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The History of Buddhist Thought c13: Chapter V. Causation

The History of Buddhist Thought c13

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Chapter V. Causation

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ONE of the most discussed doctrines of Buddhism is the Formula of causal origin, the so-called Chain of Causation, the *paṭicca-samuppāda*, Skt. *pratītya-samutpāda*. The Formula is held to expound the two truths of the origin of pain and the cessation of pain. It was apparently Burnouf who first called it a chain, *enchaînement*, but this is a question-begging term, for the name merely means " arising or coming into existence causally ", and there are Buddhists who deny that it should be understood as a continuous chain. The term usually translated " link " is *nidāna*, " cause," but each link is said to arise by having the previous one as cause (*paccaya*). There is an abundance of terms for cause which are never strictly distinguished. Another point which has not always been recognized is that the scheme with twelve " links " is only the stereotyped form which it finally assumed. There are several other shorter variants in the Canon, and they raise the question whether they are adapted from the longer form, or whether the longer is an inorganic combination of independent elements.¹ It will be convenient to give first the classical form in which the Formula is best known. This is found in the description of the attainment of arahatship, when the disciple having passed through the stages of morality and concentration reaches the knowledge of the destruction of the *āsavas*, and knows pain, its cause, its cessation, and the Way leading thereto. In what is probably the oldest form of this description² there is no mention of the Chain, but merely the statement that the truths are known. But we also find this statement expanded by the insertion of the Formula of causal origin, and its repetition, in which each item is stated positively as a cause, is said to explain the cause of pain, and its repetition negatively, in which each item is said not to exist, explains the cessation of pain. The following is the Formula in the *Lalita-vistara*,¹ where after telling of the rebirth of beings it continues :

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¹ This latter is the view of Senart, *Apropos de la théorie bouddhique des douze nidānas*, *Mélanges de C. Harlez*, p. 281. Leyde, 1896. It makes superfluous the attempts of Western scholars to find in it a rational contribution to philosophic thought.

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² *Dīgha*, i, 83, above, p. 48; the enlightenment of Buddha himself is described in the same terms, also without the Chain, in *Majjh*, i, 249. In a form with ten links it is given in the account of the enlightenment of Vipassin Buddha, *Dīgha*, ii, 30, and repeated in *Samy*, ii, 7, with twelve links.

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¹ 441 (345) ; *Mvst.*, ii, 285, is more verbose, but is essentially the same. The fullest treatment in the Pāli is *Saṃy.*, ii, 144.

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“ So the Bodhisattva, with his mind concentrated, purified, cleansed, luminous, spotless, with the defilements gone, mild, dexterous, firm and impassible, in the last watch of the night at dawn . . . directed his mind to the passing away of the cause of pain. He thought : wretched is it that this world has come about, namely, is born, grows old, dies, passes away, is reborn. And thus one knows no escape from this whole mass of pain. Alas ! no means of ending all this great mass of pain is known, this old age, sickness, death, and so forth. Then, again, the Bodhisattva thought : when what exists do old age and death come to be, and what is the cause of old age and death ? He thought : When birth exists, old age and death arise, for old age and death have birth as their cause.”

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In the same way birth has coming into existence (*bhava*) as its cause; coming into existence has grasping (*upādāna*) as its cause; grasping has craving (*tṛṣṇā*) as its cause; craving has sensation (*vedanā*) as its cause; sensation has contact (*sparśa*) as its cause; contact has the six sense-organs (*ṣaḍāyatana*) as its cause; the six sense-organs have mind and body (*nāma-rūpa*) as their cause; mind and body have consciousness (*vijñāna*) as their cause; consciousness has the aggregates (*saṃskārāḥ*) as its cause; the aggregates have ignorance (*avidyā*) as their cause.

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This is called the repetition in reverse order (*pratiloma*). The Bodhisattva then repeats it in direct order (*anuloma*). “ When what exists do the aggregates come to be ? And what is the cause of the aggregates ? Then he thought : when ignorance exists, the aggregates come to be, for the aggregates have ignorance as a cause,” and so on down to “ with birth as cause old age, death, grief, lamentation, pain, misery, and despair come to be. Even so the origin of all this great mass of pain comes to be, the origin ! Thus as the Bodhisattva duly reflected repeatedly on these things unheard before, knowing arose, vision arose, knowledg arose, intelligence arose, full knowledge arose, light appeared.

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He then repeats it backwards and forwards negatively when what does not exist do old age and death not come to be? Or on the cessation of what is there the cessation of old age and death, ending with “ even so is the cessation of all this great mass of pain ”, and knowledge of the cessation of pain arises. “ At that time I duly knew : ‘ this is pain, this is the cause of the āsravas, this is the cessation of the āsravas, this is the path leading to the cessation of the āsravas.’ ” 1

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The differences of view as to the interpretation of this Formula turn on two points, whether it describes different stages of each individual who is involved in this mass of pain or whether it has a cosmological significance, and depends upon speculations concerning the origin and passing away of the universe.² In the Dīgha itself it is called “ profound, even in its appearance profound ”, and Ānanda is reproved for saying that it is extremely clear.³ From this it is probable that at an early period there were disputes about its meaning, and that a need was early felt for its interpretation. This is shown still more in the commentarial explanations, and though the very fact that explanation was required prevents us from assuming that they give the primitive sense, they cannot be ignored if we are to decide what the Buddhists meant by it. There can be no doubt about its purpose when it was inserted in the above context. It was there understood as the knowledge of the nature and cause of pain attained by the individual which leads to escape from rebirth.

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² It is unnecessary to consider the older attempts of Western scholars at exegesis, which proceeded without regard to the interpretations actually adopted in the Scriptures and the commentaries. They are discussed in Oltramare, La Formule des douze causes, Genève, 1909 ; cf. A. B. Keith, Buddh. phil., p. 106 ; L. de la Vallée Poussin, Théorie des douze causes, Gand, 1913. The theories of Jacobi and Schayer will be considered in connection with the question of Buddhist borrowings, Ch. VI.

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³ Mahānidāna-sutta, Dīgha, ii, 55 ; in this sutta the first two links and the fifth (six sense-organs) are omitted.

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There are several terms occurring in it which also occur in another formula, the five groups (*khandhas*) which make up the individual. In the legend of Māgandiya (*Majjh.*, i, 511) Buddha says to him: “If I were to teach you the doctrine as to what health and Nirvāna are, and you were to come to know what health is and to see Nirvāna, then when vision arose you would cast away your passion for the five groups of grasping, and you would think, ‘long indeed have I been cheated, deceived, and deluded by this my mind in that I went on grasping at body (*rūpa*), sensation (*vedanā*), perception (*saññā*), the aggregates (*saṅkhārā*), and consciousness (*viññāṇa*). On account of my grasping (*upādāna*) coming to be (*bhava*) arises, birth, old age, grief, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair arise. Even thus is the origin of this whole mass of pain.’”

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¹ It may be noticed that there is a still later addition to the Formula. Sometimes there is prefixed to it the words “ when this exists, that exists ; with the arising of this that arises ” ; and to the negative form “ when this does not exist, that does not exist ; with the cessation of this that ceases ”. Here the causal law is stated generally, but it is interpreted in terms of the Formula ; cf. Udāna, i, 1, and Vin., i, 1.

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Here we have the well-known analysis of the individual into the material part, the body, and four divisions of the spiritual part. The only term here needing separate comment is *saṅkhāra*. The aggregates evidently form one of the groups of the spiritual part, and the scholastics explain them as “the mental concomitants or adjuncts which come or tend to come into consciousness at the uprising of a *citta* (thought).”¹ They include everything that may come into the mind, permanent qualities like memory, ideas, good and bad impulses or dispositions, as well as unconscious habits. It is evident that in the above legend they are supposed to explain one part of the constituents of the individual man. Māgandiya had just before congratulated himself on his perfect health, and Buddha here points out that it ends in old age and death. It is this grasping after the things of the body which results in coming to be, i.e. passing into a new existence. Rebirth is a term here out of place, birth is a stage, but the new existence, the coming to be, begins not with birth but with conception. The next stages of birth, old age, and death are clear.

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¹ Rh. Davids, *Pāli Dict.*, s.v. One analysis of the aggregates makes about fifty separate items. They appear to have been compiled in order to include every mental phenomenon, and the *Dhammasaṅgaṇi* makes sure of this by adding “and any other non-material things that have arisen causally”. The Pāli and Sanskrit lists largely agree, but are not identical. *Abhk.*, ii, 23; *Mvyut.*, 154. There is a simpler and probably earlier analysis of the aggregates into saṅkhāras of body, speech, and mind.

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In the stages here given, from grasping to old age and death, we have the last four links of the Chain, but nothing needs to be added to make them intelligible in this passage, nor does their causal connection need explaining. The sequences are of every-day experience. It is the same in the *Sutta of grasping*,¹ where the sequence starts with craving (*taṇhā*):

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¹ *Upādāna-sutta*, *Samy.*, ii, 84. *Upādāna* also means " fuel ", that which the fire grasps to maintain its existence.

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In one who abides surveying the enjoyment in things that make for grasping craving increases. Grasping is caused by craving, coming into existence by grasping, birth by coming into existence, and old age and death by birth. . . . Just as if a great mass of fire were burning of ten, twenty, thirty, or forty loads of faggots, and a man from time to time were to throw on it dry grasses, dry cow-dung, and dry faggots ; even so a great mass of fire with that feeding and that fuel would burn for a long time. . .

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In one who abides surveying the misery in things that make for grasping, craving ceases. With the ceasing of craving grasping ceases, with the ceasing of grasping coming into existence ceases, with the ceasing of coming into existence, birth ceases, and with the ceasing of birth old age and death cease. Grief, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair cease. Even so is the cessation of all this mass of pain.

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Here again it is the existence of an individual that is spoken of. The teaching is the doctrine of pain and putting an end to pain, which is caused by craving and the consequent grasping or clinging to things that lead to continuous existence.

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The series in the two previous examples are only a part of the Chain of Causation. Unless the Chain can be proved to be part of the earliest teaching the question whether it was compounded of earlier separate portions is not very important. It occurs in the *Dīgha* (ii, 30) with the omission of the first two links, and again with the omission of the six sense-organs as well (ii, 55). This seems to show that it did not originally form a fixed sequence. Its entire omission in the earliest accounts of the enlightenment suggests that it was not then even invented. Someone evidently put it together, and the main point of interest is its philosophic significance. It implies a theory of causality, but we find cause understood in different senses. Ignorance is the cause of consciousness. Consciousness is here understood as rebirth-consciousness, the state in which the individual exists at the moment of conception. It is clear that ignorance in the Buddhist sense, ignorance of the truth of pain, will lead to rebirth, for the ignorant individual cannot take the only course which, according to Buddhist doctrine, would prevent it.

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Here we have an intelligible sense in which ignorance may be called a cause. Thus if one goes to a wrong village, it is because he was ignorant of the right way. But this is quite different from the sense in which contact (of the sense organs) is a cause of sensation. In this case we have an efficient cause. Again birth is the cause of old age. This appears to be like calling day the cause of the night.

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The Buddhist commentators, however, have succeeded in interpreting the series as the different stages, or the essential factors of the stages, which an individual assumes during his existence in the world of change. Buddhaghosa makes it a theory of the causes of rebirth in any part of the universe.¹ For him the whole universe is divided into three planes, of which the lowest, the world of sensual desire from the deepest hells up to the heavens of sensual pleasures, is inhabited by beings with their six senses. Above these is the world of form, in which the senses of taste, smell, and touch are absent. In the formless world only mind exists. It is inhabited by beings who have practised the four Attainments of non-form.

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¹ The following is from *Vism.*, 198 ff. ; he gives a fuller exposition under *paññā*, pp. 517 ff., in which state the whole Chain is supposed to be fully understood.

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" Ignorance is non-knowledge of pain, etc. In coming to be in the world of sense-desire ignorance is the cause of the aggregates of that world, and so in the world of form and the formless world. In the world of sense-desire the aggregates are the cause of rebirth-consciousness in that world, and so of the other worlds. In the world of sense-desire rebirth-consciousness is the cause of mind and body, and so in the world of form. In the formless world it is the cause of mind only. In the world of sense-desire mind and body (*nāma-rūpa*, the concrete individual) are the cause of the six organs of sense, in the world of form they are the cause of three organs of sense (sight, hearing, and mind), and in the formless world of one (mind). In the world of sense-desire the six organs of sense are the cause of six-fold contact, in the world of form of three contacts, and in the formless world the mind-organ is the cause of one contact. In the world of sense-desire the six contacts are the cause of the six senses, in the world of form three contacts are likewise the cause of three senses, and in the formless world one is the cause of one sense. In the world of sense-desire the six senses are the cause of six groups of craving, likewise three senses in the world of form and one sense in the formless world. In this and that existence this and that craving is the cause of this and that grasping. Grasping, etc., is the cause of the various forms of coming to be. How? Here one person thinks he will enjoy sense-pleasures, and commits misconduct with body, speech, or mind on account of his grasping at sense pleasures, and through the fullness of his misconduct he is reborn in a state of unhappiness. There his karma which is the cause of his rebirth is karma-becoming. Rebirth becoming consists of the khandhas (the five groups constituting the individual) due to his karma. The arising of these groups is birth, their ripening is old age, and their break-up is death. Another person thinks he will enjoy the happiness of heaven, so he practises good conduct, and through the fullness of his good conduct is born in heaven. There his karma is as before. Still another thinks he will enjoy the happiness of the Brahma-world, and through his grasping after sense-desires he practises friendliness, compassion, sympathy, and equanimity, and through the fullness of this practice he is born in the Brahma-world. There his karma is as before. Still another thinks he will enjoy happiness in the formless world . . . and so on as with the explanation based upon the remaining forms of grasping . . .

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“Now ignorance and the aggregates form one group, consciousness, mind and body, the six sense-organs, contact and the senses another; craving, grasping, and becoming another. The first group belongs to past existence, the two middle ones to the present, and the last to the future.”

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The last paragraph shows that Buddhaghosa divides the career of the individual who is transmigrating into three parts. Consciousness is birth-consciousness, the first two links belong to a past existence, and at the third he is reborn, but the actual point of passing to another existence is not birth but conception. Thereupon he develops into the khandhas, the material khandha of body (rūpa) with the four immaterial khandhas included in nāma, the immaterial part. These develop sense-organs, which with contact (i.e. stimulus of any one of the sense-organs) result in any of the six senses. From these develops the craving for satisfaction, the craving leads to grasping at anything that will satisfy them, and the grasping leads to bhava, coming to be, i.e. a new conception followed by birth, old age and death, and another future existence. So the sequence goes on. It is not referred to as a wheel in the older texts, but it is not easy to see how with this interpretation it could be considered in any other way. Each link mentioned does not express the whole of what exists at any given stage, but only that which is causal at that stage. With *nāma-rūpa* there is a complete being. It develops the six sense-organs, i.e. a complete being with sense-organs. But these organs are the cause, i.e. render possible the contacts, the exercise of each sense, which in their turn give rise to sensations, and so on.

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The division into three existences, past, present, and future, is not peculiar to Pāli Buddhism. It is found in Nāgārjuna's *Friendly Epistle* and it belongs also to Sarvāstivāda, as seen in Vasubandhu's *Abhidharmakośa* (iii, 20), which makes a triple division in time, and in the purely Mahāyāna *Daśabhūmika-sūtra*,¹ though it is not quite the same division. The latter says: "what is said of the saṃskāras having ignorance as cause refers to the past; consciousness to feeling refers to the present; craving to becoming refers to the future, and so it goes on again." Its interpretation as individual development is still more clearly brought out in the *ṭīkā* on the *Bodhicaryāvatāra* (ix, 73), where it says, "through the union of mother and father at the seasonal concourse the seed of consciousness fettered by enjoyment and arising here or there produces in the mother's womb the germ of mind and body."

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¹ *Friendly Epistle*, 1886, p. 30; *Abhk.*, ii, p. 62; G. Tucci, "A fragment from the Pratītyasamutpādavyākhyā of Vasubandhu," *JRAS.*, 1930, 611; *Daśabhumika-sūtra*, ed. Rahder, p. 51; the common Buddhist doctrine of the process of conception as described above is thus given in Divy., i, 442: "Now through the meeting of three circumstances sons and daughters are born. What are the three? When the mother and father being in love come together, the mother is at the due season, and the gandharva (the being to be reborn) is present." This appears not to be a peculiar Buddhist theory, but the usual view of conception accepted without question by the Buddhists. In the Pāli the same statement is put into the mouth of Buddha, and is also represented as being held by brahmins (*Majjh.*, i, 266; ii, 157).

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It is clear that this interpretation was a widely spread one, for it continued in Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda teaching, and is found even in Tantric Buddhism.² As Keith says, it does not impose itself as necessarily representing the intention of its creators, but he declares that no other traditional interpretation has any chance of being original.¹ However, Buddhaghosa refers to another when he compares the scheme to a wheel, but not a revolving wheel as in the usual interpretation of the Chain. The nave is ignorance and the rim old age and death. The other ten links form ten spokes. Thus each of the ten arises directly from ignorance and ends in old age and death. There is, in fact, a sutta which explains pain in this way.² Pain is said in turn to be due to upadhi (the khandhas), to ignorance, etc. Sixteen items are spoken of, each directly the cause of pain. Among them eight of the links of the Formula occur, but the six sense-organs, becoming, birth, old age and death are omitted. It remains an isolated interpretation, and suggests that pain was once explained from different and independent causes without any order, and that the causal Formula might have been an attempt to co-ordinate them into a series and make one item dependent on another. Such an attempt from the heterogeneous nature of the items could never be made perfectly consistent, and the idea that behind the logical weakness of the current interpretation must lie a perfectly cogent one may be an illusion, and is certainly a mere surmise.

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² *Caṇḍamahārosana-tantra*, ch. xvi, publ. by L. de la Vallée Poussin, *JRAS.*, 1897, p. 467; this work, in explaining rebirth, gives particular physiological details of the process of conception. It appears to hold that the first ten terms from ignorance to becoming (conception) are pre-natal. L. Vallée Poussin, *Deux notes sur le Pratītyasamutpāda*, 14th Internat. Congress of Orientalists, Algiers, 1905.

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¹ Buddh. philos., p. 106.

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² Dvayatānupassana-sutta " consideration of the dyads ", Sn., pp. 724 ff.

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No perfectly logical interpretation has been found, and even if it were it would have no significance unless it could be shown that the Buddhists originally held it. How differently it may be conceived can be seen from Mr. Matsumoto's interpretation.³

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³ Die Prajñāpāramitā-lit., p. 28.

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For Mr. Matsumoto the Chain is part of the original teaching of Buddha. But the essential, he holds, does not rest upon the number of twelve links nor upon their order. In that case, how far does it remain a formula? It is said to be only an attempt to explain the thought contained in it—that everything arises in mutual dependence. Of course it is possible, he says, to apply this to everything and make it the starting point of a world-picture. But this is not the meaning that Gautama Buddha applied to it. "For him after long striving the doctrine of causal origination resulted as the final possibility of explaining human life as it presented itself to him. Concentration on this thought, the spiritual insight thereby brought about into the inner connection of the life-process, and the resulting knowledge of its unreality was for him at the same time emancipation, a state which must be looked upon as complete Nirvāṇa.” The interpretation of the formula as a theory of temporal causality, according to Mr. Matsumoto, was a change brought about by the Sarvāstivādins, a change, that is, from “ original Buddhism ” and the meaning that Gautama Buddha applied to it. Mr. Matsumoto is quite certain what Buddha’s original meaning was, and he finds it in the system of the *Prajñāpāramitā*, the Scripture of one of the schools of Mahāyāna. The significance of this must be considered later. He considers that the original meaning was perverted by the Sarvāstivāda Abhidhamma into a theory of the process of transmigration; but this is scarcely exact, for it occurs in the Canon itself in what is probably the oldest interpretation that we possess. This is the *Mahānidāna-sutta* (*Dīgha*, ii, 55), in which the first two links and the fifth do not appear. There it is said, “ if consciousness did not descend into the womb of the mother, would mind and body become constituted therein ? No, Lord. If the consciousness of one while yet young, whether of a boy or a girl, were to disappear, would the mind and body proceed to growth, increase, and development ? No, Lord.”

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This is how the “ inner connection of the life-process ” presented itself to the earliest interpreters of the formula. Rhys Davids found in the sutta much more, for he held that it expressed the process of origination and cessation as a natural and universal law. “ Events came impelled by preceding conditions, causes that man could by intelligence and good will study and govern, suspend, or intensify.” Yet it is this very sutta which after closing the series with “ mind and body have consciousness as a cause ”, adds, “ consciousness has mind and body as a cause.” We scarcely find here “ the significance of the law of universal causation, breaking in on a great mind with a flash of intuition ”, nor was any application made of it as a universal law.

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It is no wonder that the later Buddhists by coming to deny any real connection between each link, and even the natural causal sequence between contact and sensation, birth and old age, have deprived the formula of any meaning as a theory of causation. They have put in its place the Mahāyāna doctrine of interdependent relation, in which the causality held by the older schools becomes an illusion. We find that all the oldest interpretations do, in fact, treat it as a causal chain. They show us the attempts to make it a consistent account of the stages of the individual as he transmigrates. There is nothing to show that it ever had a more consistent meaning or why, if it had, the interpreters should have lost it.

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An important question that remains is whether the formula has been borrowed from another system or suggested by similar sequences. It would be no surprising thing to find an originally logical scheme perverted by an adaptation to another set of principles. This will be more suitably discussed in connection with the relation of Buddhist doctrines to other Indian systems.

Note on the Wheel of Becoming

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The Causal Formula does not appear to have been at first conceived as a wheel but as a line in the series of transmigrations of unknown beginning. But it easily lent itself to such a presentation. In the *Divyāvadāna* (300) Buddha, after hearing from Ānanda the merits of Maudgalyāyana (Moggallāna) as a teacher, says that there will not always be one like him, and orders the Five-spoked Wheel to be inscribed over the gateway of the Veluvana monastery at Rājagaha. He describes how it is to be made: “The five-spoked Wheel . . . is to be made with the five destinies (*gati*), the hells, animals, pretas (ghosts), gods, and human beings. Therein the hells are to be made at the bottom, the animals and ghosts above; then gods and human beings; the four continents, Pūrvavideha, Aparagodānīya, Uttarakuru, and Jambudvīpa. In the middle (the nave) passion, hatred, and stupidity are to be represented, passion in the form of a dove, hatred in the form of a snake, and stupidity in the form of a pig. An image of Buddha is to be made pointing out the circle of Nirvāṇa. Apparitional beings are to be represented by means of a windlass as passing away and being reborn. All round is to be represented the twelve-fold Causal Origination in direct and reverse order. The whole is to be represented as swallowed by Impermanence (*anityatā*), and two verses are to be written:

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THE WHEEL OF BECOMING

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Make a beginning, renounce your home,
To the Buddha-teaching apply yourselves;
Smite away the army of Death,
As an elephant a house of reeds.

Who in this Law and Discipline
Shall vigilantly lead his life,
Abandoning the round of birth,
Shall verily make an end of pain.¹

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¹ The verses occur in *Samy.*, i, 156, and elsewhere.

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Among the cave paintings of Ajanta (ascribed to the 7th century A.D.) is a pictorial representation, which has been identified with the Wheel of Becoming (*bhavacakra*), but it is too fragmentary for making comparisons.² The form usually represented in Tibet has six spokes, as in that reproduced by Dr. Waddell. The five destinies have been increased to six by making the asuras, the rebel gods, a separate career. In the *Kathāvatthu* (viii, 1) the doctrine of six destinies is opposed. The upper sector represents the gods, who at the right are seen fighting under Indra (Śakra) against the Asuras, who are attacking them in the next sector. To the left other heavens are visible. The seated figure is Mahābrahmā, of whose four faces three can be seen in the original.

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² It was identified as such by Dr. L. A. Waddell, *Journ. As. Soc. Bengal*, 1893, vol. lxi, pt. 1, p. 133; *JRAS.*, 1894, p. 367; *The Buddhism of Tibet*, pp. 105 ff, where reproductions of this and the Tibetan form are given. He also attempted an interpretation of the Wheel, with analogies from Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Spinoza. A satisfactory explanation based upon the evidence of the Sanskrit Buddhists was given by L. de la Vallée Poussin at the 14th International Congress of Orientalists (Algiers) in 1905 (*Actes*, 1e partie, § 1, p. 193).

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In the next sector are the Asuras, and at the foot of Mount Meru the wishing tree, Cittapāṭalī, which here extends into Indra’s heaven of the thirty-three gods. In Indra’s heaven is said to be the tree Pārijātaka (Pāli, Pāricchattaka), and here there may be some confusion or special legend about the two. Indra’s heaven is properly on the top of Mount Meru, but the circular arrangement of the picture has probably prevented exact representation.

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Below comes the realm of animals and fish. At the bottom of the ocean is the palace of the Nāgas, serpents who can assume human form.

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In the lowest sector are the hells. In the upper part Yama is judging the sinners, and in the lower part are the hot hells on the left and the cold hells on the right.

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Next is the realm of the pretas, beings with large bellies and very small mouths, always tortured with hunger and thirst. The remaining sector is that of human beings. In each sector is a figure of Avalokiteśvara, who visits all realms in fulfilment of his vow to save the world.

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The Twelve nidānas running along the rim in direct order (clockwise direction) from the top are :

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1. *Avidyā*, ignorance : blind man with a stick.

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2. *Saṃskārāḥ*, lit. aggregates, compounds : potter with wheel and pots.

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3. *Vijñāna*, consciousness : monkey climbing a tree with flowers.

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4. *Nāmarūpa*, name and form, mind and body : a ship (the body) with four passengers representing nāma, i.e. the four immaterial skandhas : feeling, perception, saṃskāras, and consciousness. Consciousness is steering.

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5. *Ṣaḍāyatanāni*, six sense-organs : an empty house.

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6. *Sparśa*, contact : man and woman embracing. (6 and 7 are misplaced in the figure.)

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7. *Vedanā*, feeling : man with an arrow in his eye.

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8. *Tṛṣṇā*, thirst, craving : woman offering drink to a seated man.

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9. *Upādāna*, grasping : man gathering fruit from a tree.

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10. *Bhava*, becoming (conception) : woman with child.

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11. *Jāti*, birth : woman in childbirth.

c13.s1.23

12. *Jarāmaraṇa*, old age and death : man carrying a corpse to the cemetery.

c13.s1.24

It will be seen that the figures are merely illustrations of states in each stage, and sometimes only allegorical representations, as in the case of the potter and the ship. They do not throw much light on the theory of the wheel, but they show an interpretation which agrees in general with the view that it represents different stages in the transmigration of the individual.

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