avidya in Pali literature

[Rupert Gethin]

>>> 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.
>
>These are the four viparyaasas, usually translated as "perversions" but
>meaning conceptual reversals. I'm not sure, off-hand, if these are 
>listed
>in early Pali texts (I can't remember them there), but they do appear 
>in
>early Prajnaparamita literature and other Mahayana texts. Check in
>Edgerton's Buddhist-hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary under viparyaasa for
>references (I don't have one in my office or I would have checked for 
>you).
>
>Dan Lusthaus
>Flordia State University
>

The Pali equivalent of Sanskrit viparyaasa is vipallaasa, but the forms 
vipariyesa and vipallattha are also found. The four vipallaasa are 
found in the later Nikaaya texts (e.g. A II 52) and early Abhidhamma 
texts (e.g. Vibh 376). For further references, see the PTS Pali-English 
Dictionary.

Rupert Gethin
University of Bristol
rupert.gethin at bristol.ac.uk