Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c36.96

v2.c36.96

Through these controversies it is apparent that the Sam. are seeking to establish that the five khandhas which are distinct from one another cannot give rise to the consciousness of I-ness, a unity. The facts that a person acts or thinks as one and not as five separate things, and that in many passages Buddha does actually use the words *so*, *attā* and *puggala*, and that a person’s attainments like *sotāpannahood* continue to be the same in different births, that one speaks of his past births and so forth, do lead to the conclusion that besides the five khandhas there exists some mental property which forms the basis of I-ness, and maintains the continuity of karma from one existence to another. That mental property, however, is changing with the changing khandhas but in view of the fact that one can think of his past, even of the events of his past births, the changing khandhas alone cannot be made responsible for the memory. The Sam. therefore affirm the existence of a sixth mental property and call it *puggala* which can remain only along with khandhas and so must disappear when the khandhas disappear in Nibbāna. As this mental property or *puggala* is not *kṣaṇika* like the khandhas, it has not all the properties of a *saṃkhata* (constituted object) and again it is not also unchanging and ever existing like Nibbāna so it is not *asaṃkhata*. Therefore the *puggala* must be said as neither *saṃkhata* nor *asaṃkhata*.¹