Lal,
Quite fortuitously, the discussion at ‘Kamma and Kamma Vipāka › Vipaka Sapa from Dhamma Loka’ is relevant here as well. There it is stated:
“Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral. Any pleasant or unpleasant vedana that we may experience are ALL mind-made, and NOT due to kamma vipaka,” and:
“Whatever somanassa/domanassa vedana that we make on our own are due to our gathi (or gati)… There are some kamma vipaka due to mano sankhara that arise even with vipaka vinnana. But they cannot bring rebirth”.
Now going back to the instance of that brahmin and his wife, surely their exclamation, on SEEING the Buddha ‘where have you been, my son, all this time’ was made with vedana, and very strong vedana at that (somanassa, in this case). And the connections via relation lay in the deep past (vipaka) – the furthest as far back as 1,500 lifetimes, if the ones when they had been uncle/aunt and grand-father/mother are included. This does not accord with : “Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral. Any pleasant or unpleasant vedana that we may experience are ALL mind-made, and NOT due to kamma vipaka”. In fact, it clashes with this at all three points: that vedana was NOT neutral, it was NOT mind-made, and WAS due to kamma vipaka. Even if the records of all that are in nama loka, and it is the mana indriya that ‘recovers’ the event, once recovered it is then experienced as vedana.
And, “Yes. Those are the past pancakkhandha (memories about past rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana).” So the pancakkhanda would be the ‘personal storehouse’ of a bieng’s past, and nama loka the collective, the mega repository of all pancakkhandhas of all beings? In that case, the pancakkhandha would suffice to account for the re-arising of feelings from the past from the vedanakkhanha alone; no need to bring the nama loka in at all.
-“Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral”- But it is clear that even rupakkhandha can NOT be neutral.It was on SEEING the Buddha that the brahmin and his wife were overjoyed. The sight of Him was the trigger. Here both form, rupa (that of the Buddha) and the faculty of sight (of the brahmin and his wife) were there .Ja 68 Saketa jataka:
– The man thy mind rests on, with whom thy heart
Is pleased at first SIGHT,—place thy trust in him.-
We have all experienced this immediate attraction or repulsion on first meeting certain people.
Also the nama loka would only ‘register’ an event, an event where a particular feeling or feelings arose, then once located by the mana indriya, the vedana would be experienced; while the ruppakkhandha would have the feeling itself, intact, as it was experienced, it is immediate, it is ‘carried along’at all times in the being. This is NOT a statement, Lal. I need to get to the bottom of this.
In Ja237. Saketa Jātaka : “Both the circumstances that suggested the story and the story itself have already been given in the First Book ” ( where the incident of the Buddha meeting the brahmin and his wife is given) . Ja237 goes on:
– Why are hearts cold to one – O Buddha, tell! –
– And love one another so exceedingly well? –
The Master explained the nature of love by the second stanza:
– “Those love they who in other lives were dear,
– As sure as grows the lotus in the mere.”
with infinite Gratitude,