Piyadassi Thera

The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Satta Bojjhanga)

The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Satta Bojjhanga)

The Tipitaka, the Buddhist canon, is replete with references to the factors of enlightenment expounded by the Enlightened One on different occasions under different circumstances.

In the Book of the Kindred Sayings, V (Samyutta Nikaya, Maha Vagga) we find a special section under the title Bojjhanga Samyutta wherein the Buddha discourses on the bojjhangas in diverse ways. In this section we read a series of three discourses or sermons recited by Buddhists since the time of the Buddha as a protection (paritta or pirit) against pain, disease, and adversity.

The term bojjhanga is composed of bodhi + anga. Bodh denotes enlightenment — to be exact, insight concerned with the realization of the Four Noble Truths. Anga means factors or limbs. Bodhi + anga (bojjhanga), therefore, means the factors of enlightenment, or the factors for insight, wisdom.

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About Piyadassi Thera

Piyadassi Thera (8 July 1914 – 18 August 1998) was born in Kotahena in Colombo, Sri Lanka and was educated at Nalanda College, Colombo, thereafter at the University of Sri Lanka and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University as a research student.

He is best known as a great preacher of the Dhamma both in Sinhala and in English and it was in this field that his popularity was foremost. Piyadassi Thera was one of the world's most eminent Buddhist monks having traveled widely carrying the message of the Buddha-Dhamma, both to the East and to West, he was able to write in a style that has universal appeal.

Piyadassi Thera was the Sinhala editor at the Buddhist Publication Society until his death. Along with Nyanaponika Thera, he was one of the chief kalyāṇamittas of well-known American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi.

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You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way

Buddha, Dhp 276