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The last words of the Buddha.

Dharmacari Jayarava
The Buddha's last words were spoken to a large group of disciples in the Mallas's sl-tree grove near
Kusinr. The text which recounts these events is the Mahparinibbna Sutta - the story of the great
extinguishing.[ 1 ] The Blessed One (bhagavant) knew that it was time for him to die, or to pass into
parinibbna. He was on a tour of the main places where he had taught, accompanied as always by
nanda and there was a kind of magic in the air as miraculous events occurred where ever they went.
The tour came to an end when, after taking a meal with a lay supporter, the Buddha became fatally ill
with food poisoning. Word went around and a great company of the Blessed One's disciples gathered to
pay their last respects to him. He questioned them to make sure they had no lingering doubts about the
teaching, but none of them did. Every one of them was at least a stream entrant, and had realised the
Truth for themselves. And then the Sutta says:
Atha kho bhagav bhikkh mantesi - handa dni, bhikkave, mantaymi vo: "vayadhamm
sakhr appamdena sampdeth"ti. Aya tathgatassa pacchim vc.[ 2 ]
Now the Blessed One advised the bhikkhus - Well now, bhikkhus, my counsel is: experience is
disappointing, [it is] through vigilance [that] you succeed. These were the last words for the
Tathgata.
Buddhists have always had a particular interest in the words of the Buddha, have put a huge amount of
effort into preserving them and interpreting them. His last words have a unique resonance, and special
place amongst the corpus of Buddhavc. In this essay I take a close look at these last words to see
what they mean, and why they mean that. I will also explore along the way some of the complexities of
translating a specialised technical jargon from one language to another.

The Buddha Addresses the Bhikkhus

But before I get to the last words themselves, I want to make an observation about the words translated
above as "advised" (mantesi) and "my counsel is" (mantaymi). Both derive from the verb manteti
which means: "to call, address, speak to, invite, consult" and combines manta (Sanskrit mantra) with

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the "-" prefix which indicates motion towards. [ 3 ] manta, along with its various conjugations and
declensions, is a common enough word in the Canon. It is used in the sense of advice or counsel,
especially the kind counsel that passed between a king and his minister, for instance.
However there are a number of verbs for speaking in Pli, for instance: bhsati (he says, speaks),
vadati (he says), katheti (he relates, or tells), papeti (he declares), vykaroti (he explains), anussati
(he advises, instructs - also used of ministers and teachers). Any of these could have been used instead,
but manteti is used, and used twice in the same sentence in two different conjugations. I believe that
the intention here is to "mark" these last words as significant. [ 4 ] The implication is that this was no a
casual conversation. The Buddha was not speaking informally, or just talking to pass the time. He was
not talking one friend to another, but as the sath devamanussna, the teacher of gods and humans. [
5 ] The use of manta indicates the solemnity of the statement, and the seriousness of the situation.
Aware of his immanent death the Blessed One composes himself and composes his words.
The use of the verb manteti also reminds us of the status of the spoken word in the Buddha's day and
in particular the status of the utterances of the Buddha. Important utterances were memorised and
carried in memory rather than being written down. It helps to contextualise what comes next as a
sacred utterance, something that we may take on the level of mantra. These are words to recollect, to
contemplate, to reflect on, and even to recite.

The discourse
The last words come towards the end of the Sutta. The phrase contains only four words, but each has
many possibilities of meaning. I begin by divining the meaning of each word individually, or indeed in
most cases the parts of each word, and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the word. I then
consider the words in the two pairs they naturally seem to fall into; and only then finally consider the
phrase as a whole. By taking this bottom up approach I hope to be able to convey something of the
depth and complexity of this four-word phrase. In the case of appamda I take especial care to look at
how the word is used before attempting a translation of it.
vayadhamm
The word vayadhamm is a compound consisting of two words: vaya + dhamma. Vaya is firstly "loss,
want, expense" and secondly 'decay'. [ 6 ] It is interesting that previous translators have adopted the
secondary meaning when translating the Buddha's last words, but before we go into this we need to
look at dhamma.
Dhamma is one of those words that almost defy denition or translation. PED devotes 7 columns to

it. In its most literal and fundamental sense dhamma means something like "nature". It comes from a
Sanskrit root dh which means to hold, or support: the foundation. English words such as form and rm
come from the same Indo-European root. The sense of it in Buddhist contexts covers a number of
areas: as "nature" it refers to the underlying order of the universe, the ethical order in which actions
have consequences, and even the constraints which that order places upon us (dhamma-niyama).
Dhamm (plural) are the elements of experience, i.e. phenomena. Dhamma can also mean the teachings
and texts that contain the words of the Buddha, and the path which Buddhists follow.
In this case dhamma is used in its fundamental meaning of nature, and corresponds to something like
the English suffix '-able' as in perishable. So we could say that vayadhamma is being taken to mean,
"decays by nature", or "having decay as it's nature". And in fact perishable would work as a translation
if we had to choose a single word, since it has more or less the same semantic field.
For vayadhamm Rhys Davids translates: "decay is inherent...". Walsh has the awkward phrase "of a
nature to decay" in his translation of the Sutta. [ 7 ] Bhikkhu Bodhi uses "vanishing nature" for
vayadhamma where it occurs in his Majjhima Nikya translation. [ 8 ] However as noted the first
meaning of vaya is "loss, want, expense", and vayadhamma could therefore be taken as meaning "of
the nature of loss, want or expense", which we could straightforwardly render as "disappointment", or
as an adverb: "disappointing". The implications of this become more clear when we take vayadhamma
with the noun it relates to, so let us move on.
sakhr
Sakhr is another tricky term to translate. There is no single English word which precisely matches
it. PED says it is:
"One of the most difficult terms in Buddhist metaphysics, in which the blending of the
subjective-objective view of the world and of happening, peculiar to the East, is so complete, that
it is almost impossible for Occidental terminology to get at the root of its meaning in a
translation." [ 9 ]
The prex "sa-" roughly matches the English prex "con" and means "together", while khr is from a
Sanskrit root k which means "to do, make, perform, accomplish, cause, effect, prepare, undertake". [
10 ] So the literal meaning of sakhr is something made together or put together. The closest single
English word with this meaning is "confected", but this has connotations that make it unsuitable as a
translation. "Compounded" is very close, and is a useful rendering. Thanissaro's use of "fabrications"
has the added value of indicating that the objects of the senses are not real in any absolute sense: they
are "made up". However fabrications is a bit awkward to my ear.

In Buddhist usage there are several senses of the word Sakhr:

1. Aggregate of the conditions or essential properties for a given process or result. As the second
member of the nidana chain, for instance, it refers to the conditions which are responsible for the
first moment of consciousness in a new life. [ 11 ] In this case it is related to acts of will, the
combined fruit of which is rebirth.
2. One of the five khandhas - where it means "the mental concomitants, or adjuncts which come,
or tend to come, into consciousness at the uprising of a citta or unit of cognition". [ 12 ] So
whereas the first sense refers to actively setting things up, the second refers to things having been
set up, or in the literal sense of the word, put together.
3. All things [arising from a cause] - often written sabbe sakhr in this context, sabbe being
Pli for 'all'. [ 13 ] In the widest sense it means "the world of phenomena". [ 14 ] It is this sense
which is being used in this statement according to the various existing translations. However it
could be interpreted psychologically as collection of all dhammas, in other words the sum total
of experience.
In this case sakhr appears to be used in the sense of "all things" especially "all compounded things".
Sakhr is in the nominative plural case hence the long '-(' ending, and vayadhamm as an adjective
or adverb follows it as to case and number. Since compounded things are made of dhammas,
vayadhamm sakhr can be seen to be something of a word play.
How we choose to render vayadhamm sakhr into English will depend on which of the possible
meanings we think were intended by the speaker/author. The usual principle is to choose one concept,
and translate it as one word. In many cases these one-for-one translations have become standardised
through repetition and convention, and an English word is now the "accepted" translation. The result
has been called Buddhist Hybrid English [ 15 ] and is in many cases deeply unsatisfactory since the
underlying complexity is hidden beneath an English word which may have a significantly different
semantic field. Communicating in words often involves a sophisticated use of ambiguity and polysemy
to imply shades of meaning. Translation always results in a loss of some information, but unhappily
can also result in the substituting of misinformation such as when early translators settled on Law for
dhamma.
When working with a Pli text it is useful to consult the traditional commentaries. These have not been
translated into English except in a very few cases. The commentary often gives a gloss of the word,
along with a few synonyms. This is helpful in establishing what Buddhaghosa understood by the word.
Unfortunately the commentary is silent on vayadhamm sakhr in this phrase. Perhaps it was a well
established usage, or had been explained in other places.

Most translators of this phrase seem to have opted for some variation on "all conditioned things are of a
nature to decay". Underlying this is the Buddhist doctrine that because "things" depend on causes and
conditions - a corollary of their being composite - and because everything is always changing things
are liable to fall apart, to cease, to decay and die. This rendering emphasises the objective pole of
experience - the putative world "out there", made up of elements, and whirling around us.
The other sense of vayadhamm - i.e. disappointment - would lead to a rendering that emphasised the
subjective pole of experience. All conditioned things are disappointing. Dhamma also has a subjective
aspect. Dhamma as phenomena are the elements of mental experience, they relate to mental states
rather than phenomena out there. And sakhr in this case refers not to "things" in any concrete sense,
but to experience. So another translation emerges which we might render: "all experiences are
disappointing", with the caveat that experience here is experience of conditioned dhammas, not
unconditioned. Experience of unconditioned dhammas is by definition not disappointing.
I find this approach more felicitous as it is in the mental sphere that we mostly work in Buddhist
practice. We can say that conditioned things, the complex sense and mental impressions that make up
experience, are disappointing because they are impersonal (anatta) and impermanent (anicca). We
interpret them as personal and permanent and this sets up false expectations and assumptions, which
inevitably lead to disappointment, and even perhaps to madness:
Anicce niccasaino, dukkhe ca sukhasaino;
anattani ca attti, asubhe subhasaino;
micchdihihat satt, khittacitt visaino.
Perceiving permanence in the impermanent, and pleasant in the painful
And self in the impersonal, and beauty in the repulsive
Beings are injured by wrong-views,
minds unhinged, they go mad. [ 16 ]
We can therefore translate vayadhamm sakhr as: "all things are perishable" or "all experiences are
disappointing". Either one implies the other, but the implication is more clear, I think, in the latter.
appamdena
Appamda is an interesting word made up from a root, two prefixes, and a case ending. Broken into its
constituent parts it is: a + (p)p + mada + ena.
The root word is mada, which means 'intoxication', and is thought to relate to the Greek mastos =

breast, and to the Latin madeo = to be wet; originally it meant "drip, be full of liquid or fat". [ 17 ]
There are a series of related words like majja (intoxicating drink), majjati (to be intoxicated, to be
exultant, to be immensely enjoyed or elated), matta (intoxicated (with), full of joy about, proud of,
conceited). The PED gives two senses for mada: 1. intoxication, sensual excess; 2. pride, conceit. [ 18 ]
Pa is "direction prefix of forward motion, in applied sense often emphasising the action as carried on to
a marked degree or even beyond it's mark". [ 19 ] So if mada is drunk, then pamda is blind drunk. The
dictionary gives carelessness, negligence, indolence, remissness. To my mind these do not carry the
weight of the etymology of the word. Someone blind drunk is not simply remiss or careless, they are
likely to be delinquent, to behave reprehensibly, and to be a danger to themselves and others. In the
Pli Canon drunkenness is also associated with madness. In the Vipaka Sutta the Buddha is discussion
the results of breaking the precepts and says:
Yo sabbalahuso surmerayapnassa vipko, manussabhtassa ummattaka- savattaniko hot"ti. [
20 ]
The most trivial result of men drinking alcoholic liquor is that it leads to madness.
Pamda or drunkenness then, is like madness. In Buddhist terms it is the madness described above, of
one who understands experience incorrectly.
'a' is a negative prefix which makes the word have it's opposite meaning, and in this case causes the 'p'
to be doubled. The dictionary defines appamda as "thoughtfulness, carefulness, conscientiousness,
watchfulness, vigilance, earnestness, zeal". Appamda is the opposite of blind drunkenness, or being
completely 'out of it'. What is meant here is the sort of thoughtfulness that one might have if confronted
by a large poisonous snake, or a hungry tiger. It is a very vivid, very clear awareness, with no
distractions.
'-ena' is the case ending for the instrumental case, so it indicates 'by means of, through, with'.
Appamda is one of three terms that refer to various qualities of attention or awareness which are
frequently subsumed under the English word mindfulness. The other terms are sati and sampajaa.
Sati comes from a root word that suggests memory or recollection; while sampajaa suggests a
focused and concentrated attention. Etymology gives us a sense of appamda, but in order to fully
appreciate its distinctive meaning we need to look at how it is used in context.
Firstly appamda is praised is the highest terms: for example appamda is the wise man's "foremost
treasure". [ 21 ] It is described as securing both good in ones present life, and in any future life. It
bestows long life, health, beauty, and noble birth. [ 22 ] It is through appamda that all other positive

mental states are cultivated. In the Tathgata Sutta it says:

" whatever wholesome states there are, they are rooted in diligence [i.e. appamda] converge
upon diligence, and diligence is declared to be chief among them. When a bhikkhu is diligent, it
is to be expected that he will develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path". [ 23 ]
Other suttas tell us that various qualities are developed and cultivated through appamda, for instance
the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, [ 24 ] and the five faculties. [ 25 ] appamda causes unarisen
wholesome states to arise,[ 26 ] and the Buddha declares that it is through appamda that he won
enlightenment.[ 27 ] The appamdavaggo chapter of the Dhammapada is essentially a eulogy to
appamda in similar terms.[ 28 ] The Mahmagala Sutta mentions appamda as one of the many
qualities that are the highest blessing (magalamuttama).[ 29 ]
Clearly appamda is a very important quality for the Buddhist, but what actually is it? In the
sayatanasayutta a sutta tells us that appamda is associated with the quality of restraint:
"If one dwells with restraint [savuta] over the eye faculty, the mind is not soiled among forms
cognizable by the eye. If the mind is not soiled, gladness is born. When one is gladdened, rapture
is born. When the mind is uplifted by rapture, the body becomes tranquil. One tranquil in body
experiences happiness. The mind of one who is happy becomes concentrated. When the mind is
concentrated, phenomena become manifest [dhammna ptubhv], one is reckoned as 'one
who dwells diligently'." [ 30 ]
Appamda is synonymous with "guarding the gates of the senses", but also with a concentrated mind
through which Insight can arise. It enables us to enter the successive states - pmojja, pti,
passambhati, sukha, samdhi, dhamm ptubhav - that lead in a progressive fashion to liberation. [ 31
] I take dhammna ptubhv to be synonymous with yathbhta-adassana, the knowledge and
vision of the [true] nature of things.
In the Devadaha Sutta the Buddha explains that not all bhikkhu have work to do with appamda, only
those who have not Awakened. The work one does with appamda is to train so that agreeable and
disagreeable sensations "do not persist obsessing [pariydya] one's mind even when they are
repeatedly experienced". [ 32 ] And:
"When the mind is not obsessed, tireless energy is aroused, unmuddled mindfulness [sati] is set
up. The body becomes tranquil and untroubled, the mind becomes concentrated and one pointed"
[ 33 ]
Pariydya here means "exhausting, overpowering, enticing, taking hold of; and losing control over,

giving out". [ 34 ] Clearly this is closely related to the conception of drunkenness and intoxication with
the objects of the sense.
Aguttara Nikya 4.116 describes four occasions for appamda that relate to ethical conduct. Bhikkhus
are told that they should be diligent in giving up bad conduct of body, speech or mind, and in giving up
wrong views and cultivating right views. Having done this they are told that they "need not fear death
in a future existence", which is to say that they will attain the Deathless or Awakening. [ 35 ] In
Aguttara Nikya 4.117 appamda plays a role in guarding the mind from "harbouring lust for
anything inducing lust[and being] infatuated by anything inducing infatuation [madanyesu]".
Anyone guarding their mind in this way "will not waver, shake or tremble, he will not succumb to fear,
nor will he adopt the views of other ascetics". [ 36 ]
So appamda is the opposite of the qualities of intoxication (pamda), obsession (pariydya), or
infatuation (madanyesu), with sensory experience. Positively it is state of non-intoxication or sobriety
which results in a calm body and concentrated mind, and this enables one to see things as they really
are, and to be liberated from suffering. Translating this is difficult because there isn't really an English
word that corresponds to this concept.
Walsh opts for "untiringly" is his translation that doesn't seem right. Rhys Davids and Bhikkhu Bodhi
translate appamda as "diligence" which is a better, but sounds a bit at to my ears, and doesn't quite
catch the quality that I read in the texts. Woodward used both "seriousness" and "earnestness" in his
translation of the Aguttara Nikya. None of these seem to convey anything like the idea of appamda.
If forced to choose one word I suggest that 'vigilance' has more of the quality of careful attention, and
of guarding the mind, combined with a vigour quality. However it is clear that a single English word is
hardly sufficient to convey the subtleties of the Pli.
sampdetha
sampdetha is the second person plural of the verb sampdeti meaning firstly: 'to procure, to obtain';
and secondly 'to strive, to try to accomplish ones aim'. Sampdeti is itself the causative of sampajjati
for which the PED gives "to come to, to fall to, to succeed, to prosper". Warder says the purpose of the
causative is:
"to cause someone or some thing to do the action of the root, to have something done" [ 37 ]
So sampdetha means "to cause to succeed, prosper, or obtain", with the implication that success is
reaching nibbna, and liberation is obtained. Related words are sampdaka "one who obtains [the
goal]"; and sampdana "effecting, accomplishment". In the text the word is immediately followed by

the close quote marker iti, which condenses to ti and lengthens the last vowel: sampdeth"ti =
sampdetha + iti.
Walsh translates appamdena sampdetha as "strive on untiringly" [ 38 ] though untiringly is entirely
wrong. Rhys Davids opts for "work out your salvation with diligence" which is closer to my
understanding of the terms. Bhikkhu Thanissaro uses "bring about completion by being heedful". [ 39 ]
Another version from the Access to Insight website has "Strive with earnestness" [ 40 ] which has the
same faults as Walsh. It is common to hear "with mindfulness, strive on": I have not located the source
of this rendering but it too is not fit for purpose.
If the primary sense of sampdetha is "to cause to succeed", then those translations which opt for
"strive", without conveying the idea of what one is striving for, or that one should succeed, are missing
an important aspect of this statement. However the others seem a little awkward and pedestrian. They
lack the poetry of the original, the directness and density. Now, we know quite a lot about the goal of
the Buddha's teaching, sometimes called nibbna, 'the deathless', awakening, the "highest bliss". It is
for nibbna that the Buddha is exhorting us to strive and a translation should reflect this.
The Pli commentary does not have much to add. Glossing appamdena sampdeth it says "satiavippasvsena sabbakiccni sampdeyytha" [ 41 ] or with mindfulness [sati] and attention
[avippavsa] you should perform all your duties. Sati is mindfulness with a connotation of recollection
or memory. Avippavsa means "thoughtfulness, mindfulness, attention". It seems as though the
commentator is over looking, as do most translators, the association with restraining the senses.
The clear sense of appamdena sampdetha, then, is that appamda is the means by which one is
caused to succeed. Hence I have chosen to translate it as "[it is] through vigilance [that] you succeed".

Conclusion
Bringing all of this information together we can now attempt a translation of the phrase, the Buddha's
sacred last words:
vayadhamm sakhr appamdena sampdetha
All compounded things, all experiences (mental and physical), all phenomena by their very
nature decay and die, and are disappointing: it is through being not-blind-drunk on, obsessed by,
or infatuated with, the objects of the senses that you succeed in awakening, or obtain liberation.
Or more succinctly:

All things are disappointing, [it is] through vigilance [that] you succeed.
After speaking the now familiar words, the Buddha spoke no more, but is said to have passed into
meditation, and ascending through the jhanas, to have passed beyond our comprehension. Two frequent
epithets of the Buddha were Tathgata and Sugata. Gata means gone so the two epithets mean the "thus
gone", and the "well gone". A Tathgata is said to be trackless, he leaves no signs behind, produces no
more kamma-vipaka. His state is ineffable since it is incorrect to say that he is reborn, and it is
incorrect to say he is not reborn. Fortunately he did leave behind his words, or at least we feel
reasonably sure that these are his words. Walsh says of the Mahparinibbna sutta that it: "No doubt
contains the basic facts about the Buddha's last days, but various late and more than dubious elements
have been incorporated into it".`[ 42 ] More doubt creeps in when we consider that the Pli canon was
not originally in Pli and has already been translated at least once. If the original language was, as we
think, more closely related than Pli and English, then those translators may not have encountered the
very great difficulties that we have, and we can only hope that not too much was obscured, and not too
much added in the process.
The Buddha said his dhamma was ehipassiko an invitation to come and see for yourself. So even if his
words have undergone massive changes and contortions there is always this last test: what happens
when we guard the gates of our senses, when we sober up from our long intoxication with experiences,
and we allow our bodies to become calm, and our minds to become concentrated?

Appendix: various translations of the passage.

T.W. Rhys Davids
"Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said, 'behold now, brethren, I exhort you,
saying, "Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your salvation with diligence!"'.
This was the last word of the Tathgata. [ 43 ]
Maurice Walsh
Then the Lord said to the Monks: Now, monks, I declare to you: all conditions things are of a
nature to decay - strive on untiringly. These were the Tathgata's last words. [ 44 ]
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Then the Blessed One addressed the monks, "Now, then, monks, I exhort you: All fabrications
are subject to decay. Bring about completion by being heedful." Those were the Tathagata's last

words. [ 45 ]
Sister Vajira & Francis Story
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All
compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness! [ 46 ]

Notes
1. Walsh, M. The long discourses of the Buddha : a translation of the Dgha Nikya. (Boston :
Wisdom Publications, c1995) p.231ff. [D ii.72.ff.] Unattributed translations are mine. Although I
have mostly not used the Pli Text Society editions of the Pli, I quote the page numbers in
square brackets. [return]
2. Mahparinibbna Sutta. DN 16. Chaha Sagyana CD-ROM (version 3). Igatpuri :
Vipassana Research Institute. [D ii.155-6.] [return]
3. Rhys Davids, T. W. and Stede, W. The Pli Text Society's Pli-English Dictionary. (London,
Pli Text Society, 1986). [hereafter PED] p.522 [return]
4. Arguments over the historical status of the Canon do not affect my argument, which is simply
that someone intended to mark these words. [return]
5. One of ten epithets from the Buddha Vandan. [return]
6. Taking it to be from the Sanskrit vyaya rather than vayas (age, especially young age). See
PED s.v. Vaya2. [return]
7. Walsh. p.270. [return]
8. amoli and Bodhi. The Middle Length Discourses. (Boston, Wisdom Publications : 1995)
n.144, p.1191-2. [return]
9. PED. s.v. sakhr. p.664 [return]
10. Monier-Williams, M. A Sanskrit-English dictionary. (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass : 1988)
[return]
11. This definition which relies on PED assumes the "three life" interpretation of the nidana
chain which Buddhaghosa employs in the Visuddhimagga. [return]
12. PED p.665 [return]
13. see for instance Dhammapada verse 277. [return]
14. PED p.665 [return]
15. This phrase was coined by Paul Griffiths, see Griffiths, P. "Buddhist Hybrid English : some
notes on philology and hermeneutics for Buddhologists," Journal of the International
Association of Buddhist Studies. 1981 4(2), p.17-32. Griffiths is more concerned with the
mangling of English syntax. [return]
16. Vipallasa Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya IV.49. [A ii.51] [return]

17. PED s.v. mada p.518 [return]

18. ibid. [return]
19. PED. p.378 [return]
20. Vipaka Sutta, Aguttara Nikya 8.40 [A iv.247], see also the Dhammika Sutta, (Sn v. 398399) in Saddhatissa, H. The Sutta Nipta. (Richmond, Surrey, Curzon Press, 1994) p.44-45.
However there is apparently no etymological link between the Pli mada and English mad.
[return]
21. Sayutta Nikya 1.1.36 Bodhi. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha : a translation of
the Sayutta Nikya. (Boston : Wisdom, 2000) [1 vol. Ed.] p.114 [S i.25] [return]
22. Sayutta Nikya 1.3.17. Bodhi. The Connected Discourses. p.179 [S i.86-7] [return]
23. ibid. p.1550 [S v.42] [return]
24. ibid. p.1589 [S v.91] [return]
25. ibid. p.1698 [S v.232] [return]
26. Nyanaponika and Bodhi. (trans.) The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. Walnut Creek,
C.A. Altamira, 1999p.36, AN 1.6 [A i.10] and p. 240 AN 10.15 [A v.20] [return]
27. ibid. p.41 AN 2.1 [A i.50] [return]
28. See Dhammapada chapter 11 'appamdovaggo'. [return]
29. Suttanipta v.264 in Saddhatissa, H. The Sutta-Nipta. (Richmond, Curzon : 1985). p.29
[return]
30. Bodhi. The Connected Discourses. p.1179-80. [S iv.78-9] [return]
31. The locus classicus for this is the Upanisa Sutta, where instead of dhamm ptubhav we
find yathbhta adassana - knowledge and vision of things as they are - and the series
continues to khaye a - knowledge of ending, i.e. nal liberation. see Bodhi. The Connected
Discourses of the Buddha p.553-6. [S ii.29-32]. See also p.746 note 69, and Bhikkhu Bodhi's
essay: "Transcendental dependent arising : a translation and exposition of the Upanisa Sutta,"
The Wheel Publication No. 277/278 (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1980). Online:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel277.html [return]
32. Bodhi. The Connected Discourses. p.1206-7. [S iv.125] [return]
33. Bodhi. The Connected Discourses. p.1206-7. [S iv.125][return]
34. PED s.v. pariydya, p.433.[return]
35. Nyanaponika and Bodhi. p.106-7. AN 4.116 [A ii.119f][return]
36. ibid. p.107. AN 4.117 [A ii.120][return]
37. Warder, A. K. Introduction to Pli (2nd ed.) London, Pli Text Society, 1984. p.78. [return]
38. Walsh p270. [return]
39. Thanissaro (Bhikkhu). Maha-parinibbana Sutta . Access to Insight [Website
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/digha/dn16a.html : viewed 1/9/03] [return]
40. Vajira (Sister) and Story, F. Maha-parinibbana Sutta . Access to Insight [Website
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41. DA ii.593 [return]

42. Walsh. Op cit. p.566-7, note 363. [return]
43. T.W. Rhys Davids, trans., Buddhist Suttas. The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XI (Oxford:
.The Clarendon Press, 1881), p.114. = Rhys Davids, T.W. and C.A.F. 1910. Dialogues of the
Buddha. London : Oxford University Press. Part II, p.173. [return]
44. Walsh. Op cit. p.270. [return]
45. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.5-6.than.html [return]
46. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html#chap6.10 [return]
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