Visuddhimagga
Buddhaghosa's 5th-century systematic treatise on virtue (sīla), concentration (samādhi), and understanding (paññā) — the most complete surviving manual of Theravāda practice. Ru-Yi's translation, made directly from the Pāli, is now complete in full: all twenty-three chapters, from the first precept of virtue to the attainment of cessation and Buddhaghosa's own closing words, with the original alongside our English and a reading note for the passages that repay a second look.
Translation Method
The Pāli source is the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana (Sixth Council) romanized edition maintained by the Vipassana Research Institute (VRI, tipitaka.org), cross-checked against the Pali Text Society's Rhys Davids edition (1920–21) as digitized on GRETIL. The VRI text is used under its own terms — free for non-commercial use, with attribution — while the GRETIL/PTS digitization, which carries its own CC BY-SA licence, is used only to verify readings, never copied.
The English translation is Ru-Yi's own, made directly from the Pāli. No existing English translation — including Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli's copyrighted The Path of Purification — is consulted, paraphrased, or used as a guide for wording or structure. Reading notes are grounded only in the text's own internal citations (it quotes the Paṭisambhidāmagga, the four main Nikāyas, and the Abhidhamma Piṭaka constantly) and in the general, uncontested conventions of the Pāli commentarial genre — never in a modern scholar's specific interpretation.
Chapters
Visuddhimaggapakaraṇaṃ niṭṭhitaṃ — the Treatise of the Path of Purification is finished. With chapter 23, Ru-Yi's translation of the entire Visuddhimagga is now complete: virtue (chapters 1–2), concentration (chapters 3–13), and understanding (chapters 14–23), rendered into English directly from the Pāli, in full, for the first time on this site. Chapter 23 itself closes with Buddhaghosa's own epilogue and famous self-description — a fitting close to a project that began with the very first precept and ends with the treatise's own final words.
Looking for a plain-English overview instead? Ru-Yi's 23-chapter reading guide to the Visuddhimagga summarizes the whole work's structure, key terms, and self-check quizzes for every chapter — a good map to have before working through the Pāli original translated here.