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The Quest Series 
 Edited by G. R. S. Mead 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BL 1475.P7D25 1914 
 
 Buddhist psychoiogyian inquiry into the 
 
 3 1924 022 982 072 
 
 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
THE QUEST SERIES 
 
 Edited by G. R. S. MEAD, 
 
 EDITOR OF *THE QUEST.' 
 
 Crown 8z/0, 2s. 6d. net each. 
 
 FIRST LIST OF VOLUMES. 
 
 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND SURVIVAL. By 
 James H. Hyslop, Ph.D., LL.D., Secretary of the 
 Psychical Research Society of America. 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL. By Jessib 
 L. Weston, Author of 'The Legend of Sir 
 Perceval.' 
 
 JEWISH MYSTICISM. By J. Abelson, M.A., 
 D.Lit., Principal of Aria College, Portsmouth. 
 
 THE MYSTICS OF ISLAM. By Reynold A. 
 Nicholson, M.A., Litt.D., LL.D., Lecturer on 
 Persian, Cambridge University. 
 
 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY. By C. A. F. Rhys 
 Davids, M.A., Lecturer on Indian Philosophy, 
 Manchester University. 
 
 RUYSBROECK. By Evelyn Underhill, Author of 
 ' Mysticism,' ' The Mystic Way,' etc. 
 
 THE SIDEREAL RELIGION OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 By Robert Eisler, Ph.D., Author of 'Welten- 
 mantel und Himmelszelt.' [/« the Press. 
 
 London: G. BELL AND SONS LTD. 
 
BUDDHIST 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ANALYSIS AND 
 THEORY OF MIND IN PALI LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 Mrs. C. a. F. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. 
 
 LECTURER ON INDIAN FHII.0S07HV, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, 
 HONORARY SECRETARY PALI TEXT SOCIETY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 G. BELL AND SONS LTD. 
 
 1914 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 One of the most marked signs of the times 
 is the close attention that is being paid to 
 psychological research, the results of which 
 are being followed with the greatest interest 
 by an intelligent public, and the continued 
 advance of which promises to be one of the 
 most hopeful activities of modern science. 
 The observation, analysis, and classification 
 of mental phenomena are being pursued 
 with untiring energy, and the problems of 
 mind attacked on all sides with refreshing 
 vigour. In brief, the new science of psy- 
 chology seems to promise at no distant date 
 to become one of the most fruitful, if not the 
 most fruitful, field of human tillage. But 
 turn where we will to our manuals or 
 special studies, we find no reference to the 
 patient work of many centuries accom- 
 plished by the introspective genius of the 
 
vi EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 East. In this field none have laboured 
 with greater industry and acumen than the 
 Buddhist thinkers, whose whole philosophy 
 and therewith also their religion rests on 
 a psychological basis. Not only so; but 
 some of their main contentions are very 
 similar to the later views advanced by the 
 dominant schools of modern research. The 
 work of these profound analysts of the 
 nature of mind should, therefore, by no 
 means be neglected by modern psychologists 
 and those who are interested in their in- 
 structive labours — and who that desires to 
 know himself can fail to be so interested ? 
 It must, however, be admitted that there 
 is some excuse for previous neglect owing 
 to the lack of books designed to smooth the 
 way for those unacquainted with Oriental 
 studies. It is with the hope of making a 
 start in this direction that the present 
 valuable introduction has been secured from 
 the pen of one who is acknowledged to be 
 the most competent student of the subject 
 in the West. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 My book is an attempt, in the words of the 
 ' Quest Series ' programme, to envisage faith- 
 fully something true in the history of a very 
 interesting current in human ideas. This 
 * something true ' is the analysis and theory 
 of mind in the movement and culture we 
 understand by Early Buddhism, as well as 
 in that of its direct descendant still thriving 
 in Burma, Ceylon and Siam, called Thera- 
 vada, or the Doctrine of the Elders. This 
 also is called Buddhism— some call it Hina- 
 Yana, some Southern Buddhism. 
 
 As to the book's quests and goals, two of 
 the more proximate may suffice. While 
 scholars are beginning to get at and decipher 
 the long'buried treasure of Buddhist writings 
 brought from Mid-Asia, the general reader 
 is being told that the group of other de- 
 scendants from Early Buddhism called 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 Maha-Yanism, is not only evolved from 
 the earlier doctrine, but is its completion 
 and apotheosis. The reader cannot judge 
 in this matter, unless he has an all-round 
 knowledge of what the developed system 
 started from. Such a knowledge is not 
 always present in those who are fluent 
 about the complete descendant. Hence he 
 is placed in the position of one who learns 
 of Neo-Platonispi and not of Plato, of 
 Aquinas and not of Aristotle. My book's 
 quest is to present summarily some of the 
 thought contained in the mother-doctrine 
 and her first-born child, much of which is 
 still inaccessible to him. 
 
 The second object is to bring nearer the 
 day when the historical treatment of psy- 
 chology will find it impossible to pretend 
 that the observation and analysis of mind 
 began with the Pre-Socratics. Psychologists 
 are, some of them, curiously unhistorical, 
 even with regard to the European field with 
 its high fence of ignorance and prejudice. 
 Theories are sometimes put forward as new 
 that have been anticipated in both Europe 
 and Asia. I say ' curiously,' because the 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 history of ideas about the mind is both 
 fascinating and suggestive. Would Professor 
 Bergson say of his brother thinkers, too, 
 especially of the more constructive among 
 them (I dare to include himself), that the 
 past of psychological thought also est Id, 
 continuellement, but that so intent is their 
 forward gaze that they ' cannot and must 
 not look back ' ? Yet how much more 
 impressive might they not make the present 
 for us if they would, if they felt compelled to 
 look back a little more ! Let us hope that 
 monographs in psychological history may 
 eventually succeed in making it unnecessary 
 for drowning, or other catastrophes, to 
 bring flooding in upon them the ignored 
 past of ideas in Indian philosophy. 
 
 VWith so large an object in so small a book, 
 it has been impossible to compare the line 
 of descent I have chosen with other lines, 
 even with that of the Madhyamika school, 
 in which Professor de la Valine Poussin has 
 revealed much interesting psychological 
 matter. I have also to apologize for bring- 
 ing in several terms in the original. This 
 was as inevitable, for clearness and un- 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 ambiguity, as would be the use of corre- 
 sponding Greek words in writing on Greek 
 psychology. But we are more used to 
 Gr^ek words. Finally, if I have repeated 
 stMements made in previous writings, it 
 was to avoid irritating the reader by too 
 many references, as if suggesting that he 
 might as well be reading not one book, but 
 three or four. 
 
 C. A. F. RHYS DAVIDS. 
 February 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface . . . . vii 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Habits of Thought .... 1 
 
 II. The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 
 I. MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT . .12 
 
 III. The Psychology of the Nikayas-^ 
 
 II. consciousness and the external world 39 
 
 IV. The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 
 in. feeling . . . . .74 
 
 V. The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 
 IV. ideation . . . . .87 
 
 VI. The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 
 V. ideation — continued . . .120 
 
 VII. Psychological Developments in the Abhi- 
 
 dhamma-Pitaka . . . .134 
 
 VIII. Psychology in the Milinda . . .156 
 
 IX. Some MedijEval Developments . .173 
 
 Bibliography ..... 207 
 Index . . . . . .209 
 
TO 
 
 SHWE ZAN AUNG 
 
 A TRIBUTE OF GEATITUDE AND 
 ESTEEM 
 
BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Habits of Thought 
 
 There are some to-day who say that enough 
 is known of ' Buddhism,' by the portions 
 of its literature translated into English and 
 German, to enable any one to form correct 
 judgments concerning the data and con- 
 clusions grouped under that term, without 
 further acquaintance with that literature 
 at second hand, let alone at first hand. 
 
 This is a fairly tenable view if by Buddhism 
 be meant just a certain ethical reform move- 
 ment, a gospel set on foot to save souls and 
 roll back the murk of sin and superstition, 
 a new creed with a revived moral code. 
 But when we gain a wider perspective of 
 Buddhism,' and look more deeply into what 
 is involved by the term, we may feel less 
 confident. Buddhism really covers the 
 thought and culture of a great part of India 
 for some centuries, as well as that of Further 
 
2 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 India {jpace China and Japan), up till the 
 present. And the reader of translations 
 from its literature, be he superficial or 
 thoughtful, is bound to come across strange 
 things in the point of view, the values, the 
 logic, which should make him realize that 
 the Semitic and Hellenic stock on which his 
 own religious and philosophic principles 
 are grafted, does not coincide with that 
 from which the traditional notions revealed 
 in Buddhism have sprung. 
 
 Now if our knowledge of the notions at 
 the heart of Greek and Roman culture and 
 religion has recently been most notably 
 deepened and clarified by research in a 
 literature which has been long in our hands, 
 how much may we not yet have to learn 
 of the history of other human ideas, the 
 literature expressing which is but partly 
 accessible not only to readers of translations, 
 but even to investigators of the original 
 texts ? 
 
 To write on the subject of this book with 
 the authority of a master, would imply a 
 familiarity, not only with certain works 
 of the Buddhist canonical books, mostly 
 as yet untranslated, but also with the 
 elaborations in theory made by the great 
 scholastics, none of which are translated, and 
 but a few of which are yet printed. Hence 
 this rough provisional sketch can but serve 
 as a temporary makeshift, born of half- 
 
HABITS OF THOUGHT 3 
 
 knowledge, till in another decade of this 
 century some writer, better equipped in 
 every way, is able adequately to deal with it. 
 For even in the original cult and school 
 of Buddhism, known as Hina-Yana, or better 
 as Theravada — ^the Doctrine of the Elders — 
 maintained down to the present in Further 
 India, it is true of its psychology, even more 
 perhaps than of any other branch of learning, 
 that we have here no body of knowledge 
 evolved in a night to be clothed forthwith 
 in a nutshell. It reveals a growth as does the 
 psychology of Europe, which evolved from 
 the De Anima of Aristotle to the Medita- 
 tions, and the rest, of Cartesianism. Com- 
 pared with the latter evolution, the psychology 
 of the Theravada is as a quiet river, flowing 
 often unseen, compared to a stream torn by 
 cataracts. There are in it no ruptures of 
 an ecclesiasticism replacing ' paganism,' and 
 so forth. It is probable — and it certainly 
 pleases our pride to think so — ^that no quiet 
 consistent internal growth can produce such 
 notable results as have come from our own 
 more cataclysmic struggles out of barbarism 
 and superstition into relatively free and 
 developed analysis of mind. However that 
 may be, the historian of Buddhist psychology 
 has a growth to discern and describe, from 
 its earliest recorded expressions in the 
 Suttanta, or books of Suttas, again in the 
 analytical works known as Abhidhamma- 
 
4 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Pitaka, and other early surviving books, 
 down to the discursive commentaries of the 
 present era, the work of eminent scholastics. 
 
 We shall hardly expect to find, in any of 
 these classic works, that detached and 
 specialized study of mental life as such, 
 which under its modern name of psychology 
 is a matter of yesterday among ourselves. 
 From Aristotle to Hamilton and J. S. Mill, 
 scientific analysis of mind has been discussed 
 either incidentally in philosophic subject- 
 matter, or as the leading subject, but with 
 incursions into the field of metaphysic and 
 ethics. These are also the methods we find 
 in Buddhist inquiries into the nature and 
 processes of mind. If we take up the 
 mediaeval classic compendium of philosophy 
 and psychology, recently made accessible to 
 English readers — Anuruddha's Abhidham- 
 mattha-sangaha^ — we find, here a notable 
 analysis of cognition sandwiched between 
 metaphysical statements, and there an ex- 
 amination of states of consciousness com- 
 plicated by ethical considerations. 
 
 Hence it will be necessary to dig out and 
 excise our materials from their context. 
 And in noting the results, the reader cannot 
 be too careful to mark whether they are 
 yielded by the older literary strata, or by 
 earlier or later scholastic work discussing 
 
 ' Translated as A Compendium of Philosophy (see 
 Bibliography). 
 
HABITS OF THOUGHT 5 
 
 those older canonical scriptures. The 
 materials are not yet ready for dealing 
 properly with the scholastic psychology as 
 a rounded-off body of doctrine. I am rather 
 presenting the subject in approximately 
 Buddhist fashion ; the older matter as 
 justifying, and illustrated by, the later 
 expositions. And I am not seldom poaching 
 in philosophical preserves. 
 
 Since, however, the Compendium, or digest 
 just referred to, is the only text yet published 
 giving a purview of Buddhist philosophy 
 of life and mind, a glance at its point of 
 departure may attune our own understanding 
 to a difference in scale of contents and of 
 values from that which is habitual to us. 
 In true thought are no ' habits of thought,' 
 writes Mr. Fielding-Hall, in his enthralling 
 book The Passing of Empire. That is so 
 ideally, but actually all thinking is only rela- 
 tively true ; for all thinking has been and is 
 done by way of habits, that is, traditions, 
 of thought. Vast is the fleeting show of the 
 world, and brief the current of each span of 
 life. We must economize in methods of 
 thought, and this can only be done by follow- 
 ing the beaten tracks of our own traditional 
 methods, when we assimilate new perceptions 
 to establish generalizations. 
 
 But there are beaten tracks other than 
 ours, habits of thought not European, along 
 which philosophizing was flowing before 
 
6 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ' we ' began, and still flows. And our 
 difficulties in understanding those philo- 
 sophies lie less in learning the results, than 
 in getting out of our own beaten groove 
 into the ' habit of thought ' along which 
 those results were come at. 
 
 The Compendium starts with assuming 
 four categories of ultimate notions : not the 
 One and the Many, not the Real and the 
 Ideal, but (1) chitta,^ consciousness (mind, 
 ' heart,' intelligence) ; (2) chetdsikd (literally, 
 mental things, mentals) ; (3) rupa (literally, 
 shape, visible form, material quality) ; 
 (4) nibbdna {nirvdna, or summum honum). 
 Roughly speaking, we may approximate 
 these to our own ultimates : (1 and 2) mind 
 or consciousness ; (3) matter ; (4) happi- 
 ness, or the ideal. But it is, I repeat, a 
 rough, an approximate fit only ; our logic 
 kicks against finding a co-ordination, as 
 ultimates, of (1) consciousness, and (2) phases 
 or factors of consciousness. Nor are we 
 content to substitute for a purely spiritual, 
 negatively expressed concept our own more 
 comprehensive and more positively con- 
 ceived terms for the summum bonum. We 
 shall probably conclude that we here see a 
 section of humanity beating out its way to 
 truth along lines that are parallel to, or 
 
 * More strictly transliterated ciita ; but so spelt 
 throughout to ensure correct pronunciation, as in our 
 word chit. Both the t's should be pronounced : chit-ta. 
 
HABITS OF THOUGHT 7 
 
 even convergent with our own, but different 
 — different in its point of departure, 
 different in its intervening experiences, 
 different in its ' habits of thought.' 
 
 But the fact that these categories start, 
 not with abstract generahzations such as 
 unity, plurahty, reahty, substance, but with 
 consciousness and, so to speak, coefficients 
 of consciousness, should certainly bring us 
 to this conclusion, if to none other, namely, 
 that such a view argues a very close attention 
 bestowed on the nature and work of mind. 
 The output of that attention it is my business 
 presently to summarize. Two points, before 
 we leave the Compendium to dig in the older 
 books, may serve to bring out that difference 
 of standpoint in this old Eastern, if mainly 
 Aryan, view of things. 
 
 The next step in the manual brings us 
 up against a vastness in extension assigned 
 to chitta undreamt of by ourselves when we 
 set out to analyze consciousness. Chitta, 
 we read, is fourfold, according as it is 
 experienced in one of the three lokd's, or 
 planes of life, or, fourthly, by one who, for 
 the time being, is ' beyond-a-ZoA;a ' {lok'- 
 uttdrd) as to his thought. These three 
 loka^s include the whole universe of being, 
 from creatures infra-human up to both the 
 inferior celestial worlds and the superior — 
 a purview greatly exceeding, if parallel to 
 that of Aquinas, who confines himself to 
 
8 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 discussion on the consciousness of ' the 
 angels ' only. He includes an analysis of 
 the angelic nature to complete his scheme 
 of formce separatee. Buddihism has always 
 held that, by dint of sedulous practice in 
 prescribed forms of contemplative exercise, 
 mundane consciousness might be temporarily 
 transformed into the consciousness experi- 
 enced in either the less material, or the quite 
 immaterial worlds. It has therefore both 
 Aquinas's reason and this too for its fourfold 
 scheme of chitta. 
 
 Mr. Aung, as an ' interpreter of . . . 
 mediaeval Buddhism presented through 
 modern Burmese glasses,' ^ figures chitta and 
 chetdsikd's as the shell and the contents of 
 a sphere, 2 and shows, both hereby and by 
 the context, that this tradition is content to 
 envisage the two concepts as respectively a 
 whole and its factors, or else as respectively 
 a unity ' and something more,' ' concomitant ' 
 with that unity. And thus some among us 
 will still be left chafing at the logic of four 
 categories which should be three. 
 
 The rest of us will suspend our judgment 
 and get on, bearing two things in mind as 
 we do so. Firstly, that our traditional 
 logic of whole and parts, genus and species, 
 is a convenient Greek fiction, by which we 
 artificially parcel off the flow or continuum 
 of experience as if we were sorting seeds or 
 
 » Compendium, p. 284. » Ibid. p. 13, 
 
HABITS OF THOUGHT 9 
 
 the like. It is a mental instrument which 
 plays a relatively minor part in Indian 
 thought. When the Aristotehan and his 
 heirs divide the knowable into bundles, and 
 sub-bundles, ranging the individual every- 
 where under the more general, the Buddhist 
 thinker, especially in the philosophy of 
 mind, saw everywhere confluences, con- 
 junctures of conditions and tendencies, from 
 which at a given locus {thdna, ohdsa) some- 
 thing individual came to pass. He stood 
 for the emergence of the Particular ; the 
 Greek, for the revelation of the Universal. 
 
 But let this not be strained. Buddhist 
 thought is very largely an inquiry into mind 
 and its activities. Now in that field, as an 
 eminent psychologist has observed,^ " a differ- 
 ence in aspects is a difference in things." 
 For the ' things ' or subject-matter of 
 psychology are the aspects under which 
 things present themselves to mind. Hence 
 we can find it natural enough for psycho- 
 logical philosophers to see, as psychologically, 
 if not as logically, distinguishable categories : 
 (1) the aspect of a sensitive, reacting, 
 discriminating consciousness happening in 
 living individuals ; and (2) the aspect of 
 an ever-varying confluence of co-efficient 
 mental complexes, evoked along with the 
 ever-recurring, bare happening of that 
 consciousness. 
 
 * James Ward, Ency. Brit., art. ' Psychology.' 
 
10 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Taking one further glance at the Com- 
 pendium before we shut the book, we are 
 again repelled by an analysis of conscious;^ 
 ness as immoral and as moral, i.e. asjbad 
 and as good, ethically speaking. Wenave 
 learnt, in modern text-books, that ethical 
 considerations are to be kept severely apart 
 from what is held to be scientific investiga- 
 tion of facts, mental or other, of things as 
 they are or appear to be. Those considera- 
 tions deal with the ' ought to be,' and why. 
 
 Here again we come upon a difference 
 of ' habit of thought.' For the Buddhist, 
 the ethical goodness or badness of a state 
 of consciousness was a primary quality of 
 that consciousness no less than, for us, 
 extension and solidity are reckoned as 
 primary qualities of external things, access- 
 ible to touch. ' There is nothing good but 
 thinking makes it so ' was never a Buddhist 
 dictum. You act, speak, think, say, in a good 
 way, whatever you or others may think about 
 it. ' A good, moral, or meritorious act ' means 
 that a desirable result will follow such an act, 
 sooner or later, inevitably. And an opposite 
 sort of result will follow no less the opposite 
 sort of act. The doing will entail suffering.. 
 These opposed qualities are integral parts 
 of the content of mental activity, wrought 
 up in its texture.. They are, therefore, not 
 out of place in an analysis of consciousness, 
 and I doubt if even at this time of day a 
 
HABITS OF THOUGHT 11 
 
 Buddhist, writing on psychology, would judge 
 that such considerations involved trespass 
 outside his legitimate range. 
 
 With these remarks on some of the differ- 
 ences in the point of view between the 
 Buddhist outlook and that of our own 
 tradition, we pass on to survey some of the 
 older judgments concerning mind and con- 
 sciousness. We shall not fail to find many 
 of these judgments on all fours with our 
 own stock of conceptions. But the different 
 avenues along which the Indian mind has 
 travelled are always more or less patent. 
 Hence the difficulty found by both readers 
 and writers in looking at the things of life 
 and mind with Buddhist eyes, and hence 
 the many mistakes we commit. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Psychology of the NikAyas 
 
 i. mind in term and concept 
 
 Psychological material is never far to 
 seek in Buddhist books, unless their subject- 
 matter mainly precludes such a content. 
 This is the case with the first of the canonical 
 Pitakas, the Vinaya, the subject of which 
 is, for the most part, the organization and 
 rules of the Sangha, or fraternity of men 
 and women ' in orders.' In the following 
 four collections of Suttas, or discourses, 
 entitled the Nikayas, which correspond in 
 authority and sanctity to the Gospels and 
 Epistles of the Christian Scriptures, there is 
 more or less matter of psychological interest 
 in each of the four ; the third Nikaya, called 
 Samyutta, contains on the whole the most. 
 Five of its parts are ostensibly concerned 
 with the mental and physical constituents of 
 the individual, with sense (organ and object 
 of sense), with feeling, and with purpose. 
 In the fifth Nikaya — a miscellaneous group 
 of, books — ^the psychological matter is almost 
 always incidental. Generally, the high 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 13 
 
 ethical or spiritual importance of grasping 
 aright the nature of mind, or mental process, 
 is affirmed. And in a Sutta of the second 
 Nikaya, the founder of Buddhism is repre- 
 sented as betraying himself to an adherent, 
 who had never before seen him, by a dis- 
 course largely on the nature of mind.^ 
 
 What were the reasons for this emphasis ? 
 Chiefly two : the one theoretical, the other 
 ethical.^ 
 
 (1) Apparently because consciousness or 
 mind was judged to be the most striking, 
 the most typical, the most conclusive instance 
 of that perpetual movement, change, happen- 
 ing-and-ceasing in the nature of everything 
 which was summed up chiefly in the word 
 'impermanent.'^ To body, when not re- 
 garded molecularly, a relative permanence 
 might be assigned, whether it were a human 
 body or an elephant's, a tree or a mountain. 
 But mind was conceived from the outset as 
 a series of transient, if connected, happenings. 
 And each momentary happening comprised 
 three phases : a genetic, a static and an 
 evanishing phase. So that, as the type of 
 the impermanent, mind was different even 
 at each fraction of its momentary duration : 
 
 " Better were it, bhikkhus, that the un- 
 educated mdny-jolk should conceive this four- 
 
 ' Cp. my Buddhism, pp. 67 f. ^ See below, p. 36. 
 
 " Anicca (pron. a-nitcha). 
 
14 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 element-made body, rather than chitta, to he 
 soul. And why ? The body is seen to persist 
 for a year, for two, three, four. Jive, ten or 
 twenty years, for a generation . . ■. even for a 
 hundred years, or even for longer, while that 
 which is called consciousness, that is, mind, 
 that is, intelligence, arises as one thing, ceases 
 as another, both by night and by day." ^ 
 
 This view is not that of substantialist 
 philosophy — that is to say, it does not 
 envisage chitta as an entity, persisting as the 
 same during Ufe, and modified constantly by 
 external stimuli and inherent change. It is 
 that of a series of phenomena, flash-points, 
 we might call them, of intelligence, cinema- 
 films, thaumatrope-figures, welded into an 
 apparent unity, such as is brought about by 
 these inventions. And they are welded only 
 thus far into a phenomenal genuine unity, 
 in that each moment of consciousness is 
 causally connected, so long as each series 
 lasts, with its predecessor. 
 
 There are no passages in the Nikayas 
 expounding chitta in terms of momentary 
 chittdni, or consciousnesses. But it was in- 
 evitable that later exegesis would so develop 
 the theme. And so it has been developed, 
 and so developed, it is taught even at the 
 present day, as we shall see later. But the 
 Suttas elsewhere confirm the citation given 
 
 ^ Samyutta-Nihdya, vol. ii. p. 94. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 15 
 
 above by another discourse, in which con- 
 sciousness or mind is declared to be an 
 intermittent manifestation, ' happening ' only 
 in reaction to a suitable stimulus, and ceasing 
 when the stimulus was exhausted. As we 
 might phrase it, mind in the individual 
 organism was, in the absence of the requisite 
 conditions for evoking it, only potential. 
 
 A bhikkhu, Sati Fisher-son,^ gives out as 
 the Buddha's own teaching that " it is mind 
 (vinndna) which persists and is reborn after 
 death unchanged." He is summoned to 
 repeat this before the Master. "Is it true, 
 Sati, that you said this ? " " Yea, lord, so 
 do I understand you to teach." " What, 
 Sati, is this mind ? " " That speaker, that 
 feeler, lord, who experiences the result of 
 good and evil deeds done here or there." 
 " Now then, foolish man, whence got you 
 such a doctrine as being teaching of mine ? 
 Have I not taught you by many methods 
 that mind arises from a cause ; and except 
 from a cause, mind cannot come to be ? " 
 
 The bhikkhus bear him out in this. He 
 goes on : 
 
 " And consciousness is designated only in 
 accordance with the condition causing it : 
 visual consciousness from the seeing eye and 
 the seen object ; auditory consciousness from 
 the hearing ear and the sound ; . . • thought 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 256 ff. (P.T.S. ed.). 
 
16 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 from mind and mental object. Just as a fire 
 is different according to the kind of fuel. . . . 
 Bo ye see, bhikkhus, that this is [something 
 that has] become ? Do ye see that the becoming 
 is according to the stimulus [lit. food] ? Do ye 
 see that if the stimulus ceases, then that which 
 has become ceases ? " 
 
 These two passages contain the whole of the 
 Buddhist theory of mind or consciousness 
 in the germ : — intermittent series of psychic 
 throbs associated with a living organism 
 beating out their coming-to-know through 
 one brief span of life. The fact of those 
 conscious pulsations, the category of these 
 phenomena, conventionally expressed as a 
 unity, as chitta, is accepted, both early and 
 late, as an ultimate of experience, as an 
 irreducible datum, not to be defined in terms 
 of anything else. 
 
 There does not seem to have existed any 
 inquiry into the fact and process of electricity, 
 in early Indian thought, either for practical 
 or for academic purposes, through which, as 
 in our own philosophic evolution, the con- 
 cepts of the ultimates in nature, in mind, 
 might have been modified and developed. 
 Yet the Buddhist conception ®f conscious- 
 ness is, I venture to think, better understood 
 as a mental electrification of the organism, 
 than in terms of any other natural force 
 or other phenomenon. The philosophic in- 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 17 
 
 quirer, if European, is more likely to draw 
 a comparison with Aristotle's principle of 
 form or actualizing essence, which in the case 
 of a living body ' informs ' or ' entelechizes ' 
 matter, and without which that body has 
 merely a ' potential ' being. Conscious- 
 ness, ' psyche ' or chitta, is the entelechy of 
 the body, a psychically innervating force. 
 Danger of fallacious confusion may, however, 
 arise in any parallel drawn between even the 
 modified noumenon of Aristotelian ' form ' 
 with the phenomenal Buddhist chitta or 
 vinndna. ' Potential ' applies rather to 
 future chittas than to the material basis of 
 the body. And in its highest manifestation 
 as psyche, Aristotle's ' form ' becomes nous, 
 the nous poietikos which is held to be both 
 perduring and immortal and ' from without,' 
 ' alone divine.' None of these terms is ever 
 applied to the Buddhist concept of mind. 
 
 Let us therefore abstain from such com- 
 parisons, and consider further the varying 
 context in which the terms for that concept 
 occur. 
 
 In the former citation from the Nikayas, 
 (pp. 13/.) the three terms ' consciousness, that 
 is, mind, that is, intelligence,^ are stated as 
 mutually equivalent : 
 
 " cittam iti pi mano iti pi vinndnam.^' 
 
 In commenting, centuries later, on this 
 passage, Buddhaghosa, the greatest of the 
 
18 BUDDHIST PSYCHOI,OGY 
 
 scholastics, calls all three a name for the 
 mandyatana, or ' sphere of cognition.' Else- 
 where the first two of the three terms are used 
 as practically coincident,^ but this is the only 
 passage known to me where all three are so 
 represented. This is no small comfort to the 
 inquirer, for in referring, in the most general 
 terms, to the phenomenon of mind or con- 
 sciousness, the Nikayas show a certain pre- 
 dilection for one term or other of the three 
 according to the aspect under which that 
 phenomenon is being discussed. And, in our 
 ignorance of the stock of current nomenclature 
 of which the Nikayas made use, this predilec- 
 tion appears as somewhat arbitrary. It is 
 therefore, I repeat, a good thing to know that 
 it does not really matter which of the three 
 terms is used ; the meaning is practically 
 identical. 
 
 For instance, when kinds of irreducible 
 data are classified under the category dhdtu 
 — ^usually translated ' element ' — we find 
 the second and third terms of these three 
 synonyms called dhatu, but never, I believe, 
 the first of them {chitta). Earth, water, 
 fire, air are grouped as 'elements,' in India 
 as in Europe, and sometimes space is 
 added, and sometimes consciousness {vinndna- 
 dhdtu). Now the philosophic exegesis of the 
 Commentaries considersthefirst four elements 
 
 '^Digha-N. i. 213; Anguttara-N. i. 170 (pron. ma-no, 
 vin-yana}. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 19 
 
 and consciousness not as substances, but 
 rather as elemental irreducible data, as pheno- \ 
 menal, yet not unreal, as forces of momentary ' 
 duration but infinitely recurring, and com- 
 bining to form apparently persisting, ap- 
 parently static ' things.' Thus earth stands 
 for extended element, known by hardness (we 
 should perhaps say ' solidity '), water stands 
 for cohesive element, Binding everything, 
 fire stands' for heat, air, for mobile element, 
 while vinnana is the aware, or intelligent, 
 element. 
 
 Again, to mano as prefixed to dhdtu (and 
 also to the dual compound, mano-vinndna- 
 dhdtu) is assigned a special function in con- 
 sciousness, with which we can better deal 
 later. Without these affixes mano may 
 form the generic term for those functions ; 
 and it is also so used when its work is con- 
 sidered under the aspect of product, or 
 karma, namely, in the phrase equivalent 
 to our ' thought, word and deed.' The 
 Commentators connect mano with mindti 
 (md), to measure. And it is more usual, 
 when the intellectual functioning of con- 
 sciousness is referred to, to employ mano; 
 vinndna representing the field of sense, and 
 sense-reaction, and chitta standing pre- 
 eminently for the subjective, inward-looking 
 aspect of consciousness, conveyed by our 
 lapsed word ' inwyt.' 
 
 When, however, the doctrine bears upon 
 
20 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the psychology, or eschatology, of rebirth, 
 with all the near-lurking notions of animistic 
 transmigration, then the term for conscious- 
 ness is usually vinnana, never mano. Chitta 
 appears only in the post-Nikayan phrases : 
 Tebirth-chitta and decease-chitta. It must be 
 remembered that Buddhists did not invent 
 their terms for mind, etc., nor divert their 
 current usage as to form and context. 
 They only sought to infuse these terms that 
 they found, with diverted meaning, like old 
 bottles filled with new wine. And we may 
 safely conclude, from such discourses as 
 that on Sati's error, and from others in- 
 volving legendary diction, that vinnana was 
 the current and standard expression for 
 that factor of the organism, which was 
 commonly supposed alone to survive bodily 
 dissolution, and to transmigrate, as the 
 ' vehicle ' of the soul. An analogous case would 
 be that of an English divine or journalist 
 discussing this factor in terms of ' mind,' 
 or ' consciousness,' so long as the activities 
 of this life were his subject, but substituting 
 ' soul ' when adverting to death and to con- 
 sciousness after death. While for ignorant 
 folk, from early Buddhist days down to 
 the Burmese peasant of to-day, vinnana 
 (or its Burmese equivalent) is conceived 
 as the manifestation of soul {attd), that is, 
 of a ghostly semi-material mannikin. 
 
 Among the Mara or Satanic folklore, 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 21 
 
 which got wrought up into the more adult 
 discussions of the Suttas, is the legend of 
 Mara, the spirit of sensuous seduction, of 
 the craving that involves dyings and re- 
 births, lurking around a death-bed, in the 
 visible shape of murky ' smokiness,' looking 
 for the escaping vinndna of the dying person. 
 The legend is told twice in connection with 
 the death of saintly bhikkhus, in whom 
 vinndna was ceasing utterly to arise, because 
 they had attained the end of life, earthly 
 or celestial.^ It belongs to the edifying 
 literature of the Sutta-Pitaka, and would be 
 as out of place in a Buddhist philosophical 
 discussion as it would be to write, in an 
 examination paper on electrical physics, of 
 a thunderbolt falling upon anybody. It was 
 the popular way there and elsewhere, then 
 and more or less always, to speak of a 
 something flitting at death, perceptible per- 
 haps only to vision not of men, at least of 
 ordinary men. And the current term for 
 the flitter, or flitting thing happening, in 
 Kosala and Magadha, to be vinndna, Bud- 
 dhist teaching, while seeking to correct the 
 current notion, retained this word, when it 
 might equally well have used chitta or 
 mano. 
 
 Again, the genesis of intelligence in the 
 human embryo is expressed by the use of 
 vinndna : 
 
 » Samyuita-N . i. 122 ; iii. 124. 
 
22 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " Were vinnana, Ananda, not to descend 
 into the mother^ s womb, would body and mind 
 become constituted therein ? "^ 
 
 It is doubtless another case of folklore 
 speech accepted by the Suttanta teaching 
 that the usual verb for happening or coming 
 to be — viz. uppajjati, uppatti, arising or 
 attaining — is here replaced by avakkanti, 
 descent, a figure of speech more rare, though 
 it is found in such phrases as 'descent of 
 pain,' or 'of happiness.'^ 
 
 For Buddhists the dissolution of the factors 
 of a living individual at death was complete : 
 body ' broke up ' and mind or the incorporeal 
 ceased. But if, in the final flickerings of 
 mind or vinnana, there was a coefficient of 
 the desire to enjoy, involving a clinging to, 
 or grasping after life wherewith to enjoy, 
 then those dying pulsations, as cause or 
 condition, produced their effect, not in the 
 corpse, but in some embryo wakening else- 
 where at that moment to life, it might be 
 in the next house, it might be in some heaven, 
 or purgatory. 
 
 " To him, bhikkhus, who lives intent on 
 enjoyment in things that tend to enfetter us, 
 \there will be descent of vinnana . , . and 
 where vifiiiana gams a footing, there is descent 
 
 1 Digha-N. ii. 63 (Dialogues of the Buddha, ii. 60 — 
 ' consciousness ' had been a better rendering for vinnai^a). 
 ' Samyutta-N . iii. 69. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 23 
 
 of mental and bodily life . . . for this nutri- 
 ment, vinnana, is the cause of our taking birth, 
 and coming again to beJ'^ 
 
 In the term translated above ' mental and 
 bodily life ' — ndmarupa, literally, name and 
 visible or material object, or form — we have 
 yet another word annexed by Buddhism from 
 current and traditional usage. It appears 
 in the Brahmanas, in what are presumably 
 the pre-Buddhistic Upanishads, and in the 
 Atharva-Veda, as a dual designation for 
 the perishable and the imperishable factors 
 of the individual. The Buddhist scholastics 
 derive ndma exegetically from a root meaning 
 ' to bend,' to emphasize the ductability of 
 mind. But the ancient labelling of mind or 
 soul by ' name ' derives from a widespread 
 feature of primitive culture, which sees, in 
 the name, a status and a raison d'etre for 
 the individual over against the mystery and 
 menace of a mainly hostile universe. 
 
 In the works just named, ndma and rUpa 
 are the two great manifestations — Word 
 and Mind — of creative being or Brahman, 
 as which ' It ' descends into sky and 
 earth.^ And as Sat, Being, it permeates 
 seed, egg, foetus, and ' spreads asunder ' 
 mortal ndma's and rUpa's. in space.^ In 
 
 * Saffiyutta-N . ii. 13, 91, loi. 
 
 * iaiapatha-Brahmaita, xi. 2, 3 iSBE xHv. pp. 27 f.). 
 » Chando^ya-U pani'shad, vi. 3 ; 2, 3 ; viii. 14, i. 
 
24 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 one passage it is they that are real, or 
 actual, covering the immortal breath within 
 them ; in another, ndma appears as the 
 immortal, leaving rupa at death for infinite 
 worlds.^ 
 
 Buddhist thought — ^and herein it is, as 
 ancient thought, so impressive — ^repudiated 
 the Vedic and Vedantist cosmology, although 
 it suffered the borrowed word. It had no 
 use for the faith and fantasy, which found 
 satisfaction in perpetuating and elaborating 
 primitive sagas about a world, for which 
 a beginning and a creative agent were post- 
 ulated. But there were the corporeal and 
 incorporeal aspects of life to be accounted 
 for, if not in their beginning, at least in 
 their procedure and tendency. And this 
 traditional term of ndmarupa fitted them 
 thus far, that it indicated the mental and 
 bodily compound in the individual — a de- 
 sideratum, this, in our own nomenclature. 
 
 In welding together a number of terms 
 and categories drawn in part, doubtless, 
 from current use, the compilers of the early 
 Buddhist records have no more reduced 
 their formulas to a flawless consistency 
 than had the compilers of the Upanishads, 
 to name no other scriptures. Thus ndma is 
 not only (when joined with rupa) not made 
 synonymous with chitta, vinndna or mano ; 
 it is defined either as feeling, perceiving, 
 
 1 Brihadara^yaha-Upanishad, i. 4, 7 ; 6, 3 ; iii. 2, 13. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 25 
 
 vinndna, and all complexes of thought, 
 word and deed,i or, again, as the first two, 
 and as volition, contact and attention.^ 
 The inconsistency is, however, more formal 
 than real, since among those ' complexes ' 
 (whereof more presently), ' volition ' and 
 ' contact ' are ranked foremost, ' attention ' 
 only coming into similar status in later 
 psychology .« In the formula of Causal 
 Genesis, or law of causation applied to life, 
 ndmarupa is not defined in terms of vinndna, 
 because the former term serves to denote 
 the newly reborn or reconceived human 
 unit, while vinndna figures as the condition- 
 ing process, one vinndna being causal in 
 the dying unit, another vinndna being 
 caused in the embryonic unit. There was 
 therefore a distinction in time, hence a 
 distinction is made in definition. 
 
 Vinndna does not produce ndmarupa, but 
 because there is a functioning of the former 
 as one span of life ends, a resultant function- 
 ing of fresh vinndna associated with a new 
 rupa, starts a fresh ndmarupa. So might a 
 man, murdered as he called for help on the 
 telephone, have set going elsewhere, by his 
 last words, a whole series of actions. We 
 may call this transmitting a message, but 
 we know not the nature of the electric 
 
 1 Vibhanga, 136 ff. ; Dhamma-sangani, § 1309. 
 ' Majjhima-N. i. 53 ; Samyutla-N. ii. 3 f. 
 " Compendium, 94 f. 
 
26 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 force released, though we can say something 
 about the medium for its transmission. We 
 reckon on the force without speculating 
 about it. We accept the transmission of 
 mental qualities from parent to offspring 
 without understanding it, and biological 
 mathematicians now try to measure it, as 
 electricity is measured. Some of us are inclined 
 to discern here and there an analogous force 
 in thought-transference or telepathy, albeit 
 we do not understand its nature, or detect 
 a medium of transference. Buddhists are 
 equally unenlightened as to the nature and 
 medium of the re-birth-force, but for them 
 its logic is irrefutable. And whereas the 
 vast field of possible antecedents for any 
 individual rebirth make scientific inquiry 
 fairly bootless, the theory does not break 
 its shins, as does our theory of heredity, 
 against the anomalies arising in the trans- 
 mission of mental faculties, the conditions of 
 which are yet unsolved by science. 
 
 One more term for consciousness, in addition 
 to these four, — chitta, mano, vinndna, ndma-, 
 — ^refers us to the aspect of mind known in 
 our psychology as consciousness of self, or 
 presentation of the self, or ego, Pali a<M(Sansk. 
 dtman). Joined to bhdva, state, attabhdva is 
 a useful term for personality, individuality. 
 
 " /, sir, during the time I have had experi- 
 ence through this attabhava, am not capable of 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 27 
 
 remembering what have been its characteristics 
 and habits ; how then should I remember 
 former existences .? " ^ 
 
 The word includes the entire living human 
 compound in any one span of life. And its 
 use was judged to be, if necessary, not always 
 harmless. " The body and the mental con- 
 stituents are here," runs Buddhaghosa's 
 exegesis on another context, " termed atta- 
 bhdva, after the usage of average folk who 
 say : ' This is my self.' " * Even without 
 the affix, the word is used, though rarely, 
 in the sense of personal appearance. Thus 
 in the Questions of King Milinda : " But 
 given mirror, light and face opposite, there 
 would be [one's] self {atta).'" ^ Usually, how- 
 ever, in the older books perhaps invariably, 
 it is only in the oblique cases that atta is 
 employed in a parallel sense to our reflexive 
 pronoun. It is only in the nominative case, 
 speaking approximately, that it acquires 
 psychological emphasis as the representative 
 and re-representative concept of a subject of 
 mental objects, of conscious presentations and 
 representations — a concept harmless enough 
 as a necessary economical fiction of thought 
 and speech, but deemed a very jungle of 
 error for the man in the street. 
 
 * Majjhima-N. ii. 32. 
 
 ^ Atthasalinl, 308; see Buddhist Psychological Ethics, 
 17s, n. I. 
 » Op. cit. {SBE XXXV.) i- 86, 
 
28 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Legitimately used in this form, it may 
 function (a) like our term ' conscience,' i.e. 
 moral consciousness — 
 
 " Does the self reproach thee not as to 
 virtue? "^ 
 
 " The self, O man, knows thee as truthful 
 or as false." ^ 
 
 " The self well tamed is man's true sacrificial 
 fire." ^ 
 
 (this meaning is also found in oblique cases *) 
 — or (b) in the work of introspection 
 generally : 
 
 "In so far as a bhikkhu knows the self {or 
 himself, attanam) to this effect : ' thus far am 
 I in faith, morals, learning, self -surrender, 
 insight, ready speech,'' — he is called knower 
 of self (attaiinu)." * 
 
 The complement to this on the side of 
 action is : 
 
 " a bhikkhu who without deceit or guile mani- 
 fests the self (himself) as he really is." * 
 
 An interesting feature in some of these 
 attempts at self-expression, for which all 
 languages seem to prove very inadequate 
 
 1 Samyutta-N. iii. 120 ; iv. 47 ; Anguttara-N. iii. 255 ; 
 267 f. 
 « Anguttara-N. i. 149. » Samyutta-N. i. 169. 
 
 « Anguttara-N. i. 53. ' Ibid. iv. 114". » Ibid. iii. 65. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT ( 29 
 
 instruments, is the bifurcated or dual self. 
 We see here, as in other literatures, the notion 
 of one's self and another self dramatizing, 
 so to speak, amongst the flow of individual 
 subjective experience, and resolving the 
 one self into plurality : 
 
 " These are the penalties of wrong-doing : 
 the self upbraids self . . ."^ 
 
 " Any virtuous layman established in the 
 fourfold peace \of religious faith] can, if he 
 will, confess himself to himself as assured of 
 happy rebirth, and as having enlightenment 
 as his final goal." ^ 
 
 " To whom is the self not dear ? To evil- 
 doers, for . . . though they may say ' Dear 
 to us is the self,' yet that which a man disliked 
 would do to one disliked, that do they by the 
 self to the self." ^ 
 
 " By self incite the self, examine self 
 By self, self-guarded thus, watchful of mind 
 And happy shall thou live. For self of self 
 Is warder, unto self hath self recourse. 
 Therefore train well thyself, as 'twere a steed 
 Well bred by trainer for the marlcet reared." *^ 
 
 This dual mental projection is at times 
 expressed by chitta and the closely allied 
 term cheto, as if we should speak of mind 
 affecting will, or ' heart ' influencing ' head ' : 
 
 1 Anguttara-N. i. 57. " Ibid. iii. 211. 
 
 ' Samyutta-N. i. 72. * Dhammapada, verses 379 f. 
 
30 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " Ye should restrain, curb, subdue chitta 
 by cheto. . . ." ^ 
 
 But this is a very rare variant, usually 
 reserved for the cheto of one person discerning, 
 ' reading,' as we say, the ' thought ' {cheto, 
 chitta) of another ; whereof more presently. 
 
 That this mental fiction of self presented 
 to self, as of a lower to a ' higher self,' as 
 we say, — ^this quasi-personification of alter- 
 nating phases in the mental continua, one 
 set of judgments and values jostling on 
 another, — ^was considered by the scholastics 
 as mere phraseological method, is shown by 
 the passing over of such expressions, in their 
 painstaking exegeses, without comment. 
 
 The an-attd position in the Nikayas cannot 
 be properly judged by those who are ac- 
 quainted only with the European concep- 
 tion of ' souls.' These pathetic creations — 
 the little fluttering sprites on Greek vases, 
 the melancholy shades in Vergil's, later, in 
 Dante's, other-world, or -worlds, the errant, 
 fallible, doubled self which we meet with in 
 mediaeval literature, the 
 
 " Animula vagula hlandula 
 Pallidula rigida nudula " 
 
 of Hadrian — ^the Buddha might conceivably 
 have classed as a sixth group in the organ- 
 ism. But whereas such notions are not 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 120, 242. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 31 
 
 absent from the early literature of India, the 
 anti-attd argument of Buddhism is mainly and 
 consistently directed against the notion of a 
 soul, which was not only a persistent, unchang- 
 ing, blissful, transmigrating, superphenomenal 
 being, but was also a being wherein the 
 supreme Atman or world-soul was immanent, 
 one with it in essence, and, as a bodily or 
 mental factor, issuing its fiat.' This theory, so 
 prominent in the Upanishads, is evidently 
 alluded to in the second discourse ascribed 
 to the Buddha : 
 
 " The body . . . l^and so on for mental 
 factors] . . .is not the Self. If it were the 
 Self, the body would not be subject to disease, 
 and we should be able to say : ' Let my body 
 (or mind) be such and such a one, let my body 
 not be such and such a one ! ' But since the 
 body is not the Self, therefore it is subject to 
 disease, and we are not able to say : ' Let, etc.'' 
 Now of that which is perishable, liable to 
 suffering, subject to change, is it possible so to 
 regard it as to say : This is of Me ; this 
 am I, this is the Self {soul) ofme?"^ 
 
 I venture to think that this argument 
 would never have suggested itself to a 
 
 1 For more discussion, but again very limited in 
 scope, see my Buddhism, 1912, chap. iii. 
 
 * Vinaya Texts, i. pp. 100 f. ; the last part of the 
 argument occurs frequently in the second, third and 
 fourth Nikayas. 
 
32 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 European pluralist or phenomenalist. He 
 would not associate omnipotence or bliss, 
 as well as immortal continuity, with soul or 
 ego. But however the entity was conceived, 
 the main ground of its rejection in Buddhism 
 was its supposed exemption from the universal 
 laws of causation, ill and impermanence. 
 
 Whether that entity was called satta 
 (being), attd, jlva (living principle) or puggdla 
 (person) did not matter : 
 
 " For these are merely names, expressions, 
 turns of speech, designations in common use 
 in the world. Of these he who has won truth 
 makes use indeed, but is not led astray by 
 them" 1 
 
 And Buddhist doctrine never hesitates, as 
 we have seen, to make use of customary 
 phrases as a medium of exposition. The 
 Suttas represent, for the most part, the 
 effort of mature, cultured minds reaching 
 out to guide immature, less cultured minds. 
 The phrases and standpoints, useful for that 
 purpose, cease to be used when the more 
 academic method of set and general formulas 
 called Abhidhamraa is observed. When 
 teaching is by way of that method, we no 
 longer hear of a Self A discerning, judging, 
 controlling self B, self C and so forth. All 
 is then in terms of process, genesis, causation, 
 series, and mental data, states or pheno- 
 
 ' Dtgha-N. i. 263. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 33 
 
 mena (dhammd). Now the attd, as popularly 
 and as theologically conceived, was an entity 
 distinct from phenomena, a self-existent 
 something that ' perdured ' while they arose 
 and ceased, a unity temporarily associated 
 with plurality, a micro-deity within dis- 
 torting man's true perspective, in Buddhist 
 doctrine of all illusions the most dangerous. 
 
 In poetical diction, on the other hand, 
 the poet not infrequently apostrophizes his 
 past subjective experience as a serial unity 
 or continuum, chitta being in this case the 
 term evidently current for such a device, 
 to the exclusion of mano and vinndna. 
 Similarly our own poets select ' heart ' or 
 ' soul ' for their monologues, never ' mind ' 
 or other terms ; witness Goethe : 
 
 " Herz, mein Hers ! was soil das gehen ? . . . 
 Ich erkenne dich nickt mehr ! " 
 
 " heart gone gadding after things that please . . . 
 I call thee, heart, the breaker of my luck ! 
 I call thee, heart, despoiler of my lot ! " ^ 
 
 " I will restrain thee, heart, as elephant 
 Is by the tomngate's sallyport . . ." ^ 
 
 "'Tis thou, heart, dost make us what we ai-e . . ." ^ 
 
 ^ Theragdtha, verses 213, 214 (cp. Psalms of the Brethren, 
 
 P- 155)- 
 
 " Ibid, verse 355. 
 
 ^ Ibid, verse 11 27; verses 1106-45 ^■re a continuous 
 monologue to the chitta. 
 
34 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 This choice of chitta as the sensuous and 
 impulsive consciousness contrasted with the 
 more intellectual aspect of it, make the 
 word ' heart ' in such passages a fitting 
 counterpart for chitta — ^heart, that is, in the 
 popular diction of to-day. Three centuries 
 ago only, as we know, the word could bear 
 a more intellectual significance, seen in such 
 Biblical phrases as : " Out of the heart 
 proceed evil thoughts ..." and : " Why 
 reason ye in your hearts ? " ' Heart ' {ha- 
 daya) also finds a place in Buddhist popular 
 psychology, but in the sense of ' inmost,' 
 ' inwardness,' and also of 'thorough.' ^ 
 
 In this aspect of sensuous and impulsive 
 ungoverned mentality, chitta is likened re- 
 peatedly to an ape, tricksy, restless and 
 inconstant, inquisitive and greedy : 
 
 " Within the little Jive-doored hut an ape 
 
 Doth prowl, and round and round from door to door 
 He hies, rattling with blows again, again , . . 
 Halt, ape ! run thou not forth ! for thee 
 'Tis not herein as it was wont to be. 
 Reason doth hold thee captive. Never more 
 Shalt roam far 'hence [in freedom as of yore]." ^ 
 
 Dhammapala, in his Commentary on the 
 poem, refers to the chitta-ape of the Nikaya 
 
 » Bud. Psy. Ethics, Ixxviii. ; and § 1343 ; below, p. 71. 
 
 • Psalms oj the Brethren, verses 125 f. So Shakespeare ; 
 " More new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my 
 desires than a monkey " (^s You Like It); or Nietzsche 
 on Sterne : " His squirrel-soul sprang with insatiable 
 unrest from branch to branch." 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT 85 
 
 simile/ albeit the emphasis there is on the 
 transient coming and passing of mental 
 pulsations : 
 
 " Just as an ape in the forest, roaming 
 through the woodland, clutches a bough, lets 
 go and clutches another, so is what is called 
 chitta, that is, mind . . . ever changing as it 
 arises and ceases." 
 
 " Unsteady is the heart as jigging ape ! " ^ 
 
 is another instance of a figure that became 
 the type-symbol of chitta or vinndna in 
 Buddhist pictorial art.^ So is the Sutta- 
 Nipata line : * 
 
 " They grasp, they clutch, then loose their hold again, 
 As monkey gripping hough, then letting go" 
 
 where chitta is involved in concrete action ; 
 as it is again in the Sarnyutta version of 
 what we know as the negro's Brer Rabbit 
 and the Tar-Baby : 
 
 " In the Himalaya, king of the mountains, 
 are pleasant glades where both monkeys and 
 men may roam. There trappers lay pitch- 
 snares in the monkey-tracks. . . . And if a 
 monkey is foolish and greedy, he takes up the 
 pitch in his paw and it sticks there. Seeking 
 to free his paw with the other, it sticks to that. 
 
 » Samyutta-N. ii. 95. 
 
 • Psalms of the Brethren, verse mi. '? 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 112, n. 2, Verse 791. 
 
36 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Seeking to free his paws with one foot . . . 
 with the other foot, it sticks to both. Seeking 
 to free both feet with his snout, it sticks to 
 that." "■ 
 
 The moral points to self-control and govern- 
 ance of sense-impressions and sense-desires. 
 Elsewhere we find mind not as truant, but 
 as guide and governor, under the Platonic 
 simile of charioteer : 
 
 " The body is a chariot light, mind is the charioteer, . . . 
 
 [where mano is the selected word, chitta 
 playing a subordinate part, more in the 
 sense of heart, as the loose, unattached 
 drapings] 
 
 With steeds of equal training, mind pursues the mastered 
 
 road . . . 
 Smiting with msdom's whip Ike team that makes for 
 
 things of sense. 
 Herein, O king, thyself alone must he the charioteer." * 
 
 I (2) The belief in the ductability of mind 
 ^ by proper and persistent training, or ' taming, ' 
 
 1 Samyutta-N . v. 148 ; a similar case of self-capture 
 occurs in the Jatakas or Birth-stories of the Sutta- 
 Pitaka, and in Brazilian folklore (^cp. A. Lang, The Brown 
 Fairy Book, pp. 336 f.). 
 
 * Jataka, vi. p. 252. The rendering ' the soul is the 
 charioteer ' is only justifiable if the verse was borrowed 
 by Buddhism. The Commentary explains as above. Cp. 
 the figure of the Self in the chariot, intellect {buddhi^ 
 driving, with the reins (mano), the horses of sense along the 
 roads (objects of sense), in Katha Upanishad, i. 3, 3 f. 
 
MIND IN TERM AND CONCEPT f 37 
 
 as it was termed, was the other reason for 
 the importance assigned to mental analysis 
 in Buddhism, The proximate object of 
 the higher or religious life is described as 
 vindya, discipline, sanyama, restraint, attd- 
 nam dameti, sameti, taming, harmonizing 
 one's self, and guarding the gates of sense. 
 
 " Once hard to tame, by taming now is tamed 
 Vira ..." 
 
 is one of many such emphatic verses.^ 
 The conquest by man's wit and minor 
 physique over not only the horse, with his 
 swiftness and natural weapons, but also 
 over the mass and might and mind of the 
 elephant, lifted the process of taming to a 
 more impressive status. The latter beast, 
 trained and otherwise, plays a frequent 
 part in ethical similes, and the great Teacher 
 is often termed 
 
 " Tamer and driver of the hearts of men." ^ 
 
 Other peaceful conquests by man are brought 
 into service : 
 
 " The conduit-makers lead the stream ; 
 Fletchers coerce the arrow shaft/ 
 The Joiners mould the wooden plank ; 
 The self: 'tis that the pious tame / " ^ 
 
 1 Psalms of the Brethren, verses 8 ff. ; also Sisters, xxxii. 
 ^Psalms of the Sisters, verses 216, 135 ; Brethren, verse 
 nil. 
 
 ° Ibid, verse 19 ; Dhammapada, 80, 145. 
 
88 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The doctrine of self-mastery, with a vary- 
 ing co-efficient of asceticism, is common to 
 all religions and practical philosophies worthy 
 of being so named. Buddhism, as an in- 
 tellectual or philosophical religion, combats 
 the unruly faculties more with the mental 
 analysis of the ' Know thyself ' gnomon, 
 than with the averted gaze of a faith 
 appealing chiefly to emotion and will. Its 
 ' middle way ' between self-indulgence and 
 asceticism is, in one Sutta, explicitly declared 
 to be, not such an aversion of attention, 
 but a system calling for the habit of break- 
 ing up the web of conscious experience, of 
 classifying its factors, valuing them and 
 mastering the issues in conduct.^ 
 
 ^ Majjhima-N. iii. 298 ; my Buddhism, 67, 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Psychology of the NikAyas — 
 continioed 
 
 II. CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE EXTERNAL 
 WORLD 
 
 Self-governance, as one of the two reasons 
 for mental analysis in Buddhist culture, brings 
 us up against the nature of that culture's 
 inquiry into sense, and mental activity on 
 occasion of sense. If we may judge by the 
 space and the careful treatment allotted to 
 it, the importance of the subject finds no 
 parallel in the history of human ideas until 
 we come to modern Europe. We find, it is 
 true, no philosophical basis for it compar- 
 able to our theories of Sensationalism, Ex- 
 perientalism, or Rationalism. But we can 
 see man conceived as a compound of instru- 
 ments receptive and reacting ; conceived, 
 too, as standing Janus-faced, with the power 
 of looking into one of two houses — ^the house 
 of sense-impressions, or mundane experience, 
 and the house of spiritual impressions, in- 
 cluding what may be called supernormal 
 experience.^ Between these two vistas he 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 279. 
 39 
 
40 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 had to shape a course of conduct as sane, 
 and attended by aspirations as worthy, as 
 those instruments, moulded by past karma, 
 were able to form. 
 
 Those ' instruments ' may be enumerated 
 Buddhist-wise thus : 
 
 "She taught to me the Norm, wherein I learnt 
 The factors, organs, bases of this self— 
 Impermanent compound.'''' ^ 
 
 What are these 'factors, organs, bases' 
 according to 'the Norm,' or orthodox 
 doctrine ? 
 
 The Five Aggregates 
 
 ' Factors ' here stand for khandhd (Sansk. 
 skandhdh), literally heap, body, or aggregate. 
 These are the ndmarupa, dealt with in the last 
 chapter, but the division is now fivefold: four 
 immaterial or incorporeal (a-rupino) aggre- 
 gates or groups, and one material aggregate. 
 
 Under this category we see a fuller effort 
 made to take account, not so much of a 
 dual, as of a still more composite nature 
 in the so-called individual. We see also 
 the refusal to recognize therein any unity 
 except that which is conferred, for practical 
 convenience, by the bond and label of the 
 name — person, individual, creature, self and 
 the like. The five may be translated : material 
 qualities, feeling, sense-perception, complexes 
 
 1 Psalms of the Sisters, verses 69, 43 ; Brethren, 1255. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 41 
 
 of consciousness or co-efiicients, and, fifthly, 
 consciousness itself, the vinndna of foregoing 
 remarks. There is here no order in function 
 or evolution. Buddhaghosa, in one disser- 
 tation on them,^ takes the last after the 
 first, much as we should do, in order that 
 the middle ones ' shall be better under- 
 stood.' But in the Canon no reason for the 
 order, which as stated is invariable, is ever 
 given. 
 
 The division is as old as the inception of 
 the Buddhist movement itself. It forms 
 part (together with the doctrines of the 
 ethical mean, or Middle Path, the Eightfold 
 Path of supreme or ' right ' practice, the 
 Four Truths, and the vision and goal of 
 saint ship) of the first sermon or Sutta, 
 ascribed to the Founder. And it is a cardinal 
 doctrine of the Theravada all the way. 
 There is no evidence that any such fivefold 
 category was current at the time, although 
 each term was in use. That which is appar- 
 ently peculiar to Buddhism is the grouping 
 of them as a division exhaustive, not only 
 of body and mind, but also of such terms as 
 might serve to stand erroneously for the notion 
 of a per during hyper-phenomenal soul or self. 
 Other classifications of the factors of indi- 
 vidual being occur throughout the Canon, ^ 
 some twofold, some three, some fourfold, 
 
 1 Visuddhi-magga, ch. xiv. 
 ' Cp. my Buddhism, p. 72. 
 
42 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 but not one is systemically maintained as 
 is that of the khandhd's. 
 
 The word itself occurs but once in an early 
 Upanishad, meaning 'body' of doctrine {dhar- 
 maskandha),^ and once again in a later Upani- 
 shad meaning ' mass ' of smoke." Nor does 
 the word occur among the psychological terms 
 of the Sankhya aphorisms. This may point to 
 a relatively deliberate choice of the word and 
 of the division by the founders of Buddhism. 
 
 That a word so static in import should have 
 been chosen in view of the dynamic tendency 
 of the doctrine, and of the canonical exposi- 
 tion given of the khandhas, is somewhat 
 curious. Buddhaghosa helps us out to some 
 extent by pointing out that, whereas khandha 
 signifies aggregate {rdsi), it also has a com- 
 prehensive and symbolic, lit. contracting, 
 import. Thus, just as we say. when a man 
 hews at a portion of a tree, he is cutting 
 ' the tree,' so do we mean when we use such 
 a comprehensive term as, say, vinndnak- 
 khandha.^ And perhaps no other term could 
 so well have served to keep the plurality, the 
 absence of essential unity in the individual, 
 so forcibly to the fore as this clumsy-seeming 
 word. The oldest interpretations of the five 
 terms are, for that matter, of anything but 
 static import. Let us consider these in the 
 accepted order : 
 
 » Chdndogya-U. ii. ii. 3. > Maitrayana-U. 7, 11. 
 
 ' Atthasdlini, 141. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 43 
 
 " Why, hhikkhus, do ye say rupa ? Be- 
 cause one is affected by (modified by, feels, 
 ruppati) : — affected by cold and heat, by 
 hunger and thirst, by touch of gnat and 
 mosquito, by wind, and sun and reptiles." ^ 
 
 Rupa, in its more special sense, is a 
 visible shape, a coloured surface, the object 
 of vision. More generally, it means those 
 material qualities, both of, and external to, 
 the individual, through movements and 
 changes in which he becomes aware, receives 
 impressions of sense. ' Ruppati,^ which I 
 have rendered ' affected by,' is, in Buddha- 
 ghosa's comment on this passage, paraphrased 
 by disturbed (or excited), struck (or im- 
 pressed), hurt, broken (or disintegrated),^ 
 the verbal form being deponent. We have 
 no term that quite fits. ' Matter ' suggests 
 stuff, materials, irrespective of sentience- 
 producing quality. ' Body ' suggests frame- 
 work, solidity, object of touch. ' Form,' 
 often used for rUpa, is of much philosophical 
 ambiguity, for so far from suggesting the 
 mutability of riipa, it stands, in Aristotelian- 
 ism, for the " constant element as contrasted 
 with the shifting shapes of matter." ' Hence 
 no one term will suffice for constant duty. 
 For rUpa, as an ' aggregate ' or factor of a 
 
 ' Samyutta-N. iii. 86 {Khandha-Samyutta, 79). 
 
 » Saratthappakasini. 
 
 • Compendium, S. Z. Aung on ' Rupa/ pp. 271 f. 
 
44 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 living organism, material, or corporeal aggre- 
 gate, or simply 'body' mayprove near enough. 
 And in any case, the text and commentary 
 clearly attach no substantial significance to 
 the literal meaning of khandha. ' Aggre- 
 gate ' refers only to a manifold, an accumula- 
 tion, an indefinitely repeated class of phen- 
 omena, implied when any part of them is 
 discussed. Instead of any static thing or 
 things, there is here defined a type of 
 process, an incessantly changing and modifi- 
 able flux, expressed in terms of sentience, or 
 of what modern text-books might treat of 
 under metasomatism or metabolism. 
 
 With regard, next, to the second khandha : 
 
 ''''Why, bhikkhus, do ye say, vedana.? 
 Because vedana are felt (vediyanti). And what 
 are felt ? Both pleasant and painful and also 
 neutral vedana. Each is felt, therefore ye say 
 feelings." 
 
 Vedana has often been translated by 
 sensation, partly perhaps because the stem, 
 from Vvid, suggests the senses as sources of 
 knowledge, partly owing to the position of 
 vedana in the series of terms constituting 
 the formula of causation : " because of the 
 sixfold sphere of sense, contact ; because 
 of contact, vedana ; because of vedana, 
 craving. ..." But the hedonistic content 
 of the term requires the word 'feeling,' a 
 term with which, for that matter, our worried 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 45 
 
 psychologists know that a deal of sense- 
 import is mixed up. By Buddhists the 
 third and the fifth aggregates are more 
 closely associated with sensations than is 
 vedand. ' Contact,' ' touch,' produces both 
 sensations and vedand : 
 
 " Just as, bhikkhus, from the juxtaposition 
 and friction of two sticks, warmth is generated, 
 heat is born ; and from the altering, the 
 relinquishing of just those sticks, that corre- 
 sponding warmth is allayed and ceases, even 
 so does pleasant vedana arise because of 
 contact capable of producing it . . . and cease 
 when the contact ceases." ^ 
 
 (The same applies to painful vedand.) 
 
 But ' contact,' as a philosophical term, has 
 the very general implication of proximate 
 condition, either physical, or, in the case of 
 vedand, psychical.^ 
 
 Now feeling in this, its strictly hedonistic 
 sense, cannot be expressed in more intimate 
 terms. It means more essentially state of 
 the subject, or subjective state, for our 
 psychology, than any other phase of con- 
 sciousness. The Buddhists discerned this 
 too, not only in the reply describing vedand, 
 but also in the warning added in Buddha- 
 ghosa's comment, namely, that " there is 
 no distinct entity or subject who feels " ; 
 "it is only feeling that feels or enjoys," and 
 
 * Majjhima-N. iii. 242. ' Aithasdlim, 109. 
 
46 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 that " because of some object which is in 
 causal relation to pleasant or other feeling." ^ 
 So consistently insistent is Buddhist philo- 
 sophy in giving prominence to object over 
 subject — ^to see in object the relating thing, 
 and in the compound, labelled ' subject,' 
 the thing related.* " In philosophy," says 
 our neo-Realism, " the mind must eliminate 
 itself." ^ 
 
 A point of interest to psychologists is the 
 recognition of neutral feeling, with its doubly 
 negative name : — not-painful-not-pleasant 
 {adukkha-m-asuJeha) feeling^ — as a distinct 
 phase. A positive content indicated by a 
 negative term need appear no anomaly to 
 us,- for whom ' immortality,' ' independence ' 
 are accepted instances. Our psychology only 
 doubts whether bare feeling can be said to 
 arise in subjective experience, unless it be 
 felt as pleasant or unpleasant. Between 
 these two we are disposed to allow no more 
 than a zero-point. 
 
 In one Sutta, a layman maintains the 
 European preference for two phases only of 
 feeling as the more authoritative doctrine.* 
 The Founder is referred to and replies, that 
 feeling may be classed under two, three or 
 more heads according to the special aspect 
 of feeling discussed by the teacher. For 
 
 * Saratthappakdsini. ' Compendium, p. 2. 
 » S. Alexander, Things and Knowledge. 
 
 * Samyutta-N. iv. 223 f. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 47 
 
 bare emotional sentience, the three phases 
 are invariably given. The typical descrip- 
 tion of them, in the archaic analysis of the 
 Nikayas, runs as follows. The teacher is 
 the eminent woman-teacher, Dhammadinna, 
 whose answers on this occasion are confirmed 
 by the Buddha as being what he himself 
 would have said. After stating the three 
 phases, and qualifying each as being either 
 bodily or mental, she is then asked : ^ 
 
 " ' What has pleasant feeling that is pleasant, 
 what that is painful ? What has painful feel- 
 ing that is painful, what that is pleasant? 
 What has neutral feeling that is pleasant, 
 what that is unpleasant ? ' ' Pleasant feeling 
 has stationariness as pleasant, change as un- 
 pleasant ; painful feeling has stationariness 
 as painful, change as pleasant. Neutral feeling 
 has knowledge as pleasant, not-knowing as 
 painful.' " ^ 
 
 After replying to an ethical question, she 
 is asked : 
 
 " ' What is comparable to pleasant, to pain- 
 ful, to neutral feeling ? ' 'Pleasant and painful 
 feelings are mutually comparable. Neutral 
 feeling is comparable with ignorance, as this 
 is with knowledge.'' " 
 
 • Majjhima-N. i. 303. 
 
 • Or as Buddhaghosa's less awkward prose paraphrases : 
 " in neutral feeling a state of knowing is pleasant, a 
 state of not knowing is painful." 
 
48 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 It is not easy for us, with our logic of 
 definition and division, based on Greek 
 Substantialism, to acquit Buddhists here of 
 confusing ' bare feehng,' ' feeling proper,' 
 with intellectual concomitants. Personally, 
 however, the longer I study their thought, 
 the more reluctant I become to vote them 
 illogical, even from our own logical stand- 
 points. I am inclined instead to judge 
 that they envisaged pleasurable feeling less 
 comprehensively than we do, and that they 
 may have seen in what Bain, for instance, 
 called emotions of relativity, emotions with 
 a preponderant intellectual coefficient, an 
 irreducible base of simple or bare feeling 
 not describable as ' pleasant.' Such feeling 
 we might describe negatively as neutral, 
 positively as intellectual excitement : the 
 residual consciousness in the complex state 
 called pUi, interest or zest,^ 
 
 Fuller acquaintance with Buddhaghosa 
 may reveal more light hereon. For all pur- 
 poses of religious and moral edification, this 
 third phase was of little use, as compared 
 with the other two. In the Suttas it is 
 chiefly of concrete consciousness predomin- 
 antly ' happy ' and ' unhappy ' that we 
 read. But the cultivation of neutral feeling 
 was of considerable importance in the exer- 
 cises for the attainment of that other-world 
 consciousness, alluded to in the first chapter. 
 
 ' See below, pp. 94, 97, 176, 187. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 49 
 
 In this second aggregate too we can see 
 that there is no question of static substance 
 or state quickened or otherwise modified in, 
 or by feeling, but only a plurality of moods. 
 The ' heap ' simply records the fact of a 
 quantity of past experiences of similar 
 emotional gushes. 
 
 We come to the third khandha : 
 
 " Why do ye say saiina ? Because one 
 
 perceives (sanjanati). And what does one 
 
 perceive ? One perceives bliie-or-green,^ and 
 yellow and red and white." 
 
 This scant information with respect to 
 such an everyday word doubtless sufficed 
 for the hearers, but its simplicity is mis- 
 leading for alien readers. Sannd is not 
 limited to sense-perception, but includes 
 perceiving of all kinds. Our own term 
 ' perception ' is similarly elastic. In editing 
 the second book of the Abhidhamma-Pitaka,* 
 I found a classification distinguishing between 
 sannd as cognitive assimilation on occasion 
 of sense, and sannd as cognitive assimilation 
 of ideas by way of naming. The former is 
 called perception of resistance, or opposition 
 
 1 Nila ; the word does duty for both, for the colour of 
 sky, cloud, hills, trees, etc.. Bud. Psy. Ethics, p. 62, n. i ; 
 cp. Edridge Green, Colour-Blindness and Colour-Percep- 
 tion : " The tetra-chromic regard blue as a greenish violet." 
 India is the home of blue-green indigo. 
 
 " Vibhanga, 1904, p. 6. 
 
 4 
 
50 BXJDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ipatigha-sannd). This, writes Buddhaghosa/ 
 is perception on occasion of sight, hearing, 
 etc., when consciousness is aware of the 
 impact of impressions ; of external things 
 as different, we might say. The latter is 
 called perception of the equivalent word, 
 or name {adhivachana-sannd), and is exercised 
 by the sensus communis {mano), when e.g. 
 " one is seated . . . and asks another who 
 is thoughtful : ' What are you thinking of ? ' 
 one perceives through his speech." Thus 
 there are two stages in sawna-consciousness : 
 (1) "contemplating sense-impressions"; (2) 
 " ability to know what they are " by 
 naming. An illustration is added, in the 
 Commentary, of a bhikkhu contemplating 
 a woman who sat spinning as he passed, and 
 on his companion taxing him therewith, said 
 it was because of her likeness to his sister. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that in this third 
 or perception-aggregate, we have the content 
 of any consciousness, or chitta, in so far as 
 there is awareness with recognition, this 
 being expressed by naming. 
 
 As to the fourth aggregate : 
 
 ''Why, bhikkhus, do ye say sankhara'5.? 
 Because they compose what is compound 
 (sankhatam). And what is the compound 
 that they compose? They compose material 
 
 * Sammoha-vinodam, Commentary on the Vibhanga. 
 An English edition is in preparation. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 51 
 
 quality (rupam) as compound to make (lit. 
 in order to ^) ' rtipa ' ; they compose feeling 
 as compound to make '' Jeeling ' ; percepts, to 
 make ' percept ' ; complexes to make ' com- 
 plexes ' ; consciousness to make ' conscious- 
 ness.' " 
 
 " Just as one cooks rice-gruel to make 
 rice-gruel," continues the Commentator, " or 
 a cake to make a cake, so is this being 
 brought together by antecedent conditions 
 and wrought up into a [mental] compound 
 termed rUpa. . . . By ' composing ' is meant 
 ' striving along, kneading together, effecting.' 
 Together with the mental production of 
 riipa are compounded the feeling and other 
 states associated with it. The essential 
 mark of a sankhdra is ' being work of mind.' " ^ 
 
 The fourth khandha, then, is the comple- 
 mentary factor to the more passive, receptive 
 phase of consciousness. In the somewhat 
 later elaborations of doctrine in the Abhi- 
 dhamma-Pitaka, this constructive aspect is 
 reserved for the first-named of the 52 ele- 
 ments of consciousness comprised under 
 sankhdra' s, namely, chetand.^ In that term 
 
 1 The Sinhalese printed edition of the Commentary 
 reads rupaithaya, and so for the other terms. 
 
 " Chetayita, Literally, ' being mind-eA.' 
 
 ' In its more passive sense of component things, rather 
 than compounding function, sankhara has a much wider 
 implication, even that of ' things in general,' ' this 
 transient world,' and the like. I may refer readers to 
 S. Z. Aung's analysis of the term in our Compendium of 
 
62 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Buddhists discern what we mean by volition. 
 The other 51 factors are rather coefficients 
 in any conscious state, than pre-eminently 
 active or constructive functionings. To this 
 manifold of factors we shall have occasion 
 to return. 
 Lastly : 
 
 " Why, hhikkhus, do ye say viniiana ? It 
 is conscious (vijanati), therefore it is called 
 viniiana, consciousness. Of what is it con- 
 scious ? Of tastes : sour, hitter, acrid, sw^et, 
 alkaline, non-alkaline, saline, non-saline." 
 
 Here it will be said : if this and the third, 
 or -peTception-khandha, are merely awareness 
 of difference in sensations, what is there to 
 choose between them ? If we turn to one 
 of the psycho-ethical discussions of the 
 Majjhima-Nikdya to help us out, we shall 
 find apparently the same conclusion arrived 
 at. The questioner is Kotthita, called the 
 Great, and Sariputta, chief of the disciples, 
 and although no class of students attending 
 either is mentioned, the dialogue must have 
 been compiled, or actually delivered for the 
 benefit of brethren less proficient than the 
 
 Philosophy, pp. 273 f., and to R. O. Franke's Appendix 
 in his selected translations from the Digha-Nikaya (1913). 
 I much regret that the Compendium was not in Dr. 
 Franke's hands when he wrote this Appendix. It could 
 have had no juster or more appreciative critic. His own 
 rendering of this difficult term is ' Hervorbringungen,' ' pro- 
 ducts.' 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 53 
 
 eminent Maha-Kotthita.^ The questions 
 turn on the nature of vinndna and other 
 aggregates. The first is here said to be 
 consciousness of what is pleasant, painful, 
 and neither. A little later, feeling is declared 
 to be concerned with the same, and per- 
 ception, with sensations such as colour. 
 Kotthita then goes on : 
 
 " ^ And that, brother, which is feeling, that 
 which is perception, and that which is viiinana, 
 are these mental states conjoined, or discon- 
 nected ? Are you able to disentangle them 
 and point out different modes of action for 
 them ? ' ' The three, brother, are conjoined, not 
 disconnected, nor are we able to disentangle 
 them and point out for them different modes 
 of action. For what one feels, brother, one 
 perceives ; what one perceives, of that one is 
 conscious.^ " 
 
 The essential homogeneousness of chitta 
 or chitta's would seem to be here upheld, as 
 a corrective against attaching too much 
 weight to analytic distinctions. Vinndna, 
 we are assured on good Buddhist authority, 
 is of more general import than any one 
 phase of consciousness. It there includes and 
 involves the other three mental aggregates 
 just as our own psychologies allow only a 
 logical distinction for purposes of analysis 
 between two or more main phases of con- 
 
 * Maiihima-N., i. 292 f. 
 
54 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 sciousness. To see further separateness 
 would be, wrote Buddhgahosa,^ "as if one 
 drew water at the delta where the five 
 rivers enter the sea saying : ' This is Ganges 
 water ; this is Jumna water.' All these 
 mental states are one with respect to their 
 object." " Sensations of sight," he adds, 
 " illustrate perception here, because form and 
 appearance show its action most clearly ; 
 sensations of taste are cited for conscious- 
 ness as best showing its awareness of specific 
 distinction [in general]." 
 
 Vinndna, in fact, being, it would seem, a 
 term of such general import, may stand for 
 any ' awareness ' of mind, no matter how 
 general or how abstract the content. 
 
 It must still remain for us a logic al 
 anomaly to see the more general aspect 
 ' ^o-ordinoTed with the more special aspects, 
 as one among tour aggregates, instead of th e 
 second, third and fo urth being reduced to 
 su bdivisions of the nftl T Some day we 
 sHallwitness a Thera of Ceylon or Burma, 
 master of both his own and our traditions, 
 doing justice to the subject. Mean while we 
 ma y do well to hang u p our,, judg ment on 
 two m emoranda : (1) the absence in the 
 SuHHETst tradition of any cogent logic "ol 
 division by wa x of genus and species ; 
 ( 2) the presence of an emphatic negation 
 of any substantial unity in vinndna ~oy 
 
 1 Commentary on Majjhima-N., Sutta 43. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 55 
 
 chitta OT mano . Safety was felt to lie only 
 m classifying mind as not one, subdivided, 
 but as several. Ndmarupa was far more 
 convenient as a starting-point, but it was 
 a dangerous old bottle for new wine, for it 
 dated, as we have seen, from animistic or 
 atmanistic compilations. " Why," wrote 
 Buddhaghosa, " did the Exalted One say 
 there were five aggregates, no less and no 
 more ? Because these not only sum up all 
 classes of conditioned things, but they afford 
 no foothold for soul and the animistic, 
 moreover they include all other classifica- 
 tions." ^ No ' wrong view ' finds, in the 
 Nikayas, correction so emphatic, so uncom- 
 promising as this : that " vinndna is an 
 identical something, continuous, persisting." ^ 
 Hence the prima ry r eason for the khandha - 
 division was practicaF— the reader may call 
 it religious, philosophical, ethical, as he 
 pleases — and not scientific. Herein it re- 
 sembled J:'lato''s tnreetold pysche^ — sentient, 
 passionate, rational — put forward to inculcate 
 the governance of the first and second by the 
 third. Aristotle's threefold scheme was more 
 scientific, giving us " an evolutionary concept 
 of increasing connotation." * But Aristotle 
 was elaborating a tradition which started 
 
 ' Visuddhi-Magga, ch. xiv. ; cp. Warren's Buddhism in 
 Translations , p. 156. 
 
 * Majjhima-N. i. 256 ; quite literally, ' runs on, flows 
 on, not-other.' 
 
 * G. Croom Robertson, Elements of Philosophy, p. 221. 
 
56 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 from unity, and held it ' most unreasonable ' 
 to consider the psyche as a plurality.^ The 
 founders of Buddhism, ascribing to that 
 unity in ' self,' to which consciousness 
 usually, and language (when not meta- 
 phorical) always testifies, only the validity 
 of popular, conventional usage, started from 
 plurality. They saw in the person a plurality 
 held together by a name, and by an economy 
 of mental procedure. Their philosophy is 
 synthetic, starting from many. Wnen it 
 analyses, it reveals, not fractions, but a 
 number of co-ordinated ultimates. For it, 
 ultimate truth lies in inverting conventional 
 truth, or as we might say, common sense. 
 The latter sees truth in a consistent use of 
 names for things-as-perceived, holding that 
 these are things-as-they -really -are {yathd- 
 bhutam). But the task of philosophy lay 
 in ' penetrating ' through these fictions of 
 the ' world's ' beliefs and these myths of 
 language. It must not take surface-usage 
 as in the least trustworthy. The attitude 
 is of course common to all philosophizing 
 worthy of the name. But in Buddhism it 
 was applied in a more thoroughgoing degree 
 than almost anywhere else in ancient thought. 
 By 'him who sees,' the ' one,' to which con- 
 sciousness seemed to testify, is considered as 
 a myth carried over from the name, and valid 
 only in popular thought. 
 
 ' De Anima, ch. iv. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 57 
 
 Theory of Sense 
 
 The next word in our verse is ' organs ' : 
 dyatana. This word, meaning simply place 
 or sphere for meeting, or of origin, or ground 
 of happening, '^ is used to cover hoik organ 
 of sense and sense-object. The ' meeting ' 
 is that effected, on occasion of sensation, 
 between organ and object. What this meet- 
 ing of man's cognitive apparatus with the 
 external world consisted in, was, as we 
 know, variously conceived. But no serious 
 effort to inquire into, and formulate, the 
 natural procedure in that meeting appears 
 in any Indian literature judged to be pre- 
 Buddhistic, or contemporary with the 
 Nikayas.^ Vedantic inquiries in this direc- 
 tion are late, probably incited by Buddhist 
 pioneering effort. 
 
 Nothing, however, were further from truth 
 than to affirm that the late Vedism, or the 
 early Vedantism of the oldest Upanishads 
 took no account of sense in their philosophy. 
 WTien our historians of psychology have real; 
 ized that to limit their origins to Hellenistic 
 thought is to present inexcusably mutilated 
 work, we shall find our facts more accessible. 
 
 * Threefold meaning assigned by Buddhaghosa, Com- 
 mentary on Dlgha-Nikaya, 2, 124. 
 
 ' It is perhaps significant that the words Sinn (sense) 
 and Empfindung (sensation) do not even occur in Deussen's 
 index to his work on the Upanishads, or to those ol 
 vols. i. and ii. of his History of (Indian) Philosophy. 
 
58 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The crabbed confines of a little manual 
 prevent due justice being dealt to the many 
 interesting glimpses of sense-theories in the 
 eight Upanishads generally reckoned oldest.^ 
 But a few words on them are necessary to show 
 both how much and how little the advance 
 in theory by Buddhism had to aid it. 
 
 Summarized, these glimpses show much 
 psychological insight, fitfully and unsys- 
 tematically presented, often with a poetic 
 Platonism. All are more or less subservient 
 to the main atmanistic theory. 
 
 (1) How little that theory, as compared 
 with Buddhist pluralism, was calculated to 
 encourage serious independent inquiry, ap- 
 pears in such phrases as : " Let no man 
 try to find out what sights, sounds, smells, 
 tastes are. Let him know the seer . . . the 
 hearer," etc. Again : " When seeing, He 
 (Brahman) is called ' eye,' " and so forth ; 
 " He is eye of the eye, ear of the ear," etc. 
 He, or It, used these instruments, but 
 was distinct in essence, separable. When 
 they slept, he unsleeping went whither he 
 listed, ' golden person, bird-alone.' ^ Accord- 
 ingly the listeners did not ' try ' very much. 
 Nevertheless, they saw vividly some things 
 of significance for psychology. 
 
 1 According to Regnaud these are Brihaddranyaka, 
 Chdndogya, KausMtaki, Aitareyya, Taittiriya, lis, Kena, 
 Katha. 
 
 ^ Brih. iv. 3, 12, 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 59 
 
 (2) With a view concentrated more on 
 theoretic synthesis than on the facts of ex- 
 perience, they now included, now excluded, 
 the three relatively animal senses of smell, 
 taste and touch. Sometimes only one is 
 excluded ; e.g. the indwelling Atman or Brah- 
 man ' pulls,' or ' rules ' eye, ear, tongue (not 
 tasting, but speaking), and skin, but not 
 the nose.^ So, too, these four only are 
 called ' graspers,' and the respective objects, 
 ' overgraspers,' for " eye is seized by visible 
 objects, ear by sound," etc. — a notion 
 equally applicable to the senses of smell and 
 taste. 
 
 (3) One result of this aesthetic eclecticism 
 is that the significance of touch in our 
 knowledge of the external world is not 
 discerned. Thus it is of the eye, and nob 
 of touch, that we read : " The essence (sap) 
 of the material, the mortal, the solid 
 [Deussen : Stehendes, sthitan], the definite 
 [Deussen : Seiende, sat] is the eye, for it is 
 the essence of sat (being)." ^ In one Upani- 
 shad action and hands replace touch and 
 sensitive surfaces." 
 
 (4) But the tendency to centralization ih 
 the person went along with a theory of the 
 co-ordination of sensations into the unity of 
 percepts, by the action of a sensus communis 
 or sense-mind (prajnd). Thus : " Some say, 
 
 1 Brik. iii. 7, 17 f. * Ibid. ii. 3, 4. 
 
 3 The Kaushltaki. 
 
60 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 that the vital forces (prdnd's) go into one be- 
 coming, since no one could at the same time 
 make known a name, see . . . hear . . . think 
 with manas . . . whereas the vital forces, 
 by going into one becoming, bring all these 
 one after another into consciousness, . . . 
 and then all function together with each 
 one, sight, hearing," etc.^ And it is in the 
 heart that these vital forces, which include 
 the senses ^ become one. The heart is thus 
 the sensorium commune. 
 
 (5) We do not find the Buddhist common 
 name for the peripheral organs of sense, 
 as door or gate, but only ' openings ' (susayah) 
 into the heart, viz. eye and ear, speech, 
 mind and air.* 
 
 (6) In the heart too reside all rupd's, " for 
 we know colours by the heart," while the 
 sun, or the sun-god, abides in the eye.* 
 Here we seem to get a fleeting glimpse — ^no 
 more — of a parallel to the Common and 
 Special Sensibles of Aristotle's theory of 
 sense, developed in modern psychology by 
 Locke as primary and secondary qualities. 
 Deussen translates rupd's by forms, but the 
 context, let alone the Buddhist tradition, 
 requires us to see in the object of sight 
 strictly colours, as Max Miiller renders it. 
 
 * Kaush. iii. 2. 
 
 > Chand. iii. 12, 3 f . and n. i ; viii. 3, 3. 
 " Ibid. iii. 13, I f. The word ' door,' dvara, is very 
 near, however ; see ibid. iii. 13, 6. 
 
 • Bfih. iii. 9, 20. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 61 
 
 We shall now be the better able to judge 
 wherein Buddhist psychology may be con- 
 sidered to have made any advance on these 
 striking, and often mythically, or at least 
 figuratively, conceived theories of the nature 
 of sense. Confining ourselves, as in the 
 foregoing chapter, to the earliest documents, 
 and taking counsel on them from the 
 Commentaries, we will take the six matters 
 numbered above in order. 
 
 (1) We have already seen, we know, that 
 to what extent the obsession of the Subject, 
 omnipresent yet indwelling, may have checked 
 inquiry into contact with Object, Buddhism 
 had shaken off the cause of such a check. 
 So thoroughgoing was the doctrine, in re- 
 fusing to emphasize, or even recognize, any 
 self-agency that might be misconceived, 
 when the law of causation was being dis- 
 cussed, that queries in terms of a personal 
 agent were deemed unfitting. 
 
 " There are four foods, bhikkhus, for main- 
 taining creatures that have come to be, or for 
 conducing to their coming to be. What are 
 the four? Material food, gross or subtle; 
 secondly, contact ; thirdly, mental provision ; 
 fourthly, vinnana. These are the four." 
 
 The Commentator explains that in cases 2 
 and 3 the interlocutor might easily under- 
 stand something ancillary to the food itself, 
 as when (2) birds feed their young, causing 
 
62 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 contact, and as when (3) a turtle lays her 
 eggs not in the water but on the sand above 
 its reach. But the new vinndna that becomes 
 potential in the new embryo, as the result 
 of a last conditioning, vinndna in a dying 
 person, was not so easy to bring under the 
 notion of food — food for a complete new 
 ndmarupa. 
 
 " Thereupon the venerable Moltya Phagguna 
 said to the Exalted One : ' Who is it, lord, 
 that feeds on the food viiinana ? ' ' ^Tis no 
 Jit question,' said the Exalted One. ' / do 
 not use the term '''feeds." If I did, your 
 question were a Jit one. But since I do not, 
 if one were to ask : " For what is viiinana a 
 food ? " this were a Jit question ; and this 
 the Jit reply : Vinnana-/bod is the condition 
 for bringing about rebirth in the future.^ 
 When that is come to birth there is the sphere 
 of sense and of the condition of sensations, 
 namely, contact.'' 
 
 " ' But who is it, lord, that comes into 
 contact ? ' 
 
 " ' 'Tis no Jit question,' said the Exalted 
 One. ' I do not say : he comes into contact. 
 . . . If one were to ask: "Because of what 
 condition is there contact?" this were a fit 
 question, and this the fit reply : Conditioned by 
 the sphere of sense [arisesl contact; conditioned 
 by contact [arises] feeling.' 
 
 ' Cp. p. 20. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 63 
 
 " ' But who is it, lord, that feels ? ' 
 
 " ' ""Tis no fit question . . . ' " ^ [and so on, 
 
 for yet two more unfit queries : who desires ? 
 
 who grasps ?] 
 
 (2) Whether the concentration on Object, 
 and not on Subject, was the cause or not, 
 Buddhist analyses consistently deal with the 
 five senses, and with each of them. The 
 priority invariably yielded to Sight and 
 Hearing may be a legacy from older doctrines. 
 But whatever is stated about the nature and 
 functions of sense, is shown as valid for 
 each of the senses. So faithfully is this un- 
 compromising consistency carried out, that 
 the application of statements to each sense, 
 taken severally, is effected at a considerable 
 cost of literary effect and of readers' 
 patience.^ 
 
 The most general (as well as the earliest) 
 formula of sense-consciousness, given half 
 a dozen times in the Majjhima and Samyutta- 
 Nikdyas, is as follows : 
 
 " Because of sight [lit. eye] and visible 
 matter (rupa) arises visual consciousness 
 (chakkhu-viniiana) ; the collision of the two 
 is contact. {Conditioned by contact {(irises'] 
 feeling ; what one feels, one perceives ; what 
 
 * Samyutta-N . ii. 13. 
 
 * An idiomatic phrase of popular usage : ' things seen 
 heard, imagined, apprehended,' or ' things seen, heard, 
 touched, imagined,' occurs, but not where sense-cognition 
 is discussed. It survives in part ; see Compendium, p. ^7. 
 
64 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 one perceives, one thinks about ; what one 
 thinks about, one is obsessed withal ; hence 
 obsessions concerning past, future and present 
 objects cognized through sight beset and infest 
 a man.) Because of hearing . . . of smell, 
 <fcc." 1 
 
 The formula ceases at the first bracket. 
 The context is given to illustrate the applica- 
 tion. Here is another application, taken 
 from the 207 short Suttas on the sphere of 
 sense : " 
 
 " Vinnana comes to pass, bhikkhus, because 
 of a dual \thing\. What is that dual [thing] ? 
 Because of sight and because of visible object 
 arises visual consciousness. Sight is transient, 
 changing ; its state is ' becoming-other-ness.' 
 Visible objects are just the same. So this dual 
 thing is both mobile and passing away. . . . 
 Visual consciousness, sprung from a condition, 
 from a relation which is transient, changing, 
 having ' becoming-other-ness,'' is itself no less 
 so. Now this kind of consciousness, happen- 
 ing because of a transient condition, whence 
 shall it become per during ? Visual contact — 
 as the collision, coincidence, encounter of 
 these three phenomena is called — is tran- 
 sient, changing, having "" becoming-other-ness.' 
 Arisen because of a transient condition, whence 
 shall it become perduring ? Come into contact 
 
 » Majjhima-N . i. ii i f . 
 • Samyutta-N. iv. 67 f . 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 65 
 
 one feels, is aware, perceives ; hence these states 
 also are mobile and passing away, transient, 
 changing, having ' becoming-oiher-ness.' " 
 
 This protracted formula is repeated for 
 each sense. 
 
 As to the psycho-physical nature of this 
 contact, no attempt is made throughout 
 the canonical books to analyse it. Nearly 
 or quite a decade of centuries was needed 
 for so academical, so scientifically disin- 
 terested an advance as this. But we can 
 imagine that, for a country, whose archaic 
 analyses could locate colours (or visible 
 objects more concretely conceived) ' in the 
 heart,' the seat of mind, it was no difficult 
 matter so to transcend the bare touch- 
 notion in contact as to feel no need for either 
 a material medium, or for the outleaping 
 eidola-emanations of old Greek thought.^ 
 
 Whatever was actually held to take place in 
 all contact, we find no underlying hypothesis 
 of an illusory world, or of a creating intelligence 
 within. The association of may a, the cosmic 
 ' illusion ' of other and later Indian thought, 
 is absent from the whole of Theravada 
 Buddhism. Its ultimate data were pheno- 
 menal, and yet they were very real. They 
 were not dependent upon a constructing 
 percipient mind. The manifestation of 
 
 1 Even Aristotle only makes some sort of medium for 
 sight a necessary condition (De Anima, ii. vii.). 
 
 5 
 
66 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 sensations in experience depended, in part, 
 on the external elements being brought 
 into suitable focus with organs made of 
 similar elements, within us. Without, there 
 was the ever -mobile, ever-changing world 
 compounded of countless syntheses of the 
 four elements : the extended, the cohering, 
 the calorific, the mobile, with or without 
 the residual element of life. Within, were 
 mobile and changing syntheses of all these 
 elements. To effect contact of sense between 
 the without and the within, a threefold con- 
 juncture was needed. After discoursing 
 on the four elements as external and in- 
 ternal, each of them taken separately, 
 Sariputta, the leading teacher after the 
 Buddha, is represented as saying : 
 
 " //(!) the action of the eye is not cut off, but 
 (2) external visible objects do not come intofocus,'^ 
 and (3) a correlation according is not set up, there 
 is not to that extent the manifestation of a 
 corresponding degree of viiiiiana. [The same 
 results from conditions 1 and 2 only being 
 given.] Bui if the action of the eye is not 
 cut off, if external visible objects come into 
 focus, and if a correlation according is set up, 
 then the corresponding degree of consciousness 
 is manifested." 
 
 This is repeated, as is usual, for the other 
 senses in turn. The widespread theory of 
 
 ' Literally : avenue. Majjhima-N. i. 190. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 67 
 
 ' like being known only by like ' was con- 
 sidered to be implicit in these, the mother- 
 doctrines. The elements were either (a) 
 belonging to the self or internal, or (6) ex- 
 ternal.^ Later it is referred to as an ancient 
 doctrine.^ But speculation concerning nature 
 or mind is not a Buddhist characteristic. 
 We find the more positive statements that 
 variety in contact is due to difference in 
 organ or in object. And from difference in 
 contact, difference arises in feeling, percep- 
 tion, volition, etc.^ 
 
 The picturesque metaphor of ' grasper ' 
 and ' over-grasper ' for sense-organ and 
 object I do not find in the Nikayas. There 
 are other metaphors,* most of which are for 
 ethical, or for what we might call evangelical 
 exhortation. But in two or three there are 
 points of philosophical interest. In the 
 Sutta called ' The Snake,' of the Sense-sphere 
 Samyutta,* a man (' Everyman ') is repre- 
 sented as fleeing for his life from four great 
 snakes (the four elements), five assassins 
 (the five aggregates or khandhas), with Love- 
 of -pleasure in their midst with drawn sword. 
 He hastens into a village, which he finds 
 empty and about to be destroyed by 
 bandits. Rushing away he comes to the 
 
 * Majjhima-N. i. 421 f. 
 
 * Atthasalim, 313 ; Bud. Psy. Eth. Ix. 
 ' Samyutta-N. ii. 140 f. 
 
 * Bud. Psy. Ethics, p. 175, n. 4. ' iv. 172 f. 
 
68 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 perils of the sea, to cross which he has to 
 make a raft, and scull himself over with 
 hands and feet. Here the empty village is 
 identified with the six organs of sense, 
 wherein no ' headman,' no 'I,' nor ' Mine ' 
 is found.^ In this connexion it is well to 
 remember that the very ancient superstitions 
 concerning ' the man that is seen in the 
 eye ' became, in the older Upanishads, a 
 symbol of the indwelling agent, whether 
 conceived as divine or human : " that is 
 the Atman . . . the immortal . . . Brah- 
 man." * Again the village-sacking bandits 
 are the six kinds of ' external ' objects of 
 sense, for each organ of sense is hit {hannati, 
 smitten, hurt, slain) by objects that are 
 attractive or the reverse. 
 
 (3) It was only natural that the uncompro- 
 mising, unflinching way in which Buddhism, 
 from the outset, faced the whole question 
 of sense-cognition, and its moral effect on 
 man should eventually lead to interesting de- 
 velopments, such as the nature of touch and 
 things tangible (photthabba), and the relation 
 of touch to sight. But this is developed in 
 post-Nikayan literature (pp. 143, 186). 
 
 (4) The theory of a co-ordinating factor in 
 sense, or sensus communis, is adopted in both 
 early and scholastic Buddhism. The five 
 special senses had mutually distinct provinces : 
 
 * Atthasalini, 309 ; and Sardtthappakasini on this Sutta. 
 ' Chand. iv. 15,1; viii. 7, 4 ; Bfih. iii. 7, 18. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 69 
 
 " These five senses, brother, have different 
 fields, different ranges ; they do not share 
 each other^s fi^ld and range. Of them thus 
 mutually independent, mano is their resort, 
 and mano partakes of, enjoys, the field and 
 range of them all." ^ 
 
 Buddhaghosa's comments on this theory of 
 mind as an organ of reference are mainly 
 figurative, but of interest. As to the word 
 rendered by resort {patisarana), this he 
 illustrates elsewhere on this wise : — Disciples 
 sometimes invite the Master's teaching by 
 saying : " Things (or phenomena) have the 
 Exalted One as their root, their guide, their 
 resort. Well for us if he reveal the meaning 
 of this that he has just declared. . . ."^ 
 Hereon the Commentary's parable : " Things 
 of all four planes [of being], coming into the 
 focus of his omniscience, are said to resort 
 to the Exalted One, they make him their 
 resort, they go down, they go down together. 
 . . . Thus contact comes to his discernment 
 asking : ' What is my name ? ' ' Thou 
 art contact in the sense of searching.' ..." 
 The four mental aggregates ask in turn, 
 " ' each receiving a name according to its 
 nature.' " 
 
 In commenting on the Majjhima passage, 
 where ' mind ' is the ' resort,' he first dis- 
 
 ^ Maj'jhima-N. i., 295 ; Samyutta-N. V. 218. 
 * Angiittara-N. i. 199, and elsewhere. Paft-sardif a is 
 literally 're-going.' 
 
70 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 tinguishes between the work of mano as 
 ' five-door cognition ' {i.e. on occasion of 
 sensations) and as ' mind-door ' (or repre- 
 sentative) cognition. Then he proceeds : 
 " Visual consciousness is mere seeing visible 
 object ; and so for the other senses. There 
 is here no scope for the three radical 
 states of appetite, ill-will and bewilderment. 
 These affect cognition proper (mano, or 
 jdvana)." He then illustrates by a king 
 enjoying a large revenue accumulating 
 from numberless little taxes levied from 
 a village of five families. Finally, in com- 
 menting on the dry, non-ethical formulas of 
 the Abhidhamma-Pitaka concerning mano,^ 
 he states that whereas the door-objects — 
 sight, sound, etc., impressions — are variables 
 that pass by, mano, having its ' base ' in the 
 heart, is a constant which has the sole func- 
 tion of receiving them. " The mark of m^no 
 is the cognizing, the becoming aware of sense- 
 objects immediately after the visual, or other 
 sense-consciousness." Thus, through mano, 
 we get a simulated unity and simultaneity 
 of impressions, which are really single and 
 successive, if exceedinglyand most delicately 
 swift. 
 
 This location of intellectual functioning 
 in the heart as its basis or ' site ' (vatthu) 
 has been carried over by Buddhaghosa and 
 his contemporaries from pre-Buddhistic^radi- 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics, Ixxviii. 129 w. i ; Atlhasalint, 263 f. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 71 
 
 tion. Nevertheless the psycho-physical asso- 
 ciation is not made in the canonical books. 
 And modern Buddhists, jealous for the omni- 
 science of their great Founder, maintain that 
 this silence is not accidental ; in other 
 words, the Buddha judged that to assign 
 another, e.g. a cerebral, basis for mind 
 would not ' go down ' with his age. Be 
 that as it may, the evasion of the word 
 ' heart ' is quite marked. After enumerating 
 the bases of the five senses, the Patthana 
 goes on : " That material thing on the 
 basis of which apprehension and compre- 
 hension take place. . . ." ^ ' Heart,' in the 
 Canon, comes into purely poetical idiom, 
 as among ourselves to-day, e.g. ' peace of 
 heart,' ' tribulation of heart,' ^ ' appealing 
 to the heart,' ' and ' heart of the Norm,' * 
 or doctrine. 
 
 (5) Similarly, the expression doors [dvdra), 
 or gates of sense, which became a technical 
 term in the scholastic psychology of cognition, 
 is in the older books but a picturesque simile. 
 The only formula in which it there occurs is 
 in that of sense-control called 'guardedness 
 as to the doors of sense.' But that the figure 
 was ready, even in the earlier days, to fall 
 into rank as a scientific term, and may even 
 then have been often so used, appears from 
 
 ' Pointed out by S. Z. Aung ; Compendium, pp. 277 f. 
 
 * Samyutta-N . i. 126, 212 ; Anguttara-N . v. 46. 
 ^ Digha-N. iii. 173. 
 
 * Vibhanga, 401. 
 
72 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 a parable in the Nikayas of a ' six-gated 
 fortified city ' through the gates whereof 
 come messengers, bringing a true message." 
 The moral is that there are more ways 
 than one of apprehending the gospel. And 
 the six gates are explained to be the six 
 organs of sense, ' mindfulness ' being the 
 doorkeeper.^ 
 
 (6) The properties of things, whether 
 primary or secondary or otherwise, were 
 much discussed in mediaeval Buddhist philo- 
 sophy. The English reader can discern this 
 in the numerous quotations given by S. Z. 
 Aung in his notes to the Compendium. But 
 the Nikayas had an ethical philosophy, 
 theoretical and practical, to put forward. 
 And no inquiry was wrought up into the 
 Suttas save such as was judged necessary 
 or auxiliary to the attainment of 'right 
 views ' in such a philosophy, and to the 
 application of them to practice. 
 
 The honesty and candour of the Suttas, 
 in dealing with the fact of knowledge as got 
 by way of five peripheral ' doors ' and one 
 inward ' door ' of sense, and with conduct 
 as impressed and incited and swayed by 
 sense, are due to a conviction of the immense 
 importance of understanding this fact of 
 life, and all that the fact involved for the 
 mind and conduct. Cogn ition through sense 
 wasa process of natural causation. Throu^' 
 
 1 SamyuUa-N. iv. 194. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 73 
 
 sense arose feeling ; through feehng, action. 
 Hence the iniportance of treating the subject 
 "without^ eclecticisrn, without sestheticism, 
 from the stimHpoinf "^r nafurar Ta^ a 
 
 practical purpose. "Tlifs was, Jn ultimate 
 tef ins, the eTmiim'Eion j^^^^^ ills that arose 
 through sense-cognitio n, and through the 
 actions to which ma nkind w as thereby 
 impelled. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 continued 
 
 III. FEELING 
 
 The last-named feature is the reason why, 
 in the lengthy collection of Suttas devoted 
 to the ' Sixfold Sphere of Sense,' ^ we get 
 so open and steady a contemplation of the 
 psychology of sense, and so limited a range 
 of psychological result. We are told that 
 the six senses give man his world, his every- 
 thing — ^that they are the world, everything. 
 
 " / will teach you Sabbam [the all, every- 
 thing]. . . . What is that ? Eye and visible 
 object, ear and sound, nose," and so on to 
 mano and its ' objects.' " 
 
 " I will teach you the arising and the 
 passing away of the world. . . . What are 
 they ? Because of eye and visible form arises 
 vistial consciousness, the encounter of the 
 three is contact . . ., thence feeling, thence 
 craving, from the extinction of which comes 
 
 '■ Samyutta-N. iv. i &.., ' Salayatana.' 
 * Ihid. 15-27. 
 
 74 
 
FEELING 75 
 
 extinction of grasping and the extinction oj this 
 whole mass of ill." ^ 
 
 " That by which one becomes cognizant of 
 the world, and has conceits about the world, 
 that is called, in the Ariyan discipline, the 
 world . . . namely, by cognizance through 
 sight, hearing, smell, taste, iou^h, mano." ^ 
 
 " / say, that the end of the world is not to 
 be learnt, to be seen, to be got to, by going to 
 the end of the world, nor by not getting there 
 is an end to be made of ill. ^ . . . 'Tis even 
 in this fathom-long carcase, percipient, in- 
 telligent, that I declare to be the genesis of the 
 world, the ceasing of the world and the way 
 going to the cessation of the world." * 
 
 We should err if we read any Idealism 
 into the last quotation ; it is anticipated 
 by a context coinciding mainly with the 
 foregoing quotation, which is again closely 
 connected with those before it. The ele- 
 ments of ultimate reality, I do not say 
 existed, but were constantly becoming and 
 passing away, in the macrocosm as in the 
 subjective microcosm. But that microcosm 
 apprehended them by way of its sense-doors. 
 They presented the ' world ' to the individual 
 by representing it. 
 
 " Where there is eye and visible objects, 
 
 1 Samyutta-N. iv. 87 ; cp. 52. 
 
 '^ Ibid. 95. 
 
 3 Ibid. 93. 
 
 * Ibid. i. 62 ; Anguttara-N. ii. 48. 
 
76 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 visual consciousness and the things that may 
 be learnt through visual consciousness, there 
 is the world, or the notion of world. Where 
 there is ear," etc.^ 
 
 Those sense-doors were presenting it to 
 him night and day from birth till death, 
 and, by the all-powerful lever of feeling, 
 were pushing him this way and that, as 
 mighty Ganga was ever bearing down bubbles 
 of foam and driftwood.^ And nothing that 
 sense-cognition could show was able to end 
 Sorrow and Pain finally and altogether. 
 
 So we hear more often about how sens e 
 a^cted than aboirr^fegf it told .^ I have 
 attributed this emphasis~to the aesthetic 
 vivacity of the ancient Northern Hindus, as 
 betrayed by their literature.* There is also 
 this negative condition, ]m deY which Buddhist 
 doctrine was put forward~ahd organized : the 
 abs ence of any advance in natural scTence T^ 
 
 Modern psychology has made its most 
 marked forward strides during periods of 
 scientific advance and excitement. And the 
 strides were usually made by men of scientific, 
 especially medical,training. Hartley, e.g., was 
 a physician ; Tetens, a physicist and mathe- 
 matician; Priestley was a chemist; Cabanis 
 was a professor of medicine ; Locke was a 
 
 ■■ Samyuita-N. iv. 39. 
 
 ' Ibid. iii. 140 ; iv. 179. 
 
 » Buddhism, ' The Norm,' p. 65. 
 
 * Ency. Religion and Ethics, ' Asceticism (Buddhist).' 
 
FEELING 77 
 
 student of natural science and a physician ; 
 Weber, Fechner, Spencer are other notable 
 instances, ^uch thinkers were more in- 
 terested^ jnjjthe^j^^ as so 
 niany j^venues of k nowl ^ggTjnd as a 
 departme nt of t he__science oFTEe " living 
 organism'. Their interest wasnThrellectual. 
 TEe^^dyhamics ' of consciousness were re- 
 latively uninteresting until the influence of 
 Schopenhauer had leavened thought. 
 
 To revert to older days, it is clear from 
 Aristotle's works that a considerable activity 
 in biological inquiry was being carried on at 
 the time, and that not only by Aristotle 
 himself, ' master of those that know.' He 
 too evinces a relatively mild interest in the 
 dynamics of feeling and will. He delivered 
 lectures on Ethics, but it is not a little in- 
 structive to compare his somewhat paedagogic 
 treatment of Pleasure with the immense 
 ground-wave importance attached to pain 
 and pleasure, sorrow and happiness, in Bud- 
 dhist psychological ethics. He writes six and 
 a half sections, out of a total of ten, in the 
 Nicomachean Ethics, before resuming thus : 
 " The consideration of pleasure and pain . . . 
 is one of the subjects we are bound to discuss, 
 for we said that moral virtue and vice have to 
 do with pleasures and pains, and most people 
 say that happiness implies pleasure." In the 
 De Anima and the De Sensu, his chief interest 
 is in biological and intellectual conclusions. 
 
78 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 But in the Buddhist canonical books, 
 amid all the allusions to contemporary- 
 activities, there is no indication of any 
 activity in scientific research going on, with 
 the exception of astrology and medicine,^ 
 and of medicine rather practised as an art 
 than as being advanced by systematic in- 
 vestigation and experiment. 
 
 The art of the physician and the surgeon 
 figures frequently both in narrative, in sani- 
 tary regulation {e.g. in the Vinaya books), and 
 in parable . The Founder himself is called the 
 Great Healer, the World's Physician.^ The 
 most central of all Buddhist ethical doctrines 
 — ^the Four Ariyan Truths — ^is formulated on 
 the plan of a medical diagnosis : namely, the 
 nature of a malady, its cause, its cessation, its 
 curative regime. And we may not be greatly 
 wrong if we jud ge th at, however we rega rd, 
 llii__gI9'SpJj6f umyer^saF causa^^^ 
 mind of the^SIky amuni, ^ it was due_to 
 prf"the"abs ence ""oFa contH npOTafy body of 
 science, and (2) t h;^pre sence of a develop ed 
 meoKaiI'~ Tfadition , -that _tlie doctrine of 
 causation took the, to us, pecuTSFfpf mjinB 
 ^tandpoint thatlt didi 
 
 " Thus : anythln^THue Jto an assignable 
 caoise was terminable if you could stop the 
 
 1 Possibly also of mathematics ; but there -is no 
 positive evidence. 
 
 » Cp. Psalms of the Brethren, verses 722, 756, 830, mi. 
 ' See this more fully treated in ch. iv. of my Buddhism. 
 
FEELING 79 
 
 working of the cause.__Butjrou could stop 
 'it,T?i5cause nothing became a cause arbitrarily, 
 or s upernatur ally. Now, for the doctor, 
 and for the patient and the patient's own 
 folk, the 'anything,' the One Thing, is 
 Dukkha, 111 (the word means everything 
 that is the contrary of Sukha — ^happiness, 
 pleasure) . And all or any dukkha can be made 
 to cease, if (1) it be rightly diagnosed, (2) its 
 cause or the conditions of its genesis and 
 persistence be ascertained, (3) the nature 
 of the state contrary to it be realized, 
 (4) the ' cure ' consistently carried out. 
 
 The medical inspiration, or at least, stand- 
 point, was pointed out several years ago by 
 Dr. Kern : ^ "It is not difficult to see that 
 these four Satyas are nothing else but the 
 four cardinal articles of Indian medical 
 science, applied to the spiritual healing of 
 mankind, exactly as in the Yoga doctrine. 
 E.g. in Yogasutra ii. 15, Commentary : ' Just 
 as the doctor's code is fourfold : illness, 
 cause of illness, health, medicine, so too is 
 this code fourfold, to wit : samsdra,^ its 
 cause, emancipation (moksha), the way 
 thereto.' " The learned writer, however, in 
 this valuable apergu, specializes unnecessarily, 
 and moreover leaves us to draw a mistaken 
 inference. I have heard a physician pointing 
 out the analogy between the Four Truths 
 
 ^ Indian Buddhism, Strassburg, 1896, pp. 46 f, Satya 
 = truth. 2 Sa»Msaya= endless living and dying. 
 
80 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and his own British medical code, from 
 simply hearing them stated as Buddhist 
 religious doctrine, without allusion being 
 made to his own profession. Talking of 
 physicians tempts me to quote from the 
 letter of a notable British Buddhist as 
 bearing on this point : " The operation and 
 hospital-experience was indeed a very for- 
 midable affair — so terribly impressive in its 
 insistence on the Dukkha-Truths, that I 
 marvel . . . after that experience, that the 
 realization of the truth of them is not more 
 common, at least among those who have 
 to do with hospitals. Perhaps indeed this 
 most impressive object-lesson is responsible 
 for the large proportion of medical men 
 among those Occidentals who are . . . deeply 
 interested in Buddhism." 
 
 Moreover, to quote the late Commentary 
 on the Yoga-sutras as an authority for the 
 statement that Indian medical procedure had 
 suggested a fundamental doctrine of Bud- 
 dhism, is much as if one were to say that J. S. 
 Mill's inclusion of the syllogism in his Formal 
 Logic proves it to have been in existence 
 when Aristotle was teaching. There were 
 'cardinal articles' of medical clinic, not 
 only in India, but in all countries before 
 either the Yoga-sutras (let alone the Com- 
 mentary) or other records, more certainly 
 pre-Buddhistic, were compiled. 
 
 Here, however, I am concerned only to 
 
FEELING 81 
 
 suggest that an advance in the systematic 
 stuHy of mind is especially liable to be 
 inlBuencedL_byj_._and_ to mould TtseTf upon, 
 that "boHy of more or less systematic physical 
 Snowledge^ which bulks mosjympressjvely in 
 tTie~"more thoughtful part olf the ^society" 
 of that time and place. For the subject- 
 matter of mental science is, as we know, not 
 accessible to strictly collective observation ; 
 introspection is of the individual, and in the 
 individual no two instances of a pheno- 
 menon can be shown as absolutely coincident. 
 Hence it is largely, I do not say only, when 
 some onward stride in physical science draws 
 the rest of human knowledge in its wake, 
 that the laws of mind are freshly investigated, 
 as something that must also be brought into 
 the line of march. 
 
 WTiere there is no such advance in psychical 
 investigation, some system of dogmatic 
 metaphysic is probably holding the cultured 
 imagination of the age captive, through the 
 spell of some myth of the Word. When 
 the mind breaks free and looks deeper, 
 there will naturally be a recourse, for its 
 fresh concepts, to more positive ideas as 
 guides and supports. 
 
 Now in the healing lore and craft of the 
 day — ^the only one, I repeat, that comes 
 prominently to the front in episode and in 
 details of rules in the Vinaya — ^the revolt 
 of thought embodied in the Buddhist move- 
 6 
 
82 ; BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ment found its noblest inspiration. The 
 word dukkha covers all that is meant by 
 ' not well ' — ills and pains of body, ills and 
 misery of mind, in a word, dis-ease. Its 
 presence is the doctor's casus belli and 
 raison dj'etre ; its cause and extinction is 
 his quest. For its absence there may be 
 several positive expressions. And yet there 
 is nothing else in life so mortally positive as 
 dukkha. And it is easy, alas ! for many to 
 conceive its mere absence as sufficient for 
 happiness. Nibbana itself, a quasi-negative 
 term, was at times employed as = health,^ 
 as well as happiness. And the Founder, in 
 one_of-hi& m«re -em.phaiic_ti±£ere^e&Iabbut 
 his mission, expresse.d.that as one of healing : 
 
 " Both then and now just this do I reveal : 
 — dukkha and the extinction of dukkha." " 
 
 The physical healer finds the causes of 
 dis-ease in the mutual interaction of man 
 and his environment. Buddhism too found 
 therein the causes of all that made for 
 unhappiness. Sense - impressions were the 
 avenues whereby came satisfactions (pasddd) 
 fraught with peril. Consciousness, with its 
 three main roots or coriditionF^^eed~oF 
 appetTte, enmity^JdKlusion^^pushing iCje- 
 acted on its impressiohs" as f eeling, Hesire 
 lor^ grasping a fter7~all th at t ended" to the 
 
 1 Maj)hima-N. i. 509 ; Sutta-Nipata, verse 749. 
 • Majjhima-N. i. 140 ; Samyutta-N. iv. 384. 
 
FEELING 83 
 
 expansion and conceit of J;his^ Me and Mine. 
 "And as it behoved the physician to keep 
 in view all possible sources of any disease, 
 neglecting none, so was Buddhism searching 
 and exhaustive in its treatment of the avenues 
 of sense, ignoring none of the five that 
 conveyed, nor the sixth that co-ordinated 
 and revived what the former brought. 
 
 The great intermediar y b etween the_(re- 
 latively) passive reactions to the manifold 
 stimulus of sens e and the following more 
 or less delibera te reactions, Buddhism dis- 
 cerned, correc tly enoug h, i n Feelings THis_ 
 
 might be^pleasant, painf ul, or neither. And 
 it did" not foIIow"~tTiaf where feeling was 
 pleasant (sukha), the symptoms of disease 
 {dukkha) were absent. For the sukha born 
 of sense was the most efficient handmaiden 
 of dukkha, if dukkha he broadly understood 
 as both physical and moral ill, and all that 
 this does, or may involve of mental suffer- 
 ing and moral deterioration. 
 
 As Ledi Sadaw, the eminent Thera (Senior 
 in the Order) writes : ^ " We must distinguish 
 between dukkha of the category (or, in Bud- 
 dhist idiom, of the essential mark) of some- 
 thing unpleasant experienced (by way of 
 sense), physical or psychical, and the dukkha 
 we use in the triad : impermanence (aniccha), 
 ill, and non-soul {an-atta). By this dukkha 
 
 1 Yamaka, ii. Appendix, p. 248 (London, Pali Text 
 Society, 1913). 
 
84 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 we mean a state of peril and danger, without 
 peace, security or blessing." 
 
 This, in other words, is the distinction a 
 physician, or at least a patient, might draw 
 between sensations of pain and disease. 
 The presence, the growth, the decline of 
 the pain is not always accompanied by 
 the presence or increase or cessation of 
 the disease. And this distinction we have 
 to draw throughout the whole of Buddhist 
 literature dealing with sense, with feeling, 
 and the effects of feeling. Else we find 
 ourselves landed in much inconsistency of 
 expression, as I shall show. 
 
 That feeling is the inevitable response to 
 awareness of new stimulus is affirmed up and 
 down the Nikayas, notably in Samyutta-N. 
 on the sphere of sense (vol. iv. 1 ff.), e.g. : 
 
 " Where there are hands, there taking and 
 setting down appears ; where there are feet, 
 there coming and going appears ; where there 
 are limbs, there folding and stretching appears ; 
 where there is stomach, there hunger and 
 thirst appears. Just so, hhihkhus, where 
 there is sight {or eye), or hearing . . . there 
 arise subjective pleasure and pain, conditioned 
 by sense-stimulus (lit. contact, samphassa)." ^ 
 
 The contrary is then stated, both of the 
 analogies and the analogues : " . . . Where 
 there is not sight, etc., neither pleasure 
 
 * Satjiyutta-N . iv. 171. 
 
FEELING 85 
 
 nor pain, conditioned by sense-stimulus, 
 arises." 
 
 This quotation is conclusive enough to 
 represent all other passages stating the con- 
 comitance of sensations and feeling, under- 
 stood as our psychology of sense understands 
 pleasure and pain, or at least pleasure and 
 unpleasure.^ That the senses convey 
 pleasure as well as its opposite, is not only 
 allowed and affirmed by doctrinal teaching, 
 but the pleasure is also recognized as very 
 genuine and good by the most eminent of 
 the teachers. The Founder affirmed at 
 times that none lived more at ease (sukham 
 seti) than himself, however much he had 
 forsworn most of the so-called good things 
 of life.^ His chief apostles forgather with 
 him one fine evening in the Gosinga Wood, 
 delighting in the ' divine perfumes ' of the 
 dewy moonlit scene, where the tall sal-trees 
 stand clad in golden bloom.* Temperance 
 was prescribed for maintaining the physical 
 comfort (phdsuvihdra) of health.* 
 
 But when the disciple is bidden to look 
 upon sukha as, or qua dukkha, then we 
 know that the wider concept is to be 
 understood after the qua. And this is no 
 
 • I owe this term, borrowed from German science, to 
 my university colleague, Mr. T. H. Pear. 
 
 ^ Anguttara-N. i. i^Si. ; Samyutta-N. iv. 127. 
 ^ Majjhima-N. i. 212 f. ; Samyutta-N. iv. 104, and 
 passim. 
 
 * Bud. Psy. Ethics, p. 3 S3- 
 
86 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 less the case when things unpleasant to the 
 ' average sensual man ' are valued by a 
 different scale and held to constitute higher 
 pleasure : 
 
 " Things seen and heard, tastes, odours, what we touch, 
 Perceive, all, everything desirable, 
 Pleasant and sweet, while one can say ' It is,' 
 These are deemed Sukha by both gods and men. 
 And where these cease to be, they hold it woe. 
 
 " What other men call Sukha, that the saints 
 Call Dukkha ; what the rest so name. 
 That do the Ariyans know as happiness. 
 Behold a norm that's hard to apprehend ! 
 Hereby are baffled they that are not wise." ^ 
 
 If we would not be baffled, it is with this 
 wider implication that we must read those 
 passages wherein each sense is declared to 
 be dukkha, and not productive of either 
 this or its contrary. If, using Ledi Sadaw's 
 definition, we read into such passages as 
 ^'seeing . . . is sorrow ..." the wider sense 
 of dukkha, thus : 
 
 " The eye, brother, is a faculty of peril 
 and danger, bringing, as such, no peace, 
 security or blessing ; it is to understand this 
 that the holy life under the Exalted One is 
 lived. . . ." " 
 
 and so on for the other senses, why, then we 
 may not be unwilling to admit even for lay- 
 men the truth in this ' monkish ' statement. 
 
 1 Sutta-Nipdta, verse 7S9 f- ; cp. Sarnyutta-N. iv. 127. 
 » Ibid. iv. SI, 140. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Psychology of the Nikayas — 
 continued 
 
 IV. IDEATION 
 
 The systematic analysis of mind in the 
 Nikayas is pursued no further than the 
 recipient and co-ordinating work of mano 
 as sensus communis. Sequences in con- 
 sciousness are occasionally pursued further, 
 but without overmuch terminological con- 
 sistency, and irregularly. Here are a few 
 instances : 
 
 " Because of some tendency there arises 
 perception, opinion, thinking, volition, wish, 
 aspiration. And according as the tendency is 
 low, mediocre or lofty, so will all these be." ^ 
 
 The process of conversion in religion is 
 described as one of "hearing, attending, 
 remembering, comparing, discerning, desire, 
 zeal, pondering, endeavour." ^ 
 
 " Thinking results in desire, through desire 
 objects are divided into what we like and 
 
 1 Samyutta-N . ii. 153 ; see Commentary. 
 » Mdjjhima-N. i. 480 ; ii. 173. 
 87 
 
88 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 what we dislike, hence envy and selfishness, 
 hence quarrelling and fighting." ^ 
 
 "Conditioned by contact arises feeling; 
 what one feels, one perceives ; what one 
 perceives, one thinks about ; what one thinks 
 about, one is obsessed withal." ^ 
 
 These samples reveal the gersistent effort, 
 in tlie Suttas, to carry on the met hod. 
 systematically observed in treating of sense, 
 ^ setting^jorth mind and c hiaracter^ as 
 ord erIy7~~c ausal proces s. The method_is^ 
 empm^Jcally Bud dhist. ^ ~TEe most notable 
 example of it is the important formula of 
 natural causation, as exemplified in the 
 process of life being bound up with dukkha. 
 In the mental process, the resolution of 
 afferent or receptive consciousness into effer- 
 ent or discharging consciousness is clearly 
 affirmed, ^.ense.and feeling stirred bjy^sen^e 
 are converted into motorp resentati ons ; as 
 Hesire, etc.~~^uT wemeeTwith no closer analy^ 
 sis of intellectual process, of what has, in our 
 own psychology, been called representative 
 and re-representative cognition, or ideation. 
 In the last sample, we only hear that ' what we 
 perceive,' i.e. notice (the sannd-khandha), we 
 ' think about ' (vitakketi). 
 
 1 Dtgha-N. ii. 278 f. (condensed). ' Majjhima-N. i., iii. 
 
 ' Not of course solely Buddhist. But it is interesting to 
 compare, with the above, cognate passages in the older 
 Upanishads : — Chdndogya, vii. 2-26 ; Taittiriya, ii. 3-5 ; 
 Kafha, i. 3, 10, etc. 
 
IDEATION 89 
 
 The latter term, with its substantive 
 vitakka (from the root tark) is the most 
 usual expression in the Suttas for the looser, 
 popular meaning of thinking and thought : 
 turning the mind on to a subject, mentation, 
 adapting the attention. Without the prefix 
 {vi), it is a term for argument or dialectic 
 (takka).^ It is used rather for restless and 
 discursive intellection, and not for the vol 
 plane of intuitive sweep of mind. 
 
 Another term, vichdra, used only in associa- 
 tion with vitakka, is a complementary ex- 
 pression to this, indicating persistence in 
 discursive thinking, the onset of which is 
 indicated by vitakka. 
 
 A still more general term for intellection, 
 without explicit reference to sense, is chinteti, 
 chintd, but it is seldom met with in the 
 older books. ^ 
 
 Another word, much used for the adapted 
 attention, is manasikdra, literally mind- 
 making, work-in-mind. 
 
 Next, there are two words connoting 
 representative cognition, in form much like 
 our re-flect, re-consider — pacchavekkhdti, 
 patisanchikkhdti. Both have the prefix of re- 
 version and repetition, and both stems belong 
 to the vocabulary of vision. The former, as 
 with us, is also used for optical reflection. 
 
 '■ Dialogues, i. 29, 34 f . 
 
 ' Samyutta-N. v. 447 ; occurs not seldom in the 
 Jataka tales. 
 
90 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The Buddha thus admonishes his son Bahula 
 who is graduating in saintship : 
 
 " ' What is the use of a mirror ^ ' 'To 
 reflect, lord.' ' Even so must we reflect, and 
 reflect in all our work of body, speech or 
 thought, namely. This that I would do, will 
 it be harmful to myself, or others.' . . ." ^ 
 
 Closely allied to these terms are other 
 two, less easy to render by exact equivalents : 
 sdti and sampajan na, m indfulness and dis- 
 ce rnment. The former term, witlTIFs com- 
 pounds, anussati,^ used for re itera ted re- 
 collection, aliid" patissati,^ which throws 
 emphasis on vivid rein statement, are the 
 Pan e quivalents "for " m em ory ^ and^ i ts 
 synony ms. But sdti, an important term 
 in BuHdhist ethical training, is not wholly 
 covered by memory, and is, on the whole, 
 bestjrendered. by mindf ulness, ina smuch as 
 rT de notes rathe r iEEe" requisit e condition 
 
 any Kind, namely, lucigity~"aiig^ "alertness 
 01 consciousness, ~n~Ts~~a quality rather 
 tTiah a speciHc direction of consciousness ; 
 it expresses that heedful, ' thoughtful ' aware- 
 ness, which is the opposite of mental dis- 
 tractedness, and the essential preliminary 
 to deliberate concentration of mind. But for 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 415. 
 
 * Anguttara-N. iii. 284 ; v. 329 ; i. 30. 
 
 ' SuUa-Nipdta, verse 283 ; Atthasalini, 147. 
 
IDEATION 91 
 
 all that, sati and memory are closely allied.^ 
 Sampajanna is more or less coincident with 
 sati, and is usually employed in the Nikayas 
 as a twin word. It means literally ' sustained 
 cognizing,' ' delibemtenesSj^^^elJLa^axeness.' 
 
 " How is the bhikkhu mindful and self- 
 aware ? . . . He effects self-awareness in his 
 going and his coming and all his avocations, 
 in his speech and in his silence." ^ 
 
 The latter term is often rendered by ' self- 
 possessed ' ; this expresses well the ' having 
 one's self well in hand ' of the Buddhist 
 ideal. But our word is rather the condition, 
 the requisite mental attitude in order to 
 that moral victory. This is expressed in 
 another of those mental causal sequences, 
 from which I have quoted above : 
 
 "... What is the nutriment {condition) 
 of self-control ? Sati-sampajafiiia. 
 
 " What is the nutriment {condition) of 
 sati-sampajafina ? Thoroughgoing attention," 
 etc. etc.^ 
 
 And ' self-possessed ' does not make ex- 
 plicit the intellectual emphasis of sampa- 
 jdna, as is done by Neumann's rendering of 
 the twin phrase : 'klaren Sinnes und einsichtig,' 
 
 » The reader of Pali may compare sati, in Digha-N. 
 i. 1 80 and Majjhima-N. iii. 89, with anussati, anussarati 
 in Anguitara-N. iii. 284 and v. 329. 
 
 " Dlgha-N. i. 70. 
 
 ^ Anguttara-N. v. 115. 
 
92 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ' of lucid mind and discerning.' We might 
 use ' self-conscious,' were this term and its 
 substantive not somewhat debased in our 
 moral and social currency. Moreover there 
 is, in the Buddhist word, no explicit re- 
 ference to ' self.' When in the Abhidhamma 
 books of incipient scholasticism sampqjanna 
 came to be defined, it was ranked as a 
 synonym among that galaxy of intellectual 
 nomenclature, often repeated, in which con- 
 sciousness, when engaged at its highest 
 intellectual functioning, is described. But 
 in so far as the word conveys an intellec- 
 tual emphasis specifically its own, it is that 
 of conscious or deliberate intellection. Thus 
 sampajdna - musd is ' consciously speaking 
 untruth.' ^ 
 
 In another brace of intellective terms, 
 each of which is, in Abhidhamma, defined 
 as equivalent to sampajanna: — vichaya * and 
 vimamsa^ — ^the emphasis is rather on the 
 volitional coefficient, involved in discursive, 
 inquiring effort of thought. Chintd also, and 
 its verb, may take this more specific sense. 
 
 " There are four unthinkahles, that may not 
 be thought about [i.e. speculated about], in- 
 volving for the thinker insanity and trouble. 
 
 * Majjhima-N. i. 414 ; so sampajana-samapatti, delib- 
 erate abandonment of consciousness (in trance), Dlgha-N. 
 i. 184. 
 
 '■ Ibid. iii. 106 ; cp. Atthasdlinl, 147, with Milinda, 298. 
 
 ' Dlgha-N. ii. 222 ; Vibhanga, 222. 
 
IDEATION 98 
 
 These are speculations concerning the range 
 of Buddhaship, speculations concerning the 
 range of him [i.e. of his intuitive powers] 
 who is in meditative ecstasy, speculation con- 
 cerning the working of [the law of] karma, and 
 speculations about the world." 
 
 The last kind of ' speculation ' {loka- 
 chintd) is by the Commentator defined to be 
 on who made the world, or living beings, 
 or the plant world, etc. The more usual 
 word for speculation, conceived as a product 
 rather than a process of thinking, is ditthi, 
 from dfi, to see, and more allied etymologi- 
 cally therefore to our ' speculation.' 
 
 Coming to terms for cognition merging 
 into preponderating volition, we have chetand, 
 sanchetand and sankappa. The first two, 
 while connected etymologically vfith. chintd, 
 chitta, have come to mean purposive or 
 volitional consciousness. 
 
 " / say that chetana is action ; thinking, 
 one acts by deed, word, or thought." ^ 
 
 " Its meaning," wrote Buddhaghosa, " is 
 co-ordinating ; its essential property is 
 effort, endeavour." And it is put in apposi- 
 tion with terms of wishing and aspiration.* 
 
 Sankappa (like vitakka above) emphasizes 
 the mind being set on to some object. Mind 
 as a planning, devising, designing, concocting, 
 
 ^ Anguttara-N. iii. 415. ^ Samyutta-N. ii. 99. 
 
94 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 is a favourite notion in Buddhist psychology, 
 as we saw under the fourth aggregate gener- 
 ally. It is the co-operative bustle of a bee- 
 hive, in harmony with the pluralistic attitude. 
 
 Where there is a coefficient of pleasurable 
 feeling, the intellectual interest, zest or 
 excitement constitutes a state of mind 
 termed piti, about which more later. As 
 an expansive, enthusiastic, but ethically 
 desirable state, it is the complement to the 
 self-restraint and calm held no less desirable. 
 
 Finally, there are all the names for the 
 deeper or wider work of mind, when not 
 busied- with the details of ordinary reactions 
 to sense. Nana and pannd,^ as knowledge 
 or understanding, may face both ways, 
 concerned either with sense or with higher 
 things, but usually the latter. The second 
 term is often likened to illumination, irradia- 
 tion. Work of higher intellection is ex- 
 pressed in terms meaning penetration, insight, 
 intuition, rather than by concepts of dis- 
 cursive thought, such as judgment, or ratio- 
 cination ; reason — ^the ' reason ' of Scottish 
 psychology — cranks above reason-m^. And 
 in the words jhdna, contemplation, and 
 samddhi, rapt concentration, are contained 
 the expression of that self - training in 
 selective, intensive work of mind in which 
 the Indian sought, by changing the usual 
 conditions and procedure in cognition, to 
 
 1 Pronounce nyana, panya. 
 
IDEATION 95 
 
 induce consciousness of a higher or different 
 power. 
 
 Here, however, the special end served by 
 the analysis of sense is no longer present, 
 and consequently there is no systematic 
 classification. We may say the same for 
 the complex states of emotion and desire 
 or passion. In the latter field we find only 
 two mutually opposed groups of three : the 
 three radical instincts of appetite (with its 
 developments : greed, lust, passion) ; aversion 
 (with its developments : anger, hate, ma- 
 levolence, etc.) ; and delusion or dulness 
 (equivalent to ignorance, confused conscious- 
 ness). Three opposite instincts are reckoned 
 as equally radical to these, but as they 
 determine the conduct of the minority only 
 of mankind, we hear much less of them, and 
 they are, significantly enough, given in a 
 negative form — a-l6hha, a-dosa, a-moha.^ 
 In this second group, however , adosa appears 
 under its positive name as mg ffa,Jtnat is, 
 friendship, fraternal affection or love {caritas, 
 agape). And with it are prescribed, for 
 systematic meditation, the other altruistic 
 emotions of pity, or sympathy with suffering, 
 and muditd, or sympathy with happiness.^ 
 
 I know of no other groups to rank beside 
 the systematic and easily systematized 
 
 • Disinterestedness, amity, intelligence. Anguttara-N . 
 i. 134 f. Amoha is synony mous with pan nd. 
 s Ibid. iZfT " 
 
96 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 scheme of sense-consciousness, dealt with in a 
 previous chapter. The reader will, I trust, 
 not chafe at meeting these Buddhist con- 
 cepts in their original dress. It seemed the 
 least ambiguous way of showing what they 
 really sought to convey. 
 
 In the succeeding centuries, however, 
 when for a time the mental culture of India 
 became largely Buddhist, the analysis and 
 classification of states and processes of 
 consciousness became extended and more 
 explicit, as we shall see. In the venerable 
 records under consideration, we must glean 
 and infer here and there, to ascertain where- 
 in the more complex, evolved, or 'higher' 
 work of consciousness was held to consist. 
 The following characteristics of mental 
 activity, so reckoned, may carry us some 
 way towards a correct synthesis. 
 
 1. The complexity of any given chitta 
 and its resolution. — This is markedly re- 
 cognized in the opening book ^ of that 
 somewhat later collection in the Canon 
 known as the Abhidhamma-Pitaka, in which 
 the -Nikayas are frequently quoted as 
 authoritative sources. But there is an 
 interesting anticipation of the analytic pro- 
 cedure, followed in the first half of that 
 work, in the Majjhima-Nikdya.^ The Sutta 
 
 » Translated in my Bud. Psy. Ethics. Cp. below, ch. vii. 
 
 ' Vol. iii. p. 25. This was only published when my 
 translation was practically finished ; hence I have not 
 referred to it there. 
 
IDEATION 97 
 
 is termed Anupadd-Sutta or Series-Dis- 
 course, and contains an appreciation of 
 the gifts and character of Sariputta by the 
 Master. Among these, his power of intro- 
 spective analysis is referred to as "insight 
 into the sequence of mental presentations " ; 
 and it is thus illustrated : 
 
 " For instance, bhikkhus, Sariputta, aloof 
 from sensuous desires, aloof from bad ideas, 
 enters into and abides in First Jhdna, wherein 
 attention is applied and sustained, which is 
 born of solitude and filled with zest and 
 pleasurable feeling. And the presentations 
 in that First Jhdna, to wit, thinking applied 
 and sustained (vitakka, vichara), and zest 
 and pleasurable feeling (piti, sukha) and 
 singleness of object (chitt'ekaggata), and 
 contact, feeling, perception, volition, conscious- 
 ness (chitta), desire (chanda), choice, effort, 
 mindfulness, indifference, adaptation of atten- 
 tion (manasikara) — these are for him serially 
 determined; these, as they arise, are for 
 him things understood, and as they are present 
 and as they depart, are for him things under- 
 stood. He discerns : ' Verily these presenta- 
 tions that were not, have become ; having 
 become, iliey again depart.' And he with 
 regard to them abides neither drawn to, nor 
 averse from them, independent, not capti- 
 vated, but free, detached, his mind placing 
 no barriers." 
 
98 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 This sound psychological attitude is attri- 
 buted to the apostle equally in all other 
 grades of Jhana-exercises, the contents of 
 consciousness varying, and discerned as 
 varying, by one or more elements in the 
 complex, from grade to grade. And the 
 fact that in the exercise of this introspective 
 intuition Sariputta's fine intellect was dis- 
 tinguished, shows the extent to which 
 Buddhist mental science recognized that 
 work of intellection. Our manuals call it 
 self-consciousness, internal perception, or 
 the conscious relation of presentations to 
 self -presentation : the realizing that ' this 
 percept is mine,' ' / think this notion.' For 
 the Buddhist this is the way in which 
 the testimony of ignorant, untrained con- 
 sciousness exercises introspection. But for 
 the trained consciousness all introspect ion 
 is retrospection — ^a fact recognized by our 
 OwnTpsychology, though perhaps not by it 
 sufficiently exploited to explain the apparent 
 duality of subject and presentations. Thus 
 each momentary present chitta, in inEfo^ 
 spection, is a complex of a present fact and 
 past facts wrought up into it, both moment- 
 ary. Hence Sariputta ' retrospected,' but 
 with no such reference to self. And that 
 he had got beyond this illusive conscious- 
 ness of a King Ego, holding a levee of pre- 
 sentations, was a source of great satisfaction 
 to him. 
 
IDEATION 99 
 
 " Now Ananda saw Sdriputta coming afar 
 off, and . . . he said to him : ' Serene and 
 pure and radiant is your look, brother Sdri- 
 putta ! In what mood has Sdriputta been 
 to-day ? ' ' / have been alone, in Jhana, 
 brother, and to me came never the thought : 
 I am attaining it ! I have got it ! I have 
 emerged from it ! ' " ^ 
 
 For, in the Master's words : 
 
 ^^ ... It is by holding up the idea of no-self 
 with regard to all things without limit, that 
 ye can say, ' / shall well discern cause and the 
 arising of things through conditions.' " ^ 
 
 To revert : any chitta or group of chitta's. — 
 the Dhamma-Sangani uses only the singular 
 — was held to involve a number of factors, 
 a complex content, divisible into the other 
 three mental khandha's or aggregates. And 
 the trained intellect, if naturally acute, was 
 able to divide and describe its immediately 
 past complex as if it were a present, external 
 collection of material objects. I say ' trained 
 intellect,' not only with reference to the 
 power of sustaining this analytic process in 
 the detached, disinterested frame of mind 
 praised in Sariputta, not only to the absence 
 of self -reference, but also to the fact that 
 the process of internal perception implies a 
 
 * Samyutta-N. iii. 235 f. 
 
 * Anguttara-N. iii. 444. 
 
100 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 stock of classified concepts concerning states 
 of consciousness, to which the introspector, 
 in analysing, refers each phase or factor. 
 Hence under this first feature in higher 
 intellection must be reckoned : (1) an exist- 
 ing scheme of mental analysis reinstateable 
 at will ; and (2) the work of internal per- 
 ception itself, consciousness referring con- 
 sciousness not to a subject, but to partly 
 or symbolically reinstated concepts, re- 
 instated, that is, by way of the common 
 name only : " this is desire, this is choice," 
 etc. In a passage of the Potthapdda 
 Suttanta we find internal perception dis- 
 tinguished by the name of nana. To 
 Potthapada's inquiry this reply is given : 
 
 " First arises the conscious state (saiina), 
 after that nana (that is, insight concerning 
 it). The springing up of the latter is dependent 
 on the springing up of the former. Thus he 
 intuits : ' It is from this cause that nana Aas 
 arisen in me.'' " ^ 
 
 2. Intellect as a relating particulars to 
 general concepts. — ^This is what we have 
 seen commended in Sariputta. But I have 
 now in mind certain large generalizations 
 or abstract ideas, certain very general attri- 
 butes which the trained mind, in Buddhism, 
 had to discern in particulars. Prominent 
 among these were the three universals : 
 
 ^ Dlgha-N. i. 185. 
 
IDEATION 101 
 
 impermanence, ill, absence of self or soul 
 (a-niccha, dukkha, an-atta). Under these, 
 everything constituting the external world 
 and the constituents of personal being were 
 to be subsumed, or, in Buddhist idiom, 
 everything was to be contemplated qua 
 these three : aniccha-to, etc. To be capable 
 of this threefold insight as a habitual attitude 
 of mind was the supreme intellectual criterion, 
 the hall-mark of sound judgment. 
 
 To see all things as stamped with the 
 ' mark ' (lakkhana) : ' this is transient,' etc., 
 was not to be understood in the somewhat 
 flabby and non-committing sense in which 
 average folk will allow : ' Tout lasse, tout 
 passe, tout casse,'' or ' man is born to sorrow,' 
 and then ' pass by on the other side.' Nor 
 was the third judgment — ' nothing has any 
 soul or substrate ' (which is a development 
 of the first) — ^to be made from a half-way 
 stage. By this I mean, made from the 
 platform of a knowledge which has merely 
 outgrown the concepts both of primitive 
 animism, and of mediaeval interpretations of 
 Platonic realism and Aristotelian 'quiddity.' 
 This threefold insight amounted to the three 
 universal propositions : (1) that nothing in 
 life and the world as known is really per- 
 sistent save the fact of change ; (2) that 
 everything in life is, for the living sentient 
 being, " a state of peril and danger, without 
 lasting peace, security or blessing "; (3) that 
 
102 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 there is nothing in or of the living being 
 exempt from the two foregoing judgments. 
 That being so : 
 
 " Is it fitting to regard that which is im- 
 permanent, liable to suffering, having change 
 as its nature, as . . . the self, the soul of 
 me ? " ^ 
 
 If it is imagined that this is affirmed of a 
 perishable body and mind only, in other 
 words, of the five aggregates, it should be 
 noted that the early Buddhists found the 
 current notions of dtman, soul or self, in- 
 extricably identifiable, or bound up with 
 those constituents of the living being, which 
 they at least covered by their khandha- 
 category : 
 
 "All recluses and brahmins — all teachers, 
 namely, of religion — who consider the atman 
 as allocated in a variety of ways, consider that it 
 is allocated in one or other of the five aggregates 
 . . . namely, that viniiana is the soul, that 
 the soul has viiiiiana, that viniiana is in the 
 soul, that the soul is in vinnana." * 
 
 and so for the other khandhas. But 
 
 " the learned Ariyan disciple, who discerns 
 them that are Ariyans, and is trained and 
 expert in Ariyan doctrine, . . . he under- 
 
 * Samyutta-N. iii. 104, and passim. 
 ' Ibid. iii. 46, and passim 
 
IDEATION 103 
 
 stands that body and mind are impermanent, 
 are liable to suffering, are without soul." ^ 
 
 Another such standpoint of the trained 
 mind was 
 
 " clearly to see by right reason even as it 
 really is this law of causation and these matters 
 of life arising as [mutually] conditioned." ^ 
 
 (More of this in our next chapter.) 
 
 An interesting phase of this higher work 
 of intellect is seen in the contemplative 
 exercises called Brahmavihara's,^ or as we 
 might say. Sublime Occupations. A rather 
 later term was " the four Appamanna's * or 
 Infinites." This is where the intellect with 
 a strong coefficient of emotion is turned 
 from a particular to an ever-wider degree 
 of generality. The coefficient emotions pre- 
 scribed were, as stated above, love (caritas), 
 pity, sympathetic joy, lastly indifference or 
 equanimity, which was to replace this three- 
 fold succession, presumably as a bracing cor- 
 rective to any excess of sentiment. The 
 Nikayan formula runs as follows : 
 
 " Come ye, bhikkhus, expelling the jive 
 Hindrances [sensuous desire, ill-wiU, stolidity- 
 and-torpor, excitement-and-worry, perplexity, 
 nescience] and attenuating the heart's defile- 
 
 1 Samyutta-N. iii. 57. 
 
 ' Ihi'd. ii. 26. 
 
 ' Majjhima-N . i. 369 f. See above, p. 95. 
 
 • Vihhanga, 272 f. 
 
104 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ments by insight, abide ye in the suffusing of 
 one region of earth with a consciousness 
 accompanied by love ; thence the second 
 region, thence the third, the fourth. And thus 
 aloft, below, across, the entire world and all 
 that are therein do ye continue to suffuse with 
 a loving consciousness abounding, lofty, in- 
 finite, without anger or ill-will." ^ 
 
 This is repeated for each of the other 
 three coeflBcients. The exercises, according 
 to the testimony of the Nikayas/ were 
 not originally, or at least not exclusively, 
 Buddhist. They were judged indispensable 
 to the training of religious aspirants, and 
 were known to pious laymen and held to be 
 conducive to rebirth in the Brahma heaven. 
 By earnest Buddhists they were practised as 
 helps to that emancipation of heart and 
 mind from all ' hindrances ' and fetters 
 adverse to spiritual perfection.* 
 
 3. Intellect as a work of eliminating, pre- 
 scinding, selecting. — This inverse work of 
 adjusted attention was considered no less 
 important a branch of Buddhist mental 
 culture. It is explicitly recognized in the 
 Nikayas, and was systematically practised 
 in what was collectively known as samddhi, 
 or concentrative meditation, or also as 
 adhichitta, or higher consciousness.* Here 
 
 ^ Samyutta-N. v. 115 f. * Ibid. 
 
 » PafisambMda-magga, vol. ii. pp. 1 30 f . Metta-katha. 
 
 * Anguttara-N. i. 236 f. 
 
IDEATION 105 
 
 again emancipation, the freedom of self- 
 mastery, was the platform to be won, 
 ' object, pith and goal,' as it was, of the 
 higher life.^ Samddhi is sometimes made to 
 include the exercises just described.^ And it 
 is clear that to develop a concept in generality, 
 in abstractness, the elimination of the con- 
 crete, of the particular, must proceed pari 
 passu. 
 
 But the emphasis in samddhi is that of con- 
 centration, of an intensive attention, which 
 can only be got by throwing overboard, into 
 the sea of things disregarded and negligible, 
 everything that is irrelevant and distracting 
 to the single apex of thought (chitf ek-aggatd), 
 which is the equivalent term to samddhi.^ 
 Not only were objects of thought, presenta- 
 tions, percepts, etc., to be ejected, but the 
 attitude, mood, movement of consciousness 
 were to be regulated and modified deliber- 
 ately. A dialogue between the Buddha and 
 one of his leading disciples, Anuruddha, 
 eminent for ' celestial vision,' a sort of 
 ' second sight,' reveals this in some detail : 
 
 " ' Have you three, Anuruddha, leading this 
 life, zealous, ardent and strenuous, experienced 
 supernormal states, extraordinary Ariyan 
 knowledge and insight, happiness ? ' 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 197 ; cp. Anguttara-N. ii. 26. 
 « Samyutta-N. iv. 350 ff. 
 
 'Ibid. V. 21, 198, 225, 268; cp. Dhamma-sangaij.i 
 {Bud. Psy. Ethics), §§ 11, 15. 
 
106 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " ' We have perceived, lord, both an aurky 
 and a vision of forms. But lately these have 
 all vanished and we do not attain to the after- 
 image.'' 
 
 " 'But this is what you three must attain to. 
 I too, indeed, before I became wholly enlightened 
 and Buddha, perceived both aura and vision 
 of forms. And then in my case too they 
 vanished. So I pondered over the cause of 
 this and discerned that concentration had 
 left me, and hence the vision. Also that 
 my concentration had been dispersed through 
 access of doubt, then by want of attention, then 
 by sloth and torpor, then by dread, then by 
 elation, then by slackness, then by trying too 
 much, then by sluggishness of effort, then by 
 longing, then by awareness of differences. 
 And to me continuing zealous, ardent and 
 strenuous, came perception of aura and vision 
 of forms. But they soon vanished again, 
 because I contemplated the forms too closely. 
 . . . Then I beheld the aura, but not the 
 forms . . . then the forms, not the aura . . . 
 then I beheld the one as immense, the others 
 as small, and inversely. Finally, I judged 
 that my shortcomings in concentration were 
 varieties of vitiated consciousness, and that, 
 these being all got rid of, I would practise three- 
 fold concentration, to wit, applying attention 
 and sustaining it, sustaining attention without 
 applying it afresh, and concentration without 
 
 » Obhasa, luminance. 
 
IDEATION 107 
 
 attention in either way. And I concentrated 
 with rapture, and without it, with delight, 
 and with indifference. And then in me, 
 with concentration so practised, lo ! there 
 arose the knowledge and the insight that 
 my emancipation was sure, that this was 
 my last life, that now there was no more 
 rebecoming.' " ^ 
 
 The more usual process of systematic 
 elimination of factors in consciousness was 
 that known as the Four Jhanas. Jhana 
 (Sanskrit, Dhydna), or ecstatic musing, was 
 a practice of unknown antiquity, akin to 
 what is generally termed Yoga. It is no- 
 where claimed in the Nikayas as devised 
 by, or peculiar to the founders of Buddhism. 
 But no branch of mental culture appears 
 oftener in the Suttas than this, or is more 
 frequently prescribed for all serious study. 
 I wrote several years ago,'' that the psycho- 
 logy of Jhana would one day come to evoke 
 considerable interest. I believe that the 
 ' day ' is much nearer now, and further, 
 that to what extent Jhana is still practised 
 in Buddhist monasticism, and to what 
 extent proficients in it become accessible 
 to inquiry, the medical psychology of to-day 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. iii. 157 f. I have considerably con- 
 densed the text. ' Practised ' is literally ' made-to-become,' 
 developed. Cp. Compendium, 65 f. 
 
 » Bud. Psy. Ethics, Ixxxviii. 
 
108 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 will find interesting material.^ But I have 
 nothing to add to the little outline there 
 given of the process by which the Jhana 
 state was apparently brought about. That 
 process was of the kind known, I believe, 
 to hypnotism as auto-suggestion. There 
 was no question of a subject placing a con- 
 sciousness rendered as passive as possible 
 at the disposal of another strongly volitional 
 consciousness, as in what used to be called 
 mesmerism. The jhdyin did not include 
 a cataleptic condition in his programme 
 save as an ultimate stage, not belonging 
 to the so-called Four Jhanas, but to a four- 
 or fivefold sequel of ' Arupa-Jlianas,' only 
 attempted by experts, and as a final test 
 or step to complete self-mastery and sancti- 
 fication ( — ^to call in a Christian term).^ On 
 the contrary, he was intensely conscious, 
 but in prescribed, artificially induced ways. 
 These, taken collectively, consisted in arti- 
 ficially intensifying that natural mental 
 process, whereby the mind concentrates it- 
 self wholly, at the expense of general, many- 
 sided alertness and awareness.' 
 
 There was first intense attention by way 
 of ' an exclusive sensation ' — I believe it 
 was Condillac who so defined attention. 
 
 1 I have unfortunately not seen a brochure on the 
 subject bjr Surgeon-Major E. Rost (Rangoon). 
 
 » Majjhima-N. iii. 28 ; Anguttara-N. iv. 456. 
 
 " On the ' absence of mind ' attained in jhana, see 
 Dialogues, ii. 141 f. 
 
IDEATION 109 
 
 This was to be entered on after securing 
 physical conditions as far as possible free 
 from discomfort and disturbance, and with 
 elimination of every kind of activity of 
 body and of mind, save that of reacting 
 to the bare sensation. After a time that 
 reaction would practically cease, the wearied 
 sense giving out. Change, indispensable to 
 consciousness, has been eliminated, for the 
 self-hypnotizer must not vary his source of 
 sensations. Meanwhile the sensuous source, 
 mark, or symbol is replaced by a repre- 
 sentation of it, the percept by a correspond- 
 ing image. So much is reckoned as pre- 
 liminary or preparatory process. The image 
 then becomes conceptualized or de-individ- 
 ualized and it is then, apparently, that a 
 ' subjective sensation ' of luminance or ' aura ' 
 is alleged to become felt,^ and the subject 
 experiences the supernormal consciousness 
 of Jhana proper, with or without its flashes 
 of ecstasy,^ 
 
 The Nikayas nowhere describe the pre- 
 liminary process in detail, and the very 
 terms for the stages of it (such as pari- 
 kamma, upachdra, etc.), belong to later 
 books. But the list of material devices 
 or kasind's — artifices I have called them 
 — for inducing Jhana by prolonged gazing, 
 occur in these older books. They are 
 
 ^ Cp. Yogavacara's Manual, ed. Rhys Davids, p. xi. 
 *Cfompendium, 55. 
 
110 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 stated as ten in number ; those usually 
 quoted being a portion of earth, a flame, 
 or a colour.^ The psychological interest of 
 the process lies in the gradual elimination 
 of certain factors of consciousness. The 
 formulas run invariably thus : 
 
 " When, aloof from sensuous ideas, aloof 
 from evil ideas, he enters into and abides in 
 First Jhdna, wherein attention is applied and 
 sustained (sa-vitakka, sa-vichara), which is 
 born of solitude and filled with zest and 
 pleasant emotion; when next, from the sub- 
 siding of attention applied and sustained, 
 he enters into and abides in Second Jhdna, 
 which is inward tranquillizing of the mind, 
 self-contained and uplifted from the working 
 of attention, is born of concentration, full of 
 zest and pleasurable emotion ; when next, 
 through the quenching of zest, he abides with 
 equal mind, mindful and discerning, ex- 
 periencing in the body that pleasure whereof 
 the Ariyans declare : ' Happy doth he abide 
 with even, lucid mind, and so enters into and 
 abides in Third Jhdna ' ; when next, by putting 
 away both pleasant and painful emotion, 
 by the dying out of the joy and misery he 
 used to know, he enters into and abides in 
 Fourth Jhdna, that utterly pure lucidity and 
 indifference of mind, wherein is neither happi- 
 
 • Anguttara-N. i. 201 ; v. 46 ; Majjhima-N. ii. 14 ; 
 Digha-N. iii. 268. 
 
IDEATION 111 
 
 ness nor unhappiness — this is the training of 
 the higher consciousness." ^ 
 
 Here we have a gradual composure and 
 coUeetedness of consciousness gradually 
 brought about by the deliberate elimina- 
 tion of : (1) the restless, discursive work of 
 intellect, seeking likenesses and differences, 
 establishing relations, forming conclusions ; 
 (2) the expansive suffusion of zest, keen 
 interest, creative joy ; (3) all hedonistic 
 consciousness. 
 
 The residual content of consciousness is, 
 in the formula, admitted to be (a) a sort of 
 sublimated or clarified sati, an intensified 
 inward vision or intuition, such as a god 
 or spirit might conceivably be capable of ; 
 (b) indifference or equanimity, also godlike. 
 This would be that neutral point of feeling, 
 discussed in a former chapter, inclining 
 from its equilibrium to pain at ignorance, 
 and to pleasure at knowledge. And though 
 pleasure is eliminated, the Jhana-practice is 
 spoken of collectively as belonging to happi- 
 ness.^ " Attainment in Jhana," writes Mr. 
 S. Z. Aung, " is a very important psycho- 
 logical moment, marking an epoch in his 
 mental experience for the person who suc- 
 
 » Anguttara-N. i. 235, cf. 53 ; Digha-N. iii. 222, and 
 passim in the Nikayas. The last clause is peculiar to 
 the first reference. 
 
 » Digha-N. iii. 78 ; Anguttara-N. ii. 36, 87, passim. 
 
112 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ceeds in commanding it. He has for the first 
 time in his life tasted something unlike 
 anything he has ever experienced before. 
 The feeling is simply indescribable. He 
 feels an entirely changed person, purged 
 from the Hindrances. He is living a new, 
 higher life, the life of a god of the heavens 
 called Rupa [or Vision],^ experiencing the 
 consciousness believed to be habitual there." ^ 
 I place on record these testimonies, ancient 
 and modern, much as another might write of 
 the alleged rapture enjoyed through the 
 best European music, who himself was 
 incapable of experiencing it. The contents 
 of this sublimated Jhana - consciousness, 
 though severely pruned, do not appear to 
 have been entirely, if at all, unearthly. It 
 was usual for a disciple to ask his master 
 for a theme, perhaps only a pregnant word 
 or two, on which he might practise solitary 
 meditation. And in the Vibhanga, the second 
 book of Abhidhamma, the Jhana-formula 
 appears again and again with some such 
 word inserted after each stage of Jhana : 
 e.g. love, or emptiness {viz. of soul) ; or 
 again it might be one of the exercises in 
 will, included in what came to be called the 
 37 factors of enlightenment.' Such a co- 
 
 » It is conceived that in the heavens least remote from 
 our sphere of being, sense is limited to vision and sound. 
 ' Compendium, p. 57. 
 » lUd. 179 f. ; Dialogues of the Buddha, ii. 129. 
 
IDEATION 113 
 
 efficient in the abnormal ' clearness of 
 mind ' ^ — a clarity to which mystics ancient 
 and modern have testified — ^was not neces- 
 sarily a matter for discursive or toiling 
 intellection. Jhana-consciousness, after the 
 first stage, was beyond all that. It 
 would continue to hold the notion in 
 a species of penetrative contemplation, or 
 intuitive beholding and comprehension. 
 Thereafter, when normal consciousness 
 recurred, it would be more strongly per- 
 meated than before with that notion, 
 from the effect of this injection at high 
 pressure. 
 
 A feature in the Jhana-practice of the 
 Nikayas — I am not competent to assert as 
 much either for modern Buddhism or 
 Vedantist Yoga — ^is the frequent and sys- 
 tematic recourse to it. It was for the 
 brethren and sisters of the Order, what to 
 all religious Christians, especially to those 
 engaged in a religious calling, is the sacra- 
 ment of the Eucharist — a function the 
 psychology of which is curiously ignored in 
 James's Varieties.'^ I have seen letters re- 
 vealing some slight resemblance to Jhana- 
 consciousness at a first, or other communion, 
 
 * Tennyson's testimony, supplied by Tyndall: " By God 
 Almighty ! There is no delusion in the matter ! It is no 
 nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, 
 associated with absolute clearness of mind." Cp. the poem, 
 ' Two Voices ' ; W. James's Varieties of Religious 
 Experience, pp. 384 ff. ^ See op. cit. 
 
 8 
 
114 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 And there is a similar careful preparation 
 of the ' heart ' previous to communicating, 
 as in the self -purging of the ' hindrances,' of 
 the sensuous and immoral dispositions obli- 
 gatory on a sincere disciple. No less, also, 
 than communion was Jhana practised, and 
 with mystic, if not moral, success by those 
 who were morally unworthy, though mystic- 
 ally predisposed. Jhana was not end, but 
 means, and not the only or indispensable 
 means. But where the supernormal fits and 
 flashes of other mystics are, by recorded 
 testimony, fitful and rare, and not systematic- 
 ally led up to, Jhana-consciousness would 
 seem to have been habitually and voluntarily 
 induced, if perhaps with varying degrees of 
 success {samdpatti). There was of course 
 this deep cleavage between it and the 
 eucharistic consciousness, that the self was 
 banished, and no sense of union with the 
 divine One, or any One, aimed at or felt. 
 Herein too the Buddhist differs from the 
 Vedantist, who sought to realize identity with 
 Atman, that is, the identity of the World-soul 
 and his own self or atman — ' Tat tvam asi ' 
 (That art thou). Alone the jhdyin sat, but 
 he did not ' flee alone to the Alone ' exactly 
 as did Plotinus. 
 
 And so far as such mystic sense of union 
 implies passivity, Jhana-consciousness is not 
 on all-fours with most mysticism. To allude 
 again to James's analysis ; it has the essen- 
 
IDEATION 115 
 
 tial noetic quality too strongly to permit of 
 passivity as a constant. Intellect and voli- 
 tion, for Buddhist thought, are hardly dis- 
 tinguishable,^ and the jhdyin seems to be 
 always master of himself and self-possessed, 
 even in ecstasy, even to the deliberate 
 falling into and emerging (as by a spiritual 
 alarum - clock) from trance. There is a 
 synergy about his Jhana, combined with 
 an absence of any reference whatever to a 
 merging or melting into something greater, 
 that for many may reveal defect, but which 
 is certainly a most interesting and significant 
 difference. 
 
 Of James's other two qualities of mystic 
 consciousness — transiency and ineffability 
 — ^the former is markedly true concerning 
 the momentary ecstasy of attainment or 
 appand, as also concerning the realiza- 
 tion of great spiritual elevation generally. 
 Touching the 'Fruit' of each 'Path' of 
 spiritual progress appears to have been a 
 momentary {khanika) flash of insight. As 
 to the latter, ineffability, it is also true that 
 we find no attempts by brethren who were 
 expert at Jhana, e.g. Anuruddha, Revata 
 the Doubter, or Subhuti of the ' love-jhana,' ^ 
 to enter in detail into their abnormal ex- 
 periences. The first-named Thera comes 
 nearest : 
 
 • See above : chitta, cheto, chintd, chetand. 
 
 • Psalms of the Brethren, cclvi., iii., i. 
 
116 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " In fivefold, concentrated ecstasy (samadhi) 
 My heart goes up in peace and unity. 
 Serene composure have I made my own; 
 My vision as a god's is clarified. 
 I know the destinies of other lives : 
 Whence beings come and whither they do go; 
 Life here below, or other-where of life — 
 Steadfast and rapt, in fivefold Jhana sunk. " * 
 
 But although this celestial perspective is 
 a staple article in saintly experience as 
 recorded by the Nikayas, and has a formula 
 of its own, no seer ever gives it local habita- 
 tion or actuality for mundane perception. 
 Language is everywhere too much the 
 creature and product of our fivefold world 
 of sense, with a varying coefficient of 
 motor consciousness, to be of much use 
 in describing consciousness that has ap- 
 parently got beyond the range of sense and 
 local movement. Even in non-spatial per- 
 ception of melody, we have to borrow from 
 our sense of gravitational resistance over- 
 come, and to speak of rising and falling. 
 Possibly, moreover, the symbols of com- 
 munication, of description, become still 
 harder to find for minds, whose articulate 
 medium is not made rich and wieldy through 
 familiarity with written words. Super- 
 normal vision itself, on the other hand, might 
 conceivably be stronger, freer, more access- 
 ible, in the absence of a bookish memory. 
 But this point, though it may be relevant, 
 
 ' Psalms of the Brethren, verses 916 f. 
 
IDEATION 117 
 
 I do not press. Many spheres of being, 
 varying in remoteness, otherness, inaccessi- 
 bility to his own earthly span of life, were 
 very present to the Buddhist imagination. 
 And denizens of the remoter, quasi -immaterial 
 Brahma-spheres are represented as having 
 to materialize in order to become perceptible 
 to celestials less remote, let alone to human 
 beings {Dialogues, ii. 244). 
 
 These remoter spheres were collectively 
 called A-ritpaloka, or Arupdvachara, world 
 or sphere of the invisible or formless. Here 
 there was life without instruments of sense 
 or corporeality. And to attain, while yet 
 on earth, to any conception (perception was 
 impossible) amounting to experience of a 
 sphere, which was not spatial in a literal 
 sense, there were four stages of Arupa- 
 jhdna, showing also an interesting, if very 
 vague psychology. Elimination was now, not 
 of factors of consciousness, — ^the clarity and 
 the equanimity remain, — but of all conscious- 
 ness of detail or of limitations, thus : 
 
 (1) "A bhikkhu, by passing beyond the 
 consciousness of form, by putting an end 
 to the sense of resistance, by paying no 
 heed to the idea of distinctions, at the 
 thought : ' Space is infinite ! ' attains to 
 and abides in the conceptual sphere of 
 space as infinite. For him his previous 
 consciousness of things visible passes away, 
 and there arises in him then the blissful 
 
118 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 consciousness, subtle yet actual, of an infinite 
 sensation of space. 
 
 (2) "Again, a bhikkhu, having wholly 
 transcended the sensation of infinite space, 
 at the thought : ' Infinite is consciousness ! ' 
 attains to and abides in the conceptual 
 sphere of consciousness as infinite. For 
 him the previous consciousness, subtle yet 
 actual, of a conceptual sphere of space as 
 infinite passes away. And he then becomes 
 conscious only of a concept, subtle yet 
 actual, of consciousness as infinite. 
 
 (3) " Again, having wholly transcended the 
 conceptual sphere of consciousness as infinite, 
 at the thought : ' There is nothing ! ' he 
 attains to and abides in the conceptual 
 sphere of nothingness. For him the previous 
 consciousness, subtle yet actual, of a con- 
 ceptual sphere of consciousness as infinite 
 passes away. And he then becomes con- 
 scious only of a concept, subtle yet actual, 
 of infinite nothingness.^ 
 
 (4) "... Having wholly transcended the 
 sphere of nothingness, he attains to and 
 abides in the sphere of neither-percipience- 
 nor-non-percipience." ^ 
 
 After this either the subject emerged 
 
 1 Here the mediaeval explanation is that the preceding 
 stage of consciousness was discerned as, in reality, 
 ' nothing ' — an unsatisfactory exegesis, as it stands. 
 
 ' Cp. Dialogues, i. 249 f. with ii. ii8f. passim in the 
 Four Nikayas. The second reference gives similar 
 samadhi exercises. 
 
IDEATION 119 
 
 from Jhana, or proceeded to fall into trance, 
 perception and feeling ceasing. 
 
 On the fourth phase of quasi-unconscious- 
 ness, Buddhaghosa remarks : " [One might 
 say] neither consciousness, nor etc. etc., as 
 well as 'neither percipience, etc.,' so subtle 
 and delicately faint is the consciousness." ^ 
 We seem, in fact, to have come upon another 
 limiting or zero-point, as was the case in 
 ' neutral feeling.' 
 
 These curious and vague fetches of imagi- 
 nation may appeal in no way to modern 
 readers, nevertheless they are serially, and 
 in succession to the other four Jhanas, 
 pronounced by the Buddha to be each a yet 
 more exquisite happiness than its predecessor. 
 This attribution is even made with regard 
 to the final trance, the Teacher remarking, 
 in reply to sceptics, that if no happiness 
 could be affirmed of such a state, his state- 
 ment was not made with respect to merely 
 pleasant feeling, but with respect to any 
 occasion whence happiness may be obtained.' 
 Happiness is here evidently taken in the 
 larger moral or spiritual sense, comple- 
 mentary to that wider sense in which, as we 
 saw, dukkha might be used. If happiness 
 was involved as a result of practising self- 
 hypnotism and trance, happiness was, so 
 far, associated with, and predicable of, that 
 practice. 
 
 » Sumangala-Vildsini, ii. ' Samyutta-N. iv. 227 f. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Psychology or the Nikayas — 
 continued 
 
 IV. IDEATION — continued 
 
 4. Growth of intellect a vision of objects 
 under the causal relation. — There is a wealth 
 of terms in Pali and Sanskrit for knowledge 
 under the aspects both of process and of 
 product, for which it is hard to find a corre- 
 sponding abundance of, at least, English 
 equivalents. We too have words from the 
 metaphors of sight, access, grasp and piercing, 
 and indeed have better exploited 'light.' 
 But Buddhist philosophy has not only com- 
 mandeered the acts of waking (budh) and 
 turning-towards {d-vaj, adverting), but has 
 nearly a dozen words built on the proper 
 ' know '-stems alone {jan, vid). And the 
 question for the student of Buddhist psy- 
 chology arises : how far does the greater 
 richness of Buddhist intellectual nomen- 
 clature correspond to a greater manifold in 
 modes of knowing or of knowledge ? 
 
 There are even, in that psychology, terms 
 for cognitive states which have a time co- 
 
IDEATION 121 
 
 efficient, implicative of either confident 
 expectation or assured attainment. These 
 are, respectively : ' consciousness - that - 1 - 
 shall-know-the-unknown ' (ananndta-n-nassd- 
 mltindriya) and ' consciousness of gnosis ' 
 {annindriya)} (The affix ' indriya,' here 
 rendered by ' consciousness,' is literally 
 power or faculty or ability, used in that 
 general way in which we employ the word 
 ' sense,' but with a more dynamic import.) 
 They are technical terms of spiritual experi- 
 ence. The former describes the mind of the 
 convert, or, to revert to technical terms, of 
 one who has reached the stream (sot-dpanna). 
 The latter term describes this mind as, 'going 
 from strength to strength,' he attains each 
 successive degree in the way to saintship. 
 Final fruition involves a third technical 
 term : anndtdvindriya, the consciousness of 
 him who has gnosis, who has come to know. 
 More usually the consciousness of deepen- 
 ing power of intellection and, to speak in 
 spatial terms, of a widening perspective, 
 is expressed by the help of one of two 
 adverbs : yoniso and yathdbhutam. These 
 have, both of them, the secondary meaning 
 of ' thoroughly ' and ' genuinely.' But in 
 their literal sense they mean respectively 
 ' from the source, or matrix,' and ' as [it 
 has] become.' We approximate to this 
 
 ^ Digha-N. iii, 219; Samyutta-N. v. 204; Bud. Psy. 
 Ethics, pp. 86, 97. 
 
122 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 intensive force of import in the word ' radical,' 
 and in the expression, made classical by 
 Matthew Arnold, " seeing things as in them- 
 selves they really are." This cumbrous 
 phrase cannot match the latter of the two 
 Pali terms either in conciseness, or in genetic 
 emphasis. But Arnold was not to blame 
 for a weak spot in his native tongue, nor 
 for the unfortunate conditions, whatever 
 they were, which resulted in our dropping 
 the strong term weorffan, and cheapening 
 its weak substitute ' to become.' The 
 makers and the heirs of modern French and 
 modern German were more fortunate, or 
 sounder in their thinking than we, when 
 they preserved this most precious instru- 
 ment of philosophic insight, the power of 
 which was felt by Hegel, and is now being 
 exploited by Prof. Bergson. 
 
 The full causative force of the two terms 
 was doubtless lost, for Buddhists, by con- 
 ventional usage. And yet I write the last 
 phrase hesitatingly, for whereas they claim 
 nothing novel in the use of them, it is not 
 without significance that neither term is 
 pre-Buddhistic in the sense lent them in 
 the Nikayas. Nor are they a feature in 
 Vedantist or in Jain literature.^ As ex- 
 pressions qualifying a certain depth and 
 
 * Yathabhutam appears at least once in the Mahahharata 
 (iii. 12070), which as a complete compilation is much 
 later than the Nikayas. 
 
IDEATION 123 
 
 direction of intellectual consciousness they 
 are emphatically Buddhist. A nd since fo r 
 Buddhism to know thoroughly was to know 
 under the causal relation,-— was to know by 
 way of judgments relating eff ect with cause, 
 ^z:f[\g__%doptidn of just these two qualifying 
 phrases for sucElntellection as was de emed 
 admirable, is full of interest 
 
 Work-in-mind {mandsikdra) which was not 
 yoniso led to muddled results.* Coupled 
 with ' the voice of another ' it became the 
 joint agent in arousing greed, hate and 
 error. ^ But yoniso-manasikdra was essential 
 to the prevention or suppression of the 
 ' hindrances ' of sensual desire, malevolence, 
 sloth, distraction and doubt,* and to the 
 inducing of the loftier spiritual qualities.* 
 It was the hall-mark of religious ' distinc- 
 tion,' * and, when coupled with endeavour 
 which was also yoniso, resulted in the winning 
 of 'emancipation.'* From yoniso-mana- 
 sikdra, as the root, springs joy, thence zest, 
 thence composure, thence happiness, thence 
 concentration ; concentrated, we see and 
 know things as they have become {yathd- 
 hhutam) ; thus seeing and knowing, distaste 
 arises, thence passionlessness, thence free- 
 dom.' Yathdhhutam is constantly used to 
 
 » Samyutta-N . i. 203. ' Anguttara-N. i. 87. 
 
 " Samyutta-N. v. 85, 102 ; Anguttara-N. i. J, 13. 
 
 * Ibid. i. 14. ' Dfgha-N. iii. 273. 
 
 • Samyutta-N. i. 105. ' Digha-N. iii. 288. 
 
124 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 qualify verbs of cognition corresponding to 
 the nouns given on the preceding page ; and 
 there is no doctrine or view of importance 
 which is not declared to be thoroughly 
 understood when it is ' known and seen,' 
 discerned, comprehended, and so forth, ' as 
 it really has become, by right insight." 
 And that there was from the outset a 
 conscious association between this phrase, 
 as merely conveying emphasis, and the 
 belief in Universal Becoming — a belief which 
 finds formulation under the doctrines of 
 Impermanence, Non-soul and Causal Genesis 
 — appears clearly in the important ' Great 
 Sutta of the Destruction of Craving.' * Here 
 the Buddha is represented as rehearsing, in 
 an emphatic and detailed catechism, the 
 doctrine that mind (vinndna) has become 
 (bhutam) through assignable conditions (in 
 other words, that consciousness arises at 
 any moment from a cause), and having come 
 to be is liable to cease. And ' he who by 
 right insight discerns this as it has become,^ 
 or ' really,' can entertain no doubts as to 
 whether mind is or is not perduring, im- 
 mortal, and so forth. 
 
 That_Buddhism was so seriously insistent 
 oiT true or" "ETgher cognition being the ap- 
 perc eption of things in a causal perspective, 
 is~jP ^ not to a genuinely scientific stand - 
 
 1 Cp. the references in Samyutta-N. vi. 8i, 82 (Index). 
 ' Majjhima-N . i. 260 ; cp. Samyutta-N . ii. 48. 
 
IDEATION 125 
 
 poin t, bu t to its pragmatic_^arnestness. 
 "Its central theme was reIease~Tronmi~6r 
 dukkha through a right understanding of 
 dukkha. It diagnosed in order to cure. 
 
 " How does one discern as-it-has-really- 
 come-to-be both the genesis and the passing 
 away of all dukkha-phenomena ?" ^ 
 
 It may be judged that in this section we 
 have strayed from psychological territory 
 in discussing, not what Buddhists thought 
 about ' knowing,' but what they thought 
 about ' knowing well.' Rightly or wrongly, 
 however, the inclusion has been done de- 
 liberately — sampajdna. 
 
 5. Intuition, insight, supernormal con- 
 sciousness, — The chief intellectual result in 
 the concentrative exercises discussed above 
 was a superlative clarity of mind, untroubled 
 by either discursive intellection or hedonistic 
 affection. Apart from any context, this 
 might be read as a prescription for a rest-cure 
 for overwrought minds, or as the pursuit of 
 the ends known to philosophy as Quietism, 
 Apatheia, Ataraxia. But the Jhana-process, 
 as met with in the longer Suttas, is usually 
 found to lead up to no static poise of in- 
 tellectual vacuity, but to a number of 
 states, either serial, or alternative, of what 
 may be called abnormal synergy — a term I 
 follow Henry Maudsley in borrowing from 
 
 • Samyutta-N. iv. i88 ; Anguttara-N. i. 173 f. 
 
126 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 medicine — so clearly is the state of con- 
 sciousness said to be induced by voluntary 
 intellection or will : 
 
 " With consciousness ^ thus concentrated 
 [in Fourth Jhana), made pure, translucent, 
 cleared, void of defilement, made supple, 
 wieldy, firm, imperturbable, he applies and 
 bends-over the mind ^ to knowledge and vision." 
 
 The possible alternative or serial states 
 that might then be induced are described 
 under eight heads, six of them being in- 
 tuitive, and two being, if I may so say, 
 kinetic : 
 
 (1) Discernment of the interrelation be- 
 tween body and mind ' clearly revealed, as 
 when the purity of a fine gem is being properly 
 seen owing to its being threaded on a string. 
 
 (2) Supernormal hearing of sounds, voices, 
 both human and celestial, the distant be- 
 coming near. 
 
 (3) Discernment of another person's con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 (4) Reminiscence of former lives : " He 
 recalls several previous sojournings, namely, 
 one or more rebirths ... in such a place 
 such was my name . . . family . . . term of 
 life ... as if a man were to travel and, on 
 
 » Dialogues, i. 86 f. ' Consciousness, mind=cAttta. 
 
 ' ViMdtfa. The simile, of course, illustrates not the 
 interrelation, but the discernment. 
 
IDEATION 127 
 
 coming home, should know where he had 
 been and what he had done." 
 
 (5) Supernormal vision, or discernment of 
 the destinies of beings deceasing and being 
 reborn, " faring according to their deeds 
 . , . just as a man from a balcony might 
 watch persons entering or leaving the house, 
 walking along the streets, seated at the 
 cross-roads ; and would know whither each 
 was bound." 
 
 (6) Discernment and conscious extirpa- 
 tion of the influence of sense-desires, desire 
 for rebirth, and of the mental obfuscation 
 of ignorance. (These are likened to in- 
 toxicating drugs, or dsdva's, and a fourth, 
 speculative opinion, came to be added 
 generally.) "As if from the bank of a 
 mountain tarn of water, clear, translucent, 
 serene, one were to look down and discern 
 the shells, the fishes and the pebbly bottom." 
 
 (7) Evoking or creating a phantom body 
 (literally, ' made of mind '), the double of 
 one's own body. 
 
 (8) Supernormal locomotion, or move- 
 ments in which gravitation and opacity 
 ceased to obstruct. 
 
 The last two are the usual phenomena of 
 what, in Buddhist literature, is termed 
 iddhi, a word meaning to stir, set in move- 
 ment, and secondarily, to do so successfully, 
 to have wrought. The second mode came 
 to be called ' iddhi by fixation of resolve ' 
 
128 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 {adhitthdnd-iddhi). No further record is here 
 practicable of what these older texts say 
 concerning them. It is only to be added 
 that there was no belief in a ' soul ' leaving 
 the body temporarily, as the jhdyin sat 
 ' rapt ' in trance, or nearly so. We nowhere 
 read of a comatose body, whose mental 
 factors were arguing with angels, or else- 
 where active. But it seemed to be claimed 
 for the saint of old, that he had trained 
 himself to such efferent power of synergy, 
 that he could convert the momentary succes- 
 sions called chitta into body, or vice versa. 
 
 Not even Buddhaghosa's account of iddhi 
 and its induction is adequate to give us 
 outsiders much insight into its working, or 
 its psychology. Supernormal consciousness 
 in genius or any other mode can only be 
 testified to by the person so gifted, and 
 must always elude self-analysis. Self-con- 
 sciousness is necessarily at zero. The entire 
 vitality, mental and bodily, is engaged in 
 the making, the poiesis, whether it be the 
 synthesis of a new induction, the sympathy 
 of aesthetic creation, or the synergy of super- 
 normally adjusted action. The 'what ' of 
 experience is recollected, but not the ' how.' 
 This holds for all the other six in the series. 
 
 With regard to reminiscence (4), cases of 
 which, it has been claimed, occur, without 
 jhdna, now and then in the East of to-day, 
 among children, such an achievement may 
 
roEATION 129 
 
 be as consistently upheld by a pious Buddhist, 
 as by any one who combined acceptance of 
 it with belief in an immortal ego or soul. 
 This may be made clearer in my concluding 
 chapter. But with regard to the achieve- 
 ment of it by the adult consciousness of the 
 Arahant or one nearly so, and only in Jhana, 
 Prof. Bergson's discussions on memory are 
 strikingly suggestive.^ ^iven our ' whole 
 past ever about us ' in the unknown spaceless 
 working of mind in time, on which we cannot 
 look back as we might, because life forces 
 the forward view in us; given too the 
 ' racial attention ' to life grown weak, the 
 desires and prospects in it interesting us 
 no more, whether by impending death, or 
 from the deliberate renunciation of all they offer 
 now and hereafter, as life — can we not see 
 that, in the light of this flooding in of the 
 past for one who is ending life, and who is 
 also convinced that his past includes infinitely 
 many lives, his remembrance of that past 
 becomes a lengthened vista ? Such was the 
 Arahant's (abnormal) lack of personal forward 
 view on life; and who can say that his 
 retrospect was not also abnormal ? 
 
 Of these eight attainments in insight and 
 will, numbers 2-6 and 8 came to be known 
 as the six super-knowledges (abhi-nnd). And 
 on the whole body of them, the name of 
 
 1 Cp. e.g. his recent address : Proceedings, Psychical 
 Research Society, 19 13. 
 
 9 
 
130 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 vijjd (Sanskrit, vidyd), or more usually 
 pannd, was conferred,^ more properly pannd- 
 kkhandha, or body of intellectual (attain- 
 ment). Pawrea- vision, again, was of a wider 
 or higher implication than the special 
 supernormal ' vision ' : 
 
 " The eye of flesh, the eye divine, 
 And eye of insight, best of all." * 
 
 And a fourth variety is sometimes mentioned : 
 eye of truth, or insight into the nature of 
 things.' 
 
 Nevertheless so protean and flexible is 
 the term pannd, that it is used not only 
 for intuitive knowledge, but for any exercise 
 of intelligence, if only that intelligence is 
 being intelligently exercised. The synonyms 
 by which it is defined in the Abhidhamma- 
 Pitaka embrace nearly every aspect of cogni- 
 tion, from research and analysis to insight.* 
 As a mental complex it is classed with the 
 sankhdra aggregate ; as a cognitive process 
 it is thus compared with the more general 
 term vinndna : 
 
 " ' What is it to have panna .? ' 'To dis- 
 cern (pajanati) the method of the Four 
 Truths.' ' What is vinnana ? ' ' Being con- 
 scious, for instance, of pleasure or pain or 
 
 » Dialogues, i. 124, 236 ; cp. 62, n. i. 
 « Iti-vuttdka, § 61 (Fifth Nikaya). ' Eye divine ' was 
 the usual name for supernormal vision (3). 
 
 » Dialogues, i. 95. * Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 16, 
 
Ideation isi 
 
 neutral feeling.' ' Are the two mutually 
 involved or separate ? And is it possible, 
 considering them apart, to declare that they 
 are different ? ' ' That is not possible ; they 
 are mutually involved. What one discerns, of 
 that one is aware ; of what one is aware, it is 
 this that one discerns.' ' What distinguishes 
 them then ? ' ' Panna is to be developed ; 
 vinnana is to he understood.' " 
 
 Feeling and perception are also stated to 
 be bound up with, and not different from, 
 vinnana or consciousness. Then : 
 
 " What is cognizable by representative con- 
 sciousness (manoviniiana) when it is detached 
 from the five senses and attains entire clarity 
 {i.e. in the fourth stage of Jhana) ? " 
 
 The answer gives three of the four ulterior 
 Jhanas enumerated above, pp. 117 f. 
 
 " And by what does one discern (pajanati) 
 cognizable idea ? By the eye of panna. But 
 what is [here] the meaning of paniia ? Panna 
 means higher knowledge (abhiiiiia), complete 
 knowledge (pari-nna), elimination (pahana)." ^ 
 
 " All are modes of knowing," comments 
 Buddhaghosa, only the prefix differs. He 
 then, by a simile which he much fancied,^ 
 
 1 Majjhima-N. i. 292 f . : dialoguCj already quoted be- 
 tween Maha-kotthita and Sariputta. See above, p. 52. 
 ' Used in three of his works. 
 
132 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 compares sannd, vinndna, pannd to the 
 different reaction provoked, at sight of the 
 precious metals, in a child, a citizen, and a 
 metalliirgical expert. The first sees in them 
 coloured objects ; the second sees also in 
 them tokens representing utilities to be 
 got ; the third is also able to judge as 
 to their origin and their fashioner. Thus 
 vinndna includes the work of perception 
 and also general notions. But pannd in- 
 cludes both these, and also "by an uplift 
 of energy attains to a revelation of the 
 Way." 
 
 A Commentator was bound to be exegetical. 
 But the concluding clause is a deeply in- 
 teresting comment on the statement above : 
 '^ pannd is to be developed.' The verb — 
 bhdvetabbd — is literally ' must made be to 
 become.' It is constantly used in connexion 
 with the meditative self-training of the 
 Buddhist student. With it may be compared 
 similar terms — anubruheti, vaddheti, develop, 
 make to grow — used in connexion with 
 mental culture. 
 
 " For it is through conditions, through a 
 cause, that ideas arise and pass away. And 
 by training certain ideas arise, others pass 
 away." ^ 
 
 Such is the refrain in another dialogue 
 already quoted. 
 
 1 Dialogues, i. 247 i. 
 
IDEATION 133 
 
 In their arising is involved creative, con- 
 structive effort. And this is intuition or 
 insight, that effort of " intellectual sympathy 
 by which the mind can place itself within 
 the mobile reality " of things.^ J* anna was 
 not simply exercise of thought on rnatterg, 
 of gener al Know le dge and pra ctice, nor was 
 it dialectic, noir__d^sultory^everie^^ 
 ihtelTigeh ce dive r ted by — o r ratli er as — con- 
 
 issues tin^ asalusion of sympathy, jyjn.tliesis, 
 synergy, fT'^ made to become^ th at spiritual 
 vision which h ad not been bef ore. 
 
 We must now abandon this incomplete 
 survey of the extent to which the books, 
 reckoned oldest in the Buddhist culture, 
 analyse the nature of mental procedure. 
 If we have found something, there is much 
 we have not found — ^for instance, the image 
 and the conditions of its reinstatement, an 
 analysis of the emotions, instinct as com- 
 pared with volition. We have now to see 
 what later texts have done to make good any 
 of these archaic silences. 
 
 ^ Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics. The relatively 
 specialized function assigned by Buddhaghosa to Viiindna, 
 as compared with Sanna, and as compared with the very 
 general conception of it in modern Buddhist theory (cp. pp. 
 8, i8, 54), forms the subject of an inquiry among Burmese 
 teachers now being prosecuted, in response to my questions, 
 by Mr. S. Z. Aung. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Psychological Development in the 
 Abhidhamma-Pitaka 
 
 We have left scanty space for such a dis- 
 cussion. It must, however, be remembered 
 that to analyse, or detach from their con- 
 tingent occasions, the doctrines expressed 
 in the Suttas is largely the work of this 
 section of the Canon ; hence we have been 
 forestalling much of what had else awaited 
 us. As to the rest, I propose to bring out 
 a few points revealing work done on those 
 doctrines as it was carried on in the School, 
 and not by way of addressing the congrega- 
 tion, or conversing with the individual in- 
 quirer. Work so done is the subject-matter 
 and method of the Suttas. 
 
 The keynote to the contents of this Pitaka is 
 both the summarizing, and also the working- 
 in of the details of the doctrines committed 
 to the Order in the Sutta-teaching. This is 
 what we might have expected to find under 
 the given circumstances. The day of the 
 master-minds of the founders was too recent 
 for their utterances to be considered ob- 
 jectively, much less critically, whence might 
 
 134 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 135 
 
 have sprung development of theory. And 
 that day had witnessed such a breaking 
 away from current theory — from ditthi, 
 which was so largely coincident with atta- 
 ditthi, or attavdda, or sdkkdya-ditthi,^ all 
 names for the same sort of metaphysic — 
 that we cannot wonder if constructive ima- 
 gination wa,s held tightly down to working 
 out the legacy, whereof the Abhidhammika 
 teachers were the first heirs. 
 
 The one exception to this sterility in de- 
 velopment of theory is the ' system of 
 relations,' the analysis, that is to say, of 
 all the types of relations observable between 
 phenomena. The immensely detailed ana- 
 lysis of these twenty-four relations, or 
 doctrine of events as conditioned, occupies 
 the last ' great ' book called Patthana, and 
 lies outside our subject.^ But even that 
 exposition lacks concise theoretic discussion. 
 
 In the developed psychological detail, the 
 following features are of interest : 
 
 1. Development of introspective analysis. — 
 In the first book of the Abhidhamma- 
 Pitaka we come immediately upon a great 
 development in statement, of the type of 
 mental analysis in the Anupada Sutta noticed 
 above.* Human consciousness has been 
 schematized as experiencing now one, now 
 
 * i.e. theory of self or soul, doctrine or school of ditto, 
 theory of individuality. 
 
 > But see pp. 194 f. ^ See pp. 96 f. 
 
136 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 another, of a certain number of types of 
 contents.^ These are divided under three 
 heads, viz. : eight types or classes of good 
 consciousness {chitta), and twelve of bad 
 consciousness characterizing human beings, 
 and supposed also to characterize, more or 
 less, beings infra-human, and all devas, or 
 angels, exclusive of (a) the remoter, more 
 ethereal Brahma- or Rupa-world, and (b) the 
 entirely immaterial A-rupa world. Thirdly, 
 types of morally indeterminate conscious- 
 ness. Here consciousness is analysed, not 
 as causing-result, but as itself caused- 
 result, namely, of bygone acts in this, or 
 previous lives. As in most of these seven 
 books, the method of exposition is catechetical 
 throughout. And the absence, for all the 
 questioning, of any attempt to set forth more 
 than formulas and definitions, seems to betray 
 how largely such a work must have been 
 merely a mnemonic guide, and a book of refer- 
 ence for term and set phrase, in the hands of 
 the exponent giving his oral lessons. The 
 component dhamma's, or mental phenomena, 
 into which any one of these psychoses or 
 concrete momentary chitta's is resolved, have 
 increased more than fivefold above those 
 named in the above-quoted Sutta. The 
 probable reason is that in any given person 
 each type of conscious unit may, at a 
 given moment, show some only of the com- 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics (a translation of this book), pp. i ff. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 137 
 
 ponents. The door is left open, for that 
 matter, for yet other components to be 
 distinguished and added to the typical list, 
 as particular and not typical features. 
 
 " Now these, or whatever other incorporeal, 
 causally induced dhamma's there are on that 
 occasion — these are good (or bad) dhamma'5." 
 
 And the Commentator, elaborating yet 
 more, specifies nine such complementary 
 components, e.g. of the first 'good thought.' 
 One of these, thus relegated to a relatively 
 contingent place, is manasikdra, ' work of 
 mind,' rendered above ' adapted attention.' 
 This 'work-of-mind,' writes Buddhaghosa, 
 is synonymous either with the ' advert- 
 ing ' of each sense, or with the adverting of 
 the ensuing mano, or it is to be conceived, 
 with respect to object, as the confronting 
 and linking mind with object, as a driver har- 
 nessing horse and chariot {Atthasdlim, 133). 
 Later developments brought this factor to 
 the front. ^ The distinction between a 
 moment of consciousness, where attention 
 is or is not previously prepared or adjusted, 
 is, in these types, otherwise taken into 
 account. Every alternate type or class, 
 namely, is declared to be motivated. This 
 does not imply that the types lacking this 
 feature are spontaneous, due to chance. 
 All consciousness was conditioned. It only 
 
 » See below, p. 176, and Bitd. Psy. Ethics, 34, n. i. 
 
138 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 implies that the preceding consciousness 
 had adverted already to the object in 
 question. The Commentary gives, as illustra- 
 tions, the prompting of what we call first and 
 second thoughts, and prompting by another. 
 This emphasis on attention is repeated in the 
 discussion on sense, and lends for us a note- 
 worthy modernity to this ancient analysis. 
 
 I have already commented on the intru- 
 sion of such a practical category as ' good ' 
 and ' bad ' in matter so peculiarly psycho- 
 logical as that of introspective analysis. 
 The Pali words are as wide in practical 
 scope as our ' good ' and ' bad.' Goodness 
 applied to mind connotes wholesomeness, 
 virtue, causing welfare, skill, writes the 
 Commentator ; of these the fourth meaning 
 does not apply, the other three do. The 
 terms therefore are ethically used. But 
 both ethics and psychology are for the 
 Buddhist but phases, logical distinctions 
 in that one and central doctrine of the 
 Norm, or, as we should say, cosmodicy, which 
 constitutes for him philosophy and religion 
 indissolubly united. To be and do good 
 was to put thought and action into line 
 with eternal, universal law, under which 
 certain types of chitta would inevitably be 
 followed, later if not sooner, by certain con- 
 sciously felt results in self and in others. 
 ' Self,' as reaping, would be the resultant, 
 not the identical, self who sowed. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 139 
 
 Practically, in these curious old analyses, 
 ' good ' is used only in the sense of ' felicific,' 
 or causing welfare/ The caused welfare, or 
 resulting pleasant consciousness, wherever 
 and whenever experienced, is reckoned as 
 undetermined or neutral ; it is not itself 
 reckoned as being ' good,' or felicific in its 
 turn, but is called undetermined, indeter- 
 minate, unmanifested, a-vydkatd.^ Of such 
 states neither good nor bad, writes the 
 Commentator, is declared. This developed 
 theory of consciousness, judged to be neutral 
 with respect to result, and distinguished 
 only as effect of past consciousness, I have 
 not found in the Nikayas. 
 
 2. Development of psychological definition. 
 — This feature is the most valuable contribu- 
 tion made by the Abhidhammikas to the 
 psychology of Buddhism. Of their three 
 compilations dealing largely, or even wholly, 
 with definitions, a great part of the con- 
 tents consists of inquiries into the nature of 
 a number of mental complexes. The de- 
 finitions may not be satisfying to our own 
 logical tradition. They consist very largely 
 of enumerations of synonymous or partly 
 synonymous terms of, as it were, overlapping 
 circles. But they reveal to us much useful 
 information concerning the term described, 
 
 1 Cp. Biul. Psy. Ethics, Ixxxii. f. 
 
 a So in Ceylon tradition, Burma and Siam write 
 ahyakata. 
 
140 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the terms describing, and the terms which 
 we may have expected to find, but find not. 
 And they show the Sokratic earnestness 
 with which these early Schoolmen strove 
 to clarify their concepts, so as to guard 
 their doctrines from the heretical innova- 
 tions, to which ambiguity in terms would 
 yield cheap foothold. 
 
 As instances of the light thrown for us by 
 this mass of conscientious cataloguing, we may 
 note a few purely psychological definitions : 
 
 (i.) " Which are the phenomena that are 
 (a) of the self, (b) external ? 
 
 " Ans. (a) The spheres {fields) of the five senses 
 and of mano (sensus communis, etc.) ; (b) the 
 spheres of the five kinds of sense-objects and 
 of mental objects (dhamma)." * 
 
 • >•••• 
 
 " In what respect is this or that khandha 
 
 (a) of the self, (b) external ? 
 
 " Ans. (a) That khandha which, for these 
 or those beings, is of the self, is self-referable, 
 one's own, referable to the person. . . . 
 
 (b) That khandha which for these or those other 
 beings, other persons, is of the self, is self- 
 referable, their own, referable to the person.^' * 
 
 We have here the field of object including 
 not only all that is directly presented to 
 
 * Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 1207 f. 
 
 » Ihid. § 1044 f. ; Vibhanga, pp. 2 f. The former 
 work has dhamma for khandha. On khandha, i.e. personal 
 factor mental or bodily, see above, pp. 40 f. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 141 
 
 ' my ' experience considered as the subject, 
 but also all that is subjective for others. 
 It would have been convenient to render 
 (a) and (6) in the questions by subjective 
 and objective. The pairs of terms, however, 
 are not exactly parallel. Bdhira, bahiddhd, 
 mean just ' external.' But the other term (a) 
 is ampler than ' subjective,' including all the 
 elements, abstractly conceived — extended, 
 cohesive, etc.^ — ^that enter into the com- 
 position of the individual. ' Subjective ' 
 often fits well, especially in the more aca- 
 demic developments of Abhidhamma, but 
 for the Buddhist, as with us, ' self is a 
 fairly fluid term.' " There was, for this 
 philosophy, no academic dualism to accentu- 
 ate and rationalize the popular antithesis, 
 used in the Suttas, of body and mind. 
 There was only on the one hand the fleeting 
 mobile compounds that made up what it 
 was convenient to call ' me,' ' myself,' ' this 
 individual,' and, on the other hand, all 
 compounds that were ' other,' external to 
 that self. This was the only ' subjective- 
 objective ' distinction that was, and, I 
 believe, has ever been, recognized. 
 
 (ii.) " What on that occasion is the power 
 {or faculty) of mindfulness (sati'ndriya) ? 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 597 f. ; cp. Majjhima-N. i. 185 f., 
 421 f. 
 
 ' Cp. W. James, Prin. Psy. i. 292 f. 
 
142 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " Ans. The mindfulness which on that occa- 
 sion is recollecting, calling back to mind ; the 
 mindfulness which is remembering, bearing 
 in mind, the opposite of superficiality and of 
 obliviousness . . . this is the power of mind- 
 fulness that there then is" ^ 
 
 This term has been discussed above. I 
 have added the Abhidhamma definition to 
 make clear the comprehensiveness of its 
 meaning. That, etymologically, is memory, 
 or remembering ; practically, it is clear 
 thinking on past or present. 
 
 " Opposite of superficiality " is literally 
 "state-of -not-floating," — "like pumpkins and 
 empty pots on the surface of water " is the 
 comment — " but sinking on to the object of 
 thought," and again " non-floating and ap- 
 prehension {upaganhdna) are it's essential 
 marks." In it, consciousness reminds itself 
 of what it has (its past being wrought up 
 with its present), like a treasurer detailing 
 his revenue to a king. Past, present, 
 future, the threefold time-distinction, is 
 constantly cited, but the problem of forget- 
 fulness and reinstatement, and the con- 
 ditions of reinstatement, usually alluded 
 to among ourselves as association of ideas, 
 are still not raised as matters calling for 
 definition. 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 14. Sati derives from s{rn\arati, ' to 
 remember.' 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 143 
 
 (iii.) It is more in the Abhidhamma ela- 
 boration of sense-analysis that distinctions 
 of time are brought forward. This analysis 
 reveals an increase in precision of statement 
 rather than in theory, or added matter of 
 observation. But it remains the fullest 
 experiential statement of sense-conscious- 
 ness which ancient literature has given us. 
 It occurs in the first book, and is included 
 under the inquiry into material qualities 
 in general or ritpa.^ The four elemental 
 material qualities are 'underived,' no upddd, 
 or irreducible ; the sense-organs, and all 
 sense-objects, except those of touch, are de- 
 rived, that is, from the underived elementals. 
 Hence the ancient Hellenic theory that 
 ' like is known by like ' may be considered 
 as latent in this arrangement,^ although it 
 is only in Buddhaghosa that I have found 
 it made explicit : " Where there is differ- 
 ence of kind there is no stimulus. The 
 Ancients say that sensory stimulus is of 
 similar kinds, not of different kinds." ^ 
 
 Each of the five special senses, and then 
 the mano, co-ordinator of sense, is set out 
 in a fourfold formula, carefully worded and 
 voluble as compared with the jejune state- 
 ment of organ, object plus contact, of the 
 
 1 Translated in Bud. Psy. Ethics, pp. 172 &. 
 
 ' Empedokles, Plato, Plotinus, who accepted it, were 
 all influenced, through Pythagorism or elsewise, by 
 Eastern thought. 
 
 " AtthasdUni, 313, cp. above, p. 67. 
 
144 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Nikayas. Summarized, the formula takes 
 account of (a) the sense, invisible (the fleshy 
 organ is not included) and reacting, (6) the 
 object invisible also (as presentation) and 
 impinging, and (c) the contact. Further, 
 
 (1) the fact of possible sensation ; 
 
 (2) the actual impact of object ; 
 
 (3) the actual impact of sense ; 
 
 (4) the resultant actual impression and 
 
 possible results in the four in- 
 corporeal aggregates. 
 The severance of (2) and (3) is explained 
 by the Commentary as indicating (2) involun- 
 tary sensation, e.g. an unexpected seeing of 
 lightning, and (3) voluntary seeing, ' looking,' 
 for example, or ' listening ' — adjusted move- 
 ment of attention of " one who by his own 
 wish, seeking to look at some object, con- 
 centrates his vision." 
 
 And in all four statements, there is the 
 detailed timC'reference — ' has seen, sees, will 
 or may see,' 'has impinged, impinges, will 
 or may impinge.' Sense is emphatically 
 stated — as an experience in time no less 
 than in space. With sense ' purged,' every- 
 thing becomes in a way ' present ' to con- 
 sciousness, ' bending over the present 
 moment.' 
 
 (iv.) " What is that material quality which is 
 not derived ? (a) The sphere of the tangible ; (b) 
 the cohesive element. What is {&)? The ex- 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PiTAKA 145 
 
 tended, calorific and mobile elements ; the hard, 
 the soft, the smooth, the rough, pleasant contact, 
 painful contact, the heavy, the light. . . . What 
 is (b) ? The watery or clinging element [apo], 
 the binding quality in [things] material."^ 
 
 I have alluded already (pp. 18 f.) to this 
 philosophic abstraction of cohesiveness, etc., 
 as superseding in Buddhist culture the more 
 primitive category of the four (or more) 
 elements. The salient feature in the co- 
 hesive element is fluidity, adds the Com- 
 mentary. It is exempted from the tangible, 
 inasmuch as that which is felt, in a concrete 
 liquid, is the other three elements, not the 
 cohesion of them. We feel its resistance, 
 its heat or cold, its movement. And these 
 three we apprehend through the most funda- 
 mental of our senses, namely, touch. The 
 other sense-organs and objects are, relatively 
 speaking, as cotton balls striking other 
 cotton balls on the elemental anvils. But 
 touch is as a hammer smiting through its 
 cotton to the anvils (Comy.), 
 
 (v.) " Now on that occasion (i.e. at the 
 genesis of the first type of good consciousness) 
 there are the four {mental) ''aggregates.^ . . . 
 What on that occasion is the sankhara-kkhan- 
 dha {group of complexes) ? Contact, volition, 
 
 '■ Bud. Psy. Ethics, §§ 647,652; the renderings are slightly 
 altered from those judged best fourteen years ago. Cp. 
 Compendium, 232. 
 10 
 
146 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 initial and sustained application, zest, con- 
 centrating ; the five moral powers — faith, 
 energy, mindfulness, concentration, insight — ; 
 vital power, rightness of views, intention, 
 endeavour, mindfulness, concentration ; the 
 forces of faith . . . insight {as above) ; the 
 forces of modesty and discretion, disinterested- 
 ness, amity, understanding; no-covetousness, 
 no -malice ; composure, buoyancy, pliancy, 
 fitness, proficiency, rectitude of consciousness 
 and its properties, mindfulness and intelli- 
 gence, calm and insight, grasp and balance — 
 these, or whatever other incorporeal causally 
 induced phenomena there are on that occasion, 
 exclusive of the aggregates of feeling, percep- 
 tion, and of consciousness — these are the 
 aggregate of sankhara'5," ^ 
 
 The contents of this fourth aggregate are 
 re-stated with the exphcation of each of the 
 other types of good and of bad consciousness, 
 the items varying according to the typical 
 nature of the psychosis analysed. The 
 next type, for example, lacking the intelligent 
 or intellectual character of the first type, 
 all the constituents implying understanding, 
 insight, etc., are omitted, ^nd so on. 
 
 This is a notable elaboration in what 
 Croom Robertson used to call ' bodying out 
 a thought,' as compared with the simple 
 description of this particular ' group ' in the 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 62. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 147 
 
 Nikayas. And it is intended to express, 
 not what is present in consciousness at every 
 flicker of the type evoked, but the field of 
 choice, the range and potentiality, in the 
 conscious activity ranked under the given 
 type. These typical good and bad types 
 of consciousness that are being analysed, 
 are each and all said to be caused on occasion 
 of a mental object, either a sense-impression, 
 or a revived impression. And the contents of 
 the mental complexes of an Ariya-savaka — 
 a saintly student — would differ greatly 
 from that of the average layman whom 
 he taught, when some external object 
 evoked in each the same type of con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Viewed in this way, the analyses are not 
 so overdone as at first sight they seem to 
 be. They are all in keeping with one of 
 the chief tasks of the Abhidhamma com- 
 pilers : the jealous guarding of the doctrines 
 of the Suttas, in their oral preservation and 
 transmission, from errors arising through 
 vagueness and ambiguity of language. And 
 thus it is that they have left us a mass 
 of exponential detail with no exposition of 
 theory. The doctrine (Dhamma) had been 
 declared, learnt and handed on in set verbal 
 forms. In ^fe^i-dhamma the teacher, con- 
 versant with the Dhamma, and teaching 
 it in his turn, possessed, in the definitions 
 of these seven supplementary books, a 
 
148 BtJDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 thesaurus of reference helping to clarify 
 his knowledge and his expositions. 
 
 A curious feature in these seven Abhi- 
 dhamma-books is the beginning of the dis- 
 tinction : chitta and chetasika's, which was 
 finally to supersede in psychological analysis 
 the more cumbrous khandha-division. 
 
 " Which are the mental phenomena that 
 are (a) of mind (chitta) ? . . . (b) that are 
 mental properties (chetasika) ? " ^ 
 
 The first are stated to be the five kinds 
 of sense-awareness {vinndna), the mano- 
 element, and representative cognition. The 
 latter comprise the aggregates of feeling, 
 perception and sankhdrd's. Chetasikd and 
 chitta have swallowed the five aggregates 
 between them. In probably the latest Abhi- 
 dhamma-book, Kathd-vatthu, we find a list 
 of mental phenomena, greatly abbreviated 
 by an ' etc' in the middle, but evidently 
 covering the three above-named aggregates, 
 and called chetasika's. These were to be 
 regarded as the coexistent accompaniments 
 — whether all or some of them is not yet 
 stated — of chitta. 
 
 3. Generalizing in matter and in form. — 
 To a great extent, the doctrines as we have 
 them in the oldest books were very largely 
 enunciated ad hominem, as replies to particu- 
 
 ^ Bud. Psy. Ethics, p. 318; Dhatukatha, pp. 38! On 
 the term in the Nikayas, see Compendium, 239, «. i. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 149 
 
 ar inquirers, bringing particular needs to 
 oe satisfied, and special defects to be put 
 right. Many also, it is true, were spoken 
 %d parisam, i.e. to the parisd, or company 
 3f disciples. This was a variable quantity, 
 is the many years and tours of the Founder's 
 iong life of mission work went on, and was 
 3o far different from the little nucleus named 
 in the Christian gospels that it might, on 
 any occasion, consist of a very mixed group 
 of intelligences, from the novice, or the 
 ' untamed ' or untamable bhikkhu, up to 
 men of intellect and extraordinary gifts 
 Like Sariputta, and like Moggallana and 
 Kassapa, both termed Maha or Great. Such 
 chosen followers were often touring, each 
 with his own band of learners. 
 
 The Abhidhammikas set themselves to 
 eliminate from the doctrines, thus adapted 
 to individuals and small groups, all that 
 was contingent in narrative; the episode 
 eliciting the pronouncement, the comparative 
 method of conveying its meaning, the parable 
 and the simile, that appealed to this or that 
 hearer. The bare judgment, or predication, 
 was thus registered, and its terms defined. 
 The result is not attractive reading, but the 
 purpose was doubtless served. Taken alto- 
 gether we have, in Abhidhamma, not a 
 well-constructed pliilosophical system, but 
 all the materials for one. " The Dhamma," 
 wrote the learned Ledi Sadaw in his essay on 
 
150 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Abhidhamma, " is taught in two ways : in 
 formulas suitable for memorizing . . . and 
 in instruction imparted directly and specific- 
 ally to individuals. By the former method 
 the matter is analysed either in outline or 
 in detail, without regard as to whether 
 perplexities may arise or not. . . . Now 
 the great field of Abhidhamma instruction 
 is one of formulas, . . . wherein one must 
 keep in view, not only those who are 
 listening on any one occasion, but the general 
 course of the doctrine according to the 
 meaning and the letter. Thus will the 
 teaching make for increase of analytical 
 knowledge in those Ariyan students who have 
 learned the doctrines, and for the acquisi- 
 tion, some future day, of analytical know- 
 ledge by ordinary folk." ^ 
 
 But this elimination of what was contin- 
 gent matter does not exhaust Abhidhamma 
 generalizing. Had this negative work been 
 all, we might have had the not-to-be-regretted 
 result of a Pitaka shorn of some of its length. 
 By the logic of consistency or symmetry, 
 the Abhidhammikas judged it right to apply 
 their doctrinal formulas, psychological and 
 otherwise, not only to normal humanity, 
 but also to supernormal humans like the 
 arahants, and to those companies of celestial 
 beings on different planes of pife, to which 
 
 ' Ydmdka, ii. (P.T.S.), pp. 223, 229 ; translated in 
 JPTS, 1914, PP- 116, 124. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 151 
 
 normal humans were, as religious beings, 
 habitually aspiring. 
 
 We find the inquiry into normal human 
 consciousness exacting enough, and consign 
 the study of the abnormal and pathological 
 tnind to quasi-physiological treatises, and 
 bhat of superhuman consciousness to theo- 
 logians. We are adding the study of the 
 infra-human animal mind to the by-products 
 af our psychology, but only since yesterday. 
 If we profess to include in that psychology 
 an inquiry into all manifestations of con- 
 sciousness, we have become, in this last 
 respect, more catholic in outlook than the 
 Buddhists. Their ' satta ' is practically co- 
 extensive with our ' creature' or ' being.' And 
 for them there is even less of any logical 
 dividing-line between creatures, human, 
 sub- and super-human, than our own 
 tradition and prejudice reveal. Yet they, 
 with a creed of pity and tenderness for all 
 beings, have not extended their intellectual 
 curiosity to the mental processes of those 
 that were, as they held, temporarily under- 
 going an unhappy phase of life's unending 
 pulsations. The wealth of sympathetic in- 
 sight into animal life shown in the Jataka 
 tales, the belief that rebirth as animal was a 
 Eate very likely awaiting the foolish person 
 y^ou were addressing, if not yourself — 
 
 " Those who leave this world and are reborn 
 
152 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 as human beings are few, but those who . . . 
 are reborn in purgatory, among beasts, among 
 the shades, are many " ^ — 
 
 make this omission somewhat strange. We 
 only read that rebirth as an animal was 
 considered as the result of a more or less 
 immoral previous life while a human being, 
 and as a life only less full of ill than the 
 doom of purgatory. So greatly, no doubt, 
 was the apparent joyousness of much animal 
 life ^ overshadowed, for the sensitive and 
 intellectual Indian, by the mercilessness of 
 nature and of man on the one hand, and by 
 the incapacity of the animal for attaining 
 spiritual development, on the other. 
 
 " There are these five realms of life (lit. 
 goings), Sdriputta : purgatory, the animal 
 kingdom (lit. matrix), the shade plane, man- 
 kind, the devas. And I understand (pajanami) 
 purgatory, and the way that leads thereto, and 
 the career through which, if practised, one is 
 reborn after death to the dread doom of the 
 Waste, the Downfall of the constant round. 
 And I understand the animal kingdom, and 
 the way that leads thereto, and the career, 
 because of which one is reborn after death 
 therein.^' * 
 
 tara-N. i. 37. 
 ' Awareness of this in bird life is a pleasant detail in 
 the Theras' poems ; cp. Psalms of the Brethren, pp. 27, 
 
 iS3. 364. 379- 
 
 » Majjhima-N. 1. 73. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 153 
 
 The three remaining realms of life are 
 declared to be understood by the Buddha 
 ao less, and so, he adds, is Nibbana. But 
 the Nikayas contain no detailed revelation 
 3f that understanding so far as the first 
 three realms are concerned. Concerning, 
 bowever, the realm of devas — and this in- 
 sludes everything that we conceive as god, 
 angel or guardian spirit, but not disembodied 
 soul — ^the Abhidhammikas so generalize their 
 psychological predications as to take the 
 ieva-consciousness sometimes into account, 
 rhey considered that all men, except the 
 arahants, were aspiring, well or badly, to 
 be reborn as devas of some kind, to a larger, 
 longer, serener life. There was no difference 
 of kind, no presence or absence of soul, 
 nnuch less specific variety of soul,^ to dis- 
 tinguish deva from either man or animal. 
 All were creatures, conditioned, compound 
 persons, adapted to this mode of life or 
 that. 
 
 Now it seemed to the compilers of the 
 A.bhidhamma books, either a legitimate 
 exercise of curiosity, or a useful exercise 
 in deduction — perhaps both — ^to state how 
 much of the five-aggregate composition 
 might go to make up rebirth in this or that 
 ieva-realm. For instance : 
 
 1 The Buddhist devas are Uke pious, inteUigent 
 luman beings, now consulting or worshipping a super- 
 nan, now admonishing a human fool. 
 
154 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " Where material qualities (rupa-kkhandha) 
 are reborn, is feeling there reborn ? Ans. In 
 the sphere of unconscious being the rupa- 
 kkhandha is reborn, but not feeling. In the 
 realm of the five aggregates, both material 
 qualities and feeling are reborn. But where 
 feeling is reborn, are material qualities there 
 reborn ? Ans. In the invisible \or formless"] 
 world, feeling is reborn, but not material 
 qualities." ^ 
 
 I have referred, in the book quoted, to the 
 mass of catechism dealing with such matters 
 as possibly an exercise in deduction, because 
 it is fairly evident that when once the 
 current doctrines, about the nature of life 
 in other spheres than that of this world, 
 were formularized, or at least definitely 
 conceived, it could be deduced how far 
 the personal compound inhabiting this earth 
 would require modifying, in order to fit into 
 this or that other sphere. The statements 
 are not imparted as revelations, but as the 
 explication of what ought to be, in the mind 
 of an orthodox graduate, the conception of 
 each class of beings, and of each plane of 
 rebirth, in which he had been taught to 
 believe. Hence, again, the statements are 
 not drawn up as speculations. The founders 
 of the doctrines ' understood ' these spheres, 
 because — so it was believed — ^they had ' seen,' 
 
 ^ Yamaha, i. 19. 
 
IN THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA 155 
 
 beholding by the ' celestial eye,' the pageant 
 of the rebirth and decease of the successive 
 lives of an indefinite number of being. Like 
 Iheoroi at the Olympic Games — no mere 
 spectators, but, in the fuller sense of that 
 term, sacred deputies — ^they were accepted 
 as representatives to other men of godlike 
 powers, believed to be not superhuman, but 
 supernormal only. 
 
 Note to p. 152, n. 2. — Mention might here have been 
 made of a Buddha-discourse {Majjh.-N. iii. 169), in which 
 he speaks of the miseries of rebirth as an animal : "And 
 I might talk on in many ways, so hard is it adequately to 
 state the ills of the animal world!" 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Psychological Developments in the 
 
 MiLINDA 
 
 The Questions of King Milinda,^ in its 
 psychological discussions, affords us in- 
 teresting glimpses of development in theory 
 midway between the Nikayas and the Com- 
 mentaries of the fifth century. No one as 
 yet has sifted the contents of the only 
 other Theravada works, reckoned as authori- 
 tative, which have survived from the centuries 
 when Buddhism was contending with, and 
 becoming infected by, heretics in India, and 
 was becoming thoroughly established in 
 Ceylon — I refer to the Netti, ' Leading ' or 
 ' Guidance,' ^ and Petakopadesa. In the 
 Milinda we have the advantage of a fairly 
 astute lay mind, bringing its problems and 
 dilemmas to the orthodoxly trained mind of 
 a genial and accomplished senior bhikkhu. 
 The latter is apt, when pressed, to declare 
 exceptions to a rule or law as practically 
 proving, not testing it. But for the most 
 
 ■■ See Bibliography. 
 
 2 Edited by E. Hardy, P.T.S., 1902. 
 
 IS6 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 157 
 
 part his replies are very illuminating, and 
 reveal here and there developments in theory 
 and exposition, to which the later scholastics 
 show their indebtedness. Briefly summing 
 up those that bear on our subject, we may 
 notice the following : 
 
 The dialogue branches into a great variety 
 of subjects, religious, ethical, monastic, 
 philosophical, but it is occupied for some 
 fifty pages (in the translation) with purely 
 psychological matter, and for some fifty 
 more with psycho-philosophical matter as 
 to ' soul.' 
 
 One statement, not without interest here, 
 is the measuring what we should call growth 
 in holiness, graduation in saintship, in terms 
 of increasing ability in intellection, or play 
 of intellect.^ The problem is how to recon- 
 cile the orthodox belief in the omniscience 
 of the Buddha with the necessity of his 
 liaving to consider (or reflect, d-vajjdna, lit. 
 ad- vert) before cognizing anything he wished, 
 [n reply, seven types of chitta's are described, 
 forming a scale in mental culture {bhdvitattam 
 ohittassa) from the least trained up to the 
 supremely trained or Buddha mind, i.e. of the 
 supreme type of Buddhas, known from this 
 time onward as sdbVannu, omni-scient, who 
 ^ave themselves to enlighten and help man- 
 kind. In each grade, the mind is described 
 as being brought quickly and easily into 
 
 1 Questions of King Milinda, i. 154 i. 
 
158 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 play about a greater range of subjects, re- 
 maining stiff and sluggish in action about 
 a diminishing range of subjects. 
 
 'Culture,' here, is the term 'make-to-be,' 
 ' cause-to-become,' associated above with 
 developed intelligence {pannd). Perhaps 
 ' development ' or ' evolution ' is at least as 
 fit a rendering. And the supreme type of 
 mind is declared to be so ' evolved,' that its 
 thorough knowledge concerning everything 
 knowable is, at any given moment, and with 
 respect to a given subject, either actual, or 
 potential with a potentiality swiftly trans- 
 formable into actuality. The scheme is 
 interesting as showing both the importance 
 of intelligence or intellect in the Buddhist 
 scheme of religious values, and also the 
 oneness in kind between all human intellect, 
 even up to the intellect of those who were 
 ranked above the gods. 
 
 Concepts of mental functioning are dis- 
 cussed much after the earlier fashion of 
 the Nikayas, and usually during the repudia- 
 tion, by the sage, of the animistic position. 
 .Tust as the latest of the books in the Abhi- 
 dhamma-Pitaka opens its reasoned refuta- 
 tions of heresies with a much - detailed 
 argument against the existence of any 
 individual entity, so does Nagasena, answer- 
 ing to his name as his first reply to the 
 king, declare ' himself ' to be but a mere 
 convenient label for a number of parts and 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 159 
 
 aggregates. " For there exists no permanent 
 entity." ^ 
 
 It is of historical interest that he here uses 
 the opening phrase of the book just referred 
 to and its term for entity or soul : not attd, 
 but puggala. In fact, throughout his dis- 
 sertations, terms other than attd are used : 
 puggala, jiva (life, vital spirit)," veddgu, 
 sentient agent.^ Jiva, in the Sankhya school, 
 is the empirical soul, the intermediary, so 
 to speak, between the organism and the 
 absolute or noumenal soul. And it would 
 almost appear as if attd had, at least for a 
 time, come to signify merely the personal 
 appearance or visible self.* 
 
 The mental processes discussed are chiefly 
 those to which attention was given in con- 
 nection with the Nikayas. But there are 
 points of added interest. 
 
 The sage has replied that "if he die with 
 natural desires still at work in him, he will 
 be reborn, but if not, no." Milinda asks 
 if through reasoned thinking one " is not 
 reborn." Nagasena : " Both by reasoned 
 thinking, sire, by insight and by other good 
 qualities." " But are not reasoned thinking 
 md insight just the same ? " " No, sire, 
 :hey are different. Sheep and goats, oxen, 
 
 » Katha-vatthu, i. 2 (P.T.S. ed.) ; Questions, i. 40. 
 » Ibid. 48, S6, 132. » Ibid. 86. 
 
 « See above, p. 27; in the translation atta is translated 
 jy ' image.' 
 
160 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 buffaloes, camels, asses are capable of reason- 
 ed thinking, but not of insight." ^ Reasoned 
 thinking and insight are then described by 
 the respective essential features of mental 
 grasp and elimination or severance, just as 
 a reaper grasps with one hand and prescinds 
 with the sickle. 
 
 ' Reasoned thinking' and 'insight' are yoni- 
 so-manasikdra and paniid, discussed above 
 (pp. 123, 130). We should have possibly 
 named dogs, elephants, monkeys, for the 
 beasts named above. But clearly, not the 
 most intelligent animals are meant ; merely 
 ' animals ' in general. Now, in the Nikayas, 
 the ability and habit of yoniso-manasikdra 
 is the basis of all higher spiritual training. 
 The English for it is not easy to find. IVfi. 
 Gooneratne has ' wise contemplation,' * which 
 in the Milinda context were a misfit. The 
 term may possibly have depreciated a little 
 during the centuries. If not, the crediting 
 of animals with it lends point to the anomaly, 
 pointed out above, with regard to inquiry 
 into the mind of animals.* The association 
 of pannd with ' elimination ' dates from the 
 Nikayas, as we saw. It is, at the same 
 time, exegetical, and not exhaustive of the 
 import of the word. " Illumination," says the 
 sage, a little later, " is also its mark. . . . 
 
 ^ Questions, i. 50. 
 
 * Translation of Anguttara-N. parts i.-iii., Galle, 1913. 
 
 "P. 151. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 161 
 
 It causes the splendour of wisdom to shine, 
 it reveals the Ariyan truths ... as a lamp 
 brought into a dark house." ^ Again, like 
 the wind, it has no abiding-place.* 
 
 Concerning the eight attainments called 
 (p. 129 1.) pannd-kkhandha, or body of applied 
 insight, the Questions refer to those known 
 as super -knowledges (abhinnd's), and frequent 
 allusion is made to supernormal will {adhit- 
 thdndriddhi), both as mere magic,* and again, 
 as a power wielded by the saint,* and only 
 limited should the still mightier result of past 
 karma interfere with it.* In one passage 
 bhe power is likened to that of the synergy 
 of an athletic action : * 
 
 " Yes, sire, there are persons who can go 
 v\ath this four-element -made body to Uttara- 
 kuru or to Brahma-world ; or to any other 
 part of this world," " But how can they ? " 
 " Do you admit, sire, having ever jumped 
 bhree or six feet of ground ? " " Yes, sir, 
 I do ; I can jump twelve feet." " But 
 how ? " "I cause this idea (chitta) to arise : 
 '' there will I alight ! ' With the genesis of 
 the idea my body becomes buoyant to 
 tne." " Just so, sire, does a bhikkhu, who 
 ias iddhi and mastery over chitta, lifting 
 jp the body in consciousness, travel through 
 ;he air by way of chitta." 
 
 1 Questions, i. 6i. » Ihid. i. 120. » Ibid. ii. 94. 
 
 ■- Ibid. ii. 231, 234, 259. » Ibid. i. 261 1 
 
 • Ibid. i. 1 30. 
 
162 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Again, when Milinda is puzzled how a 
 bhikkhu, who has will and mastery over 
 mind, can vanish, and reappear in the 
 Brahma-world, which is supposed to be 
 distant a four-months' journey of a falling 
 body from the earth, "as soon as a strong 
 man could stretch forth and bend in again 
 his arm," he is asked to think of anything 
 he ever did at his birthplace (Alasanda = 
 Alexandria, in Baktria), two hundred leagues 
 away. He does so. " So easily, sire, 
 have you travelled so far ? " ^ comments 
 the sage, likening will - locomotion to 
 thought. 
 
 Reverting to the insight-faculty itself, the 
 following distinctions are less encumbered 
 by exegetical metaphor : 
 
 " These three : consciousness {vinndna), 
 insight {pannd), and the soul (jiva) in a 
 creature — are they different in meaning as 
 well as in the letter, or do they mean the 
 same, differing only in the letter ? " " Aware- 
 ness, sire, is the mark of consciousness, and 
 discernment, of insight ; there does not 
 exist a soul in beings." ^ 
 
 This is a close approximation to the 
 question discussed above from the Nikayas.* 
 And the eighteenth - century translator of 
 the Questions into Singhalese amplifies the 
 passage with a borrowed and condensed 
 version of Buddhaghosa's comment and 
 
 ^Questions,!. 126. * Ibid. i. 136, • See pp. ijof. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 163 
 
 parable, to which I have referred. Pannd (Sk. 
 prajnd), be it noted, was identified, by the 
 older Upanishads, as none other, ultimately- 
 considered, than the Atman itself : ' base 
 and guiding principle of all that is.' Modi- 
 fied as jlva, the attd was shorn of its pan- 
 theistic import, and was more akin to the 
 individual soul familiar to our own tradition. 
 But, to pursue this psycho-philosophical 
 question a little farther, the soul, as jwa, or 
 vedagu (knower), was still conceived as a will- 
 entity or agent, who, were he immanent, would, 
 in order to know, not need to act through the 
 intermediacy of the different channels of 
 coming-to-know, to wit, the five senses and 
 the sensus communis or co-ordinating, internal 
 mano. 
 
 " What is this, sire, the ' soul ' {vedagu) ? " 
 
 " The life [-principle] {jlva) within, which 
 sees through the eye, hears through the 
 ear . . . and cognizes phenomena through 
 mind, just as we, sitting here in the palace, 
 can look out of any window we wish, east, 
 west, north or south." ..." If this jlva 
 acts as you say, choosing its window as it 
 tikes, can it not then see through any one 
 of the five senses, or so hear, so taste, 
 etc. ? " ^ 
 
 And later : 
 
 " But if, sir, there be no such thing as a 
 soul, what is it then which sees objects with 
 
 * Questions, i. 86. 
 
164 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the eye, hears sounds with the ear, ... or 
 perceives objects with the mind ? " 
 
 The Elder said : "If the soul does all 
 this, then [it would not need the specialized 
 apparatus of each sense] it would see, hear, 
 etc., more clearly if the sense-organ were 
 removed ; but it is not the case that we see, 
 hear, etc., better if the eye-aperture, etc., 
 has the organ removed ; hence there is no 
 agent in sensation independent of the specific 
 functioning of each sense." ^ 
 
 This argument, with its analogy of choice 
 of window in contemplating the external 
 world, is much on all-fours with that, in the 
 Nikayas," of the attd exercising arbitrary 
 will as one or other of the aggregates, so as 
 to modify the personal present fate and 
 
 "remould it nearer to the heart's desire." 
 
 The form of animistic philosophy, against 
 which it is a protest, may well have been the 
 jiva theory of the Sankhya-Sutras. This was 
 but a convenient fiction or schema, by 
 which the else inconceivable action of the 
 noumenal soul, called purusha (an equivalent 
 of puggala), dtman, or kevdld (absolute), 
 upon body, sense and mano might be 
 expressed in words. Thus the purusha was 
 indifferent, impassive, separate; the senses 
 acted mechanically. But sensation became 
 conscious life when jiva glowed in it, like 
 
 * Questions, i. 133. » See above, p. 31- 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 165 
 
 fire in hot iron, or as a red blossom in 
 a crystal, the purusha losing nothing 
 thereby.^ 
 
 The really important point that arises 
 out of this, at first sight, somewhat futile 
 argument of Nagasena, is his immediately 
 following enunciation of natural law in 
 mental procedure, wherein lay the main 
 support of his case. He first emphasizes 
 the fact (briefly stated in the Nikayas) of the 
 orderliness in sense : — we cannot taste with 
 the stomach, or the external skin ; each 
 channel of sense has its own procedure. 
 The king is then made to ask whether a 
 sense-impression always has mawo-conscious- 
 ness (co-ordination of sense) as its con- 
 comitant. " Yes." ' " Which happens first ? " 
 " First the sensation, then mano functions." 
 The king asks whether sensation induces 
 this perceiving by an injunction, or 
 whether perception bids sense to super- 
 vene. The reply is, there is no such inter- 
 course ; the sequence happens through (1) 
 'inclination' or natural tendency, (2) exist- 
 ing structure, (3) habitual process, (4) 
 practice. These conditions are severally 
 illustrated by similes : (1) by rain-water 
 funning away according to natural slope; 
 
 1 Cp.R.Ga,Tbe,Sankhya-philosophie,-p-p. 305 f.; Sankhya- 
 Suiras, Nos. 99, 356. In Jain doctrine, it is the soul (jiva) 
 :hat is 'coloured' (H. Jacobi, Trans. Hist. Religions Cong., 
 Oxford, ii. 63). 
 
166 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 (2) by the one means of egress and ingress 
 used in a walled city ; (3) by the usual order 
 observed by the waggons of a caravanserai 
 — first waggon, second waggon, etc. ; (4) by 
 the arts of writing, arithmetic and valua- 
 tion, skill succeeding clumsiness through 
 association set up by practice. 
 
 It was this cosmos, without and within, 
 evident if not to be accounted for, that 
 Buddhism accepted, as a saner, better-based 
 view of things than that of the antinomy 
 of an entity or soul, associated with the 
 organism and yet not of it, and therefore, 
 as the Kaiser Sigismund said of himself, 
 super grammaticam, that is, super that 
 organism's grammaticam. 
 
 Further discussions on mental process yield 
 some more definitions. The other con- 
 comitants of the happening of a mano- 
 consciousness, beside the ' contact ' on occa- 
 sion of sense (between sense and its object), 
 are stated to be feeling, perception, volition, 
 onset of and sustained attention. These 
 amount practically to the four immaterial 
 aggregates, and are to be understood as the 
 contents of a state or process of conscious- 
 ness on occasion of sense. ' Contact ' is 
 illustrated by two rams butting, two cymbals 
 clashing.^ But, as we shall see, the where- 
 withal in the collision does not seem to have 
 been conceived as matter in the case of 
 
 * Questions, i. 92 f. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 167 
 
 sight and hearing. ' Feeling ' is well de- 
 scribed as ' the being experienced and the 
 being enjoyed.' The character of ' per- 
 ception ' is cognizing — ^becoming aware, e.g. 
 3f visible objects, that is, of colours (Buddhist 
 psychology still assigning only colour to 
 bare visual impression). Thus a king's 
 steward, visiting his treasure-house, per- 
 ceives the variously coloured treasures. 
 ' Recognizing ' is a possible rendering, but 
 in the term {sannd) the corresponding prefix 
 is lacking. 
 
 ' Volition ' receives a definition of some 
 interest. In the Abhidhamma-Pitaka it is 
 described by mere derivatives, throwing for 
 Lis no light on its connotation. This is not 
 Ear amiss if the terra mean bare volition, 
 or conation, since we have here an, or 
 shall I say the, irreducible element of mind. 
 Now the function or mark of volition, in 
 bhese Questions,^ is declared to be twofold : 
 (1) deponent, and (2) causative; to wit, 
 
 (1) thinking (or being caused to think), and 
 
 (2) concocting or devising (to give effect to the 
 thought). " As a man might prepare, concoct 
 a poison and drinking it, give it also to others 
 to drink." This dual idea was maintained up 
 toBuddhaghosa's time. By him it is likenedto 
 the working and making to work of a peasant- 
 farmer, and of a master-craftsman. And he 
 applies the orthodox fourfold definition of 
 
 ' Questions, p. 94. 
 
168 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 his time to the term {chetand), showing it to 
 imply ' being made to think,' ' effort,' ' fixing,' 
 'arranging.'^ It would therefore seem to 
 be the motor element in consciousness with 
 the further implication of direction or pur- 
 pose, and may thus be better rendered by 
 volition than by conation. The latter, as 
 bare reaching out, or activity put forth, is 
 referred to an indriya — i.e. a power or faculty 
 analogous to the sense-powers, and called 
 mriya. It is thus described in the 
 Abidhamma-Pitaka : 
 
 " The mental inception of energy . . . the 
 striving and onward effort, exertion and 
 endeavour, zeal and ardour, vigour and forti- 
 tude, state of unfaltering effort, of sustained 
 desire, of unflinching endurance, the solid 
 grip of the burden." " 
 
 All this, on the other hand, suggests rather 
 an aspect of the whole consciousness and 
 character (habitual potential consciousness) 
 at any given moment. In such terms as 
 chetand, the effort is being made to 
 dissever, in a psychosis, all the nuances 
 that go to make up the complex of 
 consciousness. 
 
 The twin terms initial and sustained 
 mental application recur.' In the Ques- 
 
 > Visuddhi-Magga, ch. x. 
 
 ' Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 13. " Above, p. 89. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 169 
 
 tions, they are likened to (a) a carpenter 
 fixing a shaped plank into a joint, and 
 {b) the reverberations of the (a) blows dealt 
 in shaping a metal pot : (a) is the applied 
 attention, (6) repeated pulsations of attention 
 thus directed. 
 
 This analysis of consciousness ends with 
 a reflection on the difficulty of " fixing all 
 those mental phenomena involved in a 
 single impression, on occasion of sense, 
 telling that such is contact, such feeling, 
 etc.," as if a man in the Bay of Bengal were 
 to taste the water and say in which river 
 the drops had originally come down ^ — a 
 metaphor quoted, as we saw, by Buddha- 
 ghosa. The factors were distinguishable, 
 but not experienced as isolated, no more 
 than the many flavours enjoyed in the sauce 
 blended by Milinda's chef.* 
 
 The term sati, or mindfulness, is twice 
 discussed ; the second occasion suggests a 
 later development, almost identifying the 
 word with mindfulness of the past, or mem- 
 ory, and offering the earliest approach to a 
 theory of association of ideas existing in 
 Indian literature. Stating that sati arises 
 both through inward perception and external 
 signs, the sage is asked : " In how many ways 
 
 ' Questions, i. 133. 
 
 » Ibid. i. 97. It became nevertheless orthodox doctrine 
 to hold, that no two chitta's of sense-reaction could arise at 
 the same moment. There was swift succession and ap- 
 parent simultaneity. Ledi Sadaw, JPTS, 19 14, 149. 
 
170 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 does sati spring up ? " ^ Seventeen ways 
 are enumerated, but they fall properly into 
 the two above-named groups, with the 
 exception of two. These two amount to a 
 statement of our own 'association by way 
 of similarity and of contrast,' and apply of 
 course to subjective experience in general, 
 whether presentative or representative. "Sati 
 arises," we read, "... from similarity . . . 
 or difference of appearance ... as on seeing 
 one ii/ce her we call to mind the mother . . .," 
 or remember that such a colour, sound, etc., 
 is different from that of a certain thing. 
 The other ' modes by which mindfulness 
 arises ' are carelessly strung together, and 
 only deserve mention because, so far as I 
 know, there is no other inquiry of the same 
 date to place beside the list. Briefly, then, 
 recollection by purely representative effort 
 is said to be effected by direct intellection 
 {abhijdnana), by discursive volition, by the 
 ' making-to-become ' of trained intuition in 
 ' super-knowledge,' i.e. in remembering one's 
 own former lives, and, lastly, by ordinary 
 revival of past experience as compared with 
 present thoughts. This is more especially 
 effected when that experience was of a strik- 
 ing nature, causing deep emotion. Milinda 
 would recollect easily his coronation, Naga- 
 sena his conversion ; both would easily 
 recall a pleasant or a painful episode. Ex- 
 
 1 Questions, i. 121-23. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MILINDA 171 
 
 semal suggestions of a visible or audible 
 lature are also enumerated. The subject 
 s then dropped. 
 
 Not less psychologically interesting is the 
 exposition of a theory of dreams.^ The 
 physical conditions of dreaming are stated 
 ;o be : firstly, the constant condition of 
 ' monkey sleep,' that is, of a state between 
 ivaking and deep sleep ; secondly, the variable 
 mtecedents of morbid health, biliousness 
 [or instance. The other kind of antecedent, 
 through which alone the dream has any 
 relation to impending occurrences, is deva- 
 influence or deva-induction. The meaning 
 or object of this ' celestial ' (dibba) inter- 
 vention is accepted as current lore without 
 criticism. As telepathic procedure, where 
 the agency was of a physically more ethereal, 
 or mentally less canalized composition than 
 the recipient's mind, the occurrence would 
 not seem supernatural to an Indian. It is 
 added that the dreamer would not read the 
 sign ; he would relate, and an expert would 
 interpret — a ' wrong means of livelihood 
 and low art,' according to the ancient 
 teaching of the Founder.* 
 
 In deep sleep the consciousness (chitta) is 
 stated to have ' gone into,' that is, become 
 one with the bhavanga, or flow of organic 
 life, and ' does not go on,' ' does not recognize 
 or discern what is pleasant or unpleasant. 
 
 1 Questions, ii. 157. » Dialogues, i. 17. 
 
172 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 For consciousness, in this merely potential 
 state, not being a continuum,^ or persisting 
 being, is practically non-existent. To what, 
 if any, extent the life -flow moments include 
 moments of what we now term subconscious 
 mental life, I have yet to learn. 
 
 'See Questions, ii. 159, n. 2. Through Mr. S. Z. 
 Aung's work on the Compendium of Philosophy, we are 
 now in a better position to translate this passage. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Some Medieval Developments 
 
 Scanty space remains to discuss, even ii 
 outline, the additions and niodificationi 
 made in mediaeval and modern Theravads 
 psychology. Nor is the time for such dis 
 cussion yet fully arrived. Of the two chie 
 fields awaiting further research — ^the worki 
 of Buddhaghosa and those of Anuruddhj 
 and his commentators — only a small fractioi 
 is yet edited in Roman letter, and only on( 
 work, the digest called A Compendium a 
 Philosophy, dating from probably the twelftl 
 century, is yet translated. The date o; 
 Buddhaghosa is eight centuries earlier. Thes< 
 two groups of literature, the one supple 
 menting the other, represent the dominant in 
 fiuence in Theravada philosophical (including 
 psychological) thought up to the present day 
 S. Z. Aung writes that the modern Burmes( 
 view, excepting certain independent critique; 
 made by Ledi Sadaw, is one with the 
 teaching of Buddhaghosa and Sumangala 
 (author of the most authoritative commentary 
 on the Compendium). 
 
 * Compendium, 284. 
 
174 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Thus much can at any rate be said merely 
 by reading the titles in these groups : the 
 original zest with which philosophic and 
 religious thought occupied itself with psycho- 
 logical analysis has never faltered. The 
 human being, with or without the variations 
 deducible in celestial being, has remained, 
 according to Theravada Buddhism, the proper 
 study of mankind. 
 
 Another notable writer, two of wliose 
 works are extant, is about to become 
 accessible to Europe, as far as publication 
 in our own script makes him so. This is 
 Buddhadatta, a contemporary of the more 
 famous Buddhaghosa. The Rev. A. P. 
 Buddhadatta of Ceylon has prepared an 
 edition of his notable namesake's Abhi- 
 dhammavatdra, an ' introduction ' to philo- 
 sophy. In one respect, at least, he repre- 
 sents, perhaps better than Buddhaghosa, the 
 earlier type of the classification with which 
 we started in our first chapter. 
 
 Thus whereas Buddhaghosa expounds his 
 psychology in terms of the five-aggregate 
 division, Buddhadatta opens his scheme 
 with the fourfold division of the Compendium 
 — viz. mind, mental properties, material 
 quality, Nibbana.^ He writes in metrical 
 Pali, stopping at times to supply his own 
 
 ' I do'not say that we do not meet with this division in, 
 and its acceptance by, Buddhaghosa. My point refers only 
 to emphasis. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 175 
 
 prose commentary : " Chitta, that is, being 
 aware of what is within one's range . . . 
 minding everything inclusively ; one's own 
 life - continuum." And later : " Chetasika's, 
 that is, conjoined with chitta, or becomings- 
 in-chitta [citte hhavd). These also, like chitta, 
 form the subject to object, as such forming 
 a single class. As resultants or non-re- 
 sultants in consciousness, they are divisible 
 into two classes. As productive of good or 
 bad result or neither (literally : as good, 
 bad or indeterminate) they form three 
 classes. As belonging to consciousness con- 
 cerned with mundane experience, with re- 
 birth in worlds of sublimated matter, with 
 rebirth in immaterial worlds, and with sub- 
 jects whence all rebirth - concerns are re- 
 jected, they form four classes." 
 
 He then enumerates all the ' mental proper- 
 ties ' to be distinguished in analysing that first 
 type of a good and happy thought or chitta on 
 occasion of sense, detailed in the Abhi- 
 dhamma-Pitaka, and discussed in an earlier 
 chapter (pp. 136, 145). Pie also introduces 
 the important distinction, not brought out in 
 the old original analysis, of some mental 
 properties being constants {niyata) and some 
 contingent or occasional. " These five : pity, 
 sympathy- with- joy, aversion from evil in act, 
 speech and life, are inconstant ; they arise 
 sometimes [in such a type of consciousness]." 
 
 This distinction is clearly worked out in the 
 
176 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Compendium. We cannot yet compare Bud- 
 dhadatta and Buddhaghosa. But the later 
 Compendium shows clearly that, at all events, 
 for psychological analysis, the ' five-groups ' 
 system has fallen into the background, and 
 consciousness is resolved into chitta and 
 its coefficients of chetasika^s, some of which 
 are constant coefficients, and some of which 
 are, in any given moment of consciousness, 
 present, some not. 
 
 This, in the Compendium of Philosophy, 
 is much better worked out than in the older 
 writer. We there see that, in such a given 
 moment, mental analysis declares to be 
 distinguishable factors, or nuances, seven 
 constant coefficients, the Pali for ' constant ' 
 being ' all-consciousness-common-to.' These 
 are contact, feeling, perceiving, volitional 
 intellection, individualization, [the accom- 
 panying awareness of] psychic life, at- 
 tention. Without these there can be no 
 supraliminal consciousness. Besides these 
 there may or may not be distinguishable 
 six occasional coefficients, the Pali for ' occa- 
 sional ' being, in Buddhadatta, not-fixed, not 
 certain {a-niyata), in the Compendium, 
 ' scattered ' [pakinnaka), distributed. These 
 are initial and sustained application,^ decid- 
 ing, effort, zest, desire-to-do, or intention. 
 
 These thirteen, the later work adds, are 
 all neutral, morally speaking ; they combine 
 
 ' See above, p. 89. 
 
SOME MEDIAEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 177 
 
 with other factors of consciousness which 
 are distinguishably good or bad ' implicates ' 
 of chitta. 
 
 Such then is the evolution of this dual 
 category. First, chitta only ; with the stray 
 mention of chetasika, singular in number, in 
 one Nikaya. Then a group word only — 
 chitta-chetasika dhammd's, in the books of the 
 (later) third Pitaka. Then the second term, 
 now plural, appears as a list in the latest 
 book of that Pitaka. Then the two terms 
 described as separate philosophical cate- 
 gories in the fifth century, with fuller treat- 
 ment, finally, of the latter category, in the 
 twelfth-century manual. And in that manual 
 the five aggregates are enumerated but once, 
 in a philosophical, not a psychological section, 
 just to paraphrase the ancient term ndma- 
 rupa (mind-and-body),^ before they are again 
 and finally let go. 
 
 That a positive, if a very slow, evolution 
 in psychological specialization is here to be 
 seen, seems fairly clear. It may not be 
 admitted in centres of Abhidhamma learning. 
 I am not sure that the habit of regarding 
 matters historically, so new as yet in our 
 own world of science, is cultivated there. 
 The theory of chitta and its properties or 
 coefficient chetasika' s, in this or that group 
 of conscious syntheses, is pursued in the 
 Compendium with a good deal of very arid 
 
 * Compendium, p. 198, cp. 213 ; cp. above, p. 23. 
 12 
 
ns BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and to us also sterile numerical summarizing 
 — ^an aftermath, I am tempted to think, of 
 the so long preponderant booklessness in 
 Indian culture. More instructive, and re- 
 vealing a more notable development in 
 analysis is the doctrine of function {kiccha) 
 and of process {vithi, pavatti). And here 
 whereas the Compendium reveals advance 
 in summarization, it is in Buddhaghosa and 
 Buddhadatta that, at present, we detect the 
 original sources of -its evolution. 
 
 In discussing the fifth aggregate — vinndna, 
 or consciousness in its typical sense of 
 coming-to-know, cognition, — Buddhaghosa 
 enumerates fourteen modes {dkdrd) in which 
 there is mnwana - process,^ — viz. at re- 
 conception, in subconsciousness (sleep, etc., 
 bhavanga), in ad-verted attention (d-vajjana), 
 the five modes of special sense-impressions, 
 recipience [of the same], investigation, de- 
 termination, complete apprehension, and re- 
 gistration, and finally, at death. " At the 
 end of registration, procedure is once more 
 bhavanga (unconscious or subconscious). 
 Then when bhavanga is again cut across, the 
 course of consciousness having again ac- 
 quired [the necessary] antecedents, adverting 
 recurs, and so on, there being repetition of 
 this procedure by way of the natural law 
 (niyama) of consciousness, until the bhavanga 
 perishes. In each new life {bhava, literally 
 
 ' Visuddhi-Magga, ch. xiv. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 179 
 
 becoming), the lapsing of the last subcon- 
 scious chitta is called decease {chuti, falling). 
 . . . But from decease [comes] again con- 
 ception, and from conception again bhavanga 
 — such is the procedure in the unarrested 
 consciousness - continuum of beings faring 
 on through eternity. But whoso attains 
 Arahantship, to him when consciousness 
 has ended, renewed birth and death have 
 also ceased." ^ 
 
 The eleven modes of the cognitive pro- 
 cess are briefly described previous to this 
 passage. But they have not the appearance 
 of being stated for the first time. No 
 explanation of them as process is judged 
 necessary. And since Buddhadatta, in the 
 fourth, chapter of the work referred to,^ 
 also names these fourteen modes of chitta, 
 it is probably right to conclude that they 
 both were but handing on an analytical 
 formula, which had evolved between their 
 own time and that of the final closing of 
 the Abhidhamma-Pitaka. 
 
 But the exposition of the cognitive process 
 is more clearly and concisely stated in the 
 later Compendium. However swiftly an act 
 of sense-perception may be performed, it 
 was held that, in every such act, seventeen 
 moments or flashes (the metaphor is mine) 
 of consciousness took place, each moment 
 being considered to involve the three time- 
 
 1 Visuddhi-Magga, ch. xiv. » Above, p 174. 
 
180 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 phases of all ' becoming,' namely a nascent, 
 static and dissolving phase. "Hence," we 
 read, "the process [of sense-cognition] is 
 thus : When, say, a visible object, after 
 one chitta-movaent (1) has passed, enters the 
 avenue [or focus] of sight, the life-continuum 
 (bhavanga) vibrating twice (2) (3), its stream 
 is interrupted, then the adverting moment 
 rises and ceases (4). Immediately after 
 there arise and cease, in order, the visual 
 impression (vinndna), aware of just that 
 visible object (5), recipient consciousness (6), 
 investigating consciousness (7), determining 
 or assigning consciousness (8), then seven 
 flashes of full perception," or apperception 
 (javana) (9-15); finally, if the percept is 
 sufficiently vivid, two moments of retention 
 or registering consciousness (16, 17). This 
 phase etymologically is very differently 
 named : tad-drammana, or that-oh]ect — ^that 
 and not another. " After that comes sub- 
 sidence into the life-continuum." ^ 
 
 The later commentaries illustrate this 
 multiple, if momentary, psychosis by the 
 following simile : A man in deep sleep with 
 covered head beneath a mango tree (stream 
 of unconscious life or bhavanga). A wind 
 stirs the branches (preceding chitta 1 and 
 vibrating bhavanga, 2, 3). This causes a 
 mango to fall by him (arrest or disruption 
 of unconscious life). The man is waked by the 
 
 » Compendium, 126. 
 
SOME MEDIAEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 181 
 
 falling fruit (adverting, 4). He uncovers his 
 head (sense-impression of fruit, 5), picks up 
 the fruit (receiving, 6), inspects it (investiga- 
 ing, 7), determines what it is (determining, 8), 
 eats it (full perception, 9-15), swallows the 
 last morsels (registering, 16, 17), re-covers 
 his head and sleeps again (subsidence into 
 bhavanga). (' After-taste ' had perhaps been 
 more apt for 16, 17.) 
 
 Such is the type of procedure where the 
 impression is vivid. With fainter impres- 
 sions, inception may take longer, or there 
 may be no process of registering, whence 
 comes retention and reproduction. There 
 may even be no moments of full cognition, or, 
 in the faintest stimuli conceivable, no sense- 
 impression, but mere momentary bhavanga- 
 chalana, i.e. organic 'vibration.' 
 
 This is certainly, in its meticulous analysis, 
 its so to speak microscopical introspection, a 
 considerable elaboration of the simple Sutta 
 statement, quoted in a former chapter, of 
 mano as the resort of, and the indulger in, 
 all the impressions of the special senses,^ 
 Nevertheless, the validity of that statement 
 is piously upheld by Buddhaghosa, when he 
 is discoursing on mano. This is in his 
 Commentary on the first Abhidhamma- 
 Pitaka book, a work containing better 
 psychological matter than the more norma- 
 tive treatment of the Visuddhi-Magga. 
 ' P. 69. 
 
182 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The work of mano is there explained in 
 reference to that passage. 
 
 Quoting it, he goes on : " Those objects 
 which are the field and range of the five 
 senses are also enjoyed by mano. . . . Each 
 object (colour, sound, etc.) enters the focus 
 [of consciousness] by two doors or gates. 
 The object of sight, for instance, when it 
 becomes the condition of bhavanga-yihra- 
 tion, by striking on the visual organ, at that 
 instant comes into the focus of the mano- 
 door. Just as a bird coming through the 
 air and alighting on a tree, at the same 
 moment shakes a bough and casts its shadow 
 on the earth, even so is the simultaneity 
 of sense-stimulus and wano-access." Then 
 follow adverting of mano and the rest of 
 the process. But in work of mano-doov 
 only, there is no sense-impact. This is 
 when, on a later occasion and being no 
 matter where, we recall some previous 
 sense-experience — "the sight of the beauti- 
 fully decorated shrine, the pleasant voice of 
 the preacher, the odour of votive wreaths, 
 the meal enjoyed with colleagues. Or we 
 may, when lying on a hard bed, recall a 
 soft, easy couch enjoyed at such a time. 
 Thus to the adverting mano the tangible 
 object seems to enter the door of touch, and 
 to make the pleasant contact present. But 
 there is no such impact at the time." ^ 
 
 1 Atthasalint, 73 ; Bud. Psy. Ethics, 2, n. 3. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 183 
 
 Later on, the mawo-element (' element ' 
 as being ' empty of substance ' or ' entity ') 
 is described as "following the sense-impres- 
 sion, as having the essential mark of cognizing 
 sights, sounds, etc., the property of receiving 
 the same, the resulting phenomenon of 
 truth (literally : thusness), and as its proxi- 
 mate antecedent, the vanishing of the sense- 
 impression. , . ." ^ Its physical basis is the 
 heart, and although the door-objects, which 
 are not similarly bound, pass on, this is the 
 locus, this has the function of receiving them. 
 The investigating moment and the rest 
 come under that developed activity of mano 
 termed ' element of mawo-consciousness,' and 
 correspond more or less to what our text- 
 books call representative cognition, much of 
 which is always implicit, if perhaps latent, 
 in an act of sense-perception. And where 
 the work of mind is not largely automatic, 
 and swiftly determined and apperceived, as 
 on most occasions of sense, but is dealing 
 with unfamiliar and problematical assimila- 
 tion, we may presume that Buddhaghosa 
 would admit that chitta - moments, pre- 
 dominantly of investigating, determining, 
 etc., might be indefinitely multiplied. Un- 
 fortunately he has left us no work devoted 
 entirely and systematically to mental 
 analysis. And if there be any such 
 
 1 Atthasalint, 263. Note the orthodox scholastic mo<Je of 
 definition, 
 
184 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 later work by another hand, it is not yet 
 accessible. 
 
 A complete exposition of this Commentary, 
 however, would reveal much more incidental 
 psychological matter of interest. For instance, 
 it does not pause to point to anything 
 problematical in the phenomenon of contact 
 on occasion of sense, either in the physical 
 necessity, except in touch, of a medium, or 
 in the apparent anomaly of riipa in contact 
 with that which is a-rupa (matter with mind). 
 And it makes no dogmatic statement concern- 
 ing this. Nevertheless remarks are let drop 
 guarding the psychological position. Thus : 
 " Eye impinges on visible object [rupa) only 
 means eye receiving the mental object 
 {d-rammana)." ^ Again, when he alludes to 
 the Milinda similes for contact — ^the rams 
 butting and cymbals clashing — Buddha- 
 ghosa justifies the use of ' impact ' as between 
 consciousness and mental object only in 
 the sense of attaining, achieving (sampatti)} 
 And, generally speaking, the cause of feeling 
 lies in the nature of consciousness itself, 
 " just as the heat of melting lac is in its own 
 tissue though ascribed to burning coal 
 without." 
 
 There is a great deal more sagacious 
 psychological comment scattered thickly up 
 and down this Commentary, and to some 
 extent the following Commentary on the 
 
 » Atthdsalim, 309. 2 Ibid. 108 f. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 185 
 
 Vibhanga, or second book of the Abhi- 
 dhamma-Pitaka.^ Some day, in a separate 
 monograph, the psychology of Buddhaghosa 
 will take its lawful place in the history of 
 psychology. It is as yet premature to 
 attempt a digest of the contribution made 
 by him. A good deal of this cumbers the 
 pages of the older work translated in my 
 so-called Buddhist Psychological Ethics, but 
 imperfectly and incompletely presented, I 
 will only quote two more remarks given 
 there, to show, by these alone, how unworthy 
 of a truly catholic perspective it will be, to 
 take account of Aristotle's psychology and 
 not of Buddhaghosa's when made accessible. 
 The ' work translated ' just mentioned 
 [Dhamma-sangani) has replied to its query : 
 " What is included under visible object ? " 
 by stating, first, colours, then forms of magni- 
 tude. On these the Commentary remarks : 
 " Here, inasmuch as we are able to tell 
 ' long,' ' short,' etc., by touch, while we 
 cannot so discern ' blue,' etc., therefore 
 long, short, and so on are not to be taken 
 IS visual objects without explanation. It is 
 3nly by customary usage that we can speak 
 3f anything as visible object which appears 
 is long or short, great or small, etc, etc., 
 fvhen so placed as to compare with some- 
 
 1 Printed as yet only in Burmese characters, this 
 Noxk is now being prepared for publication in Roman 
 etter by the Pali Text Society. 
 
186 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 thing else." ^ This may not bring us up 
 to modern psychology, but it is a farther 
 step towards Berkeley's rather one-sided 
 view, that whenever we are seeing, we are 
 really, in mind, touching, than is Aristotle's 
 mere hint : " There is a movement which is 
 perceptible both by touch and sight." " 
 
 Once more, in commenting on the ques- 
 tion : " What is included under the organ 
 of touch ? " he writes : 
 
 " The organ of touch (literally, the material 
 organic compound, or body, kdya) is difhised 
 over the whole bodily form just as moisture 
 pervades an entire cotton rag. With the 
 exception of this quality of unspeci3,lized 
 organ, the sense ranks with the others. To 
 the objection that, if the sensitive surface 
 be so general, it would convey confused 
 impressions, the reply is that, without this 
 extensity, we should not get all the touch- 
 differentiations that we do get. In an 
 ultimate sense the organ of touch is both 
 everywhere and not everywhere. Not every- 
 where to the extent of being in things as 
 seen or as tasted, etc. We cannot segregate 
 sensations as we can grains of sand : hence 
 qualities appear to, but do not really, 
 coalesce in the object." * 
 
 Leaving the field of sense - cognition, 
 another noteworthy contribution by Buddha- 
 
 1 AUhasalinl, 317. » De Anima, 11. vi. 
 
 ' Atthasalini, 311. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 187 
 
 »hosa is his recording what was probably 
 the current development of the meaning of 
 the term I have rendered as ' zest ' (j)Ui). 
 This word in the canonical books is usually 
 associated with either sukha, pleasant, happy 
 Eeeling, or pamojja, joy, gladness, and it 
 was very generally rendered by 'joy.' Mr. 
 A.ung has strongly maintained that it is not so 
 much an emotional as an intellectual quality, 
 and, at least at its lowest power, stands for 
 ' interest.' Thus the ' interest ' of pursuit 
 as compared with the sukha of realization 
 is, by Buddhaghosa, likened to the thirsty 
 tieated traveller's quest compared with his 
 reaching water, shade and rest. 
 
 But if pUi be not emotional, it is unmis- 
 takably emotion. ' Emotional ' is, has to 
 be, used as the adjective of feeling. And 
 pUi is classed, not with feeling {vedand- 
 kkhandha), but among the coefficients of 
 consciousness called sankhdra's or chetasika^s. 
 [t is not simply pleasurable feeling (sukha). 
 But neither is emotion to be so defined. 
 Emotion is feeling accompanying an idea, 
 the being ' moved ' with a coefficient of 
 representative consciousness. The canonical 
 iescription of pUi allies it with terms of glad- 
 ness, mirth and enthusiasm.^ Buddhaghosa 
 ^ives, as its essential features, the being 
 pleased, expansion, and elation.^ He also 
 lives us the five grades of piti : the thrill 
 
 1 Bud. Psy. Ethics, § 9. " Atthasalim, 115. 
 
188 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of eagerness, the momentary flash, the flood 
 of enthusiasm, as waves breaking over us, 
 ecstasy or transport, and rapture. And all 
 the instances given refer to an idea or group of 
 ideas as the proximate cause. Hence whereas 
 no one word need suffice, ' joy ' as the more 
 exultant, uplifted form of interest or zest 
 is by no means always a mistranslation. 
 And as the Commentary on the Psalms of 
 the Sisters and Brethren renders by plti- 
 sukha their emotion on reviewing their own 
 struggles to the goal, so do I judge that 
 Buddhaghosa, and even my excellent colla- 
 borator, would use pUi in translating Prof. 
 Bergson's fine passage on the intellectual 
 joy of creative effort and attainment. Once 
 we get at the psychologically composite 
 backbone of pUi : " intellectual excitement 
 over an object felt as desirable," ^ we may 
 render the word by whichever of the above- 
 named terms — none of which, not even 'joy,' 
 is bare feeling — ^the particular context seems 
 to demand. 
 
 This mood of intellectual commotion, 
 ranging from interest, eagerness, or zest up 
 to rapture, is too important in all religious 
 psychology for us to dismiss the Buddhist 
 discussion of it for yet a few moments longer. 
 The emotion, writes the Commentator, reaches 
 maturity and climax in composure and 
 serenity of mind. But the prior working of it 
 
 1 Discussed in my Buddhism (1912), p. 231. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 189 
 
 is a sort of mental intoxication. We may pass 
 3ver his metaphors of the first three and the 
 iast : the ' goose-flesh ' thrill, the lightning 
 [lash, the boiling surge on the shore, the 
 ^xpansion of a blown bladder.^ It is on 
 pUi as elation, or transport or ecstasy, 
 that he enlarges. And here he quits our 
 Western and Greek-trained sobriety, and 
 takes the elation ^ and transport physically 
 as well as mentally, representing those 
 possessed of this rapture " caught up to 
 the third heaven," as St. Paul might say, 
 " whether in the body or out of the body I 
 cannot tell — God knoweth," or as he himself 
 says, " making the body elated, so as to 
 accomplish a measure of leaping into the 
 air." He then tells two anecdotes from his 
 abundant store : how an Elder M. dwelling 
 at N. contemplating the full moon at a 
 shrine, and thinking how at the Great 
 Shrine all the faithful must just then be 
 reverencing the Buddha, dwelt on the idea 
 3f Him, and in a throbbing {ubbega) ecstasy, 
 like the chords of a lyre, rose in the air and 
 stood again in the courtyard of the Great 
 shrine. Thus too the daughter of well-to-do 
 [olk at Y., near the minster Z., left at home 
 ivhile they went to church, stands at her 
 ioor looking in the bright moonlight up 
 towards the hill-shrine ' shining like a heap 
 
 1 Visuddhi-Magga, ch. iv. 
 
 ' Udagya=ud-ag-ya (up-top-ness). 
 
190 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of pearls,' and longing to hear 'the sweet 
 Dhamma-discourse.' Thereupon throbbing 
 ecstasy arises and she too leaps into the 
 air, arriving in the congregation before her 
 parents. They question her and are amazed 
 that she should have come as only arahants 
 were wont to travel. 
 
 PUi therefore at this degree of intensity 
 was held to have produced, in the past 
 at least, a similar supernormal result to 
 the power of supernormal will, ^ without ap- 
 parently any express preparation or exertion 
 of will. 
 
 Buddhaghosa gives his cases in much the 
 same tone of habitual, unsurprised faith 
 that an orthodox Christian would use in 
 alluding to miracles. But I have not yet 
 found him attesting his own experience of 
 such results, nor that of his contemporaries. 
 And his chapter on Iddhi in the Visuddhi- 
 Magga, to which he here and there refers 
 his readers, is to me clearly not that of one 
 who spoke from first-hand experience. When 
 this chapter appears in its long-delayed 
 English dress, the reader will be able to judge 
 to what extent the Jhana exercises, pre- 
 scribed for making the mind {chitta) ' con- 
 centrated, purified, pliant and fit,' seem 
 calculated to induce the extraordinary 
 power of will which, in the iddhi-adept, were 
 reckoned able to convert mind into body, 
 
 * Adhitthand-iddhi, see pp. 127 f. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 191 
 
 or body into mind, as if the repudiated 
 Atman itself were immanent in either. 
 
 The work of Buddhaghosa cannot, let it 
 be once more said, be justly appraised in 
 these fragmentary remarks, typical of the 
 very unfinished state of our ' excavations.' 
 His intellect, clogged as it is by all that 
 usually handicaps the scholastic mind, 
 dominates the development of his own 
 tradition : unsound philology, unsoundness 
 as to historical evidence, the losing, in 
 detailed work, all conspectus of the whole, 
 whether that whole be the movement of 
 thought in his day, or the movement, from 
 its inception, of the tradition he represented. 
 His diction, moreover, becomes at times 
 involved and ambiguous. He was no longer 
 writing for a culture with no literature. But 
 there is a world of difference between his 
 commentatorial phraseology and the limpid 
 periods of Milinda's delightful monitor. 
 
 We know, however, enough to be doubtful 
 as to the probability of coming upon any 
 attempt to theorize on the problem of repre- 
 sentative cognition, or of the association 
 oi. ideas. Apparently he resembled in this 
 respect European philosophers prior to Hume 
 and Hartley — for Spinoza's statements ^ 
 :arry us no further than Buddhaghosa's 
 as psychological theory, though they are 
 3etter summaries. Until, in fact, the 
 
 1 Ethics, II. xvii, xviii. 
 
192 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 neurological inquiries of Cartesianism were 
 set on foot, no strong impetus arose to 
 make the apparent parallelism between the 
 physically associated and the mentally asso- 
 ciated a matter for philosophy to theorize 
 about. But the problem of the functions of 
 the pineal gland and the deductions therefrom 
 set the savants thinking anew. " I wonder," 
 wrote Spinoza, " that one who had so often 
 taken to task the Scholastics for wishing to 
 explain obscurities through occult qualities, 
 could maintain a hypothesis, beside which 
 occult qualities are commonplace ! What 
 does he understand, I ask, by the union of the 
 mind and the body ? " ^ 
 
 Now Buddhist psychology postulated a 
 seat, literally, site (vatthu), for each of the 
 ways in which the organism was, as Prof. 
 Bergson might say, canalized for access to 
 external impressions, or rather for the 
 access of those external conditions, in con- 
 sequence of which chitta or consciousness 
 was called up. These were the five special 
 sense-peripheries, and, in the older books, 
 " that material thing on the basis of which ap- 
 prehension and comprehension take place," * 
 a thing which, in all the (much later) com- 
 mentaries, is explained to be the heart 
 {hdddyd-vatthu). The brain is not even men- 
 tioned until the Milinda,^ and though the 
 
 * Ethics, V. Preface. He is referring to Descartes. 
 ' Compendium, 278. ' Questions, i. 42. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 193 
 
 etymological parallel of nerves {naharu) is 
 always included, in the enumeration of the 
 thirty-two main constituents of the body, it is 
 apparently in the sense of ' sinews.' There 
 was therefore no physiological induction 
 concerning the ' canalization ' of sensory 
 disturbance. Hence any corresponding 
 theory of 'latent mental modifications,' 
 based on a theory of neural tracks and so 
 forth, is no more to be expected in Buddhist 
 than in European mediaeval psychology. 
 And so far as I have seen, Buddhaghosa is 
 content to push no further the adumbrations 
 of theory we met with in the Milinda, but 
 simply to give the facts, the results of 
 representative cognition, without feeling 
 called upon to frame any new theory to 
 suit the ' non-entity-non-soul ' axiom of his 
 tradition which he loses no opportunity of 
 upholding.^ 
 
 To judge, however, by S. Z. Aung's able 
 presentment, in his introductory essay to 
 the Compendium of Philosophy, the later 
 mediaeval and modern psychological literature 
 of Burma and Ceylon has not only evolved 
 a detailed theory of reproductive mental 
 procedure, but claims to have evolved it 
 from the so-called Method of Relations, 
 formulated with interminable detail in the 
 last book of the Abhidhamma-Pitaka called 
 Patthdna. We have as yet no access to the 
 
 ' Bud. Psy. Ethics, xxxvi f . 
 13 
 
194 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 original documents containing these later 
 developments to which Mr. Aung owes his 
 philosophical training. But I imagine that 
 it will have been the contact with Western 
 thought and criticism, and not his authorities, 
 who prompted him to propound and to 
 reply to the query : " How is memory 
 possible, ii the subject be not the same for 
 any two consecutive moments in life ? " ^ 
 
 There is a prospect, I am glad to say, of 
 a fuller disquisition on Buddhist philosophy 
 of mind, on the lines of Mr. Aung's essay, 
 by his teacher, Ledi Sadaw, coming our 
 way. I have put in a plea that special 
 attention may be given to the philosophy 
 of relations (pacchdyd), and its applica- 
 tion to mental processes," Here is not the 
 place to discuss it, and the question it- 
 self given above is philosophical, and not 
 psychological. We are not, however, out 
 for psychology pure and simple, and shall 
 do well to pause a moment over the subject 
 on which we may get more light in the near 
 future. 
 
 Pacchaya is not exactly our relation. It 
 is nearer to that kind of relation which we 
 call causal. Thus, in the Commentary on 
 the Book of Relations Buddhaghosa writes : 
 " Pacchaya here means hecause-of-that-mdkes- 
 
 1 Compendium, 42. 
 
 ^ Patthana, part 11., was edited by myself in 1906 ; 
 part I. and the Commentary I am now preparing for press. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 195 
 
 to-go.'' (This is the mediaeval ' buried- 
 city' etymology common to Europe and 
 Asia.) " That is to say, it is concerned 
 with what is not-opposed." (More ' buried- 
 city.') " For the phenomenon {A) which 
 stands or happens in non-opposition to 
 another phenomenon (B) is said to be the 
 pacchaya of the latter." We now become 
 more positive again : " Pacchaya has the 
 essential mark of rendering service (literally 
 working-up-to, upakdraka). A is J?'s pacchaya 
 in so far as it renders service to B's existing 
 or becoming. Pacchaya, condition, reason- 
 why, source, coming-to-be, origin {pahhava), 
 etc., are one in meaning, different in verbal 
 form." Judging by this passage, therefore, 
 the twenty-four kinds of pacchaya distin- 
 guished in the Book of Relations are twenty- 
 four ways in which the happening of A 
 affects the happening of B ; or conversely, 
 in which the happening of B is as it is because 
 of the happening of A. 
 
 When this definition is applied to the 
 correlation of one mental moment {chitta) 
 with another, we get a much less empty 
 abstract conception than that of two terms 
 just ' standing in relation one to the other.' 
 We come to realize that in a continuum of 
 momentary chitta's we have not just a number 
 of isolated, mutually independent units, 
 simulating by their speed a unity of sub- 
 stance, just as a red-hot point whirled round 
 
196 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 in the dark simulates an unbroken circle.^ 
 Yfe.have a number of units simulating unity, 
 but they are such that each one is what it 
 is because of the ' service-rendering ' of those 
 that have preceded it. Thus according to the 
 Book of Relations, and the echo of it in the 
 Compendium,^ B chitta, related to A chitta as 
 (1) immediately succeeding, (2) present while 
 A is absent, (3) present with A in abeyance, 
 that is, telling upon it, is, in consequence, 
 so and not otherwise. Or again when A 
 and B are in the pacchaya of association 
 {sampayutta), A has rendered such service 
 to B that it is wrought up into B, and hence 
 in B our past appears as present. (In the 
 latter case reference is not made to mutually 
 contiguous chitta' s). 
 
 This influence, or service-rendering, or 
 conditioning of one momentary phenomenon 
 (whether mental or otherwise) came to be 
 termed satti (Sansk. iakti), that is ability, 
 vis, influence, force, chiefly, it would seem, 
 through the teaching of Ariyavamsa, a 
 notable and noble-natured Burmese teacher 
 of the fifteenth century.' And I mention 
 the theory as showing that the Buddhist 
 theory of non-soul, or of no abiding entity- 
 which-has-chitta's, has not caused the sub- 
 
 1 Cp. Compendium, p. 33, «. i. " Page 193, § 9. 
 
 " Cp. Mrs. Bode's Pali Literature of Burma, 41. I owe 
 the information to S. Z. Aung's kind reply to my ques- 
 tion as to the earliest mention of pacchaya-satti. 
 
SOME MEDIiEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 197 
 
 stitution, in place of such a doctrine, of 
 disconnected momentary monads, each one 
 being a tabula rasa of anything that had gone 
 before. 
 
 All this is insufficient to explain the 're- 
 instatement ' of any given section of the 
 past at any given moment, in other words, 
 why chitta^s A B . . . call up certain former 
 chittd's X Y . . ., whether we add, with 
 Locke, why C is the consciousness that 
 ' we did have ^ X Y . . . once, or whether 
 we do not. But that is a matter that the 
 hypothesis of a perduring entity does not 
 explain either. Theories of association may 
 state that, for instance, a man, passing some 
 object one day and making a remark, may 
 recollect, when passing a year later, what he 
 said, and continue the conversation, and call it 
 association by contiguity and similarity. But 
 the form of persistence, the actual mechanism 
 of reinstatement, that has gone on ' in ' the 
 mental continuum, the theory can no more 
 describe than the electrician can say how wire 
 or ether is molecularly affected during trans- 
 mission of electric force. We cannot describe 
 mental experience, which is ' much more vast 
 than cerebral life,'^ in terms of space, nor 
 can we broaden into detail in terms of 
 time. 
 
 Hence the sublimated animism of a 
 
 > Prof. Bergson, ' Presidential Address,' S.P.R., trans- 
 lated by Dr. Wildon Carr. 
 
198 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ' psychic continuum ' is really no better off 
 as to an intelligible description of memory 
 than is the Buddhist non-animism. If the 
 former seem at first sight to help us out, 
 it is because we have been surreptitiously 
 conceiving mind in spatial dimensions, either 
 as a storehouse,'^ and modified substance, 
 or else as a long, long lane down which come 
 pilgrims, from the past. Such at least is, 
 I think, the vaguely floating image of the 
 remembering mind held, if not by psycho- 
 logists, at least by the general reader. If 
 we strip off these quasi-visible vestments of 
 mind, and think of it only in terms of its 
 processes experienced as results, then the 
 upspringing of potential chittd's, not empty 
 and mutually disconnected, but each fraught 
 with the informing satti of this or that 
 among former chitta-continua, brings all our 
 past right up to and about our present at 
 least as much as does a real, and not a simu- 
 lated unity in the continuum. 
 
 In putting down the Compendium, we 
 note that, in the last part, which is con- 
 cerned with that mental training, or ' making 
 to become,' so as to realize, for those who 
 were ripening for it, the final goal of life, 
 the word pannd has gone, and vipassand, 
 dis-cernment, insight, has replaced it. The 
 twin terms, ' calm and insight,' date from 
 the oldest books, but they come, as twin terms, 
 I A boUe d souvenirs, Prof. Bergson would say. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 199 
 
 to the very front rank only in mediaeval 
 works. Each now comprises a khandha or 
 group of exercises. 'Calm' {sam'atha) in- 
 cludes all that Buddhaghosa classed under 
 samddhi (concentration) and the older books 
 partly under training {sikkhd) of chitta, 
 partly under pannd. Under ' calm ' is now 
 included 'supernormal intellection,' or a- 
 hhinnd} Of its six modes the last — the 
 spiritual ' destruction of the dsava^s or 
 vicious instincts' — is suppressed, and the 
 other five are very briefly dismissed. 'In- 
 sight ' comprises the intellectual realization 
 of certain truths. 
 
 In spite of the ample statement given to 
 one of them, to iddhi, in Mr. Aung's inter- 
 esting introduction, I see in these altered 
 proportions an evolution of thought. Six- 
 teen hundred years, perhaps, had elapsed 
 since the wonderful age that produced 
 the Founder and his Arahants, and over a 
 thousand, since the earliest records were 
 committed to writing. Even Buddhaghosa 
 could only refer to the marvels achieved 
 by saints of old, while it would seem that 
 for Anuruddha's still later age, the sight and 
 sound of things ineffable, and the godlike 
 will that could say of Brahma-heaven " Be 
 thou near to me ! " ^ were become as things 
 that were very far away. 
 
 » Compendium, p. 209, and above, pp. 126-130, 
 » Visuddhi-Mag^a. ' Iddhividhci.' 
 
200 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Let me bring to a close these fragmentary 
 inquiries into the age-long career of Thera- 
 vada thought by linking those into the 
 chitta and the pannd of the oldest books 
 with the latest utterances from Burma. In 
 the Thera Ledi Sadaw of Mandalay are 
 combined, fortunately for us, a desire to 
 give of his best to those in Europe who 
 have ears to hear, and a culture that is 
 quite untouched by anything that Europe 
 might have to give him of its own 
 thought. His diction, so far as I know it, 
 seems to me ageless ; his similes might all 
 be in the Nikayas, or in Buddhaghosa ; his 
 ideas belong to a machine-less world. Such 
 a product must, even in Burmese monasteries, 
 be soon a thing of the past. Fortunately 
 his works, written in Pali, are numerous, 
 and are in print. In them (I do not say in 
 them only) we may learn something of modern 
 Theravada, undistorted by filtration through 
 minds born and trained in European tradi- 
 tion. Such ' distortion ' may eventually 
 bring about an evolution in Theravada 
 greater than any it has experienced — an 
 evolution that will eventually react mightily 
 on our own philosophic standpoints — and 
 be ultimately acknowledged by Buddhists 
 themselves as the cause of a great renascence. 
 For the present we need to record this un- 
 contaminated, unleavened heritage, deriving 
 without break, from the Burmo-Singhalese 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 201 
 
 Council of A.D. 1165, not to mention the 
 cult of the preceding centuries. 
 
 " Chitta (consciousness), mano (mind), 
 mdnasa (intelligence), vinndna (awareness)," 
 writes Ledi Sadaw, "all are really one in 
 meaning : they are various modes of coming 
 to know.^ . . . We know, whether our 
 knowing be of blue as such or not as such, 
 or whether it be of the real, as real or as 
 otherwise, or whether it be what we desire 
 or do not desire. Now knowing is three- 
 fold : there is knowing as being aware of, 
 knowing as perceiving, knowing as under- 
 standing. Perceiving is a clearer knowing 
 than awareness, and is also knowing without 
 forgetting over a lapse of time. Under- 
 standing (pajdnana) is knowing adequately 
 by way of class and species. It is knowing 
 completely all about any [given] knowable 
 thing. For even in any one such thing 
 there is much to be known, viz. as to its 
 nature, conditions, correlations, effects, the 
 evil, the good of it, its impermanence, the 
 ill connected with it. And pajdnana, pannd, 
 is to have an exhaustive knowledge of all 
 this, as it is said : ' The limit of knowledge 
 is the knowable, the knowable is the limit 
 of knowledge.' Pannd in its fullest sense 
 is omniscience. . . . Yet even for the learner, 
 whenever through coming to know he con- 
 quers natural failings, his knowing hasbecome 
 
 1 So Buddhaghosa. 
 
202 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 pannd. . . . And whenever ordinary folk by 
 coming to know dispel what is harmful, 
 induce what is good, their knowledge too is 
 panna. ^ 
 
 The writer refers to passages in the 
 canonical scriptures illustrating each kind 
 of knowledge. A little further on he 
 launches into a disquisition, varied by 
 dialectic, on chitta as " the especial basis, 
 the peculiar soil of the error of Permanence," 
 and on the doctrine of chitta as a phenomenon 
 " which uprises and ceases from one moment 
 to another," From the standpoint of popular 
 thought and diction, it is correct to speak of 
 mind, person, soul, as being or persisting, 
 or passing hence, when from the standpoint 
 of ultimate or philosophical truth nothing 
 of the kind is so. We will not go into that 
 here. But we can pick up the thread again 
 for a moment, where his discussion is 
 psychological. 
 
 " Knowledge (ndna),^ do you say, is the 
 criterion of truth ? But that knowledge is 
 twofold : inferential or intuitive.* When 
 ordinary folk are investigating abstruse, 
 subtle, deep matters, they know by way of 
 inference. But with proper mental training, 
 by developing pannd, they may attain 
 intuition in such matters. By intuition, 
 
 ' Yamaha, ii., Appendix, p. 264 (P.T.S. ed.). 
 ' Ibid. Z74. This to the objector. 
 » Paftvedka, lit. penetrating. 
 
SOME MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 203 
 
 they discard the concepts ' person,' ' entity,' 
 'self or soul,' 'living thing' (jiva), and 
 know things as of purely phenomenal nature, 
 under the concept of element {dhdtu). Now 
 mind, mental coefficients, matter, Nibbana,^ 
 are just such abstruse, subtle, deep matters, 
 to be truly understood only as inferential 
 knowing becomes, through persistent train- 
 ing, transformed into intuitive knowing." 
 
 Here we see intuition considered as one 
 aspect of that panna, which is thorough 
 knowing. 
 
 It may be noticed that Dr. Ledi makes 
 no reference to Buddhaghosa's frequently 
 repeated simile of the child, the citizen, and 
 the gold-expert (above, pp. 131 f.), when 
 distinguishing between the three modes of 
 coming-to-know. Mr. Aung tells me that it 
 is given in Sumangala's still more popular 
 commentary. He himself disapproves of 
 consciousness {vinndna) being graded with 
 perception and pannd, which belong to the 
 philosophically different category of mental 
 coefficients (chetasika's). 
 
 Here the deader of the Nikayas and 
 Buddhaghosa will note that the ancient 
 five-group distinction is passed over. Ledi 
 Sadaw, however, in commenting on that 
 classification, has illustrated, by a new and 
 ingenious parable, the functions of the five 
 
 I The fourfold category of Buddhadatta and the Com- 
 pendium. See above, pp. 174, 176. 
 
204 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ' groups,' in vindication of the adequacy of 
 this ancient category to take into account 
 all human activities in such spheres as are 
 governed by natural desire {tanhd-visayesu 
 thdnesu) : ^ 
 
 " It may be asked : Why did the Exalted 
 Buddha, when classifying conditioned ex- 
 perience under the concept of aggregates 
 {khandhd), make the number five ? We 
 reply : By these five groups of phenomena 
 our acts, regarded as felicific, on occasions 
 where natural desires have play, find ac- 
 complishment. This the following parable 
 may illustrate : A wealthy man, seeking 
 wealth, builds a ship, and equips it with a 
 crew of fifty-two sailors. By transport of 
 passengers he amasses money. Of the crew 
 one is expert in all works relating to the 
 ship, and has these carried out ; and one 
 is acquainted with the ports to be visited 
 and the routes thither, and he from a 
 commanding position* directs the steering. 
 The owner, maintaining boat and crew, 
 receives and enjoys the ensuing wealth. 
 
 " Now by the sea we may understand the 
 way of life ever renewed {samsdra) ; by 
 the ship-owner, a person pursuing natural 
 and worldly desires. By the ship we may 
 understand the material aggregate {rupa- 
 
 1 1 have very slightly condensed the following. 
 ' I felt that ' the bridge ' was too modern for this ' ageless ' 
 prose 1 
 
SOME MEDIAEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 205 
 
 kkhandha) ; by the wealth it brings in, the 
 aggregate of feeling ; by the former officer, 
 the aggregate of perception ; by the crew 
 carrying out his orders, the mental properties 
 labelled as sankhdra-aggregate ; and by the 
 latter officer, who directs the ship's course, 
 the vinndna-aggregate. 
 
 " ' Feeling ' covers all our enjoying, par- 
 taking of. ' Perception ' includes our con- 
 versance with, our intelligence of, our com- 
 petence respecting all experience in the range 
 of things human, divine, or infra-human. 
 That which we call sankhdra's covers all that 
 we do by thought, word, or deed according to 
 what we have perceived. And vinndna, or 
 the aggregate of consciousnesses or cognitions, 
 is all those sense-impressions, sense-cogni- 
 tions, which act as heralds and guides 
 wherever we happen to be, pointing out, as 
 it were, in our daily activities, and saying : 
 ' this is here, that is there ! ' Thus it is 
 that the five aggregates cover all that is 
 wrought within the range of natural and 
 worldly desires." 
 
 Hence, in this our little inquiry over some 
 twenty-three centuries or more, we are still, 
 in these words of last year, well within sight 
 of our starting-point. In them we see that, 
 with a considerable evolution in introspective 
 and analytical and critical power, there has 
 been and still is an unbroken current of 
 consistently upheld Theravada tradition, 
 
206 BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and that, even for a writer credited with so 
 much independent and progressive judgment 
 as Ledi Sadaw, the word ascribed in the 
 Pitakas to the Buddha, adored and omni- 
 scient, dehvering his first sermon, in the 
 Deer Wood near Benares, has not yet passed 
 away, nay, has not, since that auspicious 
 day, lost aught of its pregnant and far-seeing 
 wisdom and power. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 The Four Nikdyas (or * Bodies ' of Doctrine) : Digha, 
 Majjhima, Samyutia, Anguttara. 
 
 The Fifth Nikdya. 
 
 Miscellaneous books. 
 
 These five form the Sutta-Pi^aka. The 
 quotations are from volume and page of the 
 Pali Text Society editions. 
 
 The Abhidhamma-Pitaka. 
 
 Seven miscellaneous books. 
 
 The above, together with the Vinaya- 
 Pi^aka, form the Canon of Theravada scrip- 
 tures. The Four Nikayas (to mention no 
 more) are all pre-Asokan (Asoka's probable 
 date is b.c. 272-285.) The only portion of 
 such as are quoted which are translated into 
 English are : 
 
 (1) Dlgha-Nikdya, i., ii. — Dialogues of the 
 
 Buddha, i., ii., in ' Sacred Books of 
 the Buddhists.' The remaining volume 
 is in preparation ; to be continued by 
 Mqjjhima-Nikdya. See also Buddhist 
 Suttas, ' Sacred Books of the East,' 
 vol. xi. 
 
 (2) Anguttara- Nikdya, Parts i.-iii. By 
 
 E. R. J. GooNERATNE. Gallc, Ceylon, 
 1918, 
 
 907 
 
208 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 (3) Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipdta, ' Sacred 
 
 Books of the East,' xi, and other trans- 
 lations. 
 
 Iti-vuttaka {Sayings of Buddha). By J. 
 MooRK, 1908. 
 
 Psalms of the Brethren and Sisters. 
 By Mrs. Rhys Davids, 1909, 1913. 
 Pali Text Society. 
 The Jatdka. Cambridge, 1895-1907. 
 
 These are from the Fifth Nikaya. 
 
 (4) Dhamma-sangani (Buddhist Psychological 
 
 Ethics). By Mrs. Rhys Davids. Royal 
 Asiatic Society, 1900. 
 This is in the Abhidhamma-Pitaka, 
 Buddhism in Translations. By H. 
 Warren, 1896, gives excerpts of 
 different dates. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF LATER WORKS 
 
 The Questions of King Milinda. By T. W. Rhys 
 Davids. ' Sacred Books of the East,' 2 vols. 
 
 The Compendium of Philosophy. By S. Z. Aung, 
 B.A., and Mrs. Rhys Davids. Pali Text 
 Society, 1910. 
 
 Thoughts on Buddhist Doctrine, ^y Ledi Sadaw, 
 translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids. ' Journal 
 of the Pali Text Society,' 1918-14. 
 Also H. Warren, op. cit. 
 
 The mediaeval texts referred to, but not trans- 
 lated, are given in the footnotes. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ibhidhamma, object of, 134 f ., 
 
 147. 149- 
 ibhinna (' superknowledge '), 
 
 129, 131, 161, 170, 199. 
 Abstraction, in Jhana, 117 f. 
 Adverting,' 120, 157, 178. 
 Alexander, S., 46. 
 All,' given in sense, 74 f. 
 Analysis of consciousness, 38 f :, 
 
 65. 96, 135 f-, 143. 147. 
 
 169. 
 Animals, psychology of, 151, 
 
 160. 
 Animism, 20, 30, 55, loi, 
 
 164, 198. 
 (Anuruddha, disciple, 105, 115. 
 ^nuruddha of Ceylon, 4, 173, 
 
 199. 
 Appetite, 95. 
 Application of mind, 39, 93, 
 
 no, 169. 
 Aquinas, 7. 
 
 Arahant, 21, 129, 150, 179. 
 Aristotle, on medium, 65 n. ; 
 
 on science, 77 ; on feeling, 
 
 77; on 'form,' 17; on 
 
 mind, 55. 
 Ariyavamsa, 196. 
 Association of ideas, 169 f., 
 
 197. 
 Am (soul, self), z6 f., 41, 157. 
 
 159. 163 ; leaving body, 
 
 128 ; soul and sense, 163 ; 
 
 anatta, doctrine of, 30 f. ; 
 
 attabhdva, 27 ; and devas, 
 
 153. 
 Attention, 89, 97, 176; adap- 
 tation of, 137. 144- 
 
 14 
 
 Aung, S. Z.,5:8, 72, 111, 173, 
 
 193, 196 n. ,^203. 
 Aura, 106, 109. 
 Automatic acts, 165 f. 
 Auto-suggestion, 108; I 
 Awareness, 54. *' 
 
 Ayatana, organ and object of 
 
 sense, 57, 74.. 
 
 Base, seat [vatthu), 192. ' 
 
 Becoming, 122 f., 180 ; ' made- 
 to-become,' 107 n. 1, 133, 158, 
 198. 
 
 Bergson, Prof. H., on becom- 
 ing, 122 ; on reminiscence, 
 129 ; on canalization, 192 ; 
 on brain, 197. 
 
 Bhavanga, organic continuum, 
 171, 178 f. 
 
 Bode, Mrs. M. H., 196 n. 
 
 Body, 43 f., 186. 
 
 Brain, 192. 
 
 Buddha, the, 31, 71, 153, 157, 
 199, 206 ; as Physician, 78. 
 
 Buddhadatta, 174 f., 179. 
 
 Buddhadatta, Rev. A. P., 174. 
 
 Buddhaghosa, his work, ch. 
 ix. ; on mind, 17 f. ; on 
 sense, 54, 143, 185 ; on 
 mano, 69, 1 82 ; on cognition, 
 131, 178 ; on iddhi, 128, 
 190 ; on plti, 187 ; on 
 attention, 137 ; on touch, 
 145 ; on volition, 167. 
 
 Causation, 32, 61, 72, 78, 103, 
 120. 
 
210 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Change, law of, 64 ; elimina- 
 tion, of, 109. 
 
 Chetana, volitional cognition, 
 52 ; dual function, 167. 
 
 Chetasika, mental factor, 6f., 
 148, 175 ; constant and 
 contingent, 175 i. 
 
 Chitta, mind, heart, 6 f., 19, 36, 
 53, 149, 175 ; conditioned, 
 98, 195. See also Con- 
 sciousness, Heart. 
 
 Cognition, intellection, 18, 98, 
 167 ; volitional emphasis, 
 92 f., 115, 126 ; representa- 
 tive, 88, 131, 170, 183 ; and 
 see Ideation. 
 
 Colour, 49, 167. 
 
 Conation, 168. 
 
 Concepts, 100, 165, 158. 
 
 Conditions, as influences, 
 ' helpers,' 195. 
 
 Conscience, 28. 
 
 Consciousness, as ultimate, 6, 
 18 ; fictitious unity of, 56 ; 
 how conceived, 16 f. ; inter- 
 mittent, 15, 171 ; types of, 
 136 f. ; sub - consciousness, 
 172. 
 
 Contact, 45, 57, 63, 65, 166, 
 184. 
 
 Creative effort, 132 f. 
 
 Definition of terms, 139 f., 
 183 n. 
 
 Deliberate thinking, 91 f . 
 
 Delusion, 95. 
 
 Desire, 159, 168, 176, 204. 
 
 Determining, 180 ; undeter- 
 mined, 139. 
 
 Deussen, Dr. P., 57 n. ; 59, 60. 
 
 Deva, 112, 153. 
 
 Dhamma, the doctrine, the 
 norm, 40, 138, 140, 190. 
 
 Dhamma (pi.), mental pheno- 
 mena, or objects, 32, 136, 
 140. 
 
 Division, logic of, 54. 
 
 Doors, gates, of sense, 37, 71. 
 
 Dreams, theory of, xyi. 
 Duhkha, ill, pain, 44 f., 76, 79 f. 
 
 Ecstasy, 109, 189 f. 
 Effort, 168. 
 Elements, 18, 66. 
 Elimination, mental, 104 f., 
 
 131, 160. 
 Emotion, 95, 103, 133. 
 Enjojring, 167. 
 Equanimity, 103, iii, 117. 
 Eucharistic consciousness, 113. 
 Exercises in mental training, 
 
 103, 112. 
 
 Feeling (vedana), 44 f., 74 f., 
 167 ; neutral, 46 f., 103, 
 iiof. 
 
 Fielding-Hall, Mr., 5. 
 
 Food, i.e. condition, pre-re- 
 quisite, 61. 
 
 Function, 178. 
 
 Garbe, Prof. R., 165 n. 
 GeneraUzing, 100, 148. 
 ' Good ' in Buddhism, 10, 138 f., 
 175- 
 
 Habits, 165 ; of thought, ch. i. 
 
 Happiness (pleasurable feel- 
 ing), 48, 85 f., 119. 
 
 Heart, for mind, 33 f. ; basis, 
 seat of, 70 f., 192. 
 
 Iddhi, as supernormal efiect 
 of will, 127 f., 161 f., 190, 
 199. 
 
 Ideas, reinstatement of, 133, 
 142, 197 f. 
 
 Ideation, chs. iv.-vi., terms 
 for, 88 f. 
 
 111. See Duhkha. 
 
 Image, 109, i33- 
 
 Individualizing. See lilind. 
 
 Indriya, 121, 168. 
 
 Ineffable nature of the super- 
 normal, 116, 128. 
 
INDEX 
 
 211 
 
 Insight, 94 {ndifa), loo, 125, 
 133; (paiind), 130 f., 159, 
 198 ; {vipassand), 198. 
 
 Instinct, 133. 
 
 Intellect, 100, 104, 120 f., 157 ; 
 nomenclature of, 120 f. ; 
 and causal relation, 120 f. 
 
 Intellection. See Cognition. 
 
 Intelligence, 17, 130, 201. 
 
 Introspection, 98. 
 
 Intuition, 89, 94, 113, 125, 
 133, 155. 170- 
 
 Jacobi, Dr. H., 165 n. 
 
 James, W., 113. 
 
 Javana, cognitive moment, 
 perception, 70, 180. 
 
 Jhdna (ecstatic contempla- 
 tion), 94, 97 f., 107 f., no; 
 and mysticism, 114 f. ; 
 ampa, 117 f. 
 
 Jlva (living principle, or 
 entity), 159, 162 f. 
 
 Kern, Dr. E., 79. 
 
 Khandha's (aggregates of sub- 
 jective experience), 40 f., 
 177 passim ; contra soul 
 doctrine, 42, 55 ; illustrated, 
 204. 
 
 Knowledge, 94, 120 f., 202 ; 
 ' super-,' 129. See Abhinnd. 
 
 Ledi Sadaw, of Mandalay, on 
 sorrow, ill, 83 ; on Abhi- 
 dhamma, 149 ; on relations, 
 194 ; on khandhas, 200 f. 
 
 Like affecting like, 67, 143. 
 
 Locke, 60, 197. 
 
 Love, 95, 103, 112, 113. 
 
 Mano (mind), 17, 19, 36 ; 
 
 sensus communis, 59 f., 68 f., 
 
 140, 163. 
 Materiality, relative, 117. 
 Medicine, and psychology, 76 f : ; 
 
 inspiring Buddhism, 78 f . 
 Memorizing, 150. 
 
 Memory, 90, 169, 197 (see 
 also Sati) ; supernormal, 
 126, 128, 170. 
 
 Mind, attention to, 7, 12 f. ; 
 how conceived, 13 f. ; not 
 as psyche, 17, 55 ; as tam- 
 able, 36 f. ; as trained, 99 f., 
 126, 157 ; ' one-minded- 
 ness,' individualizing, 105, 
 176 ; work of, 89, 123 ; 
 evolution in classification 
 concerning, 177. 
 
 Mindfulness. See Sati. 
 
 Mystic consciousness, 11 3-1 6. 
 
 Nigasena, 156, 158 f. 
 
 NdmarUpa, 23 f., 55, 177. 
 
 Name, 23, 49 f. 
 
 Nerves, 193. 
 
 Neumann, Dr. K. E., 91. 
 
 Nibbdna (nirvapa), 6, 82, 203. 
 
 Object of sense. See Ayatana ; 
 
 in philosophy, 61, 63. 
 Order, natural, in sense, 72, 
 
 165 ; in ideation, 87 f. ; in 
 
 mind, 88, 97 f., 123. 
 
 Pain, 76. See Dukkha, Feeling. 
 
 PaUnd (intelligence, under- 
 standing, insight), 94, 158, 
 162, 170, 201 ; collective 
 term, 126, 130, 161 ; as 
 vision, 130 ; as illumina- 
 tion, 160 ; compared with 
 viiindna, 130 f . ; as eUmina- 
 tion, 160. 
 
 Penetration, 94, 202 n. 
 
 Perception, 49!, 53, 167, 201. 
 
 Philosophy, task of, 56, 202. 
 
 Plti (zest, rapture), 94, iiof., 
 187 f. 
 
 Plato on mind, 55. 
 
 Pleasure. See Feeling. 
 
 Plotinus, 114, 143. 
 
 Process, X78. 
 
 Puggala (used later for atid), 
 159. 
 
212 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Realism, 46, 65, 75 ; Platonic, 
 101. 
 
 Reason, 94. 
 
 Reasoned thinking, 160. 
 
 Reasoning, 94, 159 f. 
 
 Recognition, 50, 167. 
 
 Recollection, 133, 182. See 
 Memory. 
 
 Reflection, 89 f . 
 
 Relations, categories of, 135, 
 193 f. See Condition. 
 
 Retention, 180. 
 
 Robertson, Croom, 146. 
 
 Rilpa, as ultimate, 6 ; as 
 body, 23, 43 ; as visible 
 object, 43 ; as material 
 quality, 51, 66, 143 f. 
 
 Samadhi (concentrative train- 
 ing), 94, 104 f . 
 
 Sankhara's coefficients, com- 
 plexes, 50 f., 143 f. 
 
 Sankhya theory, 42, 164. 
 
 Sanna. See Perception. 
 
 Sati, 'mindfulness,' 90 f., 
 141 f., 169 f. ; clarity, 
 lucidity of mind, iiof. ; 
 memory, 142, 169. 
 
 Satti (force), 196. 
 
 Self, use and misuse of the 
 concept of, 26 f. ; dramatic 
 dual self, 29 f. : resultant, 
 138. 
 
 Self -awareness, 91. 
 
 Self-consciousness, 92, 98. 
 
 Sensations, 44. 
 
 Sense, 39, 57 f., 143 f . ; as a 
 conjuncture, 66 ; in Upani- 
 shads, 58 f . ; in heaven, 
 112 n I. 
 
 Sensorium commune, 60. 
 
 Sensus communis. See Mano. 
 
 Sleep. See Dreams. 
 
 Soul. See Am. 
 
 Speculation, 67, 93. 
 
 Spinoza, 191 f. 
 
 Subject, 27, 45. 
 
 Subjective, no parallel for, 
 
 141 ; ' of the self ' (ajjhattika), 
 
 140. 
 Supernormal consciousness, 
 
 125 f., 155. 
 Sympathy, 95, 103, 128, 133. 
 Synergy, 115, 125, 128, 161. 
 Synthesis, 128. 
 
 Telepathy, 26, 126, 171. 
 
 Time, 142, 144. 
 
 Touch, in Upanishads, 59 ; 
 
 in Buddhism, 65, 68, 143, 
 
 145. 186. 
 Trance, 119, 128. 
 
 Understanding, 94, 201. 
 Unpleasure, 85. 
 Upanishads, psychology in, 
 24, 581, 88 n. 3. 
 
 Vedagu (later, for soul), 163. 
 
 Vinnaifa (con.sciousness, mind), 
 171, 162; transmigrating, 
 20 f. ; fifth khandha, 52 ; 
 awareness, 53 f . ; ante- 
 cedent and consequent in 
 rebirth, 22, 62. 
 
 Vipassana, discernment, in- 
 sight, 198. 
 
 Volition. See Chetana, Cogni- 
 tion, S5mergy. 
 
 Will, 77; See Chetana, Iddhi, 
 Synergy. 
 
 Yoga, 107, 113 ; Satras, 79 f. 
 
 Zest. See Piti. 
 
 Printed h Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinitirgh