Chapter 6: Mental Factors and Association¶

[PLANNED] This chapter has not yet been written; what follows is a skeleton. Items may be added or removed, and the order may change.

What this chapter does. The five classes of mental factors plus the indeterminate ones; the several senses in which mind and mental factors are associated; and the confrontation with the Theravāda list of fifty-two from Part 14. This is the most systematic block of the doctrine Part 15 had no room for, and the best exhibit of Vaibhāṣika classification.

Structure.

First, the classes and their pedigree. Membership and the grounds of assignment; the relation to the earlier lists of the Prakaraṇapāda line.

Second, the definition of association. Mind and factors taking one object together, and the several senses of that; whether the relation of association must itself be made an entity, and whether the Vibhāṣā is of one mind about it.

Third, the comparison table with the Theravāda. Both sides counted by the lists already verified in their parts, and where the Vibhāṣā list differs from the Kośa's forty-six, the difference is flagged in place; same name for different things, different names for the same thing, and the vacancies on either side.

Fourth, the functional definition of aggregation in fascicle one hundred ninety-seven (flagged in the survey file), which bears directly on association.

Data and sources. The Sarvāstivāda list follows the Vibhāṣā text, fascicles to be verified; the Theravāda side is taken from the verified data of Part 14, Chapter 2 and is not re-verified; the comparison table is new.

To Chapter 7. After the factors, the family among them that matters most: the latent defilements.