, pp. 109-110; translation, pp. 145-146.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 111; translation, pp. 147-148.]

[Footnote 3: _Samyutta Nikaya_, III. 130.]

99

Avijja and Asava.

As to the question how the avijja (ignorance) first started
there can be no answer, for we could never say that either
ignorance or desire for existence ever has any beginning [Footnote ref 1].
Its fruition is seen in the cycle of existence and the sorrow that comes
in its train, and it comes and goes with them all. Thus as we
can never say that it has any beginning, it determines the elements
which bring about cycles of existence and is itself determined by
certain others. This mutual determination can only take place
in and through the changing series of dependent phenomena, for
there is nothing which can be said to have any absolute priority
in time or stability. It is said that it is through the coming into
being of the asavas or depravities that the avijja came into
being, and that through the destruction of the depravities (_asava_)
the avijja was destroyed [Footnote ref 2]. These asavas are classified in
the _Dhammasa@nga@ni_ as kamasava, bhavasava, di@t@thasava and avijjasava.
Kamasava means desire, attachment, pleasure, and thirst
after the qualities associated with the senses; bhavasava means
desire, attachment and will for existence or birth; di@t@thasava
means the holding of heretical views, such as, the world is eternal
or non-eternal, or that the world will come to an end or will not
come to an end, or that the body and the soul are one or are
different; avijjasava means the ignorance of sorrow, its cause, its
extinction and its means of extinction. _Dhammasa@nga@ni_ adds
four more supplementary ones, viz. ignorance about the nature of
anterior mental khandhas, posterior mental khandhas, anterior
and posterior together, and their mutual dependence [Footnote ref 3].
Kamasava and bhavasava can as Buddhagho@sa says be counted as one, for
they are both but depravities due to attachment [Footnote ref 4].

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[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_ (_Visuddhimagga_, chap.
XVII.), p. 175.]

[Footnote 2: _M. N._ I.p. 54. Childers translates "asava" as "depravities"
and Mrs Rhys Davids as "intoxicants." The word "asava" in Skr. means
"old wine." It is derived from "su" to produce by Buddhagho@sa and the
meaning that he gives to it is "_cira parivasika@t@thena_"