60 CHAPTER THREEthe Path to nirvaiJ.a as welL Their concept of a relatively existing person, they
said, was not a self, as it could not be known in a way that it would function
as an object of clinging. As such, it constituted a Middle Way between the
Brahmanical view of an eternal self and the annihilationist view that there is
no self-both of which the Buddha had attacked-and thus best preserved the
sense of the Sutras.
As might be expected, the debates reached an impasse, with neither side
submitting to the logical presuppositions of the other. This impasse lasted for
centuries. The Pudgalavadins survived as a school until Buddhism was wiped
out of northern India in the beginning of the thirteenth century C. E. Their
major offshoot, the Sarp_mitiyas, flowered in the seventh and eighth centuries
c.E., largely through the patronage of the great Gupta Buddhist king,
Har~avadhana (606-647 C.E.), whose sister, R;ijyasri, joined the school as a
bhik~u¢. According to Chinese pilgrims at the time, it was the dominant sect
in the Ganges Valley. As with the Mahasanghikans, however, only a small num-
ber of its texts survive, mostly in Chinese translations.3.2.3 The Third Council and the Sarvastivadins
Theravadin sources record that another split further rent the Sthaviravadins at
the Council ofPataliputra, sponsored by King Asoka in approximately 250
B.C.E. This Third Council (the Sthaviras did not count the council that formed
the Mahasanghikas) resulted in two factions, called Vibhajyavadins (Distinc-
tionists) and Sarvastivadins (All-is-ists). The latter's chief thesis was that past
and future things really exist, as do present things. This view was advanced to
solve one of the issues that had begun to plague Abhidharma analysis after the
acceptance of the belief that dharmas have only momentary existence: If such
is the case, how can karma have long-term effects? The Sarvastivadin solution
was to say that dharmas have a permanent existence whose mode changes
from future to present to past. Thus, even when in the past mode, a dharma is
still able to exert an influence on other dharmas as they approach the momen-
tary present mode (Strong EB, sec. 3.6.2). The Vibhajyavadins, whose views
were seconded by the Mahasanghikans, objected to this solution on the
grqunds that it constituted a denial of the Buddha's teachings on imperma-
nence and dependent co-arising.
1:'he Council of Pataliputra decided against the Sarvastivadins, some of
whom migrated west and north, where they established a strong center in
K_ashmir that flourished for a thousand years~ as well as centers in Mathura and
Gandhara. Buddhism flourished in this region under the Indo-Greek kings
during the second century B.C.E. The greatest of these kings, Menander (in
Pali, Milinda; Strong EB, sec. 3.4.2), is said to have become a Buddhist. The
}ndo-Greeks and their successors in this region-the Sakas (first century B.C.E.
through first century c.E.) and the Ku~aiJ.as (first century C.E. through mid-
third century)-were all invaders from Bactria and Parthia. They retained their
connections with central Asia and so enabled Buddhism to spread to the de-
veloping city-states along the silk route between China and the West. This put
the Sarvastivadins in a favorable position to dominate the cities on the north-