Tevijja Sutta (DN 13) and the Teaching of Brahmasahavyatā: For Buddhists or Non-Buddhists?

In the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13 ), the Buddha addresses Brahmin students who are described as being learned in the Vedas and belonging to specific Brahmanical lineages. The sutta explicitly situates its interlocutors within the orthodox Vedic tradition, often identified within the Yajurvedic and Sāmavedic recensions:- > Even though brahmins describe different paths—the Adhvaryu brahmins, > the **Taittirīya brahmins, the Chāndogya brahmins**, the Cāndrāyaṇa > brahmins, and the Bahvṛca brahmins—all of them still lead someone who > practices them to the company of Divinity These Brahmins understood as followers of what I suppose were the Taittirīya and Chāndogya Upaniṣadic traditions of the time claim knowledge of the path to union or “company with Brahmā” (brahmasahavyatā). The Buddha responds by redefining the path to Brahmā not through birth, sacrifice, or Vedic recitation, but through the cultivation of the four brahmavihāras. > “So it seems that that mendicant is not encumbered with possessions, > and neither is the Divinity. Would a mendicant who is not encumbered > with possessions join together and converge with the Divinity, who > isn’t encumbered with possessions?” > > “Yes, worthy Gotama.” > > “Good, Vāseṭṭha! **It’s quite possible that a mendicant who is not > encumbered with possessions will, when the body breaks up, after > death, be reborn in the company of Divinity, who isn’t encumbered with > possessions.** Is the Buddha’s teaching of “Brahmasahavyatā” in the Tevijja Sutta intended as a normative soteriological teaching for Buddhists, or is it better understood as a skillful means (upāya) directed specifically at non-Buddhist Brahmins or Followers of Upanishadic traditions, reframing their own theological goal in ethical and meditative terms without endorsing it as final liberation (nibbāna)?