Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

Manomay a
reed from its sheath: one knows that the two are separate from each other
but they precisely fit together or correspond to each other. The point of the
second and third analogies is the same as the first: a sword and its scabbard
and a snake and its The form of the Pali is the same for the sword
(a4 and scabbard (kosl), and the slough (karada) and the snake (ahz).
A possibility which arises from these analogies is that they might also be
an indication that the creating of a mind-made body is of spiritual significance:
that it is an ability which is acquired when a certain advanced stage
on the path to liberation is attained. Eliade points out that the image of the
snake and its cast skin, for example, is one of the oldest symbols indicating
initiation, or mystical death and resurrection, and is found in Brahmanical
literatureeg5 In the SiirnaiiEa'phala Sutta, the acquisition of various magical or
supernormal powers (iddhis) and insights, which culminate in liberating
insight, follows the stage at which the bhiMu is able to create the rnanomaya
body. As such, the process might have metaphorical symbolism as a rite of
passage or initiation to the level at which the soteriologically advanced
stages of the bhikkhu's progress along the path take place. This might be
more plausible if one understands the creating of a manomaya body as a
'subtlising' process, not as another body, as I suggest below Alternatively, the
analogies might just indicate the close relationship between the bodies,
such as we saw described in the Taittinia UpanGad, where the three levels of
bodies were said to 'fill' each other, indicating that they normally occupy
the same space.
As well as the fact that the mind-made body looks identical to the
bhikkhu's existing physical body, this passage tells us that it also has form, it
is rzipa. The variety in the modes of reality to which we have already
referred gives us some indication that this mind-made body, though it has
form, might differ in nature from our physical bodies. We have also seen
that the Brahmanical religion recorded in the Upani~ads accepted the
existence of an individual's 'subtle body' (manomaya, vijn"l2namaya or linga
SarEra). And we have concluded above that rebirth at the psycho-cosmological
level of manomaya means having a subtle rzipa body. It is likely,
therefore, that in this context also the created body is a subtle body.
Because the mind-made body referred to in the Siimaiiiiaphala Sutta has
form, however, we know that it is not merely a concept that the bhikkhu
creates: its level of reality is ?%pa rather than a?%pa, even if it is subtle ~iipa.~~
Its existence, therefore, is not in the mind or ofthe mind, but it is a body
created by the power of the mind. In some way the bhikkhu's mind is able to
manipulate riipa to create a subtle body in exactly the same form as the
gross body.
The phenomenon of deliberately creating a body is not unique to
Buddhism, or even to the Indian tradition as a whole. In his book, 25ga:
Immortali~ and Freedom, Eliade discusses the phenomenon of the transmutation
of substance in tantric yoga and in Western alchemy.97 Both practices
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