Arhatship, and the Five Upper Fetters
The fourth and final classic fruit, arhatship, reached through the final severing of affliction bound to the very peak of existence — and the treatise's own account of why this final fruit is named for five fetters that bind a being upward toward the higher realms, mirroring the five lower fetters already examined in Part 88.
1. Approaching and Attaining Arhatship
何等阿羅漢向補特伽羅？謂已永斷有頂八品煩惱安住彼道。何等阿羅漢果補特伽羅？謂已永斷有頂第九品煩惱安住彼究竟道。
What is the person approaching arhatship? One who has already permanently severed the first eight grades of affliction bound to the peak of existence, and stands within that path. What is the person of the fruit of arhatship? One who has already permanently severed the ninth and final grade of affliction bound to the peak of existence, and stands within that culminating path.
The peak of existence is the highest of the formless spheres, already examined in Part 57's account of the supramundane path — the very last and subtlest stronghold of affliction remaining once non-returning has already been attained and every lower level's own affliction has already been left behind. The same nine-graded pattern already seen in Parts 88 and 87 repeats here one final time: severing the first eight of the nine grades marks approach to arhatship, and severing the ninth and last — completed by the very culminating path already examined at length in Part 67 — marks arhatship's own final attainment, the last fruit there is to reach.
2. Why Arhatship Is Named for Five Upper Fetters
若阿羅漢永斷三界一切煩惱，何故但言永斷五順上分結得阿羅漢果？最勝攝故。何故最勝？是取上分因及不捨上分因故。
If an arhat has permanently severed every affliction throughout all three realms, why is it said only that the fruit of arhatship is attained by the permanent severing of the five fetters that bind one to the upper portion? Because these five are comprehended as the most excellent among them. Why are they the most excellent? Because they are the cause of taking hold of the upper portion, and the cause of never relinquishing it.
T1606 identifies these five as craving for the form realm, craving for the formless realm, restlessness, arrogance, and ignorance, and explains why each earns its place in this particular set. Craving for the form and formless realms is what specifically causes a being, already free of the desire realm's own craving, to instead take rebirth in these higher, more refined realms above it — the cause of "taking hold of" the upper portion in the first place. Restlessness, arrogance, and ignorance are what then keep such a being from ever relinquishing that upper rebirth once taken — restlessness and arrogance because a being still agitated or still inflated with a subtle sense of superiority over their own attainment cannot easily let go of it, and ignorance because it is precisely the underlying confusion clouding even meditators absorbed in these refined higher states that keeps them bound there rather than moving on toward final liberation. Together these five fetters name exactly what draws a being upward into the higher realms and exactly what then holds them there — and it is because overcoming this specific pair of causes marks the final release from every realm of existence without exception, even though every other remaining affliction is equally severed at the very same moment, that these five alone are singled out to define the arhat's own final attainment.
Part 89 Complete
Arhatship, and the rationale for its five upper fetters, are now examined — completing the treatise's account of the four classic pairs of path and fruit. Part 90 turns to the further subdivisions of the stream-enterer and once-returner: the one bound for at most seven more rebirths, the one who passes from family to family, and the one separated from final release by only a single remaining existence.
Continue to Part 90 — Seven Returns, Family to Family, and One Interval →