The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

291 - Noble Truths and the Twelve Conditions
chain of causes and conditions. They may equally well be regarded as
substance and attribute. Thus arranged these twelve Nidānas fall into
four divisions, showing three joints.
Appearance in birth or rebirth is of three kinds (human, heavenly or
of the netherworld), and is of three divisions in time, past, present and
future. These also produce the faults, deeds and their consequences,
and are impermanent and cause only sorrow. When one gets to
understand this character of these Nidānas, he knows what will assure
him the permanence of release. 117
Further it becomes the means for the cultivation of the Four Truths,
and is constituted of the five Skandhas. It is capable of being argued
in the six forms beginning with the ‘assertion of truth’. It results in the
‘four’ forms of excellence. It is open to question in four ways and
being capable of respective answers in four ways similarly. It is
without origin and without end. It is a series of continuous becoming
without ever reaching final destruction. It neither does, nor can it be
described as being done. It is neither self nor is it possessed by another
self. It is nothing that is gone, nothing that is to come. It cannot be
brought to an end, nor is it to end itself. It is itself the result of the
deed, birth and cessation. Such is the nature of the twelve causes and
conditions [223] beginning with ignorance, and called the Nidānas.
These twelve are :
(1) Ignorance (Pēdamai, Sans. Avidyā),
(2) Action (Śeykai, Sans. Karma),
(3) Consciousness (Uṇarvu, Sans. Vijñāna),
(4) Name and form (Aru-uru, Sans. Nāmarūpa),
(5) Six organs of sense (Vāyil, Sans. Ṣaḍāyatana),
(6) Contact (Ūṟu, Sans. Sparśa).
117 (Nirvāṇa).