BRAHMA-GåLA SUTTA (DN 1) Translated
by T. W. Rhys Davids
30. 'There are, brethren, some recluses and Brahmans
who are Eternalists{1}, and who, on four grounds, proclaim that both the
soul and the world are eternal...
1. 'There are, brethren, some recluses and Brahmans
who are Eternalists with regard to some things, and in regard to others
Non-Eternalists; who on four grounds maintain that the soul and the world
are partly eternal and partly not.
'This, brethren, is the first state of things on account
of which, starting out from which, some recluses and Brahmans become Fortuitous-Originists,
and maintain that the soul and the world arise without a cause.
38. 'There are, brethren, recluses and Brahmans
who [31] hold the doctrine of a conscious existence after death{2}, and
who maintain in sixteen ways that the soul after death is conscious. And
how do they do so?
'They say of the soul: "The soul after death,
not subject to decay, and conscious,
(1) has form{1},
(2) is formless{2},
(3) has, and has not, form,
(4) neither has, nor has not, form,
(5) is finite,
(6) is infinite,
(7) is both,
(8) is neither,
(9) has one mode of consciousness,
(10) has various modes of consciousness,
(11) has limited consciousness,
(12) has infinite consciousness,
(13) is altogether happy,
(14) is altogether miserable,
(15) is both,
(16) is neither."
1. 'There are, brethren, recluses and Brahmans who
hold the doctrine of an unconscious existence after death, and who maintain
in eight ways that the soul after death is unconscious. And how do they
do so?
17. 'These, brethren, are the recluses and Brahmans
who are Annihilationists and in seven ways maintain the cutting off, the
destruction, the annihilation of a living being. [36] And whosoever do
so they, all of them, do so in one or other of these seven ways. There
is none beside.
27. 'In this case, brethren, some recluse or Brahman
is dull, stupid. And it is by reason of his dullness, his stupidity, that
when a question on this or that is put to him, he resorts to equivocation,
to wriggling like an eel--"If you ask me whether there is another
world,--well, if I thought there were, I would say so. But I don't say
so. And I don't think it is thus or thus. And I don't think it is otherwise.
And I don't deny it. And I don't say there neither is, nor is not, another
world." Thus does he equivocate, and in like manner about each of
such propositions as the following{2}:--
a. (2) There is not another world.
(3) There both is, and is not, another world.
(4) There neither is, nor is not, another world.
b. (1) There are Chance Beings (so called because
they spring into existence, either here or in another world, without the
intervention of parents, and seem therefore to come without a cause).
(2) There are no such beings.
(3) There both are, and are not, such beings.
(4) There neither are, nor are not, such beings.
c. (1) There is fruit, result, of good and bad actions.
(2) There is not.
(3) There both is, and is not.
(4) There neither is, nor is not.
d. (1) A man who has penetrated to the truth{1}
continues to exist after death.
(2) He does not.
(3) He both does, and does not.
(4) He neither does, nor does not.
This, brethren, is the fourth case{2}.
[28] 28. 'These, brethren, are those recluses and
Brahmans who wriggle like eels; and who, when a question is put to them
on this or that, resort to equivocation, to eel-wriggling; and that in
four ways. For whosoever do so, they do so in these four ways, or in one
or other of the same; there is no other way in which they do so.
36. 'Now of these, brethren, the Tath‰gata knows
that these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted upon, will have
such and such a result, such and such an effect on the future condition
of those who trust in them. [17] That does he know, and he knows also other
things far beyond (far better than those speculations){2}; and having that
knowledge he is not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has, in his own
heart{3}, realised the way of escape from them{4}, has understood, as they
really are, the rising up and passing away of sensations, their sweet taste,
their danger, how they cannot be relied upon; and not grasping after any
(of those things men are eager for) he, the Tath‰gata, is quite set free{1}.
37. 'These{2}, brethren, are those other things,
profound, difficult to realise, hard to understand, tranquillising, sweet,
not to be grasped by mere logic, subtle, comprehensible only by the wise,
which the Tath‰gata, having himself realised and seen face to face, hath
set forth; and it is concerning these that they who would rightly praise
the Tath‰gata in accordance with the truth, should speak.'
73. 'The outward form, brethren, of him who has
won the truth{2}, stands before you, but that which binds it to rebirth
is cut in twain. So long as his body shall last, so long do gods and men
behold him. On the dissolution of the body, beyond the end of his life,
neither gods nor men shall see him.
'Just, brethren, as when the stalk of a bunch of
mangoes has been cut, all the mangoes that were hanging on that stalk go
with it; just so, brethren, though the outward form of him who has won
the truth stands before you, that which binds it to rebirth has been cut
in twain. So long as his body shall last, so long do gods and men behold
him. On the dissolution of the body, beyond the end of his life, neither
gods nor men shall see him.'
(The Four Jhanas)
"Quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental
qualities, he enters and remains in the first absorption (jhana): bliss
(piti) and joy (sukha) born from withdrawal, accompanied by applied and
sustained attention (vitakka and vic‡ra). He permeates and pervades, suffuses
and fills this very body with the bliss (piti) and joy (sukha) born from
withdrawal. Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would
pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it
again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder -- saturated,
moisture-laden, permeated within and without -- would nevertheless not
drip; even so, the monk permeates... this very body with the bliss (piti)
and joy (sukha) born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body
not pervaded by bliss (piti) and joy (sukha) born from withdrawal.
