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Buddhist Philosophy
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suggested, namely, the works (karma) which produce the birth'. Upādāna is an advanced tṛṣṇā leading to positive clinging2. It is produced by tṛṣṇā (desire) which again is the result of vedanā (pleasure and pain). But this vedana is of course vedana with ignorance (avidya), for an Arhat may have also vedanā but as he has no avidyā, the vedanā cannot produce tṛṣṇā in turn. On its development it immediately passes into upādāna. Vedanā means pleasurable, painful or indifferent feeling. On the one side it leads to tṛṣṇā (desire) and on the other it is produced by sense-contact (sparsa). Prof. De la Vallée Poussin says that Śrīlābha distinguishes three processes in the production of vedana. Thus first there is the contact between the sense and the object; then there is the knowledge of the object, and then there is the vedanā. Depending on Majjhima Nikāya, iii. 242, Poussin gives the other opinion that just as in the case of two sticks heat takes place simultaneously with rubbing, so here also vedanā takes place simultaneously with sparsa for they are 'produits par un même complexe de causes (samagrī)3.”
Sparsa is produced by ṣaḍāyatana, ṣaḍāyatana by namarūpa, and namarupa by vijñāna, and is said to descend in the womb of the mother and produce the five skandhas as nāmarūpa, out of which the six senses are specialized.
Vijñāna in this connection probably means the principle or germ of consciousness in the womb of the mother upholding the five elements of the new body there. It is the product of the past karmas (sankhāra) of the dying man and of his past consciousness too.
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We sometimes find that the Buddhists believed that the last thoughts of the dying man determined the nature of his next
1 Govindananda in his Ratnaprabha on Sankara's bhāṣya, II. ii. 19, explains "bhava" as that from which anything becomes, as merit and demerit (dharmadi). See also Vibhanga, p. 137 and Warren's Buddhism in Translations, p. 201. Mr Aung says in Abhidhammatthasangaha, p. 189, that bhavo includes kammabhavo (the active side of an existence) and upapattibhavo (the passive side). And the commentators say that bhava is a contraction of "kammabhava" or Karma-becoming i.e. karmic activity.
2 Prof. De la Vallée Poussin in his Théorie des Douse Causes, p. 26, says that Śālistambhasutra explains the word "upādāna" as "tṛṣṇāvaipulya" or hyper-tṛṣṇā and Candrakirtti also gives the same meaning, M. V. (B. T. S. p. 210). Govindananda explains "upādāna" as pravṛtti (movement) generated by tṛṣṇa (desire), i.e. the active tendency in pursuance of desire. But if upādāna means "support" it would denote all the five skandhas. Thus Madhyamaka vṛtti says upādānam pañcaskandhalakṣaṇam... pañcopadanaskandhakhyam upādānam. M. V. XXVII. 6.
3 Poussin's Théorie des Douze Causes, p. 23.
