English
I merely allude to it as not in the least support- ing the view that the order of statement, in the skandhas, implies order of happening. What we may more surely gather from the canon is that, as our own psychological thought has now conceived it,* the, let us say, given ^ E.g.^ ease. ^ E.g., the ' faculties ' of mind (ideation) and of pleasure. 3 Given below on p. 348 [1336]. * Professor Ward, op. cit. Ixxv individual ' attends to or cognizes ( v i j a n a t i ) changes in the sensory continuum, and is, in consequence, either pleased or pained' (or has neutral feeling). And, further, in any and every degree of conscious or subconscious mood or disposition, he may be shown to be experiencing a number of * associated states,' as enumerated. All this is in our Manual called a cittuppada — a genesis of thought. Of thought or of thinking. There seems to be a breadth and looseness of implication about c i 1 1 a m fairly parallel to the popular vagueness of the English term. It is true that the Commentary does not sanction the interpretation of contact and all the rest (I refer to the type given in the first answer) as so many attributes of the thought which * has arisen.' The sun rising, it says, is not different from its fiery glory, etc., arising. But the cittam arising is a mere expression to fix the occasion for the induction of the whole concrete psychosis, and connotes no more and no less than it does as a particular constituent of that complex.^ This is a useful hint. On the other hand, when we consider the synonymous terms for cittam, given in answer 6, and compare the various characteristics of these terms scattered through the Commentary, we find a con- siderable wealth of content and an inclusion of process and product similar to that of our * thought.' For example, * cittam means mental object or presentation (aram- m a n a m) ; that is to say, he thinks ; that is to say, he attends to a thought.'^ Hence my translation might well ^ Asl. 113. I gather, however, that the adjective ceta- sikam had a wider and a narrower denotation. In the former it meant 'not bodily,' as on p. 6. In the latter it served to distinguish three of the incorporeal skandhas from the fourth, i.e.^ cittam, as on pp. 265, 318 — citta- cetasika dhamma. Or are we to take the Commentator's use of kayikam here to refer to those three skandhas, as is often the case (p. 43, n. 3) ? Hardly, since this makes the two meanings of cetasikam self-contradictory. 2 Ibid. 63. Ixxvi have run : When a good thought . . . has arisen . . , as the object of this or that sense, etc. Again, cittam is defined as a process of connecting (sandhanam) the last (things) as they keep arising in consciousness with that which preceded them.^ Further, it is a co-ordinating, relating, or synthesizing (sandahanam);^ and, again, it has the property of initiative action (pure carikam). For, when the sense-impression gets to the * door ' of the senses, cittam confronts it before the rest of the mental congeries.^ The sensations are, by cittam, wrought up into that concrete stream of consciousness which they evoke. Here we have cittam covering both thinking and thought or idea. When we turn to its synonym or quasi- synonym m a n o we find, so far as I can discover, that only activity, or else spring, source or nidus of activity, is the aspect taken. The faculty of ideation (manindriya m), for instance,^ while expressly declared to be an equivalent (vevacanam)of cittam, and, like it, to be that which attends or cognizes (v i j an a t i), is also called a measuring the mental object — declared above to he cittarn.^ In a later passage (ibid., 129), it is assigned the function of accept- ing, receiving, analogous, perhaps, to our technical expres- sion ' assimilating ' (sampaticchanam). In thus appraising or approving, it has all sensory objects for its field, as well as its more especial province of dhammas.^ These, when thus distinguished, I take to mean ideas, including images and general notions. And it is probably 1 AsL, pp. 112, 113. ^ Cf. the characteristic — samvidahanam — of cetana in my note, p. 8. ^ The figure of the city-guardian, given in Mil. 62, is quoted by the Cy. * See below, p. 18, and Asl. 123. ^ It is at the same time said to result in (establishing) fact or conformity (tathabhavo), and to succeed sense- perception as such, p. 2, n. 3. Ixxvii only in order to distinguish between mind in this abstract functioning and mind as cognition in its most comprehensive sense that we see the two terms held apart in the sentence : ' C i 1 1 a m cognizes the dhammas which are the objects of mano, just as it cognizes the visual forms, etc., which are the objects of the senses.'^ When c i 1 1 a m is thus occupied with the abstract func- tioning of m a n o^ — when, that is, we are reflecting on past experience, in memory or ratiocination — then the more specific term is, I gather, 7iot cittam, but manovin- nanam (corresponding to cakkhuvinnanam, etc.). This, in the Commentarial psychology, certainly stands for a further stage, a higher * power ' of intellection, for * representative cognition,' its specific activity being distin- guished as judging or deciding (santiranam), and as fixing or determining (votthappanam). The affix d h a t u, whether appended to mano or to manoviniianam, probably stands for a slight distinc- tion in asjiect of the intellectual process. It may be intended to indicate either of these two stages as an irreducible element, a psychological ultimate, an activity regarded as its own spring or source or basis. Adopted from without by Buddhism, it seems to have been jealously guarded from noumenal implications by the orthodox. Buddhaghosa, indeed, seems to substitute the warning against its abuse for the reason why it had come to be used. According to him, the various lists of dhammas {e.g., in the first answer), when considered under the aspect of phenomena, of ' empti- ness,' of non-essence, may be grouped as together forming two classes of d h a t u .^ Moreover, each special sense can be so considered (cakkhu-dhatu, etc. ; see pp. 214, 215), 1 AsL, p 112. ^ Cf. the expression suddha-manodvaro in my note, p. 3. And on what follows, cf. pp. 129, 132, nn. ^ Viz., manoviniiana-dhatu and dhamma-dhatu see Asl. 153, and below, p. 26, n. 2. The term ' element ' is similarly used in our own psychology. Ixxviii and so may each kind of sense-object. For, with respect to sense, or the apprehension of form, they are so many phenomenal ultimates— the two terms, so to speak, in each sensory relation. How far d h a t u corresponds to v a 1 1 h u — how far the one is a psychological, the other a physical conception^ of source or base — is not easily determined. But it is interesting to note that the Commentator only alludes to a basis of thought (cittassa vatthu), that is, to the heart (hadaya-vatthu), when the catechizing is in terms ofmano-dhatu.^ His only comment on ' heart,' when it is included in the description of c i 1 1 a m (answer [6]), is to say that, whereas it stands for cittam, it simply represents the inwardness (intimity) of thought.^ But in the subsequent comment he has a remark of great interest, namely, that the ' heart-basis ' is the place whither all the ' door-objects ' come, and where they are assimilated, or received into unity. In this matter the Buddhist philosophy carries on the old Upanishad lore about the heart, just as Aristotle elaborated the dictum of Empedokles, that perception and reasoning were carried on in * the blood round the heart.' 1 Cf. below, pp. 214, 215, with 209-211. 2 Asl. 264 ; below, p. 129, fn. ^ Asl. 140: * Heart = thought (Hadayan ti cittam). In the passage — " I will either tear out your mind or break your heart " — the heart in the breast is spoken of. In the passage (M. i. 32) — '* Methinks he planes with a heart that knows heart" (like an expert) I— the mind is meant. In the passage — *' The vakkam is the heart "—the basis of heart is meant. But here cittam is spoken of as heart in the sense of inwardness (abbhantaram).' It is interest- ing to note that, in enumerating the rupaskandha in the Visuddhi Magga, Buddhaghosa's sole departure from con- formity with the Dhamma-Sangani is the inclusion of hadaya-vatthu after ' vitality, ' The other term, 'that which is clear' (pandaram), is an ethical metaphor. The mind is said to be naturally pure, but defiled by incoming corruptions. {Cf. A. i., p.