Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c10.s3.23

c10.s3.23

Becoming or existence (bhava) is in the scholastic definitely treated as the act which produces future birth, the term then indicating the effect in lieu of the causes. In the Canon it normally denotes rebirth, passing from one existence to another, or three sorts of existence are distinguished, in the sphere of desire, in that of matter, in that of non-matter. In the Sanskrit scholasticism we have originating existence (upapatti-bhava), the continuation of the preceding death existence in the constant flow of consciousness, each part of which is conditioned by all the past and conditions the future. But the term is also applied to the condition of a being in a state intermediate between death and rebirth.²