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Abhidharmakośa and Bhāṣya, is the first Buddhist consideration of Mīmāṃsaka arguments.

Saṅghabhadra introduced them when he commented on the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Abhidharmakośa, devoted to the topic of karma (karmanirdeśa). That first verse lays out the basic scheme of Buddhist karma theory.

The variety of the world is born out of karma. It (=karma) is intention and that which is produced by it (=intention). Intention is mental karma and vocal and bodily karmas are born from it.³²⁴

Vasubandhu simply uses this verse to explain the elementary materials of Buddhist karma theory in his Bhāṣya. Yet Saṅghabhadra understands it in a peculiar way; to him, the first pāda (quater) of the verse (“The variety of the world is born out of karma”) is addressed to those who deny that an impure action such as killing brings about a painful fruit for the agent. And, as he criticizes their views, Saṅghabhadra does not refer to the rest of the verse where the “intention” factor, essential to Buddhist notion of karma, is introduced. His opponents in this section do not even accept that the world operates according to the karmic law and that the diversity within it is determined by karma alone. It is only after Saṅghabhadra refutes their opinions that he proceeds to explain the rest of the verse.³²⁵

324 AK 4.1 (192), “karmajaṃ lokavaicitryam, cetanā tatkṛtaṃ ca tat/ cetanā mānasaṃ karma, tajjaṃ vākkāyakarmaṇī//”

325 See NA 531b16ff. It may be said that the two long disputations with the opponents who deny the law of karma comment only on the first word of AK 4.1 “born out of karma” (karmaja; 由業生) since he resumes his commentary with the explanation on the second word “the variety of the world”

(lokavaicitryam, 世別).

Although Saṅghabhadra does not clearly specify differences among his opponents, we can discern, based on the contents, that this long commentary on AK 4.1a is made up of two separate sections against the Lokāyatas (Materialists) and the Mīmāṃsakas. The latter is unmarked,³²⁶ but the first group is marked twice by expressions that characterize them such as

“those who compliantly commit evil and who avoid disputation” (隨順造惡怯難論)³²⁷ and

“those who hate reason(ing)” (惡因論者)³²⁸. The Lokāyata identity of the opponent is hinted at by the word “compliantly” (隨順), the second character (順, “to accord with”) of which is used in the Chinese translation of Lokāyata, Shunshiwaidao (順世外道), which literally means “the heretics who accord with the mundane world.”

Concluding his debate with the Lokāyatas, Saṅghabhadra states:

There is no such fault. Since we can discern many events when one carries out an action, when one receives the fruit [from that action], various fruits

originate. In other words, when people carry out an action, [for example,] those who kill living beings [in one act of killing,] make the victims experience pain, sever their lives, take away and destroy the light of their dignity by

intimidating them. Therefore, when they receive the fruit, there are three [different fruits] similar to [those three actions]. That is to say, since they tormented others, as the retributive fruit, they receive extremely heavy pain in the hell realm. Since they sever others’ lives, as the outflowing fruit, they receive extremely short lives [even] in the good rebirths. Since they destroyed others’ dignity, as the predominating fruits, all external things such as herbs reduce their light of spirit. Therefore [in this scheme], there is no fault of relating cause and result in the reversed manner.³²⁹

326 The Mīmāṃsaka section that we have analyzed in Chapter One begins with the phrase “some maintain” (“有執”; NA 530b15). We can infer the opponent’s identity based only on their arguments.

327 NA 529a7.

Here Saṅghabhadra reiterates what has been said in AKBh 4.85: there are three actions and three fruits in one act of killing. He adds comments that the actions and their fruits are similar in form.

He notes in the last sentence that cause and result cannot be related in the reversed manner; for example, torturing others cannot result in one’s happiness.

These comments, interspersed in the enumeration of three actions and three fruits, are made because the opponent, the Lokāyatas, relate “evil action” (惡行) with “pleasurable

experience” (樂). The opponent, for instance, maintains that “hunting animals” (獵獸) generates

“happiness” (歡悅) in the agent without knowing that such happiness is only temporary and the fruit of the act of hunting will be a painful experience, since every action begets a corresponding fruit. A similar case is winning wealth and high status from killing enemies in the battlefield. But if one argues that the act of killing is the cause for such rewards, one should accept that one could obtain the same by killing one’s friends. Thus, the wise do not enjoy such small pleasure that brings about great suffering.³³⁰ There is a strict causal relationship between seed and fruit:

sweet and bitter seeds respectively beget sweet and bitter fruits. “Likewise, if one generates pain or pleasure in others, those actions respectively bring about painful or pleasurable fruits to oneself.”³³¹

Saṅghabhadra’s disputation with the Lokāyatas over the karmic status of the act of killing bridges the gap between the AKBh 4.85 and the PP syllogism. By explicitly stating that the act and karmic consequence of killing are consistent, it anticipates the thesis of the PP syllogism. By situating AKBh 4.85 in the polemics against the Lokāyatas, it foreshadows the polemical context of the PP syllogism. Moreover, because the whole discussion is occasioned by Saṅghabhadra comments on one word “karma-born” (karmaja), general karmic law as

330 See NA 529b15-22.

331 NA 529c29-530a02, “如是若造苦樂他業, 如次應招自苦樂果.”

exemplified in the reason of the PP syllogism can also be said to be prefigured. Saṅghabhadra’s section differs from the PP syllogism only in that the subject matter of killing is not confined to ritual killing and the example of “giving” is not employed.

In the Sāṃkhya tradition, we do not have a document like the Nyāyānusāra, which bridges the gap between the YBh 2.34 and the ŚV syllogism. Must we then assume that the near identical wording of the PP and the ŚV syllogisms is the result of a Sāṃkhya reproduction of Bhāviveka’s syllogism as their own, as they did with the contents of AKBh? It is difficult to determine who took whose syllogism first. However, given that the doctrine of karma is not indigenous to the Sāṃkhya tradition, it is probable that it was the Sāṃkhyas who copied Bhāviveka’s syllogism. In this regard, this is the opposite of the Bhāviveka-Sāṃkhya alliance discussed in Chapter Three.

However, just as Bhāviveka and the Sāṃkhya commentators had different motives for using the same Vedic passages, the difference between the PP and ŚV syllogism should be discerned. The Sāṃkhyas’ adoption of Bhāviveka’s syllogism was not an exact duplication. As has already been pointed out, the ŚV syllogism introduces two new features to PP syllogism.

First, they qualified the example of giving as being enjoined by the Veda. As the Sāṃkhyas do not oppose the Veda per se but rather oppose Vedic orthopraxy, that is, ritual killing, their qualification of “giving” is not incongruous, and an appeal to the authority of the Veda fits well in the context of their confrontation with the Mīmāṃsakas. Therefore, the introduction of the qualification to the example in the PP syllogism is a reasonable, and, in a sense, necessary emendation for the Sāṃkhyas. However, the second change they introduced to the PP syllogism is less easy to explain. Why did they employ the PP syllogism, originally formulated against the Lokāyatas, against the Mīmāṃsakas?

As noted, when Saṅghabhadra discusses the position of the Lokāyatas and the

Mīmāṃsakas side by side as he comments on AK 4.1a, he criticizes both parties on the same score. To Saṅghabhadra’s perception, they both deny the general law of karma and, for that reason, they both are ignorant of the universal law that generates and explains the diversity of the mundane world. However, although both groups commit the same error, Saṅghabhadra criticizes each of them separately in an unconfused manner. It is against the Lokāyatas that he reiterates and develops the contents of AKBh 4.85. Likewise, although the PP syllogism itself is a critique of Vedic sacrifice and its wider context is Bhāviveka’s critique of the Mīmāṃsakas, when he presents it, Bhāviveka unambiguously specifies that the target is the Lokāyatas who side with the Mīmāṃsakas. In sum, if we assume that the PP syllogism is an evolution of AKBh 4.85, then it appears that Buddhists after Vasubandhu utilized its content—the three actions involved in one instance of killing and the corresponding three karmic retributions—against the Lokāyatas.

As no Sāṃkhya text of the same period, fifth and sixth centuries CE, attests to the

Sāṃkhya use of YBh 2.34, we do not know the polemical context in which the Sāṃkhyas used it.

However, there is a later document that suggests that the Sāṃkhya use may have been different from that of Buddhists.

YBh 2.34, like Vasubandhu’s AKBh 4.85, discusses the act of killing in general,

without reference to ritual killing in Vedic sacrifice. There is no indication that the word “killing”

(hiṃsā) in the Yogasūtra implies ritual killing. It also does not indicate any underlying polemical purpose. YBh 2.34, at least ostensibly, describes the principle of karma in the case of killing rather than arguing for it. Vācaspati (ninth or tenth century), however, in his commentary (the Tattvavaiśāradī) on YBh, understands the “killing” in YBh 2.34 in the limited context of Vedic sacrifice. After having explained the Sūtra and the Bhāṣya on it, he states:

By tying [the victim] to a sacrificial post (yūpa), one first casts away the vigor, that is, exertion, which is the basis of bodily actions from the victim, namely, to tame animals and the like. With this [act of binding], the animal becomes

impotent. [The meaning of] the rest [of the Bhāṣya passages] is very clear.³³²

In this explanation, the very general description of the first act of killing in YBh 2.34 (“one casts away the victim’s vigor” (vadhyasya vīryam ākṣipati)) is specifically understood as referring to the act of binding an animal to a sacrificial post (yūpaniyojana). Vācaspati concludes his

commentary on this verse after discussing this act, but it is reasonable to infer that he would have interpreted the other two acts of killing in the sacrificial context.

Vācaspati’s understanding of this verse may reflect the traditional Sāṃkhya-Yoga understanding of Yogasūtra 2.34, which developed after the composition of the Bhāṣya. If so, it shows that, unlike the Buddhists, who understood AKBh 4.85 as describing killing in general and used it against the Lokāyatas, there was a tendency in Sāṃkhya to view the killing in YBh 2.34 in the restricted sense of ritual killing, thus interpreting the same doctrine as a critique of upholders of Vedic sacrifice, for example, the Mīmāṃsakas.