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... * ......
[1213] Which are the states that have the attribute of Grasping?[1]
- the Grasping after sense,
- the Grasping after speculative opinion,
- the Grasping after mere rule and ritual,
- the Grasping after a theory of soul.
In this connexion,
[1214] What is the Grasping after sense?
That sensual desire,
sensual passion,
sensual delight,
sensual craving,
sensual cleaving,
sensual fever,
sensual languishing,
sensual rapacity,
which is excited by the pleasures of the senses.[2]
[1215] What is the Grasping after speculative opinion?
'There is no such thing as alms, or sacrifice, or offering;[3]
there is neither fruit, nor result of good, or of evil deeds;
there is no such thing as this world, or the next;[4]
there is no such thing as mother or father, or beings springing into birth without them;[5]
there are in the world no recluses or brahmins who have reached the highest point, who have attained the height, who, having understood and realized by themselves alone both this world and the next, make known the same'[6]
— all this sort of speculation,
this walking in opinion,
wilderness of opinion,
puppet-show of opinion,
scuffling of opinion,
this 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 'fording-place',
this shiftiness of grasp[7]
— this is what is called the Grasping after speculative opinion.
And with the exception of the Graspings after mere rule and ritual and after soul-theory, all wrong views are included in the Grasping after speculative opinion.
[1216] What is the Grasping after mere rule and ritual?
Answer as for the 'Contagion of mere rule and ritual', § 1005.[8]
[1217] What is the Grasping after soultheory?
Ansiver as for the 'Theory of individuality', § 1003.
[1218] Which are the states that have not the attribute of Grasping?
All other states whatever, good, bad and indeterminate (except the foregoing), whether they relate to the worlds of sense, or of form, or of the formless, or to the life that is Unincluded; in other words, the four skandhas; all form also and uncompounded element.
[1219] Which are the states that are favourable Grasping?
Co-Intoxicant states, good, bad and indeterminate whether they relate to the worlds of sense, form or the formless; in other words, the five skandhas.
[1220] Which are the states that are not favourable to Grasping?
The Paths that are the Unincluded, and the Fruits of the Paths; and uncompounded element.
[1221-1224] Which are the states that are
(a) associated with Grasping?
(b) disconnected with Grasping?
(c) Grasping and also favourable to Grasping?
(d) favourable to Grasping but not Grasping?
Ansivers exactly analogous to those given to corresponding questions in other Groups, e.g., §§ 1125, 1141, 1164.
[1225-1228] Which are the states that are
(a) both Grasping and associated with Grasping?
The Grasping after speculation in conjunction with that after sense is both, and conversely.
So is each of the other tivo Grasping s in conjunction with that after sense, and conversely.
(b) associated with Grasping but not Grasping?
(c) disconnected with Grasping yet favourable to it?
(d) disconnected with Grasping and not favourable to it?
Ansivers as in the Groups specified above, §§ 1125, 1141, 1164 et seq.[9]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Upadana. This fundamental notion in Buddhist ethics is in the Cy. (pp. 450 and 385), paraphrased by the words 'they take violently, i.e., they take hold with a strong grasp' (bhusam adiyanti . . . dalhagaham ganhanti), the prefix upa being credited with augmentative import as in other terms, such as upayaso and upakkuttho.
This shows that, in so far as Buddhaghosa gives the traditional sense, the word, in the Buddhism of his day, connoted rather the dynamic force of 'grasping' than the static condition of 'attachment' (e.g., Warren, 'Buddhism in Translations', p. 189 et seq.) or 'cleaving' (Hardy, 'Manual', 394). Nor does his comment ratify such renderings as 'Hang' or 'Lebenstrieb' (Neumann, 'Die Eeden Gotamo Buddhos', pp. 104, 470).
Fausboll's 'seizures' (S. N. in S. B. E., x., p. 138) and Oldenberg's 'Ergreifen' ('Buddha', 3rd ed., 269), on the other hand, agree with Buddhaghosa.
The relation of the cognate term upadaniyo to up ad an am (c/. §§ 655, 881, 1219) is most clearly set forth in S. iv. 89; there the special senses are termed upadaniya dhamma, and the passionate desire connected therewith the upadana m. See also S. iv. 258. Buddhaghosa makes no comment on upadaniya m when, as in § 1219, it is applied to dhamma; but when it is a question of rupam . . . upadaniyam (Dh. S., §§ 655, 881), he defines this as
'states which are favourable to (hit a, lit., good for) the Graspings as objects by their being bound up with grasping; in other words, phenomena which are the conditions of the mental objects of grasping'
(upadanassa arammana-paccaya-bhutani).
Asl. 42.
In the same connexion, rupam upadinnam (Dh. S., § 653) is by Buddhaghosa defined as [states] which have been got, laid hold of, taken (gahita), by way of fruition — heaped up by karma having the property of craving. Ibid. None of the comments explains upadanamin the sense of fuel, i.e., as the basis of re-birth; each of the four Upadanas is paraphrased simply by to grasp at sense (kamam upadiyati), at speculation, etc.
[2]:
See § 1114 and § 1097; also § 1153.
[3]:
The Cy. explains these negations as merely meaning that none of the three has an efiicacy, any fruition. Asl. 385.
[4]:
Ignoring any deeper metaphysic that may have here been implied, the Cy. explains these negations as held by the inhabitant of another world respecting this, or by an inhabitant here below respecting another world. Ibid.
[5]:
Beings so born, continues the Cy., he assumes there are none; nor have one's former lives any efficacy over one's subsequent parentage.
[6]:
Buddhaghosa gives as typical forms of speculation grasped at, 'Both the soul (self) and the world are eternal'. These he calls the purimaditthim uttaraditthim {sic lege), terms which, whether they mean 'earlier and subsequent heresies', or 'Eastern and Northern views', or both, are equally interesting. The text, however, selects as a typical current speculation the views put forward by Ajita Kesakambali. See D. i. 55 and M. i. 402.
[7]:
Cf § 381.
[8]:
The 'bovine morality and practices' noticed above (§ 1005, n. 3) are again instanced in the Cy. Ibid.
[9]:
The First Path disposes of all forms of Grasping save the first, the extirpation of which is a task not finished till all the four Paths have been traversed. Asl. 386. Contrast with this §§ 1173 n., 1134 n., and 1112 n., where in every case 'sense', 'sensuality' and 'sensual desire' are in the Cy. said to succumb in the Third or Anagami's Path.