SABBASÂVA SUTTA

INTRODUCTION

The word Âsava seems in this Sutta to be used in a general sense,–not confined only to the Âsavas of sensuality, individuality, delusion, and ignorance, but including the more various defilements or imperfections of mind, out of which those especial defilements will proceed.

I may add that the importance of the Âsavas appears from the fact that elsewhere the knowledge of them, of their origin, of their cessation, and of the way that leads to their cessation is placed on the road to Arahatship immediately after, and parallel to, the knowledge of Suffering, of its origin, of its cessation, and of the way that leads to its cessation–the knowledge, that is, of the four Noble Truths[3].

The Âsavas there meant are sensuality, individuality (or life), and ignorance; and the expressions ‘to him who knows, to him who sees’ (gânato passato) are used there much in the same way as they are in our ง 3. Perhaps this was the passage which Burnouf had in his mind when he wrongly said[4] that he had found in the Mahâparinibbâna Sutta an enumeration of three classes of Âsavas, whereas that Sutta always divides them into four classes.

I am unable to suggest any good translation of the term itself–simple though it is. It means literally ‘a running or flowing,’ or (thence) ‘a leak;’…

Buddhist Suttas – Sabbasâva Sutta: All the Âsavas
Translated from Pâli by T. W. Rhys Davids [1881]
Sabbasâva Sutta: All the Âsavas