Modern Interpretations of the Khandhas: Vedanā

In the first installment of this exploration of the khandas I introduced the subject and outlined the project I'm working on. I have two books published in 2000 that purport to provide an overview of the khandhas based on a comprehensive survey of the Theravāda Nikāyas and in one also the Theravāda Vinaya preserved in Pāli (though such mentions are few). Since the khandhas play an important role in Prajñāpāramitā literature and the Heart Sutra I wanted a working definition, but I have long been dissatisfied with the received explanations and drawn to Sue Hamilton's recasting of the khandhas as the "apparatus of experience". The opportunity to contrast this view with another comprehensive survey published in the same year seemed fortuitous. So I began to read them side by side and make notes. 

Since writing the first installment I found Rupert Gethin's excellent article “The Five Khandhas: Their Treatment In The Nikāyas And Early Abhidhamma” (1986). This provides a third summary of the Pāli treatment of the five khandhas. Gethin's article is extremely useful because he resists turning the descriptive task into an exercise in exegesis. That is, he tells us what the literature says without adding an interpretative veneer aimed at making sense of the ideas found there. Anyone looking for a straightforward description of what the khandhas are according to the Pāli texts will find what they are looking for in this article. Importantly, Gethin makes explicit in 1986 something that Hamilton concludes in 2000 without acknowledging Gethin (though she has clearly read and cites his article), i.e. that dukkha, khandha, and loka are synonyms for "experience" in this context (along with some other words). 

Having covered rūpa in the first installment we now move onto vedanā. 

Vedanā

The word vedanā is problematic for reasons already hinted at. We can see the problem in microcosm in the opening statements of our two authors on vedanā:

Hamilton: "...the khandha of sensation. It is also sometimes called the khandha of feeling (I have so called it myself in the past), but this is or can be misleading because it is not feeling in the affective sense of emotion that is meant here. (76)

Vetter: "Thus vedanā is pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral 'feeling'. The translation 'sensation', though possible is not chosen because it is needed, with another shade of meaning, for translating [viññāṇa]." (22)

So is it "sensation" or is it "feeling"? My treatment of vedanā will be influenced by an article I published in 2018. I was invited to contribute to a special issue of Contemporary Buddhism on the subject of vedanā, which contained a dozen articles all focussed on this elusive concept and various attempts to explain how to translate and understand it. Since someone had already done an extensive review of the etymology, I was forced to consider other approaches. It dawned on me that the reason we have trouble translating this and other jargon terms is that they are not used according to their etymologies. Rather, the words are used quite arbitrarily to convey a jargon concept that was particular to Buddhism. And this opened the door to reconsidering the definitions of many words in the Buddhist lexicon. There is a summary of the article on my blog: Through the Looking Glass: How we define and translate Buddhist technical terms.

Vedanā comes from a root √vid "to know" and is a concrete noun (a name for a thing) formed from an action noun. The action noun is derived from the causative, so it names the action of "making known" or "bringing about knowledge". In a word, vedanā means something like "an announcement" or refers to the thing that informs you. But this is not how it is used. Vedanā is used to mean the positive or negative hedonic qualities of experience: sukhaṃ vā dukkhaṃ vā asukhamadukkhaṃ vā paṭisamvedeti. No one disputes this definition which is found throughout the suttas, but they do tie themselves in knots making a translation mean that. Gethin adds:

"The significance of the three kinds of vedanā seems to lie in their being seen as three basic reactions to experience which possess a certain potential to influence and govern an individual's subsequent responses in either skilful or unskilful ways" (1986: 36).

Vetter treats vedanā as "derived from" vedayati based (again) on the Khajjanīya Sutta (SN 22.79) which I discussed at some length in the first installment. I noted that the Khajjanīya Sutta had a wrong definition of rūpa relating to ruppati "to harm" (Skt rupyati) rather than the denominative ruppeti "to appear" (Skt rūpayati). The Khajjanīya Sutta is not a reliable source for a definition or rūpa but Vetter ploughs on. With respect to vedanā the text says:

‘vedayatī’ti kho, bhikkhave, tasmā ‘vedanā’ti vuccati.
[It does the action of] vedayati, monks, therefore, it is called vedanā.

Note that a final short vowel is long when followed by iti. But how to translate the verb vedayati, given that we already acknowledge that the noun is not used as we might expect from the etymology? Note also that the verb is being used intransitively, but this may be a quirk of this particular syntax - when referring to the action itself in the abstract the object might be left off and still make sense as in "they experience [sense stimulation] therefore we call it experience". In this case we don't need to specify what is experienced, even though in normal speech we would have to.

Worse, we discover that Vetter uses the PTS edition which has vediyati and notes "v.l. vedayati": where v.l. = vario lectio "a variant word" . My text comes from the Sixth Council Edition which is fairly reliable and much more accessible. The trouble is that they are not simple variants. See PTSD s.v. vindati (625) and vedeti (648).

Vediyati could be derived in two ways. It most resembles a passive (affix -iya-) built on the causative form of the root (ved-) "it is made known", but could also be a present indicative form "he experiences" from ved-ya, with a euphonic infix -i- because dy is not allowed in Pāli phonology giving the stem vediya- .

Vedayati could be a denominative from veda "knowledge, experience" (as rūpayati is from rūpa); or it could be an archaic (or borrowed) causative. The expected Pāli causative third person singular is vedeti but the -e affix is a condensation of the Sanskrit affix -aya-, and the Sanskrit causative is vedayati. We will meet vedeti below. 

If we turn to the context, it provides us with a strong predictor of what to expect. If we look again at the pattern from the passage in question, i.e. SN III.86-7, we see five verbs:

• ruppati = denominative; present indicative third person singular (active voice)
• vedayati/vediyati = ?
• sañjānāti = present indicative, third person singular (active voice)
• abhisaṅkharonti = present indicative, third person plural (active voice)
• vijānāti = present indicative, third person singular (active voice)

So we are expecting to see a verb in the active voice, indicative mood, present tense, third person, and probably in the singular (though possibly plural). The particular syntax of quoting the bare word followed by iti and then a definition also makes us expect to see the third person singular (in Latin and English we expect the infinite when defining verbs, e.g. "to know").

So if vediyati is correct then is must be the present indicative "they experience" and if vedayati is correct then it is a denominative "they are informed". And either possibility is equally likely as far as I can see. The two words are virtually interchangeable in Pāli (especially when we consider the commentaries).

What the text says is that vedanā—the positive or negative hedonic quality of experience—is supposedly the result of an action denoted by vedayati or vediyati. But given the very specific, ad hoc, definition of the word (Humpty Dumpty style) all this etymological work (a couple of hours!) is ultimately futile. We cannot simply rely on the assumed meaning as derived from etymology because etymology plays little or no part in the definition of vedanā as a Buddhist technical term. And here is the most crucial criticism of relying on the Khajjanīya Sutta as an authoritative source. The author of the Khajjanīya Sutta has fallen for the etymological fallacy and taken Vetter down with him.

We can say that vedanā means "feeling" but we still have to consciously redefine "feeling" to mean "the positive and negative hedonic quality of experience". And this is not obvious to any outsider until we tell them. They may well complain that we can't just redefine words willy-nilly, in which case we can give Humpty Dumpty's retort, “The question is, which is to be master–that’s all”. And we are the masters of our own jargon.

There is another statement in Vetter (2000: 23) that needs some attention, viz "In a formula thirteen times employed in the Brahmajāla-sutta, vedanā obviously refers to a sublime state of bliss" (e.g. as DN I.17). But Vetter himself goes on to show that this is incorrect. There is no doubt that the Buddha is said to attain nibbuti which Bodhi and Maurice Walsh both translate as "perfect peace" but which can be understood as "bliss".

In arguing that nibbuti can mean "a state of bliss" Vetter references a discussion of nibbuti in "Norman 1993, 59" but he does not include a work by Norman with this date in his bibliography. Is the date wrong or was the reference omitted? In any case, the argument is not hard to find elsewhere. The PED derives the word from Sanskrit nirvṛti "bliss, pleasure, delight" but points out that it is used synonymously with nibbāṇa. Maurice Walsh and Bodhi both follow this usage when they translate nibbuti in this context as "perfect peace". Edgerton points out that nirvṛti probably derives from nir-var ([i.e. nir√vṛ] 203 s.v. nirvṛta, nirvṛti), "but even in Sanskrit used in ways that suggest a secondary association with nir-vā- 'extinguished'." Here again, use trumps etymology and Vetter's insistence on translating nibbuti as "a state of bliss" is another example of the etymological fallacy. Buddhists simply don't use the word that way.

Worse, here vedanā is not related to nibbuti at all. Rather, as part of the process of liberation, the Tathāgata in this description first attains peace, then "having understood as they are, the arising and passing away of feelings, the enjoyment of, disadvantage of, and release from them... (vedanānaṃ samudayañca atthaṅgamañca assādañca ādīnavañca nissaraṇañca yathābhūtaṃ viditvā). It is not true that "vedanā obviously refers to a sublime state of bliss" rather it is obvious that knowledge of the arising and passing away of vedanā is referred to in the context of achieving liberation.

Conclusions on Vedanā

So where does this leave us? It seems to me that scholars explicating vedanā are often struggling with the etymological fallacy. We in fact have a precise definition of what vedanā means in Pāli. It means the positive (sukha), negative (dukkha), or neutral (asukham-adukkha) feelings that we have in response to sense experience. Another place we come unstuck is a variety of anachronistic fallacy, i.e. trying to present this Iron Age religious concept in terms of some form of modern understanding of the mind and/or perception. For example, insisting that it means "feelings" and then using a psychoanalytic explanation of "feeling" as though it is universally applicable across times and cultures. One might also say that this is Anglo- or Euro-centric. 

Hamilton and Gethin both treat the khandhas as a "sequence". Vetter appears not to take this approach. For Hamilton, it means that vedanā occurs prior to, e.g. recognition (which is a function of saññā). The idea of the khandhas as a diachronic sequence rather than a synchronic list is not defended. I've only ever come across one text in which some of the khandhas appear to form a sequence, and even then it's not a complete list of khandhas, i.e. in the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta (MN 18)

Cakkhuñca, paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṃ, tiṇṇaṃ saṅgati phasso, phassapaccayā vedanā, yaṃ vedeti taṃ sañjānāti, yaṃ sañjānāti taṃ vitakketi, yaṃ vitakketi taṃ papañceti,... (M I.111)
With the eye and form as condition arises eye cognition, the three together constitute contact; with contact as condition there is feeling. What one is made to feel, one comes to know. What one knows, one thinks about, and what one thinks about proliferates...

Note here that the verb associated with vedanā is vedeti, the causative,  "it makes known" or "it causes [one] to experience" (c.f. above). Note also that this passage appears to combine elements from at least three doctrinal lists, but does so in a way that is quite intuitive (which should make us suspicious). Thus I am not convinced by the idea of the sequence. (cf. Hamilton's comments on the order of the list; 72-73).

In my view, then, Tilmann Vetter is off to a very inauspicious start with his characterisation of the khandhas. I don't believe him. Sue Hamilton is doing better but her approach has a Procrustean element to it that was not apparent to me previously. Rupert Gethin's summary had a very different purpose and provides a good contrast to both. 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Attwood, J. 2018. “Defining Vedanā: Through the Looking Glass.” Contemporary Buddhism, 18 no. 3, 31-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2018.1450959

Gethin, Rupert. 1986. “The Five Khandhas: Their Treatment In The Nikāyas And Early Abhidhamma.” Journal Of Indian Philosophy 14(1): 35-53.

Hamilton, Sue. 1996. Identity and experience: the constitution of the human being according to early Buddhism. London: Luzac Oriental.

Hamilton, Sue. 2000. Early Buddhism: A New Approach. London: Routledge.

Vetter, Tilmann. 2000. The Khandha Passages in the Vinayapiṭaka and the Four Main Nikāyas. Wien Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Through the Looking Glass: How we define and translate Buddhist technical terms

In Feb 2018 I was invited to contribute an article to a special issue of the journal Contemporary Buddhism. The issue would mainly contain papers delivered at the Vedana Symposium, July 13-16, 2017, Barre Centre For Buddhist Studies. The subject was vedanā and I could write anything I wanted to. This is now published as:

Attwood, Jayarava (2018). 'Defining Vedanā: Through the Looking Glass.' Contemporary Buddhism, 18(3).
https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2018.1450959

The published abstract describes the article this way:

The Buddhist technical term vedanā continues to elude just the right translation. Using semantic methods, scholars have argued both for and against the usual choices: “feelings” and “sensations”; as well as suggesting that phrases borrowed from psychology offer more semantic precision. In an attempt to break the deadlock and arrest the continuing search for the perfect translation, I argue that the term vedanā was not defined semantically. Instead, it was defined in the way that Humpty Dumpty defines words in Through the Looking Glass. Vedanā means what Buddhist say it means, neither more nor less, only because we say it does and not for any reason deriving from etymology or semantics. This observation leads me to conclude that methods from pragmatics, speech act theory, and cognitive linguistics offer better tools for analysing the term and settling on a translation. 

~

As I began writing, it soon became clear that another contributor had already gone over the semantic meaning of the term quite thoroughly, looking at the etymology and how the word is defined and used in texts. Since this was my usual modus operandi, I would have to be creative and I had just two weeks to come up with something. 

I began with some observations I had made about discontinuities between my modern worldview and the Iron Age worldview of the Pāli authors. I focussed especially on issues that have made translation of psychological terms difficult. This section stayed in the paper that I eventually submitted. However, it did not fill out a full-length article and most of it was not directly related to the problem of vedanā.

So I had to think more about the problem of vedanā. The problem seems to be that although we Buddhists are all clear about what it means in practice (agreeable, disagreeable, and neutral feelings related to sense experience), we could not agree on how to translate it, which has been disagreeable. A number of suggestions have been adopted by different experts, but each is subject to criticism and debunking by different experts. This suggests that despite agreeing in practice, we somehow disagree in principle.

This is a strange situation. No one is waiting around thinking,  "If only the experts would agree on how to translate this word and we could get on with our Buddhist practice". Buddhist practice continues without hesitation, though, of course, we must all take time out to explain what we mean by vedanā.

How to Define Words

I began to think about other ways of approaching language: pragmatics, speech act theory, and cognitive linguistics. It soon dawned on me that there was a disconnect between how the word vedanā is defined in our texts and how we seek to translate it. It is defined using the Humpty Dumpty method. To illustrate what this means, I will cite a section of the conversation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Through the Looking Glass:

“And only one [day of the year] for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!” 

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said. 

 Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’ 

 “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected. 

 “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.” 

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.” 

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master–that’s all” (Carroll 1872: 112).

In my article I noted that Alice represents a conservative semantics view. In this view, words mean what they mean and we cannot change that. In his book on the search for the perfect language, Umberto Eco shows that Europeans saw the perfect language as fixed and unchanging and that this idea was very influential. In this view, language has one and only one word per concept, and that relationship can never change. Meaning is relatively fixed. The problem is that this is not how languages work in practice. Synonyms and homonyms abound (and make poetry interesting). And words are constantly changing their meaning.

Humpty Dumpty, in contrast to Alice, is more of a linguistic pragmatist (albeit an anarchic one). He argues that means is not fixed and can be changed to suit the speaker. Alice can't know what he means until he tells her. It's quite likely that Lewis Carroll meant Humpty Dumpty to be a figure of fun and Alice to be the voice of reason. However, in use language is more like Humpty Dumpty's approach.

In particular, if you look at the Pāḷi passages which define vedanā, they specify precisely that what it means. And, if we look closely, we can see that the Pāli authors are doing the same as Humpty Dumpty. Consider this passage from the Mahāvedalla Sutta (MN 43). A bhikkhu called Koṭṭhika is asking Sāriputta a series of questions about Buddhist jargon. It is important to note that Koṭṭika is a bhikkhu who seems unsure about the meaning of these common jargon terms. Apparently being conversant with Buddhist jargon was not always a criterion for ordination. 

Koṭṭhika: Vedanā vedanā’ti, āvuso, vuccati. Kittāvatā nu kho, āvuso, vedanāti vuccatī ti?

Sāriputta: Vedeti vedetī’ti kho, āvuso, tasmā vedanāti vuccati. Kiñca vedeti? Sukhampi vedeti, dukkhampi vedeti, adukkhamasukhampi vedeti. (MN I.293)

K: "Feeling. Feeling" is said, friend. For what reason, friend, is the term "feeling" used? 

S: "It feels. It feels", friend, for that reason the term "feeling" is used. And what does it feel? It feels agreeable feelings, disagreeable feelings, and neutral feelings. 

This is not an exhaustive list of feelings that we have about sense experience, by any means. It is partial and pragmatically focussed on the aspects most relevant to the Buddhist approach to liberation from rebirth. 

Definitions as Speech Acts

More formally, what Humpty Dumpty and Sāriputta both do is perform a speech act. They make something happen using speech. In both cases, it is defining a word. In speech act theory we define locution (what is said), illocution (what is meant), and perlocution (what is heard). 

One of the classic performative speech acts used to occur in weddings. Before modern law changes, the marriage was sealed by the words "I pronounce you man and wife". Nowadays, of course, marriage is seen as a legal contract and it is not binding until both parties sign the written contract. Fairytales and other fictions often put the emphasis on the words "I do", but this is merely the consent for the priest to perform the final speech act. It was the priest who sealed the deal with "I pronounce you man and wife". Incidentally, "wife" is simply an Old English word (wif) meaning "woman" (it retains this sense in words like midwife and housewife).  

The word vedanā is a feminine noun derived from the past participle vedana. Contra the PED, the word is clearly used in the causative sense of, "made known". We can see this in the Sanskrit definitions of vedana as "announcement, proclamation". So we say vedanā, but in the Iron Age, even a bhikkhu (such as Koṭṭhika) might not know what we mean until we told them. 

Vedanā is the locution, but the illocution is far less broad. The illocution of the word is precisely: sukha, dukkha, and adukkhamasukha. The perlocution depends on whether or not one is familiar with Buddhist usage. Even if one spoke Pāḷi fluently, to hear vedanā would not be to think of sukha, dukkha, and adukkhamasukha. The etymology and use of related words both point to a meaning like "made known, a kind of announcement". 

So just as with Humpty Dumpty, no one knows what we mean by vedanā until we tell them. And once we tell them we expect them to adopt our definition. 

Semantic approaches to language do not cope well with this situation. In semantics, words have meanings and we can define those meanings through some relation to the world. In the Classical Pāṇinian Sanskrit worldview, most words can be defined as deriving from verbal roots (dhātu). The root, in this case, is √vid "to know, to find". It is being used in the causative voice, and the noun derives from the past participle. But this only gets us to the sense of, "announcement". We cannot reason semantically from vedanā to the meaning of sukha, dukkha, and adukkhamasukha.

Things go from bad to worse when we argue about how to translate vedanā. Experts argue that this or that term is a better or worse semantic fit; i.e., that it conveys the sense of the word vedanā more or less accurately. Candidates include: feeling, sensation, feeling tone, hedonic tone, etc. Different experts argue that one or another term comes closest to the meaning of vedanā, and that the other terms all have serious drawbacks. And this is why, after more than a century of sustained interest in the Pāḷi language, we are no closer to an agreed translation of a basic technical term like vedanā.

But think about it. None of these words comes remotely close to the sense of "agreeable, disagreeable, and neutral feelings related to sense experience". We don't have such a concept in Pāli, let alone in English. The candidate words do not convey this sense semantically because there is no relevant semantic field. If they do convey it at all, it is because we have performed a speech act to make it so. We still have to explain what we mean by "feeling", or "hedonic tone", or whatever.

Beyond Vedanā

And vedanā is only one word amongst many in the Buddhist lexicon defined by the Humpty Dumpty method. The names of the other khandhas, for example. Saññā is a word that in general usage means "an agreement" or "a name". For a Brahmin of the Iron Age, a saṃskāra was a rite of passage. These rites involved karma or ritual acts of sacrifice. Doing the correct karma ensured that men got to Brahman after death. The early Buddhists redefined karma as cetanā—“an act of will” [that contributes to rebirth] (Cf. AN 6.63). But they retained the term saṃskāra (P. saṅkhāra) for a mental process that creates karma; i.e., a volitional or habitual response to sense contact. In other words, a saṅkhāra is an action that sets karma in motion. 

Khandha, itself, means "a branch", but is defined as a "heap" by Buddhists (See Pañca-skandha: Etymology and Dynamics).

I suspect that the vast majority of Buddhist technical vocabulary is defined this way. Thus, seeking to translate it semantically is no help. We just need to get close, pick a term, and declare this to be the translation. 

However, this also raises the kinds of issues that John Searle dealt with in his later work, especially The Construction of Social Reality. For example, defining words is a function carried out only by qualified individuals. A function is not an intrinsic feature of an object. Some of us are qualified to define terms and others are not. Of those who are qualified, some have the authority, and some do not. A whole raft of contextual elements contributes to creating a situation in which everyone agrees that one person may function as a definer of words.

I'm quite aware, for example, that few people consider me qualified to say the things I say. I do not have sufficient authority in their eyes to carry out the function I do. I'm merely impersonating an authority on Buddhism. So my opinions often count for little in the wider Buddhist world, whereas some obviously inferior minds do have the authority and control the opinions of thousands or even millions of people. Even when I have shown such people to be guilty of egregious errors, people do not switch their allegiance -- because, in the context of their lives, the function of Buddhist leader is vested in the person who fulfils particular criteria of which thinking straight is not one. 

Conclusion

I'll finish this essay with the final words from the published article: 

A word like vedanā was defined according to the Humpty Dumpty method: by performative speech act. Vedanā means what it means because Buddhists tell us that is what it means. When words are defined according to the Humpty Dumpty method in the source language, there are no better or worse translations in the target language. Whatever word we choose means what it means because we say it does. No matter which word we settle on a translation, if we ever do settle, we will still have to explain what it means. And by explaining, we make it so. We are the masters of our vocabulary; our vocabulary is not the master of us. 

Therefore, “feeling” in the context of the khandhas means neither more nor less than, the agreeable, disagreeable, or neutral sensations arising from contact with a sense object. It means this because I—as an ordained Buddhist and published scholar—say it does; or it will if other Buddhists and/or scholars also say so. There’s glory for you! 

~~oOo~~

Attwood, Jayarava (2018). 'Defining Vedanā: Through the Looking Glass.' Contemporary Buddhism, 18(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2018.1450959