Dhammasangani
Enumeration of Phenomena
400 B.C. | 124,932 words
*english translation* The first book of the Abhidhamma (Part 3 of the Tipitaka). The Dhammasangani enumerates all the paramattha dhamma (ultimate realities) to be found in the world. According to one such enumeration these amount to: * 52 cetasikas (mental factors), which, arising together in various combination, give rise to any one of... * ......
Introductory
[583] Which are the states that are indeterminate?[1]
The results of good and bad states taking effect in the universe of sense, in that of form, in that of the formless or in [the life] which is Unincluded,[2] and as connected with the skandhas of feeling, perception, syntheses, and intellect[3] as well as those states known as kiriya which are neither good, nor bad, nor the result of karma; all form, moreover; and [finally] Uncompounded Element[4] — these are states that are indeterminate.
[684] In this connexion what is 'all form' (sabbam rupam)?
The four great phenomena[5] and that form which is derived from the four great phenomena — this is what is called 'all form'.[6]
[584-594] Here follows the Matika, or table of contents of the following analysis of Form, considered under quantitative categories — the usual Buddhist method. That is to say, Form is considered, first, under a number of single, uncorrelated qualities, then under dichotomized qualities, then under qualities which, taken singly, give inclusion, inclusion under the opposite, or exclusion from both; or which, taken in pairs, a ford three combinations. We then get pairs of qualities taken together, affording four combinations. After that comes consideration of Form under more inductive classifications, e.g., the four elements and, fifthly, their derivatives, and so on, as given below.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
The subject of the Ethically Indeterminate has not been exhausted by the inquiry into Vipako and Kiriya.
It includes two other species:
1. Form (or External Phenomena)
2. and Nirvana (Uncompounded Element).(Asl. 296.)
Hence it is that the following inquiry into 'Form' as objective and subjective phenomenon is led up to by a question connecting it with the foregoing inquiry into the genesis of 'thought', which is presented from the point of view of a-rupino dhamma, or formless (incorporeal) states of consciousness.
[2]:
Apariyapanna. This term, which is often employed in Book III, and which is intended to convey a sense of the 'apartness' of the pursuit of the Highest from all lower aims, is dealt with below (§ 992).
[3]:
I follow, here as often elsewhere, the punctuation of K. In this identical answer later on, however, K. is self-inconsistent, placing a colon before, and a comma after, the enumeration of the skandhas. See § 983. One or the other is probably an inadvertency.
[4]:
Asankhata ca dhatu. This term, which both Buddhaghosa and the original Atthakatha (see § 1,376 in printed text of Dh. S.) identify with Nirvana, occurs often in this connexion with its opposite 'all form' (v. p. 168, n. 3) in Book III. I do not know whether this, so to speak, cosmological conception of the Ethical Ideal occurs in the older books of the Pitakas, or whether, indeed, the commentators have not laid upon the physical term more than it was intended to bear — a connotation that derives perhaps from the 'scholastic' ages of Buddhism. For example, in §§ 1016-1018 of the present work, to identify uncompounded element with Nirvana, just after it has been opposed to the 'topmost fruit of arahatship', would apparently land the compilers in a grave inconsistency.
I have yet to meet with a passage in the first two Pitakas which establishes the identification. In the Milinda-panho, giving the traditional doctrine of an age half-way between Pitakas and Commentaries, we can see the theory of Nirvana as the one asankhatam developing. See pp. 268 seq. Cf also K. V. 317-30.
[5]:
Mahabhutani, that is, the four elements, literally, the things-that-have-become, die grossen Gewordenen, τα γυγνοπενα — a far more scientific term than elements or στοιχεια. See further below, §§ 597, 647 et seq.
[6]:
The various implications of the term rupam, such as objective phenomena, concrete or compound, the object of the sense of sight, material existence without sensuous appetite, etc., are discussed in my Introduction (ii.).