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BARRENNESS AND BONDAGE.
virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, and brotherly kindness, is followed by the figure that these things will make him to be 'neither barren nor unfruitful;' and closes with the promise that if he do these things, giving diligence to make his calling and election sure, he shall never fall, but shall enter into that everlasting kingdom which is the supreme goal of the Christian life.
The analogy is sufficiently close to throw considerable light upon our Sutta, but it touches only the barrenness. The bondage is specially Buddhistic, and is allied with the doctrine of the Sanyoganas, or fetters, which the pilgrim along the Noble Path has to break before he can reach the full fruit of Arahatship. It should be compared also with the fivefold bond mentioned in the Tevigga Sutta, Chap. I, $$26-28, the word there used being bandhanam, as against vinibandhanam here, and the fivefold bond being a fivefold division of our first bondage
The ten fetters are1. The delusion of self (sakkâya-ditthi). 2. Doubt (vikikikk hâ). 3. Reliance on the efficacy of rites and ceremonies
(sîlabbata-parâmâsa). 4. The bodily lusts or passions (kama). 5. Hatred, ill-feeling (patigha). 6. Desire for a future life in the worlds of form
(raparâga). 7. Desire for a future life in the formless worlds
(arà parâga). 8. Pride (mâno). 9. Self-righteousness (uddhakka). 10. Ignorance (avigga). Here the 4th fetter is correlative to our first bondage; the 6th fetter to our 2nd and 3rd bondage ; and part of the 3rd fetter to our 5th bondage.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th bondage are in fact but a new way of stating the fundamental Buddhist doctrine that good must be pursued without any ulterior motive ; and that that man is not spiritually free in whom there is still the least hankering after any future life beyond the grave.
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| SR No. | 007674 |
| Book Title | Dhammapada |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Max Muller |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1881 |
| Total Pages | 2540 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 45 MB |