Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s1.17

c8.s1.17

Here at once we meet with difficulties in the way of the suggested interpretation; the five Upādānakkhandha may more easily be rendered as referring to the five physical and mental constituents, which make up the individual such as Buddhism recognizes it, and which arise from grasping, from desire of life; nothing is thus determined as to the nature of the objects grasped; or in a slightly different sense it may be rendered as groups (of objects) after which there is grasping, equally in conflict with the suggested rendering; grasping, in fact, is not the subjective creation of ideas, but the effort of the individual to seize what he foolishly desires. This is the precise sense of the doctrine that becoming depends on grasping; there is nothing here to suggest that becoming is a mere fiction of the mind.¹