A History of Indian Philosophy Part 13

to [email protected]) is found in the earlier [email protected], but the ideas contained in them are similar to the words "_kratu_" and "_kama_." Desire ([email protected]) is then said to depend on feeling or sense-contact.

Sense-contact presupposes the six senses as fields of operation [Footnote ref 1]. These six senses or operating fields would again presuppose the whole psychosis of the man (the body and the mind together) called namarupa. We are familiar with this word in the [email protected] but there it is used in the sense of determinate forms and names as distinguished from the indeterminate indefinable reality [Footnote ref 2]. [email protected] in the _Visuddhimagga_ says that by "Name" are meant the three groups beginning with sensation (i.e. sensation, perception and the predisposition); by "Form"

the four elements and form derivative from the four elements [Footnote ref 3]. He further says that name by itself can produce physical changes, such as eating, drinking, making movements or the like. So form also cannot produce any of those changes by itself. But like the cripple and the blind they mutually help one another and effectuate the changes [Footnote ref 4]. But there exists no heap or collection of material for the production of Name and Form; "but just as when a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound; and when the sound comes into existence it does not come from any such store; and when it ceases, it does not go to any of the cardinal or intermediate points of the compa.s.s;...in exactly the same way all the elements of being both those with form and those without, come into existence after having previously been non-existent and having come into existence pa.s.s away [Footnote ref 5]."

Namarupa taken in this sense will not mean the whole of mind and body, but only the sense functions and the body which are found to operate in the six doors of sense ([email protected]_). If we take namarupa in this sense, we can see that it may be said to depend upon the vinnana (consciousness). Consciousness has been compared in the _Milinda Panha_ with a watchman at the middle of

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[Footnote 1: The word ayatana is found in many places in the earlier [email protected] in the sense of "field or place," Cha. I. 5, [email protected] III. 9.

10, but @[email protected] does not occur.]

[Footnote 2: Candrakirtti interprets nama as _Vedanadayo'

[email protected][email protected] skandhastatra tatra bhave namayantili nama. saha rupaskandhena ca nama rupam ceti namarupamucyate._ The four skandhas in each specific birth act as name. These together with rupa make namarupa. _M. V._ 564.]

[Footnote 3: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 184.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 185, _Visuddhimagga_, Ch. XVII.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ pp. 185-186, _Visuddhimagga_, Ch. XVII.]

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the cross-roads beholding all that come from any direction [Footnote ref 1]. [email protected] in the _Atthasalini_ also says that consciousness means that which thinks its object. If we are to define its characteristics we must say that it knows (_vijanana_), goes in advance ([email protected]_), connects (_sandhana_), and stands on namarupa ([email protected]@thanam_).

When the consciousness gets a door, at a place the objects of sense are discerned ([email protected]@thane_) and it goes first as the precursor. When a visual object is seen by the eye it is known only by the consciousness, and when the dhammas are made the objects of (mind) mano, it is known only by the consciousness [Footnote ref 2].

[email protected] also refers here to the pa.s.sage in the _Milinda Panha_ we have just referred to. He further goes on to say that when states of consciousness rise one after another, they leave no gap between the previous state and the later and consciousness therefore appears as connected. When there are the aggregates of the five khandhas it is lost; but there are the four aggregates as namarupa, it stands on nama and therefore it is said that it stands on namarupa. He further asks, Is this consciousness the same as the previous consciousness or different from it? He answers that it is the same. Just so, the sun shows itself with all its colours, etc., but he is not different from those in truth; and it is said that just when the sun rises, its collected heat and yellow colour also rise then, but it does not mean that the sun is different from these. So the citta or consciousness takes the phenomena of contact, etc., and cognizes them. So though it is the same as they are yet in a sense it is different from them [Footnote ref 3].

To go back to the chain of twelve causes, we find that jati (birth) is the cause of decay and death, [email protected]_, etc. Jati is the appearance of the body or the totality of the five skandhas [Footnote ref 4]. Coming to bhava which determines jati, I cannot think of any better rational explanation of bhava, than that I have already

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[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 182, _Milinda Panha_ (628).]

[Footnote 2: _Atthasalini_, p. 112...]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._ p. 113, _Yatha hi rupadini upadaya pannatta suriyadayo na atthato rupadihi anne honti ten' eva yasmin samaye suriyo udeti tasmin samaye ta.s.sa [email protected] [email protected] piti [email protected] vuccamane pi na rupadihi anno suriyo nama atthi. Tatha cittam pha.s.sadayo dhamme upadaya pannapiyati. Atthato pan' ettha tehi annam eva. Tena yasmin samaye cittam [email protected] hoti [email protected] eva tasmin samaye pha.s.sadihi atthato annad eva hoti ti_.]

[Footnote 4: "_Jatirdehajanma [email protected],_" Govindananda's _Ratnaprabha_ on [email protected]'s [email protected], II. ii. 19.]

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suggested, namely, the works (_karma_) which produce the birth [Footnote ref 1]. Upadana is an advanced [email protected]@[email protected] leading to positive clinging [Footnote ref 2]. It is produced by [email protected]@[email protected] (desire) which again is the result of vedana (pleasure and pain). But this vedana is of course vedana with ignorance (_avidya_), for an Arhat may have also vedana but as he has no avidya, the vedana cannot produce [email protected]@[email protected] in turn. On its development it immediately pa.s.ses into upadana. Vedana means pleasurable, painful or indifferent feeling. On the one side it leads to [email protected]@[email protected] (desire) and on the other it is produced by sense-contact (_spars'a_). Prof. De la Vallee Poussin says that S'rilabha distinguishes three processes in the production of vedana. Thus first there is the contact between the sense and the object; then there is the knowledge of the object, and then there is the vedana. Depending on _Majjhima Nikaya_, iii. 242, Poussin gives the other opinion that just as in the case of two sticks heat takes place simultaneously with rubbing, so here also vedana takes place simultaneously with spars'a for they are "produits par un meme complexe de causes (_samagri_) [Footnote ref 3]."

Spars'a is produced by @[email protected], @[email protected] by namarupa, and namarupa by vijnana, and is said to descend in the womb of the mother and produce the five skandhas as namarupa, out of which the six senses are specialized.

Vijnana in this connection probably means the principle or germ of consciousness in the womb of the mother upholding the five elements of the new body there. It is the product of the past karmas ([email protected]_) of the dying man and of his past consciousness too.

We sometimes find that the Buddhists believed that the last thoughts of the dying man determined the nature of his next

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[Footnote 1: Govindananda in his _Ratnaprabha_ on [email protected]'s [email protected], II.

ii. 19, explains "bhava" as that from which anything becomes, as merit and demerit (_dharmadi_). See also _Vibhanga_, p. 137 and Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 201. Mr Aung says in [email protected]_, p. 189, that bhavo includes kammabhavo (the active side of an existence) and upapattibhavo (the pa.s.sive side).

And the commentators say that bhava is a contraction of "_kammabhava_"

or Karma-becoming i.e. karmic activity.]

[Footnote 2: Prof. De la Vallee Poussin in his _Theoric des Douze Causes_, p. 26, says that _S'alistambhasutra_ explains the word "upadana" as "[email protected]@[email protected]" or [email protected]@[email protected] and Candrakirtti also gives the same meaning, _M. V._ (B.T.S.p. 210). Govmdananda explains "upadana"

as [email protected] (movement) generated by [email protected]@[email protected] (desire), i.e. the active tendency in pursuance of desire. But if upadana means "support" it would denote all the five skandhas. Thus _Madhyamaka [email protected]_ says _upadanam [email protected]@nam...pancopadanaskandhakhyam upadanam. M.V._ XXVII. 6.]

[Footnote 3: Poussin's _Theorie des Douze Causes_, p. 23.

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birth [Footnote ref 1]. The manner in which the vijnana produced in the womb is determined by the past vijnana of the previous existence is according to some authorities of the nature of a reflected image, like the transmission of learning from the teacher to the disciple, like the lighting of a lamp from another lamp or like the impress of a stamp on wax. As all the skandhas are changing in life, so death also is but a similar change; there is no great break, but the same uniform sort of destruction and coming into being.

New skandhas are produced as simultaneously as the two scale pans of a balance rise up and fall, in the same manner as a lamp is lighted or an image is reflected. At the death of the man the vijnana resulting from his previous karmas and vijnanas enters into the womb of that mother (animal, man or the G.o.ds) in which the next skandhas are to be matured. This vijnana thus forms the principle of the new life. It is in this vijnana that name (_nama_) and form (_rupa_) become a.s.sociated.

The vijnana is indeed a direct product of the [email protected] and the sort of birth in which vijnana should bring down (_namayati_) the new existence (_upapatti_) is determined by the [email protected] [Footnote ref 2], for in reality the happening of death ([email protected]_) and the instillation of the vijnana as the beginning of the new life (_upapattibhava_) cannot be simultaneous, but the latter succeeds just at the next moment, and it is to signify this close succession that they are said to be simultaneous. If the vijnana had not entered the womb then no namarupa could have appeared [Footnote ref 3].

This chain of twelve causes extends over three lives. Thus avidya and [email protected] of the past life produce the vijnana, namarupa,

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[Footnote 1: The deities of the gardens, the woods, the trees and the plants, finding the master of the house, Citta, ill said "make your resolution, 'May I be a cakravartti king in a next existence,'"

[email protected]_, IV. 303.]

[Footnote 2: "_sa [email protected] [email protected]@sim navakrameta, na tat kalalam kalalatvaya sannivartteta_," _M. V._ 552. Compare _Caraka, S'arira_, III. 5-8, where he speaks of a "upapiduka sattva" which connects the soul with body and by the absence of which the character is changed, the senses become affected and life ceases, when it is in a pure condition one can remember even the previous births; character, purity, antipathy, memory, fear, energy, all mental qualities are produced out of it. Just as a chariot is made by the combination of many elements, so is the foetus.]

[Footnote 3: _Madhyamaka [email protected]_ (B.T.S. 202-203). Poussin quotes from _Digha_, II. 63, "si le vijnana ne descendait pas dans le sein maternel la namarupa s'y const.i.tuerait-il?" Govindananda on [email protected]'s commentary on the _Brahma-sutras_ (II. ii. 19) says that the first consciousness (vijnana) of the foetus is produced by the [email protected] of the previous birth, and from that the four elements (which he calls nama) and from that the white and red, s.e.m.e.n and ovum, and the first stage of the foetus (_kalala-budbudavastha_} is produced.]

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@[email protected], spars'a, vedana, [email protected]@[email protected], upadana and the bhava (leading to another life) of the present actual life. This bhava produces the jati and [email protected] of the next life [Footnote ref l].

It is interesting to note that these twelve links in the chain extending in three sections over three lives are all but the manifestations of sorrow to the bringing in of which they naturally determine one another. Thus [email protected]_ says "each of these twelve terms is a factor. For the composite term 'sorrow,' etc. is only meant to show incidental consequences of birth. Again when 'ignorance' and 'the actions of the mind' have been taken into account, craving ([email protected]@[email protected]_), grasping (_upadana_) and (_karma_) becoming (_bhava_) are implicitly accounted for also. In the same manner when craving, grasping and (_karma_) becoming have been taken into account, ignorance and the actions of the mind are (implicitly) accounted for, also; and when birth, decay, and death are taken into account, even the fivefold fruit, to wit (rebirth), consciousness, and the rest are accounted for. And thus:

Five causes in the Past and Now a fivefold 'fruit.'

Five causes Now and yet to come a fivefold 'fruit' make up the Twenty Modes, the Three Connections (1. [email protected] and vinnana, 2. vedana and tanha, 3. bhava and jati) and the four groups (one causal group in the Past, one resultant group in the Present, one causal group in the Present and one resultant group in the Future, each group consisting of five modes) [Footnote ref 2]."

These twelve interdependent links ([email protected]_) represent the [email protected] (_pratatyasamutpada_) doctrines (dependent origination) [Footnote ref 3] which are themselves but sorrow and lead to cycles of sorrow. The term [email protected] or prat.i.tyasamutpada has been differently interpreted in later Buddhist literature [Footnote ref 4].

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[Footnote 1: This explanation probably cannot be found in the early Pali texts; but [email protected] mentions it in [email protected]_ on _Mahanidana suttanta_. We find it also in [email protected]_, VIII. 3. Ignorance and the actions of the mind belong to the past; "birth," "decay and death"

to the future; the intermediate eight to the present. It is styled as [email protected]@[email protected] (having three branches) in _Abhidkarmakos'a_, III. 20-24.

Two in the past branch, two in the future and eight in the middle "_sa prat.i.tyasamutpado [email protected]@[email protected]@h purvaparantayordve dve [email protected]@tau_."]

[Footnote 2: Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids' translation of [email protected]_, pp. 189-190.]

[Footnote 3: The twelve links are not always constant. Thus in the list given in the _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. 23 f., avijja and [email protected] have been omitted and the start has been made with consciousness, and it has been said that "Cognition turns back from name and form; it goes not beyond."]