4  Some Schools of Mainstream Buddhist Thought

Sarvāstivāda/Vaibhāṣika

As with Theravāda, there is a complete Sarvāstivāda Canon with a Sarvāstivāda Vinaya and a Sarvāstivāda ordination lineage to go with it. But the name ‘Sarvāstivāda’ means ‘the doctrine (vāda) that all (sarva) exist (asti)’, and holding this ‘doctrine that all exist’, whatever that involves, is not the same as being ordained into the Sarvāstivāda lineage. To repeat: if a monk is ordained in a particular ordination lineage, that is, he is ordained according to a particular monastic code (Vinaya), it does not follow from this fact alone that the monk concerned holds a particular philosophical or doctrinal position. Thus there could be a Sarvāstivāda monk, for example, a monk ordained according to the Sarvāstivāda Vinaya, who does not hold to the characteristic doctrine known as Sarvāstivāda, ‘the doctrine (vāda) that all (sarva) exist (asti)’. To hold and defend this doctrine, and other associated doctrines, is to follow Sarvāstivāda as a doctrinal school, and in this book as with other scholarly works nowadays a distinction is drawn in English between a sect (corresponding to a usage of the Pāli term nikāya) – that is, roughly, what we have spoken of as a monastic tradition with its own ordination according to its own monastic code – and a doctrinal school (corresponding to the term vāda). These are different. Clearly it is logically possible to be a Sarvāstivādin (one who follows Sarvāstivāda) monk by ordination without being a Sarvastivādin by doctrine, and vice-versa. The association between a Sarvāstivāda ordination lineage and Sarvāstivāda doctrines is a contingent one, although in practice it may well have turned out to be the case that they were often associated in those monks (no doubt the minority) who were particularly interested in the refinements of doctrinal study. But not all the great doctrinal schools of Buddhism (traditionally there is said to have been 18 doctrinal schools related to non-Mahāyāna Buddhism) had Vinayas and distinctive monastic codes associated with them. As far as we know, for example, ‘Sautrāntika’ is only a doctrinal school. Thus there could easily have been a Sarvāstivādin monk, i.e. one ordained according to the Sarvāstivāda Vinaya, holding Sautrāntika views. And, as we have seen, Mahāyāna as such is neither a Vinaya tradition nor a doctrinal school. It is rather a vision or aspiration, and an understanding of what the final concern should be for Buddhists who can aspire to it. That final concern should be to obtain perfect Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, and perfect Buddhahood for all is very much superior to simply becoming an Arhat, liberated from one’s own suffering. Thus there would be no contradiction in being a Sarvāstivādin monk holding Sautrāntika doctrinal views and also being a Mahāyānist. The universal association of certain doctrinal schools, notably Mādhyamika and Yogācāra, with Mahāyāna is again a contingent matter not one of necessary connection, notwithstanding the fact that the founders and all the great teachers associated with these Mādhyamika and Yogācāra doctrinal positions do indeed appear to have held the Mahāyāna vision as well.

In this chapter I want to outline briefly some of the more significant positions associated with doctrinal schools not historically connected directly with Mahāyāna. The ‘doctrine that all exist’ was indeed so important to Sarvāstivāda as a doctrinal school that it became a name for the school. But from the time of the composition of the ‘Great Commentary’ (Mahāvibhāṣā) in the second century CE perhaps the expression Vaibhāṣika (‘Following the Commentary’) was the more formal name for the school.1 Among the geographical areas associated with Sarvāstivāda, northwest India (such as Kashmir) was particularly important both in doctrinal terms and also for its influence on Afghanistan, Central Asia and thence China.

The Sarvāstivāda appears to have had an especial interest in ontological issues. This interest should be seen as an understandable response to the basic Buddhist concern with the ontology of the Self, and with seeing things the way they really are. These are essentially ontological issues, and in its concern with ontology Sarvāstivāda is quintessentially Buddhist. We have seen already that Sarvāstivāda drew a systematic distinction between the way dharmas exist, and the way composite entities that are constructions out of dharmas exist. The former are ‘primary existents’ (dravyasat), and those composite entities constructed out of primary existents are ‘secondary’ or ‘conceptual existents’ (prajñaptisat). Both truly exist, although in different ways. The ‘doctrine that all exist’ concerns serious and perennial philosophical issues arising out of apparent paradoxes when referring to non-existence, specifically here past and future dharmas.2 If a dharma is impermanent, and ceases soon after its arising, how can something which has ceased and is thus apparently non-existent do anything? How can it serve as the object of cognition (as in the case of memory), and how can it bring about an effect (as in the case of karma)? Moreover the same could be said about future dharmas. How can they serve as the objects of cognition or action, as occurs in anticipation and motivated activity? In consideration of all this, the Sarvāstivādin response was that past and future dharmas, while clearly not existing in the same way as the momentary present dharmas, must nevertheless still exist. Something simply non-existent could not serve as a cognitive (an ‘intentional’) referent, nor could it bring about an effect, as in the case of pain now occurring due to wicked deeds done in the past. Thus the ‘doctrine that all exist’ is specifically the doctrine that if a dharma is a future, a present, or a past dharma it nevertheless still exists.3

The idea that dharmas exist when future, present, and past was felt by rival doctrinal schools (notably Sautrāntika) to sail very close to an entailment that dharmas must actually be permanent.4 This need not follow, however, providing one distinguishes sufficiently adequately existing as past and future from existing as present. We find a number of attempts to do this even prior to the Mahāvibhāṣā, and detailed in that text with priority given to an explanation by a certain Vasumitra. For the Sarvāstivādin it was felt to be clear, as Saṃghabhadra (late fourth or early fifth century CE?) pointed out, that past and future dharmas cannot possibly be absolutely non-existent. They are not non-existent in the way that (to use a common Indian example) the son of a barren woman is simply non-existent (i.e. there can be no such thing, and one could not even imagine such a thing). Indeed anything that can be a cognitive referent must exist in some sense. But in order to distinguish between existing simply in the way past and future dharmas do, and existing as present (and of course in that respect impermanent) dharmas do, the Sarvāstivādin brought into play the notion of the ‘intrinsic nature’ (svabhāva) of a dharma. The intrinsic nature, as we have seen, is possessed by each dharma inasmuch as it is a dharma and not a conceptual construct. Its intrinsic nature is what makes each dharma an individual unique thing. It was easy to slide from this to the intrinsic nature as the ‘what-it-is-ness’ of the dharma, and thereby what is referred to every time one speaks of that dharma. Thus the Sarvāstivādin wants to say past and future dharmas exist simply in the mode of their intrinsic nature (sasvabhāvamātra). That is, each past and future dharma exists as its ‘what-it-is-ness’, and it is this that enables one to cognise and to speak about it. This sort of existence is always possessed by a dharma of that type. It is atemporal and is what makes the dharma the dharma it is. In the case of dharmas it enables us to talk in abstract, divorced from particular instances, about dharmas. Thus we can speak of dharmas as ‘not further analysable’, for example, and we can classify them into a list of types of dharmas. It is what we might call ‘intentional existence’. It is the sort of existence anything has solely inasmuch as it is an object of language and cognition. The Sarvāstivādin wants to suggest that because a past dharma has this sort of existence there is also no longer any paradox in a result occurring of something that is past and otherwise non-existent. But in addition to existing this way, present dharmas also have their characteristic activity (sakāritra). That is, a present dharma does what that dharma does, as this is understood in the Abhidharma. The dharma’s not yet doing what it does is what makes it a future dharma. Its doing what it does when the appropriate causes and conditions come together makes it a present dharma, and its ceasing to do what it does when the causes and conditions cease is what renders it a past dharma. This ‘doing-what-it-does’ is instantaneous or quasi-instantaneous, momentary. Thus any dharma’s being present is momentary. This is fully temporal, and since we live in time and the occurrence (i.e. being present) of a dharma in time is momentary, momentariness is preserved.5

A further interesting dimension of Sarvāstivāda thought worth noting in passing is its analysis of causation itself. This is because, in a way that shows remarkable philosophical flexibility and adventurousness, the Sarvāstivādin has no objection to the simultaneity of cause and effect, and is even willing to entertain the possibility that the cause may occur after the effect. Sarvāstivāda speaks of six types of causes (hetu) and four types of conditions (pratyaya, see Hirakawa 1990: 179–84). The first type of cause is the kāraṇahetu, the ‘efficient cause’. This consists of every other dharma apart from the dharma that is the effect itself, inasmuch as every dharma either contributes directly towards bringing about a further dharma (the cause as an ‘empowered’) or does not hinder its production (the cause as a ‘powerless’ kāraṇahetu). Thus all things are one way or another linked into the mesh of cause and effect. Here the class of kāraṇahetu is specifically said to incorporate causes that can be either prior to or simultaneous with the effect (Saṃghabhadra, in Potter 1999: 704). Simultaneity is even more obvious in the case of the ‘simultaneous cause’ (sahabhūhetu), which occurs where dharmas arise in a simultaneous relationship of mutual cause and effect. Thus, for example, since in a particular composite mental event (like perceiving a strawberry) consciousness and its mental associates arise together, if the consciousness occurs the mental associates must occur, and if the mental associates occur the consciousness must occur. If either consciousness or any of the mental associates is missing here, the others as parts of this composite mental event could not occur.6 Therefore they are here all mutually and simultaneously cause and effect. The ‘homogeneous cause’ (sabhāgahetu), on the other hand, referring to cases of sequential concordance between causes and effects, must obviously be prior to its effect. Thus, for example, prior good causes give rise to subsequent good effects, prior bad causes to subsequent bad effects.7 The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (2: 52) considers also the possibility that the cause could occur chronologically after the effect, with support cited both for and against from the central Sarvāstivādin canonical Abhidharma text, the Jñānaprasthāna. The Kośabhāṣya itself rejects this possibility, but throughout this text its author Vasubandhu frequently rejects even established Sarvāstivādin positions in a way which shows his considerable sympathy with Sautrāntika.8 From a Sautrāntika perspective it is axiomatic that the cause must precede its effect.

A unique Sarvāstivādin doctrine, and once more a topic of intense debate with others, is that of ‘possession’ or ‘ownership’ (prāpti). Supposing I have an intense wicked intention. That wicked intention is an unwholesome karma, which will no doubt eventually produce suffering for me. But the intention itself is impermanent. When it has ceased (in Sarvāstivādin terms, passed from present into past) what entails that its karmic result will occur in the future to a future stage of the same psychophysical continuum in which the original intention occurred? In other words, in imprecise everyday terms, given the Buddhist stress on complete impermanence what ensures that the karmic result of my wicked intention will occur to me (albeit perhaps my reincarnation)? In the future all the factors that make up ‘me’ will be completely different, even though causally linked, to the factors that make up ‘me’ now. The answer the Sarvāstivādin wants to say is that when the original intention occurred it was mine. That is, in addition to the intention itself there was a further dharma called ‘possession’, prāpti, occurring in the series. The intention ‘ceased’ (i.e., for the Sarvāstivādin, passed into ‘past-mode’). As an impermanent dharma, so did the prāpti. But the prāpti generated another prāpti, this time the possession of ‘having had that wicked intention’. This prāpti too is an impermanent dharma. On its cessation it too generates another similar possession. Thus as a result of the original wicked intention part of my psychophysical continuum consists of an ongoing stream of prāptis: ‘having had that wicked intention’. Eventually, when the conditions are right, a suffering as the karmic result of that original intention will occur. The original intention still exists in past-mode. And the suffering will occur in the psychophysical continuum which has the prāpti-series ‘having had that wicked intention’, not in another one. In the imprecise everyday terms used above, the karmic result will occur to me because I am the one who has the prāpti-series – I am the one who possessed the original intention, not someone else.9 Similarly, an unenlightened being has a possession of the negative taints (passions/defilements). Thus even when these taints are not actually operative in an unenlightened person, he or she is still not equivalent to an enlightened person, since the unenlightened person still has a possession of the negative taints. But in the case of an enlightened person not only has the possession of negative taints been completely disconnected, there is also a different dharma present, called ‘non-possession’ (aprāpti), which keeps the negative taints from ever occurring again.10 Both prāpti and aprāpti were simply rejected as unnecessary – indeed a rather absurd reification of abstract qualities into fundamentally existent dharmas – by rival schools like Sautrāntika.

Sautrāntika11

It is said that the name ‘Sautrāntika’ refers to ‘those who take the sūtras as valid authority (pramāṇa), rather than later treatises (Śāstras)’ – where ‘later treatises’ means the Abhidharma (Yaśomitra, in Cox 1995: 39, 50). It is not clear how early this term came to be used for the group, or how it relates to another expression ‘Dārṣṭāntika’, ‘those who utilise the method of examples’. According to the Japanese scholar Junshō Katō (in Cox 1995, pp. 38–9), Dārṣṭāntika may have been an expression originally used for the followers of Sautrāntika by their opponents, while ‘Sautrāntika’ was their own name for themselves. As we have seen already, there is no Sautrāntika ordination lineage. Monks who described themselves as ‘Sautrāntika’ were frequently perhaps ordained according to the Sarvāstivāda rite. Their Sautrāntika affiliation indicated a particular stance in rarified doctrinal discussion and debate. They were suspicious of the claim of the Abhidharma Piṭaka to be the word of the Buddha, and while in fact sharing much in common with their approach they were even more suspicious of the philosophising of certain later Abhidharma scholars. As Collett Cox puts it (drawing on the work of Katō):

[It] is best not to construe the appellation ‘Sautrāntika’ as entailing either a distinct ordination lineage or a defined set of doctrinal positions. Instead, it indicates a reliance only upon the Buddha’s verified teaching in the sūtras that ensures consistency with correct principle in contrast to the faulty reasoning that it is assumed undermines Abhidharma treatises. Doctrinally, the Sautrāntika perspective can be characterised only by a rejection of the definitive Sarvāstivādin position that factors [dharmas] exist in the three time periods. Therefore the appellation ‘Sautrāntika’ could have been used to encompass a broad range of individual opinions that conform to these general guidelines, rather than to a defined and delimited set of doctrinal opinions.

(Cox 1995: 40)

The presence of scholars favouring Sautrāntika shows the vitality and vigour of philosophical debate within the Buddhist tradition. Doctrinal positions were not identical with ordination lineages, and within one monastic group no doubt in the same monastery there could be radical disagreement and discussion concerning doctrinal issues within the context of a common rule of conduct. Followers of Sautrāntika rejected the existence of dharmas in the three time periods, which they saw as necessarily implying the permanence of dharmas. Actually only the present dharma exists. The past dharma did exist, and the future dharma (assuming the appropriate conditions come together) will exist. But only the present dharma actually exists (see Abhidharmakośa 5: 25 ff.). The Sautrāntika took from the Sarvāstivāda, however, the idea that the present stage of a dharma lies in the dharma’s exerting its characteristic activity, its ‘doing what that dharma does’. Thus exerting its activity now becomes the mark not of the present stage of the dharma as such, but its very existence. To be in fact is to exert activity. But it follows from this that a dharma cannot be something that remains for some time and then exerts its activity. If hypothetically it existed for some time before acting then in the moments during which the dharma is not acting it actually could not exist, since to be is to act. Likewise if the dharma hypothetically existed for some time after exerting its activity then during those moments too it could not actually exist. Thus the dharma must exist only in the moment (kṣaṇa) in which it exerts its activity. And that moment cannot itself have any time span, since if the moment had a time span then there would be the first moment of a moment, the second moment of a moment, and so on. If that were the case, then there would be the question of whether the dharma exerted its activity in the first moment of the moment, or in a subsequent moment of the moment. Whatever the answer, it would follow that the dharma actually existed in only one moment of the moment. And this process could be traced to infinity, unless one adopted the position that the temporal moment is not itself divisible into further moments. Thus the moment in which a dharma acts, in which existence occurs, has no time span beyond itself. It is absolutely instantaneous, so short that it can only be said to mark the infinitely short time-difference between the non-existence before its existence, and the non-existence after its existence. To be is to cease. Cessation is the very nature of being, and is said to occur to a dharma through its very nature as existing. We are here stretching the bounds of language. The existence of a dharma is so short in time that perhaps we can no longer speak of it in terms of ‘being’ at all. Life can best be viewed as an ever-flowing process, and all talk of things, of beings, is merely practical convenience that can easily mislead and engender attachment and consequential suffering.

The epistemology of all of this was particularly considered by the philosophers Diṅnāga (fifth or sixth century CE) and Dharmakīrti (seventh century), although it is not clear what the relationship was between their views and the Sautrāntika of, say, Vasubandhu in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. If what actually exists endures for an infinitely small period of time before ceasing, then it follows that we never really see what we think we see. By the time we have seen something, in any normal sense of ‘seeing’, that thing has ceased to exist. According to Diṅnāga, (Pramāṇasamuccaya 1) only the very first moment of a veridical perceptual act apprehends what is actually there, the dharma. This first moment is thus referred to as ‘without construction’ (nirvikalpa). The subsequent moments of what we normally call a ‘perception’ bring about the construction of a ‘thing seen’, which as we understand it is of course not a momentary entity at all. We say we see a table, and a table is not a momentary entity but rather exists through time. These subsequent stages of perception are called ‘with construction’ (savikalpa). Since, however, non-momentary entities do not actually exist these subsequent stages embody a process of falsification through linguistic and conceptual reification, associating the actual momentary real (known as the svalakṣaṇa, ‘that which is self-characterising’) with a non-momentary recurrently instantiated universal (sāmānya) which as something non-momentary cannot really exist at all. Thus what we think we see is actually a constructed image, as such a fiction, and by the time the image (ākāra) has been fully constructed the original dharma has long ceased.12

Followers of Sautrāntika utterly rejected the Sarvāstivādin theory of prāpti, possession, along with the idea that a past dharma is able to cause its effect because the past dharma still exists as past. According to the Sautrāntika theory, what actually happens in the case of karma and its effect is that when e.g. a wicked intention occurs the subsequent psychological continuum or series (saṃtāna) of the person who has that intention is no longer what it was. It is directly modified, and each moment of that series now bears the modification (perhaps analogous to a genetic imprint). The last moment of the series qua modified series has a special capacity to produce the effect. Thus the effect is the direct result of the preceding moment of the modified series, which is a result of the previous moment, and so on back to the original unwholesome intention which brought about the modification. The images used to explain this process are of a ‘seed’ and ‘perfuming’. Thus the unwholesome intention is said to have deposited a seed in the mental continuum, the nature of which is to transform until it issues in a shoot and then a flower, the result. The existence of a flower is the result of a process of transformation from the seed. Lest we are misled by this image to think of the modification of the continuum as itself an additional dharma, it is said that the influence of the unwholesome intention is like perfuming – there is no additional thing, but the series is now imbued with a different fragrance. It is not obvious however that the ‘seeds’ and the perfuming could actually be there in the normal everyday level of consciousness (they are not constantly experienced as such). So some Sautrāntikas put forward the suggestion that there is a subtle level of consciousness in which this occurs. That subtle consciousness continues through the lifetimes up until its destruction at nirvāṇa. It is held to contain not just the seeds laid down by our intentions but also seeds for the emergence of the whole phenomenal world, implicated as it is in mental construction. Possibly too there are even innate seeds for wholesome activity. These theories contributed to the Yogācāra doctrine of the ‘substratum consciousness’ (ālayavijñāna; see later).

Finally, as we have seen, the Sarvāstivāda speaks of three unconditioned dharmas. The most important of these is nirvāṇa itself. As dharmas these bear primary or fundamental existence (they are dravyas). Followers of Sautrāntika refused to accept with Sarvāstivāda that any of these unconditioned dharmas are entities, or actual existents (bhāva). They are really just ways of talking about negations. Nirvāṇa is not a positive thing, but a simple negation, a non-existent (abhāva), the simple cessation and therefore non-existence of greed, hatred and delusion, suffering, and all the factors of saṃsāra.

Theravāda

It is normal in introductory works on Buddhism to equate Theravāda with the Buddhism of the canon which it now claims as its own, the Pāli Canon. Since for convenience and historical reasons the Pāli Canon is usually the source employed for outlining ‘basic’ and therefore presumably earliest Buddhism, it is often not properly appreciated that the Theravāda is actually both a monastic (Vinaya) tradition (i.e. a sect) and has effectively become a doctrinal school in just the same way as Sarvāstivāda. Both Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda considered themselves to be simply explicating and defending the original Buddhism of the Buddha. Both claim great antiquity, and both were nevertheless sects and schools that developed in a complex way over many centuries.13 As such both had a very great deal in common, but also doctrinal differences between themselves and with other schools. As does Sarvāstivāda, the Theravāda as a doctrinal school relies extensively on its own exegetical works, such as the Milindapañha (‘Questions of [King] Milinda’), their commentaries to e.g. the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, and particularly the great Visuddhimagga (‘Path of Purity’) of Buddhaghosa. The Theravāda also contains among the texts in its Abhidhamma Piṭaka one work, the Kathāvatthu (‘Points of Controversy’) which set out to combat other views and thus position itself as a doctrinal school in opposition to its rivals.

According to (a historically problematic) tradition, doctrinal divisions occurred between Sarvāstivāda and a group who may possibly have been known in Sanskrit as ‘Sthaviravāda’ (‘the Doctrine of the Elders’) over the issue of the existence of dharmas in the three time periods. We are told that the Sthaviravādins declared themselves to be ‘Distinctionists’ (Sanskrit: Vibhajjavādins; Pāli: Vibhajjavādins). They accepted that dharmas exist in the present but denied that they exist in the future. As regards the past, the Distinctionists wished to make a distinction between a wholesome or unwholesome intention that has already issued its karmic fruit, which could no longer be said to exist, and that which has not issued its fruit, which must be held still to exist. The name ‘Sthaviravāda’ is in Pāli ‘Theravāda’, and Theravādins nowadays are indeed happy also to be called ‘Vibhajjavādins’. In spite of this, however, the Theravādins clearly cannot actually be identical in any straightforward sense with the Sthaviravādins of this ancient dispute at least regarding the issue of dharmas and time since it appears the traditional Theravādin position on dharmas in the three time periods is that only the present dharma exists (see Kathāvatthu 1: 6).14

A unique Theravādin doctrine is that of the bhavaṅga. The bhavaṅga is an inactive level of mind that is still present when no overt mental activity is occurring, as in the case of so-called ‘unconsciousness’, or deep sleep. When e.g. a visual perception occurs, the mind emerges from the state of bhavaṅga and ‘adverts’ to the visual object, taking its part in a complex process of experiencing, receiving the data, and perhaps investigating the object, determining it, grasping, it, and identifying it. But the Theravāda view is that at the end of each process of consciousness the mind returns to the state of bhavaṅga, no matter how short that return may be. The bhavaṅga is also the level of mind that makes the link between a dying person and the rebirth. When the causal link occurs, and consciousness first arises in the embryo in the womb, that consciousness is the bhavaṅga, determined by the karmic forces of previous lives. The link between the consciousness of the dying person and that of the rebirth is direct. The doctrinal position of Theravāda is to deny that there is any intermediate state (antarābhava) between death and rebirth, a theory accepted doctrinally by some other Buddhists such as Sarvastivāda and more familiar in the West from its espousal by Tibetans in works like the Bar do thos grol (Bardo thödrol; the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’).15 The particular bhavaṅga is thus the basic level of mind of an individual, linking together all the experiences of a lifetime and making the connection between death and rebirth.

In general the Theravāda appears to have been somewhat less interested than schools like the Sarvāstivāda in issues concerning the ontology of the dhamma. Nevertheless the very nature of the Abhidhamma project necessitated drawing some distinction between entities like cabbages and kings which are constructed out of dhammas, and dhammas themselves which even if the results of causes and conditions are not constructs and thus have their own unshared, unique, existence. This point is reflected in the definition of the dhamma which occurs in post-canonical Pāli texts: ‘Dhammas are so-called because they hold (dhārentī) their intrinsic nature’ (Pāli: sabhāva; Sanskrit: svabhāva). This is of course the same idea that is so central to Sarvāstivāda ontology, even if the Theravāda seems in the main to have had little interest in its implications and development.

Pudgalavāda

The Pudgalavāda, or ‘Doctrine of the Person’ (pudgala) is a notorious doctrine particularly associated with two sects and their offshoots, the Vātsīputrīya and the Sāmmatīya. Unfortunately very little of their texts survives, and most of our knowledge of their unique doctrines comes from attacks by other schools. The Theravādin Kathāvatthu begins with this doctrine, there is an important discussion in the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma work the Vijñānakāya, and a lengthy section of the Abhidharmakośa is also devoted to its criticism. The most-well known surviving Pudgalavāda text is only in Chinese translation, but has been given the Sanskrit title of *Sāṃmitīyanikāya Śāstra. There is also extant in Chinese another Pudgalavādin work given the title of *Tridharmaka Śāstra.16

Scholars often refer to the calculation by the seventh-century Chinese pilgrim to India Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang), that about a quarter of the Buddhist monks in India at that time were followers of the Sāmmatīya (or Sāmmitīya, or Sānmitīya) school (Lamotte 1988: 542–5, 608). As we shall see, the doctrine of the pudgala (Pāli: puggala) appears on the surface to be in tension with the Buddhist espousal of not-Self (anātman). It was strongly opposed by other Buddhist schools. Followers of Pudgalavāda were accused of having all but ceased to be Buddhist. I agree very much with Rupert Gethin (1998: 223), however, when he points out that even if Xuanzang is right in his calculation this may well entail only that the Sāmmatīya was the most widespread and popular Vinaya (ordination) lineage. It need not entail that all the monks so ordained into the Sāmmatīya as a sect held to the actual doctrine of the pudgala. Nevertheless, it seems quite possible that, in spite of the dearth of Pudgalavāda texts, the espousal of its characteristic doctrine was by no means rare among Buddhists in ancient India.

Lance Cousins (1994: 22) has suggested that the earliest source for the Pudgalavāda controversy is the Kathāvatthu (third century BCE). This text is quite clear that the Pudgalavādins hold that there exists something called a pudgala (‘person(hood)’) from an ultimate point of view, as a real thing (see Kathāvatthu 1). That is, the pudgala has the status of an additional dharma, an irreducible datum, a primary existent. This contrasts with the position acceptable to other schools, like the Sarvāstivāda, that any personhood, any pudgala, is just a conceptual construct (prajñapti; secondary existent), a name we give for practical purposes to the patterned flow of dharmas explained in terms of the five aggregates. That the Pudgalavādins wished the pudgala to be seen as existing from an ultimate point of view is also confirmed by the later Vijñānakāya (c. second century BCE – first century ce; Potter et al. 1996: 367–70). The issue is complicated, however, by the fact that the Sāṃmit-īyanikāya Śāstra (pre fourth or fifth centuries CE) asserts that the pudgala, while existing and a datum that has to be taken into consideration, is actually a conventional conceptual construct (Potter 1999: 355–7). At perhaps the same time Vasubandhu, in the Abhidharmakośa, portrayed the Pudgalavādins as holding that the existence of the pudgala is neither by way of a primary existent (a dravya) nor by way of a secondary existent (a prajñapti; see Cousins 1994: 18). It is difficult to know given our present state of knowledge exactly what to make of these discrepancies. Perhaps under criticism the Pudgalavādins gradually amended or clarified their position.

Adherents of the pudgala claim that it is neither the same as nor different from the aggregates. If it were the same as the aggregates then the pudgala would be conditioned, and when the aggregates were destroyed the person would be destroyed. This would be annihilationist, and it would also entail that after death the Tathāgata certainly could not be said to exist. In that case why did the Buddha refuse to answer the question concerning whether or not the Tathāgata exists after death? On the other hand if the pudgala were different from the aggregates it would be unconditioned, in fact a Self like the ātman, and subject to all the Buddhist criticisms of the concept of a Self. This would be to fall into the great mistake of eternalism. Thus the pudgala is neither identical to nor different from the aggregates, and neither conditioned nor unconditioned. In fact, it is said to be ‘indefinable’ (avaktavya). The pudgala is the subject of experiences, the doer of wholesome and unwholesome deeds, the one that undergoes karmic results, and the pudgala is also said to be what transmigrates. It is the pudgala that attains nirvāṇa. Unsurprisingly opponents felt that this is in fact the ātman in another guise. The so-called pudgala necessarily must be reducible to the dharmas which make up the aggregates – in which case the Pudgalavādins would hold the same view as other Buddhists – or must be a separate reality, in which case the Pudgalavādins would hold the ātman position of brahmanic Hindus.

And yet it seems to me that the Pudgalavādins were wrestling with genuine philosophical problems here, and their position is perhaps subtler than it is often portrayed. The Vātsīputrīya-Sāmmitīya tradition may have had a particular interest in Vinaya matters, in which case their concern with personhood could have been significant in terms of an interest in moral responsibility. It is indeed persons who engage in moral acts, and attain enlightenment. For moral responsibility there has to be some sense in which the same person receives reward or punishment as the one who did the original deed. It is persons who have experiences of love and hate. All this, as Pudgalavāda sources make clear, has to be taken as given. The question is what is the status of personhood? It is arguable (as has the modern philosopher P.F. Strawson (1959)) that personhood is an irreducible datum, and cannot be explained away in terms of constructions out of arms, legs, feelings, intentions, and so on, or a series of ever-changing mental and physical moments. Such constructions presuppose the existence of persons. And it is also arguable that if we cannot say the same person is reborn, or the same person attains nirvāṇa, there would be no point in considering rebirth or the spiritual path. If all this is correct then personhood would not be reducible to the aggregates. And yet it is also clear that it makes no sense to think of personhood as a separate real thing, as if it could float free from the living being of arms, legs, feelings, and so on. Personhood is a different logical category from arms and legs. If we were to take a living human being, or a tree, apart we would not find personhood, or treeness, as an additional component. Thus it seems to me it might make sense to speak of an irreducible datum which is neither the same as nor different from the constituents.17

Possibly it was something like this that the Pudgalavādins were thinking of (through a glass darkly) when they started by speaking of the pudgala as a reality, existing from the ultimate (i.e. irreducible) point of view, before switching to speaking of the pudgala as conceptualised in dependence upon the aggregates. The Pudgalavādins were constrained almost to the point of absurdity by the language of Buddhist thought. The pudgala in itself, personhood in itself, cannot be spoken of. One can only speak of personhood in dependence upon living beings, beings with e.g. arms, legs, feelings and so on, even if personhood is not reducible to arms, legs, feelings and so on. Thus personhood in itself is indeed indefinable, it is sui generis, and personhood can be spoken of, conceptualised in dependence upon the aggregates, without this making personhood a conceptual construction (prajñapti) in the way in which this is understood by other Buddhist schools, reducible to the aggregates. Yet personhood is also not a separate reality (dravya) capable of being encountered apart from the aggregates. Personhood is not itself a conditioned thing in the way that e.g. the human body is, and for the Pudgalavādin personhood continues from life to life and into enlightenment. Nevertheless personhood also could not be an unconditioned dharma or an ātman. For personhood is (possessed by) this person, Archibald or Freda, and it is the person Archibald who marries the person Freda, not some separate eternal reality marrying some separate eternal reality.

The Pudgalavādins found puzzlement and problems where their fellow Buddhists found clarity and simplicity. The problem with unclarity and puzzlement is that it can often seem absurd. But some absurdity, some puzzlement, may be healthy and may be profounder than it seems.

Mahāsāṃghikas18

The most well known Mahāsāṃghika doctrine is that of the ‘supramundane nature of the Buddha’, and the Mahāsaṃghika ‘supramundane doctrine’ (lokottaravāda) appears to be characteristic of the school and perhaps also of the Mahāsāṃghikas as a sect or group of sects. Indeed the Mahāsāṃghikas split into a number of sub-groups, one of which is known specifically as the Lokottaravādins. A single text of this school survives in Sanskrit, the Mahāvastu (the ‘Great Affair’), which describes itself as the Vinaya of the Lokottaravādin sub-school (or was it then a (sub-)sect?) of the Mahāṃsāghikas. The supramundane doctrine itself is found expressed in only a small section of this text, however. Stated briefly, the doctrine asserts that all the actions of the Buddha which appear worldly (laukika), to be the same actions that ordinary people engage in, are in reality extra-ordinary, ‘supramundane’ (lokottara).

All Buddhist traditions agree that once a person has become a Buddha he is radically transformed and no longer the same as an ordinary person. Thus the Buddha has various miraculous powers not possessed by ordinary people, he has the 112 marks of a superior person (mahāpuruṣa), his skin is capable of glowing with a golden hue, and he is even said to be able to live for an aeon if he so wishes. A Buddha, as such, is said to be just that – neither a man nor a god, but a Buddha. There is a saying attributed to the Buddha preserved in the Pāli Canon to the effect that though the Buddha was born in the world, he was not tainted by it (see Kathāvatthu 18: 1). Perhaps it was sayings such as this which suggested to the Mahāsāṃghikas that although he appeared to need to eat, sleep, bathe, undergo the effects of karma, take medicine, get old, and so on, in reality the Buddha was not subject to any of these needs. The Buddha had actually gone beyond all these needs, and did all these things simply in order to conform to the way of things in the world. He appeared to be like the rest of us, but inside he was really quite different. Actually Buddhas do not experience hunger, tiredness, dirt on their bodies, illness, or any of the other taints of ordinary life. Actually, although Buddhas appear to be sleeping or teaching, walking or talking, really they are in constant meditation. That is, a Buddha is not laukika (worldly, from Sanskrit loka, world). He is lokottara. The word lokottara, literally ‘beyond the world’, supramundane, is an expression used throughout Buddhism in the context of enlightenment, the higher reaches of the path to enlightenment, and enlightened beings. To say a Buddha is lokottara is to say that he is not laukika, that is, he is not unliberated, he really is enlightened. This would be acceptable to all Buddhists. And what a wonderful, almost inconceivable, thing it is to be enlightened. What the Mahāsāṃghikas are doing is giving a specific gloss on what the implications of this supramundane status are. That gloss stretches language and our expectations in admiration and wonder.

Sometimes modern books suggest that the Mahāsāṃghika doctrine is that the Buddha was actually an illusory being, a mere appearance, or a fictitious being, a ‘magical emanation’ perhaps from some transcendent Buddha who is really on another plane. This is, I think, a misreading of the meaning of lokottara here, and is not the doctrine of the Mahāsāṃghikas in the Mahāvastu.19 There is no suggestion in the Mahāvastu that the being who was to become the Buddha was not actually born in this world, and did not actually become enlightened here. His birth is indeed accompanied by many marvels, but that is only to be expected in the case of one who had just completed many aeons of progressively more extraordinary spiritual cultivation. What is illusory or fictitious about a Buddha, according to the Mahāsāṃghikas, is not his body as such, but his being subject to the normal human needs of food, sleep, washing and so on. In other words, the illusion of the Buddha is the illusion of an extraordinary being appearing to be ordinary. And, crucially, there is no suggestion in non-Mahāyāna sources like the Mahāvastu that the Buddha did not die when he appeared to die. Much about his life may have been mere appearance out of conformity to the world. But his death was not.

There is one other doctrine found among some Mahāsāṃghikas that I also want to mention in passing. There is a text known as the Lokānuvartana Sūtra (‘The Discourse concerning Conformity with the World’) which survives in Chinese and Tibetan translation and which also contains strongly expressed the Mahāsāṃghika supramundane teachings. It has been claimed that this sūtra may be one of the sources for the Mahāvastu (Harrison 1982: 224). The Lokānuvartana Sūtra is quoted and described in a later Indian source as a scripture of the Pūrvaśailas, which is known to be one of the sub-groups of the Mahāsāṃghikas. In that sūtra it is stated that all things, including all dharmas, are lacking in fundamental primary existence, intrinsic nature. This doctrine, of the universal emptiness of all things, even dharmas, is often thought of as characteristic of Mahāyāna sources like the Perfection of Wisdom literature and the Mādhyamika. Yet perhaps that is wrong.

Key Points to Chapter Four