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“ Buddhaghosa’s answer is that the young noble Mahāli, who raises the first point, was known to harbour the heresy that there is a soul, and that it has form. (The words the commentator uses are very short, and the context must, I think, be supplied from the passage translated above, Section 10 on p. 46.) It was to clear his mind of this notion that the Buddha specially raised the second point.
However this may be, the Sutta must have been already a double one, must have had its present form, before it received a place in that division of the Buddhist scriptures where it now stands. ”

“ Were there as many as a dozen clan names in Magadhā and Kosalā combined? What was exactly implied by the clan-name, the Kula-nāma? The word gotta probably had the same meaning, when the Piṭakas were composed, as gotra has in the later law books written by the priests. How comes it then that the number of gottas referred to is so very small? Are there much more than a score altogether? What light does the meaning of the mūla and gotta names throw on the religious conceptions and social customs of the people? ”

“ There are things, higher and sweeter than that, for the sake of which they do so.’
[156] 13. ‘And what, Sir, may those other things be?’ ‘In the first place, Mahāli, a brother by the complete destruction of the Three Bonds (the Delusions of self, Doubt, and Trust in the efficacy of good works and ceremonies) [20] becomes a converted man, one who cannot be reborn in any state of woe, and is assured of [\q 201/] attaining to the Insight (of the stages higher still) . [21] That, Mahāli, is a condition, higher and sweeter, for the sake of which the brethren lead the religious life under me. ”

“ Acting up to those rules, carrying out those precepts, can never even result in ‘conversion’ without the awakening of the new life. It is therefore very doubtful whether the word ‘conversion’ should be used, in English translations of Buddhist texts, to express a man’s [\q 192/] becoming an upāsaka or a bhikkhu. For though the word ‘conversion’ is used in English in two senses—either that of joining the outward organisation of a new faith, or that of having one’s eyes opened to the higher life—the second is the more accurate use of the word, and ought always to be implied in the first. ”

“ There would seem to be no sufficient reason why we should not understand Asoka to mean that he had started, in his own opinion, along the Eightfold Path, towards the attainment, doubtless in some future birth, of Arahatship. Whether this be so or not, this is the only meaning of the word so far found in the Piṭakas.
And further, this entering on the Path—the Eightfold Path to the wisdom of the Arahat—is a quite different thing from becoming a Buddhist. ”

“ To him, thus knowing, thus seeing, the heart is set free from the Deadly Taint of Lusts, is set free from the Deadly Taint of Becomings, is set free from the Deadly Taint of Ignorance. In him, thus set free, there arises the knowledge of his emancipation, and he knows: “Rebirth has been destroyed. The higher life has been fulfilled. ”

“ Yet the position is also so original, so fundamentally opposed to what is usually understood as religious belief, both in India and elsewhere, that there is great temptation to attempt to find a loophole through which at least a covert or esoteric belief in the soul, and in future life (that is of course of a soul) , can be recognised. in some sort of way, as part of so widely accepted a religious system. There is no loophole, and the efforts to find one have always met with unswerving opposition, both in the Piṭakas themselves and in extra-canonical works. ”

“ As shown above, even Brahmans use these gotta names of non-Brahmans. It would seem that the nickname, when once generally known, tended, in speaking of a person, to drive the others out of use. But it is never used in speaking to the person referred to by it.
From the usage referred, to, as followed by the Buddha and others, it would seem that the gotta name was considered as more honourable than either of the personal names, and also than the descriptive general name or title of paribbājaka (wandering mendicant, recluse) . ”

“ It is rendered very clear by the old legend put into the Buddha’s mouth in the Udāna just quoted. There the various non-Buddhist teachers of the time are represented as expressing strong opinions one way or the other on these questions; and as getting so excited about them that they came to blows. Gotama thereupon tells a story how, in ancient days, a similar riot having taken place, the king had all the blind men in the city brought together, and had an elephant brought in. Each of the blind men touches a different part of the elephant. ”

“ INTRODUCTION TO THE MAHĀLI SUTTA THE form of this Sutta is remarkable. We have two distinct subjects discussed. First the question of the ability to see heavenly sights and hear heavenly sounds being raised, the Buddha says that it is not for the sake of acquiring such powers that people join the Order under him. And being asked what their object then is, he gradually leads the questioner on to Arahatship, as the aim, along the Eightfold Path. ”

“ We may yet hope to recover a work which will contain their arguments in their own words. But if the opinion condemned at pp. 14-19 of the Kathā Vatthu be really theirs, as the commentator declares it is, then it would seem that they held a view practically the same as that opinion of Mahāli, which the Buddha, in our Sutta, goes out of his way to raise in the form of a question, and to put aside as unworthy of discussion. ”

“ No other religion of which we have sufficient records to enable us to form an opinion on the point has been constructed without the soul.’ Where the others said soul,’ Gotama said usually ‘Action,’ which comes to much the same as character. ”

“ They are not things of nought.’
[\q 200/] 6. ‘But what then is the proximate, and what the ultimate cause, why he could not hear them, they being thus real and not things of nought?’
[153] 7. ‘Suppose a recluse, Mahāli, to have practised one-sided concentration of mind with the object of seeing such heavenly forms in any one direction—in the East, or the South, or the West, or the North, or above, or below, or across—and not with the object of hearing such heavenly sounds. ”

“ And Hare-lip the Licchavi also, with the retinue of his clan, bowed down to the Blessed One, and seated himself on one side. And when he was thus seated he addressed the Blessed One, and said:
‘Some few days ago, Sir, Sunakkhatta of the Licchavis [18] came to me, and said: “It is only three years, Mahāli, [19] since I first came under the Blessed One, and I can see heavenly forms, pleasant to behold, fitted to satisfy all one’s desires. exciting longing in one’s heart. But I cannot hear heavenly sounds like that.” ”

“ The Buddha addresses members of his own clan, whether members of his Order or not, by their personal names (so of Vappa, A. II, 197; of Mahānāma, M. I, 91, 354; A. I, 220; III, 284) . The same holds good of the junior members of the Order, but some at least of the more distinguished among them are always addressed by him either by their gotta, or by their mother’s, name (compare Moggallāna, Kaccāna, Kassapa, Gotamī, Sāriputta) . Nāgita, for instance, though he is addressed as Kassapa by his nephew, the novice Sīha, is addressed by the Buddha simply as Nāgita. ”

“ And the young Licchavi, introduced to us at the beginning of the Sutta by the name ‘Hare-lip ‘ (oṭṭhaddha) , is addressed both by Nāgita and by the Buddha, neither by his name Oṭṭhaddha, nor as Licchavi, but (and again without any explanation) as Mahāli.
There are several points in this question of address which cannot yet be solved, but several others are already pretty clear. There are at least eight different modes of speaking of or to a person:
1. A nickname arising out of some personal peculiarity. ”

“ But Sīha, a novice, [16] came up to the venerable Nāgita, and saluted him, and standing reverently apart, he said to him,: ‘These envoys of the Brahmans from Kosalā and Magadhā, many of them, have come, O Kassapa, [17] to call upon the Blessed One; and Harelip the Licchavi, too, with a retinue of his clan, has come to do the same. ”

“ The appearance of a Buddha and his preaching.
2. The awakening of a hearer, and his entry into the Order.
3. His self-training in act, word, and speech.
4. The minor details of morality which he observes.
5. The absence of fear, confidence of heart thence resulting.
[\q 203/] 6. The way in which he learns to guard the door of his senses.
7. The constant self-possession he thus gains.
8. The power of being content with little, with simplicity Of life.
9. The emancipation of heart from the five hindrances -covetousness, ill will, sloth of body and mind, excitement and worry, and perplexity. ”