འཕགས་པ་སྲད་པ་འཕ་བ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.12

intro.12

Hakamaya’s thesis is supported by several contextual points in the sūtra. To begin with, the prose section presents an explanation of rebirth as resulting from the causal force of an action (karma) without the actual transmigration of any self or permanent phenomenon. This accords with the standard Buddhist nominalist view, in which what seems to be a coherent “self” is merely a collection of factors known as the five aggregates, which include consciousness, and thus rebirth occurs through causality and without a “self” transferring from this life to the next. In general, this explanation of rebirth would be accepted by any Buddhist school. One exception would be those schools described by their critics as Pudgalavādins, or “proponents of a person,” who assert that a person (pudgala) transmigrates from one life to the next. However, two such schools, the Vātsiputrīya and Saṃmitīya, make this claim while maintaining the Buddhist tenet of no-self (anātman): this “person” is defined as neither permanent nor impermanent and is neither the same nor different from the five aggregates.¹⁵