Voice of the Buddha : Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words

What would a Buddhist theory of texts look like through the lens of the 5th-century thinker Buddhaghosa? In Voice of the Buddha , Maria Heim reads from the principal commentator, editor, and translator of the Theravada intellectual tradition, yielding fresh insight into all three collections of the early Pali texts: Vinaya, the Suttas, and the Abhidhamma. Buddhaghosa considered the Buddha to be omniscient, the Buddha's words to be "oceanic." Every word, passage, book--indeed the corpus as a whole--is taken to be "endless and immeasurable" in Buddhaghosa's view. Commentarial practice thus requires disciplined methods of expansion, drawing out the endless possibilities for meaning and application. Heim considers Buddhaghosa's theories of texts, and follows his practices of exegesis to discover how he explored scripture's infinity. By examining the significance of the immeasurability of scripture in commentarial practice and as a general principle, this book offers new tools to understand the huge scriptural and commentarial literature of the Pali tradition. And by taking seriously a traditional commentator's theory of texts, it beckons us to learn from commentaries themselves how we might read and interpret them and the texts on which they comment. Cover 1 Voice of the Buddha 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Abbreviations for Pali Texts 12 Introduction 14 PART I: Building Blocks for an Interpretative Program 44 1. The Buddha’s Omniscience and the Immeasurability of Scripture 46 2. Scripture, Commentary, and Exegetical Distinctions 73 PART II: Interpreting the Three Piṭakas 120 3. The Contexts and Conditions of Buddhavacana in the Suttanta 122 4. Disentangling the Tangle: Abhidhamma as Phenomenological Analysis 157 5. The “Completely Pleasing” Exegesis on the Vinaya 197 Conclusion 231 Appendix A: The Recollection of the Dhamma 236 Appendix B: Commentary on the Section on Verañja Starting the Vinaya 242 Appendix C: Four Oceans and Three Piṭakas 252 Bibliography 266 Index 278 "Voice of the Buddha is a study of the theories of scripture described and practiced by the 5th century thinker Buddhaghosa, the principal commentator of the Theravada intellectual tradition. By bringing to the fore Buddhaghosa's theories of texts and commentarial practices, Heim casts new light on early Pali texts and the commentarial system Buddhaghosa's work represents"-- Provided by publisher