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Art. XII.—The Vedalla Sutta, as illustrating the Psychological Basis of Buddhist Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The two Suttas entitled Mahāvedalla and Cūḷavedalla are the 43rd and 44th in the Mūlapaṇṇāsaṁ, or first division of the Majjhima Nikāya, the second book of the Sutta Piṭaka. This book embodies the whole of the Dhamma or Buddhist doctrine “considered in a series of long and short conversations, the principal interlocutor being usually Gotama himself, but occasionally Sāriputta, or some other of his principal disciples.” In the Mahāvedalla Sutta it is Sāriputta who answers questions on matters mainly psychological put to him by Mahāk Koṭṭhito, another member of the Order. In the Cūḷavedalla Sutta, Visākha, treasurer to the Buddha's kinsman and convert, King Bimbisāra, of Rājagaha, raises a number of miscellaneous philosophical problems—psychological, logical, ethical, metaphysical—in the course of an interview with Dhammadinnā, a lady, erst his wife, now a member of the Order, who has attained to Arahatship, and is about to become renowned as the first among the women-preachers of the Buddhist doctrine. If I dwell on the present occasion more upon the contents of the latter Sutta than upon those of the former, it is because readers of this Journal have recently had their attention directed to Dhammadinnā and to her dialogue with Visākha by the articles which Mrs. Bode has contributed on “Women Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation,” consisting of selections from Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the Anguttara Nikāya.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1894
References
page 321 note 1 ProfDavids, Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 45Google Scholar.
page 321 note 2 Journal for July and October, 1893.
page 322 note 1 The Bhikkhu, singled out for a like distinction, was Puṇṇo Mantāni-putto. Anguttara Nīkāya, p. 23.
page 323 note 1 Cf. the picturesque expression idāni pana avaṭṭi sāraṃ pañhaṃ cintetvā—“but now having thought of an essentially involved question.”
page 323 2 Therīgathā, No. 12.
page 323 3 The brief biography of Dhammadinnā given in Dhammapāla's Commentary on the Therāgāthā, together with that in the Apadāna (which he quotes) make in all four versions of this interesting episode in the life of one of the most eminent ‘Women Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation.’
page 324 note 1 v. Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana-sutta, ProfDavids, Rhys, Buddhist Suttas, pp. 148–162Google Scholar.
page 326 note 1 Mahāyagga, I. 6, 38 (Vinaya, I.).
page 327 note 1 Cf. Sabbāsaya-sutta, , Majjhiṁa Nikāya, I. p. 7Google Scholar; and Buddhist Suttas, p. 297: also Dhammasaṅgaṇi, pp. 182, 220.
page 327 note 2 According to Plotinus the soul is immaterial, but not in the body; the body is in the soul which overlaps it, so that part of the soul needs no bodily functioning. Cf. historic sketch in Dr. Bain's Mind and Body.
page 328 note 1 I have not rendered rūpaṃ by ‘body,’ because (a) I require this rendering for kāyo (v. infra) and (b) rūpaṃ in Buddhist psychology is reserved to denote the object of sight, and not that of touch (phoṭṭhabbaṃ), which is the more fundamental meaning of ‘body.’
page 328 note 2 Kiṁ paṭisarṇiaṁ, ko fa nesaṁ gocaravisayaṁ paccanubhotīti. With this rendering of paṭisaraṇaṁ cf. the use of paṭisārana in Milindapañho, p. 344.
page 328 note 3 ProfDavids's, Khys ‘Questions of King Milinda,’ vol. i. pp. 86–89Google Scholar.
page 328 note 4 kiṃ paticca tiṭṭhantīti.
page 328 note 5 Āyu.
page 329 note 1 Usmā.
page 329 note 2 Oil is substituted for radiance when the metaphor illustrates the craving on which life depends. Cf. Sutta, Ratana, quoted in Davids's, Ehys ProfBuddhism, p. 114Google Scholar.
page 329 note 3 kiñ-ca vijānāti: sukhan-ti pi vijānāti, dukkhan-ti pi vijānāti, adukkhamasukkhan-ti pi vijānāti.
page 329 note 4 pariññeyyaṃ.
page 329 note 5 bhāvetabbā.
page 329 note 6 kāyo.
page 329 note 7 vacī.
page 330 note 1 cittam.
page 330 note 2 Dictionary, s.v. sankhāra.
page 330 note 3 Buddhism, p. 91.
page 330 note 4 Vinaya, I. 2 f.n.
page 330 note 5 vitakkavicāra.
page 330 note 6 Cf. Childers, s.v. nirodho.
page 331 note 1 Translated by ProfDavids, Rhys, Buddhist Suttas, p. 233Google Scholar.
page 331 note 2 adukkhamasukkhā vedanā,‘mdash;feeling which is neither painful nor pleasurable.
page 331 note 3 vedayitaṁ.
page 331 note 4 Cf. ProfSully, , The Human Mind, II. p. 4Google Scholar.
page 332 note 1 I give this rendering with much diffidence, the Pāli being somewhat obscure. Ṭhithukkhā vipariṇāmadukkhā, is the passage translated into ‘pleasure is the constant, pain the intermittent, element.’ Buddhaghosa paraphrases it thus:—sukkhāya vedanāya atthibhāvo sukkhaṃ, natthibhāvo dukkhan ti; with the converse for pain; and then, adukkhamasukhāya vedanāya, jānanabhāvo sukkhaṃ, ajānanabhāvo dukkhan ti attho.