The Concept of Emotion in Classical Indian Philosophy (Stanford Encyc... https://plato.stanford.

edu/entries/concept-emotion-india/

The Concept of Emotion in Classical Indian

Philosophy
First published Tue Mar 1, 2011; substantive revision Tue Jul 26, 2016

Most discussions of the term emotion in classical Indian literature take place in the context the rasa theory
of Indian aesthetics. The word rasa can mean juice, sap, essence, condiment or even flavour and refers to the
different sentiments invoked by a work of art, for example a piece of music. However, this entry focuses on
the emotions in Indian philosophical thinking outside of the realm of aesthetics. While there is no equivalent
for the term emotion in Sanskrit, the concept nevertheless plays an important role in Indian philosophy.
Terms used in Sanskrit texts include vedan (feeling) and bhva (feeling) as well as names of individual
emotions, such as rga (love, attraction), dvea (hatred, aversion), hara (joy), bhaya (fear) and oka
(sorrow). One of the reasons why emotions are philosophically interesting in India and the West is their
relationship with the mental phenomenon of vijna or jna which is translated as cognition. The
relationship between emotion and cognition is important for any account of reason and rationality. While the
importance of the emotions for rational deliberation and decision-making has been acknowledged in recent
discussions in the philosophy of mind, the history of Western philosophy contains many views, for example
those of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, which emphasize the dangerous and destructive role of the emotions.
At the heart of these views lies a division of our mental lives into cognitions and feelings. Cognitions are
representational thoughts. They are often regarded as rational because they are capable of representing the
external world and therefore they provide us with access to the external world, based on the best available
evidence. So, according to this view of rationality, when I think that there is a book on the table, based on my
available evidence, and there really is one, then my thought is rational. However, if I am hallucinating that
there is a book on the table, my thought that there is a book might also be rational because the available
evidence points towards this thought. In order to make sure that our thoughts represent reality correctly, we
require an account of what counts as good evidence, which is one of the main foci of epistemology in Indian
and Western philosophy. Nevertheless, cognitions derive their status as thoughts capable of rationality from
the fact that they have objects which represent the external world. By contrast, feelings are some of the non-
representational attitudes one can have towards the objects of the representations of our thoughts. For
example, when a person thinks about her daughters, she has a cognition which represents her daughters. The
objects of her thought are her daughters and her thought picks them out among various objects and subjects in
the world. There are several ways in which these objects can be picked out: one can simply have the thought
that one has two daughters or one's thought can be coloured with love and affection. This colouring of
thought is often regarded as an affect. Together with the thought, it accounts for an emotion. So, the emotion
of love, for example, is the thought of the object of love plus an affect. The affect is non-representational and
regarded as a mere feeling.

The reason why many philosophers regard the emotions as an obstacle to rational thought is the influence of
the non-representational feeling. The fact that feelings do not seem to have objects means, according to some
views, that they can interfere with rational thought. According to these views, rational thought, which is
representational and therefore object-directed, is subject to disturbing interferences from the feelings. The
feelings themselves, however, are non-rational because they arise due to some physical imbalance in the
body, for example through an imbalance of the various humours. This imbalance can negatively influence

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rational thought. An example is the person who acts against her better judgment because she is in the grip of
some feeling. This is of course also the basis for the term passion as something that we suffer, which was
discussed by many philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, e.g. Descartes, Spinoza and
Hume. Since rational thought is an ideal for many philosophers and the feelings can interfere with this ideal,
the natural consequence seems to be to advocate for the extinction or at least the control of the feelings and,
as a consequence, of the emotions. This is what many philosophers throughout the history of philosophy have
done, most notably of course the Stoics. While they often recognize that the emotions contain a cognitive,
and therefore potentially rational, element, they try to uncover this element by advocating its separation from
the affect. Of course, if the affect were to be purged from the emotion, the resulting cognition would cease to
be an emotion.

There is a parallel between this Western view and a prejudice that attaches to Indian philosophy. The
prejudice is that Indian philosophy, because of its soteriological nature with its emphasis on the attainment of
liberation, is about freeing the mind from feelings and emotions because they constitute an attachment to the
world. While this is true of some schools of Indian philosophy, it is by no means a justified account of Indian
philosophy as a whole. The different positions within Indian philosophy on this topic are more complex, as is
the case with regard to Western philosophy. This article introduces some of the main positions regarding the
emotions and their relation to cognitions in Indian philosophy. The sections of the article roughly correspond
to the division into philosophical schools in classical Indian philosophy. Since arguably Buddhist
philosophers have paid more attention to those phenomena that Western philosophers would classify as
emotions than other Indian philosophers, the Buddhist account of the emotions will be discussed in more
detail than the other accounts.

1. The Nyya-Vaieika account of the emotions

2. The Vednta account of the emotions
3. The Skhya-Yoga account of the emotions
4. The Buddhist account of the emotions
4.1 Buddhist cognition
4.2 ntarakita on love and hatred
4.3 Cognitions, emotions and kleas
4.4 Buddhist emotions
5. Conclusion
Bibliography
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1. The Nyya-Vaieika account of the emotions

The discussion of this account will focus on the Nyya-stras, Vtsyyana's Nyya-bhya, Uddyotakara's
Nyya-vrttika and Jayanta Bhaa's Nyya-majar. In addition, the Vaieika-stras together with akara
Mira's Vaieika-stra-upaskra will be mentioned. The Nyya-Vaieika account of the emotions involves a
strict division into cognition (jna) and mental phenomena that include a feeling aspect, such as love or
attraction (rga) and aversion (dvea). One of the main reasons for this is the acceptance of the existence of a
permanent immaterial self (tman) by the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers. According to their arguments, the

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tman is a substance (dravya) which possesses several qualities (guas), such as cognition, desire, effort,
aversion, pleasure and pain. This enumeration shows that there is no common Sanskrit term for the concept
emotion in the Nyya-Vaieika texts. One general term used is savedana which translates as feeling,
for example sukha-savedana (feeling of pleasure).

The important aspect of the Nyya-Vaieika account is that the individual emotions, such as attachment and
aversion are regarded as defects (doas) [NB 1.1.18] or impurities (upadh) [VS and VSU 6.2.4]. These
defects are the result of ignorance (mithyjna) and they give rise to actions that lead to the feeling of
pleasure or pain. The reason why this is regarded as negative is that the feeling of pleasure and pain is
responsible for our attachment to the world and, more importantly, for our attachment to the self and
therefore presents an obstacle to liberation. For this reason, any emotion is deemed to have a negative
influence on the individual. However, NV 1.1.22 mentions one exception, namely the desire for eternal
pleasure and absence from pain which is final liberation. While, strictly speaking, a desire is not an emotion,
it usually has the same negative effect because it results in attachment to the object of desire. The desire for
eternal pleasure, however, is not detrimental to liberation; in fact it is a precondition for liberation.

The Nyya-Vaieika philosophers clearly distinguish between pleasure (sukha) and pain (dukha) on the one
hand and the experience of pleasure (sukha-pratyaya) and pain (dukha-pratyaya) on the other hand. Pain
and pleasure are qualities of the soul but they need to be cognized by the self in order to be experienced. This
means that cognition has a special status among the qualities of self: no other quality can be experienced
without cognition.

Another reason why cognition is an important quality is that it is not necessarily a defect whereas the other
qualities are always defects. The defects fall into 3 groups: i) attraction (rga), ii) aversion (dvea) and iii)
illusion (moha) [NS 4.1.3]. Among the first group we find love, selfishness and greed. The second group
includes anger, jealousy, envy, malice and resentment. The Third group encompasses error, suspicion, pride
and negligence. These groupings show that, according to the Nyya-Vaieika account, there are no positive
emotions. Even love, which is regarded as a positive emotion in many cultures, is ultimately a defect because
all emotions lead to attachment and error.

The opposite of all three types of defect is described in NB 4.1.4 as knowledge of truth (tattvajna), right
knowledge (samyamati), truthful cognition (ryapraj) and right apprehension (sambodha). This shows
that, according to the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers, emotions are defects because they prevent our thinking
from turning into right knowledge. This knowledge can thus only be had if we eliminate these defects and
thereby our emotions.

According to NS 4.1.6, illusion is the worst defect because without it the others are not going to appear. This
means that one has to be under an illusion already in order to think that the object of one's attraction provides
pleasure and the object of one's aversion pain. In fact, NS and NB 4.1.58 state that ordinary pleasure should
be regarded as pain:

The ordinary man, addicted to pleasure, regards pleasure as the highest end of man, and feels that
there is nothing better than pleasure; and hence when pleasure has been attained, he feels happy
and contented, feeling that all he had to attain had been attained; and under the influence of
illusion, he becomes attached to the pleasure, as also to the things that bring about its
accomplishment; becoming so attached, he makes an attempt to obtain the pleasure; and while he
is trying for it, there come down on him several kinds of pain, in the form of birth, old age,
disease, death, the contact of disagreeable things, separation from agreeable things, the non-
fulfilment of desires and so forth; and yet all these several kinds of pain he regards as pleasure.

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In fact pain is a necessary factor in pleasure; without suffering some pain no pleasure can be
obtained; hence as leading to pleasure, this pain is regarded by the man as pleasure; and such a
man, having his mind obsessed by this notion of pleasure, never escapes from metempsychosis,
which consists of a running series of births and deaths. And it is as an antidote of this notion of
pleasure that we have the teaching that all this should be looked upon as pain. [NB 4.1.58, p.
1553]

This quote shows that ultimately the feeling of pleasure is an illusion and that our ordinary existence is
necessarily beset with pain. This demonstrates the link between feeling and error, according to the Nyya-
Vaieika philosophers. Both pleasure and pain are two factors that are responsible for our notion of I that
prevents us from attaining final liberation. Therefore, the pursuit of pleasure is futile and ought to be
abandoned in favour of final liberation.

For the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers, pleasure and pain are not forms of cognition because they have
different causes than cognitions [VS and VSU 10.1.56]. This means that we can have a cognition without a
feeling and we can also have a feeling without a cognition. In addition, they are experienced differently [NM,
vol. 1, p. 118]. This separation between cognitions and feelings, together with the view that feelings are
defects that disturb cognitions, means that feelings are regarded as purely negative. They lead to an
attachment to the world which causes a sense of self and this sense of self provides an obstacle to liberation.

The Nyya-Vaieika view shows similarities with the received view of the emotions in Western philosophy
with regard to the point that feelings are a disturbance of cognition. However, in many Western accounts
cognition is regarded as an end in itself because it coincides with the ideal of rational thinking, whereas
according to the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers cognition is not an end in itself. Rather, it is supposed to lead
to the conclusion that final liberation is the ultimate aim and final liberation means the end of cognition.

2. The Vednta account of the emotions

In his commentary on the Brahma-stras, akara makes the well-known argument that the self (tman)
exists because its existence is the only way to account for the idea of a subject of experience. This argument
relies on the idea that the self has certain mental qualities, which are termed manas (mind), buddhi (intellect),
vijna (cognition) or citta (consciousness), depending on what mental function is ascribed to them. Different
mental functions are doubt, resolution, egoism or recollection [BSBh 2.4.6]. These mental functions,
regardless of how they are referred to, have several qualities or modifications, including desire, imagination,
doubt, faith, want of faith, memory, forgetfulness, shame, reflection and fear [BSBh 2.3.32] as well as love,
aversion, pleasure and pain [BSBh 2.3.29]. This means that, according to akara, the mind's cognitive and
emotional abilities are the qualities of our mental functioning which is different from the self.

At the heart of akara's teaching lies the notion that the true knowledge of the tman is knowledge that is
devoid of any of the above-mentioned qualities. In this respect one can find a similarity between the Nyya
school and akara because for both of them cognitive and emotional qualities are due to false knowledge or
ignorance of the true self. This means that the removal of ignorance results in a removal of emotions as well
as cognitions. However, it is clear that the emotions present the main obstacle for the realization of the true
self because desire and aversion lead to attachment and clinging which cause us to neglect the search for
liberation that is crucial to Vednta teaching. So, while akara distinguishes between what Western
philosophers would call cognitions and emotions, he does not present a purely cognitive state of mind
without emotions as the ideal state of mind because such a state would be impossible. By definition, any
purely cognitive state of mind presupposes the existence of a mind or intellect. For akara, however, the

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problem is that a mind will always have certain qualities that would be called emotive in Western philosophy,
such as desire, aversion, hatred, pleasure or pain. So, as long there are cognitions, there will also be emotions.
Therefore, both must be eliminated in order for the self to attain liberation. On this point, akara agrees
with the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers. While akara distinguishes between emotions and cognitions, his
distinction is not as pronounced as that of the Nyya-Vaieika philosophers. He regards both as qualities of
the mind or intellect.

3. The Skhya-Yoga account of the emotions

Unlike the Nyya-Vaieika and Vednta accounts of the emotions, the Skhya-Yoga account does not draw
a fundamental distinction between feelings and cognitions. The reason for this is that the Skhya account
rests on the division between purua and prakti. The former is pure consciousness and does not contain any
cognitions or feelings whereas prakti is primordial matter and has the three qualities (guas) sattva, rajas
and tamas, which are aligned with different feelings: sattva with pleasure (sukha), rajas with pain (dukha)
and tamas with confusion or illusion (moha). The terms sattva, rajas and tamas are difficult to translate but
are sometimes rendered as reflection, activity and inertia. The important point about this dualist
structure for the emotions is that, according to the Skhya account, both cognition and feeling belong to the
realm of prakti which means that they are material. This stands in contrast to many dualist accounts in the
history of Western philosophy, for example that of Descartes, according to which cognitions are immaterial
whereas emotions or passions are material, thus making it easier to oppose the two. Larson and Bhattacharya
(1987) summarize the difference between Western and Skhya dualism in the following way:

[A]ccording to Skhya philosophy, the experiences of intellect, egoity, and mind, and the raw
feels such as frustration or satisfactionor, in other words, what conventional dualists would
consider to be inherently privateare simply subtle reflections of primordial materiality, a
primordial materiality undergoing continuous transformation by means of its constituent
unfolding as spontaneous activity, reflective discerning, and determinate formulation. Thus, the
modern reductive materialists' claim that sensations are identical with certain brain processes
would have a peculiar counterpart in the Skhya claim that awarenesses [Sanskrit terms
omitted] are identical with certain gua modalities. (Larson and Bhattacharya 1987, p. 76)

The relationship between purua and prakti in Skhya philosophy is complex: purua as pure
consciousness is characterized by inaction (akartbhva) and pure presence (skitva). It does not stand in
any relation with prakti, which comprises the material world, including mental processes. Nevertheless,
purua forms the foundation of prakti. This means that purua provides the meaning for all material
processes. Thus prakti exists for purua and it is only because of this that the world is not simply a
collection of meaningless physical processes. In addition, the intellect as part of prakti is supposed to realize
that it is not consciousness and it is to become aware of pure consciousness as the way to liberation. This
means that the intellect is supposed to understand the contentless pure consciousness but of course in order to
do so it would have to become contentless itself, which seems impossible. Therefore, the intellect can only
achieve this in an indirect way without cognition. Instead, we require meditative or yogic exercises to
understand the difference between purua and prakti.

In spite of the fact that cognition and emotion are both material, emotions have a negative connotation in
Skhya philosophy. In this regard the account is similar to that of many Western philosophers. However, in
Western philosophy the idea is to have cognition free from emotion. By contrast, the Skhya philosophers
do not think of cognition as a desirable end in itself. Rather, their idea is that ultimate liberation lies in the
recognition of purua by prakti. This means that our everyday experience of ourselves as conscious

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intellects with cognitions and emotions is an obstacle on the way to realizing what pure contentless
consciousness is. In fact, Skhya philosophers argue that our experience of ourselves as conscious beings is
a mistake that needs to be rectified in order to achieve liberation. This realization is extremely difficult to
achieve and therefore Skhya proposes first of all to clear the mind of the passions [SSu 2.15] by separating
them from cognition and then to free the mind from cognition in order to comprehend contentless
consciousness. So emotions or passions are regarded as negative but they are not contrasted with cognitions
because cognitions themselves are supposed to be overcome in order to understand purua.

In the Yogastras, Patajali provides a method for understanding the difference between purua and prakti
via a series of exercises that aim at stripping away all of the disturbing influences from the mind, including
what Western philosophers would classify as emotions. In fact, Patajali argues that the mind is affected by
afflictions (kleas) that keep it from becoming clear about the difference between purua and prakti. In YS
2.3, Patajali lists the afflictions:

Ignorance (avidy), egoism (asmit), attachment (rga), aversion (dvea) and adherence [to
mundane existence] (abhinivea) are afflictions. [YS 2.3]

These afflictions need to be removed in order to achieve liberation. Unlike in many Western accounts of the
emotions, the removal of the afflictions is not supposed to lead to a form of rational thinking that is divorced
from any emotion. Rather, rational thinking itself needs to be overcome, in order to achieve true liberation by
separating purua from prakti.

The main reason why emotions such as attachment and aversion are regarded as afflictions is that they lead to
a desire to change our circumstances and therefore to an attachment to the world. This attachment, however,
is precisely what is to be given up in order to achieve liberation. So, Patajali and his commentators argue
that emotions lead to desire and therefore have to be given up as one of the root causes of ignorance that
causes attachment to the world. Only then can the mind discriminate between purua and prakti.

One interesting parallel between Western accounts of the emotions and Patajali is the use of the colouring
(uparga) or coloured (uparaktam) metaphor with regard to the mind [e.g. in YS 4.23]. Patajali claims
that the mind is coloured by all of the objects it knows, including cognitions and emotions. This means that
in order to understand the difference between itself and pure consciousness (purua), it has to free itself from
these colourings and become pure. Only then can it recognize that it is different from the purua which
cannot be known in itself because it cannot become an object of the mind. Vysa, in his commentary on YS
4.23, explains that the mind itself is an object that appears as a conscious subject which is why many
philosophers mistake it for the subject. However, once the mind becomes empty of all objects the difference
between the mind and purua reveals itself. Vysa makes the argument that a mind which is empty of all
objects can still know itself and thus it would have to become an object in the mind, i.e. itself. In other words,
cognition would have to be cognized by itself. This, however, is impossible, according to him. Instead,
purua shows itself as that which makes cognition possible. In this sense, purua can be compared to
Husserl's idea of the transcendental ego. So, purua can only reveal itself indirectly by emptying the mind
of all cognitions, including emotions. This means that emotions are regarded as an obstacle to liberation but
at the same time, they share this designation with other cognitions of the world.

The Skhya-Yoga account of the emotions thus shows some similarities with the Nyya-Vaieika account
in that both regard the emotions as the first obstacle to liberation. Both accounts differ from many Western
views in that they regard emotion-free thinking not as an end in itself but as the next obstacle to be removed.
For the Skhya-Yoga philosophers there is a distinction between veridical and non-veridical cognition
(vijna). The latter is classified as ignorance (avidy), which, together with certain emotions, forms the

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afflictions (kleas). The Yoga-stras [YS 2.4] emphasize that ignorance is the most fundamental affliction
that is the root of all other afflictions. In his commentary on YS 2.3, Vysa states that the afflictions are the
five forms of unreal cognition. So, as Sinha points out:

All afflictions (klea) are due to false knowledge (avidy) and can be destroyed by right
knowledge. The Yoga, like Spinoza, regards emotions as intellectual disorders which can be
cured by true knowledge. [Footnote omitted] (Sinha 1985, p. 97)

We therefore see similarities between a cognitive account of the emotions and the Skhya-Yoga account
because both claim that emotions have mental objects but at the same time there is a difference in how
emotions can relate to knowledge, with the Skhya-Yoga philosophers claiming that knowledge and
emotions are incompatible.

4. The Buddhist account of the emotions

While there are many nuances in the accounts of the emotions among Buddhist writers, there are also certain
key ideas that are common to all of them. This section, tries to bring out these key ideas by analyzing some of
the writings of the Buddhist philosophers Dharmakrti, ntarakita and Kamalala.

4.1 Buddhist cognition

As with other Indian accounts of the emotions, the Buddhist conception of emotion appears in the context of
the discussion about the role of cognition (vijna). Buddhist philosophers argue against the existence of a
self (tman). At the same time, they acknowledge the existence of a non-physical momentary consciousness
or chain of cognitions (santna vijna) which carries over from former births into the present and future
rebirths. Thus, Buddhists try to find a middle ground between a permanent non-physical self and the
materialism of the Lokyata school (materialist school of philosophy) which argues that the self is purely the
result of bodily processes. According to the materialists, the self comes into existence with the body and
ceases to exist when the body ceases to exist.

In the Prama-siddhi-chapter of the Prama-vrttika, Dharmakrti argues that past lives exist. We can
know this because of the authority of the Buddha and we have reason to accept his authority because of his
infinite compassion. This compassion can only be the result of practice over many life times [PV 36]. The
Lokyata philosophers argue that cognitions require the support of a body and therefore cease to exist when
the body ceases to exist. Dharmakrti objects to this by arguing that mental cognitions do not derive from any
physical support [PV 49]. ntarakita and Kamalala state that the relationship between the support and
what is supported can be analyzed either as a causal relationship or as the relationship between an object and
its capacity [TS and TSP 18581859]. In this respect they do not deviate from Dharmakrti who rejects this
position of the Lokyata philosophers by arguing that the body could be neither the cause of cognition nor
could it have the capacity of cognition. Franco explains Dharmakrti's argument in the following way:

If the body were one lasting and changeless entity from birth to death, it could not produce
cognitions gradually, and thus all the cognitions one has throughout one's life would be produced
at once. If the body were the material cause of the cognition, the cognition would last as long as
the body, and thus there could be no dead body (v. 51). If the breaths are considered the cause of
cognition, the same inadmissible consequence applies: Because the body is the material cause of
the breaths, the breaths would last as long as the body and the cognition as long as the breaths (v.
53). All these inadmissible consequences do not apply if one admits that cognition is the cause of

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cognition. (Franco 1997, pp. 134135)

Of course, there is no reason why the Lokyata philosophers should say that the body is changeless. It might
precisely be the changes that appear in the body, for example in the brain, which are responsible for
cognition. Dharmakrti argues that if cognition required the support of the body, there is no reason why it
should not arise everywhere where there exists a body or matter [PV 3738]. The obvious objection to this
argument is that not any form of matter supports cognition. It has to be a particular kind of matter, ordered in
a particular way, as is the case in human beings and many animals.

According to Buddhist psychology, love and hatred are two of the afflictions (kleas) that befall human
beings and that need to be removed in order to attain liberation. There are a number of sections in the
Yogcra-bhmi, possibly written by either Asaga or Maitreya, that discuss these kleas. The text provides
several lists, most of which include love (rga) and hatred or enmity (pratigha). Other kleas are: satkya-
di (false view with regard to the satkya (five skandhas)), attachment to extreme views, attachment to
unwholesome views, attachment to practices and observances, pride, ignorance and doubt. These kleas could
be associated with one or more of the five possible feelings: pleasant feeling (sukha), unpleasant feeling
(dukha), neutral feeling (upek), happy mood (sau-manasya) or unhappy mood (daur-manasya). A
translation of the psychological categories of the Yogcra-bhmi into the categories of Western philosophy
of mind would render the following distinctions: a klea is a mental phenomenon that consists of a
representation of an object plus a certain feeling, sensation or affect. For example, in the case of love, the
Yogcra-bhmi states that we have the object of love plus either a pleasant sensation or a happy mood or
indifference (neutral feeling). It is interesting to note that the mental phenomenon of love can be connected
with indifference. In general, this suggests that a sensation is comparable to a psychological attitude and that
we always have to have one attitude or another towards a mental object. This means that our thinking is never
without a feeling, even if it is a neutral feeling. It is unclear, however, in what way we could experience the
emotion of love with the sensation of indifference. It seems that love always requires a positive feeling. The
Yogcra-bhmi allows for a mental phenomenon to count as the experience of love, as long as it does not
involve a negative, i.e. unhappy or unpleasant, feeling.

In addition, the text acknowledges that a representation can be about a real object or an imagined object. In
the latter case, the question arises in what way we can distinguish between an object and its representation.
This suggests that at least some Buddhist traditions distinguish between a cognition, the object of a cognition
and the feeling accompanying a cognition. ntarakita mentions kleas in TS 1955 and it is obvious that he
operates within the context of this psychological distinction which becomes clear in his discussion of love
(rga) and hatred (dvea).

4.2 ntarakita on love and hatred

ntarakita argues that love and hatred exist due to habit and repetition which is ascertained by confirming
and disconfirming concomitance. This means that they are learned through experience. For example, love is
learned by a person being confronted with objects to which this feeling is attributed and thus reinforced the
more of these objects a person encounters. However, we can observe the existence of love and hatred in
babies who have not had the repeated experience of these objects in this life. ntarakita claims that the
existence of love and hatred cannot be due to the first encounter with the object of love or hatred because it
would be possible, as indeed happens according to him, to encounter this object without the respective
feelings of love or hatred or to encounter it with another feeling, such as disgust. As an example, ntarakita
mentions the attraction a man might feel towards a woman. He claims that men are attracted to women if they
also attribute goodness and devotedness to them, even though a particular woman might not possess

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these qualities. So the qualities that make, for example, a woman lovable do not have to exist in the woman
and therefore, according to ntarakita, the woman cannot be said to be the cause of the feeling of love in
the man. Love, then is not an object of the senses (viaya). Therefore, the reason why these feelings exist is
through force of habit in previous lives. We have learned over time that women are lovable. This argument
is meant to demonstrate that love and hatred could not exist if the materialists were right and mental life was
simply the result of bodily processes.

Kamalala explains this argument in his commentary on TS 19481953 in a rather straightforward way and
adds a very helpful example:

For the following reason also, the feelings of Love, etc. cannot be due to presence of the
excitants:Because, if the feelings appeared exactly in accordance with the excitants, they would
proceed from the excitant exactly in the same manner as the Cognition of Blue and other things
(which always proceeds in accordance with these things);the feelings however do not proceed
in this way; on the contrary, the said feelings appear in regard to the Woman and other things, in
men who attribute to the woman the form of their own lasting pleasure, etc. which have not been
experienced at all; and yet the objects (woman, etc.) are not actually possessed of the said form
of goodness, etc.;and when a thing is devoid of a certain form, it cannot be the excitant or basis
of the Cognition of that form; otherwise it would lead to absurdity. (TSP: 931)

In this passage, Kamalala draws a distinction between the cognition of blue and the feeling of love. His
point is that the cognition of blue is a perception and therefore requires an object whereas a feeling of love
does not. There is no basis for love in the way that there is a basis for our perception of blue. So,
ntarakita's argument, as explained by Kamalala, consists of two parts: a) love, hatred etc. are learned
through experience and reinforced by repetition and b) love, hatred etc. are not perceptions.

In TS 1958, ntarakita provides a similar example of male animals that become perturbed by the touch of
female animals even though they do not know anything about any doings (vttnta) or sexual intercourse,
yet. His argument is that this feeling must be due to experiences in previous lives. He does not account for the
possibility of instinctual behaviour. If ntarakita allowed for the existence of instinctual behaviour then his
observation of babies and animals might have let him to believe that love and hatred are mental phenomena
that are not learned through experience.

ntarakita clearly believes that there is something fundamental about the feelings of love and hatred. They
are so fundamental that even babies feel them. At the same time, they require experience. So the question is
how was the first feeling of love (or hatred) acquired? There might have been a time when humans did not
have the feeling of love and they only acquired it at some point in their lives through experience and
subsequent repetition of the experience. This sounds like a strange idea precisely because love and hatred are
so fundamental to our unenlightened lives that the existence of a time when they did not exist seems
impossible. Yet, ntarakita's view implies either that there must have been such a time or that there is an
infinite chain of these feelings stretching backwards. In TS 1872, ntarakita makes it clear that he believes
in the latter option:

As regards the other world, there is no such other world, apart from the chain of causes and
effects, in the form of cognition and the rest. What is spoken of as the other world or this
world, that is only by way of a certain limit placed upon the said chain which is beginningless
and endless. (TS 1872)

So, ntarakita might argue that love and hatred are just as much part of a chain of cognitions that is

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without beginning and end as all other cognitions. The reason why he postulates the existence of this eternal
chain of cognitions is the argument that no cognition could be caused by anything other than a previous
cognition and hence there cannot be a first cognition for anything we call a particular being. If there was a
first cognition for a particular being then, according to ntarakita (TS 18781885), there would be five
options: i) the first cognition does not have a cause; ii) it is produced by an eternal cause; iii) it is eternal and
unchanging; iv) it is caused by another substance; and v) it is caused by a cognition from another chain.

ntarakita rejects the first option because he argues that according to this idea the foetus would somehow
receive the first cognition without any cause. This means that the cognition would be eternal, rather than
momentary. ntarakita rejects the second option because if the cognition is produced by an eternal non-
material cause then it should itself be eternal. The argument is that if something which exists eternally can
bring about a cognition then there is no point in time at which this cause could have brought about the effect.
So the effect is eternal in the same way as the cause. But an eternal effect cannot exist because something
which is eternal does not have a cause. The third option that the cognition is eternal runs counter to our
experience which tells us that cognitions are momentary. ntarakita also dismisses the Lokyata position
that cognitions are produced by physical substances because the Lokyata philosophers argue that material
substances are eternal. So, ntarakita makes a similar argument to the rejection of option two. An eternal
cause has to have an eternal effect but cognitions are not eternal. Option five is rejected in TS 18931896
where ntarakita argues that the first cognition of one chain cannot be solely caused by a cognition from
another chain because in that case we would expect the knowledge of parents to carry over into their babies.

The second part (b) of ntarakita's argument, that love and hatred are different from perception, is
intriguing in that he claims that there cannot be an external cause for love and hatred because whatever we
might want to postulate as this external object can elicit different feelings in different people. The object of
one person's love might be the object of another person's aversion. For this reason, love and hatred cannot be
acquired in this life, like perceptions. So the love and hatred that exist in a baby or young animal must be
carried over from another life. This argument assumes that there could not be non-perceptual cognition that
can arise without previous experience and therefore faces the same challenges as the claim that all feelings
have to be learned through repeated experience. But it goes beyond this discussion in that it raises the
question of what the object of love and hatred is. Kamalala uses the term vaa (desire, love) rather than
rga in his commentary on TS 19481953 which suggests that he does not clearly distinguish between desire
and love. If it is true that rga is a klea then it is plausible that there is no distinction between love and
craving. So he could be making the obvious point that we can desire something without a basis in the external
world, i.e. what I desire might not exist, or that I might desire something for the wrong reasons. Love, hatred
and desire all require the existence of an object. However, unlike a perceptual object, the objects of love and
desire can be merely mental. I can love the idea of equality or I can desire something which does not exist.
This non-existence can be two-fold: i) I can desire something which cannot exist either logically or
physically, for example, I can desire that I had wings; ii) if I desire something to be the case, then what I
desire does not exist, yet. For example, if I desire an ice-cream then the state of affairs in which I have an ice-
cream does not exist, yet. In contrast with love and desire, perception, at least on a realist account, requires its
object to exist in the external world.

4.3 Cognitions, emotions and kleas

While the argument about the difference between perception and love does not show that love requires
previous experience, it raises, (at least) two interesting questions about the Buddhist account of the emotions:
i) why does ntarakita draw a distinction between perception and feeling on the basis of the non-existence
of external objects in the case of love, hatred and desire? ii) why does he make a specific argument about love

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and hatred when he has already argued in previous verses of the Lokyata-park that all cognitions require
other cognitions as their causes?

In what follows, these questions are addressed briefly in reverse order. The second question raises the general
problem of the translatability of the concept of feeling or emotion into Sanskrit. As mentioned in the
introduction, there is no general term in Sanskrit for emotion and ntarakita uses the expression love and
hatred etc. (rga-dvea + di). In the translation, Jha has taken the etc. as referring to other feelings,
assuming that ntarakita was operating with a psychological category such as feeling. However, there is
no single word in the text which would translate as feeling every time it appears in the translation. In fact, it
is clear that ntarakita does not mean feelings in the sense of non-representational attitudes towards
objects because love and hatred have objects according to him, albeit mental objects. Since ntarakita
remains within the context of Buddhist psychology and clearly refers to Dharmakrti, it is plausible that he
means other kleas instead of other feelings because love and hatred are kleas and have objects.

In this context, it is also important to discuss the translation of the term vijna as cognition. Both terms
refer to a mental phenomenon that provides knowledge. This means that they refer to a state of affairs that
pertains in the world. Both terms presuppose an external or mental object they are directed towards. One
important difference between these two terms, which shows the difficulty with translating vijna as
cognition, is that, according to ntarakita, a vijna always has an object but it does not have to have
conceptual content. In this sense, even a sensation or feeling, such as the sensation of pleasure, is a vijna
because it has an object but lacks conceptual content, according to ntarakita. The sensation has an object
because it provides knowledge about mental states and therefore has to have an object of knowledge.
However, this object is not conceptual. So, according to ntarakita, a vijna includes affective mental
states, such as feelings, sensations and emotions and therefore kleas. The Western term cognition, by
contrast, excludes affective mental states.

The whole of the Lokyata-park of the Tattva-sagraha is one argument for the existence of an infinite
chain of vijnas that is independent of its physical manifestation. For ntarakita, love, hatred and the
rest are examples of vijnas. These vijnas are also kleas but not all vijnas are kleas. Love and hatred
are especially useful for his argument because they are fundamental to our experience and emphasize the
continuity of the chain of vijnas.

According to ntarakita, vijnas can include feelings and emotions whereas in Western psychology and
philosophy cognitions are distinct from emotions and feelings. This means that the role of vijnas in
ntarakita's system is different from the role of cognitions in Western psychology and philosophy. As I
mentioned above, in the history of Western philosophy the distinction between feeling and cognition has
often been used as the demarcation between feeling and rational thought with the ideal of affectless thought.
For ntarakita and other Buddhist philosophers the ideal is not necessarily that of affectless thought.
Instead, their ideal is that of an existence free from afflictions (kleas). So, they try to extinguish one kind of
mental phenomenon but their distinction is different from the distinction between feeling and thought. For
them, all mental phenomena that provide an obstacle to liberation should be eliminated. This includes what
Western psychologists would call emotions or feelings. However, it also includes many affectless cognitions.
This means that the Western psychological category emotions does not feature prominently in
ntarakita's account of the mind. In fact, it is not clear that he would even recognize such a category.
According to Buddhist psychology, some kleas straddle the Western divide between feeling and thought.
They involve both feeling and thought and they are a mental phenomenon, called a vijna. Whereas for
many philosophers in the history of Western philosophy, the ideal has been to purge feeling from thought, in
order to attain a standard of rationality, the ideal for ntarakita and other Buddhist philosophers is to free

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our mental life from those vijnas which are kleas. The reason is not to attain some standard of rationality
because, for Buddhists, most vijnas are suspect in that they involve an attachment to the present life and
therefore pose an obstacle to liberation.

One question that arises in this context is why does ntarakita single out love and hatred, instead of
discussing kleas in general?. One answer might be that they are fundamental to our human experience and
therefore lend themselves to ntarakita's argument that cognitions in general do not come into existence
with the body.

In Western discussions of this topic, feelings are very often associated with some physical change, such as a
quicker heartbeat or a change in the chemical make up of the brain. For this reason, emotions are very often
regarded as providing some link between the mental and the physical. ntarakita mentions this link
between feeling and physical changes in TS 1960. He claims that phlegm (balsa) and other bodily changes
are not responsible for love, hatred or perturbations through sexual arousal because there is no observed
concomitance between them. While this claim might be true with regard to phlegm, it is obviously false with
regard to other physical changes, especially changes in the brain. However, it would be wrong to completely
dismiss ntarakita's argument simply because he turned out to be wrong about this empirical claim. After
all, the argument raises important questions about the status of mental phenomena, such as love and hatred.
This becomes clear when we think about the other question mentioned earlier: why does ntarakita
distinguish between perceptions on the one hand and love and hatred on the other hand based on the existence
or non-existence of external objects? While ntarakita often adopts an idealist position compatible with the
Yogcra standpoint in the Tattva-sagraha, he seems to switch to a realist position in this case which is
compatible with a Sautntrika standpoint. The best explanation for this switch is that ntarakita and
Kamalala are arguing against Lokyata philosophers (materialists), who do not share the Yogcra outlook
on reality. This means that ntarakita and Kamalala try to find common ground with these philosophers
and therefore share their assumptions about the mind-independent existence of an external world.
ntarakita's and Kamalala's argument then is that even with this assumption in place, it does not follow
that all cognitions are dependent on or even identical with the body. According to them, the Lokyata
philosophers would have to draw a distinction between perceptions on the one hand and love and hatred on
the other hand, and while they might be able to account for perceptions they are not able to account for love
and hatred.

4.4 Buddhist emotions

From the preceding arguments by the Buddhist philosophers Dharmakrti, ntarakita and Kamalala it
becomes clear that Buddhist philosophers do not operate with the psychological category emotion; at least
not in the way that other Indian (and Western) philosophers do. For example, ntarakita and Kamalala do
not consider love and hatred to be irrational because they involve non-cognitive feelings that do not represent
an external reality. Kamalala in particular makes it clear that for him love and hatred do not require a
relationship to objects in the external world. He argues that not having an external object is a salient feature
of love and hatred. In Western philosophy of mind we often use the presence or absence of an object of love
in order to distinguish between rational and irrational love. ntarakita and Kamalala, however, do not use
this distinction in order to argue that love and hatred should be eliminated. As Buddhists, their concern lies
with the afflictions that prevent the mind from becoming liberated and whatever mental state is an affliction
ought to be eliminated. Emotions then are vijnas and as such they always have an object. This position
stands in contrast to philosophical traditions, be they Indian or Western, in which feelings and emotions are
often distinguished from cognitions because they lack an object.

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5. Conclusion
A number of themes emerge from this overview: 1) The Western categories of cognition and emotion do
not have equivalents in classical Indian philosophy. This is interesting because it suggests that these concepts
are not psychological categories but perhaps social categories. While there has been some anthropological
work done by, for example, Catherine Lutz on the differences in the categorization of specific emotions
across cultures, there is the possibility that the category as a whole might not translate into all cultures (see
Danziger 1997). 2) One common theme in classical Indian philosophy is that the phenomena that would be
labelled as emotions in Western philosophy are to be eradicated because they prevent liberation. 3) None of
the Indian philosophical schools aim at emotion-free cognitions as an end in itself. In fact, those states that
would be labelled cognitions in Western philosophy are also to be eradicated because they also prevent
liberation. 4) Indian schools differ over the inclusion of feeling states under the concept of vijna
(cognition). Some schools distinguish between feeling states and vijna whereas others, most notably
Buddhists, do not. This last point suggests that there is an interesting comparison to be made between
Buddhist accounts and cognitive accounts of the emotions. However, any comparison must be sensitive to the
difficulties in translating the concepts involved.

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