Sagathavagga: Kosalasamyutta
1: So young in years and has newly gone forth?: This isn’t quite in sunch with the given location—Jetavana. First, Jetavana wasn’t built until the Buddha had been teaching for a while. Second, it’s in Kosala and was partially funded by Prince Jeta—a member of the royal household. If it is true that this sutta records the first meeting between Pasenadi and the Buddha, I think probably that the given location isn’t correct.
It’s interesting that this one sounds just a bit like a pissing contest. It seems that the Buddha needed to communicate with Pasenadi using metaphors of force and power—which he wouldn’t have needed to do with Bimbisara.
One does not gain…stumps of palymyra trees: refers to karma and reaping the fruits of questionable intentions.
2: This would appear to be an early lesson in pasenadi’s Dharma education.
3: Critical lesson and yet how many don’t see it? For one who has taken birth, great king, there is nothing other [to expect] than aging and death.
Note that Pasenadi addresses the Buddha as ‘venerable sir’ since taking refuge. In #1 he addresses the Buddha as ‘Master Gotama.’
4: Both the merits and the evil
That a mortal does right here:
This is what is truly one’s own…
This stanza is a memorable description of karma. It is the true possession, the one thing we carry along always, even past death.
5: Our strongest self-protection is the cultivated mind. How many verses are there in the Dhammapada to this same idea? Consider 42 – 43:
What a foe may do to a foe,
Or a hater to a hater—
Far worse than that
The mind ill held may do to him.
Not father, mother, nor even other kindsmen,
May do that [good to him-]
Far better than that
The mind well held may do to him.
6: People generally don’t handle wealth well, especially not rulers who would be more inclined to use both wealth and political power—be absolutely corrupted by it.
On a lesser note, winning the lottery has often been the ticket to the graveyard for unprepared people—booze and drugs follow quickly.
7: Sometimes it’s the rich who are the most vehement about acquiring more property.
8: This one seems a bit strange until you readh the last line: Hence once who loves himself should not harm others. That we protect ourselves—we get cut, we heal it, keep ourselves safe, try not to endagner ourselves, etc.—means that to harm another is hurting the one that person holds dear. Thus our compassion takes that into account.
9: Sacrifice: according to the Brahmanadhammika Sutta (SN 284-315) the brahmins did not originally sacrifice animals:
“Having begged for rice, beds, cloth, butter, oil, and collecting them by fair means, they offered such objects as these for sacrifice, and at the sacrifice they did not kill cows.” (SN 295)
They were also fairly chaste at this time—the men did not engaged in sexual relations with women until after their 48th year (SN 289) and even then only with a wife past menopause (SN 291).
Note: I gather from this that the brahmins were not hereditary at this point (they seem determined not to reproduce.)
Then they began to covet the trappings of the wealthy:
“The brahmins coveted the great enjoyment sof men surrounded by herds of cows, groups of beautiful women, chariots with well-trained horses, well decorated with beautiful curtains and homes and dwelling places built to good proportion.” (SN 300-1).
So they persuaded the king to offer sacrifices (including human!) and offer wealth to the brahmins. (SN 303, 308)
Note that this seems to have created a health hazard (SN 311) although, to be sure, the description of 95 new diseases springing up bould be mostly metaphor.
This sutra brings home quite forcefully just how swift and deep of a cultural current the Buddha was working against. A king like Pasenadi was accustomed to vast, bloody animal sacrifices—including human—and the Buddha needed to teach him the need to stop such practices.
Interesting that the Caanite religion of Palestine involved a considerable amount of animal sacrifice which was eventually stopped as the great scholars began to hammer Juadism into its modern form, also happening around this time.
10: great mass of people had been put in bondage: the commentaries appear to assume that these were criminals but the sutra doesn’t say anything about this. Pasenadi was involved in a significant number of military actions so these could conceivably be prisoners.
11: Migara’s mother: she wasn’t really his mother; Migara was her father-in-law. Her name was Visakha, and she was the Buddha’s chief female patron.
Niganthas: Jains
Jalilas: ascetics with matted hair.
This sutra is also Udana 64-66 (6.2 in Ireland translations), but the verse is different.
12: Kokanada: the red lotus.
Angirasa: the Buddha, called because light rays issue from his body. One can see here the same metaphoric imagery of the Mahayana sutras.
The verse appears at A iii, 239-240.
13: The Buddha’s dietary sutra. Simple and sensible: you want to lose weight, don’t eat so much. People who overeat (like Pasenadi) will age faster, die sooner.
Apparently Pasenadi reduced his intake to normal for a man, although a pint-pot measure doesn’t sound like all that much. It’s a “nalika”, perhaps we could say “serving” although that’s not much better.
good pertaining to the present life: slimming down the body. [good] pertaining to the future life: additional cultivation of a virtue—moderation in eating.
14: Pasenadi was Ajatasattu’s uncle—his sister was Ajatasattu’s mother.
The peaceful one sleeps at ease,
Having abandoned victory and defeat.
Winning is losing and losing is losing. If you carry such concepts as winning and losing, you remain enmenshed in samsara.
15: The plunderer is plundered: steal and the incurred karma steals from you. The killer begets a killer: it comes back to you, as dust blown against the wind. The karma unfolds and eventually ripens.
Dhammapada 69:
The childish one thinks it is like honey
While the bad [he has done] is not yet matured.
But when the bad is matured,
Then the childish one comes by suffering.
This is very similar to the second quartrain of the verse.
16: Clearly enough, women were not considered fit to rule, and also the Buddha had no truck with that. Note that the Buddha is definitely bucking the opinion of most civilizations when he says: A woman…may turn out better than a man.
17: Diligence makes it better here and now and also plants the seeds for the future—this life and for future births. Thus it stands as the foundation for everything else—what of sila, samadhi, and panna can happen without it?
18: I find this one to center around what the Mahayana would come to call as the bodhisattva ideal. The example set to you by our companions is deeply encouraging to you, and you in turn show that to others. As an opening of the barriers between sentient beings, a softening of the boundaries.
The sutra also points out that the Dhamma does not help unless you practice it.
19: It’s always worth noting that the Buddha never scorned wealth. It is the hoarding of wealth that is the problem. That encourages an increased sense of self and selfishness, and does not allow the wealth to be used to help others.
The image of the money-grubbing financier who lives meanly is an old one. Think of Ebenezer Scrogge and that horrible old man Walter Gride in Nicholas Nickleby. Even those who live at least in personal comfort (Ralph Nickleby) treat those around him with selfishness (Newman Noggs.)
20: Good karma does not wipe out bad karma. They both ripen in their own good time. The financier had a number of good rebirths. But his bad karma also ripened and things got worse and worse, with him finally exhausting all of his good rebirths and being born into the Great Roruva hell.
21: This is also A ii 85-86.
candalas: lowest of the outcastes.
On the surface it seems simple enough: if you are to achieve good rebirth, it’s what you d that matters, and not how wealthy you are. But consider this from the vantage point of a king, an absolute monarch in an age in which kings wielded absolute power. They would be much less inclined to think in such terms, and it appears that Pasenadi was a fairly average sort as far as kings went. So the Buddha’s lessons were starting to sink in.
Or at least we hope it is: the sutra is all Buddha-to-king, never king-to-Buddha.
22: even after all these years we still have trouble accepting the possibility of deaht. But the Buddha states it: All beings, great king, are subject to death, terminate in death, and cannot escape death. The Buddha has begun to teach Pasenadi the Four Noble Truths, at least the first one. See #87 in the Majjhima Nikaya.
23: And now we’re taking a very simple look at the Second Noble Truth.
24: What is given to one who is virtuous, great king, is of great fruit, not so what is given to an immoral person. Given money to an unrepentant wino serves no good: but what if there is hope of turning him around?
25: The great conquerors want to leave their marks on th world. But it is the nature of things to change. Alexander wanted to change the world. But the world would change anyway; he might affect some of that change but the change would happen anyway.
No matter how exalted our position, we die. No matter how lowly our position, we die.
Pasenadi is starting to understand the lesson—aging and death are rolling in on him. He cannot fight his way out of them. You can’t buy your way out of them.
GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT PASENADI
1. He and the Buddha were the same age. See M ii, 125 for his mentioning that, at their last meeting, that they were both eighty years old.
2. They first met when they were fairly young: see #1 in Kosalasamyutta.
3. Pasenadi’s wife was Mallika, who brought him to the Buddha. See M #87 for the story of that.