iminā asmi

I would like to try out a line of thought on you all, to see if it passes muster. In A 4:199, the Taṇhāsutta, the Buddha teaches 18 ways in which taṇhā wanders about (aṭṭhārasa taṇhāvicaritāni) depending on what is internal (ajjhattikassa upādāya). ‘When there is “I am”, there is “I am like this”’ (asmīti sati itthasmīti hoti) and so on – the Pāli phrases are rather obscure but suggest ways in which one identifies oneself with various ideas as they occur in the course of life imbued with desire. The Buddha then teaches 18 ways in which taṇhā wanders about depending on what is external or outside of oneself (bāhirassa upādāya). Here is the difficult passage that I would like to ask you about. The Pāli runs imināsmīti sati iminā itthasmīti hoti, which Bhikkhu Bodhi (2012, pp.586–7) translates ‘When there is [the notion], “I am because of this”, there are [the notions]: “I am thus because of this”’ and so on.

Other translators translate in similar ways, taking imināsmi to mean ‘I am because of this’ or ‘I am by means of this’. Bhikkhu Bodhi adds a note to his translation (n.935 p.1719), to say: “Mp says that “because of this” (iminā) should be understood to means “because of this form… because of this consciousness…” (iminā rūpena vā… pe… viññāṇena). The passage is opaque as it stands and I am not sure that Mp has caught the original intention.”

I have been pondering this passage in a general attempt to understand the significance of taṇhā in the early Buddhist teachings. It occurs to me that a further problem, besides opacity, is that as it stands it is not very clear in this passage in what way ‘I am because of this’ characterises the wandering about of taṇhā dependent on what is external or outside of oneself. As I pondered this, I wondered further about the significance of the instrumental iminā in the passages quoted. Of course the instrumental case can have a causal sense quite naturally, but I wonder if here we should not take the instrumental case in another way, to denote the subject in an implicitly passive construction. Taking it this way we should render imināsmīti sati iminā itthasmīti hoti as ‘when there is [the notion], “this is me”, there are the [notions]: “this makes me like this”’ and so on. This way of putting it in English makes it clearer in what way taṇhā amounts to identifying with external entities.

Looking at the Pāli phrases in this way, the commentary’s suggestion that imināti iminā rūpena vā ... pe ... viññāṇena vā could be rendered ‘“this” means “physical form”… “consciousness”’, having the implication that we should understand imināsmīti sati iminā itthasmīti hoti as ‘where there is [the notion], “this physical form etc. is me”, there are the notions: “this physical form etc. makes me like this”’ and so on. The commentary can thereby be understood as glossing the opaque Pāli in terms of ways in which one identifies with aspects of experience initially experienced as outside of one’s (supposed) sense of self (physical form, feelings, perceptions, volitional formations and consciousness) by appropriating them.