[Buddha-l] Re: Earliest Buddhist Customs and Liturgy

[jkirk]

Greetings Dhammanando, 

I was hoping that you would chime in. Thanks for this neat commentary
citation. They sure were big on logic. Loved the complaining deva part :) 
The reference to brahmins also tends to support the conjecture that the
etiquette of early Buddhism was strongly based on local ways, was Indian
etiquette as it were (if one can call it that from such an early period),
and why not, since the Buddha himself was indigenous and brahmins were all
over the place, wandering the forests and contending with the Buddha or his
monks.
 
Best wishes
Joanna
===============


Joanna:

> (One point that has flummoxed me is what precisely does it mean when 
> the text says that after greeting the Buddha the interlocutor "stood 
> to one side." I wonder what that looked like.....to the left or the 
> right of the Buddha? How far to one side? Behind him?)

I don't exactly how they sat, but the Pali commentaries' gloss on the phrase
"at one side" explains that brahmins held that there were six ways one
shouldn't sit when visiting a teacher:

1) Too far away from him (atiduura.m) — for then one would have to shout to
make one's questions heard.
2) Too near to him (accaasanna.m) — for this would be cramping him.
3) Upwind from him (uparivaata.m) — for then he will have to put up with
one's body odour.
4) Higher than he (unnatappadesa.m) — for this is disrespectful.
5) Too much to his front (atisammukha.m) — for then it would seem that one
is staring at him.
6) Too much to his rear (atipacchaa) — for then one would have to stretch
one's neck too much to see him.

In the case of the Buddha, an additional reason for sitting at one side
rather than in front of him was to avoid annoying devas. I vaguely recall
one or two suttas where devas complain to the Buddha that some inconsiderate
oaf is blocking their view.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando

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