Chapter 4: The Four Masters—Four Shapes of Time¶

[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. Dharmatrāta says difference of mode, Ghoṣaka difference of characteristic, Vasumitra difference of position, Buddhadeva difference of relative standing. Part 15, Chapter 3 has already tested the four as four forms of the thesis that all three times exist; this chapter asks a different question: why the adjudicator chose Vasumitra, what kind of reasons the elimination rests on, and what the choice committed the later system to.

Structure.

First, the four positions in their original wording: fascicle seventy-seven (to be verified), and the divergences in the Kośa's retelling.

Second, the adjudicator's reasons. Of what type is the elimination of each of the other three: argument, scripture, or consistency of format.

Third, the price of the position account. Position is fixed by function, and the whole weight comes to rest on function alone; in Part 15 that is where the doctrinal predicament begins, here it is a specimen of consequence: the ruling picked the least troublesome answer and left the heaviest burden to posterity.

Fourth, the aftermath. How the three eliminated masters go on being cited once the position account is orthodoxy; in what way plurality survives inside an orthodoxy at all.

Data and sources. Fascicle seventy-seven (to be verified); the corresponding passage of the Kośa's chapter on the elements; the figure and tables of Part 15, Chapter 3 are reused, not redrawn.

To Chapter 5. The four masters are plurality inside the system; next, the roster of opponents at its edge.