movements in recent centuries, the conservative “Hinayana” sects were still
institutionally most numerous. So when Hindu philosophers such as Vind-
hyavasin, Ishvarakrishna, Vatsyayana, and Bhartrihari made their moves, the
schools they were most likely to encounter were the Sautrantikas and Sarvasti-
vadins. Vasubandhu II, who was the Buddhist point of contact in the challenge
of Nyaya and the grammarians, was also at the center of this additional line
of network contact with Hindu philosophers. Vindhyavasin (68 in Figure 5.4),
a leader in the mature formation of philosophical Samkhya, defeated a Sautran-
tika Buddhist (67) in debate, who turned out to be the teacher of Vasubandhu
II; Vasubandhu is said later to have defeated Vindhyavasin in return (EIP,
1987: 11–12, 135). Sautrantika extreme nominalism had been shown up by
the substance philosophy of Samkhya. Vasubandhu became a famous name by
answering the provocation to his teacher.
Vasubandhu’s answering move was to update the Abhidharma substance
philosophy of the Sarvastivadins, with all its prestige as the long-standing
philosophical “basket” of Buddhist scripture, by making many amendments
in the direction of the Sautrantika school in which he was trained. Vasubandhu
raised the level of abstraction, reinterpreting the older scholastic list of hetero-
geneous categories, all of which had been given reality as elements of the world
construction. The melding between essentialism and nominalism was carried
out by defining some elements as point-instants, others as conceptual. Sub-
stances were believed identical with flashes of causal energy in time; but now
they were distinguished from “non-forceful” elements, which escape the chain
of karmic causation by occupying an epistemological realm of knowledge
rather than the ontological plane of being (Potter, 1976: 130–137; Nakamura,
1980; Dutt, 1962: 291). That this epistemologization was a countermove
against the Hindus is suggested from critiques directed by Vasubandhu’s Sar-
vastivadin pupil Gunamati (73 in Figure 5.4) against the Samkhyas, Vaisheshi-
kas, and Jainas, some of them in personal debate. Henceforward Vasubandhu’s
Abhidharmakosha would become the classic statement of the already 800-year-
old Abhidharma tradition.
Now we have a rearrangement on the Buddhist side of the field. The old
rivals Sautrantika and Sarvastivada become a united front, though some of the
sparks that fly from the merger are struck by efforts of more traditionalist
Sarvastivadins (such as Sanghabhadra in Kashmir) to combat it. The Mahay-
ana tide is checked; some of its members convert to Sarvastivada and attack
Mahayana (e.g., Guñaprabha; Dutt, 1962: 292). Others use Vasubandhu’s new
ammunition to incorporate Yogacara. The old element realism and the pure
idealism are brought together by later generational links such as Sthiramati.
Dharmapala, in the main line of masters at Nalanda, tries on behalf of the
238 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths