Dhammasangani
Enumeration of Phenomena
400 B.C. | 124,932 words
*english translation* The first book of the Abhidhamma (Part 3 of the Tipitaka). The Dhammasangani enumerates all the paramattha dhamma (ultimate realities) to be found in the world. According to one such enumeration these amount to: * 52 cetasikas (mental factors), which, arising together in various combination, give rise to any one of... * ......
[1096] Which are the states that are Intoxicants?[1]
The four Intoxicants,
to wit,
the Intoxicant of sensuality,
the Intoxicant of renewed existence,
the Intoxicant of speculative opinion,
the Intoxicant of ignorance.
In this connexion
[1097] What is the Intoxicant of sensuality?
That sensual desire,[2]
sensual passion,
sensual delight,
sensual craving,
sensual fondness,
sensual thirst,
sensual fever,
sensual languishing,
sensual rapacity,
which is excited by the pleasures of the senses[3]
— this is called the Intoxicant of sensuality.
[1098] What is the Intoxicant of renewed existence?
The desire,
the passion for coming into being,
delight in coming into being, craving,
fondness for coming into being,
the fever,
the yearning,
the hungering to come into being,
which is felt concerning rebirths
— this is called the Intoxicant of renewed existence.[4]
[1099] What is the Intoxicant of speculative opinion?[5]
To hold
that the world is eternal,
or that it is not eternal,[6] infinite or finite;[7]that the living soul is the body,
or that the living soul is a different thing from the body;[8]or that he who has won truth[9] exists after death,
or does not exist after death,
or both exists and does not exist after death,
or neither exists nor does not exist after death
— this kind of opinion,
this walking in opinion,
this jungle of opinion,
wilderness of opinion,
puppet-show of opinion,
scuffling of opinion,
the fetter of opinion,
the grip and tenacity of it,
the inclination towards it,
the being infected by it,
this by-path, wrong road, wrongness,
this 'fordingplace',
this shiftiness of grasp [10]
— this is called the Intoxicant of speculative opinion. Moreover, the Intoxicant of speculation includes all false theories.
[1100] What is the Intoxicant of ignorance?[11]
Answer as in § 1061 for 'dulness'.
These are the states that are Intoxicants.
[1102][12] Which are the states that are not Intoxicants?
Every state, good, bad and indeterminate,[14] which is not included in the foregoing (Intoxicants), whether relating to the worlds of sense, form or the formless, or to the life that is Unincluded, to wit, the four skandhas; all form also, and uncompounded element.
[1103] Which are the states that are co-Intoxicant?[15]
Good, bad and indeterminate states, whether relating to the worlds of sense, form, or the formless; in other words, the five skandhas.
[1104] Which are the states that are not co-Intoxicant?
The Paths that are the Unincluded, and the Fruits of the Paths, and uncompounded element.
[1105] Which are the states that are 'associated with Intoxicants'?
The states which are associated with those [Intoxicant] states,[16] to wit, the four skandhas.
[1106] Which are the states that are 'disconnected with Intoxicants'?
The states which are disconnected with those [Intoxicant] states, to wit, the four skandhas; all form also, and uncompounded element.
[1107] Which are the states that are both Intoxicants and co-Intoxicant?
The Intoxicants themselves.[17]
[1108] Which are the states that are co-Intoxicant, but not Intoxicants?
The states which have the foregoing states (§ 1096) as their concomitants; that is to say, with the exception of the Intoxicants, all states whatever, good, bad and indeterminate, which are co-Intoxicant, whether they relate to the worlds of sense, of form or of the formless; in other words, the five skandhas.
[1109] Which are the states that are both Intoxicants and associated with Intoxicants?
The Intoxicant of sensuality together with that of ignorance, and conversely. The Intoxicant of renewed existence together with that of ignorance, and conversely. The Intoxicant of speculative opinion together with that of ignorance, and conversely.
[1110] Which are the states that are associated with Intoxicants but are not Intoxicants?
The states which are associated with the foregoing states (§ 1096) — the latter themselves excepted — to wit, the four skandhas.
[1111] Which are the states that are disconnected with Intoxicants but co-Intoxicant?
The states which are disconnected with those abovenamed states (§ 1096), but which, good, bad, or indeterminate, have them as concomitants, whether they belong to the worlds of sense, of form, or of the formless, to wit, the five skandhas.
[1112] Which are the states that are disconnected with Intoxicants and are not co -Intoxicant?
The Paths that are the Unincluded and the Fruits of the Paths and uncompounded element.[3]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
'Intoxicant' is but a pis-aller for asavo, no adequate EngHsh equivalent being available (see Khys Davids, 'Dialogues of the Buddha', i., p. 92, n. 3). The choice of it here has been determined by Buddhaghosa's comment. This is as follows:
'Asava means they flow on to. They are said to flow (lege savanti), to circulate about the senses and the mind. Or, they flow, in respect of mental states, right up to the elect, in respect of space, right up to the highest planes of becoming — I mean, their range embraces both states and space, this encompassing being denoted by the prefix a.
The Asavas, moreover, are like liquors (asava), such as spirits, etc., in the sense of that which may be kept a long time. For, in the world, spirits, etc., which have been laid down for a long period are called asavas. And if those spirits for this long storage are called asavas, these states deserve the name as well.
For it is said:
"The ultimate point of ignorance, brethren, before which ignorance has not existed, is not manifest"
[alluding to the asava of ignorance]'.
Asl. 48.
From this passage we gather that, to Buddhaghosa, the word asavo, whatever other implications it may have had, typified mainly two notions, and these were pervasion and length of growth of a potential and very potent effect. The former metaphor — that of a flowing in, upon, and over — occurs with a cognate verb in the standard description of the guarded avenues of sensation — anvas(s)aveyyum {e.g., D. i. 70).
The latter notion appears in Subhuti's opening remark on the term ('Abhidhanappadipika-suci', s.v. Asavo): mana-purisamadadayo yenati — that by which come pride and human madness [or infatuation].
No doubt the term also implied something that tainted, corrupted, souillissait as it flowed. But this is also part of the physiological and ethical import of the term I have selected in translating.
Later (p. 369) the Cy. considers the Intoxicants under numerical categories, according to the very usual Buddhist method. Thus, they are One, or undifferentiated, in virtue of their being, like liquor, long stored up. In the Vinaya they are treated of as Twofold: — the Intoxicants that have to be suppressed in this life and those that have to be eschewed in future lives (see V. iii. 21; V., pp. 143, 223). In the Suttanta, e.g., in the Salayatana-Sutta, they are distinguished under Three heads, ditthasava being omitted. (The Sutta referred to is not yet edited, but V. M. i. 55; S. iv. 256; A. i. 167; iii. 414; and cf. D. i. 84.
In the Maha-parinibbana-sutta of the Digha Nikaya, however, all four Asavas are mentioned (pp. 38, 40). Hence follows one of three possible conclusions. Either Buddhaghosa is for once in error, or the edition of the Sutta last named needs correcting, or it is a later work, contemporary, it may be, with the Abhidhamma.) In the passage on 'Penetration' (A. iii. 410-417) they are treated of as leading to Five different forms of rebirth. 'In the Ahuneyya-sutta of the Chakka nipata' (i.e.. No. Iviii. of that Nipata, A. iii. 387) they are treated of under Six methods for overcoming them. In the Sabbasava-discourse (M. i., pp. 7-11) Seven methods are given.
[2]:
'Kamachando ti kamasankhato chando na kattukamyatachando na dhammachando'. Asl. 370. This carefully-drawn distinction between sensual desire and an ethically neutral state of bare conation, as well as the desire after the ideal, bears me out in the argument I ventured to put forward in J. K. A. S., January, 1898, and which is rediscussed in my Introduction.
[3]:
Pancakamaguniko rago kamasavo nama (Asl. 369).
The Cy. points out that to hanker after the mansions of the supreme gods or the wishing-trees of heaven or the craving for aesthetic luxuries (abharanam) is not to be confounded with the Intoxicant of sensuality, since such desires are a step higher than the latter vice. But they are subsumed under the Tie of covetousness (§ 1136), and the Lust-cause (§ 1059). Asl. 371, 377.
[4]:
Literally, of becoming.
'That which is called bhavasavo is the hoping for re-becoming, the passion connate with the Eternalist speculation (v. following answer and § 1003, n. 2), the craving for the state of JhanaQ'hananikanti — sic lege), the passionate desire for re-births in the planes of form and of formlessness'.
Asl. 369.
[5]:
Ditthasavo, 'i.e., the sixty-two theories'. Ihid, See D. i., Brahmajala Sutta.
[6]:
I.e., to hold that this five-skandha'd affair is permanent, fixed, a thing for all time — which is the Eternalist theory; or that it is annihilated, perishes — which is the Theory of Total Disintegration. Asl. 370, 371. Cf §§ 1003, n. 3; 1315-16.
[7]:
Either of these theories is by the Cy. declared to be compatible with either of those in the preceding clause. And they are also said to be determined by the nature of the Jhana practised by the adherent to one or the other. Asl. 371. See §§ 1317-18.
[8]:
I.e., that the life (or living soul) is, or is not, annihilated on the dissolution of the body. Ibid.
[9]:
Tathagato — in the Cy., satto tathagato nama. Clearly, therefore, not a reference to the Buddha only. See Kobert Chalmers, ' Tathagata', J. E. A. S., January, 1898, pp. 113-115. The four speculations about such a person's future existence are named respectively Eternalist, Annihilationist, Semi-eternalist, Eel-wriggling (amaravikkhepika). Ibid., see D. i. 3, §§ 58, 41, 59, 35.
[10]:
See under § 381.
[11]:
In the text, after dukkhudaye annanam, supply dukkhanirodhe annanam.
[12]:
'§ 1101' is apparently an erroneous interpolation. See § 1104, where it appears again and in its right place.
[13]:
In the text read kusalakusalavyakata.
[14]:
Sasava, i.e., states 'proceeding along with Asavas', and which attanam arammanam katva — 'have made the Self their object'. Asl. 48.
[15]:
Answers of this form, which frequently occur in these 'Groups', are not the mere repetitions of the question that they at first sight appear, but are, in logical idiom, analytic, or explicative propositions. The current term asava-sampayutta means or includes these four modes: — kamasava-sampayutta, bhavasava-sampayutta, and so on.
[16]:
When mutally associated. Cf. the following pair of answers.
[17]:
In conclusion the Cy. declares (p. 372) that the Intoxicant of speculative opinion is put away during one's progress through the first (sotapatti) path, the Intoxicant of sensuality in the third (a nag ami) path, and the Intoxicants of renewed existence and ignorance in the fourth (arahatta) path.