俱舍論 序分·明諸法體Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Preface and the Nature of Dharmas

Before Reading This Fascicle

The Kośa is a treatise in which the stanzas came first and the prose afterwards. According to the Life of Master Vasubandhu translated by Paramārtha, Vasubandhu first expounded the sense of the Mahāvibhāṣā to an assembly, “each day’s lecture producing one stanza that gathered the sense of what had been said that day,” until more than six hundred stanzas had accumulated. The Vaibhāṣikas of Kashmir were delighted when they saw the stanzas, but complained that the verse was too terse to be fully understood, and requested a prose explanation; Vasubandhu then “established the Sarvāstivāda positions and, wherever there was a skewed point, broke it with Sautrāntika doctrine,” and named the work the Abhidharmakośa. Reading this treatise, therefore, one always has two layers of text before one’s eyes: the stanza is the framework—twenty characters in five-character lines, every character bearing sense, not one of them idle; the prose is the author’s own explanation, and also the place where he exercises his own judgment.

In India students called this treatise the Treatise of Intelligence. Puguang records the appellation: “therefore the students of India named it the Treatise of Intelligence”; and Yuanhui, explaining where the name came from, uses a strange comparison—“it is like a gate of poison, and is named the poison-gate of discernment”: poison enters through one small opening and yet travels through the whole body; the gate of discernment this treatise opens is narrow, but whoever enters it reaches through the whole of Abhidharma.

One more thing must be said in advance, or the reader will misjudge the author before he is a third of the way through: attend to the temperature of his wording. The it is transmitted of “thus the Vaibhāṣikas transmit,” and some say, some other masters say, there is an explanation—the Tang commentaries read every one of these as a mark of the distance between the author and the doctrine he is reporting (Fabao, at the very head of his commentary, judges: “when he says ‘it is transmitted,’ he shows his own disbelief”). At the end of this fascicle, those two words alone touched off a dispute that has not rested in a thousand years.

This fascicle (Unit 1) contains three prefatory stanzas and twenty-five principal stanzas, and advances in four sections: first homage and the establishing of the name (the three prefatory stanzas); then the comprehensive classification of all dharmas as with or without outflows, and the establishing of the three unconditioned (Principal Stanzas 1 to 5); then the opening out of the eleven items of the aggregate of form (Principal Stanzas 6 through the first half of 11); and last the establishment of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness together with the sense fields and elements, with the discussion of inclusion, sequence, the dharma-aggregates, and the two elements of space and consciousness (the second half of Principal Stanza 11 through Stanza 25). What follows teaches them stanza by stanza.

1. Homage and the Establishing of the Name: How a Treatise Accounts for Itself (The Three Prefatory Stanzas)

〔Preface 1〕Why the praise begins from the extinction of darkness. The treatise’s first stanza is a praise: “To him in whom darkness of every kind is extinguished, who draws living beings out of the mire of birth and death: I bow in homage to such a teacher of things as they are, and I shall expound the Treatise on the Treasury of Abhidharma.” Ask first: there are a thousand ways to praise a Buddha—why does Vasubandhu praise from the extinction of darkness? The treatise states the reason itself: “this treatise is now to be composed; in order to make manifest that his own teacher is exalted in his very being and surpasses the whole assembly of noble ones, he first praises his virtues and then offers homage.” And darkness is not literary darkness; the treatise defines it: “because the forms of not-knowing can cover over the true meaning and obstruct genuine seeing, they are spoken of as darkness.” Darkness is not-knowing. What is most easily misread here is the phrase every kind: readers habitually take it as an adjective of praise, whereas the treatise uses it as a criterion—śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas also extinguish various forms of darkness, and yet “because defiled not-knowing is finally abandoned, it is therefore not in every kind.” Why? “Because with respect to the Buddha’s dharmas, to times and places extremely remote, and to the boundlessly differentiated classes of meaning, their undefiled not-knowing has not yet been cut off.” Defiled not-knowing (the afflictions) the two vehicles can finally abandon; undefiled not-knowing only a Buddha permanently exhausts. Within one stanza the first two lines are benefiting oneself and benefiting others, and the treatise keeps them apart: “the fullness of the World-Honored One’s virtue of benefiting himself has been praised; next the perfection of the Buddha’s virtue of benefiting others is to be praised.” As a matter of reading: a treatise whose whole work is discernment bows precisely to the perfection of clarity—this is not an opening courtesy, it is the announcement of a thesis.

There is another sentence that is often skipped. Explaining the phrase teacher of things as they are, the treatise says that the Buddha draws living beings out of the mire of birth and death by “being able, through skillful means, to proclaim the true teaching that accords with reality,” and “not by force of might or by the supernormal power of vows”—the manner of rescue is teaching, not display of power. This accords with the character of the whole treatise: it does not speak of response and communion, only of discernment. As to which virtues are praised within the one stanza, Puguang explains: “the extinguishing of darkness in every kind abandons undefiled not-knowing and obtains cessation independent of discernment; this displays the virtue of wisdom,” and again, “the extinguishing of every darkness abandons defiled not-knowing and obtains cessation through discernment; this displays the virtue of abandonment,” so that one line of stanza is read as carrying both the virtue of wisdom and the virtue of abandonment; and the two names cessation through discernment and cessation independent of discernment are here quietly planted, to make their formal entrance in Principal Stanzas 1 through 3.

〔Preface 2, first half〕The two words Abhidharma: the title explains itself. The stanza says: “pure discernment together with its accompaniments is called Abhidharma, and also the forms of discernment and the treatises by which this can be obtained.” First the question: what is Abhidharma? The treatise answers on two levels. Abhidharma in the ultimate sense is “discernment means the discerning of dharmas; pure means without outflows; the retinue of pure discernment is called its accompaniments,” which taken together is “thus, stated comprehensively, the five aggregates without outflows are called Abhidharma—this is Abhidharma in the ultimate sense.” Abhidharma in the conventional sense is the provisions by which that pure discernment can be drawn forth: the discernment born of cultivation, of reflection, of hearing, and innately acquired, all with outflows, together with their accompaniments, plus “treatises, meaning the scriptural teachings that transmit and give rise to discernment without outflows,” for “these forms of discernment and these treatises are the provisions for that, and therefore they too obtain the name Abhidharma.”

What is most easily misunderstood here is the phrase the five aggregates without outflows: the subject was plainly discernment—how does it suddenly become five aggregates? The key is that accompaniments brings the retinue in as well. Yuanhui states it most finely: “the retinue of pure discernment is called its accompaniments: the mind associated with discernment, the mental factors such as feeling and perception, the four marks and acquisition, and the nonmanifest form arising with the path,” so that “such pure discernment together with its accompaniments extends over all five aggregates and is named Abhidharma in the ultimate sense.” Puguang works instead from the word pure: “discernment means discerning the dharmas of the Four Noble Truths; pure means without outflows, being free of the two bonds, and hence it is named pure discernment.” Fabao takes a separate road, saying first that “discernment can discern, and hence is named the discernment of dharmas,” and then that “without outflows has the sense of being free of stain; the outflows are named stains, and the discernment of dharmas can be free of them, hence it is named pure discernment.” The two masters weight different things without conflicting. The treatise also gives dharma a definition in passing: “because it can maintain its intrinsic mark it is called a dharma”—what can hold and keep its own mark is a dharma; and it divides this in two: “if dharma in the ultimate sense, it is nirvāṇa alone; if dharma as a defining characteristic, it extends to the Four Noble Truths.” As to why it is called facing, the treatise says: “this can face toward, or can directly observe, and therefore it is called Abhidharma.” Facing toward nirvāṇa and directly observing the Four Truths—one word carries two directions. As a matter of practice, the division into ultimate and conventional levels is the invisible stratification behind this treatise’s appeals to authority: from here on, wherever the reader meets the word Abhidharma, the first question should be—does it mean that pure discernment without outflows, or the scriptural corpus that carries it?

〔Preface 2, second half〕What treasury means. The stanza says: “because it gathers in their ultimate meaning and depends upon them, the name Treasury of Abhidharma is established for it.” First the question: since Abhidharma has already been explained, why is the further word treasury needed? The treatise gives two senses. The first: “because the ultimate meaning within those treatises of Abhidharma is gathered into what this contains, it obtains the name treasury”—this treatise has gathered in the essential meaning of the root Abhidharma treatises, and treasury takes the sense of containing. The second: “or this depends on them, arises from them, and is what they store up, and so it too is named treasury”—this treatise arises in dependence on them and is stored up out of them, and treasury takes the sense of what is depended upon.

The easy mistake: to suppose the two senses conflict and one must be chosen. Not so. Puguang reads it as a two-layered structure of the name: “the treasury of the Abhidharma is named the Treasury of Abhidharma—this is the dependent-determinative analysis”; and again, “taking the Abhidharma as its treasury it is named the Treasury of Abhidharma—this is the possessive-compound analysis”—one and the same name, depending on which side you place the weight. As a matter of practice, the two senses together are exactly this treatise’s self-positioning: it does not set up doctrine out of nothing, but gathers a century of Sarvāstivāda doctrine into a framework; yet it is not mere transcription either, for the gathering is itself a sifting. When one later reaches “this explanation is not right” and “some other masters say,” one knows that this word treasury is not being polite.

〔Preface 3〕Why the Abhidharma is indispensable. The stanza says: “apart from the discernment of dharmas there is certainly no other excellent means for extinguishing the defilements; and because of the defilements the world drifts on the ocean of existence—therefore it is transmitted that the Buddha spoke the Abhidharma.” The question is the reason for composing the treatise, and the answer is very hard: “apart from the discernment of dharmas there is no excellent means able to extinguish the defilements”—leave aside the discernment that discerns dharmas and there is no second road to the extinction of defilement; and “apart from the teaching of the Abhidharma, disciples cannot discern the marks of dharmas in accordance with reality.” If the defilements are not extinguished, the world drifts on the ocean of the three existences. This one stanza fixes the standing of the whole treatise: it is not a catalogue of knowledge, it is a tool for extinguishing defilement.

Then the single most consequential word of the fascicle appears. The treatise says: “yet the Buddha, the World-Honored One, spoke the Abhidharma dispersed here and there, and the venerable Kātyāyanīputra and other great śrāvakas compiled and arranged it.” And it likens this to “just as the venerable Dharmatrāta collected the Udāna stanzas such as the Chapter on Impermanence; thus the Vaibhāṣikas transmit.” Shentai’s commentary puts the author’s stance plainly on this sentence: “‘thus the Vaibhāṣikas transmit’ names the one who holds the view,” and adds, “the author does not believe that everything said by the Abhidharma masters wholly captures the Buddha’s intent.” Shentai also separately supplies the reason for the appellation venerable—“bhadanta, which here means ‘venerable,’ is Dharmatrāta of the Sarvāstivāda school”—and “the Sarvāstivādins revered the man, and therefore called him ‘venerable’”; and he explains the sense of Udāna: “udāna here means ‘spoken without being asked,’” that is, teachings the Buddha uttered without waiting to be questioned. The easy mistake: to slide past it is transmitted as a narrative formula. It is not a formula; it is a gap between the author and the doctrine he reports—and Saṅghabhadra seized on precisely these two words to open his attack, a dispute recorded in the Further Resonances below. As a matter of practice, this passage gives the reader a standing question: whenever the author reports another school’s doctrine, look first at whether he states it flatly or says it is transmitted.

2. The First Cut across All Dharmas: With Outflows and Without (Principal Stanzas 1 to 3)

〔Principal 1–3〕The comprehensive criterion is not good and bad but increase by attachment. Three stanzas come together: “dharmas are with outflows or without outflows; the conditioned other than the path—the outflows increase by attachment therein, and so they are called with outflows. Without outflows means the truth of the path and the three unconditioned, namely space and the two cessations; among these space is non-obstruction. Cessation through discernment means separation from bonds, differing according to each thing bound; what definitively obstructs what would arise is obtained separately as cessation independent of discernment.” First the question: all dharmas are to be sorted into two heaps—where is the cut made? The treatise answers: “all dharmas, stated briefly, are of two kinds, with outflows and without outflows.” With outflows means “the conditioned dharmas other than the truth of the path,” and the reason is eight characters only—“because the outflows increase therein equally by attachment.”

The finest distinction falls on the truths of cessation and the path: “if the truths of cessation and the path are taken as object, the outflows may arise but do not increase by attachment, and so they are not with outflows.” A person can indeed be attached to nirvāṇa or feel aversion toward the noble path, and afflictions do arise taking them as object; but arising is not taking root, and there they cannot grow. The criterion, then, is not good and bad or pure and impure, but whether the afflictions can increase by attachment upon it. The treatise also honestly marks that this must wait to be fully expounded later: “the sense of not increasing by attachment will be set out in the chapter on the latent tendencies.” What does the word equally mean? Puguang explains: “among the dharmas associated with the two truths of suffering and origin, and among their objects, the outflows accord with one another and increase one another, and their strength is matched, and hence the word ‘equally’”—increase along both the associated and the objective routes, matched in strength, hence equally. Puguang further divides the side without outflows into two cases: “with the truths of cessation and the path, they are taken as object but there is no increase by attachment; with space and cessation independent of discernment, they are neither taken as object nor increased upon”—cessation and path can be taken as object without increase, while space and cessation independent of discernment are not even taken as object.

The side without outflows is the truth of the path plus the three unconditioned. Space “has only non-obstruction as its nature; because there is no obstruction, form moves within it”—it is not an empty place but the very fact of not obstructing. Cessation through discernment “has separation from bonds as its nature,” and the treatise is very plain about how it gets its name: “discernment means discerning, a particular kind of discernment, since it discerns each of the Four Noble Truths separately. The cessation obtained by the power of discernment is called cessation through discernment—as a cart drawn by an ox is called an ox-cart, the middle word being dropped in speaking this way.” Here the treatise deliberately raises a question at the very point of likeliest misunderstanding: do all dharmas with outflows share one cessation through discernment? The answer is “no,” and the reason is “it differs according to the thing bound: as many as are the things bound, so many are the things separated from bonds”—as many strands of binding, so many of release. Were it otherwise, then “at the time of realizing the cessation of the afflictions abandoned by seeing suffering, one ought to realize the cessation of all the afflictions to be abandoned,” and then “cultivating the remaining counteragents would serve no purpose.” There is no bargain by which one realization abandons all defilement, and this sentence is the foundation of the treatise’s whole account of the path.

Cessation independent of discernment repays even closer attention: “what permanently obstructs what would arise is obtained as cessation independent of discernment, that is, it can permanently obstruct the arising of a future dharma,” and its provenance is that “its obtaining is not due to discerning, but only to the absence of a condition”—not by the power of discernment, but because the conditions were incomplete. The treatise’s example belongs to everyone: “as when eye and mind are fixed upon a single form, the remaining forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangibles and the rest fall away,” and the consciousnesses that could have arisen taking those objects thereupon “abide in the future world and definitively do not arise.” At this moment you are attending to this line of text, and the countless consciousnesses that could have arisen in the same instant are missed forever—that forever is cessation independent of discernment. At the end the treatise gathers it into a fourfold distinction with no gaps: those that obtain only cessation through discernment are “past, present, and arising dharmas with outflows”; those that obtain only cessation independent of discernment are “conditioned dharmas without outflows that will not arise”; those that obtain both cessations are “those dharmas with outflows that will not arise”; those that obtain neither are “past, present, and arising dharmas without outflows.” As a matter of practice, these four are the origin of the treatise’s coordinate system: for any dharma hereafter, ask first on which side of with-outflows and without it falls, then ask which of the two cessations is obtained with respect to it.

3. The Alternative Names of the Conditioned and of What Has Outflows (Principal Stanzas 4 and 5)

〔Principal 4〕What conditioned is, and its four alternative names. The stanza says: “again, all conditioned dharmas are the five aggregates beginning with form; they are also named world-path, basis of speech, possessed of separation, possessed of a ground, and so forth.” First the question: the previous stanza said “the conditioned other than the path”—so what exactly does conditioned refer to? The treatise answers: “the five aggregates beginning with form, that is, from the aggregate of form to the aggregate of consciousness. These five dharmas comprehensively include the conditioned, being made together by an assemblage of many conditions,” and it adds one flatly decisive sentence: “there is no dharma whatever produced by a single condition.” The easy mistake lies with future dharmas: the future has not yet been made—how can it count as conditioned? The treatise answers, “because they are of that kind; the future is no obstacle, as with milk, as with firewood”—they take the name by being of the same kind, as what has not yet become curds is already called milk and what has not yet been burned is already called firewood.

Each of the four alternative names has its ground, and each states one facet of the conditioned. It is named world-path because it has “the nature of what has been traversed, is being traversed, and will be traversed” (the road travelled by the three times), “or because it is devoured by impermanence.” It is named basis of speech because “speech means language, and what it rests upon is the name together with its meaning”; and this sense has textual authority, for the treatise says that otherwise “it would contradict the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas, which says the basis of speech is included in the eighteen elements.” It is named possessed of separation: “separation means permanent separation, that is, nirvāṇa; all the conditioned has that capacity for separation”—every conditioned dharma has that separable character, and this is the ground on which cultivation of the path is possible at all. It is named possessed of a ground “because it has a cause; ground has the sense of cause,” and at the end one sentence is still added: “thus the Vaibhāṣikas transmit.” As a matter of practice: alternative names are not rhetorical play; they rename one and the same heap of dharmas under different questions—and this is exactly how Abhidharma works.

〔Principal 5〕Seven alternative names for dharmas with outflows, each of them a diagnosis. The stanza says: “dharmas with outflows are named aggregates of appropriation, and are also spoken of as possessed of dispute, and as suffering, origin, world, basis of views, the three existences, and so forth.” First the question: having already classified them as with outflows, why give them a string of further names? Because each name states their disease from one angle. The name aggregate of appropriation has three explanations, which the treatise sets side by side without choosing: “affliction is named appropriation; because aggregates arise from appropriation they are named aggregates of appropriation, as with a fire of grass and chaff” (named from the cause); “or aggregates belong to appropriation and are named aggregates of appropriation, as with the ministers of an emperor” (named from what they belong to); “or aggregates produce appropriation and are named aggregates of appropriation, as with a tree of flowers and fruit” (named from what they produce). Puguang marks these three explanations along the three roads of cause, belonging, and result, and Fabao and Yuanhui run along the same track.

One misreading must be blocked here: the supposition that the aggregates of appropriation and the aggregates have the same extension. The treatise blocks it in advance—“some are only aggregates and not aggregates of appropriation, namely the formations without outflows”: conditioned dharmas without outflows are aggregates but not aggregates of appropriation. The remaining six names each have their ground: named possessed of dispute, because the afflictions “agitate the wholesome, injure self and others, and dispute increases by attachment therein”; named suffering, “because it runs counter to the mind of the noble ones”; named origin, “because it can bring on suffering”; named world, “because it can be destroyed and because it has a counteragent”; named basis of views, “because views dwell in it, increasing by attachment and lying latent”; named three existences, “because it is their cause, their support, and is included in them.” As a matter of practice, this string of names is a trailer for the later chapters on the truths, the latent tendencies, and the noble persons: one and the same heap of dharmas, viewed from another angle, becomes another course of study.

4. The Aggregate of Form (1): Which Eleven Things Form Is (Principal Stanza 6)

〔Principal 6, first half〕The inventory of the aggregate of form. The stanza says: “form is only the five faculties, the five objects, and nonmanifest form.” First the question: what exactly is packed into the aggregate of form? The treatise lists it cleanly: “the five faculties are the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body”; “the five objects are the objects of those five faculties, namely form, sound, odor, taste, and the tangible”; plus “and nonmanifest form, meaning nonmanifest form.” Eleven items in all. The key is the word only in the stanza, which the treatise glosses as “upon this measure alone is the name aggregate of form established”—the aggregate of form is neither more nor less than these eleven, and nothing may be added at will.

The easy mistake: reading form as color. The form of the aggregate of form is the general name of a class of dharmas, and its criterion is stated separately below (Principal Stanza 10); color is only a part of one of them, the object of form. As a matter of practice, these eleven items are the fixed complement of form among the seventy-five dharmas, and the eleven forms of the later dharma-characteristics learning take their number from here. This stanza gives only the list; the marks of each item are expounded from the next stanza onward—which is also an Abhidharma habit: fix the total first, then verify item by item.

〔Principal 6, second half〕The five faculties are not the eyeball and the ear-hole. The stanza says: “the subtle form on which those consciousnesses depend is named the five faculties beginning with the eye.” First the question: is the eye faculty the eye we can see? The treatise’s answer is no: the faculty is subtle form—“the five kinds of subtle form on which those consciousnesses depend should, in order, be known to be the five faculties beginning with the eye.” The treatise offers two readings. The first takes the objects as those: “those means the five objects beginning with form stated above, and consciousness means the consciousnesses of form, sound, odor, taste, and the tangible,” with a sūtra cited as proof—“as the World-Honored One said: bhikṣus, know that the eye is an inner sense field, having as its nature subtle form derived from the four great elements.” The second takes the faculties as those: “or those means the five faculties beginning with the eye stated above, and consciousness means the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body consciousnesses,” taking thereby the sense of “that upon which the consciousnesses beginning with the eye depend”; and this way “accords with the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas,” which says, “what is the eye faculty? It has as its nature the subtle form on which eye consciousness depends.”

The easy mistake: supposing the faculty to be the visible organ. The visible part belongs to the object of form; the faculty is the pure and refined form derived from the four great elements, invisible yet really functioning. As a matter of practice, this step moves the question who is it that sees off the organ and onto the relation between subtle form and consciousness—and the great dispute over whether the eye sees or consciousness sees, in the second half of the Chapter on the Elements, grows out of precisely this.

〔Principal 7〕The five objects enumerated: every number has a reason. The stanza says: “form is of two kinds or of twenty; sound has only eight kinds; taste six and odor four; the tangible has eleven as its nature.” First the question: where do these numbers come from? The treatise supplies them item by item. The object of form divides into “first color, second shape”: the four root colors are “blue, yellow, red, white,” and all other colors are their differentiations; the shapes are eight, “beginning with long and ending with unshapely.” Opened out to twenty, they are blue, yellow, red, white, long, short, square, round, high, low, shapely, unshapely, plus “cloud, smoke, dust, mist, shadow, light, brightness, darkness.” The treatise also glosses in passing: “the vapor of water rising from the ground is called mist; the blaze of the sun is named light,” and “what arises when brightness is blocked while the other forms in it remain visible is named shadow; the opposite of this is darkness.”

Here one must learn a habit of the treatise: divergent accounts stand side by side and are not forcibly decided. “Some other masters say that the single color of open sky is a twenty-first”—the treatise records it without adjudicating; and the presence or absence of color and shape is divided into three classes, upon which again “some other masters say that only the forms of light and brightness have color without shape.” The eight kinds of sound are obtained by multiplying three binary divisions: appropriated or unappropriated great elements as cause, designated as sentient or not so designated, and last, “these again, by the distinction of agreeable and disagreeable, come to eight.” The six tastes are “sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, bland”; the four odors are “good odor, bad odor, even and uneven odor,” and the treatise honestly records the discrepancy with the root treatise: “in the Root Treatise odor is said to be of three kinds: good odor, bad odor, and equal odor.” The eleven tangibles are the four great elements plus “smoothness, roughness, heaviness, lightness, and cold, hunger, thirst.” The easy mistake: taking these inventories for the physics of the ancients. They are classifications of what is cognized as object, and the criterion throughout is what this faculty gets hold of, not a table of material constituents. As a matter of practice, this inventory is the actual content of the first ten of the eighteen elements: every element questioned in the later distinctions through the several gates has its items opened out here.

〔Cited stanza · The Appearance of the Buddhas Is Happiness〕A stanza in praise of the Buddhas, proving a rule of naming. Explaining the last three of the tangibles, the treatise says: “the desire for warmth is named cold; the desire for food is named hunger; the desire for drink is named thirst.” It then points out why they are so named—“because in these three the name of the result is established upon the cause, this is so said”—and cites a stanza in proof: “the appearance of the Buddhas is happiness, the proclaiming of the true dharma is happiness, the concord of the Saṅgha is happiness, the vigorous striving of those who train together is happiness.” First the question: the subject is cold, heat, hunger and thirst—why suddenly cite a stanza in praise of the Buddhas? Because that stanza uses the very same manner of speech: the appearance of the Buddhas and the proclaiming of the dharma are themselves causes, happiness is their result, and the stanza calls the cause outright by the name of the result. In the same way, cold is the tangible that can produce the desire for warmth, and hunger the tangible that can produce the desire for food—the producing tangible is named by the desire it produces.

The easy mistake: reading “the desire for warmth is named cold” as “cold just is wanting to be warm.” It is not. Cold is that tangible; desire is the result it draws forth, and what the treatise is stating here is a rule of naming, not an account of substance. As a matter of practice, this rule will be used repeatedly later (as with the consciousness element being “the support of the arising of sentient beings”); wherever the reader meets a name that does not match its thing, the first question should be: is the name of the result being established upon the cause?

After this section there are three further fine distinctions that are often passed over, and the stanza is not fully read until they are read too. First, the tangibles of the form realm: there “there are no tangibles of hunger and thirst, but the remaining tangibles are there,” a garment “singly cannot be weighed, but in a heap can be weighed,” and “cold and warmth, though they have no injuring function there, do have a benefiting function. So it is transmitted”—those two words again. Second, consciousness may take one object or many: “sometimes eye consciousness arises taking a single thing as object,” and then it cognizes each separately; “sometimes eye consciousness arises taking many things as object,” and then it does not cognize each separately, as when “one gazes from afar at an army or a mountain forest.” Third, when objects reach the body and the tongue at once, which consciousness arises first? The treatise answers, “whichever object is stronger, that consciousness arises first,” and if the two are of equal strength, tongue consciousness arises first, “because food and drink sustain the body and cause it to continue.”

5. The Aggregate of Form (2): Nonmanifest Form and the Four Great Elements (Principal Stanzas 8 to 10)

〔Principal 8〕Nonmanifest form: a kind of form that cannot be seen. The stanza says: “in a distracted mind, in no mind, and so forth, flowing on, pure or impure, having the nature of derivation from the great elements—on this basis it is called nonmanifest.” First the question: is not form what is visible and resistant? How can there be a form that is nonmanifest? The treatise glosses the stanza word by word: “distracted mind means a mind other than this; no mind means entering the absorption without perception and the absorption of cessation,” and “the word and so forth shows the undistracted and minded states”—distracted mind, no mind, and undistracted minded states are all covered, precisely in order to show that this form is not cut off by the mind’s being distracted or not. “Continuity of similar moments is called flowing on”; “wholesome and unwholesome are called pure and impure.” As to why derived from the great elements must be added, the treatise says it is “in order to set apart the acquisitions, which are also a continuity of similar moments; therefore the words derived from the great elements are further added”—acquisitions too are a continuity of similar moments, so this phrase is needed to distinguish them. And what do the words on this basis mean in the stanza? “They show the reason for establishing the name, and so on this basis is said.”

Hence the name nonmanifest: “although nonmanifest form, like manifest action, has form and action as its nature, it cannot be manifested so as to make others know it, and so it is named nonmanifest”—it cannot let another know your mind through it, and so it is called nonmanifest. The easy mistake: reading it as an abstract moral concept. In this treatise it is a dharma of form, and the treatise states its scope plainly: “stated briefly, manifest action and the wholesome and unwholesome form produced in absorption are named nonmanifest”—the portion of continuing form left behind after receiving the precepts or performing an action, and the form produced in absorption. Here the treatise once again marks its stance: “the word stated shows that this is a statement of the master’s own school.” As a matter of practice, this item is a specifically Sarvāstivāda construction and the most attacked point in the treatise; Saṅghabhadra fires two objections at it here, recorded in the Further Resonances.

〔Principal 9〕The four great elements: seen as element, function, and nature. The stanza says: “the great elements are the four elements, namely earth, water, fire, and wind; they accomplish the functions of sustaining and the rest; their natures are hardness, moisture, warmth, and motion.” First the question: why are earth, water, fire, and wind called both elements and great elements? The treatise answers in two parts: they are named elements because they “can maintain their own intrinsic marks and the forms derived from them”; and named great elements because they are “what all other forms depend upon, their nature being broad and wide,” “or because in aggregations where earth and the rest predominate their configurations are great, or because they can give rise to various great functions.” Next comes the pairing of function and nature: “in order they accomplish the four functions of sustaining, gathering, ripening, and increasing; the earth element sustains, the water element gathers, the fire element ripens, the wind element increases,” and “increasing means growth, or else drawing out”; while their natures are “hardness, moisture, warmth, and motion.” To the motion of wind the treatise adds a simile: “by this it can draw the great elements and derived form on into continuity arising in another place, as when a lamp flame is blown, and so it is named motion.”

The easy mistake: reading the four great elements as four material substances. What the treatise speaks of is four natures and four functions: the natures are hardness, moisture, warmth, motion, the functions are sustaining, gathering, ripening, increasing, and the two may not be exchanged; earth is not soil, it is that portion whose nature is hardness and whose function is supporting. As a matter of practice, the treatise’s way of handling a conflict of authorities is visible here as well: the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas and a sūtra say “what is the wind element? It is the nature of motion, such as lightness,” while lightness is also said to be derived form, so the two statements collide; and the treatise’s disposition is that “the wind element should be said to have motion as its own nature, its function being cited to display its substance, and so lightness too is said”—motion is the substance, lightness only its function cited to display that substance. Choice made on evidence, with the difficulty not concealed: this is the treatise’s way.

〔Principal 10〕The earth, water, fire, and wind the world speaks of are not what the treatise speaks of. The stanza says: “earth is color and shape, the name established in accordance with worldly ideation; water and fire are likewise; wind is the wind element, and the same as well.” First the question: if earth has hardness as its nature, why do people point at a clod and say earth? The treatise’s distinction is brisk: “earth is color and shape, having the sense field of form as its substance, this name being provisionally established in accordance with worldly ideation”—what people mean by earth is in fact color and shape, the sense field of form, and not that element whose nature is hardness. The reason is “because when people of the world point out earth to one another, they point it out by color and shape; water and fire are likewise.”

Wind is the single exception: “wind is the wind element, because the world establishes the name of wind upon motion”—what people mean when they say wind happens to be the nature of motion itself. But the treatise immediately adds a second route: “or, like earth and the rest, its name is established in accordance with worldly ideation, and wind too has color and shape, hence the stanza says the same,” since the world also says “a black wind, a whirling wind,” which indicates wind by color and shape. The easy mistake: reading this stanza as the treatise correcting ordinary usage. It is not correction but stratification: conventional designation has its own use, and the treatise only marks the gap between it and the intrinsic mark of a dharma. As a matter of practice, this distinction is a miniature of the whole method of Abhidharma—first separate worldly ideation (provisional names) from the intrinsic marks of dharmas (real substances), and only then can discernment begin.

6. The Aggregate of Form (3): The Word-Sense of Form (A Cited Stanza · The First Half of Principal Stanza 11)

〔Cited stanza · Those Who Pursue the Objects of Desire〕Why form is called form: deterioration. The treatise raises the question: why does the aggregate of form, ending with nonmanifest form, take form as its collective name? The answer is “because of deterioration,” with a sūtra as ground: “as the World-Honored One said: bhikṣus, know that because it deteriorates it is named the aggregate of appropriation that is form.” Asked further who makes it deteriorate, the answer is “because a hand touches it, it thereupon deteriorates.” And “deterioration has the sense of being liable to be vexed and destroyed,” the proof being the stanza from the Chapter on Meaning: “those who pursue the objects of desire constantly bear expectations; if the objects of desire are not attained, they are vexed and destroyed as though struck by an arrow.” First the question: the subject is the sense of the dharma of form—why cite a stanza about frustrated desire? Because what the treatise means to prove is exactly that deterioration and being vexed and destroyed run together—“and how is form? It is vexed and destroyed by desire, since through the disturbance of desire deterioration arises.” Form is named form not merely because it breaks physically, but because it is what is vexed and destroyed by desire. This step lifts the dharma of form off the material plane and onto the plane of the truth of suffering.

After this section comes a splendid exchange, which shows exactly how this treatise answers an objection. Some say “it is named form because of resistant deformation,” and the objector at once brings three cases against it: the ultimate atom has no resistant deformation, the past and future have none, nonmanifest form has none—so none of them should be form. The treatise answers one by one: for the ultimate atom, “no ultimate atom abides singly by itself; when many atoms are aggregated the sense of resistant deformation is established”; for past and future, “these too have had and will have resistant deformation, and are of the same kind, like firewood already burned”; for nonmanifest form it records two explanations—one holds that “manifest form has resistant deformation, and nonmanifest form receives the name form along with it,” as a shadow moves when a tree moves, which the treatise refutes: “this explanation is not right, since it has no resistant deformation,” and moreover “when the manifest ceases the nonmanifest ought to cease, as when a tree perishes the shadow must perish with it”; the other holds that “the great elements it depends on have resistant deformation, and so nonmanifest action too obtains the name form.” At the end the treatise points out that the simile of shadow-on-tree and light-on-jewel “does not, for its part, accord with the doctrine of the Vaibhāṣikas,” and puts forward a separate explanation of its own: “what the five consciousnesses beginning with the eye depend on is not fixed,” some of it with resistant deformation (the faculties beginning with the eye) and some without (the mind that has ceased without interval), whereas what nonmanifest form depends on is not like this, and “therefore the earlier objection is indeed not on equal terms, and the principle that form is named from resistant deformation is established.” The easy mistake: supposing the treatise here to be defending the Vaibhāṣikas. On the contrary, it refuses to make do even with the Vaibhāṣika masters’ own old simile. As a matter of practice, once the word-sense of form is fixed, the eleven items of the aggregate of form have a common criterion—whatever is called form must survive the test of both senses, deterioration and resistant deformation. Saṅghabhadra has a counter-refutation on this passage, recorded in the Further Resonances.

〔Principal 11, first half〕The aggregate of form, turning around, is ten sense fields and ten elements. The stanza says: “among these, the faculties and objects are allowed to be the ten sense fields and elements.” First the question: are aggregate, sense field, and element three different inventories? Here the treatise gives the first joint: “within the nature of the aggregate of form stated above, the faculties and objects are allowed to be the ten sense fields and elements”—the same set of dharmas, “set up under the gate of sense fields as ten sense fields,” “under the gate of elements as ten elements.” Eye sense field and form sense field through body sense field and tangible sense field; eye element and form element through body element and tangible element: the content is unchanged to a word, only the gate is different.

The easy mistake: supposing the three classifications each to have their own content. They do not. They are three ways of cutting one heap of dharmas: of the eleven items of the aggregate of form, the ten of five faculties and five objects are ten sense fields under the gate of sense fields and ten elements under the gate of elements; the remaining nonmanifest form does not enter them and belongs to the sense field and element of dharmas (as the next stanza says). As a matter of practice, the knack of reading the three classifications lies just here: do not ask how their contents differ, ask why the same content is cut three times. The treatise does not leave this question hanging—in the second half of Principal Stanza 17 it gives a direct answer.

7. The Four Aggregates of Feeling, Perception, Formations, and Consciousness (Principal Stanzas 11b to 13)

〔Principal 11, second half–12〕The three aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations, and the content of the sense field and element of dharmas. The stanza says: “feeling is the receiving that follows contact; perception has the grasping of images as its substance; the four remaining are named the aggregate of formations; these three, feeling and the rest, together with nonmanifest form and the unconditioned, are named the sense field and element of dharmas.” First the question: how are feeling, perception, and formations defined? The treatise answers: feeling is “the aggregate of feeling is threefold, the receiving that follows contact, namely pleasant, painful, and neither painful nor pleasant,” and in detail “becomes six bodies of feeling, the feeling born of eye contact through the feeling born of mind contact”; perception is “the aggregate of perception has the grasping of images as its substance,” what is grasped being “the grasping of such marks as blue and yellow, long and short, male and female, hostile and friendly, painful and pleasant,” likewise becoming six bodies of perception; and the aggregate of formations is established by exclusion: “apart from the form, feeling, and perception preceding and the consciousness following, all remaining formations are named the aggregate of formations.”

Here there is an objection that must be answered, and it is the point of likeliest misunderstanding. The sūtra plainly says “the six bodies of volition are the aggregate of formations”—so how can all remaining formations be included too? The treatise answers: that was said “because it is most excellent”—“formation means constructing, and volition has the nature of action, its sense of constructing being strong, and so it is most excellent.” If only volition were taken, then “the remaining mental factors and the unassociated, not being included in the aggregates, would not belong to suffering and origin,” and would become dharmas that cannot be known or abandoned, contradicting the World-Honored One’s teaching, “if with respect to a single dharma one has not penetrated and not known it, I say one cannot make an end of suffering.” Therefore the treatise concludes: “it must definitely be granted that all conditioned formations other than the four aggregates are included in the aggregate of formations.” As a matter of practice, this is a basic skill in reading sūtra and treatise: when a sūtra says a certain dharma is a certain aggregate, that need not be an exhaustive definition; it may be citing the most excellent member as representative. At the end the treatise settles the content of the sense field and element of dharmas at one stroke: the three aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations “together with nonmanifest form and the three unconditioned, these seven dharmas,” are set up under the gate of sense fields as the sense field of dharmas and under the gate of elements as the element of dharmas.

〔Principal 13〕The aggregate of consciousness: one name, lodged in three places. The stanza says: “consciousness is the cognizing of each thing separately; this is precisely named the mind sense field; and it should be known as seven elements, the six consciousnesses becoming mind.” First the question: what is consciousness? The treatise answers, “cognizing each of its own objects separately and taking the mark of the object as a whole, it is named the aggregate of consciousness,” opened out as six bodies of consciousness. Then the treatise does something well worth learning: it aligns the three tables of five aggregates, twelve sense fields, and eighteen elements on the spot. The aggregate of consciousness is “set up under the gate of sense fields as the mind sense field,” “under the gate of elements as seven elements”; the aggregate of form, “apart from nonmanifest form, the remaining aggregate of form is named the ten sense fields and also the ten elements”; and the rest, “the aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations, nonmanifest form, and the unconditioned, are collectively named the sense field of dharmas and also the element of dharmas.” With this the three tables are jointed, and the reader has a table of correspondences that can be converted in any direction.

The easy mistake: supposing the seven mind elements of the eighteen to be seven consciousnesses. They are not. They are the six consciousness elements plus one mind element, and the mind element is not a seventh mind—the treatise at once raises an objection against itself: “is not the aggregate of consciousness only the six bodies of consciousness? What else is spoken of as the mind element besides them? There is no other dharma.” This one question forces out the next stanza. As a matter of practice: converting among the three classifications is this treatise’s most basic operation, and hereafter, whenever a new technical term appears, the treatise asks where it stands in these three tables; a reader who fixes the table of correspondences in mind here saves half the labor of everything that follows.

8. The Mind Element: How the Eighteen Elements Stand (Principal Stanza 14)

〔Principal 14, first half〕Mind is the thought of consciousness that has just ceased. The stanza says: “it is precisely the six bodies of consciousness that, ceasing without interval, become mind.” First the question: if “there is no other dharma,” where does the mind element come from? The treatise answers very briefly: “the six bodies of consciousness, having ceased without interval, can produce the succeeding consciousness, and so they are named the mind element”—not another thing, but the same consciousness renamed in the position of having just ceased. The treatise gives two similes: “as this one is a son and is named a father with respect to another; or as this one is a fruit and is named a seed with respect to another”—one and the same person is a father with respect to a son; one and the same thing is a fruit with respect to this and a seed with respect to that. The name is established by relation; it does not add to the substance.

The easy mistake: supposing the mind element to be an abiding mental substance. This treatise’s arrangement is precisely the opposite: mind is the consciousness of the preceding thought that has ceased, gone in an instant, relying on continuity and not on abiding. As a matter of practice, this step solves the problem on what does the sixth consciousness depend without having to posit any permanently existing mind. The later Yogācāra learning, positing manas as the mind faculty and the ālaya as the root support, answers the very same question in another way; one question, two generations of answers, which may be read against each other, though the characterization of their relation is not the business of this section.

〔Principal 14, second half〕Then why not seventeen elements, or twelve. The stanza says: “it is to establish the support of the sixth, and thus the eighteen elements should be known.” First the question: since the six consciousnesses and mind “include one another,” why not reduce them to seventeen, or simply to twelve? The treatise answers: “as the five consciousness elements each have their own separate support among the five elements beginning with the eye, the sixth, mind consciousness, has no separate support; and to establish this support the mind element is spoken of”—the first five consciousnesses each have a form faculty as support, and if the sixth had none the arrangement would be uneven, so the mind element is set up to fill its place. Thus “the supports, the supported, and the objects are six each, making eighteen elements”: six faculties, six consciousnesses, six objects, three sets of six, exactly even.

The treatise also raises a very fine objection: the last thought of an arhat beyond training has no succeeding consciousness—does it then fail to be a mind element? The answer: “not so; it already abides in the nature of mind, and the succeeding consciousness does not arise only because the remaining conditions are lacking”—the failure to arise is a lack of conditions, not a lack of the nature of mind. The easy mistake: supposing the eighteen elements to be eighteen different things. In fact the six consciousnesses and the mind element are one dharma in different positions; what the elements count are positions and functions, not the number of things. As a matter of practice, this gives the reader a measure: wherever a number in the treatise fails to match the number of things, ask first whether what is being counted is substance or position.

9. Inclusion: One Aggregate, One Sense Field, One Element Include All Dharmas (Principal Stanzas 15 and 16)

〔Principal 15〕Inclusion includes one’s own nature, not what merely resembles it. The stanza says: “all dharmas are comprehensively included by one aggregate, one sense field, one element; what is included is one’s own nature and not another’s, because a dharma is separate from another’s nature.” First the question: can all dharmas be packed into the fewest possible boxes? The treatise answers that they can: “by one aggregate of form, one mind sense field, one element of dharmas, it should be known that all dharmas are comprehensively included”—one aggregate of form, one mind sense field, one element of dharmas, three boxes and no more. But the real teaching point is in the last two lines: “in the various passages, speaking in the ultimate sense, only one’s own nature is included and not another’s,” the reason being “because a dharma is always separate from another’s nature.” The treatise takes the eye faculty as its example: the eye faculty “is included only in the aggregate of form, the eye sense field, the eye element, the truths of suffering and origin, and so on, because that is its nature; it is not included in the remaining aggregates, sense fields, and elements, because it is separate from their natures.”

The easy mistake: supposing inclusion to mean gathering related things together. In the ultimate sense it is not—inclusion includes only itself. Speaking conventionally there is another road: “it should be known that other dharmas may also include other dharmas, as with the four means of gathering, by which a following is gathered in.” The two accounts each have their own station and may not be mixed. Yuanhui states the practical use of this most clearly: “all dharmas do not exceed five positions: first form, second mind, third mental factors, fourth what is not associated with mind, fifth the unconditioned,” and hence “all dharmas of form are exhaustively included in the one aggregate of form; all dharmas of mind in the one mind sense field.” As a matter of practice, this is Abhidharma’s technique of retrieval: with any dharma in hand, ask first which box its own nature belongs to, then ask its relation to the other boxes—reverse the order and the discussion will fall into confusion.

〔Principal 16, first half〕There are two eyes; why is the element counted as one. The stanza says: “because kind, object, and consciousness are the same, though two, the substance of the element is one.” First the question: eye, ear, and nose each have two places—should the eighteen elements not be twenty-one? The treatise answers no, and sets out three samenesses: “same in kind, that is, the two places are alike the intrinsic nature of eye; same in object, that is, the two places alike take form as object; same in consciousness, that is, the two places alike serve as the support of eye consciousness.” Same nature, same object, same consciousness produced, therefore “by this the eye element, though two, is one; ear and nose should be established likewise.”

The easy mistake: supposing the elements to be counted by the number of organs. What the elements count is kind, not the number of items; one and the same lineage residing in two places is still one element. As a matter of practice, this is a rehearsal of the sense element = lineage—the first half of Principal Stanza 17 will formally supply that word-sense. Looking back from there, one sees that every number in this treatise has a statable reason behind it, and is not arrived at by counting heads.

〔Principal 16, second half〕Then why grow two. The stanza says: “yet in order to be comely, the eye and the rest each produce two.” If the substance is one, why be produced in two places? The treatise first records one explanation: “in order that the bodily form on which they depend be comely, the substance of the element, though one, arises in two places. If the eye and ear faculties arose in only one place each, and the nose had no two nostrils, the body would not be comely.” It then refutes it itself: “this explanation is not right. If they had been so from the beginning, who would call it ugly? Moreover cats and owls are produced with two places—what comeliness is there in them?”—if a person were born one-eyed by nature, who would call him ugly? And cats and owls have two eyes as well, without any comeliness in it.

The answer the treatise gives shifts the ground to function: “in order that the consciousness generated be clear and well-formed,” with direct observation as proof—“it is directly observed in the world that when one eye is closed and so forth, the cognizing of form is not distinct; therefore the three faculties each produce two places.” The easy mistake: supposing the treatise to be discussing beauty and ugliness. It has in fact rejected the account by beauty and ugliness and replaced it with the clarity and sharpness of cognizing. As a matter of practice, this is a method the treatise uses often: record the old explanation first, then test it against fact, and take what can be tested. The four words “this explanation is not right” occur twice in this fascicle—once at the explanation of nonmanifest form receiving the name form along with the manifest, once at the explanation by comeliness here—and both times what is refuted is an explanation of the author’s own school’s predecessors, not of outsiders.

10. The Word-Sense of the Three Words Aggregate, Sense Field, Element (First Half of Principal Stanza 17)

〔Principal 17, first half〕Collection, gate of arising, lineage—three word-senses, and a debate about the provisional. The stanza says: “collection, gate of arising, lineage are the senses of aggregate, sense field, and element.” First the question: what do these three literally mean? The treatise fixes each: aggregate is “the sense of a conjoined collection of conditioned dharmas is the sense of aggregate,” proved by the sūtra, “whatever form there is, past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near—all this taken briefly as one collection is called the aggregate of form”; sense field is “the sense of a gate for the arising and growth of mind and mental factors is the sense of sense field,” glossed as “because it can give rise to and cause the growth of mind and mental factors, it is named a sense field”; and element is “the sense of the lineage of dharmas is the sense of element,” with the simile of a mountain that “has many lineages of copper, iron, gold, silver and the rest,” so that within one body “there are the lineages of the eighteen classes of dharmas, named the eighteen elements,” and “here lineage has the sense of source of arising.”

The ten pairs of terms in the sūtra the treatise then fixes one by one: “what has ceased as impermanent is named past; what has not yet arisen is named future; what has arisen and not fallen away is named present”; “one’s own body is named internal, the rest external”; coarse and subtle either “by the sense fields, what is resistant is named coarse, what is nonresistant subtle”; and again “what is defiled is named inferior, what is undefiled superior; past and future are named far, present near.” An objector says: if they are established relatively, coarse and subtle cannot be established. The treatise answers, “because the terms of relation differ”—“what is coarse relative to that is never subtle, what is subtle relative to that is never coarse, like father and son, or the truths of suffering and origin”; one and the same person is a son to his father and a father to his son, and there is no contradiction. Here the treatise again records a divergent account without adjudicating: “the venerable Dharmatrāta further says: what is grasped by the five faculties is named coarse form, the rest subtle form; what is disagreeable is named inferior form, the rest superior form; what is in a place that cannot be seen is named far form, what is in a place that can be seen near form.”

The real weight is in the last section, and the objector is the author himself. The author sets up a formal inference and objects: if the sense of collection is the sense of aggregate, the aggregate ought to be provisional, since it is “made together by the accumulation of many real things, like a collection, like a self”—Puguang explains, “here he sets up an inference to refute the Vaibhāṣika claim that the aggregate is real,” and Shentai’s commentary likewise assigns it as “first, the Sautrāntika objection is stated.” The Vaibhāṣikas at once come to the defense: “this objection is not right, since a single real ultimate atom is also named an aggregate”—one real ultimate atom also receives the name aggregate, so the aggregate need not await the accumulation of many real things, and the author’s reason fails here; Puguang explains, “the Vaibhāṣika masters defend it by saying that each single ultimate atom also obtains the mark of aggregate, since it can be accumulated,” and Shentai marks it as “the first master explains.” The author presses one step further: then one ought not to say that the sense of collection is the sense of aggregate, “since a single real thing has no sense of collection”; Puguang marks this sentence as “the author objects,” and Shentai as “next, the Sautrāntika refutation is stated.” The treatise also records two divergent explanations (“the sense of being able to bear a heavy burden is the sense of aggregate,” “the sense of being divisible into portions is the sense of aggregate”) and refutes the latter by the sūtra: “such an explanation transgresses the sūtra.” At the end the author delivers his own verdict: “because it says ‘all this taken briefly as one collection is called the aggregate,’ therefore, like a collection, the aggregate is definitively provisional.” The easy mistake: reading “the aggregate is definitively provisional” as the judgment of the Sarvāstivāda school itself. Quite the reverse—Puguang marks here that “in the Vaibhāṣika school the three gates of aggregate and the rest are all real dharmas; on the Sautrāntika position aggregate and sense field are provisional and only element is real,” so it is the author who sets up an inference against them and grants that the aggregate is provisional; while sense field and element have their own separate ground, “within the accumulation of many, each single ultimate atom has the function of a cause,” so that the sense fields possessing form are not provisional in the way the aggregate is. As a matter of practice, the words “the aggregate is definitively provisional” are the distant groundwork for the refutation of the grasped self in the treatise’s last chapter: if even the five aggregates are a provisional collection, grasping the aggregates as a self has nowhere left to stand.

11. Why Three Gates Are Taught (Second Half of Principal Stanza 17 to First Half of 19)

〔Principal 17, second half〕The three classifications are not three inventories but three teachings. The stanza says: “because folly, faculty, and preference are threefold, the three of aggregate, sense field, and element are taught.” First the question: why must one and the same set of dharmas be cut three times? The treatise answers: “because the beings to be trained are of three grades, the World-Honored One taught them the three gates of aggregate and the rest.” Each of the three grades is threefold: folly is of three kinds—“either folly about mental factors, grasping them collectively as a self, or folly about form alone, or folly about form and mind”; faculty is of three—“sharp, middling, dull”; preference is of three—“preference for brief, middling, and extended wording.” “In that order the World-Honored One taught them the three of aggregate, sense field, and element.”

The easy mistake: supposing the difference among the three classifications to be one of doctrinal depth, the aggregates shallow and the elements deep. It is not; it is fitness to the hearer. To those foolish about mental factors, grasping them collectively as a self, the five aggregates are taught (mental factors being opened out into the three aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations); to those foolish about form alone, the twelve sense fields (form being opened out into ten sense fields); to those foolish about both form and mind, the eighteen elements (both form and mind being opened out). To the sharp who prefer brevity, the aggregates are given; to the dull who prefer extension, the elements. As a matter of practice, this stanza is the key to the whole fascicle: behind a taxonomy stands a pedagogy, and the ground on which a classification stands lies not on the side of the objects but on the side of the hearers. Here again the treatise uses the words it is transmitted—“it is transmitted that beings’ folly is of three kinds”—that same gap once more.

〔Principal 18〕Why feeling and perception are pulled out of the aggregate of formations. The stanza says: “because they are the roots of dispute, the causes of birth and death, and because of the reason of sequence, among the mental factors feeling and perception are set up separately as aggregates.” First the question: the mental factors are so many—why are feeling and perception alone set up as aggregates? The treatise gives three reasons. First, the roots of dispute: “the roots of dispute are two, attachment to the objects of desire and attachment to views,” and “through the force of relishing feeling one is attached to the objects of desire; through the force of inverted perception one is attached to views”—feeling and perception are exactly the most excellent causes of the two roots of dispute. Second, the causes of birth and death: “the dharmas of birth and death have feeling and perception as their most excellent causes, since through indulging in feeling inverted perception arises, and by this one revolves in birth and death.” Third, the reason of sequence, of which the treatise says “the reason of sequence will be distinguished next”—that is, in the next stanza.

The easy mistake: supposing the arrangement of the five aggregates to be a list drawn up at random. It is not. Written into the list of the five aggregates is a diagnosis of the root of the illness: the most excellent cause of all dispute and all revolving in birth and death is nothing but one feeling and one perception. As a matter of practice, this also shows where the effort of the path is to be applied—counteracting attachment to desire and to views must begin from feeling and perception; and this is the seed of the later chapters on the latent tendencies and the noble persons. Reaching this point, the reader may turn back to the name possessed of dispute in Principal Stanza 5: what is said in the two places is one and the same thing.

〔Principal 19, first half〕Why the unconditioned enters the sense fields and elements but not the aggregates. The stanza says: “the aggregates do not include the unconditioned, because the sense does not correspond.” First the question: the three unconditioned are dharmas too—why is there no place for them among the aggregates? The treatise answers: “because they do not correspond to the sense of form and the rest: their substance is not form and so on down to not consciousness”—each of the five aggregates has its own nature, and the unconditioned matches none of them; “nor can they be spoken of as a sixth aggregate, because they do not correspond to the sense of aggregate,” since the sense of collection is the sense of aggregate, whereas unconditioned dharmas “do not, like form and the rest, have the class distinctions of past and so forth such that they could be taken briefly as one collection and named an unconditioned aggregate.” The treatise adds one further layer: “moreover, aggregate of appropriation is said in order to display the support of defilement, while the word aggregate displays the support of both defilement and purity; the unconditioned has neither of these two senses.” It also records a divergent account (“as a broken jar is not a jar, so an aggregate that has been quieted ought not to be an aggregate”) and comments, “on his account the same fault ought to follow for the sense fields and elements.”

The easy mistake: supposing the unconditioned to be excluded from the classification altogether. It is not—it stands within the sense field and element of dharmas, as the previous stanza said. The aggregates do not include it only because the word-sense of aggregate (collection) does not correspond to it. As a matter of practice, this shows that the three classifications are not three equivalent containers: sense fields and elements include all dharmas without remainder, while the aggregates include only the conditioned. Hereafter, whenever all dharmas is said with the word aggregate, the reader must remember to supply this limitation.

12. Sequence: Why Arranged This Way (Second Half of Principal Stanza 19 and Stanza 20)

〔Principal 19, second half〕Four readings of the order of the five aggregates. The stanza says: “following coarseness, defilement, the vessel and the rest, and the distinction of realms, the sequence is established.” First the question: is the order form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness merely conventional? The treatise gives four reasons. First, following coarseness and subtlety: “form has resistance, and so among the aggregates it is coarse”; among the four formless aggregates feeling is coarsest, “hence people of the world say ‘my hand hurts’ and the like”; “relative to the latter two, perception is coarse, since perceptions of male and female are easily cognized”; “formations are coarser than consciousness, since actions such as greed and hatred are easily cognized”; “consciousness is subtlest, since it takes the mark of the object as a whole and is hard to distinguish.” Second, following defilement: male and female love one another in respect of form because “they indulge the relish of pleasant feeling”; indulgence in feeling arises through inverted perception; inverted perception arises through the afflictions (formations); the afflictions arise in dependence on consciousness—by the sequence of defilement the sequence of the aggregates is fixed. Third, following the vessel and the rest, the most memorable set of similes in the fascicle: “form is like a vessel, feeling like the food, perception like the seasoning that aids the flavor, formations like the cook, consciousness like the eater.” Fourth, following the distinction of realms: in the realm of desire the mark of form is manifest; in the form realm the mark of feeling is manifest; in the three formless the mark of perception is manifest; in the foremost existence the mark of formations is manifest.

The easy mistake: supposing the account of sequence to be a mnemonic conceit. The treatise says plainly that by this it is proved that “the five aggregates incur no fault of being too many or too few”—if the principle of the sequence stands, the number five can be neither increased nor decreased. As a matter of practice, the four reasons also prove once more the fitness of setting feeling and perception apart: they “are strongest in two realms, and so are set up separately as aggregates.” The reader may note that the treatise gives four explanations in a row without choosing one, which is exactly its standing practice with questions of the form why is it arranged thus: reasons are never too many, only never too few.

〔Principal 20〕The order of the six faculties likewise has its reasons. The stanza says: “the objects of the first five are only present; the objects of four are only derived; the rest by the distance, speed, and clarity of their functioning, or following the sequence of their places.” First the question: where does the order eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind come from? The treatise speaks on four levels. First, the first five faculties “grasp only present objects, and so are stated first,” while the objects of the mind faculty are not fixed—“the three times and the unconditioned, of which it may grasp only one, or two, three, four”—and so it is placed last. Second, the first four faculties have “objects only derived, and so are stated first,” while the objects of the body faculty are not fixed, “grasping the great elements, or derived form, or both,” and so it is placed at the end of the five. Third, among the first four the order follows the distance, speed, and clarity of functioning: eye and ear grasp distant objects and so come first, and of the two, “the eye’s functioning is more distant, and so it is stated first, since one sees mountains and rivers from afar without hearing their sound,” and “the eye’s functioning is also swift, since one first sees from afar a man striking a bell or drum and hears the sound afterward”; nose and tongue both fall short in distance, and “the nose is stated first because of speed and clarity,” as when facing fragrant food “the nose smells the fragrance first and the tongue tastes afterward.” Fourth, or by the upper and lower places within the body: “the support of the eye is placed highest, then ear, nose, tongue; the body is for the most part lower; the mind has no location.”

The easy mistake: supposing this to be a piece of anatomy. It is not. What the treatise arranges are the limits of functioning—whether the object is only present, whether only derived, and the distance, speed, and clarity of functioning; upper and lower placement in the body is only one route offered with the word or, and the mind faculty is expressly said to have “no location.” As a matter of practice, once the sequence of the six faculties is fixed, “from this the sequence of objects and consciousnesses may be known”—the ordering of the whole table of eighteen elements follows along. One reason holds up a whole table: this is the economy of Abhidharma.

13. The Distribution of Names: The Sense Field of Form and the Sense Field of Dharmas (Principal Stanza 21)

〔Principal 21〕All ten sense fields are form; why only one is named the sense field of form. The stanza says: “for distinction and excellence, and because it includes many dharmas and the dominant dharma, one sense field is named form and one is named dharmas.” First the question: since all ten sense fields are included in the aggregate of form, why does one alone take the name form? The treatise answers along two roads. First, for the sake of distinction: “in order that the various distinctions between the nature of an object and the nature of what possesses an object be known, ten sense fields are established within the aggregate of form according to their distinguishing marks, and not taken as one”—if the other nine sense fields each have their own particular name and this one has no name of its own left, the general name is made to serve as its particular name, and the treatise says this very finely: “though it bears the general designation, it is in fact a particular name.” Second, for excellence: the sense field of form is “resistant, so that when a hand or the like touches it, it thereupon deteriorates,” and “visible, so that one can point out the distinction of its being here or there,” and moreover “in the world it is only with respect to this sense field that people commonly speak of form, not with respect to the eye and the rest.”

The name of the sense field of dharmas follows the same two roads, with two further reasons added: “moreover, because it includes many dharmas such as feeling and perception, the general name should be established,” and “moreover, because the dominant dharma, namely nirvāṇa, is included in it, it alone is named dharmas.” The treatise also records another master’s explanation: the sense field of form is “given the name form alone because within it are twenty kinds of form, the coarsest and most evident, and because it is the object of the three eyes, the fleshly, the divine, and the noble eye of discernment”; the sense field of dharmas is “given the name dharmas alone because within it are the names of all dharmas and the knowledge of dharmas.” The easy mistake: supposing naming to be mere habit, with nothing to be said for it. The treatise’s position is exactly the reverse: where a general name falls must have a statable reason. As a matter of practice, this is precisely the character of Abhidharma—it demands the warrant even for the assignment of a name, let alone for a doctrine.

14. The Eighty Thousand Dharma-Aggregates: How Much Buddha-Dharma Is There (Principal Stanzas 22 to 24)

〔Principal 22〕The eighty thousand dharma-aggregates: is their substance speech or name? The stanza says: “the dharma-aggregates spoken by the Sage number eighty thousand; their substance is speech or name, included here in the aggregates of form or formations.” First the question: among the five aggregates, to which aggregate do the eighty thousand dharma-aggregates spoken by the Buddha belong? The treatise’s answer is a pair of conditionals: “those who say the Buddha’s teaching has speech as its substance say the dharma-aggregates are all included in the aggregate of form”; “those who say the Buddha’s teaching has name as its substance say the dharma-aggregates are all included in the aggregate of formations.”

The easy mistake: supposing the treatise here to decide whether the substance of the Buddha’s teaching is speech or name. It decides nothing—what it gives is a correspondence: if one holds the substance of teaching to be speech (speech being sound, and sound belonging to the aggregate of form), then the dharma-aggregates enter the aggregate of form; if one holds it to be name (name belonging to the formations not associated with mind), then they enter the aggregate of formations. Both accounts are recorded and each is internally coherent. As a matter of practice, this stanza demonstrates the actual use of the threefold classification: any term of the Buddha-dharma that is put forward may be asked which box of aggregate, sense field, and element does it fall in, and the answer varies with one’s determination of its own nature. This two-step operation—first fix the nature, then fix the placement—is used again and again throughout the treatise.

〔Principal 23〕The number eighty thousand: three ways of counting. The stanza says: “some say the measure of the dharma-aggregates is as that treatise states; or following the wording of aggregates and the rest; speaking in accordance with reality, it is the counteracting of the modes of conduct.” First the question: how large is one dharma-aggregate? The treatise sets three accounts side by side. The first fixes the measure by the text: “the measure of each of the eighty thousand dharma-aggregates equals the Dharmaskandha, that is, each has six thousand stanzas.” The second fixes the measure by gates of teaching: “dharma-aggregates number eighty thousand according to the several distinctions of the wording of aggregates and the rest,” and the treatise lists the items—“aggregates, sense fields, elements, dependent origination, the truths, the nutriments, the meditative absorptions, the immeasurables, the formless, the liberations, the bases of mastery, the totalities, the limbs of awakening, the supernormal powers, the state of non-contention, the knowledge of aspiration, the unobstructed knowledges, and the rest, each gate of teaching being named one dharma-aggregate.” The third fixes the measure by counteraction: “the beings to be trained have eighty thousand distinct modes of conduct such as greed and hatred, and in order to counteract those eighty thousand modes of conduct the World-Honored One expounded eighty thousand dharma-aggregates.”

The easy mistake: reading eighty thousand as a measurement of documents. The third account gives a measurement in the sense of the path—the number of teachings equals the number of illnesses, and how much the Buddha taught depends on how many modes of conduct beings have. Nor are the three accounts a level list without adjudication: the third is prefixed by the four words “speaking in accordance with reality,” which is precisely the author marking it himself as the account that accords with reality; and the ancient masters have their further judgments on this, recorded in the Further Resonances. At the end the treatise brings the matter back to the point at issue: “the eighty thousand dharma-aggregates so stated are all included in two of these five aggregates”—whichever way of counting is adopted, the result of the placement does not change. As a matter of practice, the setting of three accounts side by side is itself a demonstration of the form: there may be three ways of computing a measure, while the result of placement is only one.

〔Principal 24〕The aggregates, sense fields, and elements of other sūtras, each placed. The stanza says: “thus the remaining aggregates and the rest are each, as corresponds, included in what has been stated; one should examine closely their intrinsic marks.” First the question: the sūtras speak of other sets of five aggregates and other sense fields and elements—do these constitute another system? The treatise answers, “as corresponds, they are included in what has been stated,” and demonstrates a round of placements on the spot: the five aggregates of morality, concentration, discernment, liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation—“among them the aggregate of morality is included in this aggregate of form, and the remaining four in this aggregate of formations”; of the ten totalities, the first eight “have non-greed as their nature and are included in this sense field of dharmas,” and “if taken with their companions they have the nature of five aggregates and are included in this mind sense field and sense field of dharmas,” while “the inclusion of the eight bases of mastery should be known to be likewise”; “the totalities of space and consciousness and the four formless spheres beginning with the infinity of space have the nature of four aggregates and are included in this mind sense field and sense field of dharmas”; “the five bases of liberation have discernment as their nature and are included in this sense field of dharmas,” and with their companions “are included in these sense fields of sound, mind, and dharmas”; the place of the heaven of non-percipient beings is “included in these ten sense fields, since there is no odor or taste there”; and the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception is “included in these sense fields of mind and dharmas, having the nature of four aggregates.”

The easy mistake: supposing that, the terms of sūtra and treatise being so many, two parallel systems must result. The treatise’s answer is that there is one: whatever term there may be, it can be examined by its own intrinsic mark and placed within the eighteen elements. And so the last line of the stanza is not a conclusion but an assignment for the reader—“one should examine closely the intrinsic mark of each.” As a matter of practice, this is precisely the treatise demonstrating its own use: not to memorize inventories, but to take the inventory and test any newly encountered term with it. Master this step and the eight remaining chapters will not drown the reader in terminology.

15. A Question at the End of the Fascicle: The Space Element and the Consciousness Element (Principal Stanza 25)

〔Principal 25〕The space element is not space, and the consciousness element is not all consciousness. The stanza says: “the space element means apertures; it is transmitted that these are brightness and darkness. The consciousness element is consciousness with outflows, the support of the arising of sentient beings.” First the question: the Sūtra of Many Elements speaks of six elements; the four of earth, water, fire, and wind have been stated—what are space and consciousness? The treatise first blocks the readiest misreading: the space element is not the space among the three unconditioned. It is “the inner and outer apertures such as doors, windows, mouth, and nose are named the space element”—the openings of doors, windows, mouth, and nose. How, then, are apertures cognized? “It is transmitted: apertures are precisely brightness and darkness; apart from brightness and darkness apertures cannot be apprehended, and so it is said that the space element has brightness and darkness as its substance,” and “it should be known that this substance is not apart from day and night.” It is also named form neighboring agha, and for this name the treatise records two accounts: one says “it is transmitted that agha means accumulated form; because it is maximally obstructive it is named agha,” and so “this form of the space element neighbors it, and is therefore named form neighboring agha”; the other says “some say agha is the form of the space element itself, here named agha because it is non-obstructive,” and so “the remaining obstructive form neighbors this agha-form, and it is therefore named form neighboring agha.” One name, two explanations pointing in opposite directions—one taking agha as obstruction, the other as non-obstruction—and the treatise records them without deciding.

The consciousness element is restricted to what has outflows: “all consciousness with outflows is named the consciousness element.” Why is consciousness without outflows not taken? The treatise answers: “because it is granted that the six elements are the support of the arising of sentient beings, and these elements constantly maintain that arising from the mind of rebirth-linking to the mind at death; dharmas without outflows are not so.” The six elements are the pillars of one lifespan, maintained from the thought that links to a new existence to the thought at death; what dharmas without outflows do is precisely to destroy the three existences, and so they are not entered in this list. At the end the six elements are placed one by one and the fascicle is closed: “the first four are included in this tangible element, the fifth in this form element, the sixth in these seven mind elements.” The easy mistake: sliding past the words it is transmitted. In this fascicle it is transmitted occurs seven times—six in the prose and one in a stanza (namely this stanza’s “it is transmitted that these are brightness and darkness”)—and two of them fall within this one passage; this is also where the ancient masters dispute most sharply, whether the space element is really or provisionally existent, four masters with four accounts, recorded in the Further Resonances. As a matter of practice, having read one fascicle through, the reader should have seen this much: from its first sentence this treatise is not only classifying, it is simultaneously judging; and where it judges, its wording always leaves room. From the next unit onward both these things accelerate at once—twenty-two gates distinguishing the eighteen elements one by one, while the words it is transmitted still surface from time to time.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Four Commentaries

The above is the sense of this fascicle’s own text. What follows is a separate section gathering three things: the ancient masters’ judgments and the divergences among the three commentaries, Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutations, and the differences of Paramārtha’s old translation. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading the same passage—recorded together without adjudication, each returned to its own place.

1. Points Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

The word every in the stanza of homage. There is a transmitted saying of the masters of the West of the mother-and-child treatises that “whoever would compose a treatise places the word every at the head,” which Puguang records as reasonable; Fabao rejects it as not so, holding that “this very word every already sets the treatise apart from the outsiders”—the word has its own function of setting apart and is not a formula for composing treatises; Yuanhui does not enter the dispute and explains directly from the text of the treatise.

How darkness is assigned. Puguang preserves three explanations side by side; Fabao, in the form “someone says . . . refutation,” cites and refutes them one by one (what he cites agrees on the surface with the three that Puguang preserves; this is a mechanical observation of surface wording, with no judgment as to whom he means); Yuanhui takes the general sense in a single phrase.

The possessive analysis of the name treasury. All three judge it possessive, while Fabao separately rejects as mistaken the explanation of “someone” who takes the simile of a knife-sheath directly as a many-possessions reading, citing the Correct Principle—“treasury means what is firm and solid, like the heartwood of a tree”—to fix the two Western senses.

Whether the space element is real or provisional. Yuanhui judges outright: “according to the Sautrāntika position the space element is provisional; for the Sarvāstivāda masters the space element is real,” and therefore “the author inclines to the Sautrāntikas, and so says ‘it is transmitted.’” Puguang marks that “he does not believe the space element really exists, and therefore says ‘it is transmitted,’” while preserving a further explanation—that the claim of the space element’s real existence “is not what the author grants,” the reason being that “day and night are not real, and the space element is likewise, and so it ought not to be really existent.” Fabao likewise marks that the author does not believe in its real existence, yet cites at length the passages of the Correct Principle that establish it to the contrary. Shentai’s commentary, on the two words it is transmitted, explains that “‘thus the Vaibhāṣikas transmit’ names the one who holds the view,” and says that “the author does not believe that everything said by the Abhidharma masters wholly captures the Buddha’s intent.” Four masters, four routes, recorded together without adjudication.

The measure of a dharma-aggregate. The treatise prefixes the third account with the four words “speaking in accordance with reality,” already marking it as the account that accords with reality; Puguang judges on that basis, “the third, the correct meaning, fixes the measure by function: the removal of one defilement is named one dharma-aggregate”; Fabao cites the third explanation of the Correct Principle and records that “‘eighty thousand’ cites the round number; it is in fact eighty-four thousand dharma-aggregates.” The two masters’ judgments run in the same direction as the treatise’s own marking.

The emendation of the wording at increase by attachment. Puguang records a piece of the history of the doctrine: when the master Fasheng composed the Treatise on the Heart of Abhidharma he explained with outflows by arising; a later generation’s Dharmatrāta found the sense of arising faulty (with the truths of cessation and the path the outflows arise yet are not with outflows) and so changed it to increase by attachment, and “therefore the present author too follows that explanation.” Fabao adds a comment here: “this corrects his wording, not his meaning.” This comment is an ancient master’s judgment and therefore does not enter the main text.

What is refuted at ultimate inclusion. Puguang points out that what Principal Stanza 15 refutes is a separate school that holds another’s nature to be associated, and cites the Mahāvibhāṣā—“when the intrinsic nature of dharmas includes its own nature, it is not like taking food with the hand”—as proof. This identification of the target is supplied by Puguang; the text of the treatise itself does not mark it.

2. What Shentai’s Commentary Separately Supplies

Shentai’s commentary separately supplies three things on the corresponding passages of this fascicle: the reason for the appellation venerable (“bhadanta, which here means ‘venerable,’ is Dharmatrāta of the Sarvāstivāda school”; “the Sarvāstivādins revered the man, and therefore called him ‘venerable’”); the gloss of Udāna (“udāna here means ‘spoken without being asked’”); and it is transmitted as naming the one who holds the view. On the Udāna entry, Shentai further says, “the old rendering Youtuona Sūtra is a corruption of the sound”—and Paramārtha’s old translation does read Youtuona; what Shentai’s “old rendering” refers to is not adjudicated.

3. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutations

In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master”; four passages bearing on the corresponding portion of this fascicle can be attested, and all are recorded below, both parties set side by side, with no judgment of who prevails.

First, whether the Abhidharma is the Buddha’s word. Saṅghabhadra attacks the word transmitted in the third prefatory stanza: “the Sūtra-master says ‘transmitted,’ and thereby shows that he does not believe the Abhidharma to be spoken by the Buddha.” His own positive claim is that “the Abhidharma is sanctioned by the Buddha and is also called the Buddha’s word,” and he sets up an objection: “if what the Buddha sanctions were not called the Buddha’s word, one would have to discard immeasurable sūtras.”

Second, that the marks of nonmanifest form are not fully stated. Saṅghabhadra writes: “I say that in this stanza the Sūtra-master cannot fully state the marks of nonmanifest form, since he calls what flows on nonmanifest.”

Third, challenging what the word and so forth includes. Saṅghabhadra writes: “the words ‘distracted mind and so forth’ already include every other minded state; what then does the second ‘and so forth’ include? The Sūtra-master should consider this.”

Fourth, the objection about the simile of shadow-on-tree and light-on-jewel. Saṅghabhadra says: “this objection does not touch the doctrine of the Vaibhāṣikas, since they grant that the dependent and what it depends on cease together.”

Where Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutations are dense is not in this fascicle (this fascicle consists largely of passages of establishment); they will be recorded separately when the later chapters come.

4. Differences in Paramārtha’s Old Translation

In the stanza of homage Paramārtha has “by knowledge of every kind he extinguishes all darkness and draws living beings out of the mire of birth and death” and “I bow at the feet of the great teacher whose teaching accords with reality; I shall expound the Treasury of Abhidharma”—the first line speaking in the one case from the side of what is abandoned and in the other from the side of the knowledge that abandons, so that the construction differs; and the last line reads Abhidharma-kośa with kośa transcribed, not Treasury of Abhidharma with it translated. In explaining the name Abhidharma, Paramārtha’s text has “pure knowledge together with its assisting companions is called Abhidharma” (discernment against knowledge, accompaniments against assisting companions); in explaining the name dharma he has “because it can maintain the mark of its own entity, it is called dharma,” using the transcription outright in explaining the name. The stanza on the aggregate of form reads “the skandha of form is the five faculties, the five dusts, and the uninstructive.” At the end of the fascicle the space element is “apertures are named the space element,” and where Xuanzang has form neighboring agha Paramārtha has form neighboring obstruction (transcription against meaning-translation); and where Xuanzang has it is transmitted Paramārtha has they say and they hold.

Of the correspondences of translated terms, the commonest may be cited: aggregate and skandha, sense field and entrance, with outflows and with currents, nonmanifest and uninstructive, five objects and five dusts, aggregate of appropriation and appropriation-skandha, Chapter on the Latent Tendencies and Chapter on the Defilements, Udāna and Youtuona. The two versions also differ in expansion and compression: Xuanzang gives the complete stanza first and comments afterward, while Paramārtha embeds his explanation line by line, so that a single stanza is often broken up and cited in several places. The adoption or rejection of a variant belongs to the translator, and this section only records without adjudicating.

5. Coordinates Available for Cross-Reading

What this fascicle establishes is the first half of the underlying map of the seventy-five dharma learning. The three unconditioned (space, cessation through discernment, cessation independent of discernment) and the six unconditioned into which the later dharma-characteristics learning opens them may be read against each other in their expansion and compression; the eleven kinds of form (five faculties, five objects, nonmanifest form) and the eleven forms of the hundred dharmas share the same number while differing in how they are opened out; the arrangement of mind and consciousness as six consciousnesses plus the mind that has ceased without interval, and the arrangement of eight consciousnesses in which Yogācāra posits manas and the ālaya, are two generations of answers to one question; and the doctrine of dharma in the sentence “because it can maintain its intrinsic mark it is called a dharma” was carried on by the later dharma-characteristics learning. This section only lists the coordinates available for cross-reading; the characterization of the relations is not its business.