Каков точный смысл bhava?

Само слово существование в точности как и bhava подходит ко всем трем вариантам. Естественные языки всегда создают избыточность в применении слов

есть ли смысл искать единственно верный

Кстати, насчет слова существование, оно совершенно не подходит для значения becoming, т.е. становление (формирование).

Другое. Живые языки они такие... У нас вот есть одно слово ключ, со множеством значений, а в других языках многозначность соответствующих слов вполне себе может оказаться другой.

How should it be understood by definition of the functions of its factors?
1. What is the function of ignorance? It deludes beings in regard to existence (bhava) and is also the condition for the formations.
2. What is the function of the formations? They allocate (vibhajanti) beings to the realms of existence (gatiṣu) and are also the condition for the traces of consciousness (vijñānavāsanā).
3. What is the function of consciousness? It supports the connectedness of the actions (karmabandhaṃ cha dhārayati) of beings, and it is also the condition for name and form.
4. What is the function of name and form? It compels beings to take on a self (ātmabhāva), and it is also the condition for the six spheres.
5. What is the function of the six spheres? They compel beings to take on the fullness of a self (ātmabhāvaparipūrim), and they are also the condition for contact.
6. What is the function of contact? It leads beings to the sense pleasures (viṣayopabhoga), and it is also the condition for sensation.
7. What is the function of sensation? It leads beings to the experience of birth (janmopabhaga), and it is also the condition for thirst.
8. What is the function of thirst? It draws beings towards birth (janma), and it is also the condition for grasping.
9. What is the function of grasping? It compels the consciousness of beings to become associated with grasping (sopādāna) in order to take birth again (punarbhavādāna), and it also is the condition for becoming.
10. What is the function of becoming? It directs beings towards a new existence (punarbhava), and it is also the condition for birth.
11. What is the function of birth? It produces beings in the proper order of name and form, six spheres, contact and sensation, and it is also the condition for old age and death.
12. What is the function of old age and death? It wears out beings continually by the decline of age (vayaḥ pariṇāma) and life (jīvitapariṇāma).

How should it be understood by the grouping of its factors?
There are projecting factors (ākṣepakāṅga), projected factors (ākṣiptāṅga), producer factors (abhinirvartakāṅga) and produced factors (abhinirvṛttaṅga).
• Which are the projecting factors? Ignorance, the formations and consciousness.
• Which are the projected factors? Name and form, the six spheres, contact and sensation.
• Which are the producer factors? Thirst, grasping and becoming.
• Which are the produced factors? Birth and old age and death.

How should it be understood by grouping its factors according to their impurity
• Ignorance, thirst and grasping: this is the group of simple impurity (saṃkleśasaṅgraha).
• Formations, consciousness and becoming: this is the group of impurity of actions (karmasaṃkleśasaṅgraha).
• The rest make up the group of impurity of birth (janmasaṃkleśasaṅgraha).

How should it be understood according to its real meaning (artha)?
The real meaning of conditioned production is the fact that there is no creator (niḥkartṛkārtha),
  the fact of causality (sahetukārtha),
  the fact that there is no being (niḥsatvārtha),
  the fact of dependency [relativity] (paratantrārtha),
  the fact that there is no directing mover (nirīhakārtha),
  the fact of impermanence (anityārtha),
  the fact that everything is momentary (kṣaṇikārtha),
  the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of causes and effects (hetuphalaprabandhānu-pacchedārtha),
  the fact that there is a correspondence between cause and effect (anurūpahetuphalārtha),
  the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vichitrahetuphalārtha) and
  the fact of the regularity of causes and effects (pratiniyatahetuphalārtha).

10) bhava (P. bhava)—Here this term should be translated 'impetus' or
'impulse,' or perhaps 'motivation.' Bhava, which sometimes means 'an
existent,' is usually translated in the Pratityasamutpada model as
'becoming,' since it derives from the root BHU, 'to become.'
Becoming, if taken as a bare concept stripped of its philosophical and metaphysical
baggage, conveys the basic sense. Perhaps the best rendering would be "the
Ongoing." Bhava overlaps the notion of active inertia. It signifies the fact
that there is always already something going on. We are impelled to always
take a next breath; atoms are in constant motion; the heart keeps beating;
even the corpse as a bundle of materiality is fully active and engaged in
decompositional transformation; each thought and sensation gives way to a
subsequent thought or sensation.
Everything is driven, moved (motiv-ated) by an impetus into the next moment, constantly. This concrescence of the previous nidanas is never a terminus. It is ongoing, though durational (in
Bergson's sense of the term). As the ongoing duration of types of
activities, bhava may be called 'behavior.' As that which can be said to
always keep the world in motion, it may be called 'motive force.'
However, as our description of the previous nidanas should indicate, this
'force' is understood in Buddhism as primarily psychological—the
implementation of formalized tendencies—and not metaphysical.
For Theravada, liberation from samsara means the 'stopping' of bhava, i.e.,
the cessation of the 'ongoing,' or bringing bhava to rest. As bhavasava, the
isava of craving existence or lust for life, it is one of the subtle, basic
underlying karmic problems that must be overcome in order to Awaken.
One of the most common euphemisms for Awakening in the Pali literature is
'overcoming the asavas' (asavakkhaya). The Buddha and Arhats are called
khanasava, 'one who has overcome or destroyed the asavas.' Thus, bhava cannot
be a perpetual metaphysical condition, but rather something personal (or
intrapersonal) that ceases to continue at the culmination of the marga (method,
path). As the durational instantiation of appropriational modalities, it is always
intentional and hence directional, that is, aimed toward something. This
directionality signals bhava as radically temporal, suggesting that time itself
functions through motives, or that time is nothing other than a way of
measuring the im-pulses. These impulses coalesce as
10) jati

Thus, "embodied conditioning" (#2) is shorthand for 'nescience' (#1)
emerging into consciousness (#3); consciousness is 'embodied conditioning'
instantiating as a sensorial body (#4); the sensorial body is consciousness
channeled into the six sensorial realms (#5); the six sensorial realms are a way
of speaking about a sensorial body experiencing sensory contact (#6); sensory
contact consists of the six sense spheres engaged in pleasurable, painful, or
neutral sensations (#7); vedana is the precipitation of sensory contact as desires
(#8); desire is a euphemism for how pleasurable and painful conditioning
manifests as appropriational activities (#9); Appropriation describes how desire
becomes on-going behavior (#10); the on-going coalesces, giving birth (#11) to
consequences of appropriational trajectories; birth is the on-going leading to its
inevitable conclusion, death (#12).

    And what, bhikkhus, is existence (bhava)? There are these three kinds of existence: sense-sphere existence, form-sphere existence, formless-sphere existence. This is called existence." Because this term, bhava, is often misunderstood I will explain its meaning in further detail. The above classification of existence into three realms is sometimes called the tiloka, the three worlds. The kamaloka are the worlds dominated by the five senses. They are the human realm, the animal realm, the realm of ghosts, the hell realms and the deva realms up to, but not including the brahmaloka. The rupaloka are the silent worlds wherein one exists in the jhana attainments. They begin with the brahmaloka and include several other realms based on higher jhanas. The arupaloka are the worlds of pure mind, wherein one exists in one of the four immaterial attainments. The rupaloka and arupaloka are the jhana experience attained at the moment of death that continues for vast periods of time, transcending cataclysms of universes and counted in, sometimes, thousands of aeons.
   To understand the full meaning of bhava one has to go to the Anguttara Nikaya (3, 76), where Venerable Ananda asks The Buddha, "What is bhava?" The Buddha responds by questioning Ananda: "If there was no kamma ripening in the kamaloka, would there be existence in the realm dominated by the five senses?" He then asks the same about the other two realms: "If there was no kamma ripening in the rupaloka, would there be existence in the rupaloka? If there was no kamma ripening in the arupaloka, would there be existence in the arupaloka?" Accordingly, Ananda replies "certainly not" to each question. The Buddha then further explains: "So, Ananda, you can regard kamma (the actions of body, speech and mind) as the field, you can regard consciousness as the seed, and you can regard craving as the moisture. Thus, for beings who are blinded by ignorance and fettered by craving, there is the establishment of the consciousness in this lower realm, in the hinadhatu (ie. the realms dominated by the five senses), (and so forth for the two higher realms of existence). Thus there is in the future more existence (punabbhava), rebirth (abhinibbatti)". Here The Buddha was giving the simile of plants growing, with kamma as the field, and consciousness as the seed, which is fed by the moisture of craving to explain how bhava is a cause for rebirth (jati). [1]

Dependent Origination presents two sequences that generate rebirth:
   1) delusion (avijja) + kamma the stream of consciousness beginning at rebirth (vina).
   2) craving (tanha) + fuel (updna) existence (bhava) + rebirth into that existence (jti).
These are parallel processes. They describe the same operation viewed from two different angles.

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