Visuddhimagga

Buddhaghosa with three copies of Visuddhimagga
Buddhaghosa with three copies of Visuddhimagga

Visuddhimagga
TypeCommentary
Commentary onDigha Nikaya, Samyutta Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, Anguttara Nikaya
Composition5th Century CE
AttributionBuddhaghosa
CommentaryVisuddhimaggamahātīkā
AbbreviationVism
Pāli literature

The Visuddhimagga (Pali; English: The Path of Purification), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

It is considered the most important Theravada text outside the Tipitaka canon of scriptures,[1] and is described as "the hub of a complete and coherent method of exegesis of the Tipitaka."[2]

  1. ^ See, for instance, Kheminda Thera, in Ehara et al. 1995 p. xliii: "The Visuddhimagga is a household word in all Theravāda lands. No scholar of Buddhism whether of Theravāda or of Mahāyāna is unacquainted with it."
  2. ^ Nyanamoli 2011, p. xxvii.

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