Buddhaghosa

Buddhaghosa was an Indian Buddhist monk and scholar of the fifth century CE who worked at the Mahāvihāra monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Writing in Pali, he turned older Sinhala commentaries into the authoritative commentaries on much of the Pali Canon, and so shaped how Theravāda Buddhism reads its own scriptures. His Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) is a systematic manual of the whole path, arranged under three headings: ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom. It remains the standard summary of Theravāda doctrine and meditation.

Key ideas

• The path to liberation has three parts: virtue (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā).
• Meditation subjects should suit a practitioner's temperament; the Visuddhimagga sets out forty of them.
• Experience can be analysed into momentary mental and physical events (dhammas), with no enduring self behind them.
• Insight into impermanence, suffering and non-self, developed through stages of purification, leads to nibbāna.

Major works

• The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) (5th century CE)
• Samantapāsādikā, commentary on the Vinaya (5th century CE)
• Atthasālinī, commentary on the Dhammasaṅgaṇī (5th century CE)

In the Book corner

• The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) c. 5th century CE · Advanced
  A comprehensive manual of Buddhist doctrine and meditation, composed in Pali by Buddhaghosa at the Great Monastery (Mahāvihāra) in Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka,…

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