SUTTA 77

[^761]: Anägatam vādapatham. Nim had translated: "a future logical consequence of an assertion." The meaning seems to be that the Buddha understands all the unexpressed implications of his own doctrine as well as of his opponents' doctrines. The phrase may also imply that, in such suttas as the Brahmajala Sutta, the Buddha has laid down a critique applicable to any doctrine that might arise in the future course of religio-philosophical thought.

[^762]: Explained in full in MN 10. The first seven groups of "wholesome states" ( §§15-21 ) constitute the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment (bodhipakkhiya dhammā).

[^763]: Abhinñã̃osānaparamippatta. MA explains as the attainment of arahantship. This may be the only sense that the word param $ī bears in its appearance in the four Nikāyas. In the later Theravāda literature, beginning perhaps with such works as the Buddhavamisa, this word comes to signify the perfect virtues that a bodhisatta must fulfil over many lives in order to attain Buddhahood. In that context it corresponds to the paramitä of the Mahāyāna literature, though the numerical lists of virtues overlap only in part.

[^764]: MA explains liberation (vimokkha) here as meaning the mind's full (but temporary) release from the opposing states and its full (but temporary) release by delighting in the object. The first liberation is the attainment of the four jhannas using a kasiṇa (see §24 and n.768) derived from a coloured object in one's own body; the second is the attainment of the jhānas using a kasina derived from an external object; the third can be understood as the attainment of the jhānas through either a very pure and beautiful coloured kasiṇa or the four brahmavihäras. The remaining liberations are the immaterial attainments and the attainment of cessation.

[^765]: MA explains that these are called bases of transcendence (abhibhayatana) because they transcend (abhibhavati, overcome) the opposing states and the objects, the former through the application of the appropriate antidote, the latter through the arising of knowledge.

[^766]: MA: The meditator does the preliminary work on an internal form - e.g., the blue of the eyes for a blue-kasina, the skin for a yellow kasiṇa, the blood for a red-kasina, the teeth for a white-kasina - but the sign of concentration (nimitta) arises externally. The "transcending" of the forms is the attainment of absorption together with the arising of the sign. The perception "I know, I see" is the advertence (äbhoga) that occurs after he emerges from the attainment, not within the attainment. The second base of transcendence differs from the first only by the extension of the sign from limited to unlimited dimensions.

[^767]: MA: The second and fourth bases involve preliminary work done on an external form and the arising of the sign externally. The fifth through eighth bases differ from the third and fourth in the superior purity and luminosity of their colours.

[^768]: The kasina is a meditation object derived from a physical device that provides a support for acquiring the inwardly visualised sigh. Thus, for example, a disk made of clay can be used as the preliminary object for practising the earth-kasina, a bowl of water for practising the waterkasina. The kasinas are explained in detail in Vsm IV and V. There, however, the space-kasina is restricted to limited space, and the consciousness-kasina is replaced by the light-kasina.

[^769]: The similes for the jhānas also appear in MN 39, as do the similes for the last three types of knowledge at §§34-36.

[^770]: §§29-36 describe eight varieties of higher knowledge which, in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, are designated superior fruits of recluseship.