..续本文上一页ding kinds of contact and feeling: "In dependence on the eye element there arises eye-contact; in dependence on eye-contact there arises feeling born of eye-contact." And so for the other sense faculties. The Venerable Maha Kaccana, however, does not merely parrot the Buddha”s analysis, but carries the pisions down to a finer level:

　　"Here, householder, having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu understands one that is agreeable thus: ”Such it is.” In dependence on eye-consciousness and a contact to be experienced as pleasant, there arises a pleasant feeling. Then, having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu understands one that is disagreeable thus: ”Such it is.” In dependence on eye-consciousness and a contact to be experienced as painful, there arises a painful feeling. Then, having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu understands one that is a basis for equanimity thus: ”Such it is.” In dependence on eye-consciousness and a contact to be experienced as neither-painful-nor-pleasant, there arises a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling."

　　The same analysis is applied to each of the other sense faculties. Thus, while the Buddha merely differentiates the contact and feeling by way of the sense faculty, the Venerable Maha Kaccana distinguishes within each sense sphere three qualities of the object — agreeable, disagreeable, and indifferent; three qualities of the contact — to be felt as pleasant, to be felt as painful, and to be felt as neither; and three qualities of the feeling — pleasant, painful, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant. These triads are then collated and shown to originate in a conditional relationship: the quality of the object conditions the quality of the contact; the quality of the contact conditions the quality of the feeling. As the entire process is said to be contemplated by a bhikkhu endowed with understanding, this also implies that he has the capacity for overcoming the bondage to feelings by means of insight into their conditioned origination.

　　(3) The Anguttara Nikaya

　　The Anguttara Nikaya offers two further examples of Maha Kaccana”s exegetical skills. In one short sutta (AN 10:26) in this collection we see how the elder interprets a verse, the meaning of which seems completely explicit as it stands, by transposing it into a figurative mode and then extracting the implicit meaning by mapping it on to a framework of systematic doctrine. Here a woman lay disciple named Kali comes to the elder and asks him to explain in detail a verse from "The Girl”s Questions." The reference is to the account of the Buddha”s encounter with Mara”s daughters when they tried to seduce him in the first year after his Enlightenment (SN 4:25). The daughter Tanha (Craving) had asked him why, instead of forming intimate relationships in the village, he squanders his time meditating alone in the woods. To this the Buddha replied:

　　"Having conquered the army of the pleasant and agreeable,

　　Meditating alone I discovered bliss —

　　The attainment of the goal, the peace of the heart.

　　Therefore I do not make friends with people,

　　Nor does intimacy with anyone flourish for me."

　　It is this verse that Kali asks the Venerable Maha Kaccana to elucidate. The elder explicates the verse in a way that does not appear to be derivable from the words themselves. His interpretation contrasts the Buddha”s attitude to the kasinas — the meditations on special devices for inducing concentration[21] — with that of other recluses and brahmans. He explains that some contemplatives, regarding the attainment of the earth kasina as the supreme goal, thereby generate this attainment. Others may take one of the other kasinas as supreme — the water kasina, the fire kasina, etc. — and reach the corresponding meditative state. But for each kasina, the Blessed One has …

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