© The Pali Text Society Creative Commons Licence: Attribution-NonaCommercial 3.0 (CC BY-NC 3.0) Commercial Rights Reserved CIOS)Pali Text Society ‘TRANSLATION SERIES, NO. 29 THE COLLECTION OF THE MIDDLE LENGTH SAYINGS (MAJJHIMA-NIKAYA) VOL. I THE FIRST FIFTY DISCOURSES (Milapannasa) Translated from the Pali by 1.B. HORNER, M.A. Associate of Newnham College, Cambridge Translator of The Book of the Discipline, Vols. 1-V Published by The Pali Text Society Lancaster 2007First published 1954 Reprinted 1976 Reprinted 1993 Reprinted 1995 Reprinted 2007 © Pali Text Society 1954, 2007 EAN 9780 86013 0200 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Pali Text Society, c/o Gazelle, White Cross Mills, Hightown, Lancaster LAT 4XS, UK. Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, WiltshireCONTENTS Translator’s Introduction - - - - - - - ix THE FIRST FIFTY DISCOURSES (MOLAPANNASA) I. THE DIVISION OF THE SYNOPSIS OF FUNDAMENTALS (MULAPARIYAYAVAGGA) 1. Discourse on the Synopsis of Fundamentals - - - 3 (Milapariyayasutta) 2. Discourse on All the Cankers - 8 (Sabbasavasutta) 3. Discourse on Heirs of Dhamma - 16 (Dhammadayadasutta) 4. Discourse on Fear and Dread - 21 (Bhayabheravasutta) 5. Discourse on No Blemishes - - 31 (Anafganasutta) 6. Discourse on What one may Wish - - 41 (Akaikheyyasutta) 7. Discourse on the Simile of the Cloth - 45 (Vatthapamasutta) 8. Discourse on Expunging - 51 (Sallekhasutta) 9. Discourse on Perfect View 57 (Sammaditthisutta) 10. Discourse on the Applications of Mindfulness - 70 (Satipatthanasutta) Il. THE DIVISION OF THE LION’S ROAR (SIHANADAVAGGA) 11. Lesser Discourse on the Lion’s Roar - - 85 (Cilasihanadasutta) 12. Greater Discourse on the Lion’s Roar - - oO (Mahasihanadasutta)13, 4, 16. 16. 17. . Discourse on the Ariyan Quest Contents Greater Discourse on the Stems of Anguish - SI (Mahadukkhakkhandhasutta) Lesser Discourse on the Stems of Anguish : (Ciladukkhakkhandhasutta) Discourse on Measuring in Accordance with - - (Anumanasutta) Discourse on Mental Barrenness - . (Cetokhilasutta) Discourse on the Forest Grove - (Vanapatthasutta) . Discourse of the Honey-ball - Ss (Madhupindikasutta) . Discourse on the Twofold Thought - (Dvedhavitakkasutta) . Discourse on the Forms of Thought - (Vitakkasanthanasutta) III. THE THIRD DIVISION (TATIYAVAGGA) . Discourse on the Parable of the Saw - - (Kakacipamasutta) . Discourse on the Parable of the Water-snake - - (Alagaddépamasutta) . Discourse on the Anthill - (Varamikasutta) . Discourse on the Relays of Chariots - (Rathavinitasutta) . Discourse on Crops - (Nivapasutta) (Ariyapariyesanasutta) . Lesser Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint (Cilahatthipadopamasutta) . Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Blephant’s Footprint (Mahahatthipadopamasntta) PAGE 110 119 124 102 136 141 148 152 159 167 183 187 194 203 22031. 32. 33. 34, 35. 37. 39, 41, 42, 43. Contents 29, Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Pith - (Mahasiropamasutta) Lesser Discourse on the Simile of the Pith (Ciilasiropamasutta) IV. THE GREATER DIVISION OF THE PAIRS (MAHAYAMAKAVAGGA) Lesser Discourse inGosiiga - - - - - (Ciilagosingasutta) Greater Discourse in Gositiga - (Mahagosifigasutta) Greater Discourse on the Cowherd - (Mahagopilakasutta) Lesser Discourse on the Cowherd Sa er) (Cilagopalakasutta) Lesser Discourse to Saccaka - 5 oo (Ciilasaccakasutta) . Greater Discourse to Saccaka - - (Mahasaccakasutta) Lesser Discourse on the Destruction of Craving (Calatanhasaikhayasutta) Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving - (Mahatanhasaikhayasutta) Greater Discourse at Assapura (Mahdassapurasutta) Lesser Discourse at Assapura - (Ciilaassapurasutta) V. THE LESSER DIVISION OF THE PAIRS (COLAYAMAKAVAGGA) Discourse to the People of Sala - “ - (Saleyyakasutta) Discourse to the People of Veraiija (Veraiijakasutta) Greater Discourse of the Miscellany (Mahavedallasutta) rage 238 245, 257 263 277 280 306 311 325 334 343 349 350viii Contents 44. Lesser Discourse of the Miscellany - - (Cilavedallasutta) 45. Lesser Discourse on the (Ways of) undertaking Dhamma (Ciladhammasamadanasutta) 46. Greater Discourse on the (Ways of) undertaking Dhamma (Mahadhammasamadanasutta) 47. Discourse on Inquiring - - - . (Vimarhsakasutta) 48. Discourse at Kosambi - - (Kosambiyasutta) 49. Discourse on a Challenge toa Brahma - - (Brahmanimantanikasutta) 50. Discourse on a Rebuke to Mara - (Maratajjaniyasutta) INDEXES Lopes = = = = = =e 2 ee I. Simils- - - - - = «© = - TW. Names - - - - - = = = = = IV. Some Pali Wordsin the Notes - - - - - Page 368 372 379 383 395 404 412 413 416TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION The Majjhima-Nikdya is the second “book” or Collection of Discourses in the Suttapitake. It consists of 152 Discourses (sutta) and is divided into three Sections (panndsa) of fifty Dis- courses each, the last Section, however, containing fifty-two.! These Sections are further sub-divided into Divisions (vagga) of ten Discourses each, the penultimate Division containing the two extra Discourses. There are fifteen Divisions, five in each Section. This present volume of translation covers the first Section and thus comprises the First Fifty Discourses. I hope to follow it with two more volumes for the Middle Fifty and the Last, or Further, Fifty (-two). My translation is based on the edition of the Majjhima published in three volumes for the Pali Text Society by V. Trenckner, vol. i, 1888, and Lord Chalmers, vols. ii and iii, 1898, 1899 (all reprinted in 1949, 1951). Two complete translations have already appeared, the one by E. K. Neumann: Die Reden Gotamo Buddho’s aus der mittleren Sammlung Majjhima-nikdyo, three vols., Leipzig, 1896-1902; and the other by Lord Chalmers: Further Dialogues of the Buddha, two vols., in the Sacred Books of the Buddhists Series, vols. v, vi, 1926, 1927. Both of these works are now unfortunately out of print. Translations of individual Discourses have also been made and still appear from time to time both in the East and the West. They are too numerous to catalogue; but Professor Rhys Davids’ translations of Suttas Nos, 2, 6 and 16, together with his masterly Introductions (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi), should not be overlooked. With this considerable amount of material available, I have found it best on the whole to take an independent course, while duly consulting my predecessors. I do not claim that my translation makes any advance, simply that it differs in some respects. It must be left to anyone interested to compare the various transla- 1 Perhaps the Bhaddekaratta (No. 131) should be counted as one Discourse, and the Ananda-, Mahikacoina- and the Lomasakangiya-bhaddekaratta Suttaa as together accounting for one Discourse instead of three.x Translator’s Introduction tions, for my footnotes would have become overburdened had I done so. As itis, they are chiefly concerned with noting parallel passages (a labour some day to be rendered superfluous by the publication of the Pali Tipitakarn Concordance, at present in the course of appearing), and, with the help of the Majjkima Commentary, the Papatcasiidani, trying to elucidate perplexing or specially interesting and unusual points in the text itself. Another difficulty, and one that I have not overcome with consistency, concerns the abbreviation of long and repetitious passages. Repetitions produce a rhythm in the hearer (as he was originally), and, as he sat listening after the heat of the day had passed, were calculated to drive home point after point. But the reader, especially perhaps the Western one, is apt to find repetitions so tedious and delaying that he may skip what he should have read. Mostly, however, considerations of space and of the size this volume would have attained had everything been put in full, led me to make the abbreviations I have. In addition, I naturally did not expand the abbreviations I found in the P.T\S, printed edition of the Majjhima. This brings us to the question of why this Collection is called Majjhima, Middle—a name commonly assumed to derive from the length of the Discourses it contains. ‘The commentators appear to suggest (¢.g., at VA. 26-27, DA, 23) that “length,” pamana, refers to the length as well as to the number of the Discourses assigned to each of the five Nikiyas. For they speak of the “ Suttas of long length,” dighappamandnari sutténart, as numbering thirty-four, the “middle length Suttas,” majjhimappamanani suttdni, as numbering 152, while there are 7,762 Suttas in the Sarhyutta and 9,557 in the Anguttara, Thus the Suttas of “ middle length,” while being shorter than those of “long length,” although more numerous, are longer than the Suttas in the two remaining chief Nikayas, but not so numerous. Therefore on both counts, their position is a “ middle” one. A certain amount of research, however, might be needed to establish whether or not one or two of the very brief Majjhima Discourses, such as the Vammika or the Cilagopilaka, were in fact shorter than some of the longer Suttas in 8. or A. On the other hand, it seems doubtful whether, even if some of the longer ones were printed in full, they would turn out to be longer than any of the Diyha Suttantas if these were printed in full. An interesting feature of the Majjhima, and one that is peculiarTranslator’s Introduction xi to it, is its possession of two Vaggas or Divisions called Yamaka, pair, twin, double, couple (Vaggas IV and V), These are dis- tinguished one from the other by prefixing Maha- (Great or Greater) in the first case and Ciila- (Small or Lesser) in the second to the otherwise identical title of Yamakavagga. In the Dhammapada there is a Yamakavagga where the verses are arranged by pairs; and Yamakavagga is also the title of one Chapter in the Sariyutta (S. iv. 6-15) and of the two in the Anguttara (A. iv. 314-335, v. 118-131). The Majjhima carries the idea of yamaka, but not the name, further than its Mahayamakavagga and Cilayamakavagga. As these form a pair, so, out of the total of 152 Discourses, there are seventeen pairs. In each of these one Discourse is called Maha- and the other Ciila- to distinguish an otherwise identical title shared in common. Except for a concentration of five such pairs in the Mahiyama- kavagga, the remaining pairs occur here and there throughout the M. This Vagga is well named since it is the only one of the fifteen Divisions to contain nothing but pairs of Discourses. The Ciilaya- makavagga had, one may suppose, to stand in some close relation to the Mahayamakavagga and, with its two pairs, follows it. But these two pairs are not placed at the beginning of the Vagga as though they are continuing from the Mahayamakavaggs, but are its Discourses Nos, 3-6. Immediately before the Mahiyamakavagga comes the Tatiya (Third) Vagga, unique among the M. Vaggas in apparently having no specific name. Tt contains two pairs, and as they are its last four Discourses, they lead straight on to the five sets of pairs in the Mahiyamakavagga. It might, therefore, have been appropriately named the Ciilayamakavagga, had there not been another con- sideration, a cross-division as it were. For the two pairs that conclude this Vagga, as well as its first two Discourses, are further distinguished by the word upama in their titles. As this is so, and as there are only two other upama-Discourses in the M. (Nos. 7, 66), it seems strange that this Division was not called by a name that was to hand: Opammavagga.1 This name has been suggested by Lord Chalmers, perhaps following Neumann. But at least this 1 Of. Opamma Sarnyutta (8. ii, 262 ff.), so called because it is rich in parables and similes. + See Tables of Contents in their translations,xii Translator’s Introduction assemblage of six upama-Discourses in the Third Division provides a good and acceptable reason for not calling it COlayamakavagga. It is difficult to know why Suttas 7 and 66 were not included in this Third Division. There is no such problem with the title of the second Division, with its two pairs placed at the beginning of the Division for, in naming it the Sthanida-vagga, the not uncommon practice was being followed of naming a Vagga after its first Sutta, chapter or section as the case might be—a plan also adopted in Vaggas I, XT, XIi and XII of the M. The name may also have been determined by the recognition that in the M. the technical term sthandda, the lion’s roar, is found (or so I believe) only in the Cila- and Maha- sihandda Suttas. Therefore, once the idea of grouping Suttas by pairs had arisen, such a focusing of attention on a rare but important word, and all that it implied, would provide not only a suitable title for a pair, but also one from which a Division might well take its name. When we call to mind Rhys Davids’ intimation that all Sihandda Suttas are Discourses on asceticism! together with Chalmers’ emphasis on this subject,? we can sce that the Buddhist teaching would not wish to ignore a subject that was uppermost in some of the contemporary and rival teachings, but would have wanted to put forward its own interpretation of false and true asceticism. Moreover in neither of the M. Sihanada Suttas could either the persons addressed or the places where the utterances were pronounced provide a sufficiently distinctive title: monks, Savatthi, Sariputta and Vesali all appear too frequently. A few points concerning the pairs of Discourses may now be briefly noticed, a full discussion being impossible here. (1) The method of beginning a pair with its Maha- or Cala- member is reversible. In fact the Ciila- member precedes its Maha- nine times, the Maha- thus preceding its Cila-~ member eight times. (2) With the exception of the Maha- and Cila-punnama Suttas (Nos. 109, 110) which are named after a time, all the other sixteen pairs are called either after the main topic treated; or after a proper name, that of a person or a place; or after some simile or parable that they contain. (3) There are no pairs in Vaggas I, VI, IX, X or XII, and only one member of a pair in Vagga XV. (4) Pairs occur with greater frequency in the Vaggas placed 1 Dial. i. 208, ® Fur, Dial. i. Introduction.Translator’s Introduction xiii eatlior in the M. ‘They culminate in the Mahiyamakavagga and, dwindling again through the Cilayamakavagga, appear more sporadically afterwards while displaying, to all seeming, a few interesting diversities not found among the pairs placed more at the beginning. (5) Where a Discourse has no pair of the type under discussion, it is invariably the Cala-member that is lacking. Thus, in the sequence of the three Vacchagotta Suttas, one is called Maha- (No. 73), but neither of the other two (Nos. 71, 72) is called Cala- Vacchagottasutta. There is a Mahicattarisaka Sutta (No. 117) and a Mohasalayatanika (No. 149), but in neither case is there a corresponding Cila-member, although there is a Salayatanavi- bhanga-sutta (No. 137). (6) Occasionally the members of a pair are divided by one or more intervening Discourses. The Maha- and Cila-Sakuludayin Suttas (Nos. 77, 79) in Vagga VIII have one other Discourse between them; but of the three Rahulovada Suttas, although the Maha (No, 62 in Vagga VII) follows immediately after the Ambalatthil Rahulovada, the Cila-Rahulovada is placed as far on as Discourse No. 147 in Vagga XV (referred to under (3) above). Vaggas VII and XV, therefore, each contain one member of the same pair. One of the chief points of interest in connection with the M. pairs of Suttas is whether these prefixes of Maha- and Cilla- are intended to qualify the title of the Discourses, or the Discourses themselves, or have they a double reference? For example, when both members of a pair are dealing with the same topic, does the Mahi- give the main gist, or approach the topic from some more significant angle, and does it therefore become of greater length than the Ciila-? Or is the length independent of these other features? Thee is prob- ably little doubt for example that the Maha-sthandda Sutta may be regarded as the “ Discourse on the Lion’s Roar that is Great,” “great” because uttered by the Tathagata and setting forth his ten Powers and four Confidences, and much else besides of his comprehensions and autobiographical reminiscences. The Cila- sihanéda, on the other hand, does no more than urge monks to roar a Lion's Roar and then quits the topic. In this sense it is therefore the Lion's Roar that is lesser than the Tathagata’s Roar. Again, the Maha- is longer than the Cilla-sihanada, so on this count, too, it may be legitimately regarded as the “ Greater.” OF those Discourses that are paired because their titles share the name of some simile, we may take the Gopilaka Suttas (althoughxiv Translator’s Introduction not strictly speaking upama-Suttas) in exemplification of the problem. Here the Cija- makes use of only one simile deriving from the “ cowherd,” while the Maha- puts forward eleven. It is also shorter than the Maha-. Both of these reasons may have been operative in determining which Discourse was to be perpet- uated as the Greater and which as the Lesser. ‘When we come to those Discourses whose titles are united by the same proper name, it is never the person or the place denoted by the proper name that is great or small. No Maha-saccaka or Cila- saccaka, for example, is known to have existed—only Saccaka; there was no place known either as Maha-Assapura or as Cila- Assapura—merely Assapura.! In such Discourses, therefore, the name is to be ignored as that to which Maha- or Cula- refers. We are, however, still left with the same problems as are to be looked for in the pairs of Discourses deriving their titles from topics or similes. In order to arrive at some solution, I think that each pair would have to be examined separately in the first place, but always in conjunction with other comparable Suttas, wherever these may be found in the M. or in other parts of the Pali Canon. Only then, if ever, could any general conclusion be established. I will now take one Sutta, whose case has already been discussed by the Rhys Davids and Lord Chalmers, and which serves well to indicate the possible lines such a wider investigation might follow. As the Digha contains three Sihanida Suttantas (Nos. 8, 25, 26) while the M. has two; and as it has a Subha Suttanta (No. 10), which is also the title of M. Sutta 99 so it has a Mahasatipatthdna- suttanta (No. 22), the M. likewise containing a Satipatthana Sutta (No. 10). Yet while the Sthandda Suttas have a varying degree of identity, and sometines none at all, and while the Subha Suttas are quite different in both Nikayas, the Digha’s Mahisatipatthana Suttanta contains not only word for word the material of M. Sutta 10, but also that of M. Sutta 141. Lord Chalmers is of the opinion that it “accordingly is distinguished from ours here (i.e. M. Sutta 10) “as ‘the Long’ or Maha-sati-patthina suttanta, And the translators of Digha, vol. ii, have a note to the same effect.? Should the conclusion, therefore, be drawn that the 1 In the case of the Mahi-kaccina-bhaddekaratta Sutta, Maha- is of course part of this Kaccna’s name, serving to distinguish him from other Kaceanas. * Pur. Dial. i. 41. » Dial. ii, 337.