[Buddha-l] Pudgalavada

[L.S. Cousins]

Well, Dan and Stephen,

Thanks for letting us see this. It is very interesting to get some 
further sense of the problem areas.

I do have questions ! Obviously they concern what the original text 
might have meant and not how the Chinese (or later Indians for that 
matter) would have taken it.

Firstly, what is prajñapti of appropriation ? Is this rendering 
upaadaaya prajñapti ? Or, something more like the Pali 
upaadaapaññatti ? (I assume the former is a Sanskritization of Middle 
Indic forms like the latter, but it seems to acquire new meanings in 
Sanskrit). I would take upaadaa(ya) as just meaning 'in relation to' 
or 'in dependence upon'. The chariot is known in dependence upon the 
parts. It doesn't appropriate them.

Following this line of thought, ignorance concerning derivative 
concepts would be ignorance concerning any kind of 
derivative/secondary concept. So the (first) text is giving an 
example of a case where there is ignorance concerning secondary 
concepts i.e. falsely understanding the jiiva to be in some 
relationship with the aggregates rather than a derivative notion. If 
you understand that it is a derivative notion, then this counteracts 
the notion that beings exist.

Secondly, there is some problem with prajñapti itself here. Down to 
the paracanonical literature in Pali we hardly get prajñapti in the 
precise sense of 'concept'. It is used more generally in a sense like 
'making known'. I tend to think that if it were used in that way here 
in both these texts it would mean that these texts probably do not 
pre-date the second or third century A.D.

Thirdly, I too am not very convinced by the idea of *upaayaprajñapti. 
It seems worthwhile here to look at the lists of types of paññatti in 
the Pali Abhidhamma Commentary. In particular here we have two sets 
of six which are specifically stated to be teachers' methods, not 
deriving from the <old> Commentary. This very possibly means that 
they were introduced to Ceylon from elsewhere. Relevant here are:

a) relative (upanidhaa) paññatti which is used to refer to such 
things as number or spatial measurement or time which are true in 
relation to (lit. in comparison to) something else;

b) asa'nkhatapaññatti used for describing nibbaana;

c) continuity (santati) paññatti. This normally applies to labels 
applied to the 'same' person at different times in one life, but 
could presumably apply to the 'same' person across multiple lives.

A simpler version is given by the commentator Buddhadatta (who may or 
may not have been a contemporary of Buddhaghosa). He divides into 
three kinds of paññatti:

1. tajjaa i.e. describing a reality (this would include nibbaana);

2. derivative (upaadaa)

3. relative (upanidhaa)

This would be quite close to the list of three in our second 
Pudgalavaadin text, if upanidhaa were the underlying term 
corresponding to the supposed upaaya-.

In that case, the text is giving illustrations of ignorance 
concerning relative or comparative terms, in this case 'past', 
'present' and so on.

Well, I am not really sure how helpful this is, but it seemed worth a 
try. We should note that we do not know whether Pudgalavaadin 
literature was closer in its language to the Pakistani Buddhism of 
the Sarvaastivaadins or the Sri Lankan Buddhism of the Theravaadins.

Lance Cousins