4.8 Of entering on the Path of Assurance

Controverted Point: That the Bodhisat had entered on the Path of Assurance and conformed to the life therein during the dispensation of Kassapa Buddha.

Theravādin: If so, our Bodhisat must have been a disciple—i.e., one in the Ariyan Way—of Kassapa Buddha. You deny. For if you assent, you must admit that he became Buddha after his career as disciple. Moreover, a “disciple” is one who learns through information from others, while a Buddha is self-developed.

Further, if the Bodhisat became Kassapa's disciple, entering on the first Path and Fruit, it follows that there were only three stages of fruition for him to know thoroughly when under the Bodhi Tree. But we believe that all four were then realized.

Further, would one who had entered on the Path of Assurance as a disciple have undergone the austerities practised by the Bodhisat in his own last life? And would such an one point to others as his teachers and practise their austerities, as did the Bodhisat in his last life?

Do we learn that, as the Venerable Ānanda, and the householder Citta and Hatthaka the Āḷavakan entered into Assurance and lived its higher life as disciples under the Exalted One, so the Exalted One himself, as Bodhisat, acted under Kassapa Buddha? You deny, of course.

If they did so enter, under the Exalted One, as his disciples, you cannot affirm that the Bodhisat entered on the Path of Assurance, and lived its higher life under Kassapa Buddha without being his disciple. Or can a disciple who has evolved past one birth become a non-disciple afterwards? You deny, of course.

Andhaka, Uttarāpathaka: But if our proposition is wrong, is there not a Suttanta in which the Exalted One said:

“Under the Exalted One Kassapa, Ānanda, I lived the higher life for supreme enlightenment in the future”?

Theravādin: But is there not a Suttanta in which the Exalted One said:

“All have I overcome. All things I know,
'Mid all things undefiled. Renouncing all,
In death of craving wholly free. My own
The deeper view. Whom should I name to thee?
For me no teacher lives. I stand alone
On earth, in heav'n rival to me there's none.
Yea, I am Arahant as to this world,
A Teacher I above whom there is none.
Supreme enlightenment is mine alone.
In holy Coolness I, all fires extinct.
Now go I on seeking Benares town,
To start the Wheel, to set on foot the Norm.
Amid a world in gloom and very blind,
I strike the alarm upon Ambrosia's Drum”?

“According to what thou declarest, brother, thou art indeed Arahant, `worthy' to be conqueror world without end”.

“Like unto me indeed are conquerors
Who every poisonous canker have cast out.
Conquered by me is every evil thing,
And therefore am I conqueror, Upaka”?

And is there not a Suttanta in which the Exalted One said:

“O bhikkhus, it was concerning things unlearnt before that vision, insight, understanding, wisdom, light arose in me at the thought of the Ariyan Truth of the nature and fact of Ill, and that this Truth was to be understood, and was understood by me. It was concerning things unlearnt before that vision, insight, understanding, wisdom, light arose in me at the thought of the Ariyan Truth as to the Cause of Ill, and that this Truth was concerning something to be put away, and was put away by me. It was concerning things unlearnt before that vision, insight, understanding, wisdom, light arose in me at the thought of the Ariyan Truth as to the Cessation of Ill, and that this Truth was concerning something to be realized, and was realized by me. It was concerning things unlearnt before that vision, insight, understanding, wisdom, light arose in me at the thought of the Ariyan Truth as to the Course leading to the cessation of Ill, and that this truth was to be developed, and was developed by me”?

How then can you say that the Bodhisat entered on the Path of Assurance and lived the higher life thereof as far back as the age of Kassapa Buddha?