Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw - Abhidhamma.com

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Synchrony of Relations in the Immoral Class of Consciousness
Synchrony of Relations in the States of Mind
Synchrony of Relations in the Groups of Material Qualities
PREFACE to the published book (now out of print)
Buddhism views the world, with the exception of Nibbana and pannatti, to be impermanent, liable
to suffering, and without soul-essence. So Buddhist philosophy, to elaborate the impermanency as
applied to the Law of Perpetual Change, has from the outset dissolved all things, all phenomena
both psychical and physical, into a continuous succession of happenings, of states (sabhava) of
mind and matter, under the Fivefold Law of Cosmic Order (niyama). And the happenings are
determined and determining, both as to their constituent states and as to other happenings, in a
variety of ways, which Buddhist Philosophy expresses by the term 'paccaya' or 'relations.' One
complex happening of mental and material states, with its three phases of time--genesis or birth,
cessation or death and a static interval between--is followed by another happening, wherein there
is always a causal series of relations. Nothing is casual and fortuitous. When one happening by its
arising, persisting, cessation, priority, and posteriority, is determined by and determining another
happening by means of producing (janaka), supporting (upathambhaka), and maintaining
(anupalana), the former is called the relating thing (paccaya-dhamma), the latter the related thing
(paccayuppanna-dhamma), and the determination or the influence or the specific function is called
the correlativity (paccayasatti). As the various kinds of influence are apparently known, the
relations are classified into the following 24 species:
31. Hetu--condition or root
32. Arammana--object
33. Adhipati--dominance
34. Anantara--contiguity
35. Samanantara--immediate contiguity
36. Sahajali--coexistence
37. Annamanna--reciprocity
38. Nissaya--dependence
39. Upanissaya--sufficing condition
40. Purejata--pre-existence
41. Pacchajata--causal relation of posteriority in time
42. Asevana--habitual recurrence
43. Kamma--kamma or action
44. Vipaka--effect
45. Ahara/--food
46. Indriya--control
47. Jhana--jhana or ecstacy
48. Magga--path
49. Sampayutta--association
50. Vippayutta--dissociation
51. Atthi--presence
52. Natthi/--absence
53. Vigata--abeyance
54. Avigata--continuance
These 24 species of relations are extensively and fully expounded in the seventh and last of the
analytical works in the Abhidhamma Pitaka of the Buddhist Canon, called the Patthana ('The
Eminence'), or the Maha-Pakarana ('The Great Book').