h again is
the result of vedana (pleasure and pain). But this vedana is of course
vedana with ignorance (_avidya_), for an Arhat may have also vedana
but as he has no avidya, the vedana cannot produce t@r@s@na in turn. On
its development it immediately passes into upadana. Vedana means
pleasurable, painful or indifferent feeling. On the one side it leads
to t@r@s@na (desire) and on the other it is produced by sense-contact
(_spars'a_). Prof. De la Vallee Poussin says that S'rilabha distinguishes
three processes in the production of vedana. Thus first there is the
contact between the sense and the object; then there is the knowledge
of the object, and then there is the vedana. Depending on _Majjhima
Nikaya_, iii. 242, Poussin gives the other opinion that just as in
the case of two sticks heat takes place simultaneously with rubbing,
so here also vedana takes place simultaneously with spars'a for they
are "produits par un meme complexe de causes (_samagri_) [Footnote
ref 3]."

Spars'a is produced by @sa@dayatana, @sa@dayatana by namarupa,
and namarupa by vijnana, and is said to descend in the womb
of the mother and produce the five skandhas as namarupa, out
of which the six senses are specialized.

Vijnana in this connection probably means the principle or
germ of consciousness in the womb of the mother upholding the
five elements of the new body there. It is the product of the
past karmas (_sa@nkhara_) of the dying man and of his past
consciousness too.

We sometimes find that the Buddhists believed that the last
thoughts of the dying man determined the nature of his next

_______________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: Govindananda in his _Ratnaprabha_ on S'a@nkara's bha@sya, II.
ii. 19, explains "bhava" as that from which anything becomes, as merit
and demerit (_dharmadi_). See also _Vibhanga_, p. 137 and Warren's
_Buddhism in Translations_, p. 201. Mr Aung says in
_Abhidhammatthasa@ngaha_, p. 189, that bhavo includes kammabhavo (the
active side of an existence) and upapattibhavo (the passive side).
And the commentators say that bhava is a contraction of "_kammabhava_"
or Karma-becoming i.e. karmic activity.]

[Footnote 2: Prof. De la Vallee Poussin in his _Theoric des Douze Causes_,
p. 26, says that _S'alistambhasutra_ explains the word "upadana" as
"t@r@s@navaipulya" or hyper-t@r@s@na and Candrakirtti also gives the
same meaning, _M. V._ (B.T.S.p. 210). Govmdananda explains "upad