56 CHAPTER THREEof how to deal with these inconsistencies led the Bhik~u Sangha to embark on
original inquiries into philosophical method and formal logic. The differing
answers that were devised became one of the major factors that led the Sangha
to split into various schools.
If one assumes that the Buddha's teachings were primarily therapeutic, the
inconsistencies are no great issue. Differing approaches were found to work
for different types of problems. But if one is looking for a logically consistent
system, one has to explain the inconsistencies away. The elder monks soon
proposed that the Buddha's terminology had two levels: conventional, in
which the Buddha used everyday language in a figurative way to discuss issues
with people who would not have benefited from higher philosophical dis-
course; and ultimate, in which he referred directly to absolute realities in a lit-
eral sense. Ultimate terms were eventually reduced to set lists and (except for
nirvaJ:?.a) categorized under the five skandhas, together with a list of the types
of relationships that operated among them. Treatises dealing with these lists
and categories formed the primary Abhidharma texts. To them were added
methodological handbooks and later commentaries to show how every state-
ment in the Siitras could be reduced to ultimate terms and relationships.
However, the explanatory power of the lists did not stop with the Siitras.
A systematic philosophy was worked out whereby the lists could be used to
explain all perceivable phenomena in the cosmos. The basic terms were
claimed to correspond to phenomena-both physical and mental-on the ul-
timate level of reality. Each term thus became a dharma, an impersonal event-
type possessing its own svabhava (beingness), which meant that it could exist
and function without need for a personal agent. Apart from nirvaJ:?.a, all dhar-
mas were force-configurations that existed only temporarily, conditioning and
being conditioned by one another. The hallmark of this system was the con-
version of the not-self doctrine into a metaphysical principle. All events in the
body, mind, and cosmos could be explained by a plurality of momentary dhar-
mas without reference to any personal agents or abiding selves. This shift in
the status of the not-self doctrine was reflected in anti-Buddhist polemics dur-
ing this period. Jain Siitras composed in the first centuries after the ParinirvaJ:?.a
complained that the Buddhists would not commit themselves to any clear po-
sition on what the self was or whether it existed; later Brahmanical treatises
depict the Buddhists as stoutly defending the position that there is no self.
These developments provided the Buddhists with a systematic body of
doctrine that met their needs in defending their position against outsiders and
that streamlined the teaching of insiders. However, they also led to the forma-
tion of different schools of thought, as monks began to argue about what the
Buddha's ultimate teachings were and how they were to be ferreted out of the
massive collections of Siitras. Before we discuss some of the more important
splits, though, it is important to note that despite the divisions among various
schools, there were no schisms in the early Buddhist movement. Monks be-
longing to different schools often lived together in harmony in the same
monasteries. The Buddha's warnings against schism-two or more groups of
monks living in the same monastic boundary refusing to conduct communal