Thanks for a typically thought-provoking post. I think you might enjoy reading the section on karma in particular in the handout to a series of talks given by Dr. John Yates (Upasaka Culadasa). The link to download the pdf is here:
http://dharmatreasure.com/teaching-retreats/
I just did a retreat with him where these questions were addressed at some length. Like you he's very familiar with contemporary scholarship on these issues, and he brings a great deal of practice experience to bear as well. In a nutehsell - and I am of course over-simplifying, karma for him is all about intention. A favorite quote from the retreat: "karms determines not what happens to you but who it happens to." That's cute of course, but his understanding is quite subtle and in depth. I think you would enjoy each other's writing...don't know if he already reads your blog but would be surprised if he doesn't. Thanks for your great posts.
Here we see an example of a grammatical form known as a 'locative absolute' - a participle (sati) and a noun or pronoun (imasmin) both in the locative case. We read this as temporally simultaneous with what comes next.
Yet Warder in Introduction to Pāli points out that in locative absolute "[t]he subordinate action may precede the main action or be simultaneous with it." (p. 103)
So if I'm getting it right we don't have to understand that this formula implies simultaneity in every instance. Because how would you then interpret "jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ"? Death is rarely simultaneous with birth.
OK. That's an interesting example. Thanks. I'll have a think about it, though I'm aware that some Bhikkhus interpret this equation in other than temporal terms - Ñāṇavīra for example. He says the the formula must be akāliko - not temporal, or all happening at once. He uses the image of a house, the foundations are required for the walls. Etc.
Yes, I'm also aware of those interpretations. But I'm rather sceptical about them now.
As for the meaning of akālika I'm convinced by Johannes Bronkhorst who argues in Akālika in the Buddhist canon that it means of "not connected with death". The dhamma which is described as "sandiṭṭhika akālika ehipassika" is, I think, nibbāna itself, which contrary to, for example, Jain belief is attainable in this life not only after death. So I belive that akālika has nothing to do with workings of paṭiccasamuppāda but describes nature of Buddhist goal.
I find Johannes Bronkhorst less than convincing on most subjects these days.
The word is akālika not akālakar - this is an adjective related to the word kāla 'time'. The association with death relies on the idiom 'kālakata' - he made his time and the variations of kāla + √kṛ. We don't have akālakatika. So here kāla, on it's own, still means *time* rather than 'death'. This is confirmed by Margaret Cone's new dictionary. Buddhaghosa glosses akāliko with akālo and na kālo, with no mention of kāla-kṛ or any other words for death. So the tradition certainly saw akāliko as related to time rather than death. Though of course Buddhaghosa is wrong from time to time.
The suffix -(i)ka is not from kṛ it is a standard secondary nominal derivative indicating a diminutive or possessive adjective.
The word kālika is attested in Sanskrit in non-Buddhist texts with the meaning "relating to or connected with time". Pāniṇi uses it in the sense of "lasting a long time" (timeful would be one way of rending it in English if such a word existed). Notably Bronkhorst avoids what he calls "late" texts like the Niddesa (though it is not late by the thesis expressed in Greater Magadha!). This suits his purpose because the Cūḷaniddesa is one of those *Canonical* texts which make it clear that akāliko is related to akālo and na kālo. Bronkhorst is a great one for *confirmation bias*.
As far as I can tell the Buddhist Sanskrit texts also have akālika or ākālika but not akālikṛ (or it's declensions).
If the point were that the dhamma were realisable in this lifetime there are straight forward ways to say that and Bronkhorst himself has noted one of the common idioms, i.e. diṭṭhadhammo. The dhamma *is* diṭṭhadhammo and if the author of the text had meant to say this then they could easily have done do.
Bronkhorst's reading is ingenious. I'd have to go over it in detail, but looking at it in brief I'm not convinced his reading is any more plausible that Bodhi's. In the space of a few minutes I can think of quite a few reasons not to accept his conclusion. But I'd need to go over the Pāli in detail and confirm some of his other statements - which is laborious work and I'm up to my neck in Sanskrit and Nāgārjuna at present.
Even *if* Bronkhorst has found a clever play on words in this one passage, so what? We don't change the meaning of a word on the basis of one (disputed) reading. A *plausible* argument is insufficient!
Finally let me say that to argue that one of the key qualities of Dharma has nothing to do paṭicca-samuppāda is not credible. He who sees dependent arising sees the Dharma, and vice versa.
Bronkhorst must always be taken with a grain of salt. As brilliant as he obviously is, he is ploughing a rather solitary furrow. He expresses strong opinions on the basis of his reading but this is not reason to accept his opinions uncritically. His Greater Magadha for example is a fine work of scholarship, but on closer examination quite an unlikely thesis - I for one no longer believe him for reasons I spelt out in a blog (last year?)
If you have good reasons to accept his thesis by all means let me know. It's never enough for a stranger to tell me that are convinced by an argument. You must tell me *why* I should find your acceptance credible. Have you done any more than read the article? Have you tested it in any way?
i.e. effects following immediately from conditions. Which still allows for sequence, but no time interval. Given that paṭicca-samuppāda is a description of *experience* it seems obvious that the objects of perception must be present for us to experience them.
The extension of the theory outside the realm of experience (cf the Sabba Sutta) causes nonsense like "birth is the condition for death". It now seems obvious that someone was trying to shoe horn karma into the picture and it doesn't really work.
See also SA i.43 and Niddii 92. "akāloyeva akāliko".
Let me begin by saying that it seems to me that "time" is rather vague concept. Let's take, for example, "present". It can mean this second, this year, this life or this decade. "Time" can refer to temporal length between events or to certain events itself (a point at temporal axis if you find this metaphor meaningful) like birth, meal time, or death.
As for Cūḷaniddesa (§107, sorry I'm at loss with reference to PTS here), does it really support a view that akālika is not "not connected with death"? As I see it, it says that one doesn't have to wait for "beyond, next world" to experience the fruit of the noble eightfold path hence it's called akālika. It seems that death is an issue here.
What makes me think that here Bronkhorst's idea is more than plausible are also variant readings of this formula which are found in Aṅguttara Nikāya. One (AN i 152) instead of dhamma has nibbāna and second (AN i 220), more interesting one, has nijjāra which is a Jain term. It seems that this sutta was a polemic with Jain ideas about fruit of contemplative life… which was also Bronkhorst's point.
Last but not least I've not stated that akālika has nothing to do with paṭiccasamuppāda. Obviously, for me, it describes cessation, which has everything to do with paṭiccasamuppāda. What I was trying to say was that it is not an adjective which describes how paṭiccasamuppāda works as Ñāṇavīra was trying to explain it.
Time being a vague concept seems like a red herring in this discussion. It doesn't matter how it is defined.
Cūḷaniddesa makes sense when read in the usual way. You're arguing for a special reading for which you must supply special evidence. If it ain't broke.
I don't see the variant readings you've pointed to. Nothing on AN i.152 or i.220 seems relevant. What's more the word nijjāra simply does not occur in the suttas (I searched for nijjār* so should have picked up any case). Have you spelt it right? Searching Google I see you are rehearsing an old argument here. Can you check your references please?
However it's one thing to read a single sutta as a polemic against the Jains, it's another entirely to say that a standard way of referring to the Buddhadhamma is that. Words are used in different senses - which is afterall at the heart of Bronkhorst's argument! Buddhaghosa clearly understand kāla to mean time, and betrays no hint of connecting it with death.
Anyway what we know about early Jainism is minimal and all in doubt - being based mainly on Buddhist polemics and Buddhists are not known for the accuracy of the polemical attributions. Most of these words must have been in common use across Northern India in various ways. Is the word (whatever it is) really specific to Jainism? Is it in current use or found in actual Jain text for example?
What you said was "I believe that akālika has nothing to do with workings of paṭiccasamuppāda". And as I say I think this is nonsense.
BTW Bronkhorst assumes that all the epithets are synonyms. But the pattern of the itipi so verses argue against such an interpretation. They are lists of distinctive qualities which are frequently unrelated. So again he makes assumptions which are simply not valid and proceeds to build grand statements upon his flimsy foundation. There is simply no reason to assume that akāliko is related to the words that surround it in that context.
Ok thanks. But in the cited passage nijjarā (un-aging) is an *additional* term not a *substitute* for akālikā. We have no reason to think these terms are synonyms. Compare the Buddha's epithets. They are far from being synonyms.
I don't think that this terms are synonyms. What I was trying to say was that usual dhamma was substituted with nijjara.
If Jain goal was nijjara at the time of death, then this passage was polemic with this idea. Buddha's goal was "nijjara" which was attainable in this life not only at deathbed.
Moving away from the Pali world, I think the definition of time does come into play, at least in the case of the Sarvāstivādins, whose view of time was (a)quite eccentric and difficult to grasp, and (b)invented to solve this very problem of karma.
Starting from the premise that "to exist" means "to have causal efficacy" (which I believe all schools of Buddhism hold), they argue that if a past dharma has causal efficacy on another dharma at some point in the future, then they both must exist at both times. In short, all dharmas exist (sarva asti) in the three times: past, present and future.
Put another way: the adjacency or lack of adjacency of moments in time is irrelevant for the Sarvāstivādin, because the dharma in question does not pass out of existence; at the same time, they claim that this does not violate the doctrine of impermanence, as each dharma's existence in the three times only applies to one moment.
Confused? So am I.
But my point is: the problem you have identified is a very real one-- perhaps the most difficult one that the abhidharmikas and their opponents attempted to grapple with.
@Piotrek - I've replied to you at some length in my next blog post. I also tackle the problems with Bronkhorst's article. Thanks for your interesting and provocative comments.
@Michael. Thanks for this over-view of the Sarvāstivadin attempt to solve the problem.
Sanskrit and Pāli both have quite nuanced ways of indicating sequence in grammatical sense. A simultaneous action can be referenced using a present participle for example. The locative absolute is used for simultaneous actions or ones in which there is a sequence with no gap. If there is any hint of temporality or gap between two actions then one must use some kind of relative clause or a gerund.
The early Buddhists chose to express paṭicca-samuppāda using the locative absolute. This tells us a great deal about how they understood the role of time in the theory! I suspect that Ñāṇavīra was quite right about akālika, but I'm not sure where that leaves him wrt karma.
With reference to "to exist" the clear early Buddhist view is that astitā and nāstitā don't apply - expressed most clearly in the Kaccāna Sutta (and picked up by Nāgārjuna). No discussion about experience which uses such concepts as real/unreal or existent/non-existent makes sense. We can't even talk about what existence or reality mean - in this context they don't mean anything!
I believe what we see here is two distinct doctrines not quite managing to merge. The Buddha's version of karma was inherited from the Śākyas and other originally Iranian tribes - it's the outcome of a hybridisation with Indian cyclic eschatology with remnants of Zoroastrian eschatology. Paṭicca-samuppāda is a great way of explaining how our reactions to experience cause us to suffer. But the two don't quite fit. The gap gets filled in various ways. There might be a journal article in this! What were you citing when you were thinking of the Sarvāstivadins?
I agree that you are quite correct when you say "the clear early Buddhist view is that astitā and nāstitā don't apply"-- which is why it is so unusual that the Sarvāstivādins explicitly take up the "astitā" side of things, even in their name.
The Sarvāstivāda-related works I am dealing with at the moment are Dhammajoti's Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma, Willemen/Dessein/Cox's Sarvāstivāda Buddhist Scholasticism, and a University of Virginia dissertation by Louis-Dominique Dubeau entitled The Shared Ontological Principles of Madhyamaka and Abhidharma.
Hi Jayarava. What occurs to me reading your blog is that, firstly, as other commentators have said, the locative absolute does not only imply simultaneity. Think of the common expression 'evaṃ vutte'. But in the general principle of paṭicca-samuppāda, sati is a present participle so it is reasonable to take the locative absolute as marking simultaneity in this case. But the second part of the principle - imass'uppādā idaṃ upajjati – marks causal dependence using the ablative case, which can hardly be construed temporally in any strict sense. Hence we can reasonably say that 'From having birth as a condition, there is ageing and death' could be understood as an exemplification of 'from the arising of X arises Y'.
But it seems to me that you're certainly right to ask how the Buddha thought that paṭicca-samuppāda related to karma. I think the nearest the Pali canon comes is in terms of a general metaphor: 'kamma is the field, consciousness is the seed, craving is the moisture... ' (A 3:76). What this seems to imply is that to understand what is meant by kamma and vipāka we have to look at experience in a different way simply than asking how one thing gives rise to another.
Thanks for your comment. Very interesting. I bow to your superior knowledge of Pāli.
A 3.76 is interesting. It raises questions though. What is meant by 'bhavo' here? The text`definitely speaks of *future rebirth* in the various spheres: kāma-dhātu, rūpa-dhātu, arūpa-dhātu. So what is the relationship between bhavo and jati?
And with the presence of taṇha: hīnāya dhātuyā viññāṇaṃ patiṭṭhitaṃ "one's viññāṇa becomes established in an inferior realm (hīna dhātu)". But viññāṇa is also the bīja above. What is meant by viññāṇa? I have serious doubts about translating 'consciousness' in any circumstance, but have yet to really look into what it is in our terms.
Is this a text about meditative states or cosmology, or both? And btw did you look ahead to 3.83 which uses the same 'field, seed, water' metaphor? There are preparations which must be in place for training. That is the conditions which must be present for growth.
I'm not sure I follow your last comment. Are you saying that the problem is that *one* thing thing leads to another when we should think in terms of *many* - as per your recent blog post?
Thanks Jayarava. All I meant by the last (hastily written) comments is that, while the general principle of dependent-arising suggests one thing leading to another, the relation of action and its consequence appears more complicated altogether. By the way, I am with you on thinking that viññāṇa needs to be understood in different ways in different contexts. I recently read Waldron's book 'The Buddhist Unconscious', which explores this really interestingly, though probably he hasn't had the last word either. Have you looked at this book?
Agreed on complexity. Experience is seldom simple.
Haven't seen Waldron. So many things to read! But it sounds interesting. I did a post on the idea of a "theatre of consciousness" and provisionally concluded the metaphor is absent from Pāli.
Monday, May 20, 2013
[Image]
Great Chain of Being
In this essay, I'm going to outline a little quandary that occurred to me recently. It concerns how karma works. Let's begin with the general statement of paṭicca-samuppāda. imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imass' uppādā idaṃ uppajjati. imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti, imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati.
This being, that becomes;
on the arising of this, that arises.
This not being, that does not become;
on the cessation of this, that ceases.
As I have noted before (A General Theory of Conditionality) This formula occurs just 14 times throughout the Nikāyas, and not at all in the Vinaya. But it is perhaps the best known of all the formulas related to paṭicca-samuppāda.
Here we see an example of a grammatical form known as a 'locative absolute' - a participle (sati) and a noun or pronoun (imasmin) both in the locative case. With a present participle, we read this as temporally simultaneous with what comes next. We might translate our phrase 'while this is'. What follows happens, we may say only happens while the first phrase is true. While X exists or is present, then Y exists. The existence of the entity Y, indicated by a second noun or pronoun is predicated upon the continued presence of the entity X indicated by the first. This is the fundamental equation of conditionality. The conditions have to be present for the dharma to arise.
So far this ought to be all very familiar, if perhaps not with the emphasis on spelling out the implications of the grammar.
Now karma allows for immediate consequences for our actions - the technical term being: kammaṃ diṭṭha-dhamma-vedanīyaṃ 'actions to be experienced in this life'. But generally speaking, karma manifests in whether or not we are reborn and which realm we are born into. That is whether we have a good or bad destination: sugati/duggati after we die (kāyassa bhedā paraṃ maraṇā. M iii.203).
And here is the problem. Because if a result can only occur when the condition for it is present, and the fruits of actions manifest long after the action was performed then there is a fundamental contradiction. Something is wrong with the equation. Either karma ought to result in immediate and short-lived consequences, or some mechanism other than paṭicca-samuppāda must be invoked to explain it.
This is even more problematic when one considers the passage, which admittedly only occurs once, that equates karma with cetanā or intention. (See also Action and Intention). Cetanā simply does not last. It changes all the time as our attention wanders from object to object. When we say "everything is changing" what we really mean in a Buddhist context is that dharmas are constantly arising and passing away. If the dharma arises, results in a cetanā, that has karmic consequence, but then fades away as the next object comes into view, then how on earth (or in heaven) does karma linger about long enough to affect our rebirth. Indeed how does it haunt us after death?
Historically some solutions have been proposed for this. In Abhidharma and Madhyamaka thought there is a chain of intermediate states which lead from action to consequence. The analogy is that a seed is the condition for a tree, but the seed does not directly result in the tree. It goes through a very large number of infinitesimal increments where each dharma is the condition for the succeeding dharma. This is known as samanantara-pratyaya or the 'immediate antecedent condition' and involves short moments (kṣāṇa) following in succession. The downside of this is that we can never tell what the ultimate condition for any fruit is, even if we know the immediately antecedent condition. Also, it is still difficult to explain how such conditions survive the death of the actor and somehow manifest in another being. It is more difficult again to explain how this fair. After all, if we consciously chose to live very holy lives it hardly seems fair that we are stuck with the consequences of the actions of a now dead being to whom our connection is tenuous at best!
Another solution to this problem is the idea of karmic "seeds" (bīja) which are stored in the ālaya-vijñāna - usually translated as 'storehouse consciousness' though ālaya literally means 'grasp'. In this model, actions produce seeds that ripen at a later date. This helps with the post-mortem problem, but it moves into rather eternalist territory by positing an entity which provides continuity between lives. Of course, the continuity problem is the major stumbling block for the theory of karma. Any attempt to link consequences in this life to actions in a past-life are bound in invoke something like a soul which is the medium of exchange between lives. Something must logically connect me to those actions carried out by a being I never knew and who in the strict sense was not me! And what that something is, generally remains rather vague.
Neither of these two solutions is very familiar to me, nor are they, as I understand them, very satisfactory. I cannot immediately think of a solution based in Pāli terms. It seems to me that without a solution the thread that links actions to consequences must be broken if it is described by paṭicca-samuppāda. I have no problem with not believing in karma or with not seeing paṭicca-samuppāda as a theory of everything, but this seems like an annoying loose end.
So what is the solution to this?
~~oOo~~
posted by Jayarava Attwood at 07:00 on 17-May-2013
19 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThanks for a typically thought-provoking post. I think you might enjoy reading the section on karma in particular in the handout to a series of talks given by Dr. John Yates (Upasaka Culadasa). The link to download the pdf is here:
http://dharmatreasure.com/teaching-retreats/
I just did a retreat with him where these questions were addressed at some length. Like you he's very familiar with contemporary scholarship on these issues, and he brings a great deal of practice experience to bear as well. In a nutehsell - and I am of course over-simplifying, karma for him is all about intention. A favorite quote from the retreat: "karms determines not what happens to you but who it happens to." That's cute of course, but his understanding is quite subtle and in depth. I think you would enjoy each other's writing...don't know if he already reads your blog but would be surprised if he doesn't. Thanks for your great posts.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Hi,
You write:
Here we see an example of a grammatical form known as a 'locative absolute' - a participle (sati) and a noun or pronoun (imasmin) both in the locative case. We read this as temporally simultaneous with what comes next.
Yet Warder in Introduction to Pāli points out that in locative absolute "[t]he subordinate action may precede the main action or be simultaneous with it." (p. 103)
So if I'm getting it right we don't have to understand that this formula implies simultaneity in every instance. Because how would you then interpret "jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ"? Death is rarely simultaneous with birth.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Hi Piotrek
OK. That's an interesting example. Thanks. I'll have a think about it, though I'm aware that some Bhikkhus interpret this equation in other than temporal terms - Ñāṇavīra for example. He says the the formula must be akāliko - not temporal, or all happening at once. He uses the image of a house, the foundations are required for the walls. Etc.
Cheers
Jayarava
Friday, May 17, 2013
Hi Jayarava,
Yes, I'm also aware of those interpretations. But I'm rather sceptical about them now.
As for the meaning of akālika I'm convinced by Johannes Bronkhorst who argues in Akālika in the Buddhist canon that it means of "not connected with death". The dhamma which is described as "sandiṭṭhika akālika ehipassika" is, I think, nibbāna itself, which contrary to, for example, Jain belief is attainable in this life not only after death. So I belive that akālika has nothing to do with workings of paṭiccasamuppāda but describes nature of Buddhist goal.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Hi Piotrek
I find Johannes Bronkhorst less than convincing on most subjects these days.
The word is akālika not akālakar - this is an adjective related to the word kāla 'time'. The association with death relies on the idiom 'kālakata' - he made his time and the variations of kāla + √kṛ. We don't have akālakatika. So here kāla, on it's own, still means *time* rather than 'death'. This is confirmed by Margaret Cone's new dictionary. Buddhaghosa glosses akāliko with akālo and na kālo, with no mention of kāla-kṛ or any other words for death. So the tradition certainly saw akāliko as related to time rather than death. Though of course Buddhaghosa is wrong from time to time.
The suffix -(i)ka is not from kṛ it is a standard secondary nominal derivative indicating a diminutive or possessive adjective.
The word kālika is attested in Sanskrit in non-Buddhist texts with the meaning "relating to or connected with time". Pāniṇi uses it in the sense of "lasting a long time" (timeful would be one way of rending it in English if such a word existed). Notably Bronkhorst avoids what he calls "late" texts like the Niddesa (though it is not late by the thesis expressed in Greater Magadha!). This suits his purpose because the Cūḷaniddesa is one of those *Canonical* texts which make it clear that akāliko is related to akālo and na kālo. Bronkhorst is a great one for *confirmation bias*.
As far as I can tell the Buddhist Sanskrit texts also have akālika or ākālika but not akālikṛ (or it's declensions).
If the point were that the dhamma were realisable in this lifetime there are straight forward ways to say that and Bronkhorst himself has noted one of the common idioms, i.e. diṭṭhadhammo. The dhamma *is* diṭṭhadhammo and if the author of the text had meant to say this then they could easily have done do.
Bronkhorst's reading is ingenious. I'd have to go over it in detail, but looking at it in brief I'm not convinced his reading is any more plausible that Bodhi's. In the space of a few minutes I can think of quite a few reasons not to accept his conclusion. But I'd need to go over the Pāli in detail and confirm some of his other statements - which is laborious work and I'm up to my neck in Sanskrit and Nāgārjuna at present.
Even *if* Bronkhorst has found a clever play on words in this one passage, so what? We don't change the meaning of a word on the basis of one (disputed) reading. A *plausible* argument is insufficient!
Finally let me say that to argue that one of the key qualities of Dharma has nothing to do paṭicca-samuppāda is not credible. He who sees dependent arising sees the Dharma, and vice versa.
Bronkhorst must always be taken with a grain of salt. As brilliant as he obviously is, he is ploughing a rather solitary furrow. He expresses strong opinions on the basis of his reading but this is not reason to accept his opinions uncritically. His Greater Magadha for example is a fine work of scholarship, but on closer examination quite an unlikely thesis - I for one no longer believe him for reasons I spelt out in a blog (last year?)
If you have good reasons to accept his thesis by all means let me know. It's never enough for a stranger to tell me that are convinced by an argument. You must tell me *why* I should find your acceptance credible. Have you done any more than read the article? Have you tested it in any way?
Regards
Jayarava
Saturday, May 18, 2013
AA 2.256 Akālikoti na kālantare phaladāyako.
Literally: "Akālika means giving fruits at once."
i.e. effects following immediately from conditions. Which still allows for sequence, but no time interval. Given that paṭicca-samuppāda is a description of *experience* it seems obvious that the objects of perception must be present for us to experience them.
The extension of the theory outside the realm of experience (cf the Sabba Sutta) causes nonsense like "birth is the condition for death". It now seems obvious that someone was trying to shoe horn karma into the picture and it doesn't really work.
See also SA i.43 and Niddii 92. "akāloyeva akāliko".
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Hi Jayarava,
Thanks for lengthy reply.
Let me begin by saying that it seems to me that "time" is rather vague concept. Let's take, for example, "present". It can mean this second, this year, this life or this decade. "Time" can refer to temporal length between events or to certain events itself (a point at temporal axis if you find this metaphor meaningful) like birth, meal time, or death.
As for Cūḷaniddesa (§107, sorry I'm at loss with reference to PTS here), does it really support a view that akālika is not "not connected with death"? As I see it, it says that one doesn't have to wait for "beyond, next world" to experience the fruit of the noble eightfold path hence it's called akālika. It seems that death is an issue here.
What makes me think that here Bronkhorst's idea is more than plausible are also variant readings of this formula which are found in Aṅguttara Nikāya. One (AN i 152) instead of dhamma has nibbāna and second (AN i 220), more interesting one, has nijjāra which is a Jain term. It seems that this sutta was a polemic with Jain ideas about fruit of contemplative life… which was also Bronkhorst's point.
Last but not least I've not stated that akālika has nothing to do with paṭiccasamuppāda. Obviously, for me, it describes cessation, which has everything to do with paṭiccasamuppāda. What I was trying to say was that it is not an adjective which describes how paṭiccasamuppāda works as Ñāṇavīra was trying to explain it.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Time being a vague concept seems like a red herring in this discussion. It doesn't matter how it is defined.
Cūḷaniddesa makes sense when read in the usual way. You're arguing for a special reading for which you must supply special evidence. If it ain't broke.
I don't see the variant readings you've pointed to. Nothing on AN i.152 or i.220 seems relevant. What's more the word nijjāra simply does not occur in the suttas (I searched for nijjār* so should have picked up any case). Have you spelt it right? Searching Google I see you are rehearsing an old argument here. Can you check your references please?
However it's one thing to read a single sutta as a polemic against the Jains, it's another entirely to say that a standard way of referring to the Buddhadhamma is that. Words are used in different senses - which is afterall at the heart of Bronkhorst's argument! Buddhaghosa clearly understand kāla to mean time, and betrays no hint of connecting it with death.
Anyway what we know about early Jainism is minimal and all in doubt - being based mainly on Buddhist polemics and Buddhists are not known for the accuracy of the polemical attributions. Most of these words must have been in common use across Northern India in various ways. Is the word (whatever it is) really specific to Jainism? Is it in current use or found in actual Jain text for example?
What you said was "I believe that akālika has nothing to do with workings of paṭiccasamuppāda". And as I say I think this is nonsense.
BTW Bronkhorst assumes that all the epithets are synonyms. But the pattern of the itipi so verses argue against such an interpretation. They are lists of distinctive qualities which are frequently unrelated. So again he makes assumptions which are simply not valid and proceeds to build grand statements upon his flimsy foundation. There is simply no reason to assume that akāliko is related to the words that surround it in that context.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Hi,
First reference should be to Nibbuta Sutta (AN 3.56 [i 158])
The word is nijjara it's in Nigaṇṭha Sutta (AN 3.75 [i 220]):
"Sandiṭṭhikā nijjarā akālikā ehipassikā opaneyyikā paccattaṃ veditabbā viññūhīti".
Sorry I should have check it again, before posting it.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Ok thanks. But in the cited passage nijjarā (un-aging) is an *additional* term not a *substitute* for akālikā. We have no reason to think these terms are synonyms. Compare the Buddha's epithets. They are far from being synonyms.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
I don't think that this terms are synonyms. What I was trying to say was that usual dhamma was substituted with nijjara.
If Jain goal was nijjara at the time of death, then this passage was polemic with this idea. Buddha's goal was "nijjara" which was attainable in this life not only at deathbed.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Moving away from the Pali world, I think the definition of time does come into play, at least in the case of the Sarvāstivādins, whose view of time was (a)quite eccentric and difficult to grasp, and (b)invented to solve this very problem of karma.
Starting from the premise that "to exist" means "to have causal efficacy" (which I believe all schools of Buddhism hold), they argue that if a past dharma has causal efficacy on another dharma at some point in the future, then they both must exist at both times. In short, all dharmas exist (sarva asti) in the three times: past, present and future.
Put another way: the adjacency or lack of adjacency of moments in time is irrelevant for the Sarvāstivādin, because the dharma in question does not pass out of existence; at the same time, they claim that this does not violate the doctrine of impermanence, as each dharma's existence in the three times only applies to one moment.
Confused? So am I.
But my point is: the problem you have identified is a very real one-- perhaps the most difficult one that the abhidharmikas and their opponents attempted to grapple with.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
@Piotrek - I've replied to you at some length in my next blog post. I also tackle the problems with Bronkhorst's article. Thanks for your interesting and provocative comments.
@Michael. Thanks for this over-view of the Sarvāstivadin attempt to solve the problem.
Sanskrit and Pāli both have quite nuanced ways of indicating sequence in grammatical sense. A simultaneous action can be referenced using a present participle for example. The locative absolute is used for simultaneous actions or ones in which there is a sequence with no gap. If there is any hint of temporality or gap between two actions then one must use some kind of relative clause or a gerund.
The early Buddhists chose to express paṭicca-samuppāda using the locative absolute. This tells us a great deal about how they understood the role of time in the theory! I suspect that Ñāṇavīra was quite right about akālika, but I'm not sure where that leaves him wrt karma.
With reference to "to exist" the clear early Buddhist view is that astitā and nāstitā don't apply - expressed most clearly in the Kaccāna Sutta (and picked up by Nāgārjuna). No discussion about experience which uses such concepts as real/unreal or existent/non-existent makes sense. We can't even talk about what existence or reality mean - in this context they don't mean anything!
I believe what we see here is two distinct doctrines not quite managing to merge. The Buddha's version of karma was inherited from the Śākyas and other originally Iranian tribes - it's the outcome of a hybridisation with Indian cyclic eschatology with remnants of Zoroastrian eschatology. Paṭicca-samuppāda is a great way of explaining how our reactions to experience cause us to suffer. But the two don't quite fit. The gap gets filled in various ways. There might be a journal article in this! What were you citing when you were thinking of the Sarvāstivadins?
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, May 19, 2013
I agree that you are quite correct when you say "the clear early Buddhist view is that astitā and nāstitā don't apply"-- which is why it is so unusual that the Sarvāstivādins explicitly take up the "astitā" side of things, even in their name.
The Sarvāstivāda-related works I am dealing with at the moment are Dhammajoti's Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma, Willemen/Dessein/Cox's Sarvāstivāda Buddhist Scholasticism, and a University of Virginia dissertation by Louis-Dominique Dubeau entitled The Shared Ontological Principles of Madhyamaka and Abhidharma.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Thanks Jayarava, I've enjoyed our conversation.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Hi Jayarava. What occurs to me reading your blog is that, firstly, as other commentators have said, the locative absolute does not only imply simultaneity. Think of the common expression 'evaṃ vutte'. But in the general principle of paṭicca-samuppāda, sati is a present participle so it is reasonable to take the locative absolute as marking simultaneity in this case. But the second part of the principle - imass'uppādā idaṃ upajjati – marks causal dependence using the ablative case, which can hardly be construed temporally in any strict sense. Hence we can reasonably say that 'From having birth as a condition, there is ageing and death' could be understood as an exemplification of 'from the arising of X arises Y'.
But it seems to me that you're certainly right to ask how the Buddha thought that paṭicca-samuppāda related to karma. I think the nearest the Pali canon comes is in terms of a general metaphor: 'kamma is the field, consciousness is the seed, craving is the moisture... ' (A 3:76). What this seems to imply is that to understand what is meant by kamma and vipāka we have to look at experience in a different way simply than asking how one thing gives rise to another.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Hi Dhīvan
Thanks for your comment. Very interesting. I bow to your superior knowledge of Pāli.
A 3.76 is interesting. It raises questions though. What is meant by 'bhavo' here? The text`definitely speaks of *future rebirth* in the various spheres: kāma-dhātu, rūpa-dhātu, arūpa-dhātu. So what is the relationship between bhavo and jati?
And with the presence of taṇha: hīnāya dhātuyā viññāṇaṃ patiṭṭhitaṃ "one's viññāṇa becomes established in an inferior realm (hīna dhātu)". But viññāṇa is also the bīja above. What is meant by viññāṇa? I have serious doubts about translating 'consciousness' in any circumstance, but have yet to really look into what it is in our terms.
Is this a text about meditative states or cosmology, or both? And btw did you look ahead to 3.83 which uses the same 'field, seed, water' metaphor? There are preparations which must be in place for training. That is the conditions which must be present for growth.
I'm not sure I follow your last comment. Are you saying that the problem is that *one* thing thing leads to another when we should think in terms of *many* - as per your recent blog post?
Monday, May 20, 2013
Thanks Jayarava. All I meant by the last (hastily written) comments is that, while the general principle of dependent-arising suggests one thing leading to another, the relation of action and its consequence appears more complicated altogether. By the way, I am with you on thinking that viññāṇa needs to be understood in different ways in different contexts. I recently read Waldron's book 'The Buddhist Unconscious', which explores this really interestingly, though probably he hasn't had the last word either. Have you looked at this book?
Monday, May 20, 2013
Agreed on complexity. Experience is seldom simple.
Haven't seen Waldron. So many things to read! But it sounds interesting. I did a post on the idea of a "theatre of consciousness" and provisionally concluded the metaphor is absent from Pāli.
Monday, May 20, 2013