Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v7.c55: Vijñānakāya

The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v7.c55

Language
English

Contents

Vijñānakāya

v7.c55.1

The date of this Sarvāstivāda text has been variously estimated between 200 B.C. to 75 A.D. Several scholars find it closely related to the *Jñānaprasthāna*, and it would seem to be datable close to the time of that work, with which it shares some features.

v7.c55.2

The work is only available in a translation made by Hsüan-tsang in 649, according to tradition. Hsüan-tsang says that it was composed in Visoka near Śrāvastī. It is only partly translated. The first and second of its six chapters are available in French translation by Louis de la Vallée Poussin as "La Controverse du Temps et du Pudgala dans le Vijñānakāya", from *Études asiatiques oubliées a l'occasion du 25e anniversaire de l'École-francaise de l'Estreme Orient*, Volume One (Paris 1925), pp. 343-76. This translation is referred to below as "TP". Fumimaro Watanabe provides as English rendering of a portion of the second chapter in *Philosophy and Its Development in the Nikāyas and Abhidhamma* (Delhi 1983), signified here by "TW" page references. In some cases Watanabe is quoted verbatim with technical terms made consistent with the present volume's translations, in other cases translations provided by him are summarized by the editor (Potter).

Chapter I: Maudgalyāyana

v7.c55.s1.1

(TP346-348; TW175-176) The monk Maudgalyāyana is represented as asserting that the past and future do not exist, but that the present and unconditioned do exist. A series of criticisms of these are presented, each following much the same pattern. First, in most cases, the Buddha's words are cited and Maudgalyāyana is asked if he agrees. He says he does. Now, the argument continues, is the Buddha speaking of things past, present or future? If the answer is that he is speaking of past or future things, then to also hold, as Maudgalyāyana says he does, that the past or future do not exist is self-contradictory. If he accepts past and future but denies present existence certain implications (differing case by case) are generated which are either inconsistent among themselves or contradict something evidently true or clearly maintained by the Buddha. This pattern of reasoning is applied in a series of sections as follows.

Section 1

v7.c55.s1.t1.1

1. Attachment, the root of evil, is bad. But is this attachment past, present or future? It must be admitted that past and future attachment exist. If they are denied, attachment must be always present, never past or future. But then what is the temporal locus of that to which one becomes attached? Finally, suppose Maudgalyāyana denies the existence of all three, past, present and future. This will undermine the very point of Buddhist teaching: there can be no bondage and no liberation. Similar argument can be addressed against the denial of hatred and delusion.

v7.c55.s1.t1.2

2. Illustrations are provided of the distinction between elements taught by the Buddha to be good or bad respectively.

Section 2

v7.c55.s1.t2.1

The general line of argument is adduced to show that the following topics of the Buddha’s teaching require admission of past and future: the four floods, *yogas*, grasping, the knots and obstructions.

Section 3

v7.c55.s1.t3.1

1. The Buddha talks of fetters having been gained or lost, born or destroyed. The general pattern of argument is applied to show that unless past, present and future exist the Buddha’s words must be rejected, and this is unacceptable.

v7.c55.s1.t3.2

2. When one has gained the first obstruction, of interest in sensual pleasure, he realizes it. This implies temporal passage. Likewise for the other obstructions.

v7.c55.s1.t3.3

3. Awakeners to liberation must come to exist, so they were past, are now present, and will be in future.

v7.c55.s1.t3.4

4. Things desired must come not to be desired. This establishes the necessity of admitting temporal distinctions.

v7.c55.s1.t3.5

5. If only present and not past or future bodily and mental sensations exist, then one must feel at the same time both bodily and mental sensations, which is impossible.

v7.c55.s1.t3.6

6. Again, unless temporal discriminations made sense mental consciousness (i.e. awareness of an awareness) would be impossible. But the Buddha accepted it.

v7.c55.s1.t3.7

7. Counting and counted must be different, the latter preceding the former.

v7.c55.s1.t3.8

9. The eighteen ponderings require temporal passage.

Section 4

v7.c55.s1.t4.1

1. The Buddha speaks of the discernment of something discerned, of consciousness as distinct from its content.

v7.c55.s1.t4.2

2. Speech requires a distinction between something about which we speak and the speaking of it. They cannot be simultaneous.

v7.c55.s1.t4.3

3. The Buddha distinguishes different results for different levels of excellence of the senses. This would be inexplicable if all the senses operated together at one time.

v7.c55.s1.t4.4

4. The waning of desire, required for meditative ascertainment, must occupy a time after one has desired. Otherwise no cessation can occur.

v7.c55.s1.t4.5

5. Unless shame is followed by respect meditative ascertainment is not possible.

v7.c55.s1.t4.6

6. The distinctions of stages of perfected being require temporal passage.

v7.c55.s1.t4.7

7. Do the nonidentifying gods eat food? If they do so at present, they are not nonidentifying. If not at all, the Buddha was wrong when he said that all beings require food.

v7.c55.s1.t4.8

8. Cognition requires a thing's existence before awareness of it. Otherwise no knowledge is possible, and liberation is unattainable.

v7.c55.s1.t4.9

9. It takes time to abandon the impure influences.

Chapter II: Person

Section 1: Transmigration into Five Courses

v7.c55.s2.t1.1

(TP358-361; TW177-180) The believer in persons (*pudgalavādin*) believes that the person exists in the highest, ultimate sense. The believer in emptiness (i.e. the one who denies persons) (*śūnyatāvādin*) argues that if the Buddha was correct in teaching that there are five future courses—viz., purgatory, animal, the dead, gods and humans—and that they are different, then it cannot be the same person who dies in one and is reborn in another. So either the Pudgalavādin must deny this teaching of the Buddha or he must give up his thesis.

v7.c55.s2.t1.2

Suppose the Pudgalavādin says the following: It is wrong to say that a person living and dying in purgatory is the same as a person reborn as an animal, but it is also wrong to say that these persons are different. The Śūnyatāvādin answers that in that case the Pudgalavādin should admit that it is impossible for him to assert either that the person persists or that (s)he doesn't.

v7.c55.s2.t1.3

The same argument is now reviewed with respect to the relation between an (alleged) person in purgatory and one in the human course. If the Pudgalavādin asserts that it is the same person who is reborn as a man, he should be willing to admit that purgatory is the same as the human course. But there are functions—the five faculties, five powers and seven conditions of enlightenment—which operate in humans and not in beings in purgatory, and so these courses must be different. So the Śūnyatāvādin concludes that the persons in these two courses must be different, contrary to the Pudgalavādin's assertion.

v7.c55.s2.t1.4

Now suppose the Pudgalavādin changes his assertion. He now asserts that the person in purgatory is different from the one reborn as a human being. The Śūnyatāvādin points out that this too is unreasonable, since if the person is destroyed in purgatory, (s)he cannot be reborn as a human, nor can anyone be reborn as a human: rebirth requires persistence.

v7.c55.s2.t1.5

These lines of argument are rehearsed as pertaining to the identity or difference of a person as between each of the five courses.

Section 2: Eight Kinds of Person re Stages on the Path

v7.c55.s2.t2.1

(TP361-363; TW184-187) Pudgalavādin: There is a person in the highest, ultimate sense.

v7.c55.s2.t2.2

Śūnyatāvādin: But the Buddha teaches that there are eight different kinds of persons, viz., one who is getting the result of stream-entering, another who has entered the stream, another who is becoming a once-returner, another who has become a once-returner, another who is becoming a nonreturner, another who has become a nonreturner, another who is becoming a perfected being and another who is a perfected being. Do you accept that these are different persons?

v7.c55.s2.t2.3

Pudgalavādin: Yes.

v7.c55.s2.t2.4

Śūnyatāvādin: And does the first kind of person, the one becoming a stream-enterer, become a stream-enterer?

v7.c55.s2.t2.5

Pudgalavādin: Yes.

v7.c55.s2.t2.6

Śūnyatāvādin: Then you are involved in inconsistency, since you hold that the same ultimately real person is both the same as and different from himself. You cannot hold either that the person who is entering the stream and who has entered are the same, since then the one who is seeking the fruit will have already received it, and you cannot hold that the persons are different, since then the one person will cease to exist when the other one comes into existence, which contradicts your original thesis that the person exists in the ultimate sense.

v7.c55.s2.t2.7

Pudgalavādin: Then it must be that it is impossible to say that the person who is the one entering the stream and the one who has entered it are the same or that they are different.

v7.c55.s2.t2.8

Śūnyatāvādin: Then you must admit that it is impossible to say that the ultimately real person is the same as himself.

v7.c55.s2.t2.9

The last part follows the pattern of the previous part of Section 2, except that now the question relates to the identity or difference between the one who is becoming a non-returner and the one who has become a non-returner.

Section 3: The Person in Three Groups

v7.c55.s2.t3.1

(TP363-364; TW187) This ‘deals with the person in three groups, namely: (1) group of wrongness (*mithyātvaniyatarāśi*), (2) group of rightness (*samyaktvaniyatarāśi*) and (3) group of the undetermined (*aniyatarāśi*). This section is explained in the same way as Sections 1 and 2.¹

Section 4: Three Types of Person re Training

v7.c55.s2.t4.1

(TP364; TW187-189) The Pudgalavādin asserts the reality of the person as before.

v7.c55.s2.t4.2

Śūnyatāvādin: The Buddha teaches that there are three types of persons: (1) a seeker, (2) one who is not (is no longer) a seeker, (3) one who is neither a seeker nor no longer a seeker. Was he correct?

v7.c55.s2.t4.3

Pudgalavādin: Yes.

v7.c55.s2.t4.4

Śūnyatāvādin: And isn't it the case that the seeker learns and so is no longer a seeker, but again becomes a seeker (at the next stage)?

v7.c55.s2.t4.5

Pudgalavādin: Yes.

v7.c55.s2.t4.6

Śūnyatāvādin: But does one who is neither a seeker nor an achiever become one who is neither, or vice versa?

v7.c55.s2.t4.7

Pudgalavādin: No.

v7.c55.s2.t4.8

Śūnyatāvādin: Then what you say is inconsistent. If there is a real, ultimately existent person then either you should deny that the same person is first a seeker, then an achiever, etc., or you should admit that the one who is neither is the same as the one who is either achiever or seeker.

Section 5: Persons and Karma

v7.c55.s2.t5.1

(TP364-366; TW189-193) Pudgalavādin: There exists such a thing as a self, a being, a living being, a man, a person. This person performs actions which conduce either to satisfying, frustrating or neutral feelings depending on the feature of the acts.

v7.c55.s2.t5.2

Śūnyatāvādin: Are satisfaction and frustration made by that person or by something else? If they are self-made, then your view contradicts the Buddha’s teaching to Timbaruka, to whom he denied that they were self-made. If they are made by another, this contradicts the other part of the Buddha’s teaching to Timbaruka when he denied they were made by another.

v7.c55.s2.t5.3

Furthermore, is the person who performs actions the same as the one that experiences the satisfying, frustrating or neutral result? If so, then you are convicted of eternalism (*śāśvatavāda*) by the Buddha’s own teaching when he said ‘‘he who performs actions and feels their results falls into the extreme of eternalism’’.

Section 6: Where Does the Person Exist?

v7.c55.s2.t6.1

(TP366; TW193-194) Pudgalavādin: Because the person exists among the factors that are seen, heard, sensed and cognized, the mind inquires into what it can obtain and seek.

v7.c55.s2.t6.2

Śūnyatāvādin: But the Buddha taught the monk Arittha: ‘‘Whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, obtained or sought and inquired into must be regarded as ‘not mine, not me, not my self’.’’ So what you say violates the Buddha’s teachings.

Section 7: Loving Kindness

v7.c55.s2.t7.1

(TP366-368; TW194-197) Śūnyatāvādin: There is no such thing as an existent, ultimately real person.

v7.c55.s2.t7.2

Pudgalavādin: Then what supporting object is there that is supposed to display loving kindness?

v7.c55.s2.t7.3

Śūnyatāvādin: Factors exist, and their nature is designated according to their identification. Thus, the aggregates are the basis of that which displays kindness.

v7.c55.s2.t7.4

Pudgalavādin: But it is unreasonable to suppose that, if kindness is a function of the aggregates, the Buddha would have taught ‘‘in order to make beings happy as he entered into meditation charged with kindness’’.

v7.c55.s2.t7.5

Śūnyatāvādin: However, did not the Buddha teach that there are six kinds of consciousness, namely, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, bodily and mental consciousness?

v7.c55.s2.t7.6

Pudgalavādin: Yes.

v7.c55.s2.t7.7

Śūnyatāvādin: With which one of these is kindness connected? If you say, e.g., the first, visual consciousness, then the appropriate supporting basis there is matter, or if it is the second, auditory consciousness, then the appropriate basis is sound. And so on through the rest, each of which have their appropriate supporting bases none of which account for kindness. So there ought to be a seventh consciousness beyond the six, a consciousness whose basis accounts for kindness. But the Buddha did not recognize any such additional consciousness, and yet he himself exhibited kindness in teaching the wheel of *dharma* confidently in the assembly, having gained enlightenment. If he was enlightened and did not teach a seventh consciousness, should we conclude he was ignorant about it?

v7.c55.s2.t7.8

Pudgalavādin: No, he must have known the truth.

v7.c55.s2.t7.9

Śūnyatāvādin: Also, the Buddha told Ānanda that he always explains the 37 headings (4 applications of mindfulness, 4 right exertions, 4 supernatural powers, 5 faculties, 5 powers, 7 awakeners to liberation, 8 parts of the noble path). Yet you say he didn't explain this seventh consciousness. Do you blame him for not teaching completely what he knew?

v7.c55.s2.t7.10

Pudgalavādin: I do not blame him. Nevertheless, he did know of such a consciousness though he didn't explain it. He himself said (in *Śimśapāvanasūtra*) that he hasn't taught everything he understood.

v7.c55.s2.t7.11

Śūnyatāvādin: But he goes on in the same passage to remark that the things he does not teach are just those things not conducive to good, truth, the religious life or higher faculties, enlightenment or liberation. Therefore if a person existed and the Buddha did not teach about it, and he taught truly, it follows that the notion of person is not conducive to good, truth, the religious life, higher faculties, enlightenment or liberation, and should be rejected. So the person does not exist.

Section 7: Loving Kindness Continued

v7.c55.s2.t8.1

(TP369; TW197) In this section "the relation between the occurrence of kindness in the four applications of mindfulness and the seven awakeners to liberation and the person is discussed in the same way as above".²

Section 8: Is the Person Conditioned or Not Conditioned?

v7.c55.s2.t9.1

(TP369; TW197) Śūnyatāvādin: If conditioned, then (s)he is subject to birth, impermanence, duration and change. If unconditioned, (s)he is not born, not impermanent, not durable, not changing. You want to claim a third kind of thing, neither conditioned nor unconditioned, as your person. But the Buddha taught that there are only these two classes and no other. Therefore your view is wrong.

Section 9: The Six Consciousnesses and the Person

v7.c55.s2.t10.1

(TP370-373; TW198-207) It is carefully shown that none of the six kinds of consciousness are the person, nor does the contact that gives rise to each of those kind require the postulation of a person. Likewise, feelings, identifications, and thinking do not require such a postulation. The visual organ, its objects, visual consciousness and visual contact are none of them the person, and it is easily seen how each of the five aggregates arises from these four and their parallels in the other five cognitive realms. Each of the six consciousnesses have their own respective kinds of objects (color and shape for vision, sound for audition, etc.) and cannot cognize each others' objects, though they can identify their own kind of object. So there is no place nor need for a person. The person claimed by the Pudgalavādin does not have a nature such that it could function as any of the consciousnesses or any of the 12 senses for that matter. So, since we never are aware of such a person, it does not exist ultimately.

Chapter III: Conditions as Cause

v7.c55.s3.1

This chapter "deals with the relations of many types of awareness which might be called mental (active) phenomena (as can be seen in the *Dhammasaṅgaṇi* in which 89 awarenesses are distinguished). Also this chapter treats of four kinds of condition, namely: (1) cause, (2) directly antecedent, (3) supporting object, and (4) dominant factor, whilst the *Paṭṭhāna* operates with 24 kinds of conditions and the *Śāriputrābhidharmaśāstra* explains 33 cause including 10 conditions and the pervasive."³

Chapter IV: Condition as Supporting object

v7.c55.s4.1

"This fourth chapter deals with the problem of cognition and explains the six kinds of consciousness which are in the past, present and future, and which are good, bad, and neither-good-nor-bad, the interrelation of them, etc."⁴

Chapter V: Conjuncts

v7.c55.s5.1

"The fifth chapter is devoted to epistemological explanations of the 6 consciousnesses, 12 sense-bases, 18 elements, etc."⁵

Chapter VI: Coming Together

v7.c55.s6.1

"The sixth chapter deals with the mental functions of a person under training and explains the mental phenomena of the perfected being."⁶

Cites (4)