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507 MA says that by the first two terms he tries to cajole the Buddha, by the remaining two terms he threatens him. To “hold to earth” is to grasp it by way of craving, conceit, and views. The list of categories here, though condensed, is reminiscent of MN 1.

508 MA: Baka Brahmā was a Brahmā exercising sovereignty over a thousand world-systems, but above him there are Brahmās exercising sovereignty over two, three, four, five, ten thousand, and a hundred thousand world-systems.

509 The body of Streaming Radiance is a realm of rebirth pertaining to the second jhāna, while Baka Brahmā’s realm pertains only to the first jhāna. The body of Refulgent Glory and the body of Great Fruit in the next paragraph pertain to the third and fourth jhānas.

510 In the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1.2.2–6/ii.17–19) the Buddha shows how Mahā Brahmā gives rise to the delusion that he is the supreme creator God. When the world begins to form again after a period of dissolution, a being of great merit is the first to be reborn in the newly formed Brahma-world. Subsequently, other beings take rebirth in the Brahma-world and this causes Mahā Brahmā to imagine that he is their creator and master. See Bodhi, The Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views, pp. 69–70, 159–166.

511 This passage, parallel in structure to the corresponding passage of MN 1, is a difficult one. The negative verb differs among the three editions I consulted. PTS has nāhosi, BBS nāpahosiṁ, SBJ nāhosiṁ. Ñm preferred nāpahosiṁ, which he took to be an aorist of pabhavati, meaning “to produce, to give being to.” It is much more likely, however, that nāpahosiṁ should be resolved simply as na + api + ahosiṁ. Thus the meaning does not differ significantly between BBS and SBJ. MA glosses: “I did not grasp earth through the obsessions of craving, conceit, and views.” Ñm had rendered ananubhūtaṁ as “not co-essential with.” This has been replaced by “not partaken of by,” following MA’s gloss, “not reached by earth” and Ṃ: “Its nature is not shared with earth.” MA says that what is “not partaken of by the earthness of earth” is Nibbāna, which is detached from all that is conditioned.

512 PTS is surely mistaken in omitting here the ti ending a direct quotation; this misleads Horner into ascribing the following passage to Baka rather than to the Buddha (MLS 1:392). BBS and SBJ supply ti. Baka seems to be suggesting that since the object of the Buddha’s knowledge “is not partaken of by the allness of all,” it might be merely an empty concept.

513 In the first edition, I retained Ñm’s own translation of these lines, which read:

The consciousness that makes no showing,

Nor has to do with finiteness,

Not claiming being with respect to all.

In retrospect, I find this rendering far from satisfactory and thus here offer my own. These lines (which also appear as part of a full verse at DN 11.85/i.223) have been a perennial challenge to Buddhist scholarship, and even Ācariya Buddhaghosa seems to founder over them. MA takes the subject of the sentence to be Nibbāna, called “consciousness” (viññāṇṁ) in the sense that “it can be cognized” (vijānitabbaṁ). This derivation is hardly credible, since nowhere in the Nik̄yas is Nibb̄na described as consciousness, nor is it possible to derive an active noun from the gerundive. MA explains anidassanaṁ as meaning invisible, “because it (Nibbāna) does not come within range of eye-consciousness,” but again this is a trite explanation. The word anidassana occurs at MN 21.14 in the description of empty space as an unsuitable medium for painting pictures; thus the idea seems to be that of not making manifest.

MA offers three explanations of sabbato pabhaṁ: (1) completely possessed of luminosity (pabhā); (2) possessing being (pabhū̇taṃ) everywhere; and (3) a ford (pabhaṁ) accessible from all sides, i.e., through any of the thirty-eight meditation objects. Only the first of these seems to have any linguistic legitimacy. Ñm, in Ms, explains that he takes pabhaṁ to be a negative present participle of pabhavati