This paper is the first part of an annotated Japanese translation of Louis de la Val ́ee Poussin’s French translation of Nyāyānusāra 50-52 (Taisho 29, pp. 621-636), an Abhidharma text discussing the Sarvāstivādin theory of the real-existence of dharmas in the three time periods. In this part of the Nyāyānusāra, the Sarvāstivāda scholar Sam. ghabhadra divides existences into two types: “substantial” existences and “nominal” existences. The former type of existences can exist by themselves while the latter exist only by depending on the former “substantial” existences. Both types of existences share a common characteristic as producers of conceptual ideas that can become cognitive objects. Saṃghabhadra, as a Sarvāstivādin, maintains that past and future dharmas are neither nominal existences, nor absolute non-existence. They are not real-existences the same as the present dharmas, either. According to Saṃghabhadra, past and future dharmas are real-existences which possess their original past or future characteristics. Those past and future dharmas exist in causal relationship with other dharmas. Therefore, he concludes, they are also real-existences. However, Dārṣṭāntika and Sautrāntika scholars criticized him by pointing out that not only real existences but also non-existing objects can become objects of mental cognition. Saṃghabhadra counters this critique by limiting the definition of non-existence to only things that do not exist because they absolutely do not depend on any other dharmas. Therefore, this absolute non-existence has neither self-characteristics nor common characteristics, and they cannot become objects of cognition. Dārṣṭāntikas then demonstrate seven possible examples of mental cognitions of nonexistences. Sam. ghabhadra, however, points out that the objects of cognition in all seven examples are not without foundations of their existences, therefore they are not completely non-existing.
