SUTTA 79

[^782]: See n. 408.

[^783]: Evamivanno attā hoti arogo param maranā. The word arogo, normally meaning healthy, here should be understood to mean permanent. MA says that he speaks with reference to rebirth in the heavenly world of Refulgent Glory, the objective counterpart of the third jhāna, of which he has heard without actually attaining it. His view would seem to fall into the class described at MN 102.3.

[^784]: Previous translators seem to have been perplexed by the verb anassāma. Thus $\bar{N} m$ in Ms renders the line: "We don't renounce our teachers' doctrines for this reason." And Horner: "We have heard to here from our own teachers." But anassama is a first-person plural aorist of nassati, "to perish, to be lost." The same form occurs at MN 27.7. MA explains that they knew that in the past meditators would do the preparatory work on the kasina, attain the third jhāna, and be reborn in the world of Refulgent Glory. But as time went on, the preparatory work on the kasina was no longer understood and meditators were not able to attain the third jhāna. The wanderers only learned that "an entirely pleasant world" exists and that the five qualities mentioned at $\§21$ were the "practical way" to it. They knew of no entirely pleasant world higher than the third jhāna, and of no practical way higher than the five qualities.

[^785]: MA: Having attained the fourth jhāna, by supernormal power he goes to the world of Refulgent Glory and converses with the deities there.

[^786]: MA explains that in a previous life, as a monk during the time of the Buddha Kassapa, he had persuaded another monk to return to lay life in order to gain his robes and bowl, and this obstructive kamma prevented him from going forth under the Buddha in this life. But the Buddha taught him two long suttas to provide him with a condition for future attainment. During the reign of King Asoka he attained arahantship as the Elder Assagutta, who excelled in the practice of loving-kindness.