Chapter 8: Verdict and handover¶

A man uses the Sarvāstivāda framework to compile its finest outline, casts a dissenting vote at every crucial point, and finally leaves a verse saying that correct judgment of dharmas rests with the Sage.¹ This chapter concludes by treating this as a philosophical event. It is a case of shifting criteria, not a biography of conversion.

The verdict. After seven chapters, the content of the turn fits a short list. Real existence across the three times is rejected. Acquisition and nonacquisition are nominally established. Nonmanifest material form is denied reality. The three unconditioned dharmas are unreal. The person is refuted completely. Each item uses the same criterion, whether it can be described through the existing continuum. The criterion bears the name Sautrāntika. In substance, it transfers the burden of explanation from entities to capacities. The simplification is real, as Chapter 3 tested. What remains unresolved is still unresolved, but it no longer generates new unresolved problems of its own. What cannot be cleared away is also plain. Seeds must bear actions and their results; the continuum must bear memory and liberation. What has no bearer bears ever more. As Chapter 3 recorded, in fascicle 4 Vasubandhu himself already describes seeds in terms of the supporting body's transformation. One more step would require a deeper basis for the continuum. He does not take that step in the Kośa. Taking it leads to Yogācāra. This essay's verdict is therefore that the Kośa is the endpoint of the philosophy of the schools and the starting point of Mahāyāna philosophy. The two identities of this single book remain unreconciled even on the last page.

Its later reputation in China, a passage of history. The book's reception in China matches its dual identity. Paramārtha translated it first. Xuanzang retranslated it at Great Ci'en Monastery during the Yonghui era. Commentators flourished among his disciples. Puguang's thirty-fascicle Notes on the Kośa and Fabao's thirty-fascicle Commentary on the Kośa circulated together, and a Kośa school came to be named. The designation "Treatise of Acuity" also has a source. Huikai's opening preface to Paramārtha's translation already says that India universally calls it the "Treatise of Acuity." Puguang repeats this in fascicle 1 of his notes, saying that Indian students call it the "Treatise of Acuity."² Both describe the treatise's precise and discerning argument. Neither refers to its readers. What is interesting is that the Chinese tradition set it up to be read as a Sarvāstivāda outline, using its first identity to obscure its second. In a sense, Essay 17 seeks to read that second identity back into the Chinese tradition. The historical account stops here. It is not an argument.

The handover, three threads with separate destinations. First, seeds and the distinctive transformation of the continuum pass to the essay on Yogācāra. Store consciousness is the warehouse established for seeds, and transformation of the basis is the mature form of "the supporting body transforms and differs from before." Chapter 3 has already laid out the genealogy. Second, intrinsic nature and real relations pass to the two essays on Madhyamaka. Through this essay's examination, the Sarvāstivāda doctrine of intrinsic nature has undergone its strongest internal criticism and has already been loosened; in the order of this book's examination, the questions left by this internal paring down now pass to the discussion of Nāgārjuna. The final chapter of Essay 16 said that Vasubandhu's path is repair, while Nāgārjuna's is the path that does not repair. Third come nirvāṇa's ontological status and the unresolved question of the three unconditioned dharmas. Chapter 5 recorded how each of three schools gives ground. This impasse will receive a new account only when Madhyamaka addresses the categories of existence and nonexistence themselves. Each thread has its destination marked. The essay closes.

Closing. Essay 16's verdict called the Vibhāṣā a philosophy that must fit itself with brakes. This essay's verdict can answer it. The Kośa is the book that replaces the brake with a steering wheel. It does not stop the tradition. It gives the tradition its first ability to turn. Where that turn leads will be explained in the remaining essays of Part II, one by one.

References¶