Path of Freedom [Vimuttimagga]

PrefaceAnd finally the urgent personal need to keep myself immersed in theDhamma throughout the waking hours during this period of stress promptedme to take up the work.From the above it will be seen that this work was taken up due to sheerforce of circumstances and not because of any special qualification on mypart. Therefore, perhaps, some things stated here could have been said inother and better ways. Inexpert as I am in scholarly per suits there is boundto be many a lack in my portion of this work and so I ask reader to bear withme should he detect any errors of commission or omission here.In preparing this work for printing I have made a few alterations in therendering of certain terms and passages, as they appeared in the OriginalDraft Translation, in accordance with notes and instructions left bythe Venerable Soma Thera. The lacunae in the Draft Translation werefilled, as far as possible, with the help of the word for word translation inconsultation with Soma Thera's notes. All the longer Pali quotations inthe footnotes, except a few from the Visuddhimagga and some from theDhammasahgani etc., were inserted by me. They are given in full mainlywith the idea of helping the general reader conversant with the Pali but towhom reference books are not easily accessible. By this attempt of mineif but just a few readers happen to be benefitted, to any extent, I shouldconsider myself amply rewarded.Since the Introduction had already been sent to the Printers by the timethe 'Encyclopaedia of Buddhism' (1961 Government of Ceylon, FasciculeA-Aca) was out, the following is included here. In his article, AbhidharmaLiterature, Dr. Kogen Jvlizuno makes three statements on page 78 of theEncyclopaedia regarding the Vimuttiniagga: (1) that the Vimuttimagga (alongwith the Dhammapada, the Atthakavagga of the Suttanipdta etc.) "probablybelonged to the Abhayagiri sect and not to the Mahavihara sect" (paragraphscontinued from the previous page); (2) that "He (i. e., the VenerableBuddhaghosa Thera) evidently studied the Vimuttimagga, which was a manualof the Abhayagirivihara sect" (paragraph c); and (3) "That the Vimuttimagga,was Upatissa's work and belonged to the Abhayagirivihara sect ismentioned in the tika (sub-commentary, i.e., Dhammapala's Paramatthaman]lisa)of the Visuddhimagga'" (paragraph c).The first statement, (1) above, says that the Vimuttimagga "probablybelonged to the Abhayagiri sect", while the second, (2) above, says "Vimuttimagga,which was a manuel of the Abhayagirivihara sect". How, precisely,did probability in paragraph B became certainty in paragraph c? As for thethird statement, (3) above, the Paramatthamahjusd does not say that theVimuttimagga "belonged to the Abhayagirivihara sect" as is claimed here.What it says is that the Vimuttimagga is the work of the Venerable UpatissaThera. The fact that certain teachings are common to both the Abhayagiri-XXXII