Trans. & Philosophy of SN-1:18:5 [Ko.t.thita Sutta]

The Ko.t.thita Sutta is an example of simply-worded Pali, used to make
a philosophical argument that is by no means simplisitic.

The only translations I've seen of it seem off-the-mark, from the
thesis on down.

The interlocutor (the eponymous Ko.t.thita) presents the monk
Sariputta with a series of logically linked statements; the first few
would seem to be easy for a Buddhist to agree with, but it leads us to
a somewhat provocative extension of the same reasoning.

I begin by paraphrasing in brief, but will look at the actual wording
and translation below:
   "Whatever is seen ("forms") is the fetter of the eye, whatever is
heard ("sounds") is a fetter for the ear... therefore, isn't it
likewise the case that what is believed ("doctrines") is a fetter for
the mind?"

That is very much a loose paraphrase, stated with the the utmost
brevity, but it brings us rapidly to the point:

The last statement in the sequence of "the question" (not stated as a
question, but posed as a philosophical argument) claims that
in-as-much-as the Buddhists go around preaching this doctrine that we
ought to become unbound from the fetters of the senses [i.e., the
senses' objects], it would seem to be similarly the case that all
doctrines are fetters for the mind [viz., our beliefs, being objects
for the mind, must be similarly binding]:

   / mano dhammaana.m sa~n~nojana.m | dhammaa manassa sa~n~nojananti || /

The pattern of the text here is in two parts, and both Thanissaro &
Walsche have foisted a structure onto them that renders them as
counterposed opposites: "either/or".

The supposed strength of this argument is that, were we to imagine the
question as "either/or", then we may read the answer as "neither/nor";
likely the interpretation started with the latter (viz., looking at
the metaphor later on in the passage), to then read the question at
the beginning in these terms.

This would render the most important part of the text (viz., "the
thesis" posited) incoherent:
   If the interlocutor is, in fact, asking "is the eye binding upon the
seen, or is the thing seen instead binding upon the eye?", then the
pattern of this logic (making sense for the introductory examples)
utterly breaks down when we come to the main point: it simply does not
make sense to ask, "does mind bind the doctrine, or does doctrine
instead bind the mind"?
   This model (followed in Thanissaro & Walsche's translation) could be
summarized in a diagram of the eye and the "form" perceived, with two
different arrows indicating possible directions between the two; apart
from the fact that this is NOT the question actually posed by the
text, this interpretation only makes sense for the examples leading up
to the main point: mind (/mano/) and doctrine (/dhamma/).  Between
mind and doctrine, the question of the direction of the arrows is
either absurd, or a trifle.  In fact, it barely even makes sense for
the example of the body ("bound by contact" vs. "binding contact"), if
at all.

Thanissaro & Walsche's interpretation,
   (1) leans very heavily on the second word of the pattern as dative
plural (above, dhammaana.m), insisting on making this the indirect
object for the (supposedly) tacit copula ("for..."),
   (2) presumes to insert a dysjunctive particle that is not in the
text, viz., postulating it as tacit, and
   (3) relies on the repeated imagining of the tacit copula, viz.,
rendering things definitive and interrogative with "it is" and "is
it?" --again, not actually in the writ of the text (and weakening the
logical structure of the argument, in my opinion).

Under heading #1, I might add that we need not even go so far as to
suggest that this is the genitive plural, but simply that this is one
of the "soft" uses of the dative or genitive (cf. Wijesekera's work on
case-syntax, etc. etc.); it need not imply an indirect object.

For the first half of the phrase pattern, I would propose something
along the lines of:
   "[For] the eye bound with forms, forms [are] the eye's fetter."
Or more verbosely,
   "[Concerning] the eye fettered with forms, [isn't it the case that
these very] forms [are what we mean to say are] the eye's fetter[?]"

If the relation of the first part to the second is not the comparison
of two mutually exclusive opposites, but, simply, the second part is
more precise than the first, then we need not impute "either/or".  In
reading the answer, too, this relieves us of trying to construe a
"neither/nor".  There is only a single negating particle, in the
second part of the phrase-pattern, e.g.:

   / mano dhammaana.m sa~n~nojana.m | na dhammaa manassa sa~n~nojana.mi || /

Philosophically, Sariputta is confronted with the argument (not a
question) that doctrines are to the mind much as objects are to the
senses, viz., fetters.  Therefore, if the Buddha's doctrine is the
abandoning of fetters, it is also the abandoning of doctrines.  This
is construed in a logically rigorous form, and stated in very simple
language.

In reply, Sariputta rejects both the major premise and the minor premise:

   (1) The Buddha's teaching is NOT the liberation of the senses from
their sense objects, viz., not the blotting-out of vision, nor the
blotting out of consciousness (as Bronkhorst has discussed at length
in _The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India_, the opposite
view was held by Jains, etc., and certainly prevailed among some
Buddhists in centuries thereafter, viz., the misconception that the
point of Buddhist praxis is to "cultivate" the mind by "ending"
perception & cognition).
   (2) Likewise, it is not the liberation of the mind from doctrines.

Instead, it is the liberation of the senses and the mind from desire;
in the reply, it is the relationship of desire "in-between" the eye
and the thing seen that is problematized (it is the figurative "yoke"
[sa.m + yojana] offered in explanation of the more abstract binding
that was posed in the question).

The thesis, as posed at the beginning, does not admit of any such
medium "in-between"; the interlocutor's premise is simply, /dhammaa
manassa sa~n~nojananti/ --ad sensum, "doctrines are binding for the
mind".

Although this resembles the Buddhist doctrine it would criticize, it
is not quite correct: the problem is not senses' objects, but our
attachment to the senses' objects; thus, we may follow the same
logical structure in reply ("not forms...", "not sound...", etc.) in
showing that the problem is not doctrines, but attachment to them (nor
is the solution not-having doctrines, nor not-seeing objects).

Only by conflating desire and the desired-object, can Ko.t.thita
create this false dichotomy; however, so far as translation is
concerned, in the thesis (of the interlocutor) it is a dichotomy only
--unlike the reply.

Any comments are welcome; as always, I would be delighted to learn
that I am wrong.

E.M.