俱舍論疏 6.7

6.7

On the Śāstra's statement: "The masters of Abhidharma ... are just these six kinds": this is because the four conditions are stated in sūtra texts, whereas the six causes have no sūtra text; therefore it says that the Abhidharma masters accept that causes are only of six kinds. This makes clear that there is neither addition nor subtraction. The Nyāyānusāra says: "Such six causes were not spoken by the Buddha; how then could the fundamental treatise establish these names on its own? There is definitely no meaning unspoken by the Great Master that the Abhidharma would rashly assert. They are not presently found in the sūtras because they have been concealed and lost. Their specific characteristics can be obtained, so they must definitely exist. Furthermore, in various sūtras, through the power of those to be converted, the World-Honoured One expediently taught under different presentations. Seeing slight traces of them, the Abhidharma masters knew that they definitely existed and clearly compiled them. Therefore, some say: 'The doctrine of these six causes was stated in the Ekottarika and Chakkottarika sūtras; over a long period of time, their texts were concealed and lost. The Venerable Kātyāyanīputra and others, ceaselessly contemplating and seeking after the characteristics of dharmas, mysteriously moved a deva-ṛṣi to appear and confer them upon them, just as a deva conferred the *Vādya-sūtra. Such an explanation is necessarily so. Just as the meaning of the four conditions, though fully listed in the sūtras of this school, is not recited among other schools.'" ... and so on at length. According to this treatise text, the six causes and four conditions are Hīnayāna doctrines. The four conditions have texts, while the six causes have no text; because there is no direct sūtra text, it therefore says that the Abhidharma masters accept that causes are only these six kinds. The Mahāyāna Abhidharma treatises also have six causes, and the efficient cause contains twenty causes. The Madhyāntavibhāga and Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi each adopt ten of them. It is not yet known from which sūtra texts the Mahāyāna doctrines of the ten causes, six causes, and four conditions derive.