[ p. 221 ]
THE following translation has been made from a text, based on the Turnour and Phayre MSS. in the India Office, of which Dr. Morris was kind enough to allow me the use. The Suttas in the Magghima Nikâya are usually distinguished by the way in which a single thought or one or two allied thoughts are stated shortly at the commencement, and are then elaborated and repeated through a number of consecutive and carefully-balanced paragraphs arranged in a literary form that would now be considered monotonous and tiresome in the extreme. The repetitions in the Suttas of the Dîgha Nikâya are no doubt equally artificial, but the train of reasoning being longer and more varied, there is always the hope of a change in the form, or of a new departure in the thought, to sustain the reader’s flagging interest.
The argument of this Sutta may be shortly stated thus. The means by which freedom from barrenness and bondage of heart can be reached are zeal and determined effort. But that zeal will be crippled in its struggle against barrenness by want of confidence in the teacher, his doctrine, his order, or his system of self-culture, and by want of concord with the brethren. And that zeal will be crippled in its struggle against bondage by sensuality, by sloth, or by a craving after a future life in any of its various forms. If the disciple be strenuously diligent in the struggle against these things he need not fear or doubt, he will never fail, but will assuredly reach even to the supreme security of Arahatship.
When I first read this Sutta I was irresistibly reminded of that passage in the New Testament where the exhortation to the disciple, ‘giving all diligence’ to add to his faith [ p. 222 ] virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, and brotherly kindness, is followed by the figure that these things will make him to be ‘neither barren nor unfruitful;’ and closes with the promise that if be do these things, giving diligence to make his calling and election sure, he shall never fall, but shall enter into that everlasting kingdom which is the supreme goal of the Christian life.
The analogy is sufficiently close to throw considerable light upon our Sutta, but it touches only the barrenness. The bondage is specially Buddhistic, and is allied with the doctrine of the Sanyoganas, or fetters, which the pilgrim along the Noble Path has to break before he can reach the full fruit of Arahatship. It should be compared also with the fivefold bond mentioned in the Tevigga Sutta, Chap. I, §§ 26-28, the word there used being bandhanam, as against vinibandhanam here, and the fivefold bond being a fivefold division of our first bondage.
The ten fetters are—
1. The delusion of self (sakkâya-ditthi).
2. Doubt (vikikikkhâ).
3. Reliance on the efficacy of rites and ceremonies (sîlabbata-parâmâsa).
4. The bodily lusts or passions (kâma).
5. Hatred, ill-feeling (patigha).
6. Desire for a future life in the worlds of form (rûparâga).
7. Desire for a future life in the formless worlds (arûparâga).
8. Pride (mâno).
9. Self-righteousness (uddhakka).
10. Ignorance (aviggâ).
Here the 4th fetter is correlative to our first bondage; the 6th fetter to our 2nd and 3rd bondage; and part of the 3rd fetter to our 5th bondage.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th bondage are in fact but a new way of stating the fundamental Buddhist doctrine that good must be pursued without any ulterior motive; and that that man is not spiritually free in whom there is still the least hankering after any future life beyond the grave.