An Examen of a (Forthcoming) Doctoral Dissertation

 (please make sure “java-scripting” is enabled in order for the tool-tips to function properly; mouse-hover on the yellow rectangular image to open; left-click on the image to hold).

—««o0o»»—

Page 17—The Significance Of The Injunction To Hold Oneself And The Dhamma As An Island And A Refuge In The Buddha’s Teaching.

• attan (m.) & atta: 1. the soul (...). 2. oneself, himself, yourself; *nom. attā, very rare*. (...). anattā (n. and predicative adj.): not a soul, without a soul (...); attavāda: theory of (a persistent) soul (...). [emphasis added]. ~ (Pāli Text Society Pāli-English Dictionary).

• púruṣa (m.): a man, male, human being (pl. people, mankind); a person; an officer, functionary, attendant, servant; a friend; (also with nārāyaṇa) the primeval man as the soul and original source of the universe (described in the Purusba-sūkta, q.v.); the personal and animating principle in men and other beings, the soul or spirit; the Supreme Being or Soul of the universe (sometimes with para, parama, or uttama; also identified with Brahmā, Vishṇu, Śiva and Durgā); (in Sāṃkhya) the Spirit as passive and a spectator of the Prakṛiti or creative force; the ‘spirit’ or fragrant exhalation of plants; (with sapta) name of the divine or active principles from the minute portions of which the universe was formed; (pl.): men, people (cf. above). ~ (Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary).

• puggala: 1. an individual, as opposed to a group (saṅgha or parisā), person, man {NB.: itthi = woman, female}; in later philosophical (Abhidhamma) literature = character, soul (=attan); pl. puggalā, people; para-puggala, another man; purisa-puggala, individual man, being, person; 2. (in general): being, creature (including Petas & animals); puggalika (adj.): belonging to a single person, individual, separate. ~ (Pāli Text Society Pāli-English Dictionary).

• pudgala (m.): the body; the soul, personal entity; man; the Ego or individual (in a disparaging sense); pudgalī (f.): a woman, female. ~ (Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary).

Second (after having opportunely hooked that herring), the very fact that Señor Abraham Velez de Cea is enlisting doctoral support—and already, in the opening paragraph, no less, in this “(forthcoming) doctoral dissertation” of his—from Dr. Steven Collin’s very first book titled “Selfless Persons” (which, as freely acknowledged in its ‘Preface’, is a revised version of his own doctoral thesis, approved for D.Phil. in 1979, which revision took place during his [quote] “all-too-brief tenure of a Junior Research Fellowship” [endquote] at Exeter College, Oxford, 1979-80), and it does not bode well for the pages which follow in respect to the high level of scholarship which more than just a few of the vastly knowledgeable full professors and extensively experienced translators of Buddhism and Indology have brought to the field, over the last a hundred and fifty or so years, from their expertise borne of many decades of poring over extensive Buddhist texts in Pāli and Sanskrit and Chinese.

Third, this particular doctoral support so soon enlisted comes from a writer with an earlier-expressed bias towards sociological-philosophical studies (in other fields of discipline, that is, and not only that of buddhistic sociological-philosophical studies) in which no intrinsic individual (i.e., no intrinsic ‘self’)—especially a spiritual one—ever exists. And, by way of example, the following quote—excerpted from a 1985 essay by Dr. Steven Collins which takes, as a starting point, a lecture given in 1938 by Monsieur Marcel Mauss, a French sociologist-anthropologist, and titled “A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self”—is both explicit and unambiguous in regards this world-wide bias he brings to his buddhistic studies (emphases added for convenience). Viz.:

• [Dr. Steven Collins]: “(...) Bodies, on their own and (logically) previous to social identity cannot be said to be capable of acting. It is only human beings, already in some role or set of roles, who can be said to be agents in the relevant sense. But neither should we search for some *intrinsically psychological (or worse, spiritual) individual* to be the role-player. Psychological individuals, on their own and (logically) previous to their embodiment, *cannot be said to exist*, leave alone be capable of acting. It is, rather, the predicament of ‘body plus ...’ which creates the distance between role and role-player (perhaps better, role-playing), and which generates [Martin] Hollis’s ‘puzzle’ about self and role. (...)”. [emphases and square-bracketed insertion added]. ~ (from page 76, Chapter 3 “Categories, concepts or predicaments? Remarks on Mauss’s use of philosophical terminology” in ‘The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History’, edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes; Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Indeed, on the second page of his ‘Introduction’ to that very first book of his (that revised 1979 doctoral thesis) he provides excerpts from [quote] “two anthropologists whose work *greatly influenced me*” [emphasis added] ... namely: the above-mentioned influential lecturer Monsieur Marcel Mauss plus Monsieur Louis Dumont (whilst noting the latter acknowledges the influence on himself of the former).

And on the fifth page of his ‘Introduction’ he is approvingly quoting a particular interpretation of a modern reformed buddhistic tradition (which stresses its uniqueness in contrast to the Eternalist, such as the Christian, and the Annihilationist, such as the Materialist) by Herr Anton Gueth (a.k.a. Nyanatiloka) whom he introduces as [quote] “a German who went to Ceylon, became a monk and a leading figure in *modern ‘reformed’ Buddhism*” [endquote] whilst residing there as [quote] “an *interpreter* of Theravada tradition” who “*adapts* a canonical pattern of exposition” [emphases added] as follows. Viz.:

• [Herr Anton Gueth]: “(...) The Buddha teaches that what we call the ego, self, soul, personality, etc., are merely conventional terms not referring to any real independent entity. (...). Thus with this *doctrine of egolessness*, or anattā, *stands or falls* the entire Buddhist structure”. [emphases added]. ~ (from page 5, ‘Introduction’, in “Selfless Persons” by Steven Collins, Cambridge University Press, 1982).

Incidentally, and just for the record up-front so there be no misunderstanding, a central feature of fully-fledged spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment—no matter the racial, ethnic or cultural ancestry/ background of the particular operant/ experient—is the above highlighted “egolessness”, albeit becoming egoless, experientially, as a nonpareil and thus uniquely memorable event occurring at a specific ‘timeless-moment’ of irreversible ego-death, or egoic dissolution (as distinctly contrasted to an irrevocable soul-death and/or spirit-death, or psyche-dissolution, as in an actual freedom from the human condition) and is *always* adducible else it be not classified as such (which would then be better depicted as self-realisation, self-illumination, or some-such description of gradational ego-sublimation/ ego-diminution).

To illustrate: for the historical human being referred to by the titular term “The Buddha”, in both the above quote and in the further above ‘Introduction’ paragraph—and identified as either Mr. Siddhattho Gotama, wherein that first cognomen is his matronymic clan-name, or as Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, wherein that last cognomen is his patronymic tribal-identifier (i.e., ‘Sakya’) and, hence, ‘Gotama’ being his personal name—a specific moment of such an awakening into egolessness is attributed to the latter moments of the “Last Watch” of the night (2:00-6:00 AM), on a particular date around two and a half millennia ago, whilst resolutely sitting under an assattha/ pippal tree (Ficus-religiosa), and identifiable as such by his ringing declaration shortly thereafter: “Open are the doors to immortality!” [Viz.: “apārutā tesaṃ amatassa dvārā”; wherein amata = deathless/ immortal; vide: SN 6.1; Ayacana Sutta; PTS: S i 137].

Also for the record—and in regards to the “doctrine of egolessness” being equated with the ubiquitous “doctrine of... anattā” in the above quote from Herr Anton Gueth—the equivalent of the Latin ‘ego’, via Proto-Indo-European roots, is the Pāli “ahaṃ” (Sanskrit ‘ahám’; Vedic ‘ahaṃ’), the pronoun of the first-person singular ‘I’, and *not* necessarily the Pāli “attan/ atta” (Sanskrit ‘ātman/ ātmā’) in a more-or-less similar way that the English word “ego” is *not* necessarily equated with “soul” or “spirit” (except in a general self-referential or reflexive manner where these distinctions are not vital to comprehension).

This equivalent ego-word ‘ahaṃ’ commonly features in terms and phrases such as “ahaṃ-kāra” (i.e., ‘egotism’, ‘selfishness’, ‘arrogance’) and “ahaṃ asmi” (i.e., ‘I am’)—wherein “asmi”, which is the present indicative first-person singular of “atthi” (i.e., ‘to be, to exist’), which is itself evidenced in “atthi-bhāva” (i.e., ‘state of being, existence, being’), relates to ‘ahaṃ’ in the way it does in “asmi-māna” (i.e., ‘egoism’, ‘pride of self’) for instance—and ‘ahaṃ’ most prominently features, again in conjunction with ‘asmi’, in the pericope “this is not mine; this I am not; this is not my self” [viz.: ‘na etaṃ mama, na eso ahaṃ asmi, na eso me attā’] and its obverse “etaṃ mama, eso ahaṃ asmi, eso me attā” [viz.: ‘this is mine; this I am; this is my self’] wherein it is the latter word “attā”, and *not* “ahaṃ” (i.e., Latin ‘ego’) which, whilst generally rendered as ‘self’, in English, more meaningfully translates either as ‘soul’ (albeit neither in its regular usage in Christianity nor its popular treatment in Hinduism) or as ‘spirit’.

To repeat for emphasis: distinctions such as these—for instance, the Pāli ‘sakkāya’ also refers to ego or ego-self; it is commonly used in the compound term “sakkāyadiṭṭhi” (i.e., egoistic or egoity belief) which delineates one of the first three ‘yokes’ [“saṃyojana”] out of ten all-told; specifically, belief in ego-self as an (eternal) soul; aka the heresy of an individual entity-speculation (esp. post-mortem) about the timeless nature, or otherwise, of the (egoic) self—are vital to comprehension of this issue which Señor Abraham Velez de Cea has made the subject of this published article of his (more on these distinctions, in context, later). It is also worth bearing in mind that for more than just a few peoples, especially a century or so ago, the capitalised word “Ego” is interchangeable with the capitalised word ‘Self’ or ‘Soul’.

Fourth, there is no [quote] “teaching of anattā” [endquote], or [quote] “doctrine of anattā” [endquote], of the ‘no-self’ or ‘no-soul’ or ‘no-spirit’ variety—as disseminated by authors such as the above—to be found anywhere in the buddhavacana. In fact, nowhere therein is any such denial of a metempirical attan/atta to be found. Just because the *sectarian* Theravāda school of Buddhism (a buddhistic school renamed ‘Theravāda’, via a modern-era decision by the World Fellowship of Buddhists, in 1950)—which is itself an offshoot (via the Vibhajjavāda school) of the much earlier *sectarian* Sthaviravāda school—dogmatically holds that particular diṭṭhi/ dṛṣti as if it were indeed “the word (teaching) of the Buddha” (i.e., the buddhavacana) does not miraculously make it so.

For the sake of clarity, in distinguishing just what it is which is being discussed in this “(forthcoming) doctoral dissertation”, the following is an edited-for-brevity excerpt of what the Pāli Text Society’s Pāli-English Dictionary has to say about the terms “attan (m.) & atta”, the word “attā (nom.), very rare”, the privative-case “anattā”, and the compound “attavāda” (as vāda = ‘doctrine’ then “attavāda” translates as “doctrine of atta” and not ‘doctrine of anattā’). Viz.:

• attan (m.) & atta (the latter is the form used in comp‹n.›) [Vedic ātman]: 1. The soul as postulated in the animistic theories held in N India in the 6‹th› and 7‹th› cent. B. C. (...). A “soul” according to general belief was some thing permanent, unchangeable, not affected by sorrow (...). 2. Oneself, himself, yourself. Nom. attā, very rare. (...). anattā (n. and predicative adj.) not a soul, without a soul. Most freq. in comb‹n› with dukkha & anicca (...). attavāda: theory of (a persistent) soul (...). ~ (Pāli Text Society Pāli-English Dictionary).

Thus there is no doubt that the term atta (not necessarily the nominative attā, which is very rare) is frequently used [quote] “in its colloquial sense as ‘oneself, ‘myself, ‘yourself, ‘himself’, etc., as required by the everyday linguistic usage” [endquote] as that is the second meaning of the word, in the above dictionary extract, just as the Pāli ‘sayaṃ’ (i.e., ‘self’, ‘by oneself’) is also used as a reflexive pronoun, but to convey an impression that all such occurrences in the buddhavacana—such as in the title of this “(forthcoming) doctoral dissertation” for example—are to be read in that “colloquial sense” is, at the very least, to have dismissed as irrelevant the first meaning’s presence in the Pāli Text Society’s dictionary.

Even more to the point (regarding that first meaning, i.e., “soul”, a.k.a. ‘spirit’): in the Pāli Canon—in the Atthirāga Sutta (SN 12. 64; PTS: S ii 101) for instance—it is clearly stated that viññāṇa descends and/or enters into the womb [viz.: “gabbhe okkanti”/ “gabbha-avakkanti”], establishes or founds itself in utero via four nutriments [viz.: “kabaḷinkāra āhāro”, “phassāhāro”, “manosañcetanāhāra” and “viññāṇāhāra”], after which nāmarūpa (i.e., psyche-&-soma) enters into the womb [viz.: “nāmarūpassa avakkanti”], thereby initiating saḷāyatana (i.e., its sentiency-field), also in utero, along with all what that entails thereafter. And it is also clearly stated in the Pāli Canon—in the Upaya Sutta (SN 22.53; PTS: S iii 53) and the Bīja Sutta (SN 22.54; PTS: S iii 54) for instance—that it is an unestablished/ unfounded viññāṇa which is the awakened entity/ who attains nibbāṇa [viz.: “tadappatiṭṭhitaṃ viññāṇaṃ (...) paccattaññeva parinibbāyati”] and thus fully understands [“pajānātīti”] how any possibility of palingenesia is destroyed [“khīṇā jāti”] and how walking austerely and chastely with Brahma/ Dhamma is fulfilled [“vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ”] inasmuch that, having done what was to be done [“kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ”], there is no beyond after this present life [“nāparaṃ itthattāyā'ti”].

In addition it is also clearly stated in the Pāli Canon—in the Godhika Sutta (SN 4.23; PTS: S i 120), for example, and in the Vakkali Sutta (SN 22.87; PTS: S iii 119) as well—that the unestablished/ unfounded viññāṇa [a.k.a. “viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ”] of an arahant escapes death’s clutches upon the demise of nāmarūpa (i.e., the physical death of the embodying organism) which, of course, includes the decease of the percipience component [“viññāṇ’anupādān’kkhandha”], the fifth of the five components [“panc’anupādāna-kkhandhā”] constituting an awakened/ enlightened personage.

When rendered into English the most apt word is either ‘soul’ (again neither in its regular usage in Christianity nor its popular treatment in Hinduism) or ‘spirit’; as in: “the soul (or spirit) enters and/or descends into the womb and establishes or founds itself in utero...&c.” and “it is an unestablished/ unfounded soul (or spirit) which is awakened/ attains nibbāṇa and thus fully understands...&c.” and “the unestablished/ unfounded soul (or spirit) of an arahant escapes death’s clutches...&c.”.

Incidentally, as to escape death’s clutches is to be deathless, immortal (i.e., Pāli ‘amata’/ ‘amara’; Sanskrit-Vedic ‘amṛta’), it is pertinent to recall that, shortly after awakenment under the bodhi tree, the sammāsambuddha declared: “Open are the doors to immortality!” [Viz.: ‘apārutā tesaṃ amatassa dvārā’; vide: the Ayacana Sutta; SN 6.1; PTS: S i 137].

*

Of particular note is how all the above transpires because human beings, presently as previously, are not only flesh-and-blood bodies but are also feeling-beings as well—insubstantive affective-psychic ontological entities having both habitancy as the seat-of-the-emotions and psychosomatic dominion over their host-bodies—who are intuitionally identifiable, viscerally, as ‘me’-at-the-core-of-‘my’-being (which ontological entity is ‘being’ itself when present-to-itself).

The word ‘soul’ (as in “the-seat-of-the-emotions” Oxford English Dictionary definition in the above mouse-hover tool-tip) denotes the innermost affective-psychic entity regardless of same being of either a secular or spiritual persuasion (the essential difference being materialists maintain this emotional/ passional/ calentural and intuitive self—a.k.a. ‘spirit’ contextually—dies with the body whereas spiritualists maintain it does not) inasmuch both materialism and spiritualism speaks to the self-same ‘being’, at root, with differentiation only a connotative matter dependent upon each particular ontological entity’s (occasionally changeable) partiality, or leaning, in this regard.

This seat-of-the-emotions ‘soul-self’ or ‘spirit-self’—an instinctual ‘self’ born of an amorphous affective ‘presence’ in utero, an inchoate intuitive ‘being’ in vivo, which the genetically endowed instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) instinctively form themselves into, just as, analogously, a vortex or eddy forming itself vortically as whirling air or swirling water does—is not to be confused with the ego-self (an affective-cum-cognitive entity).

The ego-self arises out of the ‘soul-self’ or ‘spirit-self’, somewhere around age two, as the doer of all affective-psychic eventful experience (a.k.a. the ‘thinker’), as opposed to the beer of all affective-psychic experiencing (a.k.a. the ‘feeler’), and is, typically, experienceable as situate in the head, rather than in the heart region from whence it arose, immediately behind the forehead at a midpoint just above the eyes.

As this two-year-old stage of ego-self development is notoriously known as “the terrible twos”, an ad hoc socialisation and culturalisation is typically instigated, and this extempore implantation of socially and culturally approved mores and folkways has the effect of increating an incorporeal socio-cultural inwit or conscience—(an in situ affective-psychic guardian inculcated as a preventative measure to restrain and/or contain the wayward self which lurks deep within the human breast per favour blind nature’s inherent survival passions and preclude gaols from being filled to over-flowing by inhibiting offences from occurring in the first place)—which invariably forms itself into a socio-cultural identity.

• [Editorial Note]: Procuring yet more collegial support so as to convey the impression it is an established historical fact that the sammāsambuddha spoke metaphorically about the *core* issues of the dhamma/ brahma (aka ‘Truth’) which he, as the then-living ‘sammāsambuddha’ (i.e., the compound Pāli term “dhammabhūto” = become-dhamma and “brahmabhūto” = become-brahma), was the very embodiment of.

It is arguably one of the most significant sentences, in this respect, in the entire Pāli Canon as it unambiguously refers to a personal post-mortem refuge. (More on this in that signalled focus much further below). Also, it is absurd to propose that the sammāsambuddha—intimately knowing full-well both what such a “refuge” comprises and why it does—would ‘locate’ it, so to speak, in the “realm of māra” [i.e., ‘maccudheyya’; viz.: “na maccudheyyassa tareyya pāran; sa maccudheyyassa tareyya pāran”; vide: the Namānakāma Sutta (SN 1.9 a.k.a. SN 9; PTS: S i 4 a.k.a. S i 8); source: http://suttacentral.net/pi/sn1.9], which realm is otherwise known as “the dominion of death”.

[source: http://suttacentral.net/pi/sn23.12].

Moreover, not only are those five fuelled components constituting personage the property of māra/ the property of death they are māra itself/ they are death itself [viz.: “rūpaṃ māro, vedanā māro, saññā māro, saṅkhārā māro, viññāṇaṃ māro”; vide: the Māra Sutta (SN 23.11; PTS: S iii 195).

[source: http://suttacentral.net/pi/sn23.11].

• [Editorial Note]: This unsupported assertion completely ignores the edifying words from the sammāsambuddha, “What is there to see [“diṭṭhena”] of this foul body [“pūtikāyena”]? Who sees me [“maṃ”] sees dhamma; who sees dhamma sees me [“maṃ”]”, in the Vakkali Sutta (SN 22.87; PTS: SN iii.119), whereby he explicitly qualifies himself (the Pāli ‘maṃ’ = first person singular accusative pronoun) as *not* being the visually observable physical body and thereby stipulates (1.) how a non-visual ‘seeing’ is the requisite means, through which dhamma/ brahma itself is intuitively apprehensible/ extrasensorially accessible, as is exemplified by the well-known “sandiṭṭhiko akāliko ehipassiko” (i.e., “visible in this world, immediate, come and see”) invitation, and (2.) that he is thus indeed ‘seeable’—albeit imperceptible by the eye and solely as dhamma/ brahma itself—and (3.) via being thataway ‘seeable’, or ‘viewable’ so to speak, he is not as ‘invisible’ or ‘out-of-sight’ or ‘forever-out-of-reach’, as it were, as is generally accepted to be the case, and is thus not totally-completely-utterly inapprehensible or inaccessible after all.

Part I. Possible Translations Of The Injunction And Problems Arising With The Atmanic Interpretation.

The locus classicus...

• [Editorial Note]: Just so there be no misunderstanding as to this term’s importance here is what it refers to. Viz.:

• locus classicus (n.): an authoritative and often quoted passage from a standard work. ~ (Collins English Dictionary).

Also, in the Footnote № 10 mouse-hover tool-tip above is a detailed explication regarding self-referencing words, which refer to an experient and/or operant self by whatever name, such as what distinguishes for example a writer and/or speaker from the reader and/or listener.

...for this injunction is, of course, the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta,...

• [Editorial Note]: As that exact-same “injunction” has an earlier advent—as evidenced, twice-over, in the Cakkavatti-­Sīhanāda Sutta (DN 26; PTS: D iii 58), for instance, as well as in the Gilāna Sutta (SN 47.9; PTS: S v 152), the Cunda Sutta (SN 47.13; PTS: S v 161) and the Ukkacela Sutta (SN 47.14; PTS: S v 163) for some other instances, plus the incipit Attadīpa Sutta (SN 22.43; PTS: S iii 42) of course—there could very well be a yet-to-be revealed reason for this “(forthcoming) doctoral dissertation” to be focussing solely on that very last instance of them all. Also, and although the instance in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16; PTS: D ii 72) qualifies as “the locus classicus” on the grounds of being an “often quoted passage from a standard work”, it is by no means an “authoritative passage from a standard work” as more than a few scholars over many years have amply demonstrated how it was cobbled-together, from many and various sections of text out of many an earlier sutta, more than a centennium after the anupādisesa parinibbāna of the sammāsambuddha.

Dr. Thomas Rhys Davids, for example, first wrote about having begun examining this in his ‘General Introduction’ to the 1881 “Sacred Books Of The East Vol. XI; Buddhist Suttas” (starting on page ix) and included several paragraphs from Dr. Hermann Oldenberg saying they were [quote] “Dr. Oldenberg’s remarks upon it at p. xxvi of the able Introduction to his edition of the text of the Mahi-vagga” [endquote]. 

Here is a sample from those several paragraphs. Viz.:

• [Dr. Hermann Oldenberg]: “This is the story as it has come down to us. What we have here before us is not history, but pure invention; and, moreover, an invention of no very recent date...”.

Dr. Thomas Rhys Davids elaborated in much more detail in his 1910 “Dialogues of the Buddha, Vol II”. For instance, on page 71 he says that [quote] “With a few gaps (nine in number) the whole text is found, in nearly identical words, elsewhere” [endquote].

He goes on to say that [quote] “the parallel passages are found, without exception, in those books which belong to the oldest portion of the canon” [endquote]. On page 72 he provides a table detailing each of the added-in passage’s Chapter, Section and Page Number location plus the specific sutta references (in a typical “A. IV, 16-24”, “S. V, 259-263”, “Vin. II, 284,5” PTS-style format) from whence the passages were derived.

...where the Buddha, shortly before expiring, says to Ānanda:

Page 20—Velez de Cea—The Significance of Atta as Island and Refuge.

‘Tasmātihānanda. attadīpā viharatha attasaranā anaññasaraṇā, dhammadīpā dhammasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā’.

This is translated by M. Walshe as: ‘Therefore, Ānanda, you should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge, with Dhamma as an island, with Dhamma as your refuge, with no other refuge’.

• [Editorial Note]: Just as the Pāli “dhamma” is commonly left untranslated so too can the Pāli “atta” remain in its original (e.g., “Therefore, Ānanda, dwell with atta as an island, with atta as a refuge, having no other refuge; with dhamma as an island, with dhamma as a refuge, having no other refuge”). Or, presenting that in a much-simplified and succinct manner, yet with no loss of significance: “dwell with atta & dhamma as your island & refuge with no other”.

T. W. & C. A. F. Rhys Davids, taking dīpa in the other possible sense, translate: ‘Therefore, O Ānanda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides’.

• [Editorial Note]: Again, albeit with ‘lamp’ or ‘light’ instead of ‘island’, that succinct and much-simplified manner—“dwell with atta & dhamma as your lamp/ your light & refuge with no other”—still suffers no loss of significance (although ‘your light’, in lieu of ‘your lamp’, intensifies that significance somewhat). However, by replacing the Pāli ‘dhamma’ with the capitalised English “Truth” (i.e., thus representing, by convention, an acausal, atemporal, aspatial, aphenomenal alterity of an ‘utterly other’ nature), the ludicrousness of rendering “atta” as [quote] “yourselves” [endquote] is exposed via juxtaposition. Viz.: “dwell with yourself & Truth as your light & refuge with no other”.

Considering that the term attā, in the colloquial and idiomatic usage...

• [Editorial Note]: This unsupportable assertion has, by now, become so ubiquitous as to render almost every paragraph to be of questionable value, such as to occasion these numerous interjections (oft-times in mid-sentence, even).

...of the Pali discourses, is a reflexive pronoun that refers back to one’s own person, or to oneself,...

• [Editorial Note]: As a reflexive pronoun it of course “refers back” to one’s *unawakened/ unenlightened* own person, or to oneself (a.k.a. ‘myself’), who instinctually intuits, viscerally feels and, thus, affectively-ideationally identifies as comprising of those various psyche-&-soma components known as panc’upādāna-kkhandhā (i.e., the five fuelled components constituting personage) which that venerated sammāsambuddha, the then-living embodiment of dhamma/ brahma itself, gnostically revealed were not-self (i.e., anattā) as in, not the self, on many and various occasions throughout the Pāli Cannon.

...it may be agreed that both the Walshe and Rhys Davids translations are not only philologically correct but, in my view, consistent with the philosophy of the Pali discourses.

• [Editorial Note]: Señor Abraham Velez de Cea, with ready-to-hand collegiate support and liberal application of late-canonical and/or commentarial philology, is unknowingly elevating any unawakened/ unenlightened and thus panc’upādāna-kkhandhā personage to the status of equivalence to dhamma/ brahma here.

Nevertheless, the Spanish Jesuit father Joaquin Perez-Remon has queried these translations, maintaining that the compounds attadīpā and attasaraṇā are: ‘Bahubbihi compounds containing two nouns in apposition, and therefore to be explained as, “those who have the self as an island”, “those who have the self as a refuge”, etc.’.

• [Editorial Note]: As what Señor Joaquin Pérez-Remón actually wrote on page 20 was [quote] “How should the compounds *attadīpā, etc.*, be translated?” [emphasis added], wherein that ‘etcetera’ is inclusive of the other related nouns in syntactic apposition (i.e., dhammadīpā and dhammasaraṇā) as well, then to mention only the first two is to miss the importance of just what a bahubbīhi compound represents—the Pāli ‘bahubbīhi’ (a.k.a. the Sanskrit ‘bahuvrīhi’, which literally means ‘having much rice’ [“bahu”, ‘much’ + “vrīhi”, ‘rice’] and denotes a rich person), re-presents a referent by specifying an explicit feature of that referent—inasmuch not only is the Pāli ‘atta’ common to both ‘attadīpā’ & ‘attasaraṇā’ but both ‘dīpa’ and ‘saraṇa’ are common, respectively, to ‘attadīpā’ & ‘dhammadīpā’ and to ‘attasaraṇā’ & ‘dhammasaraṇā’ as well.

This grammatical correlation—that syntactically appositional nature of both sets of compounds with each other—is cogent evidence of the correspondence “atta” has with “dhamma” and “dhamma” has with “atta” (i.e., their equivalence) for the original speaker of that sentence, the sammāsambuddha himself, for whom that very ‘atta’ is, of course, a reflexive pronoun (as evidenced by those edifying “who sees me sees dhamma...&c.” self-referential words of open invitation) were he to commonly refer to himself, reflexively, thataway instead of in the third-person ‘Tathāgata’ manner he mostly affected.

In consequence, he argues that the most accurate translation on this passage would be: ‘Therefore, Ānanda, stay as those who have the self as island, as those who have the self as refuge, as those who have no other refuge; as those who have dhamma as island, as those who have dhamma as refuge, as those who have no other refuge”.

• [Editorial Note]: And not only is Señor Joaquin Pérez-Remón syntactically correct, in regards to “atta” vis-à-vis “dhamma”, but also linguistically correct in regards to the Pāli ‘dīpa’ being equivalent to the English ‘island’ (rather than either ‘lamp’ or ‘light’) as the word dīpa is unambiguously depicted as an island in earlier texts.

For instance, in the 2nd & 3rd stanzas in Dialogue 10 of the Pārāyanavagga, titled “Kappa-māṇava-pucchā” (Sn 5.5; PTS: Sn 1094 & 1095), the sammāsambuddha responds to a question—a specific query about those who are forspent with eld and death [“jarāmaccuparetānaṁ”] as if standing in the middle of a large body of water [“majjhe sarasmiṁ tiṭṭhataṁ”] when a fearful flood has arisen [“oghe jāte mahabbhaye”]—by explaining how he publicly proclaims of an island [“dīpaṁ pabrūmi”], an isle of nothingness, an isle free of worldly (‘intoxicated with life’) possession [“akiñcanaṁ anādānaṁ”], of how this is the island with nothing beyond [“etaṁ dīpaṁ anāparaṁ”], which he calls “nibbāna”, the end of decrepitude and mortality [“nibbānaṁ iti taṁ brūmi jarāmaccuparikkhayaṁ”], and how those whom, in knowing this, are rememorative [“tad-aññāya ye satā”], and whose obtention of deliverance thereby from the contemporaneous world [“diṭṭhadhammābhinibbutā”] ensures they be not in thrall of death [“na te Māravasānugā”] or are not at all enslaved by Māra [“na te Mārassa paddhagū”]. Thus not only is the “dīpa” of ‘attadīpa & dhammadīpā’ indubitably an ‘island’ it is none other than the isle of nothingness, the isle with nothing beyond, the isle free of worldly (‘intoxicated with life’) possession, the isle of immortality.

As to how any of this can be construed as [quote] “you should live as *islands unto yourselves*, being *your own refuge*, with *no one else* as your refuge” [emphases added]—let alone then be endorsed as [quote] “not only *philologically correct* but, in my view, *consistent with* the philosophy of *the Pali discourses*” [emphases added] as well—is quite beyond the realms of everyday ken.

__________

• An Examen of a (Forthcoming) Doctoral Dissertation 2

• Back to Contents Page.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Richard’s Text ©1997-.  All Rights Reserved.