Virtues

Karuna

Brahmaviharas

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Karuna." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/virtues/karuna-brahmavihara.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Karuna. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/virtues/karuna-brahmavihara

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-karuna,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Karuna},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/virtues/karuna-brahmavihara},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The second brahmavihara: the wish that beings be free from suffering, joined to a readiness to act on that wish where action is possible. Distinguished in commentarial literature from ordinary pity by carrying no trace of superiority over the one who suffers. This atlas separately holds Karunamaya, an epithet for a bodhisattva embodying compassion; this entry is the disposition itself rather than a figure who personifies it.

Facts

Origins

Place of Origin

North India, in the earliest recorded teaching; systematized in Sri Lanka by Buddhaghosa. 1

Origin of the Name

Sanskrit and Pali karuna, compassion, sharing a root associated with mourning or lament, the sense of feeling another's pain as one's own. 1

Attributed Author / Compiler

Taught throughout the Pali Canon as the second of the brahmaviharas; systematized alongside the other three in Buddhaghosa's fifth century Visuddhimagga, chapter nine. 2

Language

Sanskrit and Pali 1

Disputed

Origin Period

Taught within the earliest strata of the Pali Canon, whose own compilation and dating remain debated among scholars, ranging from oral transmission at or near the Buddha's own lifetime through committal to writing centuries afterward; fixed as the second brahmavihara in Buddhaghosa's fifth century CE Visuddhimagga. 2

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Standard teaching, not formally defined 1

Doctrinal Status Detail

Second of the four brahmaviharas; the Visuddhimagga names cruelty, the wish to harm, as its far enemy, and ordinary grief or pity that loses itself in the sufferer's pain as its near enemy. 2

Attestation

Meaning in the Attesting Source

The wish that beings be free from suffering, joined to readiness to act on that wish, the second of the four brahmaviharas. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Attested In

Visuddhimagga

Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa

Belongs to Tradition

Buddhism

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Opposes

Krodha (Anger)

The Visuddhimagga names cruelty, the wish to harm, as compassion's far enemy; Krodha, anger, already catalogued among the arishadvarga, is the atlas's existing entry closest to that disposition.

Source Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification)Buddhaghosa