Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s1.19

c8.s1.19

As little can we accept the doctrine that Saṃkhāras denote ideas or perceptions, which is supported by the remarkable doctrine that in the first member of the formula of causation we have an assertion that our ideas all rest upon ignorance, interpreted as ignorance of the illusory nature of the world; the last view is wholly without authority in the Canon; ignorance which produces the Saṃkhāras is ignorance of the four noble truths of pain or misery, its origin, its destruction, and the path for that end.² Saṃkhāra, like the Sanskrit Saṃskāra, is a term of varying, but consistent and intelligible meaning; it denotes the making ready or complete something for an end—an idea emphasized in the compound Abhisaṃkhāra, and also the result of the activity when achieved. Hence it has no exclusive application to the psychical sphere; the movement given to a potter's wheel is styled an Abhisaṃkhāra;³ the wheel rolls on so long as the impression thus communicated lasts. Hence Saṃkhāras may be divided, as often, between those of the body, speech, or thought; expiration and inspiration are Saṃkhāras;⁴ when the Buddha decides to enter Nirvāṇa he lets go his Āyusaṃkhāra,⁵ his disposition to live, the motive force which but for his decision would have continued to keep alive his mortal frame; it is inconceivable that nothing more is meant than that the Buddha laid aside merely a subjective process. The same point arises regarding the Saṃkhāras which affect the form of rebirth of the dead; a monk who forms a resolve to be reborn in a noble family achieves this result from the Saṃkhāra thus framed;¹ here again we cannot believe that the rebirth is a pure figment of the creative imagination, just as little as it is credible that a man who has the disposition to pay a visit (gamikābhisamkhāro) has merely the idea of himself as on a journey.² Such a conception is clearly far from the texts, which frankly tell us that a man forms the Saṃkhāra of the body when a body exists, and it is incredible that the body, which is described as the ancient deed made ready (abhisamkhatam) and made real by mental activity (abhisamcetayitam), is really to be understood as merely the ancient act conceived or presented to consciousness as existing.³ The difficulty of Franke’s view appears still more clearly when it is remembered that the Saṃkhāras are one of the five Khandas which constitute the individual of Buddhism; they rank alongside of material form (rūpa) or body, feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), and intellect or consciousness (viññāṇa), and there is clearly no room here for the concept of ideas; rather they are the dispositions which lead to rebirth, precisely parallel to the Saṃskāras, which in the Sāṃkhya system represent the predispositions of the individual resulting from the impressions left by former thoughts and deeds. In the chain of causation the Saṃkhāras play the same rôle; they are not the creation of ignorance of the illusory character of the world; something much simpler is meant; by reason of his ignorance of the doctrine of misery as taught by the Buddha, the unfortunate man commits actions and so produces dispositions which lead on to fresh birth.