I've heard that Manas means 'two' or 'that which divides' so in line with the passage about the mind as a fire consuming objects of consciousness. What a passage!
My feeling is that: "this has come to be', Bhikkhus, do you see"?
is more direct than asking if they understand. It's more a call to immediate awareness as if to say:
"It's right here. Look!"
That said with no knowledge of the Sanskrit. I'd be interested to know what you think Jayarava.
Manas (Pāli mano) simply means mind - it is cognate with the English word in fact. It has never as far as I know meant two or that which divides - you may be thinking of vijñāna which means something like divided knowledge - vi = di in English, and jñā is know. Actually the word divide comes from Latin videre 'to know'. But this doesn't tell us much.
One has to be careful of interpreting early Buddhism from the point of view of later ideas. I don't think the Buddha is saying "it's right here" because that way of speaking is from the Zen tradition as far as I know.
You are right to suggest however that the intention seems to have been to make the connection with how consciousness arises like a fire arises.
I don't think there is any such thing as direct awareness - it's just a bad translation of abhijñā. Direct awareness seems to me to be a red herring. There never is any direct contact with objects, it is always via the senses. There is no way around this. What abhijñā refers to in my opinion is the understanding, the meta-knowledge, of the processes which kick in when we sense things.
It seems to me that the "gandhabba" was mainly a Vedic concept that was used by the Buddha in talking to Brahmins, and it just so happens that this pericope gets elevated to doctrinal level and placed in appropriate places obscuring the message at times.
The fact you have two almost contradictory ideas in the same sutta shows the tradition was rather confused on this issue, or at least could not give up the attachment to rebirth that somehow "I" will somehow continue.
Metaphysics aside, I fully agree that the Buddha was pointing to the how our sensory apparatus works in order to see how consciousness and the subsequent "I" continues. This is really the important point, as when the understanding of how the "I" arises then it no longer becomes an issue or at least less of one.
It is interesting you say "sense of continuity is an illusion." Time is itself an illusion, and with no sense of time there is no sense of continuity and with no sense of continuity, no me, and no suffering.
Thanks for the link. I have a stack of Analayo's papers to read already, but I had not quite grasped the scope of his output!
What makes you say that time is an illusion? To me this flies in the face of contemporary thinking. Time is relative according to Einstein and physicists report experiments which support this conclusion. But illusory? I don't think it can be illusory.
Similarly I don't recall reading the Buddha ever linking the sense of self to the sense of time - do you have a reference for this? My sense of the traditional Buddhist view of time is that it is sequential, and that even world ages which are cyclic happen one after another.
If you completely deny time, then you destroy sequence, and more importantly you destroy cause and effect.
When I was referring to time I was not referring to the an observer measuring time by looking at a clock. I was referring to the phenomenological time -- time that is experienced as being in the world.
The sense of continuity we have is intimately connected with a sense of time or movement of this particular entity in the world.
I don't believe there is any suttas which talk about time, but the Buddha uses the word amata or deathlessness which can seen as a type of timelessness where there is no experience of being and thus continuation or time.
You say, "If you completely deny time, then you destroy sequence, and more importantly you destroy cause and effect." Within the context of dependent-origination that is exactly what you want to do, destroy cause and effect, and thus destroy the chain.
Technically 'amita' is simply deathless or that deathless, not the abstract noun deathlessness which would be 'amitata'. It's a term taken over from the Vedic religion and I think is used metaphorically to signal the end of the round of rebirths. I don't see how you can extrapolate in the way that you do, especially given that you don't believe in rebirth... you are trying to have your religious cake and eat it to.
Perhaps from a subjective point of view you might say that this would necessitate the end of a perception of time altogether - however I think you are straying into metaphysical speculation which is not knowable. No valid knowledge of such a state could be held by one not in that state. Metaphysical speculation seems pointless.
You can say that amita - The Deathless - can be seen in that way, but there is no reason to see it that way as opposed to another way. This is the problem with metaphysics.
The main problem however is that your view, as it often seems to be, is nihilistic. You posit a kind of null state with no characteristics. But Enlightenment is a lived experience. One does not cease to exist once one has seen the true nature of experience - one simply, but irrevocably, changes one's relationship to sensory experience. The laws of the universe, including dhamma-niyamata, still apply. Conditionality cannot cease to apply. This is made clear in the Upanisa Sutta and others like it - and also in the story of the Buddha wondering to whom he would go for refuge now that he was "like that" (tathagata) and deciding that he would go for refuge to the Dhamma.
Just a few notes for this entry (not to start up discussion, I know you don't want to go back to your old posts, but just "FYI")
1. I've been chasing gandhabbas around and have found references to one of their many roles being in conception -- they seem to have been the ones we would ask to help out if we're having problems conceiving, and the ones we blame if we lose a pregnancy before term. So I see the Buddha's reference here to the gandhabba being necessary as standing for "and a little bit of luck in conceiving" -- in other worlds, you have all the necessary things: woman is fertile, man is fertile, it's her time, but it doesn't always happen even so, and that's where our gandhabbas come in -- so the folk usage stands for "all the other necessary conditions are fulfilled". (see note next post)
2. Have you read Thanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Mind Like Fire Unbound"? [ http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Thanissaro+Bhikkhu%22 ] where he says we misunderstand how the folks of the day understood fire? When a fire went out it wasn't "extinguished" but was freed from the upadana it had been clinging to/stuck to; this, he says, is why fire was such a useful metaphor, and the fire no longer burning was an excellent simile for nibbana -- because the fire still exists (as does the freed arahant). We can think of this in modern terms as "potential energy" -- that (more or less) everything has the potential to burn, and that still exists even when the fire is not burning.
3. I note that viññāṇa, consciousness, is in dependent origination before there is fuel for it, so at least in that sense it exists prior to contact, to perception of contact, to thirst for contact, and to the fuel that is desire itself. I suspect this consciousness is seen in the same way as fire (as described in point 2 above) exists: that it is there, freed of the clinging to fuel.
4. It seems what we have is a confusion of terms. There is a sort of consciousness that is tied to the six senses, that arises with fuel provided, becomes stuck to it -- this is consciousness burning; and there is a consciousness -- let's call it "potential consciousness" which still exists even when our consciousness is not burning.
Note: I've seen small references in more than one place (can't put my hands on all of them just now) but there's an entire chapter called "Vedic Gandharva and Pali Gandhabba" in O H De A Wijesekera "Buddhist and Vedic Studies" p 180: "This connection of the gandharva with Soma leads to his further connection with the plant itself... This passage not only establishes the gandharva's power to impart the vital essence to plants, for this rasa is no other than retas in man (and animals)..." "...For the same hymn calls Soma 'all-life', giving 'when quaffed the power that bestows offspring (prajavat)..." p 183 quoting Sayana: "... the gandharva posited in the 'womb'... is the life-breath... that instigates or utters that Speech..." "It is clear that according to Sayana the term gandharva here is to be taken, macrocosmically, as the primeval, universal Life Force enveloped in the cosmic shell, or, microcosmically, as the derived vital (prana)-self in man. p 184 "The notion underlying these identifications is no doubt that of *generation* and now it becomes clear why the gandharva is besought in the Pancavimsa Brahmana to bestow progeny, an idea microcosmically related to the gandharvas connection with the human embryo that was seen in the Atharvaveda. It is, of course, the biotic potentiality of water, identified with Soma and Parjanya, which in the Rgveda the gandharva was said to guard or represent, that is at the bottom of this vitalistic import of the gandharva concept."
Here's the only other small reference I can find just now: "Vedic Mythology" Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1897) p 137: "The Gandharvas and Apsarases thus preside over fertility and are prayed to by those who desire offspring ."
I suspect the gandhabba is a red herring. It's only mentioned in this capacity once as far as I know, and it isn't really coherent there. Sayana was 14th century so can't really tell us about early Buddhism! I would be interested to see the Ṛgveda sūkta reference however can you give the reference? Is it 9.113? If so he is reading the Buddhist idea back into the Vedic and the text doesn't support that kind of thing.
Haven't read Thanissaro, but I might look that up. I'd be interested in his sources for this idea. Fire didn't precise exist in that sense, but it was thought to be numious in the sense that some principle linked all the various manifestations of fire and was propitiated in Vedic Hymns. It was an aspect of the Vedic world-view.
I think it's a mistake to make ontological conclusions from lists such as the nidāna sequence. It's just not valid reasoning. It was and is a meditation practice, not a philosophical treatise.
I'm sure that there are other suttas in which the gandhabba figures in conception, for example MN 93.18. If a "red herring" is something intentionally placed to distract, I'd be surprised if a gandhabba is such a ruddy fish (though gandharvas are associated with the waters and the sea).
"It is often stated that the Gandhabbas preside over conception; this is due to an erroneous translation of the word gandhabba in passages (E.g., M.i.157, 265f) dealing with the circumstances necessary for conception (mātāpitaro ca sannipatitā honti, mātā ca utunī hoti, gandhabbo ca paccupatthito hoti)."
I found one of the references in Louis Renou's 2004 "The History of Vedic India" (re the Apsaras) ...
"The Gandharvas are more complex beings... They are invoked during marriage rites, and are thought of especially in connection with women, conferring or refusing pregnancy, and playing the part of lovers."
The DPN entry you quote above would seem to be directed at those working on an understanding of gandhabbas by translating from the Buddhist canon. I doubt that the folks studying Vedism are misinterpreting due to the Pali canon's references.
So yes the Pāli texts might have been referencing Vedic folklore, and then later generations, not knowing that folklore misunderstood what the gandharva's role was (and Gombirch has shown as much as they had contact with Brahmins, they do seem to have lost the context that would help make sense of words like brahmavihara). And hence we get the serious speculation as to how a gandhabba is involved in conception.
That clarifies things for me. But it makes the gandhabba seem even less important - it's about as relevant as the stork is for reproduction in Europe.
Yes indeed, it is only important as subtraction from the weight of arguments that support the Buddha saying that some ?whatever? from a past life enters the womb at conception, it's one very small piece of evidence less that rebirth was what was being talked about in the sections where it is brought up. But, hey, a stone at a time fills the puddle.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
[Image]
One time the Buddha was living in the Jeta Grove in Anāthapiṇḍika's Park just outside Sāvatthī. [1] At that time a bhikkhu named Sāti was insisting that consciousness (viññāna; Sanskrit: vijñāna) is what 'wanders through the rounds of rebirth'. The Buddha's response to Sāti tells us much about his understanding of what consciousness is.
Asked what he thinks consciousness is, Sāti says:
Yvāyaṃ, bhante, vado vedeyyo tatra tatra kalyāṇapāpakānaṃ kammānaṃ vipākaṃ paṭisaṃvedetī’’ti
It is that, sir, which speaks and feels, that which experiences the good and bad consequences of actions.
It seems that Sāti may have been a Brahmin of the progressive kind as he is describing something like an ātman. He is suggesting that there is some persistent entity which experiences the fruit (vipāka) of action from life to life. That entity he is calling viññāṇa. His view appears to be that the Buddha may be using the a different word, viññāṇa instead of ātman, but that he teaches more or less the same thing as Yājñavalkya in the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad. The Buddha is not pleased with Sāti and upbraids him for misrepresenting his teaching. Then addressing the other bhikkhus the Buddha says:
‘‘Yaṃ yadeva, bhikkhave, paccayaṃ paṭicca uppajjati viññāṇaṃ, tena teneva viññāṇaṃtveva saṅkhyaṃ gacchati. Cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati viññāṇaṃ, cakkhuviññāṇaṃtveva saṅkhyaṃ gacchati;
Bhikkhus from whatever condition consciousness arises, it is called that kind of consciousness. Consciousness arising with the eye and form as condition, is called eye-consciousness.
And so on for each of the senses in turn: ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness. This is just like, he says, the way that there is a difference between a forest fire, a grass fire, a gas fire, and a house fire (to paraphrase a little). Each is fire and requires fuel to be sustained, but one can distinguish differences depending on what fuel is being consumed. We leave out oxygen because the role of oxygen in burning was not understood in any detail and is left out of traditional fire metaphors.
In the case of mind-consciousness the word for mind is 'manas'. Words for mind and consciousness are used quite loosely and interchangeably in the texts, with variations over time, so it's sometimes difficult to pin down what is meant (c.f. mind, consciousness, gnosis, psyche, nous, cognition, subjectivity etc). Manas here is the function of the mind that processes input from the five physical senses; as well as memories, thoughts, associations, speculations and the like which are generated by the mind itself. These mental objects are collectively known as dhammā (plural). What a dhamma is understood to 'be', its ontological status, is vague and changes over time. We may take them to be units of experience.
Here then is the basic Buddhist definition of consciousness - viññāṇa. Consciousness is functional, and always consciousness of some object (note the early Buddhist model of reality allows for a subject and object at least conventionally), there is no subjective consciousness if there is no object of consciousness. This can be difficult to grasp - that consciousness itself is dependent on conditions. I would argue that in fact this is the main point of the Buddha's teaching on dependent origination - the consciousness itself is conditioned.
But what is viññāṇa? Well, this is very difficult to spell out in terms that would satisfy modern criteria for evidence - the nature of consciousness is one of the perennial philosophical questions. Many books have been written on the subject with each contradicting all of the others. I think it is best to adopt a pragmatic approach and say that the Buddha is not trying to provide an absolute definition of consciousness, not trying to set up a philosophical system, but that he is drawing attention to those aspects of consciousness which are important for understanding his method of practice. That is why he defines consciousness in the way that he does, because anything else is irrelevant to Buddhist practice.
Having explained this the Buddha asks:
bhūtamidanti, bhikkhave, passathāti?
'this has come to be', Bhikkhus, do you see?
He asks them whether they understand that 'this' depends on food 'āhāra', and ceases when the food ceases. Bhūta is the past-participle of √bhū 'to be' and so means 'become' - it refers to something that has come into existence. This in turn is linked to the idea of yathābhūta - often translated as "things as they are", but means something more like simply "as become", and is said by the tradition to be the content of the Buddha's vision. So the Buddha is trying to get to the heart of the matter.
An interesting facet to this phrase was pointed out to me some years ago by Professor Richard Gombrich in his Numata Lectures in 2006. The form of pronoun used here 'idam' is known as deictic, and refers to something present to the speaker. Professor Gombrich thought that the Buddha might have been pointing to something while talking - perhaps a fire. Is this the first recorded use of a visual aide during a presentation? The fire only burns while there is fuel, and when the fuel runs out the fire goes out. Fire in fact is one of the most important metaphors that the Buddha uses. [2] Consciousness is like fire because without fuel (an object) it does not continue. Fire spreads and can be seen almost to seek out new fuel, like consciousness seeks out new objects. Sometimes the Buddha also describes 'desire' (taṇha) as the fuel (upadāna) for becoming (bhava); and with the extinguishing (nibbāṇa) of desire comes liberation (vimokkha).
Now the first part of this text can be read as the Buddha proposing paṭicca-samuppāda as an alternative to rebirth, however later he appears to confirm his belief rebirth when he talks about the 'gandhabba' which descends into the womb at conception. Gandhabba used in this sense is unusual and I don't want to get bogged down trying to figure out precisely what it means. It appears to be an entity which ensures the continuity of kamma and vipaka (action and consequence) beyond death. [3] As soon as one proposes or accepts a theory of rebirth one runs into a deep philosophical problem: what can possibly survive death? How can anything be transferred from a dead person into an embryo separated in time and space? How do the consequences of my actions transcend my own death? Buddhism seems confused on this point, or at best ambiguous and ambivalent. The Pāli texts are clearly contradictory at times: sometimes putting forward a rather deterministic version in which the same person does in fact appear in life after life, as in the Jātaka stories; or in the texts where the Bhikkhus ask after the 'destination' of someone who has died; or when the Buddha recalls his millions upon millions rebirths when he awakens, suggesting that not only consciousness but more specifically memory persists! At other times, as in the first part of this sutta, the idea of anything which persists from moment to moment, let alone life to life, is ruled out - there is only arising in dependence on conditions. It's not clear whether any given text is meant as literal truth, or as pedagogical rhetoric making a broader point, although the idea that even in death one does not escape the consequences of ones actions is ubiquitous. I think this confusion in the early texts is often mirrored by confusion in the present about rebirth. The waters are muddied in our time by the popular Tibetan notion of reincarnating 'tulkus'. [4] The result is not very intellectually satisfying. So what are we to make of it?
The main thing seems to me to be that consciousness itself arises from causes (eye, and eye object for instance) and it is therefore impermanent. There is not a stream of consciousness, but a series of moments arising in dependence on contact between organ and object. The sense of continuity is an illusion. It is this very strong sense of continuity that leads us towards views which support our continued existence in the future, and this is what, I think, attracts us to the myth of rebirth. The Buddha asks us to forego such speculation and focus on what our mind is like in the here and now - to understand how our minds consume and are sustained by sensory input, like a fire consumes and is sustained by wood, or grass or whatever.
~~oOo~~
Notes Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta. MN 38. PTS M i.259. Not translated on Access to Insight. Translated by Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, p.394 ff. All translations in this article are my own.
For more on the use of the metaphor of fire see: Jayarava Rave - Everything is on fire! and Playing with Fire.
Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi (p.1233-4, note 411.) point out that the Pāli commentary on this passage suggests that the gandhabba is "a being due to be reborn because of their kamma". The word in this sense occurs only in this sutta (elsewhere it is a kind of celestial musician, often mentioned along with yakkhas and nāgas). The bhikkhus suggest that we think of gandhabba as a "stream of consciousness" but this seems to me to repeat Sāti's error because it posits a continuity of consciousness of the same kind. My opinion is that the section on the gandhabba is a folk belief of the time, and contradicts the early part of the sutta. Trying to explain the mechanics of rebirth almost inevitably leads to contradiction (like time travel in a science fiction story).
The tulku system in my view is a primarily a political system. It is a unique system of governance in which precocious and promising youngsters are taken and rigorously educated for many years. They are then, if they have lived up to their promise and not all of them do, put in charge - not only spiritually, but politically. The tulku, crucially, inherits not only the charisma (in the Weberian sense) of his predecessor but all of his property and income. In Japan by contrast monks simply started having children and passing monastic property and resources to them. The Tibetans on the whole kept religious leaders celibate and therefore had to find a way of ensuring continuity. This has not entirely eliminated succession conflicts, and disputes over access to resources, but it must have smoothed things over to a great extent.
19 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThe last sentence says that the mind consumes sensory input like fire consumes wood. In what manner does the mind consume input?
Friday, July 31, 2009
In a metaphorical manner.
Friday, July 31, 2009
I've heard that Manas originally means 'two' - that thin which splits, which is in line with what you say about a fire seeking objects.
One phrase struck me in the passage:
"this has come to be', Bhikkhus, do you see?"
It's more direct than whether his followers understand. it's a sthought the Buddha is saying. "It's obvious. Look!"
Calling for direct awareness of the things described.
A nice article to start the weekend!
Saturday, August 01, 2009
I've heard that Manas means 'two' or 'that which divides' so in line with the passage about the mind as a fire consuming objects of consciousness. What a passage!
My feeling is that: "this has come to be', Bhikkhus, do you see"?
is more direct than asking if they understand. It's more a call to immediate awareness as if to say:
"It's right here. Look!"
That said with no knowledge of the Sanskrit. I'd be interested to know what you think Jayarava.
Thanks for this article.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
PositiveFluffySnowball? Do you have a name?
Manas (Pāli mano) simply means mind - it is cognate with the English word in fact. It has never as far as I know meant two or that which divides - you may be thinking of vijñāna which means something like divided knowledge - vi = di in English, and jñā is know. Actually the word divide comes from Latin videre 'to know'. But this doesn't tell us much.
One has to be careful of interpreting early Buddhism from the point of view of later ideas. I don't think the Buddha is saying "it's right here" because that way of speaking is from the Zen tradition as far as I know.
You are right to suggest however that the intention seems to have been to make the connection with how consciousness arises like a fire arises.
I don't think there is any such thing as direct awareness - it's just a bad translation of abhijñā. Direct awareness seems to me to be a red herring. There never is any direct contact with objects, it is always via the senses. There is no way around this. What abhijñā refers to in my opinion is the understanding, the meta-knowledge, of the processes which kick in when we sense things.
Thanks for commenting.
Jayarava
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Hi Jayarava,
Thank you for your commentary. My name is Simon.
PositiveFluffySnowball is a combination of three of my blogs.
Thank you for your clarity :)
Saturday, August 01, 2009
There is an interesting article on "Rebirth and the Gandhabba" by Analayo. Here if the link if you are interested:
http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/pdf/analayo/RebirthGandhabba.pdf
It seems to me that the "gandhabba" was mainly a Vedic concept that was used by the Buddha in talking to Brahmins, and it just so happens that this pericope gets elevated to doctrinal level and placed in appropriate places obscuring the message at times.
The fact you have two almost contradictory ideas in the same sutta shows the tradition was rather confused on this issue, or at least could not give up the attachment to rebirth that somehow "I" will somehow continue.
Metaphysics aside, I fully agree that the Buddha was pointing to the how our sensory apparatus works in order to see how consciousness and the subsequent "I" continues. This is really the important point, as when the understanding of how the "I" arises then it no longer becomes an issue or at least less of one.
It is interesting you say "sense of continuity is an illusion." Time is itself an illusion, and with no sense of time there is no sense of continuity and with no sense of continuity, no me, and no suffering.
Great post. All the best,
DarkDream
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Thanks for the link. I have a stack of Analayo's papers to read already, but I had not quite grasped the scope of his output!
What makes you say that time is an illusion? To me this flies in the face of contemporary thinking. Time is relative according to Einstein and physicists report experiments which support this conclusion. But illusory? I don't think it can be illusory.
Similarly I don't recall reading the Buddha ever linking the sense of self to the sense of time - do you have a reference for this? My sense of the traditional Buddhist view of time is that it is sequential, and that even world ages which are cyclic happen one after another.
If you completely deny time, then you destroy sequence, and more importantly you destroy cause and effect.
Jayarava
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Jayarava,
When I was referring to time I was not referring to the an observer measuring time by looking at a clock. I was referring to the phenomenological time -- time that is experienced as being in the world.
The sense of continuity we have is intimately connected with a sense of time or movement of this particular entity in the world.
I don't believe there is any suttas which talk about time, but the Buddha uses the word amata or deathlessness which can seen as a type of timelessness where there is no experience of being and thus continuation or time.
You say, "If you completely deny time, then you destroy sequence, and more importantly you destroy cause and effect." Within the context of dependent-origination that is exactly what you want to do, destroy cause and effect, and thus destroy the chain.
All the best,
--DarkDream
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Technically 'amita' is simply deathless or that deathless, not the abstract noun deathlessness which would be 'amitata'. It's a term taken over from the Vedic religion and I think is used metaphorically to signal the end of the round of rebirths. I don't see how you can extrapolate in the way that you do, especially given that you don't believe in rebirth... you are trying to have your religious cake and eat it to.
Perhaps from a subjective point of view you might say that this would necessitate the end of a perception of time altogether - however I think you are straying into metaphysical speculation which is not knowable. No valid knowledge of such a state could be held by one not in that state. Metaphysical speculation seems pointless.
You can say that amita - The Deathless - can be seen in that way, but there is no reason to see it that way as opposed to another way. This is the problem with metaphysics.
The main problem however is that your view, as it often seems to be, is nihilistic. You posit a kind of null state with no characteristics. But Enlightenment is a lived experience. One does not cease to exist once one has seen the true nature of experience - one simply, but irrevocably, changes one's relationship to sensory experience. The laws of the universe, including dhamma-niyamata, still apply. Conditionality cannot cease to apply. This is made clear in the Upanisa Sutta and others like it - and also in the story of the Buddha wondering to whom he would go for refuge now that he was "like that" (tathagata) and deciding that he would go for refuge to the Dhamma.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Just a few notes for this entry (not to start up discussion, I know you don't want to go back to your old posts, but just "FYI")
1. I've been chasing gandhabbas around and have found references to one of their many roles being in conception -- they seem to have been the ones we would ask to help out if we're having problems conceiving, and the ones we blame if we lose a pregnancy before term. So I see the Buddha's reference here to the gandhabba being necessary as standing for "and a little bit of luck in conceiving" -- in other worlds, you have all the necessary things: woman is fertile, man is fertile, it's her time, but it doesn't always happen even so, and that's where our gandhabbas come in -- so the folk usage stands for "all the other necessary conditions are fulfilled". (see note next post)
2. Have you read Thanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Mind Like Fire Unbound"? [ http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Thanissaro+Bhikkhu%22 ] where he says we misunderstand how the folks of the day understood fire? When a fire went out it wasn't "extinguished" but was freed from the upadana it had been clinging to/stuck to; this, he says, is why fire was such a useful metaphor, and the fire no longer burning was an excellent simile for nibbana -- because the fire still exists (as does the freed arahant). We can think of this in modern terms as "potential energy" -- that (more or less) everything has the potential to burn, and that still exists even when the fire is not burning.
3. I note that viññāṇa, consciousness, is in dependent origination before there is fuel for it, so at least in that sense it exists prior to contact, to perception of contact, to thirst for contact, and to the fuel that is desire itself. I suspect this consciousness is seen in the same way as fire (as described in point 2 above) exists: that it is there, freed of the clinging to fuel.
4. It seems what we have is a confusion of terms. There is a sort of consciousness that is tied to the six senses, that arises with fuel provided, becomes stuck to it -- this is consciousness burning; and there is a consciousness -- let's call it "potential consciousness" which still exists even when our consciousness is not burning.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Note: I've seen small references in more than one place (can't put my hands on all of them just now) but there's an entire chapter called "Vedic Gandharva and Pali Gandhabba" in O H De A Wijesekera "Buddhist and Vedic Studies" p 180: "This connection of the gandharva with Soma leads to his further connection with the plant itself... This passage not only establishes the gandharva's power to impart the vital essence to plants, for this rasa is no other than retas in man (and animals)..." "...For the same hymn calls Soma 'all-life', giving 'when quaffed the power that bestows offspring (prajavat)..." p 183 quoting Sayana: "... the gandharva posited in the 'womb'... is the life-breath... that instigates or utters that Speech..." "It is clear that according to Sayana the term gandharva here is to be taken, macrocosmically, as the primeval, universal Life Force enveloped in the cosmic shell, or, microcosmically, as the derived vital (prana)-self in man. p 184 "The notion underlying these identifications is no doubt that of *generation* and now it becomes clear why the gandharva is besought in the Pancavimsa Brahmana to bestow progeny, an idea microcosmically related to the gandharvas connection with the human embryo that was seen in the Atharvaveda. It is, of course, the biotic potentiality of water, identified with Soma and Parjanya, which in the Rgveda the gandharva was said to guard or represent, that is at the bottom of this vitalistic import of the gandharva concept."
Here's the only other small reference I can find just now: "Vedic Mythology" Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1897) p 137: "The Gandharvas and Apsarases thus preside over fertility and are prayed to by those who desire offspring ."
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Hi Star
I suspect the gandhabba is a red herring. It's only mentioned in this capacity once as far as I know, and it isn't really coherent there. Sayana was 14th century so can't really tell us about early Buddhism! I would be interested to see the Ṛgveda sūkta reference however can you give the reference? Is it 9.113? If so he is reading the Buddhist idea back into the Vedic and the text doesn't support that kind of thing.
Haven't read Thanissaro, but I might look that up. I'd be interested in his sources for this idea. Fire didn't precise exist in that sense, but it was thought to be numious in the sense that some principle linked all the various manifestations of fire and was propitiated in Vedic Hymns. It was an aspect of the Vedic world-view.
I think it's a mistake to make ontological conclusions from lists such as the nidāna sequence. It's just not valid reasoning. It was and is a meditation practice, not a philosophical treatise.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Thursday, September 16, 2010
There wasn't a specific reference for the Rgveda citation, sorry.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I'm sure that there are other suttas in which the gandhabba figures in conception, for example MN 93.18. If a "red herring" is something intentionally placed to distract, I'd be surprised if a gandhabba is such a ruddy fish (though gandharvas are associated with the waters and the sea).
Thursday, September 16, 2010
According to the Dictionary 0f Pāli names:
"It is often stated that the Gandhabbas preside over conception; this is due to an erroneous translation of the word gandhabba in passages (E.g., M.i.157, 265f) dealing with the circumstances necessary for conception (mātāpitaro ca sannipatitā honti, mātā ca utunī hoti, gandhabbo ca paccupatthito hoti)."
Jayarava
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I found one of the references in Louis Renou's 2004 "The History of Vedic India" (re the Apsaras) ...
"The Gandharvas are more complex beings... They are invoked during marriage rites, and are thought of especially in connection with women, conferring or refusing pregnancy, and playing the part of lovers."
The DPN entry you quote above would seem to be directed at those working on an understanding of gandhabbas by translating from the Buddhist canon. I doubt that the folks studying Vedism are misinterpreting due to the Pali canon's references.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
So yes the Pāli texts might have been referencing Vedic folklore, and then later generations, not knowing that folklore misunderstood what the gandharva's role was (and Gombirch has shown as much as they had contact with Brahmins, they do seem to have lost the context that would help make sense of words like brahmavihara). And hence we get the serious speculation as to how a gandhabba is involved in conception.
That clarifies things for me. But it makes the gandhabba seem even less important - it's about as relevant as the stork is for reproduction in Europe.
Regards
Jayarava
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Yes indeed, it is only important as subtraction from the weight of arguments that support the Buddha saying that some ?whatever? from a past life enters the womb at conception, it's one very small piece of evidence less that rebirth was what was being talked about in the sections where it is brought up. But, hey, a stone at a time fills the puddle.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010