[Buddha-l] Abdhidharma vindicated once again

[Dan Lusthaus]

Hi Brad,

>Just a couple points of clarification here. The six supernormal powers are 
>not called iddhis but rather the abhiññas or "higher/direct knowledges."

True.

>Iddhi is restricted to the first of the six abhiññas.

Actually with the first three. The second three are sometimes assigned a 
different category, as in the three watches of the night and tevijja 
associations. Likely the the first three (the iddhis) and the second three 
(let's call them the tevijjas for short) were spliced together at an earlier 
period. But sometimes they are not separated out that clearly, and can be 
lumped together as iddhis/riddhis.

>And the arupa samapattis/ayatanas are not associated with these 
>powers/knowledges. The Pali texts invariably say they are the byproducts of 
>the 4th rupa jhana.

Really? That's not what I've seen. Any examples of these invariable 
citations?

For an example of the iddhis and abhinnas overlapping, cf. Nyayaponika's 
Buddhist Dictionary, sive iddhi-paada (citing S. 51.2):

http://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/g_m/iddhi_paada.htm

The "tevijjas" complicate the picture. But perhaps it would be useful to 
take a step back to reflect on the process of conflationary redaction, which 
is evidently at work in much of the Pali Literature, and the historical 
layers of the models that are subjected to this conflation. The six abhinna 
model seems a prime case of such conflationary redaction. The Nikaya's 
themselves retain a number of well known variants of paticca-samupada, some 
easier to conflate with the eventually standardized version of 12 nidanas, 
and others with nidanas perhaps harder to squeeze in. First caution would be 
to avoid following Buddhaghosa's VERY LATE conflations -- which solved 
tensions, but played fast and loose with source materials (which themselves 
underwent redactions in response to various developments over the centuries, 
which, in turn, is what created the need for Buddhaghosa and his associates 
to rework and conceptually smooth out the material). In addition, the 
British scholarship on Theravada -- seeking to present Buddhism as a form of 
rational humanism with minimal "superstition" -- has highlighted those 
passages, such as Digha Nikaya i.213 that has Buddha himself caution people 
against pursuing iddhis because they are "dangerous." For a stunning but 
clear example of this sort of bias, cf. the definition of iddhi in the PTS 
Pali-English Dictionary
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:3204.pali

Note that even in Nyayaponika's aforementioned dictionary, under "iddhi" he 
betrays the influence of that scholarship by includeing the statement: "They 
are not a necessary condition for final deliverance." A more thorough review 
of the various different canonical lists and varying uses of the term would 
have been more useful.

That selectivity in scholarship -- though hard to avoid when one gets caught 
up in the Zeitgeist of one's era -- causes redactional problems of another 
sort. This entire theme in the literature needs a good reexamination (any 
PhD candidates looking for a topic reading this?).

So let me ask: Why do you think the arupa meditations get demoted and 
devalued esp. in Theravada (i.e., in some quarters -- while in others, such 
as Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita, it is precisely the 5th arupya meditation that 
was held to be Gautama's major innovation and addition to the teachings he 
acquired from his pre-Buddhist forest mentors)? Why did entry into 
parinibbana get associated with the rupa-jhanas instead of the rooftop 
meditations (remember that the arupa meditations were considered accessible 
ONLY to those who had already worked through the rupa-jhanas, NOT vice 
versa)? What was at stake?

Inadequate answers would be: Coz that's what Buddha did. Or, that's what 
Buddhaghosa says.

Dan