Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana ( The Guide )

Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana ( The Guide )

The Nettipakarana (Pali: -pakaraṇa, also called Nettippakarana or just Netti) is a Buddhist scripture, sometimes included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of Theravada Buddhism's Pali Canon.

Translation: The Guide, tr Nanamoli, 1962, Pali Text Society, Bristol.

The nature of the Netti is a matter of some disagreement among scholars. The translator, supported by Professor George Bond of Northwestern University, holds that it is a guide to help those who already understand the teaching present it to others. However, A. K. Warder, Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto, disagrees, maintaining that it covers all aspects of interpretation, not just this.

The Netti itself says that the methods were taught by the Buddha's disciple Kaccana (also Katyayana or Kaccayana), and the colophon says he composed the book, that it was approved by the Buddha and that it was recited at the First Council. Scholars do not take this literally, but the translator admits the methods may go back to him. The translator holds that the book is a revised edition of the Petakopadesa, though this has been questioned by Professor von Hinüber. Scholars generally date it somewhere around the beginning of the common era.

The Netti was regarded as canonical by the head of the Burmese sangha around two centuries ago. It is included in the Burmese Phayre manuscript of the Canon, dated 1841/2, the inscriptions of the Canon approved by the Burmese Fifth Council, the 1956 printed edition of the Sixth Council, the new transcript of the Council text being produced under the patronage of the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand and the Sinhalese Buddha Jayanti edition of the Canon. A recent Burmese teacher has not regarded it as canonical.

The Nettipakarana is divided into:

Sangahavāra: collection of the contents
Vibhāgavāra: the section which gives a systematic treatment in classified tables. This section contains three sub-sections:
Uddesavāra
Niddesavāra
Patiniddesavāra

The Uddesavāra gives three separate categories (Pali terms with Nanamoli's translations):

The sixteen hāras (conveyings, or modes of conveying) are : Desanā (teaching), vicaya (investigation), yutti (construing), Padatthāna (footings), Lakkhana (characteristics), Catuvyūha (fourfold array), Āvatta (conversion), Vibhatti (analysis), Parivattana (reversal), Vevacana (synonyms), Paññatti (descriptions), otarana (ways of entry), sodhana (clearing up), adhitthāna (terms of expression), parikkhāra (requisites), and samāropana (co-ordination).
The five naya (guidelines) are : Nandiyāvatta (conversion of relishing); tipukkhala (trefoil); sīhavikkīlita (play of lions) ; disālocana (plotting of directions); ankusa (the hook).
The eighteen mūlapadas consist of nine kusala and nine akusala.
Nine akusala are
Tanhā (craving), avijja (Ignorance),
Lobha (greed), Dosa (Hate), Moha (Delusion),
Subha saññā (perception of beauty), Nicca saññā (perception of permanence), Sukha saññā (perception of pleasure). Attasaññā (perception of self);
Nine kusala are:
samatha (quiet), vipassanā (insight),
alobha (non-greed), adosa (non-hate), amoha (non-delusion),
asubhasaññā (perception of ugliness), Dukkhasaññā (perception of pain), Aniccasaññā (perception of impermanence), and Anattasaññā (perception of not-self) etc.

translated by Nanamoli
Pali Text Society

Name tassa bhagavato arahato sammasambuddhassa
[A. COMPREHENSIVE SECTION]
1. [1] Wise men can know the Dispensation
Glorious of the Glorious Man,
Whom the world and world-protectors
Ever honour and revere. (1)
*
Twelve terms
1
[do represent] the Thread,
2
[Whose] phrasing and [whose] meaning all
Should in both instances be known:
What is the phrasing ? What the meaning ? (2)
Sixteen conveyings
3
[as] a guide
4
[And] five guide-lines the dispensation's
Search [and] eighteen root-terms,
5
[too],
Maha-Kaccana
6
demonstrated (Pe 3). (3)
1/1 The '12 terms' are those in §§27-8 and 49ff. See Intro, (sect. 7b).
1/2 For this rendering of sutta by 'Thread' or 'Thread-of-Argument' see
Intro, (sect. 8). The word is used in three ways in this work, namely as
'the Thread' in the sense of the entire ('ninefold') utterance of the Buddha,
as a 'type of Thread' (e.g., as used in the last chapter), and as 'a Thread'
meaning any individual discourse or par t of a discourse. In this verse
'Thread' is in the first sense, indicating that the entire utterance is covered
by the '6 phrasing-terms' and '6 meaning -terms', which make up the '12 terms'
(see n. 1/1 above). To render this clause by 'twelve words (are) a Thread'
would thus be grammatically quite right and semantically quite wrong.
1/3 See Intro, (sect. 8).
1 /4 See Intro, for this rendering. The word t
nettV ('guide') is to be taken here
primarily as the noun rather than as a proper name, to which it is elevated
in the terminal title of the work in §965.
1/5 For the '18 Root-Terms' see Intro, (sect. 7b), also n. 764/2.
1/6 NettiAy mentioning the existence of a reading KaccdyanagottaniddiUhd
(a reading appearing also at Pe p. 3), adds 'This verse can be regarded as
having been placed here, as a summary of the work's purpose, by those who
recited the Guide, and similarly with the concluding phrase terminating each
Mode of Conveying' (p. 10).

Conveyings investigate the Thread's
Phrasing, three Guide-Lines the Thread's meaning;
7
Comprised in both these ways, a Thread
Is called 'according to the Thread'.
8
(4)
[So since] the Teaching and the Taught
Should both be known, the order can
Now follow here in which to test
The Ninefold Thread-of-Argument.
9
(5)
The Comprehensive Section.
1/7 The other 2 Guide-Lines, the Plotting of Directions and the Hook, deal
only with phrasing (§§29-30); see Intro, (sect. 7b).
1/8 Presumably an allusion to the four Principal Appeals to Authority
(§§120ff.).
1/9 'Ninefold Thread-of-Argument' refers to the classification given at,
e.g., M. i, 133 as 'Thread-of-Argument, Song, Prose-exposition, Verse, Exclama-
tion, Saying, Birth-Story, Wonderful and Marvellous Idea, and Answers to
Questions'. These nine must not be confused with the 'nine terms' mentioned
in §29.