are the Sarvastivadins, among the most philosophically oriented sects. Their
name itself is philosophical, meaning “everything-exists theorists.” Sharing
lineage links with them, or possibly branching off from them, is a group called
Vibhajyavadins, “those who make distinctions”; one of these groups survived
as a numerically important sect down into the Gupta era. The doctrinal
positions of most of these sects are not known, with the exception of the
Sarvastivadins, and their fission, the Sautrantikas. What we are probably seeing
here is a long-term effect of the law of small numbers: the philosophical
differences among the sects were obscured over the centuries of competition
for intellectual attention; only the most distinctive positions were remembered,
and only their texts were propagated and developed.
Buddhist meditation involves taking experience apart into its elements until
one realizes that there is among these elements no self to which one can be
attached. The Abhidharma, held in common by most of the early sects, com-
prised lists of the elements of which experience is composed. These numbered
lists, no doubt a mnemonic device from a time when transmission was oral,
grew far beyond their practical relevance for achieving enlightenment. Scho-
lastic pedantry grew over the generations, and various classifications were
added—the 5 skandas (“aggregates”), 12 sense fields, 18 elements (6 sense
organs, 6 sense objects, 6 sense consciousnesses)—together with sub- and
cross-classifications; in some sects the total number of dharmas (elements)
reached as many 75, 82, or 100 (in the late Yogacara), while types of causal
relations among them numbered 24 (Nakamura, 1980: 125–126; Guenther,
1976; Conze, 1962: 178–179). Intellectual acuteness also grew; as definitions
of the elements were refined, ontological and epistemological issues emerged.
Buddhist meditation takes its distinctiveness from the doctrine of dependent
origination, the chain of causation which leads to reincarnation in the phe-
nomenal world. This soteriology, when formalized by professional teachers,
developed into a more abstract issue regarding the dependence that leads from
one element of experience to another. The nature of causation was to be
Buddhism’s major contribution and challenge to the rest of Indian philosophy.
Potter (1976) argues that most of the positions of Indian philosophy can be
arrayed across the space of possible stances on this issue.
The Sarvastivadins, concerned to show how dependent origination operates
among their long list of elements, took the position that “everything exists,”
including past and future. The so-called objects of everyday life are not real,
for they are mere transitory aggregates, but the elements of which these
aggregates are composed are real and permanent. The Sarvastivadins were
realists about the world constituents; the one item they were at pains to show
does not exist is the subjective self. The dharmas have their own self-natures
or essences which exist eternally; indeed, all three time-periods are real sub-216 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths