Nidāna
The primary causes of existence which bind us to the wheel of rebirth. It is an important concept in Buddhism, especially Therav€da. It is derived from the prefix ni- and the root d€ which together mean literally “bind on” or “fasten to”; thus nid€na is a binding, rope, or halter.
The Nid€nas are identified as twelve in the Buddhist Chain of Dependent Co-Origination (prat…tyasamutp€da in Sanskrit). They are depicted as forming a circle, that is to say, the causes are interrelated, none is a primary or first cause from which the others arise. They are given in Sanskrit as (1) old age and death (j€ra-m€raŠa, shorthand for the sorrows and insecurities of life), which is dependent on (2) birth, which is dependent on (3) existence (bhavan€, better translated as “becoming”), which is dependent on our (4) clinging to existence, which is the result of (5) desire or craving (tanh€), which arises due to (6) feeling (vedan€), which results from (7) perception, which in turn is dependent on (8) the six fields of sense (including the mind), which result from (9) our habit of judging the sense-world in terms of names and forms (n€ma-r™pa), which arise from (10) our conditioned consciousness (vijñ€na), which is conditioned by (11) past habits of thought (samsk€ras), which arise due to (12) ignorance (avidy€), which, in turn, is dependent on (1) our identification of the age and eventual death of the body (j€ra-m€raŠa), which arise from (2) being born, etc. In The Secret Doctrine of Helena P. Blavatsky, the nid€nas are identified as “the causes of misery” (I:38) as well as “the causes of existence” (I:44) — not only physical causes but metaphysical causes as well. In the latter citation, she seems to relate the nid€nas to m€y€, and in other places (I:93 and 509) she suggests that they are really part of the noumenal, not the phenomenal, world.
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