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106
Eli Franco
Lost Fragments of the Spitzer Manuscript
107
employed here in this sense, but even so it is impossible to determine what is contradictory to the thesis."
Now let us have a look at the content of these fragments. The discussion begins on the fragment preserved in SPITZER's transcription with the statement of the opponent's position, namely, that the disciples are endowed with the general and specific qualities of the teacher, and thus the general and specific qualities of the Buddha are present in his disciples, the Bravakas, and therefore "we" see that he too is in the sangha (ye dcdryyagunasāmanyavisesayuktāh samghe... sayuktah, atah paśyāmah bhagavān api samghe iti). The siddhāntin's rejection of this position, which was divided into at least five sections, cannot be reconstructed in detail. In folio 375 only one argument seems relatively clear. The siddhantin denies that an enlightened disciple (Arhat, which I assume is referred to with the word ärya) is similar to the Buddha (vatharyyah evam buddhah ...)." His reason, or one of his reasons, for the rejection of the similarity is that if this were the case the Arhat too would be a Buddha ((ā)rylyla e[v]am (buddha ā]panna..).
In folio 376 the siddhantin must have argued that the mere fact that the Buddha and the Arhats share some general and specific qualities or properties does not prove that the Buddha can be seen in the sangha. Everything has similarities and dissimilarities with everything (sarvvasya c<a> sarvvena sādharmınyawaidhaft)myam asti)). The opponent may have replied that the similarities adduced are not mere accidental properties, and that there is an essential similarity between the Buddha and the Arhats which consists in their connection with the same general and specific qualities of moral conduct (cf. 376v2: saccāryagun[a]sām<a>nyavisesayogah"). The siddhantin's reply is largely lost, but one can see that he used two types of argument in this connection. The one (376v1) charges the opponent with committing the fallacy of pratijnaviruddha. This word is certainly used here as a technical term, but the context does not allow us to determine which of the various meanings that appear in the early manuals of debate is intended here. Moreover, it has to be noted that viruddha can be used in the sense of "contradictory," that is, pratijñäviruddha does not necessarily mean "contradicted by the thesis"; it can also mean "contradictory to the thesis," and my guess is that the term is
The other argument refers to the opponent's proof (or inference? *sadhana) and points out the absence of the property to be proved and the proving property (s(a)dhyasddha/kabhava). Unfortunately the proof itself does not appear in the fragment, or more precisely, only part of it appears in the initial statement (ye acāryaguna- ctc.).
I am not quite sure yet how to interpret this passage. The same topic is probably mentioned by Barcau, namely, "[Le) Buddha est inclus dans la Communauté". Among the schools which endorse the thesis that the Buddha is included in the community Bareau mentions the Sarvāstivāda without, however, specification of thesis number, and I could not find this thesis in his presentation of the Sarvästivada. Further, according to the materials presented by Bareau the question whether the Buddha is included in the sangha seems to have arisen in the context of donation (i.e., whether a donation made to the sangha is also eo ipso a donation to the Buddha), and in the present fragments there is no trace of such a discussion, although, of course, not enough fragments remain to justify an argument ex silentio with any certainty.
I BAREAU's attribution of this thesis to the Sarvästivada is correct, this would be a reason to reject the identification of the present discussion as a treatment of this topic because what should accordingly be endorsed by the Sarvästivāda appears here as a purvapaka. A possible solution to this problem would be to distinguish between the thesis "the Buddha is in i.e. part of the sangha" and the thesis "the Buddha is perceived in (i.e., through?) the sangha" discussed here. Alternatively, one may assume that the Spitzer Manuscript docs not represent a text of the Sarvāstivāda school. However, I would hesitate to take such a step without further substantiation because practically all the Sanskrit manuscripts in the Turfan collection are assumed to belong to the Sarvästivāda school. In this connection one is reminded of MIYASAKA's suggestion that the work preserved in the Spitzer Manuscript belongs to the Sauträntika school. MIYASAKA'S assumption, however, is problematic. If I understand him correctly, he attributes the text to the Sauträntika school because he sees certain similarities between it and the Satyasiddhifāstra of Harivarman. Yet the attribution of the Satyasiddhifdstra to the
145 I assume that the statement as it now stands was negated either by a preceding na or by subsequent in tanna, etc.
14 The statement here certainly represents the siddhänta opinion, but it must refer to a preceding pdrapaksa statement which uses the same terms. I assume that this statement here was denied either by a preceding na orasiddha, etc. As mentioned above, I tentatively interpretaccarya saccaryd.
CI.K. PREISENDANZ, Studien zu Myllyastra III.1. Stuttgart 1994. Vol. 2, pp. 320-321.
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1* According to the Nytynsdtra definition of the nigrahasthana pratavirodha, the contradiction referred to obtains between the reason (hetu) and the thesis. However, het is a masculine noun and therefore it is probably not referred to by-viruddham which is probably a nominative.
W CE. BARBAU, op. cit., p. 260 and further references therein to pp. 83 (thesis 4 of the Babusrutlyas), 185 (th. 21 of the MahiSasakns) and 192 (th. 1 of the Dharmaguptakas),
