Introduction
“This being, that exists; through the arising of this that arises. This not being, that does not exist; through the ceasing of this that ceases.”
The doctrine of Conditioned Co-arising, as the profound teaching of the Buddha, obviously illustrates a certain kind of causal relationship. Thus in his answer to a Brahman’s interrogation to the content of his teaching, he clearly stated that “I discuss and explain causes.” Therefore, the study and understanding of causality is central and essential to all school of Buddhism, and this is especially true for Sarvāstivāda. The Sarvāstivadins eventually articulated a doctrine of four conditions, six causes, and five fruits. That is the reason why Sarvāstivāda was also known as the Hetuvāda. They were devoted themselves very much to the study of the theory of causality, not only because of the above mentioned Buddhist fundamental teaching, but also closely related to their distinctive doctrinal claim on the nature of time and dharma-s, which is “the three temporal states (past, present and future) are real and equally exist, and the substance of all dharma-s is permanent.” As asserted by Venerable Dhammajoti:
“Indeed, given the Sarvāstivāda theory of the unique entities being absolutely isolated from one another in their intrinsic natures, without a proper theory of causality which can account for the arising of and dynamic interplay among them, the Sarvāstivadins would utterly fail to present any version of the central Buddhist teaching of ‘Conditioned Co-arising.’”
In this essay, my discussion will be primarily based on Ven. Yin Shun’s research on Sarvāstivāda. On the other hand, the discussion on the controversies will be largely based on the discussion of co-existent cause as contributed by Venerable Dhammajoti. In addition, all the English translations in this essay are basically quoted from Ven. Dhammajoti’s article “The Doctrine of Simultaneous Causality” published in Journal of Buddhist Studies. Moreover, the Chinese citations as inscribed in footnote are abstracted from the Chinese Electronic Tripitaka Collection 2007 of the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) as a cross reference.
Co-existent cause in JPŚ: classification and systematization
Co-existent cause, as a specific term, was firstly mentioned in JPŚ. JPŚ is a book written by Kātyāyanī-putra at the time around three hundred years after the parinirvāna of Buddha. Other than taking the fundamental doctrines of Sarvāstivāda as its basic contents, JPŚ also has a lot of commentaries on the controversies between different sects at that moment. For the reasons, it is similized as a ‘body’ to indicate its comprehensiveness when compared with the other six books, namely Abhidharma-vijñāna-kāya-śāstra (VKŚ), Dhātu-kāya-śāstra (DKŚ), Dharma-skandha-śāstra (DSŚ), Abhidharmaprakarana-śāstra (PrŚ), Abhidharma-sajgīti-paryāya-śāstra (SgPŚ) and Prajñāpti-śāstra (PjŚ). According to Ven. Yin Shun, these seven books are the very important and fundamental references of the development of MVŚ. Despite the JPŚ had explicitly discussed co-existent cause amid these seven books, however, it only simply mentioned four examples to illustrate what is co-existent cause without further elaborations and explanations.
“Question: What is co-existent cause? Answer: Thought and thought-concomitants are co-existent causes … Thought and vocal and physical karma of thought-accompaniments (隨心轉身業語業) are co-existent causes. Thought and non-mutually according thought-accompaniments (隨心轉不相應行) are co-existent causes … and the four Great Element are co-existent causes mutually among themselves.”
Obviously, there was no controversy on the concept of co-existent cause as shown in JPŚ. It reflected that classification and systematization of concepts were mainly the focus at the early stage of Sarvāstivāda’s writing.
Distinguishing co-existent cause and conjoined cause in MVŚ
Another book, Abhidharma-mahā-vibhāsā-śāstra (MVŚ) as wrote in Kaśmīra around 100-150 BC gave more discussion on the concept and even traced its origin to Āgama:
“The sūtra says, ‘the coming together of the three [- visual faculty, visual object and visual consciousness -] is contact; born together are sensation, conception and volition…’ sūtra says that such kinds [of dharma-s] are co-existent causes.”
Unlike JPŚ’s classification and systematization work, MVŚ offered detailed discussion on co-existent cause and conjoined cause. It defined these two concepts as ‘all conditioned (samskara) dharma-s’ and ‘all thought and thought concomitants’ respectively. As noted, this classification is different from those in JPŚ, which defined ‘thought and thought concomitants’ as co-existent cause. Therefore, some masters considered that these two have no difference . However, MVŚ disagreed to such point of view and discriminated them carefully from each other even they have a rather close relation. For example, they achieve the same fruit, namely ‘virile effect’ (puruṣakāra-phala,士用果); and they both belong to the category of ‘simultaneous’ (剎那同時的) when the six causes are classified according to temporality. In fact, the discussion of co-existent cause usually accompanied with the discussion of conjoined cause and vice-versa. We can understand the evolvement of the definition of Simultaneous Causality by clarifying their relationship.
Definition of co-existent cause and conjoined cause in MVŚ
According to Ven. Dharmajoti, MVŚ defined co-existent cause as (1) not mutually separated; (2) mutually according; (3) confirming with respect to decay (jarā), duration (sthiti), impermanence (anityatā), (fruit) phala, emanation (niṣyanada), and retribution (vipāka); (4) sharing the same effect; (5) conforming in having same effect; and (6) (mutually assisting) to accomplish the same deed. On the other hand, conjoined cause was defined as (1) reciprocally causes; (2) arisen through mutual strength; (3) mutually induced; (4) mutually nourished; (5) mutually strengthened; (6) mutually dependent; (7) equality and (8) companionship. In fact, these two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In stead of, as stated by Ven. Dhammajoti, conjoined cause can be essentially considered to be a subset of the co-existent cause.
The set-subset relationship between co-existent cause and conjoined cause
Generally speaking, there are four different descriptions of their relationship when comparing with two objects, i.e. A and B: Firstly, they have no common characteristic (Case 1). Secondly, they mutually have the entire characteristics of each other (Case 2). Thirdly, they have some common characteristics (Case 3) and fourthly, one have the entire characteristic of the other but not vice versa (Case 4). The above discussion can be best illustrated by the following figure:
The Fourth case is the above mentioned set-subset relationship of co-existent cause and conjoined cause. The relationship, I would suggest, is a very important cue for us to understand the evolvement of the definitions. When we say A is the subset of B, then it means B should have all the qualities or characteristics of A and A should only have part of those of B. Therefore, in this sense, co-existent cause should have all the qualities or characteristics of conjoined cause and conjoined cause can only have part of those of co-existent cause. As stated in MVŚ as follows:
“Therefore, in this regard, one should say thus: Whatever is a conjoined cause is also a co-existent causes; there exist some co-existent causes which are not conjoined causes, viz. the disjoined (viprayuktake) co-existent cause. Thus there are different between the two causes.”
From this perspective, I would suggest that the six definitions of co-existent cause can be divided into two groups: the first three refer to the characteristics and the inter-relations of co-existent causes while the last three directly relate to effect. The characteristics of the first group (I would call it as the idea of ‘companionship’ which is the best description of this group) are shared by both causes while the characteristics of the second group (I would call it as the idea of ‘sharing the same effect’ which is the best description of this group) are unique for co-existent cause. Why dharma-s need companion? MVŚ offered the below answer:
“Because conditioned dharma-s are weak in their nature, they can accomplish their activities only through mutual dependence.”
In other words, mutual dependence or companionship is the common characteristic of both co-existent cause and conjoined cause. And ‘accomplish their activities’ and result in ‘sharing the same effect’ is the unique characteristic of co-existent cause , which can be explicitly reflected from the examples: conjoined cause is similized as ‘holding a stick’, ‘people holding hands’ while co-existent cause is similized as ‘acting after having held a stick’ and ‘people crossing torrent having held hands together’. Moreover, there are also many discussions in MVŚ, which used ‘sharing the same effect’ as the criterion to examine co-existent cause. For example:
“Question: Whether the Great Elements and derived matters are co-existent cause? Answer: Yes … ‘sharing of the same effect’ is co-existent cause…”
“Some say: the fruit of the 34 unskillful disposition of desire realm also called as vipāka-phala of ignorance…mutually among (展轉相望) is not co-existent cause. It is because not share the same effect.”
“Why reciprocity/mutuality (展轉) is not co-existent cause? According to some Abhidharmika, obstructive derived matters which mutually among themselves are not co-existent … Answer: It is not co-existent cause because not share the same effect. It is because co-existent cause must share the same effect.”
Conclusion
Therefore, regarding the above discussion of the relationship of co-existent cause and conjoined cause, we can have the following observations in MVŚ. Firstly, as a mother set of conjoined cause, co-existent cause possesses all the characteristics of conjoined cause such as the characteristic of companionship. Thus we can see some definitions of co-existent cause are overlapping those of conjoined cause. Secondly, co-existent cause is applicable to all conditioned dharma-s while conjoined cause can only apply to thought and thought-concomitants. This is also another example of the set-subset relationship because thought and thought-concomitants are conditioned dharma-s. Thirdly, co-existent cause has its unique characteristic (when comparing with conjoined cause) of ‘sharing of the same effect’ which is the most significant criterion to define co-existent cause in MVŚ.
Reference
- Bhikkhu Dhammajoti, “The Sarvāstivāda Doctrine of Simultaneous Causality”, Journal of Buddhist Studies, Vol I, May 2003.
- Bhikkhu Dhammajoti, Sarvāstivāda Adhidharma. Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, 2007.
- Chinese Electronic Tripitaka Collection 2007. Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association. http://www.cbeta.org/index.htm.
- Foguang Buddhist Dictionary. 2003.
- 印順，(1968)《說一切有部為主的論書與論師之研究》，台灣：正聞出版社。