15.6 Of Decay and Death (KV15.6)

Controverted Point: That the decay and death of spiritual things is itself spiritual.

Theravādin: Then you must be prepared to classify it with one of the approved spiritual things—Path, Fruit, Nibbāna, etc.… For instance, is the decay and death of the Stream-Winner's Path the Path itself? If you deny, your proposition falls through. If you assent, you must also apply your proposition to all the other stages, and say, finally, that the decay and death of the fruit of arahantship is itself fruit of arahantship—which you may not. Nor will you be prepared to admit decay and death as identical with any one of the Factors of Enlightenment.

Mahāsaṅghika: Then, is the decay and death of supramundane things a mundane thing? You deny. Then it must be supramundane.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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