BUDDHACARITA 6.24: The Virtue of Being Without (& The Sin of Hypocrisy)

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api nairguṇyam-asmākaṁ vācyaṁ nara-patau tvayā |

−−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−

nairguṇyāt-tyajyate snehaḥ sneha-tyāgān-na śocyate || 6.24

6.24

Indeed, speak to the king

Of our being-without virtue.

Because of the being-without virtue,

attachment is abandoned.

Because of abandoning attachment,

one does not suffer grief."

COMMENT:

I prepared for the translation of this verse 25 years ago by translating a chapter of Shobogenzo titled 仏性 (BUSSHO), The Buddha-Nature. The chapter contains the phrase 無仏性 (MU-BUSSHO) in which, I remember Gudo Nishijima telling me, 無 (MU) and 仏性 (BUSSHO) are two nouns in apposition. So 無仏性 (MU-BUSSHO) ostensibly means “being without the Buddha-nature” or “not having the Buddha-nature,” but its real or hidden meaning is “being without / the Buddha-nature” – which is to say that the Buddha-nature is really not so much something as a state of being without, or an original state of emptiness.

In today's verse as I read it nairguṇyam is a word like 無仏性 (MU-BUSSHO), so that ostensibly nairguṇyam means “being without virtue” but the real or hidden meaning of nair-guṇyam is “having the virtue (guṇya) of being without (naiḥ)” or “having the being-without virtue.”

Ostensibly, then, the prince (using the royal “we”) is telling Chandaka to tell King Śuddodhana in words that he the prince lacks virtue. Ostensibly, again, the snehaḥ (love / attachment) in question is that of the king. Hence PO:

Even tell the king that I lack virtue;

  he will stop loving me

Because I lack virtue;

  when he stops loving me,

  his grief will surely cease.

But the real message as I hear it is being delivered from Aśvaghoṣa to us his readers and servants. We are being challenged to express to the king of dharma, and not in words, our own Buddha-nature, which is everybody's Buddha-nature. The clue to this hidden meaning is there in asmākam (our), which ostensibly is an example of the royal “we” but which originally is plural.

Following this hidden meaning, “Because of the being-without virtue, attachment is abandoned” is not an expression of an expectation about King Śuddodhana; it is rather a universal teaching about the Buddha-nature. “Because of the being-without virtue, attachment is abandoned” means, in other words, “On the grounds of being without / the Buddha-nature, the path is known as a turning back.”

Hence the title of the present Canto – chandaka-nivartanaḥ, Chandaka / Turning Back.

And hence the Buddha tells Nanda in SN Canto 16:

Comprehend, therefore, that suffering is doing; witness the faults impelling it forward; / Realise its stopping as non-doing; and know the path as a turning back. // SN16.42 //

I hope thus to have demonstrated that, when it comes to catching hidden ironies, I am sometimes cleverer than the three professors on whose shoulders I am standing.

But going further, in order to maintain some kind of congruence between who I think I am (a servant of Aśvaghoṣa?) and who I really am, I need to say something not only on the basis of words like these but also otherwise.

The 3^rd and 4^th pādas, in their hidden meaning as words, express a principle reminiscent of the Buddha's teaching of the four noble truths:

On the grounds of the Buddha-nature, attachment is abandoned;

And when a practitioner abandons attachment, he is not subject to suffering.

Otherwise, however, deeper still than than their meaning as words is their function in practice, which is to hold up to the bloke who sits a mirror in which to see a mismatch between how he purports to practise, as an expression of the Buddha-nature, and how he actually is. 

Working backwards, when a practitioner is suffering grief, it must be because of not having abandoned attachment. And when a practitioner fails to abandon attachment it must be because of practising not on the grounds of the Buddha-nature but on some other grounds – on the grounds, for example, of thirsting for something gross like loads of money, or on the grounds of thirsting for something more subtle like others' recognition of one's success in having expressed the Buddha-nature.

In pleading guilty, Your Honour, I would like to ask for 84,000 previous offences to be taken into consideration in sentencing – all of them aggravated by empty pontificating about “turning back.”

In conclusion, then, today's verse is really all about, in communing with a king of dharma, how to express one's own Buddha-nature, which is everybody's Buddha-nature. And how one does it, don't ask me. I don't know. Probably the best I can say is by studying words like the words of Dogen and Aśvaghoṣa, and by otherwise cracking on – during which time, just when one least expects it, the Buddha-nature, in a moment of private satisfaction with some small thing, is liable to express itself. 

VOCABULARY
api: even (emphatic) ; and , also , moreover , besides , assuredly , surely

nairguṇyam (nom. sg.): n. absence of qualities or properties

naiḥ = nis: ind. out , forth , away &c (rarely used as an independent word but mostly as a prefix to verbs and their derivatives , or to nouns not immediately connected with verbs , in which case it has the sense , " out of " , " away from " [cf. nirvana , niṣ-kauśāmbi &c ] or that of a privative or negative adverb " without " , " destitute of " , " free from " , " un- " , or that of a strengthening particle " thoroughly " , " entirely " , " very)

guṇya: mfn. endowed with good qualities or virtues

asmākam (gen. pl.): our

vācyam (nom. sg. n.): mfn. to be spoken or said or told

nara-patau (loc. sg.): m. " man-lord " , a king

tvayā (inst. sg.): by you

nairguṇyāt (abl. sg.): because of absence of qualities

tyajyate = 3^rd pers. sg. passive tyaj: to leave , abandon , quit ; let go ; to give up , surrender , resign , part from , renounce

snehaḥ (nom. sg.): m. blandness , tenderness , love , attachment to , fondness or affection

sneha-tyāgān (abl. sg.): because of abandoning affection

tyāga: leaving , abandoning , forsaking ; giving up

na: not

śocyate = 3^rd pers. sg. passive causative śuc: to suffer violent heat or pain , be sorrowful or afflicted , grieve , mourn

若以形毀我 令王割愛者
汝愼勿惜言 使王念不絶

BUDDHACARITA 6.23: With Words Like These & Otherwise

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evam-ādi tvayā saumya vijñāpyo vasudhādhipaḥ |

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prayatethās-tathā caiva yathā māṁ na smared-api || 6.23

6.23

With words like these and otherwise, my gentle friend,

You are to commune with a ruler of the wealth-giving earth;

And may you endeavour further,

So that he is not mindful of me at all.

COMMENT:

In today's verse a servant is being exhorted to commune with a king,  evam-ādi, thus and otherwise.

I read this is a metaphor, in which the servant who is being addressed as saumya (my friend) is me the reader. In that case, evam (thus / by such means / with such [words]) refers to words like these words of Aśvaghoṣa's that we are studying; and adī (otherwise / by other means) means non-verbally – e.g. by turning back from words and miscellaneous worries and communing with a king of dharma through acts like sitting.

The compound vasudhādhipaḥ (vasu-dha “wealth-giver” = the earth + adhi-pa “over-guarder” = ruler), as befits an expression in the second of four pādas, means a king as a human being with real power on the real earth.

Thus prompted to think in four phases, we can read the 1^st pāda as relating to verbal and non-verbal means, the 2^nd pāda as relating to material power, the 3^rd pāda as speaking of continued endeavour, and the 4^th pāda as pointing, like a finger pointing to the moon, towards a state in sitting-meditation of not being mindful of a particular object.

So even a verse like today's verse, from the  1^st pāda through to the 4^th pāda, can be read as being all about the one great paramārtham which is sitting-meditation. 

My original title for this post was "How to Commune with a King." 

How to commune with a king of dharma? That is the question. 

And the answer Aśvaghoṣa gives us, as I hear him, is: With words like these, and otherwise. 

It is not that study of words is always to be negated. As I argued yesterday, sometimes Zen ancestors use words very skillfully, like fingers pointing towards the moon, to point us away from words and towards objective reality. 

And not only that. Words can also be used to tell one story that many people can believe in. Such use of narrative, as clearly argued in this article, has its uses. 

So, on the one hand, words can tell a good story, helping us all to believe together in some believable narrative. And on the other hand words can point to the objective realities (like the objective reality of death, for example, or the objective reality of physical gold) which are not susceptible to being influenced by anybody's believable narrative. 

For both these reasons, the words of a dharma-king like Aśvaghoṣa are, in  my book, deserving of exact investigation. 

For example, in the  1^st pāda, please somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I read evam-ādi as an accusative neuter compound which in Sanskrit serves an adverbial function – so I think evam-ādi literally means “in such a way and in other ways beginning with this way” or “thusly and otherwise.” 

The translations of EHJ (“in such wise”) and PO (“with words such as these”) both seem to me to fail to take adequate account of the word ādi. EBC's translation (“with these and such-like words”) does take account of ādi but EBC, like PO, limits the means to verbal means.

Otherwise, I hope I am not alone in feeling that in plodding through Aśvaghoṣa's poetry day by day like this, with ample opportunities in between verses for turning back from words, we are communing with a king of dharma not only through the means of words. Rather, it is the otherwise bit, the other means, the unconventional, non-verbal means, which is of primary importance.

With words like these, a Chinese Zen Master taught a student who was probably guilty of practising too mindfully,   “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha!”

Otherwise, having totally turned back from words, another Chinese Zen master, called in Japanese Taiso Eka, bowed to the ground before Bodhidharma and got Bodhidharma's marrow.

VOCABULARY

evam-ādi (acc. sg. n.): thus and otherwise
evam: ind. thus , in this way , in such a manner , such ; (it is also often used like an adjective [e.g. evaṁ te vacane rataḥ , rejoicing in such words of thine ; where evam = evaṁ-vidhe])

evaṁ-vidha: mfn. of such a kind , in such a form or manner , such

ādi: ifc. beginning with , et caetera , and so on

tvayā (inst. sg.): by you

saumya (voc.): My friend! O man of the soma!

vijñāpyaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. to be made known , to be communicated ; to be (respectfully) informed or apprised

vasudhādhipaḥ (nom. sg.): m. lord of the earth , a king

vasu-dhā: f. 'producing wealth'; the earth

adhipa: m. a ruler , commander , regent , king

prayatethāḥ = 2^nd pers. sg. optative pra- √ yat: to strive , endeavour , exert one's self , devote or apply one's self to (loc. dat. acc. , arthe , artham , hetos , or inf.)

tathā: ind. in such a manner that

ca: and

eva: (emphatic)

yathā: ind. (correlative of tathā) so that

mām (acc. sg.): me

na: not

smaret = 2^nd pers. sg. optative smṛ: to remember , recollect , bear in mind , call to mind , think of

api: even, (emphatic)

如上諸所啓 汝悉爲我宣
唯願今父王 不復我顧戀 

BUDDHACARITA 6.22: Many Layers of Meaning & the Ultimate Conversation Stopper

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tasmād-adyaiva me śreyaś-cetavyam-iti niścayaḥ |

−⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−

jīvite ko hi viśrambho mtyau praty-arthini sthite || 6.22

6.22

Therefore my [resolve or intention or] conviction is that,

this very day,

[I must pursue ultimate happiness; or

Good shall be heaped upon good; or]

The better state is there to be garnered in me.

For who can rely on lasting life

While inimical death stands by?'

COMMENT:

At least three layers of meaning in today's verse are overlain with the three-word phrase me śreyaś-cetavyam, in which each word can be read in numerous ways.

Cetavyam can be understood as the gerundive (or future passive participle) of either √1. ci, to pile up, to collect; or √2. ci, to seek for.

Depending on how we read cetavyam, the nominative neuter noun śreyas can also be translated in a number of ways – literally as “better” or “the better state” or “a better way;” or as representing śreyas in its masculine form, for which MW gives good, bliss, happiness, and the bliss of final emancipation.

To add further ambiguity, me could modify 

1. śreyas (my good / the good in me,); and/or 

2. cetavyam (to be piled up / collected / sought for by me); and/or 

3. niścayaḥ (my resolve / intention/ conviction).

If cetavyam is understood as “to be piled up,” then the concreteness of śreyas needs to be brought out by a translation like “the good.”

Taking cetavyam as meaning “to be sought for,” or “to be pursued,” my first instinct was to to read me as modifying not only niścayaḥ but also śreyas – “the better state in me is to be sought out.”

This reading of me is as per EBC's translation: Therefore my determination is, ‘I must seek my supreme good this very day.'

EHJ understood me to modify niścayaḥ and cetavyam, hence: Therefore my determination is that the supreme good must be sought by me this very day.

PO also understood me to modify niścayaḥ and cetavyam, and made me (I) into the subject, for a translation that sounds more natural in English:  Therefore, I have resolved, I must this very day seek final bliss.

If we want to clarify as big a gap as possible in today's verse, then, between ostensible and hidden meanings, PO's I must seek final bliss might have the virtue of bringing out the ostensible, or idealistic meaning, most conspicuously.

Therefore my resolve is that, this very day, I must pursue ultimate happiness.

If we take this pursuit of final bliss / ultimate happiness as the idealistic thesis, the concrete anti-thesis might be represented by “the heaping up of good”:

Therefore my [practical] intention is that, this very day, good shall be heaped upon good.

The heaping up of good, in this case, would suggest the heaping up of good karma, by one's concrete actions and concrete inactions in everyday life. I am probably deluding myself, but I would like to think that this translation effort day by day is the heaping up of good upon good – as opposed, say, to heaping up black karma as I bury Aśvaghoṣa's gold beneath layer upon layer of Mike Cross's dust.

Either way, moving on, as every good student of dialectic philosophy knows, where there is a thesis and an anti-thesis, somewhere in the middle a synthesis is to be dug out, and a synthesis might be represented here by “garnering the better state”:

Therefore my resolve is that, this very day, the better state is to be garnered in me.

This, to my ears, is an expression of the fundamental point of sitting-meditation – learning the backward step of turning one's light and letting light shine, in such a way that body and mind spontaneously fall away and one's original features are allowed to emerge.

This, then, is the translation which I think, to a bloke whose main thing is sitting, delivers the strongest hidden or real meaning. It brings back to mind what Shinryu Suzuki says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind about sitting with strong confidence in our original nature. That being so, better to fit that teaching of a Zen ancestor, I would lke to translate niścayaḥ not so much as “resolve” or “intention” as “conviction.”

Therefore my conviction is that, this very day, the better state is there to be garnered in me.

Understood like this, then, using to the full the ambiguity of Sanskrit words, Aśvaghoṣa has expressed in one line the first three phases of the four-phased dialectic outlined yesterday.

Not having the means to pull off a similar act of literary genius in English, I have resorted again to the refuge of the pedantic translator – the use of square brackets.

Ultimately, in the fourth phase, Buddha-ancestors who were also poets, like Aśvaghoṣa and Dogen, used words whose function it was to turn our minds back from words. And to that end there may be no better conversation stopper than the maker of all ends – inimical Death.

VOCABULARY
tasmād: ind. therefore, from that

adya: ind. today

eva (emphatic)

me (gen. sg.): of/in me

śreyaḥ (nom. sg.): n. the better state , the better fortune or condition (sometimes used when the subject of a sentence would seem to require the masc. form); m. good (as opp. to " evil ") , welfare , bliss , fortune , happiness ; m. the bliss of final emancipation , felicity

cetavyam = nom. sg. n. gerundive ci:

√1. ci: to arrange in order , heap up , pile up , construct (a sacrificial altar ) ; to collect , gather together , accumulate , acquire for one's self ; to search through (for collecting ; cf. √2. ci)

√2. ci: to observe , perceive ; to fix the gaze upon , be intent upon ; to seek for

iti: thus

niścayaḥ (nom. sg.): m. inquiry , ascertainment , fixed opinion , conviction , certainty , positiveness ; resolution , resolve, fixed intention , design , purpose , aim

jīvite (loc. sg.): n. life, duration of life

kaḥ (nom. sg. m.): who? which? what? (ka with or without √as may express " how is it possible that? ")

hi: for

viśrambhaḥ (nom. sg.): m. trust , confidence in (loc. gen. , or comp.)

vi- √ śrambh: to confide , be confident , trust in or rely on (loc.) ; (causative) to relax , loosen , untie ; to inspire with confidence , encourage

√ śrambh: to be careless or negligent ; to trust , confide

mṛtyau (loc. sg.): m. death , dying

praty-arthini (loc. sg. m.): mfn. hostile , inimical

sthite (loc. sg. m.): mfn. standing

無常無定期 死怨常隨伺
是故我今日 決定求法時 

BUDDHACARITA 6.21: Realizing Dharma - Thing of Substance

⏑⏑−−¦⏑⏑⏑−¦¦−−⏑⏑¦⏑−⏑−   navipulā

yad-api syād-asamaye yāto vanam-asāv-iti |

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akālo nāsti dharmasya jīvite cañcale sati || 6.21

6.21

Though he might be said to have gone at a bad time

To the forest,

In dharma, in truth, no bad time exists –

Life being as fickle as it is.

COMMENT:

What the present Canto is all about is what the Buddha's teaching is all about, which is namely, turning back – knowing the path as a turning back. And the fundamental means of knowing the path as a turning back is sitting in lotus. Thus I assume, a priori, that today's verse also is about sitting in lotus. And in this case (totally unlike my former assumption about the direction of the price of gold) my assumption will turn out to have been true. 

In yesterday's verse, where the contrast is between artha (riches, things of substance) and dharma (religion, Buddhist law), I argued, Aśvaghoṣa's ironic intention might be to express sitting in lotus as artha – a thing of substance; in other words, the riches of paramārtha, ultimate riches, the one great matter, sitting in lotus.

In today's verse, where the contrast is between syāt... iti (what somebody might say) and dharmasya (being of or in dharma), I think that the truth and the reality of sitting in lotus is expressed as dharma – truth, reality, the teaching of Buddha.

So there is as usual a difference between the ostensible and hidden meanings of today's verse, hinging on the ambguity of dharmasya, but the ostensible and hidden meanings are not in this instance diametrically opposed to each other in the ironic manner which Aśvaghoṣa loves. The difference is more subtle, the difference being that between "for dharma" and "in/of dharma." 

In addition to the multiplicity of meanings of the word dharma itself, dharmasya is in the genitive, which has the broadest range of meanings of the Sanskrit cases – so that dharmasya could mean of dharma, or in dharma, or for dharma, or belonging to dharma.

The ostensible meaning of dharmasya, then, as per EBC is “for religious duty (dharma).” EHJ also translated dharmasya as “for dharma.” And PO was even clearer in taking the genitive here to convey a dative sense; hence “for pursuing dharma.”

The ostensible gist of today's verse is that the prince is asking Chanda to relate to the king the principle that any time, when old or when young, is a good time for practising or pursuing dharma.

The hidden meaning, again, is on this occasion not opposed to the ostensible meaning.

The relation between the ostensible gist and the sub-text might be like the relation between the questions “What is the time?” and “What is time?”

What is the time?

8.43 a.m.

What is time?

That is a question best answered from the inside of sitting itself.

Hence, to paraphrase Dogen, when all dharmas are seen as the Buddha-Dharma, then there are good times and bad times, favourable moments and unfavourable moments, auspicious days and inauspicious days.

When the myriad dharmas are each not of the self, then there are movements, fast and slow, like going into a forest.

Because the Buddha's truth is originally transcendent over good and bad, in the sphere of dharma, or in the sphere of practice of the truth, no bad time exists.

And though it like this weeds, though the gardener hates them, seem in no time to spring out of nowhere, and lovely flowers, though the gardener has lavished love and affection upon them, suddenly wilt, and drop down, dead.

The point, in conclusion, is that akālo nāsti dharmasya ostensibly expresses a principle (“there is no bad time for pursuing dharma”) that any bystander can study, like a human being  by the side of a pond studying how energy spreads out by observing ripples on the surface of water.

But Aśvaghoṣa poetry, like Dogen's four-phased dialectic, is born from the inside of realization and it can only truly be understood on the basis of the reader's own individual realization, in the way that a fish in a pond knows water.

To paraphrase Dogen again, if for a fish in the water there were a time that was bad for knowing water, the fish would perish at once.

Therefore, life being as fickle as it is – though when it comes to love and money I have shown myself over the years to be terribly bad at cutting my losses – I wrap myself every morning in a traditionally-sewn kaṣāya, for an hour of no bad moments of knowing the path as a turning back.

Today's verse, notwithstading what it seems to say on the surface, is, in truth, shining with realization. Hence the pleasure of translating it, from the inside.

VOCABULARY
yad-api: even if, although

syāt (3^rd pers. sg. optative as): there might be

a-samaye (loc. sg.): m. non-obligation , absence of contract or agreement ; unseasonableness ; unfit or unfavourable time

yātaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. gone , proceeded , marched ; gone away , fled , escaped

vanam (acc. sg.): n. wood, forest

asau (nom. sg. m.): that, that person

iti: “...,” thus

akālaḥ (nom. sg.) m. a wrong or bad time

nāsti: there is not, does not exist

dharmasya (gen. sg.): of/for/in dharma

jīvite (loc. sg.): n. life, duration of life

cañcale (loc. sg. n.): mfn. (fr. Intens. √cal, to move) moving to and fro , movable , unsteady , shaking , quivering , flickering ; unsteady , inconstant , inconsiderate ; m. the wind ; m. a lover , libertine

sati = loc. abs. as: to be

若言年少壯 非是遊學時
當知求正法 無時非爲時

BUDDHACARITA 6.20: Inheritors of Things of Substance, and Dharma-Heirs

⏑−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

bhavanti hy-artha-dāyādāḥ puruṣasya viparyaye |

⏑−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

pthivyāṁ dharma-dāyādāḥ durlabhās-tu na santi vā || 6.20

6.20

For when a man experiences a reverse and comes to an end

There are heirs to a thing of substance he possesses.

Dharma-heirs, however, on the earth,

Are hard to find, or non-existent.

COMMENT:

How one reads this verse depends firstly on how one understands viparyaye (turnaround, reverse, coming to an end), and secondly on how one understands the contrast between artha-dāyādāḥ (inheritors of riches) and dharma-dāyādāḥ (Dharma-heirs). 

On the surface puruṣasya viparyaye means at the death or passing of a man, and artha means wealth – hence “At a man's death there are doubtless heirs to his wealth” (EBC); “For when a man passes away, there are heirs to his wealth” (EHJ); “For when a man passes away, there are here heirs to his wealth” (PO).

In BC6.9, however, we read viparyaye  as an ironic suggestion not of biological death but rather of ultimate consummation of the practice of turning back: 

What person would not tend to turn his face in the direction of a person whose practice is (its own) reward? / Even one's own people become, on the whole, part of common humankind, in the event of a turnaround in the opposite direction. // BC6.9 //

Reading viparyaye like this, brings into play some of the many possible alternative meanings of artha, including purpose, thing, substance, property, riches, and meaning. And since artha and dharma appear  to be contrasted, how one understands artha in the 1st pāda influences how one should understand dharma in the 3rd pāda.  

Dharma-dāyādāḥ (“Dharma-heirs”) means people who inherited what? 

Included in the MW dictionary definition of dharma are: morality, religion, religious merit; the law or doctrine of Buddhism ; the ethical precepts of Buddhism; the law of Northern Buddhism). EBC translates dharma-dāyādāḥ as “heirs to his merit,” EHJ and PO as “heirs to dharma.”

On the face of it, then, the prince is suggesting that religious dharma (e.g. Buddhism) abides higher up the food chain than material stuff (or filthy lucre), and in so suggesting the prince seems also to have it in mind, on the surface, to contrast material things of substance with immaterial dharma. 

But Aśvaghoṣa in his hidden sub-text, as I read it, might be intending to suggest something very subversive and skeptical about any religious / Buddhist dharma that exists (or, more to the point, does not exist, on the earth) as a purely immaterial or spiritual  conception. 

My teacher Gudo Nishijima went out of his way to emphasize the value that we should place on the kind of actual objects, as opposed to philosophical abstractions, that Dogen reveres in Shobogenzo -- objects, for example, like a certificate of transmission, a traditionally-sewn robe, and a traditional bowl. Other conspicuous examples of such things of substance celebrated in Shobogenzo are plum flowers, and the moon. 

Conversely, as a congenital bookworm and a philosopher in the original sense of the word, Gudo did not have to go out of his way to show his reverence for philosophical thoughts and philosophical systems. Equally, I would argue, such intangibles are also included in artha, as things of purpose, substance, and meaning.

But in conclusion, I think what Aśvaghoṣa had in mind with the word artha was paramārtha, “the ultimate riches” or “the one great matter” which is sitting in lotus, with the material, with the immaterial, and as the dropping off of material and immaterial. 

As an act of subversion, then, today's verse does not negate the transmission of the Buddha's dharma as a historical fact; it rather negates, a priori, the existence of any such transmission done separately from things of substance that are possessed. The negation implied in pṛthivyām... na śanti vā ("or non-existent.... on the earth")  is deductive rather than inductive. 

Any way up,  I think that what Aśvaghoṣa really had in mind with artha was the paramārtha (“ultimate riches” BC5.19; BC5.46), called in the Lotus Sutra and in Shobogenzo 一大事因縁 (ICHI-DAIJI-INNEN; "the one great purpose") or for short 一大事 (ICHI-DAIJI; “the one great matter”).

That one great matter,in Dogen's teaching, is very evidently nothing other than sitting in lotus, with body, with mind, and as body and mind dropping off.

Dogen seemed to think that nobody for four or five hundred years had clarified as clearly as his own teacher that sitting is the Buddha-Dharma and that the Buddha-Dharma is sitting.

Few in China, Dogen asserted with regard to his own teacher, have sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him.... Even if some understand with their bodies that sitting is the Buddha-Dharma, no-one has known sitting as sitting. How then can there be any who let the Buddha-Dharma be the Buddha-Dharma? 

It would be easy to understand that Dogen with these words was echoing the 3^rd and 4^th pādas of today's verse. But the truer understanding may be that Dogen, in relating the Zen teaching of the master he met in China, was echoing the 1^st and 2^nd pādas of today's verse. The 3^rd and 4^th pādas of today's verse, as I read them, find their echo in other places in Shobogenzo, for example in the poem by Dogen's teacher which concludes with the caution to sternly guard against being deluded by a twirling flower.

VOCABULARY

bhavanti = 3^rd pers. pl. bhū: to be

hi: for

artha-dāyādāḥ (nom. pl.): m. an heir to wealth, Bcar.

artha: mn. aim, purpose ; thing, object ; substance , wealth , property , opulence , money ; sense , meaning , notion

dāyāda: m. receiver of inheritance , heir ; a son or distant descendant or kinsman

puruṣasya (gen. sg.): m. a man , male , human being

viparyaye (loc. sg.): [see BC6.9] viparyaye (loc. sg.): m. turning round , revolution ; m. running off , coming to an end; m. transposition , change , alteration , inverted order or succession , opposite of; buddhi-v° , the opposite opinion ; svapna-v° , the opp of sleep , state of being awake ; saṁdhi-viparyayau , peace and its opposite i.e. war ; °yaye ind. ,°yena ind. and °yāt ind. in the opposite case , other wise ; m. change for the worse , reverse of fortune , calamity , misfortune

vi-parā- √i : to go back again , return

pṛthivyām (loc. sg.): f. the earth or wide world (" the broad and extended One”)

dharma-dāyādāḥ: (nom. pl.): m. heirs to dharma,

durlabhāḥ (nom. pl. m.): mfn. hard to find ; rare

tu: but

na: not

santi = 3^rd pers. pl. as: to be, exist

vā: or

夫人命終時 財産悉遺子
子多貪俗利 而我樂法財

BUDDHACARITA 6.19: Something to Be Celebrated

⏑−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−

ayaṁ ca kila pūrveṣām-asmākaṁ niścayaḥ sthiraḥ |

⏑⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

iti dāyādya-bhūtena na śocyo 'smi pathā vrajan || 6.19

6.19

And this, assuredly,

Was the firm resolve of our forebears! 

Going, in this spirit, by a path akin to an inheritance,

I am not to be sorrowed after.

COMMENT:

Yesterday I prepared a comment on today's verse which was po-faced bordering on pious.

I explained that the firm resolve to which the prince is referring is the resolve to leave behind family life and all its sorrows, and the path which is akin to an inheritance is the path of entry into the ascetic wood in pursuit of an end to aging and death.

I recalled how the king showed his reverence for this tradition in BC Canto 1 in his deference to Asita, that sage who was devoted to sitting (taṁ munim-āsana-stham; BC1.52).

I sanctimoniously said that the Buddha's teaching, which each of us is charged with working out for himself or herself through our own individual yoga-practice, remains the Buddha's teaching, as received by the Buddha in a line of seven ancient Buddhas.

I opined that “going/proceeding by a path akin to an inheritance” (dāyādya-bhūtena patha vrajan) has a sense about it of forward movement into the future, since vraj means to go or proceed, and at the same time an inheritance means a gift whose receipt involves a turning back to face the past.

Thus I burbled on in a spirit of devout traditionalism, taking the iti at the beginning of the 3^rd pāda to mean something like “on these ever-so-worthy grounds” or “in light of this resolute tradition.”

It was not until I sat this morning, worried for a good few minutes about the price of gold, and then finally turned the light of attention around upon my miserable self, that I even began to suspect that Aśvaghoṣa's wickedly ironic sense of humour might be lurking in the background to today's verse.

The first clue to such irony might be kila, which on the surface is emphatic (“assuredly”) but is also used, in the sense of “so they said” or “so they assured us.” In the latter sense, then, kila might be intended to cause us to stop and think – wait a minute, those ancient royal seers spoke of firm resolve, but how were they actually in their conduct? 

As is amply documented in SN Canto 7 and again in BC Canto 4, those royal seers, to a man, when faced with the stimulus of a beautiful nymph, totally failed (to borrow a phrase from an old American friend of mine) to keep their peckers in their pants. So much for firm resolve!

If the first two pādas are understood like this, then iti (“in this spirit”) might mean in the spirit of politely subverting the purported heroism of the ancient royal seers who went to live lives of celibate asceticism in the forest, with an iron resolve that was liable, at the drop of a hat, to give way to love at first sight.

On the surface, then, the prince is re-assuring the king that, since he is following a heroic royal tradition of asceticism, on those devout grounds the king is not to mourn him. But below the surface what Aśvaghoṣa is suggesting, as I in a better moment hear him, is the need to stay on one's toes at every moment and keep a sense of humour – lest one descends, altogether and one after another, into dead-eyed submission, po-faced self-righteousness, stiff-necked traditionalism, breathlessly grim determination, and all the rest of it.

VOCABULARY

ayam (nom. sg. m.): this

ca: and

kila: ind. (a particle of asseveration or emphasis) indeed , verily , assuredly ; " so said "

pūrveṣām = gen. pl. pūrva: m. an ancestor , forefather (pl. the ancients , ancestors)

asmākam (gen. pl.): our

niścayaḥ (nom. sg.): m. inquiry , ascertainment , fixed opinion , conviction , certainty , positiveness ; resolution , resolve fixed intention , design , purpose , aim

sthiraḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. firm , hard , solid , compact , strong ; fixed, still, calm ; constant , steadfast , resolute , persevering

iti: thus, in this way

dāyāda-bhūtena (inst. sg.): by one who is [or is like] an heir / son

dāyāda: m. receiver of inheritance , heir ; a son or distant descendant or kinsman

bhūta: (ifc.) being or being like anything , consisting of , mixed or joined with

dāyādya-bhūtena [EHJ] (inst. sg.): akin to an inheritance

dāyādya: n. inheritance

dāya: m. share , portion , inheritance

na: not

śocyaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. to be sorrowed after, morned

asmi = 1^st pers. sg. as: to be

yathā: ind. in which way, as

pathā [EBC/EHJ] = inst. sg. pathin: m. a way , path , road , course (pathānena, "in this way or manner")

vrajan = nom. sg. m. pres. part. vraj: to go , walk , proceed , travel , wander , move

乃祖諸勝王 堅固志不移
今我襲餘財 唯法捨非宜