PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2014 AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2024

The Discourse to Sonadanda

Digha Nikaya 4

Country: Anga

Locale: Gaggara’s lotus pond in Campa

Speakers: Sonadanda, the Buddha

Date of Composition: 5^th cent. BCE

The Buddha gives this discourse at Gaggara’s Lotus Pond, Campa, in the land of the Angas, a kingdom that, like Kosala, Magadha is destined to annex. The Angas are a mixed-race people, in the southeast part of the land occupied by the ‘sixteen great states.’ The Angas were  a barbarous people who had annexed part of Magadha in the past. Bimbisara, the Magadhan king, who became a great friend and patron of the Buddha, killed Brahmadatta, the last independent king of Anga, and seized Campa. Bimbisara made it his headquarters and ruled over it as his father’s viceroy. One can see the boundary between Magadha and Anga to the east in the Chanpan River today. The capital, Campa, was located at the juncture of the Ganges and the Chanpan River. Campa was a great centre of trade noted for its wealth and commerce. A port city, merchants sailed from there to Suvarnabhumi. The location of Suvarnabhumi is uncertain. Some identify it with southern India, perhaps Sri Lanka, whereas others associate it with Southeast Asia, near Java. Tradition thought that the kingdom of Campa in present day Vietnam is descended from Campa, but anthropologists believe its people came from Borneo.

Bimbisara had given the town, a prosperous and populous place, to the Brahman Sonadanda. One afternoon, Sonadanda goes to the roof of his residence for a nap, only to see the streets fill with throngs of people, all going to see the Buddha. The Brahman tells his steward to ask the crowd to wait for him. The rumour of his intention to visit the Buddha reaches a group of Brahman visitors who have gathered in Campa to transact some business, and they visit Sonadanda to confirm that he intends to visit the Buddha. The conservative Brahmans think that Sonadanda is lowering himself by going to visit the Buddha, whereas they think the Buddha should visit him instead, warning him that his reputation might be damaged by such a venture.  Many brahmans were of course hostile to the Buddha as he criticized them incessantly. The list of the good qualities of Sonadanda that the Brahmans recite at great length includes physical beauty as one of the attributes of a great man, indicative of his good karma. The text also states that Gotama has “newly gone forth as a wanderer,” suggesting that this discourse is relatively early. In addition, the Brahman Pokkharasati, who we encountered in the previous discourse as an older Brahman who becomes a lay follower of the Buddha, is a friend of Sonadanda.

Sonadanda retorts that since Bimbisara and Pokkharasati honour the Buddha, as well as King Pasenadi of Kosala, and the rule of hospitality obliges him, he will visit the Buddha, citing in rebuttal all the Buddha’s good qualities, and finally declaring that the Buddha is “beyond all praise.”

Sonadanda’s list of the good qualities of the Buddha includes the interesting statement that “the ascetic Gotama, while youthful, a black-haired youth, in the prime of his young days (” (Rhys Davids has “the beauty of his early manhood”), in the first stage of life went forth from the household life into homelessness. This refers to “the first stage of life” in the Vedic theory of four life stages, the first of which is ‘studentship.’ The four stages of life consisted of studentship, householdership, retirement, and renunciation, identified with specific age ranges.  Studentship could extend into the early 30s.

The Buddhacarita, a non-canonical early second century CE biography of the Buddha that draws on traditional sources, implies that his son Rahula was not a newborn, as the stock story says, but an infant.  The Buddhacarita also implies that Gotama renounced during “the first stage of life.” This passage says that Gotama left “his grieving parents with tear-stained faces,”  which makes more sense than the stock story that he abandoned his wife and child in the middle of the night.

Another interesting detail is the reference to the Buddha being a teacher of divine beings and people. We saw this detail in the description of a tathagata in discourse 1. Sonadanda says that “many thousands of devas have taken refuge with him.”  This number is much larger than the number of monastics, usually given as 1,250. Thus, the Buddha was more popular in the divine worlds than in the human world! As I have said, “gods” is a very poor translation of devas. “Shining” or “luminous beings” is the literally correct translation. These are real, advanced spiritual beings with greater knowledge, beauty, longevity, and power than humans, who occupy higher dimensions of reality, but the lower orders of divine beings take an interest in and interact with us, especially with superior people like the Buddha.

Sonadanda also says, “Whenever he stays in any town or village, that place is not troubled by non-human beings.”  This implies that the Buddha has a spiritual power about him, a charisma or “numen” perhaps similar in quality to the Power of Truth, that repels negative beings and forces, referring presumably to ‘anti-gods,’ ghosts, and hell-beings, as well as the social fact of the experience of such trouble, similar to the possessing demons that Jesus encountered and that Laozi also alludes to. This kind of psychosomatic (or “psychoid”) trouble seems to be a common feature of ancient humanity, and even today we frequently find people possessed by a wide variety of “bad spirits.” We are beginning to see in these and similar references an anticipation of Tantra.

The Buddha is also “consulted by the chief of the various leaders of sects,”  emphasizing his universality and the non-exclusive, non-sectarian character of his teaching. Apparently convinced, the Brahmans agree to go with Sonadanda to the lotus pool.

As Sonadanda approaches and sits next to the Buddha, he feels anxiety, worrying that embarrassing himself in conversation with the Buddha might negatively affect his reputation and, therefore, his income.

The Buddha, sensing his anxiety, asks Sonadanda to define a Brahman. Sonadanda breathes a sigh of relief. An easy question. Sonadanda answers by reciting the five qualities of a Brahman, according to the Vedic convention:

1. Racial (caste) purity documented to seven generations;
2. Knowledge of the mantras;
3. Appearance;
4. Virtue; and
5. Wisdom.

The Buddha then asks Sonadanda, “If one of these five qualities were omitted, could not one be recognized as a true Brahman, being possessed of four of these qualities?”  Sonadanda admits that one might omit appearance; it is relatively unimportant. The Buddha presses Sonadanda whether one may leave anything else out. Sonadanda concedes that one may leave out the mantras, for after appearance they are relatively minor (a surprising statement for a Brahman to make). The Buddha presses further, and Sonadanda admits that one might leave birth out, for what is birth compared to virtue? Thus, wisdom and virtue are the two mutually irreducible qualities of a true Brahman. Thus, Sonadanda says, “wisdom is purified by morality, and morality by wisdom.”  He identifies this combination with the highest good, and the Buddha concurs.

In this text, wisdom consists of the meditative attainments, the insights (body-consciousness, the mental body, psychic powers, remembering past lives, and the Law of Karma, which together make up the Divine Eye), and the cessation of the corruptions or taints, consisting of sensuality, the desire to be reborn, wrong view, and ignorance.  Virtue consists of harmlessness, including no sexual wrongdoing, no stealing, no wrongful speech, and avoiding drunkenness.

Ultimate concepts in the Buddhist philosophical system are often expressed in terms of mutually dependent dualities. Here we see wisdom and morality as the two mutually purifying aspects of the highest good. In the chain of cause and effect, name and form combine the opposites of mind and matter, within which the duality of volitional formations and consciousness  is concealed. The world is divided between nothing and everything, the formless and form worlds, and the world of neither perception nor non-perception. The world exists in relation to reality, the supermundane. Similarly, causality conceals the duality of cause/effect, simultaneously one, two, and ultimately nothing, depending on one’s point of view. The Buddha’s knowledge is gnosis that is beyond merely rational knowing, which is constrained by objectification and duality. Gnosis is non-local and trans-dual mind. It is inherently logical and intuitive, analytic and synthetic, experiential and objective, metaphysical and natural.

Thus, the highest good is resolved into a supreme duality, as in the twelvefold chain of cause and effect, mind and matter. The name that the Buddha gave at the end of his life to his philosophy, the dharma-vinaya (not “Buddhism”), is also dual. Wisdom precedes virtue, because it is from wisdom that virtue flows, as the te from the tao, as ethics from metaphysics. Wisdom (gnosis) is the essentially salvific principle in the Pali Canon, despite the presence of another interpretation of the teaching that emphasizes renunciation and seems to compete with the wisdom interpretation to some extent.

The other Brahmans loudly declare that appearance, mantras, and birth should not be disregarded, finally revealing their true bias. Sonadanda defends the Buddha’s view, stating that appearance, mantras, and birth count as nothing without wisdom and virtue, but he also states that he does not “decry appearance, mantras, or birth,”  i.e., he does not deny their value or significance.

Sonadanda takes refuge in the Buddha, the Teaching, and the Order, but his vacillating character returns, and he again frets over what others might think of him. He worries again about his reputation and income. The Buddha gives him a dharma talk, and he goes away converted, but without any of the special realizations or insights that result in other discourses from hearing the Buddha’s discourse.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, November 15, 2024

Note

1. According to the suttas, the Buddha studied meditation under Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, mastering each system, one after the other; meditated alone in the forest, mastering fear; and practised asceticism for six years, starving himself to the threshold of dying. He then gave up asceticism, nurtured himself back to health, and practised the meditation that he spontaneously discovered as a child under the Bodhi tree, and at some point attained awakening. The four stages of life are also described in terms of four equal divisions of the lifespan. Interestingly, 30 x 4 = 120, the Vedic lifespan that also refers to the genetically programmed human lifespan.

Bibliography

“Advancing through Life’s Four Stages.” Nov. 27, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4mnAFwODOs.

“Ashrama (Stage).” Sept. 17, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage).

“Basic Introduction to Nichiren Soshu Buddhism.” Nov. 17, 2014. http://www.nstmyosenji.org/introduction-to-nichiren-shoshu-buddhism.