THE PATH
OF PURIFICATION
(VISUDDHIMAGGA)
BY
BHADANTACARIYA BUDDHAGHOSA
Translated from the Pali
by
BHIKKHU NANAMOLI
FIFTH EDITION
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
Kandy Sri Lanka
CHAPTER XVIII
PURIFICATION OF VIEW
(Ditthi-visuddhi-niddesa)
1. [587] Now it was said earlier (Ch. XIV, §32) that he 'should first
fortify his knowledge by learning and questioning about those things that
are the "soil" after he has perfected the two purifications—purification
of virtue and purification of consciousness—that are the "roots" \ Now
of those, purification of virtue is the quite purified fourfold virtue begin-
ning with Patimokkha restraint; and that has already been dealt with in
detail in the Description of Virtue (Chs. I and II); and the purification of
consciousness, namely, the eight attainments together with access con-
centration, has also been dealt with in detail in all its aspects in the
Description of Concentration (Chs. in to XIII), stated under the heading
of * consciousness' [in the introductory verse]. So those two purifications
should be understood in detail as given there.
2. But it was said above (Ch. XIV, §32) that 'The five purifications,
purification of view, purification by overcoming doubt, purification by
knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not the path,
purification by knowledge and vision of the way, and purification by
knowledge and vision, are the "trunk" \ Herein, 'purification of view' is
the correct seeing of mentality-materiality.
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[DEFINING OF MENTALITY-MATERIALITY / NAMARUPA]
[(1) DEFINITION BASED ON THE FOUR PRIMARIES]
[(a) Starting with Mentality]
3. One who wants to accomplish this, if, firstly, his vehicle is serenity,
2
should emerge from any fine-material or immaterial jhana, except the
base consisting of neither perception nor non-perception,
3
and he should
discern, according to characteristic, function, etc., the jhana factors con-
sisting of applied thought, etc., and the states associated with them, [that
is, feeling, perception, and so on]. When he has done so, all that should
be defined as 'mentality' (ndma) in the sense of bending (namandf
because of its bending on to the object.
4. Then, just as a man, by following a snake that he has seen in his
house, finds its abode, so too this meditator scrutinizes that mentality, he
seeks to find out what its occurrence is supported by and he sees that it is
supported [588] by the matter of the heart. After that, he discerns as
materiality the primary elements, which are the heart's support, and
the remaining, derived kinds of materiality that have the elements as
their support. He defines all that as 'materiality' {rupa) because it is
'molested' (ruppana) [by cold, etc.]. After that he defines in brief as
'mentality-materiality' (nama-rupd) the mentality that has the character-
istic of 'bending' and the materiality that has the characteristic of 'being
molested'.
[(b) Starting with Materiality]
5. But one whose vehicle is pure insight, or that same aforesaid one
whose vehicle is serenity, discerns the four elements in brief or in detail
in one of the various ways given in the chapter on the definition of the
four elements (Ch. XI, §27ff.). Then when the elements have become
clear in their correct essential characteristics, firstly, in the case of head
hair originated by kamma there become plain ten instances of materiality
(rilpdni) with the body decad thus: the four elements, colour, odour,
flavour, nutritive essence, and life, and body sensitivity. And because the
sex decad is present there too there are another ten [that is, the same nine
with sex instead of body sensitivity]. And since the octad-with-nutritive-
essence-as-eighth [that is, the four elements and colour, odour, flavour,
and nutritive essence,] originated by nutriment, and that originated by
temperature, and that originated by consciousness are present there too,
there are another twenty-four. So there is a total of forty-four instances
of materiality in the case of each of the twenty-four bodily parts of
fourfold origination. But in the case of the four, namely, sweat, tears,
spittle, and snot,
5
which are originated by temperature and by conscious-
ness, there are sixteen instances of materiality with the two octads-with-
nutritive-essence-as-eighth in each. In the case of the four, namely, gorge,
dung, pus, and urine, which are originated by temperature, eight in-
stances of materiality become plain in each with the octad-with-nutri-
tive-essence-as-eighth in what is originated only by temperature. This, in
the first place, is the method in the case of the thirty-two bodily aspects.
6. But there are ten more aspects
6
that become clear when those thirty-
two aspects have become clear. And as regards these, firstly, nine in-
stances of materiality, that is, the octad-with-nutritive-essence-as eighth-
plus life, become plain in the case of the kamma-born part of heat (fire)
that digests what is eaten, etc., and likewise nine [instances of material-
ity], that is, the octad-with-nutritive-essence-as-eighth plus sound, in the
case of the consciousness-born part [of air consisting] of in-breaths and
out-breaths; and thirty-three instances of materiality, that is, the [kamma-
born] life-ennead and the three octads-with-nutritive-essence-as-eighth,
in the case of each of the remaining eight [parts] that are of fourfold
origination.
7. And when these instances of materiality derived [by clinging] from
the primaries have thus become plain in detail in the case of these forty-
two aspects, [that is, 32 parts of the body, 4 modes of fire and 6 modes
of air,] another sixty instances of materiality become plain with the
physical [heart-] basis and the [five] sense doors, that is, with the heart-
basis decad and the five decads beginning with the eye decad.
Taking all these together under the characteristic of 'being molested',
he sees them as 'materiality'.
8. When he has discerned materiality thus, the immaterial states be-
come plain to him in accordance with the sense doors, that is to say, the
eighty-one kinds
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of mundane consciousness consisting of the two sets
of five consciousnesses ((34)-(38) and (50)-(54)), the three kinds of mind
element ((39), (55) and (70)) and the sixty-eight [589] kinds of mind-
consciousness element; and then seven consciousness-concomitants, that
is, (i) contact, feeling, perception, (ii) volition, (vii) life, (viii) steadiness
of consciousness, and (xxx) attention, which are invariably conascent
with all these consciousnesses. The supramundane kinds of conscious-
ness, however, are not discernible either by one who is practising pure
insight or by one whose vehicle is serenity because they are out of their
reach. Taking all these immaterial states together under the characteristic
of 'bending', he sees them as 'mentality'.
This is how one [meditator] defines mentality-materiality in detail
through the method of defining the four elements.
[(2) DEFINITION BASED ON THE EIGHTEEN ELEMENTS]
9. Another does it by means of the eighteen elements. How? Here a
bhikkhu considers the elements thus: 'There are in this person the eye
element,... the mind-consciousness element'. Instead of taking the piece
of flesh variegated with white and black circles, having length and breath,
and fastened in the eye socket with a string of sinew, which the world
terms 'an eye', he defines as 'eye element' the eye sensitivity of the kind
described among the kinds of derived materiality in the Description of
the Aggregates (Ch. XIV, §47).
10. But he does not define as 'eye element' the remaining instances of
materiality, which total 53, that is, the 9 conascent instances of material-
ity consisting of the 4 primary elements, which are its support, the 4 con-
comitant instances of materiality, namely, colour, odour, flavour, and
nutritive essence, and the sustaining life faculty; and also the 20 kamma-
born instances of materiality that are there too, consisting of the body
decad and sex decad; and the 24 unclung-to instances of materiality
consisting of the 3 octads-with-nutritive-essence-as-eighth, which are
originated by nutriment and so on. The same method applies to the ear
element and the rest. But in the case of the body element the remaining
instances of materiality total 43, though some say 45 by adding sound
and making nine each for the temperature-born and consciousness-born
[sound].
11. So these five sensitivities, and their five respective objective fields,
that is, visible data, sounds, odours, flavours, and tangible data, make ten
instances of materiality, which are ten [of the eighteen] elements. The
remaining instances of materiality are the mental-data element only.
The consciousness that occurs with the eye as its support and con-
tingent upon a visible datum is called 'eye-consciousness element' [and
likewise with the ear and so on]. In this way the two sets of five con-
sciousnesses are the five 'consciousness elements'. The three kinds of
consciousness consisting of mind element ((39), (55) and (70)) are the
single 'mind element'. The sixty-eight kinds of mind-consciousness
element are the 'mind-consciousness element'. So all the eighty-one
kinds of mundane consciousness make up seven kinds of consciousness
element; and the contact, etc., associated therewith are the mental-data
element.
So ten-and-a-half elements are materiality and seven-and-a-half ele-
ments [590] are mentality. This is how one [meditator] defines mental-
ity-materiality by means of the eighteen elements.
[(3) DEFINITION BASED ON THE TWELVE BASES]
12. Another does it by means of the twelve bases. How? He defines
as 'eye base' the sensitivity only, leaving out the fifty-three remaining
instances of materiality, in the way described for the eye element. And in
the way described there [he also defines] the elements of the ear, nose,
tongue, and body, as 'ear base, nose base, tongue base, body base'. He
defines five states that are their respective objective fields as 'visible-
data base, sound base, odour base, flavour base, tangible-data base'. He
defines the seven mundane consciousness elements as 'mind base'. He
defines the contact, etc., associated therewith and also the remaining
instances of materiality as 'mental-data base'. So here ten-and-a-half
bases are materiality and one-and-a-half bases are mentality. This is how
one [meditator] defines mentality-materiality by means of the twelve
bases.
[(4) DEFINITION BASED ON THE FIVE AGGREGATES]
13. Another defines it more briefly than that by means of the aggre-
gates. How? Here a bhikkhu defines as 'the materiality aggregate' all the
following 27 instances of materiality, that is, the 17 instances of materi-
ality consisting of the four primaries of fourfold origination in this body
and dependent colour, odour, flavour, and nutritive essence, and the five
sensitivities beginning with the eye sensitivity, and the materiality of the
physical [heart-] basis, sex, life faculty, and sound of twofold origina-
tion, which 17 instances of materiality are suitable for comprehension
since they are produced and are instances of concrete materiality; and
then the 10 instances of materiality, that is, bodily intimation, verbal
intimation, the space element, and the lightness, malleability, wieldiness,
growth, continuity, ageing, and impermanence of materiality, which 10
instances of materiality are, however, not suitable for comprehension
since they are merely the mode-alteration and the limitation-of-interval;
they are not produced and are not concrete materiality, but they are
reckoned as materiality because they are mode-alterations, and limita-
tion-of-interval, of various instances of materiality. So he defines all
these 27 instances of materiality as the 'the materiality aggregate*. He
defines the feeling that arises together with the 81 kinds of mundane
consciousness as the 'feeling aggregate', the perception associated there-
with as the 'perception aggregate', the formations associated therewith
as the 'formations aggregate', and the consciousness as the 'conscious-
ness aggregate'. So by defining the materiality aggregate as 'materiality'
and the four immaterial aggregates as 'mentality', he defines mentality-
materiality by means of the five aggregates.
[(5) BRIEF DEFINITION BASED ON THE FOUR PRIMARIES]
14. Another discerns 'materiality' in his person briefly thus: 'Any kind
of materiality whatever all consists of the four primary elements and the
materiality derived from the four primary elements' (M.i,222), and he
likewise discerns the mind base and a part of the mental data base as
'mentality'. Then he defines mentality-materiality in brief thus: 'This
mentality and this materiality are called "mentality-materiality" '.
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