俱舍論 極少量·年劫·三災Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · The Least Measures · Years and Aeons · The Three Catastrophes

Before reading this fascicle

With this the Chapter on the World reaches its last fascicle. The four fascicles before it have said all there is to say about what there is — the three realms and five destinies, intermediate existence and entry into the womb, the twelvefold dependent origination, the shape of the receptacle world, and the bodily measure and lifespan of sentient beings. This fascicle suddenly turns a corner: it no longer asks what there is, but by what it is measured.

The treatise, as soon as it opens its mouth, takes hold of the text before it: “Thus, by means of the yojana and the rest, the differences of measure of the receptacle world and of bodies have been analyzed.” Space above was measured by the yojana and time by the year — both rules had already been used, and yet the smallest graduation of the rules themselves was never accounted for. And a further layer: the establishing of any measure whatever is inseparable from a name (without a name there is no way to speak of any measure at all), and so the least unit of name must be asked after too. Three matters raised together, and thence the three least measures.

From here the whole fascicle is a single straight line running from the smallest to the greatest: the three least measures (the ultimate atom · the letter · the moment) → the table of lengths increasing sevenfold → the table of times from the moment to the year → the aeon → the four aeons → the great aeon → the three asaṃkhyeya aeons → the window of time in which buddhas and pratyekabuddhas appear → the wheel-turning monarch → the sentient beings at the beginning of an aeon → the three lesser catastrophes → the three great catastrophes. The outline Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary sets over this fascicle is exactly this skeleton: first “the three least measures explained, and second the two measures,” then the two measures opened into length and time, then time opened into “first the moment to the year explained, second the numbers of the aeons,” and finally the numbers of the aeons opened into “first the number of the aeons, second the people within the aeons, third the catastrophes within the aeons” — measure is the master-cord, and the people within the aeons and the catastrophes within the aeons are what this rule measures out.

One thing must be said in advance: this fascicle reads like a gazetteer of the world, and is easily taken for an old astronomy and geography. But its practice remains throughout that of Abhidharma — behind every number a boundary among the enumerated dharmas is being kept, and behind every story a question is being answered. In reading, one should form the habit of asking which line a given passage is keeping, or else the sevenfold increase, the sixty numbers, and the eighty intermediate aeons will be numbers and nothing more.

I. The Three Least Measures: Why One Must First Ask How Small the Smallest Is

〔1.1〕The establishing of the three least measures. The stanza has only ten graphs — “the ultimate atom, the letter, the moment: the least of form, of name, and of time.” The treatise explains it very briefly: analyze form layer by layer until it can be analyzed no further, and that is one ultimate atom, and so one ultimate atom is the least of form; analyze name and time by the same procedure and one obtains one letter and one moment. First ask: why just these three? Because of the two rules used above, one measured form (the yojana) and one measured time (the year), and the establishing of any measure again requires a name — form, time, and name are exactly the three dimensions a measure needs, and not one of them can be spared. The easy error is to read the three least measures as three small things listed side by side. They are not things of one kind, but the smallest graduation upon each of three separate axes. In practice: hereafter, when the ultimate atom is met with, do not think of it merely as a fine speck of dust — it is the lower limit yielded by the analysis of dharmas; and when the moment is met with, do not think of it merely as something very short — it is one notch upon the axis of time that cannot be divided again.

〔1.2〕A single letter as the least of name. The example the treatise gives is only four graphs long — “as for a name of a single letter, it is like saying the name qu.” First ask: how can a single letter be a name? Because the function of a name is to denote, and if a single letter alone can already designate a thing, it is already the smallest unit that can denote. Fabao’s Commentary, in explaining this passage, divides the denoting and the denoted among the three least measures very clearly, saying, “the half stanza below explains the three least measures; among the three least measures two are what is denoted and one is what denotes; and among what is denoted, one is the measure of form and the second is the measure of time” — form and time are what is spoken of, and name is what speaks. The easy error is to read “a single letter” as a written stroke. What is meant is the smallest unit of a denoting name, not a graphic shape. In practice: this discrimination will be wanted again in reading the name-bodies, phrase-bodies, and syllable-bodies later (in the chapter on action and among the formations not associated with mind); the least of name has here a first stake driven for it.

〔1.3〕Two definitions of the moment, and one simile. The answer the treatise gives falls into three layers: first, “the instant in which, the many conditions having come together, a dharma obtains its own existence” — the instant in which, the many conditions being complete, a dharma just takes on its own being; second, “or, if there is a dharma in motion, the passing over of one ultimate atom” — if there is something in motion, the stretch over which it passes the length of one ultimate atom is one moment; third, the simile of the Abhidharma masters, “as in the time a strong man snaps his fingers once quickly there are sixty-five moments.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary sets these three layers side by side most clearly, saying in its general explanation, “the ultimate atom is the least of form; the moment is the least of time; a single letter is the least of name,” and beneath that marking out the three accounts one by one with “a further explanation.” First ask: why should one matter have three accounts? Because the first two are definitions (bounding the moment by two routes, the arising of a dharma and motion through space), while the third is a device of inference (giving one a sense of the measure that can be felt). The easy error is to take the sixty-five in the finger-snap for the author’s own definition. The treatise says plainly that this is “what the Abhidharma masters say” — another party’s account taken into the treatise for reference. In practice: to keep definition and simile apart is the move that matters most hereafter; at the end of this fascicle, in refuting the non-Buddhists, the author uses precisely the route of “you take what has not been granted and use it as your proof.”

II. From the Ultimate Atom to the Yojana: A Stairway of Sevens

〔2.1〕Eleven steps of seven, and a last step of three. The stanza compresses the whole stairway into twenty graphs: “the ultimate atom, the mote, gold and water, hare, sheep, ox, and crevice dust, the nit, the louse, the barley grain, the finger joint, each later one increasing sevenfold.” The treatise spreads the steps out one by one: seven ultimate atoms make one mote, seven motes one gold dust, seven gold dusts water dust, seven water dusts hare’s-hair dust, seven hare’s-hair dusts sheep’s-wool dust, seven sheep’s-wool dusts ox-hair dust, seven ox-hair dusts crevice-roaming dust, seven crevice-roaming dusts one nit, seven nits one louse, seven lice one barley grain, seven barley grains one finger joint. Here the sevenfold increase stops, and the treatise next says “three joints make one finger” — and this step is threefold, not sevenfold. First ask: why does the multiplier suddenly change? The treatise gives its own reason: “it is fully established in the world, and therefore it is not separately distinguished in the stanza” — the relation of joint to finger is common knowledge and need not be set up as an enumerated dharma. The easy error: readers often count “three joints make one finger” into the sevenfold series as well, and then the whole conversion goes wrong. In practice: in reading an Abhidharma table of numbers, one must keep clear which stretch is enumerated dharma and which is ordinary common knowledge; the author has here drawn that line with his own hand.

〔2.2〕From the finger to the yojana. Above this come the units of human measurement: twenty-four fingers laid side by side make one cubit, four cubits stacked lengthwise one bow (also called a fathom), five hundred bows one krośa, and eight krośas one yojana. Of the krośa the treatise gives a definition drawn straight from daily life — “one krośa is about the measure of the road between a village and a forest hermitage” — the stretch of road from a village to the quiet woodland where practitioners dwell. First ask: why define a unit by such a walking distance? Because that stretch of road is walked every day in the life of the community, and is the most palpable of all. Puguang’s Record here works out a conversion into the measures of the Tang for his readers, reckoning that “eight krośas come to twenty-five thousand six hundred feet,” which converts to somewhat more than fourteen li. The easy error is to take this stairway for the ancients’ scientific measurement. It is a stairway of felt measure for teaching, whose function is to let one reason from the floating dust visible to the naked eye (the crevice-roaming dust) all the way down to the invisible ultimate atom, and then all the way up to the scale of mountains, rivers, and the great earth. In practice: the real use of this whole stairway is to hang the abstract notion of the ultimate atom upon an end that can be experienced — the crevice-roaming dust is what the eye can see, and seven layers down from it is the ultimate atom.

III. From the Moment to the Year: The Graduations of Time, and the Six Nights a Year Loses

〔3.1〕The six grades of the table of times. The stanza says, “one hundred and twenty moments make the measure of one tatkṣaṇa; the lava is sixty of these; the brief hour thirty of these; a day and night thirty of these; thirty days and nights a month; twelve months a year; and within it half have their nights diminished.” The treatise reads the grades off one by one: one hundred and twenty moments make one tatkṣaṇa, sixty tatkṣaṇas one lava, thirty lavas one muhūrta (that is, the brief hour), thirty muhūrtas one day and night, thirty days and nights one month, twelve months one year. First ask: the table of lengths uses sevens; why does the table of times change to one hundred and twenty, sixty, and thirty? Because the table of lengths is a table of inference (reasoning upward from the ultimate atom, where one and the same ratio is the most economical), while the table of times joins on to an actual calendar — thirty days to a month and twelve months to a year are ready to hand, and only by reasoning downward from them does one get sixty and thirty. The easy error is to suppose that the two tables ought to be built alike. They differ in nature: the one is reasoned upward from below, the other joined on from above. In practice: from this one can work out how many moments there are in a day and a night — the very reckoning later readers most love to make, while the author himself gives only the graduations and performs no calculation.

〔3.2〕Day and night have increase and decrease. In the middle of the table of times the treatise inserts a sentence that matters: “this day and night sometimes increases, sometimes decreases, and is sometimes equal.” First ask: since thirty muhūrtas make one day and night, how can there be increase and decrease? Because the increase and decrease spoken of is the waxing and waning of day and night against each other, not a change in the total of one day and night. A year is divided into the three seasons of cold, heat, and rain, four months each, and the length of day and night shifts with the season. The easy error is to read this sentence as meaning that the length of a day changes. In practice: this sentence lays the ground for why the diminishing of nights in the next passage is needed at all — because day and night wax and wane against each other, the calendar must have some means of correction.

〔3.3〕The six months of diminished nights, and that quoted stanza. The treatise says, “in six of the twelve months the nights are diminished, so that within one year the nights are diminished by six in all,” then sets itself the question “how is this so?” and answers with an old stanza: “Within the three seasons of cold, heat, and rain, when a month and a half has passed, in the half month that remains the wise know that the nights are diminished.” First ask: what is this stanza saying? What it gives is a rule of operation — within each of the three seasons, cold, heat, and rain, when a month and a half has passed, the nights are to be diminished in the half month that remains; two from each of the three seasons, and six in a year. Puguang’s Record explains it thus: “within one year six nights are diminished in all, and this is what is meant by diminishing nights,” fixing the number firmly. The easy error is to take these twenty graphs for one of the root stanzas and reckon them into the stanza count. It is a quoted stanza and not a root stanza — the text before it reads “therefore there is a stanza that says” and not “the stanza says”; Fabao’s Commentary here expressly marks it “a stanza quoted as proof”; and Puguang’s Record likewise does not take it for a root stanza — his heading for this passage reads, “from ‘thus has been stated’ down to ‘the wise know that the nights are diminished’: below this is the second part, explaining the measure of time,” and he ends with “by this stanza it is proved, and so six nights are diminished”; while Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary, having quoted it, sets up no separate outline heading but goes straight on to “from here the second, explaining the measure of aeons.” In practice: in reading a treatise one should form the habit of watching for the sign given in the text before — the difference of a single graph between “the stanza says” and “a stanza that says” decides whether the passage is the author’s own composition or a citation of another’s words.

〔3.4〕Why the author says little of calendrical calculation. The section closes here, and the author reasons out no further calendrical numbers. Puguang’s Record adds at this point a remark of some weight, saying, “the reason the author does not set out the calendrical numbers at length is that he fears men will become absorbed in them and make a wrong livelihood of them” — fearing that students will sink into calendrics and divination and turn them into a trade. First ask: is this an idle digression? It is not. It explains one feature of the way this fascicle is written: wherever calculation could be carried on without end, the author stops as soon as the point is made. The easy error is to suppose that the author’s learning was insufficient or his materials wanting. In practice: hereafter, when the treatise breaks off suddenly, first ask whether the restraint is deliberate, and one will usually see the proportion of the passage.

IV. The First of the Four Aeons: The Aeon of Dissolution — How a World Comes Apart

〔4.1〕The names of the four aeons and the bounds of the aeon of dissolution. The stanza marks at its head, “it should be known that there are four aeons, namely dissolution, formation, the intermediate, and the great,” and then fixes both ends of the aeon of dissolution in one sentence: “dissolution runs from no birth in the hells to the outward receptacle wholly gone.” The treatise explains it as “what is called the aeon of dissolution runs from the point where sentient beings in the hells are no longer born until the outward receptacle is wholly gone.” First ask: why is the aeon of dissolution reckoned from the hells? Because the order of destruction runs from below upward — the hells are lowest, and there birth ceases first. The easy error is to imagine the aeon of dissolution as a great fire falling suddenly. The line the treatise gives is very cool: the starting point of the aeon of dissolution is not fire, but that no new being is born in the hells; the fire does not come until the world of sentient beings is wholly empty. In practice: this line settles the rhythm of the whole fascicle — sentient beings are destroyed first and the receptacle after, and the three catastrophes of fire, water, and wind enter only in the last stretch.

〔4.2〕Two twofold divisions of dissolution. The treatise goes straight on to give two divisions: “dissolution is of two kinds, first of destiny and second of realm; and again of two kinds, first of sentient beings and second of the outward receptacle.” First ask: why should one and the same matter be divided twice? Because the two sets rest upon different coordinates — the former upon the five destinies and the three realms (dissolution stated as an emptying destiny by destiny and realm by realm), the latter upon sentient beings and the receptacle (dissolution stated as having two stages, an earlier and a later). The easy error is to range the four names in a single row as four kinds of dissolution. They are two sets of two, not one set of four. In practice: this manner of stating one and the same fact once over upon each of two sets of coordinates is the standing way of Abhidharma; ask first what a given set is divided upon, and the names will not be miscounted.

〔4.3〕The dissolution of the hells and where those with fixed action go. The treatise says: when the sentient beings of the hells die and none is newly born, that is the beginning of the aeon of dissolution; and when not one sentient being is left in the hells it is named the hells having been destroyed. Here a difficulty at once arises — what of those who have done actions that must certainly be requited in the hells? The treatise answers briskly: “by the force of action they are placed in the hells of another quarter,” carried by the force of action into the hells of another world. First ask: why does this answer matter? Because it keeps the principle that action and result do not fail — a world may be destroyed, but action cannot be written off. The easy error is to suppose that once a world is destroyed the debt of action is cancelled with it. In practice: this is the one place in this fascicle that touches the doctrine of action head on, and when the chapter on action later says that fixed action cannot be turned aside, a case has already been set down here.

〔4.3 appended〕Inferring the animals and the ghosts from the case of the hells — two rules of destruction. After the hells are wholly destroyed the treatise does not leap at once to human beings and gods, but first fills in the two destinies between with one sentence: “from this the destinies of animals and ghosts may be inferred; yet in each it is those dwelling in their own proper place who are destroyed first, while those dwelling mingled among human beings and gods are destroyed together with human beings and gods.” First ask: why are the animals and the ghosts passed over with the single word “inferred,” and yet a further sentence added? Because the model of destruction is the same as with the hells (death with no new birth, and those with fixed action moved to another quarter) and may be inferred; but these two destinies have something the hells have not — they do not dwell in their own proper place alone. And so the treatise sets up two further rules: first, those in their own proper place are destroyed first — those dwelling in the animals’ proper place (the great sea) and the ghosts’ proper place (the realm of King Yama) are destroyed first, along with their own destiny; second, those mingled among human beings and gods are destroyed with human beings and gods — the portion scattered among men and among the gods does not follow its own destiny but is destroyed at the same time as human beings and gods. The easy error is to read “inferred” as “the same.” They are not the same — the principle of destruction is the same, the order in time is not; and it is precisely because they dwell mingled that the second rule is needed. In practice: the dissolution of the five destinies thus falls into three stages — the hells first, then those of the animals and ghosts who dwell in their own proper place, and human beings and gods last (together with the animals and ghosts mingled among them); hold to this order and the next unit’s account of human beings and gods walking upward level by level will join on.

〔4.4〕How the destinies of human beings and gods are emptied. The treatise uses a very singular manner of narration: it is not that sentient beings are annihilated, but that sentient beings walk upward one by one. Someone in this continent attains the first meditative absorption spontaneously without a teacher, comes out of absorption and sings out, “The joy and pleasure born of seclusion — how pleasant, how still!”; those beside him hear and follow him into absorption, and when their lives end they are together born into the Brahmā world; and so on until the people of this continent are gone. The two continents of east and west are to be inferred on this pattern. Uttarakuru in the north cannot enter absorption and become free from desire, and so there beings are born among the gods of the desire realm when their lifespan is exhausted. So too with the destiny of gods: one among the gods of the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings attains the first absorption spontaneously, and so on until that heaven is emptied; and the heavens of the desire realm follow in order upon this pattern. Higher still, one in the Brahmā world attains the second meditative absorption without a teacher, comes out of absorption and sings out, “The joy and pleasure born of absorption — how pleasant, how still!”, and the remaining gods follow him into absorption and are born into the Ābhāsvara Heaven. First ask: why is the aeon of dissolution accomplished by the cultivation of absorption? Because the destruction of the receptacle world must wait upon the exhausting of sentient beings, and sentient beings cannot simply vanish — the way out is migration upward — and for the three continents and the heavens absorption is the gate; the northern continent alone is the exception, the treatise saying plainly that “in the northern continent, when the lifespan ends they are born among the gods of the desire realm, since they have no power to enter absorption and become free from desire,” a birth upon the exhaustion of lifespan and not by absorption. The easy error is to read this passage as a mythical end of the world. In practice: this passage is in fact teaching something about practice — for the three continents and the heavens that can enter absorption, the true refuge when catastrophe comes is meditative absorption and not any place whatever; while the northern continent is born upward upon the exhaustion of lifespan, and its ascent is not by absorption.

〔4.5〕The destruction of the receptacle world, and “the catastrophe of another level cannot destroy that other level.” Once sentient beings are gone the treatise says, “the receptacle world alone abides, vast and empty”; then, when the action by which the sentient beings of the ten directions draw forth this trichiliocosm is exhausted, seven sun-discs appear, the seas dry up, the ranked mountains blaze through, the continents and islets together with the three circles of wind, water, and gold are burned up alike, and the burning reaches the palace of Brahmā without leaving ash. Here the author inserts a discrimination of the first importance: “the flames of a level burn the palaces of that level; the catastrophe of another level cannot destroy that other level” — it is the fire of the level itself that burns the palaces of that level, and not that the fire of the level below truly burns its way up; the reason for saying that “the fire below, driven by the wind, burns the level above” is said only with respect to the drawing forth of one thing by another, the flames of the desire realm rising and serving as the condition that draws forth the flames of the form realm. First ask: why must this discrimination be set up? Because if the fire below were allowed to burn the level above directly, the divisions of the three realms would be thrown into confusion. The easy error is to read it as a single conflagration burning upward from below. In practice: this sentence is the forerunner of the last section of this fascicle, on the inward and the outward catastrophe being of the same kind — a catastrophe can destroy a given level by the drawing of like by like, not by physical spreading.

V. The Second of the Four Aeons: The Aeon of Formation and the Aeon of Abiding — The Increase and Decrease of Twenty Intermediate Aeons

〔5.1〕The two ends of the aeon of formation, and its order. The treatise says, “what is called the aeon of formation runs from the arising of the wind until sentient beings first are born in the hells.” After the whole is destroyed there are twenty intermediate aeons of nothing but empty space, and then, by the dominant force of the actions of all sentient beings, “within space an exceedingly fine wind arises by degrees, and this is the forerunner of the receptacle world about to be formed.” The order of the receptacle’s forming is that the palace of the great Brahmā king comes first, on down to the palace of Yāma, and the wind circle and the rest arise after; while of sentient beings, one from the Ābhāsvara Heaven is first born as the great Brahmā king, and thence downward in order to the Brahmapurohita, the Brahmakāyika, and the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, then downward to the four continents, and only last of all to hungry ghosts, animals, and hell beings. The treatise gathers it in eight graphs: “by the nature of things, what is destroyed last must be formed first.” First ask: what does this sentence mean? What is destroyed last must be formed first — the hells are destroyed first and so are formed last; the Brahmā world is destroyed last and so is formed first. The easy error is to read it as a piece of mystification. It is in fact a law of symmetry, buckling the aeon of formation and the aeon of dissolution together as mirror images. In practice: from this law one can work out for oneself the order of formation and destruction of any level, without learning it by rote.

〔5.2〕At what instant the aeon of formation is reckoned full. The treatise gives a very exact adjudication: “if a first sentient being is born in the Unremitting Hell, the twenty intermediate aeons of the aeon of formation should be known to be already full.” First ask: why take the first sentient being of the hells as the mark? Because the hells are formed last, and once there is a being in them the whole process of forming has run its course. The easy error is to suppose that the aeon of formation is fulfilled once the receptacle world is built. The treatise’s criterion lies in sentient beings, not in the receptacle — the receptacle is the business of the first aeon of formation alone, and the other nineteen are all the gradual dwelling of sentient beings. In practice: this answers exactly to the criterion for the aeon of dissolution (the aeon of dissolution beginning where the hells cease to be born into, the aeon of formation ending where the hells first are), both ends marked by the hells, because they are the last link in this chain.

〔5.3〕The structure of increase and decrease in the twenty aeons of abiding. This passage is the densest in numbers in the whole fascicle. The human lifespan of this continent is at first immeasurable, and only at the beginning of the aeon of abiding does it decrease by degrees; the decrease from immeasurable to ten years is the first intermediate aeon of abiding; the eighteen aeons after it are each of them “an increase from ten years to eighty thousand and a decrease again from eighty thousand to ten years”; and the twentieth is an increase from ten years to eighty thousand. The treatise gives two hard boundaries: “in every aeon the increase passes not beyond eighty thousand, and in every aeon the decrease is at the least ten years alone.” First ask: why is it that the first and the twentieth, which appear to run only half the course, are equal in measure of time to the eighteen in the middle? The treatise gives the conclusion and not its ground — “in the eighteen aeons there is one increase and one decrease, and their measure of time is then equal; and because the first only decreases and the last only increases, the measures of time of all twenty aeons are equal.” Why the first aeon should only decrease and the last only increase and yet their times be equal, the text of the treatise does not explain; Puguang’s Record sets the difficulty at just this point and gives two explanations, for which see Further Resonances. The easy error is to take the first aeon too as decreasing from eighty thousand. In practice: this passage is the basis of later reckonings of which aeon of abiding the Buddha appeared in, and Puguang’s Record here adds a defining remark — “inferring from the text of this treatise, it is named the aeon of abiding only when the lifespan is decreasing; while the lifespan has not yet decreased it is gathered under the aeon of formation.”

〔5.4〕The remaining three aeons and the eighty intermediate aeons. The treatise says that the three stretches of formation, dissolution, and emptiness “have no such difference of twenty increases and decreases” — they have no graded increase and decrease as the aeon of abiding has, but because their measure of time is the same as the aeon of abiding they are each reckoned as twenty intermediate aeons. Their internal division of labor is this: within formation the first aeon raises up the receptacle world and the nineteen after it are the gradual dwelling of sentient beings; within dissolution the last aeon destroys the receptacle world and the nineteen before it are the gradual departing of sentient beings. Four stretches of twenty each, “each of twenty intermediate aeons, accumulated they make eighty; and these eighty in all make the measure of a great aeon.” First ask: why is the aeon of emptiness also reckoned at twenty? If there is nothing at all, how is time to be told? Because an aeon is here a name of quantity measured by time, and nothing need happen for it to be reckoned. The easy error is to imagine the eighty intermediate aeons as eighty events. In practice: one great aeon equal to eighty intermediate aeons is the base number of every reckoning in the latter half of this fascicle; the reckoning of the order of the three catastrophes and the reckoning of the sixty-four aeons of the Śubhakṛtsna gods must both come back to it.

〔5.5〕The nature of an aeon is the five aggregates alone. The treatise sets a question: “what is the nature of an aeon? It is the five aggregates alone.” First ask: what is this question doing, inserted here so suddenly? Because after so much has been said of aeons, a reader can very easily take an aeon for an independently existing vessel of time. The treatise dismantles it in one sentence: an aeon is nothing else, only a stretch of the five aggregates continuing in time. The easy error is to read time as a vessel that holds dharmas. Abhidharma allows no time apart from dharmas. In practice: this sentence is the pivot of the whole fascicle — it fastens the entire grand timetable of the cosmos back onto the enumerated dharmas, and lets one know that what is measured is throughout the dharmas of body and mind and nothing else.

VI. The Great Aeon and the Three Asaṃkhyeya Aeons: “Innumerable” Does Not Mean Beyond Counting

〔6.1〕What the three innumerables accumulate is great aeons. The treatise quotes a sūtra saying, “the sūtra says that by practicing with vigor for three asaṃkhyeyas of aeons one becomes a buddha,” and at once asks itself: among the four kinds of aeon, which is it that is accumulated to make the three innumerables? Answer: what is accumulated is the great aeon — “accumulating the great aeons spoken of above into tens, hundreds, and thousands, and so on until they are accumulated into three innumerables of aeons.” First ask: why is this question raised specially? Because four kinds of aeon have just been established, and if it is not specified which is meant the number floats. The easy error is to imagine three great asaṃkhyeya aeons as three intermediate aeons or three aeons of abiding. In practice: one great aeon is already eighty intermediate aeons, and only here does the reader gain a coordinate for the order of magnitude of three innumerables of great aeons.

〔6.2〕“Innumerable” is the name of a place in a series of numbers. The treatise next sets a difficulty: “since it is called innumerable, why is it further said to be three?” — since it is called innumerable, how can three of them be counted? The answer is flat and decisive: “the word innumerable does not display that it cannot be counted”; the Sūtra of Liberation says that among sixty places of number asaṃkhyeya is one of them. First ask: what does this refutation settle? It dismantles a misunderstanding of a figure of speech — “innumerable” here is the name of a fixed place in a series of numbers, and not “beyond counting.” The treatise thereupon lists the whole set of sixty numbers: one, ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, lakṣa, duluocha, juzhi, and so on piled up by tens, until ten great baluochan make one asaṃkhyeya. The easy error is to read it as Buddhist exaggeration. It is in fact the Indian system of naming large numbers, and the author is citing a set of mathematical terms ready to hand. In practice: seeing “three great asaṃkhyeya aeons” after this, one sees not a figure of speech but a number that can be written out.

〔6.3〕The remaining eight forgotten. At the end of the series of numbers the treatise honestly sets down a note: “within this series of numbers the remaining eight have been lost” — of these sixty names, the last eight had already been lost by the author’s time. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary leaves here only the one line “asaṃkhyeya is the fifty-second number,” and readers often do not know where that fifty-second comes from; Puguang’s Record explains it in full, saying, “asaṃkhyeya is the fifty-second, one within these sixty numbers,” and adding, “by the time the author appeared, the first fifty-two survived, and those who transmitted them by recitation had lost the last eight” — the fifty-two surviving plus the eight lost make exactly sixty, and asaṃkhyeya falls exactly at the fifty-second place. First ask: why does the author set down this gap? Out of honesty. Where the transmission is broken he says it is broken; he neither patches it nor covers it. The easy error is to suppose that an old treatise never admits a lack of its own. In practice: this note is the whole attitude of the Abhidharmakośa toward learning in miniature, and is also the proportion to be kept in reading the many numbers of this fascicle — the numbers are handed down, not calculated out.

VII. Why a Bodhisattva Is Willing to Spend Three Innumerable Aeons

〔7.1〕A passage of defense of the doctrine in four questions and four answers. Having stated the three innumerable aeons, the author turns suddenly into an exchange of a rare kind, one that carries some warmth. First question: why must a bodhisattva make a vow for so long a time? Answer: “unsurpassed awakening is exceedingly hard to obtain, and there is no room for accomplishing it without much vow and practice” — the two provisions of merit and wisdom, the six perfections, and many hundreds of thousands of austerities must be cultivated, and so a vow for a long time must be made. Second question: if nirvāṇa can be obtained by other means as well, why cultivate austerities so long? Answer: it is to benefit and gladden all sentient beings, and so he gives up the road of quickly taking up nirvāṇa and seeks unsurpassed awakening. First ask: why is this passage placed in a chapter on the measure of aeons? Because the astronomical number of three innumerable aeons has just been set out, and the reader’s first response must be “why put oneself to it” — the author is giving an account of that number. The easy error is to take this passage for an inserted exhortation. It is in fact the conclusion of the sense of the measure of aeons: the measure having been made plain, what that measure carries must be stated. In practice: this fascicle measures the world from first to last, and this passage alone measures the mind.

〔7.2〕To relieve others is itself one’s own benefit. The third question is exceedingly sharp: “in relieving other sentient beings, what benefit is there to oneself?” — what good does relieving others do one? The treatise answers: “a bodhisattva in relieving beings fulfills his own compassion, and so relieving others is itself his own benefit.” First ask: does this reduce benefiting others to benefiting oneself? It does not. What the treatise says is that compassion is itself his own substance, so that to fulfill compassion is to fulfill himself, and no reward need be sought outside the benefiting of others. The easy error is to read it as a doctrine of motive by exchange. In practice: this sentence prepares the road for the quoted stanza that follows — that the highest man can “take others for himself” is not because he can bear more, but because the boundary between self and other has shifted in him.

〔7.3〕Two instances plainly seen in the world. The fourth question: “who would believe that a bodhisattva has such a thing in him?” — who will believe that such a person truly exists? The treatise adduces neither supernormal power nor scriptural proof, but only two matters that anyone can see. The first: there truly are in the world men long habituated to a mind without pity, who “though it profits them nothing yet delight in harming others, as all the world knows” — harming others without profit to oneself is a thing the human world has always had; then what is unbelievable in a man long habituated to compassion who “though it profits him nothing yet delights in benefiting others”? The second: sentient beings by the force of repeated habituation fail to understand of the formations, which are without self, that they are conditioned, and grasp them as self and give rise to attachment, and for that reason willingly shoulder many sufferings; then what is unbelievable in a bodhisattva who by the force of repeated habituation gives up the love of self and increases the love of others, and for that reason willingly shoulders many sufferings? First ask: where lies the force of these two instances? In their taking habituation for a shared mechanism — since you grant that habituation can drive a man to an unreasonable harming of others and an unreasonable grasping of self, you cannot deny that habituation can also drive him toward benefiting others. The easy error is to read them as inspirational figures. They are an argument by analogy, whose premise granted by both sides is the force of habituation. In practice: this is one of the rare passages in the whole treatise that speaks up positively for the bodhisattva path, and the tools it uses are still those of Abhidharma.

〔7.4〕The stanza of the three men. At the end the author quotes an old stanza to close: “The lesser man diligently cultivates means and constantly seeks his own body’s pleasure; the middling man seeks the extinction of suffering, since pleasure is not pleasure but the basis of suffering; the highest man constantly and diligently seeks that he himself suffer and others be at ease and that the suffering of others be forever extinguished, because he takes others for himself.” The three layers are divided with great clarity: the lesser man seeks his own pleasure, the middling man seeks the extinction of suffering (having seen through what is called pleasure as only the basis of suffering), and the highest man would sooner suffer himself that others be at ease and would have the suffering of others forever extinguished. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary points out the subject here, saying, “the highest man spoken of here is the bodhisattva; the sense is that a bodhisattva looks upon others as upon himself, and so seeing others at ease it is his own ease.” First ask: why does the middling man not seek pleasure but the extinction of suffering? Because he has already seen through it as “not pleasure but the basis of suffering” — worldly pleasure is no more than a place upon which suffering rests. The easy error is to read the three men as three ranks of persons in order of height. They are in fact a discrimination of three goals, and the point lies in the last line, “because he takes others for himself” — what is at issue is not diligence and sloth but where the boundary between self and other is drawn. In practice: this stanza is one of only two quoted stanzas in the fascicle, the text before it reading “therefore there is a stanza that says,” of the same form as the stanza on the diminishing of nights, and it is judged with that one to be a quoted stanza and not counted among the root stanzas.

VIII. The Window in Which a Buddha Appears: From Eighty Thousand to a Hundred

〔8.1〕The two thresholds, upper and lower. The stanza says, “from the decrease out of eighty thousand down to a hundred, the buddhas appear in the world.” The treatise explains: from the point where the human lifespan of this continent is eighty thousand years, decreasing by degrees to a lifespan at its lowest of a hundred years, within this stretch the buddhas appear. Each end has its reason. The upper: “on what ground is there no buddha appearing in the stretch of increase? Because the pleasure of sentient beings is increasing and it is hard to teach them weariness.” The lower: “on what ground is there no buddha appearing below a hundred? Because the five turbidities have increased to the utmost and conversion is hard.” First ask: why must a buddha’s appearing pick its time? Because the function of a buddha’s appearing is to convert, and conversion requires capacities that can be taught; too much pleasure and they will not weary, too much turbidity and they cannot be moved. The easy error is to suppose that this is a limit upon a buddha’s power. What the treatise speaks of is the capacity of those to be converted, not the power of the one who converts. In practice: this notion of a window of time is the base text for later reading of the ages of the right, the semblance, and the final dharma, and of the difficulty of meeting a buddha.

〔8.2〕The five turbidities, and what each of them injures. The treatise lists the five turbidities: “first the turbidity of lifespan, second of the aeon, third of the afflictions, fourth of views, fifth of sentient beings,” and explains the name — “when the decrease of the aeon is drawing to its end, the lifespan and the rest are mean and low like dregs and filth, and are therefore named turbid.” It then matches the injuries one by one: by the first two (lifespan and aeon), in order, the lifespan and the requisites of living are injured; by the next two (the afflictions and views), the class of the wholesome is injured — the turbidity of the afflictions making men indulge in the pleasures of desire, the turbidity of views making them torment their own bodies with useless austerities, or, as it may be put, the one injuring the wholesome of the householder and the other that of the renunciant; by the last (sentient beings), one’s own person is injured, ruining bodily measure, strength of body, memory, discernment, vigor, and freedom from sickness. First ask: why grouped, rather than matched one to one? Because the five turbidities are not five bad things ranged side by side, but two by two injure one side each: outward resources (lifespan and requisites), inward good (of householder and of renunciant), and one’s own person (the capacities of body and mind). The easy error is to imagine the turbidity of the aeon as time itself gone bad. The turbidity of the aeon is stated of the whole quality of that stretch of time; it goes in a pair with the turbidity of lifespan, and what it injures is outward conditions. In practice: this passage gives a structured account of why practice is hard in a late age — the difficulty lies not in any single factor but in three aspects collapsing at once.

IX. Pratyekabuddhas: Two Kinds, and the Six Reasons for Not Taming Others

〔9.1〕Their appearing is not confined to a window. The last two lines of the stanza are “pratyekabuddhas in the times of increase and decrease; the one likened to the qilin’s horn, a hundred aeons,” and the treatise explains, “the appearing of pratyekabuddhas extends to the increase and the decrease of the aeon” — unlike a buddha, a pratyekabuddha can appear in either stretch. First ask: why is a pratyekabuddha not bound by the window? Because a buddha’s appearing is for the sake of conversion, and conversion must wait upon capacities that can be taught, so that it is bounded above by “their pleasure increasing, it is hard to teach them weariness” and below by “the five turbidities having increased to the utmost”; while a pratyekabuddha does not tame others by teaching the dharma, and neither bound holds for him. On this point the three — monarch, buddha, and pratyekabuddha — fall exactly into three: the monarch requires a vessel of wealth and pleasure, and so comes above eighty thousand; the buddha requires capacities that can weary, and so comes below eighty thousand and down to a hundred years; the pratyekabuddha’s appearing waits upon no teaching of the dharma to convert, and so extends to increase and decrease alike. The easy error is to suppose this means that a pratyekabuddha is freer than a buddha, or appears more easily. It is exactly the contrary — that he is not bound by a window is precisely because his appearing does not wait upon taming others by teaching the dharma; and a buddha has a window because a buddha’s appearing is directed toward beings. (Note that what the base text restricts is the single matter of “not expounding the right dharma to others,” and not a claim that the working of a pratyekabuddha reaches no further than himself — the treatise just below expressly excludes the account that he lacks compassion, saying that “in order to gather sentient beings in he displays supernormal powers.”) In practice: this item and the “not taming others” below are two faces of one matter and should be read together: not choosing his time to appear and not teaching the dharma to others both come out of the single root of awakening to the path by himself alone.

〔9.2〕Those who go in a group and the one likened to the qilin’s horn. The treatise says, “yet pratyekabuddhas are of two different kinds, first those who go in a group and second those likened to the qilin’s horn.” One who goes in a group was formerly a śrāvaka, and on obtaining the higher fruit his name is changed to “solitarily excellent”; a further account holds that they were formerly ordinary beings who had cultivated the śrāvakas’ factors conducive to penetration and now realize the path by themselves. The provenance of this second account is a story in the Accounts of Former Matters: upon a certain mountain there were five hundred non-Buddhist seers practicing austerities; a monkey had once been neighbor to a pratyekabuddha and had grown familiar with the sight of his bearing, and afterward, wandering to those seers, acted that bearing out once over, whereupon the seers saw it and gave rise to reverent admiration and in a little while all realized the awakening of a pratyekabuddha. The treatise then points out the purpose of the story — were they noble ones already, they ought not still to have been cultivating non-Buddhist austerities. As for the one likened to the qilin’s horn, he certainly dwells alone, and “must cultivate the provisions for awakening for a hundred great aeons.” Both commentaries add along the line of those who go in a group a qualification not in the prose of this treatise: Puguang’s Record gives it first, saying, “a pratyekabuddha who goes in a group was formerly a śrāvaka of the first three fruits, and when afterward he obtains the fourth and higher fruit, realizing that higher fruit alone and apart from teaching, his name is changed to solitarily excellent” — the first three fruits and not the arhat; and below that Puguang’s Record offers a further explanation of its own, “he was formerly a śrāvaka of the first fruit, and afterward, when he obtains the latter three higher fruits,” yet adjudicates for itself that “the former explanation is the better.” What Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary adds runs on the same track as Puguang’s former explanation: “a pratyekabuddha who goes in a group was formerly a śrāvaka of the first three fruits, and afterward obtains the state beyond training, not by another’s awakening, and his name is changed to solitarily excellent.” First ask: why is it contested whether he was formerly a noble one or an ordinary being? Because it bears upon whether a pratyekabuddha’s realization of the path requires a former life’s hearing of the dharma as its ground. The easy error is to read the story of the monkey as an anecdote. It is an instance used in argument, and what it proves is that these men were not noble ones before. In practice: the distinction of the two kinds of pratyekabuddha will be wanted again in the chapter on the worthy and the noble, where differences of capacity are discussed.

〔9.3〕The six reasons for not taming others. The definition the treatise gives of a pratyekabuddha is, “one called a pratyekabuddha is one who in the present body, apart from receiving the highest teaching, awakens to the path by himself alone, because he can tame himself and does not tame others”; and it at once asks why he does not tame others, and in a row excludes three possible explanations: it is not that he lacks the ability to teach the dharma (for he too has obtained the unobstructed knowledges, and can call to mind the sacred teaching heard in the past), not that he lacks compassion (for in order to gather sentient beings in he too displays supernormal powers), and not that there were then no capacities fit to receive the dharma (for the sentient beings of that time too could give rise to the worldly antidote of freedom from desire). Only when the exclusions are done does it give three positive reasons: his habituation in former lives makes him have little delight and resolve in teaching the dharma and no wish to speak; he knows that sentient beings can hardly receive the deep dharma, having gone with the stream so long that it is hard to make them go against it; and he would avoid the gathering of a following, “fearing clamor and confusion.” First ask: why exclude three items before giving the answer? Because these three are exactly the guesses a reader would most readily supply for himself — the author first clears away the wrong answers and then states the right one. The easy error is to read the not taming of others as insufficiency of ability or of compassion; the treatise has expressly denied both. In practice: this manner of clearing away errors is the most typical move of the Abhidharma question-and-answer style, and hereafter, whenever such forms as “it is not that he lacks the ability to expound the right dharma” or “nor may it be said that he lacks compassion” are met with, they are to be read as exclusions.

X. The Wheel-Turning Monarch: Four Wheels, Four Ways of Subduing, Seven Treasures

〔10.1〕The time of his appearing, and the sense of his name. The stanza marks at its head, “the wheel-turning monarch above eighty thousand; wheels of gold, silver, copper, and iron,” and the treatise explains his time as the stretch “from the point where the lifespan of this continent is immeasurable years down to eighty thousand years”; when it decreases below eighty thousand, the wealth, pleasure, and lifespan of sentient beings are diminishing and every kind of evil grows strong, and “it is no vessel for a great person, and so there is no wheel-turning monarch.” The sense of the name is that “this king, by the turning of the wheel, responding and guiding, subdues all by his majesty, and is named the wheel-turning monarch” — where the wheel reaches, there conversion reaches. First ask: why does the monarch’s window differ from the buddha’s? The buddha’s is from eighty thousand down to a hundred; the monarch’s is above eighty thousand. Because the worldly conditions the two require are contrary: a buddha requires capacities that can weary (hence in the decreasing stretch), a wheel-turning monarch requires a vessel of wealth and pleasure (hence above eighty thousand years). The easy error is to confuse the two windows and thereby suppose that a buddha and a wheel-turning monarch are contemporaries. In practice: this pair of contrasts is itself the theme of this section — the monarch is at every point like a buddha and yet in the end not his equal.

〔10.2〕The four wheels and the continents they rule. The treatise cites the Treatise of Designations as saying that there are four kinds of wheel-turning monarch, divided by the four wheels of gold, silver, copper, and iron; the order of excellence is gold, silver, copper, iron, while the number of continents each rules runs counter to it — the king of the iron wheel rules one continent, the copper two, the silver three, and the gold four. Puguang’s Record matches this out in a form very easy to memorize, saying, “the king of the iron wheel has one, namely Jambudvīpa; the king of the copper wheel two, adding Videha; the king of the silver wheel three, adding Godānīya further; the king of the golden wheel four, adding the northern continent further.” The sūtra, speaking only of the most excellent, mentions the golden wheel alone, and describes its marks: the king is born in the kṣatriya lineage, succeeds to the anointed station, and on the fifteenth day, at the time of undertaking the fast, ascends a high terraced hall, and a golden wheel treasure suddenly appears in the east, complete with a thousand spokes, hub, and rim, perfect and clean in all its marks as though made by a skilled craftsman. First ask: why do the rank of the wheels and the number of continents run counter to each other? The stanza itself marks it with the words “in counter order,” and the treatise explains accordingly — this is a correspondence to be remembered. The easy error is to match one, two, three, and four continents to gold, silver, copper, and iron in that order, which is exactly backward. In practice: within the five graphs “in counter order, alone as with a buddha” there lies hidden the topic of the next section — “alone” says that a wheel-turning monarch too, like a buddha, never has two at one time.

〔10.3〕Four ways of subduing, none of them inflicting injury. The stanza says, “welcomed by others, going himself, subduing; contending and drawing up ranks, winning without injury.” The treatise explains them one by one: the king of the golden wheel is welcomed by the several lesser kings coming of themselves and asking him to hand down his commands; the king of the silver wheel goes himself, and as soon as his majesty draws near that quarter submits; the king of the copper wheel, having arrived, must proclaim his majesty and contend in virtue before that quarter yields to him as the better; the king of the iron wheel, having arrived, must display his majesty and draw up his ranks, and stops when he has overcome. The four intensities increase by degrees, and yet the treatise’s next sentence gathers them all beneath one bottom line: “all wheel-turning monarchs are without injury; having made them submit and having won, they let each dwell in his own place, and exhort and convert them to cultivate the ten wholesome courses of action” — and so after death a wheel-turning monarch certainly attains birth among the gods. First ask: with ranks drawn up, how can it still be said that there is no injury? Because drawing up ranks is a display of majesty; when he has won he stops, and neither kills nor plunders. The easy error is to read the king of the iron wheel as a king of conquest. The author has deliberately added the two sentences “all of them without injury” and “exhort and convert them to cultivate the ten wholesome courses of action” precisely to block that reading — the monarch’s unification is by conversion and not by conquest. In practice: this is the key to understanding the two words “wheel-turning”: what the wheel turns upon is dharma, not arms.

〔10.4〕The seven treasures, and one difficulty in the doctrine of action. The treatise cites the sūtra as saying that when a wheel-turning monarch appears there are seven treasures: the wheel treasure, the elephant treasure, the horse treasure, the jewel treasure, the woman treasure, the treasure of the minister of the treasury, and the treasure of the minister of war. A question at once arises: the five treasures of elephant, horse, woman, and the two ministers are all sentient beings; how could the king’s action produce another sentient being? The treatise answers: “yet because in doing their actions formerly they belonged to one another, if one among them is born following his own action, the rest also arise at the same time, each riding upon his own action” — in doing their actions in a former life they belonged to one another, and when one is born following his own action, the rest arise at the same time each upon his own. First ask: what does this answer keep? It keeps the line that action is not transferred between persons — one person’s action can draw forth only that person’s result, and cannot directly make another sentient being. The easy error is to read the seven treasures as things conjured up by the king’s merit. In practice: this is the second place in this fascicle that touches the doctrine of action head on, and, like the earlier “by the force of action they are placed in the hells of another quarter,” it refuses to loosen the rule within the narrative of a gazetteer of the world.

〔10.5〕The inequality of a wheel-turning monarch and a buddha. At the end the treatise asks: since a wheel-turning monarch too has the thirty-two marks of a great person, in what does he differ from a buddha? Answer: “a buddha’s marks of a great person are right in their placing, distinct, and complete, and a king’s marks are not so, and hence there is a difference” — a buddha’s marks are right in their placing, distinct, and complete, and a king’s are not. First ask: why is this sentence placed at the end? Because the whole section before it has written of the monarch’s likeness to a buddha — the same being born never two at once, the same thirty-two marks, the same gathering of the four quarters by conversion; and only at the last is the point of their inequality made, and made only upon the perfection of the marks. The easy error is to read this sentence as a loose comparison of outward appearance. What the treatise distinguishes is three matters — the rightness of the placing of a mark, the distinctness of a mark, and the roundness of a mark (“right in their placing, distinct, and complete”) — stated of the standing of the marks and not of beauty or ugliness of appearance. In practice: the treatise here records both without praise or blame, and the reader should read it just so; this is one of the places in this fascicle where it records without adjudicating.

XI. One Buddha in One World or Many Buddhas in the Ten Directions: The Two Parties the Treatise Itself Sets Down

〔11.1〕How the point at issue is drawn out. The treatise says, “a wheel-turning monarch, like a buddha, is never born two at once,” and cites the sūtra: “there is no place and no station where, without a before and after, two Tathāgatas, Worthy Ones, Fully and Perfectly Awakened, appear in the world; there is a place and a station where there is but one Tathāgata.” Immediately upon this the author himself raises the question: “it should be carefully considered whether this word ‘but one’ is said with respect to one trichiliocosm or with respect to all worlds” — is the “but one” of the sūtra said of a single trichiliocosm, or of all worlds? First ask: why must this question be asked? Because the two readings lead to wholly different conceptions of a buddha. The easy error is to suppose that the author reaches a conclusion here. He does not — this whole stretch is the longest passage of recording both parties in the fascicle, each party setting out its reasoning, and the author never handing down a verdict. In practice: when such a passage is met with, one must learn to recognize whose words the author is reporting, or one will take the words of one party for the position of the treatise.

〔11.2〕The first party: in the other worlds no buddha is born. The reasoning of this party is that it should not be said that the capacity of the World-Honored One is obstructed — one World-Honored One alone can convert universally throughout the ten directions; and if it were said that there is some place where he cannot convert, it should be so in all the other places as well. They further adduce a passage of the World-Honored One’s address to Śāriputra as scriptural proof: if someone were to ask whether at this present time there is any brahmin or ascetic who has realized unsurpassed awakening equally with Gautama, Śāriputra answers that at this present time there is none, and what he relies upon is exactly the sentence “there is no place and no station where, without a before and after, there are two Tathāgatas.” They must also deal with one counter-instance — the Brahmā King Sūtra says, “I now turn freely within these worlds of the trichiliocosm”: is the range then limited? The answer is that this has a hidden intent: when he does not arouse a preparatory effort he observes this trichiliocosm alone, and when he does arouse a preparatory effort boundless worlds are all the object-field of the buddha eye. First ask: what is the backbone of this party? It is the unobstructedness of a buddha’s qualities — to grant that one buddha does not suffice to convert universally is to grant that there is something a buddha cannot do. The easy error is to take the passage of the Brahmā King Sūtra for a difficulty they cannot meet. They have already reconciled it by the hidden intent.

〔11.3〕The second party: in the other worlds too there are further buddhas. The treatise brings in the other party with the words “masters of another school say.” The reasoning is that at one and the same time many bodhisattvas are gathering the provisions for awakening; there may indeed be no plurality of buddhas in one world at one time, but what reasoning can block a plurality of buddhas in a plurality of worlds? They argue further: if there were but one buddha, then even remaining in the world for an aeon he could not finish the work of a buddha universally for a single world, much less benefit boundless worlds with a lifespan as brief as a man’s; while sentient beings dwell in boundless worlds and the differences of time, place, and capacity are boundless, and a buddha must observe them universally and teach the dharma answering to their capacities, so that of their faults those unarisen do not arise and those arisen are cut off, and of their qualities those unarisen arise and those arisen are made full — “how could one buddha accomplish this all at once?” And so at one time there must be many buddhas. They also turn back and question the sūtra text adduced by the former party: is that sentence said of one world or of many? If of many worlds, then there should be no wheel-turning monarch in the other worlds either (for the sūtra uses the words “as with a buddha” to block a monarch’s being born together with another); and since it is granted that a monarch may exist separately in another world, why not that there is a buddha separately in another world? First ask: what is the backbone of this party? It is the boundlessness of those to be converted — to grant that those to be converted are boundless is to have to grant that the one who converts cannot be a single person. The easy error is to suppose that this party belittles a buddha. It is exactly the contrary; what they say is that “in boundless worlds boundless buddhas appear.”

〔11.4〕Why there are still no two buddhas in one world. What is of interest is that the second party, though granting many buddhas in many worlds, likewise grants that there are no two buddhas in one world, and gives four reasons: first, because there is no need — one buddha in one world suffices to benefit all; second, by the force of a vow — the buddhas, when they were bodhisattvas, first vowed to attain full and perfect awakening in a world without rescue, without refuge, and blind with darkness, and to be for beings a rescue, a refuge, an eye, and a guide; third, in order that men may revere — only where there is but one Tathāgata in one world will men revere him deeply; fourth, in order that men may practice quickly — that men may know that the honored one of all knowledge is exceedingly hard to meet with, and that his teaching should be practiced quickly, and not left until the buddha has entered parinirvāṇa or gone elsewhere, leaving them without rescue and without refuge. First ask: which of these four reasons matters most? The latter two are stated with respect to the mind of one who is learning — the very rarity of a buddha is itself a spur. The easy error is to read the four reasons as pretexts of apologetic. They in fact give a very practical admonition: the thought that he is hard to meet is precisely the cause of practicing quickly. In practice: this is the one place in this section that comes down directly upon practice, and is the real benefit this long argument leaves the reader.

XII. The People at the Beginning of the Aeon: A History of Decline from Light to Punishment

〔12.1〕At the beginning of the aeon they were like the gods of form. The stanza opens with five graphs, “at the aeon’s beginning like the gods of form.” The treatise cites the sūtra in describing the people of that time: “the people at the beginning of the aeon had form and were born of mind, their limbs complete and their faculties unimpaired, their shape and color upright and adorned and their bodies bearing light, rising into the sky at will, feeding upon joy and pleasure, and long of life and long abiding” — they had bodies of form born of mind and not from a womb, their bodies bore their own light, they could fly, and they fed upon joy and pleasure. First ask: why begin from here? Because what the whole passage below relates is the process of losing these one by one, and the starting point must first be set up. The easy error is to take this passage for a myth of a paradise lost. Its function within the treatise is to be the starting point of a chain of causes and results — every loss has a definite cause, and every one of those causes is in the mind. In practice: in reading this section one should take a pen and mark out the chain of cause and result, and that chain is the whole doctrine of the section.

〔12.2〕Greed for savor and the beginning of morsel food. The treatise says that at that time a savor of the earth came forth by degrees, sweet in taste and rich in fragrance; one man was by nature greedy for savor, and smelling the fragrance gave rise to attachment, took a taste and ate, and the rest followed him and vied in taking it. Here the treatise sets a boundary marker: “only then was it named the first taking of morsel food.” There follows a chain of consequences — nourished by morsel food their bodies grew hard and heavy by degrees, their light sank away and darkness arose, and sun, moon, and the host of stars appeared from that time. First ask: why do sun and moon come only now? Because the body had borne its own light before and no outward light was needed; only when the body’s light was gone were sun and moon needed. The easy error is to read this as an astronomical event. It is the result of a change in body and mind, the treatise’s way of narration running throughout from within outward. In practice: this passage gives the first cause of every calamity in the latter half of the fascicle — greed for savor. One man’s one act of greed became the turning of a whole world.

〔12.3〕Four rounds of diminishing food. By degrees of greed for savor the savor of the earth sank away, and next an earth-skin cake came forth; they vied in greed for it as food, and the earth-cake sank away in its turn, and a forest creeper appeared; because they vied in greed for it, the forest creeper sank away in its turn, and there was then a fragrant rice growing of itself without sowing. First ask: why does the food degrade one grade with every act of greed? The treatise offers no separate explanation and simply narrates it through — greed and the quality of what is coveted stand in inverse proportion, a regularity the passage displays of itself. The easy error is to read the four rounds as a list of four foods. It is four stages of diminution, and the point is the diminution itself. In practice: this regularity will appear once more in the section on the three lesser catastrophes — as greed and indolence increase, the world drawn forth becomes worse by one grade at a time.

〔12.4〕The male and female faculties and the beginning of unchaste conduct. The fragrant rice was coarse, and refuse remained in the body; to expel it two passages appeared, and thereby the male and female faculties came to be; the two faculties being distinct, their shapes too became different; and by the force of habituation in former lives they looked upon one another, and thereby improper attention arose, and the greed of desire, like a possessing demon, confounded body and mind, so that they lost their thought and in frenzy engaged in unchaste conduct. The treatise gathers it in one sentence: “the demon of desire among human beings first broke out at this time.” First ask: what is the mechanism of this passage? It is coarse food → change in the body → division of the faculties → looking upon one another → improper attention → the greed of desire, link fastened to link. The easy error is to read it as a disparagement of the body. The weight of the treatise falls not upon the body but upon the four graphs “improper attention” — the turning point is that one moment of attention that is not in accord with principle. In practice: this is the one passage in the fascicle that deals directly with desire, and it sets the origin of desire in attention and not in the body.

〔12.5〕Indolence, storing up, “mine,” and theft. The stanza’s third line, “out of indolence storing up and thieves arose,” buckles three matters into one string. The treatise says: at that time they took as they ate and did not store up; afterward one man was by nature indolent, took much fragrant rice at once and stored it to eat later, and the rest followed him and what was stored grew by degrees. Thereby the thought “mine” arose toward the rice, and each gave rein to his greed and took much without being satisfied, so that where they had reaped it grew no more, and they thereupon divided the fields together; having his own portion a man grew grudging and guarded it, and seeing another’s portion he harbored thoughts of seizing it — “the fault of theft began at this time.” First ask: which link in this chain matters most? Storing up. Before storing up, taking and using were at need and belonged to no one; only once storing up begins is there “mine,” and only with “mine” is there “another’s,” and only with “another’s” is there stealing. The easy error is to suppose that the trouble lay in private property or in the dividing of the fields. The order the treatise gives is very clear: the thought “mine” comes first and the dividing of the fields after; the institution is result and not cause. In practice: this section joins exactly with the two dharmas that are the root in the section on the three lesser catastrophes — greed for fine food and an indolent nature, the one in the earlier passage and the other in this.

〔12.6〕The establishing of a king and the beginning of the two names kṣatriya and brahmin. To block and guard against theft the multitude gathered and took counsel, weighed out from among them one who had virtue, and each hiring him with a sixth part of what he had reaped to keep guard, invested him as lord of the fields — “and thereby the name kṣatriya was established”; the multitude honored and served him and his favor flowed over the whole land, and so he was further named King Mahāsaṃmata, and all kings thereafter take him as their first. Fabao’s Commentary here glosses the sense, saying, “kṣatriya means here lord of the fields”; while Puguang’s Record glosses the latter name, saying, “Saṃmata means here agreed upon in common, that is, agreed upon by the multitude to be a good man.” Besides these, there were then those who wearied of household life and delighted in the open quiet and cultivated the precepts with vigor, and thereby gained the name brahmin. First ask: whence does kingship come here? Not from conquest but from hire — agreed upon in common by the multitude and paid a sixth part of the harvest. The easy error is to read “invested as lord of the fields” as a fief received. It is the multitude that invests him; he does not receive a mandate from heaven. In practice: this passage answers at a distance to the section on the wheel-turning monarch — the monarch’s being “welcomed by others, going himself, subduing” and yet “all without injury” has its root in this one common agreement at the beginning of the aeon.

〔12.7〕Punishment and the beginning of false speech. Afterward there was a king greedy and grudging of goods who could not supply the people of his land equally, and so many who were poor and in want turned to thieving; the king, to forbid it, inflicted punishments light and heavy — “the action of killing began at this time.” There were then guilty men who feared punishment in their hearts, hid their faults and spoke with another account — “false speech had its beginning at this time.” First ask: why is false speech placed last? Because it is the immediate starting point of the next section on the three lesser catastrophes: at the opening of that section the treatise says precisely, “from sentient beings’ giving rise to false speech, the evil courses of action increased one after another.” The easy error is to read this passage as a criticism of kingly government. What the treatise records is the order in which the courses of action appeared: theft first, killing next, false speech after. In practice: this whole section is in fact a brief table of the history of how the ten evil courses of action arose, and its first cause lies far back in that first mouthful of the savor of the earth.

XIII. The Three Lesser Catastrophes: The Sword, Pestilence, Famine

〔13.1〕The cause of the catastrophes and their two roots. The stanza compresses the whole chain of cause and result into ten graphs — “the courses of action increasing, the lifespan decreasing, at ten the three catastrophes appear.” The treatise explains: from sentient beings’ giving rise to false speech the evil courses of action increased one after another, and so the human lifespan of this continent decreased by degrees until at ten years the three lesser catastrophes appeared. It then points out the root: “these calamities have two dharmas for their root: first, greed for fine food; second, an indolent nature.” Fabao’s Commentary states this chain of cause and result still more plainly, saying, “these calamities have two things for their root, namely greed for other food and an indolent nature.” First ask: why just these two? Because they are exactly the two turning points in the history of decline in the preceding section — greed for savor made men lose their light and take morsel food, and indolence made them store up and gave rise to theft. The easy error is to read the three catastrophes as a chastisement from without. The treatise traces the root of the catastrophes all the way back to two habits in the mind, with no third party intervening in between. In practice: this is the longest chain of cause and result in the whole fascicle, running from one man’s one mouthful of the savor of the earth at the beginning of the aeon all the way to the swords at the end of an intermediate aeon; read this one chain through and the latter half of the fascicle is clear.

〔13.2〕The catastrophe of the sword. The treatise says that at ten years of age at the end of an intermediate aeon, men’s continuity is defiled by unlawful greed, unequal love overshadows their minds, wrong dharmas entangle them and the poison of hatred is dominant, and at the sight of one another a fierce mind of harming arises; “as hunters today at the sight of wild birds and beasts, whatever they take up in their hands becomes a sharp blade, and each in his ferocity and frenzy destroys the other.” First ask: how is the order of this sentence arranged? The treatise first states three layers of change in the mind — unlawful greed defiling the continuity, unequal love overshadowing the mind, wrong dharmas entangling and the poison of hatred becoming dominant — and only then, with the simile of hunters at the sight of beasts, says that at the sight of one another a fierce mind of harming arises, and last of all says outright that “whatever they take up in their hands becomes a sharp blade.” The easy error is to hurry to adjudicate whether the becoming is a change in mind or a change in things. The treatise here states only the fact and does not explain the mechanism, and Paramārtha’s older translation likewise puts it simply as “whatever they take hold of, whether wood or grass, becomes for those men an exceedingly sharp blade or weapon”; this exposition does not settle the point for the author. In practice: this is the account this treatise gives of how violence comes about, and its whole weight lies in that one moment when they catch sight of one another.

〔13.3〕The catastrophes of pestilence and of famine. The catastrophe of pestilence: likewise of men at ten years of age at the end of an intermediate aeon, because they are possessed of the several faults as above, “nonhuman beings spew out poison, pestilence spreads abroad, and whoever meets with it dies and can hardly be cured.” The catastrophe of famine: likewise because they are possessed of the several faults as above, “the gods and the nāgas in anger reprove them and send down no sweet rain,” and the world long suffers famine, and having no support or relief the greater part of them die. First ask: why is the cause of the three catastrophes one and the same? The treatise uses in all three passages “because they are possessed of the several faults as above” and “likewise possessed of the several faults as above” — one and the same set of faults draws forth three different results. The easy error is to match the three catastrophes to three particular evils. The treatise makes no such match. In practice: what this section teaches is “one cause, different results” — the forms in which action manifests need not correspond one to one.

〔13.4〕The explanation of the three names of famine. The treatise quotes an old saying, “by reason of famine there come to be massing, white bones, and tally-drawing,” and then gives two causes for each name. For massing, two causes: first, the massing of people — the people of that time, famished and wasted, gathered together and died; second, the massing of seed — the people of that time, to benefit those coming after, spared what they ate and put it in small boxes for seed. For white bones, two causes: first, their bodies were dried and withered, and not long after death the white bones showed; second, pressed by famine they gathered white bones and boiled them into a broth to drink. For tally-drawing, two causes: first, the grain being little, tallies were plied before there was food, and within one household, from the eldest to the youngest, only on the day the tally came round did one get a little coarse rice; second, tallies were used to poke among the stale remnants of grain heaped on the threshing floor of former days, and what few grains were got were boiled with much water and shared as drink to relieve what remained of their lives. First ask: why are two causes given for each of these three names? Because these three terms are handed down as set expressions, and the author is glossing them, and in the transmission there were two accounts of each, and so both are recorded. The easy error is to read the two causes as two stages. They are two explanations, not an earlier and a later. In practice: this section is the heaviest writing in the whole fascicle, and yet the author’s manner throughout is that of a glossator — he does not heighten it, but only makes each term plain.

〔13.5〕The remedies for the three catastrophes and their measure of time. The treatise here gives three practicable remedies: one who can keep the precept against killing for one day and one night will certainly not meet the catastrophe of the sword in a future life; one who can take a single harītakī (a kind of medicinal fruit) and offer it to the community with an earnest and pure mind will certainly not meet the catastrophe of pestilence in a life to come; one who can take a single ball of food and offer it to the community with an earnest and pure mind will certainly not meet the catastrophe of famine in a life to come. The measure of time is: “when the catastrophe of the sword arises it is at most seven days; when the catastrophe of pestilence arises, seven months and seven days; famine, seven years, seven months, and seven days,” and past this it stops. First ask: why should the remedy be so light and the result so heavy? Because the cause of the three catastrophes is a habit in the mind, and these three acts each answer directly to that habit — not killing answers to the mind of harming, giving medicine to the conditions of sickness, giving food to the conditions of hunger — and all three require “an earnest and pure mind.” The easy error is to read it as cheap insurance. The key words are earnest and pure, not the medicinal fruit or the ball of rice. In practice: this is the one place in the fascicle that gives a prescription for practice, and the one most worth remembering. As to why the measures of time of the three catastrophes differ, Puguang’s Record adds a very solid explanation, saying, “in the catastrophe of the sword death is swift and so the days are fewest; in the catastrophe of pestilence death is slower and the days somewhat longer; in the catastrophe of famine death is slowest and so the time is longest” — the slower the dying, the longer the term of the catastrophe.

〔13.6〕The appearance of them in the other continents. At the end the treatise adds a note: after the three catastrophes have passed, “the human lifespan increases by degrees, and in the two continents of east and west catastrophes resembling these arise,” whose appearance is “that hatred grows strong, bodily strength is weak, and hunger and thirst are felt again and again; in the northern continent there are none at all.” First ask: why add this note? Because the three catastrophes spoken of throughout the section are stated of this Jambudvīpa alone; without the note the reader would suppose it so in all four continents. What the two continents of east and west have is only something resembling them — hatred increasing, strength weak, hunger and thirst — and no catastrophes of sword, pestilence, and famine formed as such. The northern continent has none at all. The easy error is to universalize the three catastrophes to all worlds and so read them as a cosmic calamity. The three catastrophes are the result drawn forth by action, and where the action differs what is drawn forth differs; the northern continent has nothing answering to these three; while in the section on the aeon of dissolution it is said that there beings, “having no power to enter absorption and become free from desire,” are born among the gods of desire upon the exhaustion of lifespan, and Saṅghabhadra explains the ground of it as “because their faculties are dull they have no freedom from desire” — the ground of their inability to be free from desire the treatise does not explain for itself, and Saṅghabhadra adjudicates it as dullness of faculty, for which see Further Resonances. In practice: whenever this treatise states a matter of one continent it invariably supplements it with the others, and this is the standing practice of the Chapter on the World; on reading any account of the appearance of the world, first ask which continent it is stated of.

XIV. The First of the Three Great Catastrophes: Fire, Water, and Wind, and the Refutation of the Non-Buddhists’ Permanent Atom

〔14.1〕The arising of the three catastrophes and the limit of what they destroy. The stanza opens with “the three catastrophes, fire, water, and wind; the three absorptions above as summits.” The treatise says that these three great catastrophes “press upon sentient beings and make them give up the lower levels and gather among the heavens above,” and that each catastrophe has its own condition: the catastrophe of fire through the appearance of seven sun-discs, the catastrophe of water through unbroken great rains, the catastrophe of wind through winds striking against one another. The limit of what they destroy is stated in a sentence that matters: “the force of these three catastrophes destroys the receptacle world, until not so much as an ultimate atom remains” — not even an ultimate atom is left. First ask: why is this sentence stated specially? Because it is the very fuse of the whole argument that follows. The easy error is to read “until not so much as an ultimate atom remains” as rhetorical exaggeration. It is an adjudication upon a dharma — the ultimate atom is a conditioned dharma, and therefore it too is destroyed. In practice: the opening of this fascicle established the ultimate atom as the least of form, and here it is said that not even an ultimate atom remains, so that the two ends buckle into a ring: the least of what is measured is itself among the things destroyed.

〔14.2〕The non-Buddhists’ position and the author’s first round of response. There is a class of non-Buddhists who hold the ultimate atom to be permanent and say that after the catastrophe ultimate atoms still remain. The treatise asks why they hold so, and the answer is “lest the coarse things arising later should have no seed” — if no ultimate atom were left, the coarse things that arise later would have no seed. The author’s response runs by three routes: first, it was said above that the wind produced by the actions of sentient beings can serve as seed; second, or else, taking as condition that wind at the end of the previous catastrophe, the wind it draws forth is the seed; third, he further adduces a sūtra of the Mahīśāsakas, “the wind blows the seeds here from elsewhere.” First ask: why does the author give these three routes? Because the other party has only one reason — without an ultimate atom there is no seed; and once it is pointed out that a seed has other sources, that reason fails. The easy error is to read this passage as the author establishing a doctrine of seeds of his own. He is only blocking the other party’s sole way out. In practice: this move is the general rule in refutation — do not deny the conclusion directly, but first cancel the necessity upon which the other party’s position rests.

〔14.3〕Own parts, the whole-having-parts, and “the proof adduced is not granted by both sides.” The non-Buddhist retreats a step and says that even granting a seed, the arising of a sprout and the rest is not drawn forth by the seed directly, but “arises from its own parts,” and those parts again from their parts, and so on in turn until the finest whole-having-parts arises from ultimate atoms; the seed and the rest can only draw together the ultimate atoms of the sprout and the rest and have no power to produce the sprout. The author presses why this must be held, and the answer is “that a thing should arise from what is of an unlike kind is certainly contrary to principle,” with the example that a substance arises only from what is of its own kind, “as a vine produces its branches and threads produce cloth.” The author refutes it in a sentence: “this is contrary to principle,” because “the proof adduced is not granted by both sides” — the example you adduce is not itself granted by both parties. And why is it not granted? Because we do not grant that the vine and its branches, or the threads and the cloth, are two separate things; the vine and the threads gathered together and differently arranged obtain the names branch and cloth, just as ants ranged in a line are called a line of ants. First ask: where lies the force of this refutation? In that it does not contest the conclusion but points out that the proof itself has not been established. The easy error is to read “the proof adduced is not granted by both sides” as a mere reproach. It is a technical name for a fault in reasoning — taking as evidence what neither party has yet granted. In practice: this is the one complete stretch of formal refutation in the fascicle, and once this one sentence is understood, the long train of questions that follows is all its unfolding.

〔14.4〕Cloth and threads: a train of dilemmas. Thereafter the author drives the other party’s whole-having-parts into a corner with a series of counter-questions: within a single thread the cloth is never obtained, only the thread; if it be said that the whole cloth is not in one thread, then it becomes “upon one thread there is a part of the cloth and not the cloth,” which shows that the whole cloth is only the gathering of the several parts and not a further whole-having-parts called cloth. He asks again: how do you know that the parts of the cloth are other than the threads? If cloth requires many supports gathered, then cloth ought to be obtained when many warp threads alone are gathered; or else there ought to be no obtaining cloth at all, since the middle of the cloth and its remaining edges are not set before a faculty at one time; and if they may be set before it successively, then the eye and the body obtain only the several parts, discerning successively upon the parts and then raising up a single cognition of a whole-having-parts — “as with a whirled firebrand’s wheel.” First ask: what is the simile of the whirling firebrand saying? The wheel one sees when a torch is whirled does not really exist; it is only a single cognition raised up after the parts have been discerned in succession. The easy error is to take this train of counter-questions for petty wrangling. Every one of them presses upon the same point — whether a whole has an entity of its own apart from its parts. In practice: this passage is the old base text for all later discussion of whole and part and of the provisional necessarily depending upon the real; in reading, reduce every question back to this one question and it is enough.

〔14.4 appended i〕The difficulty of the brocade: how one whole-having-parts carries many colors. After the whirling firebrand the treatise has one further and tighter press. The other party holds that cloth is a whole-having-parts existing apart from the threads, and the treatise questions it by way of a brocade: “if the colors and the rest upon a brocade garment belong to the cloth, then you must grant that a substance arises from what is of an unlike kind, since the color of each single thread has no such variety of difference” — if the figuring upon a brocade belongs to the cloth as a whole, then the color of the whole must arise from the unlike kind of the single threads, which have of themselves no such variety; and if it be said that upon some one part those varied colors are absent, then on that side the cloth ought not to be seen; and if it be said that varied colors are seen upon that part too, then the cloth must have the mark of varied colors. The treatise gathers it in one sentence: “they grant that the entity of the whole-having-parts is one alone, and yet that it has the differences of manifold color, kind, and activity; if such a thing truly existed it would be a great marvel indeed.” First ask: where does this difficulty bear? Upon the incompatibility of one and many: since the whole is “one alone in entity,” it should not at the same time possess manifold differences of color, of kind, and of function. The easy error is to take it for a discussion of textiles. It is not — the brocade is only taken as a ready instance of one thing with many colors. In practice: whenever an account of a whole having an entity of its own is met with, press it with this question: how does that one carry these many?

〔14.4 appended ii〕The difficulty of the single fire: how one entity of fire has a difference of near and far. Directly after the brocade the treatise changes to a plainer instance: “again, within the range of the light of a single fire, burning and illuminating differ according as a thing is near or far, and the difference of the tangible and of color could not be established” — within the reach of the light of one mass of fire, what is near is burned and lit and what is far is not; and if the entity of fire were one existing apart from its parts, this difference of near and far could not be set up. First ask: how does this differ from the difficulty of the brocade? The brocade asks about many colors (a difference at one time), the single fire about a difference of function with distance (a difference by position); the one presses from the side of appearance, the other from the side of function. The treatise then gives its own positive account: ultimate atoms taken singly pass beyond the range of a faculty, and yet when gathered together in common they can be known by a faculty in its presence — as the other party’s own school grants that “a gathering can produce a result,” or as the eye and the rest “gathered together can arouse consciousness.” The easy error is to suppose that the author denies that fire has a difference of near and far. It is exactly the contrary — the difference is real, and it is precisely because the difference is real that what bears it is not that “single entity.” In practice: where function differs, what bears it must have parts; this is a general rule of this passage, reasoning back from function to entity.

〔14.5 appended〕Rows and jar and basin: the cognition of a whole arises in dependence upon differences of color and the rest. Behind the proof from burning wool and safflower the treatise adds one last instance: “as with rows, one marks out jar and basin; if one does not look at the shape one cannot mark them out.” The crux of this passage lies wholly in how the four graphs “their shape and measure being equal” are to be read. Both commentaries read them as equal, not as altered: Puguang’s Record gives two explanations, of which the second says word for word, “their shape and measure are equal to what they were before the burning; and though shape and measure are equal, wool and the rest are not recognized”; and Fabao’s Commentary likewise says, “their shape too being without difference, they are not marked out separately.” The shape and measure have not changed, and yet the cognition of wool and the cognition of safflower are already gone — which shows that this cognition never hung upon a whole called wool, but arose in dependence upon differences of color and the rest; and once burned, all the things take on one color, and the differences being effaced the cognition has nothing to rest upon and does not arise. The instance of jar and basin is the reverse of it: one row is jars and one basins, and though both are of the color of a dove’s feather men can still tell them apart, because their shapes differ; and if one does not look at the shape but only at that one uniform color, one cannot tell how the two rows differ. First ask: what do these two instances together prove? They prove that the name of a whole is established provisionally in dependence upon differences of color and the rest and that no whole apart from the parts is directly cognized. There are two easy errors here: the first is to read “their shape and measure being equal” as “their shape and measure have all changed” — neither commentary reads it so; the second is to read “not marking them out without looking at the shape” as “shape is the entity.” It is not — visible color and shape are alike only the appearance observed, and consciousness provisionally establishes a name in dependence upon appearance; where the appearance is the same the name does not arise, where the appearance differs the name can be set up, and hence there is no separate entity. In practice: rows, jar, and basin are all everyday things, and the treatise uses them to bring an abstract principle down into the hand: every name of a whole is established in dependence upon differences of color and the rest; the name depends upon appearance and appearance upon parts, and so a whole is no separate real entity.

〔14.5〕Form and ultimate atoms are not two entities; ending the dispute. The author speaks again by another route: the name ultimate atom was established with respect to color and the rest from the first, and when color and the rest are destroyed the ultimate atoms are destroyed as well; the other party says that ultimate atoms are gathered under substance and color and the rest under quality, and that things distinct in entity should not cease at one time — to which the author answers, “that these two are distinct in entity certainly cannot be so in principle,” because upon careful examination no earth, water, fire, or wind can be obtained apart from color and the rest. He adds two proofs: the other party’s own school grants that earth and the rest are taken by the eye and the body, so how do they differ from color and the tangible? And again, when woolen cloth and safflower are burned, the cognition of the wool and of the flower is likewise gone, which shows that the cognition of wool and the rest arises only in dependence upon differences of color and the rest. As to ultimate atoms taken singly passing beyond the range of a faculty, the author gives a positive account as well — gathered in common they can be known by a faculty in its presence, as the other party’s own school grants that a gathering can produce a result, or as the eye and the rest gathered together can arouse consciousness; and again, as a man with a cataract looking at scattered hairs can see them where many lie adjacent and cannot where they lie one by one far apart. The last sentence gathers it with great weight: “who would set down the wild words of such a foolish sort? And so the wide dispute against that school should stop.” First ask: why does the author suddenly stop the dispute? Because the refutation is already sufficient, and to go further would be endless contention. The easy error is to read the last sentence as temper. It is a closing of the brush required by the practice of the work — the proper business of Abhidharma is to take stock of the enumerated dharmas, not to litigate with non-Buddhists. In practice: the refutation of the non-Buddhists in this fascicle is a rare stretch of defense of the doctrine in the whole treatise, and the author stops as soon as he has done; that proportion is itself an admonition.

XV. The Second of the Three Great Catastrophes: The Summits of the Catastrophes, and the Sameness of Kind Within and Without

〔15.1〕The three summits. The treatise asks, “where are the summits of these three catastrophes?”, and answers: the second meditative absorption is the summit of the catastrophe of fire, because all below it is burned by fire; the third is the summit of the catastrophe of water, because all below it is soaked away by water; the fourth is the summit of the catastrophe of wind, because all below it is scattered by wind. And it explains the name — “whatever a catastrophe reaches up to is named the summit of that catastrophe,” the upper limit each catastrophe can reach being called that catastrophe’s summit. First ask: why do the three summits move upward step by step? Because the force of the three catastrophes increases by degrees: fire is weak, water middling, wind strong. The easy error is to read “summit” as the highest place a catastrophe destroys. The summit is the level the catastrophe does not reach — it is a marker of an upper limit and is not itself destroyed. In practice: these three numbers are the parameters of every reckoning at the end of the fascicle; remember where the summits lie and one can see why the lifespan of the Śubhakṛtsna gods (of the third absorption) is exactly sixty-four aeons.

〔15.2〕The inward catastrophe is of the same kind as the outward. The treatise asks again: on what ground do the three lower absorptions meet with the catastrophes of fire, water, and wind? Answer: “within the first, second, and third absorptions, the inward catastrophe is of like kind with them” — each of those three absorptions has an inward catastrophe of the same kind as that outward one. One by one: the first absorption has applied and sustained thought for its inward catastrophe, and “these can burn and vex the mind and the rest, and so without there is the catastrophe of fire”; the second has the feeling of joy for its inward catastrophe, which together with pliancy moistens the body as water does, the coarse heaviness throughout the body being thereby all removed, which is why a sūtra says that the faculty of suffering ceases at the second absorption — and so without it meets the catastrophe of water; the third has the movement of the breath for its inward catastrophe, and breath too is of the kind of wind, and so without it meets the catastrophe of wind. The treatise adds a general rule: if one enters this absorption one has such an inward catastrophe, and when born in this absorption one meets the corresponding outward catastrophe and is destroyed. First ask: why must the inward and the outward be of one kind? This is the extension of that discrimination in the section on the aeon of dissolution, “the catastrophe of another level cannot destroy that other level” — a catastrophe can destroy a given level by the drawing of like by like. The easy error is to read the inward catastrophe as a metaphor. The treatise states it quite concretely: applied and sustained thought really do burn and vex the mind, the feeling of joy really does moisten the body as water does, and the movement of the breath really is of the kind of wind. In practice: this section buckles cosmology and the doctrine of absorption together — whatever coarse agitation is left unremoved in your absorption, there is without a catastrophe that can destroy you. This is the deepest admonition in the fascicle.

〔15.3〕Why earth is not established as a catastrophe. The treatise asks in passing: since fire, water, and wind can all become catastrophes, why is earth not also established as a kind of catastrophe? Answer: “because the receptacle world is itself earth,” and therefore “one may say only that fire and the rest are contrary to earth, and may not say that earth is contrary to earth again.” First ask: what use is this question? Since the four great elements stand on a level, a reader who has finished fire, water, and wind must ask where the catastrophe of earth is; unanswered, the pit remains open. The key of the answer lies in the word contrary — for a catastrophe to be established there must be two contrary sides, and the receptacle world is itself earth, and earth cannot be contrary to itself. The easy error is to suppose that the author has omitted an item, or that the great element earth is especially solid and so does not become a catastrophe. Neither is so. Earth is not a catastrophe; earth is the side upon which the catastrophe falls; to reckon it a catastrophe as well would be to require one thing to be at once what destroys and what is destroyed. In practice: this small question is one application of the doctrine of the four great elements within the gazetteer of the world, and it shares a single principle with the sameness of kind within and without in the preceding section — between a catastrophe and what it destroys a certain relation must hold (like kind draws, and one and the same entity cannot be contrary), and where the relation does not hold there is no speaking of a catastrophe at all.

XVI. The “Immovable” of the Fourth Absorption, and That It Is Still Not Permanent

〔16.1〕The name Immovable. The treatise asks what the fourth meditative absorption has for its outward catastrophe, and answers, “it has no outward catastrophe, because it has left the inward catastrophes” — it has no applied and sustained thought, no feeling of joy, and no movement of the breath, and so there is no outward catastrophe of like kind with it. Therefore “for this the Buddha said that it is named Immovable, since the three catastrophes within and without do not reach it.” There is a further account: the gods of the Pure Abodes are upon that level, and so it does not meet destruction by the catastrophes; for the gods of the Pure Abodes cannot be born into the formless realm, nor should they go anywhere else. First ask: on what does the name Immovable rest? Upon the inward catastrophes having been left behind, not upon the solidity of the ground. The easy error is to read Immovable as eternal. In practice: this section draws the doctrine of the three catastrophes back into the doctrine of absorption — the three absorptions above each have one coarse agitation unremoved, and the fourth has all three removed, and so catastrophe cannot reach it. The sense for practice is quite plain: the reach of catastrophe is measured by one’s own agitation.

〔16.2〕Is it not then permanent? Someone at once seizes the handle: if the fourth absorption is not destroyed, should not the receptacle world of that level be permanent? The treatise answers flatly: “it is not so, because it arises together with sentient beings and ceases together with them.” The reason is that that heavenly place has no one common ground-form spread over it, “but is like the host of stars, each dwelling apart”; and when a sentient being is born there and when he dies, the heavenly palace he dwells in arises with him and ceases with him, and so the entity of the receptacle there is not permanent. First ask: what does this refutation keep? It keeps the general line that impermanence pervades everything conditioned — not being destroyed by the three catastrophes is not the same as being permanent. The easy error is to read “not reached by the three catastrophes” as “neither arising nor ceasing.” In practice: this fascicle measures from first to last the formation and dissolution of a world, and if a permanent exception were left upon the topmost level the whole set of enumerated dharmas would be breached; the author here stops that breach. This is also the most important stroke before the fascicle closes.

〔16.3〕Who has truly reached the Immovable. Reading 〔15.2〕 together with the present section yields a complete thread: the first absorption still has applied and sustained thought, the second still the feeling of joy, the third still the movement of the breath, and the fourth is named Immovable because all three are exhausted; and yet even upon that immovable level the palaces still arise and cease together with sentient beings. First ask: what does this thread leave the practitioner? It shows that the degree of security of the outward world answers exactly to the degree of stilling of the inward mind, and that no grade of it is ultimate. The easy error is to take the fourth absorption for a terminus. The treatise at once adds that “the entity of that receptacle too is not permanent,” precisely so as not to let anyone stop there. In practice: that the Chapter on the World allows no permanence even upon the topmost level joins directly onto the next stretch of road in the whole treatise — while action and affliction remain, there is not one place in the three realms where one may settle.

XVII. The Order of the Catastrophes: Eight Sevens of Fire, One Seven of Water, One of Wind

〔17.1〕The number of the order. The treatise asks how the three catastrophes are ordered, and answers: first seven catastrophes of fire arise without interval, and next there must be one of water; thereafter seven catastrophes of fire again without interval, and when seven catastrophes of fire have passed there is again one of water, and so on until seven catastrophes of water are full; then seven catastrophes of fire again, and last of all a catastrophe of wind. “Thus there are in all eight sets of seven catastrophes of fire, one set of seven catastrophes of water, and one catastrophe of wind.” First ask: why must fire come seven times before water comes once? The answer is in the next passage. The easy error is to reckon the eight sevens of fire as seven. The treatise says plainly that they are eight — one seven of fire before each of the seven waters (that is seven), and one more seven of fire before the catastrophe of wind at the end, making eight. In practice: this structure can be drawn out for oneself as a single line: seven fires and a water, repeated seven times, then seven fires and a wind.

〔17.2〕Why it is so. The reason the treatise gives is a single sentence: “because the causal absorption cultivated by those sentient beings grows more excellent as one goes higher, the bodily measure and lifespan drawn forth grow longer in measure, and thereby their dwelling also abides the longer” — the more excellent the absorption cultivated by the beings of a higher level, the longer the bodily measure and lifespan drawn forth, and the more durable their dwelling place, so that more catastrophes of the lower grades must be accumulated before the grade that can destroy the higher level comes round. First ask: upon what does this one sentence fasten the whole reckoning? Upon the depth of absorption. The easy error is to read the order of the catastrophes as a law of nature. What the treatise gives is a drawing forth by action — the durability of a receptacle world is settled by the force of absorption. In practice: this sentence and the sameness of kind within and without in 〔15.2〕 are two faces of one principle: the deeper the absorption the fewer the inward catastrophes; the fewer the inward catastrophes the less the outward ones reach; and the less the outward ones reach the longer the dwelling abides.

〔17.3〕The sixty-four aeons of the lifespan of the Śubhakṛtsna gods. The last sentence of the fascicle is: “by this one may skillfully explain the text of the Treatise of Designations, that the lifespan of the Śubhakṛtsna gods is sixty-four aeons.” First ask: why can this sentence serve as the close of the whole fascicle? Because it is a verification — if the whole set of measures of aeons and the order of the three catastrophes established above is right, it ought to be able to explain that ready-made number recorded in the Treatise of Designations; and it does in fact explain it. Fabao’s Commentary here sets out the reckoning, saying, “seven fires and one water, making in all seven sevens of fire and seven waters; then seven fires and one wind: seven nines are sixty-three, and with the one catastrophe of wind there are sixty-four.” The easy error is to read the last sentence as a citation mentioned in passing. It is the closing of the account of the whole fascicle. In practice: a study of measures closing at last upon a number that tallies is exactly the character of Abhidharma — every inference must in the end be verified once against a fixed number already given in the sūtras and treatises.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

The above is the sense of the text of this fascicle taken by itself. Below a separate section is set up, gathering four matters: the adjudications of the three commentaries and their divergences, Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutation, the divergences of Paramārtha’s older translation, and coordinates for collateral reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading one and the same text. All are recorded and none adjudicated, each left in its own place.

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

Whether the ultimate atom is real or provisional. Fabao’s Commentary, as soon as it opens, sets up a frame of contrast, saying, “in the Great Vehicle there is nothing real, but cognition and discernment analyze and take it as the ultimate atom; this is what mind and consciousness transform, and is not built up from the small,” and again, “within the Lesser Vehicle it is said that there are real ultimate atoms which make up coarse form, and that analyzing that coarse form to what cannot be analyzed is named one ultimate atom.” This points straight at the sense of consciousness-only and is placed at the very front of the whole commentary; neither Puguang’s Record nor Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has any such remark. The three houses here display a difference of standpoint, and all are recorded without adjudication.

The name gold dust. Puguang’s Record notes, “gold, silver, copper, and iron are all named gold in general,” and sets out the divergent names of other schools — “the Miscellaneous Heart Treatise has copper dust, and the old Abhidharmakośa has iron dust, both of them confined to one side” — and appends an account from the Mahāvibhāṣā in which the order of water dust and copper dust is the reverse of this treatise’s. Paramārtha’s older translation has at just this place “iron dust,” agreeing with the name Puguang’s Record ascribes to the old Kośa; whether the two point to one and the same thing is not adjudicated in this section, the coincidence being recorded only.

On the reckoning of the moment, Fabao’s Commentary alone records a doubt. Fabao’s Commentary sets a question upon the number of moments stated in the Prajñā Sūtra for Humane Kings not agreeing with this treatise, and answers, “arising and ceasing are subtle, and only a buddha can know them; the mind of the Lesser Vehicle being coarse sees arising and ceasing coarsely, while the buddhas’ mind being subtle sees arising and ceasing subtly”; yet it remains uneasy at the author’s taking the finger-snap for his reckoning, saying plainly, “it is not clear on what account the treatise master does so,” and citing, “the Treatise of Correct Principle says, ‘the moment is hard to know, and a simile is provisionally used to display it; yet it does not exhaust the principle,’” and ending, “though there is this explanation, it does not agree with the number of moments in a day either.” Puguang’s Record and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary both explain the sense of the text at the same passage and raise no such doubt. Fabao’s Commentary here leaves a doubt standing and gives no settled interpretation, and it is recorded as it is.

Two conversions of the yojana. Puguang’s Record reckons directly by a cubit of one foot six inches, saying, “eight krośas come to twenty-five thousand six hundred feet,” which converts to somewhat more than fourteen li and eighty paces; Fabao’s Commentary takes the old foot as its base instead, saying, “the treatise was composed in former times, and so it should be reckoned at eight feet,” obtaining “eighteen li less eighty paces.” The two reckonings differ, and both accounts are recorded without judging which is right.

The number of aeons the Brahmā king undergoes, and the divergence of the Establishment of the World. Puguang’s Record devotes a passage to examining this number, saying, “inferring from the text of this treatise, the Brahmā king undergoes only fifty-eight aeons, namely nineteen of formation, twenty of abiding, and nineteen of dissolution,” and reconciles the loose figure of sixty — “thus the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says, ‘the lifespan of the Brahmā king is fifty-eight aeons’; the earlier statement of sixty aeons for the Brahmā king is stated by the round number.” Fabao’s Commentary on the same matter offers another reconciliation, saying, “the Sūtra of the Establishment of the World says that the receptacle and sentient beings each take ten aeons to form and to be destroyed, which differs from this,” and explaining it thus: “that sūtra says, ‘the Brahmā king is born first and after ten aeons of abiding the Brahmapurohita and the rest are born in order’”; “hence one knows that from the Brahmapurohita downward the forming takes ten aeons”; “and counting in the Brahmā king, the forming takes nineteen aeons, the Brahmā king being included in the ten aeons of the forming of the receptacle.” The two commentaries reconcile by like methods and differ in fullness — Puguang’s Record examines the number in the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom as well, and Fabao’s Commentary does not. Both are recorded.

The relation of this treatise to the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā. This is a set in which the two commentaries run the same way in different words. Puguang’s Record notes at the section on the three catastrophes, “this treatise does not take the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā for its measure, but states what it pleases”; Fabao’s Commentary says, “the three catastrophes in this treatise are for the most part not the correct sense of the Mahāvibhāṣā; the treatise master’s intent is his own.” At the section on whether the palaces of the fourth absorption are permanent, Fabao’s Commentary points out still more plainly that what this treatise adopts is exactly the latter explanation judged unsound by the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā — “that the levels of the fourth absorption are each apart and not contrary is the same in all the treatises; the accounts of their ceasing differ, and the intent of each treatise is its own,” “what this treatise states is the latter explanation of the Mahāvibhāṣā, which the adjudicators’ sense treats as a difficulty and rejects”; and Puguang’s Record at the same passage likewise has the note, “the Abhidharmakośa does not take the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā for its measure.” Again, at the section on the animals and ghosts in their own place being destroyed first within the aeon of dissolution, Puguang’s Record says, “the Correct Principle in adjudicating takes the former house; this treatise does not take the Correct Principle for its measure, and there is no fault in its agreeing with that latter account.” All three places take one and the same standpoint: this treatise need not take the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā or of the Correct Principle for its standard. This is an adjudication of the ancient masters and not a statement of the treatise itself, and so it belongs in this section.

On the measure of time of the thousand buddhas of the Worthy Aeon, Fabao’s Commentary alone raises a doubt. Fabao’s Commentary, having cited in a row the Sūtra of the Worthy Aeon, the Record of the Western Regions, the Sūtra of the Establishment of the World, and the Maitreya Sūtra, feels for itself that the numbers do not agree, and says, “and inferring from this text there are only eleven aeons left, with nine hundred and ninety-six buddhas still to appear; the time seems too pressed,” and tries out an explanation — “examining the Worthy Aeon, it seems to be the aeon of wind, and among the sixty-four aeons this is the first; the whole sixty-four aeons make one Worthy Aeon” — and ends by marking it unsettled with “it should be examined further.” Puguang’s Record has no such doubt. Fabao’s Commentary here leaves a doubt standing and gives no settled interpretation, and it is recorded.

Puguang’s Record refutes Master Tai. At the section holding that Śākyamuni appeared in the ninth aeon of abiding, Puguang’s Record cites the Abhidharma of the Establishment of the World as proof and then plainly refutes a divergent account adduced by Master Tai, saying, “examining the text of the Establishment of the World, it says only that the present is the ninth aeon within the aeon of abiding, and nothing further,” and again, “examining the Sūtra on the Arising of Worlds as well, it has no such statement either; I do not know where Master Tai got this text.” This is the one place within the range of this fascicle where Puguang’s Record names Shentai and questions him, and his manner here differs from his respectful citation of the Mahāvibhāṣā and the Correct Principle. It is set down here without adjudication.

To which schools the positions of one buddha and of many buddhas in the ten directions belong. The prose of this treatise at this passage says only “some say” and “masters of another school say,” without naming; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary marks their affiliation outright, saying, “according to the Sarvāstivādins, in the worlds of the ten directions there is but one buddha; according to the Sautrāntika school, in the worlds of the ten directions many buddhas of the ten directions are allowed,” and says of itself that “the treatise has their mutual refutations, which are tedious and are not set out,” omitting this treatise’s long argument. Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary cite it at length at this passage. A conspicuous difference of fullness among the three houses, and it is recorded.

The reckoning of the order of the three catastrophes. Fabao’s Commentary has, “seven fires and one water, making in all seven sevens of fire and seven waters; then seven fires and one wind: seven nines are sixty-three, and with the one catastrophe of wind there are sixty-four”; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary sets it out item by item, saying, “thus there are in all eight sevens of catastrophes of fire, one seven of catastrophes of water, and one catastrophe of wind,” and again, “it should be known that within the eight sevens of catastrophes of fire there are seven catastrophes of water, and after the eight sevens of catastrophes of fire in order there is one catastrophe of wind, the count coming to sixty-four catastrophes in all.” The two formulas reach the same number in the end while differing in their intermediate statement, and both are recorded without adjudication.

A limit upon the lifespan of the Śubhakṛtsna gods. Fabao’s Commentary adds after the last sentence a qualification, saying, “when this heaven is first formed at the beginning of an aeon, those first born there may have a lifespan of sixty-four aeons; those born later do not all obtain it” — the lifespan of sixty-four aeons belongs only to those first born at the beginning of the aeon, and those born later need not obtain its full extent. This is a supplementary explanation of Fabao’s Commentary, and the text of this treatise has no such statement, and so it belongs in this section.

Why the first and the last aeon are equal in time to the eighteen in the middle — the treatise does not explain, and Puguang’s Record gives two explanations. The treatise only concludes, “because the first only decreases and the last only increases, the measures of time of all twenty aeons are equal,” without giving its ground. Puguang’s Record sets the difficulty at just this point: “the first aeon only decreases and the last only increases; how are their times equal to the eighteen in the middle?”, and gives two explanations — the first stated in terms of the thickness or thinness of the merit of sentient beings: “comparing the twenty aeons of abiding one against another, the sentient beings of the earlier have superior merit and those of the later inferior,” and so the first aeon, “its merit being most excellent, they should enjoy fine and superior objects, and so the time of decrease is exceedingly slow,” while at the twentieth aeon, “their merit being thinnest, the time of increase is exceedingly slow,” the one descending and the other ascending, each utterly slow, and their totals equal; the second stated in terms of the boundary of the aeon of formation: “the time while the lifespan has not yet decreased is gathered under the aeon of formation; only from the first decrease out of immeasurable years is it named the aeon of abiding,” while the twentieth aeon “rises to eighty thousand and lingers a long while.” ⇒ Puguang’s Record gives two explanations and takes neither for himself; both are here recorded without adjudication.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutation

In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra calls Vasubandhu the Sūtra-master. Within the corresponding passages of this fascicle there are three places where he plainly counter-refutes, recorded one by one below.

First, the definition of the moment. What is answered to is this treatise’s sentence, “the instant in which, the many conditions having come together, a dharma obtains its own existence.” Saṅghabhadra takes it up and rejects it, saying, “what is called the measure of one moment? The Sūtra-master rashly explains it thus,” and then pronounces, “as thus explained, the principle is not established”; and his most deadly difficulty is — “the instant in which a dharma obtains its own existence he calls the moment; how should the moment be raised in order to display the measure of the moment? And so what he explains is not established in principle,” that is, that this is to explain the moment by the moment. Saṅghabhadra for his own part holds that the true measure of a moment is known only to a buddha and cannot be put into words, saying, “the Vibhāṣā masters, speaking in the ultimate sense, hold that the measure of the moment of a dharma may be displayed by a simile; and the reason the World-Honored One never stated it is that he saw none who could understand it,” and what he grants is only the simile as a device — “as in the time a strong man snaps his fingers once, sixty-five subtle moments pass”; and he keeps the same reserve about the measure of an ultimate atom, saying, “the measure of one ultimate atom too may be displayed by a simile, and only a buddha knows it, and so it too is not stated.” One meaning and two schools are recorded together: Vasubandhu explains the moment by a definition, and Saṅghabhadra rejects it as circular and grants only display by simile. Worth setting down is that the simile Saṅghabhadra uses and the number he cites are exactly the same as this treatise’s, so that what the two parties contest is the single point of whether this simile is itself a definition. As for the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine, it puts at the same passage simply, “for the measure of one moment, see the Correct Principle,” without restating it — a rare instance of its pointing to another treatise.

Second, the ground on which no buddha appears below a hundred years. What is answered to is this treatise’s sentence, “because the five turbidities have increased to the utmost and conversion is hard.” Saṅghabhadra takes it up and objects, saying, “the Sūtra-master here explains it thus: because the five turbidities have increased to the utmost, conversion is hard,” and asks further, “is it not so that in the present age, when men’s lifespan is under a hundred years and the five turbidities have increased, there are yet those who can accomplish entry into the certainty of rightness, become free from defilement, and obtain the fruit?”, pronouncing, “therefore what he says is not a good explanation.” The reason he establishes for himself is, “it may be said that below a hundred years one portion cannot accomplish this work of a buddha, and so no buddha appears” — not that conversion is hard, but that the whole work of a buddha’s appearing and delivering all cannot be fully accomplished. Saṅghabhadra also sets up another gloss of the five turbidities as five kinds of decline, saying, “first, decline of lifespan, its time being exceedingly short; second, decline of requisites, their luster being little; third, decline of the class of the wholesome, men delighting in evil conduct,” and below these the two further items of decline of stillness and decline of one’s own person, differing from this treatise’s way of grouping them as “by the first two turbidities, by the next two, by the last one.” One meaning and two schools are recorded together: the conclusion is the same (that no buddha appears in the world below a hundred years), the argument different. The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine carries this passage entire with a difference of two graphs only (reading “become free from desire and obtain the fruit”), which too is set down.

Third, the ground on which a pratyekabuddha does not teach the dharma. This treatise’s ground is, “and because he would avoid the gathering of a following, he does not expound the right dharma to others, fearing clamor and confusion.” Saṅghabhadra takes this up as “an explanation of others” — “others explain that because that pratyekabuddha has long habituated himself to a resolve of few wants, and would also avoid the faults of clamor and confusion in gathering a following, he does not teach the dharma so as to tame others” — and at once presses it: “if he has the ability himself and others have the faculties and the wish, and he abandons them and does not deliver them, how is he to be called compassionate? Therefore the former explanation should be taken as the better”; and he establishes for himself the ground, “he knows that at that time the faculties and wishes of sentient beings are such that entry into the seeing of the truths and the rest does not depend upon another’s teaching.” ⇒ Saṅghabhadra here takes it up as “an explanation of others” without naming, and does not point directly at the Sūtra-master; while the sense he rejects is the same as the one this treatise establishes. Both are recorded and neither adjudicated.

Two matters of background, not direct refutations of this treatise. First, what Saṅghabhadra refutes in setting out the ultimate atom is a third party’s, “there are yet others,” different gloss of coarse and fine, and not Vasubandhu’s discussion. Second, in the passage on many buddhas in the ten directions this treatise itself already records both parties without judging which prevails, and Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises both extend and deepen the argument of the Sarvāstivāda party upon the two parties already recorded, and do not set up a new position to refute Vasubandhu. Both matters serve only for collateral reading and are not listed as debates.

Divergences in the stanza text. The third line of Root 96 as cited in Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises writes the proper graph for “indolent,” where the base text of this treatise and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary write the graph “fallen” borrowed in that sense; and the third line of Root 97 in both his treatises reads “sword, sickness, and hunger in order,” agreeing with the base text. The choice among divergences of the graphs is a matter of collation, and this section only records without adjudicating.

3. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

In Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury the renderings in the corresponding passages of this fascicle form a system of their own. Of the first of the three least measures, Xuanzang has the ultimate atom and Paramārtha “next to the void”; of the grade above it, Xuanzang renders the sense as the mote and Paramārtha takes the sound, anou; of the second grade of the sevenfold increase, Xuanzang has gold dust and Paramārtha iron dust. For the unit of length, Xuanzang has the yojana and Paramārtha the yojana in the older transcription, while the two transcriptions krośa and forest hermitage are wholly the same in both versions. Among the four aeons, Xuanzang’s intermediate aeon is throughout Paramārtha’s separate aeon, a difference running through the whole stretch. For asaṃkhyeya Paramārtha has the older transcription of the same word. In the stanza of the three men, Xuanzang has lesser, middling, and highest man where Paramārtha has lesser, middling, and highest person. The names of the five turbidities differ in three places: lifespan against life, affliction against bewilderment, sentient being against living being. Of the two kinds of pratyekabuddha, Xuanzang has the one likened to the qilin’s horn and Paramārtha the one likened to the rhinoceros horn. Of two of the Tathāgata’s ten titles, Xuanzang renders the sense as Worthy One and Fully and Perfectly Awakened, and Paramārtha takes the sound in both. Of the last two of the seven treasures, Xuanzang marks plainly the offices of the minister of the treasury and the minister of war, while Paramārtha has the householder treasure and the great-minister treasure without displaying their offices — and this is not a difference of rendering only but a difference of statement. Dissolution of destiny in Xuanzang is dissolution of way in Paramārtha, and the Abhidharma masters are in Paramārtha the masters of Abhidharma.

There are divergences of dividing and joining as well. In the definition of the moment Paramārtha’s version has two further outline markers reading “again”; and in the passage on the fire of catastrophe drawing forth its like, Paramārtha’s version makes sameness of kind the backbone of the explanation and is the more marked in the form of formal reasoning. As to the boundaries of the fascicles, Xuanzang divides the Chapter on the World into five fascicles and Paramārtha into four, and this fascicle falls wholly in the latter portion of Paramārtha’s fourth, so that the fascicle boundaries of the two versions do not align. The name of the treatise adduced as proof in the last sentence also differs: Xuanzang cites the Treatise of Designations and Paramārtha the Treatise Distinguishing the Establishment of the World. The choice among divergent renderings is the translator’s business, and this section only records both without adjudicating.

4. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

What this fascicle establishes is a complete set of measures from the ultimate atom to the great aeon, and, stated upon those measures, the people within the aeons and the catastrophes within the aeons. This set of measures has another manner of statement in the root treatise of the Yogācāra school, and the two may be read together. The name ultimate atom is used in both systems while the sense stressed differs: this fascicle establishes it by “analyzing the several forms to what cannot be analyzed,” with the weight upon the analysis of dharmas, while the Yogācārabhūmi, in explaining the ultimate atom, puts the weight upon the single sense of “not being of the nature of an aggregate.” Of the aeon of dissolution and the three catastrophes, both systems state the three catastrophes of fire, water, and wind, both mark the summits of the three catastrophes, and both take eighty intermediate aeons for one great aeon; and as to the assignment of the three summits, what the two systems mark is item for item the same — both taking the second, the third, and the fourth meditative absorption for the summits of fire, water, and wind. As for why the fourth absorption meets with no outward catastrophe, the reasons the two systems give correspond word for word — this fascicle has “it is not so, because it arises together with sentient beings and ceases together with them,” explained by the palaces being each apart like the host of stars, and the Yogācārabhūmi likewise states it as “body and palace arising together and passing away together,” which is the closest of the anchors between this fascicle and the Yogācāra system. Of the account of the sentient beings at the beginning of an aeon and of the four kinds of wheel-turning monarch, both systems have their text as well, and the numbers matching monarch to continent are wholly the same as in this treatise and in Puguang’s Record’s fourfold mnemonic.