俱舍論 四緣·十二心Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Four Conditions · Twelve Minds

Before reading this fascicle

This fascicle opens with only eight characters — “The causes have been stated at length. And what of conditions?” The previous fascicle finished the six causes and five results, and the author at once presses a further question: since causes have been stated to the end, what then are conditions? A first-time reader will feel the question superfluous: are cause and condition not the same thing? It is precisely this question that opens the finest piece of workmanship in the whole of Abhidharma.

Shentai’s Commentary, at the very head of the fascicle, counts its stanzas for us: “Below there are twelve and a half lines of stanzas analyzing the four conditions, and within them three parts.” A five-character stanza-line of twenty characters makes one line, so twelve and a half lines are two hundred fifty characters — and the eight root-stanza blocks of this fascicle come to exactly that. The “half line,” then, is not an odd remainder but the half-stanza carried over from the previous fascicle: the latter half of that fascicle’s closing stanza falls exactly on the joint where causes end and conditions begin, and in dividing the fascicles Xuanzang gave up the stanza boundary and followed the doctrinal one, so that this half-stanza became the opening of the present fascicle. To read this fascicle is to pick up from that joint.

Shentai’s Commentary further divides the twelve and a half lines into five parts: a line and a half establishing the entities of the four conditions, one line setting out the times at which the four conditions operate, one line setting out how many conditions each class of dharma arises from, one line setting out how the great elements and derived form are causes for one another, and finally “from here the fifth part has eight lines of stanzas setting out at length the sense of mind, taking up the immediately antecedent condition once more” — eight lines of stanzas given entirely to mind. The proportion is itself a hint: of the four conditions, the one the author cares most about is the immediately antecedent condition; and once that condition is treated in depth, the whole register of which minds can follow a given moment of mind must be spread out, whence the three sections on the twelve minds, the twenty minds, and how many minds are acquired. The four conditions are the net-cord; mind is the field.

One more thing should be said in advance: the middle of this fascicle contains a rare passage refuting the non-Buddhists. Abhidharma habitually takes stock of its own enumeration of dharmas and seldom engages an outside party; but when the discussion reaches how many conditions each dharma arises from, the author suddenly turns and devotes a whole passage to refuting the doctrine that all the world arises from the single cause Īśvara, quoting a stanza of the non-Buddhists’ own. This passage is a rare piece of doctrinal defense in the whole treatise, and it is taught through section by section below.

I. The Four Conditions: Why Four, and What Each Governs

〔1.1〕The four conditions are not the author’s invention. The treatise’s first words ask, “Where is this stated?”, and answer, “In a sūtra” — the four conditions are stated in scripture, and the treatise only puts them in order. This step is not to be skipped: it is the rule of Abhidharma that whenever an enumeration of dharmas is established its provenance must be stated first, and that where the provenance is scripture the name may not be altered. Scripture has “the nature of the four conditions,” and the treatise at once explains that word “nature”: “nature here means the class of a condition” — “nature” is here no kind of essence but merely “this class.” The easy error lies exactly here: readers often read “the nature of causal condition” as “the intrinsic being of a causal condition,” whereupon the four conditions turn into four things; in fact it means “the class of causal condition.” In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra says it more plainly still: “the nature of a condition here is just the four conditions; as ‘four dwellings’ is the same as ‘the nature of a dwelling,’ the word ‘nature’ is used in order to display the class” — like saying “four dwellings” and “dwellings as a class,” with no extra thing added. In terms of reading: the four conditions are four classifications, not four real objects. Keep this in mind and such statements below as “all dharmas are object conditions” and “all dharmas are dominant conditions” will not alarm.

〔1.2〕The causal condition: the six causes minus one. “Within the six causes, excluding the enabling cause, the remaining five causes are the nature of the causal condition” — coexistent, homogeneous, associated, all-pervading, and maturation, five causes together, make up the causal condition, while the enabling cause alone is taken out and matched instead to the dominant condition. First ask: why should it be the enabling cause that is dropped? Because the enabling cause is defined by not obstructing, and its range is wide enough to gather in every dharma; a cause so wide as to leave nothing out has no discriminating force if left in the square marked “producing intimately.” So the treatise moves it over to serve as the dominant condition, leaving the causal condition to the five causes that intimately produce. The easy error is to take the six causes and the four conditions as two unrelated lists and to memorize both by rote. In fact they are two ways of cutting one and the same set of operations. Fabao’s Commentary states the relation with the least effort: “cause is the name for what is intimate, condition the name for what is remote,” and again, “among the six causes five are intimate and so share the name of the intimate; among the four conditions three are remote and so share the name of the remote” — five intimate and one remote among the six causes, three remote and one intimate among the four conditions, the intimate and the remote crossing over, and hence two sets of names. In practice, whenever a later question asks how many causes and how many conditions a given dharma arises from, set the words intimate and remote in mind first and the numbers will not go astray.

〔1.3〕The immediately antecedent condition: why only mind can serve as it. The definition is: all already arisen mind and mental factors, “excluding the last mind and mental factors of an arhat about to enter nirvāṇa.” The name comes from “this condition produces dharmas that are equal and without interval, and the name immediately antecedent is established on this sense” — what it produces is “equal” before and after, with no interval between, and hence the name. First ask: why can form not serve? The treatise answers with great skill: form arises unequally. In one and the same moment nonmanifest form of the desire realm may be present together with nonmanifest form of the form realm, and nonmanifest form of the desire realm together with nonmanifest form without outflows — “since forms become present mixed together, while what the immediately antecedent condition produces is without mixture.” Forms can stand side by side; mind cannot: one moment has one feeling and one perception, and one feeling does not produce two feelings. This is the real sense of the word “equal.”

The treatise also records the additions of two ancient masters. Vasumitra says that within one and the same body a portion of nourished form continues unbroken while a second portion of nourished form arises, and the two “do not injure or contradict each other” — where things can coexist there is no question of handing over a place. The Venerable Dharmatrāta says instead that form is indeterminate in quantity before and after, and gives two symmetrical similes: burning a great heap of rice straw yields only a small heap of ash, which is many producing few; a single fine seed grows into a banyan tree, whose “root, trunk, branches, and leaves increase and flourish by degrees, the tall trunk letting fall its boughs and casting shade far and wide,” which is few producing many. The easy error is to read these two similes as the author discussing plants and fire. They are proving one thing — that the quantity of form has no guarantee of equality, and that form therefore cannot be established as an immediately antecedent condition.

The author then sets himself a difficulty: do not mental factors too vary in number? A wholesome mind and an unwholesome mind have different numbers of mental factors. The answer distinguishes finely: that variation obtains only between different kinds, and “within one’s own kind there is no absence of the sense of equality” — one feeling never produces many feelings. Pressing further: is it then only a preceding dharma of one’s own kind that serves as condition for the later? The treatise answers, “It is not so,” and gives the correct account: “the dharmas of the preceding class of mind as a whole are the immediately antecedent condition of the following class, and not only what is of their own kind” — a whole class of mind hands over its place to the next class of mind; it is not feeling handing over to feeling and perception to perception. In practice: the immediately antecedent condition speaks of the handing over of a place, not of succession within a kind; and reading it as “continuity within a kind” is precisely the position the author refutes in the next passage.

〔1.4〕Where those who admit only one’s own kind go wrong. There is a class of people who hold that only what is of one’s own kind can be an immediately antecedent condition, that “mind produces only mind and feeling produces only feeling.” The price they pay is this: when a defiled mind arises immediately after an undefiled mind, the affliction within that defiled mind has to take “the affliction that ceased earlier” as its immediately antecedent condition — a stretch of the undefiled lies in between, and they must still force the connection back to the same kind. They also adduce the absorption of cessation as an example, saying that the mind emerging from it takes as its condition the mind that preceded entry. The author refutes them in one sentence: “their statement is not good, for the first mind without outflows would then have to arise lacking this condition.” First ask: why is this refutation fatal? Because before the first arisen mind without outflows there simply is no mind without outflows of the same kind to connect with; and if only one’s own kind can serve as condition, that moment arises while lacking one of the four conditions — whereas that mind and mental factors are definitely produced by four conditions is a tenet they themselves grant. The easy error is to suppose that the author here denies the account of the mind emerging from the absorption of cessation connecting to the mind before entry. He does not. That model the author himself uses (see the fourfold analysis below); he only refuses to let it be generalized into “only one’s own kind.” In practice: this is a mode of refutation common throughout the treatise — he does not refute your example, he refutes your taking the example for a general rule.

〔1.5〕Why there is no immediately antecedent condition in the future, and how the Buddha nonetheless knows the future. Someone asks: why is an immediately antecedent condition not allowed in the future time-period? The treatise answers, “because future dharmas abide mixed together and have no before and after” — future dharmas have not yet formed a queue, and where there is no before and after there is no question of which succeeds which. This answer at once raises a larger question: since the future has no before and after, how does the Buddha know that “this dharma will be immediately followed by that dharma which is to arise”? Here the treatise records three views and then adopts one. The first is “because he knows the present by comparison with past and present dharmas,” the Buddha comparing the causal sequences of past and present and so seeing the future manifestly, with the added remark that “this is included in the knowledge of aspiration and is not inferential knowledge”; the author objects that if so, “since the World-Honored One has not seen the prior limit, he ought to be unable to know dharmas of the later limit.” The second is that within the continuum of a sentient being there is a “prior sign of the cause” of the future result, belonging to the differentiations of the aggregate of formations not associated with mind, and that the Buddha knows simply by observing this sign, “without needing to range through the meditative absorptions and the supernormal knowledges at the moment”; the author objects that this makes it “knowing by reading signs in the future, and not direct realization.” The third is the Sautrāntika view: “the World-Honored One, on directing his intention, knows all dharmas everywhere, neither by inference nor by reading signs,” and the author judges, “this statement is good,” closing with the World-Honored One’s own words — the domain of the Buddhas is inconceivable.

First ask: why does this passage stand in the chapter on the four conditions? Because it is in fact defending the line that the future has no before and after. If it were granted that the Buddha relies on inference or on reading signs, the future would have to be queued up in advance, the immediately antecedent condition would reach into the future, and the definition just given would collapse. The easy error is to read the three views as a dispute in Buddhist epistemology. They are advanced in order to preserve a boundary line in the enumeration of dharmas. In practice: a reader of Abhidharma must get used to this manner of writing — an apparently theological incidental discussion is often there to keep some definition from leaking.

〔1.6〕The arhat’s last moment of mind: it is “mind-faculty,” yet not a “condition.” The treatise asks: why are the last mind and mental factors of an arhat not an immediately antecedent condition? The answer: “because no further mind and the rest continue on from them” — there is no mind after them to connect. The objector at once asks in return: every mind that has ceased without interval is named “mind-faculty” (as the support of the subsequent consciousness), and since no consciousness arises after the last mind, ought it not to lose even the name of mind-faculty? The treatise’s division is beautifully made: “mind-faculty is displayed by way of support and not by way of operation,” whereas the immediately antecedent condition is “displayed by way of operation.” Mind-faculty is named with respect to being available as a support, and the last mind still qualifies as available for support; it is only that the remaining assisting conditions are lacking, and so no subsequent consciousness arises. The immediately antecedent condition, by contrast, is named with respect to actually having performed the handing over of a place, and of any dharma taken as a result by this condition, “there are definitely no dharmas and no sentient beings that can obstruct it so as to keep it from arising” — once a result is taken it must arise, with no exception. Hence “the last mind, though it obtains the name of mind-faculty, may not be called an immediately antecedent condition.”

First ask: what is the use of this distinction over a single word? It separates qualification from efficacy. The easy error is to take “mind-faculty” and “immediately antecedent condition” as two names for one and the same thing — the treatise does often say that a mind ceased without interval is named mind-faculty, and one slips past it easily. In practice: whenever two names later appear to designate one thing, first ask whether the one is established with respect to support or with respect to operation, and the knot will usually come undone.

〔1.7〕Two fourfold analyses: prying apart “immediately antecedent” and “without interval.” The treatise sets two questions, each answered in four alternatives. First question: is whatever is an immediately antecedent result of mind also something that arises directly after mind? The first alternative is the former without the latter: the mind and mental factors on emerging from a mindless absorption, and the moments of the two absorptions from the second moment onward — these are immediately antecedent results of mind, yet do not arise directly after mind. The second alternative is the latter without the former: the four marks of arising, abiding, change, and cessation belonging to the first arisen moment of the two absorptions, and the four marks of arising, abiding, change, and cessation belonging to mind and mental factors in a state possessed of mind — these arise directly after mind, yet are not results of mind. The third alternative is both, the fourth neither. The second question substitutes “directly after a mindless absorption,” and its answer merely transposes the four alternatives — “the third and fourth alternatives above become the first and second here.”

First ask: what is all this circling for? To force out a conclusion: “immediately antecedent” is the name of a result, and “without interval” is the name of a position, and the two may come apart. Hence the treatise adds a question at the end: when the mind emerging from the two absorptions looks back to the mind before entry, so long a stretch lies between — how can it still count as without interval? The answer: “because no mind or mental factor intervenes” — if what intervenes is not mind, it does not count as an interval. The easy error is to read “without interval” as immediate succession in time. It is immediate succession in the sequence of minds, and the time may stretch very long. In practice: this settles the point on which later readers most often stick — that when one emerges from the absorption without perception after five hundred aeons, the immediately antecedent condition of that moment of mind is still the mind before entry.

〔1.8〕The object condition: it remains an object even when it is not being taken as one. The definition is: “the nature of the object condition is all dharmas with respect to mind and mental factors, each as applicable” — visual consciousness and its associated dharmas take all visible form as object condition, and so on up to mental consciousness and its associated dharmas taking all dharmas as object condition. The real teaching lies in the sentence that follows: “if a dharma is an object for that dharma, there is no time at which this is not an object for that” — even at a time and place where it is not being taken as an object, it still counts as included among objects, because “being taken as object and not being taken as object, its character is one”; and a simile is set: “as firewood and the like, even when not being burned, are still called what is burned, since their character is not different.”

First ask: what sort of reasoning is this? Firewood is called what is burned even when unburnt, because being burnable belongs to its character and not to the presence of fire. In the same way, being available as an object is the character of the dharma itself and is not lost merely because at this moment nobody is taking it as object. The easy error is to suppose that an object condition is established only when a mind comes to take it — which would make the condition something manufactured by mind. The treatise also notes in passing that an object is “determinate in all three respects, place, entity, and moment,” and asks whether the support, the faculty, is likewise, answering that it is, save that only in the present time-period does it “intimately adhere to its own support” while past and future are separated from it; and it preserves another view that “in the past too it intimately adheres to its support.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary fits this section with an excellent simile: “mind and mental factors are feeble in nature and arise only by grasping an object, like a feeble man who cannot rise without a staff” — mind is the feeble man, the object is the staff, and without the staff he cannot stand. In practice: the object condition is not an appendage of mind but the support by which mind is able to arise; and this sentence will be weighed again and again in Yogācāra later on.

〔1.9〕The dominant condition: the widest square of the four. “The nature of the dominant condition is just the enabling cause,” and its entity is the widest, since every dharma is a dominant condition. The objector at once seizes the handle: since the object condition too is every dharma, on what ground is the dominant condition said to be uniquely wide? The treatise answers along two routes. One is to give a counter-example: those dharmas that arise together with this moment of mind “have never been its object” — companions in the same moment cannot become one’s own object, yet they are still dominant conditions, which shows that the range of the dominant condition really is greater. The other is to shift the angle: “or, because what it does is broad, it is named the dominant condition” — every dharma, each excluding its own intrinsic nature, can be a dominant condition for every conditioned dharma, and this is said with respect to the breadth of what it does.

First ask: which route is the correct account? The treatise preserves both without adjudicating, and this is precisely its rule. The easy error is to read “dominant” as reinforcing. Its real sense is not obstructing — it does nothing at all, only keeps out of the way; and just because the qualification of keeping out of the way is the easiest to satisfy, its range is the widest. At the end the treatise sets a closing question: is there any dharma that serves as none of the four conditions whatever for some dharma? There is — “an intrinsic nature with respect to itself,” which serves as not one condition for itself; and there is also the case of another nature, namely the conditioned with respect to the unconditioned, and the unconditioned with respect to the unconditioned. In practice: this question seals off the chapter on the four conditions. It tells the reader that wide as the four conditions are, they still have a boundary; the unconditioned does not arise, and so receives no condition at all.

II. On Which Moment the Operation Falls: The Moment of Ceasing and the Moment of Arising

〔2.1〕They are causes alike, yet they act at different times. The stanza says, “Two causes at the moment of ceasing, three causes at the moment of arising; the other two conditions, contrariwise, exercise their operation.” Among the five causes, the coexistent and associated causes operate “at the moment of ceasing,” and “the words ‘the moment of ceasing’ display the dharma as present, since its ceasing is before us, and hence the moment of ceasing”; the three causes homogeneous, all-pervading, and maturation operate “at the moment of arising,” that is, a future dharma “at the stage of imminent arising, because its arising is before us.” First ask: ought not a cause to operate when it produces its result — how can a cause act at the moment of ceasing? The key is that what these two causes produce is a simultaneous result: coexistent and associated causes are in the very same moment as their result, and result and cause are present together and tend toward ceasing together, so it is said that they “exercise their operation at the stage of the dharma’s ceasing” — not that the cause first ceases and then produces the result, but that their operation is displayed only in this present moment. Conversely, what the three causes homogeneous, all-pervading, and maturation produce is a later result, the result still standing in the future at the stage of being about to arise, so that the cause’s drawing force falls upon that “about to arise.”

〔2.2〕Why the two conditions are the reverse. The treatise says, “the operation of the two conditions is contrary to this.” The immediately antecedent condition operates “at the stage of a dharma’s arising,” “because at the time it arises the preceding mind and mental factors have given it their place” — its work is to yield a place, and the moment the place is yielded is precisely the moment the new dharma arises. The object condition operates “at the stage of the ceasing of what takes it,” “because mind and mental factors must be present in order to grasp an object” — grasping an object requires a present mind, and a present mind is just then tending toward ceasing, so its operation falls at the stage of ceasing. As for the dominant condition, “at every stage it abides without obstructing,” barring nothing at either the stage of arising or the stage of ceasing.

The easy error is to memorize this stanza as a formula of four points in time. It has in fact only one principle — the position of the operation is fixed by the position of the result: where the result is simultaneous with the cause, the operation is in the present; where the result lies in the future about to arise, the operation is at the stage of arising; where the condition’s work is to yield a place, it falls at the stage of arising; where the condition’s work is to be grasped, it falls at the stage of ceasing. In practice, this section is the pivot of everything the treatise says about taking and giving a result; whenever the chapters on action and on the noble persons later raise questions about whether taking and giving a result are simultaneous, one must come back here.

III. From How Many Conditions Each Dharma Arises: The Shortest Checklist

〔3.1〕A list of three lines. The stanza says, “Mind and mental factors from four, the two absorptions from three only, the rest arise from two conditions.” Mind and mental factors have all four conditions; the absorption of cessation and the absorption without perception have only three, “excluding the object condition, since they do not take an object” — a mindless absorption does not take an object, and so naturally has no object condition; the remaining forms and formations not associated with mind have only two, the causal condition and the dominant condition. First ask: since the two absorptions are mindless, why do they still have an immediately antecedent condition? Because the two absorptions are drawn forth by the moment of mind before entry, and so that mind of entry together with its associated dharmas is their immediately antecedent condition. But the treatise at once adds a sentence of the first importance: “these two absorptions are drawn forth by mind and the rest; because they obstruct the arising of mind and the rest, they are for mind and the rest merely immediately antecedent, and not an immediately antecedent condition” — the two absorptions are “immediately antecedent dharmas” of mind, but not the “immediately antecedent condition” of mind.

The easy error is to take these two names for one. The two absorptions are drawn forth by mind, and so they follow directly after mind (they are immediately antecedent dharmas); but their function is to block mind from arising, and something that blocks the road cannot conversely serve as the condition that yields a place. In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra presses precisely this point — “on what ground are the two absorptions immediately antecedent to mind and yet not said to be the immediately antecedent condition of mind?” — and answers that “they are injuriously contrary to the arising of mind and the rest.” Here the treatise gives only the conclusion, and Saṅghabhadra supplies the reason. In practice: this is the key to how the minds of entering and emerging from absorption are joined, and the whole chapter on absorption later rests upon it.

〔3.2〕What the study of the four conditions is good for. This table looks fussy, but it is in fact taking the four conditions established above and checking them class by class: mind has four, the two absorptions three, the rest two. Whenever an enumeration of dharmas is set up, one must be able to turn back and verify it item by item against all dharmas with no exception left over — this is Abhidharma’s mechanism of self-verification. In practice: on meeting any dharma hereafter, the reader can first ask, “is it mind, is it a mindless absorption, is it form or a formation not associated with mind?”, and once the answer is out, the number of conditions is fixed.

IV. Refuting the Single Cause: Three Lines of Reasoning

〔4.1〕Why the author suddenly turns. The last line of the stanza, “not from a god, because of sequence and the rest,” is extremely terse and contains two things. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary takes it apart clearly: “this has two senses: first the denial, second the establishing of the reason” — “not from a god” is what is refuted (Īśvara and the rest), and “because of sequence and the rest” is the reasoning that refutes. Three parties in all are refuted: those who hold Maheśvara to be the maker, those who hold a self to be the maker, and those who hold the primal nature to be the cause. The author first sets a general question: on what ground is it said that things are not produced by a single cause? The answer is briskly made — “if you allow that anything whatever is brought about by a cause, have you not thereby abandoned the doctrine that all the world arises from the single cause Īśvara and the like?”: if you grant that the establishing of any one thing requires other causes to help, your own doctrine of a single cause collapses.

〔4.2〕The first reason: sequence. “That is, if the worlds arose from the single cause Īśvara and the like, then everything ought to arise all at once and not in sequence; yet we plainly see dharmas arising in sequence, and so we know they definitely do not arise from a single cause.” First ask: where is the force of this refutation? In this, that a single, unchanging cause cannot yield results that come earlier and later. The opponent’s defense is to add a “wish”: Īśvara wishes this dharma to arise now and that one later. The author presses on through four steps: if it depends on a wish, then it is no longer a single cause; if the wishes are said to differ, then, since those differing wishes issue alike from an undifferentiated Īśvara, they too ought to arise all at once; if the differing wishes are said to depend on some further cause, then it is not “taking Īśvara alone as the cause”; and if the cause depended upon depends in turn on yet another cause, then “the causes depended upon would have no limit” — and to grant that they have no limit is to grant beginninglessness, which “does not transgress the correct principle of causes and conditions in the Buddha’s school,” so that the circle comes back round to Buddhism’s own doctrine of causes and conditions.

The easy error is to suppose that the author is proving that the world has no creator. What he refutes is the single cause — “therefore there is no dharma produced by a single cause alone.” In practice: the form of this reasoning is well worth remembering — anyone who maintains a single permanent cause must face the question of how an unchanging cause produces changing results.

〔4.3〕The second reason: it serves no purpose. “And when that Īśvara exerts great effort to produce the worlds, what benefit does he gain?” If it be said that it is for the sake of arousing delight, then, since delight cannot be aroused apart from other means, he must rely on something else for the arousing of delight — “so that Īśvara, since he must depend on another in the arousing of delight, ought not to be sovereign.” The author then writes the weightiest sentence in the passage: “Or if Īśvara produces the hells and other measureless instruments of suffering to oppress and harm sentient beings, and arouses his own delight at the sight of it — enough! What use is such an Īśvara?” First ask: is this sentence emotion or argument? It is argument. It forces out the internal consequence of the opponent’s position: if instruments of suffering are made merely for the maker’s own amusement, then the god he sets up contradicts the very name of Sovereign. In practice: the method of this refutation is not to add an external value judgment but to push the opponent’s own premises to the end and let them state the conclusion themselves.

〔4.4〕The third reason: it contradicts the world. “And if one accepts that all the world arises from the single cause Īśvara, this is to deny the other causes and conditions and the human labor and the rest that we plainly see in the world.” First ask: is this an appeal to common sense? What it appeals to is what is plainly seen — farming requires that someone plow, making a cart requires that someone make it, and these are causes and conditions verifiable before one’s eyes. If the opponent says that Īśvara must await human labor to assist and elicit his act, the author answers, “this is merely words of partisan reverence for Īśvara, since apart from the other causes and conditions no distinct function of his is seen” — that is deference, not reasoning. If the opponent falls back on holding that only the very first arising has Īśvara as its cause and that only afterwards are other causes awaited, the author answers: then what first arose awaited no other cause, and “it ought to have been accomplished beginninglessly, just like Īśvara.” As for the two schools of the self and of the primal nature, “each as applicable is to be thoroughly examined and dismissed just as Īśvara was.” At the end the author sighs: “Strange, that the world does not cultivate excellent discernment, but is like foolish birds and beasts — truly this is to be pitied” — each acts for himself and undergoes his own maturation result and result of human effort, and yet people would put the account in another’s name. In practice: refuting the single cause is not for the sake of winning an argument but in order to hand the responsibility for cause and result back to those who act; and the author immediately says, “enough of refuting error; the correct doctrine should now be set out,” and turns back to the enumeration of dharmas.

V. A Stanza of the Non-Buddhists: Why the Author Says “This Is Truly Well Said”

〔5.1〕The stanza and where it comes from. After “enough! what use is such an Īśvara?” the author says, “in the words of their own stanza, this is truly well said,” and then quotes four lines: “Because he is sharp as a precipice and can burn, fearsome and constantly oppressing and harming, delighting to feed on blood, flesh, and marrow, he is therefore named Rudra.” First ask: whose stanza is this? It is not a stanza of this treatise — Shentai’s Commentary assigns it to “the brahmins who serve that god,” recited by the servants of Īśvara themselves. So although this stanza stands in the fascicle it does not enter the count of the root stanzas, which is why Shentai counts the fascicle’s root stanzas as twelve and a half lines.

〔5.2〕What the stanza says. The ancient masters bring each of the stanza’s four matters down to concrete detail: his fire-arrows are sharp as a precipice and burn up three lands, whence “sharp as a precipice and can burn”; he strings serpents through human skulls and ties them at his head, and slays elephants and takes their hides, wearing them inside out still bloody, whence “fearsome and constantly oppressing and harming”; and the last line states outright what he feeds on. As for the name, Shentai’s Commentary records Xuanzang’s oral gloss most directly — “as for Rudra, the Dharma Master Xuanzang says: this means Violent and Cruel”; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has “as for Rudra, this means Violent and Cruel; Īśvara has a thousand names, and this is one title”; while Puguang’s Record has “this means Fierce and Cruel, an alternative name of Maheśvara. Maheśvara has a thousand names in all, of which only sixty are current in the world today, and Rudra is one of them.” The graph and the number transmitted by the three differ slightly, while the gloss “violent and cruel” is the same.

〔5.3〕Clearing a misreading: how the four words “this is truly well said” are to be read. This is the sentence in the fascicle most easily misread. On its face it looks as though the author were praising the non-Buddhists’ stanza; but he has just said, “enough! what use is such an Īśvara?”, so how does he turn at once to praise? The ancient masters divide into two routes here, and this section states first the clue given by the treatise’s own text: what the author praises is not that god but the exact correspondence between the figure this stanza describes and the position they themselves maintain, that he takes delight in others’ suffering — since you say he makes the hells for his own delight, then the descriptions in your own stanza, “constantly oppressing and harming” and “feeding on blood, flesh, and marrow,” have caught this god exactly. So “well said” is said with respect to the accuracy of the description, and not with respect to the worthiness of what is described. Whether the sentence is finally irony or straightforward assent the four commentaries read differently, and this is recorded under Further Resonances. In practice: when the tone of the treatise turns abruptly, look back at the position taken in the preceding sentence, and one will usually not misjudge.

VI. The Great Elements and Derived Form: Five Causes, Yet Not the Coexistent Cause

〔6.1〕Four directions of relation. The stanza says, “The great elements are two causes for the great elements, five kinds for derived form; derived form is three kinds for derived form, and for the great elements one cause only.” Great elements with respect to great elements are only coexistent causes and homogeneous causes. Great elements with respect to derived form are five causes: producing, supporting, establishing, upholding, and nourishing. Derived forms with respect to one another may be coexistent, homogeneous, and maturation causes. Derived form with respect to the great elements is a maturation cause only. First ask: why should the numbers in the four directions all differ? Because the senses of causality that can be established in each direction differ, and the treatise gives a reason for each: among derived forms with respect to one another, the coexistent cause is confined to “bodily and verbal action that follows mind, and not the other derived forms”; the homogeneous cause is “all that arises earlier with respect to what is homogeneous and later”; and the maturation cause is that bodily and verbal action can call forth “the maturation result of the eye faculty and the rest.” And that derived form has only the maturation cause with respect to the great elements is likewise because bodily and verbal action can call forth a result that is a great element.

〔6.2〕The real sense of the five causes, and the one restriction that matters most. Each of the five causes has its analogy: because derived form arises from the great elements it is named the producing cause; because once arisen it proceeds in dependence upon the great elements, “as one depends on a teacher and the like,” it is named the supporting cause; because they can uphold it, “as a wall upholds a painting,” it is named the establishing cause; because they keep it unbroken it is named the upholding cause; because they make it increase it is named the nourishing cause. Taken together, “thus is displayed the causal nature of the great elements with respect to derived form as arousing, altering, holding, maintaining, and increasing.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary matches the five names to the five senses one by one: “arousing is the producing cause; altering is the supporting cause; holding is the establishing cause; sustaining is the upholding cause; increasing is the nourishing cause.”

But the most important thing in the whole section is this one restriction: “these five causes are only differentiations of the enabling cause.” First ask: why does this sentence matter? Because the reader’s most natural misunderstanding is to read “the great elements produce derived form” as making the great elements the intimate cause of derived form (a coexistent or homogeneous cause). The treatise states plainly here that these five causes are only five divisions of labor beneath the enabling cause, belonging to the square marked “not obstructing,” and are not among the six causes that intimately produce. There is a further layer of easy error: the five causes are named producing and nourishing, which sound as intimate as can be, and yet they remain remote conditions. In practice: this restriction keeps the framework of the earlier sections, cause intimate and condition remote, from being thrown into disorder — names may be chosen for their warmth, but the squares may not be misfiled.

VII. The Twelve Minds: Counting All Minds Out First

〔7.1〕How the twelve are counted. The treatise says, “it has been stated in general above that mind and mental factors earlier are the immediately antecedent condition of what is later, but it has not been determinately stated how many minds may arise directly after which mind,” and so first sets up an inventory of mind. The desire realm has four minds: wholesome, unwholesome, obscured-indeterminate, and unobscured-indeterminate. The form realm and the formless realm have three each, “that is, excluding the unwholesome” — the two higher realms have no unwholesome mind. These ten are all minds with outflows; minds without outflows are only two, that of one in training and that of one beyond training. Together they make twelve.

〔7.2〕Clearing misreadings, and where it lands. First ask: why do the two higher realms have no unwholesome mind? Because the entity of an unwholesome mind is a mind associated with the afflictions that can call forth maturation in the evil destinies, and the two higher realms have already left behind the defilements of the desire realm, so that such a mind does not arise there — this is an established doctrine carried over from the preceding chapter and simply taken up here. The easy error is to confuse the unobscured-indeterminate with the obscured-indeterminate. Both are indeterminate (they do not call forth maturation); the difference lies in “obscured” — the obscured is covered by afflictions and obstructs the noble path, while the unobscured does not obstruct. In practice: the twelve minds are the coordinate axis of every number in the second half of this fascicle, and all the “produces nine” and “arises from eight” below are counted over these twelve squares. Shentai’s Commentary also makes a lateral check for the reader: “among the twelve minds, six minds do not undergo birth at death” — which of the twelve squares can become present at death and which can become present at rebirth-linking is the real mechanism behind the table of mutual arising.

VIII. The Twelve Minds Arising from One Another: One Table, Two Mechanisms

〔8.1〕How the table is read. Four lines of stanza list in full how the twelve minds arise from one another: the wholesome mind of the desire realm produces nine and arises from eight; the defiled mind of the desire realm arises from ten and produces four; the unobscured mind of the desire realm arises from five and produces seven; the wholesome mind of the form realm produces eleven and arises from nine; the obscured mind of the form realm arises from eight and produces six; the unobscured mind of the form realm arises from three and produces six; the wholesome mind of the formless realm produces nine and arises from six; the obscured mind of the formless realm produces seven and also arises from seven; the unobscured mind of the formless realm follows the pattern of the form realm; the mind of one in training arises from four and produces five; the mind of one beyond training arises from five and produces four. First ask: how are these numbers arrived at? By two mechanisms.

〔8.2〕Mechanism one: entering and emerging from absorption. The wholesome mind of the desire realm can produce two minds of the form realm, and the treatise notes that one of these is “at the time of entering absorption”; and it also comes from the wholesome mind of the form realm, which is “at the time of emerging from absorption.” This brings entry into and emergence from absorption into the table of mutual arising. One passage here is especially worth turning over: the defiled mind of the form realm can also produce the wholesome mind of the desire realm — the treatise says, “when one is distressed by a defiled absorption, from that defiled mind there arises a wholesome mind of the lower realm, in order to rely on that lower wholesome mind to guard against falling back from it.” One who cultivates absorption is troubled by a defiled absorption and retreats to a lower level to arouse a wholesome mind for his own protection: this is an actual circumstance of practice, and the treatise reckons it into the enumeration of dharmas.

〔8.3〕Mechanism two: rebirth-linking. The treatise says again and again, “at the stage of rebirth-linking.” The moment of mind at rebirth-linking is necessarily defiled, and so any mind in any of the three realms, at death, can be directly followed by a defiled mind of the desire realm — this is the source of “the defiled arises from ten” (the twelve minds excluding those of one in training and one beyond training). Conversely, a defiled mind of the desire realm can produce only the four minds of its own realm, “there being no principle by which it produces the rest,” since a defiled mind cannot leap directly to a level of absorption or to another realm.

〔8.4〕Clearing misreadings, and where it lands. The first easy error is to suppose that “cannot produce” means forbidden. It does not; it means there is no such road — thus the wholesome mind of the desire realm can produce a defiled mind of the formless realm (at rebirth-linking) yet cannot produce a wholesome mind of the formless realm, and the reason the treatise gives is “because they are extremely far apart,” listing four kinds of distance: distance of support, distance of mode of apprehension, distance of object, and distance of antidote. The second easy error is to treat this table as a memory exercise. It is in fact a traffic map of mind: which moment may be followed by which decides the possible routes of practice and the possible routes of falling back. In practice: when the chapter on the noble persons later treats entering contemplation, emerging from it, and falling back, it must return to this map to find its roads.

IX. The Twenty Minds: Cutting the Wholesome and the Indeterminate Finer

〔9.1〕Why cut further. “The wholesome mind of each of the three realms divides into two kinds, namely acquired through preparation and acquired by birth” — some wholesome minds are won by applied effort and some are had from birth, and the two differ in force and cannot occupy one square. The unobscured-indeterminate of the desire realm divides into four: maturation-born, mode of deportment, field of craft, and supernormal-result mind. The form realm drops the field of craft, “since in the higher realms there is no making of the various crafts”; the formless realm has fewer still. Thus “the wholesome divides into six and the unobscured into eight,” and with the two minds of one in training and one beyond training added, they make twenty.

〔9.2〕What the four kinds of unobscured-indeterminate are. The maturation-born is the mind that arises in requital of former action; the mode of deportment is the mind arising while walking, standing, sitting, and lying; the field of craft is the mind arising while making things by skill; the supernormal-result mind is the mind of transformation and supernormal power drawn forth by absorption. The treatise states their objects: “the three unobscured minds of the mode of deportment and the rest have visible form, odor, taste, and the tangible as their objects; the field of craft and the rest also take sound as object; and these three minds are mental consciousness alone,” while “the preparatory stages of the mode of deportment and of the field of craft extend also to the four consciousnesses and the five consciousnesses.” It also records another master’s divergent view: that there is a mental consciousness drawn forth by the mode of deportment and by the field of craft which “can take all twelve sense fields as its object.”

〔9.3〕Why mutual arising suddenly becomes complicated. The table of mutual arising for the twenty minds is far more intricate than that for the twelve, because the wholesome acquired through preparation and the wholesome acquired by birth have parted company, and the supernormal-result mind moves in and out only with minds of absorption. Nothing illustrates the matter better than this exchange: a wholesome mind acquired through preparation can be directly followed by the three indeterminate minds, maturation-born, field of craft, and mode of deportment, whereas those three cannot be directly followed by a wholesome mind acquired through preparation. The reason is “because their force is weak and they are not drawn forth by applied effort”; while conversely a wholesome mind acquired through preparation can produce them because “the mind of emerging proceeds without applied effort.” And immediately there follows another misreading to clear: if that is so, a defiled mind accords still less with a wholesome mind acquired through preparation, so how can a defiled mind be directly followed by a wholesome mind acquired through preparation? The treatise answers: “even so, when one is wearied by the present activity of the afflictions, and wishes to know them, it is possible for preparation to arise.” In practice: these few sentences are among the rare passages in the fascicle bearing directly on practice — a mind of applied effort can be caught by a mind that proceeds without applied effort, while a mind without applied effort cannot catch a mind of applied effort; and the very moment the afflictions are active is a moment when contemplation may be aroused. Shentai’s Commentary makes here a check symmetrical with the earlier one: “among the twenty minds, eight minds do not undergo birth at death.”

〔9.4〕The three kinds of attention and the going in and out of the noble path. At the end of the twenty minds the treatise inserts three kinds of attention: attention to an individual characteristic (contemplating form as having the character of resistant deformation, and so on to contemplating consciousness as having the character of discerning), attention to a common characteristic (attention associated with the sixteen modes of apprehension), and attention through resolve (the contemplation of impurity, the four immeasurables, the liberations possessed of form, the bases of mastery, the totalities, and the rest). All three kinds of attention can be directly followed by the manifesting of the noble path, and the noble path can be directly followed by all three — so that this accords with the sūtra’s statement that “one cultivates the awakening-factor of mindfulness and the rest in company with the contemplation of impurity.” Two further masters hold otherwise: one says that only attention to a common characteristic can enter the noble path while the noble path can issue in all three; the other says that both entering and issuing belong to attention to a common characteristic alone. The author sets a difficulty for the third master: if one enters the certainty of the noble path in dependence on the second, third, or fourth absorption, of which level is the attention to a common characteristic that the noble path can be directly followed by? That of the desire realm is too far; attention to a common characteristic of one’s own level not previously obtained just is the noble path; and the factors conducive to penetration cannot possibly be aroused again after the fruit has been obtained. And if it be said that there is another attention to a common characteristic, already cultivated together with the factors conducive to penetration and bound up with them, which can be drawn forth, then “the Vaibhāṣikas do not allow this sense, since it contradicts correct principle.” At the end the treatise also lists the levels of the mind of emerging from contemplation after the fruit of an arhat is obtained: for one who obtains the fruit in dependence on access concentration, the mind of emerging is either of that same level or of the desire realm; for one who obtains it in dependence on the sphere of nothingness, either of that same level or of the summit of existence; for one who obtains it in dependence on the other levels, of his own level alone. And it lists the number of kinds of attention in the three realms: three in the desire realm (formed through hearing, formed through reflection, and acquired by birth); three in the form realm (hearing, cultivation, and acquired by birth, with nothing formed through reflection, “since as soon as the mind sets itself to consider, it enters absorption”); and two in the formless realm (cultivation and acquired by birth). Of these eight, “five kinds of attention can be directly followed by the manifesting of the noble path, excluding what is acquired by birth,” while the noble path can also be directly followed by the attention of the desire realm acquired by birth, “because it is bright and keen.”

First ask: why is this long passage placed among the twenty minds? Because attention is one of the stages of mind, and the going in and out of the noble path just is the arising of mind from mind — this passage is in fact the redemption of the table of mutual arising in the practice of the path. In practice: if the reader collates it with the table of mutual arising in the preceding section, he will see that the real theme of the second half of this fascicle is the road by which a moment of mind comes and the road by which it goes.

X. Minds Acquired When One Is Present: What Is “Acquired” in a Single Moment

〔10.1〕What “acquisition” means. The stanza says, “When a defiled mind of the three realms is present, six, six, and two are acquired; three with the wholesome of the form realm, four with that of one in training; for the rest only their own may be acquired.” The treatise glosses the sense of acquiring a mind in a single sentence: “because what was not accomplished before is now accomplished” — what was not accomplished before and is accomplished now is what acquisition means. First ask: when one mind becomes present, how does one incidentally acquire other minds? Because accomplishment and becoming present are two different things: a person may accomplish a given mind and not be arousing it at this moment. When certain joints are crossed (rebirth-linking, entering absorption, becoming free from defilement, falling back, restoring wholesome roots), the accomplished status of a whole batch of minds changes at once.

〔10.2〕Counting position by position. When a defiled mind of the desire realm is present, six are acquired: by restoring wholesome roots through doubt, or by falling back from a higher realm, the wholesome mind of the desire realm is acquired; by falling back through the arising of an affliction and by falling back from a realm, the unwholesome and the obscured minds of the desire realm and one obscured mind of the form realm are acquired; and by falling back through the arising of an affliction, one obscured mind of the formless realm and the mind of one in training are acquired. When a defiled mind of the form realm is present, six are likewise acquired: by falling back from a realm, one unobscured mind of the desire realm and three minds of the form realm are acquired, the defiled mind of the form realm itself being also acquired by falling back; and by falling back through the arising of an affliction, one obscured mind of the formless realm and the mind of one in training are acquired. When a defiled mind of the formless realm is present, only two are acquired: by falling back through the arising of an affliction, that defiled mind and the mind of one in training. When a wholesome mind of the form realm is present, three are acquired: that wholesome mind and the unobscured-indeterminate minds of the desire and form realms, “by way of advancing upward.” When the mind of one in training is present, four are acquired: the mind of one in training, the unobscured-indeterminate minds of the desire and form realms, and the wholesome mind of the formless realm, by first entering the certainty of the noble path and by becoming free, through the noble path, from the defilements of the desire and form realms. When the remaining minds are present, “only their own may be acquired.”

〔10.3〕Clearing misreadings, and where it lands. The easy error is to read “falling back” as an accident of failure. In this table, falling back and advancing upward are two symmetrical mechanisms — advancing upward makes one acquire the minds of a higher level, and falling back makes one acquire again the minds of a lower level; and how many minds are acquired records just how far a person has moved on the ladder of the three realms. In practice: this section carries the two tables of mutual arising forward from “what can be connected to what” to “how the accomplished status changes once the connection is made,” and is the last layer of the fascicle. If the reader asks why Abhidharma reckons so finely, the answer is here: progress and regress in practice can be entered in the ledger square by square.

XI. Another School’s Stanza, and the Author’s Correction

〔11.1〕The quoted stanza. The treatise says, “Others state this in general,” and quotes a stanza: “The wise say that when a defiled mind becomes present nine are acquired, with a wholesome mind six are acquired, and with the indeterminate only the indeterminate.” First ask: why do this stanza’s numbers differ from those in the earlier part of the treatise? Earlier, defiled minds of the three realms acquire six, six, and two respectively, fourteen in all, whereas this stanza says only nine. The difference is in the method of counting: the treatise counts realm by realm and allows the same item to be counted more than once, while the stanza removes the duplicates and counts each only once. Likewise for the wholesome mind, where the treatise’s separate reckoning gives seven (three with the wholesome of the form realm, four with that of one in training) while the stanza combines them into six.

〔11.2〕The author’s correction. The author goes on to say, “with a wholesome mind one should say that seven are acquired,” and lists the seven joints one by one: on restoring wholesome roots through right view, the wholesome mind of the desire realm is acquired; at the culminating stage of becoming free from the defilements of the desire realm, the unobscured-indeterminate minds of the desire and form realms are acquired all at once; on obtaining the concentrations of the form and formless realms, the wholesome minds of those two are acquired; and on first entering the certainty of the noble path and on realizing arhatship, the minds of one in training and of one beyond training are acquired. First ask: why does the author add this one mind? Because the stanza omits the position of restoring wholesome roots through right view — a person whose wholesome roots have been cut off and who arouses them anew is the very type of “what was not accomplished before and is accomplished now,” and should not go uncounted.

〔11.3〕Clearing misreadings, and where it lands. The easy error is to suppose that the author is charging the other school with error. His wording is “one should say that seven are acquired”: he supplements rather than overturns, and one and the same set of facts yielding different numbers under different methods of counting is no contradiction at all. From which school the stanza comes, and how Saṅghabhadra defends it, are recorded under Further Resonances. In practice: the treatise often quotes another school’s stanza and then corrects it, and this is its rule of gathering in and only then discriminating — when a reader meets in the treatise a stanza whose numbers suddenly do not agree with what precedes, the first step is not to judge right and wrong but to ask whether the two sides are counting in the same way.

XII. The Five Gates That Gather the Sense: One Stanza Closes the Fascicle

〔12.1〕The stanza and the five gates. “In order to gather in the preceding sense, a stanza is stated again”: “At taking birth, at entering absorption, at becoming free from defilement, at falling back, and at the position of restoring wholesome roots, a mind is acquired, because it was not accomplished before.” The five gates are taking birth (rebirth-linking), entering absorption, becoming free from defilement, falling back, and restoring wholesome roots — every acquiring of a mind falls within these five positions, and the reason it is called acquiring is simply that “it was not accomplished before.”

〔12.2〕What this stanza does. First ask: the reckoning has already been made position by position, so why one more stanza? Because the earlier reckoning went mind by mind (how many minds are acquired when a given mind becomes present), while this stanza gathers gate by gate (the acquiring of a mind falls within five gates). One and the same set of facts rearranged once on a different axis is what allows a reader to remember it and put it to use. The easy error is to take it for repetition and skip it. It is the fascicle’s only comprehensive table.

〔12.3〕How it lands on the whole fascicle. Looking back: this fascicle begins from “the causes have been stated at length; and what of conditions?”, first establishes the entities of the four conditions, next fixes their operation, then audits how many conditions each class of dharma arises from, midway refutes the grasping of a single cause in defense of the correct principle of causes and conditions, and at the end uses eight lines of stanza to make the immediately antecedent condition concrete as a traffic map of mind, gathering it under five gates. Among the four conditions, the other three govern what a thing arises on the basis of, and only the immediately antecedent condition governs what a thing arises after — and what practice contests is precisely where the next moment of mind will connect. That this fascicle gives eight lines of stanza to mind has its reason here.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Four Commentaries

The above is the sense of this fascicle’s own text. What follows is a separate section gathering four matters: the judgments of the ancient masters and the divergences among the four commentaries, Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutation, the divergences of Paramārtha’s older translation, and coordinates for collateral reading. A mirror is not the treatise, only another way of reading the same text; the items are recorded together without adjudication, each returned to its own place.

1. Where the Four Commentaries Diverge

The four similes for the four conditions. All three commentaries cite the Mahāvibhāṣā in matching similes to the four conditions. Fabao’s Commentary cites it as, “the causal condition is like the way of a seed; the immediately antecedent condition is like the way of opening and standing aside; the object condition is like the way of taking up a staff; the dominant condition is like the way of not obstructing”; Puguang’s Record cites the same with slight differences of wording, as “cause is like the way of a seed; immediately antecedent is like the way of opening and standing aside; object is like the way of taking up a staff; dominance is like the way of not obstructing.” Fabao’s Commentary adds after the citation a discrimination of his own: “inferring from this, the four senses do not gather in dharmas exhaustively, since there is such a thing as having the power to act and not merely not obstructing” — deft as the four similes are, they still cannot gather in the characters of all dharmas. These four similes are transmitted by the ancient masters and are not in the treatise’s text.

To which side the word “equal” belongs. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gives three explanations: that mind and mental factors before and after are each one in entity and so are called equal; or that the preceding mind and mental factors serve equally as condition for what follows; or that the following mind and mental factors equally make use of the preceding as condition, so that “this word ‘equal’ extends to both the condition and the result.” Puguang’s Record gives six explanations and adds a route in which “equal extends to both places, before and after,” concluding that the names of the four conditions “admit of no possessive-compound analysis,” only the appositional-determinative and the dependent-determinative being applicable. Saṅghabhadra in the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle gives several further explanations, and Shentai’s Commentary reckons them as five in all, judging that “among these five explanations the first three and the fifth are Sarvāstivāda” — assigning the five explanations to two schools. The four commentaries differ in the number of explanations while what is contested is one: whether “equal” speaks of the condition or of the result. All are recorded together without adjudication.

The boundary between cause and condition. Fabao’s Commentary takes intimacy and remoteness as its cord: “cause is the name for what is intimate, condition the name for what is remote.” Puguang’s Record takes instead two gates, that of entity and that of similarity of function, first citing the Mahāvibhāṣā’s two views (that cause and condition gather each other in; that condition gathers in cause while cause does not gather in condition) and ruling that “this treatise agrees with the latter view of the Mahāvibhāṣā,” and then reconciling them by the two gates of entity and function. The two commentaries take different routes while the text they explain is one. As for whether the five causes beginning with producing are gathered under the causal condition or under the dominant condition, Puguang’s Record preserves both interpretations while taking the former as correct — this is Puguang’s own judgment, and the treatise’s text itself does not judge.

Whether “this is truly well said” is irony or straightforward assent. This is where the four commentaries diverge most plainly in this fascicle. Puguang’s Record reads it as irony, ruling outright that “the author is making sport of that non-Buddhist,” and holding that the non-Buddhists’ intent in reciting the stanza was to display Īśvara’s “teaching sentient beings by manifold manifestations,” the author borrowing their words to prick them in return. Shentai’s Commentary reads it instead as straightforward assent: “now the author says that he produces the sufferings of the hells and the rest and arouses his own delight; hence one knows that their stanza too concerns the reward-body god, and so it becomes well said” — the stanza as recited concerns the manifestation-body god, while what the author adduces is a matter of the reward-body god, and since the two figures agree, it is called well said. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary explains only the concrete detail and the sense of the name, without judging it either mockery or assent. Both readings are recorded without adjudication.

The doctrine of Īśvara’s three bodies. Shentai’s Commentary records that “the brahmins who serve that god say Īśvara has three bodies”: first a dharma body pervading the whole realm of dharmas; second a reward body dwelling in the palace of Īśvara as the great Brahmā king or as Maheśvara; third a manifestation body in the world guarding the lands. Puguang’s Record likewise gives three bodies, with the second as an enjoyment body, and records its appearance as “the Maheśvara spoken of in the Buddha’s teaching, with three eyes and eight arms.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gives dharma body, reward body, and manifestation body. What the three transmit is broadly the same with small differences of assignment.

The gloss on Rudra and the number of his names. Shentai’s Commentary records Xuanzang’s oral gloss, “as for Rudra, the Dharma Master Xuanzang says: this means Violent and Cruel”; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has “Īśvara has a thousand names, and this is one title”; Puguang’s Record has “this means Fierce and Cruel,” recording that “Maheśvara has a thousand names in all, of which only sixty are current in the world today.” The differences of graph and of number are recorded together without adjudication. Shentai’s Commentary at the same place also records Paramārtha’s account: “Master Paramārtha says: there were three asuras who carried three lands flying through the sky and passed above the heaven of Maheśvara” — so that for the concrete detail of this passage Shentai preserves both Xuanzang’s and Paramārtha’s transmissions.

One character in the summary of the great elements’ five causes. The treatise’s text has “arousing, altering, holding, maintaining, and increasing,” whereas the text restated in Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has “arousing, altering, holding, sustaining, and increasing,” and he matches the names accordingly with “sustaining is the upholding cause.” The difference of one character is bound to the recension transmitted, and is here recorded without adjudication.

From which school the stanza quoted at the end comes. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary judges that “this is the author quoting a stanza of the masters of the Miscellaneous Heart, setting out how many minds are acquired”; Puguang’s Record runs on the same track with “this is the author reporting the Miscellaneous Heart masters’ statement that with a defiled mind nine are acquired,” and goes on to fault it: “the Miscellaneous Heart masters do not state the first item, the restoring of wholesome roots through right view, but say only that six are acquired, which is too few and is a fault.” Shentai’s Commentary gives a separate account: “the ‘others’ are those who hold there are eleven; the master of the Heart states this stanza in general, and the author of the Miscellaneous Heart fits this stanza to the twelve minds” — taking the “others” to be the master who holds mind to be elevenfold (the minds of one in training and one beyond training combined into a single mind without outflows), and the author of the Miscellaneous Heart to be the one who matched the stanza to the twelve minds. The three accounts are recorded together without adjudication.

Puguang’s own marking of a doubt. On the accomplishment of the three minds of the mode of deportment and the rest, Puguang’s Record reconciles the difference between this treatise and the Treatise on the Body of Consciousness and provides several interpretations, and then says of himself, “I still hope that the discerning will examine this clumsy opinion of mine” — that an ancient master should plainly mark a doubt where he is uneasy is itself part of the tradition’s manner, and it is recorded as found.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutation and Supplementary Explanations

In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master.” In the passages corresponding to this fascicle he expressly names the Sūtra-master only twice, the remainder being positive statements of his own position; all are recorded below.

First, the gloss on the word “nature” of a condition. Saṅghabhadra supplements: “the nature of a condition here is just the four conditions; as ‘four dwellings’ is the same as ‘the nature of a dwelling,’ the word ‘nature’ is used in order to display the class” — answering to the treatise’s “nature here means the class of a condition.” This is supplementary explanation and not refutation.

Second, an added list of causal characters. Before the four conditions Saṅghabhadra first lists causal characters in six opposed pairs (producing cause and revealing cause, determinate cause and indeterminate cause, common cause and uncommon cause, near cause and remote cause, previously arisen cause and co-arisen cause, cause within one’s own or another’s continuum and cause not counted among sentient beings), and composes a stanza of his own to gather them: “Nothing however small is established but by a cause; that all is by causes the Buddha has said. The causes of dharmas are many and subtle and hard to know; the world in its confusion then says there is no cause at all.” This is Saṅghabhadra’s addition and is not in the treatise.

Third, the refutation of the Elder’s old accompanying element, and with it the Sūtra-master’s seeds. Saṅghabhadra records the Elder’s statement: “yet the Elder says that the nature of the causal condition is the old accompanying element, that is, the capacity of the continua of sentient beings to be causes for one another in turn,” and at once refutes it: “this too is refuted as the doctrine of seeds held by the Sūtra-master was refuted above, since this old accompanying element is only a different name for those seeds” — Saṅghabhadra thus judges the Elder’s old accompanying element and the Sūtra-master’s seeds to be one doctrine and refutes them together. This item is the densest place of intra-lineage debate in this fascicle; the refutation proper is in a later chapter, and its location is recorded here.

Fourth, the challenge concerning before and after in the future. Saṅghabhadra says, “if you hold that the future has a determinate before and after, as with the highest worldly dharma with respect to the receptivity concerning suffering and the rest, on what condition do they say the before and after are determinate?” — reaching the same conclusion as the treatise’s “because future dharmas abide mixed together and have no before and after,” while arguing along a different route.

Fifth, why the two absorptions are not a condition. Saṅghabhadra sets the question, “on what ground are the two absorptions immediately antecedent to mind and yet not said to be the immediately antecedent condition of mind?”, and answers that they are drawn forth by the force of mind and are injuriously contrary to the arising of mind and the rest; the treatise here stops at the conclusion, and Saṅghabhadra widens the reason for it.

Sixth, the divisions of the passage refuting Īśvara. The three lines of reasoning are the same in the two works, but at the culminating point of the refutation this treatise has “enough! what use is such an Īśvara?” and then quotes the non-Buddhists’ stanza, whereas Saṅghabhadra does not quote that stanza and writes directly, “enough! what use is it to serve such a violent and cruel Īśvara?” — and the two words “violent and cruel” are exactly Xuanzang’s gloss on “Rudra” recorded by Shentai’s Commentary. The difference in how the two divide and join is recorded without adjudication.

Seventh, the number of minds acquired. Saṅghabhadra defends that stanza: “as the Sūtra-master objects, one should say that seven are acquired; yet since one in training and one beyond training are alike without outflows, they are stated together as a single mind, and to say six is no fault” — one in training and one beyond training being alike without outflows, they are combined into one mind, and so saying six is not an error. Fabao’s Commentary cites the passage without adding a ruling. This is one meaning and two schools recorded together, with neither judged to prevail.

Appended: the eightfold distinction of cause and condition in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine. The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine first establishes that “the six causes and four conditions do not differ in entity though they differ in sense,” and then sets out eight distinctions: “cause means what produces, condition what nourishes, like the difference between the mother who bears and the mother who rears”; cause is one and conditions are many, as with a seed and manure and soil; “again, cause is uncommon and what is common is condition, as with the eye and with visible form”; what does its own work is called cause and what does another’s work is called condition; what can draw forth is called cause and what can uphold is called condition, as with the flower and the calyx; “again, what is near is called cause and what is far is called condition, as with the jewel and the sun”; what can produce is called cause and what can accomplish is called condition, as curds bring forth ghee; and what properly has the sense is called cause while what assists in displaying it is called condition, as with a verbal root and its accompanying condition. These eight are the ordering made by Saṅghabhadra’s line and are not the text of this treatise, and so they stand in this section; Fabao’s Commentary also cites the whole of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine’s text here, with the same characters and slight differences of punctuation.

3. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury forms a lineage of renderings of its own in the passages corresponding to this fascicle. For the names of the four conditions, his version has the class of causal condition, the class of sequential condition, the class of the condition-that-is-an-object, and the class of dominant condition — what is now the immediately antecedent condition he renders as the sequential condition, while explaining the name “sequential” by “equal and without interval,” so that Xuanzang’s rendering is his gloss. Among the six causes, the enabling cause he renders as the facilitating cause and the maturation cause as the retribution cause; nonmanifest form he renders as uninstructive form, without outflows as without flows, and applied and sustained thought as examining and pondering. Among the twenty minds, the supernormal-result mind he renders as the transformation mind (though the same passage below also uses supernormal-result mind, the two names being used interchangeably), and the maturation-born as the retribution-produced mind. Among the terms of the path of cultivation, attention he renders as consideration, attention to a common characteristic as general-character consideration, attention through resolve as consideration through wish and delight, the certainty of the noble path as the class fixed in rightness, access concentration as not-yet-reached concentration, and the restoring of wholesome roots as the joining of wholesome roots.

The dividing and joining also differ. For the two words “nature” and “class,” Xuanzang has “nature here means the class of a condition” while Paramārtha has “class here is the intrinsic nature of a condition,” with the positions exactly reversed. In the similes showing that form cannot be established as immediately antecedent, Paramārtha’s version has an extra item, “the kernel within a palmyra nut,” before the banyan tree. In the stanza quoted in the refutation of the single cause, Xuanzang keeps the transcription and has “he is therefore named Rudra,” while Paramārtha gives both a rendering of the sense and a transcription, “he is called Litya who makes them cry out”; and Xuanzang’s word “stanza” Paramārtha transcribes as śloka. For the summary of the great elements’ five causes, Xuanzang has “arousing, altering, holding, maintaining, and increasing,” Paramārtha “producing, transforming, holding, maintaining, and increasing.” For the five gates that gather the sense at the end, Xuanzang has taking birth, entering absorption, becoming free from defilement, falling back, and restoring wholesome roots, while Paramārtha has taking birth, entering contemplation, becoming free from desire, falling back from absorption, and joining wholesome roots.

The fascicle boundaries also differ: Xuanzang divides the Chapter on the Faculties into five parts, Paramārtha into only four; this whole fascicle falls in the latter portion of Paramārtha’s “Analysis of the Faculties, part four,” and Paramārtha closes his fifth fascicle with “the analysis of the sense of the four conditions is complete” — a closing boundary at the same place as the end of Xuanzang’s Fascicle Seven, and his version names this section simply “Analysis of the Sense of the Four Conditions,” exactly answering to the title of this unit. The choices of an alternative translation are the translator’s own affair, and this section only records them together without adjudication.

4. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

What this fascicle establishes is the full register of mind succeeding mind, and also the first table of definitions for the names of the four conditions. Those names were taken over by the later study of dharma-characteristics, while the entities matched to them differ — this treatise takes five of the six causes as the entity of the causal condition, whereas later ages attach it to seeds and manifest activity: one name and two systems, and they may be read against each other. The rule that the immediately antecedent condition is “mind and mental factors alone” and that “form and the rest may none of them be established as an immediately antecedent condition” raises a joint that must be passed through once several consciousnesses running in parallel have been established. Since Saṅghabhadra in this fascicle judges the Elder’s old accompanying element and the Sūtra-master’s seeds to be one doctrine and refutes them together, the explicit text of the debate over the doctrine of seeds held by the author of this treatise is in that very passage, and it is a place where the Sautrāntika line of seeds can be anchored. The sentence that the five causes of the great elements with respect to derived form “are only differentiations of the enabling cause” may likewise be read against the later dividing and joining of form. As for the map of stages by which the twelve minds are opened out into twenty — each of the three realms divided into wholesome, unwholesome, obscured-indeterminate, and unobscured-indeterminate, and the unobscured opened further into maturation-born, mode of deportment, field of craft, and supernormal-result — it is the base map for the study of the stages of mind. This section only lists coordinates for collateral reading; determining the nature of the relations does not belong here.