Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s4.1

c15.s4.1

The later texts show a decided development in the investigation of the theory of causation generally. They make the important distinction between causes generally (*paccaya*) and the cause proper (*hetu*), which is the real producer of the result, the other causes being conditions, coefficients or auxiliaries. In the *Patthāna* of the *Abhidhamma Piṭaka* there occurs a very elaborate classification of conditions under twenty-four heads: position, object, dominance, contiguity, immediate contiguity, coexistence, reciprocity, dependence, sufficing condition, antecedent, consequence, succession, action (*karman*), effect, support, control, Jhāna, means, association, dissociation, presence, absence, abeyance, continuance. The modes of relation vary according to the things related; thus mind content bears to mind content the six relations of contiguity, immediate contiguity, absence, abeyance, succession, and association. But in all cases the conception is that the condition or cause renders service to the effect; each thought is influenced by those related to it, and in very late Buddhism the power of one idea to affect another becomes styled its ability (*satti*). The essence of the theory in its application to mental states is interesting; it is the parallel of the Sautrāntika view which sees a complete continuity of consciousness, in which each moment is charged with all the past, and it offers, if not an explanation, still the possibility of an explanation of the facts of memory. We need not assume that the doctrine is any older than the Sautrāntika school.¹