Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

CHAPTER VII
Manomaya
Introduction
IN THE INTRODUCTION I MADE the point that many of the key terms which
we have to consider in order to understand the early Buddhist analysis of
the person, and to gain some insight into the psychological processes of the
human being, are used in different contexts in the Sutta Pitaka with quite
different meanings. We have seen evidence of this problem in almost every
chapter. Of the terms with which we are concerned, one of the most
difficult to understand precisely is manas. I have already discussed this term
in two very different contexts in which it is found. The first was as a sense,
when I referred to it as manodha'tu, discussed in chapter I. We saw there that
in that context its precise meaning and function were not clearly defined
and that many passages had to be considered together in order to extract
some degree of clarity. The second context was manas in the sense both of
mind in general and of thinking, which I discussed in relation to the terms
citta and vin"n"a'pz. We now come to a third use of manas, manomaya.
Manomaya is one of the most obscure terms found in the Pali canon. Not
only can the term can be understood in grammatically different ways but it
is also found in many different contexts, some of which suggest it has a
metaphorical as well as a more literal meaning. I shall discuss the two
implications separately, but we shall see that the metaphorical meaning is
in fact suggested by the more literal use of the term. Leaving aside for the
present the metaphorical meaning, in all but one of the contexts which will
be discussed here, the term manas refers to mind in general rather than
manas as a sense (manodha'tu). But the grammatical ambiguity arises because
not only does maya have different meanings, but as a tappuka compound it
can be taken as a genitive, locative or instrumental. Maya can mean
'consisting of', 'made' or 'originating'. So, if taken as a genitive tappurisa,
the compound can mean 'consisting of/made of the mind'; 'originating in
the mind' if taken as a locative tappurisa; or 'made by the mind' if taken as
an instrumental. In effect the locative and instrumental have the same