18.5 Of a One and Only Path (KV18.5)

Controverted Point: That the fourfold fruition of the religious life is realized by one path only.

Theravādin: This implies a fusion of the four distinct conscious procedures experienced in each stage of progress, which you deny.

Moreover, if there be one path only, which of the four is it?

Andhaka, Uttarāpathaka: The path of Arahantship.

Theravādin: But do we teach that by that path the three first of the ten Fetters are removed—to wit, theory of soul, doubt, and infection of mere rule and ritual? Did not the Exalted One say that these are removed by the Stream-Winning Path?

And are gross passions and malevolence removed by the path of Arahantship? Did not the Exalted One say that the fruit of the Once-Returner was the state of having reduced these to a minimum? And is it by the path of Arahantship that that minimum is removed? You know it is not. If you assent, I can refer you to the words of the Exalted One, who said that the fruit of the Never-Returner was the state of having removed that minimum without remainder.

Andhaka, Uttarāpathaka: But if we are wrong, and the Exalted One developed each Path in succession, can he be called Stream-Winner and so on? You deny, but you have implied it.

Theravādin: But if the Exalted One realized these four fruits of the religious life by one Ariyan Path only, and the disciples by four Paths, they have seen what he did not see, they arrive at where he did not arrive, they realize that which he did not realize. You cannot admit this … .

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.

This electronic version is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC 3.0) as found here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

All copyright is owned by the Pali Text Society. See also the statement under http://www.palitext.com/ → Publications → Copyright Announcement. For non-commercial use only.