name-and-form

Updated: May 25, 2025

"Suppose," he says, "consciousness were not to descend into the womb, would name-and-form consolidate in the womb? No, Lord. Therefore, Ânanda, consciousness is the cause, the occasion, the origin of name-and-form." But consciousness according to the Buddha's teaching is not a unity, a thinking soul, but mental activity produced by various appropriate causes.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

Hence it cannot be regarded as independent of name-and-form and as their generator. So the Buddha goes on to say that though name-and-form depend on consciousness it is equally true that consciousness depends on name-and-form. The two together make human life: everything that is born, and dies or is reborn in another existence , is name-and-form plus consciousness.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

Buddhaghosa observes that name-and-form are like the playing of a lute which does not come from any store of sound and when it ceases does not go to form a store of sound elsewhere. On what do name-and-form depend? On consciousness. This point is so important that in teaching Ânanda the Buddha adds further explanations.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

What we have learnt hitherto is that suffering depends on desire and desire on the senses. For didactic purposes this is much, but as philosophy the result is small: we have merely discovered that the world depends on name-and-form plus consciousness, that is on human beings. "Consciousness depends on the sankhâras."

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1