Reading guide
A more technical question than the recurring "teach me in brief"
Unlike the eight preceding discourses' identical opening request, Rādha's question is specific and technically precise from the outset: how does one know and see so that there is no ahaṅkāra (I-making), mamaṅkāra (mine-making), or underlying tendency to conceit (mānānusaya) for “this conscious body” (saviññāṇaka kāya) and externally for all signs (nimitta)? This vocabulary of I-making and mine-making recurs in a small number of discourses across the canon associated specifically with Rādha as questioner.
An answer combining two already-established formulas
The Buddha's answer joins two teachings already given separately elsewhere in this book: SN 22.48's elevenfold scope (past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near, covering “all” of an aggregate) and the negated three-clause formula from SN 22.8 and SN 22.15 (“this is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self”). Combined, they answer Rādha's precise question with an equally precise instruction.
A questioner who will anchor an entire saṃyutta of his own
Rādha's significance extends beyond this single discourse: SN 23, the saṃyutta immediately following the completion of Khandhavagga's own coverage, is titled Rādhasaṃyutta and built entirely around him as the recurring questioner across its own set of discourses. This discourse, appearing here within Khandhavagga, is an early appearance of a figure who will receive far more sustained attention later in the collection.
The vagga's penultimate discourse, setting up its final pair
SN 22.72 immediately after this discourse will feature a second, related individual — Venerable Surādha — whose question pushes the same concern further, closing Arahantavagga with a pair of named-disciple discourses after eight discourses built around an unnamed mendicant.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then Venerable Rādha went up to the Buddha … and asked him, “Sir, how does one know and see so that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs?” “Rādha, one truly sees any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: <em>all</em> form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
§2consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: <em>all</em> consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ That’s how to know and see so that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs.” … And Venerable Rādha became one of the perfected.
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