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Sacred Texts: Buddhism

Buddhism in Translations - § 33. Desire.

Henry Clarke WarrenPali Canon TranslationsTheravada Buddhism

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This is a translated excerpt from the *Visuddhi-Magga* (Path of Purification), a foundational Theravada Buddhist scholastic text, specifically its chapter on dependent origination — the Buddhist doctrine that mental and physical phenomena arise in causal sequence. The passage analyzes the link "on sensation depends desire," cataloguing desire into six types based on sensory object (forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangibles, and ideas), each of which manifests in three modes: desire for sensual pleasure, desire for permanent existence (rooted in the heresy of eternalism), and desire for annihilation (rooted in the heresy of nihilism). Through systematic multiplication — six objects × three modes × subjective/objective × three time periods (past, present, future) — the text arrives at the canonical Buddhist count of 108 desires. A notable analytical move is the classification of two of the three desire-modes as "heretical," framing metaphysical error (belief in eternal persistence or in annihilation) as a form of craving rather than mere intellectual mistake. The passage closes with a soteriological point: because desire invariably produces harmful karma, the liberated sage (brahman) is defined as one in whom desire finds no foothold.

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