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Glossary

This glossary contains an alphabetical list of Buddhist terms that you may find on this website. Many of the terms now include phoneticized Sanskrit (Skt) as well as two forms of Tibetan—the phonetic version (Tib), which is a guide to pronunciation, and transliteration using the Wylie method (Wyl). Search for the term you want by entering it in the search box or browse through the listing by clicking on the letters below. Please see our Content Disclaimer regarding English terms in LYWA publications that may be outdated and should be considered in context.

five near immediate negativities

pañcopānantaryāṇi, also ānantaryasabhāgān (Skt); nye ba tsa mä pa nga (Tib); nye ba’i mtshams med pa lnga (Wyl)

Also called the minor heinous crimes, the five parallel actions of immediate retribution or the five proximate acts of immediate consequence. They are: (1) to sexually violate one’s mother or an arhatī; Abhidharmakoshabhashya and Mahavyutpatti seem to combine the two and interpret the act as violating one’s mother who is also an arhatī, but Yogacarabhumi describes it as violating either one’s mother or an arhatī; (2) to kill a bodhisattva who is "abiding on the stage of certainty". (This is the description that appears in Abhidharmakosha root text, ch. 4, v. 106). Chim Jampai Yang’s Ornament of Abhidharma explains the phrase “abiding on the stage of certainty” to mean a bodhisattva who has reached the stage at which he is always reborn with the thirty-two major marks of a great being and is within a hundred kalpas of attaining supreme enlightenment. Yogacarabhumi interprets the act as “striking” (praharati, snun pa) rather than killing such a bodhisattva, and "abiding on the stage of certainty" to mean a bodhisattva who is in his final existence; hence, a tenth stage bodhisattva like Maitreya; (3) to kill a member of the Sangha who is [still] "undergoing training" (śaikṣa, slob pa). Chim Jampai Yang’s Ornament of Abhidharma interprets this to mean any of the seven āryas who has not yet become an arhat; (4) to steal or seize “the source of income” (āyadvāra, ’du ba’i sgo) of the Sangha (Abhidharmakoshavyakhya, i.e., Yashomitra's subcommentary, states that one interpretation of this act is that it means “confiscation of a permanent endowment”); and (5) to destroy a stūpa monument. (With thanks to Art Engle for this definition.) See also the five immediate negativities and the glossary entry at 84000.com.