Ananda, staying at the
Ghositārāma in
Kosambī, visits the Pilakkhaguhā near
Devakata pool, where the
Paribbājaka Sandaka is staying with some
five hundred followers. Ananda is asked to give a discourse on the Buddha's
teachings, and speaks of the four antitheses to the higher life:
- there is the teacher who holds that it does not matter whether actions are
good or bad;
- the teacher who holds that no evil is done by him who acts himself or
causes others to act;
- the teacher holding that there is no cause for either depravity or purity;
and, lastly,
- the teacher who holds, among other things, that men make an end of ill
only when they have completed their course of transmigrations, like a ball of
twine which continues rolling as long as there is string to unwind.
On these heresies cf. Sāleyyaka Sutta. The
reference is evidently to the teachings of
Purāna Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla and
others.
Ananda then proceeds to explain the four comfortless vocations:
- the teacher who claims to be all knowing and all seeing;
- the teacher whose doctrine is traditional and scriptural;
- the rationalist of pure reason and criticism teaching a doctrine of his
own reasoning; and, lastly,
- the teacher who is stupid and deficient.
Ananda then describes the Buddha's own teaching, leading up to the four
Jhānas. Sandaka and his followers accept the Buddha as their teacher.
M.i.513-24.
