paññatti
Concept, designation
[ pun-NUT-tee ]
literally: what is made known
Seeing it in life
Paññatti are conventional constructs the mind imposes on experience: person, chariot, time, direction. They have no own-nature (sabhāva) and are contrasted with paramattha-dhamma.
In short
Conceptual reality — names and ideas, not ultimately real.
The analysis
Paññatti are conventional constructs the mind imposes on experience — person, chariot, time, direction, and every proper name and category, useful and often necessary for communication and planning, but lacking own-nature (sabhāva) the way the four paramattha do. A chariot, examined closely, resolves into wheels, axle, frame — no single 'chariot-essence' is findable apart from the parts conventionally so labelled; the same analysis applies, in the tradition's use, to the conventional 'person.'
Where it sits
Paññatti is contrasted directly with paramattha, the four ultimate realities — every other entry in this dictionary describing a specific citta, cetasika, or rūpa sits at the paramattha level; paññatti is the different, conventional level at which ordinary language and planning operate.
'My business' is paññatti — a convenient label built from years of citta-moments, decisions, and transactions, useful for planning and speech, but not itself a findable, solid thing when examined at the paramattha level of what's actually, presently arising.
Commonly mistaken for
A claim that conventional things are illusory or false. Paññatti isn't false; it's a different, conventional level of description, necessary and often accurate for its own purposes.
The same as paramattha, just described differently. They're categorically distinct — paramattha has own-nature independent of designation, paññatti does not.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha VIII; Puggalapaññatti.
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