Talk:Twelve Nidānas

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the first difficulty is i focus on Theravada's teachings. I think this teaching remains the same in every "school" but..?
as it is, this page i created seems incorrect to me. i put a "whole description" part in order to detail which condition apply to which step. i still want to writte it, but would like an echo, as this further development could be quite long. It could take place in another page. pyl 13:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think with regard to the issue of other schools, the best course if we're unsure (and I certainly don't know enough about non-Theravada views of patticca samupadda to comment) is to simply clearly identify the origin of the material- that it stems from a Theravada reading of the concept, rooted in Buddhaghosa- and then hope that someone better versed in the Mahayana or the defunct Hinayana schools can come in and either say that they agree with the Theravada reading, or where it differs. There are already some comments on a varient interpretation of dependent origination in the Madhyamaka school over at Pratitya-samutpada, for instance.

I reorganized things a little bit; I put the 12 bases in the order that they are in the Visuddhimagga (at least Nanamoli's translation), and made the translations the category headings, with the Pali where it's available in parens afterwords. The rest of the Pali terms can be filled in later.

I'm having a little difficulty interpreting the passage about the complication that the Five Aggregates present; is the difficulty due to the fact that the faculties of perception and descriminiation are typically given as part of the five skandha (which would make the 'name and form' step in reality a set of 2-4 steps)? It would be also helpful if the explanation of the 24 types of conditioning could be expanded a bit; the first sentence is a little unclear to me, and I'm not sure how they fit into the picture.

Conceptually, I'm more concerned about clearly distinguishing how this article is different from the dependent origination page. I think to make this more complimentary to that page, the best thing would be to expand the individual descriptions of the Twelve Nidanas (most likely using the VM as a reference). --Clay Collier 09:23, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Namarupa vs. Skandhas

I reverted the Pali term associated with 'body and mind' back to 'namarupa' from 'skandhas'. Couple reasons; first of all, because it is the term that is used in the modern translation of the Visuddhimagga. Secondly, namarupa (lit. name and form, body and mind) is a much closer translation of body and mind than skandha (heap, aggregate, factor) is. I know that the namarupa article is blank right now, but it is a significant enough term in both Hinduism and Buddhism that it's reasonable to think that it should be filled at some point. --Clay Collier 22:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, i will try to begin this article and hope someone to make it better pyl 5 July 2005 15:55 (UTC)

[edit] Article's expansion

I began the point of Twelve Nidanas : which condition apply to which terms. Ouch, the matter is to define clearly theses terms -as becoming, which can be divided in a lot of categories. I will soon work on the first part :The Twelve Nidanas, using it to expose the categories, or linkinkg to one article exposing theses. pyl 5 July 2005 15:55 (UTC)

[edit] questions about this article's title

I'm wondering about this article's title for multiple reasons:

1. it's a combination of English ("Twelve") and Pali ("Nidana" -- with a non-Pali pluralization)
2. both words are capitalized suggesting (at least based on my understanding of WP policy) that it is not simply a phrase (like "twelve nidana") but is actually a title of some sort (like "Ben Hur")
3. it specifies 12 nidana -- seemingly excluding the 9- and 10-nidana formulations of DN 15, SN 12.65, etc., but for no obvious reason

Could someone please share with me the reasons for this? I'd like to expand this article (e.g., with tables, with Pali canonical and other post-canonical material [e.g., the Abhidhammatta Sangaha]) but am reluctant to do so without more fully understanding this article's scope and purpose which, presumably, are reflected in this title. I guess I'm thinking, intuitively, alternate titles might be something along the lines of:

1. "specific conditionality" (idappaccayata, e.g., as discussed at Vism. XVII, 7)
2. Nidana (to replace the seemingly confused, misleading stub that already exists there)

Thanks for any insights. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 04:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)