PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SUNDAY, APRIL 5, 2015 AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2024 (Revised). 

The Discourse to Patika

Digha Nikaya 24

Country: Malla

Locale: Anupiya          

Speakers: Bhaggavagotta, the Buddha

Date of Composition: 3rd cent. BCE

Our translator, Maurice Walshe, comments that this discourse is the worst discourse in the Digha Nikaya. Still, we must consider its contents, without regard to its historicity, for non-historicity is not a warrant of falsehood and one cannot establish strict historicity, like authorial intent, in any case. The Buddha is staying among the Mallas, a brave and warlike people who rejected monarchy and functioned as a republic. The small but powerful Malla state is located north of Magadha. Malla is the place in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta  where the Buddha sickens and dies. Divided into nine tribal territories, each clan appointed members to the Santhagara, literally the ‘House of Assembly.’ Magadha annexed Malla soon after the Buddha’s passing.

The name of the town where the Buddha is staying is Anupiya. Anupiya seems to have been a mango grove. Getting up too early in the morning to go into the village for alms, as was his wont, the Buddha resolves to visit Bhaggavagotta in a monastic park. Bhaggavagotta is a wanderer. He welcomes the Buddha warmly and asks the Buddha if it is true that Sunakkhatta the Licchavi left the order. Discourse 6 mentions Sunakhhatta the Licchavi, when Otthaddha the Licchavi asks the Buddha about Sunakkhatta’s experience of divine visions but not divine sounds. The Licchavis are the major clan of the Vajji confederacy, east of Malla.

The Buddha confirms that Sunakhatta left the order and tells Bhaggava the story of his leaving, apparently with some relish. Sunakkhata (the Buddha says) went to the Buddha and told him that he is leaving the order, perhaps with some attitude, which the Buddha gives right back. The Buddha says, “Did I ever say to you: ‘Come, … be under my rule’? … Or did you ever say to me: ‘Lord, I will be under your rule’?”

Sunakkhatta admits that he had not, which raises the question of Sunakkhatta’s relationship with the Buddha. Later on, Sunakhatta is one of the Buddha’s personal attendants. We know from other discourses that many of the Buddha’s personal attendants before Ananda were unsatisfactory, suggesting the possibility of some sort of personal animosity on Sunakkhatta’s part. Sunakkhatta seems to delight in chiding, challenging, and correcting the Buddha. Perhaps he had been ordained by another monk, a practice documented in the Pali Canon, so that Sunakkhatta had never met the Buddha before becoming his personal attendant. Perhaps his perception of Sunakkhatta’s hostility, which is overt in the Mahasihanada Sutta,  where he openly attacks the Buddha before the Vesali assembly of the Vajjians, also influences the Buddha’s curtness. In any case, the Buddha rebukes Sunakkhata for his importunity: “So, Sunakkhatta, if I did not say that to you and you did not say that to me—you foolish man, who are you and what are you giving up? Consider, foolish man, how far the fault is yours.”   The Buddha seems to be saying, “Don’t look to me because you’ve left the order; look to yourself, for the karma is yours.” The impression is that Sunakkhatta is giving up something of great value without realizing it, and this is why the Buddha apparently derides him.

Sunakkhatta complains to the Buddha that he has not performed any miracles or taught the origin of things. The Buddha reminds Sunakkhatta that he never promised to do this. He tells Sunakkhatta that the purpose of his teaching is the attainment of the cessation of suffering, and that neither miracles nor teachings regarding the origin of things are relevant to this goal.

The Buddha describes the teaching as “visible here and now, timeless, inviting inspection, leading onward, to be realized by the wise, each one for himself.”  Let us unpack this a little:

1.           Visible here and now: One experiences the teaching in the moment. In this sense, it is the essential fact of reality. Thus, the moment itself is the essential reality.

2.           Timeless: The teaching is the permanent, changeless truth of reality. It is immortal, and it confers timelessness (“the deathless”).

3.           Inviting inspection: It is both attractive, because it confers happiness, and one is able to evaluate it analytically.

4.           Leading onward: It is a progressive praxis that builds on itself and so confers ever-increasing insight, culminating in enlightenment itself.

5.           Realized by the wise: The teaching is the essential salvific principle; it is only attainable by those who know (i.e., have Right View or gnosis).

6.           Each one for himself: The path is unique and only available by means of direct realization by the individual, though individuals may choose to walk together—a paradoxical statement given that there is “no self,” but also pointing beyond “no self” to the mental continuum or mind-stream, which brings us back to the moment.

Sunakhatta also used to praise the Buddha, the teaching, and the order, including the four grades of stream enterer, once returner, non-returner, and arhant, divided into seekers and finders, making eight classes of aspirant in all.

The order is described as “worthy of respect, worthy of homage, worthy of gifts, worthy of salutation, an unsurpassed field in the world for merit.”  This passage alludes to a somewhat disconcerting Buddhist doctrine for some Westerners, that the merit one generates, either for oneself or others, is directly proportional to the merit of the recipient of the act. In the case of renunciation, where the recipient of merit is oneself, the better a renouncer one is, the higher the quality of the merit that one generates for oneself. In the words of Jesus, “to those who have, more will be given, and from those who don’t have, even what they do have will be taken away!”  This then becomes a causal “energy bank” that can be saved, drawn upon, used, and transferred. This comparison might startle some, but Buddhism was as successful as it was in India largely due to the commercial class, who became members of the order and endowed it with parks, monasteries, and other gifts.  Merit behaves just like money.

The quality of one’s personal merit increases exponentially. For this reason, absent the Buddha, the true order is the greatest source of merit, the actual repository of the teaching.  One may understand this as a direct result of the Law of Moral Causality, which underlies the merit making process. Merit is simply the good quality of unfruited causes that inhere in one’s nature due to the quality of one’s intentions expressed in deeds, words, and thoughts (body, speech, and mind).

The political implication of this doctrine is also apparent. The order operates as a kind of collective social conscience, devoid of obvious power yet influential, close to the people through the tie of alms, not involved in money, business, trade, politics, or the secular world, internally based on a hierarchy of respect, common property, and mutually consensual discourse. Such an organization creates a causal counterweight to the inherent tendency of the world to degeneration, thus maintaining the “tone” of society but without being involved in or subject to the corrupting influence of government. Only an order that functions in this way conforms to the Buddha’s description.

The Buddha tells Sunakkhatta that people would say that he left the order because he could not handle the rules. The text says, “Sunakkhatta left this Dhamma and discipline like one condemned to hell.”

Here the discourse breaks off into a series of three short tales told by the Buddha, all designed to denigrate Sunakkhatta. Walshe notes that this is the only discourse in the Pali Canon in which the Buddha relates a narrative (as distinct from a discourse) to a third party.

The tale that the Buddha tells to Bhaggava relates an incident in the Buddha’s life that occurred at a place called Uttaraka among the Khulus or Burus—the name of this obscure tribe is uncertain. One morning the Buddha goes into Uttaraka with Sunakkhatta as his attendant. A naked ascetic called Korakkhattiya (lit. ‘dog-man’) was going about on all fours. This kind of asceticism seems to have been popular in Asia. Seniya is another ascetic who imitated a dog, like the Chinese Taoist mystic Ge Xuan (164–244 CE), who went about as a pig for seven years in order to prove his holiness.

Sunakkhatta is impressed by Korakkhattiya, to the Buddha’s consternation. When the Buddha questions Sunakkhatta’s judgment, Sunakkhatta is defensive: “Does the Blessed Lord begrudge others their Arahantship?” The Buddha’s answer is revealing: “I do not begrudge others their Arahantship, you foolish man. It’s only in you that this evil view has arisen.”  The Buddha’s answer echoes Kassapa’s reference to Brahman ascetics in discourse 23—he seems to imply that other recluses are capable of arhantship. In other words, the Buddha is non-sectarian. The Buddha’s objection to Sunakkhatta’s implicit accusation of bias is that Korakkhattiya has no following. He is generating the cause of his own downfall; thus, he cannot be on the right path because his karmic fruit is bad. To prove this the Buddha predicts that Korakkattiya will die of indigestion before long and so he did.

The discourse gives us a rare glimpse into the typology of the anti-gods. The Buddha says that Korakkhattiya will be reborn among the Kalakanjas (Kalakeyas), the very lowest grade of anti-god. These beings appear in discourse 20, where they are among the host of divine beings who worship the Buddha; the text says they are “terrible to behold.” In Hinduism, a powerful, cruel, and ferocious clan of Danavas—a race reputed to descend from Daksha, one of the sons of Lord Brahma—hide in the sea to avoid Indra after he kills their leader, the demon Vritasura. In Buddhist lore, the Kalakanjas suffer from excessive thirst, rather like the Chinese conception of ‘hungry ghosts.’ The Kalakanjas resemble the ghosts in shape, sex life, diet, and longevity. They also intermarry with them—thus establishing that different classes of beings can intermarry in the Buddhist cosmos, an interesting concept also hinted at in certain passages of the Bible. In Vodun, marriages with spiritual beings are legally recognized and socially accepted.

The Buddha invites Sunakkhatta to verify this for himself, which he does by performing an act of what amounts to necromancy—the sorcerous art of divining using corpses—with the corpse of Korakkhattiya, which he finds on a heap of grass in a charnel ground. Striking the body three times with his hand, Sunakkhatta cries out, “Friend Korakkhattiya, do you know your fate?” The corpse sits up, rubs his back with his hand, and says, “Friend Sunakkhatta, I know my fate. I have been reborn among the Kalakanja asuras.”  The corpse then falls back, dead again. Witches and sorcerers in Europe reputedly performed this type of divination during the Middle Ages.

Afterward, the Buddha reminds Sunakkhatta of his complaint that the Buddha has not performed a miracle. Sunakkhatta admits that he has, and leaves the order in disgrace.

The Buddha tells a parallel story, which takes place at the Gabled Hall in the Great Forest of Vesali, the capital of the Vajjis. Here he tells the story of Kalaramutthaka. Kalaramutthaka had undertaken seven rules of practice:

1.           Living as a naked ascetic;

2.           Chastity;

3.           Subsisting on strong meat and drink, like the tantrics, and abstaining from boiled rice and sour milk; and

4.           – 7. Remaining within a sacred territory defined by four shrines.

Sunakkhatta visits Kalamutthaka and asks him a question that he cannot answer, whereupon Kalamutthaka becomes enraged.

Sunakkhatta feels that Kalamutthaka is a true arhant, so he withdraws out of fear that he has offended the ascetic. The Buddha reminds Sunakhatta of this, and prophesies that Kalamutthaka will become a married householder and lose his reputation as an ascetic. Sunakkhatta acknowledges his error and leaves the order in disgrace. 

A third time the Buddha tells a parallel story, this time of Patikaputta, the name that the title of the discourse seems to refer to. A naked ascetic also living in Vesali, Patikaputta claims to be able to make twice as many miracles as the Buddha and challenges the Buddha to a contest, but the Buddha says that Patikaputta is not able to meet him face to face. Curiously, Sunakkhatta asks the Buddha if he knows this from his own knowledge or whether a divine being said this to him. The Buddha answers that he knows it both from his own knowledge and from divine beings. This stock passage occurs in other discourses too, implying that the Buddha communicated with divine beings and that they inspired the teaching, at least in part. The Buddha tells Sunakkhatta to invite Patikaputta to come to him in Patikaputta’s park at any time. Hearing of this, many Licchavis—the discourse improbably says in the hundreds and thousands—come to Patikaputta’s park to watch the contest. Patikaputta, afraid, tries to hide in the wanderers’ lodging. This flowering, insect resistant tinduka tree is long-lived, slow growing, and tall, with a thick black trunk and round, yellow, astringent fruits.

The assembled company sends several people to persuade him to come, but Patikaputta cannot move off his seat, try as he might, like they are hypnotized. Jaliya, a pupil of the wooden bowl ascetic, who discourses 6 and 7 mention, compares Patikaputta to a jackal who feeds off the leavings of the Buddha lion.

Instead, the Buddha gives a dharma talk in Patikaputta’s park, which “delivered them all from the great bondage.”  The meaning of this statement is obscure, and could mean anything from entering the path to experiencing emancipation. Entering into ecstasy by “the method of flame,” the Buddha rises into the air and projects a beam of light, equal to the height of seven palm trees, that blazes and sheds fragrance, and transports himself to the Gabled Hall of the Great Forest, exactly like a modern UFO. Note the recurrence of the symbolic number seven, which we frequently find in the Pali Canon. Once again, the Buddha shames Sunakkhatta into admitting that he has performed a miracle, whereupon Sunakkhatta leaves the order in disgrace.

After telling these stories, the Buddha says to Bhaggava, “Bhaggava, I know the first beginning of things, and I know not only that but what surpasses it in value. And I am not under the sway of what I know, and not being under its sway I have come to know for myself that quenching, by the realization of which the Tathagata cannot fall into perilous paths.”  Here the Buddha explains somewhat his antipathy to speculative metaphysics, not because there are no such truths (“I know the first beginning of things”) but because they are inferior and because they can lead to attachment that can lead to rebirth in just such a world as one imagines; thus one continues to experience suffering.

To demonstrate his knowledge, the Buddha enters into a discourse on theism, similar to discourse 11. The Buddha says that he went to those ascetics and Brahmans who believe that everything begins with creation by a god, but they could not give a reasonable answer to how this came about. The Buddha says that when the world contracts, beings are reborn in the Abhassara Brahma world, which actually refers to the top plane of the Radiant Devas next above the Brahma worlds. Then, when the world expands again, a divine being falls into what he calls “an empty brahma palace,” like the empty dimension where Payasi is reborn in the Payasi Sutta.  Experiencing loneliness, other beings appear and he and they all believe that he created them. Thus, the delusion of theism arises. Other discourses tell this story too.

The Buddha goes on to explain the origin of the “Corrupted by Pleasure” and “Corrupted in Mind” divine beings, referred to in discourse 1. Such beings fall into lower realms because of excessive merriment or envy respectively, and thus give rise to beliefs that sensual or mental corruption creates the world. Finally, he explains the origin of the Unconscious Devas, who occupy the realm between the Five Pure Abodes and the Very Fruitful Devas. The Unconscious Devas are so-called because they seek to escape suffering in unconscious meditative states. These beings are associated with the belief that the world arises according to chance. The Unconscious Devas are reborn with no memory, thus concluding that everything comes out of non-being by chance.

Interestingly, this state is not too unlike those humans who also believe that everything arises by chance because memories of past births are rare, though not non-existent.

The Buddha complains that others accuse him of being on the wrong track, declaring that whoever has reached the grade of “the beautiful,” referring to the third liberation in discourse 15, which Walshe interprets as a stage of concentration similar to the meditative attainments, finds everything repulsive. We have addressed this in connection with the meditation on the repulsiveness of the body in discourse 22. However, the Buddha says that he does not teach this. Rather, the Buddha says that whoever attains the grade of the Beautiful experiences it (the grade? existence?) as beautiful. This seems similar to the experience of the Buddha’s mother, Maya, during his gestation.

The Buddha tells Bhaggava that it is hard for him, as a follower of a different philosophy, to attain the state called the Beautiful. However, Bhaggava says that, though he belongs to a different sect, he will place his trust in the Buddha—an ambiguous statement at best, which might imply conversion, merely appreciation, or even a polite exit.