How Citta and Jiva relate to the Five Aggregates?

Q & A
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The Buddha sometimes uses words like Citta and Jiva where I would have expected him to express himself using elements of the Five Aggregates for greater precision. This leads me to my question: How do Citta and Jiva relate to the Five Aggregates? Are they subsets of the elements of the Five Aggregates or not? Are they just a completely different way to breakdown the whole? Were they just the terminology he used before coming up with the Five Aggregates as a framework for analysis?

Thanks is advance.

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4 aggregates are the mind, just form is not part of the mind. So 5 aggregates can be divided into form+citta.

Jīva, life is merely the quality of the person in between rebirth and death. Abhidhamma has mind living faculty (classified under volitional formations) and body living faculty (classified under form). Given that there’s in-between death and rebirth, jīva is not there all the time.

jīva as soul, I dunno. Too complicated analysis for me to distinguish jīva vs atta here, is soul the same as self? I normally take it to be the same. So no self, no soul. Perhaps used as a conventional self manner then.

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It seems like Abhdihamma refers to citta as the essential knowing nature of the mind. The purest moment of cognition or mind. Other stages have been given names too (see below). Those are progressively defiled.

The citta just knows. In this context vinnana and vinnana-khandha refer to defiled stages of cognition.
In a simile, citta is the mirror-like mind. It just reflects (knows) and gets not involved via anusaya, asavan and tanha in the reflections. Vinnana does or has.

Citta is just mirror-like. It does not want anything. It has no like and dislike. It has no tendency. It has no longings, it has no inclination, it signless. It just reflects or knows.

All the five khandha’s are aspects of the mind or cognition and always present in cognition.
Vinnana is in this context often seen as just the first moment of cognizing an odour, sound etc. but that cognizing is so quickly defiled with anusaya, asava, tanha, that it is useful to distinguish it from citta.

The cognition of an arahant and Buddha does not defile anymore to vinnana stage.

The nine stages are: citta, mano, mānasaṃ, hadayaṃ paṇḍaraṃ, mano manāyatanaṃ, manindriyaṃ, viññāṇaṃ, viññāṇakkhandho.

Anyway: What needs attention, i think, is that just sense-vinnana almost never exist for us, because it is immediately contaminated with anusaya, asava, tanha. So, in reality vinnana is much more than only the six sense consciousnesses It is more a mix of sense-objects with longings, perceptions, emotions, views, expactations, signs, tendencies etc. That is all incorprated in the vinnana.
In this context it is useful to distinguish this from the citta in which this is not going on.

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Jiva, Jivita, or those the same?

Jivita and jivitindriya is described as a mental factor (cetasika). Some mental factors can or cannot be present in cognition, such as greed, hate, jalousy, shame etc. But there are also mental factor which are always present in moment of vinnana. These are 7 in total:

  • phassa: there is no vinnana without contact,

  • vedana: any moment of vinnana goes toegether with a certain sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)

  • sañña: a difficult concept i find, but it seems to be related to memory and the recognition of the qualities of a sense-object. But what is sanna when one has never ever seen that object before? Maybe sanna at that moment is the aspect to categorize the sense-object. It’s basic functions according Bodhi is perceiving the qualities of an object. Also this is present in any moment of vinnana.

  • cetana: this seems to refer to a factor of volition/will present in any moment of vinnana. I have seen different explanation. It is for example explained as a kind of factor which organizes the other mental factor to act upon the object in a certain way

  • ekagatta: this is explained as the unification of the mind on its object. It unites the other factors

  • jivita/jivitindriya : it seems to have the function of vitalizing, and maintaining the other mental factors,

  • manasikara: this is seen as the factor responsible for the advertence to the object by virtue of which the object is made present to consciousness.

(in this short overview of the 7 cetasika’s always present in a conscious moment i have made use of comprehensive manual of abhidhamma by Bodhi)

So, unilke mental factor as greed, hate, thoughts, opinions, restlessness etc. which can and cannot be present, the above are always present when there is a moment of vinnana. It cannot be seperated from the moment something becomes conscious.

How does Jiva relate to the five khandha’s? I think Jiva as Jivaindrya or Jivata, the in any moment of vinnana present cetasika, belongs to the sankhara khandha.

I wonder what jiva is exactly? Does it play a role for example in kids (or older people) who experience a tv serie as reality ? For them it is so real, so vitalized?

It is possible that this aspect of the mind has become extreme when certain ideas, such as paronia-like ideas become so vitalized that one sees it as reality?