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The unanswerable questions
open-in-new
<p>In <a href="/facts/Buddhism/G0wsjrSl">Buddhism</a>, <i>acinteyya</i> (<a href="/facts/Pali/HLQW2fvS">Pali</a>), "imponderable" or "incomprehensible," <i><i>avyākṛta</i></i> (<a href="/facts/Sanskrit/ychfjhlx">Sanskrit</a>: अव्याकृत, <a href="/facts/Pali/HLQW2fvS">Pali</a>: <i>avyākata</i>, "unfathomable, unexpounded,"), and <i>atakkāvacara</i>, "beyond the sphere of reason," are unanswerable questions or undeclared questions. They are sets of questions that should not be thought about, and which <a href="/facts/The_Buddha/8UchTM1s">the Buddha</a> refused to answer, since this distracts from <a href="/facts/Noble_Eightfold_Path/jfJVDCm4">practice</a>, and hinders the attainment of <a href="/facts/Nirvana/cjEVeoo6">liberation</a>. Various sets can be found within the Pali and Sanskrit texts, with four, and ten (Pali texts) or fourteen (Sanskrit texts) unanswerable questions. </p>