Can a Sotapanna be reborn in the hell or animal realm?

[Coëmgenu]

Well, please don't take this as me naysaying and then giving a cop-out non-response, but if such a thing were to exist in Theravāda, i.e. the Bodhisattva choosing his last birthmother and entering her womb aware and mindful, it's quite possible it's not yet translated.

I doubt there is any such thing among the Theravada's official texts, for it would contradict the school's locus classicus for this subject, namely, the account of the Bodhisatta's fivefold surveying (vilokenta) in the Nidānakathā, the first section of the Jātaka-atthakathā.

The detail of "selecting the womb" is not present and might be entirely Mahāyānika, but I found this account of the Bodhisattva being aware and mindful immediately after birth. While dwelling within said womb, it appears that he is depicted as practicing some sort of meditation:

Thirty facts are mentioned as being true of all Buddhas (samatiṃsavidhā dhammatā). In his last life every Bodhisatta is conscious at the moment of his conception; in his mother’s womb he remains cross legged with his face turned outwards; his mother gives birth to him in a standing posture; the birth takes place in a forest grove (araññe); immediately after birth he takes seven steps to the north and roars the "lion’s roar" [...]

(Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names: "Other Buddhas")

Edit: "conception" is actually while entering the womb in Buddhism. I confused it for the moment after exiting the womb.

[frank k]

If not, why not? What is there about the woeful realms that might conflict with the maximum seven lifetimes rule of stream enterer progression?

That's an interesting question, and something occurred to me.
Just as regular beings can to some extent influence where they're reborn,
why would a stream enterer not be able to VOLUNTARILY be reborn into a lower realm, hell, animal realm, if they chose to?

If a stream enterer were to just follow their karmic inertia and just go with the flow at the time of death, we know from the suttas they are guaranteed at most 7 more lifetimes, in favorable realms (not animal, not hell) before attaining final nirvana.

Let's call a hypothetical stream enterer = "Steve" for convenience.
Suppose Steve had some unfinished business, or wanted to help out a family member who had been reborn as an animal, or in the hell realm?
Suppose Steve is a powerful yogi with the 5 mundane abhiñña, psychic powers, ability to visit beings in various realms in his current life, with strong sīla and qualified for any realm he wants to be reborn in, tusita, heaven of 33, brahma realm, and he has family or friend connections in all of those favorable realms he could easily be reborn into.
But suppose Steve wants to help his deceased mom, who was reborn as a bear on earth.
Now in the present life, Steve can wield many supernormal powers, appear as a mind made bear to communicate somewhat with his mom, but it's not enough to help her.
Steve wants to be reborn as a bear cub and help his mom develop some virtues to overcome her karmic obstacles.

I see no reason why Steve, even though he's a stream enterer with mighty psychic powers, could not be reborn as a bear if he wanted to.

But that's just a guess, I have no proof.

[Mumfie]

The detail of "selecting the womb" is not present and might be entirely Mahāyānika, but I found this account of the Bodhisattva being aware and mindful immediately after birth.

Yes, I believe that's present in all sources. Though Malalasekera happens to cite the Buddhavamsa Commentary, we find it even the Majjhima Nikāya (MN123):

Ānanda: “I heard and learned this from the Blessed One’s own lips: ‘Mindful and fully aware the Bodhisatta passed away from the Tusita heaven and descended into his mother’s womb.’ This too I remember as a wonderful and marvellous quality of the Blessed One.

But what you're not likely to find in any official Theravadin source is anything like the passage below (from the Lalitavistara), where the Bodhisattva is described as receiving advice from the devas on what form he should take as he enters his mother's womb. (In the Theravada's version, the Nidānakathā, the six-tusked elephant is not a form that the Bodhisatta assumes, but is merely what his mother dreams on the night she conceives him):

Thus it was that the Bodhisattva enthroned the bodhisattva Maitreya in the Heaven of Joy. Then he again spoke to the great retinue of gods: “Friends, in what form should I enter the womb of a mother?”

Some replied, “As a human in the form of a young brahmin.” But other gods suggested, “In the form of Śakra, or Brahmā, or a great king, or Vaiśravaṇa, or a gandharva, or a kinnara, or a mahoraga, or Maheśvara, or the moon god, or the sun god, or a garuḍa.”

There was also one of the gods of the Brahmā realm present, who was called Ugratejā. Having been a sage in his previous life, he had taken rebirth among the gods, where he had become irreversible from unexcelled and perfect awakening. He now spoke:

“The priests’ mantras and the treatises of the Vedas mention the proper form for a bodhisattva to take when descending into the womb of his mother. It should be in the form of an excellent, great elephant with six tusks, covered with golden netting. Its head should be very red and exceedingly handsome. It should ooze fragrant fluids from its temples and have a glorious body. Someone who is learned in the Vedas and scriptures of the priests will then recognize such features and use them to predict the arrival of a person endowed with the thirty-two marks of a great man.”

[mjaviem]

... wants to be reborn as a bear cub and help his mom...

Nonsense. A bear cub isn't able to help in any way. Who in his right mind would want to be dumbed down into an animal? I think a stream-enterer understood that the right direction is towards cessation not towards a realm of fears, frenzy, and ignorance.

[Coëmgenu]

The pseudo-animism preserved in many of the Jātakas suggests that animals are significantly more aware than modern Western perspectives suggest. It's just a matter of how much weight we give to Jātaka materials.

[cappuccino]

It's just a matter of how much weight we give to Jātaka materials.

You know it’s fiction

[cappuccino]

Who in his right mind would want to be dumbed down into an animal?

[Coëmgenu]

It's just a matter of how much weight we give to Jātaka materials.

You know it’s fiction

Ye of little faith. There are many kinds of intelligences. Our discursive analytic verbal intelligence is just one.

[cappuccino]

Ye of little faith. There are many kinds of intelligences. Our discursive analytic verbal intelligence is just one.

Humans are superior

[Coëmgenu]

[cappuccino]

What is difficult about this

[Coëmgenu]

What is difficult about this

Your constant nonsense, tbh.

[cappuccino]

Your constant nonsense, tbh.

Then you disagree with Buddhist cosmology

[Coëmgenu]

No, you are just full of nonsense.

[cappuccino]

No, you are just full of nonsense.

Animals are a lower plane of existence


The Planes of Existence