Abhidhammattha Sangaha ( A Manual of Abhidhamma )
Translated by Narada Maha Thera
Published By the Buddhist Missionary Society
42. All these 19 concomitants are common to all
types of moral consciousness, unlike the immoral concom-
itants which do not arise in an immoral consciousness
intoto. No moral consciousness arises without all of them.
Along with this ‘Beautiful’ group some other moral concom-
itants may arise according to the type of Consciousness.
43.Virati—
Vi +
√ ram, to delight in. Virati is refraining from,
delighting in, i.e., abstinence.
According to the Atthasalini there are there kinds of
Virati—namely, Sampatta-Virati, Samadana-Virati, and
Samuccheda-Virati.
Sampatta-Virati is abstaining from evil as occasion
arises considering one’s birth, age, education, etc.
Samadana-Virati is abstaining from evil in accord-
ance with one’s observances. For example, a Buddhist
would abstain from killing, stealing, etc., as he observes
the precepts not to kill etc.
Samuccheda-Virati is the abstinence of an Ariyan
Disciple by completely eradicating all the roots of evil.
In the case of the former two, violation of good prin-
ciples is possible; but in the case of Arahants it is not,
because they have destroyed all passions.
Here are enumerated three Abstinences pertaining to
wrong speech, wrong actions, and wrong livelihood.
Strictly speaking, these three mental concomitants
collectively arise only in the Supramundane consciousness
(Lokuttara Citta). In other cases they arise separately
because there are three Cetanas.
These three when present in the Lokuttara Citta are
regarded as Factors of the Path (Magganga), and they con-
stitute Sila (Morality). Samma-Ditthi and Samma
Sankhappa which constitute Panna (Wisdom) are implied
by Pannindriya and Vitakka-Cetasikas respectively.
Samma Vayama, Samma Sati, and Samma Samadhi which
constitute Samadhi (Concentration) are implied by Viriya,
Sati, and Ekaggata Cetasikas respectively.
Samma Vaca deals with abstinence from false speech
(Musavada), slandering (Pisunavaca), harsh speech
(Pharusavaca) and frivolous talk (Sampapphalapa).
Samma Kammanta deals with abstinence from kill-
ing (Panatipata), stealing (Adinnadana), and sexual mis-
conduct (Kamesu Micchacara).
Samma âjiva deals with abstinence from selling poi-
son, intoxicants, weapons, slaves and animals for slaughter.
44.Appamanna—
As the object of these virtues is the infinite number of
beings, they are called Appamanna, lit., illimitable (Skt.
Apramanya). They are also- called Brahma vicara—Sub-
lime Modes of Living.
Metta, Karåna, Mudita, and Upekkha are these four
Illimitables.
As explained above Metta and Upekkha are repre-
sented by Adosa and Tatramajjhattata. Hence only two are
mentioned here.
45.Metta—
Derived from
√ mid, to soften, to love. According
toSaüskrt mitrasya bhavah = Maitri; state of a friend. That
which softens the mind, or friendly disposition is Metta.
Goodwill, benevolence, loving-kindness are sug-
gested as the best renderings. Metta is not carnal love or
affection. The direct enemy of Metta is hatred or illwill
(Kodha), its indirect enemy is affection (Pema). Metta
embraces all beings without exception. The culmination of
Metta is the identification of oneself with all beings (Sab-
battata).
Metta is the sincere wish for the good and welfare of
all. It discards illwill.
Benevolent attitude is its chief characteristic.
46.Karuna—
√ Kar, to do, to make + una.
That which makes the hearts of the good quiver when
others are afflicted with sorrow is Karuna. That which dis-
sipates the sufferings of others is Karuna.
The wish for the removal of sufferings of others is its
chief characteristic. Its direct enemy is wickedness (Hiüsa)
and its indirect enemy is grief (Domanassa). Karuna
embraces sorrow-afflicted beings. It discards cruelty.
47.Mudita—
Derived from
√ mud, to be pleased.
It is not mere sympathy but appreciative joy. Its direct
enemy is jealousy and its indirect enemy is exultation
(Pahasa). Its chief characteristic is happy acquiescence in
others’ prosperity (Anumodana). Mudita embraces pros-
perous beings. It discards dislike (Arati), and is the con-
gratulatory attitude of a person.
48.Upekkha—
Upa = impartially, justly +√ ikkh, to see, to view, to look.
Upekkha is to view impartially, i.e., neither with
attachment nor with aversion. It is the balanced state of
mind. Its direct enemy is passion (Raga), and its indirect
enemy is unintelligent indifference. Attachment and aver-
sion are eliminated by Upekkha. Impartial attitude is its
chief characteristic.
Here Upekkha does not mean mere neutral feeling,
but a sterling virtue is implied thereby. Equanimity is the
closest equivalent. That term, too, conveys only one aspect
of Upekkha. (See ch. 1, notes 10, 42). It is this Upekkha
that is elevated to a Bojjhanga factor.
Upekkha embraces all good and bad ones, loved and
unloved ones, agreeable and disagreeable things, pleasure
and pain and all such similar opposite pairs.
49. The following illuminating note by Mrs. Rhys
Davids on these four virtues is well worth reading.
“On these four great exercises, see Rhys Davids, S.B.E.
xi 201, n.; and on their emancipating efficacy, M. i. 38.
Buddhaghosa again refers to the reader to his Visuddhi
Magga for a more detailed commentary (vide chap. ix., and
of Hardy, ‘Eastern Monachism’, p. 243 et seq.)…. The object
of thought (ârammana) in this connexion will be ‘limited’ if
the student dwells in love etc., on but a restricted number
of beings; ‘infinite’ if his heart embraces vast numbers.
“The commentator has not a little to say in the
present work, however, on the nature and mutual rela-
tions of the ‘Abodes’ (pp. 193–195). First, the characteris-
tics of each are fully set forth, together with their false
manifestation (Vipatti). Clinging (Sinehasambhavo) is the
Vipatti of love, the essential mark of which is the carrying
on of beneficent conduct etc. Tears and the like are less
truly characteristic of pity (Karuna) than is the bearing and
relieving the woes of others. Laughter and the like are less
genuine expressions of sympathy (Mudita) than is appre-
ciation of what others have achieved. And there is a condi-
tion of disinterestedness (Upekkha) which is prompted by
ignorance, and not by that insight into the karma of man-
kind which can avail to calm the passions.
“He next designates the four antisocial attitudes
which are to be extirpated by these ethical disciplines
taken in order—illwill (Vyapada), cruelty (Vihesa), aver-
sion (Arati), and passion (Raga)—and shows how each
virtue has also a second vice opposed to it. This he terms
its near enemy, as being less directly assailed by it than its
ethical opposite, the latter resembling an enemy who has
to lurk afar in the jungle and the hills. Love and vengeful
conduct cannot coexist. To prevail in this respect, let love
be developed fearlessly. But where love and its object have
too much in common, love is threatened by lust. On this
side let love be guarded well. Again the near enemy to pity,
more insidious than cruelty, is the self-pity pining for one
has not got or has lost—a low, profane melancholy. And
the corresponding worldly happiness in what one has, or
in consequence of obliviousness as to what one has lost,
lies in wait to stifle appreciation of the good fortune of
others. Lastly, there is the unintelligent indifference of the
worldling who has not triumphed over limitations nor
mastered cause and effect, being unable to transcend
external things.
“The remainder of his remarks are occupied with the
necessary sequence in the four Abodes, and the impor-
tance of observing method in their cultivation, and finally
with their other technical appellation of Appamanna or
infinitudes. In this connexion he repeats the touching illus-
tration given in Hardy (op. Cit., 249) of the mother and
the four children. Her desire for the growth of the infant is
as Metta; for the recovery of the sick child as Karuna; for
the maintenance of the gifts displayed by the youth as
Mudita; while her care not to hinder the career of her
grown-up son is as Upekkha.
“It may be remarked, by the way, that when Hardy,
with a foreigner’s want of Mudita, calumniates the Bud-
dhist mendicant (p. 250) as one who thinks about the vir-
tues of solidarity without practising them, he quite for-
gets that these exercises are but preparations of the will
for that ministering to the intellectual needs of others to
which the recluse’s life was largely devoted, and the
importance of which the Western, in his zeal for material
forms of charity, does not even now appreciate at its real
value. And Buddhism did not believe in giving the rein to
good impulses unregulated by intellectual control.”
(Buddhist Psychology, pp. 65–67).
50.Pannindriya—
Pa = rightly; na, to know. Panna, literally, means right
knowing.
Its chief characteristic is understanding as it really is
or irresistible understanding, i.e., penetrative knowledge
(Yathasabhava — pativedho va akkhalita — pativedho).
As Panna dominates in understanding the real nature
and as it overcomes ignorance, it is called a controlling fac-
ulty (Indriya).
In Abhidhamma ¥ana, Panna, and Amoha are used
as interchangeable terms. In types of consciousness con-
nected with knowledge (¥ana-sampayutta) the reference
is to this Panna. By Amoha, one of the three moral roots, is
also meant this Panna. As one of the four means of accom-
plishing one’s ends (Iddhipada) it assumes the name of
Vimaüsa (lit., examination). When purified by Samadhi
Panna assumes the honourable role of Abhinna (Higher
Knowledge). Highly developed Panna is elevated to the
state of a Bojjhanga—Dhammavicaya (Investigation of the
Truth) and Magganga—Samma Ditthi, Right View. The
culmination of Panna is the Omniscience of a Buddha.
Panna, in the strictest sense of the term, is seeing
things as they truly are, i.e., in the light of Anicca (imper-
manence), Dukkha, (sorrow), and Anatta, (soullessness).
Reason, intellect, insight, knowledge, wisdom, intel-
ligence—all convey some aspects of Panna, but none of
them exactly corresponds to the Pali term. Both knowledge
and wisdom are employed here according to the context.
Mrs. Rhys David’s comment on this important term is
interesting. She writes:—
“To fit the term Panna with its approximate Euro-
pean equivalent is one of the cruces of Buddhist philoso-
phy. I have tried in turn reason, intellect, insight, science,
understanding and knowledge. All of these have been, and
are, used in the literature of philosophy with varying
shades of connotation, according as the sense to be con-
veyed is popular and vague, psychological and precise or
transcendental and—passez-moi le mot—having precise
vagueness.
“And each of them might, with one implication or
another, represent Panna. The main difficulty in choice lay
in determining whether, to the Buddhist, Panna stood for
mental function, or for the aggregate product of certain
mental functioning, or for both. When all the allusions to
Panna in the Sutta Pitaka have been collated, a final trans-
lation becomes possible. Here it must suffice to quote two.
M. i. 292, he who has Panna (Pannava) is declared in vir-
tue thereof to understand (Pajanati) the nature of the phe-
nomenon of pain or ill (the Four Noble Truths). In D. i. 124
Gotama asks: what is this Panna? and himself sets out its
content as consisting in certain intellectual attainments,
viz., the Jhanas, insight into the nature of impermanence,
the mental image of one’s self, the power of Iddhi, the cos-
mic Ear, insight into other minds, into one’s own past lives,
the cosmic Eye, and the elimination of all vitiating tenden-
cies. Buddhaghosa also(Visuddhi Magga Ch. xiv.) distin-
guishes Panna from Sanna and Vinnana. He describes it as
adequate to discern not only what these can, viz., sense-
objects and the Three Marks (impermanence, pain and
non-substantiality) respectively, but also the path. For him,
then, it might be called intellect ‘at a higher power’. And in
Gotama’s reply, all those terms are described in terms of
intellectual process. Nevertheless, it is clear that the term
did not stand for bare mental process of a certain degree of
complexity, but that it also implied mental process as cul-
tivated in accordance with a certain system of concepts
objectively valid for all Buddhist adepts. Hence I think it
best to reject such terms as reason, intellect., and under-
standing, and to choose wisdom, or science, or knowledge,
or philosophy. Only they must be understood in this con-
nexion as implying the body of learning as assimilated and
applied by the intellect of a given individual.”
(Buddhist Psychology. pp. 17–18).
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