Saṃyutta Nikāya
3. Khandha Vagga
22. Khandha Saṃyutta
11. Anta Vagga
The Book of the Kindred Sayings
3. The Book Called the Khandhā-Vagga
Containing Kindred Sayings on the Elements of Sensory Existence and other Subjects
22. Kindred Sayings on Elements
11. On Separates
Sutta 106
Pariññeyya Suttaṃ
Things to be Understood[1]
Translated by F. L. Woodward
Edited by Mrs. Rhys Davids
Copyright The Pali Text Society
Commercial Rights Reserved
For details see Terms of Use.
[1] Thus have I heard:
The Exalted One was once staying near Sāvatthī
at the Jeta Grove in Anāthapiṇḍika's Park.
And there the Exalted One addressed the brethren, saying:
"Brethren!"
"Master!" responded those brethren.
The Exalted One said:
"Brethren, I will tell you of the things to be understood,
of understanding,
and of the person who has understood.
§
And what, brethren, are the things[2] to be understood?
Feeling. Here 'feeling' is 'vedana'.
— p.p.
Body, brethren, is a thing to be understood,
feeling, is a thing to be understood,
perception, is a thing to be understood,
the activities, is a thing to be understood,
consciousness is a thing to be understood.
These, brethren, are the things to be understood.
■
And what, brethren, is understanding?
It is the destruction of lust,
the destruction of hatred,
the destruction of illusion.
This, brethren, is called understanding.
■
And who, brethren, is the person who has understood?
Such and such a venerable one,
of such a name,
of such a clan.
This one, brethren, is the person who has understood.
[1] Supra § 23, text p. 26.
[2] Dhammā Cf. Mrs. Rh. D. on Prof. Th. Stcherbatzky's Vasabandhu. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 1924.
THE CENTRAL CONCEPTION OF BUDDHISM AND THE MEANING OF THE WORD "DHARMA" By TH. STCHERBATZKY, PH.D., Professor in the University of Petrograd, Member of the Academy of Science of Russia. pp. xvi, 112. London: Royal Asiatic Society, Prize Publication Fund, Vol. VII, 1923.
It was a wise decision of the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society to transfer the publication of this work from the narrower limitations of space necessary to their Journal to the wider field of their series of monographs. Even in its present form, it is a little congested with all that it has to tell us. This egg is very full of meat. In a way, it is a throw-off or by-product of the distinguished author's fuller works on (not early, but) early-mediaeval Buddhist metaphysic, as it exists in Sanskrit and Tibetan documents. And, in some degree at least, the stimulus to the making of the by-product would appear to have been Professor and Mrs. Geiger's essay[1] on the word Dhamma, as it is found, not in those Sanskrit and Tibetan documents, but in Pali literature. The authors, namely, describe the excellent thesaurus of contexts and meanings they have assorted about the term Dhamma as having a "purely philological", or, rather, lexicographical object. They wish to give an exhaustive presentation of this "so-called central concept of Buddhist teaching" in its many different meanings. To Professor Stcherbatzky the one meaning it holds as a "central conception" is that which he has found it bear in the series of works containing the Abhidharma, or analytic and metaphysical categories and discussions of the Sarvastivadins, notably the Abhidharmakośa of Vasubandhu. All other meanings of Dhamma he waves aside, as "not presenting any serious difficulty".
[1] In Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademiee der Wissenschaften, xxxi, 1921, 1.
—From Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 3, Issue 2, page 345, 1924. University of London
— p.p.
