Dighanikaya 3.285_2

3.285_2

Seyyathidanti te katamehi attho. Aṭṭhakotiādīni tesaṃ nāmāni. Te kira dibbena cakkhunā oloketvā parūpaghātaṃ akatvā kassapasammāsambuddhassa bhagavato pāvacanena saha saṃsanditvā mante ganthiṃsu. Aparāpare pana brāhmaṇā pāṇātipātādīni pakkhipitvā tayo vede bhinditvā buddhavacanena saddhiṃ viruddhe akaṃsu. Netaṃ ṭhānaṃ vijjatīti yena tvaṃ isi bhaveyyāsi, etaṃ kāraṇaṃ na vijjati. Idha bhagavā yasmā – ‘‘esa pucchiyamānopi, attano avattharaṇabhāvaṃ ñatvā paṭivacanaṃ na dassatī’’ti jānāti, tasmā paṭiññaṃ agahetvāva taṃ isibhāvaṃ paṭikkhipi.

“That is to say” means who are they? “Aṭṭhaka” and so on are their names. They, it is said, having looked with the divine eye, without harming others, and collating [them] with the word of the Blessed Kassapa, the fully awakened Buddha, composed the mantras. Later brahmins, however, inserted killing living beings and so forth, split the three Vedas, and made them contradictory to the word of the Buddha. “This situation does not exist” means that reason does not exist by which you could be a sage. Here, since the Blessed One knows, “Even if questioned, he, knowing his own defeat, will not give an answer,” he rejected that state of being a sage without even waiting for his admission.