CHAPTER X

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

1. The Abhidhamma Pitaka

SAVE as regards the development of a doctrine of relations, there is practically no advance in the Abhidhamma Pitaka on the psychology of the two earlier Pitakas as regards anything save classification and analysis, and this advance is often a doubtful improvement. Formulae and definitions make up the stock in trade of the Abhidhamma books, which, if ever they served any effective purpose, must have been supplemented by oral discussions, and which are largely intelligible to-day, in so far as they have any definite meaning, merely in the light of the explanations of Buddhaghosa, which need not always reflect the views of the compilers.

The analysis of consciousness in the Dhammasangani1 is essentially motived by ethical considerations. Consciousness is analysed into eight types of good consciousness, and twelve types of bad consciousness, which are applicable to human beings in primis but also to infra-human beings, the gods, and other celestials, but not to beings in the more ethereal Brahma- or Rupa-lokas, worlds of attenuated matter, or the sphere in which matter no longer has any existence (arupaloka). Thirdly, there is ethically indeterminate consciousness. In each case the consciousness is judged ethically not as causing a result, but as the effect (vipāka) of earlier action, and a curious result is thus developed, which is not known to the Sutta Pitaka. The term good is restricted to felicific or causing welfare; the welfare caused is reckoned, whereever and whenever experienced, as neutral, and is not treated as

In addition to the Intr. see Buddh. Psych. ch. vii. That the Pitaka is earlier than the bulk of the Milindapañha as those assumed is neither probable or proved save as regards the later parts.

itself felicific, but is classed as neutral or indeterminate (avyākata,) being neither good or bad.1

There is not much psychological insight here, nor much more in the distinction between phenomena of the self and those that are external (bahira, bahiddhā), which merely places the spheres of the six senses, including mind, against the spheres of the six sense objects, including mental objects, or the distinction of aggregates of the self as against those which are external, which merely sets the five aggregates making up the individual against the aggregates which are referable by other persons to their selves, but the distinction deserves notice as it is the nearest approach made to that between subjective and objective, from which it obviously differs in essentials. Attention (manasikūra) is mentioned among neutral states, but it is only from Buddhaghosa that we have a threefold aspect, the adverting of sense; the adverting of mind, ensuing on sense; or the linking of mind with object as a charioteer links the horse and the chariot, an interesting echo of an Upanisad reminiscence. Memory is mindfulness, bearing in mind, the opposite of superficiality and obliviousness, but no light is shed on the problem of forgetfulness or reinstatement, and we are left merely with the suggestion that consciousness reminds itself of what it has, implying the involution of the past in the present, as a treasurer details his revenue to the King.

The distrust of the value of these lucubrations is increased when we come to the elaboration of a distinction between Rūpa, material form or matter, which is underived (no upādā) and which is derived (upādā). The topic gives us as underived Rupa the sphere of the tangible, that is those elements which are appreciated

As indeterminate rank also matter and Nirvāṇa, and Kiriya, action as consciousness leading to no results; it arises during the actual process of sensation (Asl., p. 294); its characteristic form is the consciousness of the Arahant which is unproductive of Karman (pp. xci. ff. 156 ff). The Mahasanghika doctrine that all Karman entails moral result (vipūka) is refuted (KV. xii. 2) as is the Andhaka and Uttarā pathaka view that error is uumoral (KV. xiv. 8), and the Uttarapathaka view that dream consciousness is unmoral (KV. xxii. 6). Cf. KV. xxii. 3 (p. 360, n. 1); Compendium, pp. 19, 235 f).

2 That matter is meant in a Berkeleian senso (Compendium, p. 272) is quite absurd; see above ch. ii. § 1. It is contradicted by DS., §§ 1185 ff.; KV. xxii. 8 (citing MN. i. 190).

by touch, namely the earthy or solid, the lambent or fiery, and the gaseous or aerial elements or Mahabhata, 'great beings' in the traditional phraseology, and the fluid or moist elements. This simply denotes as ultimate realities, grasped save water by the sense of touch, these four elements, and is clearly simple and natural. But the dependent Rapa includes (1) the senses, vision, hearing, smell, taste, body sensibility (replacing the skin of the Upanisads as regards touch); (2) sights, sounds, odours, tastes, but not the object of touch; (3) the faculties of femininity, masculinity, and vitality;1 (4) intimation by act and by speech; (5) the element of space; (6) buoyancy, plasticity, wieldiness, three qualities of matter, and integration, maintenance, decay, impermanence,-four phases in the coming into and going out of being of matter; and (7) bodily nutriment. The simple explanation of the classification is that these various classes have all something to with matter, and in that sense are matter qua derived. The senses themselves are subtle matter, and invisible; their objects are immediately bound up with matter; the faculties bound up with life are an aspect of matter as it appears in the matter aggregate of the individual, and intimation by act and speech are introduced into the classification on the same ground of connexion with the material side of the empiric self, while bodily nutriment is explained in the same way. The inclusion of space is interesting, and a novelty; it appears in the Canon as if it were a fifth element, and, of course, it would be absurd to imagine that it appears as derivate matter, because it was a pure form of intuition or a mental construction. But the difficulty disappears when we consider that the element of space like the following seven items is intimately connected with matter. Space is necessary for the movement of matter, and can just as well be placed under derivate matter as can the qualities of matter and the four stages of its coming into being, state of being, decay, and impermanence, which it may be noted agree with the Sautrantika doctrine of the four, not three stages, in being.

2

The most interesting point undoubtedly is the suggestion that touch is in some way more directly in connexion with matter than 2 See ch. ix. § 2.

1 See ch. ix. § 3.

the other senses, although it is asserted not to perceive the cohesion of water, but only the other three characteristics, so far as present in it. But the idea is not explained or developed, further than by Buddhaghosa's illustration which makes the other senses and their objects relatively speaking cotton balls striking on cotton balls on the elemental anvils, while touch is the hammer which smites through the cotton balls to the anvils. To claim this as an anticipation of the doctrine of the development of the other senses from touch is clearly unwise.

We owe to the Dhammasangani an attempt to make concrete the vagueness of the term dispositions (samkhāra) by a long list of states classified under it, to which we have already alluded. The term comprehends in effect every mental condition, including attention and volitional states which is or may be aroused as the result of past experience on the occasion of any impression of sense or idea. Such an understanding, it is plain, is without psychological value, and it is a proof of the lack of investigation on an empirical basis that no serious attempt is made to dispense with the perfectly indefensible doctrine of the five aggregates. But a beginning is being made to express more intelligibly the problem to the extent that a division of mental phenomena into those of thought (citta) and thought properties (cetasika) is found; 2 under the former rank the five forms of sense cognition, the activity of mind (manas) cognition, and representative cognition, while the latter covers the other three aggregates of feeling, perception, and dispositions. Matter, and the uncompounded element, Nirvāņa, which agree with the three aggregates mentioned as not being of thought, disagree with them in not being thought properties; we thus have the aggregate of intelligence set up definitely as thought; the other three aggregates as thought properties; and independent of either category the classes of matter of all kinds, including the matter aggregate of the individual, and the uncompounded

appears in the The Rajagirikas The Vaibhasika view

Above, ch. v. § 3; see ch. x. § 4. The term occurs first in DN. i. 213; the later use Patisambhidāmagga, i. 84; Vibhanga, p. 421; DS., §§ 1187 ff. and Siddhatthikas deny cetasikas; KV. vii. 3. ingeniously makes citta as Vijñāna the grasping of bare fact (vastumātra), caitasa as grasping particulars; AKV (Burn. MS.) f. 28a, MKV., pp. 65, n. 3; 74, n. 6.

element, Nirvāṇa, and from this is derived the fourfold division which is accepted in mediaeval Buddhist texts, such as the Abhidhammatthasamgaha (12 cent. A.D.). In the Abhidhamma itself the Kathavatthu gives a list of states which evidently are intended to cover the sphere of the other three aggregates and to be treated-whether all or some of them is not stated-as coexistent accompaniments of thought. The separateness of the four aggregates is thus being undermined, the intelligence aggregate being given the central position and designated as thought while the others are made its accompaniments.

The love of generalization and definition of the Abhidhamma writers leads inevitably to the extension of their statements to those worlds which are above man; the study of the animal mind is neglected, though its importance is obvious, since rebirth as an animal in consequence of previous sin is a very frequent occurrence, and only a little less unpleasant than rebirth in a hell or purgatory. But animals though capable, the Milindapañha tells us, of reasoning in a discursive way, cannot attain intuition and therefore are debarred from salvation. On the other hand, the gods are essentially sublimated men, and rebirth as some sort of god in one or other of their worlds is the legitimate desire and end of the ordinary man who desires longer, more serene life, and is not yet worthy of seeking to become delivered as an Arahant. The doctrine is early, but the details are reserved for the idle theorizing of the Abhidhammas Sanskrit and Pali, though in strictness what is recorded is as in the case of the rest of the system not theory, but the account given by that intuition which is the source of ⚫ enlightenment and of all our insight into the things, which are hidden to the ordinary powers of reason. Matter and feeling are found together in the world of desire; matter still persists in the sphere of unconscious beings, which is attained in the third Jhāna by adepts; feeling is there absent, but alone is found in the sphere of the immaterial world (arupaloka).

2. The Milindaрañha

The Milindapanha which is interesting for its strict adherence to the denial of any true soul (jiva, puggala, vedagu) incidentally