Path of Purification Visuddhimagga

The Visuddhimagga is the "great treatise" of Theravada Buddhism, an encyclopedic manual of doctrine and meditation written in the fifth century by the great Buddhist commentator, Buddhaghosa. The most esteemed commentary in all of Pāli literature, The Path of Purification, or Visuddhimagga is a systematic examination and condensation of Buddhist doctrine and meditation technique. The various teachings of the Buddha, found throughout the Pāli Canon, are organized in a clear, comprehensive path leading to the final goal, nibbana, the state of complete purification. In the course of his treatise Buddhaghosa gives full and detailed instructions on the forty subjects of meditation aimed at concentration, an elaborate account of the Buddhist Abhidhamma philosophy, and explicit descriptions of the stages of insight culminating in final liberation. The author, Bhadantacaryia Buddhaghosa, composed the Visuddhimagga in the early part of the 5th century A.D. The India-born monk-scholar traveled to Sri Lanka to translate into Pāli the extensive Sinhalese commentaries preserved there. His crystallization of the entire Pāli Canon reinvigorated Theravada ....