Re: Must paccekas predecease the bodhisatta?

 

Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi,

 

In a paper on "Paccekabuddhas in the Isigili-sutta and its Ekottarika-āgama Parallel", Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies 6 (2010), pp. 5-36, Ven. Bhikkhu Analayo addresses the same question\s, with fuller references. To copy part of the trnsl by Ven. Analayo:

At that time, the Paccekabuddhas cremated their bodies while

they were up in space and attained final NirvāDa. Why? There cannot be

two [persons] called Buddhas in the world [at the same time]. This is the

reason they attained NirvāDa. [Just as] among travelling merchants there

cannot be two leaders, or in one country there cannot be two kings, so in

one Buddha-field there cannot be two [persons] called ‘Supreme One’.

Moreover, the very etymology of Mt Isigili corresponds somehow to the story discussed by Dhivan Jones (I very fond of too). 

with every good wish,

Eugen

2015-12-29 13:50 GMT+02:00 Dhivan Jones dhivanjones@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:

 

Dear Bhikkhu Bodhi,

I’m looking at Ria Kloppenborg’s book The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic, p.37. She writes, ‘Paccekabuddhas are said to exist only in periods when there are no Buddhas’, and she cites a number of references to Pāli commentaries in support. I don’t have the PTS commentaries to hand to check the refs she gives, but using the Digital Pali Reader I find this one:

SA (possibly PTS iii.208) on S v.142 no ce devaputto hutvā pāpuṇāti, anuppanne buddhe nibbatto paccekabodhiṃ sacchikaroti. ‘If having become a young deva he does not attain [awakening], when reborn when there is no Buddha he attains solitary awakening.'

She also refers to AA i.194 and PvA iii.144 for expressions designating the similar time period between Buddhas. These references perhaps imply (if Kloppenborg was completely thorough) that the Pāli commentaries do not specify the exact moment when it becomes impossible for Paccekabuddha to continue in existence in the way that the Mhv does. But in any case, the the commentary on the Rhinoceros verse Sn v.74 does not say that the Paccekabuddha coexisted with the Buddha, but only with the bodhisatta. I wonder also if this perhaps unique instance of the coexistence of a Paccekabuddha with the Buddha while a bodhisatta in his last birth is mostly a dramatic device. The story in the commentary on the Rhinoceros verse Sn v.74 is wonderfully dramatic and even tragic – Mātaṅga is the very last of the Paccekabuddhas, the very last of all those great beings. He throws the bones of the penultimate Paccekabuddha into the abyss before sitting down to enter final nibbāna. 

I know this doesn’t exactly answer your question but I’m very fond of the story. Perhaps it partly works on the premise that Mātaṅga has become anachronistic, that he really should have gone if our Buddha has been born, that he is not just out of time but over time. After all, the stories in the commentary on the Rhinoceros discourse are often oriented more towards drama than doctrine.

All best wishes,

Dhivan