Is there such mention in the Sutta about Microbes being predicted by the Buddha?

[stu]

@cdpatton

I discovered recently a YouTube channel called “Journey to the Microcosmos ” that offers some fascinating footage and background info about micro-organisms. There’s definitely senses at work. They are aware of their environment, whether another cell is the same species or not, etc. There’s even a cell that spends it’s time “fishing” with an arm that has a sting that paralyzes any hapless prey that it encounters. There are amoebas that build shells around themselves like hermit crabs , sometimes from bits of stuff they find. It really does reach the point that a person scratches their head and wonders.

So I’ve been reading Bhante’s essay here: On dependent origination, grasping, and developmental psychology and I was reminded of this thread. Bhante’s essay opens up a lot of possibilities around when it is correct to say that in front of us we have a ‘being’ and when that ‘being’ can be considered ‘sentient’ from a Buddhist perspective. I guess that we all go through periods when we are microscopic, the difference in that case I guess is ‘potential’?

@sujato

MN 38 describes the process of conception in terms borrowed from the brahmins . Conception here is gabbhassāvakkanti, where avakkanti indicates the “conception” of the baby. Avakkanti, alternatively spelled okkanti, is one of the stock synonyms for jāti i.e. “rebirth” in SN 12.2.

Conception is held to take place with three factors, two of which are physical—sexual intercourse and the woman being in her fertile cycle—as well as the presence of the somewhat mysterious gandhabba. This is an interesting usage here, but I’ll pass over it for now. In the Buddhist traditions it is always explained as equivalent to “consciousness”, i.e. viññāṇa.

The text then speaks of the pain endured by the mother as she bears her child for nine or ten months, followed by the pain of giving birth, all of which is very risky. The word for “giving birth” is vijāti.

DN 15 describes the same process in a slightly different way. There it speaks of consciousness being conceived (again okkanti) in the mother’s womb, and the “coagulation” of name and form. I think the unusual word samuccissatha arises from the ancient view that the embryo is formed from the “coagulation” of the semen and the menstrual blood. Lacking knowledge of sperm and ovum, this isn’t too inaccurate a description.