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Schools of Buddhism
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The atoms of colour, taste, smell and touch, and cognition are being destroyed every moment. The meanings of words always imply the negations of all other things, excepting that which is intended to be signified by that word (anyāpohaḥ śabdārthah). Salvation (mokşa) comes as the result of the destruction of the process of knowledge through continual meditation that there is no soul'.
One of the main differences between the Vibhajjavādins, Sautrāntikas and the Vaibhāsikas or the Sarvāstivādins appears to refer to the notion of time which is a subject of great interest with Buddhist philosophy. Thus Abhidharmakośa (v. 24...) describes the Sarvāstivādins as those who maintain the universal existence of everything past, present and future. The Vibhajjavādins are those "who maintain that the present elements and those among the past that have not yet produced their fruition, are existent, but they deny the existence of the future ones and of those among the past that have already produced fruition.” There were four branches of this school represented by Dharmatrāta, Ghosa, Vasumitra and Buddhadeva. Dharmatrāta maintained that when an element enters different times, its existence changes but not its essence, just as when milk is changed into curd or a golden vessel is broken, the form of the existence changes though the essence remains the same. Ghosa held that " when an element appears at different times, the past one retains its past aspects without being severed from its future and present aspects, the present likewise retains its present aspect without completely losing its past and future aspects," just as a man in passionate love with a woman does not lose his capacity to love other women though he is not actually in love with them. Vasumitra held that an entity is called present, past and future according as it produces its efficiency, ceases to produce after having once produced it or has not yet begun to produce it. Buddhadeva maintained the view that just as the same woman may be called mother, daughter, wife, so the same entity may be called present, past or future in accordance with its relation to the preceding or the succeeding moment.
All these schools are in some sense Sarvāstivādins, for they maintain universal existence. But the Vaibhāșika finds then all defective excepting the view of Vasumitra. For Dharmatrāta's
i Gunaratna's Tarkarahasyadipikū, pp. 46-47.
