bhagavān āha - tena hi mahāmate śṛṇu, sādhu ca suṣṭhu ca manasikuru | bhāṣiṣye ’haṃ te |
sādhu bhagavann iti mahāmatir bodhisattvo mahāsattvo bhagavataḥ pratyaśrauṣīt |
bhagavāṃs tasyaitad avocat - traya ime mahāmate srotaāpannānāṃ srotaāpattiphalaprabhedāḥ |
katame trayaḥ? yaduta hīnamadhyaviśiṣṭāḥ tatra mahāmate hīnaḥ saptajanmabhavaparamaḥ |
madhyaḥ punar mahāmate tripañcabhavaparinirvāyī bhavati |
uttamaḥ punar mahāmate tajjanmaparinirvāyī bhavati |
eṣāṃ tu mahāmate trayāṇāṃ trīṇi saṃyojanāni mṛdumadhyādhimātrāṇy eva bhavanti |
tatra mahāmate katamāni trīṇi saṃyojanāni? yaduta satkāyadṛṣṭirvicikitsā śīlavrataparāmarśaś ca |
etāni mahāmate trīṇi saṃyojanāni viśeṣottarottareṇa arhatāmarhatphalībhavanti |
tatra mahāmate satkāyadṛṣṭir dvividhā yaduta sahajā ca parikalpitā ca, paratantraparikalpitasvabhāvavat |
(*118) tadyathā mahāmate paratantrasvabhāvāśrayādvicitraparikalpitasvabhāvābhiniveśaḥ pravartate |
sa ca tatra na sannāsanna sadasan, abhūtaparikalpalakṣaṇatvāt |
atha ca bālair vikalpyate vicitrasvabhāvalakṣaṇābhiniveśena mṛgatṛṣṇik eva mṛgaiḥ |
iyaṃ mahāmate srotaāpannasya parikalpitā satkāyadṛṣṭirajñānāccirakālābhiniveśasaṃcitā |
sā ca tasya pudgalanairātmyagrahābhāvataḥ prahīṇā |
sahajā punar mahāmate srotaāpannasya satkāyadṛṣṭiḥ svaparakāyasamatayā catuḥskandharūpalakṣaṇatvād rūpasyotpattibhūtabhautikatvāt parasparahetulakṣaṇatvād bhūtānāṃ (49,1) rūpasyāsamudaya iti kṛtvā srotaāpannasya sadasatpakṣadṛṣṭidarśanāt satkāyadṛṣṭiḥ prahīṇā bhavati |
ata eva satkāyadṛṣṭiprahīṇasya rāgo na pravartate |
etan mahāmate satkāyadṛṣṭilakṣaṇam ||
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Replied the Blessed One: Listen well Mahāmati, and take well to heart; I will tell you.
Mahāmati the Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva answering him said: Very well, Blessed One.
The Blessed One then said this:
Mahāmati, in the fruit attained by the Śrāvakas, three kinds are distinguishable.
What are the three? They are graded, Mahāmati, low, middle, and the highest. The low ones will be reborn seven times when their existence will come to an end;
the middling will attain Nirvana in three or five births;
the highest will attain Nirvana in this birth.
Mahāmati, for these three classes [of the Stream-entered] there are three kinds of knots: weak, middling, and strong.
What are these three knots, Mahāmati? They are: (1) the view of an individual personality, (2) doubt, and (3) the holding-on to moral practices.
Mahāmati, when all these three knots are in succession promoted to the higher stage there will be the attainment of Arhatship.
Mahāmati, there are two kinds of the view of an individual personality; that is, (1) the inborn one and (2) the one due to the false imagination; it is like [the relation between] the relativity view and the false imagination [of the three] Svabhāvas.
(118) For instance, Mahāmati, depending on the relativity view of things there arise varieties of attachments to the false imagination.
But this [existence] is neither a being, nor a non-being, nor a being-and-non-being; it is not a reality because of the false imagination,
and, being discriminated by the ignorant, assumes varieties of individual signs to which they are strongly attached just as the deer does to a mirage.
Mahāmati, this is the view of an individual personality falsely imagined by the Stream-entered, which has been accumulated for a long time by their ignorance and attachment.
This is destroyed when the egolessness of a person is attained by which the clinging ceases.
Mahāmati, the inborn view of an individual personality as held by the Stream-entered [is destroyed in this way]. When this body which belongs equally to each of us is considered, it is perceived that it consists of form and the other four Skandhas, that form takes its rise from the elements and their belongings, that the elements are mutually conditioning, and that hence there is no aggregate known as form. When thus the Stream-entered realise that the idea of being and non-being is a partial view [of truth], the view of individual personality is destroyed.
When the view of individual personality is thus destroyed, covetousness will never assert itself.
This, Mahāmati, is what characterises the view of individual personality.
Complete text
CHAPTER ONE. RĀVANA, LORD OF LANKĀ, ASKS FOR INSTRUCTION