Chapter 5: The roster of opponents¶

The Mahāvibhāṣā records the words of everyone it refutes. Its two hundred fascicles thus preserve an entire layer of evidence for the thought of the Buddhist schools. Many positions of the Dārṣṭāntikas, the Bhadanta, the Vibhajyavādins, the Vātsīputrīyas, the Mahāsāṃghikas, the Mahīśāsakas, and others are recorded only here. This chapter has two tasks. The first is the roster itself. Who appears on it, how often, and how much is preserved? The second is the mechanism. A school catalogues its opponents one by one, refutes them one by one, and establishes itself in this way. That process deserves direct analysis.

Who is on the roster, and how often do they appear? A complete search of the classical Chinese gives ninety occurrences of "Dārṣṭāntikas," 125 of "Vibhajyavādins," 161 of "Bhadanta," including 124 of "The Bhadanta says," seventeen of "Vātsīputrīyas," eleven of "Mahāsāṃghikas," four of "Mahīśāsakas," seven of "Dharmaguptakas," and three of "Kāśyapīyas."¹ For comparison, the school's own venerable Pārśva appears 104 times. Two things are immediately apparent. First, the regular opponents are the Dārṣṭāntikas and the Vibhajyavādins. They appear as often as the school's own elders, while the other schools are occasional visitors. Second, the Bhadanta appears more often than anyone else. Whether the Bhadanta and Dharmatrāta are the same person has long been disputed. The modern Chinese translation joins the names as "the Bhadanta Dharmatrāta" once in fascicle 1 but uses only "the Bhadanta" everywhere else. This book records the two names separately and leaves their identity an open scholarly question. Which school "Vibhajyavādins" designates is likewise disputed among scholars and remains an open scholarly question.

How the positions are preserved. The work has one valuable habit when refuting others. It first records their words in substantial passages, then answers them point by point. Fascicle 55 records the Dārṣṭāntika claim that conditions have no real nature, preserving their scriptural evidence and inferences in full. The sūtra says that ignorance conditions formations, but ignorance has no distinct defining features. How can a dharma without distinct characteristics condition dharmas with distinct characteristics and itself really exist? It then records the Bhadanta's more direct statement. The masters establish the names of conditions according to their conceptions; these conditions do not really have a nature of their own.¹ A complete antirealist position has survived through an opponent's record. Passages of this kind make it possible to reconstruct each party's position. Whether the reporting is systematically distorted, and whether the same party's positions are consistent across different fascicles, can be judged only after separate comparisons of each. This chapter records the method without claiming those conclusions in advance.

There are grades of refutation. The responses to the two parties recorded at length generally take the form of reasoning. The answer in fascicle 55 to the claim that conditions have no real nature is "If conditions have no real nature, then all dharmas have no real nature." This is a reductio that retreats in order to advance. Occasional visitors are treated differently. When the Mahāsāṃghikas offer a simile in fascicle 9, the answer is "There is no need to account for it, because it is not included in sūtra, vinaya, or abhidharma." Your simile need not be reconciled with the teaching because it is outside the Tripiṭaka.¹ The same book reasons with regular opponents and checks the credentials of marginal ones. This unequal treatment is itself information. Those taken seriously are the real threats.

Orthodoxy defines itself through its opponents. Here lies the roster's philosophical function. Almost every boundary of the doctrine that all exists is clarified by refuting someone. Refuting the Dārṣṭāntikas establishes the real existence of conditions. Refuting the Vibhajyavādins establishes the real existence of past and future. Refuting the Vātsīputrīyas establishes the nonself position's minimum requirement. The guide to Essay 15 observed that readers know the Sarvāstivāda vocabulary so well that familiarity obstructs examination. This chapter adds that every edge of that vocabulary was honed against the roster. Since the school draws its boundaries through its opponents, the roster is the book's outline, not its appendix. Chapter 1 of Essay 15 noted that opponents often locate the position they attack where the Sarvāstivādins make no such claim. Conversely, the Sarvāstivādins take all the objects of their refutations from their opponents. Both sides use the other as a blueprint. This is normal in the doctrinal debates of the Buddhist schools. The Vibhāṣā simply develops the norm on the scale of a catalogue.

On to Chapter 6. Having examined the roster, we turn to doctrine for which Essay 15 had no room. We begin in the home territory of Vibhāṣā classification, mental factors and association.

References¶