Grammatical Analysis
Jīvita: [nt.] life; vitality; lifespan; living existence. Derived from root jīv (to live, be alive).
Orthodox Definition
In the clinical architecture of the Abhidhamma, Jīvita does not refer to a vague “life force” or soul, but operates as two highly specific, biologically and psychologically stabilizing ultimate realities, known as the Life Faculties (jīvitindriya):
- Rūpa-jīvitindriya (Physical Life Faculty): A specific type of derived matter (upādā-rūpa) generated entirely by past kamma. Its function is to sustain, guard, and keep the other material phenomena in the body alive, preventing them from rotting like a corpse. It ceases at the moment of biological death.
- Arupa-jīvitindriya / Nāma-jīvitindriya (Mental Life Faculty): A universal mental factor (sabbacittasādhāraṇa-cetasika) that sustains and guards the consciousness (citta) and accompanying mental factors during each microscopic mind-moment.
The Atthasālinī compares the life faculty to the water in a lotus pond; just as the water sustains the lotuses so they do not wither, jīvita sustains the physical and mental aggregates so they do not prematurely dissolve.
Textual References
- Abhidhamma: Dhammasaṅgaṇī (Detailed isolation of both the material and immaterial life faculties).
- Commentary: Atthasālinī – Explaining how the life faculty only maintains what has already arisen, but cannot cause new phenomena to arise or prevent inevitable death.
- Commentary: Visuddhimagga (Chapter XIV) – Mapping the precise moment rūpa-jīvita is cut off during the death process.