Tathāgata Substituted for Self? Part I

The Buddha is portrayed in the Pali Canon as eschewing metaphysical discussions. One such metaphysical question the Buddha refused to answer was the question on the state of a tathāgata after death. The following stock phrase or pericope is used in many suttas:

Does the Tathāgata exist after death?
Does the Tathāgata not exist after death?
Does the Tathāgata both exist and not exist after death?
Does the Tathāgata a neither exist nor not exist after death?

The word tathāgata is an epithet for the Buddha. Its most common usage is by the Buddha who uses the word to refer to himself in third person. Its exact meaning has been debated by scholars, but there is general agreement that the word is used to designate an enlightened or awakened being.

Curiously, there is no evidence to suggest that the word tathāgata was wildly used by non-Buddhist groups during the Buddha’s time. The word tathāgata is hardly found at all in the non-Buddhist Indian literature, and in the few places in the Jain sutras where it is used to explicitly refer to an enlightened being, the Prakrit word tahāgaya is used instead which may not even originate from the same etymological root.

Another interesting fact is that none of the speculative views concerning the tathāgata after death is mentioning among the 62 wrong views in the Brahmajāla Sutta. These 62 wrong views are portrayed in the sutta as being an exhaustive categorization of all speculative views during the Buddha’s time.

To be fair, there is one instance of the tathāgata after death pericope in the Brahmajāla Sutta, but the usage is not tallied as one of the 62 wrong views but instead is used in an off-hand way to illustrative how the eel-wigglers respond to such metaphysical questions. In the Chinese version of the Brahmajāla Sutta the pericope is not present at all.

While there is no doubt that the Brahmajāla Sutta has been formulized and obtained various accretions, the antiquity of the sutta is well attested by the fact of it being mentioned in the first Buddhist council and being separately translated into Chinese prior to the creation of the Chinese Dirgha Agama. It being placed first in the Pali Canon is further testament to its high reputation among the early Buddhists (Pande 81).

While the Brahmajāla Sutta does not mention as one of its wrong views the tathāgata’s state after death, it does, however, enumerate a total of 24 different views on the subject of life after death (16 for some sort of continuation after death with 8 views denying any continuation). This high number (around a quarter) of views in regards to the question of life after death indicates that this was an important and often discussed religious issue in the Buddha’s time.

This is not really surprising given that all the religious traditions in the world have at some point debated such questions and India was no exception in this regard.

But if the issue of life after death was such a hot issue of debate during the Buddha’s day, why do we find the stock passage of what happens to an enlightened being after death instead of what happens to an individual (regardless of spiritual attainment) after death like the views expressed in the Brahmajāla Sutta?

It just seems incredulous that all the religious seekers of the day were only concerned about a subset of a select few beings (enlightened ones) rather than the general set of human beings.

One possible solution to these difficulties is that the suttas originally did contain passages on life after death of a being in general but was systematically changed later to an enlightened being.

At first glance this may seem a rather remote and dubious proposition, but I will show in following essays that there is strong evidence that this indeed occur.

References

Pande, Govind Chandra. Fourth Revised Edition, 1995. Studies in the Origins of Buddhism. (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass : 2006).

Intrusive Interpolations in the Potthapada Sutta -- Part II

In part 1, I argued that there were interpolations made to the Potthapada Sutta as the result of systemization. In this second part, I will continue to build upon my argument by demonstrating that the concluding sections of the sutta exhibit the same problems of interpolations which result in obscuring the main purport of the text.

In the second half of the sutta the Buddha talks about the realities of the perceived self or atta-patilabha to a wanderer named Potthapada.

After the Buddha describes to Potthapada the wanderer that his soteriological goal is to abandon the acquired self, he asks Potthapada a series of questions:

Suppose they were to ask you: 'Did you exist in the past? Did you not not exist? Will you exist in the future? Will you not not exist? Do you exist now? Do you not not exist?' Thus asked, how would you answer?

Potthapada replies that he would say, “I existed in the past. I did not not exist. I will exist in the future. I will not not exist. I exist now. I do not not exist.”

Here the Buddha is asking a direct question on Potthapada’s perceived existence over time. There is no talk of past lives, and when the Buddha is asking Potthapada whether he “exist[ed] in the past,” it can only be construed that the Buddha is inquiring into the life that Potthapada can perceive here and now.

Hearing the wanderer’s answers, the Buddha continues:

Suppose, Citta, they were to ask you: 'Whatever your past acquisition of a self: Is that alone your true acquisition of self, while the future & present ones are null & void? Whatever your future acquisition of a self: Is that alone your true acquisition of a self, while the past & present ones are null & void? Whatever your present acquisition of a self: Is that alone your true acquisition of a self, while the past & future ones are null & void?' Thus asked, how would you answer?

...Thus asked, lord, I would answer: 'Whatever my past acquisition of a self: on that occasion, that alone was my true acquisition of a self, while future & present ones were null & void. Whatever my future acquisition of a self: on that occasion, that alone will be my true acquisition of a self, while the past & present ones will be null & void. Whatever my present acquisition of a self: on that occasion, that alone is my true acquisition of a self, while the past & future ones are null & void.'

It is important to note here that the only difference between this question and the previous one is the Buddha's elaboration of the "I" into the “true acquisition of a self.” The Buddha is doing this in an effort to help Potthapada to draw a connection between the "I" and the "acquired self" in order to shift the understanding of the “I” from a presupposed thing to an acquired concept.

The key here is that these passages have nothing to do with establishing the reality of an ontological self. On the contrary, the passages seem to move in the opposite direction by implying that the “I” is not something someone has but mentally acquires.

In an abrupt shift, the sutta continues with Buddha expounding an ontological view of the self that startlingly resembles the Upanishad's:

In the same way, Citta, when there is a gross acquisition of a self... it's classified just as a gross acquisition of a self. When there is a mind-made acquisition of a self... When there is a formless acquisition of a self, it's not classified either as a gross acquisition of a self or as a mind-made acquisition of a self. It's classified just as a formless acquisition of a self.

Just as when milk comes from a cow, curds from milk, butter from curds, ghee from butter, and the skimmings of ghee from ghee. When there is milk, it's not classified as curds, butter, ghee, or skimmings of ghee. It's classified just as milk. When there are curds... When there is butter... When there is ghee... When there are the skimmings of ghee, they're not classified as milk, curds, butter, or ghee. They're classified just as the skimmings of ghee.

The passage appears to convey the idea that once you have acquired one of the three selfs, for example, the gross self of the body, that acquired self will persist as long as one can maintain it. Once that particular self changes to another type, for example, a gross self changing into a formless self (presumably after death), nothing is left behind from what it was before. While the self’s overall form may change, like milk changing into butter, the underlying essence that keeps the self together still persists (butter is still milk but simply has a different appearance and consistency).

What is amazing about this passage is that the Buddha seems to be conveying a Vedic view of the self which blatantly contradicts the Buddha’s notion of anatta or not-self.

Interestingly the sutta continues with the Buddha concluding, “Citta, these are the world's designations, the world's expressions, the world's ways of speaking, the world's descriptions, with which the Tathagata expresses himself but without grasping to them.”

Even though in the very last passage the Buddha is depicted as presenting a Vedic notion of the self, we are summarily reminded that the Buddha’s mentioning of the self is just a worldly expression that is used to express an idea and by no means used to designate an actual underlying reality.

What is going on here?

Before answering this question, it is important to reexamine the milk simile which seems to be the core element of the Buddha’s argument. The first thing that is interesting about this simile is that it refers to a total of five different states (milk, curds, butter, ghee, skimmings of ghee) yet there are only three different types of acquired selfs (gross, mind and formless). The second issue with the simile is that there is a fundamental difference between milk transition states and self transition states. In the case of milk, once a state has transitioned into another state there can be no reversal to the previous one, for example, ghee cannot be turned back into butter. However, with the three different kinds of self, this is not the case. It is quite easy to see, for example, the gross self transitioning into a mind made self which can transition back to the gross self.

What is suspicious about the Buddha alluding to the gross self, mind-made self and the formless self as being merely “world’s expressions” or conventional forms of speech is that no one in ancient India referred to themselves via these three different types of selves as if they were common expressions that everyone immediately knew what one was referring to.

The central problem behind all these interpretive issues stems from the idea of an ontological notion of the self as a “thing” that is acquired. If we can for the moment understand the self as a conventional conceptual entity a person is attributed with or acquires, and look at these passages from this perspective, we find that all the issues raised suddenly dissipate.

For example, if we look at the milk simile and understand the various different maturation stages of milk as being analogous to the different maturation stages of individual (baby, boy/girl, adolescent, man/woman, old man/old woman) everything makes sense. Like milk that transitions irreversibly from one stage to the next so does an individual.

What more, the usage of the terms baby, boy, adolescent, man and so on are conventional terms unlike the three selfs.

Understanding the simile in this way makes the central point a lot more transparent. The chief idea being is that the various stages are just expressions that capture a particular stage of a process that is continually changing through time. The fact that we use such terms does in no way indicate an underlying essential entity. What one may mistake as a concrete permanent entity is simply a process of change that we habitually abstract and reify an ontological concept out of.

Conclusion

The Potthapada Sutta is a profound sutta which demonstrates the Buddha’s view on the self. Through interpolations linked with scholarly systemization, the central purport of the sutta has unfortunately been obscured. By interpreting the key passages from the perspective of the conceptual self in this life instead of three types of selves in subsequent future lives, it becomes clear that the Buddha is expounding the notion of anatta and not an explanation of the continuity of a life through rebirth as the common traditional interpretations have posited.

Intrusive Interpolations In the Potthapada Sutta -- Part I

The Potthapada Sutta from the Digha Nikaya is an interesting one. The sutta contains two conversations between the Buddha and the wanderer Potthapada on two separate occasions. The first conversation begins with Potthapada asking the Buddha on what is the “ultimate cessation of perception” followed by further questioning by Potthapada on various speculative questions on the nature of the soul, whether it exists after death and so on. The Buddha declines to answer these last series of questions positing that he does so because it is not conducive towards enlightenment. The first conversation ends with the Buddha leaving and Potthapada’s admitting that he doesn’t fully understand why the Buddha declined to the answer the speculative questions asked of him.

A couple of days later, Potthapada seeks out the Buddha and asks him to clarify why the Buddha did not answer the speculative questions previously asked. The Buddha goes on to repeat that such questions he declares as uncertain because they are not conducive towards enlightenment.

The Buddha goes on to say that there are ascetics who proclaim that, "After death, the self is exclusively happy and free from disease” and when questioned on this statement, none of them could offer a means to achieve this end and none of them could say they experienced what they proclaimed. In a famous simile the Buddha says:

Potthapada, it's as if a man were to say, 'I'm in love with the most beautiful woman in this country,' and other people were to say to him, 'Well, my good man, this most beautiful woman in this country with whom you are in love: do you know if she's of the warrior caste, the priestly caste, the merchant caste, or the laborer caste?' and, when asked this, he would say, 'No.' Then they would say to him, 'Well then, do you know her name or clan name? Whether she's tall, short, or of medium height? Whether she's dark, fair, or ruddy-skinned? Do you know what village or town or city she's from?' When asked this, he would say, 'No.' Then they would say to him, 'So you've never known or seen the woman you're in love with?' When asked this, he would say, 'Yes.'

The Buddha provides another simile and continues by saying, “Potthapada, there are these three acquisitions of a self (atta-patilabha): the gross acquisition of a self, the mind-made acquisition of a self, and the formless acquisition of a self.”

What is interesting about this passage is that the self is listed as possessing three different categories or types. This list oriented analytical style appears to be a scholastic elaboration performed by the systemizers hinting at the passage possibly being inauthentic.

Another interesting feature of this passage is the usage of the Pali compound word atta-patilabha which is translated, in this passage at least, as “acquisition of a self.” In the Pali English Dictionary the verb, paṭilabhati is defined as to obtain, receive and is derived from the verb root labh- (to get) with the prefix pati- (on to, at). From this, we get a sense of the word atta-patilabha as an acquired or obtained self.

I think the Buddha specifically used such a term to indicate that our notion of self is not intrinsic to man (remember the Buddha’s anatta or not-self) but something that is necessarily constructed or “acquired” through convention, beliefs and so on. The Buddha’s emphasis by using the word atta-paṭilabha seems to center here on human psychology instead of ontology as the list of three different kinds of selves seems to suggest.

If we take this list of different acquired selves and broach the question of how one may acquire such selves we soon run into difficulties. For example, how can one who already has a gross self (as defined by the Buddha in the next couple of sentences as the four great elements or the body) acquire another gross self if he or she already has one? Of course, one can say you can "acquire" a gross self by being reborn, but why use the word paṭilabha (acquired) in the first place? Why not just say there are three types of selves (gross, mind-made and formless) and leave it at that?

Following this rather problematic passage, the Buddha continues on to say:

I teach the Dhamma for the abandoning of the gross acquisition of a self, such that, when you practice it, defiling mental qualities will be abandoned, bright mental qualities will grow, and you will enter & remain in the culmination & abundance of discernment, having known & realized it for yourself in the here & now.

It appears fairly clear that the Buddha is saying that one can get rid of the “gross acquisition of a self” by “abandoning . . . defiling mental qualities.” At first glance it seems reasonable. But when you reread the statement it almost sounds like with the abandonment of defiling mental qualities the body itself become abandoned which seems to suggest it disappears or immediately breaks down.

If instead we substitute the “gross” acquisition of a self with just the “acquired self”, which I indicated is a purely mental construct, then this passage makes a lot more sense. As our sense of who and what we are is based on our mental apparatus, it seems logical that when we can abandon the “mental qualities” emanating from this mental apparatus the whole notion of a self is necessarily abandoned as well.

In part II, I will continue my analysis of the sutta and show that one of most famous similes in the Pali canon has been obscured further suggesting that this sutta has suffered from interpolations.