百論 破塵品第六

The outsider holds to one thing alone: the jar is right there and can be apprehended, so both the apprehending faculty and the apprehended object exist. Sentence by sentence, this chapter takes apart the words “directly seen.”

A Part Does Not Constitute the Possessor of Parts

A jar is composed of form, odor, and the rest, but the eye obtains form alone. Thus, “if a jar were directly visible, odor and the rest should also be directly visible. Yet they are not visible.” The outsider retreats to the claim that seeing one part counts as seeing the jar. The answer is: “at present, a part does not constitute the possessor of parts.” Form itself fares no better: “because form has shape,” this part obstructs the other part. When the outsider turns to a partless atom, his own tradition is returned to him: “Your scripture says that atoms are not directly visible.”

Whether a Jar Exists and Whether It Is Seen Are Two Different Matters

People commonly believe that a jar is directly seen. The answer is: “Although the jar is not manifest, it is not the case that no jar exists.” The claim is revised to say that one does not see it because the eye has not yet met it. The author then tests this through time: if no new mark arises at the moment of seeing, “therefore the mark of being directly seen does not arise.”

Contact and Noncontact

The account of five bodies fails at “how can what contacts conjoin with what does not contact?” Moving the site of conjunction to the jar leaves both identity and difference between jar and contact exhausted. Scripture is invoked to say that form is produced by the four great elements, yet “the four great elements are not seen by the eye”: if the producers are not visible, how could what they produce be directly visible? The claim that the bodily faculty apprehends the four great elements fails because “at present, all four great elements within fire have the mark of heat.”

When There Is No Abiding Time, There Is No Place to Apprehend an Object

The outsider wants the present to provide a place in which objects are apprehended. The answer is that oldness does not begin only after a long time: “It is like a person wearing clogs: from the beginning they already carry a subtle oldness.” It is too subtle to be noticed, and only later does its mark become manifest. Hence, “because dharmas do not abide, there is no abiding time; if there is no abiding time, there is no place in which an object is apprehended.” New and old are merely words: “in the ultimate meaning there is no new, no middle, and no old.” Asked what benefit follows, the author answers with one line: “One attains lasting release.” Seed, sprout, stalk, node, flower, and fruit “do not conjoin with one another, and because dharmas do not abide,” they become distant; “because they become distant, they cannot be apprehended.”

Composed by Deva Bodhisattva, explained by the adept Vasu, and translated by the Tripiṭaka master Kumārajīva of Later Qin: Hundred Treatise, fascicle two, “Refutation of Atoms, Chapter Six,” Taishō T30n1569. A marker such as 〔T30 …〕 at the start of a paragraph is a Taishō page–column–line anchor.

1. Because a Jar Can Be Apprehended, There Are Apprehending Faculties

〔T30 0176b15〕 The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: The faculties must exist because jars and other objects can be apprehended.

The adept Vasu explains: At present one directly sees that such various things as jars can be apprehended. If the faculties could not apprehend their objects, by what could those objects be apprehended? Thus one knows that the faculties can apprehend such various things as jars.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Form alone is not the jar; therefore the jar is not directly seen.

The adept Vasu explains: The form in a jar can be directly seen, but its odor and the rest cannot be seen. Form alone is not the jar; odor and the rest combine with it to constitute the jar. If the jar were directly visible, odor and the rest should also be directly visible. Yet they are not visible. Therefore the jar is not directly seen.

2. Does Apprehending One Part Count as Apprehending the Whole?

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because a part is apprehended, the whole is apprehended; this is known through belief.

The adept Vasu explains: One part of the jar can be seen, and therefore the jar is called directly visible. Why? After seeing the jar, a person believes and knows, “What I see is a jar.”

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If a part is apprehended, not everything is apprehended.

The adept Vasu explains: The jar’s part consisting of form can be seen, but its parts consisting of odor and the rest cannot. At present, a part does not constitute the possessor of parts. If a part could constitute the possessor of parts, the parts consisting of odor and the rest should also be visible. Therefore the jar is not visible in its entirety. This matter is as explained in the refutations of unity and difference.

3. Even Form Itself Is Not Entirely Present

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: A jar exists and can be seen, because you accept that form is directly visible.

The adept Vasu explains: Since you accept that form is directly visible, the jar too should be directly seen.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If this part is directly seen, that part is not directly seen.

The adept Vasu explains: Your statement that form is directly seen is not so, because form has shape. The part on that side is not directly seen because it is obstructed by this part; the part on the other side is the same. Furthermore, as said before, if a part is apprehended, not everything is apprehended. That earlier passage should answer this one.

4. Atoms

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because an atom has no parts, the refutation is not exhaustive.

The adept Vasu explains: An atom has no parts. What fault is there in saying that it is entirely directly visible?

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: An atom is not directly seen.

The adept Vasu explains: Your scripture says that an atom is not directly seen. Therefore the atom cannot establish a dharma of direct visibility. If an atom too were directly visible, it would be refuted together with form.

5. Everyone Believes It, and the Eye Has Not Yet Met It

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: A jar should be directly visible because people believe it is.

The adept Vasu explains: Everyone believes that a jar is directly seen, because it has a use.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Direct visibility is absent; the jar is not thereby absent.

The adept Vasu explains: You say that if a jar is not directly seen, then at that time no jar exists. This is not so. Although the jar is not manifest, it is not the case that no jar exists. Therefore the jar is not directly visible.

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because it conjoins with the eye, there is no fault.

The adept Vasu explains: Although the jar has the mark of being directly visible, when the eye has not yet met it a person naturally does not see the jar. It is not that the jar lacks the mark of direct visibility.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Since the arising of direct visibility is absent, existence too is unreal.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose that before the jar met the eye there was no different mark, but when it was later seen some slight different mark arose. One should then know that this jar’s mark of direct visibility had arisen. Yet in fact no different mark arises, and therefore the mark of direct visibility does not arise. Since the arising of the mark of direct visibility is absent, the jar’s existence too is absent.

6. The Five Bodies: How Can What Does Not Contact Conjoin with What Contacts?

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: One part of the five bodies has been refuted, but the remaining parts exist.

The adept Vasu explains: The five bodies constitute the jar. You have refuted form alone, but have not refuted odor and the rest. Since odor and the rest have not been refuted, objects must exist.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If not all of them contact, how can form and the rest conjoin?

The adept Vasu explains: Your statement that the five bodies constitute the jar is not so. Why? One part among form and the rest is contact, while the remaining parts are not contact. How can what is not contact conjoin with contact? Therefore the five bodies do not constitute the jar.

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because they conjoin with the jar.

The adept Vasu explains: The parts consisting of form and the rest do not conjoin with one another, but those parts conjoin with the jar.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Once difference is eliminated, how can the jar conjoin with contact?

The adept Vasu explains: If the jar differs from contact, then the jar is not contact. How can what is not contact conjoin with contact? If apart from form and the rest there is no further jar-dharma, then because no jar-dharma exists, how could contact conjoin with the jar?

7. Since the Four Great Elements Are Not Seen by the Eye

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Form should be directly visible because scripture is trusted.

The adept Vasu explains: Your scripture says that form is the four great elements and what the four great elements produce. Within the part consisting of produced form, the portion included within the form-entrance is directly visible. How can you say that no directly visible form exists?

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: The four great elements are not seen by the eye; how could they produce what is directly visible?

The adept Vasu explains: Earth has hardness as its mark, water moisture, fire heat, and wind motion. Since these four great elements are not seen by the eye, the form they produce should not be directly visible either.

〔T30 0177a02〕 The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: The four great elements exist because the bodily faculty apprehends them.

The adept Vasu explains: At present the bodily faculty can apprehend the four great elements, so the four great elements exist. Therefore fire and other various things, which are produced by the four great elements, must also exist.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Because everything in fire is hot.

The adept Vasu explains: Among the four great elements, fire alone has heat as its mark, while the others do not. Yet within fire all four great elements have the mark of heat, and therefore fire does not constitute four bodies. If the others were not hot, they would not be called fire. Therefore fire does not constitute four bodies. The same applies to earth’s mark of hardness, water’s mark of moisture, and wind’s mark of motion.

8. Present Time: New and Old

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Form should be visible because present time exists.

The adept Vasu explains: Because the eye-faculty and the rest apprehend objects in present time, it is called present time. If the eye-faculty and the rest could not apprehend such objects as form, no present time would exist. Yet present time does in fact exist, and therefore form is visible.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If a dharma is old afterward, it is old at the beginning too.

The adept Vasu explains: If a dharma later displays the mark of oldness, that mark does not arise only at the time when it is old; it has accompanied the dharma ever since its initial arising. Only because it is subtle and goes unnoticed does one know it only when the mark changes and becomes manifest. It is like a person wearing wooden clogs: as soon as they are first worn they have already become subtly old, and this accompanies them all along, though it is not noticed or known. After a long time, the mark of oldness becomes manifest. If there were no oldness at first, there should be no oldness later either, and the dharma should always be new. If so, the mark of oldness should never arise. Therefore subtle oldness has accompanied it from the beginning, and only later does the mark of oldness become manifest. Now because dharmas do not abide, there is no time of abiding; if there is no time of abiding, there is no place in which objects are apprehended.

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because newness and oldness are accepted, present time exists.

The adept Vasu explains: You accept the marks of newness and oldness. Relative to the time of arising, something is called new; relative to the time of alteration, it is called old. These two marks cannot be apprehended in past time or future time. Precisely because present time exists, the marks of newness and oldness can be apprehended.

The treatise author answers: This is not so. Deva’s root statement: It is new because it arises, and old because it alters.

The adept Vasu explains: If a dharma arose long ago, its mark of newness has already passed. When this mark of newness alters, it is called old; but if a mark of oldness arises, then at that very time the old itself becomes new. Whether new or old, these are merely spoken words. In the ultimate meaning there is no new, no middle, and no old.

The outsider asks: If this is so, what benefit is attained?

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: One attains lasting release.

The adept Vasu explains: If the new does not make the middle and the middle does not make the old, then seed, sprout, stalk, decaying node, flower, fruit, and the rest do not conjoin with one another. Because they do not conjoin with one another, dharmas do not abide; because they do not abide, they become distant; because they become distant, they cannot be apprehended.

The preceding chapter refuted the apprehending faculties; this chapter turns to the objects they apprehend. The outsider begins with something to which everyone would assent: a jar is sitting right there and can be apprehended. “At present one directly sees that jars and other things can be apprehended. If the faculties cannot apprehend objects, by what could those objects be apprehended?” Since an object can be apprehended, both the apprehending faculties and their apprehended objects must exist.

From beginning to end, the treatise author never denies that people see a jar. He asks something else: how much is actually contained in the event called “direct seeing”? Through more than twenty exchanges, every sentence peels those two words back another layer.

To read this chapter, one must first distinguish bone from flesh. A short interlinear note reading “sūtra” marks Deva’s root statement, often only five or six characters long; the extended prose that follows is the adept Vasu’s unfolding explanation. The root statements in this chapter are especially abrupt because the dispute concerns not an entire doctrine but a single expression. Each time the outsider retreats one step, the treatise author strips one more layer from that expression: from jar to form, from form to atoms, from atoms to the four great elements, and finally from object to time. Only when retreat is no longer possible does the chapter give its sole affirmative phrase: “One attains lasting release.”

1. If Odor Cannot Be Seen, the Jar Is Not Directly Seen

The first root statement is exceedingly short: “Form alone is not the jar; therefore the jar is not directly seen.” The reason immediately follows: “The form in a jar can be directly seen, but its odor and the rest cannot. Form alone is not the jar; odor and the rest combine to constitute the jar.” A jar is not merely a mass of form; it is constituted by form together with odor and the rest. Yet what the eye obtains is only the aspect of form. Since “if the jar were directly visible, odor and the rest should also be directly visible; but they are not,” what is called seeing a jar is not seeing the jar.

The outsider at once concedes that only one part is seen, but maintains that one part is enough: “Because a part is apprehended, the whole is apprehended; this is known through belief”—“one part of the jar is visible, so the jar is called directly seen. Why? After seeing the jar, a person believes and knows, ‘What I see is a jar.’” He invokes the most ordinary experience: who glances at it yet dares not say that he sees a jar?

The author answers, “If a part is apprehended, not everything is apprehended.” The hinge is this: “At present, a part does not constitute the possessor of parts.” A part is a part, and the possessor of parts is the possessor of parts. If one part could genuinely stand for the whole, then “the parts consisting of odor and the rest should also be visible.” What remains visible is form alone, and “therefore the jar is not visible in its entirety.” The passage points outside the chapter at the end: “This matter is as explained in the refutations of unity and difference.” Whether part and whole are one or different has already been refuted earlier in the treatise; this chapter simply uses that result.

When the outsider says, “I believe and know that what I see is a jar,” he has in fact already revealed the point. His own word is believe, not see. What is seen is form; what is spoken is jar. The interval between them is filled from prior encounters with odor, taste, and touch and from knowing that this thing can hold water. The treatise author does not stop anyone from speaking this way. He merely exposes what has been supplied in that interval and teaches us not to enter it in the eye’s account.

2. Even Form Is Not Entirely before the Eyes

The outsider takes one step back: perhaps the jar is not fully seen, but form at least must be fully seen—“A jar exists and can be seen, because you accept that form is directly visible.”

The author answers, “If this part is directly seen, that part is not directly seen,” for one reason of only four characters: “because form has shape.” Shape entails this side and that side: “The part on that side is not directly seen because it is obstructed by this part; the other side is the same.” The front of the jar before the eye blocks its back, while its back in turn excludes the front; neither side is ever present at the same time. The author adds, “Furthermore, as said before, if a part is apprehended, not everything is apprehended; that earlier passage should answer this one.” The same blade just used on the jar works equally well on form.

The outsider therefore searches below for something with no parts: “Because an atom has no parts, the refutation is not exhaustive.” The author answers, “An atom is not directly seen,” and does so not in his own words but through the outsider’s scripture: “Your scripture says that an atom is not directly seen; therefore it cannot establish a dharma of direct visibility.” The partless thing you posit is, according to your own scripture, invisible. “If an atom too were directly visible, it would be refuted together with form.” Either it is invisible and cannot support direct seeing, or it is visible and so possesses shape and parts and falls together with form. Under this pressure the outsider has nowhere smaller to retreat.

This move deserves slow reading. The treatise author establishes no alternative account of atoms and says neither that atoms exist nor that they do not. He simply takes the scripture the outsider accepts and places it beside the outsider’s own claim. You wish to ground direct seeing in atoms, but your scripture expressly says that they are “not directly seen.” Something not directly seen cannot support the event of direct seeing. If you reverse yourself and call it directly seen, it will have shape and parts just like form, and the preceding two blades will fall unchanged. Both roads open to the outsider were paved by the outsider himself.

3. Everyone Believes It, and the Eye Has Not Yet Met It

The outsider turns to common belief: “A jar should be directly visible because people believe it”—“everyone believes that a jar is directly seen because it has a use.” The treatise author answers, “Direct visibility is absent; the jar is not thereby absent.” You have bound direct seeing and the jar into one thing and suppose that if it is not directly visible at this moment, no jar exists. “Although the jar is not manifest, it is not the case that no jar exists; therefore the jar is not directly visible.” Whether the jar exists and whether it is now seen are originally two different matters. Precisely because they can be separated, direct visibility is not a mark the jar carries intrinsically.

The outsider finds a plausible explanation: “Because it conjoins with the eye, there is no fault”—“although the jar has the mark of direct visibility, when the eye has not yet met it, a person naturally does not see the jar; it is not that the jar lacks the mark of direct visibility.” The jar always bears the mark of being directly seen; the eye simply has not yet met it.

The author’s answer is the chapter’s finest move: “Since the arising of direct visibility is absent, existence too is unreal.” He places the outsider’s claim within time and measures it. If the jar already possessed the mark of direct visibility before meeting the eye, then nothing should be added at the moment of seeing. If something genuinely is added at that moment, then “this jar’s mark of direct visibility has arisen.” Yet “in fact no different mark arises, and therefore the mark of direct visibility does not arise.” Since no newly arisen mark is found, direct visibility never was something given from the jar’s side; “since the arising of the mark of direct visibility is absent, the jar’s existence too is absent.”

This objection seeks a home for direct visibility that does not shift with the eye: the mark permanently resides upon the jar; when the eye meets it, the eye sees, and when it does not, the eye fails to see, while nothing is lost on the jar’s side. The author does not dispute whether eye and jar conjoin. He asks only whether that supposedly permanent mark differs before and after conjunction. If there is no difference, no event called seeing has occurred; if there is a difference, the mark is produced by conjunction and was not something the jar always bore. “Directly seen” is a name that arises only when two things come together; it cannot be installed on the jar alone.

4. The Five Bodies: How Can What Does Not Contact Conjoin with What Contacts?

The outsider changes his footing: “One part of the five bodies has been refuted, but the remaining parts exist”—“the five bodies constitute the jar. You have refuted form alone, but not odor and the rest. Since odor and the rest have not been refuted, objects must exist.” You have worked only upon what can be seen; touch and the rest remain intact.

The author answers, “If not all of them contact, how can form and the rest conjoin?” “One part among form and the rest is contact, while the remaining parts are not contact. How can what is contact conjoin with what is not contact?” It was the outsider who divided the five bodies into contact and noncontact; on what basis, then, could they combine into one jar? The outsider moves the site of combination to the jar: “the parts consisting of form and the rest do not conjoin with one another, but those parts conjoin with the jar.” The treatise author pursues jar and contact through identity and difference: “If the jar differs from contact, the jar is not contact; how can what is not contact conjoin with contact? If apart from form and the rest there is no further jar-dharma, then if no jar-dharma exists, how could contact conjoin with the jar?” If different, they cannot conjoin; if identical, there is no further jar with which to conjoin—“once difference is eliminated, how can the jar conjoin with contact?”

5. Since the Four Great Elements Cannot Be Seen by the Eye

The outsider invokes scripture: “Form should be directly visible because scripture is trusted”—“your scripture says that form is the four great elements and what the four great elements produce,” and “within the part consisting of produced form, the portion included within the form-entrance is directly visible.” The author follows this road to its end: “Earth has hardness as its mark, water moisture, fire heat, and wind motion. Since these four great elements are not seen by the eye, the form they produce should not be directly visible.” If what produces is not seen by the eye, by what route could what it produces be directly visible?

The outsider says the four great elements are apprehended by the bodily faculty and therefore exist, then infers that “fire and other various things are produced by the four great elements and must also exist.” The author answers, “Because everything in fire is hot”: “among the four great elements, fire alone has heat as its mark, while the others do not. Yet within fire all four great elements have the mark of heat, and therefore fire does not constitute four bodies.” If four mutually distinct things truly stood together within fire, some nonhot portion should be felt. Yet wherever the hand reaches there is heat; no nonhot portion can be found. If one were found, then “if the others are not hot, they are not called fire”—that portion would already not count as fire. The same method applies to earth and water and wind: “The same applies to earth’s mark of hardness, water’s mark of moisture, and wind’s mark of motion.”

The outsider wished to place the four great elements beneath visible form as a foundation. The foundation itself cannot stand: sought by the eye, the four great elements are not eye-visible; sought by the body, they do not assemble as four. If the lower layer too is borrowed, the layer above has nowhere to rest.

6. The Trace of Oldness on a Clog That Cannot Yet Be Seen

The final exchange turns from object to time. The outsider says that because the eye-faculty and the rest apprehend objects in present time, present time exists; “present time does in fact exist, and therefore form is visible.” An object needs a place in which it can be apprehended, and apprehension needs a time in which it can stand.

The author answers, “If a dharma is old afterward, it is old at the beginning too,” and offers a simile belonging to the treatise itself: “It is like a person wearing clogs: from the beginning they already carry a subtle oldness that accompanies them; it is neither noticed nor known, and after a long time the mark becomes manifest.” At the first step in a new pair of clogs, that trace of oldness is already moving with them. Only because it is “subtle and unnoticed” do people call them old only once it becomes visible. The reverse inference is even clearer: “If there were no oldness at first, there should be no oldness afterward; they should always remain new.” The conclusion then falls directly: “Now because dharmas do not abide, there is no abiding time; if there is no abiding time, there is no place in which an object is apprehended.” To apprehend an object requires a present that can hold still, but no such present exists.

The outsider seizes the two words new and old and turns back: precisely because present time exists, “the marks of newness and oldness can be apprehended.” The author answers, “It is new because it arises and old because it alters”: “If a dharma arose long ago, its mark of newness has passed. When this mark of newness alters, it is called old; but if the mark of oldness arises, then oldness itself is new.” New and old are only names obtained in relation to one another: “Whether new or old, these are merely spoken words; in the ultimate meaning there is no new, no middle, and no old.”

The outsider asks the final question: “If this is so, what benefit is attained?” What does one gain by speaking this way? The author gives the chapter’s destination: “One attains lasting release.” “If the new does not make the middle and the middle does not make the old, then seed, sprout, stalk, decaying node, flower, fruit, and the rest do not conjoin with one another. Because they do not conjoin with one another, dharmas do not abide; because they do not abide, they become distant; because they become distant, they cannot be apprehended.” Seed is not sprout, sprout is not stalk, and a decaying node is not flower or fruit. Seen as one continuous thing, it appears to grow old; in fact, each stage fails to conjoin with the others.

This simile and the clog form a pair. The clog shows that oldness does not suddenly arrive later; it is there from the first step. Seed, sprout, and stalk show that because change never stops, there is no segment that truly stands still to be grasped. People imagine they hold one jar by joining its successive marks into a single thing and then grasping that thing. However tightly joined, the stages still fail to meet. Once their nonconjunction is seen, the hand naturally opens—this is lasting release. It is not that the jar has been removed; it is knowing that no jar ever stood there waiting to be taken.

7. What Can a Reader Carry Away from This Chapter?

First, the words “directly seen” must be heard as divisible: what the eye obtains is one part of form, but what the mouth pronounces is a jar. What lies between is belief, not sight.

Second, the apprehended object is no more secure than the faculty that apprehends it. Because form has shape, one side obstructs another; according to the outsider’s own scripture, atoms are not directly seen; and if the four great elements are not seen by the eye, what they produce is not directly seen either. When one searches downward for something that can provide support, not a single layer is found.

Third: “Because they do not abide, they become distant; because they become distant, they cannot be apprehended.” Lasting release does not mean pushing the jar away. It means that the present one might grasp never existed in the first place.

Carried Forward

The chapter points once outside itself: “This matter is as explained in the refutations of unity and difference.” Unity and difference were refuted earlier, and this chapter uses that result without establishing it anew. The preceding chapter refuted the apprehending faculties, and this chapter refutes their apprehended objects; only once apprehender and apprehended are exhausted can the later chapters enter disputes over cause and effect, permanence, and emptiness.

Another thread also opens forward. The final section turns from object to time, saying, “because dharmas do not abide, there is no abiding time,” and again, “in the ultimate meaning there is no new, no middle, and no old.” Although it refutes the two marks of newness and oldness, it already comes to rest at permanence and impermanence. The later chapter refuting permanence continues precisely this thread. This chapter goes only as far as nonabiding and establishes no separate account of time.

The chapter is called “Refutation of Atoms,” but it does not refute the jar. The jar still holds water, form is still visible, and people continue as usual to say, “I see a jar.” What this chapter dismantles is the object imagined to be wholly present before the eyes and available for grasping all at once. What remains are the words “it cannot be apprehended.”