Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c42.s2.t4.24

v2.c42.s2.t4.24

The doctrine of *pāramitā* is not mentioned in the early Pāli texts, and was very likely unknown to the early Buddhists.³ The words ‘*pāramiṃ gato* or *pāramippatto*’ (attained perfection) occur in the *Nikāyas*⁴ but nowhere in the Pāli Tripiṭaka, barring the *Khuddakanikāya*, the *pāramitās* are mentioned. The number of *pāramis*, listed in the later Pāli texts, is ten and not six. Dhammapāla, in his commentary on the *Cariyāpiṭaka*, contributes on the ten *pāramis* a long dissertation,⁵ in which he tells us that there were various ways of classifying the *pāramis*. There was also the system of enumerating the *pāramis* as six viz., *dāna-sīla-khanti-viriya-jhāna-paññā*, which is exactly the list as given in the Buddhist-Sanskrit texts. He writes that according to this enumeration, ‘sīla’ includes nekkhama (renunciation) as also sacca (truthfulness), the latter being only an aspect (ekadeso) of sīla; paññā includes ñāṇa while jhāna and paññā together include upekkhā; adhiṭṭhāna he says, is associated with all the six pāramis. Though Dhammapāla was aware of this sixfold classification of pāramis, the Pāli texts usually mention ten and it seems that this list was made out by the Theravādins some time after the currency of the six pāramitās among the sects other than Theravāda. The supplementary four pāramitās of the later Buddhist Sanskrit texts and the Pāli list of ten pāramitās were very likely the products of the same period.