Chapter 2: What is Sautrāntika?¶

The other current on which Vasubandhu draws in refuting Sarvāstivāda is called Sautrāntika. The name carries a problem from the outset. It claims the sūtras as its authority and refuses that status to Abhidharma, yet a school that produces no Abhidharma collection can leave its positions only scattered through other people's books. This chapter does not recount the history of the scholarly dispute. It has one task, to set out the basic Sautrāntika positions in a list that the next three chapters can use item by item.

Name and identity, beginning with two sets of figures. The regular opponents in the Mahāvibhāṣā are called Dārṣṭāntikas, with ninety occurrences. In the Kośa, "Dārṣṭāntikas" appears only twice. Its place is taken by "Sautrāntikas," twenty times, and "Sautrāntika masters," eleven times.^{1 2} From the Vibhāṣā to the Kośa, the name changes. Whether the Dārṣṭāntikas and Sautrāntikas are earlier and later stages of one line or two parties read together by later generations remains disputed among scholars. This book records it as an open scholarly question. It uses only what can be established. The positions Vasubandhu adopts at crucial points move in the same direction as the Dārṣṭāntika positions recorded in the Vibhāṣā. The genealogical question does not prevent a doctrinal list from being established.

The list of positions. Each is stated separately, with its source. First, the present really exists, while past and future have no substance. This is the entire opposing side in the debate on the three times, examined doctrinally in Chapter 3 of Essay 15. Fascicle 20 is the main battlefield. Second, the unconditioned is not real. "The Sautrāntika masters say that nothing unconditioned really exists. It is not a separate real entity like material form, feeling, and so forth."² Third, acquisition is not real. Whether defilements have been abandoned is established through a difference in the supporting body. "Possession and nonpossession, these two are merely nominal, not real," as fascicle 4 states explicitly.² Fourth, nonmanifest material form is not real. Even the shape constituting manifest action is denied real existence, much less the nonmanifest. Chapter 4 of Essay 15 recorded this exchange. Fifth, action has volition as its substance. When the Sarvāstivādins press the Sautrāntikas on what constitutes bodily action, the answer identifies bodily action directly with volition. "The volition capable of moving the body in various ways operates through the bodily door and is therefore called bodily action," as fascicle 13 states explicitly.² Together, the five positions move in one direction. Every item posited solely to explain persistence and connection is withdrawn. Only the continuum operating in the present can remain.

The list's internal consistency. These denials share one criterion. The boundary of real existence moves from surviving analysis intact to having activity that can be demonstrated. The Sarvāstivādins ask whether something withstands breaking down and analysis. If it does, it really exists. Thus past and future, acquisition, the nonmanifest, and the unconditioned all really exist. The Sautrāntikas ask whether something is active at this moment. If it is not, it is merely a name. Once the boundary moves, most members of the Sarvāstivāda list are judged nominal. One thing takes over all the vacated roles, a difference in the continuum's capacities, or a seed. The item with the widest ramifications deserves a chapter of its own.

Establishing the basis for the chapters that follow. Chapter 3, on seeds, takes up the positive form of the third item. Chapter 4 removes formations unassociated with mind one by one, taking up the third and fourth items. Chapter 5, on the three unconditioned dharmas, takes up the second. Those chapters will not establish the list again but will refer back here.

On to Chapter 3. How do actions and their results span time? The Sarvāstivādins entrust this to acquisition and nonmanifest material form, the Sautrāntikas to seeds and the distinctive transformation of the continuum. The replacement must first be established before we can see how the row of things it replaces leaves the scene.

References¶