Chapter 5: Rebirth, the six destinations, and the three realms¶

Chapter 4 assigned the backbone to three lives, then handed the wider picture to this chapter: how rebirth extends across the realms, how kamma operates, and what status this map of the cosmos has. Part I, Essay 1, Chapter 5 has already done two things: recovered readings of two cosmic narratives that go beyond their literal sense, and defended the coherence of beginninglessness. This chapter will not retrace those arguments. It asks a different question: under what circumstances did the Buddha speak of these things? To whom, for what purpose, and where did he direct his listeners afterward? To establish a map's status, first look at the walls on which it is hung.

First, hang up the map. The map itself can be sketched quickly; Part I has supplied its outline. The Sutta Piṭaka speaks of three kinds of becoming: sensual, form, and formless becoming. In the discourse of definitions quoted in Chapter 4, these unpack the link of becoming. The names of the three realms and the detailed inventory of thirty-one locations belong to the systematization of the treatise period: the labels come from the discourses, the shelving from the treatises. The standard list of destinations in the Sutta Piṭaka has five entries: hell, animals, hungry ghosts, human beings, and devas. The Mahāsīhanāda Sutta enumerates the five destinations and the ways leading to them, with nibbāna following at the end. Asuras acquire the status of a sixth destination only in a later stratum.¹ Four, five, or six elements; two sets of three kinds of craving; twelve, ten, nine, or four links; five or six destinations: the lists expand and contract. This is the fourth case entered in the record. At the map's edge stands beginninglessness: a first point cannot be known. Part I has already explained the four-character expression "beginningless birth and death" (无始生死) as a negative epistemological report, not an answer to a cosmological question; both objections and replies are given there and need not be repeated here.² One further fact deserves a line of its own. The Shiji jing in the Chinese Dīrgha Āgama fills five whole fascicles with cosmography (Sumeru, the four continents, heavens, and hells), yet has no counterpart in the Pāli canon. The Nikāyas contain no comprehensive cosmological discourse; all their cosmic details are scattered among examples, frameworks, and similes.³ Anyone looking for a class in cosmology will find no classroom in the Sutta Piṭaka. This gap is a deliberate blank, not a deficiency. Its purpose emerges in the settings in which the discourses are delivered.

Six settings. Let us now take an inventory by setting: where, and for whom, does the Buddha bring the realms into view?

First, at the steps. Instruction for lay newcomers follows a fixed sequence: a discourse on giving, on virtue, and on birth in heaven; then the dangers of sensual pleasures and the benefits of renunciation; only when the listener's mind is receptive does the teaching of the four truths begin.⁴ The discourse on heaven occupies the third step. Its position is itself a verdict: an account of the heavens is a step into the hall, not its inner chamber. The steps lead upward, precisely toward relinquishing the steps.

Second, at the bedside. People in the settlement of Nādika die one after another, and their relatives come to ask where each has been reborn. After answering several rounds of questions, the Buddha says that coming to ask him whenever someone dies is "only a weariness! These are not questions the Tathāgata delights in answering." He then gives them the mirror of the Dhamma: confirmed confidence in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha, together with accomplished noble virtue. With these, disciples can declare their own attainment.⁵ He himself cools and redirects the question about rebirth: from asking another to verifying for oneself. The other function is consolation. Mahānāma fears death; the Buddha offers the simile of a jar of ghee. The jar sinks into the water and breaks, while the ghee rises by itself. A mind long cultivated in faith, virtue, learning, giving, and wisdom rises when the body breaks up; there is no need to fear for it.⁶ Talk of the realms at the bedside has only two functions: to alert those who have not practiced, and to reassure those who have. Neither is a lesson in geography.

Third, before an opponent. The Aggañña Sutta tells two novices of brahmin birth about the world's beginnings. Beings from the realm of Streaming Radiance greedily taste the earth's savor; their bodies grow coarse and heavy, and their radiance disappears. Eating carries them from earth's savor to rice, private property, and theft, until a king is elected by common consent and the four castes arise. Caste is not Brahmā's allocation; it is the sediment of human affairs. Scholars read the discourse as a parody of the brahmin creation myth.⁷ Part I accepted this reading and added a layer of psychological phenomenology: building happiness into the fall is precisely the mechanism of falling. This book adds a further observation here: satire holds, but has no monopoly. A text's composition and delivery need not admit only one reading. A single discourse has been delivered to different audiences over its history: for brahmins it is parody, for believers instruction, for practitioners a mirror for contemplation. A single meaning is the modern reader's default assumption, not the text's. The cosmic epic of the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta belongs to the same family. Its long panorama of rising and falling human lifespans is tethered at both ends to making oneself an island and refuge, and the Dhamma an island and refuge. The epic sits within the brackets of an instruction to practice.⁸ To villagers with no refuge, the Buddha is even willing to present the other world on the reduced footing of a wager: while its existence remains undecided, someone who acts on the premise that it exists is secure either way. In the Apaṇṇaka Sutta, the realms appear in the capacity of decision theory, not dogma.⁹

Fourth, on the meditation cushion. For meditators, the realms serve a different purpose. Recollection of devas is one of the six recollections. One recalls their faith, virtue, learning, giving, and wisdom, then turns back to oneself: I too have this faith, this virtue, this learning, this giving, this wisdom.¹⁰ Heaven serves as a mirror for one's own virtues. In the Tevijja Sutta, two young brahmins dispute the path to Brahmā. The Buddha accepts their destination and replaces their itinerary: the four abidings of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity become the path to Brahmā.¹¹ In the awakening narrative, what the divine eye sees during the middle watch is beings passing among the destinations in accordance with their kamma.¹² On the meditation cushion, the realms are the content of direct observation and the coordinates of contemplation, not a theoretical proposition. Their formal correspondence with the jhānas will receive a separate discussion below.

Fifth, beside an overheated mind. When someone takes the cosmos as a playground for speculation, the texts act to cool the mind. On Vulture Peak, Moggallāna sees a being in the air: a skeleton moving through the sky, pursued by hawks and vultures. The Buddha says: I too saw this being before, but did not speak of it. If I spoke, others would not believe me, and their disbelief would bring them suffering for a long time.¹³ The details of kammic results are among the four imponderables; thinking about them brings derangement.¹⁴ The questions about the world among the fourteen undeclared questions remain set aside. The map is still drawn, and theoretical questions are still refused: the boundary established in Chapter 1 remains on duty here.

Sixth, before a numb heart. For those who cannot take in impermanence, the scale is enlarged. The suite of discourses on beginninglessness is all quantities: in the long course of wandering, one has shed more tears than the waters of the Ganges and the four great oceans; if one's accumulated bones did not decay, they would tower above Mount Vepulla; if all the earth's plants were used as counters to count one's mothers' mothers, the counters would run out before the count was done; when a city filled with mustard seeds had been emptied by a sweep once a century, an eon would still not be over; on this long journey, it is hard to meet a being who has never been one's mother.² The Sattasūriya Sutta simply burns down the whole stage. Seven suns appear in succession; rivers and oceans dry up first, until Sumeru, king of mountains, and the earth are "burned, destroyed, and extinguished, with no ash left over," like burning ghee or oil that leaves no smoke or soot. Before the account begins, the discourse states its intended use: all formations are impermanent, do not last, change quickly, and cannot be relied on; one should grow disenchanted with them and seek to relinquish them.¹⁵ The end of the cosmos is a teaching aid for contemplating impermanence. The box of teaching aids carries its own label.

The inventory is complete, and one observation runs through it. At the steps, at the bedside, before an opponent, on the cushion, beside an overheated mind, before a numb heart: all six settings have an audience, all have a direction, and none is a lecture hall. The Sutta Piṭaka offers no course in cosmology; its textbooks would have to await later compilers. The map is never hung up for its own sake.

The six settings in one table:

Setting	Audience	Sample texts	The role of the realms	Where the discourse directs the listener
At the steps	Lay newcomers	The formula for gradual instruction	The third step	The four truths
At the bedside	The dying and the bereaved	Giñjakāvasatha Sutta / SĀ 854; Mahānāma Sutta	Alerting and reassuring	Self-verification through the mirror of the Dhamma
Before an opponent	Brahmins and villagers without a refuge	Aggañña Sutta; Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta; Apaṇṇaka Sutta	Parody, brackets, and a secure wager	The middle way
On the cushion	Meditators	Recollection of devas; Tevijja Sutta; the Nānākaraṇa group	Mirror, itinerary, and content of direct observation	Contemplation
Beside an overheated mind	Speculative thinkers	Moggallāna's visions; Acinteyya Sutta	Theory whose supply is refused	An end to speculation
Before a numb heart	The heedless	The suite on beginninglessness; Sattasūriya Sutta	A teaching aid of scale	Disenchantment

Kamma: the physics of the tabletop. What rules govern the movement of beings on this map? That is the subject of kamma. First comes the definition, and once again it is a verb: I say that volition is kamma; having willed, one acts through body, speech, and mind.¹⁶ Kamma is not a record inscribed somewhere outside; it is the dynamics of intention itself. Chapter 3 showed how the five aggregates are defined through verbs; kamma is defined in the same hand. The general formula appears in the Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta: beings own and inherit their kamma; kamma is their womb, their kin, and their refuge; kamma distinguishes beings as inferior and superior.¹⁷ But the formula cannot be read mechanically. In the Mahākammavibhaṅga Sutta, some do evil and are born in heaven; others do good and fall into hell. Using a single case either to refute or to establish kammic results is equally a false inference. The complete map of kammic results belongs to the Tathāgata's knowledge.¹⁸ The salt simile turns this nonmechanical character into a worked example. One liang of salt in a small cup makes the water undrinkable; cast into the Ganges, it leaves the river's taste unchanged. The same deed weighs heavily enough to bring hell upon someone who has not cultivated body, virtue, mind, or wisdom, yet lightly enough to be exhausted in this life for someone who has. The verdict at the beginning of the discourse matters still more: if one says that a person experiences a result exactly corresponding to whatever deed they perform, the holy life is useless and there is no way to end suffering; if one says that a person performs a deed and experiences its ripening, practice has room to work.¹⁹ Kamma is a system of weights. Immersed in the entire continuity, it ripens in accordance with that context. The continuity can be cultivated, so the weights can change. The other side is stated just as firmly: neither in the sky nor in the sea nor in a mountain cleft is there anywhere to escape past kamma.²⁰ At the same time, computing kammic results is classed as imponderable.¹⁴ Affirming kamma and prohibiting its calculation together form a precise stance: causation is real, but its details are not open to inquiry. The judge of hell delivers a verdict in the same register: this evil deed of yours was not done by your parents, a king, a deva, or an ascetic or brahmin; you did it yourself, and now you must bear its result.²¹ Even hell's court pronounces the principle that one bears the consequences of one's own deeds, not a divine judgment. The earlier cases from Chapters 3 and 4 come together here: there is kammic retribution, but no doer. The fire with no dispossessed owner burns in a field of weights.

Jhāna and the realms: one map written twice. The texts provide a formal table of correspondences between the realms and meditation: practitioners of the first jhāna are born among Brahmā's company; of the second, among the devas of Streaming Radiance; of the third, among those of Refulgent Glory; of the fourth, among those of Great Fruit. The four abidings of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity lead to the Brahmā world.²² The table is unremarkable; what is remarkable comes in the latter half of the same discourse. After practicing the same jhāna, an ordinary person falls again when their lifespan there ends, while a noble disciple attains final nibbāna in that very place. One address, two itineraries: the map stays the same; what differs is the attainment of the person holding it.

Practice	Place of rebirth	Ordinary person's itinerary	Noble disciple's itinerary
First jhāna	Brahmā's company	Falls again when the lifespan there ends	Attains final nibbāna in that very place
Second jhāna	Streaming Radiance	As above	As above
Third jhāna	Refulgent Glory	As above	As above
Fourth jhāna	Great Fruit	As above	As above
Four abidings of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity	The Brahmā world (the last two discourses of the Nānākaraṇa group)	As above	As above
Three formless attainments	The three formless bases with the same names (Āneñja Sutta, AN 3.116)²⁵	As above	As above

The strongest evidence for this double writing lies in the names themselves. The four places in the formless realm have exactly the same names as the four formless attainments: the base of infinite space, of infinite consciousness, of nothingness, and of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. The texts simply do not provide separate vocabularies for place and attainment. Gethin offers an overarching account of this relationship: early Buddhist cosmology and psychology are two isomorphic descriptions; a realm is the mind projected on a larger scale, a jhāna the present-life rehearsal of a realm.²³ An old question can now be addressed: does this correspondence describe the world, or project the experience of practice? This book holds that no exclusive choice is needed, but the division of work must be clear. Since the backbone is read across three lives, the realms do not evaporate into pure psychology merely because the two are isomorphic. Yet the correspondence's use has one clear direction: it translates cosmography into an itinerary, guiding the person on the cushion. The map is written twice, as an account of places and as a chart of mental states. The texts translate back and forth between the two faces without ever declaring that only one is true. The borrowed destination and altered itinerary discussed under the cushion setting now receive their cartographic explanation: since the Brahmā world and the four abidings are isomorphic, the path to Brahmā naturally lies in the abidings of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity, not in sacrificial smoke.

Without meaning, and without meaning to be found. Finally, let us inventory what this map does not supply. It supplies no beginning: a first point cannot be known; the narrative has no first page. Part I has already shown that beginninglessness is a requirement of dependent arising itself. It supplies no author. As Chapter 1 has already shown, the Brahmajāla Sutta explains how belief in a creator arises: the first-born takes himself to be the maker. It supplies no purpose: human lifespans rise and fall cyclically, with no progressive view of history; the end is a burning out, not a judgment, and when no smoke or soot remains, there is no fifth act. It does not even supply an audience seat: no position on the map is called "outside." Two boundaries nevertheless need to be drawn straight. First, absence of meaning does not mean absence of laws: dependent arising supplies the law, kamma the weights. The cosmos neither rewards good nor punishes evil; it simply yields results as they are. Second, absence of meaning does not mean that the question of meaning remains undecided. A question demanding meaning from the cosmos belongs to the same family as "Where do the four great elements cease?" and "Who ages and dies?" It presupposes a reader and a script written for him. There is no script; suffering is real. This is the fourth instance of surgery on a question: the question of meaning receives no answer because no one can legitimately fill its subject slot. Here too, the response lies in bringing something to an end, not in finding something; Chapter 4's upward chain takes over. All the map's practical output finally converges on a reminder of a window of opportunity: those who obtain human birth are like the soil on a fingernail; those who lose it, like the soil of the great earth. A blind turtle surfaces once a century and puts its neck through the hole of a yoke; human birth is harder to obtain even than that.²⁴ And in the map's own deepest compartment sits its best reader. On his throne, King Yama forms the wish to be born human, to hear the true Dhamma, and to go forth and train in the path.²¹ In the map's darkest room, a king looks toward a window. The map of the three realms can now be rolled up. It is steps and scenery, and what it supports does not include itself. The next chapter turns to the people walking on the map: bodhisattas, Buddhas, and the four fruits.

The king looking toward the window

References¶

References

Mahāsīhanāda Sutta (MN 12 §153). The five destinations are listed as nirayo (hell), tiracchānayoni (animals), pettivisayo (hungry ghosts), manussā (human beings), and devā (devas). Each is accompanied by "the path leading there" and "the way of practice leading there." Nibbāna follows in a separate entry, explicitly outside the five and not counted as a destination. For an English translation, see Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995, p. 168 onward (§§35–41, under the heading "The Five Destinations and Nibbāna"). The edition used here is the Asian distribution edition published in the same year by the Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, with identical layout and pagination. Bhikkhu Bodhi's note 190, attached to the sentence on the five destinations, states directly that asuras constitute an additional destination in the later tradition, bringing the number to six; this agrees with the stratification described in the main text. The Chinese parallel is T757, the Shenmao xishu jing, translated by Weijing and others under imperial commission in the Northern Song. One point should be recorded. At the same passage, this version already has six destinations: "the path of conduct in hell and the kammic causes leading there … further, the path of conduct among animals … further, the path of conduct among hungry ghosts … the asura path, the human path, and the deva path, and the kammic causes leading to them … through to the noble path of conduct leading to nirvāṇa." Asuras are already on the list, providing evidence that six destinations belong to a later stratum. The Taishō canon supplies no note identifying the Pāli parallel. This book originally listed that absence as a question for investigation; it can now be verified directly. The critical notes to T757's three fascicles contain only variant readings from the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions and one note, "All three fascicles of this discourse are missing from the Song edition." There is no parallel-reference note anywhere. Yet the same apparatus supplies "～D. 13. Tevijja-sutta." in fascicle 16 of the Dīrgha Āgama and "S. 56. 45. Chiggala（孔）" in fascicle 15 of the Saṃyukta Āgama. The apparatus therefore does provide for such references: their absence here is a real absence, not a gap in the record. A further corroboration from within the tradition: the Chagatikathā, Chapter 1 of Book 8 of the Kathāvatthu, is precisely a debate rejecting the doctrine of six destinations. The Theravāda side's scriptural evidence is this discourse's passage on five destinations (the Pāli edition's own note gives ma. ni. 1.153). The opponent cites the Kālakañjika asuras and Vepacitti's retinue. The Theravāda side replies that these two groups share the appearance, food, and lifespan of hungry ghosts and devas respectively, and intermarry and associate with them; they thus remain within the five destinations. The dispute between five and six destinations had evidently taken shape during the sectarian period, and treating asuras as a separate destination was indeed a later development. ↩
Anamatagga-saṁyutta (SN 15.1–20). See Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000, pp. 651–661. The Chinese parallels belong to the series of Saṃyukta Āgama nos. 937–956. No. 938 has been checked: "Since beginningless birth and death, beings have wandered for a long time, not knowing the first point of suffering"; "the tears they have shed are so many that the waters of the Ganges and the four great oceans cannot compare." ↩↩
Shiji jing (Dīrgha Āgama no. 30), also transmitted in other Chinese translations, including the Qishi jing and Qishi yinben jing; there is no parallel in the Pāli canon. It constitutes the whole of the Dīrgha Āgama's fourth division, occupying five fascicles, 18–22, in twelve chapters, from the chapter on Jambudvīpa to the chapter on the origins of the world. The Taishō canon often supplies Pāli parallel notes for other Dīrgha Āgama discourses (for example, "～D. 13. Tevijja-sutta." under the Sanming jing in fascicle 16), but the apparatus to these five fascicles contains none. This establishes that the lack of a parallel is not a gap in the record. ↩
The formula for gradual instruction (giving, virtue, birth in heaven, the dangers of sensual pleasures, the benefits of renunciation, then the four truths) occurs widely, including the story of Yasa in the Vinaya Piṭaka's Mahāvagga and Dīgha Nikāya nos. 3, 5, and 14. The full formula also appears in the Chinese tradition. The parallels to DN 3 and 5 use it: the Amozhou jing, Dīrgha Āgama no. 20, has "a discourse on giving, on virtue, and on birth in heaven; sensual desire is defilement, the higher taints are a danger, and escape is supreme," followed by the four truths "according to the constant practice of Buddhas." The Jiuluotantou jing, no. 23, has the same formula. The Madhyama Āgama has another fixed wording, beginning "According to the teaching of Buddhas, he first taught upright teachings," then "he spoke of giving, of virtue, and of the teaching on birth in heaven; he censured sensual desire as a calamity, birth and death as defilement, and praised freedom from desire as excellent." See the Pinpeisuoluo wang ying Fo jing, no. 62, the Youpoli jing, no. 133, and other passages. ↩
Giñjakāvasatha Sutta (SN 55.8–10). For an English translation, see Bodhi, cited above, pp. 1799–1801. The Chinese parallel is Saṃyukta Āgama no. 854 (T2, no. 99, p. 217b14; the words "only a weariness! These are not questions the Tathāgata delights in answering" and the giving of the mirror of the Dhamma have been checked). Dīgha Nikāya no. 16 also records this episode. ↩
The two Mahānāma Suttas, SN 55.21 and 55.22. The simile of the jar of ghee occurs in the first: "Seyyathāpi, mahānāma, puriso sappikumbhaṃ vā telakumbhaṃ vā gambhīraṃ udakarahadaṃ ogāhitvā bhindeyya. Tatra yā assa sakkharā vā kaṭhalā vā sā adhogāmī assa, yañca khvassa tatra sappi vā telaṃ vā taṃ uddhagāmi assa visesagāmi." The shards sink, while the ghee or oil rises. The second discourse replaces this simile with that of a large tree leaning east. For an English translation, see Bodhi, cited above. The Chinese parallels are Saṃyukta Āgama no. 930 and the Bieyi Za ahan no. 155. Both survive and are very brief; they preserve only the tree simile. The jar of ghee does not appear in the Chinese translations. ↩
Aggañña Sutta (DN 27). For an English translation, see Maurice Walshe (trans.), The Long Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. The Chinese parallels are the Xiaoyuan jing, Dīrgha Āgama no. 5, and the Poluopotang jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 154. For the parody reading, see Richard F. Gombrich, What the Buddha Thought. London: Equinox, 2009. Both readings are presented in Part I, Essay 1, Chapter 5. ↩
Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta (DN 26). For an English translation, see Walshe, cited above. The Chinese parallel is the Zhuanlun shengwang xiuxing jing, Dīrgha Āgama no. 6. For an analysis of its accumulated layers, see Part I, Essay 1, Chapter 5. ↩
Apaṇṇaka Sutta (MN 60 §§8–16). For an English translation, see Ñāṇamoli–Bodhi, cited above. (The Chinese parallel remains uncertain and awaits investigation.) ↩
Recollection of devas appears in the formula of the six recollections (AN 6.10 and elsewhere): recollecting the devas' faith, virtue, learning, giving, and wisdom, one turns the reflection upon oneself. For an English translation, see Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012. The Chinese parallels are Saṃyukta Āgama no. 931 (checked: the Sakyan Mahānāma asks what a bhikkhu in training should practice; the Buddha answers with the six recollections. The section on devas says: "They acquired pure virtue, giving, learning, relinquishment, and wisdom; dying here, they were born among those devas. I too should now practice this virtue, giving, learning, and wisdom") and the Bieyi Za ahan no. 156. The Taishō canon gives no Aṅguttara Nikāya parallel note for either discourse, and the tables comparing the Saṃyutta Nikāya with the Saṃyukta Āgama do not cover the Aṅguttara Nikāya. This identification of the parallel is based on content. ↩
Tevijja Sutta (DN 13 §§76–79, PTS D I 250–251). The four states of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity pervade one direction and then all four; each is followed by the sentence "This is the path to Brahmā." For an English translation, see Walshe, cited above (the ebook lacks the original pagination, so the PTS volume and pages are used here). The Chinese parallel is the Sanming jing, Dīrgha Āgama no. 26 (T1, fascicle 16, headed "(26) The Buddha's Long Āgama, Third Division, Seventh Discourse: The Discourse on the Three Knowledges"). The Taishō apparatus supplies "～D. 13. Tevijja-sutta." for this discourse, documenting the parallel. The Chinese account agrees: two young brahmins, Vāseṭṭha (婆悉咤) and Bhāradvāja (颇罗堕), each claim that the path taught by his own teacher leads to Brahmā. Unable to resolve their dispute, they ask the Buddha to decide. He does not dispute the destination, but changes the itinerary: "With a mind of loving-kindness, he pervades one direction, and likewise the other directions … with minds of compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity, he pervades one direction, and likewise the other directions." At the end he says, "When a bhikkhu who practices loving-kindness dies at the breakup of the body, he is born in Brahmā's heaven in the time it takes to shoot an arrow." A search pitfall: CBETA spells Vāseṭṭha here as 婆悉咤; searching for 婆悉吒 returns nothing. ↩
For the three knowledges in the awakening account, see the Bhayabherava Sutta (MN 4 §§27–33) and the Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN 36 §§38–44). For an English translation, see Ñāṇamoli–Bodhi, cited above. ↩
Saṃyutta Nikāya, saṃyutta 19 (Lakkhaṇasaṃyutta, the eighth saṃyutta in the Nidānavagga): the series on beings seen by Moggallāna. For an English translation, see Bodhi, cited above, p. 700 onward. The precise source of the episode described in the main text as "a skeleton moving through the sky, pecked by hawks and vultures" is the first discourse, Aṭṭhi. Descending Vulture Peak, Moggallāna sees aṭṭhikasaṅkhalikaṃ vehāsaṃ gacchantiṃ (a chain of bones moving through the air), with vultures, crows, and hawks following and pecking between its ribs. The Buddha says: Pubbeva me so, bhikkhave, satto diṭṭho ahosi, api cāhaṃ na byākāsiṃ. Ahañcetaṃ byākareyyaṃ, pare ca me na saddaheyyuṃ. Ye me na saddaheyyuṃ, tesaṃ taṃ assa dīgharattaṃ ahitāya dukkhāya. The main text gives a condensed rendering that corresponds sentence by sentence. The Chinese parallels are the series beginning with Saṃyukta Āgama no. 508 (fascicle 19); the Taishō apparatus links them individually to S. 19.1–21. The skeleton episode, however, is no. 509: "sinews and bones joined together, the whole body impure … crows, owls, eagles, vultures, jackals, and starving dogs followed, seizing and devouring it." The being seen in no. 508 has "a body like a tower," a residual result of having been a cattle butcher; it is not a skeleton, and the two should be distinguished when citing them. The Buddha's words in both are the same: "I too saw this being, but did not speak of it for fear that people would not believe … those deluded people would long suffer harm and pain." ↩
Acinteyya Sutta (AN 4.77): the domain of a Buddha, the domain of jhāna, the ripening of kamma, and speculation about the world are the four imponderables. For an English translation, see Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, p. 463. ↩↩
Sattasūriya Sutta (AN 7.66). For an English translation, see Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, pp. 1071–1074. The Chinese parallel is Madhyama Āgama no. 8 (the statement of purpose at the beginning and the phrase "no smoke or soot left over" have been checked). ↩
Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63): "I say that volition is kamma." For an English translation, see Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, p. 963; the Pāli sentence appears in note 1417, p. 1768. The Chinese parallel is the Da fanxing jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 111. The northern transmission reads: "How is kamma known? There are two kinds of kamma: volition and action after volition." This agrees with the Pāli wording; the parallel is certain. ↩
Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta (MN 135). For an English translation, see Ñāṇamoli–Bodhi, cited above. The Chinese parallel is the Yingwu jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 170. ↩
Mahākammavibhaṅga Sutta (MN 136). For an English translation, see Ñāṇamoli–Bodhi, cited above. The Chinese parallel is the Fenbie daye jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 171. ↩
Loṇakapalla Sutta (AN 3.99, also numbered 3.100). For an English translation, see Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, pp. 331–33. The Chinese parallel is the Yanyu jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 11 (T1, no. 26, pp. 433a13–434a11; the two programmatic sentences and both saltwater similes have been checked). ↩
Dhammapada, verse 127; Acharya Buddharakkhita (trans.), The Dhammapada, p. 42. ↩
Devadūta Sutta (MN 130). For an English translation, see Ñāṇamoli–Bodhi, cited above. The Chinese parallel is the Tianshi jing, Madhyama Āgama no. 64 (checked: the five divine messengers and the verdict "this evil deed of yours was not done by your parents"). Yama's wish appears in paragraph 270 of the VRI Pāli edition of the same discourse: to obtain human birth, encounter the appearance of a Tathāgata, hear his teaching, and understand the Dhamma. The versions in Madhyama Āgama no. 64 and Ekottarika Āgama, chapter 32, discourse 4, add the wish to go forth. The latter reads: "Having obtained human birth, may I then go forth, shave off beard and hair, put on the three Dhamma robes, and leave home to train in the path." ↩↩
The Nānākaraṇa group (AN 4.123–126): the correspondence of the four jhānas and four brahmavihāras with places of rebirth, and the different destinations of ordinary and noble practitioners of the same practice. See Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, pp. 505–511. (Chinese parallels await investigation.) ↩
Rupert Gethin. "Cosmology and Meditation: From the Aggañña-Sutta to the Mahāyāna." History of Religions 36.3 (1997). ↩
The simile of soil on a fingernail and soil in the great earth occurs in Saṃyutta Nikāya, saṃyutta 56, discourse 51 (Nakhasikha, "Fingernail"). The Chinese parallel is Saṃyukta Āgama no. 442, for which the Taishō apparatus explicitly gives "S. 56. 51. Nakhasikha," documenting the identification. This simile recurs in the repetition series of saṃyutta 56; editions number the discourses differently, and this book consistently uses no. 51. One distinction must nevertheless be made for the reader. No. 51 itself compares the suffering already ended by one who has seen the truths with the suffering remaining: the former is like the soil of the great earth, the latter like the soil on a fingernail, with at most seven lives remaining (Bodhi, cited above, p. 1874). It is not about the rarity of human birth. The sense used in the main text, "those who obtain human birth are like the soil on a fingernail," comes from the "Five Destinations Repetition Series," nos. 102–131 of the same saṃyutta (Bodhi, cited above, pp. 1885–1888: few humans die and are reborn human; many die and are reborn in hell, among animals, or among hungry ghosts). The Chinese no. 442 contains both senses. Its main passage compares "those whose forms are visible" with "those whose forms are minute and invisible"; only the repetitions that follow say, "Like the soil on a fingernail, so too are beings in the human destination," and "Like the soil of the great earth, so too are nonhumans." The blind turtle and floating wood appear in saṃyutta 56, nos. 47–48, with the Pāli title Chiggaḷayuga (chiggaḷa, a hole; yuga, a yoke: a yoke with one hole). No. 47 sets the simile in a great ocean; no. 48 makes the whole earth a single expanse of water, blown upon by the four winds, and names human birth, the appearance of a Tathāgata, and the presence of the true Dhamma as three things equally hard to encounter. There is concrete evidence of differences in numbering here. Bhikkhu Bodhi's note 408 (p. 1965 in the work cited above) records the Ee title as Chiggaḷa 2, the Se titles as Chiggaḷa and Chiggaḷa 2, and only the Be titles as Paṭhamachiggaḷayuga and Dutiyachiggaḷayuga. Meanwhile, the Taishō apparatus identifies Saṃyukta Āgama no. 406 directly with "S. 56. 45. Chiggala（孔）," two numbers below the current edition. Yet the same apparatus gives 44 Kūṭāgāra, 46 Andhakāra, and 49–50 Sineru in agreement with the current numbering: this is the sole discrepancy. The Chinese and Pāli images also differ slightly. In Pāli the turtle puts its neck through the hole in a yoke; Saṃyukta Āgama no. 406 has "a piece of floating wood in the sea with only one hole." The main text's "neck through the hole of a yoke" follows the Pāli. According to the same note by Bhikkhu Bodhi, the simile also appears at MN III 169 (Bālapaṇḍita Sutta, MN 129). ↩
Āneñja (AN 3.116), in Bodhi, Numerical Discourses, cited above, pp. 347–348. This discourse belongs to the Book of the Threes and lists only three bases: infinite space (where the devas live for twenty thousand eons), infinite consciousness (forty thousand eons), and nothingness. It does not include the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. The corresponding row of the table therefore includes only three formless attainments. The account of rebirth in the fourth must be supported from other discourses or treatises; this book has not yet established that reference. All the other details are supplied for each place in this discourse: the ordinary person falls back into the three bad destinations when their lifespan ends, while the noble disciple attains final nibbāna there. ↩