Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s2.7

c15.s2.7

The ideas of the *Milindapañha* appear in a varied form in the *Abhidharmakoça*.¹ The Sarvāstivādins are there credited with maintaining the existence of everything past, present or future, while the Vibhajyavādins distinguish in their usual mode between (1) the present elements and those among the past which have not yet produced their fruition, which are existent and (2) future elements and those among the past which have produced their fruition, which are non-existent. Of the first view there are variant aspects. Dharmatrāta maintained that the essence of an element remains unchanged throughout various times, its existence alone altering, an idea made intelligible by the change of milk into curds or the breaking of a vessel of gold. The view is obviously closely akin to the Sāmkhya in which all change is merely alteration of an existent without fundamental change of substance, and is rejected by the Vaibhāṣikas on that account, for it implies a permanent substance. In Ghoṣaka's view, when an element appears at different times, the past element retains its past aspects without being severed from its present and future aspects, and the present retains its present aspect without completely losing its past and future aspects, a view which the Vaibhāṣikas very sensibly reject on the ground that it simply destroys distinctions of time, since all the aspects are to coexist. Buddhadeva adopts the view that, just as a woman can be regarded as mother, wife, or daughter, so the same entity may be described as present, future, or past in accordance with its relation to the preceding or succeeding moment; this view also the Vaibhāṣikas reject on the ground that it treats all three times as found together in one.