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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c14.s3: 3. Sarvāstivādins, Vaibhāṣikas, and Sautrāntikas

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c14.s3

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3. Sarvāstivādins, Vaibhāṣikas, and Sautrāntikas

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Opposed to the Vibhajyavādins were the Sarvāstivādins, asserters of the reality of all things, and among them also we find a set of Ābhidhārmikas, who developed a philosophical literature of their own, while the school possessed a Vinaya and a Sutta collection on the same lines as the Pali Canon, possibly at first written in some Prakrit, but later certainly in Sanskrit. This Abhidharma literature begins with the Jñānaprasthāna of Kātyāyanīputra—variously dated at three hundred or five hundred years after the Parinirvāṇa—and its six ‘feet (pāda),’ Dharmaskandha by Ṣāriputra; Dhātukāya by Pūrṇa; Prajñāptiçāstra by Maudgalyāyana; Vijñānakāya by Devakṣema; Saṃgītiparyāya by Ṣāriputra; and Prakaraṇapāda by Vasumitra; though it has disappeared in its Sanskrit form save for odd fragments, it is preserved in a Chinese rendering.¹ Chinese records show how that the Jñānaprasthāna was brought by Saṅghadeva and Dharmapriya from Kashmir (A. D. 383) possibly in a Pali-like dialect, while Hiuen Tsang (A. D. 657) used a Sanskrit version. Some of the Sarvāstivādins clung to these texts as their sole authority; Dharmatrāta, Ghoṣaka, Vasumitra, and Buddhadeva are all criticized by the Vaibhāṣikas of Kashmir and Buddhadeva is apparently the teacher mentioned in a Mathurā inscription (perhaps 50 B. C.—A. D. 10). Dharmatrāta is traditionally, but apparently in error, placed much later, being a pupil of Āryadeva the Mahāyānist (perhaps A. D. 200), and Vasumitra is assigned to the time of a son of Kaniṣka (A. D. 100).² These data are insufficient to help us to any very definite idea as to the date of the Jñānaprasthāna and its supplements; no faith can be placed on the alleged authors, the titles being manifestly intended to convey the impression of extreme antiquity. But it is clear that the Abhidharma must go back to at least a century B. C. It is impossible to prove whether it preceded, as is at least possible, or was contemporary with, or subsequent to, the compilation of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.

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¹ The Prajñāptiçāstra exists in the Tibetan and is analysed by Poussin in part as an appendix to his ed. of Abhidharmakoça, III, pp. 295 ff. The AKV. has Devaçarman and, for the Saṃgītiparyāya, Mahākausthila; Tāranātha, Buddhism-us, pp. 56, 296; Takakusu, JPTS. 1904-05, pp. 67 ff; for the latter text, cf. DN. no. 33; SBB. iv. 200; above, ch. i. § 1.

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² Dharmatrāta, author of the Udānavarga and Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdayaçāstra, was uncle of Vasumitra, and his work must have been used by Açvaghoṣa; thus he probably lived under Kaniṣka; Lévi, JA. 1912, ii. 215 ff. See Lüders, SBA. 1914, pp. 101 ff.

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Under Kaniṣka who presented a casket with Buddha’s relics to the Sarvāstivādins, it seems,¹ must be placed the writing of a commentary, Vibhāṣā, on the Abhidharma, whence the name of the Vaibhāṣika school of Buddhism, whose centre was apparently Kashmir, although in that country itself there were Buddhists who were not Vaibhāṣikas, and although we hear of Vaibhāṣikas of the outer country, the west, and the northern borders.

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¹ There is confusion here between works called Vibhāṣā and Mahāvibhāṣā, in which Kaniṣka seems referred to as in the past; Watters, Yuan Chwang, i. 274 ff; Takakusu, JRAS. 1905, p. 415; JPTS. 1904–05, p. 123. The Vinaya of the Mūla-Sarvāstivādin is familiar with the north-west, and alludes to Kaniṣka; T'oung Pao, 1907, p. 115; JA. 1914, ii. 493; see JRAS. 1908, p. 1058 for casket; on Aṣvaghoṣa's share, see JRAS. 1905, p. 52.

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To the Vaibhāṣikas and the Sarvāstivādins there developed opposition in the school of the Sautrāntikas, who insisted that the Abhidharma texts and a fortiori the Vibhāṣā had no authority, and that such Abhidharma as the Buddha taught was contained in the Suttas, a doctrine obviously fairly in accord with the essential facts. Therefore they adhered determinedly to the Sūtras alone, although they accepted the Sarvāstivādin and the Vaibhāṣika views save where they conflicted with their own. Of their views we have some account in the great work of Vasubandhu, the Abhidharmakoṣa, with his own commentary. The Koṣa itself in six hundred stanzas sets forth the views of the Vaibhāṣika school of Kashmir, but Vasubandhu was not a Vaibhāṣika or a Sarvāstivadin; on the contrary he had strong Sautrāntika sympathies, and later himself adopted the Yogācāra attitude, with which in his comment he shows himself familiar. His Bhāṣya therefore criticizes freely the views of the Vaibhāṣika, a fact which brought upon him replies from orthodox Vaibhāṣikas. The date of Vasubandhu, therefore, becomes of special interest to us; the period A.D. 420–500 suggested by Takakusu² on the strength of Chinese evidence may probably be taken to be superseded by the proposal of Péri which brings his death not later than A.D. 350; a date substantially earlier is impossible, if we accept the strong tradition which brings him into contact with a son of Candragupta. This is, of course, on the assumption that the Vasubandhu of the *Abhidharmakoça* is the brother of Asaṅga, of the Yogācāra school; it is just possible to read observations of Yaçomitra in his comment on the Koça to mean that the author refers to this Vasubandhu, and he was therefore later, but this suggestion is on the whole implausible. The merits of the work are obvious, and the fact of its only partial preservation in Sanskrit has hampered greatly Buddhist studies. It covers the whole field of ontology, pyschology, cosmology, the doctrine of salvation and of the saints, and a vast proportion of its matter is common to all Buddhist belief. Hence it formed the text-book of Buddhists generally after Vasubandhu’s death, whether they followed the Hīnayāna or the Mahāyāna, while it contains incidentally much evidence on the early Sanskrit Canon. It formed itself the subject of comment by Vasumitra and Guṇamati, and later by Yaçomitra whose comment is preserved to us in Sanskrit.¹

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² BEFEO. 1904, p. 37; Péri, ibid. 1911, pp. 339 ff; Poussin, AK., pp. viii. f.; SC. Vidyābhūṣaṇa, JASB. 1905, p. 227; Smith, Early Hist. of India³, pp. 328–34; Watters, Yuan Chwang, i. 210, 355–9; Winternitz, Ind. Litt. ii. 256; Lévi, MSA. ii. 1 f.

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¹ Book III is ed. and trs. Poussin. Yaçomitra is Sautrāntika in view. Kumāralabdha, teacher of Çrilābha, founded the school, and traditionally he is a contemporary of Nāgārjuna (c. A. D. 200); Kern, *Ind. Buddh.*, pp. 122, 127; the date, however, is clearly uncertain; cf. BEFEO. 1911, pp. 359, 375; Watters, *Yuan Chwang*. ii. 286; Eliot, *Hinduism and Buddhism*, ii. 86, n. 4, 92.

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