Document Type
Article
Abstract
In this article I investigate a difficult saying of the Buddha, preserved in three places in Pāli canonical discourses: n’ āhaṃ kvacani kassaci kiñcanatasmiṃ, na ca mama kvacani kismiñci kiñcanat’ atthi (‘There is no I anywhere in anyone’s property, and neither is there anywhere in anything property which is mine’). At A 3: 70, this saying is attributed to the Jains, while at A 4: 185, the Buddha teaches it as a ‘brahman truth’ acceptable to paribbājakas, and at M 106, the Buddha teaches it as a means of attaining the experiential dimension of no-thing-ness (ākiñcaññāyatana). I compare this Pāli saying with a Jain version, preserved in the Āyāraṅga Sutta, and I also compare it other versions preserved in Sanskrit and Gāndhārī, as well as in versions translated into Chinese and Tibetan. I conclude that the Pāli version has become garbled in transmission, and I reconstruct two conjectural original forms of the saying, one of them suitable to be attributed to the Jains and one the Buddha’s modification of this Jain saying. I conclude that the old saying is an example of Buddhist recycling of sayings current in the śramaṇa culture of north India.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Dhivan Thomas
(2023)
"From Nothing to No-thing-ness to Emptiness: the Buddhist Recycling of an Old Jain Saying,"
The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies: Vol. 22, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/iijbs/vol22/iss1/3
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