Chapter 6: The refutation of self¶

The first eight chapters organize and criticize the Sarvāstivāda system. The book could end there. Vasubandhu begins another fascicle to address directly the thing whose name the entire work has avoided saying aloud, the self. The chapter refuting self is a different kind of text in form. Its title does not stand at the beginning of a fascicle, and it has no root verses of its own. The alternation of verse and exposition in the first eight chapters gives way to prose alone. Whether it is appended or included in the main work is handled differently in the two Chinese translations. Xuanzang's translation begins it midway through fascicle 29 and continues it as a second part in fascicle 30. Paramārtha's translation devotes fascicle 22 to it, placing the chapter title at the beginning. Fabao assigns it, together with the final four verses, to the concluding section, saying that it was added when the verses were explained and does not belong to the root verses.¹ It is the work's point of closure, and the literary form itself makes that clear. Weight is measured by position, not length. The chapter occupies only one-twentieth of the book, yet offers the fullest statement of nonself in Buddhist literature.

The opponent and the stakes. The main opponent is the Vātsīputrīya school. The four characters 補特伽羅, "person" (pudgala), occur nearly seventy times in fascicles 29 and 30 together. The three characters 不可說, "inexpressible," occur sixteen times.² The Vātsīputrīyas posit an inexpressible person, neither identical with nor separate from the five aggregates, neither permanent nor impermanent. Press the question to its limit, and the answer is "inexpressible." The position seeks to preserve both ends, a bearer of rebirth and memory without violating the doctrine of nonself. It is the most honest struggle within the Buddhism of the schools, because it openly makes a question of the need that other schools hide in acquisition, continuum, and seed.

Vasubandhu's questioning always lands in one place. The debates are rich in detail, but the method is almost cruelly uniform. "Inexpressible" either says something or says nothing. If the person can be known, say whether it is identical with or different from the aggregates. If identity or difference cannot be stated, what object does the consciousness that knows the person take? If the object is also inexpressible, the phrase "knowing the person" loses its content. The classifications of two kinds of truth and three kinds of designation are tested cell by cell. In each cell, the Vātsīputrīyas must choose between being able to say something and being unable to say it. Either choice loses. Chapter 3 of Essay 13 established the basis in the five aggregates and nonself. Chapter 7 of Essay 14 examined how the Southern tradition holds that line. The refutation of self supplies the fullest set of arguments along it. Its new arguments are precisely the Sautrāntika tools established in the preceding chapters. Differences in the continuum's capacities can do everything a bearer does. The bearer therefore has nothing to do.

Two non-Buddhist fronts. At its end, the chapter turns to the selves of the Vaiśeṣikas and Sāṃkhyas. These debates are different in kind. The Vātsīputrīya person is a compromise within Buddhism. The Vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya selves are explicitly posited metaphysical entities, agents and experiencers. Vasubandhu's refutations of the non-Buddhist positions take less effort because the positions are clear. They make determinate claims about identity and difference, permanence and annihilation, and each claim can be refuted in turn. It is always the inexpressible that proves troublesome. Seen together, the three debates show the complete form of nonself. Externally it refutes entities; internally it rejects compromise. It then assigns every function of bearing dharmas to a continuum without a bearer.

This chapter's position and the question it leaves. Placing the refutation of self at the end announces that the reckonings in the first eight chapters all lead here. After the three times, acquisition, the nonmanifest, and the unconditioned have been struck from the list one by one, the final cancellation is the general request behind them all. Give experience an owner. Vasubandhu's answer is no, and his argument reaches the point where no owner can be given. The remaining question is here too. A continuum without a bearer must carry memory, responsibility, and liberation alone. The seed theory is pushed to its limit. How that limit pushes Sautrāntika toward Yogācāra is the starting point of Essay 20.

On to Chapter 7. Vasubandhu has finished speaking. Sarvāstivāda's strongest defender read this book and wrote eighty fascicles in response. The next chapter examines that defense.

References¶