Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

The Riipakkhandha 7
upad5 nipa is discussed at length in terms of the qatanas, so much so that the
translator of the text for the Pali Text Society has entitled an entire chapter
"Derived Material Qualitie~".'~ In addition to such definitions, where the
Abhidhamma categorises upid6 nipa more extensively, so that it is said to comprise
twenty-three different phenomena, the gatanas are included.lg
Likewise, in the section on the riipakkhandha in his fisuddhimagga, where
Buddhaghosa lists twenty-four kinds of upidi riipa, he includes the &atanus
in the same way as the Abhidhamma and the c~mmentaries.~~ Modern
Theravada Buddhist writers also define upzdi Spa as the senses.21
That u.Jdi riipa, undefined in the Sutta Pitaka, eventually came to be
defined in this way might be because of the fact, mentioned above, that in
contexts in the Sutta Pitaka where the five khandhas in turn are being
defined, and where the nipakkhandha has been defined according to the
simple analysis of the four elements and their derivatives, the different
anipaWd2andha-s are each said to be of six types according to the six senses
or their objects. This repeated reference to the @atanas in such classifica~
tions might account for the fact that they became singled out for mention
as upEdi riipa.
Given such prominent mention of the senses in the Sutta Pitaka, and
given that it is obvious to us that there are physical organs corresponding to
at least five of the senses (so one might equally obviously assume that they
are part of the ru'pakkhandha), it is also conversely notable that nowhere in
the Sutta Pitaka are the senses, or their corresponding sense objects, explicitly
stated to be part of the riipakkhandha, and none of the passages which is
specifically describing the riipakkhandha includes any of them as upEdd nipa.
It is this omission that prompts me to question whether the consistent
references in the Sutta Pitaka to the senses or their objects determining the
types of mental activity necessarily implies that it was intended that either
the senses or their objects, or all of them, should be classified as part of
upid5 nipa within the ru'pakkhandha, as later defined in the Abhidhamma and
understood within the Buddhist tradition.
The question is prompted not just by the omission but also by the fact
that compared with what is found in the Sutta P&ka, the later tradition's
understanding of the senses becomes, on the one hand, more complex,
and, on the other hand, more 'physical'. Dealing with the first of these first,
the Abhidhamma gives a more comprehensive classification of the twelve
Zyatanas collectively than is found in the four main NikZyas of the Sutta
&taka. In the Sutta Pi!aka, there is more of a distinction between the senses
and the sense objects, and the term Qatana is more frequently said to be
sixfold.** Where sabyatana appears in the pa$ccasamuppida formula given in
the Sutta Pitaka, for example, only the senses are included in the definition,
not the sense objects.13 And though the senses and objects are at times
referred to as separate groups in the same classification, that is as dyatana.~,~~
the point is that the senses and objects are more clearly delineated from