俱舍論 義疏通講 · 冊3Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 3

Before reading this fascicle

The Chapter on the Elements takes stock of the entities of dharmas and the Chapter on the Faculties of their functions; and when the Chapter on the World is reached the author suddenly draws the lens back, and what he asks is no longer “what is a dharma?” but “where do sentient beings dwell, how do they get there, and once there in what class are they reckoned?” The opening sentence of the fascicle is only two questions — “Mind and the rest have been analyzed in dependence upon the three realms. Now it should next be said: what are the three realms? And within each of them, how many separate places are there?” — the former closing the two preceding chapters, the latter opening the whole Chapter on the World.

What this fascicle covers is the first seven of the nine items of “the world of sentient beings” marked out by the three ancient masters. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary marks here, “from here the third, explaining the chapter on the world, and within it there are two: first, explaining the world of sentient beings; second, explaining the receptacle world,” and beneath that divides it into two further layers — “within the explaining of the world of sentient beings there are two: first, sentient beings treated in general; second, the adjudication of the differences among the classes,” and “within sentient beings treated in general it divides again into three sections: first, explaining the arising of sentient beings; second, their abiding; third, their passing away” — and the nine items hang beneath the lowest layer, “explaining the arising of sentient beings”: explaining the three realms, the five destinies, the seven stations of consciousness, the nine abodes of sentient beings, the four stations of consciousness, the four modes of birth, intermediate existence, dependent origination, and the four existences. What Puguang’s Record marks is word for word the same as Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary, the two intervening layers included; Fabao’s Commentary, on the other hand, does not set out these two layers but divides the nine directly beneath “explaining sentient beings.” So the matter must be stated with a distinction: the names of the nine items agree word for word in all three commentaries, while the outline layers to which the nine items are attached are of two patterns (three layers in Puguang’s Record and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary, one layer in Fabao’s Commentary). That the names can agree completely across three independent commentaries shows that these nine items are not any one master’s ingenuity but the very joints of the treatise’s own text; the difference of outline layer is recorded without adjudication. This fascicle completes the first seven items, dependent origination and the four existences being left for the next.

One more thing should be said in advance: this fascicle gathers the three longest passages of prose commentary in the whole chapter — the establishing of the three realms (over nine hundred characters), the seven stations of consciousness (over a thousand), and the proof that intermediate existence really exists (over a thousand). Wherever the prose commentary runs long, it is usually because the author is tying a knot: either there is a divergent account within his own school to be cleared away, or he means to bring in Sautrāntika words to press his own school, or he means to set up before an outside party a dharma that is his own school’s signboard. Section by section below, the place of that knot will be pointed out.

I. The Establishing of the Three Realms: Beginning from the Question “How Many Separate Places”

〔1.1〕Why the fascicle opens by asking the number of places. First ask: do the three realms not speak of the height of states — why should places be counted at all? Answer: because it is the rule of Abhidharma that “whenever a dharma is established it must be countable, gatherable, and adjudicable.” If the three realms were only adjectives there would be no way of setting sentient beings in them; and once they are to be set in them, the question “how many positions are there in all?” must be answered. So the stanza gives, as soon as it opens its mouth, three answers in one form: the desire realm is said to have twenty places, the form realm seventeen, the formless realm none. The three answers do not stand abreast but decrease as one goes: the higher one goes the less the concept “place” can stand up, until at the formless realm it is withdrawn altogether. The easy error is to read “the formless realm has no place” as meaning that the formless realm does not exist. It exists; only it cannot be asked after with “where.” In practice: this decrease is itself the hidden thread of the whole fascicle — the seven stations of consciousness, the nine abodes of sentient beings, the four modes of birth, and intermediate existence which follow are each of them asking, “can it be set down, and in which square?”

〔1.2〕How the twenty of the desire realm are counted out. The stanza says, “they are called the desire realm, twenty, by the difference of the hells and of the continents.” First ask: under the name of the desire realm only five classes are listed — the hells, animals, ghosts, human beings, and the six heavens of desire — so how do they become twenty? Answer: because the two classes of the hells and of human beings are each opened out further. The hells open into eight — Equal Reviving, Black Rope, Massed Crushing, Howling, Great Howling, Burning Heat, Great Heat, and the Unremitting; and the destiny of human beings opens by continent into four — Jambudvīpa in the south, Videha in the east, Godānīya in the west, Uttarakuru in the north. Eight and four are twelve, and with the three further items of the six heavens of desire, animals, and hungry ghosts added, they come to exactly twenty. The author at once gives the upper and lower boundaries of the desire realm as well: on the side of sentient beings it runs from the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations down to the Unremitting Hell; on the side of the receptacle world it runs all the way down to the wind circle. The easy error is to read the twenty as twenty storeys. Animals and hungry ghosts are each counted as one, which is not to say that they dwell in only one place; “place” here is a square of classification and not a storey of geography. In practice: hold on to this pairing, “eight hells and four continents,” and when the section on the receptacle world later sets out one by one the positions and measures of these twelve places, one will know that it is filling in the content of these squares.

〔1.3〕Seventeen and sixteen in the form realm — the first place in the fascicle where two accounts are recorded without adjudication. The stanza itself has “above this, seventeen places, named the form realm, within which,” three on each of the first three meditative absorptions and eight on the fourth, seventeen in all. Yet the very same passage of prose commentary at once records another account alongside: “the great masters of the treatises of the land of Kaśmīra all say: the places of the form realm are only sixteen,” the reason being that the Mahābrahmā Heaven is merely a high terraced pavilion above the place of the Brahmapurohita Heaven, “the dwelling of a single lord and not a separate level, as when an honored one sits upon his seat with the fourfold assembly around him” — one more person upon the seat is not one more place. First ask: the stanza and the prose commentary contradict each other; which is to be believed? Answer: the treatise makes no choice here and records the two accounts together. The easy error is to think that recording another’s account is granting it, or that what is listed in the stanza must be the settled conclusion. Here it is precisely the case that the stanza establishes one number and the prose commentary records another, and each account has its own warrant. In practice: when in reading Abhidharma one meets numbers that do not agree, the first step is not to judge right and wrong but to ask, “have these two numbers used different standards for dividing places?” — and here that is exactly so: one side takes the Mahābrahmā Heaven for a separate level, the other for a high spot upon the same level. The two accounts are recorded together, and neither is judged to prevail.

〔1.4〕Why the formless realm has no place, and how the author proves it. The treatise says, “within the formless realm there is no place at all, since dharmas without form have no location,” and adds a corroborating remark: even the nonmanifest and the formless dharmas of past and future do not abide in a location, how much less a realm wholly without dharmas of form. On what, then, does the formless realm divide into four? Answer: on “birth” — the sphere of the infinity of space, the sphere of the infinity of consciousness, the sphere of nothingness, and the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, four in all; and the author expressly declares that “these four are not high and low by reason of place, but differ in superiority and inferiority by reason of birth alone.” First ask: since there is no location, on what ground do we say that sentient beings are “born in” the formless realm? The treatise gives two reasons in the manner of direct perception: wherever one obtains that level of absorption, there one takes birth when life ends; and when one passes away from the formless realm and is to be born in the desire or the form realm, the intermediate existence becomes present in that very place. The easy error is to read the four formless spheres as four layers of sky. They are four births called forth by four absorptions, not four pieces of ground. In practice: this item is the preparation for reading the chapter on absorption later — the four formless absorptions and the four formless births share names while differing in position, the one the cause that can call forth and the other the result called forth; and failing to distinguish them, one reads the cultivation of absorption as a change of address.

〔1.5〕Upon what the mind of the formless realm continues — an exchange that circles three times. This is the most winding place in the prose commentary of this section. The Abhidharma masters answer, “mind and the rest there continue on in dependence upon the commonality of sentient beings and the life faculty.” The objector at once asks in return: why then do sentient beings possessed of form not likewise depend upon these two dharmas alone? Answer: in those born in the realms possessed of form these two dharmas are weak. He asks again: why are those of the formless realm strong? Answer: they are born of a superior absorption, and that meditative attainment can suppress the perception of form. He objects again: if a superior absorption suffices, why establish a further support at all? The author thereupon turns the question about and asks another round: the commonality of sentient beings and the life faculty of those in the realms possessed of form proceed in dependence upon form; upon what do these two dharmas of the formless realm depend? Answer: upon each other. Question: why do those possessed of form not depend upon each other? Answer: they are weak. Question: why are the formless ones strong? Answer: they are born of a superior absorption. And it was already said that absorption can suppress the perception of form — so that one is back where one began. First ask: why does the author walk this whole circle through? The text here only sets out the exchange of question and answer and does not state his own intent; and when the round is finished he records a third route: “or else mind and mental factors depend upon each other alone, and hence the Sautrāntika masters say that the continuity of mind and the rest in the formless realm has no separate support.” The Sautrāntika account is this: mind and the rest drawn forth by a cause that has not left craving for form arise together with form and proceed in dependence upon form; mind and the rest drawn forth by a cause that has left craving for form do not arise together with form and do not proceed in dependence upon form. The easy error is to read this passage as the author endorsing the Sautrāntikas. The text itself only records that “there is another route” and passes no verdict; this fascicle records Sautrāntika accounts in two places, which is the standing practice of the treatise. In practice: whenever hereafter the prose commentary circles three times and then records another account alongside, one should recognize this manner of writing — and as to whether the author takes the recorded account for his own view, the text does not say, while the ancient masters have their own adjudication, for which see Further Resonances.

〔1.6〕How the names of the three realms are fitted on. The treatise says, “because it can uphold its own intrinsic mark it is called a realm,” and adds, “or it has the sense of lineage, as was explained above” — the two senses already explained in the Chapter on the Elements are here touched upon only in a phrase. Next it explains the formation of the words “desire realm”: the realm that belongs to desire is called the desire realm, the connecting word being dropped, as one says a pepper drink or a vajra ring. For the formless realm a further layer of discrimination is added: the formless does not take “the absence of form” for its entity — “the entity of that realm is not form and so the name formless is established; it is not that it takes the mere absence of form for its entity.” At the end a second reading is given: “this realm has the power to uphold desire” — a reading that takes the desire realm as “the realm that can uphold desire.” First ask: where do the two readings differ? The former takes desire as that to which the realm belongs, the latter as that which the realm upholds. Puguang’s Record explains this as follows: “the second explanation is by dependent-determinative analysis. This realm is the realm of desire, and so is named the desire realm. That is, it is the upholding of desire, since this realm can uphold desire” — the name being established by joining what upholds with what is upheld. The easy error is to think this a game of grammar. It decides whether the word “realm” means a container or a power. In practice: throughout the treatise, wherever one name receives two explanations, one is usually by entity and the other by function; and so it is here.

II. What the Entity of Desire Is: Three Quoted Stanzas and One Exchange

〔2.1〕The first quoted stanza — true desire does not lie in the object. The author first asks himself, “what dharma does the word desire here state?”, and answers himself, “briefly, the greed drawn forth by morsel food and by sexual union,” and thereupon quotes a stanza of scripture as proof. The stanza runs: “The many fine objects of the world are not true desire; true desire is a person’s discriminative greed. Fine objects abide in the world as they were; among them the wise have already removed desire.” First ask: since fine objects are not true desire, what is it that practice must cut off? Answer: what is cut off is the discriminative greed aroused with an object as its condition; the object remains in the world as before, and the wise only remove desire in the midst of it. This stanza is the first quoted stanza of the fascicle, warranted by the preceding words “as a stanza of scripture says,” and is therefore not a root stanza. The easy error is to read it as loose talk of the sort “objects do not matter, only mind matters,” and thereupon to let go of guarding oneself in the presence of objects as well. The stanza’s third line, “fine objects abide in the world as they were,” is exactly meant to say that objects really are there; it is not that they are absent, but that they are not what is called desire. In practice: the criterion for adjudicating the three realms was fixed in the preceding section as “where greed increases by attachment,” and this stanza is the scriptural proof of that criterion — the boundary of a realm lies not in the height of the object but in where the greed falls.

〔2.2〕The second quoted stanza — the challenge of the non-Buddhist of wrong livelihood. The treatise records that “a non-Buddhist of wrong livelihood then challenged the Venerable Śāriputra,” and his stanza is: “If the fine objects of the world are not true desire, and desire is said to be a person’s discriminative greed, then a monk should be named one who enjoys desire, since he arouses evil discriminative applied thinking.” First ask: where does the force of this objection lie? It seizes the definition of the preceding stanza and reasons backward: if desire is the same as discriminative greed, and a monk too arouses evil discriminative applied thinking, then is a monk not also one who enjoys desire? This is to fit the opponent’s own definition upon the opponent’s own men, and as a form of reduction it is very sharp. Puguang’s Record supplies the scene: “the Venerable Śāriputra once spoke this stanza for others. At that time a certain non-Buddhist of wrong livelihood was standing not far off, and challenged Śāriputra with a stanza” — which shows that this was an exchange on the spot and not an objection set up on paper. The easy error is to read the non-Buddhist’s objection as mere unreasonableness. It does hold logically, and the author records it precisely because it holds, which is what gives weight to the counter-question of the next stanza. In practice: within Abhidharma, wherever an objection of the non-Buddhists is quoted it is mostly in order to force out the precision of one’s own definition; in reading, first grant that the objection has reason, and then watch how the answer narrows the definition.

〔2.3〕The third quoted stanza — Śāriputra’s counter-question. The treatise records that “Śāriputra then questioned him back,” and his stanza is: “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, since he constantly gazes upon agreeable and beautiful forms.” First ask: is this an answer or a counter-strike? In form it is a counter-strike — it fits the opponent’s own thesis (that the object just is desire) upon the opponent’s own teacher: your teacher gazes all day upon agreeable and beautiful forms; is he not then one who enjoys desire? Puguang’s Record records the outcome as “at that the non-Buddhist was silent and could not answer, since his teacher does indeed gaze upon lovely forms,” and supplies as well Śāriputra’s own positive answer: “then Śāriputra said to the non-Buddhist: to arouse evil applied thinking is indeed to be named enjoying desire. It is not that monks all arouse unwholesome discriminative applied thinking toward the world’s fine objects, and so you ought not to raise this challenge” — arousing evil applied thinking is indeed called enjoying desire, but it is not that a monk necessarily arouses evil applied thinking as soon as he sees an object. The easy error is to suppose that the two stanzas are mere wrangling and to pass over them. The third stanza is effective precisely because it shows that the route “the object just is desire” cannot be walked — for if the object were desire, no one who sees an object could escape. In practice: the three stanzas taken together provide both the scriptural and the dialectical warrant for the adjudication of affiliation to the three realms throughout the fascicle.

〔2.4〕The adjudication of affiliation to the three realms, and the answer about tying a horse. The author next sets himself a question: is every dharma active in a given realm therefore said to belong to that realm? Answer: no; it must be that within it “what has the greed of the three realms increasing upon it by attachment belongs to the three realms.” The objector asks again: what is the greed of the three realms? Answer: the greed that increases by attachment within each of the three realms. This answer looks circular, and the objector reproaches him with it: “what is now said 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. Two answers such as these both fail to make one understand.” Puguang’s Record fills in the concrete matter of the simile: “the non-Buddhists kill a horse in sacrifice to a god and tie the horse to a post. Someone asks, ‘who is the one tying the horse?’ Answer: ‘the horse’s owner.’ ‘Who is the horse’s owner?’ Answer: ‘the one tying it.’ Two answers such as these both fail to make one understand” — the two answers push each other about, and neither unties anything. First ask: knowing that it looks circular, why does the author answer so? Because he unties it immediately after: for one not yet free from greed toward the various places of the desire realm, that greed is called greed for desire, and what has it increasing upon it by attachment belongs to the desire realm; the form and the formless realms accordingly. Or, taking another route, one may adjudicate by level: the greed of the level that is not a level of absorption is called greed for desire, the greed of the levels of meditative absorption greed for form, and the greed of the formless levels greed for the formless. The easy error is to read “the answer about tying a horse” as the author admitting that he has answered wrongly. That is the reproach the objector adds, and the treatise at once answers with “what is now said is not like that answer,” dividing it by the two explanations, by place and by level. In practice: the two explanations, one by place and one by level, are the very things the chapter on the latent tendencies later uses when adjudicating the realm affiliation of the ninety-eight latent tendencies — and it uses the latter route.

〔2.5〕Three appended discussions — greed toward a transformation mind, the boundlessness of the three realms, and the worlds abiding crosswise. This section gathers three small questions that look scattered, and each in fact hangs upon something. First: how is greed for desire aroused toward a transformation mind of the desire realm? Answer: either by hearing of it from another; or by having oneself fallen back from it and arousing a relishing of it; or by seeing the sovereign power of one who can work transformations and arousing greed. And further, if a mind can bring the two dharmas of odor and taste into being by transformation, that mind able to transform definitely belongs to the desire realm, since a mind of the form realm cannot transform odor and taste into being. Second: are the three realms only this one set? Answer: “the three realms are boundless, as measureless as space,” and so, although there is no sentient being that first begins to be, measureless Buddhas appear in the world and convert countless sentient beings and cause them to enter nirvāṇa without remainder, and the three realms are still not exhausted. Third: how do the worlds abide? Answer: “it should be said that they abide crosswise,” with the sūtra’s simile of raindrops as thick as a cart axle quoted, saying that in the east there are measureless worlds without interval and without break, now dissolving, now forming, and that the south, the west, and the north are likewise, the above and below not being spoken of; and another account is recorded, that above and below there are worlds too, since a sūtra of another school speaks of the ten directions. First ask: why are these three questions crowded in here? Because all three are drawing the boundary of the concept “realm”: greed toward a transformation mind fixes its affiliation, the boundless measure fixes its breadth, and the aspect of abiding crosswise fixes its arrangement. The easy error is to read “the three realms are boundless” as meaning that, since they can never be delivered, there is no need to deliver them. The tone of the text is just the contrary — because they are inexhaustible, the Buddhas who appear in the world are likewise measureless. In practice: the last two sentences, that “if one becomes free from the greed of any one desire realm, all greed of the desire realms is extinguished and left behind,” and that a supernormal power reaches only as far as the Brahmā world of the realm of one’s own birth, are two buckles that pull “realm” back from cosmology to the doctrine of practice and realization.

III. The Five Destinies: A Classification That Looks Simple and Yet Must Be Argued Four Times

〔3.1〕The establishing of the five destinies and “unobscured-indeterminate alone.” The stanza says, “within them, the hells and the rest are called the five destinies by their own names; unobscured-indeterminate alone, sentient beings and not intermediate existence.” First ask: are the five destinies not simply the hells, animals, ghosts, human beings, and gods — what is left to argue? What is argued is their entity. The author adjudicates the entity of the five destinies as “unobscured-indeterminate alone,” and the reason is one sentence: “the entity of the five destinies is unobscured-indeterminate alone; were it otherwise the destinies would be mixed together” — because sentient beings within one and the same destiny carry in themselves the actions and afflictions that lead to all five destinies; and if the wholesome and the defiled were reckoned into the entity of a destiny, one person would then possess all five destinies at once. So the entity of a destiny can take only that portion which is neither wholesome nor evil and is not obscured either — namely the unobscured-indeterminate. The author adds further that within the three realms there are indeed things not gathered into a destiny: “there are, namely the wholesome, the defiled, the outer receptacle world, and intermediate existence, which although of the nature of a realm are not gathered into a destiny.” The easy error is to read “unobscured-indeterminate” as “the maturation of the five destinies is neither painful nor pleasant.” Indeterminate speaks of the ethical quality of wholesome and unwholesome, not of the feeling of pain and pleasure; the hells are extremely painful and yet the entity of their destiny is still indeterminate. In practice: this adjudication is the gate defining the word “destiny” for the whole treatise, and both the chapter on action when it treats the projecting and the completing action, and the chapter on the latent tendencies when it treats realm affiliation and increase by attachment, must come back to this square.

〔3.2〕Why intermediate existence does not count as a destiny — four rounds of exchange. The treatise first quotes the Treatise of Designations, “the four modes of birth gather in the five destinies; the five do not gather in the four modes of birth,” and further quotes the Dharmaskandha and the item of the seven existences in the Sūtra of the Seven Existences (the existences of the five destinies, the existence of action, and intermediate existence) as proof, showing that scripture itself sets intermediate existence out separately from the destinies. Then come four rounds of exchange. First, the objector reproaches him with a treatise of the schools: “if it be so, how is the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas to be reconciled? For it says that the five destinies have all the latent tendencies increasing upon them by attachment” — if the entity of a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone, how can that treatise say that the five destinies have all the latent tendencies increasing upon them by attachment? The treatise answers, “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; stating them in sum as a destiny is not contradictory,” with the simile “as a village and the outskirts of a village are together named a village.” Here “the destiny and the mind that enters it” must be read as Puguang’s Record reads it — “at the rebirth-linking of the five destinies the afflictions may arise, and this is named the mind entering a destiny. The destiny and the mind entering it are together named a destiny” — that is, the destiny and the entering mind are stated together, and not two minds, a “destiny mind” and an “entering mind” (Fabao’s Commentary on the same passage likewise has “rebirth-linking is provisionally spoken of as a destiny, as the outskirts of a village are provisionally named a village,” running on the same track). The afflictions of the five categories in the rebirth-linking mind, and that mind which enters a destiny, are the edge of a destiny and not its entity, and when stated in sum may be named a destiny together with it, so that the two accounts do not conflict. Clearing a misreading: reading this round as the author retracting and allowing that the entity of a destiny extends to the defiled — what he allows is the breadth of “stating in sum,” not the breadth of the “entity.” In practice: this is the treatise’s standard handling of a conflict between itself and a treatise of the schools — divide entity from edge, and do not alter the adjudication of the entity. Second, the objector asks: the existence of action is a destiny too, so why is it stated separately? Answer: it is stated separately in order to display the cause of a destiny, as among the five turbidities affliction and view are stated separately. Third, the objector presses on: if so, intermediate existence too should be a destiny. Answer: “a destiny is what is gone to, and one cannot say that intermediate existence is what is gone to, since it arises in the very place of death” — a destiny is the destination, intermediate existence is on the road. Fourth, the objector presses again: then the formless realm too should be no destiny, since there also one takes birth in the very place of death. The author draws back one sentence: since intermediate existence is named intermediate existence it should not be named a destiny, “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.” First ask: what is really at issue in these four rounds? Whether the word “destiny” takes the sense “what is gone to” or the sense “class.” The easy error is to suppose that the author is denying that intermediate existence exists — quite the contrary, the whole latter half of this fascicle proves that intermediate existence really exists; here he only refuses to let it be entered in the square of the five destinies. In practice: that a thing “exists” and that it is “entered in a given classification” are two matters, and this is one of the most important senses of proportion in Abhidharma.

〔3.3〕Reconciling two passages of scripture, and the three accounts of the entity of a destiny. At the end the proponent of the earlier view that the destinies extend to the wholesome and defiled turns back to reconcile that passage of Śāriputra’s scripture recited in Kaśmīra. The sūtra says, “once the maturation has arisen he is named a naraka-being,” which he explains as: only when the maturation has arisen is he called a hell-being — not that a hell-being is maturation only. The sūtra says further, “apart from the dharmas that are the five aggregates that naraka-being is not to be found,” which he explains as: this was said “in order to block a really existing person who goes to the several destinies,” and not in order to block away the remaining aggregates. First ask: why must these two sentences be cleared up in particular? Because if they were not, the first would be read as an isolated proof that “the entity of a destiny is maturation only,” and the second as an annihilationist saying that “apart from the five aggregates there is nothing whatever.” At the end the treatise sets three accounts side by side: “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.” The easy error is to read the three accounts as three layers of one matter. The first account concludes by returning to the Vaibhāṣika school itself (the entity of a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone), the second narrows further to “invariably born of maturation,” and the third widens to “extends to the nourished as well” — the third is a widening and not a further narrowing. Which of the three is correct the text of the treatise does not say in a single word; the ancient masters have their own adjudication, for which see Further Resonances. In practice: the sentence “a person is not really existent” is here mentioned only in passing, and is the proper topic only in the chapter refuting the self; here a first spadeful is buried.

IV. The Seven Stations of Consciousness: The Seven Places Consciousness Is Willing to Stay In

〔4.1〕The name “station of consciousness” and the number seven. The stanza says, “different in body and different in perception; different in body and one in perception; the reverse of these in body and perception; and the lower three of the formless — hence the stations of consciousness are seven, the rest not, since they injure.” First ask: what is a station of consciousness? The treatise answers, “the five aggregates or the four aggregates affiliated to that place, each as applicable, is what is called a station of consciousness” — five aggregates where there is form and four where there is not, the heap of dharmas in which consciousness delights to abide. How the number seven arises: the human beings and gods of the desire realm together with the first meditative absorption (excluding the beginning of an aeon) are different in body and different in perception, and are the first; the Brahmā multitudes at the beginning of an aeon are different in body and one in perception, and are the second; the Ābhāsvara gods are one in body and different in perception, and are the third; the Śubhakṛtsna gods are one in body and one in perception, and are the fourth; and adding the lower three formless spheres (infinity of space, infinity of consciousness, nothingness) they come to seven. The easy error is to read the “different” of “different in body and different in perception” as a difference of better and worse. Different means only “not the same”: different in body means that color, shape, and appearance are unlike; different in perception means that the perceptions of suffering, of pleasure, and of what is neither differ. In practice: this section is a rare instance in the treatise of classifying by a fourfold analysis on the two axes of body and perception, the four alternatives being set out and three further places then added, whereupon the number closes — and to see this structure is far more useful than memorizing the seven names.

〔4.2〕The second station of consciousness: one phrase, “the cause of their perception is one,” and a question about having once seen the Brahmā king. The second station of consciousness is the Brahmā multitudes at the beginning of an aeon, different in body and one in perception. The author’s reason for “one in perception” is most unusual: it is not that the content of their perception is the same, but that “because the cause of their perception is one they are called one in perception” — the Brahmā multitudes all perceive that “we were all produced by the great Brahmā,” and the great Brahmā perceives that “these Brahmā multitudes were all produced by me,” so that both take one and the same “cause of production” for what they perceive, and hence are called one in perception; while the great Brahmā’s bodily measure is lofty and vast and his appearance, majesty, and dress are all unlike those of the Brahmā multitudes, and hence they are still called different in body. The treatise then quotes a passage of scripture: the Brahmā multitudes think that they once saw this sentient being long-lived and long abiding, and even that he aroused the wish that other sentient beings be born into his commonality. Whereupon a question arises: where had the Brahmā multitudes once seen the Brahmā king? The treatise records two explanations in a row and refutes both — that they saw him while dwelling in the Ābhāsvara Heaven (objection: then why, not obtaining the second meditative absorption now, can they recall the former abodes of that level; and if they had obtained the second absorption, how could they arouse the grasping of rules and observances with the great Brahmā as their object) and that they saw him while dwelling in intermediate existence (objection: intermediate existence has no sense of abiding a long time, so how could they see him “long-lived and long abiding”) — and at the end takes a third explanation: “therefore the Brahmā multitudes, dwelling in their own heaven, recall what they had passed through before this life; that is, having seen him long-lived and long abiding earlier, when they see him again later they arouse this thought.” First ask: why is so much ink spent on this string? Because the establishing of “one in perception” hangs entirely on this passage of scripture; and if the scripture cannot be made out, the second station of consciousness falls to the ground. The easy error is to take the refutation of the two explanations for the author retailing anecdotes of the heavens. It is the guarding of a line of classification. In practice: whenever the author refutes two explanations in a row and then sets up a third himself, the third explanation is the treatise’s own correct sense, and in reading one must be clear which sentence is the conclusion.

〔4.3〕The third station of consciousness: raising the last to gather in the first, and the “difference in perception” of the Ābhāsvara gods. The third station of consciousness raises the Ābhāsvara gods, one in body and different in perception. The author first adds a phrase about the outline: “here the last is raised and the first thereby gathered in; it should be known that the whole second meditative absorption is included” — otherwise the Parīttābha and the Apramāṇābha Heavens would have nowhere to belong. One in body means that color, shape, and appearance are not unlike; different in perception means that the perception of pleasure and the perception of what is neither suffering nor pleasure interweave. The author further records a transmitted account as explanation: “it is transmitted that those gods, having wearied of the faculty of joy of the fundamental level, bring the faculty of equanimity of the access level to presence; and having wearied of the faculty of equanimity of the access level, bring the faculty of joy of the fundamental level to presence,” matched with the simile “as a rich and noble man, having wearied of worldly pleasure, then receives the pleasure of the Dharma, and having wearied of the pleasure of the Dharma, again receives worldly pleasure.” The objector at once asks in return: should the Śubhakṛtsna gods not be so as well? Answer: the Śubhakṛtsna gods have never wearied of pleasure, since that pleasure is quiescent; with joy it is not so, “with joy it is not so, since it stirs and disturbs the mind.” First ask: why can joy be wearied of and pleasure not? Because joy is stirring, and what stirs breeds weariness; pleasure is quiescent, and what is quiescent is never wearied of. The easy error is to take joy and pleasure for one and the same thing differing in depth. In this treatise they are different feelings, differing both in the level they depend on and in their aspect of stirring or stillness. In practice: this discrimination will be used again and again when the chapter on absorption later adjudicates the limbs and merits of the four meditative absorptions, and here it makes its first appearance.

〔4.4〕The Sautrāntikas give another explanation — one “difference in perception,” two provenances. Here the treatise records another account, that of the Sautrāntika masters: there is another sūtra explaining the sense of the Ābhāsvara gods’ difference in perception, which says that there are newly born gods there who do not skillfully know the forming and dissolving of the world and who, seeing the flames of the level below blazing out, are struck with terror and aversion and fear that the fire will burn out the Brahmā palaces and rise to encroach upon their own place; while the gods born long before, who already know the forming and dissolving well, console them, saying, “pure seers, pure seers, do not be afraid, do not be afraid,” since in former times that fire, having burned out the Brahmā palaces, went out there of itself. And so “they have the perception that the flames will come and that they will not come, and the perception of terror and of no terror, and hence are called different in perception,” and it is not that they obtain the name “different in perception” through the interweaving of the perception of pleasure and the perception of what is neither suffering nor pleasure. First ask: where do the two explanations differ? The former establishes difference in perception by the interweaving of feelings, the latter by the perceptions of terror and of no terror. The treatise records both without adjudicating. The easy error is to suppose that the latter account is the author’s settled position. The text says only “the Sautrāntika masters say,” set beside the earlier “it is transmitted.” In practice: the two places in this fascicle that record Sautrāntika accounts (the continuity of mind and the rest in the formless realm, and here the sense of difference in perception) are precisely the two scenes of the manner of composition recorded in the Life of Master Vasubandhu, that “he established the sense of the Sarvāstivādins and, wherever there was a partial position, refuted it with the sense of the Sautrāntikas — this is named the Abhidharmakośa” — whereby the reader may see in concrete shape what that sentence looks like.

〔4.5〕The fourth station of consciousness, and the three places that are not stations. The fourth station of consciousness is the Śubhakṛtsna gods, one in body and one in perception, “since there is only the perception of pleasure they are called one in perception.” The author then sets the perceptions of the four levels above and below into a single line: within the first meditative absorption they are one in perception because the perception is defiled; in the second they are different in perception because there are two wholesome perceptions; in the third they are one in perception because the perception is maturation-born; and the names of the lower three formless spheres are as in the sūtra. He then asks why the remaining places are not stations of consciousness, and answers, “because in the remaining places there are dharmas that injure consciousness.” Which are the remaining places? The evil destinations, the fourth meditative absorption, and the summit of existence. And what are the dharmas that injure consciousness in each? “That is, in the evil destinations there is heavy painful feeling that 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 that can injure consciousness and cause the continuity to be broken off, and so they are not stations of consciousness.” The treatise adds a second criterion: a station of consciousness must be a place where sentient beings elsewhere are glad in mind to come and stay and, having come, seek to go out no more; in the evil destinations neither sense obtains, while in the fourth meditative absorption the mind constantly seeks to go out (ordinary beings seeking non-perception, noble ones delighting in the Pure Abodes or the formless, and those in the Pure Abodes delighting in the realization of quiescence), and “the summit of existence, being dull and feeble, is not a station of consciousness.” First ask: are the two criteria a repetition or complementary? The former is by dharma (whether there are dharmas that injure consciousness), the latter by mind (whether one delights to abide). The easy error is to read the exclusion of the fourth meditative absorption as meaning that the fourth absorption is inferior. The reason for excluding it is precisely that the mind there constantly seeks to go out — not that one cannot stay, but that one is unwilling to. In practice: the establishing of a station of consciousness turns on the axis of “delighting to abide,” which is the same axis as the establishing of the abodes of sentient beings in the next section though of a different breadth, and the two sections are to be read together.

V. The Nine Abodes of Sentient Beings: Before Counting In Those Who Do Not Delight to Abide, Ask Who Delights to Abide

〔5.1〕The nine come from the seven, and the two places that are added. The stanza says, “it should be known that with the summit of existence and the non-percipient sentient beings added, these are the nine abodes of sentient beings, the rest not, since they do not delight to abide.” First ask: the stations of consciousness are already seven, so why establish nine? Answer: adding the two places of the summit of existence and the non-percipient sentient beings makes nine. The reason is that “the classes of sentient beings delight to abide in these nine alone, and so abodes of sentient beings are established.” How, then, can the summit of existence and non-perception come in here when in the section on the stations of consciousness they were plainly excluded? Because the criteria of the two sections differ: what the stations of consciousness ask is whether consciousness will be injured, what the abodes of sentient beings ask is whether sentient beings are willing to abide. Though the summit of existence is dull and feeble, sentient beings still delight to abide there; and though the non-percipient sentient beings are without mind, theirs is still a place sentient beings long for, and so it is established as an abode. As for the remaining places, the author speaks very heavily: the evil destinations are “not places where the classes of sentient beings abide of their own delight, but where the rākṣasa of evil action forces them to abide,” and “they are like a prison and are not established as abodes of sentient beings.” The fourth meditative absorption apart from the Heaven of Non-Percipient Beings is likewise not an abode of sentient beings, for the reason explained under the stations of consciousness. The easy error is to read the seven stations of consciousness and the nine abodes of sentient beings as two versions of one table. They are two different measures, and the number of squares they measure out naturally differs. In practice: whenever this treatise meets “one set of places with different numbers,” the first question is always “which two measures did these two numbers use?” — and this is the second demonstration of it in this fascicle (the first being the seventeen and the sixteen of the form realm).

VI. The Four Stations of Consciousness: Why Consciousness Cannot Abide in Itself

〔6.1〕The entity of the four stations of consciousness and “one’s own level alone.” The stanza says, “the four stations of consciousness should be known: the four aggregates, one’s own level alone; consciousness alone is said not to be a station; with outflows, gathered by a fourfold analysis.” The treatise quotes the sūtra, “consciousness abides following form, consciousness abides following feeling, consciousness abides following perception, consciousness abides following formations — these are called the four kinds,” and their entity is “the four aggregates with outflows, in due order.” Two restrictions are to be remembered: first, that they are with outflows alone; second, that “this holds on one’s own level and not on another, since consciousness adheres to them and so they are named stations of consciousness” — among the aggregates of form and the rest of another level, consciousness will not adhere there by the force of craving. First ask: why the restriction to one’s own level? Because the establishing of a station of consciousness hangs upon adherence, and adherence hangs upon craving; and craving increases only toward objects of its own level and does not obtain across levels. The easy error is to read the four stations of consciousness as an abbreviation of the seven. The seven list places and the four list aggregates — the one a map, the other materials. In practice: read with the preceding section, this shows that the treatise has two languages for “abiding,” abiding as in a place and abiding as in an object; and to mix them is to read geography as psychology.

〔6.2〕Consciousness is not a station of consciousness: the two similes of the king’s seat and of the man and the boat. The line of the stanza, “consciousness alone is said not to be a station,” is the hardest to construe. The author answers with the utmost brevity: “because what abides is set apart and that in which it abides is established” — that in which something abides is established over against what abides, and the consciousness that abides may not at the same time serve as that in which it abides. Two similes are matched with it: “as the king himself cannot be called the king’s seat,” a king and a king’s seat not being one thing; and again, if a dharma is mounted and driven by consciousness, as a man rides a boat, only then is it called a station of consciousness, and consciousness cannot mount and drive its own entity. The author expressly marks this as what the Vaibhāṣikas say. The objector at once brings scripture: since another sūtra says that “within the nutriment of consciousness there is joy and there is defilement, and because there is joy and defilement consciousness abides therein and is mounted and driven by consciousness,” is that not consciousness abiding in consciousness? And again, the seven stations of consciousness plainly have the five aggregates for their entity, consciousness among them. The author’s division is this: that was stated in sum, without analysis, of the aggregates gathered into the place of taking birth, as being able to produce joy and defilement; and when consciousness turns on it too is named a station of consciousness, which is not to state consciousness alone. Whereas the aggregates of form and the rest are each of them able to produce the several joys and defilements and make consciousness adhere, while consciousness alone cannot, and so “it is said not to be a station.” First ask: what is the practical gain of this discrimination? It takes consciousness down from the position of the object. The easy error is to suppose that the author is denying that consciousness can be taken as an object. What he denies is the setting up of consciousness in this square of a station of consciousness, not that consciousness can be an object. In practice: afterwards the author gives two further explanations — that the four stations of consciousness are like a good field while consciousness possessed of appropriation is like a seed, and “a seed may not be established as a good field,” adding honestly, “this is a reverent surmise that such is the World-Honored One’s intent in teaching”; and again that a dharma and consciousness can arise at the same time and so are established as a station of consciousness, while the aggregate of consciousness is not so. Wherever the author expressly marks a “reverent surmise,” it is an honest marking that this is conjecture and not settled doctrine, and in reading one should take it as such.

〔6.3〕The fourfold analysis of the seven and the four. At the end the author sets the two tables over against each other: the seven kinds and the four kinds, though the stations of consciousness differ, are alike with outflows; do the seven gather in the four, or the four the seven? Answer: “they do not gather each other in throughout. A fourfold analysis may be made.” The first alternative (gathered in by the seven and not by the four) is the consciousness within the seven stations of consciousness; the second (gathered in by the four and not by the seven) is the remaining aggregates other than consciousness within the evil destinations, the fourth meditative absorption, and the summit of existence; the third (by both) is the four aggregates within the seven stations of consciousness; the fourth (by neither) is all the rest excepting the foregoing. First ask: why must a fourfold analysis be made? Because the difference between the two tables falls exactly at two points — the table of seven includes consciousness while the table of four does not, and the table of four extends to every level with outflows while the table of seven does not extend to the evil destinations, the fourth meditative absorption, or the summit of existence. Once the four alternatives are made, these two differences are plain at a glance. The easy error is to take a fourfold analysis for an exercise in logic. It is in fact Abhidharma’s operation upon difference sets, used to confirm the boundaries of two definitions. In practice: throughout the treatise, whenever two enumerations of dharmas are set over against each other, the fourfold analysis is the standard procedure, and here is its first demonstration in this chapter.

VII. The Four Modes of Birth: Egg, Womb, Moisture, and Transformation, and Their Assignment among the Destinies

〔7.1〕The establishing of the four modes of birth and “birth means a class of birth.” The stanza says, “within them there are four modes of birth; sentient beings are the egg-born and the rest; human beings and animals have all four; the hells and the gods, and intermediate existence, have birth by transformation alone; ghosts extend to the two, womb and transformation.” The treatise first defines: “birth means a class of birth. Among sentient beings, although the other classes are mixed, the class of birth is equal” — sentient beings within one destiny may be of different classes of birth (the destiny of human beings has all four complete), while within one and the same class of birth they are equal. The four modes are each explained: to be born from an eggshell is birth from an egg, as with geese, peacocks, parrots, and wild geese; to be born from a womb is birth from a womb, as with elephants, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and donkeys; to be born from moisture is birth from moisture, as with worms, moths, mosquitoes, and centipedes; to arise with nothing to depend upon is birth by transformation, as with naraka-beings, gods, intermediate existence, and the like, “with faculties complete and unimpaired and limbs arising all at once, and because what was not there suddenly is, it is called transformation.” First ask: what is the relation of the four modes of birth to the five destinies? The Treatise of Designations was already quoted above as saying, “the four modes of birth gather in the five destinies; the five do not gather in the four modes of birth” — the four modes of birth are the wider, and what they exceed by is precisely intermediate existence. The easy error is to read the four modes of birth as a biological classification. Their criterion is “in dependence upon what a being arises,” not its shape. In practice: birth by transformation can gather in intermediate existence precisely because its definition is “with nothing to depend upon”; and this square is the place reserved for establishing intermediate existence in the next section.

〔7.2〕The destiny of human beings has all four complete — some stories transmitted by the three commentaries. The treatise gives its examples in the most concrete way: human beings born from an egg are “such as Śaila and Upaśaila, 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 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, and animals born by transformation are such as nāgas and garuḍas. “All the hells, the gods, and intermediate existence are birth by transformation alone,” and “the destiny of ghosts extends only to the two, womb and transformation.” First ask: are these names to be investigated one by one? The treatise takes them only as examples and does not go into the concrete matter; the three commentaries, however, each supply it — Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary relates the story of the crane’s egg as “formerly on this continent a merchant went to sea and got a female crane, of splendid form and color, and delighting in the marvel he took pleasure in her. She then bore two eggs, and afterwards the eggs opened and two boys were born, upright and intelligent; and when grown they went forth and obtained the fruit of an arhat”; and Puguang’s Record relates the name Māndhātṛ as “Māndhātṛ is a king’s name, in Chinese ‘I Shall Rear Him.’ He was born from a blister on the crown of King Poṣadha, and his face and form were comely. The king took him into the palace and asked who could rear him; and each of the palace women said, ‘I shall rear him.’ Hence the name was marked. Of old he was called the King Born from the Crown.” The easy error is to take the stories in the commentaries for the text of the treatise. They are concrete matter supplied by the ancient masters to aid reading, and the treatise itself has none of it. In practice: when in reading the treatise one meets a string of personal and place names, first ask “what is the author raising it to prove?” — here it proves only the one sentence “the destiny of human beings has all four modes of birth complete,” and all the rest is branch and leaf.

〔7.3〕The proof of birth from a womb among hungry ghosts: one quoted stanza. The treatise says that the destiny of ghosts extends to the two, womb and transformation, and thereupon quotes a stanza as proof: “At night I bear five children, and as each is born I devour it; by day I bear five and it is the same — and though I eat them all, I am never filled.” It is warranted by the preceding words “as the female hungry ghost said to Maudgalyāyana,” and is a quoted stanza and not a root stanza. First ask: what is this stanza’s function in the treatise? It is the sole scriptural proof that “hungry ghosts have birth from a womb” — without this proof the destiny of ghosts could be matched only with birth by transformation, and the table matching the four modes of birth with the five destinies would have to be altered. The easy error is to read this stanza as no more than a piteous story. Within the context of the treatise it is a piece of evidence for a classification, and its very piteousness is where it is effective: to be able to bear is to have birth from a womb. In practice: the five words of the stanza, “though I eat them all, I am never filled,” are the real sense of the name “hungry ghost” — the hunger lies not in having no food but in eating and not being filled; and this sentence can be picked up again when the chapter on action later treats the cause of hungry ghosts.

〔7.4〕Birth by transformation is the most excellent — why then does the bodhisattva undergo birth from a womb? The author asks, “which of all the modes of birth is the most excellent? It should be said that the most excellent is birth by transformation alone,” and the objector at once seizes upon it: then why does the bodhisattva of the last body, who has obtained sovereignty over birth, still undergo birth from a womb? The author answers, “because undergoing birth from a womb in the present has great benefit,” and lists four benefits: first, to draw in the great men of the Śākya clan, causing them by the connection of kinship to enter the true Dharma; second, to let others know that the bodhisattva is of the lineage of a wheel-turning monarch, so that they arouse reverence and longing and thereby abandon the wrong and turn toward the right; third, to make those he converts arouse a superior mind — “since he is a man and can accomplish so great a matter, we too are such, and why should we not thereby arouse right diligence and cultivate the true Dharma single-mindedly?”; fourth, so that his clan and lineage may be known, saving people from suspecting him a conjured god or ghost, and laying to rest the non-Buddhists’ slander that “when a hundred aeons have passed a great conjuration will appear in the world and devour it.” First ask: which of the four benefits is the weightiest? The third — it pulls the bodhisattva’s taking of a womb back from the miraculous to the learnable. The easy error is to read this passage as a footnote to the life of the Buddha. It is in fact answering a difficulty of classification: birth by transformation having been adjudicated the most excellent, and the most excellent of beings being seen not to take the most excellent birth, a separate reason must be given. In practice: the four words “we too are such” are the thought of self-encouragement which the treatise imagines arising in those he converts once they see that the bodhisattva is a man as they are — “since he is a man and can accomplish so great a matter, we too are such” — and not the author stepping outside his argument to address the reader directly; and what is worth remembering is precisely this handing over.

〔7.5〕The account of leaving the bodily element behind, and three rounds of exchange. The treatise records the account of a further master: “it is in order to leave the bodily element behind that he undergoes birth from a womb” — for one born by transformation has no outer seed, and the moment his body expires no remaining form is left, “as when a lamp goes out nothing more is seen,” and then there would be no way to leave relics behind for measureless human beings and beings of other classes to make offerings to, whereby they are born in heaven a thousand times over and obtain liberation. The objector asks: 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 also leave a form behind. The author answers that to put it so “does not hold as an explanation, but is a discussion arising from the discussion” — it is no explanation but a growing of branches outside the trunk. The objector asks again: if a body born by transformation leaves no form behind at death, why does a sūtra say that a garuḍa born by transformation seizes a nāga born by transformation for food? Answer: it is because he does not know that it leaves no remaining form that he seizes the nāga for food, and the sūtra does not say that he was thereby filled; or else the nāga has not yet died and serves for the moment to stay his hunger, and when it dies he is hungry again — “what blame is there in eating for a moment?” At the end the author asks which of the four modes of birth is the most numerous, and answers “birth by transformation alone,” since a portion of three destinies, the whole of two destinies, and all intermediate existence are born by transformation. First ask: what have these three rounds of exchange in common? All of them guard the one item, “a body born by transformation leaves no form behind at death.” The easy error is to read the last question as an idle stroke of the brush. It is the close of this section and the lead into the next — all intermediate existence is born by transformation, and hence the establishing of intermediate existence follows directly upon it. In practice: the conclusion that birth by transformation is numerically the greatest is the very step that widens “the world” out beyond the two modes of birth, womb and egg, that we are familiar with.

VIII. Intermediate Existence: The Establishing of Its Name and Sense, and the Discrimination of “Not Birth”

〔8.1〕What intermediate existence is. The stanza says, “between the two existences of death and birth, the five aggregates are named intermediate existence; not having reached the place it should reach, intermediate existence is therefore not birth.” The treatise explains: “after the existence of death and before the existence of birth, in that very interval an entity of its own arises,” and “this body arises in order to reach the place of birth, and because it is between two destinies it is named intermediate existence.” First ask: what is the entity of intermediate existence? The five aggregates — not a thread of soul-consciousness, but an existence complete with five aggregates. This point is of the first importance in this treatise: if intermediate existence were not the five aggregates, then between death and birth there would appear a stretch that is not the five aggregates, and the whole register of conditioned dharmas would be broken. The easy error is to read intermediate existence as a consciousness that has left the body. The text says plainly, “the five aggregates are named intermediate existence.” In practice: the account by five aggregates makes intermediate existence fall within the enumerations of dharmas already established, with no need to set up a new class — and this is the consistent manner of Abhidharma’s legislation: it would rather push a new phenomenon into an old square than lightly add a square.

〔8.2〕Already arisen and yet not named birth — a matter of proportion in a single word. The objector asks: since this body has already arisen, why is it not named birth? The author answers, “birth means the place that is to be reached in time to come; the name birth is established upon the sense of what is reached” — the name “birth” is established with respect to “having arrived”; and the body of intermediate existence, though its entity has arisen, has not yet arrived there, and so is not named birth. He asks again what “the place that is to be reached in time to come” is, and the answer is, “where the maturation drawn forth is finally and clearly displayed is what is called the place to be reached in time to come.” First ask: what exactly does this discrimination discriminate? It discriminates “existing” from “arriving.” Intermediate existence does exist, but it has not yet arrived, and so may not borrow the name “birth.” The easy error is to suppose that not being named birth means that it does not count, that it is a fiction of a transitional state. The position of the text is exactly the contrary — it is a really existing body of five aggregates, only that names may not be borrowed at random. In practice: this proportion is exactly of a type with “intermediate existence is not a destiny” above: there, existing and yet not entering the square of a destiny; here, arising and yet not using the name of birth. Twice in succession — from which one may see that the author’s intent is to peel intermediate existence cleanly out of the names already established, the better to establish it alone in the next section.

IX. That Intermediate Existence Really Exists: The Two Proofs from Principle and Teaching

〔9.1〕The other school’s position, and the outline of the two proofs. The treatise records the divergent account: “some other 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,” and, asked why, answers, “why so? By reason of principle and teaching,” gathering the two proofs under one stanza: “As with the continuity of grain and the rest, the places uninterrupted and each arising in succession; an image really existing is not established; not being alike, it is no analogy. In one place no two stand together; not one continuum, and arising from two; the gandharva is spoken of, and the sūtras of five and of seven.” First ask: how are the eight lines of this stanza divided? The first six are the proof from principle and the last two the proof from teaching (what the proof from teaching points to being the Gandharva Sūtra, the Sūtra of the Five Non-Returners, and the Sūtra of the Seven Destinations of Good Men — Puguang’s Record remarking under the single word “sūtra” that “the one word sūtra displays several sūtras together”); and within the first six Puguang’s Record divides further, “the first two lines positively establish the principle, the next four dispel outside doubts,” and within those next four, “the third line explains the first line and the fourth line the second.” The easy error is to read the eight lines flat as eight parallel reasons. It is in fact a structure of “establishing the principle · dispelling doubt · adducing scripture” — which reckoned by doctrinal gates comes to “establishing one, refuting three, and adducing scripture,” and this is not an outline by the number of the stanza’s eight lines. In practice: the longest passage of prose commentary in this fascicle unfolds from here, and using these eight lines as a table of contents while reading, one will not lose the way.

〔9.2〕The positive establishing of the proof from principle: the continuity of grain and the rest. The author says, “for the moment, in accordance with correct principle, intermediate existence is not nonexistent,” and his positive reason is: “we plainly see that dharmas that turn on in continuity in the world must arise in succession moment by moment with their places uninterrupted” — whatever dharma flows on in continuity must arise in succession moment by moment with its place uninterrupted. The example is grain: the seed is here, and the sprout too comes up here. The continuity of sentient beings ought in principle to be the same, and so “arising in succession moment by moment, the place must be uninterrupted.” First ask: is this an analogy or a general rule? The author takes it as a general rule — he first establishes that “every dharma in continuity has its place uninterrupted,” and then adduces grain as an example. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary sets it out in the form of logic as “the inference runs: death and birth are the subject, and being uninterrupted in place is the predicate of the thesis; the reason is that they arise in succession; the concordant example is the seed and the fruit. The seed and the fruit arise in succession, and the seed and the fruit have no break of interval; death and birth arise in succession, and death and birth have no break of interval”; Puguang’s Record makes a simpler statement of the inference, “the inference runs: between death and birth there must be a connection, because they arise in continuity, as with the example of the seed and the fruit” — the ordering made by the two commentaries can help the reader to see the structure, though the treatise itself does not expressly cast it as the three members of a logical proof. The easy error is to read the simile of grain as the whole of the argument. The simile of grain is only the concordant example; the real thesis is “between death and birth there must be no interval.” In practice: if there could be an interval between death and birth, then the continuity of cause and result would show a break — and this is the reason the author must establish intermediate existence.

〔9.3〕The other school’s objection: a reflected image can have an interval. The objector puts forward a very strong counter-example: it is plainly seen that there are dharmas that arise in succession with an interval of place — in dependence upon a mirror an image is produced from a substance, the substance here and the image there, with an interval between, and the successive arising still holds; then what harm is there if the existence of death and the existence of birth arise in succession though their places have an interval? First ask: where is the strength of this counter-example? It does not deny “continuity”; it denies only that “continuity must have its place uninterrupted” — and that falls exactly upon the author’s major premise. The easy error is to read it as the nonsense of a non-Buddhist. It is a structurally correct counter-example, and the author must take it apart head-on. In practice: the three refutations that follow are three routes for taking apart this one counter-example — first refuting the thing it depends on (an image is not really existent), second refuting its likeness (substance and image are not one continuum), third refuting its conditions of arising (it is produced from two conditions). Were any one of the three lacking, the general rule of the simile of grain could not be held.

〔9.4〕The first refutation: that an image really exists is not established — a refutation in four gates. The author’s first route is: “because images really existing does not hold in principle” — the image in a mirror is simply not a really existent form, and so cannot be taken as an example. The general cord of the reason is “because in one place no two stand together.” The treatise gives four rounds in order: first, that in one place the form of the mirror and the form of the image are present together, and two forms ought not to be together in one place, “since they depend upon different great elements” (the great elements they depend on differ); second, that upon a narrow water the forms and shapes of the two banks display two images at once in the same place, and those on the two banks each see clearly, and yet no one has ever seen two forms together in one place; third, that shadow and light are never in the same place, and yet a mirror has been seen hanging in shadow while the image of the light appears distinctly on the mirror’s face; fourth, that the mirror’s face and the moon’s image are stated as two and are seen separately as near and far, as when one looks into well water, and if they truly arose together how could they be seen separately. After the four rounds the author concludes, “hence it is known that images are in principle really nonexistent,” and adds an explanation of the first importance: “yet the force of the coming together of causes and conditions makes them be seen so, since the differentiations of capability in the nature of dharmas are hard to conceive” — an image is not really existent, and yet it certainly is seen, and that is brought about by the force of the coming together of causes and conditions. Puguang’s Record makes an outline of these four rounds: “within it there are four: first, refuting by mirror and image in the same place; second, by two images in the same place; third, by shadow and light in the same place; fourth, by their being seen separately as near and far.” First ask: what does refuting the real existence of an image do for intermediate existence? Without a really existent image there is no instance of “an interval of place with successive arising.” The easy error is to read “images are in principle really nonexistent” as meaning that all that is seen is nonexistent. The author says plainly that they are still visible, only without a real entity. In practice: this passage is the most concentrated place in the treatise on “visible and yet not really existent,” and may be read back against the later treatment of nonmanifest form and of form that is the result of absorption.

〔9.5〕The second and third refutations: not being alike, it is no analogy. The second route: “not being alike, it is no analogy” — granting that an image were really existent, it is still not alike to the dharma compared with it, and so the analogy still does not hold. The reason is that substance and image are not one continuum: “that is, the substance and the image are not one continuum,” an image appearing only in dependence upon a mirror and the like, and the image and the substance being present at the same time; whereas the existence of death and the existence of birth are one continuum, uninterrupted before and after, and arise in succession in another place. Set over against each other, the two have no such relation of continuity, and “since they are not alike the analogy does not hold.” The third route: “and again, the image that appears arises from two” — an image arises only from two conditions, first the substance and second the mirror and the like, and the image arises in dependence upon whichever of the two is the more excellent; whereas the existence of birth cannot arise from two conditions, “there being only the existence of death and no further and more excellent support,” and so the analogy adduced and the dharma compared with it are not alike. The author blocks one route in advance as well: nor may outer insentient things such as semen and blood be taken as the more excellent support, for one born by transformation arises suddenly in mid-air, and among those nothing can be pointed to as the more excellent support. First ask: are the three refutations successive or parallel? They are successive — first, your example does not exist at all; falling back a step, even if it did exist it is not alike; falling back another step, even the number of conditions for arising differs. The easy error is to read the three refutations as one thing said three times. In practice: this manner of refuting by three descending layers of granting and taking away is a standard procedure of this treatise, and when one meets such words as “granting that it were established” or “allowing it for the moment,” one knows that the author is speaking a step back.

〔9.6〕The proof from teaching: five collections pressed in order. The proof from principle finished, the author turns to the proof from teaching, and his method is to press back layer by layer: first he quotes the Sūtra of the Seven Existences, in which intermediate existence is among the seven existences; if that school does not recite this sūtra, he asks, “do they not recite even the Gandharva Sūtra?” — the sūtra says that entry into the mother’s womb requires three things present together, that the mother’s body be in fit condition, that father and mother join in mutual love, and that a gandharva be just present; and the author at once asks, “apart from the body of intermediate existence, what gandharva is there? The former aggregates have already perished — what is it that is present?” If this sūtra too is not recited, he asks how the Sūtra of the Horse-Keeping Clan is to be explained — the sūtra asks of this gandharva just present which of the four castes he is and from which quarter he comes, and the author adjudicates, “the former aggregates having already perished, it cannot be said to come; and so the coming spoken of here can be nothing but intermediate existence.” If they still do not recite, he asks how the Sūtra of the Five Non-Returners is to be explained — the first of the five non-returners is one who attains parinirvāṇa in the interval, and “if there were no intermediate existence, whence the name of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval?” First ask: why press with this manner of one collection after another? Because the party addressed does not necessarily recite the same sūtras, and only by pressing collection by collection can it be shown that whichever collection you recite, intermediate existence cannot be evaded. The easy error is to read it as a piling up of scriptural proofs. It has a sequence, and every step turns upon “if you do not recite this one.” In practice: this is the passage in the treatise where the adducing of scripture as proof is most orderly, and it may be read as a model.

〔9.7〕Refuting two divergent explanations of “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval,” and one quoted stanza that gathers it in. Upon the name “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval” the treatise records two divergent positions and refutes them. First, certain masters hold that “there is a heaven named Interval, and one attains parinirvāṇa there, and hence the name of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval” — which the author refutes: then one should also grant heavens named “Birth” and the rest, “and since these are not granted, such a grasping is not well said.” Second, other masters take attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval to be the cutting off of the remaining afflictions and the becoming an arhat either in the middle of the lifespan or in the middle of the approach to a heaven. This section goes on to list two routes and three grades — and it must first be declared that “two routes and three grades” is said following Puguang’s outline, the text of the treatise itself recording only in sum “other masters say further: either in the middle of the lifespan or in the middle of the approach to a heaven,” without separately setting up two routes. Following Puguang’s outline: the route of the middle of the lifespan divides into reaching the stage of the element, the stage of perception, and the stage of applied thought; while the route of the middle of the approach to a heaven divides into three grades of its own — “either one attains parinirvāṇa as soon as one has taken up the commonality of sentient beings of the form realm, and this is the first; after that, one attains parinirvāṇa only when one has enjoyed the pleasures of the gods, and this is the second; and after that again, one attains parinirvāṇa only on entering the Dharma assembly of the gods, and this is the third.” And under this very outline Puguang’s Record preserves further explanations of his own: “a further explanation: the three kinds spoken of for the middle of the approach to a heaven are again divided as three by the stages of element, perception, and applied thought,” and again “these three kinds extend to the middle of the lifespan as well,” and “these three kinds likewise explain in order the foregoing three of element, perception, and applied thought” — that is, Puguang himself allows the three grades of the route of the heaven-approach to be read back as the three stages of element, perception, and applied thought, and does not read the two routes and three grades as fixed. First ask: why are there two routes and three grades? Because the two words “the middle” admit of two senses — the middle of the lifespan, and the middle of the heaven approached; and each sense has its own gradation, and so each divides into three. The easy error is to read the three grades of the latter route as another name for the former. What the former route divides is the stages of cutting off affliction — Puguang explains these three stages as “first by reaching the stage of the element, the element being the seed of affliction; second by reaching the stage of perception, perception being defiled perception; third by reaching the stage of applied thought, applied thought being seeking” — while what the latter route divides is what is passed through after taking birth (taking up the commonality, enjoying the pleasures of the gods, entering the Dharma assembly). Their criteria differ. In practice: the treatise’s refutation is not delivered across the board — what the simile of the sparks compares is the nearness and farness of place and of time, and the treatise judges these two routes to be “in no way answering to the simile of the sparks”; while the counter-objection that the formless realm too has a middle of the lifespan bears only upon the route of the lifespan. The two commentaries have further outline wording and a further adjudication of the range of the refutation, for which see Further Resonances. The author refutes them with the three similes of the seven destinations of good men in the sūtra: the threefold division of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval is “by the nearness, middle distance, and farness of place and of time,” as a small spark of a splinter fire is extinguished near at hand as soon as it rises, a small spark of an iron fire is extinguished only at mid-course, and a great spark of an iron fire flies far and is extinguished before it falls; whereas on the latter account, “since there is no difference in the course traversed there,” the three grades become a difference of time only and do not answer to the simile of the sparks. The author adds a further objection: in the formless realm too there are those who attain parinirvāṇa in the middle of the lifespan, and on the latter account the formless realm should also have attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval; yet the sūtra does not say so, the evidence being the stanza of the Udāna verses, “Gathering in sum the noble and the worthy: ten in each of the four meditative absorptions, seven in each of the three formless spheres, and six alone in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception.” What does this stanza do here? It is a table of the numbers of the noble ones as distributed — ten in each of the four meditative absorptions and seven in each of the three formless spheres, and what is missing is precisely the three kinds of attaining parinirvāṇa; and since the formless does not list attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, it is plain that this belongs to the form realm alone and that its name must hang upon intermediate existence. One must not read it as a table of numbers with nothing to do with intermediate existence — it uses a gap in the numbers as proof, and is the most winding of the scriptural proofs in this fascicle. Again, it is warranted by the preceding words “as is stated in the Udāna verses,” and is therefore a quoted stanza and not a root stanza; in reading, do not confuse it with the root stanzas.

〔9.8〕The lament over the scattering of the sacred teaching, and the reconciling of two sūtras. Here the author utters a lament rare in the whole treatise: if even these sūtras are not recited, then “the unsurpassed King of the Dharma passed into extinction long ago and the great generals of the Dharma have attained parinirvāṇa; the sacred teaching is scattered and has become many schools, and over its letter and its sense divergent graspings gallop against one another, and taking up and setting aside as one pleases grows stronger to this day. Alas that you cling to folly and confusion, going against principle and refusing the teaching; it is greatly to be lamented” — and he concludes, “for all who take the foregoing principle and teaching as their measure, the real existence of intermediate existence is thoroughly established.” He then turns back to reconcile two passages of scripture that seem to prove the contrary. First, the sūtra says that Dūṣin the Māra, who performed extremely evil action, “fell headlong in his present body into the Unremitting Hell” — which the author explains as: his life was not yet given up when the fierce flames of the hell were already burning his body, and hence, when his life ended, he took up that intermediate existence and fell riding upon it; the force of his evil action being strong, the marks of suffering arrived without waiting for the end of life, so that he first underwent the result to be experienced in the present life and afterwards the result to be experienced in the next life. Second, the sūtra says that the five actions without interval, once performed and increased, are “without interval definitely followed by birth in the naraka” — which the author explains as: the sūtra’s intent is to block his going to another destiny and to display that the action is definitely to be experienced in the next life; and were one to hold to the surface of the text, all five actions would have to be complete before one were born in hell, and lacking any one of them, or by some other action, a great fault would follow; and again, if “without interval” be taken temporally, one ought to be born the instant the action is done without waiting for the body to break up. A further route is given: “the name naraka extends to intermediate existence as well,” and when intermediate existence arises without interval upon the existence of death that too may be named birth, since it is the means to birth. First ask: is the method of reconciling the two passages the same? It is not. What the first passage explains is “fell headlong in his present body” — his life not yet given up while the fierce flames were already burning his body, and only when his life ended did he take up intermediate existence and fall riding upon it; whereas it is the second passage that explains the two words “without interval,” shifting them from a temporal reading to a sequential one, and giving besides the further route that “the name naraka extends to intermediate existence.” The easy error is to take reconciling for forced construal. Each time the author gives a second reading that the text of the sūtra itself can bear, and he does not alter a graph. In practice: this is the treatise’s standard procedure for handling a scripture that seems to conflict with its position — do not alter the scripture, do not abandon the position, alter the reading.

〔9.9〕The last quoted stanza, and the close of the fascicle. At the end the objector raises a stanza of scripture: “Twice-born, you have now passed the stage of your prime; decline draws near and King Yama is not far; you would go forward on the road ahead and have no provisions, and you would seek to stay in between and there is no place to halt.” He asks: if there is intermediate existence, why did the World-Honored One say “in between there is no place for him to stay”? The author answers by two routes: “the sense of this stanza is to display that among human beings he swiftly comes to wearing away with no moment of 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 two reproaches are equal, why single out one side for questioning?” — the reproaches on the two sides being equal, why question my side alone. The last sentence is the close of the fascicle: “neither of the two explanations does violence to the sūtra; how then may it be singled out to prove that intermediate existence does not exist? Whenever words are adduced as proof, their principle may have no other tendency; and since this has another tendency, it does not hold as proof.” First ask: what rule does this sentence establish? It establishes a threshold for adducing proof: whatever words are brought as evidence may have no second tendency in their principle; and since this stanza admits of a second reading, it cannot hold as evidence. The easy error is to read it as the author playing the sophist. It is in fact a rule usable in both directions, and the author is bound by it himself when he adduces scripture. In practice: this fascicle sets out from the first question, “what are the three realms,” and runs through the three realms, the five destinies, the seven stations of consciousness, the nine abodes of sentient beings, the four stations of consciousness, and the four modes of birth, coming to rest at last upon intermediate existence; and of the strength spent in the whole fascicle more than half goes to this last passage. The reason is not hard to see: the first six items take stock of squares already there, whereas intermediate existence must be established anew, by main force, between death and birth — if it is established, all the continuity that went before can be joined up; if it is not, a break appears between one destiny and another. And that this fascicle lays down its brush here and leaves dependent origination to the next has its sequence in just this.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

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

One thing must be recorded first: Shentai’s Commentary on the Abhidharmakośa is a fragmentary text, and its seven surviving fascicles explain parts one and two of the Chapter on the Elements, parts two through five of the Chapter on the Faculties, and part three of the Chapter on the Noble Persons, the Chapter on the World being wholly wanting. Hence for this fascicle only the three commentaries of Puguang, Fabao, and Yuanhui can be attached, and this section is “a mirror of three commentaries” and not of four — not by omission, but by marking the lacuna as it stands.

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

The two divergent explanations of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval: the two commentaries differ in outline and in the range of the refutation. The treatise records only in sum, “other masters say further: either in the middle of the lifespan or in the middle of the approach to a heaven,” without setting up the masters separately. Puguang’s Record outlines it as “two divergent explanations” within one passage, and under the route of the lifespan explains the names of the three stages — the element being the seed of affliction, perception being defiled perception, applied thought being seeking; Fabao’s Commentary, on the other hand, marks the route of the approach to a heaven as “the divergent explanation of a third master,” and expressly divides the range of the refutation: “this refutes only the middle of the lifespan and does not refute the middle of the approach to a heaven.” Beneath the two routes of his own outline Puguang preserves three further explanations — “a further explanation: the three kinds spoken of for the middle of the approach to a heaven are again divided as three by the stages of element, perception, and applied thought,” “a further explanation: these three kinds extend to the middle of the lifespan as well,” “a further explanation: these three kinds likewise explain in order the foregoing three of element, perception, and applied thought” — from which it appears that “two routes and three grades” is not a settled position even for Puguang, who leaves standing at the same time the readings that gather the three grades of the heaven-approach back into the three stages of element, perception, and applied thought, or extend them to the route of the lifespan. ⇒ The treatise does not distinguish the masters, Puguang makes two explanations while preserving three further ones, and Fabao sets up a third master; and the simile of the sparks refutes both routes while the objection from the formless realm refutes the route of the lifespan alone. The items are recorded together without adjudication.

The three accounts of the entity of a destiny: the two commentaries both adjudicate while the treatise does not. At the end the treatise sets three accounts side by side — the Vaibhāṣikas’ “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” — while the text of the treatise itself passes no verdict. Puguang’s Record marks the first account as “concluding by a return to his own school,” and adjudicates the latter two with “of these two masters the former account is correct,” taking as his warrant the question and answer of the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle one hundred seventy-two: “Answer: it should be said that the entity of a destiny is maturation alone.” Fabao’s Commentary adjudicates the same but counts differently — he marks it as “setting out a divergent account,” and says, “of these three accounts the second is correct,” adducing separately the ground given in the Correct Principle, “because it is born of maturation alone, and because there is then no fault” — and Fabao’s quotation stops here; what follows, “if it extended to the nourished, then a body in the desire realm that has cultivated and obtained the divine eye is of the nature of the nourished, and the destinies would be mixed and disordered,” is Fabao’s own further argument after the close of his quotation and is not within the text he adduces from the Correct Principle. ⇒ The two commentaries take one and the same account, “invariably born of maturation,” while the text of the treatise does not close in that way; and in reading the main text of this fascicle, “the entity of a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone” is what the treatise adjudicates, while “maturation alone” is what the commentaries take.

The round of exchange on the continuity of mind and the rest in the formless realm: Puguang adjudicates it as the author’s expedient. The treatise circles three times here and then records the Sautrāntika account, its own text not stating its intent. Puguang’s Record adjudicates, “objecting in this way is an expedient, meant to display that commonality and the life faculty have no real entity,” and where the treatise records the Sautrāntika account he adjudicates outright, “he adduces an account that agrees with his own.” ⇒ Whether the author takes the recorded Sautrāntika account for his own view the text of the treatise does not say, while Puguang adjudicates it as agreeing with his own; and the choice between them does not belong to this section.

Who holds the seventeen of the form realm: the two commentaries mark the name differently. The stanza of the treatise establishes seventeen while the prose commentary records alongside the sixteen of Kaśmīra. Puguang’s Record sets out four accounts and attaches each to its holder: “in the stanza the author states the sense of the masters of the West, saying that there are seventeen; hence the Mahāvibhāṣā says, ‘the masters of the West say the form realm has seventeen. The intent of those masters is that, since the great Brahmā king’s lifespan, measure, place, and the rest differ from the other two heavens, three heavens are separately established in the first absorption,’” and he further adduces the Correct Principle as having others who separately state seventeen, and the Elder as establishing eighteen for the form realm, concluding, “the masters of this land now establish neither, and since there is no separate level there are only sixteen.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary, on the other hand, marks them straight off by school name: “establishing seventeen heavens in the form realm follows the Sautrāntika school; if it be the Sarvāstivāda school, only sixteen heavens are established, the Mahābrahmā Heaven being excluded,” and again, “if it be the Sthavira school, the Mahābrahmā Heaven is also established, since body and lifespan differ; and the Heaven of Non-Percipient Beings is also established, since it differs from the Bṛhatphala in cause and result. Hence the form realm has eighteen heavens.” ⇒ One and the same “seventeen” is assigned by Puguang’s Record to the masters of the West (adducing the words of the Mahāvibhāṣā) and by Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary to the Sautrāntika school. The two commentaries differ in their school labels, and whether these are two names for one school is a doctrinal judgment; the items are recorded here together without adjudication.

Where the Brahmā multitudes had once seen the Brahmā king: the widest disparity of fullness among the three commentaries. Puguang’s Record sets out the several explanations here in full, marking the treatise’s own correct explanation as “having seen him at their first birth, when they see him again later they arouse this thought: we once saw such a sentient being long-lived and long abiding,” and adducing separately one explanation of the Correct Principle: “some say: those Brahmakāyika gods do not undergo the womb or the pain of the severing of the vital points, and thereby have mindfulness without forgetting, and so recall what they saw and the rest in their former birth”; and at the end he makes a summing case of his own, “the foregoing Correct Principle has six explanations in all, the first three the same as here and the latter three different. And the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle ninety-eight, has five explanations, the first three the same as in this treatise.” Fabao’s Commentary adduces the explanation of the Correct Principle without making any comparative case, giving “the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle says: when the Brahmā multitudes first came down to be born they saw the great Brahmā king’s majestic light blazing, and though they cherished reverence and longing and wished to go and attend upon him, they were pressed by his majestic power and did not accomplish the approach, and so with the passing of time much time went by.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gives only one explanation to the same question: “Question: ‘why do the Brahmā king and the Brahmā multitudes arouse the perception of one cause?’ Answer: at the beginning of an aeon the great Brahmā king dwelt alone with no attendants, and so made a vow, saying, ‘how may other sentient beings be born into my commonality?’ At that time the Ābhāsvara gods saw and pitied him, and passing away from that place were born as the Brahmā multitudes. The great Brahmā king, having just made his vow and seeing gods born, aroused this perception: I manifest the power to produce. And those Brahmā multitudes, first seeing the great Brahmā’s majesty and preeminence among the gods, and recalling as well that they had come to be born here through the Brahmā king’s vow, therefore aroused this thought: we were all produced by the great Brahmā king.” The three give six, several, and one explanation to the same question, and the items are recorded together without adjudication.

Where the intermediate existence of one from the formless realm appears: Puguang marks a divergence between the author and the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators. Puguang adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle sixty-eight, with two explanations, one saying that it is in the fourth meditative absorption, which the adjudicators do not take, and one saying, “others say: if one passes away from there and is born in the formless realm, the intermediate existence becomes present in that very quarter and place”; and at the end he offers a remark of his own: “the author takes principle for his tenet and does not take the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators for his measure; what need is there to labor at reconciling?” ⇒ This is Puguang’s adjudication of the author’s standpoint in choosing, and is not in the text of the treatise, and so it stands in this section.

That one born by transformation leaves no form behind at death: Puguang and Fabao differ in attitude toward the adjudicators’ remark. Puguang adduces the Correct Principle and the Mahāvibhāṣā on this matter, and adduces the remark of the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators: “the adjudication says: as stated above is the good account. Since the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators take the former master’s view that one set of four great elements produces only one derived form, it is known that the account that those with many derived forms leave no form behind at death is not the correct sense.” Fabao adds under the same material a remark of his own: “the adjudication says: as stated above is the good account. Now, examining it, the Correct Principle does not take the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators as correct. If one makes the refutation as a master of the Kośa, then on your reckoning this explanation goes against the correct sense of the Mahāvibhāṣā.” ⇒ Puguang, on the ground of the adjudicators’ remark, judges one account not to be the correct sense, while Fabao turns instead to point out that the Correct Principle and the Mahāvibhāṣā’s adjudicators are at odds, hinting that the Kośa master’s explanation may go against the correct sense of the Mahāvibhāṣā. The two commentaries differ in tone, and the items are recorded together without adjudication.

Whether the entity of a destiny is maturation alone or extends to the nourished: Puguang adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā to settle it. At the end the treatise sets three accounts side by side (unobscured-indeterminate alone, invariably born of maturation, extending to the nourished as well) without adjudicating. Puguang says, “of these two masters the former account is correct. Hence the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle one hundred seventy-two, says: Question: it being known that the entity of a destiny is unobscured-indeterminate alone, is it within that maturation alone, or does it extend to the nourished? If it is maturation alone, how is the statement of the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas to be reconciled, which says that the five destinies gather in the five aggregates, the twelve sense fields, and the eighteen elements? And if it extends to the nourished, the entity of a destiny is mixed and disordered, since within the destiny of human beings the nourished faculties and great elements of the form realm are also drawn forth. Answer: it should be said that the entity of a destiny is maturation alone. Question: how then is the statement of the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas to be reconciled? Answer: that text should say that the five destinies gather in the five aggregates, eleven sense fields, and a portion of seventeen elements; and since it does not say so, it should be known that the reciters were in error. There is an account: that treatise extends to the retinue of the five destinies, the action that calls forth the five destinies and what can protect it, and does not state the destiny alone, and so there is no fault. Yet since realms differ by affliction and destinies differ by the aggregates of maturation, therefore the entity of a destiny is maturation alone,” and he adduces its answer, “Answer: it should be said that the entity of a destiny is maturation alone.” ⇒ This is Puguang’s adjudication, while the text of the treatise leaves both standing.

To which destiny the asuras belong: Fabao alone treats it fully. The item of the asuras is not among the five destinies of the treatise. Fabao supplies this question and attaches them to the destiny of ghosts: “the asuras are gathered into the destiny of ghosts. Śakra the lord of gods saying that they were originally gods is a flattering way of speaking,” and again, “it has been heard that King Māndhātṛ’s majesty surpassed that of the gods. Nanda, Upananda, and the rest, though animals, were sovereign in majesty beyond the host of gods. Hence the asuras are gathered under the destiny of ghosts alone.” ⇒ This is not in the text of the treatise, but a question Fabao supplies concerning the number of the five destinies.

“The sacred teaching is scattered and has become many schools”: the widest disparity of length among the three commentaries. Puguang alone sets out in full the items of the schisms of the schools, beginning at “more than a hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, in the time of King Aśoka, they first divided into two schools, the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Sthaviras,” and listing the names of the nine schools and the eleven schools over some thirty lines. Fabao passes it off in a single sentence: “as for the sacred teaching being scattered and become many schools, from the first hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa to the last of the four hundred, root and branch divided into twenty schools, as is set out at length in the Treatise on the Wheel of Tenets.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has no corresponding text whatever for this passage. Material of this length being too great, this section records only where it stands and does not carry the whole passage in.

The name of Dūṣin the Māra’s attendant: a difference of one graph between the two commentaries. Puguang adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā as “named Zhiyuan,” writing the first graph as the one for resolve; Fabao adduces the same passage as “named Zhiyuan,” writing the first graph as the one for reaching. ⇒ A difference of one graph, perhaps of transmission; the items are recorded together without adjudication.

The sentence at the close of the fascicle, “since the two reproaches are equal, why single out one side for questioning”: the two commentaries attach it differently. In that last round of counter-questioning at the end of the fascicle the two commentaries adjudicate the first two sentences entirely alike — “how do you know that the sense of the sūtra is this and not something else” belonging to the party that holds there is no intermediate existence (whom Fabao’s Commentary names the Mahāsāṃghikas), and “and how do you know that it is something else and not this” to the author; only the third sentence diverges. Puguang’s Record attaches it to the party that holds there is no intermediate existence, giving “as to ‘since the two reproaches are equal, why single out one side for questioning,’ the party holding there is no intermediate existence says: since the two reproaches are equal, why single out intermediate existence for questioning as nonexistent? As to ‘neither of the two explanations . . . does not hold as proof,’ the author says”; Fabao’s Commentary, on the other hand, attaches it to the author, giving “on the treatise’s ‘since the two reproaches are equal . . . neither does violence,’ the author shows that the sūtra does not hold as proof, first by the equality of the two reproaches and second by the sameness of the two explanations.” ⇒ One and the same sentence, attached differently by the two commentaries; the vernacular layer of this fascicle follows Fabao’s outline and takes it as the author’s words, and Puguang’s divergent outline is recorded here alongside, without adjudicating which is right.

How the name “twice-born” is obtained: the three commentaries differ in fullness. Puguang explains it as a twofold sense of birth, with an analogy: “a brahmin is called twice-born; the first birth is one birth, and receiving the brahmin dharma afterwards is another birth, and so, having received the dharma, he is called twice-born. So too a monk is called twice-born, that is, by his first birth and by receiving the precepts. So too one born from an egg is called twice-born, that is, by the womb-birth and by the egg-birth.” Fabao is briefer: “a brahmin is called twice-born, since the time of his first birth is called one birth and the time of receiving the dharma is called the second birth.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary takes it only as a proper name without glossing its sense, giving “there was a non-Buddhist brahmin named Twice-Born who came in his old age to see the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One reproached him: you are now old and have passed the stage of your prime.” Under the phrase “passed the stage of your prime” the three all give the same number of the five stages outside the womb (infancy, childhood, youth, prime, and old age), and on this point the three commentaries agree.

The phonetic and semantic gloss on gandharva: Yuanhui alone has it. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gives, on the sense of intermediate existence feeding on scent, “gandharva means here scent-seeking; intermediate existence feeds on scent, and so is named scent-seeking.” Puguang has no such gloss within the range of this fascicle. Its being his alone is recorded, without adjudication.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutation

In the passages of Saṅghabhadra’s Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle corresponding to this fascicle he calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master.” His chapter is named the chapter analyzing dependent origination and not the chapter on the world, and its opening sentence carries over from the same transition as the head of the Kośa’s chapter. In the corresponding passages several places expressly name the Sūtra-master in refuting him, and their locations and the points at issue are recorded.

First, upon what the mind of the formless realm continues — the harshest in wording. Saṅghabhadra positively establishes the position of his own school: “by this very sense the Abhidharma masters say that in the formless, there being no body, commonality and the life faculty and the rest depend upon one another”; and of Vasubandhu he says, “the Sūtra-master here plays host and guest by turns and, falsely adding to the correct sense, makes this objection: if so, why do the mind and the rest of sentient beings possessed of form not simply depend upon these two and continue?”, and again, “the Sūtra-master certainly has no inheritance in Abhidharma and states this falsely; or else, out of his own mind’s aversion to Abhidharma, he pretends to say this and confuses the correct tenet. What man of fine understanding of the characters of dharmas would answer the preceding question in such a way?” In the same passage Saṅghabhadra also refutes the Elder’s line and its account that “they depend upon one another as two sheaves of reeds abide leaning together.” ⇒ Three parties are set out here together; one meaning and two schools recorded together, with neither judged to prevail.

Second, the number of the places of the form realm. Saṅghabhadra refutes the Elder’s account of eighteen and concludes, “therefore the great masters of the treatises of the land of Kaśmīra all say that where the great Brahmā king dwells is the Brahmapurohita place, and by this the places of the form realm are sixteen alone.” ⇒ What this passage refutes is the Elder, and it does not use the words “the Sūtra-master”; yet the sixteen he concludes with differs from the seventeen established on the face of the Kośa’s stanza. The two parties only are recorded, without adjudication.

Third, whether the entity of the five destinies is unobscured-indeterminate alone or extends also to the wholesome and the defiled. Saṅghabhadra adduces the Sūtra of the Seven Existences to establish the nature of the entity of a destiny, saying, “this sūtra is in order to display that the entity of a destiny gathers in the unobscured-indeterminate alone, and so distinguishes the cause as different”; and of Vasubandhu he cites the words and refutes them: “yet the Sūtra-master says that, since it is not stated separately it is definitely not gathered in by it, as among the five turbidities affliction and view are stated separately as turbidities; and since they are stated separately, that view is definitely not gathered in by affliction,” and continues in judgment, “hence there are those who say that the entity of a destiny extends to the wholesome and the defiled. Their statement is contrary to principle, since it is stated nowhere,” closing with, “how is it definitely known that action is the entity of a destiny? Because it has a cause, it is stated separately within the existences; and it is not that the existence of action, whose entity is not a destiny, is stated as the existence of action in order to display the cause of a destiny — and so the analogy adduced has no power to prove.” ⇒ What is at issue is the nature of the entity of a destiny; the Sūtra-master takes the separate statement of the five turbidities for his analogy, and Saṅghabhadra refutes his analogy with “it is stated nowhere.” One meaning and two schools recorded together, with neither judged to prevail.

Fourth, that intermediate existence is not a destiny. Saṅghabhadra twice cites the Kośa’s words verbatim and adjudicates them: “the Sūtra-master says further: that being so, since intermediate existence is named intermediate existence it should not be named a destiny. As to ‘because it is between two destinies it is named intermediate existence,’ this is contrary to principle, since the reason is not established”; and again, “and as to the Sūtra-master’s saying that if this were gathered into a destiny it would not be between, and then it should not be named intermediate existence, this too is contrary to principle.” The Elder gives a separate explanation, that one ought to grant an action outside the five destinies able to call forth the arising of intermediate existence, upon which Saṅghabhadra remarks, “yet that Elder’s cognition and discernment are in decline, and where there is no fault he falsely raises the charge of fault.”

Fifth, the ground of the Ābhāsvara gods’ difference in perception. Saṅghabhadra adduces the Sautrāntika explanation recorded in the Kośa and remarks, “the Sūtra-master adduces a sūtra to explain the sense of difference in perception, saying that among the Ābhāsvara the newly and the long born, with the aeon-fire as their object, have the two perceptions of terror and of no terror mixed, and hence are called different in perception, and not that the two perceptions of joy and of equanimity are mixed,” and objects that on that account there would be no separate principle by which the third meditative absorption is called one in perception through the perception of pleasure; while of the Elder he says outright, “now, examining his statement, it does not answer to the stations of consciousness.” The wording differs in weight toward the two.

Sixth, that in which consciousness adheres. Saṅghabhadra cites Vasubandhu’s explanation and adduces his passage “these four stations of consciousness are like a good field,” remarking at the end, “an explanation of this kind merely states his own feeling; sought out with careful examination, it has no deep principle”; and of the Elder’s divergent explanation he remarks, “his explaining it so is not a word of awakening to principle.”

Seventh, why the bodhisattva undergoes birth from a womb. Saṅghabhadra adduces the Kośa’s objection about the supernormal power of upholding a vow, first answering and then concluding: “now I say that this explanation’s principle must hold. A body preserved by supernormal power, not being perfumed as the support of the Buddha’s powers of merit and of the fearlessnesses and the rest, cannot benefit the world broadly”; and at the end he returns to his own school: “therefore the Vaibhāṣika masters from whom I have received my inheritance all say: the bodhisattva of the last body does not undergo birth by transformation, for the sake of benefiting others. This sense is thoroughly established and cannot be overturned.” The tone of this item is more level than that of the items above.

Eighth, whether an image really exists — the most concrete divergence. Saṅghabhadra adduces the Kośa’s words refuting the image and objects, “now I say that his reason cannot dispel the image, and so cannot resolve the objection refuting intermediate existence”; the condensed version of the same argument in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine runs, “yet the Sūtra-master and a class of masters like him, who grant that since an image is not established it is no analogy, speak contrary to principle. An image is not unestablished, since with respect to a distinct thing there arises just such an image, as this image’s own substance is what it depends upon,” and it records one who, agreeing with the Sūtra-master, proves by many reasons that an image is not existent — “the Venerable Xihui too, by many of the same reasons, proves that an image is not existent, in agreement with the Sūtra-master.” ⇒ The two parties are directly opposed on whether an image really exists, while on the conclusion that intermediate existence really exists they in fact agree; what differs is the route of the argument. One meaning and two schools recorded together, with neither judged to prevail.

Ninth, after the simile of the image there are still eight sets of divergent accounts — the actual end of this fascicle’s section boundary. The argument about the image is not the end of the debate for this unit. After the simile of the image and before the transition to a new topic, Saṅghabhadra records and refutes, one after another, eight sets of divergent accounts: the transmission of sound onward, the example of passing away from the formless, the simile of the inchworm, going by the force of intention, the account that “gandharva” is a mistaken recitation, the gloss on “about to be born,” the strained explanation of a sound formed by mind, and a divergent explanation of the three grades of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval. At the sentence “the nonexistence of intermediate existence having been refuted at length, one should now consider: to which destiny will it go?” the two treatises change topic together, and this is the true boundary between this unit and Unit 2. ⇒ All eight sets are divergent accounts recorded by Saṅghabhadra himself and are not statements of the Kośa; the words of each are given in the ninth item of section V of this unit’s apparatus (the general table of page locators standing separately in section IX). The items are recorded together without adjudication.

3. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

In the passages corresponding to this fascicle, Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury of Abhidharma forms a lineage of renderings of its own, and its format differs as well. The most conspicuous difference of format is the dividing and joining of the stanzas: Xuanzang gives the whole stanza first under “the stanza says / the treatise says,” while Paramārtha embeds his explanation line by line under “the verse says / the explanation says.” The stanza on intermediate existence in this fascicle Xuanzang writes as four lines in a row, while Paramārtha breaks it into two verses, “the existence of death and the existence of birth, in between the five aggregates” and “not having reached what should be reached, what is not yet born is named intermediate existence,” with prose commentary between them; and the passage of the simile of grain Xuanzang writes as eight lines in one breath, while Paramārtha breaks it into several short verses each with its embedded explanation.

The divergences of rendering fall into three classes. The first is difference of designation: the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings is rendered the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Yāma Heaven the Heaven of Proclaimed Joy, the Tuṣita Heaven the Heaven of Good Contentment, and the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations the Heaven of Transformed Delights; the Hell of Equal Reviving is rendered Renewed Life, Massed Crushing Massed Striking, Howling Crying Out, and Burning Heat Blazing; Jambudvīpa in the south is rendered the Yanfu Continent and Uttarakuru in the north the Northern Superior Birth; the Brahmapurohita Heaven is rendered the Heaven of Brahmā’s Forerunners, the Avṛha Heaven the Heaven of No Great Seeking, and the Akaniṣṭha Heaven the Lowest of None; and Kaśmīra is rendered Jibin. The second is systematic difference of rendering graphs: destiny is rendered way, sentient being living being, intermediate existence the intermediate skandha, image reflection, gandharva given in another transcription, non-returner anāgāmin, and attaining parinirvāṇa extinction. The third is difference of dividing and joining and of syntax: the order of the two similes is exchanged (Xuanzang has the pepper drink and the vajra ring, Paramārtha the vajra earring and the maricha drink); in the four stations of consciousness Paramārtha embeds the word “craving” in each line, giving “the station of consciousness that craves form” and the rest, and so displays more plainly than Xuanzang the sense that it abides by reason of craving; and in the four modes of birth Paramārtha adds the word “mixed” and sets himself the question “what is the sense of mixed?” to explain it, which Xuanzang’s version does not have.

There are two places where the divergence goes beyond the level of rendering, and they deserve particular note. First, the identity of the objector: Xuanzang has a non-Buddhist of wrong livelihood, Paramārtha the Nirgrantha’s son — the two do not point to the same non-Buddhist school. Second, the name of the sūtra adduced: Xuanzang has the Sūtra of the Horse-Keeping Clan, Paramārtha the Sūtra of Aśvalāyana, and the order in which the four castes are listed differs as well. Both places are recorded without adjudication.

A negative proposition is recorded besides: Xuanzang closes the refutation of “no attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval in the formless realm” with a stanza of the Udāna, while at the same place of refutation Paramārtha’s version states it outright in prose — “if so, in the formless realm too there should be said to be those who attain extinction in the interval, since there also they attain parinirvāṇa in the middle of the lifespan; and since it is not said, this grasping is mere private discrimination” — and passes directly on without quoting the stanza. This is a real difference of fullness between the two versions and not a failure of search, and is recorded as it stands. The relative merit of the two translations is not adjudicated.

4. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

What this fascicle establishes is the first register of the setting up of sentient beings, and also the first place where the name of intermediate existence is proved out in full. The three places below may be read against later treatises, and the words of those systems are given in section VII of this unit’s apparatus.

First, the criterion of the five destinies. This fascicle establishes the entity of a destiny as “unobscured-indeterminate alone,” and the whole ground for it lies in the one sentence “were it otherwise the destinies would be mixed together” — that is, mixture must be kept out. Later ages of the Yogācāra family prove the eighth consciousness with the same set of enumerated dharmas, and the criterion they give also runs, “only what is really existent and constant and pervasive and unmixed may be established as a true and real destiny and birth,” and, “dharmas that are not maturation would make destiny and birth mixed and disordered, since while dwelling in this destiny one arouses dharmas of the destiny and birth of another” — for whose words and page locators see section VII of this unit’s apparatus. ⇒ The only explicit text the two places have in common is the single item “unmixed”; the three items “really existent,” “constant,” and “pervasive” are added by that system and are not established in this fascicle. The entity to which each attaches differs as well: this fascicle attaches it to the unobscured-indeterminate, that system to the eighth consciousness. This is the most direct place of collateral reading between the two systems.

Second, the time intermediate existence abides. This fascicle establishes intermediate existence without touching the measure of the time it abides (the argument over the time it abides being in the next fascicle of this chapter). The Yogācārabhūmi on the same matter gives the measure of that time, saying that if intermediate existence has not obtained the condition of birth it abides at most seven days — one and the same dharma, and two systems differing in fullness, which may serve as a coordinate. For its words and page locators see section VII of this unit’s apparatus.

Third, the three conditions for entering the womb. This fascicle adduces the sūtra as three things present together, that the mother’s body be in fit condition, that father and mother join in mutual love, and that a gandharva be just present; the Yogācārabhūmi has three places present, its three being in order that the mother be in fit condition and the time also right, that father and mother join and arouse craving together, and that a gandharva be just present. The number of the three conditions and the name of the third are the same and the syntax slightly different — one and the same translation workshop and yet a difference of wording, which is only recorded, without adjudication. For its words and page locators see section VII of this unit’s apparatus.

Before reading this fascicle

The previous fascicle set in order the three realms and five destinies, the four modes of birth, and the four stations of consciousness, and at the end spent a great deal of strength proving that intermediate existence really exists. This fascicle opens its mouth with the question, “To which destiny will it go, and what appearance has the intermediate existence that arises?” — no longer asking whether it is, but asking directly what it looks like and where it goes. All three ancient masters mark their outlines here: Puguang’s Record says that what follows is “the distinctions through the several gates,” eleven gates in all; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary likewise counts eleven gates but divides them into three sections (appearance, the nine gates, entry into the womb); while Fabao’s Commentary takes the stanza for its unit and says, “below, the third, has five stanzas of gates of meaning analyzing intermediate existence.” The three open and join differently, but what they point at is one and the same thing: the chapter proper on intermediate existence enters here upon its details.

Yet the real weight of this fascicle does not lie in intermediate existence. Intermediate existence once explained, the four modes of entry into the womb once explained, the author suddenly turns aside to refute the self of the non-Buddhists, and then writes the embryo from the kalala to birth, and from birth on to “he again arouses the afflictions and accumulates actions” — pressing the whole way to the intermediate existence of the next term. Only here does the reader discover that what the first half of the fascicle has been giving is not a report of things seen after death but a picture of the twelve links of dependent origination in their actual working. And so the latter half goes on to establish the twelve links, to divide the three periods, to analyze the entity of each link, and to adjudicate the account by stages, closing at last with the two stanzas “three afflictions and two actions, and seven entities” and “from an affliction an affliction is produced.” Puguang’s Record marks a main outline division here: “below, the eighth, explains the twelve links of dependent origination; and within it, first the full explanation of the twelve, second the summary gathering shown by simile” — and what this fascicle occupies is precisely the general analysis and the particular exposition of that “full explanation of the twelve.”

One more thing must be pointed out in advance: the closing passages of this fascicle have two places where the treatise sets out an explanation of the words and immediately raises an objection to it. In one, an explanation of the words “dependent origination” is first established by the science of sounds, and then the objection is at once raised that “such a sense of the phrase does not stand to reason” (the treatise does not mark who speaks the objection). In the other, he first records another party’s explanation of two sentences of a sūtra, and then refutes them one by one. A first-time reader will suppose the text disordered, but this is in fact a common manner of writing in Abhidharma — to set out the possible accounts first and then raise objections to the chief of them. Where a reader of this fascicle sticks at these two places, it is usually not the doctrine that is hard, but the failure to recognize the manner of writing.

I. The Appearance of Intermediate Existence: One Action, Two Bodies Drawn Forth

〔1.1〕The four words “drawn forth by one and the same action” are the ground of this fascicle. The treatise answers very shortly: “if an action can draw forth the destiny to which one is to go, that same action calls forth the intermediate existence that can go there” — the action that takes you to some destiny at the same time calls forth the intermediate existence ‘able to go to that destiny.’ First ask: why insist that it is one and the same action? Because if intermediate existence had a further action of its own, it would become an independent lifetime, and then the death of intermediate existence would also require a death-existence of its own to be established, and birth and death could no longer be reckoned. Since it is drawn forth by the same action, the shape of intermediate existence is of course like that coming body, and this is what is meant by “it has the shape of the coming basic existence.” Puguang’s Record adds here a simile easy to remember, saying that intermediate existence and basic existence are so “because the action is the same; and so this intermediate existence is like the basic existence in shape, as with a seal and what the seal impresses, the figure and image not differing” — two sheets stamped by one and the same seal naturally bear the same pattern. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary simply gives an example: if the basic existence is of human shape, the intermediate existence is of human shape too, and so for the other destinies by extension. The easy error is to think of intermediate existence as some blurred lump of a soul; the treatise says plainly that it already has the complete appearance of the destiny it is about to be born into. In practice: this one sentence fixes the reckoning of the whole fascicle — intermediate existence is no third party outside death and birth; it is the front stretch of the very body that this term’s action draws forth.

〔1.2〕The intermediate existences of the five destinies dwell together in one belly, and why they do not burn one another. The objector seizes on the intermediate existence of the hells to press his point: if within the belly of a dog there were at one time the intermediate existences of all five destinies, and the hell intermediate existence among them were present, how is it that it does not burn the mother’s belly? The treatise answers in three layers, yielding layer by layer without giving up its ground. First layer: hell beings dwelling in the basic existence of the hells “are not, even while dwelling in the basic existence, constantly burning” — how much less what is merely an intermediate existence. Second layer: granting even that it could burn, intermediate existence is such that “as it cannot be seen, neither can it be touched,” because the body is exceedingly subtle, and so the objection itself does not stand. Only the third layer is the real answer: “the intermediate existences of the several destinies, though they dwell in one belly, do not touch and burn one another, being shut off by action.” First ask: why use three layers? Because the first two disentangle the difficulty at the level of the facts of the case, while only the third settles it at the level of the principle of dharmas — the force of action is itself a wall of separation. The easy error: reading “shut off by action” as some mysterious barrier; its real sense is that the intermediate existence of each destiny is bound to its own action and simply does not lie within the same range of enjoyment. In practice: this is exactly the standard answer of this treatise to the class of problems about ‘being in one place and yet not touching,’ and the same principle is used later for beings of moisture-birth and of transformation-birth taking birth in the same place.

〔1.3〕The bodily measure of intermediate existence, and the bodhisattva’s exception. The treatise says that intermediate existence in the desire realm is “in measure like a child of five or six years, yet its faculties are keen and bright,” while the bodhisattva’s intermediate existence is like a man in his prime, full and round in bodily measure and possessed of all the marks and signs, and that when about to enter the womb it can “illumine a hundred koṭis of sets of four great continents.” First ask: why speak of the bodhisattva in particular? Because a famous difficulty has to be dealt with next — Queen Māyā dreamed that a white elephant entered her right side. If intermediate existence really has the shape of the coming basic existence, the bodhisattva’s intermediate existence should be of human shape; how could it be an elephant? The treatise answers without any hedging: “this is an auspicious sign and has nothing to do with intermediate existence,” and further, “because the bodhisattva long ago abandoned the destiny of animals” — a bodhisattva can no longer take on the body of a beast. Clearing a misreading: it is easiest to read this as the author denying the reality of the dream; it is not. The treatise merely divides the dream-image and intermediate existence into two separate matters: the dream is an omen of good fortune, not the actual thing seen. In practice: whenever a transmitted account and a numbered set of dharmas come into conflict, this treatise always first asks ‘what kind of statement is this?’ rather than judging true or false outright — and this is the one measure of proportion most worth learning in the reading of Abhidharma.

II. The Ten Dreams of King Kṛkin: A Dream Is an Omen, Not a Thing Seen

〔2.1〕The author explains one dream by means of another. In order to establish that ‘a dream-image is not an actual event,’ the treatise quotes the stanza of the ten things seen by King Kṛkin — “a great elephant, a well, and parched flour; sandalwood and a fine grove; a small elephant, two monkeys; a broad and sturdy garment, and strife” — and at once pronounces upon it, “what is dreamed in this way merely betokens other events to come as their prior omen, and is not as it was seen.” First ask: what after all are these ten things? Here the three ancient masters agree, unusually, word for word: Puguang’s Record says, “Kṛkin means here Doer of Deeds, and he was the father of Kāśyapa Buddha. In the night he dreamed ten things, and in the morning reported them to Kāśyapa Buddha. The Buddha answered, saying: these betoken the prior omens of the disciples within Śākyamuni’s bequeathed teaching in time to come”; and what Fabao’s Commentary and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary record is all but the same. That is to say, a king of Kāśyapa Buddha’s age dreamed ten strange things, and the Buddha told him they were omens of the various conditions of the disciples in Śākyamuni’s teaching in later ages. Clearing a misreading: readers often go looking one by one for what the ten things symbolize, and so wander from the point. The treatise quotes them for one use only — to prove that an elephant in a dream is not the same as a real elephant coming. In practice: since the king’s ten dreams were only omens, Queen Māyā’s dream of the white elephant is likewise only an omen, and has nothing to do with intermediate existence. This is a clean argument from analogy, whose premise and conclusion both stay within the bounds of scriptural teaching.

〔2.2〕A piece of common knowledge about womb-birth, given in passing. The treatise inserts a sentence here: “moreover, 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.” First ask: what has this to do with the white elephant? A great deal — the white elephant in the dream ‘entered by the right side,’ and if intermediate existence really did enter by the side, the dream of the white elephant could be taken as fact. The treatise says that intermediate existence enters by the birth-gate without exception, and so ‘entering by the right side’ can only be the showing of an auspicious sign. As for twins, the first out being smaller, that is a verifiable inference drawn in passing: since both enter by the same gate, the one that entered first is the further in and the one that entered after comes out first, so that the one born first is the later entrant and the smaller in bodily measure. Clearing a misreading: this sentence is often skipped over as an aside, when in fact it is the evidence for the sentence before it. In practice: it is the habit of Abhidharma in establishing a position to push a rule out to where it can be seen in daily life, and let it take its testing there.

III. The Harmonizing of the White-Elephant Stanza, and the Establishing of “the Four Existences”

〔3.1〕The reason for not needing to harmonize it matters more than the harmonizing itself. Someone brings forward a stanza spoken by Dharmasubhūti — “the white elephant, upright and fair in its marks, complete with six tusks and four feet, entered the mother’s womb with full awareness, and lay as a seer secluded in a grove” — and puts the question. The treatise answers by two roads. The first road is, “it need not be harmonized, since it is not of the Three Baskets; and the words of chanted stanzas may sometimes overstate the fact”: this stanza is not among the works gathered in the sūtras, the discipline, and the treatises, and the language of chant and recitation habitually admits of exaggeration. The second road yields a step: “if it must be harmonized, then to make the stanza upon the dream-image seen by the bodhisattva’s mother is no fault” — if harmonized it must be, take it as a stanza composed upon the dream-image. First ask: why give two answers? Because the first road guards the rank of the evidence adduced, and the second guards the possibility of construing the words; with both roads standing, the author need neither deny the stanza nor alter his own conclusion. Clearing a misreading: reading the first road as the author holding the stanza lightly. He does not. He merely puts it back into the box marked “not of the Three Baskets.” In practice: when the latter part of this fascicle quotes “some say,” “other masters say,” and “the masters of former times,” the reader should always ask first, ‘of what rank is this evidence?’ — and that question is learned here.

〔3.2〕Arising together with clothing, and one nun. The treatise goes on to say that intermediate existence in the form realm is “full and round like the basic existence,” and arises together with clothing, because in the form realm conscience and shame are abundant; that the bodhisattva’s intermediate existence too comes with clothing; and that intermediate existence in the desire realm has no clothing, “because they have all increased in the lack of conscience and shame.” Into the middle of this is inserted the matter of the nun Śuklā: she “by the force of her original vow had of herself a garment in life after life,” down to the time of her final nirvāṇa, when the body was wrapped in this garment for cremation. First ask: why, in the midst of intermediate existence, this sudden talk of clothing? Because clothing here is not ornament but an outward index of conscience and shame. Where there is conscience and shame there is clothing, and where there is none there is none; this is one instance of the force of a mental factor being brought down onto the very bodily appearance of intermediate existence. Clearing a misreading: taking the passage about Śuklā for a tale of marvels. The treatise adduces it in order to show that the force of a vow can also form such a dominance, set beside conscience and shame as a second cause. In practice: this treatise consistently holds that mental dharmas can move the appearance of material dharmas, and this is the most concrete instance of it.

〔3.3〕The four existences: cutting one term of life into four segments. The question is asked, “that basic existence which it resembles — what is its entity?”, and the answer given: “the aggregates before death-existence and after birth-existence; stated in sum, the entity is the five aggregates of appropriation,” and then, “within this, by difference of stage it is analyzed into four” — “first, intermediate existence, whose sense is as stated above”; “second, birth-existence, that is, the moment of rebirth-linking in any of the destinies”; “third, basic existence, that is, all the stages except the moment of birth and before death”; “fourth, death-existence, that is, the last thought-moment.” At the end a sentence is added on order and range: “intermediate existence stands next before birth-existence; sentient beings possessed of form have all four existences complete, while in the formless one is wanting and three are had.” First ask: why establish the four existences just here? Because everything discussed before — what intermediate existence resembles, how long it abides, how it enters the womb — has presupposed a timetable, and only now is the table drawn. Clearing a misreading: taking the four existences for four things. They are the names of one and the same string of five aggregates of appropriation at four stages of time; the entity is one. In practice: the item the formless realm lacks intermediate existence is especially to be remembered — the formless has no body and needs no coming and going, and so has three existences only; and the ground for the later statement that of the twelve links “the middle eight are on the basis of one who is complete” and do not run through the formless realm lies just here.

IV. The Nine Gates of Intermediate Existence: A Checklist Item by Item

The longest passage of prose commentary in this fascicle falls here. The treatise gathers it under two lines of stanza, while the prose commentary explains gate by gate in detail, with three divergent accounts and two objections interposed. Puguang’s Record lists it as nine gates — “first, explaining the field of the eye; second, slowness and swiftness of movement; third, explaining completeness of the faculties; fourth, explaining nonresistance; fifth, that it cannot be turned; sixth, explaining what it feeds on; seventh, the time it abides; eighth, the mind of rebirth-linking; ninth, its manner of movement” — and the names listed by Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary differ slightly while the order agrees throughout. What follows teaches these nine gates item by item accordingly.

〔4.1〕The gate of the field of the eye: who can see intermediate existence. The treatise says, “this body of intermediate existence is seen by its own kind,” and that a divine eye obtained through cultivation and exceedingly pure can also see it, whereas “no eye acquired by birth can observe it, because it is exceedingly subtle.” Immediately after this a divergent account is recorded: “other masters say: the eye of the intermediate existence of gods is complete and can see,” while the intermediate existences of the five destinies can in order see four, three, two, and one, “that is, from themselves downward, excluding what is above.” First ask: why divide “obtained through cultivation” from “acquired by birth”? Because the divine eye acquired by birth is called forth by retribution and its power is limited, whereas the divine eye obtained through cultivation is formed by the power of concentration and can break through the exceedingly subtle. Clearing a misreading: reading “seen by its own kind” as meaning that intermediate existence can be seen only by intermediate existence; what the treatise says is that those of one kind see one another, which is no bar to one who has obtained the divine eye through cultivation seeing it from without. In practice: this gate fixes the levels of visibility of intermediate existence; and what “exceedingly subtle” is attached to in the treatise is “no eye acquired by birth can observe it” and “as it cannot be seen, neither can it be touched.” As for the swiftest supernormal power of action, completeness of the faculties, and nonresistance, the treatise establishes each as a gate of its own and gives its own reason for each.

〔4.2〕The gate of speed of movement: why the supernormal power of action is the swiftest. The treatise says, “among all supernormal powers, the supernormal power of action is the swiftest,” and glosses the sense of supernormal power as “to soar through space at will is what is meant by supernormal power,” and the supernormal power of action as “a supernormal power obtained through action is named the supernormal power of action; and because the operation of this power is fast it is named swift,” adding at the end a sentence of great weight: “intermediate existence has obtained the swiftest supernormal power of action, and up to the World-Honored One there is none who can hold it back, because the force of action is the strongest of all.” First ask: even the Buddha cannot stop it — does this say that supernormal power is no match for the force of action? The treatise here states only the fact and passes no comparative judgment. Clearing a misreading: reading “there is none who can hold it back” as a limit upon the Buddha’s power. The treatise means the decisiveness of action itself — once intermediate existence arises, it must go to its destiny. In practice: this sentence lays the ground for the gate of what cannot be turned below, and is one of this treatise’s hard proofs that the result of action cannot be turned aside.

〔4.3〕The gate of completeness of the faculties, and 〔4.4〕the gate of nonresistance. The treatise says, “all intermediate existences are complete in the five faculties,” and again, “resistance means obstruction; this cannot be blocked even by adamant and the rest, and so it is called nonresistant,” adducing a report as evidence: “it was once heard that a lump of red-hot iron was split open, and worms were seen to have been born within it.” First ask: what has completeness of the five faculties to do with nonresistance? The treatise establishes the two gates separately and does not gather them under one cause — completeness of the faculties speaks of the body of faculties lacking nothing, nonresistance of its not being blocked by adamant and the rest. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary explains the two gates in a single run, saying that intermediate existence “soars through the air, and mountains of adamant and the rest cannot block it.” Clearing a misreading: reading “nonresistance” as having no body. Intermediate existence has form and has faculties; it merely does not resist coarse form. In practice: the item of completeness of the faculties is used once more below — the treatise says, “there is certainly no intermediate existence that is neither female nor male, because the body of intermediate existence must be complete in its faculties,” and the classes without shape such as the ṣaṇḍha can only be formed while growing within the womb, the intermediate existence stage being necessarily male or female.

〔4.5〕The gate of what cannot be turned. The treatise says, “once the intermediate existence for the destiny to which one should go has arisen, no power of any kind whatever can turn it,” and explains concretely: “that is, a human intermediate existence cannot be made to disappear and another intermediate existence to arise,” and so likewise for the rest; since the intermediate existence for going to a given destiny has arisen, “it should go only there, and definitely goes nowhere else.” First ask: does this not contradict “turning and taking birth in a similar class” below? The author has himself refuted that: at the end of the gate of the time it abides he counters the account that “some say it turns and takes birth in a similar class” with, “is it not that intermediate existence certainly does not differ in commonality of sentient beings from that into which it is born, being drawn forth by one action? How then can it be said to turn and take a similar class?” Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary both mark this as “the author refutes,” and Puguang’s Record further pronounces that account “not the correct sense.” The author having finished his refutation, that party makes no further answer, and the treatise does not harmonize the matter on their behalf; this is honest practice, and the reader need not smooth it over for them. Clearing a misreading: reading “cannot be turned” as meaning that there is no variable at all in intermediate existence. The treatise says here only that “no power of any kind whatever can turn it,” and puts forward no further general explanation; Saṅghabhadra has an answer of his own, for which see ‘Further Resonances.’ In practice: this item is the necessary consequence of “drawn forth by one and the same action” — the action having fixed the destiny, the destiny is not to be exchanged.

〔4.6〕The gate of what it feeds on: fragrance and the name gandharva. The treatise asks whether intermediate existence draws support from morsel food, and answers, “it does draw support from morsel food, but subtle and not coarse”; asked again what the subtle is, it answers, “fragrance alone; and it is for this that it gets the name gandharva,” adding a note on the sounds — the sense of a verbal root is not of one kind only, and one who reads it with the short vowel is like the instances “sekantu” and “kekantu,” “abbreviated, and so no fault.” Then the gradations: “those of little merit feed only on foul fragrance, those of much merit take good fragrance for their food.” First ask: intermediate existence being exceedingly subtle, why should it eat at all? Because it is still a body of five aggregates with outflows and must have something to draw support from. Clearing a misreading: reading “feeding on fragrance” as a romantic way of speaking. It is a strict classification — the subtlest portion within morsel food. As for the name and its sense, Puguang’s Record explains it thus: “gandha is the name for fragrance and is the accompanying condition; arva is the verbal root, and points either to the sense of seeking or to the sense of feeding. Seeking means seeking fragrance, feeding means feeding on fragrance”; and Fabao’s Commentary assigns them all identically while gathering them under the single sense of “seeking fragrance.” In practice: food is pure or foul according to merit, and this is one instance of the force of action apportioning suffering and pleasure even at the subtlest level.

〔4.7〕The gate of the time it abides: four masters’ accounts and one long objection. To the question, “for how long does such an intermediate existence abide?”, the treatise first records the Bhadanta’s account: “the Bhadanta says: this has no fixed limit,” the reason being that the life faculty of intermediate existence is not drawn forth by a separate action, and that it shares one commonality of sentient beings with the destiny to which it goes; for otherwise, “when the life faculty of intermediate existence finally ceased, a death-existence would have to be established.” Then a long objection is inserted: when a mass of flesh becomes worms, do they wait for this season gradually, or do they come here all at once? The one who resolves this objection Puguang’s Record marks as the Venerable just named (Fabao’s Commentary gives only “the first explanation” without attaching it to a person, recording both without adjudication): he frankly grants that “there is no reliable text of sūtra or treatise to adjudicate it,” yet says that according to correct principle it should be said that there are boundless mixed classes of sentient beings, greedy for the taste of fragrance and short in lifespan, who on smelling the odor die and receive at the same time the bodies of tiny worms; or else that there were from the first many sentient beings who ought to be born in this place, and who abide in intermediate existence because the conditions have not yet met, and now, meeting the many conditions, are born all at once. And he takes as a comparison the action of a wheel-turning monarch, which must wait until human lifespan is eighty thousand years before it gives its result all at once, closing with “the differences among the results of the actions of the classes of sentient beings are inconceivable.” Only then are the three accounts listed: “the Venerable Vasumitra says: at the most seven days”; “other masters say: at the most seven times seven days”; “the Mahāvibhāṣā says: it abides a short time.” First ask: why take so long a circuit? Because ‘how long it abides’ bears upon ‘where the beings not yet born are at this moment,’ and the treatise must first make ‘being born all at once’ intelligible before the three accounts have anywhere to be set. Clearing a misreading: reading “there is no reliable text of sūtra or treatise to adjudicate it” as diffidence on the author’s part. Quite the contrary — for the treatise to say expressly that here there is no plain text and that the account is established according to correct principle is to mark the rank of its warrant honestly. In practice: on reading the words “according to correct principle it should be said,” raise the guard at once, for that signals that what follows is inference and not scriptural proof.

〔4.7 appended〕Below the time it abides there is a further layer: where intermediate existence goes when the conditions for birth have not met. The four accounts are not the end of the gate of the time it abides. After the Mahāvibhāṣā’s account of a short abiding, the treatise goes on to divide two roads: “for those whose conditions for birth have not yet met, if it is fixed that they should be born in this place and in this class, the force of action makes these conditions meet; if it is not fixed that they are to be lodged in this meeting of conditions, then they are lodged in another place and another class; some say it turns and takes birth in a similar class” — and it gives as instances the domestic ox, the dog, the bear, and the horse, whose seasons of increased desire belong 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 first four, if they do not meet their season, are born in order into the classes of the latter four. Puguang’s Record adjudicates the speaker of this passage, saying that from “the Mahāvibhāṣā says” to “another place and another class” is “the fourth master’s correct sense.” First ask: what is the relation among these three clauses? They are one set of conditional branches: ① fixed lodging (fixed that it should be born in this place and this class) ⇒ the force of action forces the conditions to meet; ② not fixed lodging ⇒ lodged in another place and another class; ③ a further account, that it turns and takes birth in a similar class. Clearing a misreading: reading this as ‘intermediate existence may change its destiny at will.’ It may not — this is precisely paired with the gate of what cannot be turned already taught at 〔4.5〕: the intermediate existences of the five destinies cannot be turned, and what can be turned is only the place and class within one and the same kind. The author at once refutes the third account as well: “is it not that intermediate existence certainly does not differ in commonality of sentient beings from that into which it is born, being drawn forth by one action? How then can it be said to turn and take a similar class?” (Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary both mark this “the author refutes”). In practice: there are four accounts of the time it abides because the matter of ‘waiting’ itself has two outcomes; read the branches clearly, and the four accounts each find their place.

〔4.8〕The gate of the mind of rebirth-linking: how a single inverted thought completes the taking of a womb. The treatise says that intermediate existence “first arouses an inverted mind and hastens toward the object of desire”; that the eye faculty aroused by the force of action, though dwelling at a distance, can see the parents joining, so that “if male, it arouses a male desire with the mother for object; if female, a female desire with the father for object,” and reversing the object toward the other, hatred arises toward both. And it adduces the Treatise of Designations as evidence: “at that time the gandharva has one or other of two minds in operation, namely craving or hatred.” Then comes the most crucial passage of all: “by arousing these two inverted minds, it supposes its own body to have joined with the one it loves,” and when the impurity of the one it hates flows into the womb, “supposing this to be its own, it gives rise to joy and comfort,” whereupon “from this the aggregates thicken, intermediate existence disappears, birth-existence has arisen, and this is named having linked rebirth.” First ask: why must rebirth-linking depend upon an inverted mind? Because without craving and hatred there would be no impetus to hasten toward it — and this is said of the ordinary intermediate existence. The treatise at once asks itself, “what was said above, that an inverted mind enters the mother’s womb — is this fixed for all intermediate existences?” and answers, “it is not,” setting out below the four classes who enter the womb with full awareness; so it may not be said that the impetus of all taking of a womb comes down to inversion and craving and hatred. Clearing a misreading: reading this passage as descriptive and sensational writing. The treatise says here only that the impetus of rebirth-linking is the inverted mind together with craving and hatred; the “craving” and “grasping” of the twelve links by stages have their own places — “greed for fine goods and the operation of sexual craving, without wide pursuit, is the stage named craving” — and the two share a name while pointing to different stages, and may not be simply equated. In practice: the single thought that practice contends for is exactly the thought at this place.

〔4.9〕The gate of manner of movement, and three matters after rebirth-linking. The treatise says that the intermediate existence of gods “rises head upward as if getting up from a seat,” that those of humans, ghosts, and animals go as human beings and the rest go, and that the intermediate existence of the hells “falls headlong, head down and feet up, into them.” After rebirth-linking there are three further matters. First, the appearance of dwelling in the womb — the male squats against the right side facing the back, the female dwells against the left side facing the belly, and one neither male nor female dwells according to its craving; and it is affirmed that “there is certainly no intermediate existence that is neither female nor male, because the body of intermediate existence must be complete in its faculties,” though it may later become a non-male as the embryo grows. Second, the two accounts of the great elements on which the faculties depend — “some say: the semen and blood themselves become the support of the faculties,” on the principle of the seed ceasing and the sprout arising; “other masters say: separate great elements are produced,” as worms are separately produced in dependence upon leaves and dung. The two accounts each adduce the same passage of scripture as evidence, and the treatise records both without adjudicating. Third, the two births from moisture and by transformation — “one of moisture-birth is born through being defiled by fragrance,” “one of transformation-birth is born through being defiled by the place,” and both are pure or foul according to action; and to the objection that craving arises even for the hells it answers, “because the mind is inverted, the arising of defilement is no fault,” for one may see cold rain and delight in flames, or feel hot wind and desire the cool. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary brings the principle out into the open here: all taking of birth requires that defilement arise, and since moisture and transformation have no womb, fragrance and place are taken instead as what is defiled by. First ask: why must all four modes of birth have something ‘defiled by’? Because craving is the hook by which the womb is taken, and without a hook nothing can be hung on. Clearing a misreading: reading the casting of oneself into the hells as being deceived. The treatise says plainly that it is the inverted mind that makes the marks of suffering appear as things to delight in. In practice: only here is the principle of taking birth in the four modes fully stated, and all four share one and the same principle — defilement first, and then birth.

〔4.9 appended〕For the casting of oneself into the hells there is a further account of the masters of former times. The account of the inverted mind is not the only explanation the treatise records here. After the account of inversion regarding cold and heat it sets out another: “the masters of former times say thus: on seeing the fellows of their own company at the time when they formerly did the action that calls forth that hell, they run and hasten to join them” — seeing the band of companions of the day when they did that hell-action, they run to throw in with them. First ask: where do the two accounts differ? The former takes inversion for the hook (marks of suffering appearing as things to delight in), this one takes the company for the hook (seeing old fellows and going to them); the one lies in an inversion of the appearance of the object, the other in the pull of commonality. Clearing a misreading: kneading the two accounts into one, or supposing the second to be an explanation of the first. The treatise marks the speaker with “the masters of former times say thus,” which is the practice of recording divergent accounts together, not a supplement to one and the same account. (For the school to which this account belongs the ancient masters differ; see Further Resonances in this unit.) In practice: wherever the marks “the masters of former times” or “other masters say” appear, one knows that the speaker has changed below, and in reading one must start a fresh column and not run it together with what precedes.

V. A Gāthā on Falling Headlong into the Hells

〔5.1〕The use to which a quoted stanza is put is worth more study than its content. At the end of the gate of manner of movement the treatise says that the intermediate existence of the hells is head down and feet up, and at once quotes a stanza as evidence: “falling headlong into the hells, feet upward and head turned down, through slandering the seers who delight in quiet and cultivate austerities.” First ask: does this count as one of this treatise’s own root stanzas? It does not. Before it stand the four words “hence a gāthā says” as its warrant; it is a stanza quoted from scripture and is not counted among the ninety-nine root stanzas of this chapter. Clearing a misreading: reading it as the author’s warning to slanderers. What the stanza proves is one thing only — that the manner of movement of hell intermediate existence is a headlong fall; as for “slandering the seers,” that is one cause of action instanced in the stanza, and not the thesis the author is establishing here. In practice: this fascicle has six places where stanzas are quoted, and before each there is a mark of warrant (“as the noble one says,” “hence a gāthā says,” “hence a stanza is spoken,” and the like). In reading a treatise, recognize the mark first, and one will neither take a quoted stanza for a root stanza nor take another party’s words for the author’s adjudication.

〔5.2〕Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary adds here a limitation the text of the treatise does not state. At the end of the gate of manner of movement Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary adds that what has been discussed above is said of one who dies among human beings and is born again into the human destiny, and that “if it is extended to the other destinies, the manner of movement is not fixed.” First ask: does this count as altering the sense of the treatise? It does not; it makes clear the range within which the treatise’s words apply. The rising of gods, the horizontal going of humans, and the headlong fall of the hells that the treatise instances are said of one common case; if one dies in the hells and is born among the gods, the manner of movement is of course reckoned otherwise. Clearing a misreading: taking an ancient master’s supplement for the treatise’s own statement. In practice: in reading a treatise one must divide two layers — what the treatise said, and what an ancient master supplied for it; in the latter part of this fascicle the two layers are more closely intertwined, and here is the easiest exercise in telling them apart.

VI. The Four Modes of Entry into the Womb: Who Is Still Awake at the Pass of Death and Birth

〔6.1〕First ask the one question, “is this fixed for all intermediate existences?” Having said above that intermediate existence enters the womb with an inverted mind, the treatise at once asks itself: is it so for all? The answer is “it is not,” and scripture is adduced to establish four modes of entry into the womb. First ask: why does this question matter? Because if entering the womb with an inverted mind were the general rule, the Buddha and the pratyekabuddha would fall under it too, and the account of “entering the womb with full awareness” would have nowhere to be set. The treatise preserves the exception to the general rule by the division into four. Clearing a misreading: reading the “four modes” as four kinds of person. What it divides is the combinations of awareness and unawareness at the three stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out: the first has awareness at the stage of entering alone, the second at entering and dwelling, the third at entering, dwelling, and coming out alike, and the fourth has awareness at none of the three, while egg-birth is always without awareness. In practice: this is the standard handling of ‘general rule and exception’ in this treatise — not to alter the rule, but to divide it by stages.

〔6.2〕The word “also,” and the reversed order of statement, each resolve a technical problem. The treatise says, “the word ‘also’ is to show that what comes after necessarily carries what comes before” — one who is aware at coming out is necessarily aware at entering and dwelling too, so that the three are related by inclusion and not by coordination. It says also that where entering is without awareness, dwelling and coming out are necessarily so; and that the reason the stanza runs from the first to the fourth is that it is “stated in reverse in order to follow the rule of composing stanzas.” First ask: what use are these two petty explanations? What they resolve are the two places most easily misread in the stanza: the first, supposing that the second mode is aware of dwelling but not of entering; the second, supposing that the sequence of the four has some doctrinal weight of higher and lower. Clearing a misreading: the order of the stanza is for the convenience of the metre and is not an order of doctrine. In practice: the stanzas of this treatise are memory compressed to the limit, and the prose commentary often spends several sentences restoring the relations that were compressed out — half the labor of reading an introductory work such as a verse commentary goes into just such restoration.

〔6.3〕Why egg-birth too is called “entering the womb.” The treatise raises the objection: those of egg-birth come out of an egg, so how are they reckoned as entering the womb? The answer takes two roads: first, that those of egg-birth “must first enter the womb,” forming into an egg within the mother’s body; second, “or they are named of egg-birth with reference to what is to come,” being called by the name of what will be formed in the future. And three instances are adduced as evidence: scripture says “to make the conditioned,” and the world says “boiling rice” and “grinding parched flour.” First ask: what do these three instances prove? They prove that to name a prior stage by the name of the later result is a current habit of speech — while the rice is boiling one says beforehand boiling rice, while the wheat is grinding one says beforehand grinding flour. Clearing a misreading: reading it as a play upon words. This is the principle of ‘the name of what is to come’ commonly used in Abhidharma, and when the text below says that the wheel-turning monarch, the pratyekabuddha, and the great awakened one enter the womb, it “shows them by the name of what is to come,” which is the very same item. In practice: learn this one item, and expressions of the class ‘stating the result within the cause’ will cause no perplexity hereafter.

〔6.4〕The concrete appearances of awareness and unawareness at the three stages. The treatise writes it out in the finest detail: one of scant merit, on entering the womb, arouses inverted notions and construals, seeing great wind and rain, fierce heat and bitter cold, and the noise and might of great armies, and “thereupon sees himself entering dense grass and thick woods, a cave of leaves, a hut of thatch”; at the stage of dwelling he sees himself already dwelling within it; at the stage of coming out he sees the body going out from it. One whose merit is greater sees himself “entering fine gardens and groves, mounting flowered terraces and palaces, dwelling on excellent couches and the like,” dwelling and coming out being as before. One truly with full awareness, however, “has no inverted notions and construals at the time of entering and the rest”: entering the womb he knows he enters, and at dwelling and coming out knows of himself that he dwells and comes out. First ask: why are there two sorts of what the unaware see? Because merit is thick or thin, and the object-appearances that manifest are coarse and mean or fine and excellent accordingly — yet both alike are inversions. Clearing a misreading: taking ‘seeing oneself enter fine gardens and groves’ for a good thing. The treatise’s criterion is not the beauty or ugliness of what appears but whether inverted notions are present. In practice: this item carries great weight for training — the dignity of what appears is not the same as full awareness, and the goodness or badness of what is seen at the time of death cannot serve as a criterion.

〔6.5〕The three grades of person, and the division of action and cognition. The treatise lists the first three: the wheel-turning monarch has “awareness at the stage of entering, not at dwelling nor at coming out”; the solitary victorious awakened one has “awareness at entering and dwelling, but not at the stage of coming out”; and the unsurpassed awakened one “has full awareness at the stages of entering, dwelling, and coming out”; and it says that “these first three persons are shown by the name of what is to come.” Asked on what ground the three grades differ, it answers, “because action and cognition are excellent in this order”: in the first, action is excellent, the wheel-turning monarch having in former lives cultivated vast merit; in the second, cognition is excellent, the pratyekabuddha having long practiced much learning and excellent discrimination; in the third both are excellent, the unsurpassed awakened one having cultivated excellent merit and cognition through aeons. Apart from these three, the remaining beings of womb-birth and egg-birth are “inferior in both merit and cognition, and together make the fourth.” First ask: why two axes, action and cognition, rather than one? Because merit preserves the body on which the power of mindfulness rests, and cognition preserves the clarity of that power; lacking either, full awareness is incomplete. Clearing a misreading: reading the wheel-turning monarch’s awareness at entering alone as a shortfall in his cultivation. What the treatise adjudicates is the proportion of action to cognition, not the height of a total. In practice: this is one of the treatise’s rare instances of ‘adjudicating a fruition-stage by the cause cultivated,’ and its criteria — action and cognition — are exactly what counteracts the “formations” and “ignorance” of the twelve links below.

VII. No Self and Only Aggregates: Who Is It That Takes a Womb

〔7.1〕The non-Buddhist’s objection comes at exactly the right moment. The non-Buddhist says: since it is granted that a sentient being can pass over to another world, “the sense of a self that I hold to is established.” First ask: why is this objection so hard to shake off? Because a whole chapter has just been spent on intermediate existence going from this destiny to that, and in the feel of the language it does sound as if something were running. The author must deny the self without denying the coming and going — and this is the real difficulty of the section. Clearing a misreading: reading the author’s answer as ‘there is in fact no rebirth.’ He has never denied the continuum; what he denies is that there is an unchanging subject within the continuum. In practice: this section is a rehearsal within the Chapter on the World of the whole treatise’s learning on refuting the self, and the scale of what the ninth chapter on refuting the self establishes is already here in embryo.

〔7.2〕First ask what the mark of the self is. The author first puts the question: “what is the mark of that self which you hold to?” The holder of self answers: it is that “inner functioning person” which “can cast off these aggregates and can continue other aggregates.” The author then refutes: “this certainly does not exist, because it cannot be got at as form and the eye and the rest are got at.” (For the division of these three parts, Fabao’s Commentary marks, “from the treatise’s ‘can cast off these aggregates’ to ‘inner functioning person’ is the answer; from the treatise’s ‘this certainly does not exist’ to ‘because it cannot be got at’ is the refutation of the non-Buddhist’s position”; what Puguang’s Record marks is broadly the same, taking “can cast off these aggregates and can continue other aggregates” as the answer of the holder of self and “inner functioning person” onward as the author’s refutation — the two commentaries differ slightly on the boundary, and agree on who answers and who refutes.) First ask: what work do form and the eye do here? Puguang’s Record explains that form and the rest “have an entity and are knowable by direct perception,” and the eye and the rest “have a function and are knowable by inference,” the two standing for two roads of knowability; and the self held to is passable on neither road, and so is said not to be got at. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary likewise explains “person” as the agent held to by the non-Buddhists. Clearing a misreading: reading “cannot be got at” as a limitation of the author’s sensory experience. This is a testing by the means of knowledge — neither direct perception nor inference gets anything, and therefore the dharma does not exist. In practice: whenever this treatise refutes a dharma it first asks its mark and then asks by what means of knowledge it is knowable, and here that whole procedure appears complete in one place.

〔7.3〕The World-Honored One’s words, and “the provisional designation of dharmas.” The treatise quotes, “there is action and there is maturation, but an agent cannot be got at,” and glosses the agent as what can cast off these aggregates and continue other aggregates, “save only the provisional designation of dharmas.” Asked, “what is the provisional designation of dharmas?”, it answers, “this being, that is; this arising, that arises — dependent origination stated at length.” First ask: since there is no agent, how can “casting off” and “continuing” still be spoken of? Because casting off and continuing are only another way of speaking of the continuity of cause and result before and after. Puguang’s Record adds a closing sentence here: “what is now made clear, that this is cast off and one goes to another, is just the continuity of cause and result before and after. Upon this dharma an agent is provisionally named; there is no separate agent. Hence the Correct Principle, fascicle twenty-five, says, ‘to show that the formations continuous in cause and result are themselves the agent, it further says: this being, that is; this arising, that arises.’” Clearing a misreading: reading “provisional designation of dharmas” as an expedient falsehood. Provisional does not mean false; it means established in dependence on others and without an independent self-entity. In practice: here for the first time dependent origination is brought out as the positive substitute for the self, and a full half of the latter part of this fascicle is spent making that substitute clear.

〔7.4〕The simile of the lamp-flame: momentary cessation and yet the power to continue and shift. The treatise raises a further objection: then it should be granted that the aggregates themselves can pass from this world to another. The answer: “the aggregates cease moment by moment and have no power over the turning round,” yet “because of what is done by afflictions and action long habituated, the aggregates of intermediate existence continue and enter the womb,” and the simile is set up, “as a lamp-flame, though it ceases moment by moment, can yet continue and shift to another place.” First ask: what is the simile of the lamp-flame to prove? It proves that without anything unchanging there can still be a real transfer. The flame is newly born in every moment, and yet the lamp can be moved from this end to that. Clearing a misreading: reading the flame as one and the same mass of fire. The treatise insists that it ceases moment by moment, and the force of the simile lies just there. In practice: this simile is the most often quoted in the whole treatise, and hereafter, whenever continuity and rebirth are discussed, one may return to this one sentence.

〔7.5〕The force of the action that draws forth the lifespan decides the length of a life. The treatise says that not all the aggregates 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,” and that according as the force of the drawing action increases or is slight, “they grow in order for just so long a time.” First ask: what is this sentence doing wedged between the refutation of the self and the stages within the womb? It is a bridge. Above, continuity was said to be done by afflictions and action; here the length of that continuity is said to be decided by action as well, and so the next passage follows naturally — how the continuity of this term grows all the way along. Clearing a misreading: reading it as fatalism. What the treatise says is that the projecting action fixes the outer limit; it does not exclude the working of the completing action and of present conditions. In practice: this sentence extends “action” from the single point of taking a womb into a line, and lays the road for the five stages within the womb and for the account by stages of the twelve links below.

VIII. The Five Stages within the Womb, and Birth as Suffering

〔8.1〕The names of the five stages and their appearances. The treatise quotes the stanza spoken by the noble one, listing the five stages — kalala, arbuda, peśī, ghana, praśākhā — after which “hair, down, nails, and the rest, and the shape of the material faculties, gradually grow by turns”; while the prose commentary says expressly, “that is, within the mother’s belly the stages are five,” and further, “this arrow within the womb gradually grows by turns,” up to the stage where the material faculties and the shape are complete. First ask: what do these five transcriptions actually refer to? Puguang’s Record explains: “kalala means here conjoined, or mixed and foul, or congealed and slippery. Arbuda means here a blister. Peśī means here flesh and blood. Ghana means here firm flesh. Praśākhā means here limbs and joints”; Fabao’s Commentary explains them much the same, only giving peśī as “soft flesh,” and adds “because it rises like a blister” to explain how arbuda got its name. Clearing a misreading: reading the five stages as a medical description. The treatise lists them in order to give the two words “stage” the most immediately visible sample — one continuum, with five names established by difference of appearance. In practice: the twelve links below can be ‘named from what is eminent’ — and that passage costs nothing at all to a reader who has first grown familiar here with the way stages are handled.

〔8.2〕The suffering of the birth-gate, and the wind of maturation. The treatise says that “by the force of the wind of maturation aroused by action, the arrow within the womb is turned so as to move toward the birth-gate,” its suffering being like “a hard lump of dung stopped and straitened beyond measure,” and that from there it “falls by turns into fierce suffering hard to bear”; or else, through the mother’s deportment, food, or labor being excessive, or through the force of the child’s own former sinful action, it dies within the womb; and so there are women skilled in the art of delivery, or physicians, who warm butter and the juice of the śāmalī to smear on their hands and take up a small sharp knife. Then comes the most unsparingly realistic passage in the whole treatise: within the womb it is “like a cesspit, utterly base and mean, packed with mixed filth, a dwelling of darkness, the support of numberless thousands of worms,” with foul fluids constantly running, semen, blood, grime, and grease, impurities overflowing, covered above only by a thin and perforated skin. First ask: why does the treatise write it out so bluntly? Because the theme of this fascicle is the turning round of birth and death, and the beginning of that turning is just such a thing as this; write it beautifully, and the five words “the origination of the sheer great mass of suffering” have nowhere solid to land. Clearing a misreading: reading it as a mood of world-weariness. This is material for direct observation, not a venting of feeling. In practice: on this passage all three commentaries do no more than mark the run of the text without establishing any new sense — the ancient masters too judged that this passage needs no further explanation, and that one simply reads it through.

〔8.3〕After birth, on to “he again arouses the afflictions and accumulates actions.” The treatise writes of the infant’s body as “like a fresh sore, fine and soft and hard to touch”; the mother or another woman takes it up with “two hands rough as a knife or as ashes,” washing, wiping, and settling it, and “next puts clear butter in its mouth and gives it the mother’s milk,” gradually accustoming it to take fine and coarse food, “growing by turns in order until the stage where the faculties are mature, and then again arousing the afflictions and accumulating actions.” Thereby the body is destroyed, and again an intermediate existence continues and goes on to another world. First ask: why is this sentence the hinge of the fascicle? Because it closes the circle — from intermediate existence entering the womb, to the maturity of the faculties and the doing of actions, and to the arising of intermediate existence again. The treatise at once names the theme: “thus afflictions and action being the cause, there is birth; and birth being again the cause, afflictions and action arise,” and therefore “it is known that the wheel of existence revolves without beginning.” Clearing a misreading: reading “without beginning” as a claim about time. It is the outcome of an inference: if there were a beginning, the beginning would have to be without a cause; and if without a cause, then the rest too should arise of themselves — whereas we plainly see the sprout arise from the seed, with place and time determined; hence “there is definitely no dharma that arises without a cause.” In practice: the treatise states two further matters in passing here — the account of a constant cause has already been dispelled above; and birth and death have no beginning yet have a final limit, because the cause is exhausted. The sentence “as when the seed is destroyed the sprout certainly does not grow” is where the whole doctrine of liberation lands within the Chapter on the World.

IX. The Twelve Links and the Three Periods: A Table of the Segments of Birth and Death

〔9.1〕The listing of the twelve links, and the real sense of the two words “three periods.” The treatise lists the names of the twelve links, and glosses the three periods as “first the earlier period, second the later period, third the middle period, that is, the three lives past, future, and present.” First ask: why are the three periods three lives and not three times? Because what this treatise establishes is dependent origination by stages — the twelve links belong to three segments of life, not to three times within a single thought. Clearing a misreading: reading the three periods as the abstract times past, present, and future. They are three concrete terms of life. In practice: only when this is seen does one know on what ground the account of ‘two rounds of cause and result’ below is established — the two links of the earlier period against the five results of the middle, and the three causes of the middle against the two results of the later.

〔9.2〕The distribution two, two, eight. The treatise answers, “that is, the earlier and later periods have two links established for each and the middle period eight, and so they make twelve” — ignorance and the formations in the earlier period, birth and aging-and-death in the later, and the remaining eight in the middle. First ask: why is the middle period so much fuller? Because the middle period is the present life and can be observed closely stage by stage, and so is opened out finely; the earlier and later periods can only be inferred, and so are given in brief. This layer the treatise states positively only later, at Root 26: “because the entities are opened into five and the afflictions into two.” Clearing a misreading: reading the greater number of the eight links as meaning that the middle period is more important. It is only a difference in the precision of observation. In practice: one and the same set of facts is opened or gathered differently according to the position from which it is observed, and this is a constant practice of Abhidharma; the twelve links, the twofold dependent origination, and the three afflictions, two actions, and seven entities are all different cuts of the same set of facts.

〔9.3〕The four words “on the basis of one who is complete” fend off the greater part of the misreadings. The treatise asks itself whether the eight links of the middle period are all present in this life for every sentient being, and answers, “not all have them”; asked then on what ground eight links are spoken of, it answers, “on the basis of one who is complete.” And it explains one who is complete as “a person who has passed through all the stages is named one who is complete,” not one who dies untimely, nor beings of the form and formless realms, “but only with reference to persons of the desire realm,” adducing the Great Sūtra of Dependent Origination as evidence — the Buddha asks Ānanda, “if consciousness did not enter the womb, would it get growth and increase?”, and the answer is, “it would not, World-Honored One.” First ask: why set up this limitation? Because if the twelve links were taken as a general rule for all sentient beings, one who dies untimely lacks the last several links and the form and formless realms have no name-and-form nor six sense fields, and the general rule collapses at once. Clearing a misreading: reading “complete” as completeness in practice. It refers to having gone through the whole sequence of stages. Puguang’s Record marks here the four layers of question, answer, objection, and explanation, and the teaching scaffold is exceedingly clear. In practice: in reading any numbered set of dharmas, first ask its range of application — a question this fascicle has already taught twice (the four existences do not run through the formless, and the eight links are only on the basis of one complete in the desire realm).

〔9.4〕Twofold dependent origination: folding the twelve links in half. The treatise says that sometimes only two divisions are spoken of — the first seven links gathered into the earlier period (ignorance through feeling) and the latter five into the later period (from craving to aging-and-death), “because the earlier and later are gathered by the two divisions of cause and result.” First ask: does this conflict with the division into three periods? It does not. The three periods divide by life, the two divisions by cause and result: the first seven are one round of cause and result (ignorance and the formations being causes, consciousness and the other four results), the latter five a second round (craving, grasping, and existence being causes, birth and aging-and-death results); it is another measuring stick. Clearing a misreading: reading the two divisions as a second system of dependent origination. It is still these twelve links. In practice: when the latter part of this fascicle speaks of “the cause-portion originating” and “what has already arisen from conditions,” it uses just this stick of cause and result; here it is shown once beforehand. The reader may work the reckoning out for himself — dividing the first seven links into two causes and five results and the latter five into three causes and two results, and setting that against the two, two, and eight of the three periods; the links cut by the two tables overlap while the boundaries differ, which shows exactly that this treatise never takes one cut for the only cut.

X. The Entity of the Twelve Links: One Link, One Stage, and Every Stage the Five Aggregates

〔10.1〕“The stage of the afflictions of a former life is ignorance,” and the simile of the king’s going forth. The treatise says that in a past life “the stage of the afflictions, whose result has now matured, is stated in sum to be ignorance,” because they operated at the same time as ignorance and it was by the force of ignorance that they operated; and it sets up the simile, “as when one says the king goes forth, it is not that there are no outriders and retinue; because the king who goes with them is the most eminent, the whole is called the king’s going forth.” First ask: since one stage is complete in the five aggregates, why is ignorance singled out? Just because at that stage ignorance is the most eminent. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary puts this layer in the plainest words, saying, “‘the stage of the afflictions of a former life is ignorance’ means that when the afflictions arose in a past life, that is named the stage of the afflictions of a former life; and the five aggregates of that stage, whose result has now matured, are named ignorance as a whole”; and the reason for singling out ignorance lies precisely in “because the king who goes with them is the most eminent, the whole is called the king’s going forth.” Clearing a misreading: reading the link of ignorance as being that one mental factor ignorance alone. Every link is the five aggregates, and the name is only the representative of that stage. In practice: this item is the vital point of dependent origination by stages, and what the stanza below, “transmitted and allowed, stated with reference to stages, the name of a link is established from what is eminent,” guards is just this one sentence.

〔10.2〕The boundaries of the three links consciousness, name-and-form, and the six sense fields. The treatise fixes consciousness as “at the very moment of rebirth-linking in the mother’s womb and the like, the stage of a single instant, whose five aggregates are named consciousness”; name-and-form as “after the consciousness of rebirth-linking and before the six sense fields arise, all the intervening stages together named name-and-form”; and the six sense fields as “from when the eye and the rest have arisen up to the stage where faculty, object, and consciousness have not yet met, it gets the name six sense fields.” A question is inserted midway: since at rebirth-linking the body and mind sense fields already exist, this ought to say before four sense fields arise — why does it say six? The answer: “because it is established on the basis of completeness.” First ask: is this question worth answering separately? It is — for it is exactly the place where the account by stages is most easily attacked: where does the boundary between name-and-form and the six sense fields lie? Puguang’s Record traces the original text of the Mahāvibhāṣā for evidence, saying, “the kalala runs through many thought-moments. At the stage of name-and-form the body and mind sense fields have arisen, and here it ought to say before four sense fields arise,” while saying six is established on the basis of the completeness of the six sense fields; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary states the conclusion only and does not trace its source. Clearing a misreading: reading “name-and-form” as a stretch with no faculties at all. The body and mind sense fields already exist at the stage of name-and-form; they are merely not complete. In practice: whenever this treatise meets a mismatch of number of the class ‘it ought to say four and yet says six,’ it resolves it uniformly by naming on the basis of completeness, and this is the first instance.

〔10.3〕The five links contact, feeling, craving, grasping, and existence are each bounded in their own way. The treatise fixes contact as “having reached the meeting of three, at the stage where the differences of the causes of the three feelings are not yet known”; feeling as “having known the marks of difference of the causes of the three feelings, and sexual greed not yet arisen”; craving as “greed for fine goods and the operation of sexual craving, without wide pursuit”; grasping as “ranging in pursuit everywhere for the getting of all manner of fine and excellent objects”; and existence as “through that ranging pursuit, accumulating the action that can draw forth the result of a coming existence.” First ask: are these five definitions all cut in the same way? They are not. Contact and feeling have both bounds marked by a paired “having . . . not yet . . .”; craving has only its upper bound stopped by “without wide pursuit” (its lower bound being set by “greed for fine goods and the operation of sexual craving”); while grasping is fixed by “ranging in pursuit everywhere” and existence by “accumulating the action that can draw forth the result of a coming existence,” each on its own mark and with no paired “having” and “not yet.” Clearing a misreading: reading them as five different psychological states. They are five stretches upon one and the same continuum, and the manner in which each stretch is bounded is not uniform — contact and feeling doubly marked by “having” and “not yet,” craving stopped at “without wide pursuit,” and grasping and existence each established on its own mark. In practice: this is the handsomest set of stage-definitions in the whole treatise, and a reader who can write these five sentences from memory is half through the study of the twelve links.

〔10.4〕Birth and aging-and-death carry this life’s four links over into the life to come. The treatise fixes birth as “by that force of action, casting off life here and linking the coming existence,” and aging-and-death as the coming link of birth “growing gradually after the moment of arising, as consciousness does now, up to the stage of feeling in the time to come,” and says expressly, “such aging-and-death is just the four links name-and-form, six sense fields, contact, and feeling of this present life.” First ask: why does the later period hold the content of four links under two names only? Because the later period can only be inferred and not directly observed, and so is stated in brief. Clearing a misreading: reading aging-and-death as the two matters of growing old and dying. In the account by stages, aging-and-death is the whole stretch from the coming name-and-form to the coming stage of feeling. In practice: once this sentence is out, the symmetry of the two rounds of cause and result is wholly disclosed — the two links of the earlier period against the five results of the middle, the three causes of the middle against the two results of the later, and the two results of the later being in fact a second performance of the five results of the middle.

〔10.5〕Four kinds of dependent origination: momentary, of unbroken linkage, by stages, and of remote continuance. The treatise says, “further, dependent origination is stated as four by difference,” and explains the momentary in detail — “what is the momentary? That is, in the space of one instant, in doing a killing out of greed, the twelve links are complete”: delusion is ignorance; volition is the formations; discerning is consciousness; the three aggregates that arise with consciousness are name-and-form; the faculties resting on name-and-form are the six sense fields; the meeting of these is contact; the receiving of contact is feeling; greed is craving; the several bonds associated with it are grasping; the two actions of body and speech are existence; their arising is birth; ripening and altering are aging; and destruction is death. It records also an account that the momentary and that of unbroken linkage, as the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas has it, “both run through all that is conditioned”; that all the five aggregates at the stages of the twelve links are gathered under the account by stages; and that “this same continuity, remote and without beginning, is named that of remote continuance.” First ask: since there are four, which one does this treatise establish? The stanza of the next section answers — the one by stages. Clearing a misreading: reading the four as four different dharmas of dependent origination. They are four ways of viewing one and the same dependent origination across four spans of time — one instant, unbroken linkage, the stages of three lives, and remote continuance without beginning. In practice: this section is set up for the question of the next stanza, and a reader who passes it over will find the five words “transmitted and allowed, stated with reference to stages” with nothing to rest on.

XI. “Transmitted and Allowed, Stated with Reference to Stages”: A Fissure within Five Words

〔11.1〕First look at what the text of the treatise itself says. The stanza says, “transmitted and allowed, stated with reference to stages; the name of a link established from what is eminent,” and the treatise says, “it is transmitted and allowed that the World-Honored One spoke of the several dependent originations as twelve links solely with reference to stages.” Then it raises an outside objection against itself: if each and every link is complete in the five aggregates, on what ground are the names ignorance and the rest alone established? The answer: “because at each of the stages ignorance and the rest are eminent,” and the name is established from what is eminent — if at a stage ignorance is most eminent, the five aggregates of that stage are named ignorance as a whole, and so on down to aging-and-death. It closes with the sentence, “thus though the entity is one in sum, that the names are separate is no fault.” First ask: on what ground can ‘establishing the name from what is eminent’ stand? On the ground that ordinary language already has such a usage — the simile of the king’s going forth has been laid down beforehand. Clearing a misreading: reading “though the entity is one in sum” as meaning that the twelve links have no distinctions. The entity is one in sum (all being five aggregates) and the names are separate (established according to what is eminent), and the two do not conflict. In practice: this is the complete defense of dependent origination by stages, and it uses only two layers — that stages have what is eminent and what is not, and that names are established from what is eminent.

〔11.2〕Why the two words “transmitted and allowed” are jarring. Throughout the text of the treatise the author adjudicates the sense of his own school mostly by plain statement; here, however, he sets the two words “transmitted and allowed” in the stanza, and the prose commentary repeats them once more. First ask: what tone do these two words carry? Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary uniquely brings it into the open, saying, “dependent origination by stages is refuted by the Sautrāntikas, and the author’s intent is plain, and so he says ‘transmitted and allowed’” — meaning that since dependent origination by stages has already met with Sautrāntika questioning, the author has a reservation in his own mind and sets these two words to mark his distance. Clearing a misreading: this is an ancient master’s adjudication of the author’s motive in his choice of words, not the treatise’s own statement. The text of the treatise itself says only “it is transmitted and allowed that the World-Honored One spoke solely with reference to stages,” and does not explain why it says so. In practice: wherever this fascicle meets a modal word (“transmitted and allowed,” “some say,” “other masters say”), one should first ask, ‘is this the author’s adjudication, or another party’s account that he is reporting?’ — and that question often decides the reading more than the doctrine itself does. For the four lines of material that these two words set in motion, see Further Resonances.

〔11.3〕The difference from the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas, and the division of sentient and insentient. The treatise asks itself on what ground scripture speaks of twelve links while the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas speaks otherwise, and answers that that treatise says, “what is dependent origination? All that is conditioned,” and so on at length; and it adjudicates the reason thus: “the sūtrānta speaks with a particular intent, while the Abhidharma states things according to the marks of dharmas.” It says further that the four — by stages, momentary, of remote continuance, and of unbroken linkage — “belong only to the class of sentient beings. Sentient and insentient and the rest: this is the difference.” First ask: within one and the same Buddha-dharma, why do a sūtra and a treatise state different ranges? Because a sūtra speaks with reference to the doubts of those it converts (as the next section says outright), while a treatise speaks with reference to the general rule of the marks of dharmas. Clearing a misreading: reading the difference between the two as a contradiction. The intents differing, the ranges naturally differ. In practice: this is the standard answer of this treatise to ‘a sūtra and a treatise not agreeing,’ and the reader may apply it directly to similar cases hereafter.

XII. Why Scripture Speaks Only of Sentient Beings: To Dispel Bewilderment over the Three Periods

〔12.1〕The stanza has ten words only, yet it states the purpose of the whole fascicle. The stanza says, “in the earlier, the later, and the middle period, in order to dispel another’s bewilderment,” and the treatise says, “in order to dispel another’s bewilderment within the three periods,” adding, “the difference of the three periods is only among sentient beings.” First ask: what question does this stanza answer? It answers the question left at the end of the last section — why the sūtras speak only of sentient beings. The answer is: because the doubt to be counteracted arises only in sentient beings. Clearing a misreading: reading it as meaning that dependent origination does not run through the insentient. The treatise has already said that when the Abhidharma states things according to the marks of dharmas it runs through all that is conditioned; what is said here is that scripture speaks only of sentient beings with reference to what is to be counteracted. In practice: this stanza fixes the nature of the twelve links once for all — they are a dose of medicine, not a map of the universe.

〔12.2〕The ten questions of bewilderment over the three periods. The treatise lists them one by one: for the earlier period the doubt, “was I in the past world existent or not existent? What sort of I was I? How was I?”; for the later period, “shall I in the future world be existent or not existent? What sort of I shall I be? How shall I be?”; for the middle period, “what is I? How is this I? Whose is this I? Whom shall I have?” First ask: what have these questions in common? Every one has “I” for its subject — bewilderment over the three periods is in truth only three shapes taken by the grasping of self across three stretches of time. Clearing a misreading: treating them as philosophical questions to be solved. The treatise never answers head-on ‘what is the self?’; it merely sets out the twelve links and lets the premise of the question fall apart of itself. In practice: hence it says, “in order to remove such bewilderment over the three periods, scripture speaks only of the dependent origination of sentient beings,” and “states in their order ignorance and the formations, and birth and aging-and-death, together with consciousness through existence” — the two links of the earlier period answering the doubt of the earlier period, the two of the later answering the doubt of the later, and the eight of the middle answering the doubt of the middle, each matched to its place.

〔12.3〕The scriptural proof and one supplementary account. The treatise adduces a sūtra as its ground: “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.” At the end a further account is recorded: “other masters say: the three, craving, grasping, and existence, are also for the removing of another’s bewilderment over the later period, since these three are all causes of the later period.” First ask: what does this supplement change? It reckons the last three links of the middle period also into the function of counteracting bewilderment over the later period, since they are precisely the causes of the later period. Clearing a misreading: taking “other masters say” for the author’s adjudication. It is an account recorded alongside. In practice: whatever this treatise introduces with “other masters say” is invariably kept without adjudication — remember this mark, and one can separate the author’s own sense from another party’s account unaided.

XIII. Three Afflictions, Two Actions, Seven Entities: Cutting the Twelve Links Once More

〔13.1〕The distribution three, two, seven. The stanza says, “three afflictions and two actions, and seven entities, also named results,” and the treatise says that ignorance, craving, and grasping have affliction for their nature, that the formations and existence have action for their nature, and that “the remaining seven, consciousness and the rest, have entity for their nature, being the entities on which the afflictions and action rest.” First ask: why are they called “entities”? Because they are that mass of actual content on which afflictions and action rest — consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense fields, contact, feeling, birth, and aging-and-death. Clearing a misreading: reading “entity” as an affair or a matter. Here it means that on which something rests. In practice: this is the second stick applied to the twelve links (the first being the three periods). One and the same set of links is divided by nature into the three classes affliction, action, and entity, and thereupon the whole of birth and death has only three things turning in it — the afflictions make action, action produces entities, and entities again arouse the afflictions.

〔13.2〕The seven entities are also named results, and the five links also named causes. The treatise says, “these seven entities are also named results; and it follows by implication that the remaining five are also named causes, since they have afflictions and action for their own nature.” First ask: why add this further layer? Because affliction, action, and entity divide by nature while cause and result divide by relation; one and the same link is an “entity” on the former stick and a “result” on the latter. Clearing a misreading: reading cause and result as two different sets of links. In practice: this is the third demonstration in this fascicle of ‘one and the same set of facts rearranged on another axis’ — the twelve links, the three periods, the two divisions, affliction-action-entity, and cause and result: five cuts, all cutting the same thing.

〔13.3〕On what ground the middle period alone is treated fully. The treatise asks itself, “on what ground does the middle period state result and cause at length?”, and answers, “because the entities are opened into five and the afflictions into two”; the later period states the result in brief, “because the entities there are two only”; and the earlier period states the cause in brief, “because the affliction there is one only.” And it says that “because the middle period is stated at length, the earlier and later may be inferred from it,” the sense at length being established, “and so they are not stated separately; to state them would be useless.” First ask: what perplexity does this passage resolve? It resolves ‘why the distribution of the twelve links is so unsymmetrical.’ The answer: the middle period can be directly observed and so is opened out finely, while the earlier and later can only be inferred and so are stated in brief. Clearing a misreading: taking the asymmetry for an oversight in the treatise. It is determined by the conditions of observation. In practice: the four words “to state them would be useless” show the character of Abhidharma most clearly — a numbered set of dharmas is established by the measure of usefulness, and not made symmetrical for symmetry’s sake.

XIV. From an Affliction an Affliction Is Produced: Five Modes of Mutual Production, and a Long Debate about Infinity

The prose commentary of this section runs to nearly eight hundred characters and contains several rounds of question and answer and the divergent explanations of two parties; it is the densest passage in the latter half of this fascicle. What follows teaches it through in three layers.

〔14.1〕First look at the objection. The treatise raises the objection: if the links of dependent origination are twelve only, then “not stating a result of aging-and-death, birth and death should have an end; not stating a cause of ignorance, birth and death should have a beginning”; and if further links were established for this, the further would have further still, “falling into the fault of infinity.” First ask: why is this objection so formidable? Because it is a dilemma — not to supply the links leaves birth and death with a beginning and an end, and to supply them yields infinity. Clearing a misreading: reading it as an outsider’s cavil. The author raises it himself, because the account of the twelve links must stand up to just this question. In practice: whenever this treatise establishes a closed numbered set of dharmas, it asks itself how its boundaries are kept from leaking — this is the self-testing mechanism of the study of numbered dharmas.

〔14.2〕The stanza answers with five modes of mutual production. The stanza says, “from an affliction an affliction and an action are produced; from action an entity is produced; from an entity an entity and an affliction are produced; the principle of the links of existence is only this,” and the treatise matches them one by one: from an affliction an affliction is craving producing grasping; from an affliction an action is grasping producing existence, and ignorance producing the formations; from action an entity is the formations producing consciousness, and existence producing birth; from an entity an entity is consciousness producing name-and-form and so on to contact producing feeling, and the link of birth producing aging-and-death; from an entity an affliction is feeling producing craving. It closes, “by establishing the links of existence, the principle is only this.” First ask: how do these five modes resolve the difficulty of infinity? Because they show that affliction, action, and entity are joined head to tail — an entity can produce an affliction, and an affliction again produces an action, so that after aging-and-death there are of themselves afflictions and action (no further link need be established, and birth and death have no end), and before ignorance there are of themselves entities and afflictions (no further link need be established, and birth and death have no beginning). The treatise says so at once: “it has already been shown that aging-and-death is a cause of entity and affliction, and that ignorance is a result of entity and affliction,” since ignorance and aging-and-death are themselves of the nature of affliction and of entity. Clearing a misreading: remembering the five modes of mutual production as five isolated rules. It is a closed ring. In practice: Fabao’s Commentary here matches them against the three lives most concretely, saying, “craving and grasping are both afflictions, and craving conditions grasping: this is from an affliction an affliction is produced”; and again that grasping and ignorance are alike afflictions, “that is, present grasping is named ignorance in the past,” and that the formations and existence are alike action — one and the same thing bearing different names in different periods. Once this matching is understood, the chart of the twelve links comes alive.

〔14.3〕Two parties’ remedies, and the author’s two refutations. Other masters adduce another sūtra that says improper attention is the cause of ignorance and that ignorance in turn produces improper attention, and that improper attention is gathered under the link of grasping, so that it has already been stated within this sūtra. The author objects: if it belongs to grasping because it is associated with it as its cause, then craving and ignorance too should belong to grasping; and even granting that it belongs to grasping, how does that prove that it is the cause of ignorance? The other party explains further: improper attention is stated at the time of contact, and adduces “from eye and form as condition delusion arises, and the defiled attention thus produced” and “conditioned by the feelings produced by contact accompanied by ignorance, craving arises” as evidence, so that ignorance has a cause and the links are not infinite. The author objects again: though the other sūtra has such trustworthy words, within this sūtra it should still be stated further; the other party answers that it need not be stated further, and that this is known by reasoning — “apart from ignorance, feeling cannot be a condition of craving, since the feeling of an arhat does not produce craving,” and likewise an uninverted contact cannot be a condition of defiled feeling, since an arhat’s contact is not inverted. The author’s last stroke: “if so, there would be the fault of proving too much” — whatever can be known by correct reasoning would all not need to be stated further, and then what is scripture stating at all? Hence “what they say does not amount to an explanation of the objection.” First ask: why does the author not accept a remedy that looks reasonable enough? Because it assigns ‘why scripture does not state it’ to ‘the principle is already knowable,’ and that reason, once granted, would swallow all scripture. Clearing a misreading: reading the author’s objection as a denial of the doctrine that improper attention is the cause of ignorance. What he denies is its use to explain scripture’s not stating something. In practice: the author’s own correct explanation comes after — that the objection itself is “not reasonable, since the intent of the sūtra lies elsewhere,” because “this sūtra means only to remove the bewilderment of those it converts over the three periods”; scripture is not incomplete, it has a different purpose. This answer answers exactly to the stanza of section XII, and only here does the framework of the whole latter half of the fascicle close.

XV. Dependent Origination and What Has Already Arisen from Conditions: Two Faces of One Link

The prose commentary of this section runs to about nine hundred characters: it first distinguishes the two names, next records the fourfold analysis of the Venerable Wangman, then adduces the Sautrāntikas’ long objection, the Sarvāstivādins’ defense and counter-objection, and closes with the Sautrāntikas’ resolution of the objection, their rejoinder, and their conclusion; it is the passage of highest doctrinal density in this fascicle.

〔15.1〕Why the World-Honored One states two names. The treatise quotes the World-Honored One’s words, “I shall state for you the dharma of dependent origination and the dharmas that have already arisen from conditions,” and at once asks what the difference between them is. It first records the account of the older text of this treatise: “these two have no difference, since both are said to gather all dharmas.” Then follows a series of exchanges: the outside party first objects — future dharmas that have not yet arisen, how can they be called what has already arisen from conditions along with the past and present? This objection is not answered directly; instead the outside party is counter-objected to with a question — a future dharma that has not yet been made, how can it be named conditioned along with the past and present (the name ‘conditioned’ upon future dharmas being one the outside party itself allows)? Puguang’s Record marks this as “counter-objecting to the outside party” and Fabao’s Commentary as “a counter-objection in the form of a question,” so that this sentence is not asked by the outside party but is a demand turned back upon him. The outside party then explains, “because it has been made by the force of an effective volition.” It is objected again: if so, how is the undefiled conditioned? The outside party explains: that too has been made by the force of a wholesome volition. It is objected again: if so, the same should hold of the attaining of nirvāṇa. It closes with, “in strict principle it should be said that it is stated with reference to class, as what has not yet deteriorated also gets the name of form.” First ask: what is being contended in this string of questions and answers? What is contended is whether the word “already” can be used of a future dharma. The answer is that it can — stated with reference to class, as what has not yet deteriorated also gets the name of form. Clearing a misreading: reading it as a play upon words. “Made by the force of volition” is a trial explanation, tried layer by layer and twice forced back; and the treatise closes with “in strict principle it should be said that it is stated with reference to class, as what has not yet deteriorated also gets the name of form” — what it guards is the establishing of a name with reference to class, and not ‘that future dharmas have really already been made by the action of volition.’ In practice: this passage is the prelude to the objection of the masters of the science of sounds in the next section — the usage of the word “already” is the very core of that debate.

〔15.2〕The stanza’s correct explanation: the cause-portion and the result-portion. The stanza says, “what is here properly stated is: the cause originates, the result has already arisen,” and the treatise says, “the cause-portion of the links is called dependent origination, since with this for condition a result can be originated,” and “the result-portion of the links is called what has already arisen from conditions, since these are all produced from conditions,” so that “in all of them both senses hold, since all the links have the natures of both cause and result.” There is an objection: if it is set up thus, the two senses should not both hold. The answer: “it is not so, because what is regarded differs” — where this side is regarded it is named what has already arisen from conditions, and it is not that in regarding this same side it is at once named dependent origination as well, “as with the names cause and result, father and son, and the like.” First ask: what is the simile of father and son to prove? It proves that one and the same person is a son regarded toward the father and a father regarded toward the son, and the two names do not conflict. Clearing a misreading: reading dependent origination and what has already arisen from conditions as two sets of dharmas. They are the two faces of one and the same link. In practice: this is the third demonstration in the fascicle of ‘a name established according to what is regarded’ (the first two being naming from what is eminent, and showing a stage by the name of what is to come); take the three together and this treatise’s view of names and marks is clear — a name is designated with reference to relation and to stage, and is not a label upon an entity.

〔15.3〕The fourfold analysis of the Venerable Wangman, and the Sautrāntikas’ long objection. The treatise records the account of the Venerable the Venerable Wangman: among dharmas some are dependent origination and not what has already arisen from conditions, and a fourfold analysis should be made — the first alternative being future dharmas, the second the past and present dharmas at the stage of an arhat’s last thought, the third the remaining past and present dharmas, and the fourth the unconditioned dharmas. The treatise goes on to record the refutation, “the fourfold analysis so stated is likewise not reasonable” (Puguang’s Record marks this as the Sautrāntikas refuting Wangman’s four alternatives), because if future dharmas were not what has already arisen from conditions this would contradict a sūtra, or else the two links birth and aging-and-death would have to be disallowed in the future, “and this would wreck the three periods established above.” On the other side, the Sautrāntika masters raise a long objection: dependent origination by stages, taking twelve sets of five aggregates for the twelve links, contradicts a sūtra, since the sūtra says, “what is ignorance? Absence of knowledge regarding the earlier period,” and so at length; this is a statement of definitive meaning and may not be forced into an interpretable one. The Sarvāstivādins answer with the Sūtra of the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint as an instance: the sūtra says that the inner earth element is hair, down, nails, and the rest, and though there are other dharmas of form there, it is “stated from what is eminent”; here it should be the same. The Sautrāntikas rejoin: that sūtra analyzes the earth element by hair and the rest, and there is no earth element beyond hair and the rest, and so it is a complete statement. The Sarvāstivādins press one further question: is it not that the earth element’s entity is present in mucus and tears as well (in which case hair and the rest do not exhaust the earth element, and it is still stated from what is eminent). The three passages below are all the Sautrāntikas’ words: first, resolving this objection — mucus and the rest are also stated within that sūtra, as the sūtra itself says, “and there are yet other things in the body”; second, conceding and then demanding — granting even that, as you say, there is an earth element apart from hair and the rest, then a further ignorance apart from ignorance should now be exhibited, and if a thing of another class is put inside ignorance, what good does that do; third, establishing the principle and concluding their own sense — “though at all the stages there are five aggregates, yet only where this being that definitely is, and this not being that definitely is not, may this dharma be established as a link of that,” and so the sense of the sūtra is just as stated. First ask: where exactly does this long debate divide? On whether the two words “ignorance” refer to absence of knowledge alone, or to the five aggregates of the stage at which ignorance is most eminent. Clearing a misreading: reading the last three passages together as the Sarvāstivādins’ answer. Puguang’s Record marks them sentence by sentence — from “does not the earth element” to “its entity being present as well” is the Sarvāstivādins objecting; from “mucus and the rest are also” to “should now be exhibited” is the Sautrāntikas resolving the objection; from “if a thing of another class is put in” to “what good does that do” is the Sautrāntikas demanding further; and from “though at all the stages” to “just as stated” is the Sautrāntikas establishing the principle, resolving throughout, and concluding their own sense (Fabao’s Commentary marks the same passage on the same lines, only marking from “granting even that, as you say” to “should now be exhibited” separately as the Sautrāntikas’ concession). And a second misreading to be cleared away: reading it as a matter of who is right, the Sarvāstivādins or the Sautrāntikas. The author here passes no word of adjudication and merely sets out the reasoning of both parties. In practice: this passage is the most typical scene of one meaning and two schools in this fascicle, and what the reader should learn is on what each of the two parties bases what it says, rather than hurrying to take a side. For Saṅghabhadra’s comment on this passage, see Further Resonances.

〔15.4〕Is dependent origination conditioned or unconditioned? Some say that dependent origination is an unconditioned dharma, proving it by the sūtra, “whether a Tathāgata appears in the world or does not appear, such is the abiding constancy of the dharma-nature of dependent origination.” The author answers by dividing two roads: “said with such an intent, the principle may be granted; said with another intent, the principle may not be granted.” What may be granted refers to the intent of saying that the formations and the rest constantly arise with ignorance and the rest for condition, and not with any other dharma for condition nor with no condition at all, and that abiding constancy is said for this; what may not be granted refers to the intent of saying that there is besides an entity of a dharma named dependent origination which abides limpidly and constantly. The author gives three reasons: first, “arising and origination are both marks of the conditioned,” and no separate constant dharma can be the mark of what is impermanent; second, “further, origination must be established in dependence upon what originates,” and what relation has this constant dharma to ignorance and the rest, that it should be said to be established in dependence on them; third, to name it dependent origination and yet say that it points at what is constant, “such a sense of the phrase has no reasonable correspondence.” First ask: why divide “such an intent” from “another intent”? Because one and the same sentence of scripture admits of two readings, and the author does not deny the scripture but only one of those readings. Clearing a misreading: reading it as the author refuting the scripture. What he refutes is one understanding of the scripture. In practice: this is the standard procedure of this treatise where a sentence of scripture appears to support a divergent account — first divide the intents, then adjudicate what may and may not be granted; the scripture is not touched, and the reading is examined. The relation of this item to Saṅghabhadra is rather unexpected; see Further Resonances.

XVI. The Objection of the Masters of the Science of Sounds: Where Does the Word “Already” Fall?

〔16.1〕First look at the explanation of the words that the treatise establishes. The treatise asks, “what is the sense of the phrase ‘dependent origination’ here?”, and answers by the method of the science of sounds: “prati has the sense of reaching, and the verbal root i has the sense of going,” and by the helping force of the former the sense of the root is altered, so that going, through reaching, is altered into “dependent”; “sam has the sense of conjoining and ud the sense of rising, and the verbal root pad has the sense of being,” and being, by borrowing conjoining and rising, is altered into “origination”; and so “a dharma reaching its condition, having conjoined, rises: this is the sense of dependent origination.” First ask: what is being done here? The construction of the word “dependent origination” is being taken apart with the grammatical science current at the time. Puguang’s Record unfolds it in more detail according to the treatises on the science of sounds, saying that sam and ud are accompanying conditions and pad the verbal root, and that the root is altered into “origination” by the helping force of the accompanying conditions. Clearing a misreading: taking this passage for a digression into linguistics. It is the target of the debate that follows — the treatise establishes the explanation of the words first. In practice: whenever this treatise adduces a method of an outside learning, it is in order to test that learning within its own rules, and this is the treatise’s consistent practice.

〔16.2〕The objection raised: one agent cannot have two operations. The treatise at once says, “such a sense of the phrase does not stand to reason,” the reason being that “upon one agent there would be two operations” — if it first “reaches the condition” and afterwards “originates,” the former operation should carry the word “already,” “as when a man eats only after he has bathed.” Yet “there is no dharma of the formations whatever that exists before origination, reaching the condition first and only afterwards arising,” and where there is no agent, “there being no agent, there can be no operation.” And a stanza is quoted to close it: “if reaching the condition is before origination, it does not exist, and this is unreasonable; if the two are simultaneous, then ‘already’ is spoiled, for it should have been stated as prior.” First ask: what is the structure of this dilemma? If reaching the condition is before origination, then at that time the dharma does not yet exist, and who is it that reaches the condition; and if the two are simultaneous, then the word “already” falls to nothing. Clearing a misreading: adjudicating outright who speaks this objection. The text of the treatise here does not mark the speaker of the objection; Fabao’s Commentary, Puguang’s Record, and Saṅghabhadra each fix its character differently — see ‘Further Resonances.’ In practice: where in reading this treatise one meets “hence a stanza is spoken” and its sense refutes what precedes, it is most often this manner of raising an objection through a borrowed mouth.

〔16.3〕The answer to the objection: a counter-question and the fixing of a stage. The treatise answers, “there is no such fault,” and counter-questions the masters of the science of sounds: at what time does a dharma originate — in the present, or in the future? If in the present, then “origination is not what has already arisen; how then is it present? The present is what has already arisen; how then is it originating?” And if what has already arisen originates again, this leads to infinity. If in the future, “at that time it does not yet exist; how is it an agent? And the agent being absent, how can there be an operation?” Whereupon it gives the correct explanation: “therefore at the very stage of originating it also reaches the condition” — the stage of originating being the stage at which future formations are in the act of originating, “and at just this stage it is also said to reach the condition.” And a step further: the agent and the operation posited by the masters of the science of sounds “in strict principle are not established,” for “being is the agent and origination the operation,” and here there is no real agent to be got at as other than the operation of originating, “and so this way of speaking is without error at the level of convention.” First ask: where is the cleverness of this answer? It does not deny the two matters “reaching the condition” and “originating”; it denies only that they stand before and after — two names stated at one and the same stage. Clearing a misreading: reading “without error at the level of convention” as the author granting an agent in the ultimate sense as well. Quite the contrary — it says that this way of speaking is not in error only in worldly speech. In practice: this passage runs on the same track as “what is regarded differs” in section XV — a name is established with reference to what is regarded, and there is no separate thing following upon the name.

XVII. The Stanza Explaining the Sense of Dependent Origination, and the Fourfold Intent of Two Sentences of Scripture

The prose commentary of this section exceeds one thousand two hundred characters and is the largest passage at the close of this fascicle, containing one stanza, a further explanation by one party, four layers of correct explanation, and the divergent explanations of four parties.

〔17.1〕The quoted stanza, and the similes of the lamp and of sleep. The treatise says that the sense of dependent origination is just “this being, that is; this arising, that arises,” and so quotes a stanza to explain it: “as it originates though not existing, so should reaching the condition be; if origination follows arising there is infinity; whether prior existence or prior nonexistence is said, both alike have the word ‘already’; darkness arriving, the lamp has already gone out; and the mouth having been opened, one sleeps — were sleep to come after, the mouth would have to be shut.” First ask: what is this stanza saying? It carries forward the objection of the previous section and presses it further — if you allow that what does not exist can originate, then “reaching the condition” must be so as well; and whether one says it exists first or does not exist first, the problem of the word “already” arises. The last two similes are the key to the release: darkness arriving and the lamp going out are simultaneous, and yet one says “darkness arriving, the lamp has already gone out”; opening the mouth and sleeping are simultaneous, and yet one says “the mouth having been opened, one sleeps.” Puguang’s Record fills out the attack and defense here, saying that the masters of the science of sounds do not try to rescue the simile of the lamp and the darkness but shift their objection to “the mouth having been opened, one sleeps,” arguing that the mouth must be opened first and only afterwards is there sleep; and the author counter-proves that the two are in fact simultaneous with “were sleep to come after, the mouth would have to be shut.” Fabao’s Commentary runs on the same track. Clearing a misreading: reading the two similes as casual observations of daily life. They are instances proving that the word “already” may be used of two simultaneous matters, and the key of the whole section’s argument lies just here. In practice: sequence in language is not sequence in fact — an item that serves in the reading of every treatise.

〔17.2〕Another party’s further explanation, and the author’s one-sentence test. Some hold to a further sense in explaining the objection: “prati has the sense of variety, and the verbal root i has the sense of not abiding,” and not abiding, by the help of variety, becomes “dependent”; “sam has the sense of gathering and ud the sense of rising, and the verbal root pad has the sense of going,” and ud coming first, going is altered into “origination”; so that the sense of dependent origination is that a variety of conditions meet and make the formations gather and rise. The author answers most economically: such an explanation “may be granted here,” but “eye and form each being a condition, an eye-consciousness originates” — where in this is a “gathering of variety” to be made out? First ask: why is this question fatal? Because the arising of an eye-consciousness depends on the two conditions of eye and form alone, and there is no talk of “variety.” Clearing a misreading: reading the author’s test as fault-finding. He uses a minimal counter-instance, which is the standard method for testing a general definition. In practice: to establish a definition, try it first on the simplest case — and this treatise has here given one demonstration of it.

〔17.3〕The fourfold intent of the World-Honored One in stating two sentences. The treatise asks why the World-Honored One states “this being, that is” and “this arising, that arises,” and answers that there are four: first, “in order that dependent origination be known as fixed” — the formations are in dependence on ignorance, and apart from ignorance there can be no formations; second, “further, in order to show the successive production of the links” — in dependence upon this link that link comes to be, and by the arising of that link the remaining links come to arise; third, “further, in order to show the successive production of the three periods” — in dependence upon the earlier period the middle comes to be, and by the arising of the middle the later comes to arise; fourth, “further, in order to show the two conditions, the immediate and the mediate” — that ignorance being, the formations arise without interval is the immediate, and that the formations arise only by a force passing through intermediaries is the mediate. First ask: how can one sentence of scripture carry a fourfold intent? Because it holds fast four levels at once — the fixedness of dharmas, link and link, period and period, and the nearness and distance of the condition. Clearing a misreading: reading the four layers as four explanations of which one must be chosen. The treatise sets them side by side, and all four hold. In practice: this is one of the fascicle’s rare passages of positive exposition, and the reader may use it to check whether his own understanding of the twelve links has all four layers.

〔17.4〕Four parties’ divergent explanations, of which the author expressly refutes three. One party says the two sentences are for refuting the causeless and the constant cause; the author objects that then the first sentence becomes useless, since the second sentence alone can refute both positions. The author at once explains for himself: or else some hold that with a self as support the formations and the rest come to be, and so the World-Honored One decisively adjudicates that “the being of a result is by the cause of its arising,” and not by dependence on some other cause. A second party (the preceptor masters) says that it is to show the unbrokenness and the arising of cause and result — and this one account the treatise records without refuting. A third party says that it is to show the abiding and the arising of cause and result; the author objects that if arising is what is to be analyzed, on what ground is abiding stated? And why should the Buddha break the order, stating abiding first and arising after? A fourth party says, “‘this being, that is’ means that on the being of the result the cause has its ceasing; ‘this arising, that arises’ is lest one doubt that the result arises without a cause”; the author objects that if the sense of the sūtra were so, it should be stated as “this being, that ceases and is not,” and that it should first say “the cause arising, the result arises,” and only then say “on the being of the result the cause ceases and is not” — “in such an order it would be well stated”; otherwise, “if one means to analyze dependent origination, on what order would the ceasing of the cause be stated first?”; hence what they explain is not the sense of this sūtra. First ask: what criteria does the author use in testing the four parties? Only two — whether anything is superfluous (the first party) and whether the order suits the matter being analyzed (the third and fourth parties). Clearing a misreading: taking these four parties for non-Buddhists. They are all interpreters within the Buddha-dharma. In practice: this is the clearest demonstration in the fascicle of ‘how the author examines an explanation,’ and its criteria are simple and strict.

〔17.5〕The closing explanation conforming to the sense of the scripture, and “the sheer great mass of suffering.” The author says of himself, “I shall now briefly show what conforms to the sense of the sūtra,” and thereupon walks the twelve links through from the beginning: the fool, “not knowing that in dharmas arisen from conditions there is only the formations, falsely gives rise to the view of self and the conceit of self,” and for the sake of feeling pleasure and what is neither painful nor pleasant makes meritorious action, imperturbable action, and demeritorious action, and this is ignorance conditioning the formations; “by the force of the projecting action the stream of consciousness continues as a flame goes,” and relying on intermediate existence it hastens to the place of birth and links a birth-existence body, and this is the formations conditioning consciousness; within that destiny name-and-form arises, complete in the five aggregates and running through the whole term of life; name-and-form matures and, complete in the eye and the other faculties, becomes the six sense fields; meeting with objects, consciousness arises, and by the meeting of three there is contact conducive to pleasure and the rest; upon contact the three feelings arise; from the three feelings the three cravings are drawn forth (craving for desire, for form, and for the formless); from the craving that delights in feeling arise the four kinds of grasping beginning with the grasping of desire — and it glosses the four heads of grasping one by one: desire means the five fine desires; “views mean the sixty-two views”; rules mean keeping away from bad discipline; and observances mean the observances of dogs and oxen and the like, instancing the meaningless austerities of the Nirgranthas and of the brahmins and other non-Buddhists of various classes; “talk of a self means the inner body, since in dependence upon it a self is spoken of,” and a further account is recorded that the view of self and the conceit of self are named talk of a self, since “by these two a self is spoken of, and the self not existing, it is named talk of a self”; and the grasping of the four kinds of grasping is desire-greed; conditioned by grasping, the action that calls forth a coming existence is accumulated and named existence; conditioned by existence, the stream of consciousness goes toward a future birth; and conditioned by birth there is aging-and-death. At the end it glosses the words of the sūtra one by one: “the word ‘sheer’ shows that there is only the formations and no self or what belongs to a self”; “the words ‘great mass of suffering’ show that the accumulation of suffering has neither beginning nor end”; “the word ‘origination’ is to show the arising of the masses of suffering.” First ask: how does this passage differ from the explanation of the entities of the links above? The former is an explanation by stages (one stage, five aggregates, the name established from what is eminent), while this one is an explanation conforming to the sūtra (making dependent origination into an observable process according to the order of the sūtra’s words). The two stand together without obstructing each other. Clearing a misreading: reading the closing passage as a repetition. It walks the same links once more in a different reading, and is the last demonstration in this fascicle of ‘one and the same set of facts rearranged on another axis.’ In practice: the whole fascicle closes with the sentence “the Vaibhāṣika school’s account has been stated above” — Puguang’s Record marks expressly here, “the above is the Sautrāntikas setting out the entities of the twelve links,” and so this sentence means that the Vaibhāṣika explanation was stated earlier, and not that what has just been explained belongs to the correct Vaibhāṣika sense; while as for that Sautrāntika objection earlier, the author has not concluded it on their behalf. Fabao’s Commentary points out here the switch of framework in the text of the treatise, saying, “the above explains the twelve links according to the Sautrāntikas; what follows explains the sūtra’s ‘origination of the sheer great mass of suffering’ according to the treatise” — and if a reader can see this switch, the layers of the fascicle become wholly distinct.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

The above is the sense of the text of this fascicle itself. Below, a separate section gathers four matters: the ancient masters’ adjudications and the divergences among the three commentaries, Saṅghabhadra’s comments and amplifications, the divergences of Paramārtha’s old translation, and coordinates for cross-reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only a second way of reading the same passage. Recorded together without adjudication, each returned to its own place.

One thing must first be honestly marked: Shentai’s Commentary is a fragmentary text, and its seven surviving fascicles do not include the five fascicles (Eight through Twelve) where the Chapter on the World falls, so that for this fascicle there is not one word of Shentai’s to attach. This section can therefore be called only a mirror of three commentaries and not of four — which differs from the usual state in the Chapter on the Faculties, and is recorded as it stands, without making up the number from the text of other fascicles.

One. Places where the Three Commentaries Diverge

The translated term for the stage peśī. On the sounds and senses of the five stages within the womb the three agree in the main, only the third differing: Puguang’s Record gives “peśī means here flesh and blood,” Fabao’s Commentary gives “peśī means here soft flesh.” For the other four stages (kalala, arbuda, ghana, praśākhā) the renderings agree throughout; Fabao’s Commentary adds besides the sentence “arbuda means here a blister, because it rises like a blister” to explain how the name arose, which Puguang’s Record does not have. A difference of one word, arising perhaps from a slight difference in the materials of the science of sounds the two commentaries relied on; recorded together without adjudication.

The personal names of the masters on the time intermediate existence abides. The text of the treatise itself gives only “other masters say” without a name for the master of “seven times seven days,” and only “the Venerable says” for the master of “no fixed limit.” Fabao’s Commentary supplies the name of the former, saying, “the Venerable Śarmadatta said: intermediate existence abides at the most seven times seven days”; while Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary supplies the name of the latter, saying, “the Bhadanta Dharmatrāta said that the time has no fixed limit.” The two commentaries supply names at different places and do not conflict with each other, yet both supply names that the text of the treatise does not have. Puguang’s Record here sets up a numbering of its own, calling Vasumitra “the second master,” the seven times seven days “the third master,” and the Mahāvibhāṣā “the fourth master’s correct sense” — this numbering by ‘which master’ is Puguang’s Record’s own device, and the treatise does not number them itself. All three matters recorded together without adjudication.

“The supernormal power of action is the swiftest” and its apparent conflict with the Mahāvibhāṣā. This treatise says, “among all supernormal powers, the supernormal power of action is the swiftest,” whereas the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle seventy, says that the force of the supernormal power over objects moves with speed and swiftness, and that intermediate existences do not. Puguang’s Record gives three resolutions for this: one, that “swift” in this treatise means unobstructedness and not swiftness of movement; another, that the supernormal power over objects is of three kinds, of mental impetus, of resolve, and of moving the body, and that this treatise speaks with reference to moving the body while the Mahāvibhāṣā speaks with reference to mental impetus and resolve; a third, that the Kośa speaks on the basis of the sense of the first master in the Mahāvibhāṣā. Fabao’s Commentary, instead of resolving it from within, simply adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to prove that the Kośa and the Mahāvibhāṣā take different positions and are not in conflict, saying, “the sense of the Correct Principle’s text agrees with the Kośa, and from this it follows that it differs in sense from the Mahāvibhāṣā.” The two commentaries take different roads in harmonizing — Puguang’s Record inclines to resolution by doctrine, Fabao’s Commentary to comparison of documents — and both are recorded together without adjudication. Fabao’s Commentary further sets out in this passage, following the Mahāvibhāṣā, the ranking of who can block whose supernormal power (the Buddha can block all sentient beings, the pratyekabuddha all but the Buddha, Śāriputra all but those two, Mahāmaudgalyāyana all but those three), which is an extension made in reliance on the Mahāvibhāṣā and not a direct statement of the treatise.

To which school “the masters of former times” belong. In stating the reason for the casting of oneself into the hells, the text of the treatise gives only “the masters of former times say thus.” Puguang’s Record examines the matter here and says it may be taken as “the Sautrāntika masters of former times” or as “the Sarvāstivādin masters of former times” — both kept, without adjudication. This is an examination of school affiliation, and the text of the treatise does not mark it.

Who asks “what is the sense of the phrase ‘dependent origination’ here?” Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary both mark this question as “a Mahāsāṃghika asks,” and Puguang’s Record further marks the answer as “a Sautrāntika answers, or a Sarvāstivādin answers.” Yet the original sentence of the treatise gives only “what is the sense of the phrase ‘dependent origination’ here?” without saying who asks. The two commentaries agree in what they mark, and it remains in character an adjudication of the ancient masters.

The school censured under “dependent origination is unconditioned,” named differently in two texts. Fabao’s Commentary traces its source, saying that the Mahāvibhāṣā, fascicle twenty-three, calls it “the Vibhajyavādins” while the Treatise on the Wheel of Tenets calls it “the Mahāsāṃghikas” — Fabao’s Commentary sets the two texts side by side without forcing a judgment of sameness or difference. This may be viewed together with Paramārtha’s version: Paramārtha here gives outright “some other school says,” making clear that it is a separate school, whereas Xuanzang’s version says only “some say” without marking the school.

The objection of the masters of the science of sounds admits of two readings. Puguang’s Record says: since the masters of the science of sounds and the Sautrāntikas both hold that past and future have no entity, the refutation is made against that Sautrāntika position by way of nonexistence; “if this stanza is used to refute the Sarvāstivādins, then the masters of the science of sounds are refuting by the sense of their own tenet. ‘There is no such fault’ down to ‘or in the future’” — two readings kept, without adjudication. Fabao’s Commentary, on the other hand, simply takes one reading, saying, “the author takes the sense and intent of the Sautrāntikas and raises the refutation in the assumed person of a master of the science of sounds.” The two commentaries take different roads; recorded together without adjudication.

Two reminders that Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary adds beyond the text of the treatise. One is at the end of the gate of manner of movement, adding, “if it is extended to the other destinies, the manner of movement is not fixed”; the other is beneath the sentence on “transmitted and allowed,” adding, “dependent origination by stages is refuted by the Sautrāntikas, and the author’s intent is plain, and so he says ‘transmitted and allowed.’” The former is a supplement about the range of application, the latter an adjudication of the tone of a choice of words — and the author himself never states his motive in the choice — a point that must be kept clear.

Puguang’s Record’s outline scaffold. At the head of the chapter on dependent origination Puguang’s Record marks the main outline, “below, the eighth, explains the twelve links of dependent origination; and within it, first the full explanation of the twelve, second the summary gathering shown by simile. Within the full explanation, first the general analysis, second the particular exposition”; and at the eight links of the middle period it marks layer by layer the four parts question, answer, objection, and explanation. Outlines of this kind were established by the ancient masters and are not marked by the treatise itself, yet they are of the greatest use in teaching, and so are recorded here together and not mixed into the main text.

The gate of what cannot be turned left unanswered, and Saṅghabhadra supplying the resolution. At the end of the gate of the time it abides the author refutes the account that “some say it turns and takes birth in a similar class,” saying, “is it not that intermediate existence certainly does not differ in commonality of sentient beings from that into which it is born, being drawn forth by one action? How then can it be said to turn and take a similar class?” (Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary both mark “the author refutes,” and Puguang’s Record further pronounces that account “not the correct sense”), and that party makes no further answer, the treatise passing at once into the passage on rebirth-linking. Saṅghabhadra, however, answers, “granting that it turns and takes birth in a similar class, since the classes are in some measure the same there is no fault. And further, if realm, destiny, and place are not wholly shifted, then though the class differ in some measure there is no loss, since the action for realm, destiny, and place definitely does not shift.” ⇒ ‘The destiny does not shift while the similar class may differ’ is Saṅghabhadra’s resolution, and this treatise here closes with the question only.

As for the objection to the explanation of the words by the science of sounds, the three parties fix the speaker’s character each in its own way. Having established the explanation of the words “a dharma reaching its condition, having conjoined, rises: this is the sense of dependent origination,” the treatise at once raises the objection, “such a sense of the phrase does not stand to reason,” and quotes a stanza, and does not mark the speaker of the objection. Fabao’s Commentary takes one reading, saying, “the author takes the sense and intent of the Sautrāntikas and raises the refutation in the assumed person of a master of the science of sounds”; Puguang’s Record keeps both explanations without settling on one; and Saṅghabhadra makes it otherwise: “the Sūtra-master, having established this sense of the phrase himself, then himself assumedly raises such an objection.” ⇒ The frameworks the three set up differ; recorded together without adjudication.

Two. Saṅghabhadra’s Comments and Amplifications

Saṅghabhadra’s Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master.” In the passages of this fascicle that correspond, Saṅghabhadra’s appearances are not uniformly counter-refutations, and must be seen in six classes. The first four classes are matters between him and Vasubandhu; the last two are cases in which he records another party’s account and then adjudicates it himself — the speaker not being Vasubandhu, they cannot be counted as debate, yet as divergent explanations of the same topic they cannot be left unknown in reading this fascicle.

First, the refutation of the two words “transmitted and allowed” — the most concentrated place in this fascicle. Saṅghabhadra says, “the Abhidharma masters all say thus: the Buddha spoke of the several dependent originations in dependence upon stages. The Sūtra-master does not believe it and says ‘transmitted and allowed,’” and thereafter refutes one by one the Elder’s (that is, the Sautrāntika master’s) nine objections to dependent origination by stages, concluding, “therefore the stanza should say: the Buddha spoke in dependence upon stages. There is no need to say the sound ‘transmitted and allowed’ here; on examination he only sought to fill out the words and complete the line. Dependent origination by stages is what is here explained, and its principle is established” — not only urging the change of the words, but jeering that he set them there merely to fill out the syllables of a five-character line. More noteworthy still: in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine Saṅghabhadra alters the stanza outright, its corresponding stanza reading “the Buddha spoke in dependence upon stages; the name of a link established from what is eminent,” the two words “transmitted and allowed” not being there. This is no longer comment but alteration at the level of the text. Another line of material is Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary — Yuanhui is of no lineage of Saṅghabhadra’s, yet notes independently that “dependent origination by stages is refuted by the Sautrāntikas, and the author’s intent is plain, and so he says ‘transmitted and allowed,’” agreeing in direction with Saṅghabhadra’s reading while composed on its own. Four lines of material recorded together: that Vasubandhu set the words “transmitted and allowed”; that Saṅghabhadra urged the change to “the Buddha spoke in dependence upon stages”; that the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine has already changed it; and that Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary independently adjudicates the same.

Second, whether dependent origination is conditioned or unconditioned — here Saṅghabhadra is of one accord with Vasubandhu, and does not counter-refute. This must be marked with particular honesty, lest one fall into the prejudice that ‘Saṅghabhadra always refutes Vasubandhu.’ Saṅghabhadra says, “some other school’s masters say that dependent origination is unconditioned,” and at once adjudicates, “said with this intent, the principle may indeed be granted” — if the intent is to say that the formations and the rest constantly arise with ignorance and the rest for condition and that, there being no separate agent, it is called unconditioned, this may be granted; “if a separate dharma is called dependent origination, congealed and constant like cessation through discernment and the rest, this certainly cannot be granted.” This agrees almost sentence by sentence with what this treatise establishes, that ‘with such an intent it may be granted, with another intent it may not.’ Saṅghabhadra goes a step further, refuting by a threefold formula that exhausts the alternatives: “further, that unconditioned dependent origination they hold to — is it other than ignorance and the rest, or is it ignorance and the rest, or is it composed of them? These three positions are all unreasonable.” ⇒ The relation in this item is that Saṅghabhadra amplifies and extends a sense Vasubandhu has already established, not that he counter-refutes it; the framework of the words “debate within the lineage” must not be allowed to force it into an opposition.

Third, comments on the form of the argument and on consistency of position (not on doctrinal content). One is at the place of the explanation of the words by the science of sounds: Saṅghabhadra points out that Vasubandhu, “the Sūtra-master, having established this sense of the phrase himself, then himself assumedly raises such an objection,” and comments that what he explains “goes beyond what that school holds,” demanding of him, “what in the end does it accomplish?” — what is commented on is the rhetorical arrangement of establishing a thing and objecting to it oneself, not the sound and sense of the explanation of the words. Yet besides this comment on rhetoric Saṅghabhadra has a substantive refutation as well: “such words cannot explain the previous objection, since the stage of actual originating is allowed to belong to the future, and in that school the future has as yet no entity; on what then are reaching the condition and originating established?” — what he catches hold of is the opponent’s own premise: since the stage of ‘actually originating’ is allowed to belong to the future, and that school holds that future dharmas have no entity, then the two matters “reaching” (the formations reaching their condition) and “originating” (conjoining and rising) have nothing to rest on and cannot be established. ⇒ This item has two layers of comment: one comments on the arrangement of establishing and objecting oneself, the other refutes the stage on which the explanation of the words depends. A second is at the place of “this being, that is”: Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra in fact censure the Elder alike, yet Saṅghabhadra thinks Vasubandhu’s refutation not forceful enough, saying, “on what ground does the Sūtra-master only say that his explanation is not the sense of this sūtra? I now say that what the Elder says has no doctrinal sense at all,” and utters the sigh, “that the East should prize this — truly a wonder.” A third is at the place of the stanza “from an affliction an affliction and an action are produced”: Saṅghabhadra says, “examining the matter, the Sūtra-master, wishing to contravene the Vaibhāṣika school, abandons the stanza he had labored himself to make, which resolves the doubt and the objection according to principle” — meaning that Vasubandhu, having composed this stanza himself to resolve the difficulty of infinity, then seems to side with the Sautrāntikas’ doubt of dependent origination by stages, the two being self-contradictory. The stanza itself is word for word the same in the two treatises, with no divergent reading.

Fourth, the passage harshest in wording. At the place of the Sautrāntikas’ long objection Saṅghabhadra states expressly that the objection is a case of Vasubandhu “assumedly speaking” and framing words on the Sautrāntikas’ behalf, and his response runs beyond two thousand characters, concluding, “examining the Sūtra-master’s saying that this contradicts scripture: it is because he has not received instruction from the Vaibhāṣika masters, or his master had not penetrated the sense of the Mahāvibhāṣā, or, though he had looked over the text of the Mahāvibhāṣā, a wrong holding covered his mind and he did not discern correct principle.” Recorded without adjudication: the actual object of his rebuttal is the Sautrāntikas, together with a comment on Vasubandhu’s motive in reporting the objection. Further, the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine at the same place does not assume the Sautrāntikas’ mouth but points straight at the Sūtra-master: it cites him with, “the Sūtra-master falsely supposes the above sense to be wrong. Why so? Because the sūtra states it otherwise,” and answers, “therefore the charge that the dependent origination by stages stated above contradicts the sense of the sūtra: this contradicts nothing, since it is stated as it was set out” — the abridged treatise gathering those two thousand and more characters of the fuller one into a single citation and a single answer, while the speaker changes from ‘the Sautrāntika masters’ to ‘the Sūtra-master’ himself. ⇒ That the arrangement of speakers differs between the fuller and the abridged treatise is itself a textual fact; recorded together without adjudication.

A further chain of discussion: the fourfold analysis of the Venerable Wangman. The Kośa here records the Sautrāntikas’ refutation of Wangman’s four alternatives; Saṅghabhadra first restates it in full and then, with “now examining the sense and intent of what the Venerable says,” sets up an adjudication of his own — naming what “has already arisen from its cause” what has already arisen from conditions, and what “is a cause for others” dependent origination, and holding that an unconditioned dharma does not get the name of dependent origination. Fabao’s Commentary further excerpts this passage of the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle and brings it in. ⇒ The ancient masters’ discussion is layer upon layer (the Kośa reporting the Venerable Wangman, Saṅghabhadra commenting on the Venerable Wangman, Fabao’s Commentary excerpting Saṅghabhadra), and may not be compressed into a single narrative of refutation and establishment.

A collateral piece of textual evidence. For this treatise’s sentence “if the sense of the sūtra were so, it should be stated as: this being, that ceases and is not,” the Taishō collation notes list the variant “ceases / becomes”; and Saṅghabhadra, in reporting the Sūtra-master’s objection, gives outright “becomes not.” This may serve as one external corroboration of the variant, yet it is merely a record of textual difference and does not adjudicate on our behalf which reading of the base text is right.

Fifth, on the passage on intermediate existence, Saṅghabhadra records besides eight sets of other parties’ accounts (the speaker not being Vasubandhu). Beneath the several gates of intermediate existence in this fascicle, Saṅghabhadra gathers other parties’ divergent accounts place by place and adjudicates each. Read alongside this treatise, one sees how many further roads there are on the same topic among the schools:

One, bodily measure — this treatise makes the bodily measure of intermediate existence like a child of five or six years, while Saṅghabhadra records besides an account that “other masters say: the intermediate existences of the desire realm are all of the measure of the basic existence in its prime”: the intermediate existences of the desire realm are without exception of the measure of the prime of the basic existence, and do not take the appearance of a child. Two, by what gate it enters the womb — one account holds that intermediate existence must enter by the birth-gate, “some say that 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,” taking as evidence that of twins the one born first is smaller and the one born after larger; Saṅghabhadra himself adjudicates against it, saying, “in strict principle intermediate existence enters the womb as it wills, and need not go by the birth-gate, since it is without obstruction” — intermediate existence has no resistant substance and enters as it wills, without needing to pass by the birth-gate. Three, the garment of the nun Śuklā — this treatise says that intermediate existence has no clothing and that this nun alone had a garment, while Saṅghabhadra records an explanation, “other masters say: this nun alone excepted, because she gave a monastic robe to the Saṅgha and made an excellent vow”: it was called forth by giving a monastic robe to the Saṅgha and making an excellent vow. Four, how the name gandharva was got — this treatise explains the name by ‘feeding on fragrance,’ while Saṅghabhadra records besides, “some say that intermediate existence upholds the body by means of fragrance, and being one who goes seeking fragrance is named gandharva”: named from going in search of fragrance, and not from feeding on fragrance. Five, the time it abides — Saṅghabhadra here first raises an objection, “this body of intermediate existence certainly does not abide long. The conditions for birth not having met, how is it not long?” — since it is said that intermediate existence does not abide long, how then can it not be long when the conditions for birth have not met? This objection is in the same arena as the four masters’ accounts in this treatise’s gate of the time it abides. Six, the great elements on which the faculties depend — this treatise records both ‘the semen and blood themselves become the support of the faculties’ and ‘separate great elements are produced’ without adjudicating; the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine, however, expressly takes the latter: “the form of birth-existence arises with intermediate existence as its proper cause. The parents’ semen and blood are merely the condition of birth” — the form of birth-existence has intermediate existence for its proper cause, the parents’ semen and blood being only assisting conditions. This sentence is the actual source of what Puguang’s Record speaks of as ‘the Correct Principle adjudicating in favor of this treatise’s latter master.’ Seven, whether, taking birth at the very place of death, there is still an intermediate existence — the Elder holds that if one takes birth directly at the place where life ends, there is no intermediate existence; Saṅghabhadra cites and censures him, “yet the Elder says: if one takes birth at the very place where life ends, there is no intermediate existence. What he says is not good,” concluding, “granting that one takes birth at the very place of death, it must still be allowed that immediately after death-existence an intermediate existence arises” — even if one really takes birth at the place of death, it must still be allowed that immediately after death-existence an intermediate existence arises. Eight, another general explanation of the four modes of entry into the womb — this treatise matches the four modes of entering the womb with full awareness to the wheel-turning monarch, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattva; Saṅghabhadra records besides an account, “some say: these four all analyze the bodhisattva,” holding that all four are said with reference to the bodhisattva, and raises an objection of his own, “is not the mind of continuing existence definitely defiled? How then can there be room for entering the mother’s womb with full awareness?” — the mind of continuing existence being definitely defiled, how can it still be ‘with full awareness’?

⇒ All eight sets are cases in which Saṅghabhadra records a divergent account himself and then adjudicates; they are not this treatise’s own statements, nor Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutations of Vasubandhu. Recorded together without adjudication.

Sixth, on the passage on dependent origination there are four further materials not gathered above. Besides the four classes listed above, four further places in the explanation of the links of dependent origination are worth reading alongside:

One, the preceptor master’s sense of the two sentences — Saṅghabhadra comments on Vasubandhu’s reporting of his own preceptor master’s (his master of ordination) explanation of the two sentences “this being, that is,” saying, “further, the Sūtra-master reports his own preceptor master’s explanation of the sense of the two sentences, showing his own filial piety; and though there is a fault in it, he does not bring it to light” — meaning that Vasubandhu, out of reverence for his master, does not expose his fault; and only afterwards does he refute the master’s account itself: “that is, those masters explain these two sentences as showing the unbrokenness and the arising of cause and result. That is, in dependence upon ignorance being unbroken the formations are unbroken; and just by ignorance arising the formations get to arise. And so by turns it should all be stated at length. This explanation is not so.” ⇒ This item must be read in two layers: one layer a comment on the ‘attitude in reporting,’ the other a refutation of ‘the sense reported’; the two may not be made one. Two, a positive divergent explanation of the sense of the two sentences — after refuting the other account Saṅghabhadra offers an explanation of his own: “the Abhidharma masters explain these two sentences thus: the arising of every link of existence must be by two causes, since there is a difference between the co-arisen and the previously arisen” — the arising of every link of existence must be by two causes, their difference being that between a co-arisen cause and a previously arisen cause. This is a divergent explanation of the same topic, recorded together with the item before. Three, why the stage of the afflictions of a former life is named ignorance as a whole — Saṅghabhadra cites the two reasons Vasubandhu gives, “yet the Sūtra-master says: because they operated at the same time as ignorance; because it was by the force of ignorance that they operated” (first, that they operated together with ignorance; second, that they operated by the force of ignorance), and concludes, “these two roads are both unreasonable.” ⇒ What is censured are the ‘reasons,’ not the ‘establishing of stages’ itself; do not enlarge it in reading. Four, the opening and gathering of dependent origination differs in the fuller and the abridged treatise — this treatise lists the momentary, of remote continuance, of unbroken linkage, and by stages as four kinds of dependent origination, while the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine gives, “further, dependent origination is stated as four by difference: first the momentary, second of remote continuance, third of unbroken linkage, fourth by stages. Others say besides: the manifesting of the capacity of dharmas” — adding by ‘others say besides’ a fifth kind, ‘the manifesting of the capacity of dharmas,’ to make five classes, and setting the question, “among these five classes of dependent origination, which did the World-Honored One state?”, passing straight on to the debate over dependent origination by stages. ⇒ That four and five differ in opening and gathering is a textual fact, recorded without adjudication.

Three. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Old Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury forms a system of its own in its renderings for the corresponding passages of this fascicle, and moreover divides its fascicles on a different boundary from Xuanzang’s — Paramārtha divides his Chapter on the World into four fascicles and Xuanzang into five, and the passage answering to this fascicle straddles the end of Paramārtha’s “part one” and the whole of his “part two,” the fascicle title and the chapter continuation title falling in the middle of this fascicle.

The divergences of rendering come in sets. Intermediate existence he renders the intermediate skandha; entry into the womb, entrusting to the womb; full awareness and its absence, possessing and lacking cognizance; gandharva, Qiantapo; the inner functioning person, the inner agent person; maturation, retribution. The personal names are especially worth setting side by side: Dharmasubhūti (a rendering by sense) appears in Paramārtha’s version as Damoxubuhoudi (a full transcription); the Venerable Vasumitra as the Venerable Poxumiduoluo; the nun Śuklā as the bhikṣuṇī Shukela; King Kṛkin as King Keji. The five stages within the womb are of a wholly different system of sounds — kalala appears as Kalaluo, arbuda as Efutuo, peśī as Bishi, ghana as Qiena, praśākhā as Boluoshequ.

In the latter half of this fascicle there is besides a set of systematic divergences of rendering not met with in the Chapter on the Elements or the Chapter on the Faculties: dependent origination he renders arising from conditions; the twelve links, the twelve divisions; the three periods, the three joints; entity, class; link, division. These five pairs occur densely from the chapter on the twelve links onward, so that they can be seen at almost every sentence, and they should be regarded as a system of rendering and not as scattered differences.

Three divergences of opening and gathering. The first is the ten dreams of King Kṛkin — Xuanzang brings them out in a stanza of four lines, Paramārtha simply lists them in prose, and the items differ somewhat between them (Paramārtha’s version has a necklace and a lotus and does not have the name of the two monkeys). The second is the four kinds of dependent origination — Xuanzang establishes four (momentary, of unbroken linkage, by stages, of remote continuance) and takes ‘sentient / insentient’ besides as a separate dimension, while Paramārtha first establishes the same four and then adduces a ‘separate account’ increasing them to six, folding the sentient-insentient dimension into the fifth and sixth. The third is bodily measure and what is illumined — Xuanzang has “five or six years” and “four great continents,” Paramārtha “six or seven years” and “the Jambu Continent.”

The place most worth noting: Paramārtha’s version has no mark of transmitted report. Xuanzang’s version gives “transmitted and allowed, stated with reference to stages,” while the corresponding verse of Paramārtha’s version gives simply “this is now stated with reference to stages,” and his prose commentary too states it plainly with no modal word answering to “transmitted and allowed” to be seen. Taken together with Saṅghabhadra’s express refutation of the two words “transmitted and allowed,” it can be seen that these two words have indeed been a focus in the history of Chinese translation. Why the difference arose (whether the text Paramārtha had before him lacked the modal word, or whether it was abridged in translation) this section does not force an explanation of. One honest record. Throughout the passage Paramārtha’s version has the intermediate skandha for its regular term, yet at one place, “there are only the aggregates, and by intermediate existence continuing they go and enter the mother’s womb,” it uses the two words “intermediate existence” outright, so that the two terms are not divided absolutely. This is the one exception in the whole passage. Further: all the collation of divergent renderings in this fascicle is located by the structure of the scene, and no negative proposition has been made by searching Paramārtha’s version for Xuanzang’s renderings — the words “transmitted and allowed,” “dependent origination,” “unbroken linkage,” and the rest do indeed yield zero hits on a word-for-word search of Paramārtha’s version, while the scenes are certainly there.

Four. Coordinates for Cross-Reading

The appearances of intermediate existence, the order of entry into the womb, and the twelve links and three periods established in this fascicle are the antecedent dharma-marks of the embryology and the doctrine of dependent origination of the later Yogācāra system, and their agreements and differences can be read across item by item.

The names and their number for intermediate existence. This treatise brings out the single name gandharva only, and only on the sense of feeding on fragrance; the Yogācārabhūmi lists four names — intermediate existence (because it is born in the middle between the two existences of death and birth), gandharva, mind-going (because it goes to the place of birth with mind as its support), and going-to-birth (because it arises facing birth-existence) — and says that intermediate existence excludes the formless realm and covers all places of birth. The sense that “the formless has no intermediate existence” agrees in the two systems, this treatise giving “if in the formless, one is wanting and three are had.”

The time intermediate existence abides. This treatise records Vasumitra’s “at the most seven days” as one divergent account, and sets it level with the Mahāvibhāṣā’s “it abides a short time” — Puguang’s Record adjudicating this fourth account to be the correct sense; while the Yogācārabhūmi simply establishes the seven days as its account, saying that if intermediate existence has not got the conditions for birth it abides at the most seven days, and that if it has not got the conditions for birth in seven days at the most it dies and is born again. A divergent account within a school has become in the Yogācāra system a settled account — this is one instance of a divergent account being promoted.

The opening and gathering of the stages within the womb: five stages and eight. This treatise says, “within the mother’s belly the stages are five,” gathering the three matters hair-down-and-nails, the material faculties, and the shape after the fifth stage; the Yogācārabhūmi establishes each of these three as a stage of its own, making eight stages in difference — kalala, arbuda, peśī, ghana, praśākhā, hair-down-and-nails, faculties, shape — and brings out the appearance of each stage. A difference in the opening and gathering of the same material is the steadiest of coordinates for reading embryology across the two.

Three afflictions, two actions, and seven entities, against the three paths of affliction, action, and suffering. This treatise has “three afflictions and two actions, and seven entities”; the Section on Ascertainment of the Yogācārabhūmi asks how many of the twelve links are the path of affliction, how many the path of action, and how many the path of suffering, and answers that three are the path of affliction, two the path of action, and the rest the path of suffering. The numbers agree throughout while the names differ (entity against path of suffering), and this is the most direct correspondence between this fascicle and the Yogācāra system. The Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only likewise carries on this division, saying that three are defiled alone and seven undefiled alone; and it says further that ignorance, craving, and grasping are named the solitary marks and the rest the mixed marks.

The paired names dependent origination and what has already arisen from conditions. This treatise adjudicates them by “the cause-portion / the result-portion”; the Yogācārabhūmi says that the dharma-nature of the arising of the formations is named dependent origination, and that they, having arisen, are named arisen from conditions. The two systems establish the same pair of names while the criteria on which they hang differ.

The largest divergence: two rounds of cause and result against one. This treatise establishes the twelve links by dependent origination by stages, two in the earlier period, eight in the middle, and two in the later, which is the type of the two rounds of cause and result across three lives; the Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only, however, says expressly that the ten causes and two results of the twelve links definitely are not of the same life, and adjudicates that one round of cause and result suffices to show the turning round and to keep clear of annihilation and constancy, and that to set up two rounds is in fact useless. One and the same set of twelve links, with a different number of rounds established — this treatise making it two rounds across three lives, that system one round.

Before reading this fascicle

The preceding fascicle first set out the dependent origination by stages transmitted by the Vaibhāṣikas — the twofold causality over three lives and the four kinds of dependent origination — together with intermediate existence and entry into the womb, and recorded that at this place the author set down the two words “transmitted and allowed”; Saṅghabhadra read those two words as a mark of the author’s disbelief, and the word-for-word citations and the recording together of the two parties are in the apparatus and Further Resonances of the preceding unit. When this fascicle is reached, the manner of writing suddenly changes: the whole chain is no longer discussed, and instead he turns back and takes the links apart one by one. The very first sentence of the fascicle is “what is the sense of ignorance?”, without so much as a transitional formula.

What is to be noticed is this: he does not take all twelve links apart. Fabao’s Commentary counted the divisions of this passage and says, “within it are four: first, explaining ignorance; second, explaining name-and-form; third, explaining the link of contact; fourth, explaining the link of feeling,” while as for the remaining eight links, “they are explained by referring to the remaining text” — only four links are taken apart, and the remaining eight are expressly said to be treated elsewhere. This is not laziness. The link of consciousness and the link of the six sense fields were stated in the Chapter on the Elements; the links of formations and of existence are reserved for the chapter on action; the links of craving and of appropriation are reserved for the chapter on the latent tendencies; and birth, old age, and death are themselves the aspect of the result. So the links that really need a separate explanation within the chapter on dependent origination are exactly these four. A reader who expects this fascicle to be “a detailed exposition of the twelve links” will be disappointed at the first line; one who knows it to be “a supplementary lecture on four links” will read it smoothly.

The four links taken apart, the author goes on to do three things: first he uses eight external similes to gather the twelve links into the three kinds of affliction, action, and the matter of results; next he distinguishes the defiled and the undefiled among the four existences; then he asks one question, “upon what do these sentient beings depend to abide?”, and out of it comes the long passage on the four nutriments. Last he analyzes which consciousness and which feeling belong to death and birth, and closes with the three classes.

So the skeleton of this fascicle is in fact fourfold: the names and senses of the links → the classifying of the links → the defiled and undefiled among the existences → abiding and passing away. The first half distinguishes names, the second half distinguishes things. The passage on the four nutriments is the longest stretch of prose commentary in the fascicle, over fifteen hundred characters; the passage on the simultaneity of contact and feeling comes next, over nine hundred. The doctrinal density of both far exceeds that of the half-stanza to which each is attached — the stanza is only the hook, and the prose commentary is the body itself, and this fascicle displays that trait most plainly of all.

I. Ignorance Is Not “the Absence of Clear Knowing”

First ask: since ignorance is called the “absence” of clear knowing, might it not be simply an “absence” — the empty gap where clear knowing is not? The author sets three objections in a row as the fascicle opens precisely in order to force this question out. The first objection: if it is said that “its entity is not clear knowing,” then the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are not clear knowing either — would they not all become ignorance? The second objection: then let it be restated as “the absence of clear knowing.” The third objection: if it is the nonexistence of clear knowing, then “the entity of ignorance would be nonexistent” — and how could something that does not exist act as a condition to give rise to the link of formations?

Answer: the answer the stanza gives is ten characters only, “ignorance is what clear knowing counteracts, as with ‘not a kinsman,’ ‘not true,’ and the rest.” The key lies in the words “what is counteracted.” Ignorance is not “anything whatever other than clear knowing,” nor is it “the nonexistence of clear knowing”; it is the very thing that clear knowing counteracts head-on. For this the author adduces three ready-made usages of language. An enemy is called “not a friend and kinsman” because he “stands opposed” to friends and kinsmen, and not because he falls outside the list of them; hence “it is not other than a friend and kinsman, nor the absence of a friend and kinsman.” Speaking the truth is called “true,” and then “truthful speech is called true, and the false and deceitful speech that it counteracts is called not true” — deceitful speech is the kind that truthful speech counteracts, and not “every utterance other than a true one.” The word “and the rest” in the stanza then takes in “not a dharma,” “not the sense,” and “the nature of not being a real thing,” the usage being wholly the same.

Clearing a misreading: readers most easily read this passage as a game with language, thinking that the author is playing with the word “not.” In truth he is guarding a line — whatever can act as a condition must be a dharma possessed of an entity. The twelve links are a chain of cause and result, and if the first link were an “empty nothing” the whole chain would hang in the air. Hence the author immediately asks himself “how is it known that it is so?” and answers himself, “because it is said that formations have it as condition”: since the sūtra says that formations have ignorance as their condition, ignorance must be possessed of an entity.

Where it lands: the criterion established in this passage can be put to use again and again throughout the treatise. Whenever a name of the form “not such-and-such” or “no such-and-such” is met with, first ask, “is this an exclusion, or does it point to something further?” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary puts it most plainly here, explaining this stanza thus: “as for ‘ignorance is what clear knowing counteracts,’ it shows that it has a real entity, that is, that this ignorance does not comprehend the four truths,” and pointing out under the simile that “as for ‘not other than a friend and kinsman,’ it means that the enemy is called not a friend and kinsman” — dividing off clearly the two works of the simile (not to be confused with the eye and the rest, and really to have an entity of its own).

II. Four Reasons: Why Ignorance Must Have an Entity of Its Own

First ask: the preceding section only laid down a definition; on what ground is that definition said to be right? The author answers very solidly — “there are, besides, reliable proofs” — and then gives four, all taken from established usages in scripture.

Answer: the first, “because it is stated as fetter and the rest.” The sūtra enters ignorance among such names for afflictions as “fetter,” “bond,” “latent tendency,” and “outflow,” “yoke,” and “flood”; the eye and the other faculties are not afflictions, and “neither the eye and the rest that are other, nor what is wholly without an entity to be found, can be spoken of as fetter, bond, and things of that kind” — an empty gap that is nothing at all cannot be ranked in the list of afflictions. The second, “because it is neither bad discernment nor view.” Some say that ignorance is just bad discernment, and set up their account with a simile from ordinary life: “a bad wife or child is called having no wife or child” — a bad wife, lacking the virtues of a wife, gets the name “no wife”; and by the same reasoning bad discernment, lacking the virtue of clear knowing, “ought likewise to be named ignorance.” The author does not accept the simile and refutes it straight off with one sentence: “that is not ignorance, because there is view in it” — bad discernment contains view within it, and view is of the nature of investigating keenly and deciding, and is not ignorance. Moreover “the several defiled discernments are called bad discernment, and since there is view within them they are not ignorance,” from which it is evident that the two are not equal. The third, “because it is associated with view.” “If ignorance were discernment, it ought not to be associated with view, since two entities of discernment are not associated with each other” — within a single moment of thought two discernments do not arise together, and since the sūtra grants that ignorance is associated with view, ignorance is not discernment. The fourth, “because it is said to 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 defile discernment, just as greed must be unlike mind in order to defile mind.

Clearing a misreading: these four are often taken as four independent little arguments, whereas in fact they are four sentry posts on one line of defense, guarding together the single conclusion that ignorance is neither an “absence” nor “a kind of discernment.” The defense in the middle of the passage — which Puguang’s Record marks as “the intent of the Sautrāntika defense” and Fabao’s Commentary as “this is the Sautrāntikas’ defense” — holds that being interspersed among wholesome discernment is enough for “being able to defile,” without arising in association; the author records it, and also gives his own adjudication: “yet there is a further ignorance of a kind unlike discernment, as greed is unlike mind, and this account is the better one.” It should be noticed that this is the author choosing between two accounts, and not a fifth reason newly made by him.

Where it lands: at the end the author gives the mark of ignorance: “that is, not comprehending the truths, the real, action, and result.” Pressed further, he frankly acknowledges that “dharmas of this kind can by their nature only be stated so,” and that one “can only distinguish their function” — dharmas of this kind can be identified only by their function, and cannot be taken apart any further. This is the honesty of Abhidharma, and it is the one sentence a reader should most learn: when a definition reaches its limit, one must be willing to stop.

III. Name: Why the Four Formless Aggregates Are Called “Name”

First ask: of the link “name-and-form,” form has already been distinguished in the Chapter on the Elements; why does the remaining “name” refer to the four aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness? “Name” is plainly a matter of language, while the four aggregates are dharmas of mind — how are the two to be hooked together?

Answer: the stanza has only five characters, “name is the four formless aggregates,” and the whole reason is in the prose commentary: “following the names established for them and the force of faculty and object they turn and change with respect to the sense, and so they are said to be name.” Mind is called name because it turns along with language — the world establishes a name in common, and mind turns with that name to that object. The example the author gives is of the plainest: “as with such names as ox, horse, form, and taste,” for when you call out “ox” the mind falls upon an ox. So “name” here does not mean the word itself; it means that property of mind by which it turns along with a name. The author then supplies two further explanations: first, that the four aggregates “turn and change upon this and that object in taking it as their object”; second, that “moreover they are of a kind like name, being made manifest by following names.” At the end he records also the account of another master: “these four formless aggregates, having cast off this body, turn and proceed to another birth, and turning and changing like a name they are signalized as name” — a name being transferable from one thing to another, and mind too being able to cast off this body and proceed to another birth, the likeness being taken in that respect.

Clearing a misreading: the commonest misreading is to take the “name” here for the name of “name-body, phrase-body, syllable-body” spoken of in the later system. The two share a graph and differ in sense: the name here takes the whole of the four formless aggregates, while the later name-body is a single item among the formations not associated with mind. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary here says outright, “name means the four non-form aggregates, that is, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness,” nailing down the extension first and only then explaining why it is called name — an order worth learning.

Where it lands: this section looks small, and yet it is the foundation of everything later discussed under the two words “name-and-form.” Wherever one reads of name-and-form among the twelve links, of consciousness nutriment among the four nutriments, or even of “name-and-form arising together” at the joining of rebirth, the “name” meant is always these four aggregates and not the word.

IV. Contact: Is It Produced by the Meeting of Three, or Is It the Meeting of Three Itself?

First ask: the definition of the link of contact is “contact is of six kinds, produced by the meeting of three” — faculty, object, and consciousness meeting together and producing contact. But the meeting of the three is already one thing; why must a further “contact” be established?

Answer: the author first settles a technical difficulty: the faculty, object, and consciousness of the five consciousnesses may be simultaneous, “and of the arising of the first five contacts it may be said that three meet, since it is granted that faculty, object, and consciousness arise at the same time”; but mind-contact is not so — the mind-faculty is the mind of the preceding moment that has ceased and belongs to the past; the object of dharmas may belong to the future; mental consciousness belongs to the present; and the three not being simultaneous, how is this to count as meeting? He gives two solutions: “this is precisely what is called meeting, that is, the sense of cause and result is established,” or else “or because they produce one and the same result they are called meeting.” Meeting need not be defined as simultaneity: the establishing of cause and result is meeting, and producing one and the same result is meeting too.

Then comes the first exchange between schools in this fascicle. One party holds that the meeting of three is itself contact, citing scripture in proof: “these three dharmas gathered and met together are called contact.” The other party holds that contact is a mental factor of its own, citing in proof the sūtra of the gate of the six sixes — for beyond the six internal sense fields, the six external sense fields, and the six bodies of consciousness the sūtra establishes six bodies of contact besides, from which it is evident that contact has an entity of its own. After several rounds back and forth the author lays down his pen in one sentence: “to object and explain back and forth in this fashion would make the discussion too much, and so it should stop for the present,” and then says, “the Abhidharma masters, however, hold that there is a separate contact.”

Clearing a misreading: readers often read “it should stop for the present” as the author giving up on judgment. It is not. What he stops is the going back and forth of discussion, not the conclusion — the very next sentence states the position of the Abhidharma masters. But neither should the sentence be read the other way, as the author’s own adjudication: the subject he uses is “the Abhidharma masters,” and this is recording a school’s tenet and not declaring his own. Puguang’s Record here marks by name, one by one, the speakers implicit in the treatise’s text, which makes it clearer to read; yet that is a reading the ancient master supplies on the treatise’s behalf, and the text itself does not name them at every place.

Where it lands: this section demonstrates the standard procedure by which Abhidharma handles a dispute over “a separate entity” — first resolve the technical difficulty, then set out the citations of the two parties, then record the school to which each belongs, and last stop. Hereafter, whenever it is asked whether the latent tendencies are associated with mind, or whether nonmanifest form really exists, the procedure used is the same.

V. Resistant and Designation: One Named from the Support, One from the Object

First ask: why must the six contacts be further combined into two classes? Where does the knife come down in combining them?

Answer: the stanza says, “those associated with the five are resistant; the sixth, arising together with it, is of designation.” The first five contacts are called resistant, the reason being that “the five contacts of the eye and the rest are called resistant, because they take resistant faculties as their support” — the knife comes down on the support: the five faculties have resistance, and so they are called resistant. The sixth, mind-contact, is called of designation, the reason being that “designation is name, and name is the long object taken by mind-contact, and so with respect to just this it is named contact of designation” — the knife comes down on the object: within the object taken by mind-contact there is one thing more, namely verbal designation. The author explains what “long” means by an exceedingly handsome contrast: “as it is said that visual consciousness can cognize only blue and cannot cognize that this is blue, while mental consciousness cognizes blue and cognizes also that this is blue, and so it is called long.” Visual consciousness can catch that patch of blue but cannot catch the judgment “this is blue”; mental consciousness catches both. Hence the object of mind-contact is the wider, and so it is named of designation.

Clearing a misreading: the word “designation” — whose Chinese graphs read literally “increased speech” — is most easily read as “added speech.” In truth it is a name established with respect to the dominance of verbal designation. The author himself also records another way of taking it: “some say: for mental consciousness speech is dominant, and only so does it turn upon its object, whereas the five consciousnesses are not so; and therefore mental consciousness alone is named of designation” — on this account the name of designation is established not from the object but from association. One and the same name may have two routes of naming, and the author lets both stand without adjudicating.

Where it lands: this section is a demonstration of the glossing of technical names. Hereafter, on reading any compound technical name, first ask, “is this name established from the entity, from the support, from the object, or from association?” — and the thing will mostly come untied. Puguang’s Record and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary both here delimit these two terms by the “dependent-determinative analysis” among the six compound analyses of logic; Fabao’s Commentary, for its part, establishes the names severally from support, from object, and from association.

VI. The Sixteen Kinds of Contact: Three Ways of Cutting Laid One upon Another

First ask: the six contacts have already been combined into two classes; how do sixteen kinds now appear? How are these numbers laid one upon another?

Answer: the stanza — “with clear knowing, with ignorance, neither of the two; the without-outflows, the defiled, the rest; two associated with craving and hostility; three conducing to the three feelings, pleasure and the rest” — gives three ways of cutting. The first cut is by clear knowing and ignorance: contact with clear knowing, contact with ignorance, contact neither with clear knowing nor with ignorance, the three matched in order with the without-outflows, the defiled, and the rest — “‘the rest’ means what is other than the without-outflows and the defiled, that is, the wholesome with outflows and the unobscured-indeterminate.” The second cut is by craving and hostility: “within contact with ignorance one portion arises repeatedly, and in dependence on it the two contacts of craving and hostility are further established,” cut out from within contact with ignorance. The third cut is by the feeling conduced to: “first, contact conducing to pleasant feeling; second, contact conducing to painful feeling; third, contact conducing to feeling neither painful nor pleasant,” and this cut gathers in every contact. The three cuts added to the original six contacts and two contacts make “thus sixteen kinds of contact in all.”

Clearing a misreading: what is most easily misunderstood here is taking the sixteen for sixteen mutually unrelated items. They are not sixteen squares standing abreast but one and the same set of contacts measured several times by different measures — six contacts cut by faculty, two contacts cut by support and object, three contacts cut by association with clear knowing and ignorance, two contacts cut by latent tendency, three contacts cut by the feeling conduced to. Hence one concrete contact may belong to several squares at once.

Where it lands: at the end the author sets himself a question — how can contact be received by feeling? — and answers, “because the mode of apprehension of what depends is exceedingly like contact, and because it arises in dependence upon contact.” This sentence in fact already announces the long debate of the next section: whether contact and feeling are simultaneous or successive. If a reader feels it abrupt on reaching this point, that is just the sign that the author’s arrangement is deliberate.

VII. The Six Feelings, and a Long Debate on “Whether Contact and Feeling Are Simultaneous”

The stanza to which this section is attached is only ten characters, while the prose commentary runs over nine hundred, the second longest passage in the fascicle. The author himself says at the end of it, “the incidental discussion is over; the proper sense should be analyzed” — he knows he has strayed, and yet he has recorded the whole debate in full. This passage is worth a little more space.

First ask: the stanza itself is very simple, “from these six feelings are produced; five belong to the body, the rest to the mind.” Six contacts produce six feelings; the first five depend on material faculties and are called bodily feelings; what is produced by mind-contact depends on mind alone and is called mental feeling. The real question is in what follows: are feeling and contact successive or simultaneous?

The Vaibhāṣikas’ position: “the Vaibhāṣikas say they arise simultaneously, because contact and feeling are reciprocally coexistent causes” — simultaneous, and coexistent causes for each other besides.

The objector’s attack runs in four steps in all. The first step asks: when two dharmas arise at the same time, how are producer and produced to be told apart? “Toward a dharma already arisen another dharma can do nothing” — what can another dharma still do to something already arisen? The Vaibhāṣikas answer that this is merely the thesis restated, “this is no different in sense from the thesis laid down” — where Puguang’s Record expressly marks “the Vaibhāṣikas again deny the Sautrāntikas.” The second step points out the fault of producing each other, and the answerer simply grants it: “our school grants that the two are coexistent causes and results for each other as well.” The third step brings out scriptural proof: the sūtra says only that 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,” and appeals to common sense — “as with first the seed and then the sprout, first milk and then curds, first the striking and then the sound, first the mind-faculty and then consciousness, cause before and result after is not unestablished.” The answerer at once raises instances of simultaneous cause and result: visual consciousness with the eye and visible form, and “the four great elements are coexistent with derived form”; in the fourth step the objector answers upon that very instance — “here too it is granted that the preceding faculty and object as conditions can arouse the following consciousness” — and what reasoning can block it; the answerer then raises one question that seals it: “are a shadow and a body not coexistent?” (For the speakers of these three turns the two commentaries mark them alike sentence by sentence; see the apparatus.)

The establishing and refuting of a second account. Someone establishes another account: only after contact does feeling arise, and it is at the third moment that feeling arises with contact as its object — an account both commentaries mark as the explanation of the Elder among the Sautrāntikas (Puguang’s Record: “the explanation of the Elder among the Sautrāntikas”· Fabao’s Commentary: “this reports the explanation of the Elder of the Sautrāntika school”). From here attack and defense change places: before, the Sautrāntikas were objecting to the Sarvāstivādins’ doctrine of simultaneity; from here the Sarvāstivādins object to the Sautrāntikas’ new account, and in reading one must exchange the two words “objector” and “answerer.” The Sarvāstivādins press their advantage: then there will be consciousness without feeling, and consciousness that is not contact. The Sautrāntikas dissolve it with “because of the contact of the preceding position, the feeling of the following contact-position arises.” The Sarvāstivādins press once more: if the objects of the two successive contacts differ, “how does a feeling taking one object arise from a contact taking another?”, and they draw out for their opponent a conclusion whose cost is very great — “or one must grant that feeling is associated with this mind and yet does not take one and the same object with this mind”; this sentence is a fault drawn out on the Sautrāntikas’ behalf by the Sarvāstivādins, and is not what the Sautrāntikas own (Puguang’s Record marks “the Vaibhāṣikas bring out the fault”· Fabao’s Commentary marks “the Sarvāstivādins bring out the contradiction of reasoning”). The Sautrāntikas thereupon shift their reckoning: they grant a consciousness that constitutes contact but has no feeling, and a consciousness that has feeling whose entity is not contact, “because a contributory condition was lacking. What fault is there in this?”

The real turning point of the debate is here. The Sarvāstivādins say: then the ten factors of the great ground are destroyed, since the ten factors of the great ground must pervade every mind and arise together constantly. The Sautrāntikas ask in return: on the strength of what is this rule established? The Sarvāstivādins answer: on the strength of the root treatise. The Sautrāntikas then utter the sharpest sentence in the whole fascicle — “we take the sūtras alone as our measure; the root treatise is not a measure, and what fault is there in destroying it?” — and cite “therefore the World-Honored One said: one should take the sūtras as measure.” This one sentence changes the character of the whole dispute: what is at issue is no longer whether contact precedes feeling, but whether the Abhidharma root treatise has any standing as a measure at all.

The gathering up. The Sautrāntikas then offer a middle course: the factors of the great ground need not pervade every mind, and the “ground” of “great ground” may mean the three grounds of with applied and sustained thought and the rest, the three grounds of wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate, and the three grounds of one in training, one beyond training, and one neither — whatever extends to these grounds being called factors of the great ground, whatever belongs only to the wholesome grounds factors of the great wholesome ground, whatever only to the defiled grounds factors of the great defiled ground; “dharmas such as these arise by turns each as it is applicable, and do not all arise together.” Last, back to scriptural proof: the Sarvāstivādins adduce a sūtra as objection — the sūtra says “the meeting of three is contact; arising together with it are feeling, perception, and volition”; the Sautrāntikas distinguish that “it says only arising together and does not say arising together with contact,” and adduce “proceeding together with loving-kindness, one cultivates the awakening-factor of mindfulness” to prove that the word “together” may also be used of what is without interval. As for the two words “intermixed,” it is fixed by comparison with the instance of vitality and warmth arising together as being “with respect to the moment” — which Puguang’s Record marks as “the Vaibhāṣikas explain.” At the end one rhetorical question seals it: since the sūtra says the meeting of three is contact, “how could there be a consciousness that is not the meeting of three? Or a meeting of three not called contact?” — and therefore “no contact whatever fails to arise together with feeling and the rest.”

Clearing a misreading: readers most often read this passage as the Sautrāntikas winning and the Sarvāstivādins losing, or the reverse. Neither is so. What the author records is a debate that reaches no verdict, and the gathering up at the end is marked by Puguang’s Record as “the Vaibhāṣikas adduce a sūtra as objection” and adjudged by Fabao’s Commentary as “this concludes the Sarvāstivāda school in sum” — it is the conclusion of the Sarvāstivāda side alone and not the author’s own ruling. The sentence about “the root treatise is not a measure” above all is the utterance of the Sautrāntika side (the two commentaries mark the speakers sentence by sentence throughout this passage, and it may be checked sentence by sentence), and not the author’s own declaration — and the way to tell is simple: the whole of that stretch is in the form of paired question and answer, and the speaker stands on the side opposed to the Sarvāstivādins.

Where it lands: the value of this passage lies not in its conclusion but in its demonstrating that perennial question, which comes first, the proof from teaching or the proof from reasoning. Hereafter, in reading the chapter on action and the chapter on the latent tendencies, wherever “established on the root treatise” and “taking the sūtras as measure” stand opposed, one may come back to this passage for comparison.

VIII. The Eighteen Mental Proximate-Activities: Why Three Times Six Is Exactly Eighteen

First ask: the preceding section said feeling is of six kinds; how in a moment does it become eighteen? Where do the twelve extra come from?

Answer: the stanza says, “this becomes eighteen besides, by the differences of mental proximate-activity.” The author first points out that the word “besides” is “to display the carrying forward of what precedes and the raising of what follows” — taking up the text above and raising what follows. The content of the eighteen is “that is, joy, sorrow, and equanimity, each with six proximate activities”: the three feelings of joy, sorrow, and equanimity each matched with the six objects of visible form, sound, odor, taste, the tangible, and dharmas. The real teaching lies in the three questions the author sets himself: reckoned by intrinsic nature there are only three; reckoned by association there is only one (all being associated with mind); reckoned by object there are only six. The three ways of reckoning each reckon on their own, and none of them yields eighteen; “these come to eighteen, complete by three” — the three conditions must be at work at once before the number eighteen holds.

Clearing a misreading: it is easiest here to suppose that eighteen is the product of three times six. The multiplication is only the surface; the author’s point is that not one of the three criteria may be missing. With intrinsic nature alone, joy, sorrow, and equanimity need not be divided by object; with object alone, the six objects need not be divided by feeling; with association alone, nothing can be told apart at all. Another easy error concerns “not taking a mixed object” — the fifteen proximate activities are called not taking a mixed object “since their objects are severally distinct,” while of the proximate activities upon dharmas alone “the three proximate activities upon dharmas extend to both kinds,” because the object of dharmas may be taken singly or taken all together.

Where it lands: the author then explains the sense of the three words “mental proximate-activity,” setting out two accounts: “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 “some say that joy and the rest can act as the proximate condition, causing mind to roam again and again upon an object” — the former taking mind as the condition, the latter joy and the rest, opposite in direction and standing together. He then answers four objections: why bodily feeling does not count (“because it does not depend upon mind alone it is not called proximate, and because it is without discrimination neither is it activity”); why the pleasure of the third meditative absorption is not gathered in (“it is transmitted that in the first element there is no pleasure faculty associated with mental consciousness,” and there is no pain faculty to stand opposite it); why the sūtra’s “having seen a visible form with the eye” does not obstruct its being on the ground of mind alone (it is said with reference to the ground of mind drawn forth by the five consciousnesses, as the contemplation of impurity is drawn forth in dependence upon visual consciousness); and finally “the words ‘seeing a visible form’ and the rest are said as the case is plain and easy to understand.” All four objections are for the sake of guarding the line of “on the ground of mind alone” — and the backbone of this section is there.

〔Appended〕The fifth question: whether one object can produce only one proximate activity. At the end of the passage the treatise sets a further question: “can there be visible forms and the rest which, with respect to joy and the other three, can conduce to the arising of one proximate activity only? There can, with respect to one continuum and not with respect to the object.” First ask: how could one and the same visible form produce only one proximate activity? Answer: it depends which end you speak from. Spoken of with respect to the continuum of a single sentient being, this person facing this form at this time in fact arouses only one of joy, sorrow, or equanimity, and so it is said that it “can conduce to the arising of one proximate activity only”; spoken of with respect to the object itself, one and the same form may for different people and at different times extend to all three of joy, sorrow, and equanimity, and so it cannot be said to be matched with one alone. Clearing a misreading: this question is not to be read as a general rule that “one object necessarily produces one feeling” — the treatise answers very carefully, and immediately after the word “there can” comes “with respect to the continuum and not with respect to the object,” the two qualifications neither of which may be missing. Where it lands: this is the place in the whole table most easily confused — the numbers eighteen, twelve, and six above are reckoned with respect to the object, while this question is stated with respect to the person, and the two measures may not stand in for each other.

IX. The Mental Proximate-Activities within the Three Realms: A Table of the Objects They Take

First ask: since the eighteen are divided by object, then, the objects of the three realms differing, how many can each realm have, and objects of which realm can each take?

Answer: this section restates three stanzas together, and is numbers throughout. The desire realm has all eighteen, and taking objects of the desire realm eighteen as well; “taking objects of the form realm there are only twelve, the six of odor and taste being excluded, since that realm has not those objects” — the form realm having no objects of odor and taste, the six proximate activities matched with odor and taste fall away. Taking objects of the formless there are only three, since the formless realm has none of the five objects of visible form, sound, odor, taste, and the tangible, and only the three of joy, sorrow, and equanimity in the proximate activity upon dharmas remain. The first two meditative absorptions have only twelve (the six of sorrow excluded), and taking objects of the desire realm twelve as well (the six objects of the desire realm being complete); as for their own level, four matched with odor and taste are excluded, leaving eight, and two take objects of the formless. The third and fourth absorptions have only six (equanimity alone), and taking objects of the desire realm six as well; as for their own level, two matched with odor and taste are excluded, leaving four, and one takes objects of the formless. The preliminary stage of the sphere of space has four kinds, taking only visible form, sound, the tangible, and dharmas; taking the fourth meditative absorption as object it likewise has these four, and taking the formless only one; the four fundamental levels and the upper three preliminary stages “have only one and take their own objects,” because “the three upper edges do not take dharmas of form as object.”

Clearing a misreading: readers are most easily drowned in the numbers and suppose they must be learned by rote. In truth only three rules are at work in the whole table: which faculties of feeling that level has (the first two absorptions having no sorrow, hence twelve; the third and fourth having equanimity alone, hence six); which objects the realm taken as object has (the form realm having no odor and taste, hence four or two excluded when taking one’s own level); and that a defiled mind does not take lower levels as object, while a wholesome mind can. Hold these three, and the numbers eighteen, twelve, three, six, four, and one can all be worked out on the spot.

Where it lands: the usefulness of this table is that it turns the relation between “realm” and “object” into a checkable list. Hereafter, meeting any question of the form “how many of such-and-such a dharma are possessed on such-and-such a level,” the method is always the same — first ask which faculties of feeling that level has, next which objects the realm taken as object has, and last whether that mind can take a lower level. On the side of collation there is one item that may serve as corroboration: the base text here reads “ten of the first meditative absorption” while the Ming edition reads “middle,” and read as “middle” the whole enumerated sequence is broken — the self-consistency of the context may serve as corroboration, while the choice among variants remains recorded together in the apparatus layer and is not closed here.

X. The Eighteen Are with Outflows Alone, and the Measure of What Is Possessed

First ask: since the mental proximate-activities extend to the three realms, do they extend to what is without outflows? If they do, would not the mind of a noble one also be “roaming again and again upon objects”?

Answer: the stanza blocks it in one sentence: “the eighteen are with outflows alone.” The author’s explanation is of the briefest: “there is no mental proximate-activity that extends to what is without outflows, and therefore it is said that the eighteen are with outflows alone.” Then comes the list of the measure of what is possessed. One born in the desire realm who has not obtained the wholesome mind of the form realm possesses all eighteen of the desire realm, eight of the first two absorptions, four of the third and fourth, and one of the formless; but “those of the upper realms which are possessed do not take lower levels as object, because they are defiled” — those few of the upper realms which he possesses are defiled and do not take lower levels as object. If he has obtained the wholesome mind of the form realm but is not free from craving for the desire realm, he possesses all of the desire realm and ten of the first absorption; of these, joy is possessed only to four, because a defiled mind does not take the odor and taste of a lower level as object, while equanimity is possessed in full to six, because the wholesome mind of access concentration can take odor and taste as objects. One born in the form realm possesses only the one proximate activity of equanimity upon dharmas of the desire realm, “that is, the one arising together with the supernormal-result mind.”

Clearing a misreading: “the eighteen are with outflows alone” does not amount to “an arhat has no joy.” The author himself clears this up in the very next passage. If a reader takes “with outflows alone” to mean that a noble one is not granted joy, sorrow, and equanimity, the next passage will be wholly unreadable.

Where it lands: this list looks tangled and is in fact a graduated scale of the stages of realization — how far a person has walked upon the ladder of the three realms can be marked by how many mental proximate-activities he possesses. Before and after obtaining the wholesome mind of the form realm, the difference falls exactly upon those few joys and equanimities of the first absorption. That Abhidharma reckons so finely has its reason just here: advance and retreat can be entered in the ledger square by square.

Where the vital point lies: immediately after the list of what is possessed the author says something quite out of the ordinary — “some say: mental proximate-activities such as these are established by the Vaibhāṣikas as suits their sense of the doctrine. Yet the sense of the sūtras as I see it is otherwise” — and establishes a criterion of his own: “only those that are defiled, drawing one another on with mind and roaming again and again upon their objects, are mental proximate-activities,” with the six constant abidings and “it is not that the arhat has no worldly joy taking a wholesome dharma as object; this is said only in order to block the defiled proximate activities” for evidence. This passage is one of the two vital points of the fascicle; the taking and leaving of it and the later refutations of it all enter Further Resonances, and here only the establishing of the treatise’s own text is recorded.

XI. The Remaining Links Have Been Stated or Will Be Stated: Eight Links Dispatched in One Sentence

First ask: the chapter on dependent origination has come this far and has explained only the four links of ignorance, name, contact, and feeling; what of the remaining eight? Are they simply passed over?

Answer: the author expressly sets up a line of stanza to dispatch them: “the remaining have been stated or will be stated.” The prose commentary says it very clearly: “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.” And he points out one by one where they go — the link of consciousness was stated in the Chapter on the Elements (“consciousness is the cognizing of each severally, and this is what is called the mental sense field”), the link of the six sense fields was stated in the Chapter on the Elements (“the subtle form upon which that consciousness depends is what is called the five faculties of eye and the rest”), and “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.”

Clearing a misreading: readers often skip this line of stanza, feeling it has no content. Quite the contrary: it is the self-declaration of the structure of the whole treatise. The Abhidharmakośa does not treat each link in isolation but distributes one and the same topic to the chapter that best suits it. Consciousness and the six sense fields belong to the entities of dharmas, and so are in the Chapter on the Elements; formations and existence belong to doing, and so are in the chapter on action; craving and appropriation belong to affliction, and so are in the chapter on the latent tendencies. The chapter on dependent origination keeps only those that have no home elsewhere.

Where it lands: to read Abhidharma without knowing this rule is to feel it defective everywhere. Knowing it, one forms a habit — when a link is treated too briefly, first ask in which chapter its proper text lies. Puguang’s Record points out a connection of the same type at the link of name, saying, “form is as analyzed above, that is, analyzed above in the aggregate of form of the Chapter on the Elements,” which is exactly the same way of reading.

(Transition): the author then gathers the twelve links into three kinds: “these several dependent originations are established in brief as three, namely affliction, action, and the matter of maturation results,” and says that “external similes should be resorted to in order to display their several capacities” — whence the eight images in nine uses of the next section.

XII. Confusion, Action, and the Matter of Results: Three Kinds and Eight External Images

First ask: once the twelve links have been split into three kinds, how is a person to remember the temper of each? The author’s way is to strike similes — and he strikes eight of them in one breath.

Answer: affliction has five similes. Like a seed: from a seed there arise sprout and leaves, and from affliction there arise the three of affliction, action, and the matter of results. Like a dragon: “as a dragon guards a pool the water is never exhausted; affliction guards action and the continuity of birth is without end” — the dragon being in the pool, the water does not dry; affliction being present, the continuity of action is not cut. Like the root of a grass: “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” — this simile is closest to practice, for cutting the shoot without pulling the root, one cuts and it grows again. Like the stem of a tree: “as from the stem of a tree branches, flowers, and fruit arise again and again,” one stem producing branches again and again. Like the husk wrapping rice: “as rice wrapped in husk can produce a sprout and the rest, while bare rice cannot” — bare rice does not sprout, it needs the husk wrapping it; bare action does not call forth birth, it needs affliction wrapping it.

Action has three similes. Like husked rice: “as rice that has its husk can produce a sprout and the rest, so action having affliction can call forth maturation.” Like a medicinal herb: “as with the several medicinal herbs the ripening of the fruit is the last stage, so once the result of an action has ripened it calls forth no further maturation” — the herb having set its fruit, the business is finished. Like a flower: “as a flower is the proximate cause producing the fruit, so action as proximate cause can produce maturation.”

The matter of results has one simile. Like cooked food: “as cooked food and drink are only to be consumed and cannot be turned into further food and drink” — cooked rice can only be eaten and cannot be turned back into grain. The author then points out the vital point of this simile: if a maturation result could call forth a further maturation, “the further calling forth the further, there would be no liberation.”

Clearing a misreading: the eight images in nine uses are very easily read past as literary ornament. In truth each has a precise logical position: the dragon governs persistence, the grass root regrowth, the husk the helper, and the medicinal herb and the cooked food cessation. The simile of cooked food above all is not there for prettiness — it is the logical guarantee that liberation is possible: only because a result of maturation produces no further result of maturation does the chain have a break in it.

Where it lands: this section may serve as a mnemonic for the twelve links, but its better use is as a map of where practice takes hold. Of the eight images in nine uses, three speak of the stubbornness of affliction (dragon, grass root, tree stem), one of an action calling forth no further result once its result has ripened (the medicinal herb), one of action as the proximate cause producing maturation (the flower), and one of a result producing no further result (the cooked food). Where the knife should come down to cut the continuity, the similes themselves have answered. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary here divides the eight images in nine uses very clearly, saying, “the first four lines display affliction by simile, the next two lines display the cause that is action, the last two lines display the matter of results,” and a reader may well keep to that frame.

XIII. The Four Existences: The Existence of Birth Alone Is Invariably Defiled

First ask: of the four stretches — intermediate existence, the existence of birth, existence proper, and the existence of death — which is necessarily defiled? And why that one in particular?

Answer: the stanza says, “among the four kinds of existence, the existence of birth is defiled alone, by the afflictions of its own level; the remaining three, in the formless three.” The existence of birth — the first moment of taking birth — is defiled alone. Which affliction defiles it? “The several confusions of its own level,” that is, “taking birth on this level, all the afflictions of this level defile the existence of birth of this level.” The author then cites a ruling of the Abhidharma masters: “among the several afflictions there is not one affliction that lacks the capacity to moisten at the position of joining rebirth” — there is no affliction that stands with folded hands at the joining of rebirth. But one limitation is to be noticed: “yet the joining of rebirth is by the force of the afflictions alone and not by entanglements and stains arising by their own strength,” it being the root afflictions that act, the secondary afflictions merely following along. As for intermediate existence, “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.” The remaining three existences each extend to the three ethical qualities — “yet the remaining three existences each extend to the three, that is, existence proper, death, and intermediate, each of them wholesome, defiled, and indeterminate.” The formless realm has intermediate existence excluded and only three, because there “within that realm there is no separation of places,” and there being no place to go to, intermediate existence has no way of being established.

Clearing a misreading: the commonest misreading is to widen “the existence of birth is defiled alone” into “taking birth necessarily falls into an evil destiny.” It does not. What is defiled is the nature of the mind at that one moment, not the goodness or badness of the destiny born into; the existence of birth of one born among the gods is defiled all the same, since rebirth must be moistened by affliction. Another easy error is the last five characters of the stanza, “the remaining three, in the formless three,” which is easily read as “the remaining three are present in the formless realm as three”; in fact two layers are folded together: the remaining three existences each extend to the three ethical qualities, and the formless realm has three existences only. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary here takes the two layers apart, saying, “the first three lines and the remaining three characters of the fourth line are the gate analyzing by the three ethical qualities,” which is precisely to remind the reader where the knife comes down.

Where it lands: this section buckles directly onto the chapter on intermediate existence in the preceding fascicle, and is also the foundation for the talk of “joining rebirth” in the chapter on the noble ones later. The author’s last sentence supplies something very fine: “the stanza does not speak of the desire and form realms, and from this it is known that within them all four existences are granted” — what is not spoken of is read by tacit consent. This too is a way of reading stanzas commonly met with in Abhidharma.

XIV. The Four Nutriments: Upon What Do Sentient Beings Abide

The four existences distinguished, the author asks one sentence, “upon what do these sentient beings depend to abide?”, and out of it comes the longest passage in the fascicle — over fifteen hundred characters. This passage must be given its full weight, for it takes the seemingly everyday notion of “nutriment” and makes of it a doctrinal number running through the three realms, extending to intermediate existence, and bearing upon liberation.

First ask: a man lives by eating — who does not know it? Why must this be made into a doctrine?

Answer: because what the author means to establish is not “eating” but “abiding.” He opens by citing scripture: the World-Honored One “awakened of himself to one dharma and rightly awakened to it and rightly stated it,” and this one dharma is that “no sentient being whatever does not abide by nutriment.” The definition of “nutriment” here is not what goes in at the mouth but what can make a sentient being continue and abide. Hence “nutriment is of four kinds: first morsel, second contact, third volition, fourth consciousness.”

The subtle and coarse in morsel nutriment, and its realm affiliation. Morsel nutriment divides into subtle and coarse: “the subtle is the nutriment of intermediate existence, since odor is its nutriment”; and further “and the nutriment of the gods and of the beginning of an aeon, since it turns into no filth, passing into the limbs like oil poured on sand” — the nutriment of the beginning of an aeon leaves no filth behind when eaten, soaking in as oil poured upon sand; and again “or the nutriment of tiny filthy vermin, infants, and the like is called subtle, and what is contrary to this is coarse.” As to realm affiliation, “morsel nutriment such as this is in the desire realm alone, since it is by becoming free from craving for morsel nutriment that one is born in the upper realms.” As to entity, “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, received portion by portion with mouth and nose” — the three sense objects of odor, taste, and the tangible are the entity of morsel nutriment, and not that lump of food. Someone asks whether light, shade, flame, and coolness count as nutriment, and the author answers, “how do light, shade, flame, and coolness become nutriment? It is transmitted that this sentence is put with respect to the majority”; and he adds that what sustains the body without being drunk or eaten is also gathered under subtle nutriment, as with anointing and bathing. Puguang’s Record here explains the treatise’s text by the receiving portion by portion with mouth and nose, saying, “that is, the mouth can drink and eat; the nose can drink, as with the trunk of an elephant and the like; they are received portion by portion, and so it is named morsel nutriment,” and explains the benefit of light and flame by “as when a man suffers from cold and suddenly meets with sunlight or the touch of a fire’s flame, and is at once benefited” — concrete instances supplied by an ancient master for the treatise’s text, and the easiest of all to enter by.

Why form is not morsel nutriment. This is a brilliant question. Form is plainly visible and comes along with food and drink; why is it not counted? The author gives two reasons: “it cannot benefit the faculty it faces; and because of one who is liberated.” First, form cannot benefit the very faculty it faces — the eye sees a form and the eye faculty is not thereby nourished; and “whatever is called nutriment must first assist one’s own faculties and great elements, and only then reach the rest.” Second, “moreover the non-returner and the arhat are liberated from craving for nutriment, and take no benefit though they see all manner of fine food and drink.” As for joy and pleasure arising on seeing a form, that “arises from the contact conditioned by form; that contact is the nutriment, not the form” — what benefits is contact and not form.

The remaining three nutriments, and the excluding of what is without outflows. “Contact means the several contacts produced by the meeting of three; volition means mental action; consciousness means the aggregate of consciousness; these three are with outflows alone and are present throughout the three realms.” Someone asks why the entity of nutriment does not extend to what is without outflows, and the author records the Vaibhāṣikas’ explanation: “to be able to assist the several existences is the sense of nutriment; what is without outflows arises from cultivation and is for the extinguishing of the several existences” — the definition of nutriment is itself “nourishing birth and death,” while what is without outflows is for extinguishing birth and death, opposite in direction, and so cannot count as nutriment. And he cites the sūtra in support: the four nutriments “can cause beings that have come to be to abide, and can assist the several seekers of birth.”

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,” all who have taken birth being such. “Seeker of birth” refers to intermediate existence, and from this the author opens out the five names of intermediate existence: “this designates intermediate existence, since the Buddha, the World-Honored One, spoke of intermediate existence under five names” — “first, formed by mind, since it arises from mind,” “second, seeker of birth, since it constantly delights to seek out and examine the place where it is to take birth,” “third, eater of odors, since its body takes odor for its nutriment as it goes to the place of birth,” “fourth, intermediate existence, since it is the aggregates in the interval between the two destinies,” “fifth, named arising, since it arises for a time facing the birth that is to come.” There is besides another explanation: “further, a being that has come to be means the arhat, and the rest, who have craving, are called seekers of birth.”

The four alternatives of the fetter of arising and the fetter of birth. After the five names of intermediate existence the treatise cites a sūtra to make a fourfold distinction: “there is a person who has cut off the fetter of arising and has not cut off the fetter of birth” — “arising” being intermediate existence (the text above having already explained that “arising means intermediate existence”), and “birth” being the existence of birth. The treatise lists four alternatives: “the several who go upstream, being free from craving for two realms, are the first alternative; those who attain parinirvāṇa in the interval are the second; the several arhats are the third; and what is left when the foregoing cases are excluded is the fourth.” First ask: what do these four alternatives divide? They divide whether each of the two fetters, of “arising” and of “birth,” is cut off or not — “arising” meaning intermediate existence and “birth” the existence of birth. Those who go upstream do not take up intermediate existence in the formless realm, and so have cut off the fetter of arising; yet they still take birth, and so have not cut off the fetter of birth. Those who attain parinirvāṇa in the interval are precisely within intermediate existence, and so have not cut off the fetter of arising; yet they take birth no further, and so have cut off the fetter of birth. The arhat has cut off both fetters; the rest have cut off neither. Clearing a misreading: do not read “arising” as a general term for “coming into being.” Here “arising” is an alternative name for intermediate existence, which the treatise has just established — the last of the five names being “named arising, since it arises for a time facing the birth that is to come.” Where it lands: the fourfold alternative is the treatise’s most commonly used instrument of distinction; whenever “four alternatives should be made” is met with, first ask which two axes are being divided, and the four squares will fall into place of themselves.

The four nutriments with respect to what has come to be and what seeks birth. The treatise at once asks, “how many nutriments can make beings that have come to be abide? How many nutriments can assist sentient beings that seek birth?” The answer: “the Vaibhāṣikas say all four in each case.” First ask: morsel nutriment plainly nourishes only the present body — how can it assist a seeker of birth? The reason the treatise gives is: “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 the four nutriments are conditions of sickness, of the boil, of the arrow, of the root, and of old age and death” — morsel nutriment nourishes this body, and this body, having craving, goes on to make the actions of a later existence, so that morsel nutriment has its share in the seeking of birth too. Clearing a misreading: do not read “all four in each case” as meaning that the four nutriments have no division of labor. Extending to and excelling in are two layers: in function, all four nutriments extend to both what has come to be and what seeks birth; with respect to the excellent capacity, “the first two 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.” Where it lands: this question and answer and the later “why only four nutriments are stated” are the two ends of one line — first their extension is established, then their excellence is delimited.

Contact and the other two nutriments likewise each have four alternatives. After the four alternatives of morsel nutriment the treatise passes over it in a sentence: “thus contact and the rest, each as is applicable, may each be known to have four alternatives.” And it sets itself a question: “are there cases where contact and the rest as condition assist the several faculties and great elements and yet are not nutriment?” The answer: “there are, namely contact and the rest without outflows and of another level.” First ask: how can contact without outflows assist the faculties and great elements and yet not count as nutriment? Because what makes a nutriment a nutriment is judged by whether it makes existence grow; what is without outflows does not make a later existence grow, and though it have the use of assisting, it does not get the name of nutriment. Clearing a misreading: do not put an equals sign between “assisting” and “nutriment.” The treatise’s order is first to ask whether it makes existence grow, then whether it assists, and the two may not be reversed. Where it lands: this is precisely the most important boundary in the whole passage on the four nutriments — nutriment is named with respect to “making existence continue,” not with respect to “being good for the body.”

The three matters of volition nutriment. This is the most moving narrative in the whole treatise. First, the father in the famine who put ashes into a bag and hung it on the wall, deceiving his children that it was a bag of parched meal, so that “the two children, cherishing hope, prolonged their lives a good while”; and afterwards someone opened it, and “the children saw that it was ashes, and their hope being cut off they died.” Second, the merchants wrecked at sea who looked far off at the heaped foam and took it for the shore, so that “their hearts hoping to reach it quickly, their lives were prolonged for a time,” and when they touched it and knew it was not the shore, “their hope being cut off they died.” Third, the author cites what the Treatise on the Collected Various Gates says of the great living beings of the sea that bury their eggs in the sand, the eggs not spoiling if the mother constantly thinks of them; and yet he does not adopt its explanation — “this is unsound, since it contradicts the sense of nutriment. Can another’s volition nutriment sustain one’s own body?” — and corrects it thus: “by right reasoning it should be said that the eggs constantly think of the mother and thereby escape rotting and spoiling, and that when they forget, their life ends.”

Clearing a misreading: these three stories are most easily read as parables exhorting to virtue. They are not. They are arguments: what they prove is that “volition” really can sustain the body, and that when a single hope is cut off life is cut off with it. And the author’s correction of the third matter is especially important — the nutriment must be one’s own volition and cannot be another’s; otherwise “nutriment” would become something lendable from outside, and the whole definition would fall apart.

Why only four nutriments are stated. Since “the several dharmas with outflows all make existence grow,” why are only four stated? The author answers, “even so, to state four with respect to what is excellent is no fault,” and gives an exceedingly clear twofold-and-twofold table of assignment: the first two nutriments benefit this present life, the latter two draw forth the existence 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”; and as for the birth of the existence to come, “volition nutriment can draw it forth,” and having drawn it forth, “it is by the force of the seeds of consciousness perfumed by action that the later existence can arise.” One simile at the end gathers the whole passage: “the first two 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 and the boundaries. The author sets a further fourfold distinction: a morsel and not a nutriment (what is drunk and eaten injuring on the contrary the faculties and great elements), a nutriment and not a morsel (the remaining three nutriments), both a morsel and a nutriment, and neither a morsel nor a nutriment. And he asks whether there is anything that assists the faculties and great elements and is still not nutriment: “there are, namely contact and the rest without outflows and of another level.” He further discusses that “what, having been eaten, harms the eater’s body is called nutriment as well, because at the outset it assisted,” and records the Vaibhāṣikas’ account that nutriment is named nutriment at both times — “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. How can there be morsel nutriment in the hells? “Are iron balls and molten copper not morsel nutriment?” The author first relieves the difficulty by citing the definition of the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas — that treatise “states it as named nutriment merely with respect to the side of being able to assist”; and then he gives the hells a place: “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,” and “moreover the morsel nutriment of the solitary hells is just like that of human beings.”

The weighing of the ordinary being in the Jambu grove. Appended at the end of the passage is a piece of collation-like discrimination: giving food to a hundred non-Buddhist seers free from craving is not equal to giving food to one “ordinary being in the Jambu grove.” Who is this ordinary being? The author excludes them one by one — to say it is all who have a belly in Jambudvīpa does not agree with the word “one”; to say it is a bodhisattva near buddhahood does not agree with “giving to him, the merit obtained surpasses giving to a koṭi of arhats”; and the Vaibhāṣika masters’ account that it is one who has obtained the factors conducive to penetration he faults most heavily: “in this, name and sense do not answer to each other either, since there has never been a sūtra or root treatise that says so,” and “it should be known that this is merely a discrimination of their own.” What he takes for himself is: “the bodhisattva in his last body dwelling in the Jambu grove is what is called that ordinary being,” with the World-Honored One’s afterwards weighing a non-Buddhist against one on the way to the fruit of stream-entry as corroboration.

Where it lands: the real use of the passage on the four nutriments is that it translates the most everyday matter of “keeping alive” into a doctrinal number, letting one see that birth and death continue because four supply lines feed them — morsel nutriment for the body, contact nutriment for the mind, volition and consciousness nutriment for the life to come. Cut one line and the continuity is by so much the less; the one who is liberated, being “liberated from craving for nutriment,” lets go of the first line first. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary here sets forth the reasoning that form is not morsel nutriment by the instance of one already free from craving, saying, “the fruit of non-returning and the arhat have no craving for morsel nutriment, and this is called liberation,” which points that layer very clearly.

XV. Death and Birth: Six Positions in Mental Consciousness Alone, Two Times with Equanimous Feeling Alone

First ask: at the moment a man’s breath stops and at the moment he takes birth, which consciousness after all is at work? And in what state of heart?

Answer: the stanza governs six matters in one breath, and the author lists them very neatly: “cutting off wholesome roots and restoring them, becoming free from defilement of a realm or level, falling back from freedom from defilement, dying, and taking birth — at these six positions it is by the nature of things granted that there is mental consciousness alone and not the others.” These six — cutting off wholesome roots, restoring them, becoming free from defilement, falling back, dying, and taking birth — have this in common, that they are all too subtle for the five consciousnesses to catch, and mental consciousness alone can. And “the word ‘birth’ spoken of should be known to include also the first joining of intermediate existence,” the first moment of intermediate existence being reckoned in.

And the feeling? “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.” At the moment of death and of birth the mind is blunt, and so only equanimous feeling can be matched with it.

There are two further limitations: “further, these two times are in a distracted mind alone and not in absorption; they must be at a position where there is mind and not without mind.” The reasons for not being in absorption are three — the realms and levels are severally distinct, absorption arises by preparation, and absorption can render assistance, whereas the mind of death and birth is precisely of its own level, spontaneous, and feeble. The reason for not being without mind is that “at a position without mind life is certainly not injured,” and one without mind “cannot take birth, because the cause is lacking; apart from the arising of the afflictions there is no taking birth.”

The mind entering nirvāṇa has a square of its own: “although it is said that the existence of death extends to minds of the three ethical qualities, yet at entering nirvāṇa there are only two indeterminate minds”; and as to whether the desire realm has a maturation of equanimous feeling, the author records the two parties without adjudicating. Why must it be indeterminate? “Because the force of the indeterminate is feeble and conduces to the cutting off of mind” — for mind to be cut off, it must first grow weak.

Where consciousness ceases. In one who dies all at once, “mental consciousness and the body faculty cease abruptly and together”; in one who dies gradually it differs by destiny: “falling into an evil destiny is called going downward, 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,” and of the arhat “his last mind too ceases at the place of the heart,” while another master says “his ceasing is at the crown.” The author strikes an exceedingly vivid simile for the gradual ceasing: “like a little water placed upon a red-hot stone, gradually lessening, gradually vanishing, and at one place wholly exhausted.”

The severing of the vital points. At the end of life one is for the most part pressed by the pain of the severing of the vital points. A vital point is not an organ — “there is no separate thing called a vital point; yet within the body there are particular joints which, once touched, bring death, and these are called the vital points.” The condition that brings death is “if any one among water, fire, and wind grows dominant, then, as a sharp blade’s edge touching those vital points.” And “it is not called severing as chopping firewood is; it is because after the severing there is no awareness that it gets the name severing” — this “severing” is the severing of losing awareness and not the severing of chopping through. Why has the element of earth no such function? “Because there is no fourth inward calamity,” the inward calamities being only three — “the three inward calamities are wind, heat, and phlegm.”

The five signs of decay in the sons of the gods. Among the gods there is no severing of the vital points, and in its place are the five signs of decay. Five small signs: their gear gives out an unwanted sound, the light of their bodies becomes dim and feeble, “third, at the time of bathing drops of water cling to the body,” “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” — and when these five appear, “these five signs appearing, it is not certain that they will die.” Five great signs: their garments are stained with dust, their flower garlands wither, sweat comes from the armpits, a foul odor clings to them, and they take no delight in their own seats — “these five signs appearing, they will certainly die.”

Clearing a misreading: readers most easily misunderstand “death and birth with equanimous feeling alone” as “dying is not painful.” Equanimous feeling is said of the mind of that one moment of joining rebirth and of ending life, not of the whole process of dying; the pain of the severing of the vital points is a real pain, and the author himself says that “thereby an exceedingly heavy painful feeling arises.” The two are not at the same moment and do not contradict each other. Another easy error is “mental consciousness alone,” which is not to say that there is no bodily sensation at the end of life but that the decisive moment of thought is in mental consciousness. On the side of collation one item in this passage is worth noting: “the several arhats are called not born again,” where the Yuan and Ming editions read “not going”; the two readings differ in emphasis, and this collection records them without adjudicating.

Where it lands: this section is the most concentrated place in the whole treatise on the end of life, and hereafter, when the chapter on the noble ones treats of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval and the chapter on action of action to be experienced in the next life, one must come back here to take the measure. The twofold distinction among the signs of decay in the sons of the gods is especially useful — the small signs may be turned, the great signs mean certain death — and this distinction is itself a concrete place to take hold of the contemplation of impermanence.

XVI. The Three Classes: The Threefold Division of the World

First ask: with what does a chapter on the world close? What the author chooses is the three classes — the drawing up of all sentient beings into three heaps according to whether their direction is fixed.

Answer: “within the birth, abiding, and passing away of this world of sentient beings the World-Honored One established the three classes,” namely “first the class fixed in rightness, second the class fixed in wrongness, third the class of indeterminate nature.”

Rightness takes cutting off: the sūtra says, “greed cut off without remainder, hatred cut off without remainder, delusion cut off without remainder,” and “all the afflictions cut off without remainder is named rightness.” And “fixed” takes the noble: “fixed refers to the noble; noble refers to those in whom the path without outflows has already arisen, and being far from the several evil dharmas they are called noble, having obtained the acquisition of final release from bondage,” and since they will certainly exhaust delusion they are called fixed in rightness. The author here sets a question of great weight: those who have obtained the factors conducive to liberation will also certainly obtain nirvāṇa; why are they not fixed in rightness? Three answers: “because they may afterwards fall into the class fixed in wrongness,” “and because the time of obtaining nirvāṇa is not yet fixed, unlike the stream-enterer with at most seven further existences,” “and because they are not yet able to cast off wrongness, and so are not called fixed in rightness.”

Wrongness takes the destiny: “what is named wrongness? It is the several hells, animals, and hungry ghosts, and this is named wrongness”; and “fixed” takes the deeds of immediate retribution: “fixed refers to the deeds of immediate retribution; one who commits a deed of immediate retribution will certainly fall into the hells, and so it is called fixed in wrongness.”

Indeterminate is what is left: “what is other than fixed in rightness and fixed in wrongness is named of indeterminate nature, since these await two conditions and may become either of the two” — fixed upon a condition, and either way possible.

Clearing a misreading: the three classes are most easily read as a moral grading of three kinds of person. They are not. They are divided with respect to whether one’s direction is already fixed, and do not correspond directly to present good and evil. A man who practices very well but has not yet seen the path is still in the indeterminate class; and that is precisely the point of the question the author set. Another easy error is to read “indeterminate” as a middling state, whereas the real sense of “indeterminate” is still under the working of two conditions — which is on the contrary the most promising position of all.

Where it lands: that the whole fascicle closes here has a deep intent. Dependent origination, the four existences, the four nutriments, death and birth have all been speaking of how sentient beings are pushed along by action and confusion; and this last section draws the whole world up once more in ranks according to whether it can still be changed. Most people are in the indeterminate class, and the very definition of the indeterminate class is “may become either of the two” — this one sentence is the way out onto practice for the whole treatment of the world in this fascicle. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary fixes the skeleton of this stanza in four characters, saying, “the upper line states it, the lower line explains it,” which is plain and may well be followed.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

The foregoing is the sense of the treatise’s own text in this fascicle. Below, a further section gathers five things: where the three commentaries diverge, Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutations, the divergences of Paramārtha’s older translation, two cases recorded together without adjudication, and coordinates for collateral reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading one and the same text. All are recorded together without adjudication, each restored to its place.

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

Divergence in the outline. The divisions the three mark at the head of this fascicle differ from one another. Puguang’s Record has, “as for ‘what is the sense of ignorance?’, from here the second major part separately explains names and senses”; Fabao’s Commentary has, “the treatise’s ‘what is the sense of ignorance?’: from here the second major gate explains the names and senses of the twelve links,” where the base text’s own graph is “gate” and not “part,” copied as it stands; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary has, “from here the second major part, the separate explanation, within which are two: first, separately explaining four dharmas; second, separately referring to the remaining text.” The three point to one and the same passage in differing words, and Fabao’s setting up besides a list of the four links is the most distinct of all.

The handling of the Sautrāntika defense. Puguang’s Record, at the stretch “from ‘why should it not be granted’ down to ‘what contradiction in reasoning’,” expressly marks “the intent of the Sautrāntika defense,” and unfolds of himself the two layers of the argument, seeds and manifest activity of defiled discernment, and at the end of the passage lays down a further ruling: “the author is not a Sautrāntika master, and in assessing takes the Sarvāstivādins.” Fabao’s Commentary marks the Sautrāntikas likewise without unfolding it, and adduces instead the scriptural text “the sūtra says that ignorance’s defiling of discernment is not necessarily by association, the several defiled discernments interspersed among wholesome discernment making it impure being what is called defiling.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gathers it all under a fourfold outline, saying, “the first line adduces the proof, and the three lines below refute the divergent account,” without touching on seeds at all. The three differ widely in fullness and brevity, and are recorded as divergent without adjudication.

Dharmatrāta’s account. Fabao’s Commentary supplies an explanation under “the class-nature of relying on a self,” saying, “the ignorance this Venerable One speaks of is just the class-nature of relying on a self spoken of in another sūtra,” and explains “differing from the pride ‘I am’” by the nine classes of pride. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary cites outright as its conclusion, “the Venerable Dharmatrāta says: the entity of ignorance is the class-nature of relying on a self which sentient beings have.” Puguang’s Record sets up no separate section for this account.

The school-label on the entity of contact. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary, at the end of the passage on the meeting of three, expressly marks where the tenet belongs: “according to the Sarvāstivādins, apart from the meeting of three there is a separate entity of contact, which is a mental factor.” Puguang’s Record, for its part, explains the same question by the division “meeting is of two kinds,” without naming a school. To mark or not to mark is a difference of practice between the two commentaries.

The supplement on contact of designation. Puguang’s Record cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to supply one further sense — “because it takes resistant faculties as its support; because resistant dharmas alone are its object field” — adding a further layer of “object field” beyond “support,” which is not in the treatise’s text. Fabao’s Commentary and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary have no such supplement.

The argument for the number eighteen. Puguang’s Record twice cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to supply an explanation of why the pleasure of the third meditative absorption is not established as a proximate activity — “if so, there ought to be no mental proximate-activity of equanimity, since it has nothing to stand opposite it,” and “moreover the pleasure of that level stagnates upon its object, whereas a proximate activity shifts again and again upon its object.” Fabao’s Commentary cites instead the Mahāvibhāṣā’s third explanation to supply a further gloss: “moreover, because it depends on mind it approaches the object and moves, and so is named mental proximate-activity.” Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary cites neither, glossing only as the text runs, “these come to eighteen, complete by three.” Puguang’s Record and Fabao’s Commentary both like to bring in outside treatises for support, while Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary is markedly sparing — this is the standing condition of the three commentaries as seen in this fascicle.

The taking and leaving of the passage on Vasubandhu’s divergent account. This is the most conspicuous divergence of the three commentaries in this fascicle. Fabao’s Commentary not only records it but fixes its character — “third, the author provisionally puts forward a divergent account in order to refute the Sarvāstivādins” — and brings Saṅghabhadra’s counter-refutation whole into his own commentary, as with “how is it certainly known? Only craving, or hating, or setting aside without discriminating among the several objects is a proximate activity.” Puguang’s Record and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary also explain it sense by sense — Puguang marking where it belongs with “from here the divergent account is reported. It may be an account of the Sautrāntika masters. A proximate activity is defiled alone, drawn on together with mind, roaming again and again upon its object,” and going on to match the three poisons with joy, sorrow, and equanimity and to cite the six constant abidings in proof; while Yuanhui adjudicates the school outright with “the eighteen proximate activities discussed above all extend to what is with outflows, which is the Vibhāṣā school’s position. Yet according to the Sautrāntikas, within what is with outflows only the defiled is taken and named a proximate activity,” and goes on to explain the thirty-six teacher’s sentences based on relish and on renunciation. Fabao’s Commentary alone takes in Saṅghabhadra’s refutation as well, so that the full text of the two-party debate survives in Fabao’s Commentary alone. Among the three commentaries only Fabao’s preserves this complete case, the other two passing straight over it.

The choice of material on the four nutriments. Fabao’s Commentary alone cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle’s objection about Uttarakuru — “if a man is born in Uttarakuru, will his lifespan be broken off for want of swallowing morsels?” — pushing to the extreme the question whether not eating means not being able to abide; Puguang’s Record lays weight on the glossing of sensory instances (receiving portion by portion with mouth and nose, sunlight and the flame of fire); Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary lays weight on the reasoning about one already free from craving who sees fine food and takes no benefit. On one and the same question of morsel nutriment the three authorities each take a different road.

The supplement on the three classes. Fabao’s Commentary cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to set forth why “rightness” takes cutting off without remainder alone for its sense — “why is cutting off alone called rightness? Because it permanently exhausts the false and counterfeit dharmas” — and expressly marks the several grounds under “they may afterwards fall into the class fixed in wrongness” as four explanations. Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary gathers it merely with “the upper line states it, the lower line explains it.” Puguang’s Record, for its part, establishes a division for this passage as “the second major part showing the distinction of the three classes,” and offers on the three words “birth, abiding, passing away” a separate explanation by the four existences of the existence of birth, existence proper, the existence of death, and intermediate existence, and at the end cites the three-class question and answer of the Treatise on the Collected Various Gates, Fascicle Four, in proof.

The lacuna in Shentai’s Commentary. Shentai’s Commentary is an incomplete work, the Chapter on the World wholly wanting, and this fascicle has no line-by-line explanation of his to attach — the lacuna is marked as it stands, and the text of another fascicle is not made to serve for it. Only the stanza count of the Chapter on the World recorded in the general conspectus of the whole treatise in his Fascicle One still serves as a witness to this chapter’s stanza count.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutation

In the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle Saṅghabhadra calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master.” Within the passage corresponding to this fascicle the Sūtra-master is expressly named in two places, both given in full below.

First, the defense of ignorance’s defiling of discernment. Saṅghabhadra first marks, “here the Sūtra-master provisionally makes a statement in defense,” restates the Kośa’s original words, “the several defiled discernments, interspersed among wholesome discernment, make it impure, and this is said to be able to defile,” and at once rules, “examining his words now, they are not a good analysis, since apart from the class of what is associated there can be no defiling,” bringing out two reductions — “it would follow that one who is not an arhat would have no undefiled mind” and “moreover, undefiled discernment being mixed with defiled discernment, it would follow that the defiled turns into the undefiled.” The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine has the same passage in an abridged version, marking likewise “here the Sūtra-master provisionally makes a statement in defense,” and keeping only the one sentence, “this defense will not do, since the several discernments without outflows would be defiled.” One meaning and two schools: Vasubandhu records one defense — inferring from the ready-made scriptural statement that greed defiles the mind, that the force of the interspersing is enough for “defiling” to be spoken of, and afterwards adjudicating for himself, “this account is the better one,” and letting the defense go; Saṅghabhadra objects by comparing the forces of what counteracts and what is counteracted, holding that to speak of defiling without waiting upon association must lead to several faults. Recorded together without adjudication.

Second, the divergent account of the eighteen mental proximate-activities. Saṅghabhadra marks, “here the Sūtra-master provisionally puts forward a divergent account,” and having restated Vasubandhu’s words objects, “it is not clear by what sense of a mark the Sūtra-master takes a mental proximate-activity to be harbored within the mind,” and again, “that the arhat has no mental proximate-activity is somewhat contrary to correct principle and to the sūtras,” ruling at the end, “therefore what the Mahāvibhāṣā says is the better.” The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine wholly lacks this exchange — its text runs from “there is no proximate activity that extends to what is without outflows,” stating in order what is possessed, what is acquired, and the differences of the objects taken, and passing straight to the thirty-six teacher’s sentences and to what is based on relish and on renunciation, and at the end turning directly to “on what ground are the remaining links of existence not stated?”, so that Vasubandhu’s declaration of a divergent account and Saṅghabhadra’s refutation have no place at all within the scene of this passage. On one and the same type of debate the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine keeps an abridged version in the one case and omits the other wholly, taking and leaving inconsistently, which is honestly recorded and not made into a generalized judgment.

Third, the three-sided situation within the passage on the four nutriments. Within the four passages on the four nutriments, the cutting off of wholesome roots, death and birth, and the three classes, no direct counter-refutation marked by the name “the Sūtra-master” is found in the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle. Only there is one further passage refuting “the Elder” — “yet the Elder says: whatever aggregate is drunk and eaten is an entity of nutriment, since nothing is stated apart” — which Saṅghabhadra refutes with “his words are unsound. Why so? Because although nothing is stated apart, it should be taken apart,” and establishes “moreover only the sense field of the tangible is the true entity of nutriment.” Here what Saṅghabhadra refutes is not Vasubandhu, and his conclusion runs in the same direction as the Kośa’s “form is not morsel nutriment” — it is another configuration, of the three sides of the Sarvāstivādins, Vasubandhu, and the Elder, and not a two-party debate, and it is therefore set down as a separate item and recorded.

Fourth, under the single link of ignorance there are besides three accounts of the Elder and one of the Venerable Rāma. Besides the two places of “the Sūtra-master” in this fascicle, Saṅghabhadra restates and refutes one by one three ways in which the Elder explains “ignorance”: first, “it is because of the presence of this that clear knowing is not present, and this is called ignorance” — explaining ignorance by the not being present of clear knowing; second, “or else mind and mental factors of such a kind are together called ignorance” — calling a kind of mind and mental factors by that general name; third, “or else inverted clear knowing is just what is called ignorance” — explaining it by inverted clear knowing. And he records one account of the Venerable Rāma: “the entity of wrong view is not itself ignorance.” The speaker of these four accounts is in no case Vasubandhu, and so they do not enter the roll of “the Sūtra-master”; yet they are divergent explanations of the same topic, and in reading the link of ignorance in this unit one should know that besides this treatise there are these further roads. Recorded together without adjudication.

Fifth, on the two topics of “name” and of “consciousness and name-and-form as conditions for each other” Saṅghabhadra again refutes the Elder, and records the Venerable Rāma’s model. The Elder explains “name” as “it conduces to the completing of this and that continuum of sentient beings, and so it is said to be name”; and at the passage on consciousness and name-and-form as conditions for each other he twice “frames a hypothetical objection.” The Venerable Rāma, for his part, sets up a model of his own, in which name-and-form in intermediate existence draws forth the consciousness that joins rebirth, and the ceasing of consciousness draws forth in turn the name-and-form of the existence of birth. Saṅghabhadra concludes severally with “therefore his questions and answers are all unsound,” “there are but empty words, contrary to reasoning and to the teaching,” and “examining the Elder’s school on the sense of consciousness and name-and-form being conditions for each other, in reasoning it certainly does not hold.” The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine writes here simply, “for the rest of the extended determination, see the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle” — the abridged version sending the reader back to the extended one, which shows that this is a whole scene and not a scattering of incidental citations. Recorded together without adjudication.

3. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury forms a system of its own in the passage corresponding to this fascicle. In format, Xuanzang gives the whole stanza first under “the stanza says / the treatise says,” while Paramārtha embeds his explanation line by line under “the verse says / the explanation says,” often breaking one stanza into two to four separately cited places; hence Xuanzang’s sixteen blocks appear in Paramārtha as a number of short verse-lines scattered about.

In rendering, the greatest systematic difference is mental proximate-activity — Paramārtha has throughout “mind-discriminating activity” or “mental discriminating activity,” running through the whole passage. The rest — resistant / obstructive, designation / dependent on speech, object / dust, outflow / flow, affliction / confusion, aggregate / skandha, restoring wholesome roots / joining wholesome roots, Dharmatrāta rendered by sense / Dharmatrāta transcribed — each forms a system of its own. “Dependent on speech” takes directly the verbal designation as the object taken, while “designation” takes the dominance of speech, the two renderings taking different angles upon one and the same thing.

Nor should the convergences go unrecorded. The five characters of the stanza “as with ‘not a kinsman,’ ‘not true,’ and the rest” agree word for word in the two versions; the ten characters of “from these six feelings are produced” and “five belong to the body, the rest to the mind” likewise agree word for word, only that Paramārtha breaks them into two verse-lines; the six characters of “among the four kinds of existence, the existence of birth” agree wholly, only that Xuanzang has “defiled alone” and Paramārtha “necessarily defiled.” It is not that the whole is divergent throughout: in basic declarative sentences the wording of the two generations of translators can coincide to a high degree — convergence and divergence standing together, recorded without adjudication.

There are differences of dividing and joining as well. At the vital points Paramārtha adds a quoted verse, “within the body there are such places, and touching them accordingly brings death,” to which Xuanzang’s version has nothing corresponding; while for the delimitation of morsel nutriment as being in the desire realm alone, Paramārtha’s passage unfolds by question and answer layer by layer, and no single sentence closely matching Xuanzang word for word is found — this being a difference of format and not of doctrine, and no correspondence is forced. As for the difference of the one word in “not in absorption, not without mind, the two” and “not one, not without mind, the two,” only the two versions are recorded word for word, and no adjudication is made on their behalf.

Fascicle boundaries: Paramārtha divides the Chapter on the World into four fascicles and Xuanzang into five; the title of Paramārtha’s “Fascicle Eight” falls exactly inside this fascicle (the discussion of the eighteen mental proximate-activities finished and the five similes about to begin), and does not correspond at all to Xuanzang’s fascicle boundary. The two translations’ divisions each have their reason, and this section only records them together.

4. Two Cases Recorded Together without Adjudication

First, the entity and realm affiliation of the four nutriments. On the matter of the four nutriments this fascicle really has several layers of accounts standing together which the author does not adjudicate one by one, and they are recorded here layer by layer.

The first layer, the breadth or narrowness of the entity of nutriment. On the one hand the author says “the several dharmas with outflows all make existence grow” — every dharma with outflows nourishes birth and death; on the other he says “even so, to state four with respect to what is excellent is no fault,” establishing four only with respect to what is excellent. “The several dharmas with outflows all make existence grow” is the wording of an objection set, which the treatise delimits by “to state four with respect to what is excellent is no fault” — it does not raise every dharma with outflows into an entity of nutriment.

The second layer, whether nutriment extends to what is without outflows. This question the author does not answer for himself but records the Vaibhāṣikas’ explanation: “to be able to assist the several existences is the sense of nutriment; what is without outflows arises from cultivation and is for the extinguishing of the several existences.” This is a definitional solution of the Sarvāstivāda line — define “nutriment” first as nourishing existence, and what is without outflows is excluded of itself. Should a reader ask whether what is without outflows can assist body and mind, the author does not answer directly here; what is established here is a boundary of naming and not an adjudication of the thing itself.

The third layer, what consciousness nutriment gathers. The stanza fixes the division of labor of volition nutriment and consciousness nutriment by “the latter two, with respect to the existence to come, draw forth and raise up, in that order”: volition nutriment draws forth the existence to come, consciousness nutriment raises up the existence to come — “it is by the force of the seeds of consciousness perfumed by action that the later existence can arise.” Note that the office of consciousness nutriment here is raising up, not drawing forth; while under the author’s question “how many nutriments can make beings that have come to be abide? how many can assist sentient beings that seek birth?” the answer is “all four in each case” — the four nutriments having a share in both what is born and what is not yet born. “All four in each case” and the twofold-and-twofold division of labor are not two unadjudicated accounts: the four nutriments act upon both what has come to be and what seeks birth, and so it is said all four in each case; while morsel and contact excel in assisting what has come to be, and volition and consciousness in drawing forth and raising up the existence to come, and so with respect to the excellent capacity only these four nutriments are stated. Function extends, and excellence has its own province; the two statements hold at once.

The fourth layer, the entity and realm affiliation of morsel nutriment. Its entity is the three sense objects of odor, taste, and the tangible and not the lump of food; its realm affiliation is the desire realm alone, “since it is by becoming free from craving for morsel nutriment that one is born in the upper realms.” On the side of collation there happens to be a variant just here — the base text reads “odor, taste, and the tangible, these three” while the Palace edition reads “two”; the number three agrees with “received portion by portion with mouth and nose” below, and the number two does not. This may serve as corroboration from the self-consistency of the context, and not as a choice among collated editions.

The fifth layer, the difference from other treatises. To the Treatise on the Collected Various Gates’ account of the great living beings of the sea the author says expressly, “this is unsound, since it contradicts the sense of nutriment,” and gives a correct interpretation of his own; to the Treatise on Categories of Dharmas’ definition of morsel nutriment he reconciles by “it states it as named nutriment merely with respect to the side of being able to assist.” Both belong to the treatises of this school, and the one is refuted while the other is reconciled; the author’s taking and leaving is plain in the text, and this section only records the fact and does not assess its rightness.

The sixth layer, the dispute between Saṅghabhadra and the Elder. Within the passage on the four nutriments Saṅghabhadra separately refutes the Elder’s account that “whatever aggregate is drunk and eaten is an entity of nutriment,” and establishes “only the sense field of the tangible is the true entity of nutriment,” which is narrower than the Kośa’s “odor, taste, and the tangible, these three.” The Kośa, Saṅghabhadra, and the Elder differ each from each in the breadth of the entity of morsel nutriment, and they are recorded together without adjudication.

Second, the eighteen mental proximate-activities. After the list of what is possessed Vasubandhu declares of himself, “yet the sense of the sūtras as I see it is otherwise,” establishing that only what is defiled is named a proximate activity, with the six constant abidings and “it is not that the arhat has no worldly joy taking a wholesome dharma as object” for evidence; Saṅghabhadra counter-refutes, ruling at the end, “therefore what the Mahāvibhāṣā says is the better”; the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine passes from what is possessed, what is acquired, and the differences of objects taken straight to the thirty-six teacher’s sentences and the remaining links of existence, and does not bring out this divergent account or Saṅghabhadra’s refutation; Paramārtha’s version alone carries the corresponding text of this passage, which proves it to be text that the original treatise of Vasubandhu had and not an addition peculiar to the transmission of Xuanzang’s line; and among the three Han commentaries only Fabao’s Commentary takes in Saṅghabhadra’s refutation as well, expressly marking “the author provisionally puts forward a divergent account in order to refute the Sarvāstivādins,” while Puguang’s Record and Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary each explain the divergent account without touching Saṅghabhadra’s refutation. One case, and four authorities each transmitting a choice of his own — this section records only the shape of them all in full, and does not adjudicate the victory or defeat of the two parties.

5. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

The four nutriments, the five names of intermediate existence, and the three classes established in this fascicle are all fixed doctrinal numbers of school Abhidharma, taken up by the later systems each with its own dividing and joining, and they may be read against one another.

As to the names of the four nutriments, the Yogācārabhūmi establishes four nutriments likewise under the one sense of sustaining, and for volition nutriment it has mental-volition nutriment, one character added while the number four is unchanged; and in explaining the sense of nutriment it takes the four nutriments’ nourishing of the five material faculties, the mental faculty, and the great elements upon which the faculties depend, running on the same track as this treatise’s “whatever is called nutriment must first assist one’s own faculties and great elements, and only then reach the rest.” Assisting the faculties and the great elements is a sense of nutriment granted by both systems. Only that the Yogācārabhūmi has one further place where, under the sense of sustaining, it establishes five, adding the life faculty to the four nutriments — this treatise assigning the life faculty separately to the formations not associated with mind and not entering it among the nutriments, while there it stands beside the four nutriments, and the dividing and joining may be read against each other. (The word-for-word text of those two places and the page anchors attached to them are in Section VII of this unit’s apparatus.)

As to the five names of intermediate existence, this treatise has formed by mind, seeker of birth, eater of odors, intermediate existence, and named arising; the Yogācārabhūmi on the same matter gives three names — intermediate existence, taking the arising in the interval between the two existences; gandharva, taking the going in search of odors and being assisted by odor; and proceeding by mind, taking the going to the place of birth with mind for its support. The three names intermediate existence, eater of odors, and formed by mind agree, while the two names seeker of birth and named arising are not found in that passage, and the dividing and joining of the names and their number may be read against each other.

As to the three classes, this treatise has the class fixed in rightness, the class fixed in wrongness, and the class of indeterminate nature; the three classes established in the Yogācārabhūmi have wholly the same names but put wrongness first and rightness second, the order inverted from this treatise’s, and beneath the three classes it opens each further into the two kinds of the intrinsic and the contrived.

As for the single word “name,” this treatise takes the four formless aggregates throughout, while the later learning of dharma-characteristics establishes name-body, phrase-body, and syllable-body separately among the formations not associated with mind — one and the same graph whose extension is wholly different, which is the place a beginner most easily confuses, and it is listed here as a coordinate.

Before reading this fascicle

This fascicle opens with fourteen graphs only — “Thus has the world of sentient beings been stated; the receptacle world is now to be stated.” The three fascicles above have finished the world of sentient beings (the three realms and five destinies, intermediate existence and entry into the womb, the twelvefold dependent origination), and with one sentence the author turns and begins to speak of the “receptacle” that holds those lives. All three ancient masters let the knife of their outlines fall at this same place: Puguang’s Record marks “from here the second major part explains the receptacle world”; Fabao’s Commentary marks “from here the second major part of the present chapter explains the receptacle world”; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary marks “from here the second major part explains the receptacle world” — three masters dividing their fascicles independently and yet with boundaries exactly alike, from which one may see that this cut was not forced upon the text by later hands but is an opening the text made for itself.

Beneath the receptacle world there are three further parts: first the “receptacle dwelt in” (the place where one lives), second the “measure of those who can dwell” (how large those who live there are and how long they live), third the “divisions of the least measures” (the smallest of measures). This fascicle occupies the first two, and the third is in the next fascicle. The receptacle dwelt in divides further into eight headings, and all three masters mark them alike — the three circles, the nine mountains, the eight seas, the four continents, the black mountains and the rest, the hells, the sun and moon, and the receptacles of the gods. These eight headings are the skeleton of the first half of the fascicle, and in reading one may take them as a cross-section drawn from the bottom upward: first the base is laid, then the mountains and seas are set up, then one probes downward to the hells, then follows upward along the sun and moon and the palaces of the gods.

One thing should be said before anything else. This fascicle reads like a geographical treatise, and the numbers in it are startlingly dense; but what really bears the weight is not the numbers but that one sentence that recurs again and again, “the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings.” The wind circle arises out of space: it is that. Gold congeals upon the water: it is that. The several jewels come into being: it is that. The sun and moon do not fall: that too. In this whole map of the world there is no architect — this is the most essential thread in the fascicle, and every passage below will run up against it.

I. The Base of the Receptacle World: Wind Circle, Water Circle, Golden Circle

〔1.1〕What is lowest of all in the world. First ask: since a world is to be established, there must be some lowest tier of all — what is that tier? The treatise answers without hesitation — lowest of all is wind, not earth and not water. “That is, by the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings, lowest of all and resting upon space a wind circle arises”: the wind circle arises resting upon space, its breadth “beyond numbering,” its thickness sixteen hundred thousand yojanas. Next comes the water circle, eleven hundred thousand and twenty thousand deep; the upper layer of the water is beaten by the wind of action and congeals into gold, whereupon the water is reduced to eight lakṣa and the gold is three hundred thousand and twenty thousand thick. Of the three tiers, only the lowest, the wind circle, rests directly upon space; the other two rest each upon the tier below.

The easy error is to take this for the description of some physical process of cosmic origination. It is not. The first cause the treatise gives is not wind but “the dominant force of action” — the wind circle is a result and not a cause. So each time below that something new is to be produced (the jewels, the sun and moon), the treatise says “the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings” once again; this is not idle repetition but the handing back, time after time, of responsibility to sentient beings themselves.

In practice: in reading the Abhidharma map of the world, the first step is to change one habit — do not ask “who made it,” ask “whose action called it forth.” Once that is changed, the numbers of the whole fascicle fall onto the ledger of practice.

〔1.2〕Why the wind circle has to be described as so hard. The treatise adduces a strange simile: suppose a “great Mahānagna” were to take a vajra wheel and strike down with all his might, and the outcome would be that “the vajra shatters and the wind circle is unharmed.” Puguang’s Record explains this: “a great Mahānagna is the name of a god among men; it means here the Naked One” — a god of great strength. First ask: to speak of a layer of wind, why bring in the vajra for comparison? Because the moment a reader hears “wind circle” his instinct is that it must be light, empty, and not to be relied upon; and the treatise means first to strike that instinct down. A world can be established precisely because that seemingly emptiest of layers has an entity that is “firm and dense.”

The easy error is to read this sentence as mythological ornament. It is a sentence that fixes a nature — the firmness and density of the wind circle is the precondition of all the tiers piled above it. In practice: the degree of solidity in a thing called forth by action is not determined by its “material” but by the force of action; and this item will be needed again below, in speaking of the iron ground of the hells and of the palaces of the gods that dwell resting upon space.

〔1.3〕Why the water does not flow away — an answer with two schools standing side by side. The treatise inserts a very good question here: the water circle hangs above the wind circle, so “how is it that the water circle does not flow away sideways?” The answer comes from two schools. One says that it is held by the force of the actions of sentient beings, and adduces as a simile that food and drink, while not yet digested, “never in the end flow away and fall into the receptacle of the digested”; the other says that it is held by the force of wind, and adduces as a simile “as a chuan holds the grain” — a chuan being a round granary woven of bamboo that pens the grain in.

First ask: where do the two schools differ? The former gathers the cause into action; the latter puts the cause upon a concrete outer condition (wind). The two accounts stand side by side and the treatise passes no verdict. The easy error is to think that because there are two accounts the author is being vague. He is not — the standing practice of this treatise is that wherever there are divergent accounts and the scriptures have no express text, both parties are recorded together. In practice: hereafter, whenever one reads “some other masters say” or “some other school says,” do not hurry to find which is the “right answer”; first see clearly where each of the two schools puts the weight.

〔1 appended〕A third measure of the water circle and the golden circle: diameter and circumference. Besides thickness, the treatise gives a third way of measuring — breadth: “the breadths of the two circles 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 its edge, namely a circumference amounting to thirty-six hundred thousand ten thousand three hundred and fifty yojanas.” First ask: what is this sentence reckoning? It is reckoning the diameter and the circumference of the disc formed by the water circle and the golden circle: the breadths of the two circles are the same, the diameter being twelve hundred thousand three thousand four hundred and fifty yojanas (the “half” means half of a hundred, that is, fifty), and the circumference taken as three times the diameter — twelve hundred thousand three thousand four hundred and fifty multiplied by three gives thirty-six hundred thousand ten thousand three hundred and fifty. The easy error is to confuse “breadth” with the “thickness” spoken of above. Thickness is a measure up and down (the water eight lakṣa thick, the gold three hundred thousand and twenty thousand), breadth a measure across (diameter and circumference); the one measures depth and the other width, each has its own figures, and neither may be inferred from the other. In practice: the method of verification lies in the text itself — circumference equals diameter times three; take this and multiply once more, and the two ends lock together of themselves. Of every figure in this fascicle ask first, “is this a thickness, a diameter, or a circumference?” and the numbers will not fall into confusion.

II. The Nine Great Mountains upon the Golden Circle

〔2.1〕How the nine mountains are arranged. First ask: are the nine mountains nine ranges side by side, or arranged in some other way? The treatise gives the answer the moment it opens its mouth — “upon the golden circle there are nine great mountains, the Sublime and Lofty Mountain King standing at the center, and the remaining eight encircling the Sublime and Lofty round about.” Of the nine, the first seven are called “the inner mountains”; only outside the seventh mountain are the four great continents, and outside them the Iron Circle Mountain, “encircling one world-sphere round about as the rim encircles a wheel.” Their substances are distinguished too: the seven mountains beginning with Upholding the Pair are “constituted of gold alone,” while the Sublime and Lofty Mountain King has one jewel on each of its four sides — gold on the north, silver on the east, vaiḍūrya on the south, sphaṭika on the west. The treatise even explains in passing a thing that can be seen in ordinary life: because the south side is vaiḍūrya, “therefore the sky above Jambudvīpa looks like the color of vaiḍūrya” — why the sky over our heads is blue is answered by the south face of the mountain.

The easy error is to take the nine mountains for nine parallel ranges. They are concentric circles: one center and eight surrounding rings, the outermost being the Iron Circle. In practice: hold on to this figure of concentric circles, for the eight seas, the four continents, and even the reckoning of the three-thousandfold great thousand that follow all hang upon this one diagram.

〔2.2〕The names of the mountains were not chosen at random. The names of the nine mountains are all transcriptions, awkward to read; but behind every one of them there is an image. Puguang’s Record explains the sense of each mountain in turn: “Yugandhara means here Upholding the Pair. Upon the summit of this mountain there are two tracks like the ruts of a chariot, and because the mountain upholds the two tracks it is named Upholding the Pair” · “Mount Īṣādhara means here Upholding the Axle; the peak of the mountain towers up like the axle of a chariot” · “Khadiraka is the name of an Indian tree; in the southern parts of this land too there is this tree, called yanmu” · “Sudarśana means here Fair to Behold” · “Aśvakarṇa means here Horse’s Ear, the peak of the mountain being like a horse’s ear” · “Vinataka means here Elephant’s Trunk” · “Nimindhara is the name of a fish; the snout of that fish is pointed, and the peak of the mountain is like that fish’s snout.” The one at the center is the same — Puguang’s Record says, “Sumeru means here the Sublime and Lofty. The old rendering Xumi is a corruption.”

First ask: what use is it to know the senses of these names? Because it tells us that these names were originally words of image and not serial numbers. Upholding the Pair, Upholding the Axle, Horse’s Ear, Elephant’s Trunk, Fish’s Snout — one after another they are all speaking of shapes. The easy error is to take a transcribed name for an unintelligible spell and so skip the whole passage. In practice: whenever one meets a transcribed term of Xuanzang’s, ask first whether the ancient masters left a rendering marked “means here”; with that rendering, a long string of strange words at once becomes a picture that can be seen.

〔2.3〕How the jewels are produced — and a refutation of the Sāṃkhya in passing. The treatise says that the jewels too are called forth by the force of action: great clouds rain upon the golden circle, the gathered water surges into billows, and “this water becomes the seed and store of the several jewels” — Puguang’s Record takes these two words apart and explains, “that the water can produce jewels is what ‘seed’ means; that jewels come out of the water is what ‘store’ means.” Then violent winds drill and beat, and water is transformed and produces jewels. Just here the treatise adds a sentence that goes to the heart of the matter: “the cause ceases and the result arises, their entities not existing together; it is not as in what the Sāṃkhya accomplish by transmutation.”

Thereupon comes a short passage of debate and refutation against the non-Buddhists. The Sāṃkhya maintain that there is a permanently abiding “possessor of dharmas” upon which dharmas arise and dharmas cease; the treatise asks back: having granted that the bearer abides permanently, you cannot also say that upon it there is arising and ceasing. The other side changes his words: “the possessor of dharmas is not apart from the dharma; it is just this dharma that, at the time of transmutation, serves as the support of differing characteristics.” The author settles it in one sentence — “that it should be this very thing and yet not be thus: such a statement I have never heard.” Puguang’s Record adduces an example from the science of reasons to help explain it: “sound is impermanent; impermanence is a dharma. Sound is a possessor of dharmas, and because it has the dharma of impermanence it is called a possessor of dharmas.”

First ask: why, in speaking of the establishing of the world, does a passage refuting the non-Buddhists suddenly appear? Because the matter of “water turning into jewels” is exactly the watershed where the two sides understand the words “transmutation” differently — the Sarvāstivādins say the cause ceases and the result arises and their entities do not exist together, the Sāṃkhya say the entity is permanent and its characteristics change. The treatise uses one concrete example to fasten the abstract point of contention in place. The easy error is to take this passage for a digression off the topic. In practice: hereafter, whenever one reads the words “transmutation,” ask first, “is the entity of what is transmuted one and the same before and after?” If the answer is that it is the same, one has landed on the Sāṃkhya side; only if the answer is that the cause ceases and the result arises is it the position of this treatise.

〔2 appended〕The close of the nine mountains: what is sunk in the water is uniform, what stands out of it grows lower by half and half, and the breadth equals what stands out of the water. After the names and the arrangement of the nine mountains, the treatise gathers their measures at one stroke in a single passage: “Thus the nine mountains stand upon the golden circle, the measure sunk in the water being in every case eighty thousand yojanas, and Mount Sumeru standing out of the water likewise. The remaining eight stand out of the water lower by half and half, that is, the first, Upholding the Pair, stands out of the water forty thousand, and so on 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 in each case the same as the height by which it itself stands out of the water.” First ask: how many rules are given here in all? Three: ① what is sunk in the water is uniform — the portion of the nine mountains sunk in the water is eighty thousand yojanas in every case, without exception; ② what stands out of the water halves in turn — Sumeru stands out of the water eighty thousand as well, while of the other eight, beginning from Upholding the Pair, the first stands out forty thousand and then each successive one is halved: forty thousand, twenty thousand, ten thousand, five thousand, two thousand five hundred, one thousand two hundred and fifty, six hundred and twenty-five, and at the Iron Circle Mountain exactly three hundred and twelve and a half; ③ breadth equals what stands out of the water — the breadth across of each mountain is exactly equal to its own measure standing out of the water. The easy error is to take “sunk in the water” as halving too. It does not — only what stands out of the water halves; what is sunk is a constant. In practice: these three rules together fix the shape of the nine mountains completely: what is sunk is equally deep, what stands out grows lower by half with each mountain, and however high it stands out, so wide it is; and taking the last item, three hundred and twelve and a half, and working backward, seven halvings restore exactly forty thousand — this is the method by which the two ends verify each other.

III. The Eight Seas and the Water Possessed of Eight Qualities

〔3.1〕How the eight seas are reckoned. Between the nine mountains there are eight seas, “with the Sublime and Lofty first and the Circle Mountain last, and eight seas in between, of which the first seven are called inner.” The innermost is eighty thousand broad and three times as much on each of the four sides (two hundred thousand and forty thousand on each); the remaining six are each narrower than the one before by half, the second forty thousand and so on to the seventh, one thousand two hundred and fifty. The eighth is the outer sea, filled to the brim with salt water, three hundred thousand and twenty-two thousand broad.

First ask: why do the seven inner seas decrease by half and half while the outer sea is on the contrary especially large? Because the seven inner seas are wedged between mountain and mountain, and since the mountains are each lower and narrower than the one before by half, the seas decrease along with them; whereas the outer sea lies between the last golden mountain and the Iron Circle, and that is the broad expanse of water where the four great continents are. The treatise also states one thing honestly: it does not list the circumferences of the seven inner seas, “because they would be too cumbersome” — not that it does not know them, but that it finds them tedious.

The easy error is to think the eight seas are eight lakes side by side. They are eight rings of water. In practice: this passage is the first time in the whole fascicle that the reckoning “decreasing by half and half” appears, and the sideways projection of the four terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and the increase of the bodily measures of the gods later on all use the same manner of geometric reckoning; get familiar with it here first.

〔3.2〕The water possessed of eight qualities, and another set of eight items from a different sūtra. The water of the seven inner seas is 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 drunk, eighth not harming the belly once drunk.” The eight items are plainly numbered, the first six stating the properties of the water and the last two the results of drinking it.

First ask: is this set of eight the only one? Puguang’s Record here adduces the Sūtra in Praise of the Pure Land, which sets up another set of eight items — “first limpid, second clean, third sweet-tasting, fourth light and soft,” and so on — and the two only partly overlap. Puguang records both sets together and passes no verdict of better or worse. The easy error is to think that numbered categories bearing the same name in Buddhist texts must agree item by item, and so, on meeting a disagreement, to hurry to reconcile them. In practice: when numbered categories share a name but differ in their items, it is often because the sūtra or treatise they rest upon is different; in reading, to ask first “which text does this set come from?” is more useful than hurrying to harmonize them.

IV. The Four Great Continents and the Eight Intermediate Continents

〔4.1〕The shapes of the four continents are the faces of the people of the four continents. Within the outer sea there are four great continents, facing the four sides of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain. Jambudvīpa in the south is “broad on the north and narrow on the south, its three sides equal in measure, its form like a chariot”; the continent of Videha in the east is “narrow on the east and broad on the west,” shaped like a half-moon; the continent of Godānīya in the west is “round like a full moon”; Uttarakuru in the north is “shaped like a square seat, its four sides equal in measure.” The treatise even explains one word, “equal,” in the stanza — “the word ‘equal’ is to make plain that there is no least increase or decrease.” Most interesting of all is the sentence that closes the passage: “according as the continent has its shape, so likewise the faces of its people.”

First ask: why should the shape of a continent have anything to do with people’s faces? Because within the framework of this treatise the outer receptacle and sentient beings issue from one and the same shared action, and so their characteristics correspond to one another and are not a coincidence. The easy error is to take this sentence for an amusing aside. It is in fact a small piece of evidence on that main axis, “the dominant force of action” — the receptacle and sentient beings are not two independent sets of things. In practice: the discussions of bodily measure and lifespan later on are extensions of this same line: in which continent one dwells determines one’s bodily measure and lifespan accordingly.

〔4.2〕Why the vajra seat is in the southern continent alone. “In this continent alone is there the vajra seat, which reaches up to the surface of the ground and rests down upon the golden circle,” and all bodhisattvas, when about to ascend to perfect awakening, sit here and arouse the “vajra-like concentration.” The reason the treatise gives is exceedingly terse: apart from this there is no other support and no other place possessed of firmness enough “to have the power to bear this.”

First ask: why should becoming a buddha require the choosing of a place? It is not a choosing of geomantic fortune but a question of bearing capacity — that last moment of concentration is too great in force, and only a piece of ground that reaches straight down to the golden circle can bear it. The easy error is to read it as making Jambudvīpa “nobler” than the other three continents. What the treatise speaks of is bearing capacity, not rank; and the text below on the contrary says everywhere that the people of Jambudvīpa have the least fixed lifespan and the smallest bodily measure. In practice: this sentence is one of the rare places in the whole fascicle that lands directly upon practice and realization — the description of the receptacle world is here joined to the “vajra-like concentration,” and when one reads later in the chapter on the worthy and the noble about the end of cutting off the afflictions, one may look back to this place.

〔4.3〕The eight intermediate continents and one small divergent account. On either flank of each of the four great continents there are two intermediate continents, eight in all, and the treatise names them one by one. Puguang’s Record leaves us the sound and sense of them: “Cāmara means here Cat-Ox. Varacāmara means here Excellent Cat-Ox.” The treatise says, “all these continents are inhabited by human beings,” and at once records a divergent account — “there is an account: one alone is inhabited by rākṣasas.”

First ask: why is this one divergent account worth keeping? Because upon a geographical detail that looks of no importance whatever, it demonstrates the standing practice of the treatise: wherever there are two accounts and the scriptures have no express text, both are recorded. The easy error is to read “there is an account” as the author’s own supplement. It is another school’s account, which the author records without adjudicating. In practice: in this fascicle “there is an account,” “some other masters say,” and “some other school says” occur more than ten times, and all are to be viewed in this way — first distinguish which sentence is the treatise’s own position and which is a separate account it records; without this step the disputes of the three commentaries below cannot be read at all.

〔4 appended〕The measures of the sides of the four continents: besides shape there are numbers. The shapes of the four continents (chariot box, half-moon, full moon, square seat) are only half of it; the treatise also gives the measures of the sides continent by continent. Of Jambudvīpa in the south, “the south side is only three and a half yojanas broad, and the three sides are two thousand each,” while for the other three continents it says “the east three hundred and fifty, and the 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 measure, each face two thousand.” First ask: how are these several sets of figures to be read? The southern and the eastern continents belong to the same type, “three sides two thousand each and one side alone short,” and differ only in that short side: three and a half yojanas in the south, three hundred and fifty in the east; the western continent is round, and so instead of sides it gives diameter and circumference (diameter two thousand five hundred, circumference seven thousand five hundred, still circumference equals diameter times three); the northern continent has four equal sides, and so one phrase, “each face two thousand,” exhausts it. The easy error is to take the southern continent’s “three and a half yojanas” and the eastern continent’s “three hundred and fifty” for quantities of the same order — they differ a hundredfold, and this is exactly why the southern continent is shaped like a chariot box (one end extremely narrow) while the eastern continent is shaped like a half-moon (one end still broad). In practice: shape and measure must be read together — shape is the outline, measure is the dimension; remember only the shapes and the four continents run together, remember only the measures and one does not know how they look.

V. The Black Mountains, the Snow Mountain, the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance, and the Lake Without Heat

〔5.1〕How the nine black mountains are counted out. “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, together making exactly the “nine black mountains to the north of this” of which the stanza speaks. North of the black mountains is the Great Snow Mountain, and north of the Snow Mountain the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance. Puguang’s Record explains the name Intoxicating Fragrance: “the Mountain of Intoxicating Fragrance means that within this mountain there are fragrances whose smell intoxicates a man, and so it is named Intoxicating Fragrance.”

First ask: where does this number nine come from? It is simply three times three. This deserves particular note, because the Taishō canon has a variant reading on exactly that graph “three” in “three places each having three ranges of black mountains”: the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace editions all read “five.” If the four editions were followed, three places with five ranges each would make fifteen, which does not answer to the “nine” of the stanza. Textually the two readings stand side by side, and this collection records without adjudicating; but a reader should at least know that the base text’s reading is self-consistent with the stanza.

The easy error is to regard a collation variant as a trifle of no consequence. Some variant graphs truly are of no consequence (such as the graph for a staff against the graph for arms); some, however, bear directly upon the reckoning. In practice: when the numbers in the stanza and in the prose commentary do not agree, first check whether the graph in question has a variant reading — this is the old method of the ancient masters in collating their reading.

〔5.2〕Lake Without Heat and the four great rivers. North of the Snow Mountain and south of the Fragrance Mountain is a great lake named Without Heat and Torment, fifty yojanas each way, filled to the brim with water possessed of the eight qualities, and “none but a person who has attained the supernormal powers has any way of reaching it”; and out of it flow four great rivers — the Gaṅgā, the Sindhu, the Sītā, and the Vakṣu. At the edge of the lake is a Jambu grove, “the trees tall of form and the fruit sweet to the taste,” and the name of the continent comes either from this grove or from this kind of fruit.

First ask: why should it be said of a lake that “none but one who has attained the supernormal powers can reach it”? This sentence pushes the Lake Without Heat out of “geography” and into “a place that cannot be reached” — it has a position on the map, but in experience it is not open. The easy error is to take all the place names of this fascicle uniformly for actual places that can be investigated. The treatise itself marks out the boundary right here. In practice: of the map of the world in this fascicle, some parts join on to human experience (the continents, the rivers, the sun and moon), while of some parts it is expressly said that only the supernormal powers can reach them or only the force of action can enter them (the Lake Without Heat, the gods, the hells) — to keep these two classes apart in reading is more accurate than taking the whole either as a factual record or as an allegory.

VI. The Establishing of the Hells: the Unremitting and the Seven Hot Ones

〔6.1〕Why the Unremitting is called the Unremitting. Going down from Jambudvīpa past twenty thousand there is “the great naraka Avīci,” twenty thousand each in depth and breadth, so that its floor is forty thousand yojanas away from us. As for the origin of the name, the treatise states it plainly: “because suffering is undergone therein without remission, unlike the remaining seven great narakas where the undergoing of suffering is not constant, it is named the Unremitting.” And it takes Equal Reviving for contrast — the sentient beings in the hell of Equal Reviving, after being hacked, pierced, ground, and pounded, “as soon as they meet a cool wind blowing upon them revive again as they were at first,” and are therefore named Equal Reviving; in Avīci there is no such breathing space.

First ask: does “Unremitting,” then, say that the suffering does not stop, or that there is no gap? What the treatise takes here is the former (suffering without remission). But Puguang’s Record adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle and supplies another account — “there is an account: the name Unremitting is established from there being no gap, for although the sentient beings are few their bodies are large” — that is, though the sentient beings are few they are vast of body, and there is no gap between them. Puguang further adduces the words of the adjudicators of the Mahāvibhāṣā as settling it: “the adjudication says: one should not put it in that way. Those born in the other hells are many, those born in the Unremitting are few.”

The easy error is to take the “Unremitting means no gap” that one commonly hears in later times for the position of this treatise. What the prose commentary of this treatise takes is “suffering without remission.” In practice: when a term has several glosses, first make out the one the treatise itself gives, and take the rest as collateral reference — this is the order in which a treatise is to be read, and it is also where the three commentaries stand when they dispute with one another.

〔6.2〕How the eight hells are arranged. “The seven narakas dwell piled one upon another above the Unremitting,” and from below upward they are Equal Reviving, the Black Rope, Massed Crushing, Howling, Great Howling, Burning Heat, and Extreme Heat, with the Unremitting lowest of all. The treatise at once records a divergent account — “there is an account: these seven are at the flank of the Unremitting.” Puguang’s Record adduces a third account besides: “there is an account: the Unremitting hell is at the center, and the remaining seven hells encircle it round about, as a village today encircles a great city.”

First ask: which of the three arrangements is right? The treatise passes no verdict, and Puguang too merely records them together. This is precisely the normal state of this fascicle. The easy error is to think that the spatial layout of the hells is a question of fact that must be settled. Within the practice of this treatise, wherever the scriptures have no express text, divergent accounts standing side by side do no harm to the sense — what is really settled is the correspondence of action and result, not the map. In practice: in reading the spatial descriptions of this fascicle, lay down the expectation that “it must be thus” and put the attention upon each point of “which action calls forth which result,” and the gain will be far greater.

VII. The Sixteen Increases: the Four Places outside the Gates of the Eight Hells

〔7.1〕First there is a stanza of scripture. The treatise here adduces a stanza spoken by the World-Honored One: “These eight narakas, I say, are exceedingly hard to pass beyond; the ground is made of hot iron, iron walls encircle it round about, on the four sides there are four gates, shut fast with leaves of iron.” This stanza is not a root stanza of the treatise but a stanza of scripture adduced as proof — the text just before it expressly marks it, “and so the Bhagavat spoke this stanza, saying.” It first fixes the general characteristics of the eight great hells: iron ground, iron walls, four gates with leaves of iron, and fierce fire blazing throughout.

First ask: since the prose commentary has already said it, why is the stanza still adduced? Because the institution of the sixteen Increases has to hang upon the “four gates” — one gate on each of the four sides, and four places outside each gate, make sixteen. The stanza establishes the four gates first, and only then can the prose commentary set them out one by one. The easy error is to confuse a quoted stanza with a root stanza. There are twenty-three stanza blocks in this fascicle, of which three are quoted stanzas (this stanza, the stanza of Dharmasubhūti, and the stanza on the fragrance of flowers), and the remaining twenty are root stanzas of the treatise. In practice: in reading this treatise, where one sees “the stanza says” it is a root stanza, and where one sees “spoke this stanza, saying,” “as that stanza says,” or “the Bhagavat said,” it is for the most part adduced as proof — and this one distinction bears upon the reckoning of the stanza count for the whole chapter.

〔7.2〕What each of the four Increases is. The first is the Increase of Hot Ashes, where the hot ashes are knee-deep: “when a sentient being walks there, 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, filled with a mire of corpses and dung, in which are many nyaṅkuṭa worms, “sharp as needles, their bodies white and their heads black,” which bore the skin, break the bone, and eat the marrow. The third is the Increase of Blades, containing three kinds — the Road of Sword Blades (blades laid edge upward to form a road), the Forest of Sword Leaves (sword blades for leaves, which the wind blows down), and the Forest of Iron Thorns (iron thorns sixteen finger-breadths long, piercing upward and downward); and though the three differ, “because the iron implements are the same, they are gathered as one Increase.” The fourth is the Increase of the Fierce River, filled with hot salt water, where beings float and sink, go against the current and with it, as sesame and rice are boiled in a great cauldron, while on the two banks hell warders holding knives and spears bar them and drive them back.

First ask: why are the three instruments of punishment gathered into one Increase while the fierce river stands alone? The reason the treatise gives is material — the first three are alike made of iron and so are gathered as one Increase; the fierce river is water, and moreover “this river is like a moat, while the first three are like a garden park,” so that their forms differ as well. The easy error is to take this passage merely as a description of horrors and to pass over that stated reason for the combining. It is the special skill of Abhidharma: wherever several things are gathered into one, the principle on which they are gathered must be stated. In practice: hereafter, wherever one meets “such and such dharmas are together established as one” (the five feelings gathered into three, the nine places established as three births amid pleasure), one must ask the same question — on what principle are they gathered?

〔7.3〕Why the word “Increase” is called Increase. The treatise explains its own name: “this is a place of being punished over and above, and hence it is called an Increase, because in the hell proper one has just been injured and then suffers injury again” — having undergone punishment once in the hell proper, one comes out of the gate and undergoes it again, suffering upon suffering, and hence the name Increase. The treatise also records another account — “there is an account: sentient beings undergo this suffering after coming out of the hell, and it is therefore called an Increase.” Puguang’s Record adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle for a further explanation: “or else within this one undergoes sufferings of every kind, the instruments of suffering being of many types, and it is therefore called an Increase.”

First ask: why is this one graph worth so much ink? Because it is a pure case of choosing a rendering — Paramārtha’s older translation renders this graph not as “Increase” but as “Park,” taking the image of a garden enclosure; Xuanzang renders it “Increase,” taking the successive addition of suffering. The referent is the same and the two translations look in wholly different directions (see Further Resonances). The easy error is to think that a difference of rendering is only a habit of wording. The images the two translations take here are, the one spatial, the other one of degree; and a reader who reads one version only will hardly notice that the original term could have had two faces. In practice: when one meets a key rendering in this treatise and a divergent translation is available for comparison, it is worth a glance at both — not to judge which is better, but to see the thickness of the word.

VIII. Whether the Hell Warders Are Sentient Beings, the Eight Cold Hells, and the Places of the Other Destinies

〔8.1〕A discussion born out of a discussion. The treatise marks it itself: “now here a discussion arises from the discussion. Are the hell warders sentient beings or not?” — this is an incidental discussion and not the main outline. One school says they are not sentient beings, the reason being “the force of the actions of sentient beings, like the wind at the forming of an aeon”; the wind at the forming of an aeon has no one blowing it either, and works all the same. The objector at once brings up the stanza of the Venerable Dharmasubhūti and asks in return: “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” — if someone becomes a warder of Yama after death, is that not a sentient being?

The answerer’s discrimination is very fine: King Yama sends rākṣasas to cast sentient beings into the hells, and those are called the warders of Yama and are real sentient beings; but those who carry out the punishments directly within the hells are not real sentient beings. That is to say, what the stanza speaks of and what is under dispute are not the same set at all. The other school says that they are sentient beings, and answers the two difficulties that follow upon this: where do their evil actions receive retribution — within the hells themselves; and why does the fire not burn them — “this is certainly because they are shut off by the force of action, or because they have called forth different great elements, and so are not burned.”

First ask: where does the crux of this dispute lie? In whether “those who inflict punishment within the hells” are an insentient operation produced by the force of action or a separate set of sentient beings undergoing retribution. Both accounts are recorded together. The easy error is to read the former school’s “not sentient” as “does not exist.” “Not sentient” says that it has no mind and consciousness, not that there is no such thing. In practice: this passage is the most typical instance of an incidental discussion in the fascicle — the author allows the question to branch off, and yet, having branched off, answers difficulty by difficulty and leaves nothing half done.

〔8.2〕Where the names of the eight cold hells come from. The hot hells are eight, and there are eight cold ones besides — Arbuda, Nirarbuda, Aṭaṭa, Hahava, Huhuva, Utpala, Padma, and Mahāpadma. The treatise gives one general principle of naming: “the sentient beings therein are oppressed by bitter cold, and their names are established according to the changes of body and of voice” — the names follow either the changes the freezing works upon the body or the cries of those frozen past uttering a whole syllable. Puguang’s Record makes each one concrete: “Arbuda means here Blister; bitter cold oppresses the body and the body blisters” · “Nirarbuda means here Burst Blister; bitter cold oppresses the body and the blisters of the body burst” · “in the next three the cold oppresses and strange sounds come from the mouth” · “Utpala means here Blue Lotus; bitter cold presses hard and the body changes and splits open like a blue lotus,” with Padma and Mahāpadma on the same pattern as red lotus and great red lotus.

First ask: why do the names of the cold hells sound like onomatopoeia? Because the middle three were named from sound in the first place. Puguang’s Record states the division of labor among this set of names most clearly — “the first two and the last three establish their names from the changes of body, the middle three from the changes of voice”: the first two and the last three follow the changes of bodily appearance, the middle three the strange sounds that come from the mouth when the cold presses. The easy error is to memorize the eight names as eight unrelated proper nouns. They are in fact a sequence of freezing injury running from shallow to deep: blistering, blisters bursting, being unable to utter a sound, the body splitting open. In practice: the names of numbered categories often carry their own sequence; once the sequence can be seen, there is no need to memorize by force.

〔8.3〕How a small continent can hold a great hell. The treatise sets a question: the area of Jambudvīpa is not large, “how then can what is below it hold the Unremitting and the rest?” The answer is exceedingly deft: “the continent is like a heap of piled grain, pointed above and wide below, and this is why the great sea grows narrower and deeper” — the continent is like a heap of piled grain, pointed above and wide below, and so the further down one goes the wider it becomes.

First ask: what weight does this question and answer carry? It demonstrates Abhidharma’s self-checking of its own system: wherever figures conflict with one another, a reconciliation must be given. The easy error is to take this for a merely geometrical piece of cleverness. It fixes at the same time the shape of the great sea (the deeper the narrower), the two being two faces of one and the same solid. In practice: in reading this fascicle, when figures seem to contradict, first assume that the author has already thought it through, and read on; for the most part a sentence will account for it.

〔8.4〕The solitary hells and the base places of the other two destinies. The sixteen hells are “called forth by the dominant action of all sentient beings” (shared action), while the solitary hells are “summoned each by a separate action” (separate action), dwelt in by many or by two or by one, with no fixed place — beside rivers and mountainsides and in the wilderness, underground, and in the sky. The base place of animals is the great sea, and “later they spread abroad to other places.” The base place of the ghosts is the realm of King Yama, five hundred yojanas beneath Jambudvīpa, and “from there they have spread by degrees and settled in other places”; among the ghosts there are also those “upright and majestic and possessed of great dignity, who enjoy every kind of wealth and pleasure in sovereign freedom like the gods,” and those “hungry and gaunt and ugly of countenance.”

First ask: why must base place and scattered dwelling be distinguished? In the passage on the hells the treatise expressly divides the two actions — “the sixteen hells discussed above are called forth by the dominant action of all sentient beings; the remaining solitary hells are summoned each by a separate action”; as for the base places and the spreading abroad of animals and ghosts, the treatise begins a new sentence and states their places directly, without matching them to shared and separate action. The easy error is to imagine the destiny of ghosts as uniformly hungry and ugly. The treatise says expressly that among the ghosts there are those of dignity and wealth and pleasure. In practice: the internal differences within the three evil destinies are very great, and this passage is one of the rare express texts on it in this treatise; when one reads in the chapter on action about separate actions calling forth separate results, one may look back and take this passage as a concrete instance.

IX. The Sun and Moon: Their Support, Their Size, and the Increase and Decrease of Day and Night

〔9.1〕Upon what the sun and moon rest. The treatise asks, “upon what do the sun, the moon, and the host of stars rest?” and answers, “they rest upon wind” — still the wind called forth by the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings, which turns around the Sublime and Lofty Mountain, “carrying and upholding the sun and the rest so that they neither stop nor fall.” Their height is level with the summit of Upholding the Pair, which is exactly half the height of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain. As for size: the sun fifty-one, the moon fifty, the smallest star one krośa and the largest sixteen yojanas. The underside of the sun’s disc is constituted of the fire-pearl and “can give heat and give light”; the underside of the moon’s disc is constituted of the water-pearl and “can give cold and give light.”

First ask: why should it be said expressly what jewel lies beneath the sun and moon? Because the source of their operation has to be accounted for — heat and cold are not abstract properties but are tied to the jewel of which they are constituted. And the treatise says at once that this operation is “produced according to the dominance of the actions of sentient beings,” working “benefit or harm, each as is fitting,” upon eyes, bodies, fruits, flowers, crops, and medicinal herbs. The easy error is to take this for pure astronomical description. The treatise’s landing point is “benefit and harm” — the operation of the sun and moon upon the myriad things of the world still lies within the framework of what action calls forth. In practice: wherever this fascicle speaks of a thing, it mostly goes on to speak of its operation upon sentient beings; grasp this thread and the numbers will not be read as a mere running account.

〔9.2〕How one sun and moon light four continents. The treatise asks: is what one day does the same at one time in the four continents? The answer is no. “When it is midnight in the northern continent the sun is setting in the eastern continent, at midday in the southern continent and rising in the western. These four times are equal” — these four moments occur at one and the same time, and each continent merely sees one of them.

First ask: what is the significance of this passage? It uses one sun and moon to explain four differences of time, which amounts to placing a self-consistent model of day and night within the Abhidharma framework. The easy error is to read “these four times are equal” as meaning that the time is the same in the four continents. “Equal” here says that these four moments correspond to one another (one and the same instant), not that the four continents all see midday. In practice: this is the sentence in the fascicle most easily read backward; a single graph misread turns the whole picture upside down.

〔9.3〕Why day and night grow long and short. “The sun’s course over this continent has its differences, and this 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 increases; from the ninth day of the latter half of the fourth month of the cold season the night gradually decreases; and the day is the opposite. Each increase or decrease is by one lava. The sun travels southward and northward, thereby making the night increase and the day increase in turn. As for why the moon has a gap, the treatise records two accounts: the Designations of the World says that the palace of the moon travels near the disc of the sun and is encroached upon and lit by the sunlight, so that “on its other side it puts forth a shadow that covers its own disc”; the masters of old say that it is “because the two discs of sun and moon differ in the degrees of their courses that fullness and gap appear.”

First ask: what is hardest in this passage? It is how the reckoning days of the three seasons (hot, rainy, cold) are to be matched when transposed to the calendar of the Chinese lands. The treatise gives only the three Indian seasons and gives no conversion. And it is precisely for this reason that this became the place where the three commentaries diverge most sharply (see Further Resonances). The easy error is to think that a calendar in the sūtras and treatises can be applied directly to Chinese months. In practice: whenever a detail crosses calendars, first make sure how far the text itself goes; what the text does not say has been supplied by the ancient masters severally, and may not be confused with what the treatise says.

X. The Four Terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings

〔10.1〕The two sets of figures for the four terraces. “Mount Sumeru has four terraces; reckoning from the water’s edge up to the first terrace, the distance is a measure of ten thousand yojanas,” and the distance between one terrace and the next is in every case ten thousand. The breadths by which they jut out sideways, however, decrease: sixteen thousand, eight thousand, four thousand, two thousand. These four terraces “jut out sideways from the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and encircle it, taking up the whole of its lower half” — they exactly fill the lower half of the portion of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain that stands out of the water (half of eighty thousand is forty thousand, and the four terraces are ten thousand each).

First ask: why must the figures be divided into two sets? Because one set speaks of the vertical intervals (all equal) and the other of the horizontal projection (decreasing by half and half). Read them mixed together and one is lost. The easy error is to read “jutting out sixteen thousand” as the height of the first terrace. It is a breadth. In practice: when this treatise speaks of measures it is its habit to state the vertical and the horizontal separately; ask first, “is this figure a height or a breadth?” and most confusions dissolve.

〔10.2〕Who dwells on which terrace. “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,” and all three belong to the four great heavenly kings; only the fourth terrace is inhabited by the four great heavenly kings together with their retinues, and “the sūtras on this ground speak of the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings.” More important still is the sentence that follows: upon the seven golden mountains too there are gods dwelling, fiefs belonging to the four great kings, “and this is called the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings that dwells in dependence on the ground”; and therefore “among the gods of desire the extent of this heaven is the widest.”

First ask: why is the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings the widest among the gods of desire? Because it occupies not only the fourth terrace of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain but also the fiefs upon the remaining seven golden mountains — the largest territory. The easy error is to think that the height of a heaven represents the size of its extent. The lowest heaven of all is on the contrary the widest. In practice: this sentence is a reminder for the later discussions of the increasing bodily measures and lifespans of the six heavens of desire — height of station and breadth of extent are two independent axes.

XI. The Heaven of the Thirty-Three and the City Fair to Behold

〔11.1〕The measure of the summit, and one instance of two figures standing side by side. “The Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwells on the summit of Meru; its summit is eighty thousand on each of its four sides, no different in measure from the four sides below” — the summit is eighty thousand a side, the same as the four sides at the foot of the mountain. The treatise at once records a divergent account: “some other masters say: it is eighty thousand in circumference, and they state separately that each of the four sides is only twenty thousand” — that is, that the eighty thousand is the circumference and that each side is only twenty thousand.

First ask: how great is the difference between these two figures? Very great: between eighty thousand a side and twenty thousand a side the area differs sixteenfold. The author takes the former and the other masters the latter, and both stand without adjudication. Puguang’s Record even supplies, on behalf of the other masters, the reckoning behind it, saying that that master means that the four terraces are formed “by cutting successively inward into the body of the mountain,” drawing in tier by tier, so that at the summit only twenty thousand a side is left. The easy error is to think that since the author has spoken, the divergent account need not be looked at. Here it is precisely the reverse — what the stanza text of Paramārtha’s older translation maintains is exactly twenty thousand a side (see Further Resonances), from which one may see that this divergent account is the position in another line of transmission. In practice: a dispute over a set of figures often involves a difference in the stanza text relied upon; when one reads “some other masters say” and the figures differ so widely, it is worth a second look.

〔11.2〕The layout of the city Fair to Behold. At each of the four corners there is a peak, five hundred in height and breadth, where the yakṣa god Vajra-Hand dwells and guards the gods. At the center of the summit is the city Fair to Behold, “two thousand five hundred on each side, ten thousand yojanas in circumference,” the golden wall a yojana and a half high, the ground “adorned with a hundred and one kinds of jewel,” soft to the touch “as tūla floss, rising and sinking with the foot when one treads upon it” — Puguang’s Record explains tūla floss: “tūla is the name of a tree, and the floss comes out of the fruit of the tree and is named tūla floss, as one says willow catkins.” Within the city is the Hall of Surpassing Excellence, “named Surpassing Excellence because it surpasses the other palaces of the gods.” Outside the city are four parks: Many Chariots, Coarse and Harsh, Mixed Groves, and the Grove of Joy. On the four sides of the four parks are four excellent pools, where “the gods vie with one another and take their pleasure.”

First ask: what is the point of each of the four parks’ names? The treatise only lists the names and does not explain their senses; Puguang’s Record fills this out from the Mahāvibhāṣā — “first, the Park of Many Chariots, meaning that in this park chariots of every kind appear according to the merit and power of the gods,” and the rest in order: armor and weapons appear in time of war; whatever is played with there is alike and yet all bring forth surpassing joy; the most excellent objects of desire of every different type gather there. The easy error is to read “Coarse and Harsh” as a bad place. It is where the gods practice arms, and so armor and weapons appear there. In practice: there are many places in this treatise where names are listed without their senses explained, and it is for just this that the ancient masters’ supplementary explanations were made; when one reads a list of bare names, it is worth looking for it in the commentaries.

〔11.3〕The Round-Growth Tree and a probing question about fragrance. Northeast of the city is the Round-Growth Tree, “the most excellent place where the Heaven of the Thirty-Three enjoy the pleasures of desire,” its coiling roots fifty yojanas deep and broad, its height and breadth a hundred each, its flower fragrance “perfuming a hundred yojanas with the wind, and when the wind is against it still extending over fifty.” The objector at once seizes upon it: with the wind, granted; “how can it perfume against the wind?” One school says that fragrance has of itself no sense of perfuming against the wind and that this is said only in dependence upon its “not passing beyond the bounds of the tree”; the author, however, establishes it head-on — “in truth of principle the Round-Growth has such a quality, and the fragrance that streams from it can perfume against the wind” — only that it is dammed back by the harmonious winds of the heavens, “growing weaker and subtler by degrees and stopping at no great distance,” and so cannot reach as far as when it perfumes with the wind. The treatise sets a further question: does the flower fragrance turn on with the wind to another place, or does it merely perfume the wind so that a fragrance arises separately? The answer: “this sense is not settled; the preceptors allow both gates without fault.”

First ask: of the two questions, which did the author answer and which did he not? To the first (whether it can perfume against the wind) the author gave a direct solution; to the second (how the fragrance is conveyed) he expressly allowed both gates. The easy error is to read the two questions together as “the author adjudicated neither.” In practice: to tell apart where the author gives his own solution and where he leaves two standing is the most basic skill in reading this treatise, and here both appear within a single passage, which makes it a good specimen. In passing: the graph “ten” in the “fifty yojanas” of the coiling roots is absent from all four of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace editions — if the four editions were followed there would be five yojanas only, a difference of tenfold. Textually the two readings stand side by side, and this collection records without adjudicating.

XII. Fragrance against the Wind: a Close Drawn from a Stanza of Scripture

〔12.1〕The World-Honored One’s words and the author’s sense of proportion. The objector produces a scriptural proof: “the fragrance of flowers cannot perfume against the wind, and the fragrance of roots and stems and the rest is likewise; the fragrance of a good man’s qualities is rich and pervading, and against the wind streams its fair name abroad through every quarter” — the World-Honored One plainly says that the fragrance of flowers cannot perfume against the wind, and yet the author says that the fragrance of the Round-Growth Tree can; is this not a contradiction? The author’s solution is to mark out a range: “this 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” — that sentence of the World-Honored One’s was said with respect to the fragrances of the human world, and the fragrances of the human world truly have no such capacity. And he adds one collateral proof: “a sūtra transmitted by the Mahīśāsakas says of this fragrance that with the wind it perfumes a hundred yojanas, and when there is no wind extends over fifty only.”

First ask: is this making excuses on the author’s behalf? It is not. It is the standard method of Abhidharma for handling a case where a scriptural text and a doctrinal sense appear to conflict — ask first what range that sentence of scripture rests upon, and once the range is divided the conflict resolves itself. The easy error is to think that wherever scripture is adduced it is a settled conclusion and the author may not establish anything else. The practice of this treatise is that scripture is settled, but one must see the capacity it addresses and the situation it rests upon. In practice: this move recurs again and again in the chapters that follow (wherever one meets a sentence of the form “this was said with respect to such and such”), and this is the specimen for the fascicle.

〔12.2〕The Hall of Good Dharma and the close of a section. 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.” With this the outer receptacle inhabited by the Heaven of the Thirty-Three is finished.

First ask: why should a council hall be recorded expressly? Because it stands in contrast to the four parks, the excellent pools, and the Round-Growth Tree above: those are places of sport and the enjoyment of pleasure, this one a place of deliberation. The easy error is to imagine the world of the gods uniformly as a place of enjoyment. The treatise expressly leaves this one stroke at the close. In practice: reading upward from the receptacle world, one finds that the author never writes the gods as a pure realm of pleasure — it is still within the desire realm, and there is still business to deliberate and Dharma and non-Dharma to be told apart.

XIII. Above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Palaces Dwell in Space

〔13.1〕The leap from “resting on the ground” to “resting on space.” “The gods possessed of form above this dwell in dependence upon palaces in space” — the palaces of the gods possessed of form above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three are all in space. Which count as the gods possessed of form above? “That is, the Yāma Heaven, the Tuṣita Heaven, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations, the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, together with the Brahmakāyika Heaven and the rest spoken of above, sixteen places; and with the foregoing there are twenty-two heavens in all, all dwelling in dependence upon an outer receptacle.”

First ask: where does this sentence draw its line? At the Heaven of the Thirty-Three — above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three all rest upon space. But this line can only be stated upward and cannot be inverted into “all below rest upon the ground”: those belonging to the four great kings are themselves divided into two classes. In the passage on the sun and moon the treatise asks first, “what sentient beings inhabit the palaces of the sun and the rest?” and answers, “the host of gods belonging to the four great heavenly kings,” and then divides them itself: “do these gods dwell only here? 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.” ⇒ Among those belonging to the four great kings, those in the palaces of the sun and moon and the rest dwell in space, while those on the terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and the like dwell on the ground; and the Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwells on the summit of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain and so belongs to those dwelling on the ground. The correct statement is therefore: above the Heaven of the Thirty-Three all rest upon space; the Heaven of the Thirty-Three and the ground-dwelling portion of those belonging to the four great kings occupy respectively the summit and the several terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain, while those belonging to the four great kings have besides a space-dwelling portion residing in the palaces of the sun and moon and the rest. The easy error is to read “possessed of form” as “having shape.” It is said in contrast to the formless realm — the gods of the form realm, though they rest upon space, still belong to those possessed of form. In practice: the figure twenty-two should be remembered: six heavens of the desire realm and sixteen places of the form realm make twenty-two; and when the text below speaks of “the twenty-two places of the gods, and what the measures are by which they are distant above and below,” it is this figure that is used.

〔13.2〕How space can bear the palaces up. The prose commentary of this treatise offers no explanation of this and only says that they dwell resting upon space. Puguang’s Record adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle for a supplementary account — “there is an account: in space dense clouds are spread out like ground, and serve as the support of those palaces” — taking the dense clouds for the support of the palaces.

First ask: since the treatise offers no explanation, why did the ancient master supply one? Because a reader is bound to have the doubt: space has nothing in it, so how can it hold a thing up? The supplementary explanation is meant to let the sense of the text run smoothly, not to alter the sense of the treatise. The easy error is to take this account for the position of this treatise. It is a supplementary account from the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, adduced by way of Puguang, and there is no such text in this treatise. In practice: in reading a commentary one must at every point tell apart which sentence is the treatise and which is supplied by the commentary; without this distinction, reading the treatise turns into reading the commentary.

XIV. The Manner of Sexual Union of the Six Heavens of Desire: Intercourse, Embracing, Holding Hands, Laughing, Looking

〔14.1〕The higher, the lighter. “Only the six heavens of desire undergo excellent objects of desire.” In the lowest two heavens, which dwell resting upon the ground, “sexual union is accomplished by the joining of bodies, no different from human beings,” 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.” Upward from these, in order: in the Yāma Heaven “a single embrace accomplishes it”; in the Tuṣita Heaven “merely by holding hands”; in the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations “only by laughing toward one another”; in the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations “gazing at one another accomplishes it.”

First ask: why does it grow lighter the higher one goes? The treatise gives the reason — “because the higher the gods, the more excellent the objects of desire and the swifter the greedy mind, it is made to be so.” The more excellent the object and the more swiftly the greedy mind stirs — on this explanation of the Vaibhāṣikas, what the differences among the names of the manner of sexual union in the six heavens display is that the length of time required to accomplish it grows shorter, not that the contact required grows less. The easy error is to read this passage as an ethnography of the world of the gods. Its landing point is the speed of the greedy mind: this is a ruler that measures the inner by the outer. In practice: this item is usable in practice — on this account, the more excellent the object the swifter the greedy mind, and the shorter the time required for one and the same thing, from which one may see that the force of greed grows fiercer the higher one goes, not thinner.

〔14.2〕Another school’s reading, and the children of the heavens. The Vaibhāṣikas have a further explanation: “all six heavens accomplish sexual union by the joining of bodies,” and what the Designations of the World says about embracing, holding hands, and the rest is meant only to display “the difference in the length of time for them” — that is, the length of time required to accomplish it, not a difference of act. The treatise records this too. As for where the sons and daughters of the heavens come from: “upon the knees of the male and female among those gods, boys and girls are suddenly born by transformation.”

First ask: where do the two explanations differ? The former says the acts differ; the latter says the acts are the same and the time differs. Both are recorded without adjudication. The easy error is to think that what the Vaibhāṣikas say must be what this treatise upholds. Here this treatise records without adjudicating. In practice: “the Vaibhāṣikas explain it thus” occurs only this once in the fascicle, and it may be read against the several occurrences of “there is an account” above — each alike a separate school’s account, and an instance of recording both.

XV. The Bodily Measure and the Speech of the Host of Gods at Their First Birth

〔15.1〕Six heavens hidden inside five graphs. The stanza has five graphs only: “at first like five up to ten.” The prose commentary of the treatise likewise says only, “the six heavens of desire, at their first birth, are in order like people of five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten years.” The two words “in order” are the key here — the six heavens correspond in order to six ages. Puguang’s Record spreads it all out: “the Heaven of the Four Kings like five years, the Heaven of the Thirty-Three like six years, the Yāma Heaven like seven years, the Tuṣita Heaven like eight years, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations like nine years, the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations like ten years.”

First ask: why must one rely upon the commentary to spread it out? Because the stanza is extremely economical and the prose commentary too gives only a string of numbers; and a reader who does not pair them one by one very easily reads the six numbers as a vague “somewhere between five and ten years old.” The easy error is precisely to read it as a range. It is six fixed values in one-to-one correspondence. In practice: wherever the words “in order” appear in this treatise, one must stop and make a one-to-one pairing; omit this step and many passages degenerate from “a precise table” into “a rough remark.”

〔15.2〕The gods of the form realm, and what all the gods have in common. “The host of gods of the form realm, at the time of their first birth, are complete and full in bodily measure and possessed of excellent garments” — the gods of the form realm are of adult measure at birth and naturally have garments, unlike the gods of desire who must grow up from a small child. It says further, “all the hosts of gods speak the noble speech, that is, their language is the same as that of Central India.”

First ask: why are the gods of the form realm full and clothed as soon as they are born? Because the form realm has already left the defilement of desire, and this treatise here takes the fact of “having garments” as an outward mark of freedom from desire. The easy error is to take “having garments” for a detail of decorum. It forms a pair with the manner of sexual union of the six heavens of desire in the preceding passage — the one a diminishing of the marks of desire, the other the completion of freedom from desire. In practice: in writing of the gods, this fascicle keeps throughout to the line of “the thickness and thinness of desire”; and if the narrative seems suddenly brief when one reaches the form realm, it is precisely because the marks of desire are here exhausted.

XVI. Three Kinds of Birth amid Desires and Three Kinds of Birth amid Pleasure

〔16.1〕The three kinds of birth amid desires: where the objects enjoyed come from. The treatise lists three classes: first, those who “delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire present before them” and turn in sovereign freedom, comprising the whole human destiny and the four heavens below; second, those who “delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire of their own transforming,” the fifth heaven alone, the Heaven of Delight in Working Transformations; third, those who “delight to undergo the several excellent objects of desire of others’ transforming,” the sixth, the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations. The distinction among the three is not in how much pleasure is received but in where the objects received come from — ready-made, transformed by oneself, transformed by another.

First ask: why are human beings and the first four heavens gathered into one class while the last two heavens each form a class of their own? The prose commentary of this treatise does not answer this question. Puguang adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā to supply it: “question: why are human beings and the hosts of the first four heavens together established as birth amid desires, while the hosts of the last two heavens are each established separately? Answer: the afflictions of human beings and of the first four heavens are coarse, those of the last two heavens subtle.” The easy error is to think the ground of the classification is the height of the objects. On what the Mahāvibhāṣā supplies, the ground is the coarseness or subtlety of the afflictions. In practice: a classification of numbered categories looks as though it speaks of objects, while in fact it very often speaks of mind; to ask, “is this set divided by object or by mind?” often lays bare the skeleton of a table.

〔16.2〕The three kinds of birth amid pleasure, and a question left hanging. “Within the three meditative absorptions, in nine places, one is born and receives three kinds of pleasure” — the joy and pleasure born of seclusion of the first meditative absorption, the joy and pleasure born of absorption of the second, and the pleasure alone, separated from joy, of the third; and therefore “abiding long, long separated from suffering, and long receiving pleasure, it is named birth amid pleasure.” The fourth meditative absorption is not in the list, because pleasure has there been relinquished.

The treatise then sets itself a question and does not answer it: “those born in the intermediate absorption have no joy or pleasure at all; it should be pondered why they too are called a heaven of birth amid pleasure” — since the intermediate absorption (where the great Brahmā dwells) has no joy or pleasure, why is it counted a heaven of birth amid pleasure? The treatise writes only the two words “should be pondered.” Puguang’s Record adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to supply an explanation: “since the great Brahmā does have joy and pleasure occurring, there is no fault in naming it a heaven of birth amid pleasure.”

First ask: why does the author leave a “should be pondered” here? This is a manner of writing common in this treatise — where the question stands but no settled conclusion is secure, he would rather mark the doubt than force a conclusion. The easy error is to read “should be pondered” as an omission or oversight of the author’s. It is an express mark of doubt. In practice: when one reads such expressions as “it should be pondered,” “this sense is not settled,” and “both gates are allowed without fault,” they are to be taken as signposts and not as gaps — those are precisely the places the author has himself marked as not yet brought to a close. In passing: the graph “born” in the “joy and pleasure born of seclusion” of this passage is absent from all four of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace editions; and if this graph drops out, the name of the pleasure of the first meditative absorption becomes confused with the “pleasure separated from joy” of the third. Textually the two readings stand side by side, and this collection records without adjudicating.

XVII. The Distance Upward Equals the Distance Downward

〔17.1〕A labor-saving reckoning. The measure in yojanas by which the twenty-two heavens are distant from one another above and below is “not easily counted,” and so the treatise gives one general rule: “according as one reckons from whichever heaven its measure of distance from the sea below, what it reaches upward is the same as its distance downward” — the distance from any heaven upward to the next equals its distance downward to the great sea. For example: the fourth terrace where the four great heavenly kings dwell is forty thousand from the great sea below, and so from there upward to the Heaven of the Thirty-Three is likewise forty thousand; from the Heaven of the Thirty-Three upward to the Yāma Heaven equals the measure of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three downward to the great sea; and so on, up to the Sudarśana Heaven and from there upward to the Akaniṣṭha Heaven.

First ask: what is the advantage of this rule? It dispenses with all twenty-two figures of distance: one need only know how far each heaven is from the sea, and the distance upward follows automatically. This is a structure of geometric doubling — with each heaven upward, the height above the sea exactly doubles. The easy error is to read “so likewise is its number upward” as meaning that the distances above and below are all equal (a fixed value). It is not a fixed value; each is equal to its own measure downward, so that in fact it doubles heaven by heaven. In practice: there are not a few places in this treatise where one sentence takes the place of a whole table; on meeting such a general rule, it is best to work out two or three heavens with one’s own hand and confirm that one has read the rule correctly.

〔17.2〕The highest heaven and its second name. “From this point upward there is no further place of dwelling; this place is the highest and is named the Akaniṣṭha.” The treatise at once records a divergent account: “some other masters say: it is named the Heaven of the Limit of Resistance,” and explains the ground of that naming — “by resistance they mean form as accumulated, and since resistance is exhausted upon reaching here, it obtains the name limit” — that is, that resistant form is exhausted at this point.

First ask: where do the two names differ? “Limit of form” is said with respect to form, “limit of resistance” with respect to resistance. Both accounts are recorded together. The easy error is to take the two names for two different heavens. They are two names of one and the same heaven. In practice: where one name has two designations in this treatise, each mostly rests upon a different sense; to ask clearly what sense each rests upon is more useful than remembering which is the “proper name.”

XVIII. Ascending and Seeing: An Iron Rule of Realms and Levels

〔18.1〕Ascending requires supernormal power or another’s power; those who arrive at the same place can see, but across realms and levels one cannot. “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 above may convey them to the Yāma Heaven” — for ascending there is either one’s own supernormal power or conveyance by another’s power, and apart from these two there is no third road. As for “seeing,” the order of the treatise is: “the ascending of the remaining gods is on this same pattern; whether one comes down or one arrives, those below see the god above. Yet the eye below cannot see an upper realm or upper level, because that is not its object field” — when a god above comes down, or a god below ascends to his place, one who is at the same place gets to see the god above; what is forbidden is that an eye of a lower realm and lower level should take the form of an upper realm and upper level. The two sentences must be read together, and one may not take the latter half alone and say “even if one goes up one cannot see.” The treatise takes the tangible for an analogy: “just as one does not feel the tangible object of that upper realm” — the tangible object of the upper realm cannot be felt by the lower either. Therefore when a god of an upper level comes to a lower level, “he does not come in his own body but must make a transformation body of the lower level.”

First ask: are “being able to ascend” and “being able to see” one and the same thing? They are not. The treatise divides two matters: ascending requires supernormal power or another’s power; as for seeing, if a god above comes down or a god below arrives above, one at the same place gets to see him, while an eye of a lower realm and lower level can never see the form of an upper realm and upper level. On this the treatise gives one reason only — “because that is not its object field”: the object field of an eye of a lower level extends just so far, and changing realm and level changes the whole set of faculty and object. As for the reason from action and result, “the eye faculty of a lower level does not see the form above, because it is a result called forth by lowly action,” that comes from Saṅghabhadra; see Further Resonances. The easy error is to read this item as meaning that the distance is too great to see. It has nothing to do with distance; the object fields do not reach one another. In practice: this item is a fundamental premise for reading of the divine eye later on and of affiliation to realms and levels — the affiliation of faculty and object is determined by action, not by space.

〔18.2〕A separate school’s account that has been recorded. At the end of this passage the treatise records: “some other school 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 realm can see the gods above from below” — the separate school maintains that the gods of a lower level can see the form of an upper level whenever they wish. This treatise merely records it and adds no critique.

First ask: why does the author record without refuting? This is the standing practice of this treatise. But it is worth noting that Saṅghabhadra, in the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, refutes this very sentence head-on, and that Puguang has drawn that refutation in as well (see Further Resonances). The easy error is to take the refutation adduced by Puguang for the sense of this treatise. This treatise here takes the posture of recording. In practice: one and the same statement of another school is in this treatise “recorded,” in Saṅghabhadra “refuted,” and in Puguang “a refutation adduced” — three different layers, and in reading each must be returned to its own place.

〔18.3〕The measure of the supports of the heavenly palaces: four accounts side by side. The treatise goes on to ask how large the supports of the palaces of the Yāma Heaven and the rest are, and records four schools: one says the measure is the same as the summit of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain; one says “each upward doubles the one before”; one says the first meditative absorption equals one set of four continents, the second a small thousand, the third a middling thousand, the fourth a great thousand; and yet another says the three lower meditative absorptions equal in order a small, a middling, and a great thousand, while the fourth meditative absorption is “without limit in measure.”

First ask: with four accounts listed side by side, which does the author take? Here he takes none. The easy error is to think that listing them side by side must imply a tacit approval. In practice: by this point in the fascicle, “some other masters say” has become a common sight; and a count will show that this is a fascicle of extremely high density of divergent accounts within the whole treatise — because for most of the details of the receptacle world the scriptures have no express text. And this is exactly why the next section must establish the measure of the three-thousandfold great thousand: however many the divergent accounts, the definition of the total must be fixed first.

XIX. The Small Thousand, the Middling Thousand, and the Great Thousand

〔19.1〕Three thousands piled up. “A thousand sets of four great continents and so on up to the Brahmā world, thus stated together, are one small thousand; a thousandfold of the small thousand is named one middling-thousand world; a thousand middling-thousand worlds are named together one great thousand.” One small thousand contains a thousand sets of four great continents, sun and moon, Sumeru, gods of desire, and Brahmā worlds; a thousand small thousands are a middling thousand; a thousand middling thousands are a great thousand. So the great thousand is a thousand to the third power of worlds, and this is where the name “three-thousandfold great-thousand world-sphere” comes from — not three thousand of them, but three tiers of thousands.

First ask: why is this name the most easily misread of all? Because in Chinese “three thousand” looks like a plain number. It is in fact an abbreviation for “three kinds of thousand.” The easy error is precisely to read the three thousand as a number. In practice: this is one of the most frequently misread terms in the Buddhist texts; once it is understood to be a threefold power, the sense of scale in the scriptures’ “three-thousandfold great-thousand world-sphere” comes home.

〔19.2〕Coming into being together and being dissolved together, and one boundary. The treatise says, “such a great thousand comes into being together and is dissolved together,” and gives notice that “the characteristics of coming into being and being dissolved together will be analyzed at length below” — that is the business of the section on the measure of aeons in the next fascicle. As for the boundary of the small thousand, the prose commentary of this treatise goes only as far as the Brahmā world; Puguang adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to make the boundary plain: “here the small thousand adduces the Brahmā world only, and so the Parīttābha and the rest are not included in the small-thousand world” — the Parīttābha Heaven and above are not reckoned within the small thousand.

First ask: why ask after this boundary? Because if it is not fixed, one does not know up to which heaven “one world” extends. The easy error is to think the small thousand contains the whole form realm. On the account supplied, it goes only as far as the Brahmā world (the first meditative absorption). In practice: the unit by which the three-thousandfold great thousand is counted is “one set of four great continents together with the gods above it up to the Brahmā world”; get this unit clear and one will not misplace the tier when the range of what a catastrophe of the aeon destroys is discussed later.

XX. Bodily Measure: from Three and a Half Cubits to Sixteen Thousand

〔20.1〕The bodily measures of the people of the four continents increase by a doubling each time. The people of Jambudvīpa are “for the most part three and a half cubits tall,” a few reaching four cubits; the continent of Videha in the east is eight cubits, the continent of Godānīya in the west sixteen cubits, Uttarakuru in the north thirty-two cubits — from the eastern continent onward each continent doubles.

First ask: why are two figures given for the measure of the people of Jambudvīpa (three and a half cubits and four cubits) while the other continents are given only one? Because Jambudvīpa is the continent least fixed in both lifespan and bodily measure, as the passage on lifespan in the next section says more plainly. The easy error is to read the bodily measures of the four continents as one continuous increasing line (three and a half cubits, seven, fourteen . . .). The doubling begins from the eight cubits of the eastern continent, and Jambudvīpa forms a class of its own. In practice: wherever this treatise gives two figures that do not fit the geometric run, it is usually marking “this item is not fixed” — which is more useful than remembering the figures themselves.

〔20.2〕The bodily measures of the gods: two units and two reckonings. The six heavens of the desire realm take the krośa as their unit, the lowest being a quarter of a krośa, and “thereafter each successive one adds a portion,” until the sixth is a krośa and a half — this is a constant difference (each heaven adding a quarter). The form realm takes the yojana as its unit: the Brahmakāyika half, the Brahmapurohita one, the Mahābrahmā one and a half, the Parīttābha two, the first four heavens each adding a half (still a constant difference); “above these all the remaining gods increase by doubling,” which changes to a constant ratio. And within the geometric run there is one exception — “only the Anabhraka subtracts three yojanas,” the Apramāṇābha increasing from twice to four, and so doubling on until at the Akaniṣṭha Heaven it exactly “reaches a full sixteen thousand.”

First ask: why must three be subtracted in the middle? The prose commentary of this treatise gives no reason and gives only the result. The three commentaries dispute most fiercely here (see Further Resonances). The easy error is to take the subtraction of three for a slip of the brush or a corruption in transmission. Puguang here lists several explanations side by side and settles on none, one of them saying, “a further explanation: three are subtracted in order to make the Akaniṣṭha Heaven sixteen thousand,” and after that another, “a further explanation: it is so by the nature of things” — the treatise itself gives no reason, and the ancient masters likewise keep several explanations side by side; see Further Resonances. In practice: when an exception suddenly appears in a run of regular values, verify the two ends once; an exception that makes the two ends match is usually there for the sake of closing the count. Fabao here supplies a further vivid point of reference, adducing the Mahāvibhāṣā: “as the bodily form obtained by the asura king Rāhu is vast in measure, like the bodily form obtained in the Akaniṣṭha, a measure of sixteen thousand and six yojanas” — the bodily measure of the asura king can be compared with the Akaniṣṭha Heaven.

XXI. Lifespan: the Day and Night of the Heavens Must Be Established First

〔21.1〕The lifespans of the four continents of the human world. “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 five hundred years, the people of the continent of Videha in the east two hundred and fifty years” — each of the three continents halving in turn, and moreover a “fixed lifespan.” Only “the people of Jambudvīpa in the south have no fixed limit of lifespan”: when the aeon has decreased to its last, ten years only; at the beginning of the aeon, “human life is beyond measure and cannot be reckoned by hundreds or thousands.”

First ask: is the “not fixed” of Jambudvīpa a defect or a distinctive feature? From the side of lifespan it is a defect; from the side of practice not necessarily — it is precisely this continent that has the vajra seat and in which buddhas appear. The treatise offers no comment here and merely records the fact. The easy error is to read “at the last ten, at the first beyond measure” as an increase from ten years to immeasurable. The direction is the reverse: at the beginning of the aeon it is immeasurable, and only after the aeon has decreased does it fall to ten years. In practice: of the four continents, three have fixed lifespans and one is not fixed. It should be noted that whether a lifespan is fixed and whether untimely death is possible are two axes — the treatise says expressly below that “in every place the lifespan admits of untimely death, save only Uttarakuru in the north, whose fixed lifespan is a thousand years,” so the western and eastern continents, though their lifespans are fixed, still admit of untimely death.

〔21.2〕Without establishing day and night first, the lifespans of the gods cannot be reckoned. The treatise says it very plainly: “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.” The method is to exchange years of the human world for one day and night of the heavens: fifty human years are one day and night of the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings, thirty days making a month and twelve months a year, and that heaven has a lifespan of five hundred years. Upward from there, one hundred, two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred, and one thousand six hundred human years are in order one day and night, and the lifespans are in order one thousand, two thousand, four thousand, eight thousand, and sixteen thousand years.

First ask: what kind of structure is this? It is a double doubling — the length of the day and night doubles and the number of years doubles too, so that the actual lifespan leaps upward fourfold. The easy error is to see only that string of figures, “their lifespan five hundred,” “their lifespan a thousand,” and to forget that the length of those “years” itself differs in each case. In practice: this is the passage in the fascicle most easily read lightly and most in need of pen and paper; work out the two doublings separately once, and the table of the lifespans of the six heavens of desire is really in hand.

〔21.3〕How day and night are divided where there is no sun or moon. The treatise sets itself a question: above Upholding the Pair there is no sun or moon, so how do those gods establish day and night and light? The answer gives four routes: “they establish day and night by the opening and closing of flowers, such as the kumuda and the padma,” or by the difference between the crying and the silence of the birds, or by the difference between the gods’ sleeping and waking; and as for light, “they accomplish outer light by means of the light of their own bodies.”

First ask: why must this question be asked? Because the passage just before used “day and night” as the unit for reckoning lifespan; and if the gods above had no day and night at all, the whole reckoning would come to nothing. So this question supplies the foundation of the reckoning. The easy error is to take it for a passage of local color. It is a necessary link in the argument. In practice: whenever Abhidharma establishes a reckoning it turns back to supply its premise — this is what most distinguishes it from ordinary narrative.

〔21.4〕The form realm and the formless realm: lifespan equals bodily measure. In 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,” and moreover “the length and shortness of their lifespan in aeons equals the number of their bodily measure” — a bodily measure of half a yojana means a lifespan of half an aeon, and a bodily measure of sixteen thousand a lifespan of sixteen thousand aeons. The four heavens of the formless realm, from below upward, are twenty thousand, forty thousand, sixty thousand, and eighty thousand aeons.

First ask: why should the lifespan of the form realm be tied to bodily measure? Because the form realm has no day and night to count and another ruler must be found; and this treatise takes the number of the bodily measure as the number of the aeons of lifespan, one table serving two uses. The easy error is to think there is a causal relation between bodily measure and lifespan. The treatise says only “the numbers are equal” — the figures are equal, not that one produces the other. In practice: in the study of the characteristics of dharmas, “the numbers are equal” and “it is the same as” are two different things; keep this layer clear and many tables of correspondence will not be read as causal.

〔21.5〕Which kind of aeon the “aeon” is. The treatise asks itself: the aeon spoken of above, is it an aeon of dissolution, of formation, an intermediate aeon, or a great aeon? The answer: “from the Parīttābha upward the whole of a great aeon is the aeon, and for the gods below it the half of a great aeon is the aeon” — from the Parīttābha Heaven upward a whole great aeon is used, and for the three heavens below half a great aeon. And it verifies this by the example of the great Brahmā king: the great Brahmā exceeds the Brahmapurohita Heaven in lifespan by an aeon and a half, and twenty intermediate aeons each for formation, abiding, and dissolution, sixty intermediate aeons in all, make an aeon and a half; so the “aeon” used by the three heavens below is forty intermediate aeons (the half of a great aeon).

First ask: why ask expressly “which kind of aeon”? Because the text has all along been saying “a lifespan of one aeon,” “a lifespan of half an aeon,” and if the kind of aeon is not fixed all the figures hang in the air. The easy error is to read “the great half” as “the greater part.” It is “the half of a great aeon.” In practice: this is the most tightly reckoned section in the fascicle, and the author makes the definition concrete by an example that can be verified (the great Brahmā’s aeon and a half) — whenever there is a dispute about a unit, finding an instance that can be verified is the most reliable method.

XXII. The Lifespans of the Evil Destinies: the Lifespan of a Heaven as One Day and Night of a Hell

〔22.1〕The correspondence of the six heavens of desire and the six hells. “The lifespans of the six heavens of desire, 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 their lifespans in order are likewise the same as those of the gods” — the five hundred years of the Heaven of the Multitude of the Four Great Kings are one day and night in the hell of Equal Reviving, and reckoning such days and nights into years, the hell of Equal Reviving has a lifespan of five hundred years. And so on to the sixteen thousand years of the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations, which are one day and night in the hell of Burning Heat, so that the hell of Burning Heat has a lifespan of sixteen thousand years.

First ask: why must this correspondence be established? Because the hells, like the heavens, have no sun or moon by which to count day and night, and so the lifespans of the gods are borrowed as a ruler. This is the same device as in the preceding section, used a second time. The easy error is to take “their lifespans in order are likewise the same as those of the gods” to mean that the lifespans of the hells and of the gods are equal. The figures are the same but the units are not — a “year” of the hells is far longer than a “year” of the gods. In practice: by this point the fascicle has used the reckoning of “changing the unit” three times, and the structure of all three is exactly the same; recognize the structure and the two remaining hells, Extreme Heat and the Unremitting, need not be reckoned again.

〔22.2〕The four that do not enter this table. The hell of Extreme Heat has a lifespan of half an intermediate aeon and the Unremitting hell of one intermediate aeon — these two are not converted from the lifespans of the gods but reckoned directly in aeons. The lifespan of animals is “for the most part without fixed limit,” the longest being one intermediate aeon, “that is, the great nāga kings such as Nanda and the rest”; and the treatise adduces the words of the World-Honored One as proof: “there are eight great nāgas, all of whom can abide for an aeon and can uphold the great earth.” Puguang fills out the names of these eight from the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower: “there are eight nāga kings: the nāga king Nanda, the nāga king Upananda, the nāga king Sāgara, the nāga king Vāsuki, the nāga king Takṣaka, the nāga king Anavatapta, the nāga king Manasvin, the nāga king Utpalaka.” Ghosts “take one human month as a day” and live five hundred years.

First ask: why do Extreme Heat and the Unremitting jump out of that table of correspondence? Because the heavens of desire are only six, and matching six hells uses them all up; the remaining two can only be established separately. The easy error is to think that the lifespans of the eight great hells form one continuous geometric run. The first six are converted, the last two directly stipulated. In practice: how to carry on once a table is used up is a common technical problem in Abhidharma; the method of this treatise is to change the unit and begin reckoning afresh, rather than force a fit.

〔22.3〕The lifespan of the cold hells: a simile of sesame. The lifespan of the cold hells cannot be reckoned by the foregoing method, and so “the World-Honored One committed it to a simile to display their lifespan”: twenty human khārī make one vāha of sesame in the land of Magadha, filled with sesame, and suppose a man took out one seed every hundred years; “such sesame would readily come to a time of exhaustion, whereas the lifespan of one born in Arbuda would be hard to exhaust.” The second is twenty times it, and thereafter “each successive one increases twentyfold,” and the lifespans of the eight cold hells are fixed by this. Fabao supplies a gloss for these two units of capacity: “khārī” is “the name of a vessel that holds one hu,” and “vāha” is “what is called here a chuan, holding twenty hu,” and he says that “the sesame chuan of the land of Magadha mostly holds twenty dan.”

First ask: why use a simile here instead of giving a figure? Because this number is so great that giving a figure would convey nothing; a simile on the contrary lets one take its measure. Moreover, the World-Honored One says only “hard to exhaust” and gives no fixed value — and since it is so for the first hell, and each successive one is twentyfold, the figures after eight need not be stated at all. The easy error is to take the sesame seed removed every hundred years for an actual method of reckoning the lifespan. It is a skillful means for displaying “hard to exhaust,” not a formula. In practice: that this treatise changes to simile at the extremes of measurement is a device worth remembering — when a number has passed beyond the range of what can be felt, a comparison is more honest than a figure.

XXIII. Untimely Death, and Those Who Do Not Die Untimely

〔23.1〕The two layers of “every place” and “particular sentient beings.” “In every place the lifespan admits of untimely death, save only Uttarakuru in the north, whose fixed lifespan is a thousand years” — apart from Uttarakuru, the lifespan in every place may be cut off midway. But the treatise at once adds the crucial layer: “this is said with respect to place and not with respect to particular sentient beings, for there are particular sentient beings who do not die untimely.”

First ask: where is this sentence added? It is added upon the distinction between “place” and “person.” With respect to place, apart from Uttarakuru all admit of untimely death; yet within the places that do admit of it, there are still particular individuals who will not die untimely. So these are two layers of judgment and not one. The easy error is to read “in every place there is untimely death” as “every single person may die untimely.” The treatise says expressly that it is not so. In practice: wherever this treatise says “in such and such a place it is thus,” one must ask, “is this said with respect to place or with respect to person?” — a distinction that recurs again and again in the discussions of destinies and of affiliation to realms below, and this is the clearest specimen of it.

〔23.2〕Who does not die untimely. What the treatise lists is: the “bodhisattva bound to one more birth” dwelling in the Tuṣita Heaven, 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 the mother who carries a bodhisattva in the womb and the mother who carries a wheel-turning monarch in the womb. The treatise sums up in a phrase: “these, each as is fitting, are all without untimely death.”

First ask: what do these several classes have in common? All of them are people who carry about them a matter that must be brought to completion — one who awaits buddhahood, one who awaits prediction, one who awaits a mission to be received, and even the mothers who carry such persons. Lifespan here is not a question of the length of retribution but of whether a task can be completed. Puguang glosses the first class: “that is, the bodhisattva bound to one more birth dwelling in the Tuṣita Heaven, who from beginningless time has been bound by many births and deaths, and is now bound by one birth only” — “bound to one more birth” means that only one birth of bondage remains, not that he is bound to some one birth.

The easy error is to read “bound to one more birth” in the negative sense of “bound by a single lifetime.” On Puguang’s gloss it means only one birth remaining, and is a mark of nearness to liberation. In practice: this fascicle speaks from the wind circle lowest down to the Akaniṣṭha highest up, from the shortest ten years to eighty thousand aeons, and after the numbers have been set out to their utmost it closes upon this one sentence — that some are not governed by this table, because they carry about them a matter not yet finished. With this the table of measures of the whole fascicle is given an exit.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

The foregoing is the sense of the text of this fascicle itself. Below, a separate section gathers four matters: the outlines and adjudications of the three commentaries and where they diverge, Saṅghabhadra’s refutations and supplements, the divergences of Paramārtha’s older translation, and coordinates for collateral reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only a different way of reading one and the same text. Both are recorded without adjudication, each returned to its own place.

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

A commentary that has left only a few words, and those in citations. The commentaries on this fascicle present a special case: Shentai’s Commentary is an incomplete text, the seven fascicles now extant belonging to the Chapter on the Elements, the Chapter on the Faculties, and the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble, while the Chapter on the World is wholly wanting; and so there is no verse-by-verse explanation of Shentai’s that can be attached to this fascicle. Yet the three commentaries expressly cite “Master Tai” (Fabao writing the graph differently) four times, and all that is cited falls precisely within the topics of this fascicle — the reckoning of the three seasons of day and night, and the number of aeons for Maitreya’s ascent and descent. This shows that Shentai’s commentary did once explain the Chapter on the World, only that this portion is no longer transmitted and a few words of it are visible only by way of others’ citations. The lacuna is marked as it stands, and text from other fascicles is not made to serve in its place.

How many explanations the word “Increase” has. The prose commentary of this treatise gives two accounts; Puguang analyzes out of them a third and independent one, “a third explanation says: there is an account that sentient beings, having come out of the hell, repeatedly undergo this suffering again, and it is therefore called an Increase,” and says, “this takes as Increase the repeated undergoing of suffering after coming out of the hell proper, and so differs from the second”; besides which he adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle for a further explanation. Fabao refutes this head-on: “weighing the sense of the treatise, there are only two explanations, not three. Some hold that there are three explanations, which is a mistake.” Yuanhui does not enter into this section. What the two commentaries dispute is into how many parts one and the same passage of the treatise should be cut. Both are recorded without adjudication.

The geography of the vajra seat and the capital of King Yama. Puguang adduces the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle: “straight down from the southern edge of this Jambudvīpa, past a measure of five hundred yojanas, there is the capital of King Yama, its length and breadth likewise,” and offers a reconciliation of his own: “on the evidence of this text it is plain that the vajra seat is toward the north, and the hells and the rest are below the capital and somewhat toward the south, so that they do not obstruct one another.” Fabao refutes him directly: “examining this explanation now, the matter is likely not so. The Unremitting hell is twenty thousand yojanas broad, and outside its four gates there are sixteen Increases; or it is said that seven hells encircle the Unremitting hell, and at their flank there are further the cold hells; so that even if they lie somewhat toward the south they still encroach beneath the vajra seat,” and he sets up an explanation of his own — that the dwellings of the human destiny and the abodes of the destiny of ghosts do not obstruct one another in the first place, and so neither do the hells and the vajra seat. The two commentaries explain differently while defending the same thing (both wishing to let the vajra seat and the hells coexist without obstruction). Both are recorded without adjudication.

Why the Anabhraka Heaven subtracts three. Puguang explains it as “from feeling that changes. It is difficult at first to cultivate the feeling that does not change, and so three are subtracted,” and gives two further explanations besides (to make the round sixteen thousand of the Akaniṣṭha; that it is so by the nature of things). Fabao judges this inverted: “this seems inverted. Since what is obtained is hard to fix, body and lifespan ought rather to be increased. It should be said: the feeling that changes below has the superior force of a mind of joyous desire, and by this it performs actions that call forth a superior lifespan and the rest; the feeling that does not change draws forth a mind of gladness that is inferior, and by this it performs actions that call forth a diminished lifespan and the rest” — the direction he establishes is exactly the reverse of Puguang’s. This is the most vivid instance in the fascicle of the three commentaries meeting head-on. Both are recorded without adjudication.

The reckoning of the three seasons of day and night: three masters and three ways of closing. This is the place of sharpest divergence in the fascicle, and the one that best displays the character of each of the three commentaries. Puguang adduces in detail the reckoning of Master Tai and the reckoning of Master Paramārtha, then raises a difficulty of his own, “objection: this too is contrary to principle. If it is said that on the ninth day of the seventh month the night begins to increase, on what time is this based?” and at the end sets up a reconciliation of his own: “the explanation now is this: in the countries of the West the three seasons of cold, heat, and rain are not fixed, and the three periods are established differently according to local custom. The bodhisattva Vasubandhu established the three seasons of the place where he composed the treatise.” Fabao adduces instead the oral teaching of Xuanzang himself — “the Tripiṭaka Master of the Tang takes the sixteenth day of the third month as the beginning of the rainy season, and takes the ninth day of the fifth month as the increase of the night, which likewise does not contradict the Mahāvibhāṣā” — and lists the reckoning of Master Tai alongside, and finally reconciles them on the ground that the cold and heat of the two lands differ, fixing his own reckoning: “explaining the Kośa now, the ninth day of the bright half of the second month of the rainy season is settled as the ninth day of the fifth month in this land.” Yuanhui lists the two schools and expressly declares that he passes no verdict: “of these two explanations above, Master Tai’s intent is that increase and decrease are spoken of after day and night are equal; Master Guang’s intent is that increase and decrease are spoken of after the day is longest. Each rests upon one sense; take or leave as you please. There are further many explanations, which cannot be set out in full.”

Three masters upon one and the same question: one sets up a new explanation of his own, one refers it to local custom, one expressly leaves both standing. Yuanhui’s sentence, “each rests upon one sense; take or leave as you please,” is especially to be noted — it is an ancient master’s own statement of the practice of “recording one sense and two schools together,” and not a rule laid down for him by later hands.

Puguang alone criticizes the reckoning of the divergent translation. At the conversion of capacity in the lifespan of the cold hells, Puguang directly judges Paramārtha’s reckoning to be wrong, what he criticizes being “twenty khārī make one vāha, and one vāha holds two hundred and fifty-six hu.” This is a commentary criticizing a divergent translation, not one commentary criticizing another; Fabao does not touch upon it here and instead supplies his own gloss of “khārī” and “vāha.” Both are recorded without adjudication.

One place where Fabao supplies alone and Puguang does not touch. On the question of the relative breadth and narrowness of the three circles, the prose commentary of this treatise does not discuss it and Puguang does not touch upon it either; Fabao audits it independently, first rejecting one error, “some hold that the twelve and more hundred thousand is the diameter of the great thousand. That does not correspond at all,” then adducing the several masters’ accounts given in the Mahāvibhāṣā, and finally setting down his own judgment: “examining the two accounts above, the former is the better. Since one and the same rainwater forms the water circle, what need is there within it to divide gold from water? And since the three circles rest upon one another, if the wind circle equals the great thousand, why should the water and gold be small?” Fabao’s character of independent criticism may be seen here.

The ancient masters’ own marks of doubt. Beneath this treatise’s sentence “some other school says,” Fabao states that he does not know: “the treatise from ‘some other school says’ to ‘as a chuan holds the grain’ relates the explanation of a divergent school. It is not known which school; it should be looked into” — not knowing which school this divergent account comes from, he expressly marks it for investigation. That the ancient masters marked their doubt where nothing was secure is also part of the practice, and is recorded as it stands.

Puguang’s stated criterion for handling a case where the Mahāvibhāṣā has not adjudicated. At the divergent account of the measure of the terraces of the Sublime and Lofty Mountain, Puguang says, “although the Mahāvibhāṣā has no adjudicator, since this treatise has no divergent account, this treatise is taken as correct” — where the Mahāvibhāṣā itself has not adjudicated, this treatise is taken as correct. This is Puguang’s own statement of his method of choice, and is not in the text of the treatise.

In which aeon Maitreya descends: three accounts set out without decision. Puguang adduces Master Tai’s account based on the Sūtra of the Establishing of the World (ascent in the ninth aeon of abiding, descent in the tenth), and records that Master Paramārtha likewise held this; then he adduces a divergent account from his own line of transmission, “but the Preceptor says: Śākyamuni appeared in the first aeon of the aeon of abiding. Within this aeon four buddhas have already appeared, from the Buddha Krakucchanda to the Buddha Śākyamuni. As for the Buddha Maitreya, he will descend in the second aeon of abiding” — so that Maitreya would descend in the next aeon of abiding. Puguang sets out three accounts and makes no final decision. This belongs to an appended discussion of calendrical reckoning; both are recorded without adjudication.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations and Supplementary Explanations

Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises name this chapter not “the chapter on the world” but “the chapter analyzing dependent origination”; his opening boundary reads, “thus has the world of sentient beings been analyzed; the receptacle world is now to be analyzed,” the same boundary as this fascicle.

Saṅghabhadra does not use the name “the Sūtra-master” to point at Vasubandhu in this fascicle — but this does not mean there is no dispute in it. Searching graph by graph for the marks of counter-refutation habitual to the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, the term “the Sūtra-master” has zero hits within the strict range of this fascicle; its one occurrence falls within the explanation belonging to the next fascicle (the ultimate atom, the syllable, the moment). Within the same range the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine likewise has zero hits. This is an honest negative proposition, but the only thing it can prove is this: Saṅghabhadra does not, in this fascicle, use the designation “the Sūtra-master” to point at Vasubandhu by name. From this one cannot infer that there is no dispute in the fascicle. In fact, when Saṅghabhadra reads through to the stanza on the characteristics of the four continents, he criticizes the wording of the root stanza clause by clause: since it has already said “exactly square, each face two thousand,” the sense is already displayed and the word “equal” is useless; and “round without a gap” and “exactly square” display each other and are likewise redundant; he holds that it should simply say “like a full moon” and “like a square seat.” The stanza at the same place in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine has already been altered to “the continent of Godānīya in the west, its characteristic like a full moon” and “the northern continent like a square seat.” ⇒ Zero hits for a designation is not the absence of criticism. For the wording and page anchors see section V of this unit’s apparatus. Here it is only recorded, and it is not adjudicated who is right.

The dispute over the hell warders: Saṅghabhadra changes the genre. This treatise sets out the two positions together in a form of question and answer and adduces Dharmasubhūti’s stanza as proof; Saṅghabhadra at the same place uses no question-and-answer form at all and does not adduce that stanza, but states it synthetically: “in the three, the Unremitting, Great Heat, and Burning Heat, there are no hell warders on guard within. In the three, Great Howling, Howling, and Massed Crushing, there are few hell warders, since the messengers of King Yama come and go from time to time to inspect them. All the rest are guarded by hell warders. Since hell warders of the differing classes, sentient and insentient, guard and punish the sentient beings that have offended, the fire does not burn them.” The corresponding passage of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine is nearly the same word for word. With the single phrase “hell warders of the differing classes, sentient and insentient,” Saṅghabhadra gathers in both classes and supplies a detail this treatise does not reach — which hells have warders and which do not. This is not a counter-refutation (Saṅghabhadra does not say this treatise is contrary to principle) but a difference of narrative genre. Puguang too has drawn in this passage of the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle to supply what this treatise leaves unstated. Both are recorded without adjudication.

A god below seeing above: what Saṅghabhadra refutes is a separate school, not the author. This treatise merely records “some other school says” without adding a critique; Saṅghabhadra refutes it head-on: “some other school says: as in the desire realm, whether going or coming, an eye below sees above, so likewise in the form realm, in the goings and comings among the several levels, even setting aside a transformation body of the lower level, an eye below also sees above. That account is contrary to principle, because among the several levels of the form realm cause and result are cut off from one another, and because one must be free from the defilement of a lower level in order to be born above. That the eye faculty of a lower level does not see the form above is because it is a result called forth by lowly action.” Puguang draws this refutation in and marks which school is refuted. The point is that what Saṅghabhadra refutes agrees with what this treatise does not adopt, only that this treatise records it while Saṅghabhadra argues it out. Both are recorded without adjudication.

Between the two treatises there is also a difference of fullness. The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine, after “he must make a transformation body below in order to be seen by those below,” goes straight on to the next question and has no passage “some other school says . . . that account is contrary to principle” — at the same place the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle has the refutation and the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine does not. This is a difference between the two treatises themselves and not one between Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra, and it is recorded as such.

Saṅghabhadra supplies at the head of the fascicle a passage on the background of dissolution and formation. This treatise speaks at the outset of the arising of the wind circle; Saṅghabhadra first accounts for why there is an arising of the wind circle at all: “this hundred koṭi of four-continent realms is established thus, and is dissolved together and formed together. That is, since sentient beings by the nature of things cultivate and obtain the meditative absorptions, when their lives end below they are born in the levels of the second absorption and the rest; the receptacle world below is destroyed by the three catastrophes, and after a long time, resting in the space below, by the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings a slight wind arises, which grows greater and greater and coils into a circle, its entity firm and dense.” This is a taking up and not a counter-refutation, and belongs to an expansion in the fullness of the prose commentary. If a reader would ask “where did the previous world go?”, this passage is the material for collateral reading.

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury forms a line of its own in the passage corresponding to this fascicle. The first thing to know is that the opening boundary sentence of this fascicle reads in Paramārtha’s version, “the world-sphere of living beings having been stated, the receptacle world-sphere is now to be stated” — throughout he writes “receptacle world-sphere” and not “receptacle world.” Searching Paramārtha’s version with Xuanzang’s words, this boundary will never be found; comparison across versions can be made only by the structure of the scene. The two versions also differ in the number of fascicles: Paramārtha divides the chapter on the world into four fascicles and Xuanzang into five, and the passage answering to this fascicle straddles two of Paramārtha’s.

The renderings form a line of their own. Sumeru is written Xumilou, yojana youxun, lakṣa luosha, Jambudvīpa the Yanfu Continent, Avīci Apizhi, Uttarakuru North Jiulou, Equal Reviving Renewed Life, Tuṣita Doushuaiduo; the transcriptions of the nine mountains and the four rivers are all different. In point of practice, Xuanzang writes “the stanza says / the treatise says” and brings out the whole stanza first, while Paramārtha writes “the verse says / the explanation says” and embeds his explanation clause by clause among the lines of verse.

Two instances that best display the parting of the ways in method of translation. The first is the sixteen “Increases” — Paramārtha writes sixteen “Parks.” Xuanzang takes the successive addition of suffering, Paramārtha the image of a garden enclosure: the same referent, and wholly different in what they look to. The second is a personal name: that Venerable who spoke the stanza on the warders of Yama is written by Xuanzang as Dharmasubhūti, half rendered by sense and half transcribed, and by Paramārtha as Damo-xubudi, wholly transcribed; and the graphs of the stanza itself differ too, Xuanzang writing “who sees the suffering of others and rejoices at it” and Paramārtha “who sees the suffering of others and takes pleasure in it.” Of the same type is a school’s name: Xuanzang writes the Mahīśāsakas with a sense-rendering and Paramārtha with a transcription. In passing, the condition to which the two versions attach the clause differs here as well: Xuanzang writes “when there is no wind,” Paramārtha “perfumes fifty youxun against the wind.” Both are recorded without adjudication.

One set of figures with principal and secondary exactly reversed. As to the measure of the summit of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, Xuanzang’s stanza text maintains eighty thousand a side and gives “each of the four sides is only twenty thousand” as the account of other masters; Paramārtha’s verse text maintains “the Thirty-Three dwell on the summit, its length and breadth twenty thousand” (twenty thousand a side) and gives “each side eighty thousand youxun” as an account of other masters, and adds yet another master who affirms twenty thousand a side and eighty thousand in circumference. With one and the same set of figures, the “position” and the “account of other masters” are exactly interchanged between the two versions. This is not a difference of rendering but a difference in the variant readings of the stanza text each version received, each translator being faithful to what he had. Both are recorded without adjudication.

One instance of a difference of grouping. Among those listed at the end of the passage on untimely death as not dying untimely, both versions list two first items: Xuanzang “the bodhisattva bound to one more birth” and “one in his last existence,” Paramārtha “the bodhisattva who fills the place in one birth” and “the bodhisattva of the last birth” — the first items can be read against each other, while the range of the second is stated differently in the two versions. Whether these are two stages of one and the same bodhisattva or two classes of person, the two translations group differently, and both are recorded without adjudication.

The direction of fullness runs both ways. It cannot be said of this fascicle that one version is throughout the fuller: at the water possessed of the eight qualities Xuanzang sets out the eight items in full while Paramārtha states them summarily in a running phrase, whereas at the bodily measure at first birth Xuanzang has the five graphs “at first like five up to ten” while Paramārtha writes “like five years and so on, like ten years at first birth,” twice as many graphs. Fullness and brevity vary with the passage and have no fixed direction.

4. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

What this fascicle establishes is a map of the world without an architect. The arising of the wind circle, the forming of the jewels, the not falling of the sun and moon — all of these the treatise refers without exception to “the dominant force of the actions of sentient beings”: the receptacle world is not made by a single cause, nor upheld by an outer power, but is called forth by shared action alone. This proposition turns, in the Yogācāra line, into another kind of statement: the receptacle realm is what the seeds of common characteristics within consciousness transform into. One and the same question with answers from two generations is the most collateral-readable place in this fascicle.

The institution of the three-thousandfold great thousand (a thousand sets of four great continents up to the Brahmā world being a small thousand, and three tiers of multiplying by a thousand a great thousand) and the tables of the bodily measures and lifespans of the four continents have counterparts in the root treatise of the Yogācāra line that can be read against them word for word — so it is with the threefold multiplication by a thousand into small, middling, and great thousands, and so also with the method of establishing the day and night of the heavens by the years of the human world and deriving lifespans from them by degrees; as for the bodily measures of the four continents, both treatises present an increase continent by continent while stating the values differently, and this is recorded without adjudication. The numbers are the same while the doctrinal frameworks to which they are tied differ, and the two may be viewed side by side.

As for the “bound to one more birth” with which this fascicle closes, Paramārtha’s older translation has precisely “the bodhisattva who fills the place in one birth” — a difference of one name, and it is only recorded.

Before reading this fascicle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

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

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Counter-Refutation

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Divergences of Paramārtha’s Older Translation

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

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

4. Coordinates for Collateral Reading

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