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Attitude of Buddha towards Metaphysics Back To Metaphysical Speculations
There is no soul beyond the cognizables. Eagerness to lay bare the now-existence of soul in the complex of body and mind, Buddha's discliples went on analysing this complex into psychophysical constituents and developed an intricate system of elements. These elements are the smallest, indivisible but distinct units. But reaching this stage, the thirst for the real impelled them to enquire into what these elements in themselves are and this marked the process of breaking into and developments of philosophical schools of Buddhist thought,
Inconsistency in conceiving the units of function, potencies, etc. without substrata was felt and a section of the Bud. dhist community recognized as the Sarvāstivādins accepted the elements as reals. These elements are, for them, simple, discrete, separate entities existing in their own right in all the three divisions of time - past, present and future, But, as we have seen above, the elements are the result of intricate analysis of an individual and they are utmost the ultimates in analysis. To accept the ultimates in analysis as the ultimates in reality amounts to a kind of misplaced reality. The Sarvāstivādins met this criticism by differentiating between the elements and their functions, modes (Kāritra). The elements are reals and are precisely distinguished through their funct. ions or modes. An element rises to function, stays and ceases to function. Rising, staying and ceasing to function constitutes the smallest units of time called a moment. After a moment's function, an element becomes antecedent to another element's course of functioning and in this sense the process of becoming is momentary (Ksanika). There is no discontinuance of of the process of becoming (Ksaņābhanga).
The functioning of elements account for their transition from one state to another. An element is called past when it has ceased to function, it is called present when it is functioning, and it is called future when it has not risen to function.
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