The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1803 page)

 
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(P
li; Skt.,
prat
tya-sa-mutp
da
). A key concept in Buddhism, variously translated—e.g. ‘dependent origination’, ‘conditioned genesis’, ‘interconnected arising’, ‘causal nexus’. It states that all physical and mental manifestations which constitute individual appearances are interdependent and condition or affect one another, in a constant process of arising (
samudaya
) and ceasing to be (
nirodha
). The analysis is laid out in, e.g.,
Sa
yutta Nik
ya
2. 1–133 and
D
gha Nik
ya
2. 55–71. The ‘knitting-together’ which constructs appearances and activities in the realm of
sams
ra
is the twelve-link (
nid
na
) chain of paticca-samupp
da, which leads inevitably to entanglement and
dukkha
(the cessation of dukkha being the unravelling of the chain in reverse order):

(i) ignorance,
avidy
leads to
(ii) constructing activities,
samsk
ra
, to
(iii) consciousness leading into another appearance/birth,
vijñ
na
, to
(iv) 
n
ma-r
pa
, name and form of a new appearance, to
(v) the sense awareness of the six object realms, to
(vi) contact with those environments, to
(vii) sensation and feeling,
vedan
(see
SKANDHA
), to
(viii) craving,
t
a
, to
(ix) clinging on to life and further life in a new womb,
up
d
na
, to
(x) further becoming and appearance,
bh
va
, to
(xi) birth,
j
ti
, to
(xii) old age, senility, and death.