Among the traditional eighteen schools of early Buddhism, it is the Sarvaastivaadins who exerted the most profound influence on the subsequent development of the religion. Based upon its teachings that factors exist in all the ‘three time' periods (sarvam (sarvadaa) asti), its ontology and soteriology inspired the developing Mahayana Schools.
The recension of the Jnaanaprasthaana, the doctrinal work of the school, translated by Hauan-tsang, includes a forty-two-member matrix, beginning with twenty-two faculties and ending with ninety-eight contaminants, which outlines the contents of the eight chapters of the treatise. Many of these same factor-listings reappear in later Mahayana works such as the Mahaaprajnaapaaramitopadesa.
Sarvaastivaadin theories also served as the point of departure in the subsequent examinations of Buddhist tenets by the Madhyamika School. Their teachings occupy a prominent place in the Theravaadin Kathaavatthu.
The Sarvaastivaada School had the widest geographical distribution on the Indian subcontinent, of all the early schools. After migrating from Pataliputra in the second century BC, they made their home in the Mathura region. The school soon spread to Kashmir, which ultimately became its orthodox base. A manor sub-sect of the school, known as the bahirdesikas (foreign teachers), was prominent in Gandhaara, and Bactria.
The masters of the Kashmir and the Gandhaara schools considered their teachings to be elaborations of the doctrines found in the Abhidharma Mahaavibhaasaa, a massive commentary and compendium of the Sarvaastivaadin doctrine. They, therefore, commonly referred to themselves as Vaibhasikas (those who follow the Vibhaasa).
Many classical sources on the lineages of the early Buddhist schools distinguish between the Sarvaastivaadins and the Muulasarvaastivaadins. The relationship between the two remains unclear. Both apparently accepted the same Abhidharma texts, but recognized minor variations in certain Avadaana texts, and maintained different recensions of the Vinaya.
In addition to its being widespread in India, the Sarvaastivaada was also the only of the early schools to achieve popularity throughout greater Asia as well. The Chinese pilgrim, I-ching (ca. AD 671-95), for example, reported finding the Sarvaastivaada School flourishing in several of the petty kingdoms of Central Asia, in Southeast Asia on the islands of Sumatra and Java, and in the southern, western and eastern provinces of China whence it spread to other regions of East Asia.
The Abhidharma canon of the Sarvaastivaada School is based on its central text, the Jnaanaprasthaana, and six subsidiary treatises, called the padasaastras. A massive commentary to the Jnaanaprasthaana, known as the Mahaavibhaasa, is the basic source of information on the intra-sectarian controversies that apparently raged within the school.
In addition to these canonical texts, there are several handbooks of Sarvaastivaadin Abhidharma that are still extant in Pali. Only the Abhidharmakosabhasya and fragments of the Abhidharmadeepa are extant in Sanskrit. Apart from portions of the Prajnaptibhaasya, which survive in Tibetan, the remainder of the canonical literature is available only in Chinese translation. This dearth of materials in the original Sanskrit has long inhibited research in the canonical literature of the Sarvaastivaadins.
Unlike the texts of the Pali Abhidhamma canon, the original outlines of which are all ascribed to the Buddha himself, the Sarvaastivaada Abhidharma books are all ascribed to human authors. But the Sarvaastivaadins themselves considered these men to be mere compilers of the Buddha's words.
The Jnaanaprasthaana is commonly considered to be the body of the Sarvaastivaadin Abhidharmapitaka, and the six supplements its limbs, literally feet (pada).
As the Jnaanaprasthaana is considered to be the youngest of the canonical Abhidharma texts, this could not have been the original meaning of the term ‘foot'. Ching-mai's post-face to Hsuan-tsang's translation of the Dharmaskanda suggests a different sense. It states that a text ‘was titled pada because it relied on the Abhidharma'. In this context, the interpretation that these texts were subsidiary to the Jnaanaprasthaana is probably a later development.
The Jnaanaprasthaana, also known as the Astagrantha, or the ‘Eight Chapters' is attributed to Kaatyaayaniputra. It is now considered to be the youngest of all the canonical works of the Sarvaastivaadin Abhidharmapitaka. According to the Sanskrit tradition, preserved in Yasomitra's commentary to the Abhidharmakosabhasya, the Sphutaartha
Abhidharmakosavyaakhyaa, its six supplements are the following, with their authors stated in the brackets.
• Sangeetiparyaaya (Mahaakausthila)
• Dharmaskandha (Saariputra)
• Prajnaptibhaasya (Maudgalyayaana)
• Dhatukaaya (Purna)
• Vijnaanakaaya (Devasarman)
• Prakaranapaada (Vasumitra)
Three separate Chinese recensions of a commentary to the Jnaanaprasthaana are still extant. They are Vibhaasa, Abhidharmavibhaasa, and Abhidharmamahaavibhaasa. Sarvaastivaada exegetes composed systematizations of the canonical literature quite extensively.
The following ordering of the canonical texts is considered to be the most plausible. Sangeetiparyaaya and Dharmaskandha are considered to belong to be the earliest period, Prajnaptibhaasya, Dhaatukaaya, Vijnaanakaaya and Prakaranapaada to the middle period, followed by the Jnaanaprasthaana.
Sangeetiparyaaya
The matrix that opens the book includes 122 separate classifications of a total of 205 factors arranged in a sequential series of monads, dyads, triads, up to decads, in a way that is quite similar to the format of the Ekottara-aagama. As such, in format, its affinities are more with the various recensions of the Sangeetisuttanta found in the Pali Nikaayas and Chinese Aagamaas than with the Abhidharma texts of the later Sarvaastivaada School. Perhaps, its closest parallel among the Pali Abhidharma texts is the Dharmasangaani.
In its theory of the seven types of noble persons, the Sangeetiparyaaya is slightly more developed than the Dharmaskandha. The Dharmaskandha refers only to two types of noble persons - faith followers and the followers of dharma.
On the other hand, the Sangeetiparyaaya lists seven types of noble persons - faith followers, dharma followers, resolved in faith, view-attainers, bodily witness, liberated by wisdom, and liberated both ways. This classification suggests that this text postdates the Dharmaskandha. While this listing is more advanced than anything found in either the Aagamas or the Dharmaskandha, it in no way represents any kind of revolutionary expansion of the scope of the Aagama presentation of the path, as found in the Jnaanaprasthaana.
Dharmaskandha
Its coverage closely parallels that of the Pali Vibhanga and the first half of the Saariputra-abhidharmasaastra, its style appears to be the most primitive of the three. Its treatment of major clarifications of factors indicates its antiquity. While the later Sarvaastivaada texts always list the aggregates, bases, and elements in that order as in the case of the Theravaada tradition, the Dharmaskandha, instead, gives them as bases, aggregates and elements, without accounting for the discrepancy.
The individual constituent classes of the thirty-seven limbs of enlightenment cover the major portion of the text. These chapters constitute one of the first attempts in the Sarvaastivaada Abhidharma to systematize the maarga scheme. This book draws the distinction between the path of insight and the path of practice. This innovative division became the cornerstone of the mature soteriological scheme of the Vaibhasikas, and also exerted enormous influence on the outline of the Buddhist path found in many Mahayana texts.
The latter portion of the text treats various technical classifications such as the bases and elements. There is a synthesis of these two major divisions of the book in the sixteenth chapter, which emphasizes, in particular, the defilements and their removal.
Prajnaaptibhaasya
The Prajnaaptibhaasya is the only one of the canonical Abhidharma texts that is not extant in full in Chinese translation. In its Tibetan recension, all the three sections are available. The three sections are Lokaprajnapti, Kaaranaprajnapti and Karmaprajnapti.
Lokaprajnapti is an extension of the cosmogony speculations of the Aagamas, such as are found in the Aggannasutta. The Chinese translation of the Prajnaaptibhasya in the eleventh century AD, several centuries after the translation of the other canonical texts, preserves only portions of the second section on causes. This section covers material on the causes leading to the various stages in a Bodhisattva's career, from entering the womb to entering parinirvana. This topic is conspicuously absent in the Theravaada
Abhidharma.
The Prajnaaptibhaasya is the text most quoted in the Mahaavibhaasa. This suggests that though it covers most of the topics provisionally, its speculations were nevertheless of concern to the Vibhaasaa scholars.
K. R. Paramahamsa is an author of book Buddhism In Scripture and Practice
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