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<li class='division'>Points of Controversy</li>
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<h1>1.3 Of the Higher Life</h1>
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<p><span class='add'>Controverted Point</span><a class='pc' id='pc71' href='#pc71'></a>: That there is no higher life among the devas</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.1' href='#pts-cs1.3.1'>PTS cs 1.3.1</a>You deny the practice of the higher life among devas; yet you deny also <span class='add'>that they are physically, mentally, or morally defective</span>: that they are, any of them, stupid, deaf and dumb, unintelligent, communicating by signs, and incapable of discerning the meaning of what is well or badly spoken; that they all lack faith in the Buddha, the Doctrine, the Order; that they did not attend the Exalted Buddha; ask him questions and delight in his answers; that they are all of them handicapped by their actions, by the corruptions, by the effect of their actions; that they are all faithless, devoid of purpose and understanding, incapable of reaching the right Order of the Path in things that are good; that they are matricides, parricides, murderers of saints, shedders of holy blood, schismatics; that they all take life, steal, are unchaste, liars, <a class='pc' id='pc72' href='#pc72'></a> slanderers, revilers, idle talkers, given to covetousness, ill-will and erroneous opinion.</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.2' href='#pts-cs1.3.2'>PTS cs 1.3.2</a>Nay, you maintain on the other hand that they are, and practise the opposite of all this. How then can you say there is no religious life among them?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.3' href='#pts-cs1.3.3'>PTS cs 1.3.3</a>You maintain the thesis in the affirmative, and yet you deny that devas practise renouncing the world, the tonsure, wearing the yellow robes, carrying the beggar's bowl; you deny that either a Supremely Awakened one, or those enlightened for self only, or the pair of chief disciples, appear among the devas. Where then is their “religious life”?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.4-7' href='#pts-cs1.3.4-7'>PTS cs 1.3.4–7</a>We agree that among the gods these practices and advents are not found. But is the religious life found only where these things are observed—the renunciation, the tonsure and the rest—and not where they are not observed? Only there, you say; and yet when I ask: “Does he who renounces the world, and so forth, lead the religious life, and does he who does not renounce the world, etc., not lead the religious life”, you do not agree.</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.8' href='#pts-cs1.3.8'>PTS cs 1.3.8</a>Again, do you maintain that only where Buddhas arise is there religious life, and that where they do not arise, there is none? You vacillate in your reply. Now the Exalted One was born in Lumbinī, became supremely enlightened at the foot of the Bodhi Tree, and set turning the Norm-Wheel at Benares. Is the religious life to be observed in those places only and not elsewhere?</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.9' href='#pts-cs1.3.9'>PTS cs 1.3.9</a>I ask a similar question with regard to the Middle Country, where there have been advents of those awakened <a class='pc' id='pc73' href='#pc73'></a> for self alone, and <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.10' href='#pts-cs1.3.10'>PTS cs 1.3.10</a> with regard to the Magadhese, where there was the advent of a chief pair of disciples.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.11' href='#pts-cs1.3.11'>PTS cs 1.3.11</a>You claim that the religious life is practised among devas, yet you deny that it is universally practised, for instance, among the devas of the “unconscious sphere”. </p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> This is only what we should both claim and deny for mankind, for instance, that whereas the religious life is practised among men, it is not practised among the untutored barbarians of the border countries, where there is no rebirth of such as become religieux of either sex, or of believing laymen and laywomen.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.12' href='#pts-cs1.3.12'>PTS cs 1.3.12</a>You say with respect to the religious life in deva-worlds, “There are spheres where it exists, there are other spheres where it does not”: are both these conditions represented in the unconscious sphere, and both in the worlds of conscious devas? If not, then where does it exist and where does it not exist?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> The religious life exists only among such devas as are conscious.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.13' href='#pts-cs1.3.13'>PTS cs 1.3.13</a>You admit that the religious life is practised among men.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> In certain places only, not in others.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> Do you mean to say that both kind of places are represented in the outlying border countries, among untrained barbarians, where none are born who become religieux or pious laymen and laywomen? If not, how can you claim that the religious life is practised at all? Where is it practised?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> In the Middle Country, not in the outlying border countries.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.14' href='#pts-cs1.3.14'>PTS cs 1.3.14</a>But was it not said by the Exalted One:</p>
<p>“In three respects, <i>bhikkhus</i>, do the people of India excel both those of North Kuru and the Three-and-Thirty gods: in courage, in mindfulness, and in the religious life”?</p>
<p>Is <a class='pc' id='pc74' href='#pc74'></a> the Suttanta thus? Does it not show there is no religious life among devas?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> Did not the Exalted One say at Sāvatthī:</p>
<p>“Here the religious life is practised”?</p>
<p>And does this show that it was only practised at Sāvatthī, and not elsewhere?</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.15' href='#pts-cs1.3.15'>PTS cs 1.3.15</a>Again, the Never-Returner, for whom the five “lower fetters” are done away with, but not, as yet, the five “upper fetters”, deceases “here”, is reborn “there”—where for him does the fruit <span class='add'>of his works</span> arise? “There”, and only there, you say. How then can you deny religious life among the devas?</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.16' href='#pts-cs1.3.16'>PTS cs 1.3.16</a>For when such an one is reborn “there”, it is there that he “gets rid of the burden”, there that he comprehends the nature of Ill, there that he puts away the corruptions, there that he realizes the cessation <span class='add'>of Ill</span>, there that he has intuition of the immutable. What then do you mean when you say, “There is no religious life among the devas”?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> Because it was <em>here</em> that he practised that Path of which he <em>there</em> realizes the fruit.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.17' href='#pts-cs1.3.17'>PTS cs 1.3.17</a>If you admit that the Never-Returner realizes fruit <em>there</em> by the Path practised <em>here</em>, you must also admit that the Stream-Winner realizes fruit <em>here</em> by path-practice <em>there</em>. You must, similarly, admit that the Once-Returner and the person completing existence <em>here</em>, realize <em>here</em> the fruit won by path-practice <em>there</em>.</p>
<p>Further, since you do admit that the Stream-Winner realizes fruit <em>here</em> won by path-practice <em>here</em>, you must admit that the Never-Returner may, similarly, realize fruit <a class='pc' id='pc75' href='#pc75'></a> <em>there</em> won by path-practice <em>there</em>. Again, just as you admit that the Once-Returner and the person completing existence may, by path-practice here, realize fruit <em>here</em>, so must you similarly admit that the Never-Returner may realize fruit <em>there</em> won by path-practice <em>there</em>.</p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.18' href='#pts-cs1.3.18'>PTS cs 1.3.18</a>If you declare that a person who, “leaving this life, attains consummation <span class='add'>in the Pure Abodes</span>”, practises the path without putting away the corruptions, you must admit it no less in the case of a person who has worked for the realization of the fruit of Stream-Winning, or the fruit of the One-Return, or the fruit of Arahantship.</p>
<p>Again, if you declare that a person who has worked for the realization of the fruit of Stream-Winning, or for the fruit of the One-Return, or for that of Arahantship, practises the path and puts away the corruptions simultaneously, you must also admit as much in his case who, leaving this life, attains consummation <span class='add'>in the Pure Abodes.</span></p>
<p><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.19' href='#pts-cs1.3.19'>PTS cs 1.3.19</a>You are admitting <span class='add'>by the position taken up with regard to the thesis</span>, that a Never-Returning person, when he is reborn <em>there</em>, has “done that which was to be done”, is in the condition of having practised. But this is tantamount to declaring that the Arahant is reborn—that the Arahant goes from one life to another, goes from one destination to another, goes from one cycle to another of renewed life, goes from one rebirth to another—which of course you deny.</p>
<p>You cannot, again, admit those qualifications in the Never-Returner and deny him those of “one who has got rid of the burden”, when he is reborn <em>there</em>; for then you must admit that he will <em>there</em> practise the path again to get rid of the burden.</p>
<p><a class='pc' id='pc76' href='#pc76'></a><a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.20' href='#pts-cs1.3.20'>PTS cs 1.3.20</a>Similarly, whatever other attainments in the religious life you withhold from the Never-Returner on his final rebirth there: understanding of Ill, putting away of corruptions, realization of the cessation of Ill, intuition of the immutable—you compel him, in order to win them, to “practise the path” <span class='add'>among the devas as deva</span>. Else you declare implicitly that he there completes existence without winning one or the other of them.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> <a class='ref pts-cs' id='pts-cs1.3.21' href='#pts-cs1.3.21'>PTS cs 1.3.21</a>Just as a deer wounded by an arrow, though he may run far, yet dies of his hurt, even so does the Never-Returner, by the path here practised, realize there the fruit thereof.</p>
<p><span class='add'>Theravādin:</span> The deer wounded by an arrow, though he run far, yet dies of his hurt with the arrow in him. But does the Never-Returner, when by the path here practised he there realizes the fruit thereof, bear the arrow with him?</p>
<p><span class='add'>Sammitiya:</span> Nay, that cannot truly be said.</p>
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<p><cite class='book' translate='no'>The Points of Controversy</cite>, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by <span class='author'>Shwe Zan Aung</span> and <span class='author'>C.A.F. Rhys Davids</span>. First published by Pali Text Society, <span class='publication-date'>1915</span>.</p>
<p>This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by <span class='editor'>Manfred Wierich</span> and <span class='editor'>Ven. Vimala</span> and proofread by <span class='editor'>Josephine Tobin</span>. Some changes were introduced:</p>
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<li>Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.</li>
<li>Cross-references were linked.</li>
<li>Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.</li>
<li>Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.</li>
<li>The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.</li>
</ul>
<p>This electronic version is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC 3.0) as found here: <a href='http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/'>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/</a></p>
<p>All copyright is owned by the Pali Text Society. See also the statement under http://www.palitext.com/ → Publications → Copyright Announcement. For non-commercial use only.</p>
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