I recently released a translation of a chapter from the Śāriputra Abhidharma of the Dharmaguptaka school that covers the subject of dependent origination. As is often the case with Abhidharma texts, this chapter can be tedious to read and difficult to understand on a practical level because of the use of technical language that goes unexplained. This essay is intended to give on overview of what makes this interpretation of dependent origination of interest to the present day conversation about the subject. It’s a good example of the amount of flexibility and diversity that existed in early Buddhist thought compared to today.
Karma and Rebirth
The traditional way of understanding the role of rebirth in the twelve-link chain of dependent origination that has come down to us through the Theravada tradition has been to demarcate boundaries between a past, present, and future life by assigning certain links to the transitions between these lives in this way:
This model is not found in the Śāriputra Abhidharma interpretation of dependent origination. Instead, it interprets the first four steps of the chain in (up to) three different temporal frames: the present conditioning the present, the present conditioning the future, and the future conditioning the future. There are never more than two lives discussed at one time.
- Present ignorance causes actions that lead to future actions
- Present actions condition present awareness
- Present actions condition future awareness
- Future actions condition future awareness
- The final action conditions the first awareness
- Present awareness conditions present name and form
- Present awareness conditions future name and form
- Future awareness conditions future name and form
- Present name and form condition present six senses
- Present name and form condition future six senses
- Future name and form condition future six senses
We could visualize this as three separate temporal branches of dependent origination up to name and form in a table:
| Present | Present | Future | Future | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ignorance | > | Actions | > | Actions | ||
| Actions | > | Awareness | ||||
| Awareness | > | Name and form | ||||
| Name and form | > | Six senses | ||||
| Actions | > | Awareness | ||||
| Final action | > | First awareness | ||||
| Awareness | > | Name and form | ||||
| Name and form | > | Six senses | ||||
| Actions | > | Awareness | ||||
| Awareness | > | Name and form | ||||
| Name and form | > | Six senses |
After name and form, this type of temporal analysis ends and the remaining links from the six senses to old age and death are discussed in a more succinct straightforward way. The implication is that they are all considered to occur in the same life. It might be asked how existence conditioning birth is understood in that way. No answer is given for this relationship, strangely enough. We are only provided with a definition of birth in that section of the commentary.
Present vs. Past Life Karma
An observation we might take away from all of this is that karma and its fruition was a forward-looking teaching for the Dharmaguptakas, taking the present life as the base frame of reference and looking to the future. There is no discussion of past lives that caused the present life, though it is certainly implied. Logically, there isn’t any difference between a past life’s karma bringing about the present life and a present life’s karma bringing about a future life. It’s a matter of orientation.
I can only speculate about why this was the case, but a couple things seems apparent to me as I observe how past life karma shapes present day Buddhist thinking. A focus on past life karma lends itself to fatalism about present life outcomes, which can lead to feelings of disempowerment. There are also political purposes that can creep into views about past life karma that rationalize unequal social structures. These problems are avoided by focusing on the present life leading to a future life. A focus on present life karma engenders a sense of agency that motivates a person to improve their behavior. Present life karma is what we can change.
Key Takeaways
We are provided more than one explanation as to how a present life can lead to a future rebirth. The cases listed above that involve rebirth are alternative ways of describing the function of karma. For example, an alternative definition of name and form is employed that considers physical actions to be form and mental actions to be name. Then, present name and form can lead to a future set of the six senses.
The exception to this is awareness, which is likely because the final awareness of one life is a direct cause for the first awareness of the next life. However, awareness is also described as leading to future name and form. In that case, it’s implied that a person’s karma has conditioned their awareness to be unskillful or skillful, which then determines the form of a future rebirth. For example, a skillful awareness habituated to the happiness of practicing one of the formless samādhis leads to rebirth in the formless realm.
A key takeaway is that multiple interpretations of the same words are allowed and apparently encouraged. Rather than narrowing the meaning of a term down to single definition, multiple usages are allowed to exist simultaneously that result in multiple ways of explaining a single process. It also allows one link in the chain of dependent origination to represent more than one process. This is a theme found throughout the Śāriputra Abhidharma, and so it is a feature rather than a bug of Dharmaguptaka thought.
Alternative Definitions of the Links in the Chain
The other points of interest in this commentary are the ways some of terms of dependent origination are defined. We often find here the same definitions we find in traditional Theravāda explanations: There is no great break between the two ways of understanding dependent origination. Rather, we find more ways to understand some terms and their relationships in the Śāriputra Abhidharma commentary. Below is a summary of the ways each of the twelve links is defined.
Ignorance
Ignorance is defined as identical to the unskillful root of delusion. To find anything more than this, we have to search the Śāriputra Abhidharma for a definition of delusion. It turns out to be similar to the definitions of ignorance in Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma texts, though it is probably the most verbose of them. It covers just about every subject one might be deluded about, beginning with the four noble truths. It also collects together a long list of descriptors of delusion that are found throughout the early Buddhist canon.
Actions
The definition for actions is the same as we find it in other explanations: actions of demerit, merit, and imperturbability. Actions of demerit correspond to the path of ten misdeeds. The actions of merit correspond to the path of good deeds and the practice of the four meditations. Imperturbable actions correspond with the practice of the four formless samādhis. This is a standard definition based on an EBT that still exists in several versions: SN 12.51, SĀ 292, and SF159.
Another meaning of action becomes apparent, however, as we continue reading the commentary. In the section on actions conditioning awareness, we find action defined as the sensory process in which a sense organ and its sensory object (e.g., the ear and sounds) act to produce a corresponding sensory awareness (e.g., an auditory awareness). The meaning of intentions is also found as the reading used to explain how future actions condition future awareness. Finally, the special case of a final action in the present life leading to the initial awareness in the next life is included in the section of actions conditioning awareness.
Awareness
After actions, the commentary doesn’t always define the key terms of dependent origination, but we can usually surmise their definitions from the discussions about them. Awareness is usually mentioned holistically as “awareness,” and this term goes undefined throughout the Śāriputra Abhidharma. Perhaps it was considered too obvious in meaning to warrant a formal definition. We do see the traditional division of awareness into six sensory types based on which sense organ is the focus of attention.
Name and Form
The basic definition of name and form is the same as we find it defined in Theravāda Abhidharma sources. Form refers to the four basic elements (earth, water, fire, and air) and forms that are made of them. Name refers to feeling, conception, intention, contact, and consideration.
However, there is also an alternative reading of name and form, in which form refers to physical actions and name refers to mental actions. This version of name and form is conditioned by awareness. This reading is also employed to explain a couple other scenarios. One is how an arhat maintains the six senses. In that case, the deeds that name and form represent as his use of spiritual powers. The ability to live for an eon or less is explained in this way. Another is to explain how name and form condition the six senses of a future life. In that case, name and form again represents the deeds that lead to rebirth.
Another alternative reading is used to explain how name and form nourishes and grows the six senses. In that case, form becomes the physical nutriments of food, clothing, bathing, and taking care of the body, while name remains the standard feelings, conceptions, intentions, contacts, and considerations. This makes name and form essentially a stand-in for the four nutriments to explain how the senses are nourished.
And so, to sum up the situation, name and form can mean three things in this commentary on dependent origination:
- Body and mind
- Physical and mental actions
- Physical and mental nutriments
The Six Senses
The six senses are defined in the usual way as eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
Contact
Contact is defined in a set of standard numerical ways:
- Physical and mental contact (2)
- Pleasant, painful, and neutral contact (3)
- Contact tied to the desire, form, and formless realms (3)
- Contacts associated with each of the five faculties of feeling (5)
- Contacts with each of the six senses (6)
- Contacts associated with each sensory awareness plus the element of mind (7)
- Contact with pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings of each sense (18)
Feeling
Feeling is defined using the same set of numerical lists used to define contact above.
Craving
Like awareness, craving is not defined in this commentary as a member of dependent origination. Judging by context, it seems to simply mean wanting to feel a particular feeling in response to experience. The section of the commentary on how feeling conditions craving simply walks the reader through a long list of possible scenarios - feelings that are pleasant, painful, or neutral occurring to each of the senses - and offers a reaction that involves desiring more of a feeling, a similar feeling, or for a feeling to end (in the case of painful feelings). This is in contrast to definitions that are usually employed about craving desire, form, and formlessness, and so forth.
Grasping
Grasping is defined in the standard way: Grasping of desire, precepts, views, and self, and the commentary pauses to define these four types of grasping for the reader. These are defined in ways equivalent to what we find in Theravāda Abhidhamma except for grasping of self. This fourth type of grasping is not defined in terms of personality view (sakkāyadiṭṭhi). Instead, grasping of self is defined as craving the form or formless realms.
Existence
Existence refers to the desire, form, and formless realms, but two types of these existences are defined: One related to deeds (or perhaps lifestyle), and one related to beings. The existence of deeds generates the karma that leads to become a being in one of the being existences. So, for instance, a meditator who masters the four meditations is presently a desire existence being but practicing form existence deeds. They’ll be reborn as a form existence being as a result. And so forth.
Birth, Old Age, and Death et al.
These terms are all defined in straightforward and standard ways. Birth, old age, and death all refer to a physical being being born, growing old, and dying. The other forms of suffering are likewise concrete and standard in how they are understood. Sorrow refers to sadness, lamentation refers to the behaviors of someone distraught with suffering, pain refers to physical pains, trouble refers to mental pains, and the whole mass of suffering refers to the entire process of dependent origination.
