Thank you very much Venerable Subhuti. 
It really is so helpful that you have the most excellent venerable Maggavihari to help with knotty points like this. It was a great honor for me to meet him and to listen to his talk on the lakkhana rupa last December in Sri lanka.
I have made a transcript.
ālokasabhava
Mar 19, 2024, 4:27 PM
ālokasabhava
(0:01) Okay Bhante, so Bhante Subuti has asked me a question, (0:09) some sentence, one sentence in the Udana commentary written by Most Venerable Dhammapala. (0:16) According to this, he was referring to the first Nibbana Sutta in the Udana Pali, (0:22) Buddha has stated that there is no Candima Suriya in Nibbana, no Sun and Moon. (0:30) And explaining this statement, Venerable Dhammapala has said, (0:37) there is no Sun and Moon in the Nibbana.
And why the Buddha has said so is because (0:48) first we need to understand what is darkness. As what the commentators say, darkness is (0:58) Yasmā rūpagate sati, tamo nāma syā. Only when there is some Rupa, we have darkness.
(1:07) We have darkness. So in terms of Abhidhamma, we have two opinions, what is darkness? There are (1:14) opinions of two teachers, two groups of teachers. Some thinks darkness is another type of Rupa, (1:19) but some sees things in darkness in the absence of light.
Anyway, so here he is saying darkness (1:25) is found only when there is Rupa. It must be because then you need light, for example, (1:34) you need light to dispel darkness and that is done by Sun and Moon. So you need Sun and Moon (1:41) to dispel the darkness.
So then only then you can see the Rupas. So if there is no Rupa, (1:47) there is no necessity or you cannot say there is darkness because there is nothing to be seen. (1:53) And there is no necessity of Candima and Suriya because you don’t need Candima and Suriya to (2:00) dispel darkness to see the light, see the Rupas.
So then, because in most of the places, for (2:12) example, Visuddhimagga in some other commentaries, when the functions of Suriya is explained, (2:19) according to Buddhist Theravada tradition, one of the functions of Suriya, that is the Sun, (2:26) is to help the Rupas to manifest. So one of the functions is Rupas, the Sun makes the Rupas to (2:37) be seen. So that is one of the fundamentals in Theravada.
It’s not that according to science, (2:45) the light rays come and hit our eye, right? But here what the light does, it gives us the (2:52) opportunity, it manifests or it causes the Rupas to be visible. So now we have to bring this (2:58) fundamental while we are explaining this text. So what the Venerable Dhammapala is saying, (3:07) if I just quote the Pali, what he’s saying is, (3:15) only when there is Rupa, there is darkness.
(3:23) So the Candima Suriya is there to dispel the darkness and that is for people to see the (3:32) objects. So the Candima Suriya will cause the objects to be visible, they make the objects (3:40) visible by dispelling the darkness. And that is one of the functions of Sun and Moon, according (3:47) to Theravada teachings.
So his teachings are based on the Theravada fundamentals. So then, (3:53) if there is no Rupa in Nibbana, obviously it is mentioned in the previous lines, when Buddha (4:00) said there is no Pattavi, Apo, Teja, Vayu in Nibbana. So it’s devoid of Rupa and devoid of (4:05) consciousness as well.
So according to the teachings, darkness is covering the Rupa, (4:23) it doesn’t let us to see the Rupa and the function of Candima Suriya is to dispel the darkness. (4:48) So what he’s saying is, if there is no Rupa at all in a certain state or element, (4:55) where there is darkness and what is the necessity of Candima and Suriya to be present there. (5:02) So there is no darkness, no Candima Suriya.
So both Sun and Moon are not present in the Nibbana. (5:12) By this statement, Venerable Dhammapala is saying, (5:17) imina ālokasabhāvataṃyeva nibbānassa dasseti This is the controversial statement.
So ālokasabhāvataṃ, (5:28) it has the nature of brightness or we can, if I directly translate lightness, (5:35) the nature of having the light, nature of being a light. So according to the (5:43) entire sentence, so then one can argue, is there, is darkness, is darkness, (5:50) does darkness requires light? No. According to, if you think in a different way, yes, (5:57) you can argue on it.
But we have to define this statement based on the Theravada fundamentals. (6:02) According to the Theravada, darkness is described as something that covers or hinders (6:12) rupas from seeing. So light is to dispel the darkness and make the rupas visible.
(6:18) So we have to keep this fundamental. Whether, whether it matches science or not is a different (6:22) case. According to Theravada fundamentals, so darkness is found only when there is rupa (6:28) and the function of Candima Suriya is to dispel this darkness and to manifest this rupa to the (6:33) eye.
So that is also, you can find it in Visuddhimagga, book number 2, page number 332. (6:43) If you go to the functions of Candima Suriya, (6:49) it makes the rupa visible. It dispels the darkness.
So you can, you have to bring this (6:57) fundamental here when we explain this commentary. Then what happens? So the final sentence says, (7:05) this shows that the Nibbana has a nature of being a light. So this light is against (7:15) the darkness.
What does it mean? Since there is no darkness, Nibbana can be said as something like (7:24) a light. So we can see a similar analogy in the word sabbato pabham. Sabbato pabhaṃ, for example, (7:33) Buddha has defined Nibbana in various ways.
One of the famous attributes of Nibbana is sabbato pabhaṃ. (7:45) It’s completely bright from all around. Entirely bright.
So the commentators are saying, (7:56) there is no other dhamma, no other reality which is brighter, which is purer than Nibbana. (8:05) So then what is this brightness? You can see this, for example, this is found in many places in the (8:12) commentaries. 310 page, Majjhimanikaya, commentary number 2, 310.
Sabato pabhanti, what is sabbato pabhaṃ? (8:22) It’s bright from all around. Then it’s sub commentary of this sutta. It says, sabbato pabhaṃ, (8:34) what does it mean? What does it mean? (8:45) Sabbato pabhaṃ doesn’t mean Nibbana is bright in the sense of being a light.
It’s called bright (8:56) because it doesn’t have the qualities that doesn’t make it (9:09) means it is devoid of all the defilements. Is it devoid of delusions, devoid of all the suffering (9:18) that doesn’t make it a bright, glorious reality. So when we are explaining this (9:26) the brightness in Theravada, it’s not necessary that always the element of light is present.
(9:34) Mind sometimes becomes bright. That is because it’s free from defilements. So what are the things (9:42) that diminish the brightness of the mind, defilements? It doesn’t mean there is a physical (9:48) light in the mind.
So therefore Nibbana is devoid of all the defilements and suffering (9:56) that diminishes its glory, its brightness. Brightness not in the sense of a physical light, (10:03) brightness of being free from all the unwholesome and negative attributes. (10:11) So therefore Nibbana has a similar term called sabbato pabhaṃ, bright from all around.
> Even this (10:18) has to be understood not as a physical light but as some as an attribute of Nibbana which is opposite (10:24) of all the defilements and suffering. In the same way when you bring this fundamental into the (10:31) context which is found in Majjhima Nikaya commentary and some commentary what Dhammapada has said is (10:40) means it’s opposite of darkness. Opposite of darkness means there is no darkness at all (10:48) and there’s no sun and moon to dispel the darkness.
So it has to be considered something which is (10:55) non-dark, something opposite of darkness. That is the lightness or the brightness of Nibbana. (11:04) So this statement is not a indicator that the Dhammapada believed that the Nibbana is a light.
(11:12) It’s light is one kind of a matter according to Theravada. When Buddha said there is no (11:19) it’s impossible to have light in Nibbana. It violates the fundamental the Buddha himself (11:26) has said because if there is light it has to be one kind of a material element.
So Nibbana is (11:34) lacking any material, it doesn’t have any material element. So when we define, when we explain a (11:39) certain commentary or statement we have to be very careful that we have we should be well aware (11:44) of all almost all the fundamentals at least the basic fundamentals in Theravada before we come (11:52) into a conclusion of the commentator’s idea because they are the ones who are very much (11:59) learned about the fundamentals. So whenever it’s one can argue which is correct whether (12:05) the Theravada is correct or not it’s a different case.
But if we are going to define a commentator’s (12:12) idea we have to understand based on the fundamental theory. So this ālokasabhava based on some other (12:20) information that we find in the commentary literature is not saying that (12:26) Nibbana is a light. It is a nature opposite of darkness.