Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Exploring the Dhamma, as understood from the perspective of the ancient Pali commentaries.
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Eko Care
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Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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By the performance of such merit
As has been gained by me through this
And any other still in hand
So may I in my next becoming
Behold the joys of Tavatimsa
(Translation: Bhikkhu Ňanamoli)

So it appears from this that the Buddha would consider Buddhagosa as someone “who lives the holy life in an impure way, one who is fettered by the fetter of sexuality”.

So the first conclusion from this is that Buddhagosa was the moral superior of no one who has a higher goal than Tavatimsa, especially not of anyone who is a sotapanna today, whether they were born in Asia, in a Western country, in Africa, South America, the Pacific or anywhere else.

The second conclusion is that obviously we shouldn’t blindly follow everything Buddhagosa wrote.

Now I believe that he was well aware of AN 7.50 but he still wrote this because apparently it was the common belief in his era that no one could become an ariya any more. If this was indeed the case, I see no reason to cling so hard to his opinions.
My dear friend, I know that your conclusions comes with the careless hurry to decide.

It is not a characteristic of a Theravādin.

Colophons of Visuddhimagga - Not By Buddhaghosa Thera
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confusedlayman
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Post by confusedlayman »

I think buddhaghosa is arhant with all 9 jhanas and all 6 physic powers... he attained parinibbana
I may be slow learner but im at least learning...
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SDC
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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Eko Care wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:30 am
By the performance of such merit
As has been gained by me through this
And any other still in hand
So may I in my next becoming
Behold the joys of Tavatimsa
(Translation: Bhikkhu Ňanamoli)
I heard somewhere that these may not have been Buddhaghosa’s words, but those of the monk who first translated the Visuddhimagga into Sinhalese. I’m sorry but I do not recall the source of this.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Eko Care
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 12:14 am I heard somewhere that these may not have been Buddhaghosa’s words, but those of the monk who first translated the Visuddhimagga into Sinhalese. I’m sorry but I do not recall the source of this.
I also heard ven. Dhammanando says it.

But there is a direct source that we have seen by our eyes:
King Parakramabahu (1234 - 1269 CE) had written in "Visuddhimárga-mahásanne" :
"The Epilogue(/colophon) is written by Acariya Buddhagosa’s Student Venerable Buddhamitta."
King Parakramabahu-II of Kingdom of Dambadeniya had written a Sinhala glossary (Sannaya) to Visuddhimagga within 1234 to 1269CE .
It is called Visuddhimárga-mahásannaya or Parákramabáhu-sannaya.

Visuddhimárga-mahásanne, ed. Ratanapala Medhankara et al, 2 vols., Kalutara, 1949. (Also called Parákramabáhu-sannaya. A Pali-Sinhala paraphrase composed by King Pandita Parákramabáhu II in the 13th cent. CE.)

The king had mentioned the epilogue starting from “This Path of Purification was made by …” an onwards as the addition of venerable Buddhamitta.

Furthermore the king had stated why the name of Acariya Buddhagosa is mentioned as “who bears the name Buddhaghosa conferred by the venerable ones (“garuhi”=by the teachers/venerable ones” in this epilogue. The king had said this is because the student-monk can’t mention the teacher-monk’s name directly. (A convention practiced by Venerable Ananda towards his teacher Venerable Mahakassapa and said to be practiced by Sri Lankan forest monks even in the present day).
https://classicaltheravada.org/t/coloph ... a-thera/97
Last edited by Eko Care on Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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SDC
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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Eko Care wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:17 pm
SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 12:14 am I heard somewhere that these may not have been Buddhaghosa’s words, but those of the monk who first translated the Visuddhimagga into Sinhalese. I’m sorry but I do not recall the source of this.
https://classicaltheravada.org/t/coloph ... a-thera/97
If that is the case I think it is important for people to know it. I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment. I don’t think it is possible to get an accurate account of who he was or his level of development. I think it is fair to say that his work was well-intended and he shouldn’t be evaluated based on what others attempt to draw from it.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Post by Eko Care »

SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm If that is the case I think it is important for people to know it. I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment.
That is why I repeated it many times in this forum.

Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment, just because "lack of information" at the hands of modern western people.
SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm I don’t think it is possible to get an accurate account of who he was or his level of development. I think it is fair to say that his work was well-intended and he shouldn’t be evaluated based on what others attempt to draw from it.
Yes, of course.

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SDC
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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Eko Care wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:43 pm
SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm If that is the case I think it is important for people to know it. I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment.
That is why I repeated it many times in this forum.

Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment, just because "lack of information" at the hands of modern western people.
In all fairness, you a could be more polite about it. It isn’t very inspiring to be told what to believe. If you would take the time to really show people why it’s worth listening I think you might have more people trust you. Obviously it matters to you that you gain trust - if it didn’t matter to you then you wouldn’t have an account here.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Post by Alrac »

SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment.
Wow, in order to come to the above assessment or conclusion, you sound amazing having read & digested every word of the Visuddhimagga & the relevant Buddhaghosa Commentaries.
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

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Alrac wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:01 pm
SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment.
Wow, in order to come to the above assessment or conclusion, you sound amazing having read & digested every word of the Visuddhimagga & the relevant Buddhaghosa Commentaries.
:hello: !seoreh ym era kciN dna lraC
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Eko Care
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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Post by Eko Care »

SDC wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm I think Ven. Buddhaghosa gets very unfair treatment.
Wow, in order to come to the above assessment or conclusion, you sound amazing having read & digested every word of the Visuddhimagga & the relevant Buddhaghosa Commentaries.
I found such a one some years ago here:
"BUDDHAGHOSA: Immeasurable Words" by Prof. Maria Heim

Richard Marshall: So, you’re an expert in Buddhism and in particular Buddhaghosa. Many of us will be ignorant about this so perhaps you could start by sketching for us what are the main features of Buddhaghosa thought and how it fits into Buddhism? ...

What are the peculiar hermeneutical challenges that are raised by Buddhaghosa’s reading practices – are they different from those we might expect in the modern west – and how have they fed in to your own approach to ideas about genre, texts, discourse and meaning and their broader theoretical and philosophical significance?

Maria Heim: I have tried to point out that modern ways of reading based on historicist philology that began in the late 18thcentury in Europe are hardly universal. As we note that the theories and interpretative practices of modern philology are themselves products of a certain localized history, we can become aware of alternative ways of reading and thinking about texts from other times and places that were innocent of them. For me this perhaps obvious insight has entailed wanting to know what Buddhaghosa's "theory of text" is and what he thinks is required to interpret a text. (Sheldon Pollock's work has been good on helping us to think about how texts often suggest an implicit or explicit theory of text and alternative philologies.)

I have found Buddhaghosa to be remarkably explicit about this once I let myself be guided by his agendas. He tells us repeatedly that the "meaning and phrasing" of scripture are immeasurable, that we should look for beauty in every unit of text, that some kinds of Buddhist knowledge are particularist and context-dependent while other forms of it have a more abstract, view-from-nowhere quality, that the Buddha spoke in both colloquial and analytically-precise registers that should be interpreted differently, and so on. These qualities of the Buddha's knowledge suggest different ways of reading and interpreting it, and so can function as guidelines for us. We then arrive at understandings of Buddhist ideas and intellectual practices different from what we would have if we limited ourselves to European philology's interest in text criticism, historicism, etc.

Reading practices that Buddhaghosa describes can lead us to fresh – and philosophically significant -- understandings of Buddhist ideas. For example, Buddhaghosa's insistence that the Abhidhamma is an oceanic field of endless pedagogical methods and practices has led me to interpret it as open-ended phenomenological analysis, rather than, as the usual account would have it, a closed ontological system of ultimate reals.

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Re: Would ven Buddhagosa be considered a man of average character?

Post by TRobinson465 »

Even if the postscript was from Buddhaghosa (which is ambiguous). I think it's unfair to say he wasn't of good character for it. It was the norm in that time to do that. And that one character flaw doesn't mean he wasn't of good character. It's very similar to the ppl who judge the 90%+ of modern monks who touch money. Should they not do that? Well yeah they shouldn't. But that one thing doesn't automatically make them bad. And for many temples it's outright necessary to touch money nowadays since many temples outside the more popular traditions do not have the laystaff and supporters to be able to. I've been to plenty of temples in thailand that r not from the brand name lineages and or popular tourist attractions where they have no laystaff and a very small base of dedicated supporters. Most visitors just go to bow to the image, ring some bells and drop some bills in the donation boxes (which nobody can take out except the monks due to lack of laystaff) and it's not like u can pay your electricity and water bill with almsfood.

I'm not convinced the less than 10% of monks (pretty much all from well supported lineages) who never touch money have a monopoly on good character. In the same way I don't think anyone who uses that common postscript is not of good character.
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