Abhidharma Doctrines and Controversies on Perception (4th ed.)
Author: Venerable Professor K L Dhammajoti
Publisher: The Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong
(Hong Kong, July 2018). pp. 212++ ISBN: 978-988-16820-1-7

Preface to the Fourth Edition

The third edition of this book has been out of stock for several years. In this fourth edition, I have only made some minor revision. Only a few paragraphs have been added to Chapter Two. Hopefully, some minor modifications in respect of wording in several places have made this book a little more readable. I have also taken this opportunity to rectify many typological errors and stylistic inconsistencies.

I am grateful to my Bangladeshi pupil, Venerable Jñānānanda Tangchangya (Jnan Nanda), for putting the whole book into the InDesign format, and for looking after the proof-reading and other aspects of this publications. I must also thank my pupil, Sree Dharma Rakkhit (Shimul Barua) and Andrew Lau Ting Kwong for checking through the whole Index, and also my PhD students, Gao Mingyuan and Tan Lingfeng for helping to detect some of the typos.

KL Dhammajoti
The Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong.
June 2018.

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Contents

Preface vii

Abbreviations xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Sarvāstivāda, Vaibhāṣika, Dārṣṭāntika, Sautrāntika and Yogācāra 5
2.1. Sarvāstivāda and Vaibhāṣika 5
2.2. Dārṣṭānika, Sautrāntika and Yogācāra 6
2.3. Sautrāntika and Yogācāra 14
2.4. Vasubandhu, Sautrāntika, Yogācāra 21
2.5. Hīnayāna Sautrāntika and Yogācāra Sautrāntika? 24
2.6. Why the Sautrāntika did not develop into a Buddhist sect in the proper sense 34
2.7. Conclusion 36

3 The Ontological Status of the Cognitive Objects 45
3.1. The Sarvāstivāda notion of the real as that which engenders perception 45
3.2. The Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika doctrine of non-existent cognitive objects 48

4 What Sees the External Reality 55
4.1. “The eye sees” view of the Vaibhāṣika 55
4.2. The MVŚ: The eye as a view — in contrast to other views, and to prajñā and jñāna 59
4.3. Saṃghabhadra’s major arguments in Ny 64

5 The “What Sees” Debate in AKB, Vy and Ny 73
5.1. Preliminaries 73
5.2. The debate recorded in the AKB, Vy and Ny 74

6. Epistemological Tenets Concerning Thought and Thought 97 Concomitants
6.1. Thought (citta), mind (manas) and consciousness (vijñāna) 97
6.2. How a mental state arises 99
6.3. Simultaneous arising of thought and thought concomitants 99
6.4. Successive arising 101
6.5. Śrīlāta’s anudhātu theory 102
6.6. Functional differences between thought and thought-concomitants 106
6.7. Functional differences between the first five sensory consciousnesses and mental consciousness 108
6.8. The question of reflexive knowledge 114

7. The Citta-caitta Doctrine of Dharmatrāta and Śrīlāta 121
7.1. The citta-caitta doctrine of Bhadanta Dharmatrāta 121
7.2. The citta-caitta doctrine of Śrīlāta 127
7.3. Dharmatrāta’s notion of conjunction revisited 137
7.4. Conclusion 138

8. The Vaibhāṣika Theory of Direct or Presentational Perception 143
8.1. Simultaneous causality in sensory perception 143
8.2. The three types of direct perception (pratyakṣa) 144
8.3. Sensory consciousness cannot have a past object 147
8.4. The object of sensory perception is an assemblage, not a unified complex, of atoms 149
8.5. Yogācāra critique of the Vaibhāṣika view 151

9. The Sautrāntika Theory of Representational Perception 159
9.1. Sautrāntika objection to simultaneous causality and the Vaibhāṣika reply 159
9.2. Perception is possible even though the cognitive object is non-existent 161
9.3. Sautrāntka explanation of direct perception 165
9.4. The Sautrāntika doctrine that only the dhātu s are real 169
9.5. Yogācāra critique of a unified complex as the perceptual object 172

10. Ākāra, sākāra-vijñānavāda, nirākāra-vijñānavāda 179
10.1. Sākāra-vijñānavāda and the Sautrāntika 179
10.2. Nirākāra-(vi)jñānavāda and the Sarvāstivāda 181
10.3. Interpretation of sākāra as an attribute of citta-caitta s 187
10.4. Conclusion 187

Select Bibliography 195

Index 203