21.3 Of Certain Fetters (KV21.3)

Controverted Point: That Arahantship is won without a certain “Fetter”-quantity being cast off.

Theravādin: Do you imply that Arahantship is won without the extirpation of theory of soul, or doubt, or contagion of mere rule and ritual, or lust, or hate, or dullness, or indiscretion? You deny that you do, but your proposition cannot then be maintained.

Or do you imply that the Arahant is prone to lust, hate, dullness, conceit, pride, despair, corruption? Is not the opposite true of him? How then can you say there are certain Fetters he has not cast off?

Mahāsaṅghika: If I am wrong, tell me: does an Arahant know with the complete purview of a Buddha? You agree he does not. Hence I am right.

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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