Visuddhimagga - Introduction III

THE PATH
OF PURIFICATION
(VISUDDHIMAGGA)
BY
BHADANTACARIYA BUDDHAGHOSA
Translated from the Pali
by
BHIKKHU NANAMOLI
FIFTH EDITION
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
Kandy Sri Lanka


Some Main Threads in the Visuddhimagga
The Visuddhimagga is probably best regarded as a detailed manual for
meditation masters, and as a work of reference. As to its rather intricate con-
struction, the List of Contents is given rather fully in order to serve as a guide to
the often complicated form of the chapters and to the work as a whole. In
addition, the following considerations may be noted.
Chapters I and II, which deal with virtue as the practice of restraint, or
withdrawal, need present no difficulties. It can be remarked here, though, that
when the Buddhist ascetic goes into seclusion (restrains the sense doors), it
would be incorrect to say of him that he 'leaves the world'; for where a man is,
there is his world (loka), as appears in the discourse quoted in Ch. VII, §36 (cf.
also S.iv,116 as well as many other suttas on the same subject). So when he
retreats from the clamour of society to the woods and rocks, he takes his world
with him, as though withdrawing to his laboratory, in other the better to analyse
it.
Chs. HI to XI describe the process of concentration and give directions for
attaining it by means of a choice of forty meditation subjects for developing
concentration. The account of each single meditation subject as given here is in-
complete unless taken in conjunction with the whole of Part III (Understand-
ing), which applies to all. Concentration is training in intensity and depth of
focus and in single-mindedness. While Buddhism makes no exclusive claim to
teach jhana concentration {samatha = samddhi), it does claim that the develop-
ment of insight iyipassand) culminating in penetration of the Four Noble Truths
is peculiar to it. The two have to be coupled together in order to attain the
truths
20
 and the end of suffering. Insight is initially training to see experience as
it occurs, without misperception, invalid assumptions or wrong inferences.
Chs. XII and XQI describe the rewards of concentration fully developed
without insight.
Chs. XIV to XVII on understanding are entirely theoretical. Experience in


general is dissected, and the separated components are described and grouped in
several alternative patterns in Chs. XIV to XVI, §1-12. The rest of Ch. XVI
expounds the Four Noble Truths, the centre of the Buddha's teaching. After
that, dependent origination, or the structure of conditionality, is dealt with in its
aspect of arising, or the process of being (Ch. XVII; as cessation, or nibbana, it
is dealt with separately in Chs. XVI and XIX). The formula of dependent
origination in its varying modes describes the working economics of the first
two truths (suffering as outcome of craving, and craving itself—see also Ch.
XVH, n.48). Without an understanding of conditionality the Buddha's teaching
cannot be grasped: 'He who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma'
(M.i,191), though not all details in this work are always necessary. Since the
detailed part of this chapter is very elaborate (§58-272), a first reading confined
to §1-6, §20-57, and §273-314, might help to avoid losing the thread. These
four chapters are 'theoretical' because they contain in detailed form what needs
to be learnt, if only in outline, as 'book-learning' (sotdvadhdna-ndna). They
furnish techniques for describing the total experience and the experienceable
rather as the branches of arithmetic and double-entry book-keeping are to be
learnt as techniques for keeping accurate business accounts.
Chs. XVIII to XXI, on the contrary, are practical and give instructions for
applying the book-knowledge learnt from Chs. XIV to XVII by analysing in its
terms the meditator's individual experience, dealing also with what may be ex-
pected to happen in the course of development. Ch. XVIII as 'defining of
mentality-materiality' (first application of Chs. XIV to XVI) and Ch. XIX as
'discerning conditions' (first application of Ch. XVII) are preparatory to insight
proper, which begins in Ch. XX with contemplation of rise and fall. After this,
progress continues through the 'eight knowledges' with successive clarifica-
tion—clarification of view of the object and consequent alterations of subjective
attitude towards it—till a point, called 'conformity knowledge', is reached which,
through one of the 'three gateways to liberation', heralds the attainment of the
first supramundane path.
In Ch. XXII, the attainment of the four successive supramundane paths (or
successive stages in realization) is described, with the first of which nibbana
(extinction of the craving which originates suffering) is 'seen' for the first time,
having till then been only intellectually conceived. At that moment suffering as
a noble truth is fully understood, craving, its origin, is abandoned, suffering's
cessation is realized, and the way to its cessation is developed.
21
 The three re-
maining paths develop further and complete that vision.
Finally Ch. XXIII, as the counterpart of Chs. XII and XIII, describes the
benefits of understanding. The description of nibbana is given at Ch. VIE,
§245ff., and a discussion of it at Ch. XVI, §66ff


Concerning the Translation
The pitfalls that await anyone translating from another European language
into his own native English are familiar enough: there is no need for him to
fall into them. But when he ventures upon rendering an Oriental language, he
will often have to be his own guide.
Naturally, a translator from Pali today owes a large debt to his predecessors
and to the Pali Text Society's publications, including in particular the Society's
invaluable Pali-English Dictionary. A translator of the Visuddhimaggay too,
must make due acknowledgement of its pioneer translation (now long out of
print) by U Pe Maung Tin.
The word pdli is translatable by 'text'. The pdli language (the'text language',
which the commentators call Magadhan) holds a special position, with no Euro-
pean parallel, being reserved to one field, namely, the Buddha's teaching. So
there are no alien echoes. In the Suttas the Sanskrit is silent, and it is heavily
muted in the later literature. This fact, coupled with the richness and integrity of
the subject itself, gives it a singular limpidness and depth in its early form, as in
a string quartet or the clear ocean, which attains in the style of the Suttas to an
exquisite and unrivalled beauty unreflectable by any rendering. Traces seem to
linger even in the intricate formalism preferred by the commentators.
This translation presents many formidable problems. Mainly either episte-
mological and psychological, or else linguistic, they relate either to what ideas
and things are being discussed, or else to the manipulation of dictionary mean-
ings of words used in discussion.
The first is perhaps dominant. As mentioned earlier, the Visuddhimagga can
be properly studied only as part of the whole commentarial edifice, whose corner-
stone it is. But while indexes of words and subjects to the P.T.S. edition of the
Visuddhimagga exist, most of its author's works have only indexes of Pitaka
words and names commented on but none for the mass of subject matter. So the
student has to make his own. Of the commentaries too, only the Atthasdliniy the
Dhammapada Commentary and the Jataka Commentary have so far been translated
(and the latter two are rather in a separate class). But that is a minor aspect.
This book is largely technical and presents all the difficulties peculiar to
technical translation: it deals, besides, with mental happenings. Now where
many synonyms are used, as they often are in Pali, for public material objects—
an elephant, say, or gold or the sun—the * material objects' should be pointable
to, if there is doubt about what is referred to. Again even such generally recog-
nized private experiences as those referred to by the words 'consciousness'
or 'pain' seem too obvious to introspection for uncertainty to arise (communica-
tion to fail) if they are given variant symbols. Here the English translator can
forsake the Pali allotment of synonyms and indulge a liking for 'elegant vari-
ation', if he has it, without fear of muddle. But mind is fluid, as it were, and
materially negative, and its analysis needs a different and a strict treatment. In


the Suttas and still more in the Abhidhamma, charting by analysis and definition
of pin-pointed mental states is carried far into unfamiliar waters. It was already
recognized then that this is no more a solid landscape of 'things' to be pointed
to when variation has resulted in vagueness. As an instance of disregard of this
fact: a greater scholar with impeccable historical and philological judgement
(perhaps the most eminent of the English translators) has in a single work
rendered the cattdro satipatthdnd (here represented by *four foundations of
mindfulness') by 'four inceptions of deliberation', 'fourfold setting up of mind-
fulness', fourfold setting up of starting', 'four applications of mindfulness', and
other variants. The P.T.S. Diet. Foreword observes: 'No one needs now to use
the one English word "desire" as a translation of sixteen distinct Pali words, no
one of which means precisely desire. Yet this was done in Vol. X of the Sacred
Books of the East by Max Muller and Fausboll'. True; but need one go to the
other extreme? How without looking up the Pali can one be sure if the same
idea is referred to by all these variants and not some other such as those referred
to by cattdro iddhipddd ('four roads to power' or 'bases of success'), cattdro
sammappadhdnd ('four right endeavours'), etc., or one of the many other 'fours'?
It is customary not to vary, say, the 'call for the categorical imperative' in a new
context by some such alternative as 'uncompromising order' or 'plain-speaking
bidding' or 'call for unconditional surrender,' which the dictionaries would
justify, or 'faith' which the exegetists might recommend; that is to say, if it is
hoped to avoid confusion. The choosing of an adequate rendering is, however, a
quite different problem.
But there is something more to be considered before coming to that. So far
only the difficulty of isolating, symbolizing and describing individual mental
states has been touched on. But here the whole mental structure with its tempo-
ral-dynamic process is dealt with too. Identified mental as well as material
states (none of which can arise independently) must be recognizable with
their associations when encountered in new circumstances: for here arises
the central question of thought-association and its manipulation. That is tacitly
recognized in the Pali. If disregarded in the English rendering the tenuous struc-
ture with its inferences and negations—the flexible pattern of thought-associa-
tions—can no longer be communicated or followed, because the pattern of
speech no longer reflects it, and whatever may be communicated is only frag-
mentary and perhaps deceptive. Renderings of words have to be distinguished,
too, from renderings of words used to explain those words. From this aspect
the Oriental system of word-by-word translation, which transliterates the sound
of the principal substantive and verb stems and attaches to them local inflex-
ions, has much to recommend it, though, of course, it is not readable as 'litera-
ture'. One is handling instead of pictures of isolated ideas or even groups of
ideas a whole coherent chart system. And besides, words, like maps and charts,
are conventionally used to represent high dimensions.


When already identified states or currents are encountered from new angles,
the new situation can be verbalized in one of two ways at least: either by using
in a new appropriate verbal setting the words already allotted to these states, or
by describing the whole situation afresh in different terminology chosen ad hoc.
While the second may gain in individual brightness, connexions with other
allied references can hardly fail to be lost. Aerial photographs must be taken
from consistent altitudes, if they are to be used for making maps. And words
serve the double purpose of recording ideas already formed and of arousing new
ones.
Structural coherence between different parts in the Pali of the present work
needs reflecting in the translation—especially in the last ten chapters—if the
thread is not soon to be lost. In fact, in the Pali (just as much in the Tipitaka as
in its Commentaries), when such subjects are being handled, one finds that a
tacit rule, 'One term and one flexible definition for one idea (or state or event or
situation) referred to', is adhered to pretty thoroughly. The reason has already
been made clear. With no such rule ideas are apt to disintegrate or coalesce or
fictitiously multiply (and, of course, any serious attempt at indexing in English
is stultified). One thing needs to be made clear, though; for there is confusion
of thought on this whole subject (one so far only partly investigated).
22
 This *rule
of parsimony in variants' has nothing to do with mechanical transliteration,
which is a translator's refuge when he is unsure of himself. The guiding rule,
*One recognizable idea, one word or phrase to symbolize it', in no sense implies
any such rule as, *One Pali word, one English word', which is neither desirable nor
practicable. Nor in translating need the rule apply beyond the scope reviewed.
So much for the epistemological and psychological problems.
The linguistic problem is scarcely less formidable though much better rec-
ognized. While English is extremely analytic, Pali (another Indo-European lan-
guage) is one of the group of tongues regarded as dominated by Sanskrit,
strongly agglutinative, forming long compounds and heavily inflected. The vo-
cabulary chosen occasioned much heart-searching but is still very imperfect. If
a few of the words encountered seem a bit algebraical at first, contexts and defi-
nitions should make them clear. In the translation of an Oriental language, espe-
cially a classical one, the translator must recognize that such knowledge which
the Oriental reader is taken for granted to possess is lacking in his European
counterpart, who tends unawares to fill the gaps from his own foreign store: the
result can be like taking two pictures on one film. Not only is the common
background evoked by the words shadowy and patchy, but European thought
and Indian thought tend to approach the problems of human existence from
opposite directions. This affects word formations. And so double meanings
(utraquisms, puns, and metaphors) and etymological links often follow quite
different tracks, a fact which is particularly intrusive in describing mental events,
where the terms employed are mainly 'material
1
 ones used metaphorically.


Unwanted contexts constantly creep in and wanted ones stay out. Then there are
no well-defined techniques for recognizing and handling idioms, literal render-
ing of which misleads (while, say, one may not wonder whether to render tour
de force by 'enforced tour' or 'tower of strength', one cannot always be so
confident in Pali).
Then again in the Visuddhimagga alone the actual words and word-mean-
ings not in the P.T.S. Dictionary come to more than 240. The Dictionary, as its
preface states, is 'essentially preliminary'; for when it was published many
books had still not been collated; it leaves out many words even from the Sutta
Pitaka, and the Sub-commentaries are not touched by it. Also—and most impor-
tant here—in the making of that dictionary the study of Pali literature had for
the most part not been tackled much from, shall one say, the philosophical, or
better, epistemological, angle,
23
 work and interest having been concentrated till
then almost exclusively on history and philology. For instance, the epistemol-
ogically unimportant word vimdna (divine mansion) is given more than twice
the space allotted to the term paticca-samuppdda (dependent origination), a
difficult subject of central importance, the article on which is altogether inade-
quate and misleading (owing partly to misapplication of the 'historical method').
Then gala (throat) has been found more glossarily interesting than patisandhi
(rebirth-linking), the original use of which word at M.iii,230 is ignored. Under
ndma> too, ndma-rupa is confused with ndma-kdya. And so one might continue.
By this, however, it is not intended at all to depreciate that great dictionary, but
only to observe that in using it the Pali student has sometimes to be wary: if it is
criticized in particular here (and it can well hold its own against criticism),
tribute must also be paid to its own inestimable general value.
Concluding Remarks
Current standard English has been aimed at and preference given always to
simplicity. This has often necessitated cutting up long involved sentences, omit-
ting connecting particles (such as pana, pan'ettha, yasmd when followed by
tasmd, hi, kho, etc.), which serve simply as grammatical grease in long chains
of subordinate periods. Conversely the author is sometimes extraordinarily el-
liptic (as in Ch. XIV, §46 and Ch. XVI, §68f.), and then the device of square
brackets has been used to add supplementary matter, without which the sen-
tence would be too enigmatically shorthand. Such additions (kept to the mini-
mum) are in almost every case taken from elsewhere in the work itself or from
the Paramatthamahjusd. Round brackets have been reserved for references and
for alternative renderings (as, e.g., in Ch. I, §140) where there is a sense too
wide for any appropriate English word to straddle.
A few words have been left untranslated (see individual notes). The choice
is necessarily arbitrary. It includes kamma, dhamma (sometimes), jhana, Bud-
dha (sometimes), bhikkhu, nibbana, Patimokkha, kasina, Pitaka, and arahant.


There seemed no advantage and much disadvantage in using the Sanskrit forms,
bhiksu, dharma, dhydna, arhat, etc., as is sometimes done (even though 'karma'
and 'nirvana' are in the Concise Oxford Dictionary), and no reason against ab-
sorbing the Pali words into English as they are by dropping the diacritical
marks. Proper names appear in their Pali spelling without italics and with dia-
critical marks. Wherever Pali words or names appear, the stem form has been
used (e.g. Buddha, kamma) rather than the inflected nominative (Buddho, kam-
mam), unless there were reasons against it.
24
Accepted renderings have not been departed from nor earlier translators
gone against capriciously. It seemed advisable to treat certain emotionally charged
words such as 'real' (especially with a capital R) with caution. Certain other
words have been avoided altogether. For example, vassa ('rains') signifies a
three-month period of residence in one place during the rainy season, enjoined
upon bhikkhus by the Buddha in order that they should not travel about tram-
pling down crops and so annoy farmers. To translate it by 'Lent' as is some-
times done lets in a historical background and religious atmosphere of mourn-
ing and fasting quite alien to it (with no etymological support). 'Metem-
psychosis' for patisandhi is another notable instance.
25
The handling of three words, dhamma, citta and rupa (see Glossary and
relevant notes) is admittedly something of a makeshift. The only English word
that might with some agility be used consistently for dhamma seems to be
'idea'; but it has been crippled by philosophers and would perhaps mislead.
Citta might with advantage have been rendered throughout by 'cognizance', in
order to preserve its independence, instead of rendering it sometimes by 'mind'
(shared with mano) and sometimes by 'consciousness' (shared with vinndna) as
has been done. But in many contexts all three Pali words are synonyms for
the same general notion (see Ch. XIV, §82); and technically, the notion of
'cognition', referred to in its bare aspect by vinndna, is also referred to along
with its concomitant affective colouring, thought and memory, etc., by citta. So
the treatment accorded to citta here finds support to that extent. Lastly 'mental-
ity-materiality' for ndma-rupa is inadequate and 'name-and-form' in some ways
preferable. 'Name' (see Ch. XVIII, n.4) still suggests ndma's function of 'nam-
ing'; and 'form' for the rupa of the rupakkhandha ('materiality aggregate') can
preserve the link with the rupa of the rupdyatana, ('visible-object base') by
rendering them respectively with 'material form aggregate' and 'visible form
base'—a point not without philosophical importance. A compromise has
been made at Ch. X, §13. 'Materiality' or 'matter' wherever used should not be
taken as implying any hypostasis, any 'permanent or semi-permanent substance
behind appearances' (the objective counterpart of the subjective ego), which
would find no support in the Pali.
The editions of Ceylon, Burma and Thailand have been consulted as well as
the two Latin-script editions; and Sinhalese translations, besides. The paragraph


numbers of the Harvard University Press edition will be found on the left of the
pages and the page numbers of the Pali Text Society's edition in square brackets
in the text (the latter, though sometimes appearing at the end of paragraphs,
mark the beginnings of the P.T.S. pages). Errors of readings and punctuation in
the P.T.S. edition not in the Harvard edition have not been referred to in the
notes.
For the quotations from the Tipitaka it was found impossible to make use of
existing published translations because they lacked the kind of treatment sought.
However, other translation work in hand served as the basis for all the Pitaka
quotations.
Rhymes seemed unsuitable for the verses from the Tipitaka and the * An-
cients'; but they have been resorted to for the summarizing verses belonging to
the Visuddhimagga itself. The English language is too weak in fixed stresses to
lend itself to Pali rhythms, thobgh one attempt to reproduce them was made in
Ch. IV.
Where a passage from a sutta is commented on, the order of the explana-
tory comments follows the Pali order of words in the original sentence, which is
not always that of the translation of it.
In Indian books the titles and sub-titles are placed only at the end of the
subject matter. In the translations they have been inserted at the beginning, and
some sub-titles added for the sake of clarity. In this connexion the title at the
end of Ch. XI, description of Concentration' is a 'heading' applying not only
to that chapter but as far back as the beginning of Chapter in. Similarly, the title
at the end of Chapter XIII refers back to the beginning of Chapter XII. The
heading 'Description of the Soil in which Understanding Grows' (pafind-bhumi-
niddesa) refers back from the end of Chapter XVII to the beginning of Chapter
XIV.
The book abounds in 'shorthand' allusions to the Pitakas and to other parts
of itself. They are often hard to recognize, and failure to do so results in a sentence with
a half-meaning. It is hoped that most of them have been hunted down.
Criticism has been strictly confined to the application of Pali Buddhist
standards in an attempt to produce a balanced and uncoloured English counter-
part of the original. The use of words has been stricter in the translation itself
than the Introduction to it.
The translator will, of course, have sometimes slipped or failed to follow
his own rules; and there are many passages any rendering of which is bound to
evoke query from some quarter where there is interest in the subject. As to the
rules, however, and the vocabulary chosen, it has not been intended to lay down
laws, and when the methods adopted are described above that is done simply to
indicate the line taken: Janapada-niruttim nabhiniveseyya, samannam
natidhaveyya ti (see Ch. XVII, §24).


Formations are all impermanent:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is ill,
That is the path to purity.
Formations are all suffering:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is ill,
That is the path to purity.
Things are all not self:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is ill,
That is the path to purity.
Dh. 277-79