Exploring the Path - Pāli Course

In this present Jāṇussoṇibrāhmaṇasutta, Venerable Ānanda encounters a Brahmin named Jāṇussoṇi, a minister of King Pasenadi of Kosala and a lay-follower of the Buddha. Jāṇussoṇi regularly drove through and around the city of Sāvatthi and also visited the Buddha at Jetavana. Many discourses are addressed to him and a collection of instructions delivered to him, called Jāṇussoṇivaggo, is found in the Aṅguttaranikāyo, Dasakanipātapāḷi. These cover various topics and important aspects of sīla, kamma, celibacy, etc.

When the Buddha previously explained the expression of yāna to the Venerable Ānanda, yāna was explained as a ‘vehicle that travels on the wheels of wholesomeness’ (dhammacakkehi saṃyuto).

As described in the current incidence, Jāṇussoṇi drives the city of Sāvatthi in a superb vehicle that people compare with the divine vehicle of Brahma (brahmayānaṃ). After seeing this, the Venerable Ānanda asks the Buddha if there was something that could be called a divine vehicle of Dhamma, the dhammayāna. The Buddha replies that there is a ‘divine vehicle’ which is the dhammayāna, the vehicle (yāna) of Dhamma, which is the maggayāna, the vehicle of the ariyassa aṭṭhaṅgikassa maggassa.

It is this vehicle of the path which leads one towards the goal, based on one’s endeavour. That is why it has been named ‘produced from within’.

It has been already been mentioned that someone who enters upon the path needs five prerequisites called the pañca padhāniyaṅgāni.⁸ These nurture ‘one’s own virile efforts’ and were highlighted by the Buddha to a prince called Bodhi.⁹ At one time the prince approached the Buddha with the question as to how long it would take for someone who had entered upon the path to realise the goal of liberation.

Prince Bodhi was skilled in the art of using a goad when riding an elephant. So the Buddha asked him in return if someone who had the following five deficiencies — being without faith, ill, dishonest, lazy and lacking energy¹⁰ — could be trained properly. The prince replied in the negative. Here the Buddha returns to the original question raised by the prince and answers in the following way:

Here a Bhikkhu has devotion, he has full confidence in the enlightenment of the Tathāgata in the following way: ‘Thus is he, the Bhagavā, and Arahant, a fully Enlightened One, perfect in knowledge and conduct, having reached the final goal, knower of the entire universe, an incomparable trainer of mankind, a teacher of Gods and men, an Enlightened One, a Bhagavā.’ …