Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIRVANA
(pratilabdha), touched (spKLMa) and realised (sAkLAtkKta) by a saint’. Since there
is no person (pudgala) in the final nirvana, these terms cannot be applied to
nirvana without a remainder of clinging (nirupadhiUeLanirvAOadhAtu).
What could be the possible picture of the state of nirvana without a
remainder of clinging? From the above expression, ‘there is no person but
dharmas in themselves (dharmatA)’, 63 we can assume that it was the disintegration
of the series of aggregates (skandhasaNtAna) owing to there being no
more driving force, such as defilement, left to continue the series. That is to
say, the series of aggregates that is conventionally designated as a person
(pudgala) has been disintegrated, yet all dharmas that constitute that series
of aggregates continue to exist because they are real existents in the three
time periods.
Thus, if the Sarvastivada-Vaibhalikas were asked what happens to
the TathAgata after death, one of the unanswered questions, their technical
answer could be that ‘The TathAgata was only a designation for the series of
aggregates in which all junctions with defilements have been terminated and
thus acquisitions of disjunction with all defilements have been attained.
When the life faculty and homogenous character of the group have been
destroyed this series of aggregates finally disintegrates and only dharmas in
themselves remain.’ This last point, the existence of dharmas, was the
Sautrantika’s main target when arguing against the ontological position of
the Sarvastivada-Vaibhalikas.
The Sautrantika’s criticism of ontological issues around nirvana
Before going into the ontological issues around nirvana, we need to look at
who the Sautrantikas were and how they dealt with the two nirvana theory.
An interesting comment on the chronology of the Sautrantikas was given by
Kui-ji ( ), a principal disciple of a famous Chinese translator Xuanzang,
in his Cheng-you-shi-lun Shu-ji ( !"#), the Chinese commentary
on the VijñAptimAtrasiddhiUAstra. 64 According to him, the origin of the
Sautrantikas goes back to Kumaralata, an influential Buddhist master based
in the north Indian city of Taklauila around a hundred years after the death
of the Buddha. Though he was one of the five Sauryodayikas, a name given
to them because their emerging influence among Buddhists at that time was
compared to the rising sun, he and his followers were called the Daklmantikas
mainly because of his book, the DKLMAntamAlAUAstra, and his tendency to
explain Buddhist doctrines with similes. The name Sautrantika only arose
after the death of vrclata, the second Sautrantika master, believed to have
lived four hundred years after the death of the Buddha and to have written
the SautrAntikavibhALA.
The plausibility of this late seventh-century comment by Kui-ji ( ) has
been strongly contested and a study by Kato suggests that the date of
Kumaralata cannot go back to a hundred years after the death of the Buddha,
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