Living Dhamma > Mental Body – Gandhabba > Antarābhava and Gandhabba

July 29, 2016; revised January 23, 2020; December 5, 2020; August 22, 2021

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What Is Antarābhava?

1. There are many misinterpretations about the term “antarābhava.” Just two to three hundred years after the Parinibbāna of the Buddha, Mahayanists started saying that there is an antarābhava, because they thought gandhabba belonged to an antarābhava.

▪At the Third Buddhist Council, Moggaliputta Tissa Thero proved the non-existence of an antarābhava in a debate with the Mahāyānists. That correct interpretation is in the Kathavatthu of the Tipiṭaka.

2. Antarābhava (“antara” + “bhava,” where antara is “in-between”) means in between bhava or existences. For example, when a living being in the human bhava exhausts its kammic energy for that human existence, it grasps a new existence (bhava) at the cuti-paṭisandhi moment. Suppose the next existence or bhava is existence as a deer, for this example.

▪The transition from a human to deer existence happens in a billionth of a second from the cuti citta (dying moment in the human bhava) to the paṭisandhi citta (first thought-moment in existence as a deer).

▪Therefore, indeed there is no antarābhava. The time-lapse from the cuti citta to the paṭisandhi citta is negligibly small; see, “Cuti-Paṭisandhi – An Abhidhamma Description.” That was the point made by Moggaliputta Tissa Thero at the Third Buddhist Council: there is no “antarābhava” between the “human bhava” and the “deer bhava” in the above example.

▪Gandhabba is in the same “human bhava” until the human bhava’s kammic energy runs out (which could be many hundreds of years, compared to about 100 years of a lifetime for a human). In between successive human births within that human bhava, it is the gandhabba that lives in “para loka”; see, “Hidden World of the Gandhabba: Netherworld (Paraloka).”

Bhava and Jāti Are Two Different Concepts

3. The critical point is that bhava and jāti are two different things. That is why in Paṭicca Samuppāda, there is a step, “bhava paccayā jāti.” There can be many “jāti” or births as a human within a single human bhava; see, “Bhava and Jāti – States of Existence and Births Therein.”

▪Living beings in human and animal realms are not born with fully-formed physical bodies. In all other 29 realms, beings are born with fully-formed bodies called opapātika or instantaneous births. Thus a deva or Brahma is born with fully-formed bodies.

▪That means a deva or Brahma will have the same body during that bhava, even though that body will change. For them, there are only ONE jāti within that bhava.

Humans (and Animals) Have Many Jāti Within That Bhava

4. In our example above, a human could have kammic energy supporting human existence (bhava) for thousands of years. However, a physical human body can last only for about 100 years.

▪The kammic energy of a human bhava is not in the physical body (karaja kāya) but is in the “mental body” or the manomaya kāya of the gandhabba. There is a whole section on the gandhabba at this site; see “Gandhabba (Manomaya Kāya).”

▪As explained in the post, “Manomaya Kāya (Gandhabba) and the Physical Body,” a gandhabba will inherit “many physical bodies” during a given human existence.

▪As discussed in the post, “Ghost in the Machine – Synonym for the Manomaya Kāya?,” the physical body is inert, and it is the gandhabba that “gives life” to that inert body.

Āyukkhaya Maraṇa and Kammakkhaya Maraṇa

5. That is why the physical body’s death does not necessarily imply a cuti citta, i.e., one may be NOT released from the human bhava. One will lose the human bhava only if it is a “kammakkhaya maraṇa” or death where the kammic energy is exhausted (“maraṇa” in Pail or Sinhala is for death).

▪But most human deaths are “āyukkhaya maraṇa,” i.e., the end of life for the physical body (here “āyu” means the lifetime of a physical body.) More kammic energy for the human bhava left. There is no cuti citta at that time. In that case, there is no change in the gandhabba at the moment of death of the physical body.

▪That gandhabba would come out of the dead body and wait for another womb.

▪A housefly lives for about a week or so. But the “fly bhava” may last for thousands and millions of years. When a fly dies, a “fly gandhabba” comes out of that dead body. It will get into an egg laid by another fly and soon be born a fly. That process will repeat an uncountable number of times during that “fly bhava” (or the existence as a fly.)

6. Thus, if it is a “āyukkhaya maraṇa,” the gandhabba comes out of that dead body and waits for another womb. It is improbable that a matching womb will appear precisely at the death of a human physical body. In most cases, the gandhabba has to wait months and more likely years before a matching womb becomes available (gati of the gandhabba have to match the gati of the parents).

▪Most deaths due to accidents are not due to “kammakkhaya maraṇa,” i.e., just the physical body dies. The human in question will be reborn with a new human body at a later time. That is why many rebirths accounts describe death in a previous life due to an accident, murder, etc.

▪Of course, one could die with āyukkhaya maraṇa even at old age.

Mahāyāna Concept of Antarābhava

7. The reason that the Mahāyānists say that there is an antarābhava is that they believe that the gandhabba is not human and is an “in-between state.”

▪The irony is that many current Therāvadins even refuse to believe the EXISTENCE of a gandhabba simply because they do not want to be seen as taking the side of the Mahāyānists. Those Tharāvadins believe that when a human dies — with kammic energy left in the human bhava — the second human fetus starts INSTANTANEOUSLY in a womb. In other words, the previous human dies at the cuti moment, and a billionth of a second later appears as a new baby in a human womb (paṭisandhi).

▪However, that approach leads to many inconsistencies: (i) Such precise timing is an impossibility. (ii) The step “bhava paccayā jāti” in Paṭicca Samuppāda does not make sense: Is that new human birth a new bhava?. (iii) Paṭisandhi or grasping a new bhava happens within a thought-moment. However, the birth of a human body occurs via a series of steps described in #8 below. (iv) As discussed in #9 – #11 below, rebirth accounts are also not compatible with rebirth occurring in the womb. (v) There is more evidence from the Tipiṭaka, as discussed in #12, #13 below.

A Physical Human Body Versus Manomaya Kāya (Gandhabba)

8. According to the Tipiṭaka, a full-pledged human appears via a series of steps: “jāti, sañjāti, okkanti, abhinibbatti, khandhānaṁ pātubhāvo, āyatānānaṁ pāṭilābho. See, “WebLink: suttacentral: Vibhaṅga Sutta (SN 12.2)” and “Manomaya Kāya (Gandhabba) and the Physical Body.”

▪Here, jāti is the paṭisandhi moment, when the kammaja kāya for the new bhava appears in a thought-moment. Moments later, that kammaja kāya is augmented by the cittaja kāya and a utuja kāya, and a manomaya kāya (gandhabba) results. That is the sañjāti moment. This gandhabba comes out of the dead body in the previous life (bhava).

▪When that gandhabba goes into a suitable womb, that is the okkanti moment. In many suttā, that is described as “viññāṇa of a boy or a girl descending into a womb.” Note that by the time descending into a womb, the sex is already determined. It is a human gandhabba that comes into a womb.

▪There is no place in the Tipiṭaka that says paṭisandhi happens in a womb. Rather it says, “…gandhabba okkanti hoti.”

9. Many rebirth account features are consistent with that correct interpretation where the manomaya kāya (gandhabba) inherits many successive (but time separated) physical bodies.

▪There is always a “time gap” between successive human births (jāti). They are always separated by several years or at least a few years. In between those successive lives, that lifestream survives as a gandhabba. The Buddha told Vacchagotta that the gandhabba survives that intervening time by using taṇhā as āhāra. Some gandhabbā can “inhale” aroma from plants, too.

▪We all know that human existence is difficult to get; see “Rebirth – Connection to Suffering in the First Noble Truth.” If each human birth is a “brand new human existence or bhava,” that would be inconsistent since human existence is a rare event.

Human Births Within the Human Bhava

10. Then another question may arise, “Why do people look different in successive rebirths?” The physical body in each human life (within the same human bhava) arises from the parents’ contributions to that life.

▪Even though the gandhabba brings in gati (habits), āsava (cravings), kilesa (mental impurities), etc., from the previous life, the physical body for the new life has significant contributions from the parents. The DNA of the physical bodies of two successive lives will be very different due to this reason. For details, see “Buddhist Explanations of Conception, Abortion, and Contraception.”

Gandhabba’s Gati Will Change With Time

11. Furthermore, even the mental body of the gandhabba WILL change in the next life. Thus gati (habits), āsava (cravings), kilesa (mental impurities), etc., will also change as one grows up in a new environment under a different set of influences.

▪For example, one could have lived a moral life in the previous birth but may be born into a family of drug addicts due to a bad kamma vipāka. In that case, the new life could drastically change to an immoral life.

▪However, in most cases, the successive lives are not drastically different unless one makes drastic changes. If one could attain the Sotāpanna stage, then one will not be born into an immoral family. If one reaches the Anāgāmī stage of Nibbāna, one will never be born a human and born in the Brahma realm.

▪On the other hand, even if one is born in a moral family but under the influence of bad friends becomes a drug addict and commits crimes, one is likely to be born into an immoral family in the next birth. If one commits a ānantariya pāpa kammā (say by killing a parent), then one will be born in the apāyā at death, even if there is more kammic energy left in the human bhava.

More Evidence From Tipiṭaka

12. Now, let us discuss more evidence from the Tipiṭaka. During the night of his Enlightenment, the Buddha (or more accurately the ascetic Siddhartha) first attained the “pubbe nivāsānussati ñāṇa,” before attaining the “cutupapāda ñāṇa” and finally the “āsavakkhaya ñāṇa.” It is the āsavakkhaya ñāṇa that led to the Buddhahood; see, “The Way to Nibbāna – Removal of Āsavā.”

▪The first two pieces of knowledge (ñāṇa; pronounced “gnana”;) can be attained even with anāriya jhānā (with limited capabilities). Both those deal with the ability to look back at previous lives. But with the first one, pubbe nivāsānussati ñāṇa, one could only look at the previous human births.

▪Here, “pubbe” means “previous,” “nivasa” means “house,” and “anussati” means “recall,” i.e., the knowledge to recall successive residences of a given gandhabba. In a given human bhava, a gandhabba could have many different “houses,” i.e., physical bodies. Thus with this ñāṇa, one could look at human births in the past, in multiple human bhava going back to very long times, depending on the yogi’s capability.

▪The second one, cutupapāda ñāṇa, extends the capability to see all previous rebirths in any realm. Here cutupapāda (cuti means the end of a bhava and upapāda means birth) refers to all types of rebirths in various realms (niraya, animal, deva, etc.) in the past.

Connection to Pubbe Nivāsānussati Ñāṇa

13. Furthermore, the Buddha described how he saw human gandhabbā moving from one physical body to the next (in a single human bhava) with the pubbe nivāsānussati ñāṇa. He explained that with the following simile: If one is in an upper level of a multi-story building (yes, there were multi-storied buildings at the time of the Buddha) located at a busy junction, one could see people meandering in the streets below.

▪Some people stay on the street, sometimes sitting in a bench or standing by the road, etc.; this is analogous to gandhabbā just waiting for a physical body (i.e., a womb).

▪Sometimes, a person enters a house and stays there for a long time; this is comparable to a gandhabba in a physical body for a long time, i.e., until old age.

▪Other times, a person may enter a house and come out after a few hours. That is comparable to death at a young age.

▪Also, a person could enter a house and immediately come out. That corresponds to abortion or an unsuccessful pregnancy.

14. Thus, the pubbe nivāsānussati ñāṇa is limited to looking at past human lives. That is an excellent example that the Buddha clearly stated the concept of the gandhabba. The cutupapāda ñāṇa extends the capability to see all previous rebirths in any realm.

▪In the Tirokudda Sutta, the gandhabba is called a “tirokudda”; see, “Hidden World of the Gandhabba: Netherworld (Paraloka).”

Change of Bhava

15. If a human dies at the end of the kammic energy for the human bhava, then the cuti-paṭisandhi transition happens at the death moment. In the specific example of a human to deer transition, now a “deer gandhabba” comes out of that dead body and has to wait for a matching “deer womb” to become available.

▪However, if the human was to become a deva, then a fully formed deva will appear instantaneously in a deva realm, the moment the human dies in a kammakkhaya maraṇa. A gandhabba is involved only in human and animal realms; see, “Gandhabba – Only in Human and Animal Realms.”

Connection to Astral Travel

16. Another interesting piece of information is how the Buddha (and others with iddhi powers [bala]) traveled to deva or Brahma loka with the manomaya kāya (the same as gandhabba.) Here, the physical body is left behind. Yet, the physical body does not die, and is kept alive by the rūpa jivitindriya (kammic energy.) Upon returning, the gandhabba can re-enter the physical body.

▪Those who attain the fourth jhāna can develop iddhi powers to be able to separate the manomaya kāya from the physical body and travel far with that manomaya kāya. The Buddha stated that just as a sword comes out of its sheath, those with iddhi powers can pull the manomaya kāya out of the physical body. There are many suttā in the Dīgha Nikāya with that exact statement.

▪That manomaya kāya can then go to distant places within very short times (this is what is called “astral travel” in the present day; see the Wikipedia article, “WebLink: Wiki: Astral projection.” A gandhabba is the same as an “astral body.”

▪In many suttā, it is stated that the Buddha visited deva or Brahma lokā “within the time that takes a bent arm to be straightened.”

▪Some yogis with iddhi powers can travel with the physical body. Of course, the Buddha did that too. That involves a different mechanism that is not relevant to this discussion.

17. If you have any other questions or unresolved issues about this discussion, please send me a comment (lal@puredhamma.net) or post at the discussion forum. I can add to the post to address such questions.