The Exegetical Treatises
Before concluding this survey of the Venerable Maha Kaccana's contribution to the Buddha's Dispensation, we should briefly take note that the Theravada tradition ascribes to him two exegetical treatises — the Petakopadesa and the Nettippakarana — and an influential grammar of the Pali language called the Kaccayana-Vyakarana. The two treatises are not included in the Pali canon (except in Burma, where they were lately incorporated into the Sutta Pitaka), but have exerted a major influence on the evolution of exegetical method.
Bhikkhu Ñanamoli, who translated both treatises into English, holds that the Netti is a later, more refined version of the Petakopadesa.[25] Both deal with essentially the same method of exegesis, which in the Netti is clearer and more concise. The method described there is designed to elicit from the Buddha's discourses the unifying principles that underlie the variegated expressions of the Dhamma. It is founded on the assumption that beneath the many diverse utterances of the Master, adapted according to the temperament and situation of the auditors, there runs a single consistent system, which with the right exegetical techniques can be extracted from the particular statement under investigation and displayed in its unadorned essence. The Netti, as Ven. Ñanamoli has explained, is not itself a commentary but a guide for commentators. It explicates, not so much the teachings themselves (except by way of exemplification), but the tools that are to be used to elicit the structural elements that underlie and shape the expression of the teachings.
The Netti sets up its methodology under two main headings, the phrasing (byanjana) and the meaning (attha). The phrasing is handled by sixteen "modes of conveyance" (hara), techniques of verbal and logical analysis that can be applied to any specified passage in order to extract the principles that lie behind the verbal formulation and logical organization of its content. The meaning is handled by three methods or "guidelines" (naya). These take the meaning to be the aim or goal of the doctrine (attha signifies both "meaning" and "goal"), which is the attainment of Nibbana, and they then disclose how the teaching in question points to the attainment of that goal as its underlying purport. Two additional methods are then proposed for correlating the sutta's terminology with the methods for explicating the meaning.[26] The method is applied by the subcommentaries to the first sutta of each of the four Nikayas in special supplements to the main portion of the subcommentary.[27] A commentary on the Netti, attributed to Acariya Dhammapala, also exists.
The colophons of both exegetical treatises — the Petakopadesa and the Nettippakarana — attribute them to the Buddha's disciple Maha Kaccana. The Netti colophon states further that it was approved by the Blessed One and chanted at the original Buddhist Council. Western scholars have been inclined to dismiss the ascription of authorship to Maha Kaccana as fanciful. Ven. Ñanamoli, however, in the Introduction to his translation of the Nettippakarana, offers an explanation that preserves at least a grain of credibility in the traditional Buddhist view without falling into the opposite extreme of credulity.[28]
Ven. Ñanamoli proposes that we distinguish between the authorship of the exegetical method on the one hand, and the authorship of the treatises on the other. He suggests as a hypothesis — possible though neither provable nor refutable — that the Elder Maha Kaccana and his lineage of pupils in Avanti may have formulated a compendious method for interpreting the Buddha's discourses, and that this method — or at least its elements — may have been discussed at the early Councils and transmitted orally in skeletal form. At a later date, the method could have given birth to a treatise, which attempts to coordinate its elements and to illustrate their application to specific texts. This treatise eventually became the Petakopadesa. Some time later, perhaps even centuries later, a more polished and perspicuous version of the same work was made, this being the Nettippakarana. As the original methodology embedded in these treatises was derived from the Venerable Maha Kaccana, or at any rate was believed to have been derived from him, out of reverence for its architect — and also to boost the prestige of the treatises — their compilers ascribed authorship to the elder. G.P. Malalasekera offers a parallel hypothesis to explain the imputed authorship of the Pali grammar, the Kaccayana-Vyakarana, to the Buddha's great disciple.[29]
While such propositions must remain conjectural, as both Ven. Ñanamoli and Malalasekera themselves acknowledge, the type of detailed analysis of textual statements found in the Nettippakarana is consonant with the approach that the historical Maha Kaccana brought to bear on the interpretation of the Buddha's brief utterances. Thus it would seem that even if no direct connection actually exists between the great elder and the ancient Pali treatises ascribed to him, the fact remains that they embody the spirit that he represented. This spirit, so evident in the suttas that record his elucidations of the Buddha Word, couples acuity of insight with terseness of expression, precision of formulation with profundity of meaning. It was on the basis of such skills that the Enlightened One named him the foremost master of doctrinal exposition, and it is this that constitutes his outstanding contribution to the Buddha's Dispensation.
