[Buddha-l] Pudgalavada - Vasumitra-2a

[Dan Lusthaus]

Re: [Buddha-l] Pudgalavada - Vasumitra(First attempt to post was rejected due to size. I've split it into 2 messages)

Here is a translation of Paramartha's version of the Vatsiputriya section of Vasumitra's treatise. In deference to Lance, I have changed all diacriticals into ASCII equivalents. I have annotated it, to point out some of the textual/conceptual issues.

Where Paramartha and Xuanzang differ, Xuanzang would appear to be offering the better reading. How reliable Paramartha's additional section(s) are is uncertain.

Paramaartha's version (T.49.2033.21c21-22a15) 

These are the basic opinions held by the Vaatsiiputriiya:
[Both Paramaartha and Xuanzang translate, rather than transliterate, this school's name. Paramaartha's rendering means something like "Son Able to Abide" while Xuanzang's means "Son of a Heifer" (犢 du means a calf).]

The person (= pudgala) is not the same as the five skandhas. Nor is the person different from the five skandhas, since it collects skandhas, dhatus, aayatanas.

They establish the person, etc. to be a prajñapti (jiaming). There are three types of prajñapti. 1. Everything (is) prajñapti category. 2. One part is prajñapti category. 3. Cessation and 'passing over' prajñapti category.
[The tricky word, which occurred in the previous line ("since it _she_ skandhas, dhaatus, and aayatanas") and here appears after each of the numbers, is she, which, as a verb would mean "collected into," but is frequently used in Buddhist literature of this sort simply to indicate that this is a "category." It can make sense either way. As "category," a "smoother" translation might read: 1. The category of "everything is prajñapti." 2. The category of "one-part is prajñapti." 3. The category of "cessation and 'passing over' is prajñapti."I am taking it in the latter sense. Bareau apparently took in the former sense, as "collected." If, as may be the case, Paramaartha is trying to imply the sense of "appropriation" – our upaadaana, upaadhi, etc., term – by using _she_, then the three prajñaptis might be rendered: 1. The prajñapti of collecting (i.e., appropriating) everything; 2. the prajñapti of collecting one part; 3. the prajñapti of 'collecting' cessation and 'passing over.']

All sa.msk.rta dharmas are momentary, ceasing momentarily.
[Paramaartha seems to be reading the term here as sa.msk.rta-dharmas, while Xuanzang is reading it as sa.mskaara. The pudgalavada literature suggests that Xuanzang's reading is probably correct.]

Apart from ruupa, there is not a single dharma that follows from this life to the next life. It is the person that can be said to have transposed (yi, anugacchati).
[This is illogical, since ruupa doesn't "transpose" or "transmit" from one life to another. The new life acquires a new rupic bundle. One's ruupa even changes each moment during a single life. Paramaartha may have been thinking of some notion of the continuity of the body during a single life as an identity marker, contrasting it with sa.msk.rta dharmas, but ruupa is also a sa.msk.rta dharma. He seems to want to suggest that mental events are momentary, and thus lack continuity, while physical continuity does occur. But since the context here is across lives, not the continuity of a single life, his editorialization is missplaced.]

Non-Buddhists (may) have the five .rddhis.

A person correctly giving rise to the five consciousness, neither has desire nor is apart from desire.

The bonds (sa.myojana) associated with the kaama-dhaatu are negated through the bhaavanaa-maarga. If a person is able to eliminate (them), then he attains "elimination of desire." If they are negated through the dar'sana-maarga in the kaama-dhaatu, then it is not as good as that.

K.saanti, naama, nimitta, and laukikaa agra-dharmaa.h, these four stages are called correct meditation.
[The third item, in Chinese, is xiang, an infamously multi-semantic term, which can be used to render lak.saṇa, aakaara, nimitta, li'nga, etc. In some texts, even with a relatively clear context, it can sometimes be difficult to decide which meaning is intended (and Chinese commentators frequently guess wrong). In similar contexts Thich T.C., apparently like Bareau, also Sanskritizes xiang as aakaara, but, I suspect the intended term is nimitta, since one finds similar, but not identical lists, in other texts where nimitta is the word being used. We are not given enough information here about how this list of four wholesome practices was understood by the Vaatsiiputriiyas to make a truly informed guess.]

If a person has already entered correct meditation within the twelve mental (moments), this is called approaching srota-aapanna (?).
[The Taisho has 須氀多阿半那 xu lue duo a ban na, which, if one replaces the first two characters with窣路 so lu, would be identical to 窣路多阿半那 su lu duo a ban na, a common transliteration of srota-aapanna. Justification for substituting the xu for su as the first character is based on  須陀般那 xu tuo ban na, which is another known transliteration for srota-aapanna. The Foguang dictionary, p.5360a, also gives Paramaartha's version here as an alternate transliteration of srota-aapanna. Many translators into Chinese devised their own transliterative compounds, partially to reflect changes over time, or regional dialect differences in pronunciation. Paramaartha's transliteration only occurs one other time in the Taishō, and that is also in this text, during the description of the Sarvaastivaadins. In that place, Xuanzang's text has the identical term he himself uses here, 行向 xingxiang, lit. "going toward," or "beginning to walk [the path]."]

Arriving at the thirteenth mental (moment) is called srota-aapanna.
[Xuanzang called this "abiding in the fruit."

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Dan Lusthaus
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