14.3 Of Immediate Contiguity in Sense (KV14.3)

Controverted Point: That one sensation follows another as an unbroken fused sequence.

Theravādin: Do you imply that the mental adverting, adjusting, etc., conjured up by visual consciousness is the same as that conjured up by auditory consciousness? Would you not affirm that this was wrong? And if wrong, do you mean that the auditory consciousness brings about no adverting or adjustment of mind? Is not the opposite true? But if it be true, then your proposition falls.

Again, you agree that “visual consciousness” occurs to the person attending to a visible object. But you cannot urge that auditory consciousness also occurs to such an one attending to a visible object … In other words, if visual consciousness have only visible object as its object, and nothing else, the unbrokenly succeeding auditory consciousness must have the same kind of object only and nothing else … .

Our doctrine says:

“Because of eye and visible objects visual consciousness arises”.

Can you substitute the words “auditory consciousness”? You deny this. But I repeat the question, and ask, is the Suttanta thus? Nay, you say, the former quotation was alone right. But if your proposition be right, you are implying that the given visual consciousness is none other than the given auditory consciousness.

The same argument holds whichever two of the five kinds of sense we take.

Uttarāpathaka: But if I am wrong consider any kind of dramatic performance, when there is dancing, singing, reciting, does not the spectator see objects, hear sounds, smell odours, taste tastes, and touch tangibles? Surely then it is right to say that the five kinds of sense-cognition arise in unbroken unitary sequence.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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