5.1 Of Emancipation (KV5.1)

Controverted Point: That the knowledge of emancipation has itself the quality of emancipation.

Theravādin: Does not your proposition imply that any knowledge of emancipation whatever has the quality of emancipation? For instance, has reflective knowledge that quality? Is such knowledge of emancipation as is possessed by one who has attained to the stage of Ariyan adoption of that quality? You deny both. Then your proposition is too general.

Again, it includes that knowledge of emancipation possessed by one who is practising in order to realize the Fruit of the First, Second, Third, Fourth Paths. But do you mean to convey that the knowledge of one in the First Path is equal to the knowledge of one who has won, acquired, arrived at, realized the Fruit of that Path, and so for the Second, Third, and Fourth? Of course you deny.

Conversely, do you mean to convey that, if the knowledge of emancipation belonging to one who possesses the Fruition of a Path has the quality of emancipation, the knowledge of emancipation of one who is only practising in order to realize that Fruition has the same quality? Of course you deny.

Or in other words, let us assume, as you say, that when a person has realized the fruition of any of the Four Paths his knowledge of emancipation has itself the quality or nature of emancipation. Now you admit that the knowledge in question is the knowledge of one who has won the Fruit, do you not?

But do you maintain as much, if the person has not yet realized, but is only practising to realize a given fruition? Of course you deny … .

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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