The second brahmavihara: the wish that beings be free from suffering, joined to a readiness to act on that wish where action is possible. Distinguished in commentarial literature from ordinary pity by carrying no trace of superiority over the one who suffers. This atlas separately holds Karunamaya, an epithet for a bodhisattva embodying compassion; this entry is the disposition itself rather than a figure who personifies it.
Facts
Origins
Place of OriginNorth India, in the earliest recorded teaching; systematized in Sri Lanka by Buddhaghosa. 1 Origin of the NameSanskrit and Pali karuna, compassion, sharing a root associated with mourning or lament, the sense of feeling another's pain as one's own. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerTaught throughout the Pali Canon as the second of the brahmaviharas; systematized alongside the other three in Buddhaghosa's fifth century Visuddhimagga, chapter nine. 2 Disputed
Origin PeriodTaught within the earliest strata of the Pali Canon, whose own compilation and dating remain debated among scholars, ranging from oral transmission at or near the Buddha's own lifetime through committal to writing centuries afterward; fixed as the second brahmavihara in Buddhaghosa's fifth century CE Visuddhimagga. 2 Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1 Doctrinal Status DetailSecond of the four brahmaviharas; the Visuddhimagga names cruelty, the wish to harm, as its far enemy, and ordinary grief or pity that loses itself in the sufferer's pain as its near enemy. 2 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe wish that beings be free from suffering, joined to readiness to act on that wish, the second of the four brahmaviharas. 1 Connections
Attested In
Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
In Language
Opposes
The Visuddhimagga names cruelty, the wish to harm, as compassion's far enemy; Krodha, anger, already catalogued among the arishadvarga, is the atlas's existing entry closest to that disposition.
Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa
Related To
Metta, Virtues The four brahmaviharas, taught as one graduated set in the Visuddhimagga.
Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa
Mudita, Virtues The four brahmaviharas, taught as one graduated set in the Visuddhimagga.
Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa
Sources
1. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014View the Source 2. Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)
Buddhaghosa
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