Chapter 3: The Evaluation—Adjudication Alongside Argument¶

[PLANNED] This chapter has not yet been written; what follows is a skeleton. Items may be added or removed, and the order may change.

What this chapter does. The core chapter of the part. The formula "the evaluation says" occurs two hundred eighty-nine times in the classical text and exercises the power of ruling. The chapter classifies what the rulings rest on: argument brought to a close, scripture invoked, format followed, or nothing given at all. Then, when adjudication coincides with argument and when it parts from it. Finally, what standing as truth a doctrine fixed by ruling can claim.

Structure.

First, a morphology of the evaluation. All two hundred eighty-nine occurrences classified by ground; the thirty-four-fascicle sample suggested roughly two thirds close an argument and one third rule without reasons, and a large share of the reasons given are breaches of the root text's wording rather than breaches of reason — that layer must be divided afresh over the full text.

Second, the direction of the rulings. Whether the adjudicator's choices show a pattern; the actual use of the pair tenable and untenable.

Third, the brake and who presses it. The last section of Chapter 2 says the method cannot stop itself; this chapter adds that stopping is done by the evaluation, and that what it stops is mostly growth the treatise itself has set going.

Fourth, the standing of the result. Whether a thesis fixed by ruling and a thesis that won by argument are the same kind of thing; and how the Vaibhāṣikas themselves saw the difference.

Data and sources. The full-text count of the evaluation is verified (two hundred eighty-nine, classical text); the sample classification and its caveats are in the survey file; counts for tenable and untenable await the re-run of the trap table over the full text.

To Chapter 4. With the grounds of ruling in view, the most famous ruling of all: the four masters, and the choice of Vasumitra.