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

Turning now to the metaphor of the two oxen (that I've dubbed sec. iii
of the sutta), as I've already paused for dramatic tension, readers
may be expecting the use of the dysjunctive there (alluded to) to
vindicate the earlier translations of T. & W.

No, quite the opposite: we find again that the philosophical content
of the passage has been utterly obscured in translation (despite the
fact that it is written in plain language).

The passage poses a contrast between regular, spoken language (viz.,
as ordinary people might describe something), and the more particular
point that the monk (Saariputta) wishes to make.

_Ad sensum_: "If there were two oxen tied up, anyone might say 'the
black one is tied up with the white one, [COMMA] the white one is tied
up with the black one."

That this is the language of a casual remark or observation is
redundantly clear (/…sammaa nu kho so vadamaano vadeyyaati…/), and it
is even said to be "correct" as such.  However, the monk then
emphatically says, "it is not so, my friend…"; to be precise, it is on
account of "one bond, either a rope-around-the-head or a yoke," that
they may be said to be "bound".

One ox is not the fetter of the other, though in causal speech we
might refer to them as if this were the case (e.g., "Where is the
white ox?", "Tied up with the black ox").

In contrast to the translations of T. & W., there is no need for a
"hard dative" reading of the paired words stated with the ending
/-ssa/; in form, content, and context, it seems clear that this is the
genitive of accompaniment, or, if either word were dative, it would
have to be a very soft and abstract use of the dative (e.g., one ox
being tied up already, the other is then yoked?  Even this seems
needlessly obtuse for such a clearly worded text).

There is, in fact, no "either/or" construction (no dysjunctive
particle) separating one ox from the other; the text simply does not
suggest the issue of the "direction" of the relation of binding
between one ox and the other (viz., nor the direction of eye to
seen-object, vs. object to eye), instead, this is the monk setting up
his sermon to follow by clarifying that there is a "third term"
omitted in the logic of the interlocutor's initial thesis (sec. i).
As per people remarking that one ox is tied up with another, he is not
attacking this as false, but saying that it can be misleading to think
in these terms (though they are common, and even "correct", /sammaa/).

The relationship between the two statements (1) white ox tied up with
black, & (2) black ox tied up with white, is, very simply "and/or"
(NOT "either/or").  The two ways of phrasing it are equivalent; they
are not counterposed as opposites, with some definitive difference of
"direction" between the two; neither the question nor the answer
concerns which one binds the other.

The actual appearance of the "either/or" in this section is simply
specifying that the bond is EITHER a rope around the oxens' heads, OR,
just as easily, it might be a yoke [over their shoulders].

Whereas I remarked earlier that the "directional" interpretation makes
sense for eye-and-object, it makes little or no sense for the main
point the interlocutor is raising: mind and doctrine.  Here, too, I
must point out that reading what the sutta actually says, is much more
cogent and coherent: the image of mind and doctrine as two bulls in
the harness, pulling in the same direction, is simply, "very
Buddhist".

The monk has refuted the putative view of the doctrine as a fetter for
the mind, by depicting the mind and doctrine as instrumentally
related, under the one "yoke" (/yoga/, a loaded word) of desire.

This also works well enough for the eye and its seen objects, but this
is not the main point; it would seem to entail that subjective
consciousness (seeing) stands in an instrumental relationship to
objective form (the seen), and that the two imperfectly (but not
causally) resemble each-other, as much as any two oxen in the harness,
or as little as one black and one white.

This image, thus plainly stated, would have some interesting
implications for (1) A. Pieris, and others sketching the intellectual
history of "materialism and idealism" in Theravada Buddhism, (2)
anyone with a taste for Lockean debates, and (3) anyone who wanted to
cast the thing in Schopenhauer-ian jargon (the relationship of "The
Will" (/mano/) to "The Truth" (/dhamma/) thus bound together by
desire, yet vitiated by desire, etc. etc.).

It seems to me the only alternative to this reading is to foist this
either/or construction onto the text, as the two translators mentioned
have done, and then to insist on (1) a hard-dative reading of what
here look like plainly genitive singular nounds (/-ssa/), and (2) to
insist that the final word /sa~n~nejana.m/ is causative of
/sa~n~nojana.m/ and "therefore" the question must be of one ox causing
the other to be tied up.

The latter is, firstly, manifestly absurd, and is a point that could
be better made with almost any other metaphor than the one offered in
the text; moreover, as explained, the primary purpose of the paragraph
is to compare what people "commonly say" to something the monk wants
to point out specifically: the "one bond" they share is the definitive
condition of their bondage, the fact that they are harnessed together
(and pull the plough together) is not their fetter, _per se_.  Thus,
the causative element here is (as in so many other Pali texts), "on
account of this, we say that": this does not even mean that "the cause
of their bondage is the bond", but only that it is by the one bond
(instrumental) that they are bound, or deemed to be bound, or may
properly be called bound.

E.M.