16.3 Of making Another Happy according to his Deserts (KV16.3)

Controverted Point: That one can bestow happiness on others.

Theravādin: Your proposition implies that one can also cause misery in others. But you deny this, while you maintain the opposite with respect to happiness.

You imply further that you can hand over your own happiness to another; or others' happiness, or his own happiness, to another. You deny. To whom then? You imply, finally, that anyone causes another to act for him, that one's own welfare and ill are wrought by another, that one acts while another experiences.

Hetuvādin: But did not the venerable Udāyin say:

“Verily of many unhappinesses doth the Exalted One rid us, many happinesses doth he bestow upon us, of many bad things doth he rid us, many good things doth he bestow upon us”?

Hence one may hand on happiness to another.

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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