Thank you for the references! I will have to make my way through them gradually, though I am interested in being informed on some of these views!
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this division. I’m assuming you mean that nāmarūpa either refers to ‘mind-and-body + consciousness’ (the mind here referring to our internal cognition and processing of external things, essentially) or to ‘external nāmarūpa vs. conscious body’ which would leave the ‘mind-and-body’ what is ‘opposed’ to nāmarūpa. In the latter model, nāmarūpa would then need to be some form of externalized/extended mind which is interacted with via the conscious body. If this is the case (roughly summarized), then I understand where you’re coming from. Let me know if I’ve completely mistaken what you’re thinking through here though.
Before reading through the articles you send and informing myself of the types of perspectives you’re thinking through, I would say what you hinted at: I don’t see a conflict in the suttas themselves in regards to this once the Vedic perspective is brought in.
The idea that nāmarūpa means ‘mind-and-body’ I find a later Buddhist interpretation/rationalization of a term they no longer had the context for, or, perhaps being more charitable, they had the context for but they were motivated to absorb a term into the evolving Abhidhammic-like models which made all the concepts and terminology align and form one Buddhist system. I think it’s best that this idea be dropped when approaching the suttas that refer to nāmarūpa. If it is arrived at separately, so be it; but it cannot be assumed from the beginning because of how far removed it is from many instances of it in the suttas and from the pre-Buddhist context/meaning of the word itself. In other words, it’s anachronistic.
One thing I’ve learned is that when we apply problems and inquiries from Western philosophy to the suttas as interpretative lenses, it tends to work well—until it doesn’t. I used to do very similar things with existentialism/phenomenology. There are plenty of similarities, but it tends to lead to blind spots. The Indian philosophical context was just coming from a very different place, a different set of questions, etc. that I find we have to understand the suttas on their own terms—almost as if they did not apply to the modern world—before we then learn how we apply what they say to our current situation. A good example of this is how some modern interpreters explain ‘sabbaṁ atthī’ in, say, SN 12.15 and related suttas in anachronistic terms. Sabba (or Skt. sarva) must first be understood in its context and then we can extrapolate modern meaning and value from the discussion. This same thing of course happens (and happened) with the Vedas: A later Upaniṣadic thinker may interpret a Vedic ritual from the Ṛgveda in a way that makes complete sense within their own system, but which is completely anachronistic in terms of the composer’s original intention/context.
Ever since our initial discussion of nāmarūpa with Ven. Sunyo and the others, I’ve spent the majority of my study time digging into the Vedic context of this issue further. Having done so, I have only been more convinced of my original position. By the time of the Visuddhimagga, we already have codified doctrinal significance to thinking about a “mind-body duality” with help of nāmarūpa: the first insight knowledge is “nāmarūpapariccheda-ñāṇa.” I think the purpose of using nāmarūpa was long lost, and all kinds of new philosophical questions came up far removed from the philosophical context of the Buddha in certain ways (and much closer than nowadays than others, of course).
I think we can get enough context from ŚB 11.2.3, BU 1.2, and BU 1.4. Lauren Bausch (here) has argued rather thoroughly that the primary context for the Buddha’s relationship to Brahmanism is the Eastern Kāṇva Śākha centered around the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and Bṛhadāraṇyaka which contain the teachings of Yājñavalkya. This relates to ideas presented by the same Alexander Wynne (who argued for the authenticity of Āḷāra Kālāma / Uddaka Rāmaputta here). The same ideas / themes of nāmarūpa are found in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad and other related Brāhmaṇa-Upaniṣad texts. Other reason why these specific instances are good case-studies in my opinion are their relationship to the suttas: I recently demonstrated the striking similarity between BU 1.2 and the Aggañña Sutta. BU 1.4 contains ideas that seem to be mocked/reframed (similar to DN 27) in DN 1; it is a primary cosmogony of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; and it contains a section on the self being the most dear (piya) which is a theme we find repeated in the suttas in various forms similar to the Upaniṣads. ŚB 11.2.3 is an example of earlier context for the same ideas echoed in BU in slightly new ways.
So in ŚB 11.2.3, reality (called bráhman) creates the three spheres of the manifest world (earth, air/space, sky) with three deities in each. Then it wants to re-affirm its identity with the manifest aspect of itself and continue creation, and so it enters (lit. ‘descends’) into itself via nāma and rūpa. These two are described as the means for cognizing reality (recognizing forms and knowing their names if they have one). The entire concept of nāmarūpa begins with the notion that it is sacred speech and the various manifestations of speech which have the ontic result of forms. The importance of speech comes from the recitation of the Veda, of course (which is often the outline for the creation of the world as we will see in BU 1.2). Creation of the world is via the production of names and forms which correspond to them, and the cognition of all of this via recognition of the names and forms. The idea of reality leaving and descending into manifest creation is a recurring theme throughout the Veda, and it seems that nāmarūpa is a primary way in which this is expressed as seen in ŚB, BU, CU, etc.
BU 1.2, as I discussed in my post, is the first cosmogony in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. It is explaining the secret, deeper meaning of the Aśvamedha (horse sacrifice). This is a continuation from ideas in the ŚB which understand the behavior of reality and sacrifice as interconnected and in many ways identical. The BU shows how the Aśvamedha is a model of all of manifest reality which is an infinite cycle of killing and death, or death and resurrection; all is Agni and Soma—fire and oblation, or eater and eaten. This is of course relevant to Buddhism because it shares the same themes of saṁsāra, but justified in terms of advanced Veda and secret connections (upaniṣad). The creation of manifest reality via names and forms is the creation of all which will allow the sacrifice to play itself out. It is conceived in terms of procreation: nāmarūpa / the manifest reality is the off-spring of ātmán—which is mánas (mind; masculine)—and vāc (speech; feminine). Again, this is all deeply related to cognition: the mind is equated with the ātmán, which is also the highest cognitive power who knows all (later equated to vijñāṇa). With speech it produces names, and the forms of reality are recognized/made to fit with this. The passage goes on to describe how one who comes to understand the nature of manifest reality in these terms transcends it and becomes the eater of all. In other words, repeated death is no longer a matter of suffering and pain; they unite with manifest reality and the division between killer and killed is no longer present in them.
Here, nāmarūpa includes the individual and all external things—it is all manifest reality. The ātmán or essence of reality—which is likened to a subjective power (viññāṇa) is at the same time imminent and contained within it; it must manifest itself in this cyclic way in order to exist (the subject needs an object, but the object being itself means it must kill itself to live).
Then we turn to BU 1.4, which is a little bit more straightforward (especially having the above context). At BU 1.4.7, all of reality is said to be distinguished in terms of nāmarūpa. The ātmán is said to be within ‘this body’ with imagery of being within a container, and all of the activities are simply names (nāma) given to forms/manifestations of the ātmán; one who sees deeper into all these things will see it is all just the same ātmán , which allows one to know the entire world and transcend it. Nāmarūpa is more explicitly the (human) body within which the ātmán is contained, but this is mirrored in all the world.
So essentially, the background is: nāmarūpa is the manifest, created world including the human organism. The ātmán is the inner, hidden essence which is equivalent with all reality that is within all of this. It is reality which manifests itself via nāmarūpa. Knowing the deeper essence of the manifest means knowing the unmanifest, and thus union with it. By understanding the ātman in our own body (nāmarūpa) as the highest subjective power underlying all our activities and form, we can extend that knowledge to see that it is the same essence contained within all_ nāmarūpa and thereby understand bráhman (Ātman-Bráhman), or in other words, transcend the world of nāmarūpa. Unlike BU 1.2 which explains how one comes to understand the manifest aspect and live within it, BU 1.4 describes how one comes to penetrate through it and transcend it for liberation.
When we look beyond DN 15 or outside the instances of nāmarūpa in the context of paṭiccasamuppāda (which do not explain the context or purpose of the word but simply use it), we can see that this is precisely how nāmarūpa is used in the suttas. Contemplative brahmins ask the Buddha how they can transcend or escape nāmarūpa (which means repeated birth and death, similar to a sacrifice). Nāmarūpa is also used in place of all the manifest/created things of the world which people become attached to, see, or get possessive over.
In response to questions about transcendence of nāmarūpa, the Buddha says that the key is the cessation of consciousness (see, for instance, Snp 5.2). This is opposed to the teachings of the Upaniṣads, such as those of Yājñavalkya in the BU. The Brahmanical sages say that the end of nāmarūpa is in realizing the internal ātmán, the subject and essence of all reality equivalent with a ‘mass of consciousness.’ This is the same ātmán which they say is contained within our nāmarūpa—our body. We realize it by seeing it within our body (as I already said).
In DN 15, the Buddha says the same thing as elsewhere: viññāṇa is conditioned by nāmarūpa, it is not imminent in it; the cessation of nāmarūpa is in the cessation of consciousness, not union with it. In the beginning, he refers to that which is within the womb, which is birthed, and which grows up and matures as “nāmarūpa.” This sounds an awful lot like an individual organism. When he discusses phassa, he describes it in terms of nāmarūpa experiencing itself, or in experience being due to the factors of nāma and rūpa. This is the same as the Vedic notion where reality experiences itself by descending into nāmarūpa. Our body and the external things of the world are understood as all manifestations of reality which is merely experiencing itself. What the Buddha has done is taken this same idea, but he has stripped the idea of any underlying essence, ātmán, reality, or bráhman from it: there are simply these factors of experience which condition contact; when the factors cease, contact will come to an end.
Notice how it is this same sutta that the Buddha goes into all kinds of ideas of the ātman after describing paṭiccasamuppāda. He has, after all, just given a description of reality and of cognition that talks of conditionality and cessation rather than internal essences and eternal transcendence via consciousness. It is also this sutta where he describes his teaching on liberation: one understands conditionality and the impermanence in all states of existence (bhavas), and/or one realizes all higher states of consciousness up to cessation and relinquishes them all. The entire thing seems to basically be a refutation of Upaniṣadic doctrine.
So nāmarūpa is presented as the manifest world/experience of reality, which includes our own body that contains consciousness and contact with the world. Consciousness, however, is not an underlying essence, but rather a condition for our being sentient and the presence of nāmarūpa in experience (which conditions contact). It is essential that this, like BU 1.4, refer to the conscious body because it is precisely on the basis of seeing the ātmán within one’s nāmarūpa (i.e. body) that one extends it to all nāmarūpa of the manifest world. However, it is not limited to this. Another way of phrasing it would be contact between the sentient body and external nāmarūpa—and this is precisely what we see in SN 12.19 for instance! External nāmarūpa has been reduced as well: it is not a manifest form that corresponds to divine name / identity eminated out from primal speech (bráhman); rather, things are just material elements recognized via a series of mental properties.
I apologize if this has all been tediously repetitive of former ideas I discussed. You may have already been well aware of this. It also does not directly respond to your problem nor to the questions about extended mind; it approaches the entire question from scratch. Once I catch up on the articles you’ve sent, I should be able to contribute more directly. I thought this could prove helpful beforehand — but I could be wrong!
Mettā 