ACADEMIA Letters Āyatana, the Buddha’s forgotten teaching Gabriel Ellis Early Buddhism coined several spiritual concepts, with some having gained wider popularity, like the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination. In this article I want to examine the concept of āyatana which is of central importance to the understanding of early Buddhism, but has so far not received proper scholarly attention. Moreover, it is not only of academic interest but affects our understanding of meditation practice and Buddhist psychology. In the Buddhist Pāli suttas āyatana is usually translated as ‘base’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], ‘sphere’ [6, 7], or ‘sense field’ [8]. I argue that these are inadequate translations because they are based on later Buddhist traditions and commentarial literature and not on an historical understanding of the term. Āyatana has a rich pre-Buddhist history in Vedic literature, most thoroughly investigated by Jan Gonda [9]. Gonda (ibid., p. 178) reviews different etymologies of the Sanskrit āyatana and favors Oldenberg’s solution of defining Skt. yatati as ‘to set oneself up’, and for yatate as ‘to allocate the right place to somebody’. He concludes regarding āyatana that “the term is used for a regular place, position, etc. occupied by a person” (1975, p. 184). Examples range from a concrete ‘homestead’, and ‘home’ to more metaphorical connotations like ‘refuge’, ‘resort’, and ‘substratum’, thus covering both literal and metaphorical meanings of a ‘regular place’. While āyatana is not to be found in the Ṛgveda, and rarely in the Atharvaveda, there is extensive use of it in the Yajurveda, pre-Buddhist Brahmanas like the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (ŚB), and pre-Buddhist Upaniṣads like the Chāndogya (CU) and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (BU) [10, p. 12-13; 11]. In the Yajurveda recension of the Kāṭhaka-Saṃhitā 23.9 āyatana denotes a ‘home’, in Aitareya Upaniṣad 1.2.1 a ‘house’ or ‘dwelling-place’, similarly in CU 7.24.2. More metaphorically, in the Yajurveda recension of the Taittirīya-Saṃhitā 1.7.5.3 and 7.1.5.2 it means ‘resort’ Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Gabriel Ellis, gabriel.ellis2@gmail.com Citation: Ellis, G. (2021). Āyatana, the Buddha’s forgotten teaching. Academia Letters, Article 749. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL749. 1 or ‘support’ (see Gonda 1975, p. 234). Similarly, in (ŚB) 2.5.1.12 it signifies a ‘foundation’. Likewise, in ŚB 6.2.1.14 and ŚB 11.8.1.3 āyatana refers to a ritual-religious ‘home’ (see also Gonda 1975, p.191 and p. 235). And in CU 6.8.2 and 6.8.6-7 it means a resting place for the mind, repeated also in other passages where the mind (manas) is an āyatana in the sense of ‘refuge’ (in CU 5.1.5, CU 5.1.13-14, BU 6.1.5, BU 6.1.14, and BU 6.3.2). In conclusion, the pre-Buddhist Vedic uses of āyatana clearly signify a concept of ‘home place’, be it concretely or metaphorically in a mental or religious-ritual sense. More generally, it is ‘the place in which experience happens’. Hence I will refer to the pre-Buddhist āyatana as ‘center of experience’. With this in mind I turn to the Buddhist suttas, suggesting that also there āyatana as ‘center of experience’ is more adequate than the overly general and misleading translation as ‘base’ or ‘sphere’. The single most prominent context in which āyatana appears in the suttas is as a compound in the ‘six āyatanas of sensual experience’ (i.e. saḷāyatana or cha phassāyatanā). This context is so dominant that translators like Bodhi and Walshe translate ‘sense bases’ even if the Pāli texts only mentions āyatana, and not saḷāyatana (e.g. in Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN) 8.12, SN 22.57, SN 35.31, SN 35.92, Dīgha Nikāya (DN) 33). The term saḷāyatana (derived from ṣaṣfor ‘six-’) also appears as the fifth limb in the traditional twelve-link-formula of the Dependent Origination (paṭiccasamuppāda). Specifically, saḷāyatana refers to the six internal (ajjhattika) āyatanas, e.g. in SN 12.2: cakkhāyatana, sotāyatana, ghānāyatana, jivhāyatana, kāyāyatana, manāyatana. Bodhi interprets them anatomically and translates as eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. I follow, however, the Vedic translator Olivelle [10, p.22f.] who argues that they have to be understood as cognitive functions, because the physiological organs are termed differently. Also in Pāli the anatomical eye is actually akkhi, so that the āyatana cakkhā rather signifies ‘sight’ and not the ‘eye’. In consequence, I understand the six internal saḷāyatanas as ‘sight’, ‘hearing’, ‘smelling’, ‘tasting’, ‘body-cognition, and ‘mind-cognition’. Reviewing the sixāyatanas, it does indeed make sense to see them as ‘centers of experience’ and not just as mere ‘spheres’, since we perceive ourselves fundamentally as sensually informed beings. The second most common application of āyatana in the suttas is in the context of meditation, namely the four abstract meditative states: dwelling of infinite space (ākāsānañcāyatana), dwelling of infinite consciousness (viññāṇañcāyatana), dwelling of nothingness (ākiñcaññāyatana), dwelling of neither-cognition-nor-non-cognition (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana). These meditation dwellings are mentioned very often in the suttas in a repetitive way with little variation (e.g. in Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN) 3.166). The more common Buddhist meditation states are called Jhānas, and it is noteworthy that AN 9.43-45 describe the Jhānas also as Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Gabriel Ellis, gabriel.ellis2@gmail.com Citation: Ellis, G. (2021). Āyatana, the Buddha’s forgotten teaching. Academia Letters, Article 749. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL749. 2 āyatanas, which is therefore the broader term. Rarely, even the state of liberated Buddhist masters is termed āyatana (in Majjhima Nikāya 44 and 137). It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that āyatana was broadly applied to the exceptional state of the accomplished meditator and even the liberated master. In conclusion, my interpretation of āyatana as ‘center of experience’ and ‘mental home’ throws new light on how to interpret Buddhist meditation states. It is commonly believed that meditation states can be achieved also for very short periods of time. This, however, would not qualify as a ‘center of experience’ or a ‘mental home’. For such an accomplishment one would have to ‘build a camp’ in these states, setting them up as veritable centers of experience, from where our normal states of mind are seen as located in the remote distance. Hence, the proper achievement in meditation would have to result in a ‘redefinition’, seeing oneself not primarily as a sensual being, but as a being who is centered in the refined joy of the Jhānas or the even more refined experiences of infinite space, infinite consciousness, etc. Moreover, I suggest that the Buddhist perspective of seeing beings located in specific centers of experience might stimulate psychological concepts which deal with a sustainable change of experience, specifically in psychotherapy and self-development. References 1. Ñāṇamoli, B. & Bodhi, B. (Trans.). (1995). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications. 2. 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(2018). Online: https://suttacentral.net 9. Gonda, J. (1975). Selected Studies: Sanskrit Word Studies. (Vol. 2). Brill. 10. Olivelle, P. (Trans.) (1998). The Early Upanishads: Annotated Text and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11. Witzel, M. (2009). Moving Targets? Texts, language, archaeology and history in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist periods. Indo-Iranian Journal 52, 287–310. Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Gabriel Ellis, gabriel.ellis2@gmail.com Citation: Ellis, G. (2021). Āyatana, the Buddha’s forgotten teaching. Academia Letters, Article 749. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL749. 4