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Introduction

Canonical Parallels

More Udànas in the Tipiñaka

Collection & Organization of the Udàna

BJT: The text of the Udàna presented here is substantially a transliteration of the Sinhala letter version of the text as printed in the Buddha Jayanti Tripitaka Series, Volume XXIV. In preparing this edition the corrigenda (÷uddhi patraya) as printed on page xxvi of that volume have been taken into account. Other corrections, made by the present editor while preparing this edition of the text, have been noted in the appropriate place.

Then the prose sections are for the most part short and story-like, and therefore provide an underlying context which helps with the comprehension of the language. The stories are mainly quite straightforward, and form a contextual basis for understanding the udànas, which are generally more difficult in form and syntax.

Some of the most memorable stories in the Canon have found there way into this collection, which seems to have an overall structural plan, in that it begins with events that happened just after the Sambodhi (also recorded in the Mahàvagga of the Vinaya); and the last chapter includes many events from the last days of the Buddha as recorded in the Mahàparinibbànasutta (Dãghanikàya 16). Note that the Udàna ends, not with the Buddha's parinibbàna, following which no udàna was spoken; but with the parinibbàna of one of the Buddha's leading disciples Ven. Dabba Mallaputta.

As the collection takes in some of the most important events in the Buddha's career, it naturally reflects some of his most important discoveries and teachings also. Because of this there is enough material of doctrinal importance in the collection to keep the student interested, whether it be the review of pañiccasamuppàda following the Sambodhi; the important meditation instruction to Bàhiya; the difficult teaching on bhava given in Lokavolokanasuttaü; or the teachings about nibbàna in the first 4 udànas of chapter 8.

I was able to consult 2 previous translations while preparing my own. The first is a scholarly work made by Dr. Peter Masefield, which forms the basis for his translation of the commentary; ¹ and the other, a popular presentation by John D. Ireland with minimal doctrinal notes. In my notes I draw attention to many problems in these translations. This has been done, not in the spirit of adversity, but because it should help to warn the student of the sort of problems that are unfortunately quite regularly found in translations from the Pàëi.

Some of the material found in this collection is also found in other places in the Canon. Below there are 2 concordance tables to facilitate cross-reference. The first table shows places in the Canon which correspond both in the prose and udàna with the collection presented here. From this we can see that nearly all of the corresponding material has been drawn from either the Vinaya Khandhakas or the Mahàparinibbànasutta of Dãghanikàya, which are believed to have formed a narrative unit at some time. The second table shows the parallels to the udànas alone: ²

In the Tipiñaka we find an early classification of the Dhamma into 9 groups, they are: Sutta, Geyya, Veyyàkaraõa, Gàthà, Udàna, Itivuttaka, Jàtaka, Abbhutadhamma, and Vedalla. It is not without significance that this classification includes 3 groups that were later to be collected and find there way into the Khuddakanikàya in eponymous books: Udàna, Itivuttaka, and Jàtaka. This perhaps serves to show that although the collection of the material that eventually formed the Khuddakanikàya may be late, the material from which it was formed was, in some cases, known right from the earliest times. Of the other classes mentioned here none are found collected in books bearing the same names, but are spread throughout the Nikàyas as we now receive them, and it very much appears that the Nikàya classification has at some time or other, superceded the earlier one.

In the Udàna itself there are 80 discourses, and they comprise all the exalted utterances that are attributed to the Buddha himself in the Tipiñaka. ⁴ There are, however, many udànas which are found in the Vinaya- and Suttapiñakas that have not made their way into the collection. When we examine this extraneous material we find that the majority of these udànas are not exalted utterances, as in the Udàna collection, but rather are exclamations, which, for the most part, do not form a climax in themselves, in the way the exalted udànas do, but are simply exclamations in an on-going narrative.

All the udànas of this kind that I have been able to find are collected in the Appendix. In the Jàtakas many of the Bodhisatta's utterances are said to have been udànas, and they have also been collected in the same Appendix.

John D. Ireland in the Introduction to his translation of The Udàna (Kandy, 1997, pg 10), writes: Could the udànas have once existed as a collection apart from the introductory discourses, like the verses of the Dhammapada? In the first chapter...the udàna utterances form a group united by the common word "brahmin," which is obvious when they are read apart from the introductory discourses. So this chapter could well have been called Bràhmaõa-vagga, following on from the last chapter of the Dhammapada... Similarly, the second chapter has the unifying theme of sukha: happiness, bliss. However, in the subsequent chapters there is often no discernible theme linking the utterances.

As Ireland noted the word brahmaõa occurs in all the verses of the opening chapter, (1-1b, 1-2b, 1-3b, 1-4a, 1-5d, 1-6d, 1-7b, 1-8d, 1-9d, 1-10h), and so there is clearly word collocation in the udànas in this chapter. Likewise sukha occurs in nearly all of the verses of the second chapter (2-1aceh, 2-2abc, 2-3acdegh, 2-4a, 2-5a, 2-6a, 2-8c, 2-9b, 2-10c); it is missing from 2-7, but there its place is taken by the word piya (2-7af), which is related in meaning, and piya also occurs in the verse that follows it (2-8b), so that it may have come in to the collection through this connection.

It is odd that having seen the collocation of the verses in the first 2 chapters, that Ireland didn't note the clear collocation in the 3^rd chapter, linked by the word bhikkhu, which occurs throughout the chapter, occuring in the following verses: 3-1a, 3-2d, 3-3d, 3-4c, 3-5c, 3-6d, 3-7a, 3-8a, 3-9d, 3-10 last verse; or in the 4^th chapter where it is on the word citta: 4-1d, 4-2e, 4-3c, 4-4a, 4-5c, 4-6e, 4-8d, 4-9f, 4-10a. The 7^th udàna in this chapter doesn't have the word citta, but it does have the root-connected word cetasa (4-7a).

If we were to give names to the first four chapters according to their word-collocation, we would then have Bràhmaõavagga, Sukhavagga, Bhikkhuvagga, and Cittavagga. It is interesting to note that these four vagga titles do in fact occur in the Dhammapada, and it may be that what we have in the udàna is a fossilized remnant of a collection of verses that, as Ireland suggested, may once have stood alone.

In the following chapters there seems to be no collocation on a keyword. Still, we should note that pàpa occurs in 5-3d, 5-4ce, 5-6cd, 5-7bcd; and 5-4 may be connected to 5-5, by theme, as they both deal with the covering up of bad deeds. There does not seem to be collocation running through all the verses in the 6^th chapter either, but diññhi occurs in 6-6j, 6-8 (in the middle), 6-9d, 6-10h. The theme of views is also implied in 6-4 & 6-5 (see the translation), which are further linked together by having the opening 2 lines in common.

Chapter 7 has many verses dealing with the one who is everywhere free (7-7a), who has cut off the cycle (7-2a), cut off the stream (7-5d), who has no roots in the earth (7-6a), who has transcended the tether and the obstacle (7-7b), and cut off the root of craving (7-9c). Chapter 8 which begins with the well known 4 nibbàna suttas continues with that theme, see 8-5d, 8-6d, 8-8 2^nd verse, 8-9 whole verse, and 8-10 both verses. Only 8-7 seems to stand apart from this.

Another indication of this may be obtained when we examine the udànas themselves. Most of the udànas in the collection are in verse, but there a number that are in prose. All but one of the prose udànas occur in the last four chapters (6-8, 6-10, 8-1, 8-3, 8-4; the exception is 3-10, which is discussed below). Some of these are unusual not only because they are not in verse, but because they do not appear to be udànas at all.

IN an Appendix I present the udànas that are named as such found scattered throughout the Tipiñaka. We can see from this that there are basically 2 groups of udànas. The first and most frequent is the exalted utterance, which is mainly what we have is the eponymous collection. The second group, which is by no means insignificant, is the exclamatory group of udànas, which are in prose.

The prose udànas listed above however, fit into neither of these categories. The udàna at 8-1, for example, begins as an address: Atthi bhikkhave tad-àyatanaü... which would suggest that this is a normal doctrinal teaching. 8-3 begins in a similar way: Atthi bhikkhave ajàtaü... ; and 8-4 is similarly very sober and doctrinal in exposition. All three deal with nibbàna, and I would suggest that they perhaps formed part of a group, together with 8-2, which is in verse, and may therefore have found there way into the collection via that connection. This may be further confirmed by the fact that all four of the nibbàna udànas have exactly the same basis recorded for the sayings, which may have been applied originally only to 8-2.

The udàna at 6-8 is also in prose. In this case it seems to have very little to do with the prose introduction, and one cannot help feeling that there is some sort of mis-match here, and that the discourse has been patched together in an attempt to make a normal udàna out of it. It may be that it has been added in here owing to its theme being diññhi, which links it to the rest of the collection in this chapter.

There are a number of complications regarding the udàna at 6-10, not the least being that the first half of the utterance is in fact metrical in structure (the metre is Vetàlãya, though the 3^rd and 4^th lines are corrupt); while in the 2^nd half no metre can be discerned. Clearly however the 2^nd half is needed to complete the sense of the 1^st half, and it cannot simply have been tagged on. Again the udàna has an underlying theme of views.

The udàna that occurs in the first half of the collection is also very difficult owing to the confused state it which it has been preserved, with parts of it having no discernible metre, while other portions are certainly metrical, but not necessarily in whole verses. It appears to me that the udàna falls into 3 distinct sections, the first and last of which were probably originally in verse, while the middle section is in prose.

The word-collocation that joins this udàna to the others in the chapter, which is on the theme of bhikkhu, occurs in the 3^rd section of the udàna, and it may be that these were the original verses in the collection, and that they have attracted the other two sections into the collection through the theme of bhava that runs throughout the udàna.

1 Published as Udàna Commentary (2 volumes), Oxford, 1994/5.

2 I have not included the parallels found in Nettipakaraõa and Peñakopadesa, as these are simply quotations of the relevant texts.

Note that there are parallels to all the udànas in this collection in the Sanskrit Udànavarga, see the Udàna Parallels document elsewhere on this website.

3 The first 3 suttas in the Udàna also occur at the beginning of the Vinaya Mahàvagga. There however the Buddha is said to have reviewed pañiccasamuppàda in both forward and reverse orders during each of the three watches of the night.

In the Udàna, on the other hand, the Buddha reviews pañiccasamuppàda in forward order during the 1^st watch, in reverse order during the 2^nd watch, and in both forward and reverse orders during the 3^rd watch. This is obviously more dramatic, but we cannot draw conclusions about the priority of the different versions from that alone.

4 There are also 2 other udànas mentioned in the collection, which are not by the Buddha. The first was the exclamation made by Ven. Bhaddiya, expressing his happiness with the monk's life (Ud. 2-10): Aho sukhaü! Aho sukhaü! This udàna was also uttered by the Bodhisatta on 2 different occasions, see The Bodhisatta's Udànas below.

Sakka, king of the gods, also made an udàna after giving alms to Ven. Mahàkassapa (3-7): Aho dànaü! Paramadànaü Kassape suppatiññhitaü, Aho dànaü! Paramadànaü Kassape suppatiññhitan-ti.