REBIRTH AND THE GANDHABBA
Rebirth as a principle and an actual experience is a recurring theme in the early discourses. Thus birth, which due to the endless faring on in samsāra of living beings is inevitably always a rebirth,1 is considered a dilemma of life as much as old age, disease and death. A case in point is the autobiographical record of what motivated Gotama, the Buddha-to-be, to go forth. According to the Ariyapariyesana-sutta, his noble quest was for that which is beyond birth: Before my awakening, when I was still unawakened ... I thought: "Being myself subject to birth and having seen the disadvantage of birth, should I not seek what is beyond birth, the unsurpassable freedom from bondage of Nibbāna?"2 The accomplishment of this quest on the night of the Buddha's awakening similarly involved the theme of birth or rebirth, a theme that can be seen to underlie all three of the higher knowledges he attained on this occasion. The first of these, according to the account given in the Bhayabherava-sutta, involves retrospective knowledge of past lives: I recollected numerous former lives, that is, one birth, two births ... a hundred-thousand births ... [remembering] "There I was of such name, of such clan, of such appearance, [partaking] of such nourishment, experiencing such pleasure and pain, with such length of life, and passing away from there I arose elsewhere.
This knowledge enabled him to directly access memories of his own past lives and experiences, providing a vivid illustration of the nature of saṃsāra, the incessant round of birth and death. The second higher knowledge, the divine eye, builds on this vision with a change of perspective. Instead of remembering his own past lives, now the faring on of others in saṃsāra received his attention. This takes place by directly witnessing the passing away and re-arising of others: With the purified divine eye that surpasses [the vision] of humans I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, of beautiful and ugly appearance, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings fare in accordance with their deeds.4 The Bhayabherava-sutta continues its account of this second higher knowledge by describing how the past deeds of beings shape their future destiny, evil conduct by body, speech and mind leading to rebirth in hell, wholesome conduct to rebirth in heaven. The Saṅghabhedavastu, a work belonging to the (Mūla-)sarvāstivāda Vinaya, explains the sequence of these higher knowledges attained by the Buddha in the night of his awakening. According to its description, after the bodhisattva had recollected his past lives, he wanted to find the underlying cause of this saṃsāric process.5 Developing the divine eye provided an answer to this, since it revealed to him that living beings migrate through saṃsāra in accordance with their karmic deeds. Based on this comprehensive vision of the continuous passing away and being reborn of living beings in saṃsāra, according to the Saṅghabhedavastu the bodhisattva understood that the operating mechanism behind saṃsāric migration are the three influxes of sensuality, of [desire for] existence and of ignorance. 6 Once he knew that these three influxes need to be eradicated, according to the Saṅghabhedavastu account, the bodhisattva developed insight into the four noble truths, eradicated the influxes and reached full liberation, thereby going beyond any future transmigration in saṃsāra.
Going beyond future transmigration in saṃsāra is to go beyond future rebirth. The transcendence of future birth is quite explicitly mentioned in the standard description of the attainment of full liberation in the early discourses, which invariably begin by referring to the destruction of birth. In the case of Buddha's awakening, this explicit reference to the destruction of birth can be found in the Bhayabherava-sutta and its Chinese parallel, as well as in the Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Saṅghabhedavastu. The relevant passage reads: "Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more of this hereafter."7 Hence birth, as actual rebirth, forms a continuous theme from the beginning of the Buddha's quest for awakening to its end. In view of this it is hardly surprising that rebirth is a central element of the teachings given by the Buddha after his awakening. This central role is reflected in what can well be considered to represent the Buddha's teaching in a nutshell - the four noble truths. The presentation of these four noble truths appears to parallel a procedure employed in ancient Indian medicine, where the diagnosis of a disease leads to determining its cause, the 'virus' so to say. This is followed by envisaging a state of health that can be reached by overcoming the disease, and by prescribing a practical cure that leads to this state of health. From the Buddha's perspective, the dis-ease is dukkha, craving is the 'virus', Nibbāna the state of health and the eightfold noble path the practical cure. The first step in this scheme, the diagnosis of dukkha provided in the first noble truth, starts off with birth itself: 8 Birth is dukkha; old age is dukkha; death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; not obtaining what one wishes is dukkha; in short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha. 9 Birth appears not only in the first noble truth, but also in the standard presentation of paṭicca samuppāda, which treats the "dependent arising" of dukkha in detail. Here birth is explicitly mentioned as the eleventh link in the twelve-link series. According to the traditional three-lives explanation, birth would also be implicit in the third link of consciousness.10 The detailed examination of paṭicca samuppāda offered in the Mahānidānasutta lends support to this interpretation. Regarding consciousness as the third link in the series, according to the Mahānidāna-sutta the Buddha had the following to say: "If consciousness, Ānanda, were not to descend into the mother's womb, would name-and-form arise in the mother's womb?"11 Ānanda has to deny, and the exposition continues by exploring the possibility that consciousness might leave the mother's womb again, or else may depart from the child after birth. Clearly, the implication of this passage is actual rebirth. This, however, does not mean that the doctrine of paṭicca samuppāda is concerned only with rebirth. That each of the twelve links of paṭicca samuppāda, including the link "birth" itself, can be applied to single mind-moments is already recognized in the Vibhaṅga, the second and probably earliest book of the Abhidhammapiṭaka. 12 The Vibhaṅga explains that "birth", in such a context, simply stands for the arising of mental phenomena.13 This explanation is found in the Abhidhammabhājaniya of the Vibhaṅga, its exposition of a particular matter from the viewpoint of the Abhidhamma. In the Vibhaṅga's Suttantabhājaniya, which gives the complementary perspective of the discourses, birth stands for actual rebirth.14 Thus, at least from the perspective of the Vibhaṅga, the term 'birth' can meaningfully be applied to the coming into being of mental states in the present moment as well as to rebirth in another life, without one of this modes of understanding contradicting the other. After all, the main point of paṭicca samuppāda is the dependent arising of dukkha, and that takes place in the mind here and now as well as in future lives. The dependent arising of dukkha in future lives is closely related to karmic retribution, which governs rebirth into another life. The Cūlakammavibhaṅga-sutta, a discourse dedicated to the theme of karmic retribution, establishes a clear link between presently undertaken deeds and their karmic effect.15 According to this discourse, killing will lead to a short lifespan in future lives; harming others will result in becoming oneself diseased and sick irritability causes ugliness; stinginess leads to poverty; and arrogance brings rebirth in lowly conditions. This straightforward exposition of the dynamics that determine the quality of future rebirth appears to have been of considerable interest to successive generations of Buddhists, since this exposition has been translated altogether six times into Chinese, in addition to which two Sanskrit parallels are extant, two Tibetan translations, and parts of the same discourse have also been preserved in Khotanese, Sogdian and Tocharian.16 The popularity of this theme is also reflected in Buddhist art, with sculptures in Borobodur, Java, illustrating the relationship between deeds and their future retribution.17 The karmic retribution for unwholesome deeds, described in the Cūlakammavibhaṅga-sutta, extends not only to rebirth in the human realm, but can lead also to rebirth in hell. Detailed descriptions of the sufferings that await the evildoer on rebirth in hell are given in the Devadūta-sutta. In this discourse, the principle of karmic retribution is personalized in the god Yama, whom the evildoer will have to face on passing away. Yama's function is to remind the culprit of his deeds and of the inevitability of their retribution.18 This interrogation by Yama also appears to have exerted considerable interest among Buddhists, since it has been preserved in altogether ten Chinese translations.19 In addition to treating rebirth from the perspective of the causes that affect the quality of the next life, the early Buddhist analysis also takes up the causes for actual conception. These are treated in the Assalāyana-sutta, a discourse that records how a Brahmin attempted to challenge the Buddha on the issue of caste superiority. At the end of a discussion in which the Buddha made it clear that the Brahminical belief in caste superiority is groundless, the conditions required for rebirth are listed: "The descent into the womb takes place through the junction of these three [conditions]: there is a union of mother and father, the mother is in season and the gandhabba is present."20 The point of bringing up these three conditions in the Assalāyanasutta's discussion is that it cannot be said to which caste the being belongs that is about to be born. This then forms another argument against Brahminical caste presumptions. Thus the discourse continues: "Sirs, do you know for sure if that gandhabba is [a member of the] warrior [caste], or the Brahmin [caste], or the merchant [caste], or the worker [caste]?"21 What makes this passage particularly intriguing is its use of the term gandhabba. The Buddhist conception of a gandhabba appears to have its roots in the Vedic gandharva, which had the particular function of transmitting things from one world to another.22 Should we then understand the gandhabba in the Assalāyana-sutta to be similar to Yama in the Devadūta-sutta, in the sense that while Yama presides over rebirth in hell, the gandhabba presides over human conception?23 Yet, according to the commentary to the Assalāyana-sutta, the gandhabba rather stands for the being to be reborn.24 In fact, the Vedic gandharva as a 'god of transfer' was at times identified with what was under his custody.25 This sense would seem to be more appropriate to the present context, since the inquiry after the caste of the gandhabba would be meaningful only if it refers to the being to be reborn, not to a god that presides over conception.26 Thus, though the Vedic concept of a 'god of transfer' helps to explain how the gandhabba would have come to be associated with the transition from one life to another, in its Buddhist usage the term seems to have lost this connotation and appears to stand merely for the being about to be reborn.27 An Ekottarika-āgama parallel to the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta does not employ the term gandhabba, but instead speaks of the "external consciousness" or of the "aspiring consciousness", in the sense of the consciousness that aspires to be reborn.28 The Madhyama-āgama parallel to the Assalāyana-sutta, however, also speaks of a *gandhabba, as does a Madhyama-āgama parallel to another listing of the same three conditions in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta. 29 The corresponding expression gandharva is also found in a reference to the three conditions for conception in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya; in the Divyāvadāna; in the Pravrajyāvastu of the (Mūla-) sarvāstivāda Vinaya; and in the Mahāvibhāṣā. 30 The terminology used in the Ekottarika-āgama discourse corresponds more closely to what other discourses employ when treating the question of conception. The above quoted passage from the Mahānidāna-sutta speaks of "consciousness" that descends into the womb, and the Sampasādanīya-sutta speaks of the "stream of consciousness" that could be established in this world or in another.31 In a context clearly related to rebirth, the Āneñjasappāyasutta mentions the "evolving consciousness".32 Finally the record of the suicide of the monk Vakkali reports that Māra was hovering around in search of Vakkali's consciousness.33 In contrast, references to the gandhabba in other contexts clearly intend a celestial being. Thus a celestial musician from the retinue of Sakka is introduced in the Sakkapañha-sutta as a gandhabba by the name of Pañcasikha.34 Elsewhere the term gandhabba stands for celestial beings that feed on fragrance.35 A gandhabba may dwell in the sea,36 or in the sky,37 and belongs to a realm inferior to the four great kings.38 Such passages reflect conceptions of the gandhabba as a celestial being that are evidently of pre-Buddhist origin.39 The Buddha's use of this term in the Assalāyana-sutta, however, employs this term without any substantialist notions.40 That the early Buddhist conception of rebirth did not involve the transmigration of a substantial self comes up for explicit discussion in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta, a discourse that also lists these three conditions for conception. This discourse begins by describing how a monk obstinately held on to his view that the self-same consciousness fares on through the round of rebirths.41 The Buddha was quick to rebuke him for this misunderstanding. While this monk swerved in the direction of eternalism, another monk appears to have had the opposite type of misunderstanding. According to the Mahāpuṇṇama-sutta, this other monk had the deluded idea that the teaching of not-self implied that there is nobody to whom karmic retribution would apply.42 Here, too, the Buddha was quick to correct this misunderstanding of his teaching. These passages make it clear that, though employing terms like the gandhabba, the discussion of the three conditions for conception does not involve any substantialist notion. In fact, the whole point of the Assalāyana-sutta was, after all, the issue of caste. Even earlier in the discussion the Buddha made use of Brahminical conceptions in order to drive home his point. A particularly telling instance is when, with a good dose of humour, he takes up the notion that Brahmins are born from the mouth of Brahmā and wonders why Brahmin women are seen to become pregnant, give birth and give suck.43 Similar to this ironic comment on the belief that Brahmins are born from Brahmā's mouth, the original intent of the Buddha's reference to the gandhabba would just have had the intention to adopt his presentation to the thought world of his audience by using a loan word from Brahminical ideas about rebirth. Thus the point introduced in this way in the Assalāyana-sutta is simply that Brahminical conceptions of caste purity only take into account the condition provided by the mother and father, assuming that their caste identity sufficiently accounts for the caste identity of the child. By employing Brahminical conceptions on the role of the gandhabba in relation to conception, the Buddha was able to point out an inconsistency in the Brahminical scheme, in as much the caste affiliation of the being to be reborn could not be determined. It may be from this original intent of the discussion of the three conditions for conception in the Assalāyana-sutta that references to this presentation in other discourses and later works originated. To employ already existing terms and ideas in order to express a particular point is in fact a recurrent feature of the expositions given by the Buddha in the early discourses. This appears to have been particularly the case with Brahminical notions and ideas. In this way, even the term Brahmin itself is reinterpreted in the discourses to stand for mental nobility. Similarly the three higher knowledges, tevijjā, which for the Brahmins represent knowledge of the three Vedas, in early Buddhism come to stand for abilities open to anyone who is willing to undertake the required course of meditative training to attain them. By attaining the first two of these three higher knowledges, the Buddha had investigated the issue of rebirth in the most comprehensive manner possible. By attaining the third higher knowledge of full awakening, he transcended it forever. Some of his disciples followed him by also developing all three higher knowledges. Others directly became arahants, without developing recollection of past lives or the divine eye. After all, what really counts from the early Buddhist perspective is to go beyond rebirth, to transcend it once and for all.
[What is] born, become, produced, Made, compounded and not lasting,[What is] conjoined with old age and death, A nest of disease and perishable, [What has] come into being and is supported by nutriment - This is not worth delighting in. The peaceful escape from that, The stable that is beyond thought, The not-born and not arisen, The sorrowless and stainless path, The cessation of all states of dukkha, This stilling of all formation is happiness [indeed]
This knowledge enabled him to directly access memories of his own past lives and experiences, providing a vivid illustration of the nature of saṃsāra, the incessant round of birth and death. The second higher knowledge, the divine eye, builds on this vision with a change of perspective. Instead of remembering his own past lives, now the faring on of others in saṃsāra received his attention. This takes place by directly witnessing the passing away and re-arising of others: With the purified divine eye that surpasses [the vision] of humans I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, of beautiful and ugly appearance, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings fare in accordance with their deeds.4 The Bhayabherava-sutta continues its account of this second higher knowledge by describing how the past deeds of beings shape their future destiny, evil conduct by body, speech and mind leading to rebirth in hell, wholesome conduct to rebirth in heaven. The Saṅghabhedavastu, a work belonging to the (Mūla-)sarvāstivāda Vinaya, explains the sequence of these higher knowledges attained by the Buddha in the night of his awakening. According to its description, after the bodhisattva had recollected his past lives, he wanted to find the underlying cause of this saṃsāric process.5 Developing the divine eye provided an answer to this, since it revealed to him that living beings migrate through saṃsāra in accordance with their karmic deeds. Based on this comprehensive vision of the continuous passing away and being reborn of living beings in saṃsāra, according to the Saṅghabhedavastu the bodhisattva understood that the operating mechanism behind saṃsāric migration are the three influxes of sensuality, of [desire for] existence and of ignorance. 6 Once he knew that these three influxes need to be eradicated, according to the Saṅghabhedavastu account, the bodhisattva developed insight into the four noble truths, eradicated the influxes and reached full liberation, thereby going beyond any future transmigration in saṃsāra.
Going beyond future transmigration in saṃsāra is to go beyond future rebirth. The transcendence of future birth is quite explicitly mentioned in the standard description of the attainment of full liberation in the early discourses, which invariably begin by referring to the destruction of birth. In the case of Buddha's awakening, this explicit reference to the destruction of birth can be found in the Bhayabherava-sutta and its Chinese parallel, as well as in the Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Saṅghabhedavastu. The relevant passage reads: "Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more of this hereafter."7 Hence birth, as actual rebirth, forms a continuous theme from the beginning of the Buddha's quest for awakening to its end. In view of this it is hardly surprising that rebirth is a central element of the teachings given by the Buddha after his awakening. This central role is reflected in what can well be considered to represent the Buddha's teaching in a nutshell - the four noble truths. The presentation of these four noble truths appears to parallel a procedure employed in ancient Indian medicine, where the diagnosis of a disease leads to determining its cause, the 'virus' so to say. This is followed by envisaging a state of health that can be reached by overcoming the disease, and by prescribing a practical cure that leads to this state of health. From the Buddha's perspective, the dis-ease is dukkha, craving is the 'virus', Nibbāna the state of health and the eightfold noble path the practical cure. The first step in this scheme, the diagnosis of dukkha provided in the first noble truth, starts off with birth itself: 8 Birth is dukkha; old age is dukkha; death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; not obtaining what one wishes is dukkha; in short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha. 9 Birth appears not only in the first noble truth, but also in the standard presentation of paṭicca samuppāda, which treats the "dependent arising" of dukkha in detail. Here birth is explicitly mentioned as the eleventh link in the twelve-link series. According to the traditional three-lives explanation, birth would also be implicit in the third link of consciousness.10 The detailed examination of paṭicca samuppāda offered in the Mahānidānasutta lends support to this interpretation. Regarding consciousness as the third link in the series, according to the Mahānidāna-sutta the Buddha had the following to say: "If consciousness, Ānanda, were not to descend into the mother's womb, would name-and-form arise in the mother's womb?"11 Ānanda has to deny, and the exposition continues by exploring the possibility that consciousness might leave the mother's womb again, or else may depart from the child after birth. Clearly, the implication of this passage is actual rebirth. This, however, does not mean that the doctrine of paṭicca samuppāda is concerned only with rebirth. That each of the twelve links of paṭicca samuppāda, including the link "birth" itself, can be applied to single mind-moments is already recognized in the Vibhaṅga, the second and probably earliest book of the Abhidhammapiṭaka. 12 The Vibhaṅga explains that "birth", in such a context, simply stands for the arising of mental phenomena.13 This explanation is found in the Abhidhammabhājaniya of the Vibhaṅga, its exposition of a particular matter from the viewpoint of the Abhidhamma. In the Vibhaṅga's Suttantabhājaniya, which gives the complementary perspective of the discourses, birth stands for actual rebirth.14 Thus, at least from the perspective of the Vibhaṅga, the term 'birth' can meaningfully be applied to the coming into being of mental states in the present moment as well as to rebirth in another life, without one of this modes of understanding contradicting the other. After all, the main point of paṭicca samuppāda is the dependent arising of dukkha, and that takes place in the mind here and now as well as in future lives. The dependent arising of dukkha in future lives is closely related to karmic retribution, which governs rebirth into another life. The Cūlakammavibhaṅga-sutta, a discourse dedicated to the theme of karmic retribution, establishes a clear link between presently undertaken deeds and their karmic effect.15 According to this discourse, killing will lead to a short lifespan in future lives; harming others will result in becoming oneself diseased and sick irritability causes ugliness; stinginess leads to poverty; and arrogance brings rebirth in lowly conditions. This straightforward exposition of the dynamics that determine the quality of future rebirth appears to have been of considerable interest to successive generations of Buddhists, since this exposition has been translated altogether six times into Chinese, in addition to which two Sanskrit parallels are extant, two Tibetan translations, and parts of the same discourse have also been preserved in Khotanese, Sogdian and Tocharian.16 The popularity of this theme is also reflected in Buddhist art, with sculptures in Borobodur, Java, illustrating the relationship between deeds and their future retribution.17 The karmic retribution for unwholesome deeds, described in the Cūlakammavibhaṅga-sutta, extends not only to rebirth in the human realm, but can lead also to rebirth in hell. Detailed descriptions of the sufferings that await the evildoer on rebirth in hell are given in the Devadūta-sutta. In this discourse, the principle of karmic retribution is personalized in the god Yama, whom the evildoer will have to face on passing away. Yama's function is to remind the culprit of his deeds and of the inevitability of their retribution.18 This interrogation by Yama also appears to have exerted considerable interest among Buddhists, since it has been preserved in altogether ten Chinese translations.19 In addition to treating rebirth from the perspective of the causes that affect the quality of the next life, the early Buddhist analysis also takes up the causes for actual conception. These are treated in the Assalāyana-sutta, a discourse that records how a Brahmin attempted to challenge the Buddha on the issue of caste superiority. At the end of a discussion in which the Buddha made it clear that the Brahminical belief in caste superiority is groundless, the conditions required for rebirth are listed: "The descent into the womb takes place through the junction of these three [conditions]: there is a union of mother and father, the mother is in season and the gandhabba is present."20 The point of bringing up these three conditions in the Assalāyanasutta's discussion is that it cannot be said to which caste the being belongs that is about to be born. This then forms another argument against Brahminical caste presumptions. Thus the discourse continues: "Sirs, do you know for sure if that gandhabba is [a member of the] warrior [caste], or the Brahmin [caste], or the merchant [caste], or the worker [caste]?"21 What makes this passage particularly intriguing is its use of the term gandhabba. The Buddhist conception of a gandhabba appears to have its roots in the Vedic gandharva, which had the particular function of transmitting things from one world to another.22 Should we then understand the gandhabba in the Assalāyana-sutta to be similar to Yama in the Devadūta-sutta, in the sense that while Yama presides over rebirth in hell, the gandhabba presides over human conception?23 Yet, according to the commentary to the Assalāyana-sutta, the gandhabba rather stands for the being to be reborn.24 In fact, the Vedic gandharva as a 'god of transfer' was at times identified with what was under his custody.25 This sense would seem to be more appropriate to the present context, since the inquiry after the caste of the gandhabba would be meaningful only if it refers to the being to be reborn, not to a god that presides over conception.26 Thus, though the Vedic concept of a 'god of transfer' helps to explain how the gandhabba would have come to be associated with the transition from one life to another, in its Buddhist usage the term seems to have lost this connotation and appears to stand merely for the being about to be reborn.27 An Ekottarika-āgama parallel to the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta does not employ the term gandhabba, but instead speaks of the "external consciousness" or of the "aspiring consciousness", in the sense of the consciousness that aspires to be reborn.28 The Madhyama-āgama parallel to the Assalāyana-sutta, however, also speaks of a *gandhabba, as does a Madhyama-āgama parallel to another listing of the same three conditions in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta. 29 The corresponding expression gandharva is also found in a reference to the three conditions for conception in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya; in the Divyāvadāna; in the Pravrajyāvastu of the (Mūla-) sarvāstivāda Vinaya; and in the Mahāvibhāṣā. 30 The terminology used in the Ekottarika-āgama discourse corresponds more closely to what other discourses employ when treating the question of conception. The above quoted passage from the Mahānidāna-sutta speaks of "consciousness" that descends into the womb, and the Sampasādanīya-sutta speaks of the "stream of consciousness" that could be established in this world or in another.31 In a context clearly related to rebirth, the Āneñjasappāyasutta mentions the "evolving consciousness".32 Finally the record of the suicide of the monk Vakkali reports that Māra was hovering around in search of Vakkali's consciousness.33 In contrast, references to the gandhabba in other contexts clearly intend a celestial being. Thus a celestial musician from the retinue of Sakka is introduced in the Sakkapañha-sutta as a gandhabba by the name of Pañcasikha.34 Elsewhere the term gandhabba stands for celestial beings that feed on fragrance.35 A gandhabba may dwell in the sea,36 or in the sky,37 and belongs to a realm inferior to the four great kings.38 Such passages reflect conceptions of the gandhabba as a celestial being that are evidently of pre-Buddhist origin.39 The Buddha's use of this term in the Assalāyana-sutta, however, employs this term without any substantialist notions.40 That the early Buddhist conception of rebirth did not involve the transmigration of a substantial self comes up for explicit discussion in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya-sutta, a discourse that also lists these three conditions for conception. This discourse begins by describing how a monk obstinately held on to his view that the self-same consciousness fares on through the round of rebirths.41 The Buddha was quick to rebuke him for this misunderstanding. While this monk swerved in the direction of eternalism, another monk appears to have had the opposite type of misunderstanding. According to the Mahāpuṇṇama-sutta, this other monk had the deluded idea that the teaching of not-self implied that there is nobody to whom karmic retribution would apply.42 Here, too, the Buddha was quick to correct this misunderstanding of his teaching. These passages make it clear that, though employing terms like the gandhabba, the discussion of the three conditions for conception does not involve any substantialist notion. In fact, the whole point of the Assalāyana-sutta was, after all, the issue of caste. Even earlier in the discussion the Buddha made use of Brahminical conceptions in order to drive home his point. A particularly telling instance is when, with a good dose of humour, he takes up the notion that Brahmins are born from the mouth of Brahmā and wonders why Brahmin women are seen to become pregnant, give birth and give suck.43 Similar to this ironic comment on the belief that Brahmins are born from Brahmā's mouth, the original intent of the Buddha's reference to the gandhabba would just have had the intention to adopt his presentation to the thought world of his audience by using a loan word from Brahminical ideas about rebirth. Thus the point introduced in this way in the Assalāyana-sutta is simply that Brahminical conceptions of caste purity only take into account the condition provided by the mother and father, assuming that their caste identity sufficiently accounts for the caste identity of the child. By employing Brahminical conceptions on the role of the gandhabba in relation to conception, the Buddha was able to point out an inconsistency in the Brahminical scheme, in as much the caste affiliation of the being to be reborn could not be determined. It may be from this original intent of the discussion of the three conditions for conception in the Assalāyana-sutta that references to this presentation in other discourses and later works originated. To employ already existing terms and ideas in order to express a particular point is in fact a recurrent feature of the expositions given by the Buddha in the early discourses. This appears to have been particularly the case with Brahminical notions and ideas. In this way, even the term Brahmin itself is reinterpreted in the discourses to stand for mental nobility. Similarly the three higher knowledges, tevijjā, which for the Brahmins represent knowledge of the three Vedas, in early Buddhism come to stand for abilities open to anyone who is willing to undertake the required course of meditative training to attain them. By attaining the first two of these three higher knowledges, the Buddha had investigated the issue of rebirth in the most comprehensive manner possible. By attaining the third higher knowledge of full awakening, he transcended it forever. Some of his disciples followed him by also developing all three higher knowledges. Others directly became arahants, without developing recollection of past lives or the divine eye. After all, what really counts from the early Buddhist perspective is to go beyond rebirth, to transcend it once and for all.
[What is] born, become, produced, Made, compounded and not lasting,[What is] conjoined with old age and death, A nest of disease and perishable, [What has] come into being and is supported by nutriment - This is not worth delighting in. The peaceful escape from that, The stable that is beyond thought, The not-born and not arisen, The sorrowless and stainless path, The cessation of all states of dukkha, This stilling of all formation is happiness [indeed]
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