Prapañca

prapañca (P. papañca; T. spros pa སྤྲོས་པ་; C. xilun 戲論) is translated as "conceputal elaboration," "conceptual proliferation," etc. This term denotes the presence of discursive or conceptual thought processes.

Christian Coseru states:

The Buddhist philosophical term used for describing the state of ordinary mentation is prapañca in Sanskrit. It literally means ‘fabrication,’ usually translated as ‘conceptual proliferation’ or 'conceptual elaboration' [see Samyutta Nikāya, IV, 72].

We don't simply apprehend an object. Rather, we apprehend it as the locus of a multiplicity of associations: in seeing a tree we perceive an entity made of trunk, branches, and foliage but also something that can provide shade and lumber. In perception we are ordinarily assailed by a stream of conceptualizing tendencies, which have their ultimate source in linguistic conventions and categorizing practices. These conceptualizing tendencies overwhelm and distort the perceptual experience.

The 84000 glossary provides the following glosses:

• This term denotes the presence of discursive or conceptual thought processes. Their absence or deconstruction is characteristic of the realization of emptiness (sunyata) or ultimate reality.

• An etymologically obscure term, which can mean elaboration, diffusion, or expansion, but is basically describing the mind’s conceptualization, and is always connected to the words for notions and ideas, and mental fabrications.

• This term often refers to the mental elaborations that characterize the conceptual mind, but in [some texts] it also carries the sense of meaningless talk.

• This less technical sense of “pointless speculation” is captured in Bodhiruci’s Chinese translation, where xilun 戲論 has the meaning of “intellectual frivolity” and “frivolous discourse,” as well as being the Chinese rendering of the more technical senses of prapañca.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu states:

As one writer has noted, the word papañca has had a wide variety of meanings in Indian thought, with only one constant: In Buddhist philosophical discourse it carries negative connotations, usually of falsification and distortion. The word itself is derived from a root that means diffuseness, spreading, proliferating. The Pali Commentaries define papañca as covering three types of thought: craving, conceit, and views. They also note that it functions to slow the mind down in its escape from saṁsāra. Because its categories begin with the objectifying thought, “I am the thinker,” I have chosen to render the word as “objectification,” although some of the following alternatives might be acceptable as well: self-reflexive thinking, reification, proliferation, complication, elaboration, distortion. The word offers some interesting parallels to the postmodern notion of logocentric thinking, but it’s important to note that the Buddha’s program of deconstructing this process differs sharply from that of postmodern thought.

The Buddhist Dictionary states:

papañca (Skt. prapañca): in doctrinal usage, it signifies the expansion, differentiation, ‘diffuseness’ or ‘manifoldness’ of the world; and it may also refer to the ‘phenomenal world’ in general, and to the mental attitude of ‘worldliness’. In AN 4:173, it is said:

“As far as the field of sixfold sense-impression extends, so far reaches the world of diffuseness (or the phenomenal world; papañcassa gati); as far as the world of diffuseness extends, so far extends the field of sixfold sense-impression. Through the complete fading away and cessation of the field of sixfold sense-impression, there comes about the cessation and the coming-to-rest of the world of diffuseness (papañca-nirodho papañca-vūpasamo).”

The opposite term nippapañca is a term for Nibbāna (SN 53), in the sense of ‘freedom from samsaric diffuseness’. Dhp 254: “Mankind delights in the diffuseness of the world, the Perfect Ones are free from such diffuseness” (papañcābhiratā pajā, nippapañcā tathāgatā). The eighth of the ‘thoughts of a great man’ (mahā-purisa-vitakka; AN 8:30) has: “This Dhamma is for one who delights in non-diffuseness (the unworldly, Nibbāna); it is not for him who delights in worldliness (papañca).”

For the psychological sense of ‘differentiation’, see MN 18 (Madhupiṇḍika Sutta):

“Whatever man conceives (vitakketi) that he differentiates (papañceti); and what he differentiates, by reason thereof ideas and “considerations of differentiation (papañca-saññā-saṅkhā) arise in him."

[...]

The commentaries often mention a threefold classification, taṇhā-, diṭṭhi-, māna-papañca, which probably means the world’s diffuseness created by craving, false views, and conceit. See MN 123; AN 4:173; AN 6:14, Sn 530, 874, 916.

Alternative Translations

• mental constructs (Thomas Doctor)
• mental elaboration
• conceptual proliferation (Nyanatiloka Thera)
• proliferation of discursive thought
• objectification (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

See also

• niṣprapañca

Sources

• Coseru, Christian (2012), "Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
• Nyanatiloka Thera (2019), Nyanaponika Thera, ed., Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, Pariyatti Publishing 

External links

• spros_pa, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• Conceptual proliferation, Wikipedia
• What is papanca?, Lion's Roar