Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIRVANA
In the later abhidhamma tradition, 108 these various faculties are classified
and enumerated as twenty-two: six organs, female organ, male organ, vital
organ, five sensations, five spiritual faculties and three pure faculties, i.e.
anaññAtaññassAmCtindriya, aññindriya, and aññAtAvindriya. 109 One thing common
to the last three pure faculties is that they all share the word aññA, perfect
knowledge. The word aññA is in the early canon often used to express the
moment when a disciple claims to have won arahant-ship, 110 and the phrase
‘to be established in perfect knowledge (aññAya saOMhAti )’ is sometimes used
to denote a saint (arahant). 111 In fact, faculties and perfect knowledge (aññA)
are mentioned together in the four small suttas called PubbArAmasutta in the
SaNyuttanikAya. 112
In the later Chinese abhidharma text, the JñAnaprasthAna, 113 the four noble
persons are described according to the number of faculties they have among
the twenty-two faculties, and the AbhidharmakoUabhALya also has its own
classification of the four noble persons in terms of the number of faculties. 114
Moreover, the key factors to differentiate the seven noble persons, who
share most of their technical terms with the four noble persons, are not ten
fetters but three of the five spiritual faculties. 115
Therefore, fetters could not be the only means through which the four
noble persons are classified and this tendency was instead the outcome of
the later systematisation in the abhidharma literature.
The non-returner and the two nirvana elements
A. O. Lovejoy in his paper ‘The Buddhist technical terms upAdAna and
upAdisesa’ wrote that ‘the oldest and probably the most numerous texts
point to the interpretation of upAdisesa suggested by Oldenberg’. 116 That
suggested interpretation of upAdi is of course the subjective one: attachment
or defilement.
Hermann Oldenberg, who interprets upAdi in the ethical, or subjective,
sense, argued that the expression anupAdisesa nibbAnadhAtu contains a tautology
as ‘without a remainder of attachment’ is the same as nirvana, whereas
saupAdisesa nibbAnadhAtu describes the incomplete, or inferior, nirvana known
as a non-returner. 117 Peter Masefield’s argument also follows this line of
thought. 118 He has tried to ignore the above-mentioned passage from the
Itivuttaka 119 by emending the verse that it follows. However, Peter Harvey
has successfully criticised this argument by showing some parallel passages
in the SaNyuttanikAya 120 and the DCghanikAya 121 which confirm the wording of
the Itivuttaka. 122 The problem behind their arguments is that they took the
subjective meaning of upAdi, which is used in the context of the first three
noble persons, to explain two nirvana elements, whereas it is the objective
meaning that is relevant.
There are two major pieces of textual evidence they put forward to support
their view. In the SuttanipAta, 123 monks gathered and approached the blessed
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