avidya in Pali literature

umhardy at cc.UManitoba.CA umhardy at cc.UManitoba.CA
Thu Apr 3 18:11:20 UTC 1997


In sutra II.5 of Patanjali's Yogasutra, avidya is defined as follows:

anityaashuciduHkhaanaatmasu nityashucisukhaatmakhyaatiravidyaa |

"Avidya is the taking of the non-eternal, the impure, the painful and the 
non-self to be the eternal, the pure, the pleasurable and the self."

I'm almost certain that there exists, somewhere in early Buddhist (Pali) 
literature, a passage on avidya which uses very-similar wording. However, 
I can't seem to locate it at present. Can anyone out there help?

Thanks,

Kristen Hardy,
student of religion,
University of Manitoba
 






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