SUTTA 90

[^845]: MA: These two Sisters are the king's wives (not his sisters!).

[^846]: MA: There is no one who can know and see all - past, present, and future - with one act of mental adverting, with one act of consciousness; thus this problem is discussed in terms of a single act of consciousness (ekacitta). On the question of the kind of omniscience the Theravāda tradition attributes to the Buddha, see n. 714.

[^847]: That is, he is not inquiring about their social status but about their prospects for spiritual progress and attainment.

[^848]: As at MN 85.58.

[^849]: MA's explanation of this reply suggests that the former class of gods are non-returners, while the latter class are gods who have not attained the status of non-returners. The same would apply to the question on Brahmās in §15. The two key terms that here distinguish the two types of gods appear in the PTS ed. as savyapajjha and abyäpajjha, which would be rendered as "subject to ill will" and "free from ill will," respectively. The BBS ed. reading accepted here, sabyäbajjhā and abyäbajjhā, has the support of MA, which glosses the former as "who have not abandoned mental suffering by eradicating it," and the latter as "who have eradicated suffering." As either reading would be applicable to non-returners, no significant difference is entailed. Note that the word itthatta, which in the stock declaration of arahantship signifies any state of manifest existence, is here glossed by MA as manussaloka, the human world.