俱舍論 白話全本 · 冊3Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Complete Vernacular · Vol. 3

〔Roots 1–3〕What the Three Realms Are — Twenty Places in the Desire Realm · Seventeen in the Form Realm · No Place in the Formless Realm

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Above, in dependence upon the three realms, mind and mental factors and the rest have been analyzed one by one. Now it should next be said: what, after all, are the three realms? And within each of them, how many separate places are there? The stanza says:

Stanza: The hells, animals, hungry ghosts, human beings, and the six heavens of desire — these are called the desire realm, twenty places in all, because the hells are eight and the continents four, each of them distinct. Above the desire realm there are seventeen places, called the form realm; within it the first three levels of meditative absorption have three places each, and the fourth level of meditative absorption alone has eight. The formless realm has no places, and has four kinds only by the difference of “birth”; and mind and mental factors there continue on in dependence upon the commonality of sentient beings and the life faculty.

Treatise: The four classes — the hells, animals, hungry ghosts, and human beings — together with the six heavens of desire, and together further with the receptacle world in which they dwell (that portion which is mountains, rivers, and the great earth), are called in sum the desire realm.

The six heavens of desire are: first, the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings; second, the Heaven of the Thirty-Three; third, the Yāma Heaven; fourth, the Tuṣita Heaven; fifth, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations; sixth, the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations.

How many, then, are the separate places of the desire realm? Since the hells are eight and the continents four, each of them distinct, together they come to twenty. The eight great hells are the distinctions on the side of the hells: first the Hell of Equal Reviving, second the Hell of the Black Rope, third the Hell of Massed Crushing, fourth the Hell of Howling, fifth the Hell of Great Howling, sixth the Hell of Burning Heat, seventh the Hell of Great Heat, eighth the Unremitting Hell. The distinctions of continent are the four great continents: first Jambudvīpa in the south, second Videha in the east, third Godānīya in the west, fourth Uttarakuru in the north. Thus eight and four make twelve; add the six heavens of desire, and add the two places of animals and hungry ghosts, and they come to exactly twenty.

The author further marks out the upper and lower boundaries of the desire realm: speaking on the side of sentient beings, it runs down from the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations as far as the Unremitting Hell; speaking on the side of the receptacle world, it runs down as far as the wind circle — and this whole range is gathered into the desire realm.

Above this desire realm there are seventeen places, that is, three places on each of three levels of meditative absorption and eight on the fourth level alone; the receptacle world together with the sentient beings within it is named in sum the form realm.

The three places on the first level of meditative absorption are: first the Brahmakāyika Heaven, second the Brahmapurohita Heaven, third the Mahābrahmā Heaven. The three places on the second level of meditative absorption are: first the Parīttābha Heaven, second the Apramāṇābha Heaven, third the Ābhāsvara Heaven. The three places on the third level of meditative absorption are: first the Parīttaśubha Heaven, second the Apramāṇaśubha Heaven, third the Śubhakṛtsna Heaven. The eight places on the fourth level of meditative absorption are: first the Anabhraka Heaven, second the Puṇyaprasava Heaven, third the Bṛhatphala Heaven, fourth the Avṛha Heaven, fifth the Atapa Heaven, sixth the Sudṛśa Heaven, seventh the Sudarśana Heaven, eighth the Akaniṣṭha Heaven.

Here the treatise records a further account alongside: the great masters of the treatises of the land of Kaśmīra all say that the places of the form realm are only sixteen. Their reason is this: just above that one place which is the Brahmapurohita Heaven there stands a high terraced pavilion named the Mahābrahmā Heaven, and that is merely the dwelling of a single lord and not a separate level of its own; it is as when an honored elder sits high upon his seat with the fourfold assembly gathered about him — the seat does not thereby become a separate place. (The stanza itself establishes seventeen, and the prose commentary records alongside it this account of sixteen. The two accounts stand side by side, and no choice between them is made here.)

Within the formless realm there are no places to speak of at all, since dharmas without form have from the first no location to occupy. Even the nonmanifest (that portion of form which is not displayed outwardly) and the formless dharmas, past and future alike, do not abide in a location; this principle is settled. The formless realm has distinctions only on the side of what is born of maturation, and divides into four: first the sphere of the infinity of space, second the sphere of the infinity of consciousness, third the sphere of nothingness, fourth the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception — these four are named in sum the formless realm.

Note that these four are not divided into four because their places have any above and below, high and low; it is only by the difference of “birth” that superiority and inferiority are distinguished.

And how is it known that there is indeed no location there? Answer: because wherever one obtains that level of absorption, there at the end of life one takes birth (without having to move elsewhere); and further, when one passes away from the formless realm and is to be born into the desire realm or the form realm, it is in that very place that the intermediate existence becomes present (from which it is evident that the formless realm occupies no piece of ground of its own).

Treatise (an objection set and answered): All sentient beings in the realms possessed of form have their mind and mental factors continue on only in dependence upon a body of form. On what, then, do sentient beings born in the formless realm depend, so that mind and the rest continue on?

The Abhidharma masters answer: mind and the rest there continue on in dependence upon the commonality of sentient beings (the continuum of one and the same class of life) and the life faculty.

Question: if so, why do the mind and the rest of sentient beings possessed of form not likewise continue on in dependence upon these two dharmas alone? Answer: because in those born in the realms possessed of form the force of these two dharmas is the weaker.

Question: why, on the contrary, are these two dharmas of the formless realm strong? Answer: because these two dharmas of that realm are born of a superior absorption, since that meditative attainment (the state reached in absorption) is able to suppress the perception of form.

Question: if so, the continuity of mind and the rest there would need only to depend upon that superior absorption; why establish a further support at all?

The author then turns about and asks once more from another direction: in sentient beings born in the realms possessed of form, the commonality of sentient beings and the life faculty proceed in dependence upon a body of form; upon what, then, do these two dharmas of the formless realm depend? Answer: these two dharmas proceed in dependence upon each other. Question: why do these two dharmas of the realms possessed of form not depend upon each other? Answer: because in those born in the realms possessed of form the force of these two dharmas is the weaker. Question: why are these two dharmas of the formless realm strong? Answer: because these two dharmas of that realm are born of a superior absorption. (Yet) it was already said above that this absorption is able to suppress the perception of form — and so one comes back round again to that same question about the continuity of mind.

The author then presses once more by reasoning: or else mind and mental factors merely depend upon each other (and then there is no need to establish commonality and the life faculty as a further support). Hence the Sautrāntika masters say: the continuity of mind and the rest in the formless realm has no separate support at all. Their account is this: if the cause that draws forth mind and the rest has not yet left behind greed and craving for form, then the mind and the rest it draws forth arise together with form and proceed in dependence upon form; but if that cause has left craving for form behind and turned away from form in aversion, then the mind and the rest it draws forth do not arise together with form, and so do not proceed in dependence upon form.

Treatise (explaining the names of the three realms): Why are they called the desire realm and the rest, the three realms? Because they are able to uphold their own intrinsic mark, they are called “realm”; or else “realm” has the sense of lineage, as was already explained above in the Chapter on the Elements.

The realm that belongs to desire is called the desire realm; the realm that belongs to form is called the form realm. The connecting word between them is dropped, and hence the abbreviated name — just as one says “a pepper drink” (which is in fact a drink with pepper in it) or “a vajra ring” (which is in fact a ring made of vajra).

Within that realm dharmas of form are not present, and so it is called “formless.” Form means resistant deformation (what can be broken and can obstruct), or else it means display (what can appear). The entity of that realm is not form, and so the name “formless” is established; it is not that it takes “the absence of form” for its own entity. The realm that belongs to the formless is called the formless realm, the connecting word being dropped here too, on the same analogy as before.

There is also a second reading: again, “the realm of desire” is called the desire realm — this realm has the power to uphold desire. The form realm and the formless realm are to be understood in the same way.

Treatise (what the entity of desire is · the exchange with a non-Buddhist): What dharma does the word “desire” spoken of here refer to? Briefly, it is the greed drawn forth by morsel food (nourishment eaten mouthful by mouthful) and by sexual union. As a stanza in a sūtra says:

Quoted stanza: The many fine objects of the world are not true desire; true desire is the discriminative greed a person arouses toward them. Fine objects abide in the world as they were before; among them the wise have already removed desire.

Treatise: A non-Buddhist of wrong livelihood then took a stanza and challenged the Venerable Śāriputra with it, saying:

Quoted stanza: If the fine objects of the world are not true desire, and desire is said to be the discriminative greed a person arouses, then a monk too should be named one who enjoys desire — for he too arouses evil discriminative applied thinking.

Treatise: Then Śāriputra questioned him back, saying:

Quoted stanza: If the fine objects of the world just are true desire, and desire is said not to be a person’s discriminative greed, then your own teacher should be named one who enjoys desire — for he gazes constantly upon agreeable and beautiful forms.

Treatise (adjudicating affiliation to the three realms): (The author next sets himself a question.) Is every dharma that is active within a given realm therefore said to belong to that realm? Answer: it is not. Question: how then is it put? Answer: only that upon which the greed of the three realms increases by attachment (that is, grows along with it) belongs to the three realms.

Question: and which dharma is this “greed of the three realms”? Answer: just that greed which increases by attachment within each of the three realms respectively.

(The objector reproaches him:) an answer given in this way is like the answer about tying a horse. It is as if someone asked, “Who is the one tying the horse?” — Answer: “The horse’s owner.” And he asked again, “Who is the horse’s owner?” — Answer: “The one tying it.” The two answers push each other back and forth in this way, and neither lets one understand.

But what is said here is not like that answer. The sense is: with respect to the various places of the desire realm spoken of above, the greed of one not yet free from greed is called greed for desire, and what has this greed increasing upon it by attachment is said to belong to the desire realm. As for the form realm and the formless realm spoken of above, they are to be understood in the same way, each as applicable.

Or, adjudicating it another way: the greed of the level that is not a level of absorption is called greed for desire, and what has it increasing upon it by attachment belongs to the desire realm; the greed of the levels of meditative absorption is called greed for form, and what has it increasing upon it by attachment belongs to the form realm; the greed of the formless levels is called greed for the formless, and what has it increasing upon it by attachment belongs to the formless realm.

Treatise (three appended questions): Question: how is greed for desire aroused toward a transformation mind of the desire realm? Answer: either greed arises from hearing of it from another; or, having oneself fallen back from that capacity, one arouses a relishing of it; or, seeing the sovereign power of one who can work transformations, one arouses greed and craving toward that transformation mind of his.

Again: if a mind can produce by transformation the two dharmas of odor and taste, that mind able to transform definitely belongs to the desire realm — for a mind of the form realm cannot bring odor and taste into being by transformation.

Question: of three realms such as these, is there only this one set? Answer: the three realms are boundless, as measureless as space. Hence, although there is no sentient being that first begins to be, measureless and boundless Buddhas appear in the world, and each converts and delivers countless sentient beings and causes them to enter the realm of nirvāṇa without remainder, and yet the three realms are still not exhausted, being like space.

Question: how should the worlds be said to abide? Answer: they should be said to abide side by side crosswise. Hence a sūtra says: it is as when rain falls from the sky, the drops as thick as a cart axle, pouring down without interval and without break; just so, in the eastern quarter too there are measureless worlds without interval and without break, now dissolving, now forming. As with the east, so with the south, the west, and the north — the sūtra does not speak of the two directions above and below.

There is also another account: worlds exist in the two directions above and below as well, since a sūtra transmitted by another school speaks of the ten directions. (If so,) above the Akaniṣṭha Heaven there is a further desire realm, and below the desire realm there is a further Akaniṣṭha Heaven.

Again: if one becomes free from the greed of any one desire realm, all greed of the desire realms is extinguished and left behind together; becoming free from the greed of the form realm and the formless realm is to be understood in the same way.

Again: when a supernormal power is aroused in dependence upon the first meditative absorption, the power so produced can reach only as far as the Brahmā world of the realm in which one has oneself been born, and cannot go elsewhere; the supernormal powers of the remaining levels are to be understood in the same way.

〔Root 4〕The Five Destinies — Why Intermediate Existence Does Not Count as a Destiny

Treatise (transition): The three realms have been stated. What, then, of the five destinies? The stanza says:

Stanza: Within the three realms, the five classes beginning with the hells are called the five destinies by their own names; the entity of the five destinies is unobscured-indeterminate alone, and it is confined to sentient beings and does not include intermediate existence.

Treatise: Within the three realms five destinies are said to exist, namely the hells and the rest, stated by their own names — that is, the hells, animals, and hungry ghosts spoken of above, together with human beings and gods; these are called the five destinies.

The desire realm alone has all four destinies complete (the hells, animals, hungry ghosts, and human beings), while each of the three realms has a portion of the destiny of gods.

Question: are there things gathered into the three realms and yet not taken up into the five destinies, while the five destinies are still said to be within the realms? Answer: there are — wholesome dharmas, defiled dharmas, the outer receptacle world, and intermediate existence. Although these are of the nature of a realm, they are not gathered into a destiny.

The entity of the five destinies is unobscured-indeterminate alone (neither wholesome nor defiled, and not obscured either). Were it otherwise, the destinies would be mixed together with one another — for within one and the same destiny there are the actions and afflictions that lead to all five destinies.

The five destinies are gathered only under the count of sentient beings, and their entity does not include intermediate existence. The Treatise of Designations says: the four modes of birth can gather in the five destinies, but the five destinies cannot gather in the four modes of birth. What is it that is not gathered in? Intermediate existence. The Dharmaskandha likewise says: what is the eye element? It is the subtle form derived from the four great elements; this is the eye, the eye faculty, the eye sense field, the eye element; and the eyes of the five destinies — the hells, animals, hungry ghosts, human beings, and gods — the divine eye formed through cultivation, and the eye of intermediate existence (all are gathered into this eye element).

A sūtra too sets intermediate existence apart from the destinies. Which sūtra? The Sūtra of the Seven Existences. That sūtra says there are seven kinds of “existence”: the existence of the hells, the existence of animals, the existence of hungry ghosts, the existence of gods, the existence of human beings, the existence of action, and intermediate existence. That sūtra states together the five destinies, the cause of a destiny, and the means to a destiny — so that a destiny being unobscured-indeterminate alone is thoroughly established; and “the existence of action” is set out separately as the cause precisely in order to mark it off from the destinies.

The sūtra recited in the land of Kaśmīra runs thus: the Venerable Śāriputra spoke thus: Venerable sir! If, because the outflows of the hells become present in someone, he thereupon performs and increases action to be experienced in the hells, so that his body, speech, and mind are all bent, defiled, and turbid, he then undergoes in the naraka the maturation of the five aggregates; and only when the maturation has arisen is he called a naraka-being — apart from the dharmas that are the five aggregates, that “naraka-being” is simply not to be found. Hence a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone.

Question: if so, how is the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas to be reconciled? It says that the five destinies have all the latent tendencies increasing upon them by attachment (and if the five destinies were purely indeterminate, how could latent tendencies increase upon them by attachment?). Answer: that says that within the rebirth-linking mind of the five destinies all the afflictions of the five categories may be present, together with the destiny and the mind that enters it (the mind able to arouse the afflictions at the moment of rebirth-linking is called “the mind entering a destiny”; the destiny and that entering mind together are named in sum a destiny); to state them in sum as a destiny is not contradictory. It is as a village and the outskirts of a village are together named a village.

There is also another account: the entity of a destiny extends to the wholesome and the defiled as well. As for why the Sūtra of the Seven Existences sets out “the existence of action” separately, it does not follow that whatever is set out separately in a sūtra is definitely not gathered in by it — just as among the five turbidities affliction and view are set out separately as two turbidities, and yet one cannot decide from their separate statement that “view” is definitely not gathered in by affliction. In the same way the existence of action, though it too is a destiny, is set out separately in order to display the cause of a destiny.

Question: if so, intermediate existence too should be a destiny. Answer: it is not. For the sense of “destiny” does not fit intermediate existence. A destiny is the place gone to; and one cannot say that intermediate existence is the place gone to, since it arises in the very place of death.

Question: if so, the formless realm too should not be a destiny — there also one takes birth in the very place of death. Answer: that being so, on your own account, intermediate existence is named intermediate existence and therefore should not be named a destiny. (The reason is:) because it lies between two destinies it is named intermediate existence; and if this were gathered into a destiny it would not be “between,” and then it should not be named intermediate existence.

Treatise (the party holding that a destiny extends to the wholesome and the defiled turns back to reconcile two sentences of scripture): As for what the Venerable Śāriputra said, “once the maturation has arisen he is called a hell-being,” this says that only when the maturation has arisen is he called a hell-being; it does not say that a hell-being is maturation only. And as for “apart from the dharmas that are the five aggregates that naraka-being is not to be found,” that was said in order to block “a really existing person who goes to the several destinies” (a real “self” that transmigrates); it was not said in order to block the remaining aggregates.

The Vaibhāṣikas say: a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone. There is another account: it is invariably born of maturation. And other masters say: it extends to the nourished as well (that portion which is fostered by food, sleep, and the like).

〔Root 5 · First Half of Root 6〕The Seven Stations of Consciousness — the Seven Places Where Consciousness Delights to Abide

Treatise (transition): Within these very three realms and five destinies, in due order, the stations of consciousness are seven. What are the seven? The stanza says:

Stanza: Different in body and different in perception; different in body and one in perception; the reverse of these (one in body and different in perception, and one in both body and perception); and with the lower three places of the formless realm added — hence the stations of consciousness are seven; the remaining places do not count, since there are dharmas there that injure consciousness.

Treatise: A sūtra says: sentient beings possessed of form, different in body and different in perception, such as human beings and a portion of the gods — this is the first station of consciousness.

“A portion of the gods” means the gods of the desire realm together with the gods of the first meditative absorption (excluding that batch which arises at the beginning of an aeon). “Different in body” means that their bodies of form differ from one another in the several colors, shapes, and appearances; because their bodies differ, or because it is said that they have different bodies, those sentient beings are called different in body. “Different in perception” means that their perceptions of suffering, of pleasure, and of what is neither suffering nor pleasure are distinguished; because their perceptions differ, or because it is said that they have different perceptions, those sentient beings are called different in perception.

Sentient beings possessed of form, different in body and one in perception, such as the Brahmakāyika gods — that is, the batch which arises at the beginning of an aeon — this is the second station of consciousness.

Why? Because when they arise at the beginning of an aeon those Brahmā multitudes all arouse this perception: we were all produced by the great Brahmā. And the great Brahmā then arouses this perception: these Brahmā multitudes were all produced by me. Because what they perceive is one and the same cause, they are called one in perception. Yet the great Brahmā king’s bodily measure is lofty and vast, and his appearance, majesty, speech, radiance, and dress are each of them unlike those of the Brahmā multitudes, and so they are called different in body.

Treatise (a passage of scripture appended, with the explanations of three masters): A sūtra says: the Brahmā multitudes think thus: we once saw such a sentient being, long-lived and long abiding, and he even aroused the wish, how may I bring it about that other sentient beings are born into my commonality? — and just when he was arousing that wish, we were born into his commonality.

Question: where was it that the Brahmā multitudes once saw the Brahmā king?

Some masters say: they saw him while dwelling in the Ābhāsvara Heaven, since it was after passing away from that heaven that they were born here. (Objection:) then why, not obtaining the second meditative absorption now, can they still recall the former abodes of that level? (A further objection:) and if such a one had already obtained the second meditative absorption, how could he still, taking the great Brahmā as his object, arouse the grasping of rules and observances (the grasping that takes what is not a cause for a cause)?

Other masters say: they saw him while dwelling in intermediate existence. (Objection:) there is no principle by which one abides for a long time in intermediate existence, since nothing obstructs its taking birth (as soon as the conditions are there it goes to be born); how then can the Brahmā multitudes say, “we once saw such a sentient being, long-lived and long abiding”?

Therefore (the third explanation, which is the one the treatise adopts): the Brahmā multitudes, dwelling in their own heaven, recall what they had passed through before this life — having seen him long-lived and long abiding earlier, they arouse this thought when they see him again later.

Treatise (the third station of consciousness): Sentient beings possessed of form, one in body and different in perception, such as the Ābhāsvara gods — this is the third station of consciousness.

Here the last of the heavens is raised and the earlier ones gathered in with it; it should be known that the whole of the second meditative absorption is in fact included therein. Were it not put so, in which station of consciousness would the Parīttābha and the Apramāṇābha Heavens be reckoned?

Those gods have no difference in color, shape, or appearance, and so are called one in body. As for perception, the perception of pleasant feeling and the perception of what is neither suffering nor pleasure interweave, and so they are called different in perception. It is transmitted that those gods, having grown weary of the faculty of joy of the fundamental level, then bring the faculty of equanimity of the access level to presence; and having grown weary of the faculty of equanimity of the access level, they again bring the faculty of joy of the fundamental level to presence — just as a rich and noble man, wearied of worldly pleasure, goes to enjoy the pleasure of the Dharma, and, wearied of the pleasure of the Dharma, turns back to enjoy worldly pleasure.

Question: (on this account) should the Śubhakṛtsna gods not be the same? Answer: the Śubhakṛtsna gods have never grown weary of pleasure — for that pleasure is quiescent, and there is never a time when it can be wearied of; with joy it is not so, for joy stirs and disturbs the mind.

Treatise (a further explanation of the Sautrāntikas recorded alongside): The Sautrāntika masters say: there is another sūtra that explains the sense of “different in perception” for that heaven. That sūtra says: among the Ābhāsvara gods there are newly born gods who cannot yet skillfully know the forming and the dissolving of the world; when they see the flames of the level below blazing out, the sight arouses terror and aversion in them, and they think: may those flames not burn out the Brahmā palaces and empty them, and then rise further to encroach upon this place of ours. And among the Ābhāsvara gods there are gods born long before who have long known well the forming and the dissolving of the world, and they console those terrified gods, saying: pure seers, pure seers, do not be afraid, do not be afraid! In former times those flames burned out the Brahmā palaces and emptied them, and there they went out of themselves. They have the perception that the flames will come and the perception that they will not come, the perception of terror and the perception of no terror, and so they are called different in perception — and it is not through the interweaving of the perception of pleasure and the perception of what is neither suffering nor pleasure that they obtain the name “different in perception.”

Treatise (the fourth station of consciousness, and the entity of a station of consciousness): Sentient beings possessed of form, one in body and one in perception, such as the Śubhakṛtsna gods — this is the fourth station of consciousness. Because there is only the perception of pleasure, they are called one in perception.

(Incidentally the perception of the four levels above and below is set in order:) within the first meditative absorption, because the perception is defiled, they are said to be one in perception; in the second meditative absorption, because there are two kinds of wholesome perception, they are said to be different in perception; in the third meditative absorption, because the perception is maturation-born, they are said to be one in perception. The names of the lower three formless spheres are as stated in the sūtra; adding those three stations of consciousness, they come in all to seven.

Question: what dharma here is called a “station of consciousness”? Answer: just the five aggregates or the four aggregates affiliated to that place — each as applicable; this is called a station of consciousness.

Question: why do the remaining places not count as stations of consciousness? Answer: because in the remaining places there are dharmas that injure consciousness.

Question: which are the remaining places? Answer: the evil destinations (the three evil destinies), the fourth meditative absorption, and the heaven of the summit of existence.

Question: why? Answer: because in those places there are dharmas that injure consciousness, and so they are not stations of consciousness.

Question: what are the dharmas that injure consciousness? Answer: in the evil destinations there is heavy painful feeling, which can injure consciousness; in the fourth meditative absorption there are the absorption without perception and the entity of non-perception; and in the heaven of the summit of existence there is the absorption of cessation, which can injure consciousness and cause the continuity of consciousness to be broken off — and so none of them is a station of consciousness.

There is also another account: if a place is one to which sentient beings elsewhere are glad in mind to come and abide, and, having come here, seek to go out no more, only that is called a station of consciousness. In the evil destinations neither of these two senses obtains. The mind in the fourth meditative absorption, for its part, constantly seeks to go out: ordinary beings seek to enter non-perception, while noble ones delight in entering the Pure Abodes or the formless spheres, and those in the Pure Abodes in turn delight in realizing quiescence. As for the summit of existence, the mind there is dull and feeble (dim, blunt, and weak), and so it is not a station of consciousness.

〔Second Half of Root 6 · First Half of Root 7〕The Nine Abodes of Sentient Beings — the Two Places That Are Added

Treatise (transition): The analysis of the seven stations of consciousness in this way has been stated. For this reason the nine abodes of sentient beings are to be stated next. What are the nine? The stanza says:

Stanza: It should be known that when the two places of the summit of existence and of the non-percipient sentient beings are reckoned in as well, they are the nine abodes of sentient beings; the remaining places do not count, since sentient beings do not delight to dwell there.

Treatise: The seven stations of consciousness above, together with the foremost existence (the heaven of the summit of existence) and the non-percipient sentient beings, are what is called the nine. The classes of sentient beings delight to dwell in these nine places alone, and so they are established as “abodes of sentient beings.”

The remaining places are not, since sentient beings do not delight to dwell there. The remaining places are the evil destinations — sentient beings do not dwell within them of their own delight, but are forced to dwell there by the rākṣasa of evil action; that place is like a prison, and so it is not established as an abode of sentient beings.

In the fourth meditative absorption, apart from the Heaven of Non-Percipient Beings, the rest are likewise not abodes of sentient beings, for the reason explained in the passage on the stations of consciousness.

〔Second Half of Root 7 · First Half of Root 8〕The Four Stations of Consciousness — Why Consciousness Itself Does Not Count as a Station

Treatise (transition): The sūtra cited above states seven stations of consciousness; there is a further sūtra that states four stations of consciousness. What are the four? The stanza says:

Stanza: The four stations of consciousness should be known to be the four aggregates, and to be confined to one’s own level alone; the sūtra says that consciousness by itself does not count as a station; they are all with outflows, and they may be gathered in by a fourfold analysis (the relative breadth of the seven and the four).

Treatise: As a sūtra says: consciousness abides following form, consciousness abides following feeling, consciousness abides following perception, consciousness abides following formations — these are called the four kinds.

Question: what is the entity of these four? Answer: the four aggregates with outflows, stated in due order. And this holds on one’s own level only and does not extend to another level — for it is because consciousness adheres to them with attachment that they are called stations of consciousness; it is not that among the aggregates of form and the rest of another level consciousness could adhere there by the force of craving.

Question: why is consciousness itself not also stated as a station of consciousness? Answer: because what abides must be set aside before that in which it abides can be established. The consciousness that abides may not be called that in which it abides, just as the king himself cannot be called the king’s seat. Or it may be put thus: if there is a dharma that consciousness mounts and drives, as a man rides a boat, that is called a station of consciousness; and consciousness cannot mount and drive its own entity, and so consciousness is not stated as a station of consciousness. This is what the Vaibhāṣikas say.

Question: if so, why does another sūtra say that within the nutriment of consciousness there is joy and there is defilement, and that because there is joy and defilement consciousness abides therein and is mounted and driven by consciousness (does that not make consciousness abide in consciousness)? And again: why was it said above that the seven stations of consciousness have the five aggregates for their entity (which reckons consciousness in as well)?

Answer: although it is stated so, that is said without analysis among the aggregates gathered into the place of taking birth, stating in sum only that they can produce joy and defilement; and when consciousness turns on it too is called a station of consciousness, which is not to state consciousness alone. Yet the aggregates of form and the rest can each of them produce the several joys and defilements and make consciousness adhere; consciousness by itself cannot do so, and so it is said not to be a station. Hence among these four stations of consciousness consciousness does not count as a station of consciousness; in other contexts it may be so stated.

Again: the Buddha’s intent is to say that these four stations of consciousness are like a good field, and to state in sum that all consciousness possessed of appropriation is like a seed — and a seed may not be established as a good field. This is a reverent surmise that such is the World-Honored One’s intent in teaching.

Again: a dharma and consciousness can arise at the same time and serve as the good field of consciousness, and so are established as a station of consciousness; the aggregate of consciousness itself is not so, and so is not a station of consciousness.

Treatise (how the seven and the four gather each other in): The seven kinds and the four kinds stated in this way, though the stations of consciousness differ, are alike with outflows. Question: do the seven gather in the four, or the four the seven? Answer: they do not gather each other in throughout, and a fourfold analysis may be made. That is, on careful observation it will be seen that the entities of these two gates are the wider and the narrower, and hence the four alternatives — some are gathered in by the seven and not by the four, and so on.

The first alternative (gathered in by the seven and not by the four): the consciousness within the seven stations of consciousness. The second alternative (gathered in by the four and not by the seven): the remaining aggregates other than consciousness within the evil destinations, the fourth meditative absorption, and the summit of existence. The third alternative (gathered in by both): the four aggregates within the seven stations of consciousness. The fourth alternative (gathered in by neither): all the rest, excepting what the three preceding alternatives state.

〔Second Half of Root 8 · Root 9〕The Four Modes of Birth — Egg, Womb, Moisture, Transformation, and Which Destiny Has Which

Treatise (transition): Among the realms and destinies stated above, it should be known that the “birth” of sentient beings is broadly of four kinds. Which four? And which place has which? The stanza says:

Stanza: Within them there are four modes of birth, and sentient beings are the four classes beginning with birth from an egg; human beings and animals have all four complete; the hells and the gods, and intermediate existence too, have birth by transformation alone; while hungry ghosts extend to the two, birth from a womb and birth by transformation.

Treatise: The class of sentient beings has birth from an egg, birth from a womb, birth from moisture, and birth by transformation, and these are called the four. “Birth” means a class of birth. Among sentient beings, although the other classifications are mixed together with one another, with respect to the class of birth they are equal.

What is birth from an egg? Sentient beings born from within an eggshell — this is called birth from an egg, as with geese, peacocks, parrots, and wild geese. What is birth from a womb? Sentient beings born from within a womb — this is called birth from a womb, as with elephants, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and donkeys. What is birth from moisture? Sentient beings born from moisture — this is called birth from moisture, as with worms, moths, mosquitoes, and centipedes. What is birth by transformation? Sentient beings that arise with nothing to depend upon — this is called birth by transformation, as with naraka-beings, gods, intermediate existence, and the like; their faculties are complete and unimpaired and their limbs arise all at once, and because what was not there suddenly is, it is called “transformation.”

The destiny of human beings and the destiny of animals each have all four.

Human beings born from an egg are such as Śaila and Upaśaila, the two who were born from a crane’s egg, and again the thirty-two sons borne by the Deer Mother, and the five hundred sons of the king of Pañcāla. Human beings born from a womb are such as the people of today. Human beings born from moisture are such as Māndhātṛ, Cāru, Upacāru, Dove-Garland, and Āmrapālī. Human beings born by transformation are only the people at the beginning of an aeon.

Three of the modes among animals are seen by all; animals born by transformation are such as nāgas and garuḍas (the golden-winged birds).

All the hells, the gods, and intermediate existence are birth by transformation alone. The destiny of hungry ghosts, for its part, extends to two only, birth from a womb and birth by transformation. A hungry ghost born from a womb is such as the one of whom the female hungry ghost spoke to Maudgalyāyana:

Quoted stanza: At night I bear five children, and as each is born I devour it myself; by day I bear five, and it is the same — and though I eat them all up, I am never filled.

〔Root 9, continued〕Which Mode of Birth Is Most Excellent — Why the Bodhisattva Undergoes Birth from a Womb

Treatise: Question: which of all the modes of birth is the most excellent? Answer: it should be said that the most excellent is birth by transformation alone.

Question: if so, why does the bodhisattva in his last body, having already obtained sovereignty over birth, still undergo birth from a womb?

Answer: because undergoing birth from a womb in the present has great benefit. That is: in order to draw in the great men of the Śākya clan, causing them by the connection of kinship to enter the true Dharma. And in order to draw in others, letting them know that the bodhisattva is of the lineage of a wheel-turning monarch, so that they arouse reverence and longing and thereby abandon wrong paths and turn toward the true Dharma. And in order to make those he converts arouse a superior mind: since he too is a man and can accomplish so great a matter, we too are such — why should we not thereby arouse right diligence and cultivate the true Dharma single-mindedly? And again: were it not so, his clan and lineage could not be known, and people might suspect him to be a conjured apparition, not knowing whether god or ghost. Thus in the treatises of the non-Buddhists there is a feigned slander set down, saying that when a hundred aeons have passed there will appear in the world a great conjuration that devours the world — so that undergoing birth from a womb serves precisely to lay these doubts and slanders to rest.

Treatise (a further master’s account recorded alongside, with the exchange upon it): Other masters say: it is in order to leave behind the bodily element (the relics of the body) that he undergoes birth from a womb, so that measureless human beings and beings of the other classes, once they make offerings, may be born in heaven a thousand times over and realize liberation. If he underwent birth by transformation there would be no outer seed (the condition of a body received from father and mother), and the moment the body ceased to breathe no remaining form would be left behind, as when a lamp goes out and its light is seen no more.

(The author objects:) if someone believes that the Buddha has the supernormal power of upholding a vow by which he can long preserve his body (then a body born by transformation could equally leave a remaining form behind, and there would be no need to undergo birth from a womb in order to leave the bodily element), this explanation does not hold.

(A discussion arising from the discussion · a further objection:) if a body born by transformation is like a lamp gone out and its light spent, leaving nothing behind after death, then why does a sūtra say that a garuḍa born by transformation seizes a nāga born by transformation to serve as its food? Answer: it seizes the nāga for food because it does not know (that a nāga leaves no remaining form after death), and the sūtra does not say that it was really filled — what fault is there in this? Or else the nāga had not yet died and served for the moment to stay its hunger, and when it had died it was hungry again; what blame is there in eating for a moment!

Treatise (how many there are of each of the four modes of birth): Question: within the four modes of birth, which is the most numerous? Answer: birth by transformation alone is the most numerous. Why? Because a portion of three destinies, the whole of two destinies, and all intermediate existence are birth by transformation.

〔Root 10〕What Intermediate Existence Is — Why It Is Not Called “Birth”

Treatise (transition): What dharma here is called intermediate existence? And why is intermediate existence not simply called “birth”? The stanza says:

Stanza: After the existence of death and before the existence of birth, the five aggregates in between are called intermediate existence; because it has not yet reached the place it should reach, intermediate existence is not called birth.

Treatise: After the existence of death and before the existence of birth, in that very interval an entity of its own arises; this body arises in order to reach the place of taking birth, and because it lies between two destinies it is called intermediate existence.

Question: since this body has already arisen, why is it not called “birth”? Answer: birth means the place that is to be reached in time to come; the name “birth” is established upon the sense of having reached. This body of intermediate existence, though its entity has already arisen, has not yet reached that place, and so is not called birth.

Question: what is “the place that is to be reached in time to come”? Answer: the place where the maturation that has been drawn forth is finally and clearly displayed; this is called the place that is to be reached in time to come.

Treatise (the account that sets down no intermediate existence): Another school says: between death and birth an interval and a break may be allowed, and so there is no intermediate existence. (The author answers:) this cannot be granted.

Question: why? Answer: by reason of principle and of the sacred teaching.

Question: what are the principle and the teaching relied upon? The stanza says:

〔Root 11 · Root 12〕The Two Proofs from Principle and Teaching — the Principle of the Continuity of Grain and the Teaching of the Sūtras of Five and of Seven

Stanza: As with the continuity of grain and the like, the places are uninterrupted and each moment arises in succession after the one before (this is the first); that an image really exists cannot be established (this is the second); and even granting that it were established it is not alike, and so cannot serve as an analogy (this is the third) — because two forms cannot stand together in one place, because the substance and the image are not one continuum, because an image arises from two conditions. As for the proof from teaching: because the sūtra speaks of a gandharva, and because of the Sūtra of the Five Non-Returners, the Sūtra of the Seven Destinations of Good Men, and the rest.

Treatise (the proof from principle): To speak for the moment in accordance with correct principle: intermediate existence is not nonexistent.

It is plainly to be seen that whatever dharma in the world turns on in continuity must arise in succession moment after moment with its places uninterrupted. Just as with the continuity of grain and the like in the world (the seed is here and the sprout comes up here too), the continuity of sentient beings ought in principle to be the same — arising moment after moment in succession, with the places necessarily uninterrupted.

Treatise (the outside objection · the analogy of the reflected image): (Those who hold that there is no intermediate existence defend themselves:) is it not plainly to be seen that there are dharmas that arise in succession while the places within them have an interval? As when, in dependence upon a mirror and the like, an image is produced from a substance (the substance being here and the image there, with an interval between). In the same way, though the existence of death and the existence of birth of a sentient being have an interval of place, what is there to prevent their arising in succession?

Treatise (the first refutation · an image is not really existent): Answer: because “images really exist” cannot be established in principle; and because, even were it established, it is not alike, so that it does not hold as an analogy.

(First to explain the first route:) that a further kind of form arises and is called an “image,” its entity really existing, does not hold in principle; and even granting that it were established, it would not be alike to the dharma compared with it, so that the analogy does not hold.

The reason for saying that “an image does not hold” is this: two forms cannot stand together in one place. That is: in one and the same place the form of the mirror and the form of the image are seen present together; but two forms ought not to stand together in the same place, since the great elements they depend upon differ.

Again: on a narrow surface of water the forms and shapes of the two banks display two images together at the same time and in the same place; those standing on the two banks each see clearly, and yet nowhere has anyone seen two forms standing together in one place — it should not be said that these two forms arise together.

Again: shadow and light are never in the same place; and yet a mirror has been seen hanging in the shadow while the image of the light appears distinctly upon the mirror’s face — it should not be said here that the two arise together.

Or “no two stand together in one place” may be put thus: the face of the mirror and the image of the moon are stated as two things, and are seen separately as near and far (as is the case when one looks into well water); if they truly arose together, how could a difference of near and far be seen?

Hence it is known that images are in principle really nonexistent. It is only the force of the coming together of the several causes and conditions that makes one see them so — for the differentiations of capability in the intrinsic nature of dharmas are truly hard to conceive.

Treatise (the second refutation · not being alike, it is no analogy): The principle of “not being established” having been made out, it was said that an image cannot serve as an analogy. Now for “not being alike, and so likewise unable to serve as an analogy”: because the substance and the image are not one continuum. That is: the substance and the image are not the same continuum, and an image arises only in dependence upon a mirror and the like; moreover the image and the substance are present at the same time. The existence of death and the existence of birth, by contrast, are one continuum, uninterrupted before and after, and arise in succession in another place; and the substance and the image, set over against each other, have no such relation of continuity — since they are not alike, the analogy does not hold.

Treatise (the third refutation · it arises from two conditions): Again: the image that appears arises from two conditions. That is, images can arise only from two kinds of condition: first the substance, second the mirror and the like. Of these two the image arises in dependence upon the more excellent. The existence of birth, however, cannot arise from two conditions — there is only the existence of death, and no further and more excellent support. Hence the analogy adduced is not alike to the dharma compared with it.

Nor may it be said that outer insentient things such as semen and blood are taken as the more excellent support. For sentient beings born by transformation arise suddenly in mid-air, and among those what would be reckoned the more excellent support?

Treatise (the proof from teaching, in five sūtras): The other school’s account that between death and birth an interval and a break may be allowed having been refuted by correct principle, intermediate existence is definitely not nonexistent. Next, the existence of intermediate existence is proved by the sacred teaching.

First, a sūtra says: “existence” is of seven kinds, namely the existences of the five destinies, the existence of action, and intermediate existence.

Second, if that school does not recite this sūtra, do they not recite even the Gandharva Sūtra? As a sūtra says: for entry into the mother’s womb three things must be present together — first, that the mother’s body is at that time in fit condition; second, that father and mother join in mutual love; third, that a gandharva is just present. Apart from the body of intermediate existence, what gandharva is there? The former aggregates have already perished — what then is it that is present?

Third, if they do not recite this sūtra either, then how is the Sūtra of the Horse-Keeping Clan to be explained? As that sūtra says: do you now know? This gandharva that is just present — is he a brahmin, a kṣatriya, a vaiśya, or a śūdra? Does he come from the east, or from the south, the west, or the north? The former aggregates have already perished and cannot be said to come; and so the “coming” spoken of here can from the first be nothing but intermediate existence.

Fourth, if they still do not recite these sūtras, how is the Sūtra of the Five Non-Returners to be explained? As a sūtra says: there are five kinds of non-returner — first, one who attains parinirvāṇa in the interval; second, one who attains parinirvāṇa upon birth; third, one who attains parinirvāṇa without exertion; fourth, one who attains parinirvāṇa with exertion; fifth, one who goes upstream. If there were no intermediate existence, whence would the name “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval” come?

Treatise (refuting two divergent explanations of “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval”): Certain masters hold fixedly that there is a heaven named “Interval,” and that one attains parinirvāṇa there, whence the name “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval.” (Refutation:) then one should also grant heavens named “Birth” and the rest; and since these are not granted, it is clear that such a grasping is not well said.

Again: a sūtra states seven destinations of good men, that is, within the five above it divides “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval” into three, dividing them by the nearness, the middle distance, and the farness of place and of time. As when a small spark of a splinter fire (a fire of wood chips) flies off and is extinguished near at hand as soon as it rises, so it is with the first good man; as when a small spark of an iron fire flies off and is extinguished only at the middle of its course, so it is with the second good man; as when a great spark of an iron fire flies off and travels far and is extinguished before it falls, so it is with the third good man. (On what those masters hold,) it is not that the separate heaven called “Interval” which they hold could have such a threefold difference of time and of place — and so what they hold is definitely contrary to principle.

Other masters say: whether in the middle of the lifespan or in the middle of the approach to a heaven, one cuts off the remaining afflictions and becomes an arhat, and this is called attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval; and because one attains parinirvāṇa upon reaching the stage of the element, the stage of perception, or the stage of applied thought, it is divided into three grades: either one attains parinirvāṇa as soon as one has taken up the commonality of sentient beings of the form realm, and this is called the first; or one attains parinirvāṇa only after having enjoyed the pleasures of the gods thereafter, and this is called the second; or one attains parinirvāṇa only after entering the Dharma assembly of the gods thereafter, and this is called the third. One who attains parinirvāṇa only after much time has passed since entering the assembly is called one who attains parinirvāṇa upon birth; or one who attains parinirvāṇa only after much of the lifespan has been diminished and not immediately upon being born is for that reason called one who attains parinirvāṇa upon birth.

(Refutation:) what is stated in this way does not fit the analogy of the sparks at all. Why? Because on that account there would be no difference of place or of course traversed (the three grades becoming a difference of time alone). Again: the formless realm too would have to be said to have parinirvāṇa attained in the interval, for there also there are those who attain parinirvāṇa in the middle of the lifespan. Yet the sūtra does not say that there is attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval there, as is stated in the Udāna verses:

Quoted stanza: Gathering in sum the number of the noble and the worthy — in each of the four meditative absorptions there are ten, in each of the three formless spheres seven, and in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception six alone.

〔Root 12, continued〕The Measure of Teaching Established · Reconciling the Several Sūtras

Treatise: Hence what they hold is all false.

If they do not recite even these sūtras, there is nothing more to be said: the unsurpassed King of the Dharma passed into extinction long ago, and the great generals of the Dharma have all attained parinirvāṇa; the sacred teaching is scattered and has already divided into many schools, and over its letter and its sense they each hold to their own view and gallop against one another, taking up and setting aside entirely as they please, and to this day the thing grows ever stronger. Alas! You cling stubbornly to folly and confusion, going against principle and refusing the sacred teaching; it is greatly to be lamented.

For all who take the principle and the teaching stated above as their measure, the real existence of intermediate existence is thoroughly established.

Treatise (reconciling the first sūtra): Question: if so, why does a sūtra say that Dūṣin the Māra, who performed extremely evil action, fell headlong in his present body into the Unremitting Hell (which shows that there is no intermediate existence in between)?

Answer: the sense of that sūtra is this: his life had not yet been given up when the fierce flames of the hell were already burning his body; hence when his life ended he took up that intermediate existence, and it was riding upon this intermediate existence that he fell into the Unremitting Hell. Because the force of his evil action was so strong, the marks of suffering became present without waiting for his life to end — he first underwent the result to be experienced in the present life and afterwards the result to be experienced in the next life.

Treatise (reconciling the second sūtra): Question: why does a sūtra say that there is a class of sentient beings who, once the five actions without interval have been performed and increased, are without interval definitely born in the naraka?

Answer: the sense of that sūtra is to block his going to another destiny and to display that that action is definitely to be experienced in the next life. If one clings to the surface of the text alone, then all five actions without interval would have to be complete before one were born in hell — it is not so; one may be born there lacking any one of them, or through the cause of some other action; otherwise a great fault follows.

Again: if it says “without interval one is born in the naraka,” then one ought to be born the instant the action is done, without waiting for the body to break up. (Which shows that the surface of the text alone will not do.)

Or it may be said: who says that intermediate existence does not count as “birth”? The name “naraka” extends to intermediate existence as well — when intermediate existence arises without interval upon the existence of death, that too may be called birth, since it is the means to birth (the stretch that leads to birth). The sūtra says “without interval one is born in the naraka,” and does not say that at that moment it is the existence of birth.

Treatise (reconciling the third · a stanza of scripture): Question: if so, how is the stanza in the sūtra to be reconciled? As a stanza of a sūtra says:

Quoted stanza: Twice-born, you have now passed the stage of your prime; decline draws near, and King Yama is not far off; you would go forward upon the road ahead and have no provisions, and you would seek to halt in between and there is no place to stay.

Treatise: Question: if there is intermediate existence, why did the World-Honored One say that “in between there is no place for him to stay”?

Answer: the sense of this stanza is to display that among human beings he swiftly comes to wearing away, with no room for a moment’s halt; or else that that intermediate existence, in order to reach the place where it is to be born, likewise makes no halt, since its going is unobstructed.

(The objector asks in return:) how do you know that the sense of the sūtra is this and not something else? (The author questions him back:) and how do you know that it is something else and not this? Since the reproaches on the two sides are equal, why single out my side alone for questioning? Neither of these two explanations does violence to the text of the sūtra; how then may it be singled out to prove that there is no intermediate existence?

Whenever words are adduced as proof, their principle may have no other tendency; and since this sentence does have another tendency, it does not hold as proof.

〔Root 13〕The Appearance of Intermediate Existence — the Very Likeness of the Body It Is About to Be Born Into

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Above it has been established that intermediate existence (that transitional body after death and before birth) really exists. Next it is asked: to which destiny will this intermediate existence go? And what is the appearance in which it manifests? The stanza says:

Stanza: Because intermediate existence and that coming body are drawn forth by one and the same action, the appearance of intermediate existence is like the shape of that coming ‘basic existence.’ What is called ‘basic existence’ means the stretch before death and after the moment of taking birth.

Treatise: If there is an action that can draw forth the destiny to which a sentient being is to go, this same action at the same time calls forth that intermediate existence ‘able to go to that destiny.’ Hence if this intermediate existence is to go to a certain destiny, its appearance is like the shape of the coming basic existence of that destiny.

Someone raises an objection: in that case, within the belly of a single dog there might arise at one time the intermediate existences of five destinies (gods, human beings, ghosts, animals, and the hells) — if within the belly five offspring were to die at the same time and each be born into a different destiny, the intermediate existences of the five destinies would arise there all at once. And since among them the hell intermediate existence would be present, why does it not burn up the mother’s belly?

Answer: hell beings dwell in the very basic existence of the hells, and even so they are not constantly burning (how much less what is merely an intermediate existence). It is like going out for a while to roam in a garden (where there are sometimes intervals free of suffering) — how much more at the stage of intermediate existence alone.

To yield a further step: even granting that it can burn, intermediate existence is such that it cannot be seen and cannot be touched — because the body of intermediate existence is exceedingly subtle — and so the objection just raised does not stand to reason.

The intermediate existences of the several destinies, though they dwell together in one belly, do not touch one another nor burn and harm one another, and this is because they are shut off by the force of action.

The intermediate existence of the desire realm is in bodily measure like a child of five or six years, and yet its faculties are keen and bright. The intermediate existence of a bodhisattva is like a man in his prime, full and round in bodily measure and possessed of all the marks and signs, and so when a bodhisattva dwelling in intermediate existence is about to enter the womb, he can illumine as far as a hundred koṭis (a hundred hundred-millions) of sets of four great continents.

Someone asks: if that is so, why did the bodhisattva’s mother dream that a white elephant calf came and entered her right side?

Answer: that was an auspicious sign of good fortune and has nothing to do with intermediate existence. The bodhisattva had long since abandoned the destiny of animals (and could no longer manifest the body of an elephant). This is just like the ten things dreamed by King Kṛkin:

Quoted stanza: He dreamed of a great elephant, a well, parched flour, a sandalwood tree, a fine and beautiful grove, a small elephant, and two matters of monkeys (one a monkey with its body smeared with filth, one a monkey consecrated and set up as king), and a garment both broad and sturdy, and strife.

Treatise: What is dreamed in this way merely betokens that there are other events to come as their prior omen; it is not really as it was seen (an elephant in a dream is not the same as a real elephant coming).

Further, all intermediate existences enter by the birth-gate, and it is not by breaking open the mother’s belly that entry into the womb is had — and this is why with twins the one born first is the smaller and the one born after the larger (the one that entered first is the further in, and the one that entered after comes out first).

Someone asks: then how is the stanza spoken by Dharmasubhūti (the Venerable Subhūti of the Dharma) to be harmonized?

Quoted stanza: The white elephant was upright and fair in its marks, complete with six tusks and four feet; with full awareness it entered the mother’s womb, and lay at rest as a seer secluded in a grove.

Treatise: Answer: this stanza need not be harmonized at all costs, because it is not among the works gathered in the Three Baskets (the sūtras, the discipline, and the treatises). Moreover, the words of stanzas chanted and recited will sometimes overstate the fact.

If it must be harmonized, then take it that the stanza was composed with reference to the dream-image seen by the bodhisattva’s mother, and there is no fault in that either.

The intermediate existence of the form realm is full and round in bodily measure as the basic existence is. Moreover it arises together with clothing, because in sentient beings of the form realm conscience and shame are abundant. The bodhisattva’s intermediate existence too arises together with clothing. The nun Śuklā (a bhikṣuṇī), by the force of her original vow, had in life after life a garment that came of itself, never leaving her body and changing its style as occasion required, down to the time when she at last entered nirvāṇa, when this very garment was used to wrap the remains for cremation. All the other intermediate existences of the desire realm have no clothing, because they have all increased in the lack of conscience and shame.

Someone asks: that ‘basic existence’ which intermediate existence resembles — what is its entity?

Answer: it means that stretch of the five aggregates before death-existence and after birth-existence; stated in sum, the entity is the five aggregates of appropriation (form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, with outflows). Within this, by stages, it is divided into four segments: first, intermediate existence, whose sense is as stated above; second, birth-existence, that is, the very moment of rebirth-linking in any of the destinies; third, basic existence, that is, all the stages except that moment of rebirth-linking and before death; fourth, death-existence, that is, the last thought-moment.

Stated in order, intermediate existence stands before birth-existence, and so sentient beings possessed of form have all four of these existences complete; but in the formless realm, intermediate existence is wanting and only three are had (the formless realm has no material body and needs no going and coming by intermediate existence).

The above has stated the shape and measure of intermediate existence; the remaining points of doctrine are to be analyzed next. The stanza says:

〔Root 14 · Root 15〕The Several Gates of Intermediate Existence — Who Can See It, How Fast It Goes, What It Eats, How Long It Abides

Stanza: Intermediate existence can be seen by its own kind and by the pure divine eye obtained through cultivation; it has the swiftest supernormal power of action; its faculties are complete; there is nothing that can resist it; once directed it cannot be turned; it takes fragrance for its food; it does not abide long. With an inverted mind it hastens toward the object it craves; those of moisture-birth are defiled by fragrance and those of transformation-birth by the place, and so take birth. The intermediate existence of gods has the head upward; humans, ghosts, and animals, these three, go horizontally; the intermediate existence of the hells has the head downward.

Treatise: This body of intermediate existence is seen by intermediate existences of its own kind. If a person has obtained through cultivation an exceedingly pure divine eye, he too can see it; but no eye acquired by birth (including a divine eye had by birth) can see it, because intermediate existence is too subtle.

Other masters say: the eye of the intermediate existence of gods is complete in its power, and the intermediate existences of the five destinies — human beings, ghosts, animals, hell beings — can respectively see four, three, two, and one kind, that is, each can see its own kind and below, excluding those above (the intermediate existence of gods can see all five destinies, that of human beings the four destinies from human beings down, and so on by extension).

Among all supernormal powers, the supernormal power of action is the swiftest. ‘To soar over space and come and go at will’ is what is called a supernormal power; a supernormal power obtained through action is called the supernormal power of action; and because the operation of this power is exceedingly fast it is called ‘swift.’ Intermediate existence has the swiftest supernormal power of action, and up to the World-Honored One there is none who can hold it back or block it, because the force of action is the strongest of all.

All intermediate existences are complete in the five faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body). What is called ‘resistance’ is obstruction; and since not even adamant and the like can block intermediate existence, it is called ‘nonresistant.’ It was once heard that someone split open a lump of iron heated red, and saw that within it worms had been born (from which it may be seen that even into iron it can enter and take birth).

Once the intermediate existence that has been fixed for going to a certain destiny has arisen, no power of any kind whatever can make it change — that is, it is impossible for a human intermediate existence to disappear and an intermediate existence of some other destiny to arise instead; and so it is with all the other kinds. Since the intermediate existence for going to a certain destiny has already arisen, it should go only to that destiny and definitely does not go elsewhere.

Someone asks: does the body of intermediate existence in the desire realm draw its support from morsel food (food taken mouthful by mouthful)?

Answer: it does draw support from morsel food, but that food is exceedingly subtle and not coarse.

Question: what is the subtle food?

Answer: fragrance alone. It is for this reason that intermediate existence gets the name ‘gandharva’ (one who feeds on fragrance). The senses of the several verbal roots are not of one kind only, and to read “gandharva” with the short vowel is like the instances “sekantu” and “kekantu” (one and the same root with a difference of long and short vowel) — it is for the sake of abbreviation, and so there is no fault.

An intermediate existence of scant merit can obtain only foul and evil fragrance, while one of much merit takes good fragrance for its food.

Question: for how long does such an intermediate existence abide?

The Venerable says: for this there is no fixed limit. So long as the conditions for taking birth have not yet met, the intermediate existence continues to exist; for the life faculty of intermediate existence is not drawn forth by some other action, and it belongs to one and the same ‘commonality of sentient beings’ (the shared limit of one class of life) with the destiny into which it is to be born, human or other. Were it not so, then when the life faculty of intermediate existence finally ceased, a death-existence would have to be established separately for it (from which it may be seen that intermediate existence and the coming life belong to one and the same term, and that they cannot be reckoned as separate lives and deaths).

Someone sets an objection: suppose there were a mass of flesh heaped as great as Mount Sumeru, and when the rains of summer came it turned into a great mass of worms. Should it then be said that these intermediate existences waited for this season gradually (queuing one after another)? Or should it be said that they came here all at once from somewhere?

Answer: although there is no plain text of sūtra or treatise that adjudicates it, yet according to correct principle it should be said thus: there are all manner of mixed classes of beings, boundless in number, who are greedy for the taste of fragrance and short in lifespan. Those sentient beings, because they smell this odor and are greedy for the taste of fragrance, die at the same time; and by the force of craving the action formerly called forth for a worm’s body is roused (as one is roused from sleep and begins to operate), and so they receive at the same time the bodies of tiny worms here. Or else it may be said that there were from the first many sentient beings who ought to take birth here, and who abide within intermediate existence only because many assisting conditions were not yet complete, and now, meeting with the conditions complete, are born here all at once.

What ought to be born at one time definitely will not be born at different times, earlier and later. It is like the action that can call forth the result of a wheel-turning monarch: it must wait until human lifespan is eighty thousand years, or until a still later time, before it gives its result all at once, and it does not give the result at any other stage of time. The principle here is the same. Hence the World-Honored One said: the differences among the results of the actions of the several classes of sentient beings are inconceivable.

The Venerable Vasumitra says: intermediate existence abides at the most seven days; and if the conditions for taking birth have not yet met, it dies again and again and is born again and again (one round every seven days).

Other masters say: it abides at the most seven times seven, forty-nine days.

The Vaibhāṣika masters say: intermediate existence abides only a short time, because within intermediate existence there is delight in seeking a birth-existence, and so it does not abide long but goes quickly to link rebirth.

As for those intermediate existences whose conditions for taking birth have for the time not met: if it is fixed that they should be born in this place and as this class, the force of action will make these conditions meet; and if it is not fixed that they are to be lodged in this place and the conditions do not meet, then they turn and are lodged in another place and another class.

There are also masters who say: intermediate existence turns and takes birth in a class resembling its own. For instance, the domestic ox, the dog, the bear, and the horse have their seasons of increased desire belonging in order to summer, autumn, winter, and spring; while the wild ox, the jackal, the brown bear, and the ass have no fixed season. The intermediate existences of the former four, if they do not meet with their season, are born in order into the same class as the latter four (the domestic ox turning into the class of the wild ox, and so on).

(The author refutes this account:) Is it not that intermediate existence definitely does not differ in commonality of sentient beings from the place into which it is born (since intermediate existence and birth-existence are drawn forth by one and the same action)? How then can it be said to turn and take birth in a resembling class?

Treatise (continued): Such an intermediate existence as this, in order to reach the place where it is to be born, first arouses an inverted mind and hastens toward the object it craves. By the eye faculty aroused through the force of action, although its body is at a distance, it can see the parents joining at the place where it is to take birth, and thereupon an inverted mind arises: if it is of male body, it arouses a male desire with the mother for its object; if of female body, it arouses a female desire with the father for its object; and reversing the object toward the other party, it arouses a mind of hatred toward them both.

Hence the Treatise of Designations has this statement: at that time the gandharva (intermediate existence) has one or other of the two minds, love and hatred, in operation — that is, either love or hatred.

Because it arouses these two inverted minds, it supposes that its own body has joined with the one it loves. And when the impurity (semen and blood) of the one it hates flows into the womb, the intermediate existence supposes this to be its own possession and gives rise to a mind of joy and comfort; from this the aggregates gather and thicken, intermediate existence disappears, and birth-existence arises — and this is what is called ‘having linked rebirth.’

If it is a male embryo, it squats against the mother’s right side facing her back; if a female embryo, it dwells against the mother’s left side facing her belly. If it is neither male nor female (of the classes without shape), then in dwelling in the mother’s womb it dwells as is fitting, according to the craving it arouses.

There is definitely no intermediate existence that is neither female nor male, because the body of intermediate existence must be complete in its faculties. Since at the stage of intermediate existence it is either female or male, on entering the mother’s womb it can dwell as is fitting; and later, when the embryo grows, it may also become a non-male (of the ṣaṇḍha class and the like).

Within this point of doctrine one further matter should be considered: is it by the force of action that the semen and blood, these great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind), directly become the body on which the faculties depend? Or does action separately produce another set of great elements to serve as the support of the faculties, this set merely resting in dependence upon the semen and blood?

Some masters say: the semen and blood directly become the support of the faculties. That is, the intermediate existence which had no faculties before ceases together, and afterwards the body possessed of faculties arises in immediate continuity — as with the principle of the seed ceasing and the sprout arising. It is for this reason that the first stage is called ‘kalala’ (the first congealing of the embryonic substance). Stated thus, it also accords well with this passage of scripture: ‘The impurity of the parents produces the kalala.’ And as scripture tells the monks: ‘You have through the long night appropriated drops of blood, which have grown into the kaṭasi (the accumulation within the womb).’

Other masters say: another set of great elements is separately produced. Just as worms are separately produced in dependence upon leaves and dung, so within the accumulation of impurity the kalala is produced. Hence to say ‘the impurity of the parents produces the kalala’ is, stated thus, also not in conflict with that passage of scripture.

The above has been stated with reference to the two births from a womb and from an egg; the remaining two births (from moisture and by transformation) are to be stated next, as is fitting for each.

If a sentient being is of moisture-birth, it takes birth through being defiled by fragrance — that is, from afar it smells and knows the fragrance of the place where it is to be born, and thereupon arouses craving and defilement and goes there to take birth; and according to the difference of its action, the fragrance it is defiled by is also pure or foul.

If a sentient being is of transformation-birth, it takes birth through being defiled by the place — that is, from afar it observes the place where it is about to be born, and thereupon arouses craving and defilement and goes there to take birth; and according to the difference of its action, the place it is defiled by is also pure or foul.

Someone raises an objection: is craving and defilement really aroused even toward the hells?

Answer: because the mind is inverted, the arising of defilement is no fault. That is, that intermediate existence either sees its own body oppressed by cold rain and freezing wind while it sees the flames of a hot hell blazing, and delights in mind at that warmth of touch and casts itself in; or else it sees its own body harmed and oppressed by hot wind and raging fire while it sees a cold hell, and wishing for coolness casts itself in.

The masters of former times, however, say thus: it is because it sees that band of its own companions of the time when it formerly did the action that calls forth that hell, and so runs and hastens to join them.

Further, as to the manner of movement: the intermediate existence of gods rises with the head straight upward, as one rises from a seat; the intermediate existence of human beings, ghosts, and animals goes in its manner of movement as human beings and the rest ordinarily walk; and the intermediate existence of the hells goes head down and feet up, falling headlong into them. Hence a gāthā (stanza) says:

Quoted stanza: Falling headlong into the hells, with the feet upward and the head turned down; through slandering the several seers — those who delight in quiet and cultivate austerities.

〔Root 16 · Root 17〕The Four Modes of Entry into the Womb — Who Can Still Be Awake While Entering the Womb

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It was said above that intermediate existence enters the mother’s womb with an inverted mind; is it then definitely so for all intermediate existences?

Answer: it is not. Scripture says that entry into the womb is of four kinds. What are the four? The stanza says:

Stanza: The first kind has full awareness only at the time of ‘entering’; the second and third extend also to ‘dwelling’ and to ‘coming out’; the fourth has no full awareness at any stage, and those of egg-birth are always without awareness. The first three who enter the womb are the wheel-turning monarch and the two Buddhas (the pratyekabuddha and the Buddha), because their action and their cognition are excellent in that order; the fourth is all the remaining beings.

Treatise: Some sentient beings gather much meritorious action and diligently cultivate correct mindfulness and cognition, and so at the times of death and of birth they are upheld by the power of mindfulness, having full awareness and free of confusion. Among these, some have full awareness at the time of entering the womb; some have full awareness at the time of dwelling in the womb and this extends also to the time of entering; some have full awareness at the time of coming out of the womb and know as well the entering and the dwelling. The stanza says ‘also’ in order to show that what comes after necessarily carries what comes before (one who has full awareness of coming out of the womb must have full awareness of entering and of dwelling too).

Some sentient beings have little of both merit and cognition, and at all three stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out are without full awareness. Since entering the womb is without full awareness, dwelling and coming out are necessarily so too. The reason the stanza states these four in reverse (the first stated first and the fourth last) is to follow the rule for composing stanzas (the convenience of metre and phrasing).

As for the several sentient beings of egg-birth, they are constantly without awareness at every stage, entering the womb and the rest.

Someone asks: how are those of egg-birth reckoned as entering the womb? For they come out of an eggshell.

Answer: it is said that they ‘enter the womb-store’ because those of egg-birth must first enter the mother’s womb (forming into an egg within the mother’s body). Or else it is stated with reference to what is to come — because they are to be born as eggs in the future, they are called of egg-birth (though at the time of entering the womb the egg is not yet formed). It is just as scripture says ‘to make the conditioned’ (naming it so beforehand, before the making is done), and as the world says ‘boiling rice’ and ‘grinding parched flour’ (what is being boiled is rice and what is being ground is wheat, and yet they are named beforehand by the rice-dish and the flour that are to be). Hence to say that those of egg-birth also enter the womb is no fault.

Question: what is it to have and to lack full awareness at the three stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out?

Answer: suppose a sentient being whose merit is very scant: on entering the mother’s womb he arouses inverted notions and construals, seeing great wind and great rain, fierce heat and bitter cold, or the might and clamor of great armies pressing in confusion upon him; and thereupon he sees himself entering dense grass and thick woods, a cave of leaves, a hut of thatch, or taking refuge beneath a tree or beside a wall. At the time of dwelling in the womb, he sees himself already dwelling within it; at the time of coming out of the womb, he sees his body going out from it.

If merit is somewhat greater, the inverted notions and construals aroused on entering the mother’s womb are these: he sees his body entering fine gardens and groves, mounting flowered terraces and palaces, dwelling on excellent couches and the like; and the dwelling and the coming out are as stated above (only what he sees is of a better sort).

All these are called persons without full awareness at the three times.

If a being can have full awareness at all three stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out, then at the times of entering and the rest he has no inverted notions and construals — that is, on entering the womb he knows he is entering the womb, and while dwelling in and coming out of the womb he knows of himself that he is dwelling and coming out (knowing as it really is, and forming no other construal).

To show further these four kinds who enter the womb: the first three are in order the wheel-turning monarch, the pratyekabuddha, and the great awakened one (the Buddha). The first kind who enters the womb is the wheel-turning monarch, who has full awareness on entering the womb but not while dwelling and coming out. The second kind who enters the womb is the solitary victorious awakened one (the pratyekabuddha), who has full awareness while entering and dwelling but not on coming out of the womb. The third kind who enters the womb is the unsurpassed awakened one (the Buddha), who has full awareness at all three stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out. These first three persons are spoken of by the name of what they are to become in the future (being still within the womb, they are not yet a wheel-turning monarch or a Buddha, and are shown beforehand by the name of what is to come).

Question: on what ground is there such a difference of three grades?

Answer: because action and cognition are excellent in that order. The first is excellent in action — the wheel-turning monarch in past lives cultivated great merit widely. The second is excellent in cognition — the solitary victorious awakened one long practiced much learning and excellent discrimination. The third is excellent in both action and cognition — the unsurpassed awakened one through vast aeons cultivated excellent merit and cognition.

Apart from these first three persons, the remaining sentient beings of womb-birth and egg-birth are inferior in both merit and cognition, and together make the fourth kind.

〔Root 18 · Root 19〕No Self and Only Aggregates — Who Is It That Takes a Womb

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Here a non-Buddhist who holds to a real self says: if it is granted that a sentient being can pass over to another world (from this life to that life), then the sense of ‘there is a self’ that I maintain is established (since there must be a constantly abiding self that comes and goes). Now, in order to dispel this position, the stanza says:

Stanza: There is no self; there are only the aggregates. Made by the afflictions and by action, they enter the womb by the continuity of intermediate existence, as a lamp-flame does (continuing and shifting to another place). Growing in order thus, drawn forth by action, the aggregates continue and, by afflictions and action, go on to other worlds — and so the wheel of birth and death has no beginning.

Treatise (counter-questioning): What is the mark of that ‘self’ you hold to?

(The holder of self answers:) It is that ‘person’ (agent) which can cast off the aggregates of this life and can continue the aggregates of the coming life, functioning within the body.

(The author refutes:) Such a self definitely does not exist, because it cannot be got at as form and as the eye and the rest can (form is visible by direct perception, and the eye faculty is known by inference from its function, whereas the self is neither).

The World-Honored One too said: ‘There is action and there is maturation, but an agent cannot be got at.’ What is called an ‘agent’ is that which can cast off these aggregates and continue other aggregates — and apart from the provisional designation of dharmas there is no real agent.

Question: what is meant by ‘the provisional designation of dharmas’?

Answer: it is ‘this being, that is; this arising, that arises,’ and so at length the twelve links of dependent origination (upon the continuity of cause and result, earlier and later, the name of an agent is provisionally established).

Question: if that is so, what sort of ‘self’ is not within the range of what is dispelled?

Answer: the aggregates alone — that is, it is only upon the five aggregates that the name ‘self’ is provisionally established, and this is not dispelled.

Question: in that case, it should be granted that the aggregates themselves can pass from this world to another world?

Answer: the aggregates arise and cease moment by moment and have no power over the turning round and coming and going. But because of what is made by afflictions and action habituated again and again, the aggregates of intermediate existence continue and enter the womb. It is as a lamp-flame, though it arises and ceases moment by moment, can yet continue and shift to another place. So it is with the aggregates too, and to say that they ‘pass over’ is no fault. Hence, although there is no self, the sense of the aggregates continuing and entering the womb by reason of afflictions and action is established.

Just as the aggregates continue and grow in order by turns, drawn forth by action, so again, by what is made by the force of afflictions and action, they turn and go on to other worlds. That is to say: not all the aggregates that are drawn forth are equal in the length or brevity of their growth and continuity, because the causes of the actions that draw forth the lifespan differ. According as the force of the drawing action is strengthened or weakened, they grow in order for just so long a time.

Question: how do they grow in order?

Answer: as the noble one has said:

Quoted stanza: First there is the kalala (congealed and slippery); next is produced the arbuda (in the form of a blister); from this is produced the peśī (soft flesh, or flesh and blood); the peśī produces the ghana (firm flesh); next is the praśākhā (with limbs and joints distinct); thereafter hair, down, nails, and the rest, together with the material faculties and the shape, gradually grow by turns.

Treatise: That is, within the mother’s belly the stages are five: first the stage of the kalala, second the stage of the arbuda, third the stage of the peśī, fourth the stage of the ghana, fifth the stage of the praśākhā. This ‘arrow’ within the womb gradually grows by turns, up to the stage where the material faculties and the shape are complete.

Next, by the force of the wind of maturation aroused by action, the body within the womb is turned so as to move toward the birth-gate. It is like a hard lump of dung stopped and straitened beyond measure; and from this it falls by turns into fierce suffering, hard to bear.

Sometimes, because that mother is excessive in deportment (movement), in food, or in labor, or else by the force of the child’s own sinful action of former lives, the child dies within the womb.

At such a time there are women, or physicians, skilled and thoroughly versed in the art of delivery and good at rearing infants, who warm butter and the juice of the śāmalī (a kind of tree) and smear them on their hands, taking in hand a small sharp knife (to reach in and draw out the dead embryo). Within the womb it is like a cesspit, utterly foul and base, packed with mixed filth; it is a dwelling of darkness where numberless thousands of worms take their support; foul and turbid fluids run there constantly and must be dealt with without cease; semen, blood, grime, and grease are festering and slippery; impurities overflow, mean and filthy past looking at; and above it is covered only by a thin and perforated skin. Drawn on by former action, it is within the sores and openings of the body that the limbs and joints of the embryo are severed and drawn out.

Yet this embryo has come riding upon the action done in former lives and belongs to the course of action to be experienced in a later life (action whose result is received in a later birth), and the principle within it is hard to know (it is not something that can be wholly seen in this life).

Or else there are those who suffer none of these disasters and are born in safety, whose bodies are like a fresh sore, fine and soft and hard to touch. At this time it is either the mother who loves the child or some other woman who, with two hands rough as a knife or as ashes, takes the infant up, washes and wipes it, and settles it comfortably; then puts clear butter in its mouth and gives it the mother’s milk, and gradually accustoms it to take fine and coarse food; and so, growing in order by turns, it reaches the stage where the faculties are mature and again arouses the afflictions and accumulates the several actions. Because of this, when the body is destroyed and life ends, there is again the continuity of intermediate existence as stated above, going on to yet another world.

Thus afflictions and action being the cause there is birth; and birth having taken place, it is again the cause from which afflictions and action arise; and from these afflictions and action there is again birth — and so it is known that the wheel of birth and death revolves round and round without a beginning.

If someone should maintain that birth and death have a beginning, then that beginning would have to be without a cause; and the beginning being without a cause, everything else too should arise of itself without a cause. Yet we plainly see that sprouts and the rest arise from seeds and the rest, and that place and season are determined (a seed of this place and this season produces a sprout of this place and this season). And again, through fire and the rest, there arise ripening and alteration and so forth. From this it is known that there is definitely no dharma that arises without a cause.

As for the position that maintains a constantly abiding cause (such as Īśvara), it has already been refuted above.

Therefore birth and death definitely have no first beginning, and yet they have a last edge, because the cause can be exhausted. Since birth depends upon a cause, when the cause is destroyed the result produced must perish; the principle definitely must be so. It is as when a seed is destroyed the sprout certainly does not grow.

〔Root 20〕The Twelve Links and the Three Periods — a Table of the Segments of Birth and Death

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Such a continuity of the aggregates as this is established as stages with reference to three lives (past, present, and future). The stanza says:

Stanza: Such several dependent originations are twelve links in all, divided into three periods; the earlier and the later period have two links each, and the eight links of the middle period are stated on the basis of one who is complete.

Treatise: The twelve links are: first, ignorance; second, the formations; third, consciousness; fourth, name-and-form; fifth, the six sense fields; sixth, contact; seventh, feeling; eighth, craving; ninth, grasping; tenth, existence; eleventh, birth; twelfth, aging-and-death.

As for the three periods: first the earlier period, second the later period, third the middle period — that is, the three lives past, future, and present.

Question: how are these twelve links established upon the three periods?

Answer: the earlier and the later period have two links established for each and the middle period eight, and so together they make twelve. Ignorance and the formations are in the earlier period, birth and aging-and-death in the later period, and the remaining eight in the middle period.

Question: are these eight links of the middle period present in full in all sentient beings within this one life?

Answer: they are not all present.

Question: if that is so, why is it said that there are eight links?

Answer: it is stated on the basis of ‘one who is complete.’ The sense here is this: a person (a sentient being) who has passed through all the stages is called one who is complete; it does not mean those who die untimely along the way, nor sentient beings of the form and formless realms, but is stated only with reference to persons of the desire realm. For the Great Sūtra of Dependent Origination says that they (those of womb-birth in the desire realm) have these eight links.

That sūtra says that the Buddha told Ānanda: ‘If consciousness did not enter the womb, would name-and-form be able to grow and increase?’ ‘It would not, World-Honored One!’ and so at length.

Again, sometimes only a twofold dependent origination is stated: first what is gathered into the earlier period, second what is gathered into the later period. The first seven links belong to what is gathered into the earlier period, that is, ignorance through feeling; the latter five links belong to what is gathered into the later period, that is, from craving to aging-and-death — because the two segments, earlier and later, are gathered each by the two divisions of cause and result (the first seven being one round of cause and result, the latter five a second round).

〔Roots 21–24〕What Each of the Twelve Links Has for Its Entity — One Link, One Stage, and Every Stage the Five Aggregates

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Ignorance and the rest, what dharma has each of the links for its entity? The stanza says:

Stanza: The stage of the afflictions in a past life is called ignorance; the several actions in a past life are called the formations; the five aggregates of that single moment at the very rebirth-linking are called consciousness; the stretch before the six sense fields arise is called name-and-form; from the six sense fields there arise the eye and the other faculties (before faculty, object, and consciousness have met), and this is called the six sense fields; having reached the meeting of three and not yet knowing the differences among the causes of the three feelings is called contact; the stretch before sexual craving is called feeling; craving for goods and the operation of sexual craving is called craving; ranging in pursuit everywhere for the getting of all manner of objects is called grasping; ‘existence’ is the actually making of the action that draws forth the result of a coming life; the linking of a coming body is called birth; and up to the stage of undergoing aging and death in the coming life is called aging-and-death.

Treatise: The several stages of the afflictions in a past life, whose result has matured in this present life, are named in sum ‘ignorance’ — because those afflictions operated at the same time as ignorance, and it was by the force of ignorance that they were able to operate. It is like saying ‘the king goes forth’: it is not that there are no outriders and no retinue, but only that the king goes together with them and the king is the most honored, and so it is stated in sum as ‘the king’s going forth’ (one stage of five aggregates with ignorance alone singled out — the sense is as in this simile).

The stages of meritorious action, demeritorious action, and the rest in a past life, whose result has matured in this present life, get in sum the name ‘the formations.’ The word ‘stage’ in the first line of the stanza runs on all the way to the last link, aging-and-death (every link being established with reference to a stage).

At the very rebirth-linking in the mother’s womb and the like, the five aggregates at that stage of a single moment are called ‘consciousness.’

After the consciousness of rebirth-linking and before the six sense fields arise, all the intervening stages together are called ‘name-and-form.’

(Someone asks:) Here it ought to say ‘before four sense fields arise’ (since at rebirth-linking the body and mind sense fields already exist, and only the four, eye, ear, nose, and tongue, have not yet arisen); why does it say ‘before the six sense fields’? Answer: because it is established as a name on the basis of the completeness of the six sense fields.

From when the eye and the other faculties have already arisen up to the stage where faculty, object, and consciousness have not yet met, it gets the name ‘the six sense fields.’

Having reached the meeting of the three, and not yet being able to know the differences among the causes of the three feelings (pleasant, painful, and neither painful nor pleasant), this stage is named in sum ‘contact.’

Having already known the marks of difference among the causes of the three feelings, and sexual greed not yet having arisen, this stage is called ‘feeling.’

Craving for fine goods, with sexual craving in operation, and yet not pursuing them widely, this stage is called ‘craving.’

Ranging in pursuit everywhere for the getting of all manner of fine and excellent objects, this stage is called ‘grasping.’

Because of that ranging pursuit, accumulating the action that can draw forth the result of a coming life, this stage is called ‘existence.’

By the force of that action, casting off life here and linking the coming body, this stage is called ‘birth.’

The link of birth in the coming life, just as the link of consciousness does in this present life, grows gradually after the moment of arising, up to the stage of feeling in the coming life, and this in sum is named ‘aging-and-death.’ Such aging-and-death is equivalent to the four links name-and-form, the six sense fields, contact, and feeling of this present life (the same content, gathered under the single name aging-and-death in the later period).

The analysis of the separate entities of the twelve links is just this.

Treatise (continued): Further, dependent origination may be stated as four by difference: first, momentary dependent origination; second, dependent origination of unbroken linkage; third, dependent origination by stages; fourth, dependent origination of remote continuance.

Question: what is momentary dependent origination?

Answer: in the space of a single instant, in doing a killing out of greed, the twelve links are complete: delusion is ignorance; volition is the formations; the discerning of the several objects and matters is consciousness; the three aggregates arising together with consciousness (feeling, perception, and the formations) are named in sum name-and-form; the faculties resting upon name-and-form are the six sense fields; the six sense fields meeting with the rest (object and consciousness) give contact; the receiving of contact is feeling; greed is craving; the several bonds associated with greed are grasping; the actions of body and speech that are aroused are existence; the arising of these dharmas is named birth; their ripening and altering are named aging; and their destruction is named death.

Other masters say further: momentary dependent origination and dependent origination of unbroken linkage, as the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas states them, both run through all conditioned dharmas.

All the five aggregates at the several stages of the twelve links are gathered under dependent origination by stages.

This same remote continuity, unbroken from beginningless time, is called dependent origination of remote continuance.

〔First Half of Root 25〕Which of Them the World-Honored One Spoke With Reference To — the Weight of the Words “Transmitted and Allowed”

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): What did the World-Honored One here (in stating the twelve links of dependent origination) mean to speak of? The stanza says:

Stanza: So it is transmitted, and it is allowed: it was stated with reference to stages; and the name of the link is established from what is most eminent.

Treatise: So it is transmitted, and it is allowed: the World-Honored One spoke of the several dependent originations as having twelve links solely with reference to stages.

Question: if within each and every link the five aggregates are complete, why are only the names ‘ignorance’ and the rest established?

Answer: because at each of the stages ignorance and the rest are the most eminent. The names ignorance and the rest are established from what is most eminent — that is, if at a certain stage ignorance is the most eminent, the five aggregates of that stage are named in sum ignorance; and so on, until at a certain stage aging-and-death is the most eminent, and the five aggregates of that stage are named in sum aging-and-death. Hence though the entity is one in sum (all being the five aggregates), that the names are separate is no fault.

Question: on what ground do these twelve links stated in scripture differ from what the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas states?

Answer: as that treatise says, ‘What is dependent origination? It is all conditioned dharmas,’ and so at length (a range far wider than the twelve links). The sūtrānta (the sūtras) speak with reference to a particular intent, while the Abhidharma states things according to the marks of dharmas, and so the manner of their statement differs.

Thus the four kinds of dependent origination — by stages, momentary, of remote continuance, and of unbroken linkage — are all only within the class of sentient beings (only sentient beings have these four). The difference of sentient and insentient lies just here (whereas the dependent origination stated by the Abhidharma runs through the insentient as well).

〔Second Half of Root 25〕Why Scripture Speaks Only of Sentient Beings — In Order to Remove the Doubt over the Three Periods

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Why do the sūtras speak only of the dependent origination of sentient beings? The stanza says:

Stanza: It is with reference to the earlier, the later, and the middle period, in order to dispel another’s bewilderment.

Treatise: It is in order to dispel another’s bewilderment over the three periods. The difference of the three periods exists only in sentient beings (the insentient have no such doubt about turning through the three times).

Question: what is a sentient being’s bewilderment over the earlier period?

Answer: it is to arouse such a doubt as this about the earlier period: ‘Was I in the past world existent or not existent? What sort of I was I? How was it that I was?’

Question: what is a sentient being’s bewilderment over the later period?

Answer: it is to arouse such a doubt as this about the later period: ‘Shall I in the future world be existent or not existent? What sort of I shall I be? How shall it be that I am?’

Question: what is a sentient being’s bewilderment over the middle period?

Answer: it is to arouse such a doubt as this about the middle period: ‘What is I? How is this I? Whose is this I? Whom shall I have?’

It is in order to remove such bewilderment over the three periods that scripture speaks only of the dependent origination of sentient beings, stating in their order ignorance and the formations, and birth and aging-and-death, and stating consciousness through existence (the two links of the earlier period answering the doubt about the earlier period, the two of the later answering the doubt about the later, and the eight of the middle answering the doubt about the middle).

Question: why is it said so?

Answer: because the sūtras say: ‘Listen well, monks! If a monk can see, with true and correct discernment as they really are, the several dependent originations and the dharmas that have already arisen from conditions, he will certainly not be bewildered over the three periods — that is, he will no longer arouse doubts of the kind 〔Was I in the past world existent or not existent?〕.’

Other masters say: the three links craving, grasping, and existence are also for the removing of another’s bewilderment over the later period, because these three are all causes of the later period.

〔Root 26〕Three Afflictions, Two Actions, Seven Entities — Another Way of Cutting the Twelve Links

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It should be known further that although the doctrinal gate of dependent origination stated here has twelve links, its natures are only three classes and two — the three classes being affliction, action, and entity, and the two being result and cause. What does this mean? The stanza says:

Stanza: Three links are afflictions, two links are action, and seven links are entities and are also named results; the later period states the result in brief and the earlier period states the cause in brief, for from the middle period the two other periods may be inferred.

Treatise: The three links ignorance, craving, and grasping have affliction for their nature; the two links the formations and existence have action for their nature; and the remaining seven links, consciousness and the rest, have entity for their nature — because they are the entities on which afflictions and action rest.

Thus these seven entities are at the same time also named ‘results’; and it follows by implication that the remaining five links (the three afflictions and the two actions) are at the same time also named ‘causes,’ because they have afflictions and action for their own nature.

Question: on what ground does the middle period state result and cause at length (eight links being listed in the middle period)?

Answer: because the middle period opens ‘entity’ into five links (consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense fields, contact, and feeling) and ‘affliction’ into two links (craving and grasping). The later period states the result in brief, because there the entities are only two links (birth and aging-and-death); the earlier period states the cause in brief, because there the affliction is only one link (ignorance). Since the middle period is stated at length, the earlier and later periods may be inferred from it; and the sense at length being already established, they need not be stated separately, for to state them would be of no use.

Treatise (a further question): If the links of dependent origination are twelve only, then, a result of aging-and-death not being stated, birth and death should have an end; and a cause of ignorance not being stated, birth and death should have a beginning. Or else other links of dependent origination should be established; and those others would have yet others, and so it would become the fault of infinity, and therefore they should not be established.

Answer: yet there is not the fault stated above, because here the World-Honored One has already shown it by way of the sense.

Question: how is it already shown? The stanza says:

〔Root 27〕From an Affliction an Affliction Is Produced — the Five Modes of Mutual Production among the Twelve Links

Stanza: From an affliction an affliction is produced, and from an affliction an action; from action an entity is produced; from an entity an entity is produced, and from an entity an affliction. The principle of the links of existence is only this.

Treatise: From an affliction an affliction is produced, that is, craving produces grasping. From an affliction an action is produced, that is, grasping produces existence, and ignorance produces the formations. From action an entity is produced, that is, the formations produce consciousness, and existence produces birth. From an entity an entity is produced, that is, from the link of consciousness name-and-form is produced, and so on to contact producing the link of feeling, and the link of birth producing aging-and-death. From an entity an affliction is produced, that is, feeling produces craving. By establishing the link ‘existence,’ the principle within it is only this (the five modes of mutual production being exhaustive).

Thus it has already been shown that aging-and-death is a cause of entity and of affliction (aging-and-death can produce affliction and action, and so birth and death have no end), and shown too that ignorance is a result of entity and of affliction (ignorance comes from aging-and-death, and so birth and death have no beginning) — because ignorance and aging-and-death are themselves of the natures of entity and of affliction. This being so, what need is there to establish yet other links of dependent origination? Hence scripture says: ‘Thus is the origination of the sheer great mass of suffering.’ Were this not the meaning, what use would this sentence be?

Treatise (a further party’s explanation, one): There is another explanation which says: another sūtra states that ‘improper attention’ is the cause of ignorance, and that ignorance in turn produces improper attention (so that ignorance has a cause and no further link need be established). And improper attention is also gathered under the link of grasping, and so it too is reckoned as stated within this sūtra.

(The author objects to this:) How can this improper attention be gathered under the link of grasping? If it is said to be so because it is associated with grasping, then craving and ignorance too should be reckoned as gathered under the link of grasping (being likewise associated). And granting even that it is gathered under the link of grasping, how does that prove that improper attention is the cause of ignorance? If a relation of cause and result is established merely by being ‘gathered under the link of grasping,’ then craving and ignorance are likewise gathered under the link of grasping, and they should not have been established as separate links of dependent origination.

Treatise (a further party’s explanation, two): Someone explains further: another sūtra states that improper attention is the cause of ignorance and that ignorance in turn produces improper attention; and improper attention is stated at the stage of ‘contact,’ and so another sūtra says, ‘from eye and form as condition delusion (ignorance) arises, and the defiled attention thus produced’ — because this attention at the stage of feeling must draw forth ignorance. And another sūtra says: ‘Conditioned by the feelings produced by contact accompanied by ignorance, craving arises.’ Hence at the stage of contact, improper attention operates together with feeling and has ignorance for its condition. In this way ignorance has not the fault of being ‘without a cause,’ nor is it necessary to establish other links of dependent origination. And the links of dependent origination have not the fault of infinity either, because improper attention is produced from delusion (ignorance). As a sūtra says: ‘From eye and form as condition delusion arises, and the defiled attention thus produced.’

(The author objects to this:) Though another sūtra has such trustworthy words, yet within this sūtra it should still be stated further (since this sūtra means to dispel bewilderment over the three periods, it should have stated cause and result to the end).

(The other party answers:) It need not be stated further.

(The author asks:) How is it known that it need not be stated further?

(The other party answers:) It may be known by reasoning.

(The author asks:) By what reasoning?

(The other party answers:) Apart from ignorance, feeling cannot serve as the condition of craving, because the feeling of an arhat does not produce craving; and again, an uninverted contact cannot serve as the condition of a defiled feeling, nor can there be an inverted contact apart from ignorance, because an arhat’s contact is not inverted. By such reasoning as evidence, it is therefore known (that it need not be stated further).

(The author objects to this:) If it were so, then there would be the fault of proving too much — whatever can be known as evidence by correct reasoning would all not need to be stated further (and then what would scripture be stating?). Hence what they say cannot be established as an explanation of the previous objection.

Treatise (the correct explanation): Yet the objection stated above — that ‘scripture does not separately state that aging-and-death has a result and that ignorance has a cause, and so birth and death come to have an end and a beginning’ — is not reasonable, because the intent of the sūtra lies elsewhere. Nor is it that the principle stated is incomplete.

Why so? Because this sūtra is only for the removing of the bewilderment of those it converts over the three periods. Since those it converts arouse only such a doubt as this: ‘How do sentient beings continue through the three times? That is, from a former life this present life is born, and this present life can again be born in a later life’ — the Tathāgata, only in order to remove this doubt of theirs, states the twelve links, as has already been analyzed above; that is, ‘in the earlier, the later, and the middle period, in order to dispel another’s bewilderment.’

Treatise (appended: analyzing two names): As the World-Honored One told the monks: ‘I shall state for you the dharma of dependent origination and the dharmas that have already arisen from conditions.’

Question: what is the difference between these two?

Answer: according to the text of this treatise (the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas), there is no difference between these two, because both are said to gather all dharmas.

Question: future dharmas that have not yet arisen — how can they be said, along with the past and present, to be ‘what has already arisen from conditions’?

(He is counter-objected to thus:) A future dharma that has not yet been made — how then can it be called ‘conditioned’ along with the past and present (the name ‘conditioned’ being one you do allow to be used of future dharmas)?

Answer: because it has already been made by the force of an effective volition.

Question: if that is so, how is an undefiled dharma reckoned as conditioned (the undefiled not being made by the action of volition)?

Answer: that too has already been made by the force of a wholesome volition.

Question: if that is so, then as regards the attaining of nirvāṇa it should be so as well (nirvāṇa too becoming conditioned)?

Answer: in strict principle it should be said that it is ‘stated with reference to class’ — just as what has not yet deteriorated (future form) also gets the name ‘form,’ so, the class being the same, there is no fault in speaking thus.

〔First Half of Root 28〕Dependent Origination and What Has Already Arisen from Conditions — Two Faces of One Link

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Now, however, the meaning of the sūtra is to be explained properly. The stanza says:

Stanza: What the sense of the sūtra here properly states is: the face of cause is called dependent origination, and the face of result is called what has already arisen from conditions.

Treatise: The ‘cause-portion’ of the links is called dependent origination, because with it for condition a result can be originated; the ‘result-portion’ of the links is called what has already arisen from conditions, because they are all produced from conditions.

Thus upon all the links both senses hold, because the links all have the two natures of cause and of result.

Question: if it is set up thus, then the two should not hold at the same time (one dharma should not be both cause and result)?

Answer: it is not so, because what is regarded differs. That is to say, if this side is regarded and it is named what has already arisen from conditions, then it is not that at the same time that side is regarded and it is also named dependent origination — just like the names cause and result, father and son, and the like (one and the same person is a son regarded toward the father and a father regarded toward the son).

Treatise (a further party’s account): The sense intended by the Venerable Wangman is this: among dharmas some are dependent origination and not what has already arisen from conditions, and a fourfold analysis should be made. The first alternative (dependent origination and not what has already arisen from conditions) refers to future dharmas; the second alternative (what has already arisen from conditions and not dependent origination) refers to the past and present dharmas at the stage of an arhat’s last thought (after which no result can be originated); the third alternative (both) refers to the remaining past and present dharmas; the fourth alternative (neither) refers to the unconditioned dharmas.

Treatise (the Sautrāntikas’ objection): The Sautrāntika masters state it thus: is what is stated here (dependent origination by stages) a report of your own opinion, or is it the sense of the sūtra? If it is said to be the sense of the sūtra, then the sense of the sūtra is not such.

Why so? What was stated above as dependent origination by stages, taking twelve sets of five aggregates for the twelve links, contradicts the sūtras, because the sūtras state it otherwise. As a sūtra says: ‘What is ignorance? It is the absence of knowledge regarding the earlier period,’ and so at length (stating only the absence of knowledge, not the five aggregates). This is a statement of definitive meaning, and it may not be forced down into an interpretable one. Hence the dependent origination by stages stated above contradicts the sense of the sūtra.

(The Sarvāstivādins answer:) It is not that all sūtras are of definitive meaning; some are stated in accordance with what is most eminent. It is as the Sūtra of the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint says: ‘What is the inner earth element? It is hair, down, nails, and the rest.’ Although there are not lacking other dharmas of form and the rest there, it states only what is most eminent. Here too it should be so.

(The Sautrāntikas object:) What is adduced cannot serve as evidence. For that sūtra is not making the ‘earth element’ analyze hair, down, and the rest so as to be an incomplete statement; that sūtra analyzes the earth element by hair, down, and the rest, and there is no earth element apart from hair, down, and the rest, and so that sūtra is a complete statement. The links ignorance and the rest stated in this sūtra should likewise be reckoned a complete statement — apart from what is stated there is nothing further (so that ignorance is just the absence of knowledge and does not include the five aggregates).

(The Sarvāstivādins object:) Does not the earth element go beyond hair, down, and the rest, its entity being present also in mucus and tears and so forth (in which case hair, down, and the rest do not exhaust the earth element, and that sūtra is still stating only what is most eminent)?

(The Sautrāntikas resolve the objection:) Mucus and the rest are also stated within that sūtra — as the sūtra says, ‘there are yet other things in the body’ (the words ‘other things’ gathering in mucus, tears, and the rest, which shows that that sūtra is still a complete statement). And granting even that we allow what you say, that apart from hair, down, and the rest there is a separate earth element, then apart from ignorance there should be some further ignorance, and it should now be exhibited (whereas apart from ignorance there is no other ignorance).

(The Sautrāntikas demand further:) If a thing of a different class is put inside ‘ignorance,’ what good does this do?

(The Sautrāntikas establish the principle and conclude their own sense:) Although at all the stages there are the five aggregates, yet only where the relation holds of ‘this being or not being, that definitely is or is not’ may this dharma be established as a link of that dharma. Or else there are cases where the five aggregates are present and the formations are not (the three, meritorious, demeritorious, and imperturbable formations, being all absent, as with an arhat), or where consciousness and so on to craving and the rest are absent; and so the sense of the sūtra is just as it is stated (ignorance and the rest having the absence of knowledge and the rest for their entities, and the links not being established by the force of the five aggregates).

(The Sautrāntikas go on to refute Wangman’s four alternatives:) The fourfold analysis so stated is likewise unreasonable in principle. If future dharmas are not what has already arisen from conditions, then it contradicts a sūtra. For a sūtra says: ‘What are the dharmas that have already arisen from conditions? They are ignorance, the formations, and so on to birth and aging-and-death.’ Or else it would have to be disallowed that two links are in the future (birth and aging-and-death being in the later period), and thus the three periods established above would be wrecked.

Treatise (some say dependent origination is unconditioned): Some say: dependent origination is an unconditioned dharma. For the sūtras say: ‘Whether a Tathāgata appears in the world or does not appear, such is the abiding constancy of the dharma-nature of dependent origination.’

Answer: understood with the former intent, the principle may still be granted; understood with the other intent, the principle may not be granted.

Question: what is ‘such an intent’? And what is ‘the other intent’? — that it should be said to be grantable and not grantable.

Answer: if the intent stated is that, whether a Tathāgata appears in the world or does not appear, the formations and the rest constantly arise with ignorance and the rest for condition, and not with other dharmas for condition, nor with no condition at all to be got — and that it is for this that ‘abiding constancy’ is said; if the intent is such, the principle may be granted.

If the intent stated is that there is besides an entity of a dharma named ‘dependent origination,’ limpidly abiding and constant and unchanging — with such another intent as this the principle may not be granted. Why so? Because ‘arising’ and ‘origination’ are both marks of the conditioned (the very name dependent origination containing the sense of origination). It is not that there is besides a constantly abiding dharma that can serve as the mark of what is impermanent; this does not accord with correct principle. And further, ‘origination’ must be established in dependence upon ‘what originates’ — what relation or connection has this constantly abiding dharma with ignorance and the rest, that it should be said to be established in dependence on them and to be their dependent origination? And again, to name it ‘dependent origination’ and yet say that it points at a constant dharma — such a sense of the phrase has no reasonable correspondence.

Treatise (the science of sounds explains the name): Here, what is the sense of the phrase ‘dependent origination’ (as regards the structure of the language)?

Answer: ‘prati’ has the sense of ‘reaching (arriving at),’ and the verbal root ‘i’ has the sense of ‘going’; by the helping force of the former word the sense of the root is altered, and so ‘going’ is altered through ‘reaching’ into ‘dependent.’ ‘sam’ has the sense of conjoining, ‘ud’ the sense of rising, and the verbal root ‘pad’ the sense of ‘being’; and ‘being,’ by borrowing conjoining and rising, is altered into ‘origination.’ Because of this, a dharma having reached its condition conjoins and rises — and this is the sense of ‘dependent origination.’

Treatise (an objection set): Such a sense of the phrase does not stand to reason. Why so? Because in this way there would be two operations upon one and the same agent (first reaching, afterwards arising), and then the former operation should have the word ‘already,’ as when a man ‘having bathed’ then eats (two matters with a before and an after). Yet there is not the least dharma of the formations that can exist before arising, first reaching its condition and only afterwards arising; and where there is no agent, there cannot possibly be an operation. Hence a stanza says:

Quoted stanza: If ‘reaching the condition’ is prior to ‘origination,’ then (at that time the dharma of the formations) does not exist, and this is unreasonable; and if the two are simultaneous, then the word ‘already’ falls to nothing — for the word ‘already’ indicates that the former should be stated first.

Treatise (answering this objection): There is not such a fault. Let the masters of the science of sounds be counter-questioned: at what time does a dharma arise? In the present, or in the future?

(The masters of the science of sounds ask back:) And what fault is there in asking so?

Answer: if arising is in the present — arising is then not ‘already arisen’ (what is in the act of arising, how is it already arisen?), and how can it be present? The present is what has already arisen, and how then is it still ‘arising’? And if what has already arisen arises again, this leads to infinity. If arising is in the future — at that time the dharma does not yet exist, and how can it be an agent? And the agent being absent, whence any operation?

Therefore at the very stage of ‘arising’ it also ‘reaches the condition.’

Question: what is the ‘stage of arising’?

Answer: it is the time when the formations of the future world are in the act of arising; and at just this stage it is also said to ‘reach the condition’ (not two times, before and after).

Further, the ‘agent’ and the ‘operation’ that the masters of the science of sounds falsely set up are, in strict principle, not established: ‘being’ is the agent and ‘origination’ the operation, yet within this there is seen no real agent, other than the operation of ‘arising,’ that can truly be got at. Hence this way of speaking is merely without error in worldly speech (there being no agent in the ultimate sense).

Treatise (adducing scripture as proof): The sense of this ‘dependent origination’ is just what is stated as ‘this being, that is; this arising, that arises,’ and so that sentence of the sūtra should be adduced to explain the sense of dependent origination. Hence a stanza says:

Quoted stanza: Just as (you say that a dharma of the formations) does not exist and yet can arise, so ‘reaching the condition’ too should be so (not existing and yet able to reach); if it is said that only after arising is it called origination, this becomes infinity; and whether prior existence or prior nonexistence be said, both alike have the problem of the word ‘already.’ It is like saying ‘darkness arriving, the lamp has already gone out’ and ‘the mouth having been opened, one sleeps’ (two matters simultaneous, and yet the word ‘already’ is used); and if sleep be said to come after, then the mouth would have to be shut (from which it is seen that the two matters are in fact simultaneous).

Treatise (a further explanation by another party): Someone holds to a further sense in explaining this objection: ‘prati’ has the sense of ‘variety,’ and the verbal root ‘i’ has the sense of ‘not abiding’; and ‘not abiding,’ by the helping force of ‘variety,’ becomes ‘dependent.’ ‘sam’ has the sense of gathering, ‘ud’ the sense of rising, and the verbal root ‘pad’ the sense of ‘going’; and because ‘ud’ comes first, ‘going’ becomes ‘origination.’ This is to say that a variety of conditions conjoin and make the dharmas of the formations gather and rise, and this is the sense of ‘dependent origination.’

(The author objects to this:) An explanation such as this may perhaps still be granted here (with the twelve links); but where ‘eye and form each being a condition, an eye-consciousness arises’ and the like, how is what is called a ‘gathering of variety’ to be established within it (there being only the two conditions eye and form — whence any variety)?

Treatise (explaining the two sentences of the sūtra): Question: on what ground did the World-Honored One state those two sentences above, namely ‘this being, that is’ and ‘this arising, that arises’?

Answer: first, in order that people should know dependent origination to be fixed and unshifting. As is stated elsewhere: in dependence upon ignorance there are the formations, and it is not that apart from ignorance there can be formations. Second, further, in order to show the successive production of the links — that is, in dependence upon this link being, that link comes to be; and by that link arising, the remaining links come to arise. Third, further, in order to show the successive production of the three periods — that is, in dependence upon the earlier period being, the middle period comes to be; and by the middle period arising, the later period comes to arise. Fourth, further, in order to show the two conditions, the immediate and the mediate — that is, ignorance being, the formations arise without interval (the immediate condition); or else it is by a force passing through intermediaries that the formations arise (the mediate condition).

Treatise (another party’s explanation): Other masters explain: these two sentences are for refuting the two positions of ‘no cause’ and ‘a constant cause’ — that is, it is not that the formations can be without a cause, nor is it that by a constantly abiding intrinsic nature, a self, and the like as an unproduced cause the formations come to arise.

(The author objects to this:) If it were so, the first sentence would become useless, since by the second sentence alone, ‘this arising, that arises,’ both ‘no cause’ and ‘a constant cause’ could be refuted at once.

(The author explains for himself:) Yet perhaps someone holds that ‘with a self as support the formations and the rest come to be, and by ignorance and the rest as the cause-portion producing them the formations and the rest come to arise.’ Therefore the World-Honored One, in order to remove such a holding, decisively adjudicates: the being of a result is by its cause of arising (and there is no other support). And ‘this arising, that arises’ is ‘this being, that is’ — it is not that the being of a result depends besides upon some other cause. That is, ignorance conditions the formations, and so on until such is the origination of the sheer great mass of suffering.

Treatise (the preceptor masters’ explanation): The preceptor masters explain these two sentences as being for the showing of the ‘unbrokenness’ and the ‘arising’ of cause and result — that is, in dependence upon ignorance being unbroken the formations are unbroken; and it is just by ignorance arising that the formations come to arise. And so by turns it should all be stated at length.

Treatise (yet another explanation): Someone explains: it is for showing the ‘abiding’ and the ‘arising’ of cause and result — that is, so long as the cause continues to exist, the result continues to exist; and it is just by the cause-portion arising that the several result-portions arise.

(The author objects to this:) Since it is ‘arising’ that is here to be analyzed, on what ground is ‘abiding’ stated? And why should the Buddha break the order in stating it — stating ‘abiding’ first and only afterwards ‘arising’ (whereas by ordinary reason arising should come first and abiding after)?

Treatise (there is a further explanation): Someone explains further: ‘this being, that is’ means that in dependence upon the result being, the cause has its ceasing (the result having arisen, the cause then passes away); and ‘this arising, that arises’ is lest someone should doubt that the result arises without a cause, and so it is further said that by the cause arising the result comes to be aroused, and not without a cause.

(The author objects to this:) If the sense of the sūtra were so, then it should be stated thus: ‘this being, that ceases and is not.’ And it should first say ‘the cause arising, the result arises,’ and only then may it say ‘in dependence upon the result being, the cause ceases and is not’ — in such an order it would be called well stated. If it were not so, then, since dependent origination is what is to be analyzed, on what order would ‘the ceasing of the cause’ be stated first? Hence what they explain is not the sense of this sūtra.

Treatise (the Sautrāntikas set out the entities of the twelve links): Further, what is it for ignorance to condition the formations, and so at length to birth conditioning aging-and-death? I shall now briefly show what conforms to the sense of the sūtra.

That is to say: the several fools, regarding the dharmas arisen from conditions, do not know that within them there is only ‘the formations’ (the flowing on of conditioned dharmas), and falsely arouse the holding of the view of self and the conceit of self. For the sake of their own undergoing pleasant feeling, or of undergoing feeling neither painful nor pleasant, they make the three kinds of action, of body, of speech, and of mind — that is, for the sake of their own undergoing pleasure in the coming life they make the several meritorious actions; for the sake of undergoing feeling neither painful nor pleasant in the coming life they make imperturbable action (the action of the absorptions of the form and formless realms); and for the sake of undergoing present pleasure they make demeritorious action. Such is what is called ‘ignorance conditioning the formations.’

By the force of the projecting action, the continuous stream of consciousness goes on as the going of a flame, to this destiny and to that; and relying upon intermediate existence it hastens to the place where it is to be born and links a birth-existence into a body — and this is called ‘the formations conditioning consciousness.’ Explained in this way, it accords well with the statement of the sūtras that analyze the link of consciousness as running through the six consciousnesses, because consciousness comes first.

Within that destiny name-and-form arises, complete in the five aggregates, continuing by turns, and running through the whole of one term of life — and there are statements to this effect in the Great Sūtra of Causes and Conditions, the Sūtra Analyzing Dependent Origination, and other sūtras.

When name-and-form has thus gradually matured and is complete in the eye and the other faculties, it is called ‘the six sense fields.’

Next, the six sense fields meet with their objects and consciousness arises; and by the meeting of the three there is contact conducive to pleasure and the rest.

In dependence upon this contact there arise the three feelings, pleasant and the rest.

From these three feelings the three cravings are drawn forth — that is, one oppressed by suffering arouses craving for desire toward pleasant feeling; or one arouses craving for form toward pleasant feeling and toward feeling neither painful nor pleasant; or one arouses craving for the formless toward feeling neither painful nor pleasant alone.

From the craving that delights in and seeks feeling there arise the four kinds of grasping beginning with the grasping of desire. Among these, ‘desire’ means the five fine desires (form, sound, smell, taste, and touch); ‘views’ means the sixty-two views, as stated at length in the Brahmajāla Sūtra; ‘rules’ means keeping away from bad discipline; and ‘observances’ means the observances of dogs and of oxen and the like (the wrong practices of imitating a dog or an ox). For instance, the several Nirgrantha non-Buddhists (those who go naked) and the brahmins, the Pāśupatas, the Parivrājakas, and non-Buddhists of other classes undertake all manner of meaningless austerities — going with the body bare, plucking out the hair, wearing the skin of a black deer, binding up the hair and smearing on ashes, holding a triple staff, cutting off beard and hair, and the like. ‘Talk of a self’ means the inner body, because in dependence upon it a self is spoken of.

Other masters say: the view of self and the conceit of self are called ‘talk of a self.’

Question: on what ground are these two alone called ‘talk of a self’?

Answer: because it is by these two that a self is said to be; and the self does not really exist, and so it is called ‘talk of a self’ (mere speech and no more). As a sūtra says: ‘Monks, you should know! The several classes of ordinary beings, foolish and unlearned, arouse the grasping of self in accordance with provisional speech, and within it there is truly no self nor what belongs to a self.’

Among the four kinds of grasping above, ‘grasping’ means desire-greed. Hence the Bhagavat explains in the sūtras: ‘What is grasping? It is what is called desire-greed.’

Because grasping is the condition, the several actions that call forth a coming existence are accumulated, and this is called ‘existence.’ As the World-Honored One told Ānanda: ‘The action that calls forth a coming existence is called existence.’

Because existence is the condition, the continuous stream of consciousness goes toward a future birth; and as in the principle stated above, being complete in the five aggregates it is called ‘birth.’

With birth as condition there is aging-and-death; and the differences of its marks are as stated at length in the sūtras.

The word ‘sheer’ shows that there is only the formations and no self nor what belongs to a self; the words ‘great mass of suffering’ show that the accumulation of suffering has neither beginning nor end; and the word ‘origination’ is to show the arising of the masses of suffering.

As for the account of the Vaibhāṣika school, it has already been stated above.

〔Second Half of Root 28〕What Ignorance Is — It Is Not “the Absence of Clear Knowing”

Treatise (opening the question): The first link of the twelvefold dependent origination is called “ignorance.” What does ignorance mean? Answer: its entity is not clear knowing (“clear knowing” is the discernment that illumines the four truths).

Someone at once objects: if whatever is “not clear knowing” is called ignorance, then the eye, the ear, and the other faculties are also not clear knowing — would they not all become ignorance?

Then let it be put another way: this being so, the word “ignorance” ought to mean “the absence of clear knowing” (clear knowing not being there, that is called ignorance).

And again someone objects: if that is so, ignorance becomes a mere “absence,” and would not its own entity then be something that does not exist? (An “absence” cannot act as a condition to give rise to the link of formations.)

In order to show that ignorance does indeed have an entity of its own, and that the sense of that entity is not to be confused with anything else, the author speaks the stanza below:

Stanza: Ignorance is that which is counteracted by “clear knowing” — just as with the usage of such words as “not a kinsman” and “not true.”

Treatise: Just as the enemy whom each man’s friends and kinsmen face is called “not a friend and kinsman” because he stands directly opposed to friends and kinsmen. This “not a friend and kinsman” is neither “any person whatever other than friends and kinsmen” (in which case a stranger would count as one) nor “the absence of friends and kinsmen” (in which case it would not be a really existent object).

In the same way, speaking the truth is called “true,” and that kind of false and deceitful speech which stands directly counteracted by it is called “not true.” This “not true” is neither “any speech whatever other than true speech” nor “the absence of truth.”

The word “and the rest” in the stanza is meant to take in such words as “not a dharma,” “not the sense,” and “the nature of not being a real thing,” together with the rest of that kind — their usage is all the same: neither “anything whatever other than that thing” nor “the nonexistence of that thing.”

Thus it is known: ignorance has a real entity of its own besides, and that real entity is precisely the one counteracted by “clear knowing”; it is not “anything whatever other than clear knowing,” nor is it “the nonexistence of clear knowing.”

How is it known that it is indeed so? Because the sūtra says that “with ignorance as condition the link of formations then arises” — whatever can act as a condition must be a dharma possessed of an entity. There are, besides this, further reliable proofs. The stanza says:

〔Root 29〕Four Reasons Proving That Ignorance Has an Entity of Its Own

Stanza: Because the sūtra states it as being a fetter, a bond, and things of that kind; because it is neither bad discernment itself nor view itself; because it can be associated with view; because the sūtra says that it can defile discernment.

Treatise:

First proof · the sūtra states it as fetter and bond. The sūtra lists ignorance among the “fetters,” the “bonds,” the “latent tendencies,” and the “outflows,” “yokes,” and “floods,” and the rest (all these being alternative names for the afflictions). The eye and the other faculties are not afflictions and cannot be entered in the list; and something whose entity is wholly absent could still less be spoken of as a fetter, a bond, or anything of that kind. Therefore there is indeed a further dharma called ignorance.

Second proof · it is not bad discernment. Some hold that ignorance is just bad discernment, and set up their account with a simile: just as a bad wife or a bad child, lacking the virtues a wife or a child should have, is called by people “having no wife or child,” so on this reasoning bad discernment, lacking the virtue of clear knowing, ought likewise to be named “ignorance.” The author does not follow this reading and refutes it straight off: that bad discernment is not ignorance, since there is “view” within it (“view” is a defiled discernment that investigates and decides, such as the view of self and the extreme view), and view is not ignorance. Every defiled discernment is called bad discernment, and since view is contained within bad discernment, it is evident that bad discernment is not the same as ignorance.

Someone then retreats a step and asks: may one then grant that ignorance is “that portion of defiled discernment which is not view”? Answer: one may not, because ignorance and view are able to be associated and arise together.

Third proof · it is associated with view. If ignorance were discernment, it ought not to be associated with view — because two entities of discernment cannot be mutually associated at one time (within a single moment of thought two discernments do not arise together). Since the sūtra grants that ignorance is associated with view, it is evident that ignorance is not discernment.

Fourth proof · it can defile discernment. The sūtra says: “Greedy desire defiles the mind so that it is not liberated; ignorance defiles discernment so that it is not pure.” Discernment cannot itself defile discernment. Just as greed, being of a kind unlike mind, can therefore defile mind, so ignorance too ought to be of a kind unlike discernment, and can therefore defile discernment.

Someone comes to the defense: why should it not be put this way — the several defiled discernments, interspersed among wholesome discernment, make it impure, and this is called “being able to defile,” just as greed defiles the mind and makes the mind not liberated. Must a thing needs arise at that very moment and be associated with mind before it can be called “able to defile”? In truth it is by the force of greed injuring and binding the mind that the mind fails to be liberated; and afterwards, when that perfuming of greed has been turned back and extinguished, the mind is liberated. So it is with ignorance too: it defiles discernment and makes it impure without needing to be associated with discernment, being merely a matter of ignorance injuring and muddying discernment. What contradiction in reasoning is there in analyzing the matter so? And besides, who can shut off another man from analyzing it after his own fashion?

The author then adjudicates: yet there is a further dharma of a kind unlike discernment called ignorance, just as greed is of a kind unlike mind — this account is the better one.

Refuting the view that all afflictions are ignorance. Some hold that all the afflictions are ignorance. This too may be dismissed by the same reasoning as above. If all the afflictions were ignorance, then in the classifications of “fetters” and the rest ignorance ought not to be stated separately in addition; nor ought it to be said that ignorance is associated with view and the rest — since view and the rest are not associated with themselves. Or else one ought also to say “ignorance defiles the mind” (since if every affliction is ignorance, then greed defiling the mind is ignorance defiling the mind as well). And if it be said that here the statement is made with respect to a distinction (taking only one portion of it), then in speaking of “defiling discernment” the general name “ignorance” ought likewise not to have been used.

The mark of ignorance. Since it is granted that ignorance has a further dharma for its entity, its entity-mark ought to be stated. Answer: it is “not comprehending the truths, the real, action, and result” (not being clear about the four truths, the real, and action and its maturation).

Someone presses on: it is still not settled what “not comprehending” means — is it “a further thing other than comprehending,” or is it “the nonexistence of comprehending”? Answer: both accounts are faulty, exactly as was discriminated above in the case of ignorance. The “not comprehending” spoken of here refers to that separate dharma which comprehending counteracts.

He presses further: this is still hard to lay hold of; what after all is its mark? Answer: dharmas of this kind can from the first only be stated so. Just as when elsewhere it is asked “what is the eye?” and the answer is “subtle form, that on which visual consciousness depends” — it can be identified only by way of its function. So it is with ignorance too: only its function can be distinguished.

The account of the Venerable Dharmatrāta. The Venerable Dharmatrāta says: this ignorance is that class-nature of relying on a self which sentient beings have (“class-nature” meaning an inward disposition distinct from the conceit “I am”), and it differs from the conceit “I am.”

Question: what is the entity of this “class”? Answer: the sūtra says, “I now know thus and see thus, and every craving, every view, every class-nature, every clinging to I and mine, every clinging of the conceit ‘I am,’ and every latent tendency have, by attaining the full understanding that is abandonment 〔the full understanding formed by the exhaustive abandoning of the several delusions〕, been extinguished without a shadow left” — and from this it is known that class-nature and the conceit “I am” are two different things.

Question: how is it known that class-nature is ignorance? Answer: because it cannot be stated to be any other one of the afflictions.

Question: may it not then be said to be one of the remaining conceits and the rest? Answer: were this matter to be investigated still more minutely, the discussion would become tangled, and so it stops here.

(Transition): What does “name-and-form,” among the twelve links of dependent origination, mean? Form has already been distinguished above in the Chapter on the Elements, and here only “name” is distinguished. The stanza says:

〔Root 30, First Line〕Name — Why the Four Formless Aggregates Are Called “Name”

Stanza: Name is the four formless aggregates (feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness).

Treatise: Why are the four formless aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness called “name”? Because, following the names established for them and following the force of faculty and object, they turn and change with respect to the sense (the content referred to), and so they are called “name.”

What is meant by “turning and changing following the force of a name”? It means this: following the several names commonly established in the world, they turn and change with respect to each several sense and set it forth in words — as with such names as “ox,” “horse,” “form,” and “taste” (the name being uttered, the mind turns to that content).

He asks again: on what ground exactly are these four aggregates to be signalized by the word “name”? Answer: because upon each several object they turn and change in taking it as their object (“taking as object” being the mind’s reaching out to lay hold of an object); and because they are of a kind like name — for no dharma falls outside the class of form and the class of non-form, and the four aggregates, belonging with name to non-form, resemble name; and further because the four aggregates are subtle and hard to know, and are made manifest only by following names.

Certain other masters say: these four formless aggregates, when this body has been cast off, turn and proceed to another birth, and that manner of turning and changing is like a “name” (a name being transferable from one thing to another), and so they are signalized as “name.”

(Transition): What does “contact” mean? The stanza says:

〔Root 30, Second Line〕Contact — Three Things Meeting Together

Stanza: Contact is of six kinds, and is produced by the meeting of three.

Treatise: Contact is of six kinds, namely eye-contact through to mind-contact (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind each having one contact). And what is this contact? It is what is produced by the meeting of three — faculty, object, and consciousness meeting together, whereupon a further “contact” arises.

Of the arising of the first five contacts it may be said that “three meet,” since the first five faculties, objects, and consciousnesses arise at the same time. But what of mind-contact? The mind-faculty belongs to the past (the mind of the preceding moment, having ceased, serving as mind-faculty), the object of dharmas may belong to the future, and mental consciousness belongs to the present — the three not being at one time, how can this be called “meeting”?

Answer: this is precisely what is called meeting, because “the relation of cause and result” is established in it (the mind-faculty being cause and mental consciousness result). Or else: because they produce one and the same result, they are called meeting — faculty, object, and consciousness alike conducing to the arising of contact, and so being called meeting.

The dispute between two parties. The several masters differ in their views on this matter:

One party says: the meeting of three is itself called contact (there being no further mental factor called contact). They cite scripture in proof, the sūtra saying: “These three dharmas gathered and met together are called contact.”

The other party says: contact is a further dharma associated with mind, produced by the meeting of three, and only so is it called contact. They too cite scripture in proof, the sūtra saying: “What is the gate of the six sixes? First, the six internal sense fields; second, the six external sense fields; third, the six bodies of consciousness; fourth, the six bodies of contact; fifth, the six bodies of feeling; sixth, the six bodies of craving.” In this sūtra, six contacts are stated in addition to faculty, object, and consciousness, from which it is evident that contact has an entity of its own.

The party holding that “the meeting of three is itself contact” answers that sūtra of the six sixes: that is merely stating them apart in addition, and being stated apart does not necessarily mean that there is a further entity — otherwise, when the sūtra, having stated the sense field of dharmas, goes on to state the six feelings and six cravings in addition, would feeling and craving then not be gathered under the sense field of dharmas?

The party holding that “contact has an entity of its own” answers: there is no such fault, because apart from craving, feeling, and contact there are the entities of the remaining dharmas within the sense field of dharmas. And they press back in turn: on your tenet there is no further “three” apart from contact (the meeting of three being contact itself), so you may state “contact” and “three” apart as two things that differ; yet though faculty and object be present, consciousness is not necessarily aroused, whereas there has never been a consciousness that could arise apart from faculty and object. “Three” having already been stated, to state a further “contact” becomes superfluous.

Again someone comes forward to the defense: not every eye and every visible form is a cause of visual consciousness, nor is every visual consciousness a result of eye and visible form. Those that do not constitute cause and result are stated apart as “three”; those that do constitute cause and result are established together as “contact.”

The party holding that “apart from the meeting of three there is a further contact” then answers the passage cited above, “three dharmas gathered and met together are named contact”: the text of the sūtra as our school recites it differs from this; or else, this is borrowing the name of the “result” for the “cause,” as when it is said that “the appearance of the Buddhas is happiness” (the Buddhas’ appearance being cause and happiness result, yet it is called happiness outright).

The author lays down his pen: since to object and explain back and forth in this fashion would make the discussion far too long, it stops here. The Abhidharma masters (the Vaibhāṣikas), however, hold that there is a further entity of contact.

(Transition): The six contacts above are further combined into two classes. The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 30〕Resistant Contact and Contact of Designation

Stanza: Those associated with the first five are called “resistant”; the sixth, arising together with it, is called “of designation.”

Treatise: The five contacts of eye and the rest are called “resistant contact,” because they take resistant faculties (the five material faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body) as their support.

The sixth, mind-contact, is called “contact of designation.” Why so? “Designation” is “name” (verbal designation); and name is a peculiarly long and wide object of mind-contact, and so, with respect to just this, it is called contact of designation.

For example: visual consciousness can cognize only the color “blue” and cannot cognize “this is blue” (it cannot establish verbal designation); mental consciousness both cognizes blue and can cognize “this is blue” — and so the object of mental consciousness is said to be the “longer” (the wider).

Therefore the name of resistant contact is established from the “support,” and the name of contact of designation is established with respect to the “object.”

There is another account: it is by the dominance of speech (verbal designation) that mental consciousness is able to turn upon its object, whereas the five consciousnesses are not so. Hence mental consciousness alone is called “of designation,” and the contact associated with it is called contact of designation. On this account, the name of resistant contact is established from the support while the name of contact of designation is established with respect to “association.”

(Transition): These six contacts, further following their several associated dharmas, become eight kinds. The stanza says:

〔Root 31〕Eight Kinds of Contact — Three by Clear Knowing and Ignorance, Two by Craving and Hostility, Three by the Feeling They Conduce To

Stanza: Contact with clear knowing, contact with ignorance, and the contact that is neither of these two; these are, in order, the one without outflows, the defiled, and the rest. There are also two associated with craving and with hostility. And there are three conducing to the three feelings, of pleasure and the rest.

Treatise:

Three kinds divided by clear knowing and ignorance: first, contact with clear knowing; second, contact with ignorance; third, contact neither with clear knowing nor with ignorance. These three should be known to be, in order, the contact associated with dharmas without outflows, the contact associated with defiled dharmas, and the contact associated with the remaining dharmas. What is called “the rest” means the portion outside the without-outflows and the defiled, that is, the wholesome with outflows and the unobscured-indeterminate.

Two further established by craving and hostility: within contact with ignorance there is one portion that arises repeatedly, and in dependence on that portion the two further contacts of “craving” and “hostility” are established, since the latent tendencies of craving and of hostility are associated with it.

Three gathered in all by the feeling conduced to: first, contact conducing to pleasant feeling; second, contact conducing to painful feeling; third, contact conducing to feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant. These three are called “conducing to feeling” either because they can draw forth pleasant and the other feelings; or because they are received by pleasant and the other feelings; or because they can serve as the support of the mode of apprehension of feeling.

Someone asks: how can contact be received by feeling? Answer: because the mode of apprehension of feeling is exceedingly like contact, and because feeling arises in dependence upon contact.

(Total): Thus there are, taken together, sixteen kinds of contact in all (the six contacts, three contacts, two contacts, three contacts, and two contacts added together).

(Transition): What does “feeling” mean? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 32〕The Six Feelings — and a Long Debate on Whether Contact and Feeling Are Simultaneous

Stanza: From these six contacts six feelings are produced; the first five belong to the body, the remaining one to the mind.

Treatise: From the six contacts above, six feelings are produced, namely the feeling produced by eye-contact through to the feeling produced by mind-contact. Of the six, the first five are called “bodily feelings,” because they depend upon material faculties; the one produced by mind-contact is called “mental feeling,” because it depends upon mind alone.

〔The Sautrāntikas ask〕: In its arising, is feeling before or after contact, or simultaneous with it?

〔The Vaibhāṣikas answer〕: They arise simultaneously, because contact and feeling are reciprocally “coexistent causes” for one another (a kind of cause in which two things are causes for each other at the same time).

〔Objection〕: When two dharmas arise at the same time, how can one be spoken of as producer and the other as produced?

〔Answer〕: The relation of producer and produced can be established.

〔Objection〕: How can it not be established? Because there is no such capacity — toward a dharma that has already arisen, another dharma can do nothing further.

〔Answer〕: What you say is no different from the thesis just laid down. You said, “two dharmas arising at the same time, producer and produced are not established,” and you say again, “toward a dharma already arisen another dharma can do nothing” — the meaning is the same as before, and what use is there in repeating it?

〔Objection〕: If it is as you say, then there follows the fault of “producing each other” (this producing that and that producing this as well).

〔Answer〕: We grant this from the first, and so it is no fault. Our tenet grants that these two are coexistent causes for one another, and results for one another as well.

〔Objection〕: You may grant it so, yet the sūtras do not grant that these two are cause and result for each other. The sūtra says only, “with eye-contact as condition the feeling produced by eye-contact arises”; there has never been a sūtra that says, “with eye-feeling as condition the contact produced by eye-feeling arises.”

Moreover this reasoning is unsound, since it transgresses the general rule concerning “a dharma that can produce.” Whatever really can produce a given dharma must, in time, stand before or after the dharma it produces — as the seed is before and the sprout after, milk before and curds after, the striking before and the sound after, the mind-faculty before and consciousness after.

〔Answer〕: That cause is before and result after is indeed not unestablished; yet there is also a “simultaneous cause and result” which everyone acknowledges. For instance, visual consciousness is simultaneous with the eye and with visible form; and the four great elements are coexistent with derived form as well.

〔Objection〕: In your very example the before and after may equally be granted — the faculty and object of the preceding moment acting as conditions can arouse the consciousness of the following moment; the aggregate of great elements of the preceding moment can produce the derived form of the following moment. What reasoning can block such a reading?

〔Answer〕: Then are a shadow and a body not coexistent?

〔The account of the Sautrāntika Elder〕: Someone says: only after contact does feeling arise. The sequence is this — first there are faculty and object, next consciousness arises, and these three together are called contact; and only at the third moment does feeling arise with contact as its object.

〔Objection〕: If so, there ought to be consciousnesses with no feeling associated with them; and moreover those consciousnesses would not all be contact.

〔Answer〕: There is no such fault. Because it is by the contact of the preceding position that the feeling of the following position arises; hence wherever there is contact there is feeling, and no entity of any consciousness fails to be contact.

〔Objection〕: This is unsound.

〔Answer〕: Where is it unsound?

〔Objection〕: Just here: sometimes two successive contacts have different objects, and you say that from the contact upon which the feeling of the preceding position depends the feeling of the following position arises — then how does a feeling taking this object arise from a contact taking that object? Otherwise you must grant that feeling, though associated with this mind, does not take the same object as this mind.

〔Answer〕: That being so, if it is granted that such a case obtains — that there is a consciousness constituting contact but without feeling, and that before this position there is another consciousness having feeling whose entity is not contact, because a contributory condition was lacking — what fault is there in this?

〔Objection〕: If it is so, the “ten factors of the great ground” are destroyed (feeling, perception, volition, and the other ten mental factors that pervade every mind), since they must arise together constantly in every class of mind.

〔Answer〕: On the strength of what scriptural authority is the rule “they must arise together constantly” established?

〔Objection〕: On the strength of the root treatise (the Abhidharma treatise).

〔Answer〕: We take the sūtras alone as our measure; the root treatise is not a measure, and what fault is there in destroying it? Therefore the World-Honored One said: “One should take the sūtras as measure.”

Or else: the sense of the factors of the great ground is not necessarily “pervading every mind.”

〔Objection〕: If so, what then is the sense of “factors of the great ground”?

〔Answer〕: What is called “ground” comes in three sets. The first set of three grounds: first, the ground with applied and sustained thought; second, the ground without applied thought and with sustained thought only; third, the ground without applied and without sustained thought. The second set of three grounds: first, the wholesome ground; second, the unwholesome ground; third, the indeterminate ground. The third set of three grounds: first, the ground of one in training; second, the ground of one beyond training; third, the ground of one neither in training nor beyond training. Whatever dharmas are present in all these foregoing grounds are called “factors of the great ground”; whatever are present only in the wholesome grounds are called “factors of the great wholesome ground”; whatever are present only in the defiled grounds are called “factors of the great defiled ground.” These dharmas arise by turns each as it is applicable, and they do not all arise together. As for the “factors of the great unwholesome ground” stated elsewhere, that was drawn in by the way of recitation and is a later addition, not part of the original recitation.

〔Objection〕: If only after contact does feeling arise, how is the text of the sūtra to be explained? The sūtra says: “With eye and visible form as condition visual consciousness arises; the meeting of three is contact; arising together with it are feeling, perception, and volition.”

〔Answer〕: The sūtra says only “arising together” and does not say “arising together with contact,” and what contradiction is there here to our tenet that needs explaining? Besides, the word “together” may also be used of what is continuous without interval, as when the sūtra says, “proceeding together with loving-kindness, one cultivates the awakening-factor of mindfulness” (loving-kindness and the awakening-factor of mindfulness not being strictly of one and the same moment). Therefore that cannot serve as proof.

〔Objection〕: If so, why does the sūtra say: “This is feeling, this is perception, this is volition, this is consciousness; these dharmas are intermixed and not separate, and so there is no consciousness apart from feeling and the rest”?

〔Answer〕: Now one ought to consider carefully: what does “intermixed” mean? This sūtra goes on to say: “What is felt is what is thought; what is thought is what is perceived; what is perceived is what is cognized.” We are still not clear whether the statement here is made with respect to “object” or with respect to “moment.”

〔Objection〕: In the passage “vitality and warmth arise together” there is the same word “intermixed,” and by comparison it is known: the statement here must be made with respect to the moment.

〔Objection, continued〕: Further, the sūtra says “the meeting of three is contact,” so how could there be a consciousness that is not the meeting of three? Or a meeting of three not called contact? Therefore it should be firmly granted that whenever any consciousness arises there is contact throughout, and that no contact whatever fails to arise together with feeling and the rest.

(The author lays down his pen): The incidental discussion ends here, and the proper topic should be taken up again. The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 32〕The Eighteen Mental Proximate-Activities

Stanza: This feeling becomes eighteen kinds besides, by the differences of the “mental proximate-activities.”

Treatise: Within the “one mental feeling” stated in brief above, by the differences of mental proximate-activity it divides further into eighteen kinds. The word “besides” in the stanza should be known to display the carrying forward of what precedes and the raising of what follows.

Which are these eighteen mental proximate-activities? They are joy, sorrow, and equanimity, each matched with the six objects, making six proximate activities apiece (“proximate activity” being the mind roaming to and fro again and again upon an object).

Why they are exactly eighteen: if reckoned by intrinsic nature alone there ought to be only three, since joy, sorrow, and equanimity differ in intrinsic nature; if reckoned by association alone there ought to be only one, since all of them are associated with mind; if reckoned by object alone there ought to be only six, since visible form and the other six objects are their objects. That these eighteen come about is a matter of three conditions being complete (three by intrinsic nature, associated with mind alone, six by object — the three multiplying and gathering one another in).

Of these, fifteen (the five objects of visible form, sound, odor, taste, and the tangible each matched with joy, sorrow, and equanimity) are called “not taking a mixed object,” since the objects they take are severally distinct; while the three “proximate activities upon dharmas” extend to both taking a mixed object and not taking a mixed object (the object of dharmas admitting of taking one dharma singly and of taking many together).

What sense the name “mental proximate-activity” takes: it is transmitted that joy and the rest take “mind” as their proximate condition and therefore roam again and again among the several objects, and so they are called mental proximate-activities. There is another account — that joy and the rest can act as the proximate condition, causing “mind” to roam again and again upon an object, and so they are called mental proximate-activities.

Five questions and answers:

First question: why is bodily feeling not counted a mental proximate-activity? Answer: because it does not depend upon mind alone, it is not called “proximate”; and because it is without discrimination, neither is it called “activity.”

Second question: why is the pleasure faculty on the ground of mind in the third meditative absorption not gathered under the mental proximate-activities? Answer: it is transmitted that in the first mental element (the desire realm) there is no pleasure faculty associated with mental consciousness; and moreover there is no mental proximate-activity gathered under a pain faculty to stand opposite to it (joy and sorrow standing opposite each other in a pair, while pleasure has nothing to stand opposite it and so is not established).

Third question: if the mental proximate-activities are only on the ground of mind, why does the sūtra say, “having seen a visible form with the eye, one arouses a proximate activity of joy upon a visible form conducive to joy,” and so on? Answer: that is said with reference to the proximate activities of joy and the rest on the ground of mind which are drawn forth by the five bodies of consciousness, and so it is put in that way. It is like the contemplation of impurity drawn forth in dependence upon visual consciousness, which contemplation of impurity in fact belongs to the ground of mind alone. Moreover that sūtra says “having seen a visible form with the eye” and so on at length (the word “having” showing that it arises only after seeing, and so still on the ground of mind), and therefore it should not be raised as an objection.

Fourth question: if joy, sorrow, and equanimity arise after something has been reached by the body and so on, without being seen with one’s own eyes, do these too count as mental proximate-activities? Answer: they do. Were it not so, then within the desire realm there ought to be no mental proximate-activity taking the visible form and the rest of the form realm as object; and within the form realm there ought to be none of the several mental proximate-activities taking as object the odor, taste, and tangible objects of the desire realm. The sūtra’s “seeing a visible form” and the rest is said as the case is most plain and easy to understand. Joy, sorrow, and equanimity arising upon sound and the other objects after visible form and the rest have been seen are mental proximate-activities also — this being said as the case is unmixed, so as to fix therein the matching of faculty with object.

Fifth question: can there be visible forms and other objects which, with respect to joy and the other two, can conduce to the arising of one proximate activity only? Answer: there can, and that is said with respect to one continuum (the case of a single sentient being himself), not with respect to the object as such.

(Transition): Among the several mental proximate-activities, then, how many belong to the desire realm, and what objects do the mental proximate-activities of the desire realm take? The same is asked of the form realm and the formless realm. The stanza says:

〔Root 33 · Root 34 · First Half of Root 35〕How Many There Are within Each of the Three Realms, and What Objects Each Takes

Stanza: The eighteen of the desire realm taking objects of the desire realm are eighteen as well; taking objects of the form realm there are twelve; taking those of the formless realm above, only three. The twelve of the first two meditative absorptions taking objects of the desire realm are twelve; of these, eight take objects of their own level, and two take those of the formless realm. The six of the latter two meditative absorptions taking objects of the desire realm are six; four take those of their own level, and one takes those of the realm above. The first formless preliminary stage (the preliminary stage of the sphere of the infinity of space) has four taking objects of the form realm and one taking objects of its own level. The four fundamental formless levels and the upper three preliminary stages all have one only, and take only their own objects.

Treatise:

Bound to the desire realm: it has all eighteen kinds, and taking objects of the desire realm they are eighteen kinds as well. Taking objects of the form realm there are only twelve kinds — the six matched with the two objects of odor and taste being excluded, since the form realm has no objects of odor and taste. Taking objects of the formless realm there are only three — since the formless realm has none of the five objects of visible form, sound, odor, taste, and the tangible.

Bound to the form realm: the first meditative absorption and the second have only twelve kinds, namely with the six proximate activities of sorrow excluded (these two levels having no faculty of sorrow). Taking objects of the desire realm they too have twelve kinds (the six objects of the desire realm being complete, so that all twelve may take a lower object); as for taking objects of their own level, the four matched with odor and taste must be excluded (the form realm having no objects of odor and taste), and the remaining eight take objects of their own level; two further take objects of the formless realm, namely the proximate activities upon dharmas.

The third and fourth meditative absorptions have only six kinds, namely the six matched with equanimity (these two levels having neither joy nor sorrow, but equanimity alone); taking objects of the desire realm there are likewise six kinds (the six objects of the desire realm being complete); as for taking objects of their own level, the two matched with odor and taste must be excluded, and the remaining four take objects of their own level; one further takes objects of the formless realm, namely the proximate activity upon dharmas.

Bound to the formless realm: the preliminary concentration of the sphere of the infinity of space has only four kinds, namely those matched with equanimity but taking only the four objects of visible form, sound, the tangible, and dharmas. Taking the fourth meditative absorption as its object it likewise has these four kinds — this being said with respect to the account that grants that “lower levels may be taken as object severally”; and if one holds that that level can take a lower level only as a whole, then there is only the one mental proximate-activity upon dharmas that takes a mixed object.

Taking objects of the formless realm there is only one kind, namely the proximate activity upon dharmas; and as for the four fundamental levels together with the upper three preliminary stages, they too have only the one proximate activity upon dharmas, and take only their own objects — because the fundamental formless levels do not take lower levels as object, and the three preliminary stages above them do not take dharmas of form as object.

The reasoning of “not taking lower levels as object” will be distinguished further below (in the chapter on absorption).

(Transition): Do these mental proximate-activities extend to what is without outflows? The stanza says:

〔Root 35, Third Line〕The Eighteen Are with Outflows Alone — and Who Accomplishes How Many

Stanza: These eighteen are all with outflows alone.

Treatise: There is no mental proximate-activity that extends to what is without outflows, and therefore it is said that the eighteen kinds are with outflows alone.

(Who accomplishes how many):

One born in the desire realm who has not yet obtained the wholesome mind of the form realm accomplishes all eighteen kinds of the desire realm; he accomplishes also the eight kinds of the first and second meditative absorptions, the four of the third and fourth, and the one of the formless realm. Those of the upper realms which he accomplishes do not take lower levels as object, because they are defiled.

If he has already obtained the wholesome mind of the form realm but is not yet free from craving for the desire realm, he accomplishes all eighteen kinds of the desire realm and ten of the first meditative absorption; the rest are as stated above. (Within the first meditative absorption he accomplishes only four proximate activities of joy, because a defiled mind does not take as object the two objects of odor and taste of the lower level; while of equanimity he accomplishes the full six, because the wholesome mind in access concentration can take odor and taste as objects.) The rest may be inferred on this same reasoning, each as it is applicable.

If he is born in the form realm, he accomplishes only the one kind of the desire realm, the proximate activity of equanimity upon dharmas, namely the one arising together with the supernormal-result mind (the mind of supernormal power and transformation).

(Vasubandhu declares a divergent view of his own): Some say: mental proximate-activities of this kind are established by the Vaibhāṣikas as suits their sense of the doctrine. Yet the sense of the sūtras as I see it is otherwise. Why so? Because for one who has already become free from defilement with respect to a given level, it is impossible for a mental proximate-activity to arise again taking an object of that level; and so it is not the case that all three of joy, sorrow, and equanimity with outflows are gathered under the proximate activities. Only those that are defiled, drawing one another on with mind and roaming again and again upon their objects, are mental proximate-activities.

What is it to “draw one another on with mind and roam again and again”? It is to arouse craving, or to arouse hatred, or to set the thing aside without discriminating it.

In order to counteract those three, the sūtra speaks of the “six constant abidings” — having seen a visible form, one gives rise neither to joy nor to sorrow, the mind abiding constantly in equanimity, complete in mindfulness and right knowing, and so on down to knowing dharmas as well.

It is not said that an arhat has no worldly joy arising with a wholesome dharma as object; it is only in order to block the defiled proximate activities that this is said.

Further, with respect to joy and the rest, the “thirty-six teacher’s sentences” are established, that is, established by the distinction of “relish” and “renunciation” (joy, sorrow, and equanimity each matched with the six objects making eighteen, and these divided further into the two classes of those based on relish and those based on renunciation, making thirty-six). This distinction among the sentences was spoken by the Great Teacher (the Buddha). What is based on relish means the several defiled feelings; what is based on renunciation means the several wholesome feelings.

The “feeling” thus spoken of should be known to be just what falls within the link of feeling among the twelve links of existence.

(Transition): The differences among the gates of sense of the link of feeling are measureless; why then are the remaining links of existence not stated? The stanza says:

〔Root 35, Fourth Line〕The Remaining Links — Those Already Stated and Those Yet to Be Stated

Stanza: The remaining links have either been stated already or are yet to be stated.

Treatise: Of the remaining links of existence, some have been stated already and some are yet to be stated, and therefore they are not discussed here.

Among them the “link of consciousness” is as stated above — “consciousness is the cognizing of each severally,” and this is what is called the mental sense field and the rest.

The “link of the six sense fields” is as stated above — “the subtle form upon which that consciousness depends” is what is called the five faculties of eye and the rest.

The two links of “formations” and “existence” will be stated in the chapter on action. The two links of “craving” and “appropriation” will be stated in the chapter on the latent tendencies.

(Transition): These twelve links of dependent origination are established in brief as three classes, namely affliction, action, and the matter of maturation results. External similes should be resorted to in order to display their several capacities. The stanza says:

〔Root 36 · Root 37〕Affliction, Action, and the Matter of Results — Eight External Images in Nine Uses

Stanza: Here affliction is said to be like a seed, and like a dragon, like the root and the stem of a plant, and like the husk that wraps the rice; action is like husked rice, like a medicinal herb, like a flower; and the several matters of maturation results are like cooked food and drink.

Treatise:

The five similes for affliction:

First, how are these three classes said to resemble a seed and the rest? Just as from a seed there arise sprout, leaves, and the rest, so from affliction there arise the three of affliction, action, and the matter of results.

Second, just as a dragon guards a pool and the water of the pool is never exhausted, so affliction guards action and the continuity of birth and death is without end.

Third, just as when the root of a grass is not pulled up the shoot grows again after cutting, so when the root of affliction is not pulled up a destiny arises again after ceasing.

Fourth, just as from the stem of a tree branches, flowers, and fruit arise again and again, so from the several afflictions delusion, action, and the matter of results arise again and again.

Fifth, just as rice wrapped in its husk can produce a sprout and the rest while bare rice cannot, so affliction is like the husk — delusion, and the acquisition of delusion, wrapping action, so that action can then call forth a further birth, while bare action cannot call it forth. Affliction being like a seed and the rest should be understood in this way.

The three similes for action:

First, just as rice that still has its husk can produce a sprout and the rest, so action having affliction for its helper can call forth maturation.

Second, just as with the several medicinal herbs the ripening of the fruit is the last stage (the fruit once set, the herb’s business is finished), so once the result of an action has ripened it calls forth no further maturation.

Third, just as a flower is the proximate cause producing the fruit, so action as proximate cause can produce maturation. Action being like rice and the rest should be understood in this way.

The one simile for the matter of results: just as cooked food and drink are only to be consumed and cannot be turned into further food and drink, so once the matter of maturation results has ripened it can call forth no further birth and maturation. If maturation could call forth a further birth, and that another, and so on, there would be no liberation ever. The matter of results being like food and drink should be understood in this way.

(Transition): Thus the three classes of affliction, action, and the matter of results in dependent origination, arising in continual succession, do not go beyond the “four existences” — intermediate existence, the existence of birth, existence proper, and the existence of death — which have been explained above. Whether they are defiled or undefiled, and whether they are present within the three realms, should now be briefly distinguished. The stanza says:

〔Root 38〕Among the Four Existences, the Existence of Birth Alone Is Invariably Defiled

Stanza: Among the four existences, the existence of birth alone is defiled; it is defiled by the afflictions of its own level; the remaining three each extend to the three ethical qualities, and within the formless realm there are three existences only.

Treatise:

Among the four existences, the “existence of birth” (the first moment of taking birth) is defiled alone.

By what afflictions is it defiled? By the several delusions of its own level. That is to say: taking birth on this level, all the afflictions of this level can defile the existence of birth of this level. Hence the Abhidharma masters all say: “Among the several afflictions there is not one affliction that lacks the capacity to moisten at the position of joining rebirth.”

Nevertheless the joining of rebirth depends only on the force of the root afflictions and not on the entanglements and stains that arise by their own strength (“entanglement” and “stain” being secondary afflictions). Although at this position both mind and body are dulled and feeble, yet by the drawing force of what has arisen again and again, or of what has been active recently, the afflictions arise all the same.

It should be known that the first moment of the continuity of intermediate existence is also necessarily defiled, just as the existence of birth is.

As for the remaining three existences, each one of them extends to the three ethical qualities — that is, existence proper, the existence of death, and intermediate existence each extend to the wholesome, the defiled, and the indeterminate.

Within the formless realm, intermediate existence being excluded, there are three existences only — for within that realm there is no separation of places such that one might speak of “going to another place” and so establish intermediate existence.

The stanza does not speak of the desire realm and the form realm, and from this it is known that within those two realms all four existences are granted.

(Transition): The dependent origination of sentient beings has now been distinguished at length; upon what, then, do these sentient beings depend to abide? The stanza says:

〔Roots 39–41〕Sentient Beings Abide by Nutriment — The Four Nutriments

Stanza: Sentient beings abide by nutriment. The entity of morsel nutriment is in the desire realm alone, and is of three only (odor, taste, and the tangible). Form is not morsel nutriment, because it cannot benefit the faculty it faces, and because one who is liberated from craving for nutriment sees it and takes no benefit from it. The three nutriments of contact, volition, and consciousness are all with outflows and extend to the three realms. Formed by mind, seeker of birth, eater of odors, intermediate existence, named arising — these five are all names for intermediate existence. The first two nutriments benefit the supporting body and the supported mind of this present life; the latter two, with respect to the existence that is to come, the one draws it forth and the other raises it up, in that order.

Treatise:

The establishing of the four nutriments: the sūtra says that the World-Honored One awakened of himself to one dharma and rightly awakened to it and rightly stated it, namely this — that there is no sentient being whatever that does not abide by nutriment.

What is nutriment? Nutriment is of four kinds: first, morsel nutriment (food and drink taken in morsel by morsel); second, contact nutriment; third, volition nutriment; fourth, consciousness nutriment.

The subtle and the coarse in morsel nutriment: morsel nutriment is of two kinds, the subtle and the coarse. The “subtle” refers to the nutriment of intermediate existence, since intermediate existence takes odor for its nutriment; and to the nutriment of human beings at the beginning of an aeon, since the nutriment of that time did not turn into filth but, like oil poured upon sand, passed straight into the limbs and left no residue behind. Or else, the nutriment of tiny vermin, infants, and the like is also called subtle; and what is contrary to this is coarse.

Morsel nutriment is in the desire realm alone: morsel nutriment such as this is present in the desire realm alone, since it is by becoming free from craving for morsel nutriment that one is born in the upper realms; and therefore morsel nutriment is bound to the desire realm alone.

The entity of morsel nutriment: odor, taste, and the tangible, these three, are all of them the very entity of morsel nutriment, since they can be drunk and eaten as separate morsels — that is, they are received portion by portion by the mouth and the nose.

Question: how can light, shade, flame, and coolness also become nutriment? Answer: it is transmitted that this sentence is put with respect to the majority of cases. Moreover, though they are not drunk and eaten, they can sustain the body, and so are gathered under subtle nutriment, just as anointing the body and bathing are.

Why form is not morsel nutriment: Question: form too may be drunk and eaten by morsels (as with visible food and drink); why is it not counted nutriment? Answer: because form cannot benefit the very faculty it faces (the eye faculty), and because one who is already liberated from craving for nutriment takes no benefit from it though he see all manner of fine food and drink. Whatever is called “nutriment” must first nourish one’s own faculties and great elements, and only then reach the rest. When a man sees a visible form while drinking and eating, it does not so much as benefit his own eye faculty and great elements, still less reach the rest — because those faculties and objects are severally distinct.

Sometimes joy and pleasure arise upon seeing a visible form; but that is the “contact” which arises with form as its object, and it is contact nutriment, not form.

Furthermore, the non-returner and the arhat are already liberated from craving for nutriment, and take no benefit even upon seeing all manner of fine food and drink.

The entities of the remaining three nutriments: “contact” refers to the several contacts produced by the meeting of three; “volition” refers to mental action; “consciousness” refers to the aggregate of consciousness. These three are all of them with outflows alone, and are present within all three realms.

Question: why does the entity of nutriment not extend to what is without outflows? The Vaibhāṣikas explain it thus: to be able to assist the several existences (birth and death in the three existences) is what the sense of “nutriment” is; and what is without outflows arises for the sake of cultivation and for the extinguishing of the several existences, and so is not nutriment. Moreover the sūtra says: nutriment is of four kinds, and can cause beings that have come to be to abide, and can assist the several seekers of birth. What is without outflows is not so, and so is not an entity of nutriment.

Beings that have come to be, and seekers of birth: what is called “a being that has come to be” displays the sense of “already born” — whoever has already taken birth in any of the destinies is called already born.

And what does “seeker of birth” refer to? It refers to intermediate existence. For the Buddha, the World-Honored One, spoke of intermediate existence under five names: the first is “formed by mind,” since it arises from mind and is not formed by the meeting of outward conditions such as semen and blood; the second is “seeker of birth,” since it constantly delights to seek out and examine the place where it is to take birth; the third is “eater of odors,” since its body takes odor for its nutriment as it goes to the place of birth; the fourth is “intermediate existence,” since it is the aggregates in the interval between the two destinies of death and birth; the fifth is “named arising,” since it arises for a time facing the birth that is to come.

As the sūtra says: “There is the arising of a broken body of one’s own, there is the birth of a broken world” — the “arising” here is intermediate existence.

The sūtra says further: “There is a person who has cut off the fetter of arising and has not cut off the fetter of birth.” This sūtra states four alternatives at length: the several who go upstream, being free from craving for two realms, are the first alternative (having cut off the fetter of arising and not cut off the fetter of birth); those who attain parinirvāṇa in the interval are the second alternative; the several arhats are the third alternative; and what is left when the foregoing cases are excluded is the fourth alternative.

There is also another account: “a being that has come to be” refers to the arhat, and the rest, who still have craving, are called “seekers of birth.”

How many nutriments make beings that have come to be abide, and how many assist seekers of birth: Question: how many nutriments can make beings that have come to be abide? How many nutriments can assist sentient beings that seek birth? The Vaibhāṣikas say: all four in each case. The several who have craving are assisted by morsel nutriment as condition as well, so that it makes them call forth a later existence — because the World-Honored One said that all four nutriments are conditions of sickness, of the boil, of the arrow, of the root, and of old age and death. It may also be seen that volition nutriment can make the body now present abide.

The three matters of volition nutriment:

There is a saying handed down in the world thus: once upon a time a father, meeting with famine, wished to travel to a distant land. He was already starved and gaunt, and his two children were still small; he wished to take them with him but had not the strength, and so he filled a bag with ashes and hung it upon the wall, comforting the two children by telling them it was a bag of parched meal (parched meal being roasted rice or wheat flour). The two children cherished hope and prolonged their lives for a time; afterwards someone came and opened the bag, and the children saw that it was ashes, and their hope being cut off they died.

Again, upon the great sea there was a company of merchants who met with disaster and whose ship broke up, and all their food and drink was lost. Far off they saw the foam heaped upon the surface of the sea and suspected it was the shore, and in their hearts they hoped to reach it quickly, and by this their lives were prolonged for a time; but when they came up to it and touched it and knew that it was not the shore, their hope being cut off they died.

The Treatise on the Collected Various Gates says: in the great sea there is a great kind of living being that climbs upon the shore and lays eggs, buries the eggs in the sand, and returns into the sea; and if the mother constantly keeps them in mind the eggs do not spoil, but if she loses mindfulness of them the eggs perish.

The author corrects this: to say so is unsound, since it contradicts the sense of nutriment. Can another’s volition nutriment sustain one’s own body? By right reasoning it should be said that it is the eggs that constantly think of the mother and thereby escape rotting and spoiling, and that when they forget, their life ends. And the “arousing of the thought that thinks of the mother” occurs precisely at the position of “contact.”

Why only four nutriments are stated: since the several dharmas with outflows are all able to make the several existences grow, why did the World-Honored One state nutriment as being of four kinds only? Answer: even so, to state four with respect to what is excellent is no fault.

The first two nutriments can benefit the “support” and the “supported” of this present body; the latter two can draw forth the existence that is to come.

What is called the “support” refers to the body endowed with faculties, and morsel nutriment can assist it. What is called the “supported” refers to mind and mental factors, and contact nutriment can assist them. The capacity of these two nutriments to assist an existence already arisen is the most excellent.

What is called “the existence to come” refers to a future birth; and with respect to what is to be born, volition nutriment can draw it forth. Volition nutriment having drawn it forth, it is by the force of the seeds of consciousness perfumed by action that the later existence can then arise. The capacity of these two nutriments to draw forth and to raise up an existence not yet arisen is the most excellent.

Therefore, although all dharmas with outflows make the several existences grow, yet with respect to the most excellent capacity these four nutriments alone are stated. The first two nutriments are like the mother who rears, since they rear what has been born; the latter two are like the mother who bears, since they bring to birth what has not been born.

The four alternatives of morsel and nutriment: Question: is everything that is a “morsel” a nutriment? Answer: there are morsels that are not nutriment, and a fourfold analysis should be made. The first alternative (a morsel and not a nutriment): what is drunk and eaten acting on the contrary as a condition that injures the several faculties and great elements. The second alternative (a nutriment and not a morsel): the remaining three nutriments. The third alternative (both a morsel and a nutriment): what is drunk and eaten acting as a condition that assists the several faculties and great elements. The fourth alternative (neither a morsel nor a nutriment): what is left when the foregoing cases are excluded.

Contact and the other two nutriments, each as is applicable, may likewise each be made into four alternatives in this way.

Question: are there cases where contact and the rest act as condition and assist the several faculties and great elements and yet are not nutriment? Answer: there are, namely contact and the rest without outflows and of another level.

The body of one whom nutriment has harmed is called nutriment as well: the several things which, once eaten, injure on the contrary the body of the eater are called nutriment all the same, because at the outset they had a capacity to assist. The Vaibhāṣikas say: nutriment can perform the function of nutriment at two positions, and at both is called nutriment — first, at the time of first eating, when it can remove hunger and thirst; second, after digestion, when it can assist the faculties and the great elements.

All five destinies and four modes of birth have all four nutriments: Question: which destiny and which mode of birth has how many nutriments? Answer: the five destinies and the four modes of birth all have the four nutriments complete.

Question: how can there be morsel nutriment in the hells? Are those iron balls and molten copper morsel nutriment? And if what can injure is also counted nutriment, then this contradicts the four alternatives above. Moreover the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas says: “What is morsel nutriment? It is what can assist the several faculties and great elements,” and so on down to consciousness nutriment stated in the same way.

Answer: that treatise states it as called nutriment merely with respect to the side of “being able to assist,” and so there is no contradiction. Yet the hot iron balls and the rest in the hells, though after being eaten they act to injure, can nevertheless remove hunger and thirst for a time and so obtain the character of nutriment, and therefore they too are called nutriment. Moreover the morsel nutriment of the solitary hells (the small hells scattered among human beings) is just like that of human beings. Hence within the five destinies there are the four nutriments.

The weighing of the ordinary being in the Jambu grove: The World-Honored One said: if a man were able to give food and drink to a hundred non-Buddhist seers free from craving, and another were able to give food and drink to one single “ordinary being in the Jambu grove,” the result obtained by the latter would surpass that of the former.

What is meant by “an ordinary being in the Jambu grove”?

Some explain it thus: it is all who dwell in Jambudvīpa and have a belly. This explanation is unsound, because the sūtra speaks of “one” man. Moreover, on this explanation, giving food and drink here to measureless ordinary beings ought in reason to surpass giving to a few non-Buddhist seers free from craving; and what would then be remarkable in it, worth weighing and praising?

Some say: it is a bodhisattva close to buddhahood. This too is unsound, because the merit obtained by giving to him surpasses giving to a koṭi (ten million) of arhats.

The Vaibhāṣika masters say: this ordinary being is one who has already obtained the factors conducive to penetration (the stage of preparation before the path of seeing). In this account name and sense do not answer to each other either, since there has never been a sūtra or root treatise that says “one who has obtained the factors conducive to penetration dwells in the Jambu grove” — it should be known that this is merely a discrimination of their own.

(The correct interpretation): the bodhisattva in his last body dwelling in the Jambu grove is what is called “that ordinary being.” This account alone is sound. For at that time the bodhisattva stood in the same rank as the seers free from craving (being still an ordinary being), and therefore he is weighed against those seers and his superiority is praised; and although the merit of giving to the bodhisattva surpasses without bound, yet carrying forward the weighing above, it is said for the present to surpass a hundred. In reasoning it must be so. For afterwards the World-Honored One set that ordinary being aside and weighed the superiority and inferiority of a non-Buddhist against one on the way to the fruit of stream-entry; were it not so, the World-Honored One ought to have set that ordinary being over against one on the way to the fruit of stream-entry.

(Transition): The dependent origination of sentient beings and their abiding have now been stated. As to dying at the exhaustion of the lifespan and the rest, spoken of above, they should now be properly distinguished — which consciousness is present, and with which feeling is it associated, when death and birth and the rest occur? The stanza says:

〔Root 42 · Root 43 · First Half of Root 44〕Death and Birth: Which Consciousness and Which Feeling

Stanza: Cutting off wholesome roots and restoring them, becoming free from defilement and falling back, dying and taking birth — all these are granted to be in mental consciousness alone; death and birth are associated with equanimous feeling alone, are not in absorption, and are not at a position without mind; the mind that enters nirvāṇa is of two indeterminate kinds only. In one whose life ends gradually, consciousness ceases last at the feet, the navel, and the heart in order; those who go downward, those who go to the human destiny, those who go to the heavens, and those who are not born again all differ; and there is besides the “severing of the vital points,” arisen from water and the rest.

Treatise:

Six positions in mental consciousness alone: cutting off wholesome roots, restoring wholesome roots, becoming free from defilement with respect to a realm or level, falling back from freedom from defilement, dying, and taking birth — at these six positions it is by the very nature of things granted that there is mental consciousness alone, and not the other five consciousnesses. The word “birth” spoken of in the stanza should be known to include also the first joining of rebirth in intermediate existence.

Death and birth with equanimous feeling alone: death and birth are granted to be associated with equanimous feeling alone, because the mind associated with equanimity is not sharp and clear; the remaining feelings are sharp and clear and do not conduce to death and birth.

In a distracted mind alone and not in absorption; necessarily not without mind: further, these two times of death and birth are in a distracted mind alone and not in absorption; they must be at a position where there is mind, and will not be without mind.

That there is no death and birth in a mind in absorption has three reasons: first, the realms and levels are severally distinct (a mind in absorption belonging to an upper realm and level, death and birth to one’s own realm); second, a mind in absorption arises by preparation (whereas the mind of death and birth arises spontaneously); third, a mind in absorption can render assistance (whereas the mind of death and birth is feeble and cannot render assistance).

Neither will death and birth occur at a position without mind, because at a position without mind the life faculty is certainly not injured. If the supporting body is about to be destroyed, a mind belonging to that supporting body must still arise, and only then does life end; there is no other reasoning. Moreover one without mind cannot take birth, because the cause of taking birth is lacking — apart from the arising of the afflictions there is no taking birth.

Entering nirvāṇa with two indeterminate minds alone: although it is said that the existence of death extends to minds of all three ethical qualities, yet at entering nirvāṇa there are only two indeterminate minds. The party that holds that the desire realm has a “maturation mind of equanimous feeling” says that the mind entering nirvāṇa in the desire realm has both the indeterminate of the mode of deportment and the indeterminate of maturation; the party that holds that the desire realm has no maturation of equanimous feeling says that the mind entering nirvāṇa in the desire realm has the mode of deportment only and no maturation.

Question: why can only an indeterminate mind enter nirvāṇa? Answer: because the force of the indeterminate is feeble, and conduces to the cutting off of mind.

Where consciousness ceases at the end of life: in one whose life ends all at once, mental consciousness and the body faculty cease abruptly and together.

If he dies gradually, then those who go downward, those who go to human beings, and those who go to the heavens differ — consciousness ceasing at the three places of the feet, the navel, and the heart in that order. “Going downward” means falling into an evil destiny, and his consciousness ceases last at the place of the feet; if he goes to the destiny of human beings, consciousness ceases at the navel; if he goes to be born among the gods, consciousness ceases at the place of the heart. The several arhats are called “not born again,” and their last mind too ceases at the place of the heart. Certain other masters say: the consciousness of the arhat ceases at the crown of the head.

At the very time of the ending of life, because the body faculty at the feet and the other places has ceased, mental consciousness ceases along with it. As the end of life draws near the body faculty gradually ceases, and reaching the feet and the other places it abruptly ceases altogether — like a little water poured upon a red-hot stone, which gradually lessens and gradually vanishes, and at one place is wholly exhausted.

The severing of the vital points: further, one whose life ends gradually is at the end for the most part pressed by the painful feeling of the “severing of the vital points.”

There is no separate thing called a vital point; there are only certain particular joints within the body which, once touched, bring death, and these are called the vital points.

If any one among water, fire, and wind grows dominant, then, as a sharp blade’s edge touching those vital points, an exceedingly heavy painful feeling arises thereby, and from this life ends before long.

The “severing” spoken of here is not called severing as chopping firewood is; it is because after the severing there is no awareness that it gets the name “severing.”

Question: why does the element of earth have no such severing function? Answer: because there is no fourth inward calamity. The three inward calamities are wind, heat, and phlegm; and as water, fire, and wind grow dominant each as is applicable, these three calamities arise. Some say: this is just like the three catastrophes of the outer receptacle world (the catastrophes of water, of fire, and of wind).

The five signs of decay in the sons of the gods: this severing of the vital points is not found among the gods. Yet when the several sons of the gods are about to end their lives, five small signs of decay appear first: first, their garments and ornamental gear give out a sound not to be desired; second, the light of their own bodies suddenly becomes dim and feeble; third, at the time of bathing, drops of water cling to their bodies (which ordinarily they do not); fourth, whereas by nature they were restless and swift-moving, they now stagnate upon a single object; fifth, whereas their eyes were fixed and still, they now blink again and again. When these five signs appear, it is not yet certain that they will die.

Further, five great signs of decay appear: first, their garments are stained with dust; second, their flower garlands wither and fade; third, sweat comes forth from both armpits; fourth, a foul odor clings to their bodies; fifth, they take no delight in their own seats. When these five signs appear, they will certainly die.

(Transition): Within the birth, abiding, and passing away of this world of sentient beings the World-Honored One established the “three classes.” What are the three classes? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 44〕The Three Classes — Fixed in Rightness, Fixed in Wrongness, and Indeterminate

Stanza: The class fixed in rightness, the class fixed in wrongness, and the class of indeterminate nature. The noble belong to the right, those who commit the deeds of immediate retribution to the wrong, and the rest are indeterminate.

Treatise: First, the class fixed in rightness; second, the class fixed in wrongness; third, the class of indeterminate nature.

What “rightness” means: the sūtra says, “Greed cut off without remainder, hatred cut off without remainder, delusion cut off without remainder, all the afflictions cut off without remainder,” and this is called rightness. What is called “fixed” refers to the noble; and “noble” refers to those in whom the path without outflows has already arisen — being far from the several evil dharmas they are called noble, since they have obtained the acquisition of final release from bondage (the acquisition without outflows realized by the cutting off of delusion). They will certainly be able to exhaust the afflictions, and so are called “fixed in rightness.”

Question: those who have already obtained the factors conducive to liberation will also certainly obtain nirvāṇa; why are they not counted as fixed in rightness? Answer: because they may afterwards fall into the class fixed in wrongness; and because the time of their obtaining nirvāṇa is not yet fixed, unlike the stream-enterer with his fixed limit of at most seven further existences; and because they are not yet able to cast off wrongness, and so are not called fixed in rightness.

What “wrongness” means: it is the several hells, animals, and hungry ghosts, and this is called wrongness. And “fixed” refers to the five deeds of immediate retribution; one who has committed a deed of immediate retribution will certainly fall into the hells, and so it is called fixed in wrongness.

What “indeterminate” means: what is other than fixed in rightness and fixed in wrongness is called of indeterminate nature — because these await two conditions and may become either one of the two.

〔Roots 45–47〕How the Receptacle World Is Established — the Three-Tiered Base of Wind Circle, Water Circle, and Golden Circle

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Above, the “world of sentient beings” (all the lives that dwell within the world) has been stated in full; next the “receptacle world” is to be stated (the outer world that bears those lives, like a vessel that holds what is put into it). The stanza says:

Stanza: To establish the receptacle world: lowest of all is the wind circle, whose breadth is so great that it cannot be numbered and whose thickness is sixteen lakṣa (“lakṣa” is an Indian unit of number, which the ancient masters say answers to the Chinese term for a hundred thousand). Above the wind circle is the water circle, eleven hundred thousand and twenty thousand deep; the lower eight lakṣa of it remain water, and the rest has congealed into gold. As for the breadth of this water circle and golden circle, the diameter is twelve hundred thousand three thousand four hundred and a half, and the circumference is three times the diameter.

Treatise: One should grant that this three-thousandfold great-thousand world-sphere is established in just this way, and that within it the shapes and sizes differ one from another. It is thus: by the dominant force of the “action” of all sentient beings (“dominant force” means a driving power that overrides all else and can determine the outcome), lowest of all and resting upon space a wind circle arises, of breadth beyond numbering and sixteen hundred thousand yojanas thick (“yojana” is an Indian unit of length, called youxun in the older translation).

The nature of this wind circle is exceedingly firm and dense. Suppose a great Mahānagna (a god of enormous strength) were to take a vajra wheel and, hurling it down through the air with all his might, strike the wind circle: the vajra wheel would shatter and the wind circle would not be harmed by so much as a hair.

Again, by the dominant force of the actions of all sentient beings, great clouds arise and rain falls, pouring down upon the wind circle in drops as thick as a chariot axle, and the water that gathers becomes the water circle. At the stage when this water circle has not yet congealed, it is eleven hundred thousand and twenty thousand yojanas deep.

Someone asks: why does the water circle not flow away on every side? One party of masters says: it is held by the force of the actions of all sentient beings so that it does not flow away — just as what a person eats and drinks, so long as it has not yet been digested and ripened, never in the end flows away and falls into the receptacle of the digested (the intestines). Another party of masters says: it is held by the force of wind so that it does not flow away, just as a chuan (a round granary woven of bamboo) can pen the grain in.

Called forth by the force of the actions of sentient beings, another wind arises and beats upon this water, congealing its upper surface into gold — just as, when boiled milk is left standing, a film of cream congeals upon the top. So the water circle is reduced until only eight lakṣa remain, the rest having turned to gold, the thickness of the gold being three hundred thousand and twenty thousand. The breadths of these two circles, of water and of gold, are equal in number, namely a diameter of twelve hundred thousand three thousand four hundred and a half. The number of the circumference is three times the diameter, that is, the circumference comes in all to thirty-six hundred thousand ten thousand three hundred and fifty yojanas. The stanza says:

〔Roots 48–51〕The Nine Great Mountains upon the Golden Circle

Stanza: At the very center is Mount Sumeru; next Yugandhara, Mount Īṣādhara, Mount Khadiraka, Sudarśana, Aśvakarṇa, Mount Vinataka, Mount Nimindhara; and outside the four great continents and the rest there is further the Iron Circle Mountain. The first seven mountains are made of gold, while Sumeru is made of four kinds of jewel. The portion of these mountains sunk in the water is in every case eighty thousand, and the height by which the Sublime and Lofty Mountain (that is, Sumeru) stands out of the water is likewise eighty thousand, while of the remaining eight each is lower than the one before it by half. The breadth of each mountain is equal to the height by which it stands out of the water.

Treatise: Upon the golden circle there are nine great mountains. The Sublime and Lofty Mountain King stands at the very center, and the remaining eight encircle the Sublime and Lofty round about. Among these eight the first seven are called “the inner mountains”; only outside the seventh mountain are there the four great continents and the rest; and further out again there is the Iron Circle Mountain, which encircles one world-sphere as the rim encircles a wheel.

The seven mountains beginning with Upholding the Pair are constituted of gold alone. The Sublime and Lofty Mountain King has four kinds of jewel for its entity, namely, on the north, east, south, and west sides in order, gold, silver, vaiḍūrya, and sphaṭika jewel (vaiḍūrya is the blue gemstone, sphaṭika is crystal). Through the majestic power of the jewels themselves their color is reflected into the sky, and so the sky above our Jambudvīpa looks like the blue of vaiḍūrya.

Someone asks: and from what are these jewels produced? Answer: from the very same dominant force of the actions of all sentient beings. Great clouds arise again and rain upon the golden circle in drops thick as a chariot axle, and the water that gathers surges like billows; and this water becomes the “seed” and the “store” of the several jewels. Then, through the drilling and beating of manifold winds of majestic violence, the several kinds of jewel are produced by transformation.

When jewels are thus produced by transformation out of water, this is a case of “the cause ceasing and the result arising,” the entities of cause and result not existing at one and the same time — unlike the “transmutation” maintained by the Sāṃkhya non-Buddhists.

Question: how do the Sāṃkhya maintain the sense of transmutation?

〔Sāṃkhya answer〕: They maintain that there is a “possessor of dharmas” (a real substance serving as the bearer) whose own nature exists permanently, and that within it some dharmas arise and some dharmas cease — what, on such an account of transmutation, is contrary to principle?

〔The author objects〕: There can never be a permanently abiding dharma of which it is at the same time maintained that other dharmas cease and arise upon it.

〔Sāṃkhya defends〕: Who says that there is a “possessor of dharmas” apart from the dharma? It is just this dharma itself that, at the time of transmutation, serves as the support of differing characteristics, and is on that account called the possessor of dharmas.

〔The author refutes〕: Put in that way it is still contrary to principle.

〔Sāṃkhya challenges〕: In what way contrary to principle?

〔The author answers〕: That it should be this very thing and yet not be thus — such a statement I have never heard.

After gold and the jewels have been produced by transformation in this way, the force of action gives rise to yet another wind, which sorts the jewels and the rest apart and gathers them into mountains and into continents; and it divides the water into sweet and salt, establishing the inner seas and the outer sea separately.

So these nine mountains stand upon the golden circle, the measure of each sunk in the water being eighty thousand yojanas, and the height by which Mount Sumeru stands out of the water being the same. The heights by which the remaining eight stand out of the water decrease by half and half: the first, Upholding the Pair, stands out of the water forty thousand, and so on down to the last, the Iron Circle Mountain, which stands out of the water three hundred and twelve and a half. The breadth of each of these nine mountains is the same as the height by which it itself stands out of the water. The stanza says:

〔Root 52 · Root 53〕The Eight Seas between Mountain and Mountain

Stanza: Between mountain and mountain there are eight seas, of which the first seven are called “the inner seas.” The innermost of them is eighty thousand broad, and on each of its four sides three times as much; the remaining six are each narrower than the one before by half. The eighth is called “the outer sea,” three lakṣa twenty-two thousand yojanas broad.

Treatise: With the Sublime and Lofty first and the Iron Circle Mountain last, there are eight seas in between, of which the first seven are called the inner seas. In all seven of these seas there is water possessed of eight qualities: first sweet, second cool, third soft, fourth light, fifth pure, sixth free of foul odor, seventh not hurting the throat when it is drunk, and eighth not harming the belly once it has been drunk.

Of these seven seas the innermost is eighty thousand broad — this being measured along the ring on the inner side of Upholding the Pair; and on each of its four sides it is three times as much, that is, two hundred thousand and forty thousand yojanas on each. The breadths of the remaining six seas are each narrower than the one before by half: the second sea is forty thousand broad, and so on down to the seventh, which is one thousand two hundred and fifty. The circumferences are not stated here, because the figures would be too cumbersome.

The eighth is called the outer sea, filled to the brim with salt water, three hundred thousand and twenty-two thousand broad. The stanza says:

〔Roots 54–57〕The Four Great Continents and the Eight Intermediate Continents in the Outer Sea

Stanza: Within the outer sea the shapes of the four great continents are these — Jambudvīpa in the south is like a chariot, its three sides two thousand each, its south side only three and a half yojanas. The continent of Videha in the east is shaped like a half-moon, its three sides the same as Jambudvīpa’s, its east side three hundred and fifty. The continent of Godānīya in the west is perfectly round and without a gap, its diameter two thousand five hundred and its circumference three times as much. Uttarakuru in the north is exactly square, each side two thousand, the four sides equal. Besides these there are eight intermediate continents, two on either flank of each of the four great continents.

Treatise: Within the outer sea there are four great continents, situated at the four sides of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain.

Jambudvīpa in the south is broad on the north and narrow on the south, its other three sides equal in length, and it is shaped like a chariot. Its south side is only three and a half yojanas broad, while its other three sides are two thousand yojanas each. In this continent alone is there the “vajra seat,” which reaches up to the surface of the ground and down to the golden circle. All bodhisattvas, when they are about to ascend to perfect awakening, sit upon this seat and arouse the “vajra-like concentration” (the final moment of concentration which, like a vajra, can cut off every affliction) — for apart from this there is no other support and no other place possessed of firmness enough to bear such a thing.

The continent of Videha in the east is narrow on the east and broad on the west, its other three sides equal in length, and it is shaped like a half-moon. Its east side is three hundred and fifty, and its other three sides two thousand each.

The continent of Godānīya in the west is round like a full moon, its diameter two thousand five hundred and its circumference seven thousand five hundred.

Uttarakuru in the north is shaped like a square seat, its four sides equal in length, each side two thousand. The word “equal” in the stanza is meant to make plain that among the four sides there is not the least increase or decrease.

According as each continent has its shape, so likewise are the faces of the people there (where the continent is round the faces are round, where the continent is square the faces are square).

Besides these there are eight intermediate continents, which are the retinue of the great continents — two intermediate continents on either flank of each of the four great continents. The two intermediate continents at the flank of Jambudvīpa are, first, the continent of Cāmara and, second, the continent of Varacāmara. The two at the flank of the continent of Videha are, first, the continent of Deha and, second, the continent of Videha. The two at the flank of the continent of Godānīya are, first, the continent of Śāṭha and, second, the continent of Uttaramantriṇa. The two at the flank of Uttarakuru are, first, the continent of Kurava and, second, the continent of Kaurava. All these intermediate continents are inhabited by human beings. There is another account: that one of them alone is inhabited by rākṣasas (a class of non-human beings). The stanza says:

〔Root 58〕The Black Mountains, the Snow Mountain, the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance, and the Lake Without Heat

Stanza: North of Jambudvīpa there are nine black mountains, and within the Snow Mountain and the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance there is the Lake Without Heat, fifty yojanas each way.

Treatise: In this Jambudvīpa, going north from the middle, there are three places each of which has three ranges of black mountains (three places with three ranges each, making nine in all). North of the black mountains is the Great Snow Mountain, and north of the Great Snow Mountain is the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance. North of the Snow Mountain and south of the Fragrance Mountain there is a great lake named Without Heat and Torment, from which four great rivers flow out: first the river Gaṅgā, second the river Sindhu, third the river Sītā, fourth the river Vakṣu.

The Lake Without Heat and Torment is exactly equal in length and breadth, each side being fifty yojanas, and is filled to the brim with water possessed of the eight qualities; none but a person who has attained the supernormal powers has any way of reaching it. At the edge of this lake there is a “Jambu grove,” the trees tall of form and the fruit sweet to the taste — the continent is named Jambudvīpa from this grove, or else its name is established from this fruit.

In what place, then, are the narakas (the hells) and the great narakas (the great hells) situated? How large are they, and how many? The stanza says:

〔Root 59 · Root 60〕The Eight Great Hells, the Sixteen Increases, and the Eight Cold Hells

Stanza: Going down from here past twenty thousand is the Unremitting hell, its depth and its breadth the same. Above it there are seven narakas. The “Increases” of the eight hells are sixteen in all, that is, the four Increases of hot ashes, of corpses and dung, of blades, and of the fierce river, each set standing at the four sides of those eight hells. Besides these there are eight cold hells.

Treatise: Going down from this Jambudvīpa past twenty thousand there is the great naraka Avīci (Avīci means the Unremitting), whose depth and breadth are as stated above, both twenty thousand, so that its floor is forty thousand yojanas from here. Because suffering is undergone there without remission — unlike the remaining seven great narakas, where the undergoing of suffering is not constant — it is called “the Unremitting.”

For instance, in the hell of Equal Reviving, although the bodies of those sentient beings are hacked, pierced, ground, and pounded in every way, yet as soon as they meet a cool wind blowing upon them they revive again as they were at first; and it is on this ground that the name “Equal Reviving” (living again just as before) is established. In Avīci there is no such thing.

Another party of masters says: in Avīci there is no “pleasure” to come between the sufferings, and it is for that reason called the Unremitting; whereas in the remaining hells there is pleasure arising mixed in — and although that is not a maturation result, it is a homogeneous result (“maturation” is the retribution called forth directly by action, “homogeneous” is the residual momentum that follows on within the same kind).

The seven narakas are above the Unremitting hell, dwelling one piled upon another. What are those seven? First Extreme Heat, second Burning Heat, third Great Howling, fourth Howling, fifth Massed Crushing, sixth the Black Rope, seventh Equal Reviving. There is another account: that these seven are at the flank of the Unremitting hell.

The “Increases” of the eight narakas are sixteen in all, and so the Bhagavat (the World-Honored One) spoke a stanza in these words:

〔Quoted Stanza〕The Stanza on the Hells Spoken by the World-Honored One, and the Content of the Sixteen Increases

Quoted stanza: These eight narakas, I say, are exceedingly hard to pass beyond. The ground is cast of hot iron, iron walls encircle it round about, on the four sides four gates open, and they are shut fast with leaves of iron. Skillfully laid out and disposed, they have sixteen Increases each, as many as a hundred yojanas, filled within with those who have done evil, pierced through and through by flames on every side, and fierce fire burns there without ceasing.

Treatise: The sixteen Increases means that outside the gates on the four sides of the eight narakas there are four places each —

The first is the “Increase of Hot Ashes” (hot ashes being embers). Within this Increase the hot ashes are knee-deep; when a sentient being walks into it, at the very first setting down of a foot the skin and flesh together with the blood are scorched, festered, and fall away; and at the lifting of the foot they grow again and are restored as before.

The second is the “Increase of Corpses and Dung.” This Increase is filled with a mire of corpses and dung, in which there are many nyaṅkuṭa worms, their mouths as sharp as needles, their bodies white and their heads black; and sentient beings who walk into it are all bored through the skin and gnawed through the bone by these worms, which suck out their marrow.

The third is the “Increase of Blades.” Within this Increase there are three further kinds. The first is the “Road of Sword Blades,” where sword blades are laid edge upward to form a great road, and when a sentient being walks upon it, at the very first setting down of a foot the skin and flesh together with the blood are cut to pieces and fall away, and at the lifting of the foot they grow again and are restored as before. The second is the “Forest of Sword Leaves,” a forest upon which sharp sword blades serve as the leaves and nothing else; when a sentient being walks into it and the wind blows and the leaves fall, his limbs and body are hacked and pierced until bone and flesh are strewn about, and there are besides piebald crows and dogs that seize and tear at him and eat him. The third is the “Forest of Iron Thorns,” a forest that grows sharp iron thorns sixteen finger-breadths long; and when a sentient being is driven up the tree and down again, those thorns pierce keenly upward and downward, and there are besides iron-beaked birds that come to peck out the sentient being’s eyes, heart, and liver, contending for the food. Although these three, the Road of Sword Blades and the rest, differ one from another, they are alike instruments of punishment made of iron, and so together they are reckoned as one Increase.

The fourth is the “Increase of the Fierce River.” The extent of this Increase is broad and wide, and it is filled with boiling salt water; sentient beings who enter it float or sink, go against the current or with it, drift crosswise or spin about, and are steamed and boiled until bone and flesh are pulped away. It is as when a great cauldron is filled with lye and sesame and grains of rice and the like are put in, with a fierce fire burning beneath, and the sesame and rice turn over and over within it, up and down, and are wholly pulped away; sentient beings are just so. Should they wish to escape, upon the two banks there are many hell warders holding knives and spears in their hands who bar them and drive them back, so that there is no way out.

This fierce river is like a moat guarding a city wall, while the first three are like a garden park. On each of the four sides there are four Increases, and so they are said to be sixteen in all.

This is “a place of being punished over and above,” and hence it is called an “Increase” — because, having just been punished in the hell proper, one suffers injury there once again. There is another account: that sentient beings undergo this suffering after they have come out of the hell, and it is therefore called an Increase.

Now here a discussion arises from the discussion: are those hell warders sentient beings?

There is one account: they are not sentient beings. Question: how then do they move and act? Answer: they are driven by the force of the actions of sentient beings, like the wind at the time when a world is being formed (there need be no one blowing it). Question: if so, how is what the Venerable Dharmasubhūti said to be reconciled with this? His stanza runs thus:

〔Quoted Stanza〕The Stanza of the Venerable Dharmasubhūti, and the Eight Cold Hells and the Destinies of the Other Places

Quoted stanza: Whose heart harbors always rage and venom, who delights to heap up every kind of evil action, who sees the suffering of others and rejoices at it — he becomes at death a warder of Yama.

Treatise: King Yama sends those rākṣasas to cast sentient beings into the hells, and these alone are what are called “the warders of Yama” — they are real sentient beings, but they are not those who inflict the injuries directly upon sentient beings within the hells; and so the hell warders (those who carry out the punishments directly) are not real sentient beings.

There is another account: they are sentient beings. Question: if so, in what place do they undergo the maturation result of such evil actions? Answer: within the hells themselves. Since the hells can hold even the maturation result called forth by actions without interval, what principle is there to block this? Question: if so, why does the fire not burn them? Answer: this is certainly because they are shut off by the force of action, or else because they have called forth different great elements (the four great elements that constitute their bodies being different), and so are not burned.

Of hot narakas it has been said that there are eight. Besides these there are eight further cold narakas. What are those eight? First Arbuda, second Nirarbuda, third Aṭaṭa, fourth Hahava, fifth Huhuva, sixth Utpala, seventh Padma, eighth Mahāpadma. The sentient beings within them are oppressed by bitter cold, and their names are established according to the changes of body and of voice.

These eight cold hells all lie beneath Jambudvīpa together, just at the flank of the great hells spoken of above.

Question: the area of this Jambudvīpa is not great; how can what is beneath it hold anything so large as the Unremitting hell? Answer: the continent is shaped like a heap of piled grain, pointed above and wide below, and so the great sea grows narrower and deeper the further down one goes (while the continent grows wider the further down one goes).

The sixteen hells discussed above are called forth by the dominant action shared by all sentient beings. The remaining “solitary hells” are summoned each by a separate action, and are dwelt in by many together, or by two, or by one, with differences of many kinds and no fixed place — whether near a river or a mountainside or in the wilderness, or underground, or in the sky, or in yet other places.

Such is the disposition of the hells: the base place is below, while the branches and offshoots are not fixed.

The dwelling places of animals (beasts) are the three of water, land, and air; their base place is the great sea, and only later did they spread abroad to other places.

The base place of the ghosts is the realm of King Yama. Five hundred yojanas down beneath this Jambudvīpa there is the realm of King Yama, its measure likewise five hundred each way, and from there they have spread by degrees and settled in other places. (Among the destiny of ghosts) there are some upright and majestic and possessed of great dignity, who enjoy every kind of wealth and pleasure in sovereign freedom like the gods; and there are some who are hungry and gaunt and ugly of countenance. Of this class the sūtras have a detailed account.

As for the questions of the places where the sun and moon are situated and of their sizes and the like, the stanza says:

〔Roots 61–63〕The Height and Size of the Sun and Moon, and the Increase and Decrease of Day and Night

Stanza: The sun and moon are at half the height of Meru, their diameters fifty-one and fifty respectively. When it is midnight in the northern continent, the sun is setting in the eastern continent, at midday in the southern, and rising in the western, and the four continents are equal. In the second month of the rainy season, from the ninth day of the latter half, the night gradually lengthens; and so it is in the fourth month of the cold season. When the night decreases the day does the opposite. Each time day and night increase or decrease, it is by one lava. Because the sun travels a southern course and a northern course; and because the moon, when it draws near the sun, is covered by its own shadow, the disc of the moon is seen to have a gap.

Treatise: Question: upon what do the sun, the moon, and the host of stars rest? Answer: they rest upon wind. That is, the dominant force of the actions of all sentient beings together gives rise to a wind, which turns and circles through the sky around the Sublime and Lofty Mountain, carrying and upholding the sun and moon and the rest so that they neither stop nor fall.

Question: how many yojanas is the place where they rest distant from here? Answer: level with the summit of Upholding the Pair, which is half the height of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain.

Question: how many yojanas are the diameters of the sun and moon? Answer: the sun fifty-one, the moon only fifty. The smallest of the stars is only one krośa (a smaller unit of length), the largest sixteen yojanas.

The underside of the sun’s disc is constituted of the fire-pearl among sphaṭika jewels, and can give heat and give light; the underside of the moon’s disc is constituted of the water-pearl among sphaṭika jewels, and can give cold and give light. These are produced according to the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings, and upon eyes, bodies, fruits, flowers, crops, medicinal herbs, and the like they work benefit or harm, each as is fitting.

Question: since one sun and moon alone do what they have to do throughout the four continents, is what they do in one day done in the four continents at the same time? Answer: no. Question: how then? Answer: when it is midnight in the northern continent, the sun is setting in the eastern continent, at midday in the southern, and rising in the western. These four moments are equal to one another (simultaneous), and the rest may be known on this pattern.

The sun’s course over this continent has its differences, and this is what makes day and night decrease and increase. From the ninth day of the latter half of the second month of the rainy season, the night gradually lengthens; from the ninth day of the latter half of the fourth month of the cold season, the night gradually shortens. The increase and decrease of the day are the opposite of this: when the night gradually increases the day gradually decreases, and if the night gradually decreases the day gradually increases.

Question: when day and night lengthen, by how much does one day and night increase? Answer: it increases by one lava (a very short unit of time). Their decrease is likewise.

The sun travels southward and travels northward over this continent, and thereby makes the night increase and the day increase in turn.

Question: why is the moon’s disc seen to have a gap at the end of the dark half and the beginning of the bright half (the end and the beginning of a lunar month)? Answer: the Designations of the World explains it thus — because as the palace of the moon travels it draws near the disc of the sun, and the moon is encroached upon and lit by the light of the sun’s disc, while on its other side it puts forth a shadow that covers its own disc, so that at that time it is seen not to be full. The masters of old, however, explained it thus: it is because the two discs of sun and moon differ in the degrees of their courses that fullness and gap appear.

Question: what sentient beings inhabit the palaces of the sun and the rest? Answer: the host of gods belonging to the four great heavenly kings. Question: do these gods dwell only here? Answer: if they are gods dwelling in space, they dwell only in the palaces of the sun and the rest; if they are gods dwelling on the ground, they dwell on the several terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and the like.

Question: how many terraces are there? What are their measures? Which gods dwell on which terrace? The stanza says:

〔Root 64 · Root 65〕The Four Terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings

Stanza: The Sublime and Lofty Mountain has four terraces, each distant from the next by ten thousand. The breadths by which they jut out sideways are, in order, sixteen thousand, eight thousand, four thousand, and two thousand. Firm Hand, Garland Holder, Ever Proud, and the Multitude of the Great Kings dwell in order upon the four terraces, and dwell also upon the remaining seven golden mountains.

Treatise: Mount Sumeru has four terraces: reckoning from the surface of the water up to the first terrace, the distance is ten thousand yojanas; and so on, up to the distance from the third terrace to the fourth, which is likewise ten thousand.

These four terraces jut out sideways from the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and encircle it, taking up the whole of its lower half. The first juts out sideways sixteen thousand, and the second, third, and fourth in order eight thousand, four thousand, and two thousand.

There is a yakṣa god named Firm Hand, who dwells on the first terrace; one named Garland Holder, who dwells on the second; one named Ever Proud, who dwells on the third. All three of these belong to the host of gods of the four great heavenly kings. The fourth terrace is the place where the four great heavenly kings dwell together with their several retinues, and it is on this ground that the sūtras speak of “the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings.”

Just as the terraces on the four sides of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain are inhabited by the Multitude of the Four Great Kings and their retinues, so likewise upon the seven golden mountains, Upholding the Pair, Upholding the Axle, and the rest, there are gods dwelling, and those are fiefs belonging to the four great heavenly kings — this is called “the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings that dwells in dependence on the ground.” Among the gods of the desire realm, the extent of this heaven is the widest.

Question: in what place does the Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwell? The stanza says:

〔Roots 66–69〕The Heaven of the Thirty-Three and the City Fair to Behold

Stanza: The summit of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain is eighty thousand on each side, and the Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwells there. At each of the four corners there is a peak, which is where Vajra-Hand dwells. The palace city at the center is named Fair to Behold, its circumference ten thousand yojanas, a golden city wall a yojana and a half high, adorned with jewels of every kind, its ground soft to the touch. Within the city there is a Hall of Surpassing Excellence, one thousand yojanas in circumference. Outside the city four parks adorn it, namely Many Chariots, Coarse and Harsh, Mixed Groves, and the Grove of Joy. Four excellent pools lie one on each of the four sides, each twenty from its park. To the northeast is the Round-Growth Tree, to the southwest the Hall of Good Dharma.

Treatise: The Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwells on the summit of Mount Meru. The summit is eighty thousand on each of its four sides, no different in measure from the four sides at the mountain’s foot. Another party of masters says: (the summit) is eighty thousand in circumference, and they state separately that each of the four sides is only twenty thousand.

At each of the four corners of the summit there is a peak, five hundred in height and in breadth. There is a yakṣa god named Vajra-Hand who dwells within them and guards the gods.

At the center of the summit there is a palace city named Fair to Behold, two thousand five hundred on each side and ten thousand yojanas in circumference. The height of the golden city wall is a yojana and a half; the ground is level and is likewise constituted of true gold, and it is adorned with a hundred and one kinds of jewel. The ground is soft to the touch as tūla floss (a floss that comes out of the fruit of a certain tree), and when one treads upon it, it rises and sinks with the foot. This is the great capital city of Śakra, lord of the gods.

Within the city there is a Hall of Surpassing Excellence, fully adorned with every kind of excellent jewel; because it surpasses the other palaces of the gods it is called “Surpassing Excellence.” It is two hundred and fifty on each side, and one thousand yojanas in circumference. So much for the several delightful things within the city.

Outside the city, on its four sides, there are four parks that adorn it, the places where those gods disport themselves together: first the Park of Many Chariots, second the Coarse and Harsh Park, third the Park of Mixed Groves, fourth the Park of the Grove of Joy; these are the outer ornament and adornment of the great city. On the four sides of the four parks there are four excellent pools, each twenty yojanas away from its park in between, and these are the excellent playgrounds of those gods, where the gods vie with one another and take their pleasure and sport.

Northeast of the city there is a Round-Growth Tree, the most excellent place where the Heaven of the Thirty-Three enjoy the pleasures of desire. Its coiling roots are fifty yojanas deep and broad; its towering trunk grows upward and its branches spread out on every side, its height and its breadth being a hundred yojanas each. Its slender leaves put forth flowers, whose excellent fragrance is rich and pervading, and with the wind it can perfume a hundred yojanas; and when the wind is against it, it still extends over fifty.

Question: with the wind it may be so, but how can it perfume against the wind? One party of masters says: fragrance has no principle by which it perfumes against the wind; it is only in dependence upon its “not passing beyond the bounds of the tree” that it is said to perfume against the wind. In truth of principle, the Round-Growth Tree does have such a quality, and the fragrance that streams from it is able to perfume against the wind; and although it is dammed back by the force of the harmonious winds of the heavens, yet it can stream on unbroken in continuity toward other quarters, only growing weaker and subtler by degrees until it stops at no great distance, and cannot reach so far as when it perfumes with the wind.

Question: does a flower fragrance of this kind, resting in its own place, turn on in continuity with the wind toward other quarters, or does it merely perfume the wind so that a fragrance arises separately? Answer: this matter has no settled conclusion; the preceptors allow both accounts and find no fault in either.

Question: if so, why then did the Bhagavat say:

〔Quoted Stanza〕The World-Honored One’s Stanza on the Fragrance of Flowers, and the Hall of Good Dharma

Quoted stanza: The fragrance of flowers cannot perfume against the wind, and the fragrance of roots and stems and the rest is likewise; but the fragrance of a good man’s qualities is rich and pervading, and against the wind streams its fair name abroad through every quarter.

Treatise: That was said with respect to the fragrances of the human world, for the fragrances commonly known to people of the world truly have no such power. A sūtra transmitted by the Mahīśāsakas says: this fragrance (of the Round-Growth Tree) perfumes a hundred yojanas with the wind, and when there is no wind extends over fifty only.

At the southwest corner outside the city is the Hall of Good Dharma, where the Heaven of the Thirty-Three assemble from time to time and discuss in detail what is according to the Dharma and what is not.

The outer receptacle inhabited by the Heaven of the Thirty-Three has now been analyzed; what then of the receptacles inhabited by the remaining gods possessed of form? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 70〕Above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Palaces Dwell in Space

Stanza: The gods possessed of form above this dwell in dependence upon palaces in space.

Treatise: Above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three spoken of above there are still gods possessed of form, who dwell in dependence upon palaces in space.

Question: what is meant by “the gods possessed of form above”? Answer: the Yāma Heaven, the Tuṣita Heaven, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations, and the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, together with the Brahmakāyika Heaven and the rest spoken of above, sixteen places in all. Together with the foregoing (the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings and the Heaven of the Thirty-Three), there are twenty-two heavens in all, and all of them dwell in dependence upon an outer receptacle.

Among the hosts of gods thus spoken of, the stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 70〕The Manner of Sexual Union Differs among the Six Heavens of Desire

Stanza: The six heavens of desire undergo the objects of desire, and their sexual union is, in order, by intercourse, embracing, holding hands, laughing, and looking.

Treatise: Only the six heavens of desire undergo excellent objects of desire. Of these, the first two are the heavens that dwell in dependence upon the ground (the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings and the Heaven of the Thirty-Three), and there sexual union is accomplished by the joining of bodies, no different from the human world; only that when the breath of wind is released the burning distress is removed, and it is not as in the human world where there is other impurity besides. For the host of gods of the Yāma Heaven, one embrace accomplishes sexual union; for the Tuṣita Heaven, holding hands alone; for the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations, laughing toward one another; and for the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, gazing at one another accomplishes it.

The Vaibhāṣikas explain it thus: all six heavens accomplish sexual union by the joining of bodies, and what the Designations of the World says about embracing and the rest is meant only to display the difference in the length of time they require (to accomplish sexual union). It is because the higher the heaven the more excellent the objects of desire and the swifter the greedy mind, that it is so.

Upon the knees of the male and female among those gods, boys and girls are suddenly born by transformation, and these are said to be the sons and daughters born to that god.

Question: what is the bodily measure of the host of gods at their first birth? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 71〕The Bodily Measure of the Host of Gods at Their First Birth

Stanza: (The gods of desire) at their first birth are like children of five years up to ten, while the gods of the form realm at their first birth are already full in bodily measure and possessed of heavenly garments.

Treatise: The six heavens of desire, at their first birth, are like people of five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten years in order; and once born, their bodily form quickly grows to fullness. The host of gods of the form realm, at the time of their first birth, are complete and full in bodily measure, and are possessed of excellent garments.

All the hosts of gods speak “the noble speech,” that is, their language is the same as that of Central India.

Question: how should the distinction between birth amid desires and birth amid pleasure be understood? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 71〕Three Kinds of Birth amid Desires, Three Kinds of Birth amid Pleasure

Stanza: Birth amid desires is of three kinds and extends to human beings and gods; birth amid pleasure is of three kinds, in nine places.

Treatise: The three kinds of birth amid desires are as follows —

There is one class of sentient beings who delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire present before them, and who turn in sovereign freedom among such ready-made objects of desire; and these are the whole of the human destiny together with the four heavens below (from the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings up to the Tuṣita Heaven).

There is one class of sentient beings who delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire that they have themselves produced by transformation, and who turn in sovereign freedom among the excellent objects of desire of their own transforming; and these are the fifth heaven alone, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations.

There is one class of sentient beings who delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire that others have produced by transformation, and who turn in sovereign freedom among the excellent objects of desire of others’ transforming; and these are the sixth heaven, the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations.

In dependence upon “undergoing the objects of desire present before one just as they arise,” upon “delighting to undergo objects of desire of one’s own transforming,” and upon “delighting to undergo objects of desire of others’ transforming,” the three distinctions of “birth amid desires” are accordingly analyzed within the desire realm.

The three kinds of birth amid pleasure are as follows — within the three meditative absorptions, in nine places, one is born and there receives three kinds of pleasure: that is, those gods abide in the “joy and pleasure born of seclusion” (the first meditative absorption), in the “joy and pleasure born of absorption” (the second meditative absorption), and, through separation from joy, in pleasure alone (the third meditative absorption), abiding long, long separated from suffering, and long receiving pleasure, and are therefore called “birth amid pleasure.”

(An appended question): those born in the intermediate absorption (where the great Brahmā dwells) have no joy or pleasure at all; it should be pondered why they too are called a heaven of birth amid pleasure.

Question: as for the twenty-two places of the gods spoken of above, what are the measures by which they are distant from one another, above and below? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 72〕The Distance Upward from a Given Heaven Equals Its Distance Downward

Stanza: As is the measure by which a given heaven is distant from what is below, so likewise is the number by which it is distant from what is above.

Treatise: The measure in yojanas by which each heaven is separated from the next is not easily counted out one by one; only a general principle can be given: as is the measure by which a given heaven is distant from what is below, so is its distance from what is above to be reckoned on that pattern.

According as one reckons from whichever heaven, as is the measure by which it is distant from the great sea below, so is the distance it can reach upward the same as its distance downward. That is to say: from the fourth terrace of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain down to the great sea is forty thousand yojanas, and that is the original dwelling place of the four great heavenly kings; then from there upward to the Heaven of the Thirty-Three is likewise equal to the measure by which that heaven is distant from the great sea below. As is the measure by which the Heaven of the Thirty-Three is distant from the great sea below, so is the measure upward to the Yāma Heaven. And so on, up to the measure in yojanas by which the Sudarśana Heaven is distant from the great sea below, from which upward to the Akaniṣṭha Heaven is likewise equal to the measure by which that heaven is distant from the great sea below.

From this point upward there is no further place of dwelling; this place is the highest, and is named the Akaniṣṭha, the limit of form. Another party of masters says: it is named the Heaven of the Limit of Resistance — by “resistance” they mean form as accumulated, and since resistance is exhausted upon reaching here, it obtains the name “limit.”

Question: can gods born in a lower place ascend, and can they see what is above? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 72〕Apart from Supernormal Power or Dependence on Another’s Power, the Gods Below Cannot Ascend and Cannot See What Is Above

Stanza: Apart from the power of supernormal power and dependence upon another’s power, the gods below cannot ascend and cannot see what is above.

Treatise: The Heaven of the Thirty-Three, by their own power of supernormal power, can ascend from their own place to the Yāma Heaven; or else in dependence upon another’s power, that is, one who has attained the supernormal powers, or a host of gods of an upper realm, may convey them to the Yāma Heaven. The ascending of the remaining gods is to be reckoned on this same pattern.

If a god above comes down, or a god below arrives above, then those below get to see the god above; but as for the eye of a lower realm and lower level, it cannot see the form of an upper realm and upper level. The eye below, however, cannot see an upper realm or upper level, because that is not its object field — just as one does not feel the tangible object of that upper realm. Therefore, when a god comes down from an upper level to a lower level, he does not come in his own body but must make a transformation body of the lower level.

Another party of masters says: those gods of a lower level can, according as they wish, also see the form of an upper level, just as one born in this desire realm can see the gods above from below.

Question: what is the measure of the supports of the palaces of the Yāma Heaven and the rest? One party of masters says: the supports of the four heavens above this are equal in measure to the summit of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain. Another party of masters says: each heaven upward doubles the one before. Yet other masters say: the supports of the palaces of the level of the first meditative absorption equal one set of four great continents, those of the second meditative absorption a small-thousand world-sphere, those of the third a middling-thousand world-sphere, and those of the fourth a great-thousand world-sphere. Still other masters say: the three lower meditative absorptions equal in order a small thousand, a middling thousand, and a great thousand, while the measure of the fourth meditative absorption is without limit.

Question: at what measure is a small thousand, a middling thousand, or a great thousand spoken of? The stanza says:

〔Root 73 · Root 74〕The Small Thousand, the Middling Thousand, and the Great Thousand

Stanza: The four great continents, the sun and moon, Sumeru, the gods of the desire realm, and the Brahmā world, a thousand of each, are called one small-thousand world-sphere. This small thousand multiplied a thousandfold is called one middling thousand. This middling thousand multiplied a thousandfold is the great thousand, and they all come into being together and are dissolved together.

Treatise: A thousand sets of four great continents, and so on up to a thousand Brahmā worlds — these stated together are one small thousand. A thousandfold of the small thousand is called one middling-thousand world. A thousand middling-thousand worlds are named together one great thousand. Such a great thousand comes into being together and is dissolved together. The characteristics of coming into being together and being dissolved together will be analyzed at length below (in the section on the measure of aeons).

Question: as the measures of the outer receptacles differ one from another, do bodily measures also differ? Answer: they differ likewise. Question: how so? The stanza says:

〔Root 75 · Root 76 · First Half of Root 77〕The Bodily Measures of the People of the Four Continents and of the Gods

Stanza: The bodily measure of the people of Jambudvīpa is three and a half cubits or four cubits. The people of the eastern, western, and northern continents increase in order by a doubling each time. The gods of the desire realm take the krośa as their unit, each heaven adding a quarter. The gods of the form realm take the yojana as their unit, the first four heavens each adding a half, and above these each heaven doubling, only the Anabhraka Heaven subtracting three.

Treatise: The people of Jambudvīpa are for the most part three and a half cubits tall, and a small number of them grow to four cubits. The people of the continent of Videha in the east are eight cubits tall, those of the continent of Godānīya in the west sixteen cubits, and those of Uttarakuru in the north thirty-two cubits.

The bodily measure of the lowest of the six heavens of the desire realm is a quarter of a krośa, and thereafter each heaven adds a quarter, until at the sixth heaven the bodily measure is a krośa and a half.

The bodily measures of the gods of the form realm: first the Brahmakāyika Heaven half a yojana, the Brahmapurohita Heaven a full yojana, the Mahābrahmā Heaven a yojana and a half, the Parīttābha Heaven a full two yojanas. Above these, all the remaining gods increase by a doubling each time, only the Anabhraka Heaven subtracting three yojanas — that is, the Apramāṇābha Heaven increases from twice to four, and so on until at the Akaniṣṭha Heaven the increase reaches a full sixteen thousand.

Question: since bodily measures differ one from another, is there a distinction in lifespan? Answer: there is a distinction likewise. Question: how so? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 77 · Roots 78–80〕The Lifespans of Human Beings, of the Gods of Desire, of the Gods of Form, and of the Formless Gods

Stanza: The northern continent has a fixed lifespan of one thousand years, and the western and eastern continents halve it each in turn; in this Jambudvīpa the lifespan is not fixed, at the last it is ten years only, and at the first it is beyond measuring. Fifty human years are one day and night of the lowest heaven, and reckoning by this the lifespan is five hundred years, the five heavens above increasing by a doubling each time. In the form realm there is no distinction of day and night, and the number of aeons equals the bodily measure. In the formless realm the first is twenty thousand aeons, and thereafter each adds twenty thousand. For the heavens from the Parīttābha upward and for those below it, the aeon is respectively the whole and the half of a great aeon.

Treatise: The people of Uttarakuru in the north have a fixed lifespan of a thousand years, the people of the continent of Godānīya in the west live five hundred years, the people of the continent of Videha in the east two hundred and fifty years, and the people of Jambudvīpa in the south have no fixed limit of lifespan — when the aeon has decreased to its last, the longest life is ten years only; at the beginning of the aeon, human life is beyond measure and cannot be reckoned by hundreds or thousands or the like.

So much for the length and shortness of lifespan in the human world.

The day and night of the heavens must be established first, and only then can the length and shortness of the lifespans of the gods be reckoned. Question: how is day and night established in the heavens? Answer: fifty human years are one day and one night of the lowest of the six heavens of desire; and reckoning by this day and night, thirty days making a month and twelve months a year, that heaven has a lifespan of five hundred years.

The five heavens of desire above double it by degrees: a hundred human years are one day and one night of the second heaven, and reckoning by this day and night into months and years, that heaven has a lifespan of a thousand years. For the four heavens of the Yāma and the rest, two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred, and one thousand six hundred human years are in order one day and one night; and reckoning by these days and nights into months and years, their lifespans are in order two thousand, four thousand, eight thousand, and sixteen thousand years.

Question: above Upholding the Pair there is no sun or moon; how do those gods establish day and night and the matter of light? On what do they establish them? Answer: they establish day and night by the opening and closing of flowers, such as the kumuda and the padma; and further by the difference between the crying and the silence of the birds, or by the difference between the gods’ sleeping and waking; and they accomplish outer light by means of the light of their own bodies.

So much for the length and shortness of the lifespans of the gods of the desire realm.

Among the gods of the form realm there is no distinction of day and night, and the length and shortness of lifespan is known by the number of aeons alone. The length and shortness of their lifespan in aeons equals the number of their bodily measure: if the bodily measure is half a yojana, the lifespan is half an aeon; if the bodily measure is one yojana, the lifespan is one aeon; and so on, until where the bodily measure is sixteen thousand long, the lifespan is likewise sixteen thousand aeons.

So much for the length and shortness of the lifespans of the gods of the form realm.

The four heavens of the formless realm, from below upward, have lifespans in order of twenty thousand, forty thousand, sixty thousand, and eighty thousand aeons.

Question: as for the “aeon” spoken of above, what is its measure? Is it an aeon of dissolution, an aeon of formation, an intermediate aeon, or a great aeon? Answer: from the Parīttābha Heaven upward the whole of a great aeon is taken as the aeon, and for the heavens below it the half of a great aeon is taken as the aeon. It is precisely on this account that the great Brahmā king is said to exceed the Brahmapurohita Heaven in lifespan by an aeon and a half — that is, with twenty intermediate aeons each for formation, abiding, and dissolution, sixty intermediate aeons make an aeon and a half; and so the forty intermediate aeons that are half a great aeon serve as the measure of the aeon by which the lifespans of the three heavens below are reckoned.

So much for the length and shortness of lifespan in the good destinies. And what of the evil destinies? The stanza says:

〔Roots 81–83〕The Lifespans of the Hells, of Animals, and of Ghosts

Stanza: For the six hells above, beginning with Equal Reviving, the lifespans of the gods of the desire realm serve in order as one day and night, and their lifespans are likewise the same as those of the gods. The hell of Extreme Heat is half an intermediate aeon, the Unremitting hell a full intermediate aeon. For animals the longest is one intermediate aeon. Ghosts take one human month as a day and live five hundred years. As for the lifespan of Arbuda, it is like a vāha of sesame, from which one seed is taken out every hundred years until it is exhausted; and thereafter each increases twentyfold.

Treatise: The lifespans of the six heavens of desire, the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings and the rest, serve in order as one day and one night for the six narakas beginning with Equal Reviving; and the lifespans of these six hells are also, in order, the same as those of the gods. That is to say: the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings has a lifespan of five hundred years, and this is one day and one night in the hell of Equal Reviving; reckoning such days and nights into months and years, and counting by such years, their lifespan is five hundred years. And so on up to the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, whose lifespan is sixteen thousand years, and this is one day and one night in the hell of Burning Heat; reckoning such days and nights into months and years, their lifespan is sixteen thousand years of that kind.

The hell of Extreme Heat has a lifespan of half an intermediate aeon, and the Unremitting hell of one intermediate aeon.

The lifespan of animals is for the most part without fixed limit; but if the life is exceedingly long, it too is one intermediate aeon, that is, the great nāga kings such as Nanda and the rest. Hence the World-Honored One said: there are eight great nāgas, all of whom can abide for an aeon and can uphold the great earth.

Ghosts take one human month as a day, and reckoning by this into months and years, they live five hundred years.

Question: what is the lifespan of the cold narakas? Answer: the World-Honored One committed it to a simile to display their lifespan — as when twenty human khārī make one vāha of sesame in the land of Magadha (both “khārī” and “vāha” are units of capacity, one vāha being twenty khārī), and a man fills it level to the brim with black sesame, and suppose again that a man were able to take one seed away every hundred years: in such a case the sesame would readily come to a time of exhaustion, whereas the lifespan of one born in the hell of Arbuda would be hard to exhaust. Twenty times this number is the lifespan of the second cold hell, and so thereafter each increases twentyfold — such are the lifespans of the eight cold hells.

Question: do these lifespans admit of untimely death midway? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 84〕Untimely Death, and Those Who Do Not Die Untimely

Stanza: In every place there is untimely death, save only in Uttarakuru in the north.

Treatise: In every place the lifespan admits of dying untimely midway, save only Uttarakuru in the north, whose fixed lifespan is a thousand years.

This, however, is said with respect to “place” and not with respect to particular sentient beings — for there are certain other sentient beings who do not die untimely. That is to say: the bodhisattva bound to one more birth who dwells in the Tuṣita Heaven (the bodhisattva who has but one birth left before buddhahood), and one in his last existence, one to whom the Buddha has given prediction, one whom the Buddha has sent, one who follows through faith, one who follows the dharma, and further the mothers who carry a bodhisattva in the womb and who carry a wheel-turning monarch in the womb — these, each as is fitting, are all without untimely death.

〔Taking Up the Question from What Precedes〕Two Rules Have Already Been Used — What Is Their Smallest Graduation

Treatise (carrying on from what precedes): Above, by means of the yojana (a unit of length, a transcribed term, given in the older translation by a different transcription) and the rest, the differences in size within the receptacle world (the mountains, rivers, and great earth, and the sun, moon, and heavenly palaces — the surroundings that hold sentient beings) and in the bodily measure of sentient beings have been analyzed; and by means of the year and the rest, the differences of long and short in the lifespan of each place have been analyzed. Of these two rules — the one measuring space, the other time — how small a graduation each of them can reach has nowhere been stated above, and it should be stated now.

Further, the establishing of these two measures is in no case established apart from names (without a name there is no way to speak of any measure at all). Therefore of these two, the measure of space and the measure of time, together with a third, name, the least measure has in no case yet been set out in full; and now the three least measures should first be analyzed. The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 84〕The Three Least Measures — the Least of Form, the Least of Name, the Least of Time

Stanza: The ultimate atom is the least of form, a single letter the least of name, and a single moment the least of time.

Treatise: When the several kinds of form are analyzed layer by layer until they can be analyzed no further, that is one ultimate atom; and so a single ultimate atom is the least unit of form. By the same procedure, when the several names and times are likewise analyzed down to a single letter and a single moment, these are the least units of name and of time.

What is meant by a name of a single letter? It is like saying the one letter qu (a single letter alone can serve as a name, and this is the least of name).

What, then, is called the measure of a single moment? The treatise gives two accounts: first, the instant in which, when the many conditions have come together, a dharma just obtains its own existence; second, if there is something in motion, the stretch in which it passes over the length of one ultimate atom, and that stretch is one moment. Besides these, the Abhidharma masters (the treatise masters who make Abhidharma their special study) have a further account by way of simile: as a strong man snaps his fingers once quickly, and within the time of that one snap sixty-five moments have passed — reckoned in this way, it is called the measure of one moment.

The three least measures are now known; what then of the whole set of graduations of the measure of space and the measure of time spoken of above? For the present the former will be analyzed first, that is, the measures of length in the series of the yojana. The stanza says:

〔Root 85 · Root 86〕The Full Table of Lengths — from the Ultimate Atom to the Yojana, Increasing Sevenfold at Every Step

Stanza: The ultimate atom, the mote, gold dust, water dust; hare’s-hair dust, sheep’s-wool dust, ox-hair dust, crevice-roaming dust; the nit, the louse, the barley grain, the finger joint — from each grade to the next, every grade increases sevenfold. Twenty-four fingers laid side by side make one cubit, four cubits the length of one bow, and five hundred bows one krośa; and eight krośas make one yojana.

Treatise: In this series, which begins with the ultimate atom and ends with the finger joint, it should be known that each later grade is without exception sevenfold the one before. That is to say: seven ultimate atoms make the measure of one mote; motes accumulated to seven make one gold dust; seven gold dusts make the measure of water dust; water dusts accumulated to seven make one hare’s-hair dust; seven hare’s-hair dusts make the measure of sheep’s-wool dust; sheep’s-wool dusts accumulated to seven make one ox-hair dust; seven ox-hair dusts make the measure of crevice-roaming dust (that is, the floating dust visible to the naked eye within the shaft of light that comes through a crack in a window); seven crevice-roaming dusts make one nit (a nit being the egg of a louse); seven nits make one louse; seven lice make one barley grain (a bearded grain of barley); and seven barley grains make one finger joint (the length of one bone of a finger).

Here the sevenfold increase comes to an end: three finger joints together make one finger — and this step is threefold, not sevenfold. Because the relation of joint to finger is common knowledge plain to everyone in the world, the stanza gives it no separate statement of its own.

Above this come the ordinary units of measurement: twenty-four fingers laid out side by side make one cubit; four cubits stacked lengthwise make one bow, which is also called a fathom; five hundred bows laid end to end make one krośa — and one krośa is about the length of the road between a village and a forest hermitage (the quiet place where the community practices, in woodland neither too near the village nor too far from it). Eight krośas are then spoken of as one yojana.

This whole set of lengths has now been stated, and the latter kind should now be analyzed — the measures of time, the year and the rest. The stanza says:

〔Root 87 · Root 88〕The Full Table of Times — from the Moment to the Year, and the Six Nights a Year Loses

Stanza: One hundred and twenty moments are the measure of one tatkṣaṇa; sixty tatkṣaṇas make one lava; thirty lavas make one brief hour; thirty brief hours make one day and night; thirty days and nights make one month; twelve months make one year; and within a year half of the months must have their nights diminished.

Treatise: One hundred and twenty moments make one tatkṣaṇa; sixty tatkṣaṇas make one lava; thirty lavas make one muhūrta (that is, the brief hour); thirty muhūrtas make one day and night. Within this day and night there is sometimes increase, sometimes decrease, and sometimes equality — increase and decrease meaning the waxing and waning of day and night against each other, the total remaining always thirty muhūrtas: sometimes the night is long and the day short (the winter solstice in these parts), sometimes the day is long and the night short (the summer solstice in these parts), and sometimes day and night are level (the spring and the autumn equinox in these parts). Thirty days and nights make one month, and twelve months in all make one year.

A year is further divided into three seasons (three stretches of the year’s course), namely the cold season, the hot season, and the rainy season, each occupying four months. Of the twelve months, six must have their nights diminished (the nights of those six months being shorter than the standard, which comes to reckoning one night the less in each of them); and so in a full year the nights are diminished by six in all. Why is it reckoned so? For this reason there is an old stanza that says:

Quoted stanza: Within the three seasons, the cold, the hot, and the rainy, when a month and a half of each season has passed, in the half month that remains the wise know that the nights are to be diminished.

Treatise (continued): The analysis from the moment all the way to the year is thus complete. Next, time is to be drawn out to the aeon — and the measures of the several aeons are not the same, so they will now be analyzed in order. The stanza says:

〔Roots 89–92〕The Four Aeons — the Aeon of Dissolution, of Formation, the Intermediate Aeon, the Great Aeon

Stanza: It should be known that aeons are of four kinds, namely the aeon of dissolution, the aeon of formation, the intermediate aeon, and the great aeon. The aeon of dissolution is reckoned from the time when no new sentient being is born in the hells until the outward receptacle world is wholly destroyed. The aeon of formation is reckoned from the arising of the wind circle until the first sentient being is born in the hells. As for the intermediate aeon, the first is that in which the human lifespan decreases from immeasurable years to ten alone; after it come eighteen, each of one increase and one decrease; and the last is that which increases up to eighty thousand years. This stage of abiding after formation is what is called the twenty intermediate aeons. The aeon of formation, the aeon of dissolution, and the aeon of emptiness after dissolution are all equal in measure of time to the aeon of abiding. Eighty intermediate aeons together make one great aeon; and to become a buddha one must pass through three asaṃkhyeyas of great aeons.

Treatise:

〔The Aeon of Dissolution〕 What is called the aeon of dissolution runs from the point where no new sentient being is born among those in the hells until the outward receptacle world is wholly destroyed. Dissolution is divided in two ways: by one division it is the dissolution of the destinies and the dissolution of the realms (dissolution stated in terms of the five destinies and stated in terms of the three realms); by another division it is the dissolution of sentient beings and the dissolution of the outward receptacle (the world of sentient beings being destroyed first and the receptacle world afterward).

This world first passes twenty intermediate aeons of abiding, and thereafter there are twenty intermediate aeons equal to them, and the aeon of dissolution has come. From what point is the beginning of the aeon of dissolution reckoned? When the sentient beings of the hells die and no new sentient being is born into them, that is the beginning of the aeon of dissolution; and when not one sentient being is left in the hells, that is called the hells having been destroyed.

What of those sentient beings who have done actions that must certainly be requited in the hells? Drawn by the force of action, they are set in the hells of another world to undergo it there. From this it may be inferred that the destinies of animals and of hungry ghosts are destroyed in the same way. Yet in each of these it is those dwelling in their own proper place who are destroyed first; while those dwelling mingled among human beings and gods (the animals and the ghosts among human beings, for instance) are destroyed together with human beings and gods.

Next the destiny of human beings. At what point is the destiny of human beings destroyed? When someone in this Jambudvīpa (the southern continent in which we dwell), without a teacher, spontaneously attains the first meditative absorption, and coming out of that absorption sings out these words: “The joy and pleasure born of seclusion — how pleasant, how still!” (the joy and pleasure born of withdrawal from the desire realm — how very pleasant, how very still). The others, hearing him, all likewise enter absorption; and when their lives end they are together born into the Brahmā world (the heaven of the first absorption). Thus it goes on until the sentient beings of this continent are all gone, and that is called the people of Jambudvīpa having been destroyed. Videha in the east and Godānīya in the west may be stated on this same pattern. As for Uttarakuru in the north, the people there, when their lifespan is exhausted, are born among the gods of the desire realm — for the people of the northern continent have not the power to enter absorption and become free from desire. And when not one sentient being is left in the destiny of human beings, that is called the destiny of human beings having been destroyed.

Next the destiny of gods. At what point is the destiny of gods destroyed? When some one among the gods of the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings spontaneously attains the first meditative absorption, and so on until they are together born into the Brahmā world; and when the sentient beings of that heaven are all gone, that is called the Heaven of the Multitude of the Great Kings having been destroyed. The remaining five heavens of the desire realm (the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Yāma, the Tuṣita, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations, and the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations) may be stated on this same pattern. And when not one sentient being is left in the desire realm, that is called the sentient beings within the desire realm having been destroyed.

Higher still. At what point is the Brahmā world destroyed? When some sentient being in the Brahmā world, without a teacher, spontaneously attains the second meditative absorption, and coming out of that absorption sings out these words: “The joy and pleasure born of absorption — how pleasant, how still!” (the joy and pleasure that arise from absorption — how very pleasant, how very still). The remaining host of gods, hearing him, all enter that absorption; and when their lives end they are together born into the Ābhāsvara Heaven (the highest level of the second absorption). Thus it goes on until the sentient beings within the Brahmā world are all gone — and this is called the world of sentient beings having been destroyed, only the receptacle world being left standing there vast and empty.

〔The Destruction of the Receptacle World〕 Next, when among all the sentient beings of the remaining worlds of the ten directions every action that draws forth this one trichiliocosm has been used up, seven sun-discs appear here by degrees: the seas dry up, the ranked mountains catch fire and blaze through, the continents and islets together with the three underlying circles of wind, water, and gold are all burned up alike, and a raging wind drives the fierce flames upward to burn the heavenly palaces, burning on as far as the palace of Brahmā without leaving so much as ash behind.

It should be noted that it is the flames of a given level that burn the palaces of that same level, and that the catastrophe of another level cannot destroy that other level — the reason for saying that the fire below, driven by the wind, burns the level above is that it is said with respect to the drawing forth of one thing by another, meaning that the fierce flames of the desire realm rise and serve as the condition that draws forth the flames of the form realm (it is not that the fire of the desire realm literally burns its way up into the form realm). The remaining catastrophes of water and of wind are likewise, and are to be understood on this same principle.

The diminishing level by level from the hells onward, until the receptacle world is wholly destroyed, is named in sum the aeon of dissolution.

〔The Aeon of Formation〕 What is called the aeon of formation runs from the arising of the wind circle until sentient beings begin to be born in the hells. After this world has been destroyed by catastrophe there are twenty intermediate aeons of nothing but empty space; and after so long a time there should again be twenty intermediate aeons equal to them, and the aeon of formation has come.

By the dominance of the shared force of the actions of all sentient beings, an exceedingly fine wind arises by degrees within empty space, and this is the sign that the receptacle world is about to be formed. The wind grows stronger by degrees, and thereupon the wind circle, the water circle, the gold circle, and the rest are established in the manner stated above (in Unit 4); yet what is established first is the palace of the great Brahmā king, and so on down to the palace of the Yāma Heaven (the heavens dwelling in space being formed first, from above downward), and only then do the wind circle and the rest arise (the portion dwelling upon the ground being formed later) — and this is called the outward receptacle world having been established.

Next comes the world of sentient beings. First one sentient being dies in the Ābhāsvara Heaven and is born in the place of the great Brahmā, becoming the great Brahmā king. Thereafter the remaining sentient beings also die there, some being born as gods of the Brahmapurohita Heaven, some as gods of the Brahmakāyika Heaven, and some into the palace of the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations. Thus they are born downward level by level, on as far as Uttarakuru in the north, Godānīya in the west, Videha in the east, and Jambudvīpa in the south within the destiny of human beings, and only then as hungry ghosts, animals, and hell beings. It is by the very nature of things: what is destroyed last must be formed first (and conversely, the hells, which are destroyed first, are formed last).

If a first sentient being is born in the Unremitting Hell, it should be known that the twenty intermediate aeons of the aeon of formation are already fulfilled. Thereafter twenty further intermediate aeons, named abiding after formation, arise in due order — that is, from the arising of the wind and the making of the receptacle world onward, until sentient beings afterward come by degrees to abide there.

〔The Intermediate Aeon〕 The human lifespan in this Jambudvīpa at first passes through an exceedingly long and immeasurable time; only at the beginning of the aeon of abiding does the lifespan begin to decrease by degrees. Its decrease from immeasurable years down to the lowest of ten years is named the first intermediate aeon of abiding. Of the eighteen intermediate aeons that follow, each has both an increase and a decrease: an increase from ten years up to eighty thousand, and a decrease again from eighty thousand down to ten, and only so is it named the second intermediate aeon; and the seventeen after it are all of them likewise by the same rule. After these eighteen there is a further increase from ten years up to the highest of eighty thousand, and this is named the twentieth aeon.

Two limits, upper and lower, are to be kept in mind: in every aeon the increase does not pass beyond eighty thousand years, and in every aeon the decrease reaches only ten years at the least. The eighteen aeons in the middle have one increase and one decrease and are exactly equal in measure of time; while the first of them has only a decrease and the last only an increase, and so the measures of time of all twenty of these aeons are equal. This whole stretch is named in sum the aeon of abiding after formation.

As for the remaining aeon of formation, aeon of dissolution, and the aeon of emptiness after dissolution, they have no such difference of twenty graded increases and decreases as the aeon of abiding has; yet because their measure of time is the same as that of the aeon of abiding, they too are reckoned, by comparison with it, as twenty intermediate aeons each. Within the aeon of formation the first aeon is the arising of the receptacle world and the nineteen after it are the coming of sentient beings by degrees to dwell there; within the aeon of dissolution the last aeon is the destruction of the receptacle world and the nineteen before it are the departing of sentient beings by degrees.

Thus the four stretches spoken of — formation, abiding, dissolution, and emptiness — are each of twenty intermediate aeons, and accumulated they come to eighty in all; and these eighty intermediate aeons together make the measure of one great aeon.

〔The Nature of an Aeon〕 What, then, is the nature of this thing called an aeon? Answer: it is the five aggregates alone (form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness — an aeon is not some further thing, but only a stretch of the dharmas of body and mind continuing in time).

〔The Three Asaṃkhyeya Aeons〕 A sūtra says that one must practice with vigor through three asaṃkhyeyas of aeons (three innumerables of great aeons) before one can become a buddha. Among the four kinds of aeon stated above, which kind is it that is accumulated to make the three innumerables? Answer: it is the great aeon stated above that is accumulated into tens, into hundreds, into thousands, and so on until it is accumulated into three innumerables.

Since it is called innumerable, why is it further said to be three? Answer: the word innumerable does not display the sense that a thing cannot be numbered. The Sūtra of Liberation says that among the sixty places of number, asaṃkhyeya is one of those places (the name of a fixed place in the series, not a thing that cannot be counted out).

How, then, are those sixty places of number counted? As that sūtra says: there is a number without remainder, and the first is one; ten ones make ten, ten tens make a hundred, ten hundreds make a thousand, ten thousands make ten thousand, ten of ten thousand make one lakṣa, ten lakṣas make one duluocha, ten duluocha make one juzhi, ten juzhi make one motuo, ten motuo make one ayuduo, ten ayuduo make one great ayuduo, ten great ayuduo make one nayuduo, ten nayuduo make one great nayuduo, ten great nayuduo make one boluoyuduo, ten boluoyuduo make one great boluoyuduo, ten great boluoyuduo make one jinjieluo, ten jinjieluo make one great jinjieluo, ten great jinjieluo make one pinbaluo, ten pinbaluo make one great pinbaluo, ten great pinbaluo make one achupo, ten achupo make one great achupo, ten great achupo make one pipohe, ten pipohe make one great pipohe, ten great pipohe make one wacengqie, ten wacengqie make one great wacengqie, ten great wacengqie make one pohena, ten pohena make one great pohena, ten great pohena make one dizhipo, ten dizhipo make one great dizhipo, ten great dizhipo make one xidu, ten xidu make one great xidu, ten great xidu make one jielapo, ten jielapo make one great jielapo, ten great jielapo make one yindaluo, ten yindaluo make one great yindaluo, ten great yindaluo make one sanmobodan, ten sanmobodan make one great sanmobodan, ten great sanmobodan make one jiedi, ten jiedi make one great jiedi, ten great jiedi make one nianfaluoshe, ten nianfaluoshe make one great nianfaluoshe, ten great nianfaluoshe make one mudaluo, ten mudaluo make one great mudaluo, ten great mudaluo make one balan, ten balan make one great balan, ten great balan make one shanruo, ten shanruo make one great shanruo, ten great shanruo make one pibuduo, ten pibuduo make one great pibuduo, ten great pibuduo make one baluochan, ten baluochan make one great baluochan, and ten great baluochan make one asaṃkhyeya.

Yet within this series of places the last eight have been lost and forgotten (so that only fifty-two now survive). If great aeons are counted up to the asaṃkhyeya at that place in the series, that is named one innumerable of aeons. And when this innumerable of aeons is further accumulated to three, the sūtra speaks of it as three innumerables of aeons. So it is not that they are called three innumerables of aeons because they cannot be reckoned or counted out (but because that very place in the series is itself named innumerable).

〔Why a Vow for So Long a Time Must Be Made〕 Someone asks: why must a bodhisattva make a vow for so long a time and practice with vigor before he looks for the fruit of buddhahood (why does he not seek it quickly)? Ask it the other way about: and why should he not be allowed to make a vow for a long time and to practice by it?

Answer: unsurpassed awakening is exceedingly hard to obtain, and there is no possibility of accomplishing it by a small measure of vow and practice. A bodhisattva must pass through three innumerable aeons, gathering the vast provisions of merit and the provisions of wisdom, cultivating the six perfections (giving, keeping the precepts, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and discernment), and passing through very many austerities, before he realizes unsurpassed, right, and full awakening; and so a vow for a long time must certainly be made.

He asks again: if nirvāṇa can be obtained by other means as well (as a śrāvaka realizes it quickly), why cultivate so many austerities for so long for the sake of awakening?

Answer: it is in order to benefit and gladden all sentient beings that he seeks awakening and makes a vow for a long time. In his mind he thinks thus: “How may I come to possess a vast capacity, so as to relieve every conscious being within the flood of suffering?” And therefore he would sooner give up that road (of quickly taking up nirvāṇa) and seek unsurpassed awakening.

He asks again: in relieving other sentient beings, what benefit is there to oneself?

Answer: in relieving beings a bodhisattva is precisely fulfilling his own compassion; and so relieving others is itself his own benefit (there is no need to look elsewhere for a further advantage).

He asks again: who would believe that a bodhisattva has such a thing in him?

Answer: to a man who thinks only of enriching himself and who has no great compassion, this is indeed hard to believe; but to a man who has no mind to enrich himself and who does have great compassion, this is not hard to believe at all. Just so there are in the world men who have long habituated themselves to a mind without pity, and who delight in harming others even where there is no advantage at all to themselves — a thing everyone can see. In the same way a bodhisattva has long habituated himself to compassion, and delights in benefiting others even where there is no benefit to himself; why should this not be believed?

Further, just as sentient beings, by the force of repeated habituation, fail to understand of the formations, which are of themselves without self, that they are merely conditioned dharmas, and grasp them as “I” and give rise to attachment, and for that reason willingly shoulder every kind of suffering — a thing too that the wise can all see. In the same way a bodhisattva, by the force of repeated habituation, has given up the mind that loves himself and increased the mind that loves others, and for that reason willingly shoulders every kind of suffering; why should this not be believed?

Further, it is because of a difference of lineage (the class of one’s capacities) that such an aspiration arises: to take the suffering of others for one’s own suffering and the pleasure of others for one’s own pleasure, and to make nothing of one’s own suffering and pleasure; in their sight there is no such thing as a benefit to oneself lying apart from the benefiting of others. In accordance with this sense there is an old stanza that says:

Quoted stanza: The lesser man diligently cultivates every kind of means, and constantly seeks the ease and pleasure of his own single body; the middling man seeks the extinction of suffering, for he has seen that what is called pleasure is only the basis of suffering and is no true pleasure; the highest man constantly and diligently seeks this — that he himself should suffer and others be at ease, and that the suffering of others should be forever extinguished, because he has taken others for himself.

〔Root 93〕When Buddhas and Pratyekabuddhas Appear

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The several differences in the measures of aeons have now been analyzed. When, then, do the buddhas and the pratyekabuddhas appear in the world — in a time when the aeon is increasing, or in the stretch when it is decreasing? The stanza says:

Stanza: From the decrease out of eighty thousand years down to a hundred years, the buddhas appear in the world; pratyekabuddhas may appear in either stretch, when the aeon increases and when it decreases; and of these, the pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn must cultivate for a hundred great aeons.

Treatise: From the point where the human lifespan of this Jambudvīpa is eighty thousand years, decreasing by degrees to the lowest of a hundred years — within this stretch alone do the buddhas appear.

Why is there no buddha born into the world in the stretch when the aeon increases? Because at that time the pleasure of sentient beings is increasing, and it is hard to make them give rise to a mind of weariness and withdrawal.

Why is there no buddha born into the world below a hundred years either? Because the five turbidities have increased to the utmost and it is hard to convert them. The five turbidities are these: first, the turbidity of lifespan; second, the turbidity of the aeon; third, the turbidity of the afflictions; fourth, the turbidity of views; fifth, the turbidity of sentient beings. When the decrease of the aeon is drawing to its end, the lifespan and the rest all become mean and low, like dregs and filth, and are therefore called turbid.

What does each of these five turbidities injure? By the first two (the turbidity of lifespan and the turbidity of the aeon), in their due order, the lifespan and the requisites of living are diminished to the utmost. By the middle two (the turbidity of the afflictions and the turbidity of views), the class of the wholesome is diminished — the turbidity of the afflictions making men indulge in the pleasures of desire, and the turbidity of views making them torment their own bodies with austerities that are of no benefit; or, it may be said, the one injures the wholesome of the householder and the other the wholesome of the renunciant. By the last (the turbidity of sentient beings), one’s own person is injured, that is, one’s bodily measure, strength of body, memory, discernment, vigor, and freedom from sickness are ruined.

〔Pratyekabuddhas〕 The appearance of pratyekabuddhas, however, extends to both stretches, the increase and the decrease of the aeon. Yet pratyekabuddhas are of two different kinds: first, those who go in a group; second, those likened to the qilin’s horn (as the qilin has but a single horn, a figure for one who comes and goes alone).

A pratyekabuddha who goes in a group was formerly a śrāvaka, and on obtaining the higher fruit his name is changed to “solitarily excellent.” There is a further account: they were formerly ordinary beings, had cultivated the śrāvakas’ factors conducive to penetration (the roots of good in the preparatory practice before the path of seeing), and now realize the path by themselves and gain the name solitarily excellent. The warrant for this account is a story told in the Accounts of Former Matters: upon a certain mountain there dwelt five hundred non-Buddhist seers who practiced austerities. A monkey had once dwelt close beside a pratyekabuddha and had grown familiar with the bearing of that pratyekabuddha; afterward, wandering by stages, it came to those non-Buddhist seers and acted out the bearing of the pratyekabuddha it had seen before. The seers, seeing it, all gave rise to a mind of reverent admiration, and before long they all realized the awakening of a pratyekabuddha. — For were it said that they were already noble ones before (as in the former account), they ought not still to have been practicing non-Buddhist austerities (and hence this second account).

As for the pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn, it means one who certainly dwells alone. Of the two kinds of pratyekabuddha, this one likened to the qilin’s horn must pass a hundred great aeons gathering the provisions for awakening, and only then does he become a pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn.

〔Why a Pratyekabuddha Does Not Convert Others〕 What is called a pratyekabuddha means one who in the present body, without receiving the teaching of another, awakens to the path by himself alone; for he is able to tame himself, yet does not tame others.

Why, then, is it said that a pratyekabuddha does not tame others? It is not that he lacks the ability to expound the right dharma — for he too has obtained the unobstructed knowledges (mastery of eloquence); and he can call to mind the meaning of the sacred teaching heard in past lives and proclaimed by the buddhas. Nor may it be said that he lacks compassion — for in order to gather sentient beings in he too displays supernormal powers. Nor may it be said that there were then no capacities fit to receive the dharma — for the sentient beings of that time too were able to give rise to the worldly antidote of freedom from desire.

What, then, is the reason? Although all the considerations above hold, yet by his habituation in former lives he has little delight and resolve in the matter of teaching the dharma, and no wish to speak. And because he knows that sentient beings can hardly receive the deep dharma — beings have gone along with the stream of birth and death too long, and it is hard to make them go against the current. And because he would avoid the gathering of a following, fearing clamor and confusion, he does not expound the right dharma to others.

〔Root 94 · Root 95〕The Wheel-Turning Monarch — When He Appears, How Many Kinds, Whether Two at Once, by What Majesty, with What Marks

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): When is a wheel-turning monarch born into the world? How many kinds are there? How many may there be at one time? By what majesty does he subdue the four quarters? And what marks are there upon his body? The stanza says:

Stanza: A wheel-turning monarch appears when the human lifespan is eighty thousand years and above; he is of four kinds, of the golden, the silver, the copper, and the iron wheel, ruling in due order one continent, two, three, and four (the golden four, the silver three, the copper two, and the iron one, the order running counter to the order of the wheels); and like a buddha, there are never two of them born at one time. The four kings subdue in different ways: the king of the golden wheel is one whom the other quarters come of themselves to welcome and invite; the king of the silver wheel goes there himself; the king of the copper wheel matches majesty and virtue; the king of the iron wheel draws up his ranks and stops when he has won — yet none of them inflicts injury. Though a wheel-turning monarch has the thirty-two marks, they are not as a buddha’s marks are, right in their placing, distinct, and complete, and so he cannot be the equal of a buddha.

Treatise:

〔The Time of His Appearance〕 It is in the stretch running from the point where the human lifespan of this Jambudvīpa is immeasurable years down to eighty thousand years that a wheel-turning monarch is born. When it has decreased below eighty thousand years, the wealth and pleasure and the lifespan of sentient beings are alike diminishing and every kind of evil grows strong by degrees, and it is no longer a vessel fit for the birth of a great person (one who bears the marks of a great person), and so there is no wheel-turning monarch.

This king is called a wheel-turning monarch because, wherever the turning of the wheel treasure reaches, he guides and converts according to capacity and subdues all by his majesty.

〔The Four Kinds of Wheel-Turning Monarch〕 The Treatise of Designations says that wheel-turning monarchs are of four kinds, divided according to the four wheels of gold, silver, copper, and iron, each distinct. In their due order gold is the most excellent, silver superior, copper middling, and iron lowest; while the number of continents each rules runs counter to this — the king of the iron wheel rules one continent, the king of the copper wheel two, the king of the silver wheel three, and the king of the golden wheel four.

The sūtra, speaking only of the most excellent kind, mentions the golden wheel alone; and so the sūtra says: if there be a king born in the kṣatriya lineage who has succeeded to the anointed station, and who on the fifteenth day, at the time of undertaking the fast, has bathed his head and body and taken upon himself the excellent fast, and has ascended to a high terraced hall with his ministers ranged about him — at that time a golden wheel treasure suddenly appears in the east, a wheel of a thousand spokes, complete with hub and rim (the center and the outer ring of a wheel), perfect and clean in all its marks as though made by a skilled craftsman, coming forth spreading a lovely light and answering to the king’s place. Then that king is certainly a king who turns the golden wheel. And the remaining kings who turn the silver, the copper, and the iron wheel are to be understood on this same pattern.

〔Neither a Wheel-Turning Monarch nor a Buddha Is Born Two at Once〕 Like a buddha, a wheel-turning monarch is never born two at one time. And so the sūtra says: there is no such place and no such station where, without a before and after, two Tathāgatas, Worthy Ones, Fully and Perfectly Awakened, appear in the world at one time; there is only this, that in one time and place there is but one Tathāgata. And as it is said of the Tathāgata, so it is of a wheel-turning monarch.

〔One Buddha in One World, or One Buddha in All the Ten Directions〕 Here it should be carefully considered: is the words “but one” spoken by the sūtra said with respect to a single trichiliocosm, or with respect to all worlds?

One party says: in the other worlds no buddha is certainly born. Why? Because it should not be said that the capacity of the Bhagavat (the World-Honored One) is in any way obstructed — one World-Honored One alone can universally convert throughout the ten directions. If it were said that there is some place where this buddha has not the capacity to convert, then it should be so in all the other places as well (would he not then be unable to convert anywhere at all?).

They further adduce a passage of scripture as proof: the World-Honored One told Śāriputra: suppose someone were to come to you and ask you, “At this present time, is there any brahmin or ascetic who has realized unsurpassed awakening equally and in the same measure as Gautama” (the World-Honored One’s clan name)? — receiving this question, how should you answer? Śāriputra then answered the World-Honored One: receiving this question I should answer thus — at this present time there is no brahmin or ascetic who has realized unsurpassed awakening and is the equal of my World-Honored One. I say so because I have myself heard from the World-Honored One and have myself taken up: there is no such place and no such station where, without a before and after, two Tathāgatas, Worthy Ones, Fully and Perfectly Awakened, appear in the world; there is only this, that in one time and place there is but one Tathāgata.

Someone asks in return: if so, why does the Brahmā King Sūtra say, “I now turn freely within these worlds of the trichiliocosm” (speaking only of the trichiliocosm — is the buddha’s range then limited)? Answer: that sentence has a hidden intent. What is the hidden intent? It is this: if the World-Honored One does not arouse a preparatory effort (does not attend to it especially), he observes this trichiliocosm alone; and if the World-Honored One does arouse a preparatory effort, then boundless worlds are all the object-field within reach of the buddha eye. The supernormal power of the divine ear and the rest are to be understood on this same principle.

Masters of another school say: in the other worlds too there are further buddhas appearing in the world. Why? Because at one and the same time many bodhisattvas are gathering the provisions for awakening; in one world at one time there may indeed be no plurality of buddhas, but what reasoning can block a plurality of buddhas in a plurality of worlds? And so in boundless worlds boundless buddhas appear.

They argue further: if there were but one buddha, then even were he to remain in the world for an aeon he still could not universally finish the work of a buddha for a single world; how much less could he benefit boundless worlds with a lifespan as brief as the lifespan of men? Yet sentient beings dwell in boundless worlds, and the differences of time, of place, and of capacity are boundless and immeasurable, and a buddha ought to observe these sentient beings universally: at such a time and in such a place they should see the World-Honored One, and the buddha should then, answering to their capacities, display supernormal powers and teach the dharma, so that of their faults those not yet arisen do not arise and those already arisen are cut off, and of their qualities those not yet arisen come to arise and those already arisen are brought to fullness. How could one buddha accomplish such a thing all at once? And so at one time there must certainly be many buddhas.

As for that passage adduced by the former party, that there is no place and no station where two Tathāgatas appear without a before and after, it too should be considered together: is this sentence said with respect to one world, or with respect to many worlds? If it is said with respect to many worlds, then there should be no wheel-turning monarch in the other worlds either — for the sūtra text uses the very words “as with a buddha” to block a wheel-turning monarch’s being born together with another. Since it is granted that a wheel-turning monarch may exist separately in another world, why should it not be granted that there is a buddha separately in another world? A buddha’s appearing in the world is furnished with auspiciousness and merit; what fault is there in a plurality of buddhas in a plurality of worlds that it should be blocked? Buddhas appearing together in many worlds are precisely what can benefit immeasurable sentient beings and let them obtain a higher birth (the good destinies of men and gods) and the certain and excellent path (liberation beyond the world).

〔Why, Then, Are There No Two Buddhas in One World〕 The party of one buddha objects in return: if so, why are there never two Tathāgatas appearing at once within a single world? The party of buddhas in the ten directions answers with four reasons: first, because there is no need — one buddha within a single world suffices to benefit all. Second, by the force of a vow — the Tathāgatas, when they were bodhisattvas, first made this vow: “May I in time to come attain full and perfect awakening in that world which is without rescue, without refuge, and blind with darkness, benefiting and gladdening all sentient beings, and be for them a rescue, a refuge, an eye, and a guide.” Third, in order that men may revere — only where there is but one Tathāgata within a single world will men revere him deeply. Fourth, in order that men may practice quickly — they are to know that the honored one of all knowledge is exceedingly hard to meet with, and that the teaching he has established should be practiced quickly, and not left until the buddha has entered parinirvāṇa or has gone elsewhere, so that we are left without rescue and without refuge. And so two buddhas never appear within a single world.

〔The Majesty of the Four Kings〕 Of the four kinds of wheel-turning monarch spoken of above, the majesty with which they settle the four quarters also differs. With the king of the golden wheel it is thus: the several lesser kings come each of themselves to welcome him and make this request — “Our lands are broad and rich, secure, prosperous, and pleasant, and our peoples many; we ask only that the Honored of Heaven himself hand down his commands, and we shall all be the Honored of Heaven’s followers.” The king of the silver wheel, for his part, goes himself to those lands, and as soon as his majesty draws near that quarter submits. The king of the copper wheel, having come to that country, must proclaim his majesty and match his virtue and repute, and only then does that quarter yield to him as the better. The king of the iron wheel likewise comes to that country, and must display his majesty and draw up his ranks, and when he has overcome the foe and won he stops.

Yet no wheel-turning monarch inflicts injury: once the other side has submitted and he himself has won, he lets each quarter dwell at ease where it was, and exhorts and converts them to cultivate the ten wholesome courses of action; and so after his death a wheel-turning monarch is certainly born among the gods.

〔The Seven Treasures〕 A sūtra says that when a wheel-turning monarch appears in the world, seven treasures appear in the world with him. Which seven? First the wheel treasure; second the elephant treasure; third the horse treasure; fourth the jewel treasure; fifth the woman treasure; sixth the treasure of the minister of the treasury (the minister in charge of the storehouse of wealth); seventh the treasure of the minister of war (the minister in charge of military affairs).

Someone asks: the five treasures of the elephant, the horse, the woman, the minister of the treasury, and the minister of war are all gathered under sentient beings; how could one person’s action produce another sentient being? Another sentient being does not arise from that person’s action. Answer: it is because in doing their actions formerly they belonged to one another (their shared actions being bound up together); and if one among them is born following his own action, the rest also arise at the same time, each riding upon his own action (it is not that the one person’s action directly makes the other).

〔The Difference between a Wheel-Turning Monarch and a Buddha〕 The wheel-turning monarchs spoken of above differ from other kings not in having the seven treasures alone, but have besides the excellence of the thirty-two marks of a great person. If so, what distinguishes a wheel-turning monarch 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 between the two.

〔Root 96〕The People at the Beginning of the Aeon — from Being Like the Gods of the Form Realm, to Greed for Savor, Indolence, Storing Up, Thieves, and Then the Establishing of a King

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Did the people at the beginning of the aeon have a king, or had they none? The stanza says:

Stanza: The people at the beginning of the aeon were like the gods of the form realm; afterward their greed for the savor of the earth increased by degrees; out of indolence storing up arose, and from storing up thieves arose, and to guard against thieves a man was hired to watch the fields (and by this a king was established).

Treatise:

〔The People at the Beginning of the Aeon〕 The people at the beginning of the aeon were all like the gods of the form realm, and so the sūtra says: the people at the beginning of the aeon had bodies of form and were born from mind (not born from a womb), their limbs complete and their faculties unimpaired, their shape and color upright and adorned and their bodies bearing light, able to rise into the sky and go freely to and fro, feeding upon joy and pleasure, and long of life.

〔The Savor of the Earth and the Beginning of Morsel Food〕 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 a mind of attachment; he took some, tasted it, and ate it down; and the rest followed his example and vied in taking it for food. From this time on it was called the beginning of the use of morsel food (the coarse food eaten mouthful by mouthful).

Because they were nourished by morsel food, their bodies grew hard and heavy by degrees, the light they had once had sank away, and darkness arose; and sun, moon, and the host of stars appeared from this time on (for only when the light of the body was gone was an outward light needed).

〔The Four Rounds of Diminishing Food〕 Because they grew greedy for savor by degrees, the savor of the earth sank away; and next an earth-skin cake came forth. The people again vied in greed for it as food, and the earth-cake too sank away; and then a forest creeper appeared. Because they vied in greed for it as food, the forest creeper too sank away; and then there was a fragrant rice that grew of itself without being sown, and all of them together gathered it for their food.

〔The Male and Female Faculties and the Beginning of Unchaste Conduct〕 This food was somewhat coarse, and the refuse remaining from it stayed in the body; and in order to expel it two passages appeared (the passages of excretion), and by them there came to be the male faculty and the female faculty. Because these two faculties differed, 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 right mindfulness and in their frenzy engaged in unchaste conduct. The demon of desire among human beings first broke out from this time on.

〔Storing Up and the Beginning of Theft〕 The people of that time went and took the fragrant rice as they needed it morning and evening, and did not store it up. Afterward one man was by nature indolent, and took much rice at once and stored it, meaning to keep it to eat later; and the rest followed his example, and what was stored grew by degrees.

Thereby the thought “this is mine” arose toward the rice, and each of them gave rein to his greed and harvested much without being satisfied; and thereupon wherever they had reaped it grew no more. So they all together divided the fields and each kept guard over his own (fearing that the rice further off would be taken by others until none was left).

Having each his own portion of field, a mind of grudging and guarding arose; and seeing another’s portion of field, they harbored thoughts of seizing it — and the fault of theft began from this time on.

〔The Establishing of a King and the Beginning of the Two Names Kṣatriya and Brahmin〕 In order to block and guard against this, they all gathered and took counsel, weighed the people and chose out from among them one who had virtue, each handing over to him a sixth part of what he had reaped, hiring him to keep guard, and investing him as lord of the fields — and the name kṣatriya was established in just this way. The multitude honored and served him and his favor flowed out over the whole land, and so he was further named King Mahāsaṃmata (the king agreed upon by the multitude); and all kings from that time on take this king as their first.

Among the people of that time there were also those who wearied of household life and delighted in dwelling in open and quiet places, cultivating with vigor the observance of the precepts, and thereby they gained the name brahmin.

〔Punishment and the Beginning of False Speech〕 Afterward there was a king who was greedy and grudging of goods and could not supply the people of his land equally, and thereby many who were poor and in want turned thief. In order to forbid it the king inflicted punishments light and heavy — and the action of killing began from this time on. There were then guilty men who feared punishment in their hearts and hid their own faults and spoke with another account — and false speech had its beginning from this time on.

〔Root 97〕The Three Lesser Catastrophes — the Sword, Pestilence, Famine

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): In the stretch when the aeon decreases there are three lesser catastrophes; what is the appearance of them? The stanza says:

Stanza: Because the evil courses of action increase, the human lifespan decreases; and when it has decreased to ten years the three catastrophes appear; sword, pestilence, and famine come in due order, and each passes seven days, seven months, and seven years before it stops.

Treatise:

〔The Cause of the Catastrophes〕 From the point where sentient beings gave rise to false speech, the several evil courses of action increased layer upon layer, and so the human lifespan of this continent decreased by degrees down to the lowest of ten years, and the three lesser catastrophes appeared. These calamities therefore have two things for their root: first, greed for fine food; second, an indolent nature (the greed for savor and the indolence of the section on the beginning of the aeon above are precisely the root here). These three lesser catastrophes arise only at the end of an intermediate aeon. The three catastrophes are these: first the sword, second pestilence, third famine.

〔The Catastrophe of the Sword〕 That is to say: at ten years of age at the end of an intermediate aeon, men’s continuity of mind is defiled by unlawful greed, unequal love overshadows their minds, wrong dharmas entangle them and the poison of hatred is dominant, and at the mere sight of one another a fierce mind of harming arises — just as hunters today at the sight of wild beasts. At that time whatever they take up in their hands turns into a sharp blade, and each in his ferocity and frenzy destroys the other.

〔The Catastrophe of Pestilence〕 Again, at ten years of age at the end of an intermediate aeon, because men are possessed of the several faults stated above, nonhuman beings (of the class of ghosts and spirits) spew out poisonous vapors, pestilence spreads abroad, and whoever meets with it dies and can hardly be cured.

〔The Catastrophe of Famine〕 Again, at ten years of age at the end of an intermediate aeon, men are likewise possessed of the several faults stated above, and the gods and the nāgas in anger reprove them and send down no sweet rain, and thereby the world long suffers famine, and having neither support nor relief the greater part of them die.

〔The Explanation of the Three Names of Famine〕 And so it is said that by reason of famine there come to be massing, white bones, and tally-drawing.

Why is it called massing? There are two causes: first, the massing of people — the people of that time, famished and wasted to the utmost, gathered together and died. Second, the massing of seed — the people of that time, to benefit those who should come after, spared some of the grain they ate and put it in small boxes, meaning to keep it for seed. And so a time of famine is named a time in which there is massing.

Why is it called white bones? There are likewise two causes: first, the bodies of the people of that time were dried and withered, and not long after death their white bones showed forth. Second, the people of that time, pressed by famine, gathered white bones together and boiled them into a broth to drink.

Why is it called tally-drawing? There are likewise two causes: first, because the grain was too little, tallies had to be plied (bamboo slips used to set an order) before there was anything to eat — within one household, from the eldest to the youngest, only on the day the tally came round did one receive a little coarse rice. Second, tallies were used to poke among the old stores heaped up on the threshing floor of former days (the stale remnants of grain), and what few grains were got were boiled with much water, and all of them shared the drink to relieve what was left of their lives.

〔The Means of Remedy〕 Yet there is trustworthy sacred teaching that states the means of remedying these three catastrophes: if a man can keep the precept against killing for one day and one night, in a future life he will certainly not meet with the arising of the catastrophe of the sword. If he can take a single harītakī (the myrobalan, a kind of medicinal fruit) and offer it to the community with an earnest and pure mind, in a life to come he will certainly not meet with the arising of the catastrophe of pestilence. If he can take a single ball of food (one lump of food) and offer it to the community with an earnest and pure mind, in a life to come he will certainly not meet with the arising of the catastrophe of famine.

〔How Long Each of the Three Catastrophes Lasts〕 How long does each of these three catastrophes last? When the catastrophe of the sword arises it is at most seven days; when the catastrophe of pestilence arises it is seven months and seven days; the catastrophe of famine is seven years, seven months, and seven days; and when this term is past it stops.

〔The Appearance of Them in the Other Continents〕 After it stops the human lifespan increases by degrees. In the two continents of the east and the west there arise catastrophes resembling these, namely that the mind of hatred grows strong, bodily strength is weak, and hunger and thirst are felt again and again; while in Uttarakuru in the north there are none at all.

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It was said above that the catastrophe of fire burns the world, and that the remaining catastrophes are likewise and are to be understood on that principle. What, then, are the remaining ones? They will now be analyzed in particular. The stanza says:

〔Root 98 · Root 99〕The Three Great Catastrophes — Fire, Water, Wind, with Three Absorptions as Their Summits

Stanza: The three great catastrophes are the three of fire, water, and wind, having the three meditative absorptions above as their several summits; this is because those three absorptions each have an inward catastrophe of the same kind as the outward one. The fourth meditative absorption has no outward catastrophe, and is therefore called Immovable. Yet the palaces of the fourth absorption are not permanent either, since they arise together with sentient beings and cease together with them. The order is this: seven catastrophes of fire must pass before one of water, and when seven catastrophes of water are full there are seven catastrophes of fire again, and only at the last does one catastrophe of wind arise.

Treatise:

〔The Arising of the Three Catastrophes and What They Destroy〕 These three great catastrophes press upon sentient beings and make them give up the lower levels and gather among the heavens above. The first, the catastrophe of fire, arises through the appearance of seven sun-discs; the next, the catastrophe of water, arises through unbroken great rains; the last, the catastrophe of wind, occurs through winds striking against one another. The force of these three catastrophes destroys the receptacle world, until not so much as an ultimate atom remains.

〔The Refutation of the Non-Buddhists Who Hold the Ultimate Atom to Be Permanent〕 There is a class of non-Buddhists who hold that the ultimate atom is permanent, and who say that at that time ultimate atoms still remain. Why do they hold this? Because (as they think) if no ultimate atom were left, the coarse things arising later would have no seed.

The author asks in return: was it not said above that the wind produced by the actions of sentient beings can itself serve as the seed? Or else, taking as condition that wind at the end of the previous catastrophe, the wind it draws forth is the seed. And again, as a sūtra of the Mahīśāsakas says: the wind blows the seeds here from elsewhere.

The non-Buddhist says: even so, we still do not grant that when a sprout and the rest arise, it is the seed and the rest that as cause draw them forth directly. The author asks: if so, from what do the sprout and the rest arise? Answer: they arise from their own parts; and those own parts again arise from yet smaller own parts, and so on in turn, until the finest whole-having-parts arises from ultimate atoms.

The author asks: what, then, is the function of the seed and the rest in the arising of the sprout and the rest? Answer: apart from being able to draw together the ultimate atoms of the sprout and the rest, the seed and the rest have no further power to produce the sprout and the rest.

The author asks: why must this be held? Answer: because for a result to be produced from something of an unlike kind is certainly contrary to principle. Question: contrary to what principle? Answer: in that case there would be no determinacy (anything could produce anything). The author says: the capacity is itself determinate, and so there is no fault of indeterminacy; sound, for instance, and the change of ripening (a fruit turning from raw to ripe) and the rest all arise determinately from what is of an unlike kind. The non-Buddhist answers: those are qualities, which have their own particular character; a substance is not so. We plainly see that a substance arises only from what is of its own kind, as a vine produces its branches and threads are woven into cloth.

The author refutes this: it is contrary to principle. Question: where is it contrary? Answer: because the example you adduce is itself not granted by both sides (you take what has not been established and use it as your proof). Question: where in what has now been adduced is it not granted by both sides? Answer: because we do not grant that the vine and its branches, or the threads and the cloth, are two separate things. It is that very vine and those very threads gathered together, and arranged and set out in a different fashion, that obtain the names branch and cloth; just as ants ranged in a line are called a line of ants (there being no further real entity called a line of ants).

Question: how is it known to be so? Answer: within the gathering of a single thread the cloth is never obtained, but only the thread. (If the cloth were a further real entity, it ought to be present upon one thread as well.) Question: who is it that obstructs, so that the cloth is not obtained? Answer: if it be said that the whole cloth is not present within one thread, then it ought to be said that upon one thread there is a part of the cloth but not the cloth; and then it must be granted that the whole cloth is only the gathering of the several parts, and that there is no further whole-having-parts called cloth.

The author asks further: and again, how do you know that the parts of the cloth are other than the threads? If it be said that cloth is made only when many supports are gathered, then cloth ought to be obtained when many warp threads alone are gathered (yet it is not). Or else there ought to be no way of obtaining cloth at all — for the middle of the cloth and its remaining edges are not set before a faculty at one time (the eye faculty cannot take it all in at once). And if it be said that they may all be set before the faculty successively, then the eye faculty and the body faculty obtain only the several parts, and it should not be said that they obtain a whole-having-parts cloth; it is only that upon the several parts they discern successively and then raise up a single cognition of a whole-having-parts — just as a whirled firebrand is seen as a wheel of fire.

For if apart from the threads there were a color, a kind, and an activity belonging to the cloth (its color, its shape-class, and its function), then those three, the color of the cloth and the rest, could not be obtained. If it be said that the colors and the rest upon a brocade garment belong to the cloth, then you must grant that a substance can arise from what is of an unlike kind — for the color of each single thread has no such variety of difference (the figuring of a brocade being made of many threads together). Or else: where upon some one part those varied colors are absent, on that side the cloth ought not to be seen, since it is color that displays the cloth. Or else: upon that very part varied colors ought also to be seen, since the cloth must have the mark of varied colors and the rest. You 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.

Further, within the range of the light of a single mass of fire, the functions of burning and of illuminating differ according as a thing is near or far; and on your account the difference of the tangible and of color could not be established.

〔How Ultimate Atoms Stand toward a Faculty〕 Though ultimate atoms taken singly pass beyond the range of what a faculty can take, when gathered together in common they can be known by a faculty in its presence — just as your own school says that a gathering can produce a result, or as the eye faculty and the rest gathered together can arouse consciousness. It is again like a man with a cataract in his eye seeing scattered hairs: if many of them lie adjacent to one another he can see them, while if they lie one by one far apart he has no power to see them. And the principle of ultimate atoms standing toward a faculty ought to be like this.

〔Ultimate Atoms and Color and the Rest Are Not Distinct in Entity〕 Further, it is precisely with respect to color and the rest that the name ultimate atom is established. When color and the rest are destroyed, the ultimate atoms are destroyed as well. You say that ultimate atoms are gathered under substance and color and the rest under quality, and that things distinct in entity should not certainly cease at one time — but that these two are distinct in their entity certainly cannot be made out in principle. For upon careful examination no earth, water, fire, or wind can be obtained apart from color and the rest, and so they are not distinct in entity. And your own school too grants that earth and the rest are taken by the eye faculty and the body faculty; how then do they differ from color and the tangible? And again, when woolen cloth or safflower and the rest are burned, the cognition of the wool and of the flower is likewise gone — from which it is plain that the cognition of wool and the rest arises only in dependence upon the differences of color and the rest, for after the change of ripening wrought by fire their shape and measure are equal to one another 〔and no different from what they were before the burning〕, and it can no longer be told which is wool, which is fine cotton cloth, and which is safflower. It is as when one looks at two rows of earthenware set among each other upon the ground and marks which is a jar and which a basin: if one does not look at the shape one cannot mark them out (their color being the same, what distinguishes them is shape alone).

〔Ending the Dispute〕 Who would set down the wild words of such a foolish sort? And so the wide dispute against that school ends here.

〔The Summits of the Three Catastrophes〕 Where are the summits of these three catastrophes? The second meditative absorption is the summit of the catastrophe of fire, because all below it is burned by fire. The third meditative absorption is the summit of the catastrophe of water, because all below it is soaked away by water. The fourth meditative absorption is the summit of the catastrophe of wind, because all below it is scattered by wind. Whatever upper limit each catastrophe can reach is named the summit of that catastrophe.

〔The Inward Catastrophe Is of the Same Kind as the Outward〕 Why do the three lower meditative absorptions meet with the catastrophes of fire, water, and wind? Because within those three absorptions, the first, the second, and the third, there is in each an inward catastrophe of the same kind as that outward one. That is to say: 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 it meets the catastrophe of fire. The second absorption has the feeling of joy for its inward catastrophe, and this together with pliancy moistens body and mind 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 absorption has the movement of the breath (the movement of breathing in and out) for its inward catastrophe, and breath is of the kind of wind, and so without it meets the catastrophe of wind. If one enters this absorption, one has such an inward catastrophe; and when one is born in this absorption, one meets with the corresponding outward catastrophe and is destroyed.

〔Why Earth Is Not Established as a Catastrophe〕 Why is earth not also established as a kind of catastrophe? Because the receptacle world is itself earth; one may say only that fire and the rest are contrary to earth, and may not say that earth is contrary to earth again.

〔The Fourth Absorption Has No Outward Catastrophe〕 What has the fourth meditative absorption for its outward catastrophe? Answer: it has no outward catastrophe, because it has left the inward catastrophes behind (having no applied and sustained thought, no feeling of joy, and no movement of the breath). For this the Buddha said that it is named Immovable — the three catastrophes, inward and outward, cannot reach it. There is a further account: the gods of the Pure Abodes are upon that level, and so it does not meet with destruction by the catastrophes; for the gods of the Pure Abodes cannot be born into the heavens of the formless realm, nor should they go anywhere else (and if their level were destroyed they would have nowhere to dwell).

〔Yet That Receptacle Too Is Not Permanent〕 Someone asks: if so, should not the receptacle world of that level be permanent? Answer: it is not so, because it arises together with sentient beings and ceases together with them. That is to say: that heavenly place has no one common ground-form spread over it, but is like the host of stars in the sky, each dwelling apart. 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 world there is not permanent either.

〔The Order of the Three Catastrophes〕 What is the order of the three catastrophes spoken of? Seven catastrophes of fire must first arise in unbroken succession, and next one catastrophe of water certainly arises. Thereafter seven catastrophes of fire arise 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 arise again, and only at the last does a catastrophe of wind arise. Thus there are in all eight sets of seven catastrophes of fire, one set of seven catastrophes of water, and one catastrophe of wind.

〔Why It Is So〕 Why is it so? Because the causal absorption cultivated by those sentient beings is the more excellent the higher one goes, and so the bodily measure and the lifespan they draw forth grow longer and longer; and thereby the places where they dwell also abide the longer (a lower level being easily destroyed and a higher hard to destroy, so that the number of the catastrophes must be accumulated level upon level).

Closing the fascicle: By this principle one can skillfully explain that sentence in the Treatise of Designations, that the lifespan of the Śubhakṛtsna gods is sixty-four aeons.