Saṃyutta Nikāya
II. Nidāna Vagga
12. Nidāna Saṃyutta
2. Āhāra Vagga
The Book of the Kindred Sayings
Part II. The Book Called the Nidāna-Vagga
Containing Kindred sayings on Cause
and Other Subjects
12. The Kindred Sayings on Cause
2. Sustenance-Suttas
Sutta 12
Moḷiya-Phagguna Suttaṃ
Phagguna
Translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids
Assisted by F. L. Woodward
Originally Published by
The Pali Text Society
Public Domain
[1.1][than][bodh][olds] Thus have I heard:
The Exalted One was once staying near Sāvatthī,
at Jeta Grove,
in Anāthapiṇḍika's Park:
And there the Exalted One addressed the brethren, saying:
"Brethren!"
"Master!" responded those brethren.
The Exalted One said:
"There are these four sustenances, brethren,
for the maintenance of beings
that have come to birth
or for the forwarding of them
that seek to become.
Which are the four?
Material food,
coarse or fine,
secondly, contact,
thirdly, volition,
fourthly, consciousness.
These four are the sustenances
for the maintenance of beings
that have come to birth,
or for the forwarding of those
that seek to become."
Then the venerable Moḷiya-Phagguna[1] said to the Exalted One:
"Who now is it, lord,
who feeds on the consciousness-sustenance?"[2]
"Not a fit question," said the Exalted One.
"I am not saying [someone] feeds on.
If I were saying so,
to that the question would be a fit one.
But I am not saying so.
And I not saying so,
if you were to ask me
'Of what[3] now, lord,
is consciousness the sustenance?'
this were a fit question.
And the fit answer to it is:
'The consciousness-sustenance
is the cause of renewed becoming,
of rebirth in the future.'
When that [10] is come to pass,
is present,
the sixfold sense-sphere becomes.
Conditioned by the sixfold sense-sphere
contact becomes."
■
"Who now, lord, exercises contact?"
"Not a fit question," said the Exalted One.
"I am not saying [someone] exercises contact.
If I were saying so,
the question would be a fit one.
But I am not saying so.
And I not saying so,
if you were to ask thus:
'Conditioned now by what, lord,
is contact?'
this were a fit question.
And the fit answer there would be:
'Conditioned by the sixfold sense-sphere
is contact.
Conditioned by contact is feeling.'"
■
"Who now, lord, is it who feels?"
"Not a fit question, said the Exalted One.
I am not saying [someone] feels.
If I were saying so,
the question would be a fit one.
But I am not saying so.
And I not saying so,
if you were to ask thus:
'Conditioned now by what, lord,
is feeling?'
this were a fit question.
And the fit answer there would be:
'Conditioned by contact is feeling.
Conditioned by feeling
is craving.'"
■
"Who now, lord, is it who craves?"[4]
"Not a fit question," said the Exalted One.
"I am not saying [someone] craves.
If I were saying so,
the question would be a fit one.
But I am not saying so.
And I not saying so,
if you were to ask thus:
'Conditioned now by what, lord,
is craving?'
this were a fit question.
And the fit answer there would be:
'Conditioned by feeling
is craving.
Conditioned by craving
is grasping.'"
■
"Who now, lord, is it who grasps?"
"Not a fit question, said the Exalted One.
I am not saying [someone] grasps.
If I were saying so, the question would be a fit one.
But I am not saying so.
And I not saying so, if you were to ask thus:
'Conditioned now by what, lord,
is there grasping?'
this were a fit question.
And the fit answer there would be:
'Conditioned by craving
is grasping.
Conditioned by grasping
is becoming.
conditioned by becoming, birth;
conditioned by birth,
old-age-and-death,
grief,
lamenting,
suffering,
sorrow,
despair
come to pass.
Such is the uprising
of this entire mass of ill.
But from the utter fading away and cessation
of the sixfold [11] sphere of sense-contact, Phagguna,
comes cessation of contact,
from ceasing of contact ceasing of feeling;
from ceasing of feeling ceasing of craving;
from ceasing of craving ceasing of grasping;
from ceasing of grasping ceasing of becoming;
from ceasing of becoming ceasing of birth;
from ceasing of birth,
old age-and-death,
grief,
lamenting,
suffering,
sorrow,
despair
cease.
Such is the ceasing
of this entire mass of ill.'"
[1] Moliya = adj. of molī, or cūḷa, the hair, grown long, dressed on top of the head and adorned with a jewelled caboche or what not. (The turban is niveṭhana.) Cf. Jāt. i, 65 (Bud. Birth-stories, p. 86). In this case 'he wore when in the world a large coiffure and was called after it.' Comy. On the man see below, p. 38, Majjhima i, 122. On this Sutta see Bud. Psy., 61 f. For another, Phagguna see below, xxxv, § 83.
[2] B. as if to leave no ambiguity here paraphrases 'ko ... viññāṇāhāraṃ āhāreti by ko nāma so yo etaṃ viññāṇāhāraṃ khādati vā bhunjati vā ti. See Introduction. Why, asks the Comy., does he leave out the other three? Because they are more obvious conditions of effects. He could see anyone eating food, could easily understand contact-sustenance, say, of a bird feeding its young, and thoughtful volition as when a turtle lays her eggs in sand above high water mark. But the (new and yet old) mind, that will continue to function in a new body in the process of rebirth, was not so easy to bring under the notion of a 'sustenance,' which conditions the appearance of a new compound or name-and-shape.
[3] Kissa is genitive and dative of ko, who, as well as of kiṃ, what or which, but the context requires the neuter. The paraphrase katamassa paccayo, cause of whom, of what or which, is equally unprecise.
[4] Tasati.
