WorkBuddhaghosa

The Expositor

Its opening verses say a monk named Buddhaghosa asked for it, and scholars still argue over what that name means for its authorship.

by Buddhaghosa1,112 passages held

Pali, the original language

Original title: Aṭṭhasālinī
Original language: Pali

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Overview

The opening verses of the Aṭṭhasālinī say it was written at the earnest request of a monk named Buddhaghosa. The book is the Pāli commentary on the Dhammasaṅgaṇī, the first of the seven books of the Abhidhamma, the scriptures' systematic analysis of mind and matter, and the tradition ascribes it to Buddhaghosa himself, in the fifth century; modern scholarship is divided on the ascription. The Pāli scholar Oskar von Hinüber reads the verses as excluding his authorship; the tradition answers that the man who asked was a different monk, remembered as Culla-Buddhaghosa, "the lesser Buddhaghosa". Lance Cousins thought it unlikely that so famous an author would name a junior namesake without a word of explanation, and the Burmese monk-scholar Ven. Pandita defended the tradition against Hinüber in 2018. The Cūḷavaṃsa, a Sri Lankan chronicle, says Buddhaghosa wrote the work while still in India, and its references to the Visuddhimagga suggest it was revised in Sri Lanka. Pe Maung Tin translated it into English as The Expositor for the Pali Text Society in 1920 and 1921, and Nyanaponika's German translation, Darlegung der Bedeutung, appeared from the same society in 2005. Most of the book works through the classes of consciousness and the mental factors that arise with them, but its introduction fights for the standing of the texts it explains. It tells how the Buddha taught the Abhidhamma to the gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-three and gave the substance of it to his disciple Sāriputta at Lake Anotatta. It then takes on an objector it calls the quibbler, who asks why the Kathāvatthu, set down by the elder Moggaliputta Tissa some two hundred and eighteen years after the Buddha's death, should count as the Buddha's word; the reply is that the Buddha himself laid down its outline, which the elder only filled in.

Key concepts

What does "Abhidhamma" mean?

Abhidhamma means the teaching that goes beyond, or stands out from, the ordinary teaching. The prefix abhi- carries senses of excess and distinction, as when something surpasses others in size or rank. The commentary uses the name to claim that these books treat the same truths as the discourses but analyse them further, listing and defining every state of mind and matter instead of addressing a particular hearer.

What are consciousness and mental factors?

Consciousness is the bare knowing of an object; mental factors are the qualities that arise with it and give each moment its character, such as contact, feeling, intention, attention and concentration. They never occur apart: every moment of mind is one consciousness with its factors. Concentration, for instance, keeps the factors that arise with it from scattering, which is why the commentary calls it foremost among wholesome states.

What makes a state of mind wholesome or unwholesome?

A wholesome state, kusala, is one that is blameless and brings pleasant results; an unwholesome one is blameworthy and brings painful results. The commentary's word analysis pictures wholesome states as cutting down the defilements, such as greed and hatred, that unwholesome states feed. The classification is about the state of mind behind an act, not the act's outward look: the same gift can come from very different minds.

What are the three doors of action?

They are body, speech and mind, the three ways an intention goes out into action. The bodily and verbal doors are the intimation, a material form that communicates: a movement or a sound that carries a meaning. The eye does not see the intimation itself, only the movement, and the mind infers what is meant, as travellers know there is water where palm leaves are tied to a treetop, or a tavern by the flag at its door.

What are the bases of merit?

They are the ways good action is classed: giving, moral conduct and meditation, among others. The commentary shows that one act can fall under different bases depending on the mind behind it: the same life-supporting gift counts as giving when made as a gift, as moral conduct when done as an inherited family duty, and as meditation when made while watching it arise and pass away.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Whose Word Is the Abhidhamma?

The Abhidhamma reads like a technical catalogue, and one of its books was set down two centuries after the Buddha died. Whether such texts can count as the Buddha's own teaching is the challenge the introduction takes on first.

Before explaining a single class of mind, the commentary defends its scripture. The Buddha, it tells, taught the Abhidhamma to the gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-three, his mother foremost among them, and gave its substance to Sāriputta, who passed it to human hearers. A disputant objects that the Kathāvatthu was composed long after by a disciple. The reply is that the disciple followed a framework the Buddha had laid down, so the whole may still be called the Buddha's word.

abhidhamma
classification
knowledge
wisdom
liberation

Enter a dialogue

A Moment of Mind, Taken Apart

An ordinary moment of seeing or giving looks single and simple. The commentary asks what it is actually made of, which parts arise together, which leave a trace and how a trace becomes a future life.

Most of the book's length works through the classes of consciousness and the mental factors that arise with each, and it reaches for homely images to make the analysis hold. Seeing is told as a man asleep under a mango tree, woken by a falling fruit, who picks it up, eats and lies down again. One intention ripens into one rebirth as one mango seed gives one sprout. The eye's contact with colour is mild, so its feeling is neutral, while a blow to the body lands hard.

consciousness
mental factors
perception
sense perception
feeling
attention
intention
karma
rebirth
materiality
buddhist psychology

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 1,112
distinct concepts: 779
by passages held, corpus-wide: #55

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “abhidhamma” and “classification”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 28 pairings. 82 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
abhidhamma	classification	62
abhidhamma	consciousness	48
abhidhamma	mental factors	26
consciousness	perception	25
consciousness	karma	23
classification	mental factors	19
consciousness	mental factors	19
abhidhamma	karma	17
consciousness	meditation	17
classification	consciousness	13
abhidhamma	meditation	12
abhidhamma	perception	11
classification	meditation	11
meditation	mental factors	11
meditation	perception	11
classification	defilements	8
defilements	mental factors	8
abhidhamma	defilements	6
defilements	meditation	5
karma	meditation	5
classification	karma	3
consciousness	defilements	3
defilements	karma	3
karma	mental factors	3
classification	perception	2
mental factors	perception	2
defilements	perception	1
karma	perception	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Manorathapūraṇī
The last of his four commentaries on the collections of discourses: its closing verses name it the Manorathapūraṇī, "fulfiller of the wish", because it completed his wish to explain them all.
PI
Pañcappakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā
Five commentaries gathered as one work, ascribed to Buddhaghosa, completing the explanation of the Abhidhamma that the Aṭṭhasālinī and the Sammohavinodanī begin.
PI
Papañcasūdanī
Written for a monk Buddhaghosa had once lived with in a port town, probably in South India, and the home of his reading of the mindfulness discourse.
PI
Paramatthajotikā II
Ascribed to Buddhaghosa by tradition and doubted by modern scholars, a commentary that explains each discourse of the Suttanipāta by first asking what occasioned it.
PI
Sāratthappakāsinī
Made for the elder Jotipāla, and home of the "dry insight" gloss on the Susīma discourse that is still argued over.
PI
Sumaṅgalavilāsinī
Begins with history, the council that first recited the texts, before explaining the long discourses, the first collection in the canon's order.
PI
The Dispeller of Delusion (Sammohavinodanī)
Explains the Vibhaṅga, the Abhidhamma's second book: the middle of the three commentaries ascribed to Buddhaghosa, between the Aṭṭhasālinī and the one on the five remaining books.
PI
The Expositor (Aṭṭhasālinī) you are here PI
The Illustrator of Ultimate Meaning (Paramatthajotikā I)
The smaller of two commentaries sharing one name, both ascribed to Buddhaghosa: this one explains the nine recitations that open the Minor Collection.
PI
The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga)
His one treatise rather than a commentary: the book his commentaries on the long and middle-length discourses send the reader to whenever meditation comes up.
PI

— or open another of their works