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WHAT IS SADDHAMMA ?
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One day a man in the market place of a certain town, seeing him thus, asked him the reason of his strange conduct, on which he replied :
“The world is so dark, and men so deluded, that I carry this torch to light it up so far as I can.”
Seeing this the Buddha forthwith called out to the Brahmacharin, “ What ho there ! What are you about with that Torch ? ”
The Brahmacharin replied, “All men are so wrapped in ignorance and gloom, that I carry this torch to illumine them.”
Then the Blessed Lord asked him again, “And are you so learned as to be acquainted with the four treatises (Vidyas) which occur in the midst of the Sacred Books, to wit, the treatise on ‘Literature’ (Sabdavidya) ; the treatise on the ‘ Heavenly Bodies and their Paths’; the treatise on ‘Government’ and the treatise on ‘Military Art’?”
On the Brahmacharin being forced to confess he was unacquainted with these things, he flung away his torch, and the Buddha added these words :
“If any man, whether he be learned or not, considers himself so great as to despise other men he is like a blind man holding a candle—blind himself, he illumines others.”
§ 3, Dhamma is Saddhamma when it Teaches that what is Needed is Pradnya
The Brahmins regarded Vidya (Knowledge, Learning) as in itself a thing of value. A man of mere learning and knowledge was to them an object of veneration irrespective of the question whether or not he was a man of virtue.
Indeed they said that a king is honoured in his own country but a man of learning is honoured all over the world, suggesting thereby that a man of learning is greater than the king.
The Buddha made a distinction between Vidya and Pradnya, i.e., between knowledge and insight,
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