The Patisambhidamagga (;

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

for "path of discrimination"; sometimes called just Patisambhida for short; abbrevs.: ) is a Buddhist scripture, part of the

Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...

Theravada ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

. It is included there as the twelfth book of the

Sutta Pitaka Sutta may refer to: *The Pali version of the Sanskrit term Sutra **In Buddhism, a discourse of the Buddha: see Sutra ''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indi ...

's Khuddaka Nikaya. Tradition ascribes it to the Buddha's disciple Sariputta. It comprises 30 chapters on different topics, of which the first, on knowledge, makes up about a third of the book.

History

Tradition ascribes the Patisambhidamagga to the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

's great disciple, Sariputta. It bears some similarities to the Dasuttara Sutta of the

Digha Nikaya Digha (), is a seaside resort town in the state of West Bengal, India. It lies in Purba Medinipur district and at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal. The town has a low gradient with a shallow sand beach. It is a popular sea resort in India. ...

, which is also attributed to Sariputta. According to German tradition of Indology this text was likely composed around the 2nd century CE.Hinüber (2000), p. 60. Indications of the relative lateness of the text include numerous quotations from the Sutta and

Vinaya Pitaka The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines devel ...

, as well as an assumed familiarity with a variety of Buddhist legends and stories- for example, the names of various arahants are given without any discussion of their identities. The term ''patisambhida'' does not occur in the older sutra and vinaya texts, but does appear in both the

Abhidhamma The Theravada Abhidhamma tradition, also known as the Abhidhamma Method, refers to a scholastic systematization of the Theravāda school's understanding of the highest Buddhist teachings ( Abhidhamma). These teachings are traditionally believed ...

and several other Khuddaka Nikaya texts regarded as relatively late. A variant form, ''pratisamvid'', occurs in

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indo-Aryan language. It is sometimes called ...

and suggests that the concept itself was shared with other, non-Theravada sects. The Patisambhidamagga is also included in the Dipavamsa in a list of texts rejected by the Mahasanghikas. On the basis of this reference and certain thematic elements, AK Warder suggested that some form of the text may date to the 3rd Century BCE, the traditional date ascribed to the schism with the Mahasanghikas. L. S. Cousins associated it with the doctrinal divisions of the

Second Buddhist Council Since the Mahaparinirvana of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, Buddhist monastic communities, the "''sangha''", have periodically convened for doctrinal and disciplinary reasons and to revise and correct the contents of the Buddhist ...

and dated it to the first century BCE. The Patisambhidamagga has been described as an "attempt to systematize the

" and thus as a possible precursor to the

Visuddhimagga The ''Visuddhimagga'' (Pali; English: ''The Path of Purification''; ), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhism, Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condens ...

. The text's systematic approach and the presence of a matika summarizing the contents of the first section are both features suggestive of the Abhidhamma, but it also includes some features of the Sutta Pitaka, including repeated invocation of the standard sutta opening ''evaṃ me suttaṃ'' ('thus have I heard'). Its content and aspects of its composition overlap significantly with the Vibhanga, and A.K. Warder suggested that at some stage in its development it may have been classified as an Abhidhamma text. Noa Ronkin suggests that the Patisambhidamagga likely dates from the era of the Abhidhamma's formation, and represents a parallel development of the interpretive traditions reflected by the Vibhanga and Dhammasangani.

Emptiness

The Patisambhidamagga is probably the first Pali

text which uses the term " sabhava" in the section titled the Suññakatha. It defines sabhava as the empty ( suññam) nature of the five aggregates:

"Born materiality is empty of sabhava (sabhavena suññam); disappeared materiality is both changed and empty. Born feeling is empty of sabhava; disappeared feeling is both changed and empty...Born conceptualization...Born volitions...Born consciousness...Born becoming is empty of sabhava; disappeared becoming is both changed and empty. This is ‘empty in terms of change’."

The text also defines the sense spheres as "void of self or of what belongs to self or of what is permanent or everlasting or eternal or not-subject-to-change."Nanamoli, The Path of Discrimination, 1982, page 359 According to Noa Ronkin: "this extract means that the totality of human experience is devoid of an enduring substance or of anything which belongs to such a substance, because this totality is dependent on many and various conditions, and is of the nature of being subject to a continuous process of origination and dissolution."

Overview

The Patisambhidamagga has three divisions (''vagga'') composed of ten "chapters" (''kathā'') each for a total of thirty chapters. The three divisions are: * ''Mahāvagga'' ("Great Division") - starts with an enumeration (''mātikā'') of 73 types of knowledge (''ñāa'') which are then elaborated upon in detail. * ''Yuganandhavagga'' ("Coupling Division") - poses a series of questions. * ''Paññāvagga'' ("Wisdom Division") - answers the prior division's questions.

Translations

The Patisambhidamagga was one of the last texts of the Pali Canon to be translated into English.Norman, K. R. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2, 1983, pp. 314–315. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25211568. Its technical language and frequent use of repetition and elision presented a challenge to translators and interpreters.McDermott, James P. Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 105, no. 4, 1985, pp. 784–784. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/602776. A first translation by Bhikkhu Nanamoli was published posthumously, following extensive editing and reworking by AK Warder. Translation: ''The Path of Discrimination'', tr Nanamoli, 1982, Pali Text Society

Bristol In addition, ''Mindfulness of Breathing'', tr Nanamoli, 1998 (6th ed.),

Buddhist Publication Society The Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) is a publishing house with charitable status, whose objective is to disseminate the teachings of Gautama Buddha. It was founded in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1958 by two Sri Lankan lay Buddhists, A.S. Karunaratn ...

, Kandy, Sri Lanka, includes a translation of the Anapanakatha in the Patisambhidamagga, along with the Anapanasati Sutta and other material from Pali literature on the subject.

Notes

Sources