Article on the Uraga verses (Sn 1–17)

Dear Pāli friends,

I have attached to this message a recently published article on the Uraga verses. I had been pondering for some time the meaning of so bhikkhu jahāti orapāraṃ since this refrain seems paradoxical, given that Buddhists are usually enjoined to cross over from the near shore of saṃsāra to the far shore of nirvāṇa. In the end I found a discourse in the Saṃyutta-nikāya (S 35:241) which offered a possible solution, and I worked out that solution in detail against all existing scholarship, as you can see. The theme of metaphor in early Buddhist poetry really interests me, as it opens up the sense of how early Buddhists communicated or thought about the Dhamma, in wider ways than that of lists and doctrines. I engage with the work of two members of this Pāli study group:

In the conclusion (p.94) I make the claim that the Uraga verses might be seen as implying an expression of early Buddhist non-dualism, a claim which engages with an article by Bhikkhu Bodhi concerning the absence of non-dualist expressions of the Dhamma in the Pāli canon.

In an Appendix (p.100f.), I include (positive) discussion of Brian Levman's idea that the phrase accasārī na paccasārī (in Sn 8–13) might be an 'echo-type construction' typical of specifically Indian languages.

I would of course enjoy reading any comments or feedback!

Thanks and good wishes,

Dhivan