SN 4.1

Tapokamma sutta: Mortification

Tapokammasutta

Paṭhamavagga

Māra accuses the Buddha of having abandoned the path of true austerity.

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So I have heard. At one time, when he was first awakened, the Buddha was staying in Uruvelā at the root of the goatherd’s banyan tree on the bank of the Nerañjarā River.

The first five discourses of this chapter are set shortly after the Buddha’s awakening, and hence in the period of time covered in the first chapter of the Vinaya Khandhaka (Kd 1). However, despite the length of that narrative, only the fourth and fifth are included there. This situation mirrors the Mahāparinibbānasutta, where there are also events missing from the narrative as we have it. Either parts were lost, or the compilers left out some events for some reason.

In modern times this is the pilgrimage site Bodhgaya in the Gaya district of Bihar. It lies by a wide river that is dry in summer but abundant in the rains. In Pali the river is called Nerañjarā, which is of unclear meaning, but the commentary suggests “sweet waters” (nela-jala) or “blue waters” (nīla-jala). The Sanskrit is nairañjanā, which suggests the sense “unblemished”. Today it is called the Līlajan (or Nīlajan). Uruvelā, which aptly means “Broadbanks”, was a locality centered around the market town of Senānigama (“Marshalltown”). There was also a sizable hermitage nearby with matted-hair Brahmanical ascetics (jaṭilā) who ritually bathed in the water (Kd 1:20.15.1). After teaching the five monks in Varanasi, the Buddha returned here to teach them, but there is no record of him visiting subsequently.

Then as he was in private retreat this thought came to his mind, “I am truly freed from that grueling work! Thank goodness I’m freed from that pointless grueling work. Thank goodness I’m freed and have attained awakening.”

And then Māra the Wicked, knowing the Buddha’s train of thought, went up to him and addressed him in verse:

Māra is sometimes called Namuci, and in fact seems to descend from the Vedic adversary of that name. Vedic Namuci “the wicked” (pāpmā vai namuciḥ, Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.7.3, Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā 4.4.4) was a wily trickster (māyin, Rig Veda 1.53.7c) who was nonetheless outsmarted by Indra (Rig Veda 5.30.6c), and possessed ineffectual armies reliant on women (Rig Veda 5.30.9a). Buddhist Māra “the wicked” (māro pāpimā) was a wily trickster (passim) who was nonetheless outsmarted by the Buddha and his followers (passim); he possessed ineffectual armies (DN 20:21.3, AN 4.13:2.3, Snp 3.2), and sent his daughters to do his dirty work (SN 4.25). The decapitated head of Namuci introduced death (mṛtyu) in the form of blood to the deathless (amṛta) soma (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.7.3.4, Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā 4.4.4), establishing his Pali names Maccurāja, “King of Death” and Māra, “Death”. He appears in a similar guise in Jainism too (Ācaraṅga 1.3.1.3).

“You’ve left the practice of mortification
by which sons of men purify themselves.
You’re impure, but think yourself pure;
you’ve strayed from the path of purity.”

Then the Buddha, knowing that this was Māra the Wicked, replied to him in verse:

“I realized that it’s pointless;
all that endless mortification
is as futile
as oars and rudder on dry land.

The split compound amaraṁ tapaṁ also occurs at Thag 3.1:1.4, and at Snp 2.2:11.4 we have amarā bahū tapā. The commentary explains that amara here is “immortality”, and the phrase means “fervent mortification aimed at immortality”. However, I find this unconvincing, one reason being that amara is an adjective (and thus must be glossed with an abstract noun in dative, amarabhāvatthāya). It is simpler to assume Pali has an idiomatic sense of amara as “endless”, which occurs here, in the phrase amarāvikkhepa (DN 1:2.23.1), and in the Niddesa’s amarāvitakka (Cnd 12:6.1). Then amarā and bahū are synonyms. I cannot find any use in Sanskrit that parallels this, but amara is noted by Edgerton in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit as “a high number”.

Phiyāritta is the fittings for a boat at AN 4.196:8.12. Phiya is perhaps Hybrid Sanskrit sphija, “broom”. Aritta is Sanskrit aritra, “oar, rudder”. Dhammani (Vedic dhanvan, “desert”) is the neuter noun dhamman in locative singular.

Ethics, immersion, and wisdom:
by developing this path to awakening
I attained ultimate purity.
You’re beaten, terminator!”

Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The Buddha knows me! The Holy One knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.

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