220 The AbhidharmaOne of the most intellectually creative explanations of thes~
related sets of questions is expounded by the Sarvastivadins. Their
theories are in the first place based on a radical understandingof the nature of time, the view that all three times-present, past,
and future-exist (sarviisti-viida). According to this view, to say
of dharmas that they are future or past is not to say that they
do not exist; they exist, but they happen to exist in the past or
the future, just as other dharmas happen, for a moment, to exist
in the present. Time is thus conceived as a kind of dimension
through which dharmas travel. Four different ways of under-standing this are associated with the names of four Sarvastivadin
theorists of the early centuries CE. From the perspective of mod-
ern philosophy Buddhadeva's suggestion that a dharma can be
said to be 'present', relative to simultaneous dharmas, 'past' relat"
ive to dharmas that come after arid 'future' relative to dharmas
that come before-like a woman who is daughter and mother
-is. perhaps the most philosophically subtleY Nevertheless it
was the view of Vasumitra that apparently carried the most
authority: a dharma moving through the different times does not
change in essential nature but only in position (avasthii), just as
in decimal counting a 'one' signifies 'one', 'ten' or 'one hundred'
according to position.
In connection with their understanding of the existence of
dharmas in the three times, the Sarvastivadins proposed two
dharmas that governed the operation of dharmas. As an ordin-
ary unenlightened person, when one experiences, say, desire, there
is a 'possession' (priipti) of present desire; but when it is past,
although there may be no 'possession' of present desire, there is
still a 'possession' of past desire and also one of its future results;
this 'possession' of the future result will continue to reproduce
itself from moment to moment until it matures into a 'posses-
sion' of a present result. For an unenlightened person there is
also 'non-possession' (apriipti) of certain kinds of wholesome
dharmas associated with the higher stages of meditation and the
Buddhist path; such 'non-possession' is not the mere absence
of these wholesome dharmas but a real dh~rma in itself which
must be destroyed, along with the 'possessions' of unwholesome