..續本文上一頁equanimity of the jhana. If he can attain the jhanas without becoming attached to them, his mind is "not stuck internally."

　　There is "agitation due to clinging" (upadaya paritassana) in the "uninstructed worldling" (assutava puthujjana), who regards his five aggregates as self. When his form, or feeling, or perception, or volitional formations, or consciousness undergoes change and deterioration, his mind becomes preoccupied with the change, and he becomes anxious, distressed, and concerned. Thus there is agitation due to clinging. But the instructed noble disciple does not regard the five aggregates as his self. Therefore, when the aggregates undergo change and transformation, his mind is not preoccupied with the change and he dwells free from anxiety, agitation, and concern.

　　This, the elder states, is how he understands in detail the summary stated in brief by the Blessed One, and when the monks report to the Master, he endorses his disciple”s explanation.

　　(2) The Samyutta Nikaya

　　The Samyutta Nikaya contains three suttas in which the Venerable Maha Kaccana displays his ingenuity in elaborating upon brief utterances of the Buddha: SN 22:3, SN 22:4, and SN 35:130. These suttas are different both in setting and character from the three analytical discourses of the Majjhima Nikaya. In all three Maha Kaccana is not dwelling in the midst of the Sangha in close proximity to the Buddha, but in Avanti, at the Osprey”s Haunt on Precipice Mountain, presumably a remote place difficult of access. Then a lay devotee named Haliddikani, evidently quite learned in the Dhamma, comes to him and asks him to explain in detail a short discourse of the Buddha. Maha Kaccana”s reply is addressed to the householder Haliddikani alone, not to a group of monks, and there is no subsequent confirmation of his exposition by the Buddha at the end of the discourse. It seems impossible to determine whether these exchanges took place during the Buddha”s life or after his demise, but obviously, to have been incorporated into the Canon, reports of the discussions must have reached the main centers of the Buddhist community.

　　In SN 22:3, Haliddikani asks the elder to explain in detail the meaning of a verse from "The Questions of Magandiya," included in the Atthakavagga of the Sutta Nipata (v.844):

　　"Having left home to roam without abode,

　　In the village the sage is intimate with none;

　　Rid of sensual pleasures, without preference,

　　He would not engage people in dispute."

　　In responding to the lay devotee”s request, the Venerable Maha Kaccana introduces a methodology that is strikingly different from his approach to interpretation in the three suttas of the Majjhima Nikaya. Here he does not simply elaborate upon the literal meaning of the Buddha”s statement, drawing out its philosophical and practical implications as he did in those suttas. Instead he transposes the key expressions of the verse to a different level of discourse, treating these expressions, not merely as obscure terms in need of clarification and exemplification, but as metaphors or figures of speech that to be properly understood must be redefined in terms of their non-figurative meanings. He does this, as we shall see just below, by first eliciting from the selected figurative terms their implicit literal meanings and then mapping those meanings on to other, more systematic frames of doctrine. This technique was to become characteristic of the Pali commentaries in later centuries, and we might even regard Maha Kaccana”s style of exegesis here as being, in certain respects at least, the original proto, type of the commentarial method.

　　Taking up first the expression "having left home" (okam pahaya), Maha Kaccana treats the word "home," not as bearing the literal meaning of a place where people li…

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