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Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t3: The Third Link in the Chain of Causality

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t3

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The Third Link in the Chain of Causality

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It seems advisable for the explanation of the formula of causality not to begin at the beginning. The first links of the series—the ultimate ground of earthly existence, ignorance, and the "conformations" which develop themselves from ignorance—are in their nature much more difficult of comprehension by concrete explanation than the following categories. We shall return later on to the attempt here made to denominate the cause of causes; at present we begin where consciousness appears in the chain of categories and with it we step upon the ground of conceivable reality. The sacred texts also apparently justify us in proceeding thus, as they themselves often begin the chain of causality with the category of consciousness, omitting the first members. "Ignorance" and "conformations" are evidently among the things, of which Buddhist dogmatists have, as far as possible, omitted to speak. "From consciousness"—runs the third proposition in the series—"come name and corporeal form."

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∗ Göthe's "Faust," Dialogue of Mephistopheles and the Student. Anglicé: "A meaning must underlie words."—[Translator.]

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One of the dialogues on this subject in the collection of the sacred texts, in which Buddha unfolds to his beloved disciple, Ânanda, the greater part of the formula of causality,* gives us a very concrete explanation of this proposition, which undoubtedly expounds the original meaning. "If consciousness, Ânanda, did not enter into the womb, would name and corporeal form† arise in the womb?"—"No, sire."—"And if consciousness, Ânanda, after it has entered into the womb, were again to leave its place, would name and corporeal form be born into this life?"—"No, sire."—"And if consciousness, Ânanda, were again lost to the boy or to the girl, while they were yet small, would name and corporeal form attain growth, increase, progress?"—"No, sire."

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† I reserve for the Excursus the more particular statements which the sacred texts make regarding this double notion of "name and corporeal form," derived from older Brahmanical speculation. Originally in this expression undoubtedly the Name, in so far as it expresses what is only this person and no other, is regarded as a peculiar element annexed to the body, somehow connected with the body, and this interpretation has not wholly disappeared from the Buddhist texts. Meanwhile another view grew up, by which "name" was understood to include the more subtle immaterial functions connected with the body in contradistinction to the body formed of earth, water, fire, and air.

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Thus the proposition, "From consciousness comes name and corporeal form," leads us to the moment of conception. We shall, when treating of the Buddhist notions of soul and metempsychosis, come to understand from another point of view still more completely the ideas which meet us here; here we must only state this much, that in death the other elements, which constitute the body-cum-spirit state of being of a man, are dissolved; the body, the sensations, the perceptions vanish, but not the consciousness (viññâṇa). Consciousness forms, so long as the existent is bound in metempsychosis, the connecting link which connects the old existences with the new; not till the bourne of deliverance, the nirvâna is reached, does the consciousness also of the dying perfect one vanish into nothing. As the human body is formed out of the material elements, so consciousness also is regarded as consisting of an analogous spiritual element. "There are six elements, my disciples," says Buddha, "the element of earth, the element of water, the element of fire, the element of air, the element of æther, the element of consciousness." The stuff of which consciousness is made is highly exalted above the other elements; it dwells, as it were, in its own world. "Consciousness," it is written, "the indemonstrable, the everlasting, the all-illuminating; it is where nor water nor earth, nor fire nor air, finds a place, in which greatness and smallness, weakness and strength, beauty and non-beauty, in which name and material form cease altogether."

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∗ The Mahânidânasutta (Dîgha Nikâya).

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That which in the dying man is constructed of this highest of earthly elements, the consciousness-element, becomes at the moment when the old being dies the germ of a new being; this germ of consciousness seeks and finds in the womb the material stuffs, from which it forms a new state of being coined in name and material form.

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But as name and material form rest on consciousness, so also the latter rests on the former. Those passages in the texts, which do not carry back the line of causality to the ultimate end, to Ignorance, are wont to make it run in a circle with these two categories interchangeably dependent on one another We have already quoted from Buddha's and Ânanda's dialogue the passage bearing on the one side of this subject, on the allegation that name and material form rest on consciousness. On the other side, then, it is said in the same conversation: "If, Ânanda, consciousness were not to find name and materia form as its resting-place, would then birth, old age, and death, the origin and development of sorrow, reveal themselves in succession?"—"No, sire, they would not."—"Therefore, Ânanda, is this the cause, this the ground, this the origin, this the basis of consciousness: name and material form." And thus comprehensively are the bases on which all nameability and all existence of the existent, their birth, death, and re-birth, rest, described as "name and material form combined with consciousness."

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We extract from other texts some more characteristic passages for the elucidation of this subject:—

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"What must there be, in order that there may be name and material form? Whence come name and material form?—Consciousness must be in order that there may be name and material form; from consciousness come name and material form.—What must there be in order that there may be consciousness? Whence comes consciousness?—Name and material form must be, in order that there may be consciousness; from name and material form comes consciousness. Then, my disciples, the Bodhisatti Vipassi* thought: consciousness conversely depends on name and material form: the chain goes no farther."†

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And in another place‡ the following simile is put into the mouth of Sâriputta, the greatest authority among Buddha's disciples: "My friend, as two bundles of sticks leaning against each other stand, so also, my friend, consciousness grows out of name and material form, and name and material form out of consciousness.” It “grows out of” it—this is not intended to convey that consciousness is the element, out of which name and material form are made : it is merely tantamount to saying, that consciousness is the forming power, which originates from the material elements or being, which bears a name and is clothed with a body.

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∗ Vipassi is one of the mythical Buddhas of the past, to whom are attributed these reflections on the chain of causality, while he was still Bodhisatta (pursuing the path to the Buddhahood). † Mahâpadhânasutta (Dîgha Nikâya), second Bhâṇavâra. ‡ "Samyatta N." vol. i, fol. ñâh'.

Cites (4)