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QUERY> A person's complexion in connection to meditative experience
Dear Colleagues,In SN 28.1-9 (no Chinese SA counterpart), Ānanda states:
Friend Sāriputta, your faculties are bright, and
your complexion is pure and clear. In which abode (state, vihārena) has the
Venerable Sāriputta spent the day? (“Vippasannāṇi kho te āvuso Sāriputta,
indriyāni parisuddho mukhavaṇṇo pariyodāto, katamenāyasmā Sāriputto ajja
vihārena vihāsīti”. PTS III, p. 235)
This expression, ‘your faculties are bright, and your complexion is pure and
clear’ (vippasannāṇi kho te … indriyāni parisuddho mukhavaṇṇo pariyodāto), is
clearly about Sāriputta’s complexion. Such an expression of a person’s
complexion in connection to meditative experience is not unusual in the Pali
canon.Is this expression ‘entirely’ absent from the Chinese Āgamas?
Thank you
Mun-keat
Lecturer in Studies in Religion, School of Humanities, University of New England, Australia.
