The Contribution of Saṃghabhadra to Our Understanding of Abhidharma Doctrines

The Contribution of Saṃghabhadra 223 Chapter 6 The Contribution of Saṃghabhadra to Our Understanding of Abhidharma Doctrines KL Dhammajoti 1 Introduction The whole range of Abhidhamma and Abhidharma extends in space from India to Central Asia and China. One lineage that has the most significant impact on virtually the whole of Indian and Chinese Abhidharma studies is undoubtedly the Sarvāstivāda. From this broad lineage, the great contribution of Vasubandhu is well known. But his junior contemporary, Saṃghabhadra, equally, if not more brilliant and influential, is relatively little discussed. The Sarvāstivāda enjoyed a long period of uninterrupted development. Its doctrines had great impact on the doctrinal evolution of not only the Śrāvakayāna schools, but also of the Mahāyāna. It were the Sarvāstivādins – with their compilation of the gigantic Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣā (MVŚ) completed around the middle of the second century CE – who comparatively developed the most systematic doctrinal system, to which most, if not all, the subsequent Śrāvakayāna doctrines were in part directly or indirectly indebted. They were also most probably the earliest to systematically seek to account for the experience of continuity against the backdrop of the early Buddhist teach- ings of selflessness (nairātmya) and impermanence (anityatā) – and later on momentariness (kṣaṇikatva). The Dārṣṭāntikas within this broad tradition developed their epistemologi- cal theories in dynamic interaction and contention with the Sarvāstivādin Ābhidharmikas, evolving eventually into the Sautrāntikas with their distinctive bīja (seed) theory. The Sarvāstivādin Yogācāra masters inherited the Ābhidharmika analysis of dharmas and their broad system of spiritual praxis and contributed, together with a certain section of the Sautrāntikas, to the establishment of the Mahāyāna Yogācāra school. The early Prajñāpāramitā scriptures (e.g. the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāpra jñāpāramitā) too display, from the beginning, an unmistakable familiarity with Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma doctrines. These include (at least, in respect of enumeration, terminology and broad outline): the contrast between the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004318823_008 224 Dhammajoti perfected wisdom (particularly the notion of sarvākārajñatā) and compassion (mahākaruṇā) of the Buddha and those of the two yānas (pratyekabud dha and śrāvaka); the process of abandoning contaminations, divided into darśanamārga (including the distinctive Sarvāstivādin scheme of the 16 kṣaṇas and the 16 ākāras of the four noble truths) and bhāvanāmārga, the path of cul- tivation; meditative attainment such as the nine anupūrvavihārasamāpattis; contamination (kleśa) vs habitual residue (vāsanā), and that the Buddha alone was able to completely abandon all kleśas together with the vāsanā; etc. In brief, the doctrinal importance of the Abhidharma tradition can be summed up as its all-pervasive impact – since the establishment of the Sarvāstivāda system – on the development of practically every Buddhist school of thought (and, to some extent, also on certain non-Buddhist tenets). Indeed, we cannot stress more the significant contribution of Abhidharma doctrines for the whole of the development of Indian Buddhism. In ancient China too, particularly since Xuanzang 玄奘, their importance was well acknowledged. It was in fact thanks to the devoted effort of Xuanzang et al., that the Indian Abhidharma texts came to be preserved in Chinese translation, including the gigantic 200-fascicle translation of the Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣā (MVŚ). Xuanzang and his pupils, all committed Mahāyāna Yogācārins themselves, devoted a great amount of time and effort in studying and expounding these texts. Now, in spite of their great importance, it is only in relatively recent years that we can observe a keener interest in the study of the Abhidharma tradition. This is heartening; but much more is awaiting our further serious investi- gation, and many inadequate or improper assumptions need to be rectified. There are of course many reasons – many already well discussed by scholars – as to why progress in this regard has not been so satisfactory, such as the immensity of the Abhidharma material transmitted in Chinese translation. One important reason that deserves to be highlighted is the over-reliance on the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (AKB) ever since Louis de La Vallée Poussin’s translation and, later, the publication of the Sanskrit texts of the AKB and Yaśomitra’s Sphuṭārthā Abhidharmakośavyākhyā (Vy). The great reference value of these two texts in their original Sanskrit is beyond doubt. But, important as they are, it hardly needs belaboring the fairly well-known point that their expositions of the Abhidharma doctrines are tainted with an anti-Abhidharmic stance – notwithstanding the fact that Vasubandhu indeed, true to his own words, presented these doctrines largely in accordance with what he believed to be the “Vaibhāṣika” views. Moreover, there had been further development and fine-tuning of the Abhidharma doctrines since the time of the MVŚ, and the AKB and the Vy .

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