A STUDY OF DEPENDENT ORIGINATION: VASUBANDHU, BUDDHAGHOSA, AND THE INTERPRETATION OF PRATITYASAMUTPADA (BUDDHISM)

One of the main problems in the interpretation of the Buddhist doctrine of prat(\u27)ityasamutpada, or dependent origination, is the temporal framework within which its twelve limbs occur. The most commonly accepted explanation within the Buddhist tradition distributes the twelve limbs successively over three separate lives. This is the theory discussed by Vasubandhu in the Abhidharmakosa, and also by Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga. Another interpre- tation, most fully developed in the Vibhanga, the second book of the Theravada Abhidhamma Pitaka, states that all the limbs occur in a single thought-moment. The possible reconciliation of these two views is the theme for a comparison of Vasubandhu and Buddhaghosa. The first chapter is an introduction to the doctrine, its twelve limbs, and some of the problems with the three lives theory. The second provides a summary of the historical background of the Sarvastivadin school which produced the Kosa, and the contro- versial biography of its author. The third chapter is devoted to the history of the Western scholarship on dependent origination. The fourth chapter, entitled Introduction to the Translation, explains the Sarvastivadin technical terms and concepts which occur in the translation of the prat(\u27)ityasamutpada section of the Kosa. The trans- lation itself, the first from the Sanskrit, constitutes the fifth chapter, and is preceded by an Analytical Table of Contents. The final chapter compares the interpretations of Vasubandhu and Buddhaghosa, and drawing extensively from the discussion of dependent origina- tion in the Vibhanga and the Sammohavinodan(\u27)i, argues that Buddhaghosa\u27s definition of the third limb, vijnana, allows a more successful reconciliation of the successive and simultaneous interpretations of dependent origination than does Vasubandhu\u27s. Appendices give the matika to the Paccayakaravibhanga, and the chains of dependent origination which it enumerates