(1) There is Ignorance (_avidyâ_) in the beginning; (2) from Ignorance Action (_sanskâra_) comes forth; (3) from Action Consciousness (_vijñâna_) comes forth; (4) from Consciousness Name-and-Form (_nâmarûpa_) comes forth; (5) from Name-and-Form the Six Organs (_ṣadâyâtana_) come forth; (6) from the Six Organs {37} Touch (_sparça_) comes forth; (7) from Touch Sensation (_vedanâ_) comes forth; (8) from Sensation Desire (_tṛṣnâ_) comes forth; (9) from Desire Clinging (_upâdâna_) comes forth; (10) from Clinging Being (_bhâva_) comes forth; (11) from Being Birth (_jati_) comes forth; and (12) from Birth Pain (_duḥkha_) comes forth. According to Vasubandhu’s _Abhidharmakoça_, the formula is explained as follows: Being ignorant in our previous life as to the significance of our existence, we let loose our desires and act wantonly. Owing to this karma, we are destined in the present life to be endowed with consciousness (_vijñâna_), name-and-form (_nâmarûpa_), the six organs of sense (_ṣadâyâtana_), and sensation (_vedanâ_). By the exercise of these faculties, we now desire for, hanker after, cling to, these illusive existences which have no ultimate reality whatever. In consequence of this “Will to Live” we potentially accumulate or make up the karma that will lead us to further metempsychosis of birth and death. The formula is by no means logical, nor is it exhaustive, but the fundamental notion that life started in ignorance or blind will remains veritable. _Non-Atman._ The problem of nescience naturally leads to the doctrine usually known as that of non-Atman, i.e., non-ego, to which allusion was made at the beginning {38} of this chapter. This doctrine of Buddhism is one of the subjects that have caused much criticism by Christian scholars. Its thesis runs: There is no such thing as ego-soul, which, according to the vulgar interpretation, is the agent of our mental activities. And this is the reason why Buddhism is sometimes called a religion without the soul, as aforesaid. This Buddhist negation of the ego-soul is perhaps startling to the people, who, having no speculative power, blindly accept the traditional, materialistic view of the soul. They think, they are very spiritual in endorsing the dualism of soul and flesh, and in making the soul something like a corporeal entity, though far more ethereal than an ordinary object of the senses. They think of the soul as being more in the form of an angel, when they teach that it ascends to heaven immediately after its release from the material imprisonment.