed’. He then compares this to a thirsty man looking down a rope-less well at water that he is unable to drink. Nārada is clearly at least a stream-enterer,124 but he cannot fully experience the Nibbāna that he has seen, so to speak, as a distant object. Indeed, if one ‘focuses citta on the Deathless element’ as, ‘This is the peaceful ... cessation, Nibbāna’, one may become an Arahat, but then one may only become a non-returner (MN I 435–436). That is, experiential knowledge of Nibbāna does not necessarily entail the full realization of it. As said at AN IV 70, a non-returner is one who ‘sees the state that is peaceful (padaṃ santaṃ) with right wisdom, yet that state is not completely realized (na sabbena sabbaṃ sacchikataṃ)’. Nevertheless, the commentaries see the different maggas as knowing the same thing: The four saccas are seen (diṭṭhāni) by the first out of the four maggas, and are also seen by the three higher maggas. The latter do not see (passati) anything not seen by the first (Asl 241, cf. Fuller 2005, 105–107). This is then compared to a man with treasures (the saccas) in a treasure store. Three times he goes into the store at night to do some business with the contents, opening the door, lighting a light and seeing them — this is like the first three maggas. The darkness after the man leaves is like obscurity covering saccas again. A fourth time, he goes in in daylight — this is like the arising of the magga of Arahatship (Asl 242–243). The removal of defilements is also like four washes to completely cleanse a garment; the four maggas are differentiated in terms of what defilements they eliminate, not in terms of what they see. That said, it seems perfectly sensible to say that one can experience the same thing at four different times, but understand it to greater degrees, and with greater clarity. The above simile does, indeed, suggest that the magga of Arahatship sees more clearly, as its simile is going into the ‘treasure store’ in daylight, rather than at night with a lamp. As to the future destinies of the four noble persons in the fruit stages, AN V 119–120 says: Monks, whoever have come to the goal in me (mayi niṭṭhaṅgatā125), all of them are accomplished in view (diṭṭhi-sampannā). Of five of these accomplished in view, the goal is here (idha niṭṭhā), of five the goal is on leaving here (idha vihāya niṭṭhā). Of which five is the goal here? Of the seven-times-at-moster, of the clan-to-clanner, of the one-seeder (three kinds of stream-enterer, as specified in the next

124. SN-a III 123 sees him as a non-returner. 125. Cf. Dhp 351: ‘Who has reached the goal (niṭṭhaṅgato), is fearless, is without craving, is passionless, has cut off the thorns of becoming, this is his final body’.

sutta, AN V 120), of the once-returner, and who in this same visible state (diṭṭha’eva dhamme) is an Arahat … Of which five is the goal on leaving here? ... [the five kinds of non-returners are listed]. In this passage, ‘here’ might perhaps mean the human world, but it more likely means the sense-desire realm, i.e. the realm of humans and the six deva realms, below the brahmā realms, (lower sense-desire realms having been escaped by stream-enterers), as the non-returner goes beyond not just the human world, but the world of sense-desire.126 What is slightly puzzling is that AN V 119–120 seems to imply that any of the three kinds of stream-enterer or the once-returner will reach the goal — Arahatship — in this world, and not in another world as a non-returner. Where do non-returners come from, then, if not from those who have previously been stream-enterers and/or once-returners? Perhaps those who become non-returners do so in one leap from having been an ordinary person.127 Alternatively, AN V 119–120 simply means that a stream-enterer and once-returner who do not later become non-returners will attain Arahatship in this world. At Kvu XII 5 (pp. 470–471), the Theravāda view is that the seven-lives-at-moster may in fact not go through all the seven lives, implying that he may in the mean time attain a higher noble state. We have already learnt, of course, that at AN I 120, it is said to be difficult to say which is the most excellent between the liberated-by-faith, attained-to-view and body-witness. Any of them might be practising (paṭipanna) for Arahatship while the other two are either non-returners or once-returners. Moreover, SN III 167–178 says that contemplating the five bundles of grasping fuel (upādāna-kkhandhas) ‘as impermanent, dukkha, as a disease, as a tumour, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as empty, as non-Self’ entails that a virtuous monk may realize the stream-entry-fruit, a stream-enterer may realize the once-returner-fruit,128 a once-returner may realize the non- returner-fruit, a non-returner may realize the Arahatship-fruit, and an Arahat may experience a pleasant dwelling in this life, with mindfulness and clear comprehension. At Kvu IV 8 (pp. 286–290), the Theravādin view is that on the night of his awakening, the Buddha attained the four maggas and four fruits, and the commentaries certainly see higher noble states as only reached via being lower ones, however rapidly this takes place. At Thag-a I 43 and 148, the novices Dabba and Sīvalī are said to successively attain the stream-entry-, once-returner-, non- returner- and Arahatship-fruits as their heads are shaved.

126. Masefield, 1989: 123 cites different commentarial views on the once-returner and the ‘this world (imaṃ lokaṃ) he will return to: DN-a 534–35 and SN-a III 282 say it means the sense- desire realm as a deva or human. MN-a I 163 and Pug-a 197-198 say he is born as a deva and then as a human who becomes an Arahat. Certainly in the suttas, there is reference to once- returners in some deva realms (DN II 217–18, AN III 348). 127. AN I 242 might be seen as an instance of this. It talks of arising of the Dhamma-eye — which is only ever said to occur once to a person — as ending the first three fetters , ‘then afterwards (athāparaṃ) he emerges from sense-desire and ill will’. However, the ‘afterwards’ seems to count against this interpretation, as pointed out to me by Bhikkhu Bodhi. 128. Thus a stream-enterer who does not so contemplate would not automatically also be one practising for the realization of the once-returner-fruit. Thus the refrain in which sāvakas other than Arahats are urged not be negligent.

Table 8 The life-spans and remaining dukkha of the noble ones. 129 Person Future rebirths and their dukkha Time remaining after end of present life before anupādisesa Nibbāna 1. Ordinary person In any realm, including hells, or as Unlimited animal or ghost 2. One practising for stream- Will have no sub-human rebirths, See stream-enterer entry and will become a stream-enterer in his or her current life (SN III 225) 3. Stream-enterers: The dukkha of remaining human and deva lives, free of that associated with the first 3 fetters i) Seven-lives-at-moster Up to seven human lives as a human Up to ~ 700 years if all are or deva human lives; sense-desire- realm devas live from 9 million to 9,216 million years (AN I 213, Vibh 422–23) ii) Clan-to-clanner Two to three human lives ~200-300 years iii) One-seeder One human life ~100 years 4. Once-returner One life as a sense-sphere deva, with 9 to 9216 million years (Vibh greater pleasure than in human 422–23). lives (SN V 408); lacking dukkha associated with abandoned degree of sense-desire & ill-will fetters. 5. Non-returners: Except for the one ‘attaining Nibbāna in-between’, lives in the form or formless realms, especially the pure abodes, and mostly associated with equanimity; their remaining dukkha being only that associated with attachment to form and formless realms, restlessness, conceit and ignorance. i) One going up-stream to Goes through the 5 pure abodes: 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 = 31 Akaniṭṭha Aviha, Atappā, Sudassā, Susassī, thousand eons (Vibh 425) Akaniṭṭha ii) Those attaining Nibbāna One life in the form realm: with or without activities among Brahmakāyika, Ābhassara, -1, 2, 4, 500 eons (AN II 126-30) of effort, or ‘cutting short’ Subhakiṇha, or Vehappala brahmās, or in a pure abode (AN II 126-30) -1000 eons in 1st pure abode (respectively relating to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, (Vibh 425) 4th & 4th jhāna (Gethin, 1998:116- 17)). or in one of first 3 formless realms (AN I 267-8) or the 4th one (AN II -20, 40, 60 or 84 thousand eons 160). (AN I 267–8 & Vibh 425–26). 129 iii) Those attaining Nibbāna The between-lives period. Up to a few weeks? in-between 6. Arahat No future rebirths None

129. Kvu-a 106–07 says those who believed in the antarā-bhava saw it as lasting a week or more. AKB II 14d cites different views: seven days, seven weeks, or very quickly.

LIFE-SPANS AND REMAINING DUKKHA OF THE NOBLE ONES What of the future destinies of the different noble persons? The stream-enter is without the first three fetters, and can have no more than seven more lives, none at a level lower than that of the human. The once-returner has minimized the fetters of desire for sense-pleasures and ill-will, and so returns only once more to the sense-desire realm. As these latter two fetters are weakened, his ‘return’ will surely be in the deva, rather than human, part of ‘this’ realm, as deva sensual pleasures are more refined (SN V 409–410). The non-returner eliminates these two fetters, and so never returns to this realm. He or she still has attachment to the elemental form and formless realms, and so is reborn in these (unless he attains Nibbāna ‘between’ his death and any rebirth). The Arahat lacks these fetters, as well as spiritual ignorance, and restlessness and conceit, which in the non-returner probably only exist as subtle spiritual restlessness and subtle self-importance. As we look along the spectrum of the different people, we can see from Table 8 that they have different time remaining in saṃsāra. Though the pattern is not simply one of the time reducing as one gets to being a more advanced kind of noble person: In Table 8, while the one-seeder stream-enterer only has one more human life, the non-returner, who is more advanced, will have many eons of life ahead (unless he attains Nibbāna between lives). However, those lives have far less dukkha than a human life, just as the once-returner’s one remaining divine life is longer than the remaining human life of a one-seeder, but is more pleasant, with less dukkha. Overall, then, one can envisage a reducing amount of remaining dukkha as one moves along the above scale of advancing spiritual attainment, as this comes from: the remaining time in a certain realm or realms multiplied by level of dukkha in these. Of course, within the present or a future life, a person could advance to a higher noble level; and all except the ordinary person definitely end upArahat s sooner or later. Ajahn Sucitto (2011, 240–241) gives the graphic image of a stream-enterer as like a prisoner who has made a small hole in his prison wall, so as to enjoy the fresh air and daylight from outside; a once-returner is like a prisoner who has enlarged the hole and got his head through it; the non-returner is like a prisoner who has got out through an even larger hole, but keeps returning to the prison ‘to rest, eat and do business’; the Arahat is like a prisoner who gets out and stays out: ‘It is only this last type, who perseveres and develops the confidence to get out, walk away and live outside the prison, that is truly free’. CONCLUSION We have seen in this article that the first member of thesāvaka -Saṅgha, the person practising for the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry, came to be ren- dered almost invisible in the developed form of some early schools by being seen to last for only the single moment (Theravāda) or fifteen moments (Sarvāstivāda) of the magga of stream-entry. He had a blaze of glory, but it only lasted for one or fifteen moments. This in effect reduces the eight kinds of person of the sāvaka- Saṅgha to four persons accompanied by residual ‘twins’ who died the instant they were born. Other than one micro-moment perhaps being too short, there is no problem per se with the Theravāda Abhidhamma idea of a moment-long magga,

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2013 The Saṅgha of Noble Sāvakas 67 but there is if this is seen as the only time the sutta’s four paṭipanna persons exist in. The reason for the later idea may have been due to wanting to both count the paṭipanna person as a noble one but also reserve the status of being a noble one for those who had destroyed some fetters or were in the moment when they were being destroyed. The Patis and Vism, though, do go into great detail on the stages of practice that are assigned to the first paṭipanna person in the suttas. This article has sought to recover the sutta idea of the person practising for the realization of the fruit that is stream-entry, and the faith-follower and Dhamma- follower that he or she is identified with. Significantly, these kinds of people are seen as certain to become stream-enterers at some time in their present life; so to become such a kind of person is a crucial transition. How can this transition be mapped, though? It entails the definitive gaining of all five faculties, including their orientation to deliverance and insight into impermanence especially. In the Theravāda tradition, the faith-follower, who has the weakest set of the five faculties, is seen, at least from the time of the Paṭisambhidāmagga, as particularly contemplating things as impermanent, while the Dhamma-follower particularly contemplates things as non-Self. They can both be seen as persons of relatively keen insight, though their strongest faculty is respectively faith and wisdom. In the suttas, they are seen as having calm acceptance that all conditioned things are impermanent and dukkha, all dhammas are non-Self, and that Nibbāna is sukha, thus enabling their entry into the ‘fixed course of rightness’, a sutta term for the magga that is surely lokuttara and noble, though it is not seen as a momentary state. The momentary, or at least brief, penetration comes with the arising of the Dhamma- eye, ‘standing squarely before the door to the Deathless’, which destroys some fetters and renders a person at least a stream-enterer. Nevertheless, the lead-up to the arising of the Dhamma-eye must incorporate at least a short period, meas- ured in minutes (in the situation in which the Dhamma-eye arises simply from hearing the Buddha or an Arahat teach), not moments, of being in the ‘practising for’ stage: after the hindrances are suspended and a person is intently listening to a discourse on the four True Realities for the Noble Ones, poised for a break- through. If a person does not attain the Dhamma-eye from listening to a discourse by the Buddha or an Arahat, the practising phase would no doubt take longer, unless the person was of very sharp faculties, though still not a long time. MN II 95–6 says that for a monk with faith, wisdom, honesty, good health and energy for abandoning unskilful states, then when taught by a Tathāgata, the entire spiritual transition up to Arahatship will only take from seven years down to half a day, where, ‘being instructed in the morning, he attains distinction (visesaṃ) in the evening’. The main thing, though, is that the ‘practising’ phase will certainly be followed, prior to death, by the attainment of stream-entry. There are reasons to map the sutta person ‘practising to realize the fruit that is stream-entry’ as at a level equivalent to the Sarvāstivādin mārga of application, particularly its ‘acceptance’ phase, and as identical with the Theravāda ‘lesser stream-enterer’ of the end of the fourth purification upwards. Nevertheless, neither developed tradition logs them at this level, reserving them as existing during the one or fifteen moments immediately before stream-entry. The material explored in this article shows that, just as the Mahāyāna has approaches emphasizing a kind of wisdom (Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras, the

Mādhyamika) and faith (the Pure Land schools), so too did early Buddhism. Just as the Pure Land schools see a kind of faith as getting a person onto the first rung of the ladder to awakening, the Pure Land, so early Buddhism saw a kind of faith as getting a person to a point where stream-entry, and thus awakening within seven lives at most, was assured. In both cases, the approach of faith provides the minimum entry to the first rung of the ladder to awakening, though the Pure Land approach sees itself as an ‘easy’ path, while the Theravāda tradition sees the approach emphasising faith as one with a painful paṭipadā, or way of practice, and as also requiring the functioning of all five faculties including that of wisdom. We also see the samādhi-emphasising approach of the body-witness as a feature of the Yogācāra tradition. The samādhi mastered by non-returners also means that they may have an extremely long future life or lives in the elemental form or formless heavenly realms. In this way, they are in some ways akin to Mahāyāna heavenly Bodhisattvas. Indeed the non-returner Brahmā Sahampati plays a role in helping to prompt the unfurling of Gotama Buddha’s compassion, by asking him to teach. The whole issue of the nature of the first phase of the path, whether one sees this as becoming one practising for stream-entry, or someone attaining stream- entry, is also reminiscent of Mahāyāna debates about whether awakening comes gradually or suddenly (cf. Gethin 2001, 132). It is said that: Just as the great ocean slopes away gradually, falls gradually, inclines gradually, with a sudden drop off only after a long stretch (na āyatakena’eva papāto); even so … in this Dhamma, this discipline: there is gradual training, gradual activity, gradual practice; with penetration to final knowledge aññā-paṭivedho( ; i.e. Arahatship) only after a long stretch. (AN IV 200–201) (see note 81) Just as the gradually sloping ocean floor drops down suddenly at the end of the continental shelf, the suttas talk in terms of a sudden penetration when the Dhamma-eye arises, set within phases of gradual practice or after a step-by-step teaching, and the early schools saw the four lokuttara maggas as sudden transitions set within phases of gradual lokiya practice. Both aspects are needed, but the suttas do not seem to support seeing only people that are at or past the first sudden transition (magga moment or moments) as being members of the sāvaka- Saṅgha, the ‘unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness for the world’. A person seriously practising to attain this transition, or poised for the arising of the Dhamma-eye, is not a spiritually ordinary person (puthujjana), but is a true disciple of the noble one, the Buddha, and of noble ones who are stream-enterers up to Arahats, and a kind of trainee noble person who is already practising a kind of lokuttara, transcendent, magga. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks to Bhikkhus Bodhi and Anālayo for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. The final views expressed are of course my own.

ABBREVIATIONS

AKB Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya Patis Paṭisambhidāmagga AN Aṅguttara Nikāya Pet Peṭakopadesa AN-a Aṅguttara Nikāya commentary: Pug Puggalapaññatti Manorathapūraṇī Pug-a Puggalapaññatti commentary: Abhid-s Abhidhammatha-saṅgaha Pañcappakaraṇa-atthakathā Asl Commentary on Dhs: Atthasālinī Sn Sutta-nipāta Dhp Dhammapada Sn-a Sutta-nipāta commentary: DN Dīgha Nikāya Paramatthajotikā II DN-a Dīgha Nikāya commentary: SN Saṃyutta Nikāya Sumaṅgalavilāsinī SN-a Saṃyutta Nikāya commentary: Dhs Dhammasaṅgaṅī Sāratthappakāsinī It Itivuttaka Thag-a Theragāthā commentary: Jat Jātaka and its commentary. Paramatthadīpanī V Khp Khuddakapāṭha Ud Udāna Khp-a Khuddakapāṭha commentary: Ud-a Udāna commentary: Paramatthajotikā I Paramatthadīpanī I Kvu Kathāvatthu Vibh Vibhaṅga MA Madhyama Āgama Vibh-a Vibhaṅga commentary: Miln Milindapañha Sammohavinodanī MN Majjhima Nikāya Vin Vinaya MN-a Majjhima Nikāya commentary: Vin-a Vinaya commentary: Papañcasūdanī Samantapāsādikā Nd1 Mahāniddesa Vism Visuddhimagga Netti Nettipakaraṇa BIBLIOGRAPHY Anālayo. 2003. Satipaṭṭhana: The Direct Path to Realization, Birmingham: Windhorse. ———. 2011a and b. A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya, 2 vols. Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation. ———. 2012. Madhama-āgama Studies. Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation. Anderson, Carol S. 2001. Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths in the Theravāda Buddhist Canon. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bluck, Robert. 2002. ‘The Path of the Householder: Buddhist Lay Disciples in the Pali Canon’. Buddhist Studies Review 19(1): 1–18 Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 1993. A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha: Pali Text, Translation and Explanatory Guide. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. ———. 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 2012. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications Fuller, Paul. 2005. The Notion of Diṭṭhi in Theravāda Buddhism. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Gethin, Rupert. 1998. Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2001. The Buddhist Path to Awakening. Oxford: One World. Gombrich, Richard. 1996. ‘Retracing and Ancient Debate: How Insight Worsted Concentration in the Pali Canon’. In his How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings, 96–134. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Athlone ———. 2009. What the Buddha Thought. London: Equinox.

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