百論 破情品第五

“Faculties” here means the five faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. The outsider establishes his thesis from what seems most undeniable: “Dharmas belonging to self determinately exist, because they are present before us.” Since present awareness certainly exists now, the faculties, objects, and mind that produce it must all really exist. The whole chapter addresses only this backward inference.

Temporal Order

Which comes first, seeing or awareness? If seeing comes first, then “once color has been seen, what use is arising awareness?” If awareness comes first, then “without seeing color, the causes and conditions are absent, and arising too is absent.” Change the claim to simultaneity, and it still cannot escape the difficulty “because existent, because nonexistent.” Moreover, “if they arise simultaneously, awareness does not await seeing, and seeing does not await awareness.” Once mutual dependence is lost, the conjunction thesis destroys itself.

Distance

If the eye travels outward to apprehend color, “distant color should be seen later and near color sooner.” Yet “the near jar and distant moon are seen at the same time.” If the eye does not travel, “Why can it see what is near but not what is far?” Even granting travel leaves a dilemma. If it travels after seeing, “the affair is already finished—what use is going?” If it goes without seeing, “because the eye has no awareness, intending east, it goes west.” If the eye remains in the body, no eye is at the color; if it reaches the color, “the body has no eye.”

Intrinsic Character

If seeing is established as the eye’s substance, then just as “fire, whose character is heat, heats itself and can heat another,” the eye should see itself. “Yet it does not see; therefore, seeing is not the eye’s character.” The analogy of a fingertip unable to touch itself does not rescue it, because “touch is the finger’s activity, not the finger’s character.” If mind is said to travel, then “if mind is there, the body has no mind and is like a corpse.” If mind remains in the body and knows afar, color is there and conjunction is absent.

Where It Lands

At last the outsider has the force of mind make eye-light conjoin with color. The treatise author answers, “If seeing arises because of conjunction, there is no seer,” and points out: “Mind is not seeing; eye is not knowing; color is neither seeing nor knowing.” None of the three has the required character; even conjoined, there is no apprehender of color. The final sentence says, “Ear, nose, tongue, and body are refuted in the same way.” The chapter never denies what is seen before the eyes. It removes only the master installed behind conjunction, able to see by itself without awaiting the multitude of conditions.

Hundred Treatise, fascicle two, “Refutation of the Faculties, Chapter Five,” composed by the Bodhisattva Deva, explained by the adept Vasu, and translated by Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva of the Yao Qin · Taishō T30n1569. Markers such as 〔T30 …〕 at the beginnings of passages give Taishō page, register, and line anchors.

1. The Outsider Establishes: Present Awareness Proves the Real Existence of Faculties, Objects, and Mind

〔T30 0175c12〕The outsider says—this sentence is Deva’s root statement: Dharmas belonging to self determinately exist, because they are present before us.

The adept Vasu explains: Because the faculties—the eye and the other powers that apprehend—the objects—color and the other referents—and mind conjoin, awareness arises. This awareness is presently manifest. Because this awareness really exists, faculties, objects, and mind all exist.

2. Seeing and Knowing: Whether Seeing or Knowing Comes First, Neither Path Works

The treatise author answers—this sentence is Deva’s root statement: Once color has been seen, what use is arising awareness?

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye first sees color and awareness arises afterward. What further use does this awareness have? The work of seeing is already complete, so awareness becomes superfluous. Suppose awareness arises first and the eye sees color afterward; this too is incorrect. Why?

Deva’s root statement: Without seeing color, the causes and conditions are absent, and arising too is absent.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye has not yet seen color. Then the causes and conditions have not conjoined; because they have not conjoined, awareness should not arise. You say awareness arises because faculties, objects, and mind conjoin. If awareness arises before they have conjoined, this is incorrect.

3. Simultaneous Arising Is Unobtainable Too

The outsider asks: Suppose seeing and awareness arise simultaneously. What fault is there?

The treatise author answers: If they arise simultaneously, this cannot be established. Deva’s root statement: Arising and nonarising do not arise simultaneously together, because existent, because nonexistent, and because already refuted.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose seeing and awareness already existed before and arise simultaneously while mutually awaiting one another; or suppose they were previously absent; or suppose they were half existent and half absent. To say they arise simultaneously in any of these three cases is incorrect. Why? If seeing and awareness already existed beforehand, they should not arise again, because they already exist. If they were absent beforehand, they likewise should not arise, because they are absent. Since absent, there can be no mutual dependence and therefore no arising. If half existed and half were absent, the two preceding sūtras have each already refuted it. Further, how could one dharma be both existent and nonexistent? Further, if they arise simultaneously, awareness need not await seeing, nor seeing await awareness.

4. Does the Eye Travel or Not? The Near Jar and Distant Moon

Further, does the eye reach color and then see, or does it see without reaching color?

Deva’s root statement: If the eye travels, what is distant is seen later.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye travels and reaches color before seeing. Then distant colors should be seen later, and near colors sooner. Why? Such is the nature of traveling. Yet now a near jar and the distant moon are seen at the same time. From this one knows the eye does not travel; if it does not travel, there can be no conjunction.

Further, suppose the eye’s power can see color without reaching it. Why, then, can it see what is near but not what is far? The distant and near should be seen at the same time.

5. Does It Go after Seeing or before Seeing?

Further, if the eye really travels, does it go after seeing or without first seeing?

Deva’s root statement: If it has already seen, what further use is going?

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye has already seen color. The affair is complete; what further use is going?

Deva’s root statement: If it has not seen, in going it does not apprehend what is intended.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye travels without first seeing color. Then it instead fails to apprehend the intended object, because the eye itself lacks awareness—intending to go east, it goes west.

6. Where the Eye Is, No Color; Where Color Is, No Eye

Further, Deva’s root statement: Nor can it apprehend where the eye is absent.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the eye travels and reaches color before apprehending it. Then the body has no eye; because the body has no eye, nothing is apprehended here. Suppose the eye does not travel but apprehends color. Then no eye exists where the color is; because the eye is absent there, nothing is apprehended there either. Further, if the eye could apprehend color without traveling, it should see color in the heavens and color beyond obstructions. Yet it does not. Therefore this is incorrect.

7. Is Seeing the Eye’s Character?

〔T30 0176a15〕The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because seeing is the eye’s character.

The adept Vasu explains: Seeing is the eye’s character. The eye has the power to apprehend among its referents; such is its intrinsic nature.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If seeing is the eye’s character, the eye sees itself.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose seeing is the eye’s character. Just as fire has heat as its character, is itself hot, and can heat other things, so if the eye has seeing as its character, it should see the eye itself. Yet it does not. Therefore, the eye does not have seeing as its character.

8. A Fingertip Cannot Touch Itself

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Like a finger.

The adept Vasu explains: Although the eye has seeing as its character, it does not see itself, just as a fingertip cannot touch itself. Although the eye has seeing as its character, it likewise cannot see itself.

The treatise author answers: It is not so. Deva’s root statement: Because touching is the finger’s activity.

The adept Vasu explains: Touching is the finger’s activity, not its character. You say seeing is the eye’s character; why does it not see the eye itself? Therefore, the finger analogy is incorrect.

9. Eye-Light and Mind Travel

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because light and mind travel, color is seen.

The adept Vasu explains: Because the eye’s light and mind travel, they reach that place and can apprehend color.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If mind travels and reaches color, there is no awareness here.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose mind reaches color. Mind is then there; if mind is there, the body here has no mind and is like a corpse. Yet mind does not in fact travel, because it apprehends what is far and near simultaneously. Although it also recollects past and future, that thought does not reside in past or future, because when the thought arises it does not travel.

10. Mind Remains in the Body Yet Can Know What Is Distant

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Mind remains in the body.

The adept Vasu explains: Although mind remains in the body, it can know what is distant.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If so, there is no conjunction.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose mind remains in the body while color is over there. Because color is over there, there is no conjunction. Without conjunction, color cannot be apprehended.

11. Conjunction Remains, but the Seer Disappears

The outsider says: It is not so. Deva’s root statement: Because mind, light, and color conjoin, there is seeing.

The adept Vasu explains: Eye and mind conjoin in the body. Through the power of mind, eye-light is made to conjoin with color. In this way color is seen, and therefore conjunction is not lost.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If seeing arises because of conjunction, there is no seer.

The adept Vasu explains: You say color is seen because of conjunction. If one says the eye alone sees color or mind alone apprehends color, this is incorrect.

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because you accept conjunction, apprehension of color is established.

The adept Vasu explains: Since you accept conjunction, conjunction exists. Since conjunction exists, the apprehension of color should exist.

12. Within Conjunction, None Can Apprehend Color

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Mind is not seeing, eye is not knowing, and color is neither seeing nor knowing—how is there seeing?

The adept Vasu explains: Because mind differs from eye, mind does not have the character of seeing. Because it lacks the character of seeing, it cannot see the eye. Because the eye is produced by the four great elements, it does not have the character of knowing. Because it lacks the character of knowing, it cannot know color. Color too has neither the character of seeing nor the character of knowing. Even if these conjoin in this way, how can color be apprehended? Ear, nose, tongue, and body are refuted in the same way.

The “faculties” in “Refutation of the Faculties” are not emotions but the five powers of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body that apprehend objects. This chapter asks one question only. I plainly see now—does that fact prove that a thing called “eye,” a thing called “color,” and a thing called “mind” each really stand there and then gather, causing seeing to occur?

The outsider’s thesis is exceptionally stable, so stable that it remains what most people inwardly assume today: “Dharmas belonging to self determinately exist, because they are present before us.” The adept Vasu unfolds it: “Because faculties, objects, and mind conjoin, awareness arises. This awareness is present awareness. Because this awareness really exists, faculties, objects, and mind exist.” He does not begin with doctrine but with what seems most undeniable. You are seeing right now and cannot evade it. Since awareness is present and real, the three conditions producing that awareness must of course be real. The outsider uses the reality of the result to infer backward to the reality of its conditions. From beginning to end, the chapter refutes this backward inference.

Does Seeing Come First, or Knowing?

The treatise author’s first root statement has only six Chinese characters: “Once color has been seen, what use is arising awareness?”

The eye seeing color and awareness arising in mind—which do you place first? If seeing comes first, “suppose the eye first sees color and awareness arises afterward; what further use is awareness?” The affair of seeing is complete; the later awareness has no work. If awareness comes first, that does not work either: “Without seeing color, the causes and conditions are absent, and arising too is absent.” You yourself say awareness arises only when faculty, object, and mind conjoin. Before color is seen, the three have not conjoined. How can what is unconjoined produce awareness? The adept Vasu states this impasse plainly: “Because they have not conjoined, awareness should not arise.”

Notice that the treatise author measures the outsider by the outsider’s own rule. The outsider established that conditions precede results, yet requires a result to precede its conditions.

The question conceals a still subtler layer. The outsider establishes a separate knowing beyond seeing because inwardly he wants an experiencer. The eye merely illuminates; knowing is where “I” receive it. But once divided into two affairs, temporal order must be explained. If seeing is finished and knowing follows, knowing repeats an already completed affair. If knowing precedes seeing, it arises without support. Every account that installs a separate experiencer within one event encounters this difficulty of before and after. The treatise author has not imposed it; the account incurs the debt as soon as it speaks.

Simultaneity Is No Exit Either

The outsider naturally thinks of it: “What fault if they arise simultaneously?” Let them happen at once.

The root text answers: “Arising and nonarising do not arise simultaneously together, because existent, because nonexistent, and because already refuted.” Simultaneous arising still requires asking what the situation was before this instant. If seeing and awareness already existed, they need not arise again: “If seeing and awareness already existed, they should not further arise, because they exist.” If previously absent, they cannot arise: “If previously absent, they likewise should not arise, because absent.” Moreover, absence has no mutual dependence: “If absent, there is no mutual dependence and no arising.” If half existent and half absent, the preceding two root statements have each already refuted it. Besides, “How could one dharma be both existent and nonexistent?”

Then comes a closer cut: “If they arise simultaneously, awareness does not await seeing and seeing does not await awareness.” What the outsider wanted was “arising because of conjunction.” Conjunction means mutual dependence. Once he says each is simultaneously established, mutual dependence is gone and his own thesis collapses first. Neither before and after nor simultaneity stands; beneath the word “conjunction,” nothing really conjoining can be found.

Does the Eye Travel Outward?

The treatise author turns to something more concrete: “Does the eye reach color and see, or see without reaching color?” Does your conjunction mean the eye runs outward and meets color, or does not run outward?

If it runs: “If the eye travels, what is distant is seen later.” This is the chapter’s most memorable passage. Travel takes time. “Distant color should be seen later and near color sooner. Why? Such is the nature of traveling.” Yet raise your eyes now: “The near jar and distant moon are seen at the same time; therefore one knows the eye does not travel. If it does not travel, there is no conjunction.” The jar on the table and moon at the edge of the sky enter the eye in one instant. If the eye truly goes out to apprehend them, they should not arrive together.

If it does not run, the difficulty reverses at once: “Why can it see what is near but not what is far? The distant and near should be seen simultaneously.” If it can apprehend without contact, why should distance count? If eye-power truly is an intrinsic power not awaiting contact, far and near are indistinguishable to it. Yet everyone knows distant writing cannot be read. Reaching and not reaching attack from two sides of the same facts. Admit distance has a function, and the eye must travel; admit the eye does not travel, and one must explain how distance still limits it. The outsider answers neither, because the eye he needs can apprehend objects by itself without depending on other conditions.

Even Granting Travel, It Still Cannot Travel

Even if the eye is allowed to travel, the treatise author asks another layer: “Does it go after seeing, or without seeing?”

If it goes after seeing, “Once seen, what further use is going?” “If the eye has already seen color, the affair is complete; what further use is going?” If it goes without seeing, “In going without seeing, it fails to apprehend the intended.” Because “the eye lacks awareness, intending east, it goes west.” The eye itself does not know; how does it recognize the road? It wants what is east yet walks west.

Now look at which end holds the eye: “Nor can it apprehend where the eye is absent.” If the eye travels to the color, “the body has no eye. Because the body has no eye, nothing is apprehended here.” If the eye remains in the body while apprehending color, no eye exists where the color is, and nothing is apprehended there. Moreover, if the eye can apprehend without traveling, it “should see color in the heavens and color beyond obstructions.” Everything beyond walls and in the heavens should be visible. It is not. Neither traveling nor not traveling works. The point is not to choose one, but that the image of an eye-substance traveling by itself to apprehend an object cannot stand.

Can the Eye See the Eye?

The outsider changes routes and speaks of intrinsic nature: “Because seeing is the eye’s character.” “Seeing is the eye’s character; among its referents it has the power to apprehend, such is its intrinsic nature.” Seeing is the eye’s own nature; no external explanation is needed.

The treatise author follows the rule of intrinsic character through: “If seeing is the eye’s character, the eye sees itself.” “As fire has heat as its character, heats itself, and can heat another.” Because fire has heat as its character, fire is itself hot and heats other things. This is what “character” means. If the eye has seeing as its character, it should first see itself. “Yet it does not see; therefore, seeing is not the eye’s character.”

The outsider brings an analogy to rescue it: “Like a finger.” “A fingertip cannot touch itself.” A function can exist without reaching itself; therefore, the eye can have seeing as its character without seeing itself. One sentence separates them: “Touching is the finger’s activity, not the finger’s character.” Touch is something a finger does, not its intrinsic nature. You speak of the eye’s character. An analogy counts only if it matches the level, and therefore “the finger analogy is incorrect.”

This section deserves a slow reading. The outsider retreats to intrinsic nature to escape every previous difficulty. If seeing is an inborn power of the eye, there is no need to ask whether the eye travels or reaches. The treatise author does not dispute the fact that eyes do not see themselves. He reminds the outsider that “character” was the outsider’s own word, and character has its rule: fire’s heat does not await another, so fire is first hot in itself. Once seeing is established as the eye’s character, seeing must be completed within the eye without waiting for color. Yet the eye never sees itself. The outsider uses intrinsic nature to dispense with conditions; the treatise author lets intrinsic nature proceed once according to its own rules. At the end, that intrinsic nature disappears by itself. The finger analogy fails not because it is crude but because it exchanges activity and intrinsic character. A finger does not touch itself precisely because touch occurs only when the finger meets an object. If the eye likewise sees only upon meeting color, one has admitted that seeing is not the eye’s own character.

If Mind Truly Travels, This Body Is a Corpse

Another route: “Because light and mind travel, color is seen.” Not the eye, but eye-light and mind travel together.

The treatise author answers: “If mind travels and reaches color, there is no awareness here.” If mind reaches color, mind is there. “If mind is there, the body has no mind and is like a corpse.” When you look at the moon, your body is not emptied. Further, “mind in fact does not travel, because it apprehends far and near simultaneously.” The same measure as “near jar and distant moon” returns. The adept Vasu adds recollection: people think of past and future, yet “thought does not reside in past or future, because it does not travel when arising.” Mind’s ability to take a distant object does not mean mind moved there.

The outsider retreats: “Mind remains in the body.” “Although mind remains in the body, it can know what is distant.” The treatise author returns the outsider’s own condition: “If so, there is no conjunction.” Mind remains in the body while color is there. “Because color is there, there is no conjunction; without conjunction, color cannot be apprehended.” Either mind goes and the body is empty, or it does not go and no conjunction occurs. Both ends are bound by the outsider’s thesis.

Conjunction Remains, but the Seer Disappears

The outsider’s final synthesis is ingenious: “Because mind, light, and color conjoin, there is seeing.” Eye and mind conjoin in the body, then “through mind’s power, eye-light is made to conjoin with color.” Thus color is seen and conjunction preserved.

The treatise author’s answer is the chapter’s landing point: “If seeing arises because of conjunction, there is no seer.” You may have conjunction. But what you originally wanted was not merely conjunction; it was the apprehender hidden behind conjunction who could act as master. Thus “if one says the eye alone sees color or mind alone apprehends color, this is incorrect.” No single item can be pointed out. The outsider still tries to recover: “Because you accept conjunction, apprehension of color is established.” Since you recognize conjunction, apprehension of color should exist.

The treatise author’s final root statement names all three: “Mind is not seeing, eye is not knowing, color is neither seeing nor knowing—how is there seeing?” Since mind differs from eye, “mind is not the character of seeing”; lacking that character, it cannot see the eye. The eye is “produced by the four great elements and therefore not the character of knowing”; without knowing, it cannot know color. Color is neither. When three things lacking both capacities gather, “even conjoined, how can they apprehend color?” The final line is: “Ear, nose, tongue, and body are refuted in the same way.” One faculty is fully refuted; the remainder follow the same method.

The wording must be exact here. The treatise author answers “there is no seer,” not “there is no seeing.” From beginning to end he accepts conjunction and even completes the outsider’s account—eye and mind within the body, the force of mind drawing eye-light into contact with color. He refuses only an apprehender standing outside conjunction yet collecting its fruit. The outsider’s proposal is ingenious precisely because it preserves conjunction but still expects a “who” to see within it. The treatise author therefore asks which item this “who” is. Mind? Mind is not seeing. Eye? Produced by the four great elements, it is not knowing. Color? It is neither. When none of three things can produce seeing and knowing, gathering them does not produce a master able to see and know. Conjunction explains only the occurrence of this event of seeing; it cannot explain a person who experiences it.

This does not say there is no seeing. The chapter never denies that near jar and distant moon are seen at the same time. What it denies is another master within that event who can see by itself without waiting for conditions. The outsider began with present awareness as evidence. The treatise author leaves the awareness and removes only the “intrinsic nature” inferred backward from it.

Carried Forward

This chapter specifically refutes the faculties that apprehend. The following “Refutation of Objects” turns to what is apprehended. Agent and object each receive a chapter; such is the treatise’s sequence. The final sentence, “Ear, nose, tongue, and body are refuted in the same way,” also shows that the base text does not repeat the argument faculty by faculty but completes the method with the eye alone.

Jizang’s Commentary on the Hundred Treatise explains phrase by phrase the chapter’s three movements: the order of seeing and knowing, whether the eye travels, and conjunction without a seer. The “Refutation of a Self” refuted a permanently abiding self that knows; this chapter refutes the mechanism of apprehension serving it. Once self does not stand, neither does its path of apprehension.