Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

8 Identity and Experience
each other, each as separate 'sixes', than in the Abhidhamma where the senses
and their objects are all referred to individually and equally as eatanas,
giving twelve in all, and are grouped together in definitions or descriptions
of upid5 rii~a.~~ This inclusion of the objects of sense in a definition of
something that is subject to 'grasping' is not, as might at first be thought, in
itself problematic. These objects are not necessarily external to the human
being: eyes and visibility, nose and smell, tongue and taste (and so on) are
all aspects of the human body. But this development represents a more
complex way of attempting to understand the senses than is found in the
Sutta Pi~ka, a complexity that is compounded by lack of consistency.
By way of example, in the Dhammasangapiwe read that whatever riipa is
'internal' (that is personal to the individual) is upidi, but whatever riipa is
'external' is sometimes upidi and sometimes no-~pidi.~~ External (bihiram)
riipa seems here to refer specifically to aspects of n2pa which are experienced
subjectively oneselE2' What is external in the sense of being part of other
beings is referred to in this text as bahiddhi, and is also referred to as
&ammi.28 Though the gatanas, whether internal or external (bcihiram), are
usually collectively classified as upidi Gpa, ~otthabha,~~ manas and dhammi
are often excluded from the classification, though no reason is given for
this. ,
With regard to the increasingly 'physical' understanding of the senses,
not only does the later tradition explicitly classify the senses as riipa, but the
later texts also give long and elaborate physical descriptions of the sense
organs. The Pali terms used to refer to the senses are cakWlu, sota, ghina,
jivh5, kiiya and manas, and following a physical interpretation of their
meaning, these are usually translated eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and
mind. But none of the meanings of the term ciyatana suggests that a physical
organ is meant.30 In the Sutta maka, the senses are also sometimes referred
to as indnyas, 'powers' or 'fa~ulties'.~' Though in such contexts they are also
usually translated as sense organs, the term indriya does not suggest that
physical organs are implied any more than does Qatana. Similarly, they are
also called &itus, elements, which again need not imply phy~icality.~~ This
suggests that the later attempts to classify the senses as upid5 riipa might be
placing an inappropriate emphasis on their physical aspects. And as a
further complication, we shall see in the next part of this chapter that even
in this respect the later material appears inconsistent.
The nearest the Sutta Pi!aka comes to associating the senses with upi& is
in a passage in the Sutta N$ita where there is a reference to the fact that the
five sensual pleasures plus manas are the grasping (upidina) which afflicts the
This does not, however, refer specifically to n2pa, nor to the senses
themselves, but to the fact that sensual desire, the arising of which is based
on the senses, represents the fuel of continued sapiric existence: loka here
meaning the 'world' of the subjective individual rather than the external
world as a whole, as discussed above.