Kathavatthu - Of Popular Knowledge & Of the Mental Object in Telepathy

Points of Controversy
OR
Subjects of Discourse
BEING A TRANSLATION OF THE KATHAVATTHU
FROM THE ABHIDHAMMA-PITAKA
BY
SHWE ZAN AUNG, B.A
AND
MRS. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A

6. Of Popular Knowledge.
Controverted Point.—That it is wrong to say: Popular
knowledge has only truth as its object and nothing else.
From the Commentary.—This discourse is to purge the incorrect
tenet held by the Andhakas, that the word ' truth3
is to be applied
without any distinction being drawn between popular and philo-
sophical truth.
1
[1] Andhaka.—You admit, do you not, that one who
attains Jhana by way of the earth-artifice, has knowledge ?
Does not that earth-artifice come under popular truth ?
Th.—Yes.
A.—Then why exempt popular knowledge from the search
for truth?
[2] The same argument applies to the other artifices,
and to gifts as stated above (V. 5).
[3] Th.—Then according to you, popular knowledge has
only Truth as its object. But is it the object of popular
knowledge to understand the fact and nature of Ill , to put
away the Cause, to realize the Cessation, to develop the
Path thereto? You must deny. (Hence the need for a
distinction between truths.)

7. Of the Mental Object in Telepathy.
Controverted Point.—That insight into the thoughts of
another has no object beyond bare other-consciousness as
such.2

1
Literally, truth in the highest or ultimate sense. On this ancient
Buddhist distinction, see above, p. 63, n. 2 ; also Ledi Sadaw's exposi-
tion, JPTS, 1914, 129 f., and note : Paramattha .
2 'Of another' is filled in, the supernormal power in question being
one of the six so-called abnormal knowledges, chal-abhinna,
attainable by gifted disciples. The Buddha is frequently shown, in
the Suttas, exercising it. See also Psalms of the Brethren, passim;
Compendium, 68, 209. The psychological point can only be followed


From the Commentary.—Some, like the Andhakas at present, have
held this view, deriving it from just the [technical] expression 'insight
into a limited portion of the consciousness of another].'
1
But this is
untenable, since in knowing consciousness as lustful and so on, the
object becomes essentially complex.
[1] Th.—You admit, do you not, that one may discern
a 'lust-ridden consciousness,' and so on2
as such? Then
this disposes of your proposition.
[2] Again, you cannot deny that, in thought-discerning,
insight can have as its object contact, feeling, etc. [or any
of the concomitants of consciousness]. Where then is bare
consciousness as sole object ?
[3] Or do you dispute the statement that insight having
contact, or feeling, or the rest as its object, comes into
thought-discerning? 'Yes' you say?
3
But does not
thought-discerning include discerning the course of con-
tact, feeling, etc. ? This you now deny.
4
[4] A.—You say my proposition is wrong. But is not
this thought-discerning insight limited to a portion o f the
course of thought [in others] ? Then surely I am right.

if the Buddhist distinction between (a) a bare continuum of conscious
moments, (6) various concomitants or coefficients of that bare con-
sciousness be kept in mind. See Compendium, 13. Thus the dispute
is really on the meaning or context of the term citta: bare fact of
consciousness, or the concrete, complex psychic unit as understood
in European psychology. The discussion is therefore of more than
antiquarian interest. See Buddhist Psychology, 6 f. , 175.
1
Ceto pariyaye nanang is usually so rendered, in this con-
nection, by Burmese translators. The opponent misconstrues 'limited,'
holding that thought-reading is limited to the bare flux of conscious-
ness, without its facfcors.
2
The quoted phrase heads the list usually given in the Nikayas
when the thought-reading power is stated—e.g., Dialogues, i. 89 f .
3
Because, he holds, one cannot make a mental object of more than
one factor [at once].—Comy.
4
'Because there is no Sutta-passage about it.'—Comy.