________________ 112 Introduction In support of this contention the Vaibhashika quotes the following passage from the same sutra : "A person is endowed with kucala as well as akusala dharmas. His kusala dharmas disappear. But there is in him the root (mula) of kusala not destroyed. Even this kusala-mula is in course of time completely annihilated, whereupon he comes to be designated as a samuchchhinna-kusala-mula."I Here arises a problem regarding the rise of a new kusala chitta in the santati of such a person. The Vaibhashika solves it by postulating the theory of prapti which ushers in a new kusala-chitta independently of the seeds of kusala. But according to the Sautrantika a kusala chitta can arise only out of its seeds. In the absence of the latter, therefore, a samuchchhinna-kusala-mula will have no possibility of having a kusala chitta. Consequently he will be doomed to have only akusala chittas till enternity. Indeed the Theravadins, on account of their rule that a kusala cannot succeed an akusala, and because of their nonrecognition of the theory of prapti, arrived precisely at such a fateful conclusion. They maintained that a samucchchhinnakusala-mula was incapable of producing a kusala chitta, and sought to support this theory by the following Scripture : "Take the case, bhikkhus, of a person who is possessed with entirely black akusala states (ekanta-kalakehi akusala-dhammehi), he it is who once immersed, is immersed for ever."2 Commenting on this, Buddhaghosa says : "The term ekanta-kalaka means those grave wrong views (michchha-ditthi) which deny the result of karma : natthikavada, ahetukavada and akiriyavada. A person like Makkhali Gosala who is possessed with these grave wrong views becomes the food of the fire of lower hells. For such a person there is no emergence from wordly existence." But neither of these alternatives (viz. of prapti and of eternal doom) is acceptable to the Sautrantika. The Kosakara 1 Adv. p. 166. 2 Vide Ado. p. 169, notes. 3 Ado, p. 169. notes.
