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after death, and they criticise those good recluses and brahmins who describe the self as neither percipient nor non-percipient and unimpaired after death. Why is that? All these good recluses and brahmins, rushing onwards, assert their attachment thus: ‘We shall be thus after death, we shall be thus after death.’ Just as a merchant going to market thinks: ‘Through this, that will be mine; with this, I will get that’; so too, these good recluses and brahmins seem like merchants when they declare: ‘We shall be thus after death, we shall be thus after death.’

12. “The Tathāgata, bhikkhus, understands this thus: ‘Those good recluses and brahmins who describe the annihilation, destruction, and extermination of an existing being [at death], through fear of identity and disgust with identity, keep running and circling around that same identity.948 Just as a dog bound by a leash tied to a firm post or pillar [233] keeps on running and circling around that same post or pillar; so too, these good recluses and brahmins, through fear of identity and disgust with identity, keep running and circling around that same identity. That is conditioned and gross, but there is cessation of formations.’ Having known ‘There is this,’ seeing the escape from that, the Tathāgata has gone beyond that.

13. “Bhikkhus, any recluses or brahmins who speculate about the future and hold views about the future, who assert various doctrinal propositions concerning the future, all assert these five bases or a certain one among them.949

(SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE PAST)

14. “Bhikkhus, there are some recluses and brahmins who speculate about the past and hold views about the past, who assert various doctrinal propositions concerning the past.

(1) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’950

(2) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’951

(3) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are both eternal and not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’952

(4) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are neither eternal nor not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’953

(5) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are finite: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’954

(6) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(7) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are both finite and infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(8) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are neither finite nor infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(9) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are percipient of unity: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’955

(10) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are percipient of diversity: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(11) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are percipient of the limited: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(12) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world are percipient of the immeasurable: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(13) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world [experience] exclusively pleasure: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(14) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world [experience] exclusively pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’ [234]

(15) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world [experience] both pleasure and pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

(16) Some assert thus: ‘The self and the world [experience] neither pleasure nor pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

15. (1) “Therein, bhikkhus, as to those recluses and brahmins who hold such a doctrine and view as this: ‘The self and the world are eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong,’ that apart from faith, apart from approval, apart from oral tradition, apart from reasoned cogitation, apart from reflective acceptance of a view, they will have any pure and clear personal