Seven Returns, Family to Family, and One Interval
Having completed the four classic pairs of path and fruit, the treatise now refines the picture with three further named subdivisions — the stream-enterer bound for at most seven more mixed rebirths, the stream-enterer already progressing toward once-returning by passing from family to family, and the once-returner separated from non-returning by only a single remaining existence.
1. Bound for at Most Seven Returns
何等極七返有補特伽羅？謂即預流果，於人天生往來雜受，極至七返得盡苦際。
What is the person bound for at most seven returns? It is the stream-enterer who, passing back and forth between rebirth among humans and rebirth among the gods, mixed together, will reach the very limit of suffering after at most seven such returns.
This first subdivision simply names the stream-enterer already examined in Part 87, now specified further by the outer bound already guaranteed at the very moment stream-entry itself is attained: no matter how gradually further progress unfolds from that point, no more than seven further mixed rebirths — some human, some divine, unfolding in whatever combination — will pass before the very limit of suffering is finally reached. Stream-entry, on this account, already carries within it a hard ceiling on how much further wandering remains, even before any of the subsequent fruits have actually been attained.
2. Family to Family
何等家家補特伽羅？謂即預流果，或於天上或於人中，從家至家得盡苦際。
What is the person who passes from family to family? It is the stream-enterer who, whether among the gods or among humans, passes from one family to the next before reaching the very limit of suffering.
T1606 identifies this as a further specification of the stream-enterer, distinct from the previous subdivision: this is specifically the stream-enterer who has already advanced to the point of approaching once-returning, and whose remaining course is now fixed — either among the gods or among humans, but not mixed between the two — with certainty that no more than two further existences, passing from one family into the next, will occur before the very limit of suffering is reached and final nirvāṇa attained. Where the previous subdivision left the specific number and pattern of remaining rebirths comparatively open, up to a ceiling of seven, this subdivision narrows the picture considerably: the path forward is now confined to a single realm and a definite, small number of remaining births.
3. One Interval Remaining
何等一間補特伽羅？謂即一來果，或於天上唯受一有得盡苦際。
What is the person of one interval remaining? It is the once-returner who, among the gods alone, will experience only a single further existence before reaching the very limit of suffering.
T1606 explains that this subdivision picks up where the previous one left off, but now applies specifically to the once-returner already approaching non-returning: with rebirth confined to the divine realm alone, only a single further existence remains — a single narrow gap, wide enough to admit exactly one more birth and no more, before final nirvāṇa is attained. It is this image of a single remaining gap, T1606 notes, that gives the subdivision its very name: "one interval," the last narrow space still to be crossed before liberation is complete.
Part 90 Complete
Bound for at most seven returns, passing from family to family, and one interval remaining are now examined. Part 91 turns to the non-returner's own five-fold classification by the manner and timing of final nirvāṇa — attained in the intermediate state, immediately upon rebirth, without further effort, through further effort, or only after passing upward through every level of the form realm.
Continue to Part 91 — Five Ways the Non-Returner Attains Final Nirvāṇa →