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  • Chapter 4 - The Stepwise Training

  • from Part II - The Path
  • Roderick S. Bucknell, University of Queensland
  • Book:
    Reconstructing Early Buddhism
    Published online:
    13 October 2022
    Print publication:
    20 October 2022, pp 83-105

  • Summary

    The title of this chapter refers to the term used in the Pali canon to enumerate the eighteen-stage path of practice said to have been followed by the Buddha to attain liberation. Comparison of this Pali sequence with parallel accounts in other schools preserved in Chinese enables certain discrepancies to be identified, and a discussion follows as to how these might have arisen. The chapter then notes the existence of two shorter paths in which the number of steps is reduced to thirteen by omitting five supernormal knowledges or to eleven by further omitting the first two of the three knowledges that the Buddha gained on the night of his enlightenment. By comparing all three lists and taking account of the Buddha’s own description of what he experienced that night, it is concluded that the thirteen-stage path is in all probability the earliest version.