Saṃyutta Nikāya
4. Saḷāyatana Vagga
44. Avyākata Saṃyutta
The Book of the Kindred Sayings
4. The Book Called the Saḷāyatana-Vagga
Containing Kindred Sayings on the 'Six-Fold Sphere' of Sense and Other Subjects
44. Kindred Sayings about the Unrevealed
Sutta 10
Ānanda (or Atthatta) Suttaṃ
Ānanda (or 'The Existence of the Self')[1]
Translated by F. L. Woodward
Edited by Mrs. Rhys Davids
Copyright The Pali Text Society
Commercial Rights Reserved
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[1][than][bodh] Thus have I heard:
Then the Wanderer, Vacchagotta, came to visit the Exalted One
and on coming to him
greeted him courteously,
and after the exchange of civilities
sat down at one side.
So seated, the Wanderer, Vacchagotta,
said to the Exalted One: -
"Now, master Gotama,
is there a self?"
At these words the Exalted One was silent.
"How, then, master Gotama,
is there not a self?"
For a second time also the Exalted One was silent.
Then Vacchagotta the Wanderer rose from his seat and went away.
■
Now not long after the departure of Vacchagotta the Wanderer
the venerable Ānanda said to the Exalted One: -
"How is it, lord,
that the Exalted One gave no answer
to the question of Vacchagotta the Wanderer?"
[282] "If, Ānanda, when asked by the Wanderer:
'Is there a self?'
I had replied to him:
'There is a self,'
then, Ānanda,
that would be siding[2]
with the recluses and brahmins
who are eternalists.
But if, Ānanda, when asked:
'Is there not a self?'
I had replied that
'It does not exist',
that, Ānanda, would be siding
with those recluses and brahmins
who are annihilationists.
Again, Ānanda, when asked by the Wanderer:
'Is there a self?'
had I replied that
'There is',
would my reply be in accordance with the knowledge[3]
that
'All things are not-self'?"
"Surely not, lord."
"Again, Ānanda, when asked by the Wanderer:
'Is there not a self?'
had I replied that
'There is not',
it would have been more bewilderment
for the bewildered Vacchagotta.
For he would have said:
'Formerly indeed I had a self,
but now I have not one any more.'"
[1] Atth'attā.
[2] Text has tesaṇ etaṇ saddhiṇ abhavissa, but Comy. reads laddhi bhavissati, explaining tesaṇ etaṇ laddhiyā saddhiṇ I think Comy.'s reading preferable.
[3] Anulomaṇ ñāṇassa.
