Arthaviniścaya

Arthaviniścaya (T. don rnam par nges pa དོན་རྣམ་པར་ངེས་པ་), or "Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings," is a sutra from the Sanskrit Mahayana tradition. This text is included in the Tibetan canon, and there are also two versions in the Chinese language, and an extant Sanskrit manuscript.

Mattia Salvini states:

Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings is a step-by-step contemplation of all facets of reality and freedom from suffering. It starts with the five aggregates that constitute the common basis of defilement and purification and goes through the teachings on selflessness, the path to realize selflessness, and the higher stages of realization, and it culminates in the special features that belong exclusively to a fully awakened buddha. This invaluable archive of Buddhist terms and ideas is to be well absorbed and remembered, so as to make all other teachings easier to comprehend.

Masters of the great monasteries of ancient India such as Nālandā, Vikramaśīla, and Odantapurī are likely to have held this text in high regard as an authoritative outline of the Dharma. The sūtra’s detailed and accessible commentary, the Gathering (Nibandhana) by Vīryaśrīdatta, is a didactically subtle and comprehensive manual of Buddhist philosophy. The Gathering reproduces much of the content of Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Abhidharma (Abhidharmakośa), an unsurpassed and thorough treatise of fundamental Buddhist thought; but while Vasubandhu’s text goes into much detail with the subject matter, the Gathering offers a much more accessible presentation of the same topics.

[...]

The sūtra is also mentioned by Yaśomitra, the author of an extensive explanation (vyākhyā) on Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Abhidharma. Yaśomitra writes that according to “those who emphasize the sūtras” (Sautrāntika), while it is correct to say that the Buddha taught abhidharma, he did not teach separate abhidharmic treatises (as the Vaibhāṣika think); he taught the abhidharma in specific sūtras, such as Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings. As the Buddha’s own paradigmatic statement on the actual nature of reality (dharmalakṣaṇa), the sūtra can be considered an authoritative overview of insight meditation (vipaśyanā). It shares some features with another sūtra transmitted in the Sarvāstivāda tradition, The Discourse on the Twenty-Two Faculties.

Translations into English

• Mattia Salvini (2021), Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings, 84000 Reading Room - based on the Tibetan text
• N. H. Samtani, Ānandajoti Bhikkhu (2016), Artha-Viniścaya-Sūtram, The Discourse giving the Analysis of the Topics - based on the Sanskrit texts

External links

• Arthaviniscaya Sutra, Wikipedia