Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s1.40

c8.s1.40

Curiously enough Professor Walleser,³ who recognizes that the subjective character claimed for Dhamma is erroneous, himself believes that early Buddhism accepted the doctrine that the whole world, whatever its transcendental character, as known by our senses is a product of consciousness. This doctrine is derived from a very ingenious, but extremely improbable, explanation of the doctrine in the chain of causation that name and form depend on consciousness (viññāṇa). Name and form, it is claimed, denote the phenomenal being in its entirety, as possessed of qualitative discriminations which are appreciated by consciousness through resistance contact (paṭigha-samphassa), and of different descriptions which are gathered by designative contact (adhivacana-samphassa).⁴ The converse doctrine, also canonical, that consciousness depends on name and form⁵ is explained as the other side of the relation; the empirical consciousness is impossible save in relation to an object. The explanation is highly ingenious; but it is clearly contrary to the obvious meaning of the terms, and the rôle regularly played by consciousness and name and form in the chain of causation. The distinction of the two kinds of contact mentioned in the passage of the Dīgha relied on is explained for us by the Vibhaṅga, and Buddhaghosa, whose evidence on the sense of technical terms such as these may be safely regarded as valid. In that text perception (saññā) is distinguished as perception of resistance (paṭigha), which is the case of ordinary sense impressions of external objects, and mental as perception by name as when one asks a question and learns the thought of another by speech. These two kinds of contact, says our passage in the Dīgha, can be explained only if both name, i. e. the spiritual aspect of the individual, and form, the material aspect, exist. Were there matter alone, there could be no designative cognition; if spiritual elements alone, no resistance cognition. There is, therefore, nothing whatever here to suggest that early Buddhism accepted the doctrine that ‘die Welt ist meine Vorstellung’, a doctrine which it is probable they would have found it far from easy to comprehend:¹