SUTTA 4

[^56]: MA says that Jāṇussoni was not a given name but an honorific title meaning "royal chaplain" (purohita) bestowed on him by the king. MN 27 is also addressed to the brahmin Jāṇussoni.

[^57]: Bhoto Gotamassa sa janatā ditṭhānugatim āpajjati. Nim renders: "Do these people follow the implications of Master Gotama's view?" And Horner: "These people emulate the views of the honoured Gotama" (MLS 1:22). MA, too, glosses: "These people have the same view, opinion, outlook as Master Gotama." However, it makes much better sense in this context to read dittha not as a sandhi form of ditthi, but as the past participle, and to take this phrase as meaning "following what they have seen of him," i.e., his example. This meaning is clearly required by the phrase in its appearances at SN ii.203, AN i.126, AN iii.108, 251, 422.

[^58]: Nim originally had rendered this phrase as "perfect in understanding," and the corresponding phrase in the preceding section as "perfect in concentration." However, since it seems inappropriate to ascribe perfection in samädhi and pañña to the Bodhisatta prior to his enlightenment, I have chosen to render the suffix sampanna throughout as "possessed of." MA explains that this is neither the wisdom of insight nor of the path, but the wisdom that defines the nature of its object (ārammanavavatthānapaññā).

[^59]: The Indian year, according to the ancient system inherited by Buddhism, is divided into three seasons - the cold season, the hot season, and the rainy season - each lasting for four months. The four months are subdivided into eight fortnights (pakkha), the third and the seventh containing fourteen days and the others fifteen days. Within each fortnight, the nights of the full moon and the new moon (either the fourteenth or fifteenth) and the night of the half-moon (the eighth) are regarded as especially auspicious. Within Buddhism these days become the Uposatha, the days of religious observance. On the full moon and new moon days the bhikkhus recite their code of precepts and lay people visit the monasteries to listen to sermons and to practise meditation.

[^60]: The four postures (iriyapatha) often mentioned in the Buddhist texts are walking, standing, sitting, and lying down.

[^61]: Beginning with this section, the Buddha shows the course of practice that led him to the peak of non-delusion.

[^62]: MA says that the Bodhisatta developed the four jhānas using mindfulness of breathing as his meditation subject.

[^63]: Explained in detail at Vsm XIII, 13-71.

[^64]: Explained in detail at Vsm XIII, 72-101.

[^65]: MA: Having shown the Four Noble Truths in their own nature (that is, in terms of suffering), the passage on the taints is stated to show them indirectly by way of the defilements.

[^66]: According to MA, the phrase "When I knew and saw thus" refers to insight and the path, which reaches its climax in the path of arahantship; the phrase "my mind was liberated" shows the moment of the fruit; and the phrase "there came the knowledge: 'It is liberated'" shows reviewing knowledge (see Vsm XXII, 20-21), as does the next sentence beginning "I directly knew."

[^67]: This is the stock canonical announcement of final knowledge or arahantship. MA explains that the statement "Birth is destroyed" means that any type of birth that might have arisen if the path had not been developed has been rendered incapable of arising by the development of the path. The "holy life" that has been lived is the holy life of the path (maggabrahmacariya). The phrase "what had to be done has been done" (katañ karantyañ) indicates that the four tasks of the noble path - fully understanding suffering, abandoning its origin, realising its cessation, and developing the path - have now all been completed for each of the four supramundane paths. The fourth phrase, nāparain itthattāya, is glossed by MA thus: "Now there is no need for me to develop the path again for 'such a state,' i.e., for the sixteenfold function (of the path) or for the destruction of the defilements. Or alternatively: after 'such a state,' i.e., the continuum of aggregates now occurring, there is no further continuum of aggregates for me. These five aggregates, having been fully understood, stand like trees that are cut at the root. With the cessation of the last consciousness, they will be extinguished like a fire without fuel." I have opted for the second of these interpretations, but take itthattāya as a dative. The word, which literally means "the state of this" or "the state of thus," implies manifestation in a concrete state of existence. Nim had rendered: "There is no more of this beyond."

[^68]: MA: He has "compassion for future generations" insofar as later generations of monks, seeing that the Buddha resorted to forest dwellings, will follow his example and thus hasten their progress towards making an end of suffering.