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Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c18.s2: (ii) Dhātus

Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c18.s2

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(ii) Dhātus

v1.c18.s2.1

The term *dhātu* carries a very wide meaning in the Buddhist literature. When the *dhātu* is said to be constituted (*saṃkhata*), it means all the beings and things of the world, e.g., the three spheres of existence, Kāma, Rūpa and Arūpa; the four great elements (*mahābhūtas*) and the things formed out of these elements; the sense-organs, their objects (*āyatanas*), as also their perceptions; the material and non-material constituents (*khandhas*). The *Bahudhātuka-sutta*¹ states that for attaining nibbāna, one must be proficient in the dhātus (*dhātukusalo*), and then enumerates besides the above the following as dhātus: mental and physical pain and pleasure, equanimity, ignorance, desire, renunciation, hatred, and absence of hatred, as also Ākāsa and Nibbāna or Nirodha but the last two are called unconstituted (*asaṃkhata*) dhātus.

v1.c18.s2.2

¹ *Majjhima*, III, p. 216.

v1.c18.s2.3

Though the term *dhātu* has a very wide significance, it is applied at the present instance to the six sense-organs, their objects and the six perceptions derived through them, i.e., *cakkhu, rūpa* and *cakkhuviññāṇa*; *sota, sadda* and *sotaviññāṇa* and so forth counting in all the eighteen dhātus. Etymologically *dhātu* means those elements which uphold a being. In this sense *cakkhu* is a *dhātu* and so are the other sense-organs. The sense-organs are also *indriyas*² inasmuch these act as predominating factors in perceiving objects; again these are also *āyatanas* inasmuch as these exert (*ā-yatanti, uṭṭhahanti, ghaṭanti, vāya-manti*)³ to perceive an object.

v1.c18.s2.4

² See Infra.

v1.c18.s2.5

³ *Vism.*, p. 481.

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