Re: vibhūta in AN 11.10

Dear Khristos and Lennart,

Thanks for the clarification. I too see it as a "climactic triad" which is why vibhava as non-existence doesn't make sense to me; to me craving for pleasure (kāmataṇhā) causes craving for existence (bhavataṇhā) so the pleasure can be experienced, and existence brings about craving for more and more pleasure- i. e.,  accumulation of wealth, possessions, power, ego, etc., (vibhavataṇhā) which is indeed a climactic triad. vibhāva has all these meanings and more per MW ("power, might, greatness, exalted position, rank, dignity, majesty, dominion, wealth, money, property, fortune"). It is also in keeping with the standard "waxing syllable rule" we find in Buddhist teachings,  whereby successive compounds increase in syllable number (in this case 4+ 4+ 5). It is also in keeping with what we see about humanity. How many people crave for non-existence? Even a 90 year old clings to life.

Khristos, I don't think I misunderstood you. I would say however, that there are definitely examples in the Tipiṭaka of vibhava with a positive meaning. I referenced a few in the Sutta  Nipāta in one of my previous emails, where dukkhā vibhavanti, means to "arise" and has nothing to do with destruction.

Part of the problem here I think is our propensity to view words digitally - as either this or that (positive or negative). This is in itself a form of extremism. There are many examples in Tipiṭaka of polysemy where the words can mean several things, and we know that the Buddha believed that language was simple an agreement amongst people (and not something immortal, changeless and coterminous with Brahma) and therefore changeable and flexible according to context. There are many instances were a word can mean more than one thing and quite possible did. Norman talks about this in his Philological Approach to Buddhism and ambiguities in the canon (whether deliberate or accidental, there are hundreds of them, because of phonological change over time) are the subject of my thesis. So I'm not convinced that vibhava may not also have this same degree of polysemy or malleability in meaning. Pāli did not exist in a vacuum - Vedic was one of its parents, and
  it did not just throw out its heritage.

For example the compound sabbatopabhaṃ as a descriptive of consciousness, from DN 1, 223, has caused a lot of speculation as to its meaning since Buddhaghoṣa's time.


viññāṇaṃ
anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ.
ettha āpo ca pathavī, tejo vāyo na gādhati,
ettha dīghañca rassañca, aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ?
ettha nāmañca rūpañca, asesaṃ uparujjhati,,
ettha nāmañ nirodhena etth’ etaṃ uparujjhatī ti.
A close study of all the variant readings and corresponding passages in other Middle Indic dialects (and Tibetan and Chinese) will show that the earliest transmission of the compound was as - pahaṃ or pahu (or indeed both - see Norman reference below). This shows that the word's meaning could be "a pathway to
everywhere" (patha)/ "shining everywhere"
(prabhā)/ "extending everywhere" (pṛthu)/ "everywhere the lord" (prabhu). Buddhaghoṣa took it as synonmous with the first and second, the Tibetans with "lord" and another Middle Indic witness with "extending". A modern translator, Ñāṇamoli took it as apabhaṃ ("non-arising") which is yet another possiblity (the negativizing a- having elided because of sandhi).

So the above gāthā could be translated as


Where consciousness
is non-manifesting, endless, a pathway to everywhere (patha)/shining
everywhere (prabhā)/extending
everywhere (pṛthu)/everywhere the
lord (prabhu), here water, earth,
fire and wind find no footing, here long and short, fine and coarse, pure and
impure, here name and form cease entirely; with the cessation of consciousness
all this ceases.”
  

To anyone who is interested I can provide all the background data; my point is simply that a word can have several different meanings even within the same context, polyvocal in multiple layers. I am not saying that  vibhava in the portion in question (or vibhūta in the AN) has a dual meaning; I am just saying that we should keep our mind open as to the possibility of dual or multiple meanings, either in the same sentence (paranomasia) or intra-suttas (amongst two or more different suttas).

I for one am very interested in your findings Khristos and I cannot see how it would offend anyone. Deepening our understanding of the Buddhadhamma can only be positive,

Metta,

Bryan




K. R.
Norman, "An epithet of Nibbāna",  Śramaṇa Vidyā: Studies in Buddhism (Prof. Jagannath Upadhyaya Commemoration
Volume) (Sarnath, 1987), 23-31. Also available in Collected Papers 3 (Oxford: Pali Text Society), 183-189
________________________________




________________________________
  From: Khristos Nizamis <nizamisk@...>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 5:24:24 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] vibhūta in AN 11.10


 
Dear Bryan, and all,

I'm afraid that I did not express myself clearly enough in my previous post
(and I think that this lack of clarity may have led both you and Ven. Bodhi
to misinterpret the argument I tried to present there).

What I *actually *intended was that the positive reading for *vibhava *felt
'right' to me ONLY in the case of the triadic definition of *taṇhā *in
terms of *kāmataṇhā*, *bhavataṇhā*, *vibhavataṇhā*.

I did NOT reverse my position on the negative meaning of
*vi-bhū*derivatives in the suttas in most (perhaps even all?) other
instances.

In other words, I did NOT intend to endorse that part of Neumann's thesis
(if that is what he intended) that *vibhava *only has a negative sense if
it occurs in a direct oppositional pair with *bhava*.

After all, I myself had already presented to you examples from the suttas
in which it is (I think unambiguously) the case that *vi-bhū* derivatives,
including the term *vibhava *itself, standing alone, clearly must have a
negative sense.

To make things clear, let me say that I am only prepared to hypothesise a
MODIFIED version of Neumann's thesis: namely, that ONLY in the triadic
definition of the second noble truth, *kāmataṇhā*, *bhavataṇhā*, *vibhavataṇhā,
*does *vibhava *have its positive sense. I will call this the Modified
Neumann Hypothesis (MNH).

This would entail, however, that *both *the positive *and *negative senses
occur in the suttas, but ONLY in this particular distribution!

I wonder what you would make of this implication of the MNH?

I apologise for not making my intended meaning 'crystal clear'.  But if you
were to read my previous argument again with this clarification in mind,
I'm sure it would read very differently to you.

Moreover, given this clarification of my perspective, I don't need to
respond to Ven. Bodhi's arguments supporting the negative reading of *vibhava
*and other *vi-bhū *derivations in contexts OTHER than the singular case of
*vibhavataṇhā*.

But I do continue to be deeply interested in testing the MNH, and I have
been making as close and careful an inquiry as I can, into the Suttanta
Piṭaka texts with the intention of testing this hypothesis.

So far, the results are certainly interesting.  I cannot say that I have
yet found a clearly decisive, conclusive piece of evidence to decide in
favour of *either *the MNH *or *the received reading (i.e., of *vibhavataṇhā
*as 'craving for non-existence').  Rather, I have found that it is possible
to argue fairly cogently for either interpretation, relying on textual
evidence plus very careful and parsimonious interpretation of that evidence.

Moreover, at this point, I actually feel that the argument in favour of the
MNH is slightly stronger than that in favour of the received reading. That
is, I have found that quite strong counter-arguments can be made in favour
of the MNH, against those that Ven. Bodhi has presented in favour of the
received reading.

I would like to post the results of the inquiry, once suitably fomulated,
so that others with different perspectives and knowledge-bases could
further test the arguments for and against the hypothesis; but only if
doing so does not offend anyone.

With metta,
Khristos

On 19 October 2012 01:17, Bryan Levman <bryan.levman@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
>
>
> Dear Khristos, Lennart, Ven. Bodhi and all,
>
> I too was impressed with Neumann's interpretation of vibhavataṇhā  as
> craving for well-being; it did have a certain "feeling of rightness" about
> it, as Khristos said, as for years I have wondered about the third craving
> - also translated as for "non-existence" -  which does not seem very
> prevalent in mankind, while craving for well-being/wealth/riches, etc.,  is
> omnipresent. Even more importantly, this is the normal Vedic and Sanskrit
> usage of the word.
>
> Ven. Bodhi's argument is however, quite convincing, and my own check for
> usages of vibhavatanhā in Newmann's sense, did not yield any results.
> Certainly there are lots of usages of the verb vi  + bhū plus derivatives
> in the positive sense, in the earliest Pāli writings, but nothing with the
> noun vibhava in the Neumann sense that I can find. In fact, in the Sabhiya
> sutta of the Sutta nipāta, which according to Norman is one of the earliest
> suttas -  predating the Second Council (383 BC), we find
>
> vibhavañca bhavañca vippahāya,
> vusitavā khīṇapunabbhavo sa bhikkhu.
>
> which Norman translates as "...having abandoned both non-existence and
> existence, has lived his life, whose renewed existence is destroyed, he is
> a 'bhikkhu'."
>
> I suppose it could be translated in Neumann's sense, ".. having abandoned
> wealth (power, might, fortune, property, etc.) and existence..." but that
> does not intuitively strike me as correct.
>
> If anyone finds a nominal usage of vibhava in the Newmann sense, please
> share it with the group,
>
> Metta,
>
> Bryan
>
> __,_._,
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]