–“I am not sure what issue is that we are trying to resolve”–
On October 28, 2018 at 11:56 pm, it was this: (AKVAN)
“King Bimbisara that AFTER attaining sotapanna he has been born seven times in the deva realms and seven times in the human realms.”, followed by:
“If King Bimbisara was a Sotapanna how come he was born 14 times in deva and human realms? Isn’t this contradictory to the maximum seven bava that a sotapanna is supposed to have?”.
The fundamental error here was “IF the King was a Sotapanna…being reborn fourteen times”, when in fact he was NOT a Sotapanna. That has been resolved. What may appear to be still outstanding is the matter of whether those 14 rebirths had been 14 bhavas or eight , the human bhave being taken as 7 jatis to arrive at the total of 14 ‘rebirths.
I personally do not think that matters much. What would have been of far more serious consequence, because of inconsistency with the fact that a Sotapanna has at most 7 more bhava, is if it were found that the sutta said that a Sotapanna has more than seven bhava left, (whether 7 deva and one human bhava, adding up to 8 or 7 deva and seven human ,adding up to fourteen, is irrelevant to the point in question: in both cases, it is more than 7 bhava)
The main point was that those 14 rebirths were not referring to a Sotapanna at all’, but that was clear on reading the sutta. I do not know whether others see other significant points that need elucidation. I do not see any not covered by Lal by the points in his post of Oct 28.
Metta to all