Nyanatiloka Buddhist Dictionary

paññá-vimutti: 'deliverance through wisdom' (or understanding'), signifies, according to Com. to A.V, 142,the wisdom associated with the fruition of holiness (arahatta-phala). In Pug. 31 and similarly in M. 70, it issaid: "A monk may not have reached in his own person the 8 liberations (=jhána, q.v.), but through hiswisdom the cankers have come to extinction in him. Such a person is called wisdom-liberated"(paññá-vimutta). - Com. to Pug.: "He may be one of five persons: either a practiser of bare insight(sukkha-vipassako, q.v.), or one who has attained to Holiness after rising from one of the absorptions." See S.XII, 7().The term is often linked with ceto-vimutti (q.v.), 'deliverance of mind'.papañca: (Sanskrit prapañca): In doctrinal usage, it signifies the expansion, differentiation, 'diffuseness' or'manifoldness' of the world; and it may also refer to the 'phenomenal world' in general, and to the mentalattitude of 'worldliness'. In A. IV, 173, it is said: "As far as the field of sixfold sense-impression extends, sofar reaches the world of diffuseness (or the phenomenal world; papañcassa gati); as far as the world ofdiffuseness extends, so far extends the field of sixfold sense-impression. Through the complete fading awayand cessation of the field of sixfold sense-impression, there comes about the cessation and the coming-to-restof the world of diffuseness (papañca-nirodho papañca-vupasamo)." The opposite term nippapañca is a namefor Nibbána (S. LIII), in the sense of 'freedom from samsaric diffuseness'. - Dhp. 254: "Mankind delights inthe diffuseness of the world, the Perfect Ones are free from such diffuseness" (papañcábhiratá pajá,nippapañca tathágatá). - The 8th of the 'thoughts of a great man' (mahá-purisa-vitakka; A. VIII, 30) has:"This Dhamma is for one who delights in non-diffuseness (the unworldly, Nibbána); it is not for him whodelights in worldliness (papañca)." - For the psychological sense of 'differentiation', see M. 18(Madhupindika Sutta): "Whatever man conceives (vitakketi) that he differentiates (papañceti); and what hedifferentiates, by reason thereof ideas and considerations of differentiation (papañca-saññá-sankhá) arise inhim." On this text and the term papañca, see Dr. Kurt Schmidt in German Buddhist Writers (WHEEL 74/75)p. 61ff. - See D. 21 (Sakka's Quest; WHEEL 10, p.In the commentaries, we often find a threefold classification tanhá-, ditthi-, mána-papañca, which probablymeans the world's diffuseness created hy craving, false views and conceit. - See M. 123; A. IV, 173; A. VI,14, Sn. 530, 874, 916.Ñánananda Bhikkhu, in Concept and Reality: An Essay on Papañca andPapañca-saññá-sankhá (Kandy 1971, Buddhist Publication Society), suggests that the termrefers to man's "tendency towards proliferation in the realm of concepts" and proposes arendering by "conceptual proliferation," which appears convincing in psychological context,e.g. in two of the texts quoted above, A. IV, 173 and M. 18. - The threefold classification ofpapañca, by way of craving, false views and conceit, is explained by the author as threeaspects, or instances, of the foremost of delusive conceptualisations, the ego-concept.parámása: 'adherence', attachment, 'misapprehension', is according to Vis.M. XXII a name for wrong views;in that sense it occurs in Dhs. 1174 ff. - See sílabbata-parámása.paramattha (-sacca, -vacana, -desaná): 'truth (or term, exposition) that is true in the highest (or ultimate)sense', as contrasted with the 'conventional truth' (vohára-sacca), which is also called 'commonly acceptedtruth' (sammuti-sacca; in Skr: samvrti-satya). The Buddha, in explaining his doctrine, sometimes usedconventional language and sometimes the philosophical mode of expression which is in accordance whithundeluded insight into reality. In that ultimate sense, existence is a mere process of physical and mentalphenomena within which, or beyond which, no real ego-entity nor any abiding substance can ever be found.Thus, whenever the suttas speak of man, woman or person, or of the rebirth of a being, this must not be takenas being valid in the ultimate sense, but as a mere conventional mode of speech (vohára-vacana).It is one of the main characteristics of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, in distinction from most of the Sutta Pitaka,that it does not employ conventional language, but deals only with ultimates, or realities in the highest sense(paramattha-dhammá). But also in the Sutta Pitaka there are many expositions in terms of ultimate language(paramattha-desaná), namely, wherever these texts deal with the groups (khandha), elements (dhátu) orsense-bases (áyatana), and their components; and wherever the 3 characteristics (ti-lakkhana, q.v.) are