Ten topics of knowledge

The ten topics of knowledge are listed in the Madhyantavibhanga of Maitreya.

In the Avatamsaka Sutra six topics of knowledge are mentioned, i.e. aggregates, elements, sense sources, dependent origination (known collectively as the four gates to the truth), the correct and the incorrect and the truths.

In the Sutra of Inexhaustible Intelligence there is mention of eight topics: time is mentioned instead of the correct and the incorrect, and the vehicles and the conditioned and unconditioned are also mentioned.

But the Madhyantavibhanga gives the ten as:

1. Aggregates
2. Elements
3. Sense sources
4. Dependent Origination
5. The correct and the incorrect
6. The faculties
7. Time
8. The truths
9. The vehicles
10. The conditioned and the unconditioned

These ten are said to be antidotes to ten views of the self. As the root text of the Madhyantavibhanga says:

Single, the cause and consumer,
The agent and in control,
The owner and permanent,
Afflicted and then purified,
Possessor of yoga, unfree and then freed
These are ten views of self.

(gcig dang rgyu dang za ba dang
byed pa dang ni dbang bsgyur dang
bdag po’I don dang rtag pa dang
nyon mongs pa dang dag pa’I gnas
rnal ‘byor can dang ma grol grol
‘di dag la ni bdag tu lta)