Pāli Glossary

unprompted (spontaneous) / prompted (induced by another's suggestion or one's own deliberation) — a distinction that recurs through the unwholesome and beautiful sense-sphere cittas.

"unbroken, uninterrupted" — a- + vi-ucchinna. The chapter's closing word for the whole picture it has just drawn: cognitive process and bhavaṅga alternating without any gap, for an entire lifetime.

"in the manner of being freshly done" — a striking detail: a kamma re-presenting itself at death does not appear as a memory of something past, but as though it were happening for the very first time, right now.

"undying, unfalling" — a- (not) + cuta (past participle of cavati, "to fall away, die"); a poetic epithet for Nibbāna, the one state the wheel described throughout this chapter does not turn through.

decision — literally "releasing onto [the object]." The characteristic of conviction; compared to an unshakable stone pillar.

predominant — compared to a king ruling over his ministers (the faculties, each governing only its own sphere): only one predominant can dominate a given citta at a time, and only in javanas with two or three roots.

predominance — object-predominance (a compellingly attractive object dominating the mind that takes it) is close kin to object decisive-support, differing mainly in force: one attracts and dominates, the other strongly enables arising.

a famously terse phrase — literally something like "the striking-establishment of the condition" — glossed by later commentators as pointing to a condition's own specific mode of efficacy, beyond bare sequence.

nutriment — a strong supporting condition, not only edible food: contact sustains feeling, volition sustains rebirth (since volition is kamma), and consciousness sustains the whole mind-body compound.

rootless — a- + hetuka. Lacking all six roots (the three unwholesome and the three "bright" wholesome-or-indeterminate roots), which makes these cittas weaker and less stable than rooted ones.

double-rooted / rootless rebirth-consciousness — a being born this way can never, in that lifetime, become an Arahant or attain any jhāna, since the wisdom-root needed for both is absent from the start.

shamelessness and fearlessness of wrongdoing — the absence, respectively, of disgust and of dread at misconduct. Their positive counterparts (hiri, ottappa) appear later as "the guardians of the world."

"has-been kamma" — not a distinct fourth type of volition, but simply what immediately-effective or subsequently-effective kamma becomes once its one window to ripen has closed unused.

base of infinite space — ākāsa ("space") + ānañca ("infinity"). The first immaterial attainment, reached by contemplating the space left behind once a kasina sign is removed.

object — two Pali words used interchangeably in this chapter for the same thing, from roots meaning "to delight in" and "to hang on to," respectively.

stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and Arahantship — the four stages of awakening, each cutting off a further set of fetters binding one to future rebirth.

the three "supramundane knowledge" faculties — respectively the knowledge of the path of stream-entry, the six intermediate supramundane knowledges, and the knowledge of the fruit of Arahantship; three names tracking one advancing wisdom.

proximity and contiguity — nearly synonymous, differing mainly in emphasis: proximity stresses that nothing intervenes, contiguity that the succession follows the mind's own fixed order; even an Arahant's death consciousness fails this condition, since nothing follows it.

void, signless, desireless — three aspects under which the very same unconditioned reality can be approached: empty of greed, hatred, and delusion; free of their signs; free of their craving.

unfixed adjunct / fixed adjunct — 11 factors named here (envy, avarice, worry, the 3 abstinences, the 2 illimitables, conceit, sloth, torpor) are unfixed; the remaining 41 of the 52 are fixed wherever they belong.

mutuality — "each other." A special, strictly reciprocal case of conascence, compared to the three legs of a tripod, each supporting and supported by the other two at once.

"common to the other" — añña + samāna. Non-beautiful cittas are "other" relative to beautiful ones and vice versa; these 13 factors are common to both.

the three "supramundane knowledge" faculties — respectively the knowledge of the path of stream-entry, the six intermediate supramundane knowledges, and the knowledge of the fruit of Arahantship; three names tracking one advancing wisdom.

the three "supramundane knowledge" faculties — respectively the knowledge of the path of stream-entry, the six intermediate supramundane knowledges, and the knowledge of the fruit of Arahantship; three names tracking one advancing wisdom.

shamelessness and fearlessness of wrongdoing — the absence, respectively, of disgust and of dread at misconduct. Their positive counterparts (hiri, ottappa) appear later as "the guardians of the world."

preparation, access, conformity, change-of-lineage — the four (or three, for keen faculties) preliminary sense-sphere javanas that lead the mind up to the threshold of absorption itself.

conformity — the tenth knowledge, "conforming" both to the eight insight-knowledges that precede it and to the supramundane path about to follow; it is not a separate stage so much as the final threshold moment of the ninth.

clung-to / not clung-to — kamma-born matter is "clung-to" because it was acquired through kamma rooted in craving and views; note that some kamma-born phenomena can also arise from other causes, so this pair is not a strict either-or.

with residue / without residue remaining — the "residue" is the five aggregates: an Arahant still living experiences Nibbāna with the aggregates remaining; at the Arahant's death, Nibbāna without any residue of aggregates.

latent disposition — from anuseti, "lies along with." A defilement dormant in the mental continuum until conditions bring it to the surface; eradicated stage by stage only by the supramundane paths.

unsurpassed, supreme — a- (not) + anuttara's own negation, i.e. "having no [anu]uttara above it"; used here as a poetic synonym for lokuttara to fit the verse's metre.

"to be experienced indefinitely" — generated by the five middle javana moments, the strongest of the seven; unlike the other three time-categories, this kind of kamma never becomes defunct for as long as saṃsāra continues — not even a Buddha or Arahant is exempt from it.

the woeful plane — apa- ("away from") + aya ("happiness, gain"): literally, "devoid of happiness."

illimitable — a- (not) + pamāṇa ("measure"). Only 2 of the traditional 4 brahmavihāras (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity) count as distinct cetasikas here; the other two are modes of adosa and tatramajjhattatā already listed.

absorption — originally a highly developed form of vitakka that fixes the mind on its object; extended by usage to cover every jhāna, path, and fruition attainment, even the higher jhānas where vitakka itself is absent.

void, signless, desireless — three aspects under which the very same unconditioned reality can be approached: empty of greed, hatred, and delusion; free of their signs; free of their craving.

stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and Arahantship — the four stages of awakening, each cutting off a further set of fetters binding one to future rebirth.

object — two Pali words used interchangeably in this chapter for the same thing, from roots meaning "to delight in" and "to hang on to," respectively.

noble truth — ariya ("noble") + sacca ("truth"); called noble because penetrated by the noble ones, taught by the Noble One, and leading to nobility.

reborn with matter only / mind only / both — a threefold classification of all rebirth cutting cleanly across the ordinary plane divisions: non-percipient beings (matter only), immaterial-plane beings (mind only), everyone else (both).

death-proximate — kamma performed or vividly recalled immediately before the final javana process; the traditional basis for the custom of reminding a dying person of their good deeds.

non-percipient being — a class of being in the fine-material plane in which consciousness itself is altogether absent; body persists without any mind at all.

non-percipient being — dwells in the fourth-jhāna plane yet, uniquely, without any consciousness at all, for the entire span of that existence.

taint — literally "that which flows out" (ā- + savati), used of pus oozing from a wound or of long-fermented liquor; the commentaries gloss it as flowing all the way up to the highest plane, or up to the very threshold of the path.

beyond training / still training — Arahants, who have finished the path, versus the seven kinds of noble trainee (stream-enterers through those on the path to Arahantship) still progressing along it.

repetition — from āsevati, "to cultivate, practise." Each javana in a run strengthens the next of the same ethical quality, "as a student grows more proficient through repeated study"; a path citta never itself becomes this condition, since it is followed only by resultant fruition, not another javana of its own kind.

foulness — the ten stages of a decaying corpse, an especially potent antidote to sensual lust, already met at the very outset of the Visuddhimagga's own concentration section.

very great, great, slight, very slight — the four grades this whole chapter's sense-door analysis turns on, defined purely by how many mind-moments the object can still sustain the process for once it enters range.

very great, great, slight, very slight — the four grades this whole chapter's sense-door analysis turns on, defined purely by how many mind-moments the object can still sustain the process for once it enters range.

"the shadow of a thing" — the chapter's own striking image for how a concept, though not itself ultimately real, still becomes an object of consciousness: a shadow cast by real things, not a real thing itself.

peerless, unequalled — a- (not) + tula ("weighed, matched"). One of the Buddha's standard epithets.

"sphere, that which frequents" — the suffix distinguishing kāmāvacara (sense-sphere), rūpāvacara (fine-material-sphere), and arūpāvacara (immaterial-sphere) consciousness.

adverting, turning toward — the citta that simply turns the mind's attention to an object presenting itself, before any actual seeing, hearing, or knowing occurs. Pañcadvāra- (five-door) and mano-dvāra- (mind-door) name where it occurs.

clear / obscure — the mind door's own two-way version of the five-door's fourfold grading, distinguished by the prominence of the object or the strength of the consciousness cognizing it.

ignorance — identical with the cetasika delusion (moha); in the Abhidhamma method specifically non-knowledge of eight things: the Four Noble Truths, the pre-natal past, the post-mortem future, both together, and dependent arising itself.

the latent tendency of ignorance / of craving — the "twin roots of the round of existence" the text names as generating every rebirth-linking without exception, functioning here as its efficient cause.

inseparable matter — the four great essentials plus colour, smell, taste, and nutritive essence: eight phenomena present in literally every material object, however simple; a group made of just these eight alone is called a "pure octad" (suddhaṭṭhaka).

base — here, a dwelling-place for the citta of an attainment, not the sense-base sense of the word used elsewhere in the Abhidhamma.

expiry of life-span / expiry of kammic force — two independent limits on a life, either of which can end it first; when the life-span runs out before the rebirth-generating kamma does, that kamma may generate a further rebirth on the same or a higher plane.

power — the same five spiritual qualities as the faculties (indriya) above, re-described as "unshakable by their opposites" rather than merely "controlling their own domain."

"I will speak" — future tense of bhāsati. A reminder that this text was composed to be recited and memorized, not merely read.

vibration and arrest of the life-continuum — the two moments in which an impinging object first disturbs, then cuts off, the passive bhavaṅga stream before the process proper begins.

vibration and arrest of the life-continuum — the two moments in which an impinging object first disturbs, then cuts off, the passive bhavaṅga stream before the process proper begins.

plane — the second verse's axis, the very same fourfold division (sense, fine-material, immaterial, supramundane) the chapter opened with.

"on the side of enlightenment" — bodhi ("awakening") + pakkhiya ("belonging to the side/wing of"). A rare Sutta phrase that becomes the standard umbrella term for these 37 factors in later literature.

enlightenment factor — bodhi + aṅga. Grouped in the tradition into two balancing triads (investigation/energy/zest against sluggishness; tranquillity/concentration/equanimity against excitation), with mindfulness overseeing both.

divine abode — the four illimitables, so named because they are the mental dwelling-places of the Brahmā deities; the same four cetasika-level qualities discussed in Chapter 2 (loving-kindness as a mode of non-hatred, equanimity as a mode of neutrality of mind).

the wise — the closing verse's own word for whoever can hold both the 89-fold and 121-fold counts in mind as two views of one and the same set of cittas.

eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, and body-consciousness — the five kinds of sense-door cognition, collectively called dvi-pañcaviññāṇa, "the two sets of fivefold sense-consciousness" (one set as unwholesome-resultant, one as wholesome-resultant).

temperament — a person's natural character, determined by the kamma that produced their rebirth-linking consciousness; lustful pairs with faithful, hateful with intellectual, deluded with discursive, since each pair shares a structural resemblance despite differing in ethical quality.

a set of four — the chapter's own organizing device, used four times over: this chapter, unusually among the nine, is built almost entirely out of four parallel fourfold schemes.

the four ultimates themselves: consciousness, the factors that arise with it, matter, and the unconditioned element. This chapter takes up only the first.

"yoked to mind" — ceto (an oblique form of citta) + yutta ("joined"). The word cetasika itself is built on this same root: "belonging to citta."

the sixfold purification — the mundane stages preceding the seventh, supramundane purification (taken up fully in Chapter 9); an expansion of the more familiar three-part virtue/concentration/wisdom scheme.

desire [to act] — an ethically neutral wish to accomplish something, sharply distinguished from lobha (greed), which is always unwholesome.

the four ultimates themselves: consciousness, the factors that arise with it, matter, and the unconditioned element. This chapter takes up only the first.

mind-moment — the basic unit of this chapter, itself divisible into uppāda, ṭhiti, and bhaṅga (arising, presence, dissolution). Traditionally said to be so brief that billions elapse in a single eye-blink.

"by way of the arising of consciousness" — the chapter's stated method: analysis proceeds citta by citta, even though every citta still carries its full retinue of cetasikas along with it.

decad / nonad — "group of ten" / "group of nine," the naming convention for kamma-born kalāpas: the 8 inseparables + life + one distinguishing sense faculty = 10, or without a distinguishing faculty = 9 (the vital nonad).

"investigation of states" — the enlightenment-factor name for wisdom (paññā), insight into mental and material phenomena exactly as they are.

element — dhāreti, "to bear [its own nature]." Splits the mind base and mental-object base of the twelve āyatanas into finer distinctions: seven separate consciousness-elements instead of one undifferentiated "mind."

"to be experienced in this very life" — generated by the very first of a javana process's seven moments, the weakest of the series; if it finds no opportunity to ripen in this life, it lapses to ahosi, defunct.

"gone into a view" — a settled opinion; unqualified, it means wrong view. Sampayutta / vippayutta: associated with / dissociated from.

displeasure, unpleasant mental feeling — du- ("bad") + manas. Unlike somanassa and upekkhā, domanassa is always unwholesome; it accompanies these two cittas alone among all 89.

joy and displeasure — the mental counterparts of sukha/dukkha, already familiar from Chapter 1's greed- and hatred-rooted cittas.

double-rooted / rootless rebirth-consciousness — a being born this way can never, in that lifetime, become an Arahant or attain any jhāna, since the wisdom-root needed for both is absent from the start.

couplet, pair — the prompted/unprompted pairing that structures this whole section; since the two never differ in cetasika content, the text treats each pair as a single unit.

here narrowly bodily pleasure and pain — distinct from the broader Buddhist sense of dukkha as the unsatisfactoriness of all conditioned existence, which the chapter's own Guide-layer discussion is careful to separate.

door — here purely a channel of cognitive access, distinct from the physical "base" (vatthu) the next compendium takes up, though the first five doors and first five bases happen to coincide.

door-freed — vimutta ("released") + dvāra. Not "free" in a liberative sense; simply arising outside any active cognitive process, as rebirth-linking, life-continuum, or dying.

couplet, pair — the prompted/unprompted pairing that structures this whole section; since the two never differ in cetasika content, the text treats each pair as a single unit.

"the two sets of fivefold [sense-]consciousness" — the ten simplest cittas from Chapter 1 (eye- through body-consciousness, unwholesome- and wholesome-resultant). Too rudimentary to carry initial application, decision, or energy.

one-pointedness [of mind] — the single factor present in every jhāna citta without exception, from the first through the fifth.

one-pointedness — the same term met in Chapter 1's jhāna formulas, here present in every citta at a rudimentary level, not only in absorption.

having the same object, having the same physical base — the remaining two marks, which exclude co-arisen matter (which shares no object) from counting as a cetasika.

"one" — each item in these lists is literally "one [consciousness], [qualified thus]." The numbering (1, 2, 3…) is not a modern editorial addition; it is how the root text itself counts its cittas.

arising together, ceasing together — eka- ("one, same") + uppāda/nirodha. The first two of the four defining marks.

having the same object, having the same physical base — the remaining two marks, which exclude co-arisen matter (which shares no object) from counting as a cetasika.

"of one object" — the closing verse's own compressed reminder that rebirth-linking, bhavaṅga, and death all share not only one citta-type but literally the very same object throughout an entire existence.

arising together, ceasing together — eka- ("one, same") + uppāda/nirodha. The first two of the four defining marks.

womb-born — one of the four traditional modes of birth (egg-, womb-, moisture-, and spontaneous-born); womb-born beings, unlike moisture-born or spontaneously-born ones, start with only three decads and grow the rest — eye, ear, and so on — gradually.

knot — ties the mind to "the body," here meaning any aggregation, mental or physical, present or future; covetousness and ill will are greed and hatred outright, the other two are modes of wrong view.

"the finest of communities" — gaṇa (group, company) + uttama (foremost); here the Saṅgha, the Noble Order.

weighty — on the wholesome side, the jhānas; on the unwholesome side, the five "immediate" heinous crimes (killing one's mother or father, killing an Arahant, wounding a Buddha, or causing a schism in the Saṅgha) together with a fixed wrong view denying kamma altogether.

sign of kamma / sign of destiny — two of the three kinds of object a dying person's mind may take, determining the character of the door-freed cittas of the next existence.

kamma, sign of kamma, sign of destiny — already introduced in Chapter 3, here shown in their actual operation as the three possible objects the dying mind's javana process apprehends and hands forward.

"object-grasping" (figuratively) — the five sense sensitivities; matter itself cannot literally cognize anything, but is spoken of this way because it serves as the base for the consciousness that does.

"change-of-lineage" — gotra ("lineage") + bhū ("becoming"). For jhāna, the crossing from the sense-sphere lineage to the sublime; for the first path, the crossing from the worldling's lineage to the noble one's.

change-of-lineage — already met in Chapter 4's absorption process; here it marks the passage from the "lineage" of worldlings to that of the noble ones, the first citta ever to take Nibbāna as object, though it cannot yet dispel the defilements the way the path itself does.

heart-base — not named in the canonical Abhidhamma Piṭaka itself, but supplied by the later commentaries as the referent of the Paṭṭhāna's unnamed "that matter."

smile-producing consciousness — hasita ("smiling") + uppāda ("arising"). Said to occur only in Arahants, including Buddhas, when they smile at some sense-sphere phenomenon.

root — the organizing principle of this whole opening section: consciousness classed by which of the three unwholesome roots (greed, hatred, delusion) is dominant in it.

root — a mental factor that "establishes firmness," in the Abhidhamma sense strictly narrower than the Suttas' general use of hetu for any cause (kāraṇa).

means to accomplishment — the same four states as the predominants (adhipati) just met, but named iddhipāda specifically when applied to achieving the goal of the Buddha's teaching rather than any goal whatsoever.

envy and avarice — resentment at another's success, and unwillingness to share one's own. Paired opposites of the illimitables muditā and cāga (generosity).

productive — the only kind of kamma able to generate a new rebirth-linking; every one of the sixteen types below still falls under one function or another, but only a "full course of action" ever produces janaka-kamma's specific effect.

kind, nature — the first verse's axis: is this citta unwholesome, wholesome, resultant, or functional? Resultant and functional cittas are together called abyākata, "indeterminate," being neither wholesome nor unwholesome themselves.

"runs" — the verb this passage uses for the javana phase's characteristic swift repetition, the same root that gives javana its name ("running swiftly").

jhāna factor — the same five (vitakka, vicāra, pīti, sukha, ekaggatā) whose presence or absence defined the fine-material cittas; here used to grade the supramundane cittas the same way.

jhāna factor — used here in the broader sense of "close contemplation" (upanijjhāyana) of an object, so these seven occur even outside actual meditative absorption; displeasure is the sole exclusively-unwholesome member.

the "vital nonad" — a group of nine material phenomena including the life faculty; for non-percipient beings, this bare cluster of matter itself performs the role rebirth-consciousness plays everywhere else.

absorption — from jhāyati, "to meditate, to burn up [the hindrances]." Each successive jhāna is reached by dropping the coarsest remaining factor of the one before it.

group, cluster — the basic unit in which matter actually occurs; no material phenomenon ever arises alone, always bundled with at least the eight inseparables.

kamma, sign of kamma, sign of destiny — already introduced in Chapter 3, here shown in their actual operation as the three possible objects the dying mind's javana process apprehends and hands forward.

expiry of life-span / expiry of kammic force — two independent limits on a life, either of which can end it first; when the life-span runs out before the rebirth-generating kamma does, that kamma may generate a further rebirth on the same or a higher plane.

sign of kamma / sign of destiny — two of the three kinds of object a dying person's mind may take, determining the character of the door-freed cittas of the next existence.

kamma, sign of kamma, sign of destiny — already introduced in Chapter 3, here shown in their actual operation as the three possible objects the dying mind's javana process apprehends and hands forward.

meditation subject — literally "field of action, workplace." kamma ("action, work") + ṭhāna ("place, standing").

aeon — an immense cosmic time-span; the tradition distinguishes an "interim aeon," twenty of which make an "incalculable aeon," four of which make a "great aeon," the figure typically meant in these life-span verses from the second jhāna plane upward.

a "totality" device — a physical disk or object (of earth, a colour, etc.) contemplated until its mental image can be expanded without limit; from a root meaning "whole, entire."

six qualities, each doubled — one form for "the mental body" (the cluster of cetasikas), one for consciousness itself: tranquillity, lightness, malleability, wieldiness, proficiency, and rectitude. 6 × 2 = 12 of the 19.

aggregate — a group, mass, or heap; the classical Sutta analysis of a living being, cited by the chapter's Guide-layer directly from the Buddha's own words at S.22:48.

"moment by moment" — kamma-born matter is produced not once but continuously, at every sub-moment of consciousness, from rebirth-linking onward.

"one whose taints are exhausted" — a standard epithet for the Arahant, used here precisely because it explains the rule: with no āsavas left to generate kamma, neither wholesome nor unwholesome javanas can arise at all.

"one whose taints are destroyed" — the standard epithet for the Arahant, met already in Chapter 4's rules on javana, where it explained why no wholesome or unwholesome javanas can arise for such a person any longer.

function, task — what this whole compendium classifies by. Note the difference from Chapter 1's citta-names, which often name a citta after only one of several functions it can perform.

functional — active but kammically inert; these arise in Buddhas and Arahants as the exact counterparts of the wholesome cittas of worldlings and trainees.

functional — active but kammically inert; these arise in Buddhas and Arahants as the exact counterparts of the wholesome cittas of worldlings and trainees.

worry, remorse — specifically regret over wrongs already done or rights left undone, not general anxiety.

the same fourfold defining device met at the very start of this translation, in Chapter 1's analysis of citta itself — now turned into the actual method a meditator uses to discern mind-and-matter directly.

"the convention of the world" — the closing verse's own final characterization of every concept without exception: fashioned by, and only by, worldly agreement.

supramundane — loka ("world") + uttara ("beyond"). Consciousness that takes Nibbāna itself as its object.

envy and avarice — resentment at another's success, and unwillingness to share one's own. Paired opposites of the illimitables muditā and cāga (generosity).

path and fruit — the path citta arises once only and does the work of eradication; the fruition citta follows immediately after as its result, and (unlike the path) can recur many times in the meditative attainment called phalasamāpatti.

great essential — the four primary elements (earth, water, fire, air), inseparable and present in every material substance, from a dust mote to a mountain.

"grown great, sublime" — mahā + gata. Chapter 1's collective term for the fine-material and immaterial spheres together, reused here as the combination method's own organizing category.

very great, great, slight, very slight — the four grades this whole chapter's sense-door analysis turns on, defined purely by how many mind-moments the object can still sustain the process for once it enters range.

attention — literally "making-in-mind." Turns the associated states toward the object, distinct from vitakka, which applies them onto it.

mind base — wider than the "mind door" met in Chapter 3: identical to the aggregate of consciousness in its entirety, all 89 cittas without exception.

"the mind-element triad" — a collective name for three cittas together: five-door-adverting and the two kinds of receiving consciousness.

"the dead body" — mata ("dead") + kalebara ("body, frame"). What remains once kamma-, consciousness-, and nutriment-born matter have all ceased: pure temperature-born matter, decaying on its own thereafter.

sloth and torpor — sluggishness of the mental factors and of consciousness itself, always arising together, opposed to energy (vīriya).

the "futile course" — mogha ("empty, useless") + vāra. Not a failure of the system; simply the case where an object is too faint, too late, to ever reach the process cittas proper.

root — the organizing principle of this whole opening section: consciousness classed by which of the three unwholesome roots (greed, hatred, delusion) is dominant in it.

root — a mental factor that "establishes firmness," in the Abhidhamma sense strictly narrower than the Suttas' general use of hetu for any cause (kāraṇa).

base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception — the fourth and subtlest immaterial attainment, where perception is present only in a residual, barely describable form.

"like the current of a river" — the text's own simile for the bhavaṅga stream: not a single enduring thing, but an unbroken succession of momentary cittas, each replacing the last.

mind-and-matter — the mental factors and kamma-produced matter that arise together with resultant consciousness; conditions mind alone in the immaterial realms, matter alone for non-percipient beings.

another name for purification of view: "the analytical knowledge of mind-and-matter" — it purifies specifically the wrong view of a permanent self, by revealing personality as a compound of interdependent factors with no controller behind them.

knowledge — here specifically the mental factor of wisdom (paññā), which is also the wholesome root non-delusion (amoha). Its dissociated counterpart still lacks wisdom, but is not thereby deluded; delusion belongs only to unwholesome consciousness.

decad / nonad — "group of ten" / "group of nine," the naming convention for kamma-born kalāpas: the 8 inseparables + life + one distinguishing sense faculty = 10, or without a distinguishing faculty = 9 (the vital nonad).

the four ultimates themselves: consciousness, the factors that arise with it, matter, and the unconditioned element. This chapter takes up only the first.

attachment — the tenth and most dangerous item on the list: subtle delight in the other nine imperfections themselves, the very thing that must be recognized and released for insight to continue maturing.

the attainment of cessation — a meditative state, open only to non-returners and Arahants with mastery of all eight attainments, in which consciousness and its factors are entirely arrested for a fixed period, up to seven days.

the attainment of cessation — already introduced in Chapter 4; obtainable only by a non-returner or Arahant with full mastery of every fine-material and immaterial jhāna, and only in the sensuous or fine-material planes.

hindrance — two pairs are compounded into single hindrances (sloth+torpor, restlessness+worry) because they share function, condition, and antidote; the first five block jhāna, the sixth blocks wisdom.

fixed, certain — the abstinences in supramundane cittas are niyata: all three or none, never a partial set, unlike their occasional, one-at-a-time appearance in mundane virtue.

unfixed adjunct / fixed adjunct — 11 factors named here (envy, avarice, worry, the 3 abstinences, the 2 illimitables, conceit, sloth, torpor) are unfixed; the remaining 41 of the 52 are fixed wherever they belong.

"the moment of descent" — okkanti ("descent, entry") + khaṇa ("moment"). A poetic term for the instant of conception, when rebirth-linking consciousness first establishes itself.

reviewing knowledge — occurring after each path attainment; the text notes it is not invariable, since an Arahant, having no defilements left, has nothing further to review on that count.

the conditioning force — the specific power by which a given condition actually operates; compared to the heat inherent in a chili pepper, inseparable from the pepper itself.

"should be joined one at a time" — how compassion and appreciative joy enter these cittas: never together, since one commiserates with suffering and the other rejoices at success, contrary modes that cannot coexist.

postnascence — a later citta supports an already-arisen material body "as later rainfall promotes the growth of already-existing vegetation"; this begins with the first bhavaṅga supporting the kamma-born matter of rebirth-linking.

natural decisive support — the widest of all twenty-four conditions in scope: prior lust conditioning a later act of theft, prior faith conditioning a later act of generosity, even climate or lodging conditioning a state of mind, so long as the influence is strong enough.

occasional, scattered — pakiṇṇa ("strewn, dispersed"). Not because they are rare, but because unlike the universals they don't touch every citta.

miscellaneous, scattered — the chapter's own title-word, already met in Chapter 2 for the six "occasional" cetasikas; here it names a chapter of loose, cross-cutting classification schemes rather than a single unified topic.

concept — a "timeless" (kālavimutta) object alongside Nibbāna, since a concept, lacking intrinsic nature (sabhāva), never truly arises or passes away to begin with.

concept — from paññāpeti, "to make known." Twofold: atthapaññatti (a concept-as-meaning, like the notion "dog") and nāmapaññatti (a concept-as-name, the word "dog" itself) — what is made known, and what makes it known.

the wisdom faculty — paññā ("wisdom") + indriya ("faculty"). A synonym here for ñāṇa and amoha (non-delusion), the single 52nd factor standing alone in its own group.

evil, bad — used here as a plain synonym for akusala, unwholesome, in a verse that needed a shorter word to fit its metre.

ultimate reality — parama ("highest") + attha ("thing, meaning"). The chapter's governing standard: only what remains after every concept is analyzed away.

"those who lord over the creations of others" — the highest sense-sphere heaven, whose gods enjoy pleasures conjured for them by others rather than creating their own.

chapter, division — pari ("around") + cheda ("a cutting"). The word the colophon uses to mark Cittasaṅgaha as "the first paricchedo" of the whole work.

preparation, access, conformity, change-of-lineage — the four (or three, for keen faculties) preliminary sense-sphere javanas that lead the mind up to the threshold of absorption itself.

"limited" — this section's own poetic term for the sense sphere, contrasted with majjhima ("middling," the sublime) and anuttara ("supreme," the supramundane) in the closing verse's three-tier summary.

very great, great, slight, very slight — the four grades this whole chapter's sense-door analysis turns on, defined purely by how many mind-moments the object can still sustain the process for once it enters range.

"limited javana course" — this section's own name for the bare mind-door process, using paritta ("limited") in its Chapter 1 sense of "sense-sphere," not in the "slight object" sense from the section just above — a genuine ambiguity in the term worth noting for learners.

sensitivity — the receptive matter inside each sense organ, distinct from the gross organ itself; already met as the "base" (vatthu) discussed in Chapter 3.

the counterpart sign — a purified mental replica of the meditation object, "appearing as if breaking out from the learning sign, a hundred times more purified, like the moon's disk emerging from behind a cloud"; its arising marks the shift from preliminary to access development.

dependent arising — paṭicca ("dependent on") + samuppāda ("arising"). The familiar Sutta formula, describing only that one state's mere occurrence follows another's.

resistance, aversion — literally "striking against." The term the root text actually uses for hatred (dosa) in this passage.

conditional relations — the seventh and final book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, which this chapter's second method draws from; unlike dependent arising, it specifies the particular causal force (satti) at work in each relation, not merely the sequence.

occurrence, ongoing process — pa- + vatti ("turning, proceeding"). The word this chapter and the next both use for their shared subject: consciousness as it actually unfolds, not merely as classified.

enumeration, classification, origination, grouping, occurrence — the chapter's own five-part table of contents, announced in this single opening verse.

path and fruit — the path citta arises once only and does the work of eradication; the fruition citta follows immediately after as its result, and (unlike the path) can recur many times in the meditative attainment called phalasamāpatti.

fruition attainment — a meditative re-entry into one's own already-attained fruition consciousness, undertaken to experience the peace of Nibbāna directly, available in principle to any of the four grades of noble person at their own level.

contact — from phusati, "to touch." Not physical impact, but the mental "touching" of the object that opens each act of cognition.

the tangible object — uniquely not a separate kind of matter at all, but simply three of the four great essentials (earth, fire, air) experienced through touch; water's cohesion cannot be felt, only inferred.

zest and happiness — pīti (a kind of joyful interest or rapture) drops away at the fourth jhāna; sukha, pleasant feeling, remains through the fourth and gives way to upekkhā only at the fifth.

"fixed by what precedes and follows" — the chapter's own name for cittaniyāma, the fixed order of consciousness: no citta in a cognitive process arises out of turn.

prenascence — matter that has already reached the stage of presence conditions a later-arising mind, "as the sun, having already risen, gives light to those who appear after it."

the wheel of a cart — the chapter's closing image for saṃsāra itself: rebirth-linking, life-continuum, process, and death revolving in fixed sequence, life after life.

the four ultimates themselves: consciousness, the factors that arise with it, matter, and the unconditioned element. This chapter takes up only the first.

matter — from ruppati, "to be deformed, disturbed, broken up by adverse conditions." The Buddha's own gloss, cited in the Saṃyutta Nikāya: deformed by cold, heat, hunger, thirst, and the like.

reborn with matter only / mind only / both — a threefold classification of all rebirth cutting cleanly across the ordinary plane divisions: non-percipient beings (matter only), immaterial-plane beings (mind only), everyone else (both).

reborn with matter only / mind only / both — a threefold classification of all rebirth cutting cleanly across the ordinary plane divisions: non-percipient beings (matter only), immaterial-plane beings (mind only), everyone else (both).

unprompted (spontaneous) / prompted (induced by another's suggestion or one's own deliberation) — a distinction that recurs through the unwholesome and beautiful sense-sphere cittas.

with residue / without residue remaining — the "residue" is the five aggregates: an Arahant still living experiences Nibbāna with the aggregates remaining; at the Arahant's death, Nibbāna without any residue of aggregates.

"common to all the unwholesome" — the four-factor core (moha, ahirika, anottappa, uddhacca) present in every unwholesome citta without exception, parallel in structure to the seven citta-universals.

"with roots" — the qualifier distinguishing these rooted sense-sphere cittas from the rootless resultants and functionals of the previous section.

stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and Arahantship — the four stages of awakening, each cutting off a further set of fetters binding one to future rebirth.

proximity and contiguity — nearly synonymous, differing mainly in emphasis: proximity stresses that nothing intervenes, contiguity that the succession follows the mind's own fixed order; even an Arahant's death consciousness fails this condition, since nothing follows it.

calm and insight — samatha (from sam-, "to become peaceful") is one-pointedness developed to the level of jhāna; vipassanā ("seeing in diverse ways") is the direct meditative perception of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, unique to the Buddha's teaching.

the vehicle of calm / the vehicle of pure insight — two recognized routes to purification of mind: one develops jhāna first as a basis, the other (the "dry-insight" approach) reaches an equivalent concentration, khaṇikasamādhi, "momentary concentration," directly through sustained mindfulness of changing experience.

"included, comprised together" — the chapter's technical term for how the twenty specialized conditions all reduce without remainder into the four broadest: object, decisive support, kamma, and presence.

receiving and investigating consciousness — the two cittas that arise, one after the other, immediately following a sense-consciousness, apprehending and then examining what was just cognized.

association — saṃ- + payoga ("application"). The method that starts from a cetasika and asks which cittas it can join.

associated — the same four-mark bond from Chapter 2's opening definition of a cetasika (common arising, ceasing, object, base), here doing double duty as a named condition in its own right.

category, collection — saṃ- + uccaya ("heaping up"). The chapter's own title-word: not new phenomena, but new ways of heaping the same 72 into traditional lists.

origin — identified here with a single cetasika, craving (taṇhā), itself a mode of greed, appearing in three forms: craving for sense pleasure, for continued existence, and for annihilation.

enumeration, classification, origination, grouping, occurrence — the chapter's own five-part table of contents, announced in this single opening verse.

enumeration, classification, origination, grouping, occurrence — the chapter's own five-part table of contents, announced in this single opening verse.

fetter — the only list in this section given in two rival versions, since the Sutta Piṭaka's own ten-fetter scheme (ending in restlessness) differs from the Abhidhamma Piṭaka's (which substitutes envy and avarice).

compendium, collection, synthesis — from saṃ- (together) + gah ("to grasp"). The word that gives the whole work, and each of its nine chapters, their name.

combination, inclusion — the reverse method, met already in Chapter 1's title; here it starts from a citta and asks which cetasikas compose it.

"goes into combination" — the fixed idiom this whole section repeats for every citta group: literally "arrives at inclusion."

knowledge of equanimity towards formations — the ninth knowledge, in which "I" and "mine" are seen nowhere in the formations, so the mind grows neutral toward them, neither fleeing in terror nor grasping in delight.

kammic formations — here the twenty-nine mundane wholesome-and-unwholesome volitions, traditionally divided into meritorious, demeritorious, and imperturbable (immaterial-jhāna) formations.

perception — the factor that marks and recognizes an object, so it can be recognized again.

production and continuity — two names for one and the same phenomenon of "birth" (jāti), distinguished only by whether it is a process's very first arising or its repeated re-arising within the same continuity.

receiving and investigating consciousness — the two cittas that arise, one after the other, immediately following a sense-consciousness, apprehending and then examining what was just cognized.

suitable, beneficial — this section's own word for the match between a meditation subject and a temperament; the same term the text uses again when noting that a wide kasiṇa suits the deluded and a small one the discursive.

prompted — the same term from Chapter 1's greed- and hatred-rooted cittas. Sloth and torpor need a citta already "induced," never a spontaneous one.

"seven modes" — the seven distinct roles a citta can occupy across all four courses (adverting, sense-consciousness, receiving, investigating, determining, javana, registration); "fourteen" counts javana seven times and registration twice within a single full course.

"seven times at most" — the stream-enterer's guaranteed ceiling on further rebirths, one of three traditional sub-types alongside the "one who returns after two or three good families" and the "one-seed" type with only one rebirth left.

beyond training / still training — Arahants, who have finished the path, versus the seven kinds of noble trainee (stream-enterers through those on the path to Arahantship) still progressing along it.

beautiful — the term that now takes over as the organizing word for the rest of the chapter. As the very next verse states, "beautiful" is broader than "wholesome": it includes resultant and functional cittas too, so long as they carry beautiful mental factors.

joy and equanimity — su ("pleasant") + manas ("mind"); and neutral feeling, leaning toward neither gladness nor dejection.

joy and displeasure — the mental counterparts of sukha/dukkha, already familiar from Chapter 1's greed- and hatred-rooted cittas.

stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and Arahantship — the four stages of awakening, each cutting off a further set of fetters binding one to future rebirth.

"pure octad" — the group of the eight inseparables alone, with nothing added; the minimal material group, appearing under three different origins (consciousness, temperature, nutriment).

Pure Abode — suddha ("pure") + āvāsa ("dwelling"). Rebirth here is closed to anyone below the third stage of awakening (non-return); once reached, final liberation follows without further descent.

the vehicle of calm / the vehicle of pure insight — two recognized routes to purification of mind: one develops jhāna first as a basis, the other (the "dry-insight" approach) reaches an equivalent concentration, khaṇikasamādhi, "momentary concentration," directly through sustained mindfulness of changing experience.

zest and happiness — pīti (a kind of joyful interest or rapture) drops away at the fourth jhāna; sukha, pleasant feeling, remains through the fourth and gives way to upekkhā only at the fifth.

here narrowly bodily pleasure and pain — distinct from the broader Buddhist sense of dukkha as the unsatisfactoriness of all conditioned existence, which the chapter's own Guide-layer discussion is careful to separate.

void, signless, desireless — three aspects under which the very same unconditioned reality can be approached: empty of greed, hatred, and delusion; free of their signs; free of their craving.

registration — literally "having that object": taking, for two mind-moments, the same object the javanas just apprehended.

registration — occurring here for exactly two mind-moments, the sixteenth and seventeenth, bringing the process to its full seventeen-moment length; this variety of process is therefore also called tadārammaṇavāra, "the course ending in registration."

the latent tendency of ignorance / of craving — the "twin roots of the round of existence" the text names as generating every rebirth-linking without exception, functioning here as its efficient cause.

neutrality of mind — literally "there-in-middleness." A synonym for upekkhā not as neutral feeling but as balance and impartiality; becomes equanimity toward beings.

"the Thirty-Three" — named for a legendary band of thirty-three virtuous men reborn there together as its ruling deities, chief among them Sakka.

fifty-three — the 89 (or 121) cittas are here treated as one single "state" (since every citta shares the one characteristic of cognizing an object), plus the 52 distinct cetasikas: 1 + 52 = 53.

"thirty-three-fold" — the chapter's own final tally of every distinct combination pattern counted across this whole method: 5 (supramundane) + 5 (sublime) + 12 (sense-sphere beautiful) + 7 (unwholesome) + 4 (rootless) = 33.

sloth and torpor — sluggishness of the mental factors and of consciousness itself, always arising together, opposed to energy (vīriya).

"three-rooted" — every sublime and supramundane citta, and every knowledge-associated sense-sphere beautiful citta, qualifies; a citta needs all three of non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion together to reach this grade.

rise and fall — the second insight-knowledge, and the one whose "tender" and "mature" phases are separated by an entire purification: its tender phase belongs to the fifth purification, its mature phase to the sixth.

doubt and restlessness — the two cittas "of sheer delusion" (momūha) are distinguished from each other only by which of these two factors is prominent; neither carries the prompted/unprompted pair.

preparation, access, conformity, change-of-lineage — the four (or three, for keen faculties) preliminary sense-sphere javanas that lead the mind up to the threshold of absorption itself.

production and continuity — two names for one and the same phenomenon of "birth" (jāti), distinguished only by whether it is a process's very first arising or its repeated re-arising within the same continuity.

severing kamma — a destructive kamma powerful enough to end a life before either the natural life-span or the sustaining kammic force has run out; the tradition's term for what would ordinarily be called an untimely death.

clinging — an intensified form of craving; three of the four are modes of wrong view, the fourth (sense-pleasure clinging) a mode of greed.

aggregate of clinging — not a different set of phenomena from the five aggregates, but the mundane portion of them: the supramundane mental aggregates are excluded, since they can never become an object of greed or wrong view.

clung-to / not clung-to — kamma-born matter is "clung-to" because it was acquired through kamma rooted in craving and views; note that some kamma-born phenomena can also arise from other causes, so this pair is not a strict either-or.

decisive support — a strong, weighty form of dependence, threefold: tied to a compelling object, to an immediately-preceding mental state, or — most broadly — to any past state at all (pakatūpanissaya, "natural decisive support") strong enough to influence what arises much later.

joy and equanimity — su ("pleasant") + manas ("mind"); and neutral feeling, leaning toward neither gladness nor dejection.

excluded, apart from — the past participle of vajjeti, doing heavy lifting in every occasional's definition: each is defined by which cittas it is absent from, not a positive list of where it occurs.

"entanglement, weaving" — the root text's own preferred etymology for nibbāna: not merely "blown out," but a departure (nikkhanta) from the entanglement of craving, which binds one to saṃsāra.

base — a physical support for consciousness itself, distinct from a door (dvāra), which merely channels access to an object; the Paṭṭhāna's own phrase is simply "that matter in dependence on which mind occurs."

"entity" — the 72 distinct realities Chapters 1–6 have described: 1 citta (all 89 cittas share one nature), 52 cetasikas, 18 concretely-produced material phenomena, and 1 Nibbāna (1+52+18+1=72).

enumeration, classification, origination, grouping, occurrence — the chapter's own five-part table of contents, announced in this single opening verse.

clear / obscure — the mind door's own two-way version of the five-door's fourfold grading, distinguished by the prominence of the object or the strength of the consciousness cognizing it.

initial and sustained application [of mind to the object] — the first two jhāna factors, both dropped by the second jhāna.

doubt and restlessness — the two cittas "of sheer delusion" (momūha) are distinguished from each other only by which of these two factors is prominent; neither carries the prompted/unprompted pair.

door to emancipation — whichever of the three contemplations a meditator's insight happens to settle on, becoming their immediate approach to the path; the three names apply loosely to every path and fruit regardless, since all take Nibbāna as object and Nibbāna itself is void, signless, and desireless at once.

"fallen asura" — a woeful-plane class distinct from the asuras who contend with the Thirty-Three gods; these live near human villages, scavenging discarded food.

consciousness-element — the sevenfold grouping (five sense-consciousnesses, mind-element, mind-consciousness-element) this section's base-analysis is organized around.

intimation — a special modification of the air element (bodily) or earth element (vocal), both originating from consciousness, by which one's intentions become visible or audible to another.

resultant — the "ripening" of past kamma. Note that only body-consciousness carries a bodily feeling (pain or pleasure); the other four sense-doors and the two rootless mind-doors here all carry the mental feeling of equanimity, with one single exception (item 14).

calm and insight — samatha (from sam-, "to become peaceful") is one-pointedness developed to the level of jhāna; vipassanā ("seeing in diverse ways") is the direct meditative perception of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, unique to the Buddha's teaching.

imperfection of insight — ten genuinely impressive experiences (a radiant aura, intense zest, blissful tranquillity, and the rest) that arise as knowledge of comprehension matures, easily mistaken by an inexperienced meditator for the path itself, which is precisely why this purification exists.

dissociation — the one condition on this list that requires the conditioning and conditioned states to be of different types entirely, one mental and one material, "like water and oil placed together, remaining distinct."

abstinence — deliberate restraint from a specific wrong deed when the occasion to do it has actually arisen; not the same as simply never having the opportunity.

"presentation of an object" — visaya ("object, range") + pavatti. Names how forcefully or clearly an object registers, not its physical size.

"having distinguished, with this difference" — the marker word the text uses to say the five prompted greed-cittas repeat the unprompted pattern exactly, with one addition: sloth and torpor.

purification — each of the seven is a support (paccaya, in the Chapter 8 sense) for the one that follows; the first corresponds to the path's virtue factor, the second to its concentration, the last five to its wisdom.

"separately, one by one" — the pattern for the 16 mundane occurrences of the abstinences (8 wholesome + 8 functional cittas): only ever one abstinence at a time, never two together.

initial and sustained application [of mind to the object] — the first two jhāna factors, both dropped by the second jhāna.

street, path — used here in the technical sense of "process": the fixed sequence a cognitive act runs through.

process-freed — vīthi ("process") + mutta ("released"). Not liberation in a spiritual sense; simply consciousness occurring outside an active cognitive process, as rebirth-linking, life-continuum, or death.

the fixed rule of process — explicitly said NOT to apply once absorption is underway and well-practiced, in sharp contrast to every sense-sphere process described earlier in the chapter, which is rigidly fixed.

determining — another name for the mind-door-adverting citta when it occurs within a five-door process, met already in Chapter 1's cognitive-process cittas.

determining — not a distinct citta in its own right, but a second function the mind-door-adverting citta performs when it occurs within a five-door process, as this section makes explicit.