[Buddha-l] Dependent arising variants

[Robert Morrison]

Dan, in reply to Lance's reply to Stephen:
 
>
I happen to agree with Lance on this. These supposedly variant versions
simply begin or end somewhere amid the twelve links, rather than reciting
the complete set of twelve.
<

But there are others, including the one you missed in Stephen's list, which
is without doubt the earliest attempt to formulate conditioned-arising.  For
example, (close your eyes, Richard, I'm going to pull authority by quoting
actual suttas!)

'And so, Ananda, feeling-sensation [vedanaa] conditions ‘thirst’ [ta.nhaa],
‘thirst’ conditions ‘searching’ [pariyesanaa], ‘searching’ conditions
‘acquisition’ [laabhaa], ‘acquisition’ conditions ‘decision-making’
[vinicchaya], ‘decision-making’ conditions ‘lustful desire’ [chanda-raaga],
‘lustful desire’ conditions ‘attachment’ [ajjaahosaana], ‘attachment’
conditions ‘possessiveness’ [pariggaha], ‘possessiveness’ conditions
‘avarice’ [macchariya], ‘avarice’ conditions ‘guarding of possessions’
[rakkha], and because of ‘guarding of possessions’ there arises the taking
up of stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying
and other evil unskilled states.' [D ii. 57ff]

In the Majjhima Nikaaya, in the Discourse on the Honeyball (Madhupi.n.dika
Sutta), we have:

'Dependent on the eye and visual forms, eye-consciousness arises. The
meeting of the three is contact [phassa]. With contact as condition, there
is feeling-sensation. What one feels, that one apperceives [sañjaanti]. What
one apperceives [saññaa], that one thinks about [vitakketi]. What one thinks
about [vitakka], that one mentally proliferates [papañceti]. With mental
proliferation [papañca] as the source, apperceptions and notions tinged by
mental proliferation [papañca-saññaa-sa”nkhaa] beset one with respect to
past, future, and the present forms cognizable through the eye [same with
other senses]'.

And there are many others. 

>
The twelve link version would then be the
more-or-less comprehensive version, while these others are partial
applications, occasionally modified according to circumstances. I don't
think, for instance, that a 13 link version occurs anywhere, much less a 16
or 32 link version.
<

There is, for example, a 23 nidaana version at S ii. 31.

I must confess that I am always rather shocked at the seemingly total
ignorance within both the Buddhist tradition and the academic world of the
extent of the various formulations of conditioned-arising, and the
implications of this.  There, I said it!

Cheers,

Robert