ཚའ་མཐའ་མད notes.9

notes.9

9. Alternative translations that are often met with in secondary literature are “unconscious devas” or “unconscious beings,” “Concept-Free Gods,” etc. R. Sharf (Sharf 2014) argues that the Insentient Beings constitute a nominal category, necessitated by the internal logic of the Abhidharma system of meditation that designates a certain divine state of existence which, according to the Buddhist conception of the cosmos, is located in the form realm, and which is characterized by no conscious experience at all. This state of total mental calm is said to be the specific result of a meditative absorption called the attainment of the meditative state without consciousness (asaṃjñi­samāpatti or asaṃjñā­samāpatti). This appears to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from the cessation of sensation and conceptualization (samjñā-vedayita-nirodha or, in short, nirodha-samāpatti), a praised state of meditative absorption that is achieved only by non-returners or arhats as a result of mastering the complete sequence of the eight absorptions. We have adopted the translation “Insentient Beings” from Robert Sharf (see Sharf 2014). A good alternative translation may be “Concept-Free Gods,” since it is not at all clear that this state entails a complete loss of consciousness, although in nontechnical usage Skt. saṃjñā can have this meaning (e.g., in expressions like vilupta-saṃjñā, “lost consciousness”).