MEDITATION AND ITS SUBJECTS: TRACING KAMMAṬṬHĀNA FROM THE EARLY CANON TO THE BORAN KAMMATHAN TRADITIONS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

ABSTRACT

This article examines the term kammaṭṭhāna in three contexts. It begins by looking at the rare usage in the Pali canon where it denotes secular work, but is extended to include the work of the ascetic. It then looks at its usage in the commentarial period to denote the meditation subjects for samatha meditation, and where extensions of this to include vipassanā also occur. Finally, the article looks at kammaṭṭhāna in early modern Southeast Asia (primarily Siam) in the context of a variety of pre-modern meditation, boran kammathan, where the number of meditation subjects is increased, the patterns of their usage has changed with a new emphasis on experiencing nimitta, and kammathan is employed as a general term for meditation per se. The article also considers some ancillary features of boran kammathan texts, offering suggestions to enhance the search for new boran kammathan texts in manuscript archives and libraries.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I will be using the name Siam/Siamese to reference Thailand prior to the adoption of that more familiar name in 1939.

2. Alabaster appears to have translated the first 10 chapters of this Pali biography, but from the recension revised by the Siamese Prince Paramānujit in 1845. However, while the latter has 29 chapters, Alabaster says that his manuscript source finishes at chapter 10, with the Awakening of the Buddha, in the manner of shorter and earlier recensions (1871, xxv–xxvi). See Coedes (2003, lvi–lxvi) and Laulertvorakul (2003) on the recensions of the Paṭhamasambodhi.

3. Alabaster refers the reader to Spence Hardy’s Eastern Monachism (1850, 243ff.) for an authoritative description. We should note that Hardy himself, writing about Sri Lankan Buddhism, describes bhāwanā as consisting of the same five components. Alabaster has other notes that relate to the topic of meditation, notably a long one on jhāna and another on satipaṭṭhāna (Alabaster 1871, 192ff. and 197f.).

4. The Wheel of the Law consists of three sections: the original publication, The Modern Buddhist (1870), plus the translated section of the Paṭhamasaṃbodhi accompanied by 79 pages of notes, followed by an account of the Phrabat (i.e. the Buddhapāda, at Wat Phra Phutthabat, Saraburi, Thailand) prefaced by a charming account of his visit there. As he and his wife pass a night amongst flooded fields, Alabaster laments their lack of the infusion in alcohol of pyrethrum roseum that ‘makes a varnish for the body which effectually keeps the vermin away’ (1871, 274–275). (The cost of this Victorian insect repellent was such that, in order to make applications last as long as possible, one had to refrain from washing more than twice a week.)

5. Chao Phya Thipakon was foreign minister for Siam from 1856 to 1869, and had been involved in the negotiation of the Bowring Treaty of 1855. See Anderson (1991, 181).

6. http://www.ayutthaya-history.com/Temples_Ruins_PhukhaoThong_Alabaster.html, accessed 3 August 2018.

7. He explains that he is not a Sanskritist and hopes he will not be criticised too harshly for his attempts at etymology (Alabaster 1871, xxvii–xxviii). On the title page of the book he is described as ‘Interpreter of Her Majesty’s Consulate General in Siam’.

8. S.v. ṭhāna in Cone 2010.

9. A note on method: to facilitate searching I have employed the search facilities of both Ajahn Yuttadhammo’s Digital Pali Reader (DPR; https://pali.sirimangalo.org/ accessed 3 August 2018.) and the Vipassana Research Institute’s Tipiṭaka Search facility (TS; http://tipitaka.org/search) accessed 3 August 2018.) The two search facilities, which both evidence the contemporary Buddhist community’s commitment to the use of digital media for the dissemination of learning, give slightly different results and are best used to complement one another. Thus, TS discovers only four ‘hits’ in the mūla text for this search term, seemingly missing the Majjhima Nikāya occurrence altogether, while DPR records 10 hits. This disparity is explained by the practice in DPR to number every paragraph of the mūla text containing the search term as a single hit. Thus if a single text contains four separate paragraphs in which the search term occurs, this will be counted by DPR as four hits for the term. All this means that a researcher must be very cautious in citing figures for searches from either platform without careful investigation as to what is being pointed to by these results. That said, I and many others have found both search facilities extremely helpful, and I will be discussing results from such searches through this article, albeit with care.

10. In fact, the text of the Peṭakopadesa is notoriously problematic and it is likely that the text is corrupt at this point, the correct reading being not kammaṭṭhāna but kammasamādāna. I will not discuss this passage further, but refer the reader to Ñāṇamoli’s notes (1964, 46, n.119/5).

11. For the other instances of this phrasing, see AN 8.55 and 8.76. Here and throughout, I quote the text of the Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana Edition as available online, but giving Pali Text Society (PTS) volumes and page numbers as embedded in that text.

12. Given this very specific usage I am even tempted by the possibility of translating kammaṭṭhāna as ‘vocation’.

13. To return briefly to the issue of method: DPR counts this text as three hits for the term kammaṭṭhāna because the term occurs in three separate paragraphs (albeit adjacent), whereas in fact the term itself is repeated some 22 times through those three paragraphs. However, they all occur within a single coherent discussion that was doubtless composed as a single piece, and could therefore be considered a single occurrence by that criterion.

14. In Vism, Buddhaghosa writes of 40 topics and lists that many, but on one occasion refers to an earlier tradition of 38 kammaṭṭhāna (see Kim in this volume for a detailed discussion of Vism’s taxonomy.) The earlier list is referred to elsewhere in the commentarial literature.

15. One cannot engage in any detailed discussion of the chronology of individual Pali texts while trying to maintain a coherent discussion of other matters. I therefore defer by and large to the chronology of texts used by von Hinüber (2000).

16. These terms are used frequently throughout the atthakathā and can be found by simple searches.

17. ettha pana duvidhaṃ kammaṭṭhānaṃ sabbatthakakammaṭṭhānaṃ pārihāriyakammaṭṭhānañca. tattha sabbatthakakammaṭṭhānaṃ nāma bhikkhusaṅghādīsu mettā maraṇassati ca, asubhasaññātipi eke … cattālīsāya pana kammaṭṭhānesu yaṃ yassa cariyānukūlaṃ, taṃ tassa niccaṃ pariharitabbattā uparimassa ca uparimassa bhāvanākammassa padaṭṭhānattā pārihāriyakammaṭṭhānanti vuccati. Visuddhimagga, 97–98.

18. Buddhaghosa assigns 30 various kammaṭṭhāna to different temperaments. One could say that temperament of the practitioner is the primary arbiter of use in his system. The remainder, he says, are suitable for all kinds of temperament. These are the four immaterial abodes and the six kasiṇa excluding the colours (Ñāṇamoli 2010, 109; see Kim in this volume on the temperaments etc.).

19. See Kyaw in this volume, who describes two Myanmar meditation teachers’ experiences of mindfulness of death and asubha meditation resulting in the benefits mentioned here.

20. The words in brackets are in the source text but not translated in Bodhi.

21. kammaṭṭhānaṃ nāma duvidhaṃ – sabbatthakaṃ, pārihāriyañca. sabbatthakaṃ nāma mettā ca maraṇassati ca. taṃ sabbattha icchitabbato ‘sabbatthaka’nti vuccati. … yaṃ pana sadā pariharitabbaṃ caritānukūlena gahitattā dasāsubhakasiṇānussatīsu aññataraṃ, catudhātuvavatthānameva vā, taṃ sadā pariharitabbato, rakkhitabbato, bhāvetabbato ca pārihāriyanti vuccati, mūlakammaṭṭhānantipi tadeva. tattha yaṃ paṭhamaṃ sabbatthakakammaṭṭhānaṃ manasi karitvā pacchā pārihāriyakammaṭṭhānaṃ manasi karoti, …. (Paramatthajotikā II.1, 54)

22. See Kim in this volume. This information only came to my attention during the compilation of this volume. For the anussati at least we also cannot ignore the Aṅguttara Nikāya passage that asserts that all 10 of the anussati can lead to nibbāna (see Bodhi 2012, 116).

23. Tattha dhātuvasena kathitaṃ vipassanākammaṭṭhānaṃ hoti. Paṭikkūlavasena kathitaṃ samathakammaṭṭhānaṃ (Visuddhimagga: 243; see Ñāṇamoli 2010, 239–240).

24. The commentary repeats the point he makes in Vism about the twofold character of the kāyagatāsati meditation subject.

25. sā bhikkhūnaṃ santike dhammaṃ sutvā saraṇesu ca sīlesu ca patiṭṭhāya samāhitā hutvā vipassanākammaṭṭhānaṃ uggahetvā vipassanaṃ ussukkāpentī upanissayasampannatāya na cirasseva sotāpattiphale patiṭṭhahi (Paramatthadīpanī, iv. 98).

26. The Dhammapada commentary is attributed to Buddhaghosa, but that attribution is not credible. See von Hinüber (2000, 131).

27. The verb sajjhāyati covers activities that include rehearsing something, repeating it verbally (either aloud or mentally) as a means of studying a subject. In an oral culture this is a verbal activity whether mental or oral, and a number of stories require that such repetition is audible. In order to make this clear, I therefore translate it as ‘reciting’ despite a marginal preference for the more ambiguous and inclusive ‘rehearsing’.

28. sā ekassa yogāvacarassa vipassanākammaṭṭhānaṃ sajjhāyantassa dhammaghosaṃ sutvā tato cutā rājakule nibbattitvā ubbarī nāma rājadhītā ahosi (Dhammapadaṭṭhakathā, iv.46).

29. The commentary to the Theragāthā is attributed to Dhammapāla, while that to the Apadāna is anonymous.

30. athassa satthā ‘mantaparivāraṃ tāva uggaṇhāhī’ti dvattiṃsākārakammaṭṭhānaṃ vipassanākammaṭṭhānañca ācikkhi. so dvattiṃsākāraṃ sajjhāyantova vipassanaṃ paṭṭhapesi (Paramatthadīpanī, iii.182).

31. For references to Dhammapāla’s knowledge of Buddhaghosa’s works, see von Hinüber (2000).

32. Imasmim pi syāmaraṭṭhe bhikkhūnam dve nikāyāva honti porāṇarājakālato yāvajjatanā dvīhi laddhīhi pavattā āciṇṇakappikanikāyo ca dhammayutikanikāyo ca gaṇissaratherasamuhavasena pana cattāro gaṇā honti. Tattha āciṇṇakappikanikāyikā nāma yesam pāliaṭṭhakathādīsu āgatavacanam appamāṇam sakadesanivāsīnam paṭipattiyeva pamāṇam te ca evam vattāro yam yam porāṇakam tam tam pāliaṭṭhakathādīhi viruddhampi hotu … Dhammayutikanikāyā nāma ye evamvādino porāṇānam āciṇṇasamāciṇṇam na sabbaso pamāṇato gahetabbam … tasmā ṭīkāya āgatavacanam aṭṭhakathāsamentam eva gahetabbam aṭṭhakathāya āgatam pi pāliyā samentam eva gahetabbam pāliyam pi katthaci kehici vaḍḍhetvā likhitam gārayhaṭhānam pi bhagavato vacanalakkhaṇam atikamma aṭṭhānadhāvanavasena pavattamānam na gahettabbam.
From Mongkut’s collected articles in Pali (vol. 2, 510–515), as quoted in Dhammasakiyo (2004, 43 n.52).

33. I follow Hinüber’s date here, although I note that Neri classifies it as twelfth–thirteenth century (Neri 2014, 336).

34. See Pakdeekham (2011) for a Lannā Tipiṭaka catalogue, the Piṭakamālā, that demonstrates this inclusive principle.

35. This was also the case for Buddhaghosa himself, who had translated the old commentaries from their local languages into Pali in order to create his own new commentaries.

36. Choompolpaisal (forthcoming).

37. These changes have been discussed in a number of publications. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2014) for a discussion of this in relation to one lineage of meditation teaching in Thonburi, and Crosby (2013) for a broader assessment of the decline of this pre-existing tradition across peninsular Southeast Asia.

38. See Crosby, Skilton (2012) for a discussion of a non-meditation text transmitted to Sri Lanka, and Crosby in this volume on meditation texts proper.

39. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2014) on boran kammathan in contemporary Thonburi, and Choompolpaisal in this volume on survivals of the boran kammathan in Ayutthaya and in the Dhammakaya organisation.

40. This text by Suk was published as an English-language translation in Ronruen, Evans, and Nangnoi (n.d.), by the lineage holder of the day, Paṇṇāvuddhakun (Banjong), during his tenure (i.e. 1966–1997). The original title is uncertain, the publication giving ‘How to Practice Samatha-Vipassanā Kammaṭṭhāna’.

41. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2014) for an account of how these meditation subjects are to be used by the practitioner.

42. To explore the reasons for some at least of these changes is beyond the scope of the present article, but I hope to do so in a future article. Note that some texts in the boran kammathan tradition that follow a breakdown of numerous kammaṭṭhāna similar to that described here nevertheless still refer to the 40 kammaṭṭhāna, e.g. in the title of a Sri Lankan text, Kasinabhāvanāpota Cattālisakammaṭṭhāna (see Crosby in this volume; and Nyanatusita 2008, 28).

43. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2014) for a detailed account of this pīti meditation at Wat Ratchasittharam. Regarding light spheres in this tradition, see Choompolpaisal and also Terwiel in this volume.

44. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2015) for a detailed account of the ānāpānasati meditation at Wat Ratchasittharam.

45. Vitakka and the other mantra used in this meditation subject are the mental components that make up the first jhāna.

46. The material in parentheses is presented as a translation of Suk’s text.

47. I tentatively identify the ‘tray of khandhas’ with the ritual tray (plateau rituel) carried by the pupil when approaching the meditation teacher as described by Olivier de Bernon in his account of the rituals of interaction between pupil and teacher in the Cambodian boran kammathan tradition. This tray is loaded with symbolic offerings in groups of five. These include candles, incense sticks, puffed rice, cigarettes, betel and areca. The exact contents seem to vary according to the reason for the visit. See de Bernon (2000, 475 ff.).

48. One could also interpret Suk’s position as being consistent with Buddhaghosa’s claim that all 40 kammaṭṭhāna are suitable as a personalised meditation subject, i.e. a pārihāriya- or mūla-kammaṭṭhāna.

49. On Anuruddha’s samatha kammaṭṭhāna, see Kim in this volume.

50. I follow Pecenko’s dating for Dhammapāla here. See Pecenko (2007).

51. This text is translated in a doctoral thesis by Mettānando (1998), who takes as his source text the version published by Yasothararat (1936). The vipassanākammaṭṭhāna section begins at Mettānando (1998, 65). See also Choompolpaisal in this volume.

52. On this term see von Hinüber 2000, 108 (218 and n.390) and 158, where the author records the phrase pālimuttaka in the title of the twelfth-century vinaya handbook, Paḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha – Disciplinary Judgements Independent from the Arrangement of the Canonical Texts.

53. I note that the two Suk texts that I draw on in this discussion look as though they have had their titles swapped. That published by Ronruen et al. undoubtedly looks as if it is ‘independent of the canonical texts’ palimutta, i.e. the subject matter is discussed according to the developed customary meditation traditions of Siam, whereas that translated by Mettānando looks to me to follow the canon, i.e. Vism at least, very closely in the first part. In this connection there is an ambiguous statement in Mettānando’s translation of the preface to Yasothararat’s book in which our Suk 2 is found, where Yasothararat writes: ‘Having collected all these manuscripts from various places, I then tried my best to edit them by making sure that they agreed with the Tipiṭaka, in particular the Abhidhammasaṅgaha [sic], and the Visuddhimagga’. This phase of his work lasted 12 months. There remains the possibility that the seemingly normative sections of our Suk 2 are the result of Yasothararat’s editing, although why he might have done this is very unclear to me (Mettānando 1998, 9). Elsewhere, Mettānando says he himself compared Yasothararat’s edition of this text with that published for Wat Ratchasittharam by Khunwisāndarunkon (see Choompolpaisal in this volume) and that they are identical apart from five concluding paragraphs omitted by the former. We should not forget that according to pre-modern Thai tradition, texts such as the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha and Vism were considered to be a part of the Tipiṭaka.

54. See Skilton and Choompolpaisal (2014) and Choompolpaisal in this volume on the role of nimitta in this meditation system.

55. Readers interested by this aspect of the material are directed to Bizot and von Hinüber (1994) and Crosby (2013).

56. See Choompolpaisal (forthcoming) for a more detailed account of Taksin’s involvement in boran kammathan.

57. The Wat Ratchatiwat texts are discussed in de Bernon (2002), and the shorter one is translated.

58. This text is edited in Rhys Davids (1896). At present it is moot whether or not boran kammathan existed in Sri Lanka prior to this importation.

59. Ms Or. 6601(85) I. On this manuscript see Somadasa (1987 I, 370) and Crosby in this volume. There are a number of other Sri Lankan manuals of this same tradition in the Nevill Collection of the British Library currently being studied by Kate Crosby and Amal Gunasena. A list of titles etc. is provided in Nyanatusita (2008).

60. This contrasts with all the other texts discussed here and possibly reflects the need for the Ayutthaya mission to find a lingua franca to facilitate the transmission of their meditation method into another Theravada culture. Once transmitted we find the production of new mixed language meditation manuals and texts combining Pali technical terminology with the new local language, Sinhala, but still bearing traces of Siamese Thai (see Crosby, Skilton, and Gunasena 2012).

61. On the works of Bizot see the bibliographic study in Crosby (2000). See also de Bernon 2000 (especially 23–29).

62. To this list of distinctive, if less common, non-Vism kammaṭṭhāna we can add upacārasamādhi, pitāguṇa, mātāguṇa and vātā, as these are also evidenced in Cambodian texts of this tradition.

63. Lao examples of this type of manuscript are easily found by searching the online Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts collection using this text title. See http://www.laomanuscripts.net/

64. Indeed, some of these texts are quite voluminous and contain a large quantity of material relating to the boran kammathan system. I am thinking here of Rod’s Mūlakammaṭṭhāna manuscript held at Wat Ratchasittharam. (Rod, also known as Sua, was abbot of Wat Pradusongtham, Ayutthaya, in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century; see Choompolpaisal forthcoming and in this volume.) I am grateful to Olivier de Bernon who shared with me his unpublished translation of a manuscript entitled Mahāmūlakammaṭṭhāna-sutta (private correspondence, 17 October 2015). This is clearly a post-canonical text (despite the title) which is not immediately identifiable as boran kammathan, despite sharing some elements that are found in it, and which offers a vipassanā-style reflection on the body, closely related to the kāyagatāsati of the standard samathakammaṭṭhāna. In that it focuses on a single meditation subject, this text could be seen as conforming more to the commentarial sense of mūlakammaṭṭhāna. In private discussion Olivier expressed the strong opinion that only texts incorporating pīti as a kammaṭṭhāna could be considered to belong to the tradition described in this article as boran kammathan.

65. so tāya rattiyā obhāsamattampi nibbattetuṃ nāsakkhi. punadivasato paṭṭhāya bhikkhācārapalibodhaṃ chinditvā tadeva kammaṭṭhānaṃ anulomapaṭilomaṃ vipassi. etenupāyena vipassanto sattame aruṇe saha paṭisambhidāhi arahattaṃ patvā cintesi (Manorathapūraṇī, i.276ff.).

66. athassa satthā dvattiṃsākārakammaṭṭhānaṃ ācikkhi. so taṃ anulomapaṭilomaṃ manasikaronto vipassanaṃ vaḍḍhetvā anukkamena arahattaṃ pāpuṇi (Sāratthappakāsinī, i.286).

67. It appears to be used as many as 153 times in the atthakathā material, across all three piṭaka but primarily amongst the sutta commentaries, especially to the Khuddaka Nikāya. In the mūla texts it occurs well over 200 times, but except for three these are all in the opammavagga of the Milindapaṇha.

68. There are references to asubhabhāvanā in three texts in the mūla, but in commentaries on 21 texts in the atthakathās. The kasiṇa are described as forms of bhāvanā in only five texts in the commentaries.

69. Alabaster was buried, after his death at the early age of 48, in the Bangkok Protestant Cemetery. http://bangkokcemetery.org/index.php/history/24-henry-alabaster accessed 6 August 2018.

70. On Mongkut’s personal attitude to boran kammathan, see the similar conclusion arrived at by Bernon (de Bernon 2000, 454).

71. See Skilling et al. (2012) for an exploration of Theravada orthodoxy from other angles.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Skilton

Andrew Skilton has a long-term interest in Buddhist literature in Pali and Sanskrit, and has for several years been pursuing research into Theravada meditation and the boran kammathan traditions of Southeast Asia.