After the modern period, the method of studying the Sarvāstivāda philosophy has changed significantly due to the appearance of new materials in a variety of languages, including the publication of a Sanskrit critical edition of Abhidharmakośabhāṣya by P. Pradhan. However, the enormous achievements of the traditional Kusha-gaku (倶舎学), which had been based primarily on Xuanzang's Chinese translation of Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and its commentaries, have not been properly taken into consideration. Kusha-gaku serves as important material for examining the philosophies of Buddhism that developed based on Chinese translations, because it has continuously served as an introduction to the study of Buddhist teachings in them. Therefore, it is considered to be valuable for the study of Buddhist philosophies in East Asia as a whole to examine this Kusha-gaku based on the contemporary research of the Sarvāstivāda philosophy. In this paper, I examine the role of desire (chanda, 欲) in the dharma system of the Sarvāstivāda and its understanding of various commentaries on Kusha-gaku. "欲" is applied to both kāma and chanda in Xuanzang's Chinese translation of Abhidharmakośabhāṣya indistinctively, and the original word cannot be determined only from a single translation. I have confirmed that P'u-kuang (普光) and Hōsen (法宣) paid attention to the difference of concepts indicated by the original words kāma and chanda regarding the translated word "欲" in their commentaries on Abhidharmakośabhāṣya.
