Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c14.33

c14.33

(729) Now the word paññā (wisdom) is often used to denote this ‘knowledge and insight’ which results from concentration in so far as it pertains to salvation (*v. infra*, 797). It normally has a wider connotation and is used to denote ‘intelligence comprising all the higher faculties of cognition.² The five impediments (pañcanīvaraṇa-) are often defined as ‘defilements of the mind and factors which weaken wisdom’ (cetaso upakkilese paññāya dubbalīkaraṇe, M. I.181, 270, 276, 521; II.28). The alleged observation on which this theory is based is that, as we saw above (*v. supra*, 727) ‘when the mind is emancipated from these five defilements, it is supple, pliant, lustrous, firm and becomes rightly concentrated for the destruction of the defiling impulses’ (yato ca . . . cittam imehi pañcahi upakkilesehi vimuttam hoti, tam hoti cittam mudu ca kammaniyañ ca pabhassarañ ca na ca pabhangu sammā samādhiyati āsavānam khayāya, A. III.16, 17). In this state it is said that ‘he directs his mind to those things which have to be realized by one’s higher knowledge in order to realize them by one’s higher knowledge’ (abhiññā-sacchikaranīyassa dhammassa cittam abhinin-nāmeti abhiññā-sacchikiriyāya, *loc. cit.*) and here we find enumerated the usual six kinds of higher knowledge he is capable of (sace ākankhati, *loc. cit.*) having (A. III. pp 17–19).