Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c8.40

c8.40

(iv) Avaktavyo bhāvotpattiḥ ko vetti? Who knows whether the arising of psychological states is impredicable? Śīlāṅka comments that the 'other three possibilities of predication do not apply in the case of the arising of psychological states'¹. The question of 'the arising of consciousness' (saññuppāda-) is one on which there seems to have been a good deal of speculation during the period of the Pāli Nikāyas and four different theories on this subject are mentioned in the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta (D. I.180). This could have easily provoked these sceptical questions, but what is interesting is the fourfold mode of predication adopted. It is possible that Śīlāṅka did this merely to complete the figure of sixty-seven and his explanation that this subject does not admit of the other forms of predication is too puerile to be taken seriously. But it is also not unlikely that the Sceptics in fact adopted a fourfold scheme of predication as we have suggested (*v. infra*, 184) in discussing the evidence from the Pāli texts.