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

NIRVANA IN NORTHERN BUDDHIST SCHOOLS
What then are ‘series’, ‘transformation’ and ‘special’? Series is the
current of successive moments of mind [initiated by] former action.
Transformation (pariOAma) is arising of that [series] differently [from
before]. Further special transformation (pariOAmaviUeLa) is the
capacity of producing a result immediately because of being the
distinctive last transformation. 123
In this transformation the final result was produced from the last moment
of the transformation, which has a special and distinctive power to produce
its result immediately. The whole process of this special transformation of a
series (saNtAnapariOAmaviUeLa) was likened to producing a final fruit that is
not a direct result of a seed but an indirect result of its long transformation
from a seed to a sprout, from a sprout to a flower and finally from a flower
to a fruit. 124
One important question still remains to be answered in this theory: why
does the uninterrupted conditioning of successive moments stop at one point
and not continue for ever? In other words, why does a new cause that has
just been produced by the special transformation not repeat the same transformation
again? The answer given by Vasubandhu was a kind of ancient
Buddhist equivalent of a modern scientific experiment:
In a way that a red fibre (keUara) appears on the fruit which is born
of the special transformation of the series [initiated] by a citron
tree’s flower coloured with red-dye-liquid, but no other [red fibre]
appears again from that [red fruit], in that way there is no other
maturation (vipAka) from the maturation which is born of action
(karma). 125
It has been said by some old Chinese and Korean monks that some black
peas are produced by planting a pea coloured with Chinese black ink, but
planting these black peas will not produce other black peas again. What is
being said here is that the efficacy of the original cause lasts once only and
does not continue again and again, and this can be applied to such phenomena
as the maturation of an action, the latent defilement and memories
mentioned before. This seems to make a big difference in the character of
nirvana between the Sarvastivada-Vaibhalikas and the Sautrantikas.
One thing we should remember is that Vasubandhu’s theory of seed (bCja)
and the special transformation of a series (saNtAnapariOAmaviUeLa) seen in
the AbhidharmakoUabhALya was still in its provisional form. After explaining
them extensively at the end of the PudgalaviniUcaya, the ninth chapter of the
AbhidharmakoUabhALya, Vasubandhu simply hid behind the shadow of the
Buddha by quoting the following stanza ascribed to Rahula: ‘The cause
even of a single eye in the feather of peacock cannot be understood in all its
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