Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c11.s3.t3.9

c11.s3.t3.9

It will be seen how quite unsymmetrically couched the definitions given of the four stages are, with reference to this series. Sometimes three, sometimes five of the Samyojanas are overcome; the categories of Rāga, Dosa, Moha, are introduced, of which only the first figures in the list of the Samyojanas; in the second stage, it is said, these three vices are almost overcome; how it fares with them in the third stage is not stated; but for the definition of the third grade recourse is again had exclusively to the Samyojana categories. Thus these formulas give a veritable picture of the confusion which usually prevails in the long and abstruse series of ideas in ancient Buddhist dogmatic.