the buddhist philosopher, in his earnest prosecution after the antidote of ignorance, that is, science, rightly states that all beings, and man, in particular, must ever be the first and most interesting subject the sage has to study. the knowledge of man in particular constitutes a most important portion of the science he must acquire, ere he can become a perfect being, and be deemed worthy to be admitted to the state of neibban. in the very limited sketch of this part of the work under consideration, the attention of the reader will be directed on man as the most interesting of all beings. with our buddhist author, therefore, he will take human beings as the subject of his[213] investigations. provided with the philosophical dissecting knife, he will anatomise all the component parts of that extraordinary being, whose nature has ever presented an insoluble problem to ancient sages. what is to be said on this subject will be sufficient to convey a correct idea of the mode of reasoning and arguing followed by buddhist philosophers, when they analyse other beings and select them for the subjects of their meditations.
at the very beginning, our author proclaims this great maxim: all beings living in the three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, have in themselves but two things or attributes, rupa and nam, form and name. accustomed as we are to a language that expresses clear and distinct notions, we would like to hear him say, in nature there are but two things, matter and spirit. but such is not the language of buddhists, and i apprehend that were we giving up their somewhat extraordinary, and, to us, unusual way of expressing their ideas, we could not come to a correct knowledge of the notions they entertain respecting the nature of man. let us allow our author to speak for himself, and, as much as possible, express himself in his own way. by rupa, we understand form and matter; that is to say, all that is liable per se to be destroyed by the agency of secondary causes. nam, or nama, is the thing, the nature of which is known to the mind by the instrumentality of mano, or the knowing principle. in the five aggregates constituting man, viz., materiality or form, the organs of sensation, of perception, of consciousness, and those of intellect, there is nothing else to be found but form and name. we are at once brought to this materialist conclusion, that in man we can discover no other element but that of form and that of name.
to convey a sort of explanation of this subject, our author gives here a few notions respecting the six senses. i say six senses, because with him, besides the five ordinary senses, he mentions the mano, or the knowing principle that resides in the heart, as one of the senses. the[214] organs or faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and knowing, he calls the inward senses. these same organs, as they come in contact with exterior objects, are called exterior senses. the faculty inherent in each of the senses whereby is operated the action between the organ and its object is designated by the appellation of the life of the senses, as, for instance, the eye seeing, the ear hearing, &c. in this treble mode of considering the senses, what do we meet with but form and name, ideas and matter? supposing the organ of seeing to exist, and an object to be seen, there will necessarily result, as an essential consequence, the perception or idea of such a thing. even as regards the mano, where there exists the heart on one side, and truth on the other, there will follow immediately the idea or perception of truth.
this materialist doctrine, if the meaning of our author be accurately understood, is further confirmed by the method he proposes for carrying on the investigation respecting the nature of things. he who desires to penetrate deeply into such a sublime science must have recourse to the help of meditation. having selected an object, he considers it by the means of witekka. he passes successively through the ideas and impressions he derives from the contemplation of such an object. he then says to himself: the ideas obtained by means of witekka, or the first degree of dzan, or meditation, are nothing but nam-damma, since their nature is to offer themselves to the arom, as the thought to its object. but where is the seat of that arom? it resides in the substance of the heart, which, in reality, affords asylum both to it and to the nam-damma. it is nowhere else to be found. but what is the heart? whence does it come? by what is it formed? to these three questions we answer, that the heart is composed of the four elements. it is but one and the same thing with them. this startling doctrine is explicit, and excludes at once the idea of a spiritual substance.
our author has now reached the elements of the parts[215] constituting all that exists with a form. he boldly asserts that all that has an existence is but an aggregate of earth, water, fire, and air; all the forms are but modifications and combinations of the four elements. the bare enumeration of this general principle is not sufficient to satisfy our philosopher. he wishes to know and explain the reason of everything. here begins an analysis entirely unknown to our chemists and philosophers of the west. the body is divided into thirty-two parts, which are often enumerated in formulas of prayer by pious buddhists. each of these thirty-two parts is subdivided into forty-four. the hair, how slender soever it appears, is submitted to that minute analysis. the result of this subtle division is to show what is the proportion of each element that enters into the formation of these atomical parts. we have not the patience to write down these uninteresting details, nor do we believe that the reader will be displeased if we spare him the trouble of going over such worthless nomenclature. there is another division of matter, or body, into forty-two parts, called akan. this is based upon the distinction of the four elements that enter unequally into the formation of the body; twenty parts belong to the earth, twelve to water, six to fire, and six to wind. then again the body is divided into sixty parts; the division is based upon the distinction of the ten constitutive parts belonging to each of the senses, as it will be hereafter explained. the object which buddhist philosophers have in view in entering into so many divisions and subdivisions of the forms of the body is to prove, in their opinion to demonstration, that, by the nicest analysis of every part of the body, we find in the end nothing but the primary elements that are called the supports of all that exist.
we have now to follow our author through a path more difficult than the preceding one, and hear him explain the theory of ideas and their various modifications. these, says he, are known, not by their forms, since they have none, but only by their name. through the practice of[216] reflection and meditation we become acquainted with them. we call them arupa damma, things without a form or shape. they are designated under the name of tseit and tsedathit,[50] that is to say, ideas and the result of ideas. where are these ideas to be met? where have they their seat? in the six senses and nowhere else, is the answer. having already become acquainted with the organs of the senses, it will be easy to find out the ideas that are as the tenants of the senses.
all the tseits inhabiting the organs of sense are called[217] loki tseit, that is to say, ideas of the world, because they are to be met with in all the beings as yet subjected to concupiscence. they are distinct from lokoudra tseits, which belong properly to the beings free from passions, and who have entered into the four megga, or ways to perfection. the tseits of this world are eighty-one in number, classified as follows: the perception of each of the five organs, and the perception of the respective faculties of those organs. this gives ten tseits. there are three for the sense of the heart, the perception of the substance of the heart, of its faculty of knowing, and of the object of its knowledge.
each of the six senses has ten constitutive forms or parts, viz.: earth, water, fire, air, colour, odour, taste, fluid, life, and the body attached primitively thereto. now there is an action from each of these forms upon the subject. thence ten tseits to each of the six senses.
there are no words so ill defined and so ill understood by our philosopher as the two words tseit and tsedathit. the first in a moral sense means idea, thought, perception, etc.; in a physical sense it means that secondary cause created by kan, producing the living being, the senses wherein reside the moral tseit. tsedathit, being the result of ideas, must, of course, have likewise two meanings. in the first place it will designate the impressions made upon us by ideas; in the second, it will mean the secondary cause or life in the body, or the modifications of the principles of corporeal life.
this being premised, we may a little understand our author when he says: there are seven tsedathits existing at the same time as the eighty-one above-mentioned tseits, viz.: pasa tsedathit, so called because it is the real effect of the tsedathit to attain its object, and, as it were, to touch it. we may call it the agreement between the idea and its object. wedana tsedathit, the feeling of the impression of an idea; thagnia tsedathit, the comprehension of the object; dzetana tsedathit, the inclination for the object;[218] eketa tsedathit, the fixity on the object; dziwi-teindre tsedathit, the observance of what relates to form and name; and mana sikaramana tsedathit, consciousness. it is evident, therefore, that the tsedathit is neither the idea nor the object of the idea, but the result from the idea that has come in contact with an object. these seven results are, if we may say so, the third part of the idea. they do not give occasion to modifications of ideas. but those which really give rise to the greatest variety of results are the akuso tsedathit, or the results of evil thoughts and ideas, and their opposite, or kuso tsedathit, or the consequence of good and virtuous thoughts. to mention here all the kuso and akuso tsedathit would be but a dry exposition of the nomenclature of the vices and virtues, such as is met with in the catalogues of buddhist moralists. they are all enumerated in the preceding note.
