Chapter 1. Sarvāstivāda: the reality of all three times and the permanent existence of dharmas' intrinsic being¶

Essay 3 turns to Abhidharma. Chapter 1.5 explained that the Buddha left the theoretical problem of "continuity without a self" outside the door and confined himself to description and practice. The Abhidharma traditions of the early schools later took on the task of explaining that problem systematically. Chapter 2.2 also explained that Abhidharma developed later and was not shared by all the schools. The present chapter examines Sarvāstivāda, the largest branch of the Sthavira tradition, and its most important claim, that all three times are real and the intrinsic being of dharmas exists permanently.

1. Abhidharma takes apart the "leaves in the hand"¶

Abhidharma, meaning "concerning the Dharma" or "higher Dharma," organizes teachings scattered through the discourses into a rigorous theory. It analyzes all experience into the smallest real units, "dharmas" (dharma), and classifies them. It then explains how they arise and cease from moment to moment and condition one another.

A crucial distinction governs the analysis. A cart or a person has only "nominal existence" (prajñapti-sat). It disappears when taken apart, and no independent entity lies beneath its name. Only the dharmas left at the end of the analysis have "substantial existence" (dravya-sat). Sarvāstivāda divides dharmas into five groups, whose details are left to the next chapter. Later commentaries added the items in the five groups to arrive at seventy-five and called them "the seventy-five dharmas in five categories." The book follows common Chinese Buddhist usage in retaining that name, although it does not occur in Sarvāstivāda's own primary texts.¹

The distinctive move of Abhidharma needs to be stated. It turns the practical, "quasi-phenomenological" description discussed in Chapter 1.5 into a theoretical analysis of existence itself. As that chapter explained, the Buddha offered only "a handful of leaves," while Abhidharma sets out to number every leaf in the forest. Taking that step brings new problems, and the present chapter concerns one of the most difficult.

The main texts are the Mahāvibhāṣā and Abhidharmakośa.

Sarvāstivāda philosophy rests chiefly on two texts. The first is the Mahāvibhāṣā, compiled in Kashmir around the second century CE. A vast collection of commentary on the school's central treatise, the Jñānaprasthāna, it records internal disputes and official judgments. The school accepting it is known as Vaibhāṣika, "those who uphold the great treatise." The four accounts discussed in Section 4 below are recorded there. The second is the Abhidharmakośa, written by Vasubandhu around the fourth to fifth centuries CE. Vasubandhu presents Sarvāstivāda doctrines systematically from a somewhat Sautrāntika perspective and criticizes them point by point. He later turned to Yogācāra, discussed in Essay 6, but the Abhidharmakośa became the standard textbook for studying Abhidharma in China and Tibet.² On that basis, we can infer that what is called "Sarvāstivāda" in Chinese and Tibetan contexts today has usually already been filtered through the Abhidharmakośa. Vasubandhu's critical perspective is built into the account, often without readers noticing.

Viewed more broadly in intellectual history, the development of Abhidharma into an academic tradition can be compared with Christian Scholasticism, although they belonged to different civilizations and were separated by centuries. Their motivating forces were very similar. Both tried to use rigorous reason to explain a central truth in their tradition that intrinsically resisted systematization. Both consequently continued for centuries and produced exceptionally refined yet endlessly disputed conceptual systems.

The difficulty of Christian Scholasticism concerned "God." How could an infinite, omnipotent being beyond time be understood through logical categories made for the finite world? Anselm's ontological argument, Aquinas's Five Ways, and the disputes between Scotus and Ockham over universals all addressed the same divide. When reason approaches God, it either makes God smaller or fails to give a clear account.

The difficulty of Buddhist Abhidharma concerned "no-self." Once no-self is taken seriously, karmic results, rebirth, and liberation all become unresolved problems. Who acts, who receives the result, and who is liberated? Denying the self did not end questions about it, but drove them to a deeper level where they were harder to answer. Sarvāstivāda relied on "the reality of all three times," the Vātsīputrīyas invoked "the inexpressible person," Sautrāntika devised "seeds," and Yogācāra established "storehouse consciousness." Each step added another theoretical layer over the gap left by no-self. Each temporarily stabilized the problem while giving the next group of critics a new target.

2. The problems raised by time¶

Sarvāstivāda accepts two premises shared by almost every school. All dharmas arise and cease momentarily, disappearing after an extremely brief instant, and there is no self, no entity that persists through the sequence. Taken to their conclusions, the two premises immediately raise unavoidable problems.

• How karma produces results across time. An act performed today may bear fruit years later or even in another life. If past karma vanishes completely as soon as the act ends, how can it produce a result in the distant future? Something cannot arise from nothing.
• How the past and future can be known. People can remember the past and anticipate the future. Sarvāstivāda insists that consciousness must have a real object in order to arise, since knowing is always "knowing an object." If past and future things do not exist at all, would cognition directed at them not operate without an object?
• What holds continuity together. Without a self, how can a stream of momentarily perishing dharmas continue from one moment to the next?

Momentariness combined with no-self therefore makes the existence of the past and future a question that must be answered. Sarvāstivāda gives a bold answer. Past and future dharmas exist too.

Why did the Buddha not state the answer at the outset?¶

The schools discussed from Sarvāstivāda onward dispute how continuity is possible without a self, the central difficulty identified in Chapter 1.5. The importance of the question calls for a pause here. Since the book has already laid it out clearly, why did the Buddha not state the answer at the outset and spare later generations more than a thousand years of dispute?

An obvious but mistaken answer should first be excluded. Some suppose that the Buddha could not find a sufficiently rigorous metaphysical account and therefore preferred silence, fearing that a statement would expose gaps his opponents could exploit. On such a view, the later transformations could have been avoided if only the "walls of metaphysics" had been built strongly enough. The book's position is that the strength of the walls is not the issue at all.

The argument has two parts, both following the account in Chapter 1.5. First, at the level of description, there is no "metaphysical answer" waiting to be revealed. As Chapter 1.5 explained, contemplating things as they are already dissolves the question of "who continues." There is only a bundle of phenomena changing according to conditions. No bearer is needed, and none can be found. The thing supposedly awaiting a clear statement, an entity or mechanism explaining how continuity works, does not exist. The Buddha gave people a way to see through the problem themselves, through contemplation of no-self, the setting aside of undeclared questions, and the reminder of the raft simile.³ He did not give a fixed conclusion to memorize. Even calling the teaching something descriptive, such as "phenomenology," cannot stop further questions. Close attention to experience itself still raises the metaphysical question of "what kind of being is this that presents itself." Chapter 1.5 already made a comparison with Husserl's "transcendental ego." A descriptive framework does not keep metaphysics outside but serves more as an entrance.

Second, and more importantly, even if the Buddha had built the strongest possible wall and established the most rigorous doctrine, he could not have prevented what followed. The mind keeps trying to grasp an ultimate ground within a doctrine through craving, the conceit "I am," and conceptual proliferation. The more rigorous the doctrine, the deeper grasping reaches, turning it into an entity again and renewing the dispute. Sarvāstivāda provides a direct example. It took up the problem and answered that "the intrinsic being of dharmas exists permanently throughout the three times," like a wall built with considerable strength. The answer did not end disputes but set off further ones. Sautrāntika, the Vātsīputrīyas, and even Mahāyāna Madhyamaka all attacked it. The grasping hand can in turn seize everything. It fixes momentary phenomena as "ultimate dharmas" and clings to "emptiness" as a view. Nāgārjuna therefore has to say that even emptiness is empty (Essay 5, Chapter 1). The same hand makes nirvāṇa into a permanent true self, as discussed in the treatment of nirvāṇa in Chapter 1.5 and tathāgata-garbha in Essay 7. Some even treasure the raft after crossing and refuse to put it down. The Buddha explicitly said that the Dharma is like a raft and should be abandoned on reaching the far shore.

The Buddha's leaving the answer unstated therefore did not result from an inability to build walls. He saw that building them was already a mistake. The metaphysical answer people wanted to establish did not exist, and forcing one into place would only feed the grasping hand. The rest of the chapter, and indeed the whole of Essay 3, examines how that hand builds one wall after another and how each is then demolished.

3. The reality of all three times and the permanent existence of dharmas' intrinsic being¶

The name "Sarvāstivāda" comes from the claim that all dharmas "exist" in the past, present, and future (sarva-asti, "all exists").⁴

The claim needs immediate clarification, or it can be mistaken for the view that "the past and future are active just as the present is." Sarvāstivāda's precise formulation separates "intrinsic being" from "activity."

• A dharma's intrinsic being, or own-nature (svabhāva), exists permanently. The own-nature of every dharma exists throughout all three times, without arising or ceasing.
• Activity (kāritra) occurs only in the present. A dharma performs its momentary activity only when it occupies the "present" position. Once the activity ends, the dharma "falls away" into the past.

A dharma therefore does not first "appear" out of non-existence and then "disappear" back into it. It has always existed, and only its temporal status changes. In the future position, its intrinsic being already exists but it has not yet acted. In the present position, it is acting. In the past position, its intrinsic being still exists but its activity has ceased.

The three problems now have answers. Past karma retains its intrinsic being and can therefore condition later results. Past and future things retain their intrinsic being, so cognition directed at them has real objects. Earlier and later dharmas in the stream each retain their intrinsic being, so continuity has a basis. The cost is the acceptance of permanently existing "intrinsic being" in dharmas. Section 5 will assess that cost.

Another tension needs to be noted. Chapter 1.5 discussed the discourse to Kaccāyana, in which the Buddha identified "everything exists" as an extreme to avoid. Sarvāstivāda nevertheless takes "all exists in the three times" as its defining doctrine. The school's very name directly conflicts with that passage. Sautrāntika and Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka later made the conflict a principal focus of criticism, as discussed in Section 5 below and in the Madhyamaka chapters of Essay 5.

The conflict concerns "all" as well as "exists." In Saṃyukta Āgama discourse 319, the Brahmin Shengwen asks what "all" means, and the Buddha answers with the twelve sense bases. The following statement is more significant. Anyone who says that these are not all and proposes another all is merely speaking words and will be unable to answer when questioned.⁵ In the discourse, "all" marks the scope of what can be known and indicates where inquiry stops. Sarvāstivāda takes the same word as the collective name for dharmas in all three times. "Exists" also changes from what can be included in the twelve bases to what has intrinsic being. The discourse uses the word to bring questioning to a close, while the treatise uses it to draw up an inventory of existence.

Two supporting mechanisms are possession and unmanifest matter.

The permanent existence of dharmas' intrinsic being in all three times is not enough. Sarvāstivāda must also explain how that permanent intrinsic being is attached to particular people and how the efficacy of moral action continues after the action ends. It introduces two supporting mechanisms to do so.

Possession (prāpti, "acquisition" / "belonging"). Sarvāstivāda lists possession separately as a formation dissociated from mind. It is a special connection that attaches a particular dharma to a particular continuum of body and mind.

Sarvāstivāda itself once defined possession's jurisdiction more narrowly than common accounts suggest. In the Abhidharmakośa, Vasubandhu sets out five objections. If possession is the productive cause of the dharmas possessed, he argues, the account fails for unconditioned dharmas, dharmas already abandoned, insentient things, and differences in the degrees of defilement. Sarvāstivāda responds by changing its claim. It abandons the account of possession as a productive cause and calls it a cause that establishes distinctions instead.⁶ Its reason is that without possession, no distinction could be established between an ordinary person and a noble one when both have the same worldly state of mind. Their active dharmas may be identical at that moment, yet their status must differ. Only possession can account for that difference.

Possession's task therefore lies at the level of statements. It allows claims about a person to remain true when no currently active dharma supports them. It is established for sentences rather than events. In the absence of a self as bearer, possession serves precisely that role.⁴

Unmanifest matter (avijñapti-rūpa, "matter that cannot be indicated"). Taking precepts involves a vow of moral discipline. Sarvāstivāda holds that taking such vows or performing a powerful wholesome or unwholesome act produces a special material dharma in the continuum of body and mind. It cannot be perceived by others, hence "unmanifest," but it continues to exist as a real dharma. Continuing unmanifest matter sustains the substance of the precepts even when attention later lapses. The continuing potential for harmful results after an unwholesome act is likewise stored in the form of unmanifest matter.

The two mechanisms address two halves of the same difficulty. Without a self, how does karmic efficacy continue across time, and on what grounds is it attributed to a particular person? Sarvāstivāda uses real dharmas as the adhesive. Unmanifest matter handles the first half and possession the second. As impersonal dharmas open to analysis, they introduce no "self," yet they can connect causes and effects across time. The later Sautrāntika criticism addresses precisely this point. Both concepts are unnecessary assumptions, and "seeds" alone will suffice, as discussed in Chapter 3.3.

4. How the three times differ: four accounts¶

A difficulty remains. If the intrinsic being of dharmas stays unchanged throughout the three times, what establishes the difference between past, present, and future? Fascicle 77 of the Mahāvibhāṣā records four explanations by four Sarvāstivāda thinkers, each with a simile.⁷

The Vaibhāṣikas judged Vasumitra's "difference in position" to be the correct doctrine. Intrinsic being remains unchanged, and the three times are distinguished solely by the occurrence of activity. The counting rod remains the same, while a change of position changes its value. The account preserves "permanent intrinsic being and changing activity" most cleanly.

One feature of the procedure behind that judgment needs to be understood. The compilers refute Buddhadeva, Ghoṣaka, and Dharmatrāta in turn, always on the grounds that their accounts confuse the three times or fail to accord with reason. The three refutations occupy roughly four times the space of the final judgment. The positive reason for that judgment consists of just one sentence, "because conditioned formations may have a time of activity."⁷ Vasumitra's account survives chiefly because the other three are judged wrong, rather than because it has itself been proved. The procedure is one of elimination, whose reliability cannot exceed its completeness. The treatise never asks whether there might be a fifth explanation beyond the four.

In the Abhidharmakośa, Vasubandhu examines the four accounts critically one by one. He considers Vasumitra's comparatively the soundest, yet still unsatisfactory, and then turns to another route, Sautrāntika, discussed in Chapter 3.3.⁸ His strongest objection to Vasumitra concerns the "inactive counterpart" of a sense faculty. Sarvāstivāda had added a qualification to prevent a dozing eye faculty from falling out of the present. An eye faculty that is not currently apprehending an object, and is therefore in the inactive counterpart state, still counts as present. Although it lacks the activity of seeing, it certainly has the activity of taking a result. Vasubandhu takes up that qualification and asks what activity the inactive eye faculty performs. If taking and giving a result also count as activity, past homogeneous causes and the like must be active too, since they can give results. Some dharmas would then have only half an activity, and the characteristics of the three times would become confused.⁹ Confusion was precisely the ground on which the compilers had eliminated Buddhadeva and Ghoṣaka. One reason for selecting Vasumitra had been that "the times established by this teacher are not confused." Vasubandhu introduces no new criterion. He turns Sarvāstivāda's own criterion against the account that survived.

5. What is gained and what it costs¶

The gains and costs can now be assessed together.

By holding that "all three times are real and the intrinsic being of dharmas exists permanently," Sarvāstivāda secures a stable basis for causation and knowledge. Permanent intrinsic being provides a foundation for karmic results across time, knowledge of the past and future, and continuity without a self. The book considers it a substantially coherent realism with considerable explanatory power.

The cost is an awkward resemblance. An "intrinsic being" that remains unchanged throughout all three times looks much like the permanent own-nature that Buddhism was meant to deny. Impermanence, expressed as "all conditioned formations are impermanent," says that everything changes, yet the account posits permanently existing intrinsic beings in dharmas. Sarvāstivāda defends itself by saying that intrinsic being exists permanently but is not a "self." It is impersonal, not autonomous, and open to analysis. Impermanence applies to the momentary arising and ceasing of "activity," so the doctrine has not been abandoned. That defense presupposes that intrinsic being and activity can be separated, with permanence attributed to one and impermanence to the other. Whether they can be separated is precisely what Vasubandhu questions in the Abhidharmakośa. The defense assumes what it needs to prove. Part II, Essay 15, Chapter 3 of the book has already judged the point. Sarvāstivāda's own account of temporal position forces it into a difficulty it cannot clearly explain. The difficulty does not arise from a misreading of Sarvāstivāda. It would be unfair to say that Sarvāstivāda teaches the permanence of conditioned dharmas, but equally unfair to say that it has satisfactorily reconciled permanence and impermanence. The gap exists, and later critics attack it there.

• Sautrāntika moves to the opposite position. Only the present is real, while the past and future are merely names. It explains karmic continuity through "seeds" instead, as discussed in Chapter 3.3.
• Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka attacks the basis of the account more radically by criticizing "own-nature" itself and arguing that the own-nature of dharmas cannot be established, as discussed in the Madhyamaka chapters of Essay 5.

A comparison in modern philosophical terms can help understanding, without implying historical influence. Sarvāstivāda's view that "all three times are real" is close to "eternalism" in contemporary philosophy of time, which holds that the past and future are as real as the present. Sautrāntika's view that "only the present is real" is close to "presentism." The dispute between the two schools is substantially comparable to that Western debate.

One mismatch needs to be explained before the comparison is used. In classical eternalism, all three times have equal ontological status. The present is merely a position indicated by an indexical expression and has no special status in itself. In Sarvāstivāda, the present is privileged. Only present dharmas act, and only present dharmas can be perceived by the five sensory consciousnesses. Only they can accumulate and form walls. Sarvāstivāda requires a structure in which all three times exist but the present is distinctive. The structure fits awkwardly into a simple division between eternalism and presentism, and forcing it into that division conceals its difficulty.¹⁰ The last row of the table therefore gives only a rough orientation.

The book closes with an observation about how the system is constructed. A tradition founded on impermanence and no-self ultimately establishes a collection of permanently existing intrinsic beings in dharmas when it addresses continuity. That result later becomes a principal target of Mahāyāna Madhyamaka criticism. Before examining the criticisms, the next chapter looks more closely at the Sarvāstivāda system itself, its inventory in five categories, and the Mahāvibhāṣā.

References¶