FOR SARVAASTIVAADA
By David Bastow
Philosophy East and West
Volume 44, Number 3(July 1994)
P.489-499
(C) by University of Hawaii Press
P.489
I
The Sarvaastivaadins believed that there is a
sense in which basic entities, dharmas, of the past
and future are real, that is, are real now. Dharmas
are short-lived or momentary happenings. The
Sarvaastivaadins claimed that the present happening
of a dharma is merely one phase in its existence.
Hitherto it has existed in its future phase; when
causes and conditions are ripe, it moves into its
present phase, and then when the moment of its
actualization is past it moves into the third phase
of its history and becomes a past dharma. So at the
present moment there exist not only present dharmas,
that is, dharmas in their present phase (bhaaba),
but also dharmas in their past and future phases.
The experienced difference between these three modes
of present existence is explained by a complex
theory of different types of causal efficacy; the
present bhaava is characterized by a particularly
strong kind of causality called kaaritra; dharmas in
past and future bhaabas are also causally
efficacious, but in a different way. So, in this
sense, past, present, and future dharmas are
contemporaneous; but it is a 'reduced
contemporaneity', for dharmas in past and future
phases are less forceful than dharmas in the present
phase. This doctrine was in direct opposition to the
opinion of the Sthaviras and the Sautraantikas, that
before its present moment of existence a dharma was
nothing, and after this moment it will become
nothing (abhuutvaa bhavati, bhutvaa ca
prativigacchati).(1)
Why did the Sarvaastivaadins hold their peculiar
view about the real existence of past and future?
This question expresses two linked types of
puzzlement: to the philosopher the Sarvaasti
position may well seem inherently implausible, even
bizarre; and the historian of Buddhist thought may
find it difficult to understand why the matter
should have been of any special concern to
Buddhists. Why as Buddhists should the Sarvaasti
philosophers have been concerned to assert the
present existence of past and future dharmas? While
I am addressing the question of the Buddhist
importance of the theory, I am also, especially in
the final section, concerned with the more general
philosophical question. A first step in
understanding why the Sarvaastivaadins held their
'sarvaasri' position must be to look at the
arguments they themselves produced to defend this
position.
Historically we know of three phases in the
development of their views: the original abhidharma
texts (second century B.C.); the great commentary on
these known as the Mahaa-vibhaa.saa (first century
A.D.); and the vigorous debate which arose from
Vasuhandhu's account of their views, with mainly
hostile commentary, in the Abhidharma-ko`sa (fifth
century A.D.).
P.490
Four types of argument are to be found in these
various sources. One of these types is the subject
of this essay, but the other three should first be
identified.
1. The one most commented on by modern writers
occurs in various forms in the abhidharma text
called the vij~naanakaaya,(2) and is the basis of
three of the four arguments presented in the
Abhidharma-ko`sa. This argues to the present reality
of past and future dharmas from present abilities to
know the past and future, or to have them as objects
of consciousness (vij~naana).(3)
2.The Vij~naanakaaya also gives a series of
arguments about the present true descriptions of a
person's mental state. On the one hand one may refer
to what is straightforwardly present, the thoughts
currently going through the person's mind. But one
can also truly say of a person that he has a certain
virtue or vice, or is at a certain stage on a path
of development, when what is currently going through
his mind may have nothing to do with these. Such
'dispositional' descriptions refer, the argument
implies, to past and future manifestations; for the
descriptions to be true now, these past and future
dharmas must in a sense be real now.
3. The final argument presented in the Ko`sa claims
that if past dharmas were not real, they could not
be causally efficacious in bringing about a present
effect.
Each of these arguments raises deep
philosophical issues; none can be summarily
dismissed. In the present essay I wish to
concentrate on a further type of argument, perhaps
simpler and more profound than any of the ones
above. As far as I know it has not been commented on
at all in the modern literature, perhaps because it
has been confused with one or other of the types of
argument presented in the Ko`sa.
II
My interest is in the principal argument
propounded in the Mahaavibhaa.saa. It is put in
three different ways. I shall first present the
three variants with little comment, and then present
my own explanations of and philosophical
observations on them.
The first version of the argument is about the
relation between a karmic action and its consequence
in experience. I quote from Louis de la Vallee
Poussin's translation (Poussin [1937], pp. 9-10):
Quand existe une cause de retribution
(bipaakahetu) presente, le fruit obtenu par
cette cause est-il present, passe ou futur? Si
vous dites qu'il est passe, nous concluons que
le passe doit exister; si vous dites qu'il est
futur, nous concluons que le futur dolt exister;
si vous dites qu'il est present, nous con cluons
que la cause de retribution et son fruit doivent
etre simultanies. Contradiction, car la stance
dit:
P.491
Celui qui fair /e mal ne le sent pas
aussitot....
Si vous dites que re fruit de cette cause ne se
trouve dans aucune des trois epoques, nous
concluons que cette cause n'a pas de fruit, car
le fruit de retribution n'est pas inconditionne;
si elle n'a pas de fruit, la cause aussi
n'existe pas, comme une deuxieme tete ou une
troisieme main.
De meme nous demandons a quelle epoque
appartient la cause qui correspond au fruit de
retribution (vipaakaphala) priesent....
If it can be truly said of a present dharma that
it is cause or fruit, then its corresponding fruit
or cause cannot also be present; and to say that
this corresponding fruit or cause does not exist in
past, present, or future is tantamount to saying
that it does not exist at all. Being a conditioned
dharma, it certainly does not exist out of time. And
if the existence of past cause or future fruit is
denied, then the original hypothesis must be denied,
of the existence at the present time of dharmas
which are cause or effect, vipaaka-hetu or
vipaaka-phala. So, given this hypothesis--which
surely is noncontroversial--past cause or future
fruit must exist.
Several of the arguments for the Sarvaasti
position relate in one way or another to the karmic
relation between cause and effect, between action
and its fruition. One of the arguments in the
Vij~naanakaaya rests on a cognitive possibility,
that of seeing the future latent, as it were, in the
present. The fourth of the arguments in the
Abhidharma-ko`sa rests on the present efficacy of
past causes. But the Vibhaa.saa argument is even
simpler than these. Its point is that the very
nature of the present as cause (vipaakahetu)
incorporates the future as vipaakaphala. The very
nature of the present as vipaakaphala incorporates
the past as vipaakaheru. The present is what it is
only in virtue of its relations to past and future.
It exists as conditioned present only if there is
something nonpresent to which it is related.
The same idea is pursued in the next Vibhaa.sa
argument. It is explained not in abhidharmic terms
but in ordinary religious language. The argument is
again very straightforward (Poussin [1937], p. 10):
Si le passe et le futur ne sent pas reels, il ne
peut y avoir sortie du monde et profession
religieuse (pravrajyaa et upasa.mpad). II y a
une stance:
Si on soutient que le passe n'existe pas, le
Bouddha passe n'existe pas: done manqueront
sortie du monde et profession.
Encore, se le passe et le futur ne sent pas
reels, il faut que les religieux (pravrajita),
qui possedent le savoir exact, tiennent des
discours de mensonge. II y a une stance:
S'il soutient que le passe n'existe pas et si,
cependant, il parle d'annees peu nombreuses ou
nombreuses [depuis la profession], il dolt, de
jour en jour, accroitre son savoir
exact(samyagj~naana) et ses discours faux et
trompeurs.
P.492
The point here is not about the monk's ability to
grasp the past in his thoughts, but about what is
true--in particular what is true about the present.
In many ways the monk's present status, for example
that he is indeed a monk, a pravrajita, rests on the
reality of a past event, his own decisive action and
commitment. The fact that he is now ordained depends
on the possibility of tracing back a line of
ordination to the Buddha himself. In these ways, we
may say, the past lives on in the present.
The final version of the argument puts it in a
more abstract form (Poussin [1937], pp. 10-11).
Si le passe et le futur ne sent pas reels, le
present aussi n'existe pas. Car le present 'est
designe' (praj~napyate) en consideration
(apek.sya) du passe et du futur. Si les trois
epoques manquent, manquent les dharmas
conditionnies. Done manquent aussi les
inconditionnes qui sent etablis en consideration
des conditionnes. Les uns et les autres
manquant, manquent tous les dharmas. Done
manquent aussi la delivrance, la sortie, le
Nirvaa.na.
The use of 'praj~napyate' might suggest that the
argument was about the logical interdependence of
the concepts of present, past, and future; but the
surrounding text makes it clear that what is at
issue is the real, not the nominal, existence of
past and future. Past, present, and future are
essentially related, such that the reality of the
present is impossible without the reality of past
and future.
In fact, if we are to take seriously the
position adopted at the beginning of this section of
the Vibhaa.saa (and perhaps confirmed in the third
sentence of the quotation above) that time is not a
separate thing from temporally existing conditioned
(sa.msk.rta) dharmas, then this third variant is not
really about past, present, and future as such, but
about the interrelation of past, present, and future
dharmas. In that case the third variant relies on
the force of the first two variants.
Of course, the Sautraantikas and the Sthaviras
complained that if dharmas exist in a future phase,
then in a present phase, and finally in a past
phase, they have a history, in fact an endless
history; and this makes dharmas eternal substances,
quite contrary to the fundamental Buddhist doctrine
of anitya, transience.(4) The Sarvaastivaadins
always said in reply that they fully accepted the
conditionality, the sa.msk.rta nature, of ordinary
dharmas. In fact it seems to me that their clear
appreciation of the implications of conditionality
was a major motivation for their theory about the
reality of past and future. For present conditioned
dharmas are, by their very conditionedness,
internally related to the past conditioned dharmas
which together were their cause, and to the future
conditioned dharmas for which they are a
contributory causal factor.
III
It follows that if we are to take further our
understanding of the Sarvaasti position, we need to
appreciate the significance for the Buddhist
P.493
aabhidharmikas of the concept of conditionality.
'Sa.msk.rta', the standard term for this concept,
recurs throughout the Vibhaa.saa argument and its
context. The importance of the doctrine of
conditionality is emphasized at the beginning of the
relevant section of the Vibhaa.saa text (Poussin
[1937] p. 9):
L'auteur [here the Vibhaa.saa commentator refers
to the author of the original abhidharma text,
the J~naana-prasthaana] veut montrer clue la
'nature propre' du passe et du futur est reelle
(dravyasat) et que le present est conditionne
(sa.msk.rta).
The doctrine is also addressed specifically after
the abstract argument I have just described (Poussin
[1937], p. 11):
Le present n'est pas un dharma inconditionne;
car il nait des causes et conditions, car ii
possede activite (kaaritra) : tel n'est pas
I'inconditionne.
This characterization of (worldly) dharmas as
sa.msk.rta is fundamental to all abhidharma
theorizing. It expresses both sides of the Buddha's
basic metaphysical insight: that reality is
transient (anitya) and insubstantial (anaatman), but
also that this insubstantial reality is not entirely
fragmented and chaotic, but is bound together not by
abiding substance but by causal order
(pratiitya-samutpaada). This order makes possible
the explanation of suffering and the path to
liberation, the cause of suffering and the cause of
the extinction of suffering--the second and fourth
of the Noble Truths.
How can one concept express at the same time
these negative (anitya and anaatman) and positive
(pratiitya-samutpaada) doctrines? It is because the
causal relationships which provide the order of
pratiityasamutpaada are themselves an aspect of
anaatman, of insubstantiality. This is why, in the
early suttas, paticca-samuppaada is said to be a
middle way between existence and nonexistence.(5)
One way of expressing this is to contrast two
theories of causality. One is that entities are
basically self-subsistent; if left to themselves
they remain as they are, unchanged and unmoved.
Causal influences, if there are any, irrupt on them
contingently, from the outside. Causal relationships
are external, do not concern an entity's innermost
nature. This is perhaps the metaphysics of everyday
common sense, which inhabits a world of (relatively)
stable, middle-sized objects such as stones and
tables, and looks for causal explanations only when
these objects suffer some change.
The other theory, more realistic and more
scientific as well as more abhidharmic, is that an
entity's causal relations with other entities
express its innermost nature. What it is is
determined by a multiplicity of causes and
conditions; and its nature is to be understood as
functional, interacting with other beings and
leading always to future effects.
P.494
A similar point is made by Nyanaponika Thera
about the pali Abhidhamma, in his Abhidhamma
Studies.(6) There he emphasizes how what he calls
the "two methods" of abhidhamma, the analytic and
the synthetic, complement each other. The two
principal books of the Abhidhamma, the
Dhammasanga.nii and the Pa.t.thaana, respectively
represent these two methods, the analysis of the
experienced world into its basic elements, but also
the specification of the conditionality linking
these elements. Nyanaponika examines the basic forms
of the propositions in the two works, and concludes
(ibid., p. 21):
The mere juxtaposition of these two basic
schemata of the Abhidhamma already allows us to
formulate an important axiom of Buddhist
philosophy:
A complete description of a thing requires,
besides its analysis, also a statement of its
relations to certain other things.
This causal reinterpretation of the notion of
substance is particularly important when the basic
elements of existence are momentary. If things are
long-lasting, it may be thought that although causal
operations are necessary to bring them into
existence, thereafter they survive by a kind of
existential inertia. But if the world has constantly
to be remade, it is the more obvious that every
aspect of its existence rests on the complexities of
conditioned coproduction. There are then no
self-subsistent entities; everything exists in and
as a network of interrelationships. These are as
much in operation when things are apparently stable
as when change is occurring. On this, the
abhidharmic view, causal relations are internal; the
very being of a dharma is interpenetrated by those
other dharmas which are causally responsible for its
arising; it partakes in the being of those dharmas
to whose future arising it contributes.
The significance of the concept of
conditionality as interdependence is brought out in
several places in the Abhidharma-ko`sa. Vasubandhu
introduces the notion of sa.msk.rta dharma thus:
sa.msk.rta, conditionne, s'explique
etymologiquement: "qui a ete fait (k.rta) par
les causes en union et combinaison (sametya,
sa.mbhuuya)." II n'y a aucun dharma qui soit
engendre par une cause unique.(7)
The discussion of pratiitya-samutpaada in the
Abhidharma-kosa includes, among various accounts of
the meaning of the doctrine, the "saa.mbandhika"
interpretation that it concerns the (general)
relationship between causes and effects
(Abhidharma-ko`sa III.24d-25b). Vasubandhu quotes
from the abhidharma texts the view that
pratitya-samutpaada is to be identified with all
sa.msk.rta dharmas, not just those relating to
living beings;s that is, it is not just a
twelve-limbed account of the origins of human birth
and rebirth, but constitutes a general theory of
causality, And pratiitya-samutpaada and
conditionality are explicitly linked to anaat-
P.495
man, to insubstantiality at least as regards the
self, by a quotation from the Suutra:
Quiconque connait par la Praj~naa le
Pratiityasamutpaada et les dharmas produit en
dependance, il ne se tourne pas vers le passe en
se demandant s'il a existe....(9)
Vasubandhu's explanation of the various kinds of
causal relationships-hetu, pratyaaya, phala--gives
the different dimensions of the intertwining of
conditioned dharmas. The most important
relationships are of course between karmic action
and its fruition, and between the various dharmic
participants in the causal complex which leads from
perception to motivated action. But though the
causal relations of any particular dharma link it
'thickly' to a limited number of other dharmas, its
'thin' causal relationships extend much further. In
fact the abhidharmic position is that the causal
relations of every dharma extend throughout reality;
kar.ana-hetu (Abhidharma-ko`sa II.50a) or
adhipati-pratyaaya (Abhidharma-ko`sa II.62d) is a
type of causality which relates every conditioned
dharma with every other. The point here is that the
very existence of a dharma shows that there is a
causal compatibility between it and every other
coexisting dharma. The web of causal
interrelationships is seamless.
IV
It is against the background of this fundamental
Buddhist insight about conditionality that the
author of the Vibhaa.saa makes the simple point that
causal relations unite dharmas from the three times;
they link past, present, and future. How, then, can
a complete account of reality contain only the
present! The reality of past and future is necessary
to make the present what it is. The opposing view,
that the present dharma has emerged from and passes
immediately into nonexistence, dramatically
expresses the transience of dharmas; but at the
price, the Sarvaastivaadins would say, of obscuring
the intimacy of the relations between what is now
and what has been and will be.
We may now represent the form of the Vibhaa.saa
arguments as follows: (1) The present (that is,
present sa.msk.rta dharmas) exists only in and
through its relationships with past and future
(sa.msk.rta dharmas). (2) The existence of these
internal relationships requires the reality of their
relata--that is, not only the present, but also
past and future dharmas. (3) Since the existence of
the present as vipaakaphala etc. is
non-controversial, the relevant past and future
dharmas must exist, must be real.
Is this a sound argument? It seems to me, as I
have tried to indicate in the previous section, that
there is much to be said for the Buddhist theory of
conditionality, and so for the present argument's
first premise.
P.496
The second step in the argument gains what force
it has from the extension of a principle which in
general seems to be noncontroversial: that the
existence of a relation demands the existence of its
terms.(10) Of course we are concerned here with
internal and therefore 'real' rather than merely
'nominal' relationships; that is the relationship
concerns how the relata are in themselves, it exists
'in re' and not just 'in mente'. (I can in my
thoughts contrast what is with what is not, but this
'relationship' does not imply the existence of what
is not.) How, for example, can there be a 'being the
husband of', unless there are in existence a man and
a woman to be so related? In this case, of course,
the satisfaction of the relation demands the
coexistence of man and woman in the strong sense of
contemporaneity. But what should be said about
relations which allow, or even require, the
existence of their terms at different points in
time; such as being the great-great-grandfather of,
or the karmic cause of?
It would seem inappropriate to abandon
altogether the force of the principle, to say that
the operation of a relation between present and past
things or events requires only the existence of the
present thing. There must surely be some sense in
which we must demand the existence of past (and
future) relata, for such relations to hold.
It will not do to classify these relata as
nonexistent. There was never a time at which my
great-grandfather and I were both alive, but it does
not do justice to the relationship between us to say
that it links myself, who exists, with him, who does
not exist. The fact that he is (was) my
great-grandfather implies that his hold on reality
is more positive than that. We may say that the fact
that there 'is' such a relationship between him and
me implies our 'co-reality'; even though he died
before I was born. How should this co-reality be
understood? The Sarvastivadin position as expressed
in the Vibhaa.saa arguments provides an answer that
is in some ways straightforward: co-reality consists
of a 'reduced' form of contemporaneity.
But surely, one may say, an alternative and less
metaphysically startling account of co-reality is
ready at hand. Simply, A and B are co-real if there
is some time at which A exists or occurs and there
is some time at which B exists or occurs. But this
interpretation also contains its metaphysical
surprises. The verbs in the expressions 'are
co-real' and 'there is some time' (in the previous
sentence) are obviously not referring to the present
time; contemporaneity is not being claimed. Rather
the claims about the existence of these two times
must themselves be timeless. The theory of time
implied here gives primacy to what modern
philosophers have referred to as McTaggart's
B-series, in which time-orderings are unchanging and
are to be expressed using the tenseless felations of
'earlier than','later than','simultaneous with'. The
alternative view is that the primary time
relationships involve the tense-notions of past,
present,
P.497
and future (the A-series), and what falls into these
three classes is always changing.(11)
Interpreting co-reality in terms of the B-series
provides us with a clear (timeless) sense of
'everything exists', and also a clear alternative to
the 'abhuutvaa bhavati' position.
It is certainly beyond the scope of this paper
to attempt to decide between the two theories, that
giving logical primacy to the A-series and that
giving primacy to the B-series. But should we say
that if the latter theory prevails, then an account
of co-reality is available which makes the
complications of the Sarvaasti theory unnecessary?
An alternative would be to claim that the
B-series account of coreality is in fact that
adopted by the Sarvaastivaadins. Something like this
position is taken by Paul Williams (Williams
[1981]). If I understand Williams correctly, his
theory is as follows: The Sarvaastivaadin notion of
svabhaava, as the defining characteristic of a
dharma, which it possesses whether or not it is
presently actualized, should be understood as a kind
of atemporal essence, rather like a Platonic form,
which legitimizes talk about past and future
individuals, and also timeless discourse about the
general nature and taxonomy of dharmas.
The fact that x is a primary existent which can
always be referred to and thought of was felt to
require some sort of existence, but not the sort
of existence that a present entity enjoys. Such
is a perfectly reasonable and defensible
position, albeit perhaps mistaken. In fact for
Sarvaastivaada existence sasvabhaava is of a
different type, on a higher level, a
metalinguistic or metasystematic category
necessary for the atemporal systematisation of
primary existents in the dharmic list.(12)
It is unclear how far Williams wishes to press
this interesting interpretation as a motivation for
the Sarvaastivaada traikaalyavaada. He says that in
their theory of svabhaavataa, "the Sarvaastivaadins
were half-consciously[my italics] indicating a
difference in the given between talking tenselessly
about x and talking in the present tense" (ibid., p.
241); and later: "The critics of the Sarvaastivaada
failed to realise that the real existence of past
and future dharmas was in part [sic] a derivative of
an atemporal use of the verb 'to be'" (ibid., p.
245). It would be difficult to prove that this
consideration played no part in the svabhaavataa
theory, but it is surely not the whole of the
matter. It seems to me that most if not all of the
arguments by which the Sarvaastivaadins explicitly
defended their position, and in particular those
which have been considered in this essay, relate not
to timeless talk, ranging indifferently over past,
present, and future, but rather to the intimate
relations which the 'sa.msk.rta' doctrine postulates
between present dharmas and specific past and future
dharmas, that is, between dharmas which are all very
much in time, a part of history, of sa.msaara.
P.498
In fact, there seems little doubt that the
classical Sarvaasti theory fits best into a tensed
theory, in which change is real, so that dharmas are
definitely thought of as becoming present, and there
is a real difference between dharmas in the three
bhaavas or phases. In that case, the form of the
Vibhaa.sa arguments may be reexpressed as follows:
1) the sa.msk.rta doctrine shows that present
dharmas are intimately related to past (and future)
dharmas; 2) these relations, without which present
dharmas could not be what they are generally
acknowledged to be, imply the co-reality of past,
present, and future dharmas; 3) the Sarvaastivaadin
theory of 'reduced contemporaneity' offers an
account of co-reality which does justice to the
intuition that what is future becomes present, and
what is present becomes past.
NOTES
1 - This powerful summary of the anti-Sarvaastivaada
position comes in Abhidharma-ko`sa V.27 (Louis
de la Vallee Poussin, trans., L'Abhidharmako`sa
de Vasubandhu, 6 vols., new ed. [1st ed.
1923-1931; Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes
Etudes Chinoises, 1971], vol. 4, p. 59 n. 3),
where it is said to be quoted from the
Paramaartha`suunyatasuutra: the text is
discussed by Sa.mghabhadra (Louis de la Vallee
Poussin, "Documents d'abhidharma-la controverse
du temps," Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 54
[1937]: 56-57).
2 - Translated in Louis de la vallee Poussin, "La
controverse du temps et du pudgala dans re
Vij~naanakaaya," Etudes Asiatiques publiees a
I'occasion du 25me anniversaire de I'Ecole
Francaise d'Extreme Orient, 1 (Paris:
Publications de I'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme
Orient, 1925), pp. 343-376.
3 - Several modern commentators, including Bareau
and de la Vallee Poussin, have claimed that the
Sarvaastivaada position rested on the naive
assumption that if x can be thought about, x
must have real existence. Bareau speaks of "that
coarse and even puerile realism on which their
doctrine down the centuries has been based"
(Andre Bareau, "The notion of time in early
Buddhism," Philosophy East and West 7 [1956]:
355-356). Similarly Poussin: "etrange confusion
de I'ideal et du real, curieuse survivance d'une
'psychologie primitive,' on affirme I'existance
'objective' de tous les objets (aalambana) de la
pensee" (Poussin, Melanges, p. 134) . This
assumption may play a part in some versions of
this type of argument; but it by no means
exhausts the argument's force.
P.499
4 - Kathaavatthu 1.6, $7 (Shwe Zan Aung and Mrs.
C.A.F. Rhys Davids, Points of Controversy, Being
a Translation of the Kathaavatthu [London:
Published for the Pall Text Society by Luzac,
1915; reprint, 1960], pp. 87-88) ; and
Abhidharma-ko`sa V.27 (Poussin,
L'Abhidharmako`sa, vol. 4, pp. 57-58).
5 - "Everything exists--this is one extreme. Nothing
exists--this is the other extreme. Not
approaching either extreme the Tathaagata
teaches you a doctrine by the middle [way]:
Conditioned by ignorance...." (Sa.myutta Nikaaya
II.17, translated in Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids,
The Book of the Kindred Sayings, Part II: The
Nidaana Book [London: Pali Text Society, 1972],
p. 13).
6 - Nyanaponika Thera, Abhidhamma Studies (Kandy:
Buddhist Publication Society, 1965), chap. 2.
7 - Abhidharma-ko`sa 1.7, in Poussin,
L'Abhidharmako`sa, vol. 1, p. 11.
8 - Ibid., vol. 2, p. 65.
9 - Abhidharma-ko`sa III.25c-d, in Poussin,
L'Abhidharmako`sa, vol. 2, p. 68; compare, for
example, Nidaana Sa.myutta 12, Sa.myuttanikaaya
II.25-27, in Rhys Davids, Book of the Kindred
Sayings, p. 22.
10 - This principle is stated explicitly by
Sa.mghabhadra: "En effet, il n'y a pas de
relation possible de I'existant avec le
non-existant" (Poussin, Melanges, p. 115). This
is noted by Paul Williams in his article "On
the Abhidharma Ontology, " Journal of Indian
Philosophy 9 (1981) : 232 n. 26. Williams
himself does not discuss the truth of this
principle, for his concern is to show, with
respect to the Sarvaastivaadins' `vij~naana'
argument, that the grasping of something in
thought is not a relation between the thought
and the object grasped. In fact, Sa.mghabhadra
uses the principle only in passing, in the
course of a more specific argument about how
one can presently be bound by past passions.
But the principle does seem to lie behind the
Vibhaa.saa arguments.
11 - The distinction is very clearly stated in the
Introduction to Robin Le Poidevin, Change,
Cause and Contradiction (Basingstoke, England:
Macmillan, 1991).
12 - Williams, "On the Abhidharma Ontology," p. 245.