Re: Must paccekas predecease the bodhisatta?

Note that a parallel passage in the Sn-a, 51 says something quite different:

sabbabuddhā saṃvaṭṭamāne kappe na uppajjanti, vivaṭṭamāne kappe uppajjanti. paccekabuddhā buddhe appatvā buddhānaṃ uppajjanakāleyeva uppajjanti.

Paccekabuddhas who have not achieved Buddhahood arise only at the time of the arising of the Buddhas.

But perhaps it is saying the same thing in different words.

Also note Jātaka 491 where the bodhisatta is a golden peacock and converts a hunter into paccekabuddhahood, so they obviously co-exist for a short time, before the hunter retires to Mount Nanda,

Best wishes,

Bryan

From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Re: Must paccekas predecease the bodhisatta?

Dear Ven. Bodhi,

Perhaps you are thinking of Ap-a, 142:

sabbabuddhā saṃvaṭṭamāne kappe na uppajjanti, vivaṭṭamāne kappe uppajjanti, tathā paccekabuddhā. te pana buddhānaṃ uppajjanakāle na uppajjanti.

"But they (paccekabuddhas) do not arise at the time of the arising of the Buddhas",

Best wishes,

Bryan

From: "Bhikkhu Bodhi venbodhi@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Re: Must paccekas predecease the bodhisatta?

Dear Diven and Eugen,

I am familiar with Ven. Analayo's paper, but the passage he refers to is from a sutra in the Ekottarika-Agama. I'm looking for a similar passage in a Pali commentary. While (as Diven said) the story in Pj II gives a dramatic touch to the incident, usually (almost always) the Pali commentaries, even when they are introducing dramatic incidents, keep within the bounds of formal commentarial doctrine. Thus I was perplexed by this passage, because I seem to recall a Pali commentary in which the devas inform the PBs that the Bodhisatta is about to descend, and the PBs pass into parinibbana *before" the Bodhisatta enters his mother's womb. But in this story, Matanga and the Bodhisatta are both alive at the same time.

As I said in the original email, perhaps my memory impression was based on the story in the Mahavastu, which in the vague clouds of memory I was associating with the Pali commentaries. So if anyone out there recalls a passage in which the paccekabuddhas must vanish *before* the Bodhisatta passes away from Tusita heaven, please let me know. Thanks.

BB

On 12/29/2015 10:58 AM, Eugen Ciurtin eu.s.ciurtin@... [palistudy] wrote:

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

-- 
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Chuang Yen Monastery
2020 Route 301
Carmel NY 10512
U.S.A.

Sabbe sattā averā hontu, abyāpajjā hontu, anighā hontu, sukhī hontu!
願眾生無怨，願眾生無害，願眾生無惱，願眾生快樂！
May all beings be free from enmity, free from affliction, free from distress. May they be happy!