Nandakovāda Sutta - Nandaka’s Advice (MN 146)

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gavesako
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Nandakovāda Sutta - Nandaka’s Advice (MN 146)

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Nandakovāda Sutta
Nandaka’s Advice
(MN 146 & MA)


Translated by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu
(August 2014/2558)

Introduction

This is an important discourse from the Majjhimanikāya in which the Buddha asks one of his senior disciples to give a teaching to the five-hundred nuns who went forth with Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī at their head, at the conclusion of which they all attained at least the level of Stream-Entry.

I have also translated two full commentaries connected to this discourse, the one on the discourse itself (MA), which I have interleaved with the discourse; and, in the Appendix, the story of Nandaka’s life as related in the Aṅguttara commentary (AA) on the Foremost Disciples.

The discourse records that the monk who gave the teaching, Nandaka, was initially reluctant to give a teaching to the nuns, but it gives no reason for his reluctance. The commentary explains that the group of nuns had been his wives in a previous existence and he thought if someone with knowledge of previous lives saw him teach them they might think he was still attached to them, so he would send another monk in his place.

However, when the Buddha asks him personally to teach he agrees to do so, and gives a teaching on the non-self nature of the internal and external sense spheres and the consciousness that arises dependent on them; which is followed by two similes that illustrate the dependent nature of all things in existence, one about an oil lamp and the other about the shadow of a tree.

That in turn is followed by a simile of a butchered cow, which shows that when attachments have been severed by wisdom, they cannot be reunited with their object again, anymore than the cow can be resuscitated once it has been slaughtered and cut apart.

Following each of these teachings, Nandaka asks if the nuns have understood the teaching, and each time they agree that formerly they had seen the truth and were aware of their significance.

Nandaka then gives a summary teaching on the seven factors of Awakening, which is apparently the only teaching new to them. At the conclusion, the nuns approach the Buddha, who understands that, although they had benefited from the teaching, their aspirations had not been fulfilled.

The Buddha therefore asks Nandaka to give the exact same teaching on the following night, and at the conclusion of that teaching, all of them attained Path and Fruit at least to the level of Stream Level, which is confirmed by the Buddha himself.

This summary is according to the discourse and its explanation as given in the Majjhima commentary. Curiously, the commentary to the Aṅguttara disagrees in certain crucial aspects of the story, and I give here a summary of some of the main differences that are found:

In the discourse, it is said that the nuns were left unfulfilled by the first teaching, and there is no indication that they had reached any level of attainment, but AA states that they attained Stream-Entry during this first teaching, and furthermore that they reported this to the Buddha, another matter which is entirely absent from the discourse.

In a similar way, in the discourse, at the conclusion of the second teaching the nuns attain at least Stream-Entry, but in AA they are said to have all attained complete Liberation (Arahatta).

There is another smaller discrepancy: at the conclusion of the teaching in the discourse it says that the nuns approached the Buddha, but in AA it says the Buddha approached the nuns.

As according to tradition the commentaries are both said to have been compiled by Bhadanta Buddhaghosa, it is hard to understand how such disagreements could have been left to stand. The Majjhima commentary draws on the Aṅguttara commentary almost verbatim for its story of both Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī together with the nuns, and Nandaka’s own story, so he must have been aware of the discrepancies, but has allowed them to stand, and not attempted to harmonise them, which after all, would not have been very hard to do.

In any case, as the teaching was so successful, at a later date the Buddha named Nandaka as the foremost of his monk disciples in teaching the nuns, and he has held a special position with the nuns because of that ever since.

One thing that I have long suspected I managed to confirm in making this translation: it seems that the nuns are largely absent in the discourses and that the Buddha nearly always addressed himself to the monks (bhikkhu).

Here, however, when Ven Nandaka addresses the nuns he says:

Satta kho ime, bhaginiyo, Bojjhaṅgā, yesaṁ bhāvitattā bahulīkatattā, bhikkhu āsavānaṁ khayā, anāsavaṁ, cetovimuttiṁ paññāvimuttiṁ, diṭṭheva dhamme sayaṁ abhiññā sacchikatvā upasampajja viharati.
There are these seven Factors of Awakening, sisters, which when developed and made much of, a bhikkhu, through the destruction of the pollutants, without pollutants, freed in mind, freed through wisdom, dwells having known, having directly experienced, and having attained (Nibbāna) himself in this very life.

here the word bhikkhu must include the nuns he is addressing and encouraging with the Dhamma talk, therefore I have now now come to the conclusion that when bhikkhu is said in the discourses it should be taken as referring to both male and female renunciants, and that a more appropriate term for translation than monk would be monastic, unless we specifically know that the nuns are absent (something which does happen sometimes, including in this discourse).

Ānandajoti Bhikkhu
August 2014
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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SarathW
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Re: Nandakovāda Sutta - Nandaka’s Advice (MN 146)

Post by SarathW »

Thanks Bhante.
I just given below the link to another translation of MN 146


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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