Re: Question on ṭhānesu from Mahāparinibbāna commentary

 

Dear Pāli friends,

 

In the Mahāparinibbānasutta, the Buddha enters parinibbāna from the fourth jhāna after going from first to the ninth jhāna (cesssation) and back down again to the first, and up to the fourth (DN 2, 156).

The commentary (Sv 2, 594) talks about this last run through jhānas one to four:

ettha bhagavā catuvīsatiyā ṭhānesu paṭhamajjhānaṃ samāpajji, terasasu ṭhānesu dutiyajjhānaṃ, tathā tatiyajjhānaṃ, pannarasasu ṭhānesu catutthajjhānaṃ samāpajji.

“Here the Bhagavan entered into the first jhāna in twenty-four ṭhānesu, the second jhāna in thirteen ṭhānesu, the third jhāna in thirteen, and he entered the fourth jhāna in fifteen ṭhānesu.

My question is, what does ṭhānesu mean? and how would one translate catuvīsatiyā ṭhānesu? nothing I  have come up with makes much sense. It seems that the twenty-four ṭhānas are subsumed somehow by the jhānas, so perhaps “He entered the first jhāna contaning 24 attributes/characteristics. But I don’t know of any canonical reference to the first jhāna containing such. Or perhaps it means “grounds”, viz., “he entered the first jhāna which had 24 grounds”, but again, I don’t know.Or perhaps "in twenty-four stages"?

The twenty-four ṭhānas are given in the same commentary as the ten asubha (foulness) meditations (similar to the cemetery meditations in the Satipaṭṭhana), the thirty-two parts of the body meditation, the eight kasiṇa meditations, the first three of the brahma-vihāra meditations (love, compassion and joy), in-and-out-breathing meditation and limit of space (paricchedakāse). if you count the 32 body-parts as one meditation (which it is), this adds up to twenty-four.

Cone lists several meanings for ṭhāna (situation, position, state, occasion, occurrence, attribute, characteristic, quality, ground, basis, reason, cause, stance, standpoint, condition), none of which seem to quite fit here.

Any ideas as to how to translate catuvīsatiyā ṭhānesu? and how does it make sense doctrinally? Thirdly, does anyone know what paricchedakāse means? Literally, it means “limit-space” and I know there was some controversy in the Kathāvatthu as to whether space had any limit or not. But I’m not familiar with any meditation on that point.

Thanks for your help,

 

Bryan