Dear Tenphel,

"nairaatmya" is a Sanskrit not a Pali word. Its reflex in Pali would be neratta or neratya or neracca which I have never seen. The earliest recorded use of "nairaatmya" is I believe the Lalitavistara sutra, which is about 1st century A. D., whereas the Pali writings are much older.
You are correct that the Buddha distrusted all opposites and his assertion of anatta must be viewed in the context of the Aryan Vedanta writings of the fifth century B. C. and earlier (e. g. the earliest Upanishads), which asserted the existence of a universal Ātman, which the Buddha denied. He accepted the existence of a self for practical purposes, according to worldly convention, but any assertion of existence or non-existence (including the existence of the atta or anatta) contradicts the Middle Way which goes beyond all opposites,

Warm regards, Bryan

See, for example, the nine ma~n~nitaani in the Dhaatuvibhaga Sutta (MN III 246) for some statements of the Buddha re the concept of the self. For conventional use of "I" see, SN I 15, Arahantasuttaṃ.







________________________________
From: Gabriel Jaeger <lotsawanet@...>
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, May 2, 2010 6:23:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Pali] Re: Translating anatta


Dear Dhamma Friends,

I was wondering if in the pali texts we find also nairatmya as a synonimous
of annatta.
Interesting is that as far as I know nairatmya would mean the "absence of
self" or "selflessness" .
I was thinking how this two words were been used in the texts, if would be
some major difference etc.

I ask that because I have the feeling that the Buddha didn't conclude that
there was no "self at all"...I think this would be one of the extremes of
"existence" and "no-existence" . He would just negate the conception of self
existent at his time, so annatta.

Is that right?

Warm regards,
tenphel

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@... nl> wrote:

>
>
> Dear DC,
> Thank you for your contribution. The sutta is in the beginning of
> the Mahaavagga. It is a perfect explanation of anattaa.
> Nina.
> Op 16-apr-2010, om 20:20 heeft dcwijeratna het volgende geschreven:
>
>
> > The definition of anatta is given in the anattalakkhanasutta , the
> > second discourse of the Buddha. See Vinaya Mahavagga, I. B. Horner.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

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