[Buddha-l] Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[Dan Lusthaus]

Stephen,

Thanks for the helpful comments. As you can probably surmise from the typos
and misspellings, this was a quick draft, not a finalized translation, so
your comments are very useful.

The Mano-bhumi (especially the sections between which this extract is
sandwiched) is heavily steeped in medical terminology, which drove me to the
Caraka-samhita, only to discover that Asanga's terminology and lists are
similar but not identical to the Caraka. A search for pre-Asanga Buddhist
medical literature drew a blank (aside from the well-known but fairly sparse
Vinaya passages). If anyone knows of any such literature that is extant
(yes, I know about the Bower mss.) I would appreciate hearing about it. And
please don't send references to Tib. medicine, since that comes much later,
and is either derivative of this material or reflective of later and
non-Indian medical sources (especially Islamic medicine).

> > 3) due to inescapable (unavoidable) imbalance (不避不平等).
> This, of course, refers to humoral imbalance (vi.sama).  Your
"inescapable"
> should be "not shunned / not avoided" (aparihārata).  In other words,
> humoral imbalances that ARE avoidable, but which one induces because one
> does not shun the causes.

Good point. vi.samaaparihārata does mean "imbalances that should be
avoided."


> > 4) 生而不吐 (dry heaves – an impulse to throw up, but not actually
> > vomiting)
> No.  Here 生 is "āma" (raw, undigested). Xuanzang seems to have
misunderstood
> the meaning anyway: it is clear from the Sanskrit and Tibetan that the
sense
> is "not retaining raw/undigested food" -- quite the opposite !

Skt: aamam na aadharati.
I haven't looked at the Tibetan, but the Sanskrit is unclear. aama can mean,
as you say, raw food. Or undigested food (that is one of its meanings)... it
can mean unripe, uncooked, and, according to Monier-Williams: "constipation,
passing hard and unhealthy excretions." What I translated (whether Xuanzang
did or didn't get the sense right) is what Xuanzang wrote. 而不吐 = "and yet
doesn't vomit," which apparently is his reading of na aadharati, "not
holding what was eaten." I can't quite explain Xuanzang's thinking either -- 
I would take the Skt to mean something like "[unhealthy] excretions from not
retaining what he eats," implying diarrhea, dysentery, etc., which are the
opposite of constipation. Why Xuanzang excludes vomiting, I don't know
(unless he wants to suggest that these secretions are not bulemic purges,
but excretions from lower down in the body, or something like that).

> > 5) 熟而持之 (constipation?)
> yes, this is constipation, literally "retaining what has been digested".

pakvaṃ dhaarayati  (holding on to what has reached maturity, i.e., what has
reached the stage where it should be expelled). Here Xuanzang clearly
indicates the dh.r root (unlike in aad-dharati above).

> >  At this time, because of
> > two types of additional power {增上力}, subsequently life ends. This
means
> > 1) the additional power {增上力} of attachment to pleasure and prapañca;
and
> > 2) the additional power of pure and impure karma.
>
> No, this is wrong !  增上力故 is the standard idiom that Xuanzang uses for
> "adhipatī-kṛtvā"

Yes, that is the phrase, but I'm not sure the rendition is so much "wrong"
as overly literal (which is a way of being "wrong" is some people's eyes, I
suppose).

Thanks again for the comments, and if you notice any additional things,
please do pass them along.

cheers,
Dan