Chapter 5: The Three Unconditioned Are Not Real¶

[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. Cessation through discrimination, cessation without discrimination, space: the dispute over the reality of the three unconditioned, and the crux is nirvāṇa — if that cessation is no entity, is nirvāṇa an existence or an absence. The chapter closes with a three-way comparison with the unconditioned in Part 14 and the last row of the master table in Part 15, Chapter 7.

Structure.

First, the posts the three hold in the school's system. The grounds for establishing them are detailed in Part 15; only the job description is taken here.

Second, Vasubandhu's denials. The form of each of the three arguments; what remains of the three names once they are unreal: a name for absence, or a different referent.

Third, the ontological standing of nirvāṇa. Cessation as the fruit of disconnection and not a thing; the compatibility of this with the doctrine of liberation — exactly where Saṅghabhadra strikes.

Fourth, the three-way comparison. One unconditioned in the Theravāda, three in the Sarvāstivāda, none real for the Sautrāntika; the price of each configuration.

Data and sources. The passages in Faculties (fascicles to be verified); the master table of Part 15, Chapter 7 cited directly; the Theravāda side from the verified entries of Part 14.

To Chapter 6. The boundary of real and nominal redrawn, what remains is the thing both sides deny and someone keeps trying to save: the self.