The Four Stages as a Collective Set in the Pāli Nikāyas

This chapter investigates the four stages as a collective set appearing in the Pāli Nikāyas. It reveals the four stages as a normative statement in order to distinguish the Buddhist order from non-Buddhist orders, to assure practitioners of the outcome of their practice, and to provide incentives for Buddhist practitioners. Through this, the chapter clarifies the importance that is assigned to the theory of the four stages. More importantly, it highlights the association of the four stages collectively in the Pāli Nikāyas with a variety of doctrinal elements, such as the five spiritual faculties (pañcindriyāni), the threefold trainings of morality (sı̄la), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā), and the first five fetters (saṃyojana). This reveals that when this soteriological framework developed during the early history of Buddhism (though not in the lifetime of the Buddha), there was no standard description of the four stages. The normative description of the four stages in terms of abandoning the ten fetters developed in the early Abhidhamma period. The section on the eightfold versus sevenfold classification discusses the interrelation between two schemes of spiritual typologies. It argues that two schemes of a spiritual typology developed independent of each other and with different orientations. When the eightfold spiritual typology gained significance, there was an attempt to correlate the two schemes.