Chapter 0: Guide to this essay¶

The Abhidharmakośa was composed by Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese by Xuanzang in thirty fascicles. The Chinese tradition long treated it as the representative work of the Sarvāstivāda school, yet it was written by a critic. This mismatch is no minor philological detail. It is this essay's subject. Why did a man leave a system after putting it in order?

Why this essay needs to exist. There are three reasons. First, the tension between the root verses and the commentary is a philosophical event within a single book. Vasubandhu organizes the whole work in the Sarvāstivāda framework but adopts Sautrāntika positions at crucial points to refute it. His declared stance, "taking the stronger reasoning as one's guiding principle," needs to be weighed separately. Second, this work's fullest argument for nonself appears in the chapter refuting self. This chapter stands outside the eight-chapter format and has no root verses of its own. It confronts the Vātsīputrīya doctrine of the person directly and also addresses the Vaiśeṣikas and Sāṃkhyas. Third, this essay is the junction leading to the two major systems that follow. The seed theory connects directly to Yogācāra. Only after the examination here can we see the strength of the claims about intrinsic nature and real relations that Madhyamaka will have to address. There is also a defense that must be accounted for. Saṃghabhadra answers sentence by sentence and gives no ground at most points. The last systematic Sarvāstivāda self-defense is in the Abhidharmanyāyānusāra, not the Vibhāṣā.

One book, two identities. The Kośa is both an outline of Sarvāstivāda and a critique of it. The two identities interweave chapter by chapter. In reading any chapter of this essay, first ask which identity the sentence before you is serving. Is it reporting Vaibhāṣika doctrine or speaking in Vasubandhu's own voice? Making this distinction is the essay's basic discipline. Chapter 1 establishes the rule, and the later chapters follow it.

The structure of eight chapters plus the refutation of self. The fascicles and their shares of the modern Chinese translation are as follows. The shares are calculated from the existing translation of all thirty fascicles.

This table carries three pointers. The chapter on action is the largest. This essay takes only its material relevant to the seed theory; the rest belongs by topic to Essay 15. The refutation of self is the smallest, less than one-twentieth of the book, yet receives a chapter of its own here. Weight is measured by position, not length. Its format, too, is of a different kind. The chapter title does not stand at the beginning of a fascicle, and the chapter has no root verses of its own. In the first eight chapters, verse and exposition alternate. Here, only prose remains.

The translations by Paramārtha and Xuanzang. This essay uses Xuanzang's thirty-fascicle translation as its base text, and quotations follow the classical Chinese original. Paramārtha's older translation is cited for comparison only where the doctrine differs. It is not a second base text. Differences between the translations are explained as they arise, without a separate section. The dispute over one Vasubandhu or two is treated in the same way. Only the conclusion and its reasons are stated.

Division of labor with Essays 15 and 16. Essay 15 asked whether this metaphysics could stand. Essay 16 asked how it was adjudicated into orthodoxy. This essay examines a system that one of its own adherents organizes into a book and then abandons at crucial points. Each essay takes a different aspect of the shared material. For real existence across the three times, Essay 15 measures the claim itself, Essay 16 asks why the evaluators choose Vasumitra, and this essay sets out Vasubandhu's refutation and the Sautrāntika alternative. For acquisition and nonmanifest material form, Essay 15 examines the introduction of formal entities and the regress they generate, Essay 16 examines the reasons for positing them on the Vibhāṣā side, and this essay examines their rejection one by one. For Saṃghabhadra, Essay 15 takes only one passage concerning regress; Chapter 7 here provides a full treatment. In the five-layer table in the guide to Essay 15, this essay addresses the layers of turning point and defense.

Length and scope. Like the preceding essay, this is a brief exposition. It is shorter than Essay 15 because the work is divided between them. The detailed doctrinal exposition is there. Here we follow the book, examining the Kośa's own history, methods, and crucial points, together with the defense it provoked. Where the treatment seems too brief, return to the corresponding chapter of Essay 15.

On to Chapter 1. First, establish the rules for distinguishing the two identities.