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十二因緣

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: twelve links of dependent arising

Senses:

  • (Skt. dvādaśa-astanga pratītyasamutpāda). When inquiring into what it is that gives rise to human suffering, the Buddha found it to be a continuum of twelve phases of conditioning in a regular order. These twelve links of conditioned existence are:
    1. 無明 (avidyā) nescience (ignorance, unenlightenment);
    2. 行 (saṃskāra), action-intentions; action, activity, conception, karmic predispositions
    3. 識 (vijñāna) consciousness;
    4. 名色 (nāmarūpa) name and form;
    5. 六處 (ṣaḍāyatana) the six-fold sphere of sense contact;
    6. 觸 (sparśa) contact;
    7. 受 (vedanā) sensation, feeling;
    8. 愛 (tṛṣṇā) thirst, desire, craving;
    9. 取 (upādāna) grasping, appropriation;
    10. 有 (bhava) becoming, being, existing;
    11. 生 (jāti) birth;
    12. 老死 (jarā-maraṇa) old age and death (impermanence).
    In this order, the prior situation is the condition for the arising of the next situation. Also, in the same order, if the prior condition is extinguished, the next condition is extinguished. Also written as 十二緣起, 十二有支, 十二率連, 十二棘園, 十二輪; 十二重城, 十二觀, and 支佛觀. The classical formula reads "By reason of nescience dispositions; by reason of dispositions consciousness," etc. A further application of the twelve nidānas is made in regard to their causation of rebirth: (1) nescience, as inherited affliction from the beginningless past; (2) karma, good and evil, of past lives; (3) conception as a form of perception; (4) nāmarūpa, or body and mind evolving (in the womb); (5) the six organs on the verge of birth; (6) childhood whose intelligence is limited to sparśa, contact or touch; (7) receptivity or budding intelligence and discrimination from 6 or 7 years; (8) thirst, desire, or love, age of puberty; (9) the urge of sensuous existence; (10) forming the substance, bhāva, of future karma; (11) the completed karma ready for rebirth; (12) old age and death. The two first are associated with the previous life, the other ten with the present. The theory is equally applicable to all realms of reincarnation. The twelve links are also represented in a chart, at the center of which are the serpent (anger), boar (nescience, or stupidity), and dove (lust) representing the fundamental sins. Each catches the other by the tail, typifying the train of sins producing the wheel of life. In another circle the twelve links are represented as follows: (1) nescience, a blind woman; (2) action, a potter at work, or man gathering fruit; (3) consciousness, a restless monkey; (4) name and form, a boat; (5) sense organs, a house; (6) contact, a man and woman sitting together; (7) sensation, a man pierced by an arrow; (8) desire, a man drinking wine; (9) craving, a couple in union; (10) existence through childbirth; (11) birth, a man carrying a corpse; (12) disease, old age, death, an old woman leaning on a stick. See 十二因緣論 Pratītya-samutpāda śāstra. (Skt. *dvādaśa-nidāna, dvādaśâṅgaḥ pratītya-samutpādaḥ, dvādaśa-pratītya-samutpāda) [Charles Muller; source(s): Ui, Nakamura, JEBD, Yokoi, Hirakawa, Iwanami]
  • les douze relations de causalité [Paul Swanson]
  • l'ignorance, les constructions psychiques, la conscience, le nom-forme, les six facultés sensorielles, la prise de contact, les sensations, la soif, l'appropriation, l'existence, la naissance, la vieillesse et la mort [Paul Swanson]
  • Cf. Karashima (Lokakṣema Glossary): view / hide
      
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    [Dictionary References]

    Bukkyō jiten (Ui) 507

    Bulgyo sajeon 537a

    Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.) 491b

    Iwanami bukkyō jiten 396

    Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 151b/168

    Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi) 310

    Zen Dust (Sasaki) 308

    Zengo jiten (Iriya and Koga) 9-P209

    Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura) 656c

    Fo Guang Dictionary 337

    Ding Fubao

    Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa) 0215

    Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki) (v.1-6)2321c, (v.9-10)371b,355c

    Bukkyō daijiten (Oda) 92-1*930-1

    Lokakṣemaʼs Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Karashima) 428

    Copyright provisions

    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 1993-09-01

    Updated: 2020-03-03