escape from it,-think you that it were fitting for such an one to take delight in it?'!

[70] Nay, lord.'

And in those other six resting-places for Cognition, and in those two Spheres, think you that he who both knows them for what they are, how they come to be, and how they pass away, knows too the pleasures of them, and the miseries of them, and the way of escape from them, think you that it were fitting for such an one to take delight in them?'

Nay, lord,'

'But, Ananda, when once a brother has understood as they really are the coming to be and the passing away, the pleasures and the miseries of, and the way of escape from, these seven resting-places for Cognition, and these two Spheres, that brother, by being purged of grasping, becomes free. And then, Ânanda, he is called Freed-by-Reason2.

35. 'Now these, Ânanda, are the eight stages of Deliverance. Which are they?

This standpoint of insight into the limitations of all sentient experience when estimated according to its emotional or hedonistic values is claimed by the Buddha as a monopoly of his own doctrine, distinguishing it from other ethical systems. See his graphic exposition in the Great Suttanta on the Body of Ill and the passages quoted under Yathâbhûtam in the Samyutta Index (vol. vi).

Paññâ vimutto, i.e. says the Cy. 'emancipated without the aid of the following eight grades of deliverance '-by native insight. So PP. 14, 73. Here, as throughout, when paññâ is rendered by 'reason,' it is but a pis-aller. Paññâ is really intellect as conversant with, engaged upon, general truths, and thus comes out as approximately Kant's Vernunft, and Reason as distinct from Understanding, a distinction very general in English and European philosophy. See Dh. S., transl., p. 17, n. 2. By 'emancipated' the Cy. understands 'having effected the non-perpetuity (in rebirths) of name and form.'

Vimokhâ. See the following Suttanta, p. 111 of the text; A. IV, 306, 349; Dh. S., §§ 248-50; transl., pp. 63-5. Buddhaghosa's comments on the last citation are approximately the same as those on the first three stages here given. Here, too, he explains Release as deliverance from adverse conditions, so that the attention is sustained with all the detachment and confidence felt by the little child borne on his father's hip, his limbs dangling, and no need felt to clutch. In the

D. ii. 71. THE GREAT DISCOURSE ON CAUSATION.

69

[ 'Having one's self/external form, one sees [these] forms. This is the first stage.

Unaware of one's own external form, one sees forms external to one's self. This is the second stage. [71]Lovely!" with this thought one becomes intent. This is the third stage. lin Web g

Passing wholly beyond1 perceptions of form, (all perceptions of sense-reaction dying away, heedless of all perceptions of the manifold, conscious of space as infinite, one enters into and abides (in the sphere of space regarded as infinite. This is the fourth stage.

Passing wholly beyond the sphere of space regarded as infinite, conscious of reason as infinite, one enters into and abides in the sphere of cognition regarded as infinite. This is the fifth stage.

Passing wholly beyond the sphere of reason regarded as infinite, conscious of there being nothing whatever, one enters into and abides in nothingness. This is the sixth stage.

Passing wholly beyond the sphere of nothingness, one enters into and abides in the sphere of “neitherconsciousness-nor-unconsciousness." This is the seventh

stage.

'Passing wholly beyond the sphere of "neitherideation-nor-non-ideation," one enters into and abides

first stage, Jhâna is induced by intense concentration on the colour
of some bodily feature. In the second, the kasina is an object
external to one's body. In the third, consciousness of an uprising\/
glamour (around or superseding the kasina) of perfectly pure colour
or lustre is meant. The aesthetic suffusion was held to quicken the
sense of emancipation from morally adverse conditions analogously to
that perception of ethical rapture induced by the Four Divine or
Sublime Moods, described in the Mahâ Sudassana Suttanta. The
Patisambhidâmagga is again referred to by the Cy., viz. II, p. 39, in
this connexion. The curious thing is that in reply to the question,
'How is there release thus :-"How lovely it is—with this thought he
becomes intent? "the reply is simply and solely the Formula of the
Four Sublime Moods.

1 The 4th-7th stages were afterwards known as the Four Âruppa Jhânas, or the four Jhânas to be cultivated for attaining to the Formless Heavens (see Dh. S., §§ 265 ff.).

Belling

in a state of suspended perception and feeling. This
is the eighth stage.

'These, Ananda, are the eight stages of L'eliver

ance.

36. 'Now when once a brother, Ânanda, has
mastered these eight stages of Deliverance in order,
and has also mastered them in reverse order, and again,
in both orders consecutively, so that he is able to lose
himself in, as well as to emerge from, any one of them,
whenever he chooses, wherever he chooses, and for
as long as he chooses-when too, by rooting out the
Taints, he enters into and abides in that emancipation
of heart, that emancipation of the intellect which he by
himself, here in this present world, has come to know
and realize then such a brother, Ananda, is called
"Free-in-both-ways 1." And, Ananda, any other Free-
dom-in-both-ways higher and loftier than this Free-
dom-in-both-ways there is not!' w

Thus spake the Exalted One. Glad at heart the
Venerable Ananda delighted in his words.

Here endeth the MAHA-NIDANA-SUTTANTA.

We flue ulte felidem

Ubhato-bhâga-vimutto, i.e. freed both by Reason and also by the intellectual discipline of the Eight Stages. According to a scholastic elaboration of the term, emanating from the Giri-vihâra of the great Loha-pâsâda (or Brazen Palace), 'both ways' meant the Four Jhânas and the Âruppa-jhânas. How this can be reconciled with this paragraph-confirmed by PP. 14 and 73 and by M. I, 477-8— is not stated.Taints' are the Four Asavas, rendered 'Intoxicants' above, p. 28, n. 2.

citation

bracket

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.

THE general conclusions we have to draw as to the gradual growth of the various books in the Buddhist canon have been stated in Chapter X of 'Buddhist India.' To work out the details of it will be greatly facilitated by tabular statements of the differences and resemblances found in the various books, whether in matters of form or of ideas. The following table gives a list of all such passages in this book as have, so far, been traced elsewhere. Others will, no doubt, be discovered; but those here given will throw some light on the method of construction followed in the book. Only parallel passages are given, passages in which some other book has at least a paragraph or more couched in identical, or almost identical, words.

A glance at column three, giving the pages of the text, shows a remarkable result. There are ninety-six pages of Pâli text, beginning on p. 72. With a few gaps-pp. 92, 3; 113-15; 117-21; 130-3; 137-40; 148-50; 153; 158-60; 164-7 (nine in number)-the whole text is found, in nearly identical words, elsewhere. The gaps, filled with matter found only in the Book of the Great Decease, amount altogether to about 32 or 33 pages, that is to about one-third of the whole. That proportion would be reduced if we were to include passages of similar tendency, or passages of shorter length.

Secondly; the parallel passages are found, without exception, in those books which belong to the oldest portion of the canon. In 'Buddhist India,' p. 188, there is a table showing, in groups, the probable relative order in time of the Buddhist literature down to the time of Asoka.

All these passages belong to the two earliest groups; all are found in books included in groups 4-6; not one occurs in any of the books included in the later groups-groups 7, 8, 9, and 10. So far as it goes, therefore, the present table is in harmony with the order suggested in the table referred to.

Thirdly; the slight differences, the more important of which

Not even a

Stel