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Reading the Past: Texts and History
Bronkhorst. Systematic Philosophy between the Empires
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Other Sciences The scarcity of surviving textual material from the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era does not allow us to fathom the extent to which the atomistic vision of the world affected other sciences of that time. One might think that sciences such as medicine would be unlikely to be influenced by it. It is therefore all the more noteworthy that the Caraka Samhitā mentions atoms (paramānus, Särirasthāna 7.17), and accepts momentariness in the following words, which it puts in the mouth of Atreya Punarvasu (Satrasthāna 16.33): "Because it passes so rapidly, a thing perishes the moment is has come into being. There is no cause of its disappearance, nor does it undergo modification." It would be imprudent to conclude more from this last passage than that the idea of momentariness was widespread enough to find expression in this isolated passage of the Caraka Samhita (Meulenbeld 1999: IA: 110f., Bronkhorst 2002c). Isolated remarks in other texts, such as the Manusmrti's observation (1.2 that the world comes about with (sārdham) the impermanent atomic particles of the five elements (anvyo mátra vināśinyo daśārdhānām), have to be treated with equal caution. Commentators (Medhatithi, Kullüka, etc.), be it noted, interpret these impermanent atomic particles as being the Samkhya tanmatras.
with the new categorization known by the name Pascavastuka. The fact that the Sarvāstivāda revision of Abhidharma has determined the content of at least a number of canonical Abhidharma texts suggests that it must have taken place at a rather early date. The Sarvästivāda texts themselves do not however allow us to make a precise estimate.
It is here that the interpretation of Pāṇini's grammar by Patañjali may be of help. We have seen that this commentator imposes upon the grammar processes of the kind characteristic of the first episteme. This suggests that he had been infected by ideas that started with the Sarvästivādins; he may therefore postdate the Parcavastuka. This would agree with the fact that there are various other indications supporting the view that Patanjali was acquainted with Buddhist literature, and with Sarvāstivāda ideas in particular (Bronkhorst 1987, 1995, 2002d). This would then justify the conclusion that the conceptual revolution that took place in Sarvāstivāda must be dated before Patañjali the author of the Mahabhd.sya. Patañjali is supposed to have lived around or soon after 150 BCE, in the Northwest of the subcontinent. The Sarvistivādins are commonly accepted to have belonged to that region. Their intellectual revolution may therefore have taken place before 150 BCE.
The fact that already parts of the Svetambara Jaina canon have yielded to the atomistic vision of the world does not permit us to draw chronological conclusions of much importance. The chronology of this mass of texts is notoriously uncertain; the only reliable information seems to be that the texts reached their present forms in the fifth century of the Common Era. This does not imply that all parts of the canon are equally young, but the fact that the Süyagada (= Sätraktárga), which is normally 'considered one of its oldest parts, already associates Buddhists with momentariness, suggests a relatively late date for the Jaina canonical texts that have adopted momentariness and general atomism themselves. (It may of course also be taken to argue for an early date for the Pancavastuka.)
Conclusions This short presentation of the way in which the first episteme finds expression in Indian intellectual life during the centuries around the beginning of the common era allows us to draw some tentative conclusions about chronological and related issues. It seems hard to deny that this particular way of visualizing the world started within a school of Buddhism. Several traditional Buddhist elements easily lent themselves to a new interpretation that is in conformity with the newly propounded vision of the world. The problematic anātman doctrine of traditional Buddhism lent itself to an interpretation in which no composite person is believed to exist beside its components, the dharmas. Statements about the impermanence of things could be taken as a confirmation of the momentariness of all that is. The incomprehensible doctrine of "origination in dependence" (pratityasamutpäda) could be interpreted as a causal theory in which carlier dharmas determine succeeding ones ("that being, this comes to be; from the arising of that, this arises; that being absent, this is not from the cessation of that, this ceases"). These aspects of traditional Buddhism could be interpreted so as to fit the new ontology, and they were.
There are strong reasons to believe that this vision was first launched in the Sarvistivida school of Buddhism in particular. The complete revision of Abhidharma undertaken by the Sarvistividins has already left clear traces in their Abhidharma Pijaka, which is in these respects totally different from the other surviving Abhidharma Pitaka, that of the Theravadins. Early noncanonical texts of the same school provide us with further information. It seems probable that all the new ideas that we associate with the new episteme were introduced more or less simultaneously
The Second Episteme At four different places of the Mahabhäsya we find the following passage:
Someone says to some weaver: "weave a cloth out of this thread." He (i.c., the weaver) thinks: if it is already) a cloth, it is not (still) to be woven. But if it is still) to be woven, it is not a cloth. (To say.) it is (still) to be woven and it is a cloth becomes contradictory. Certainly, what he means is a designation (viz., "cloth") yet to come (bhāvint samd). That, I think,
is to be woven, which, when woven, becomes the thing called) cloth. Patanjali draws from it a simple conclusion about the use of words: a word can be used
5 Note that several scholars (among them Frauwallner 1960) propose a more recent date for the Mahabhasya.
6 VMBH I p. 112 L. 10-13 (on P. 1.1.45 Vt. 3); 1 p. 275 1. 6-8 (on P. 1.3.12 Vt. 2); I p. 394 L 13-16 (on P. 2.1.51 Vt. 4): II p. 113 1. 18-21 (on P. 3.2.102 Vt. 2): tad yatha ! kaścit kamcir tantuvdyam dhal asya sitrasya sarakant vayeri Isa pasyari yadi tako na vdtavyo 'tha vdtavyo na farakah Sayako vāravyas cell vipratişiddham 1 bhavini khalv asya samjhabhipreta sa manye watavyo yasminn ute idraka ity etad bhavatiti 1 Tr. Joshi and Roodbergen 1971: 35-36.
• Tr. Wujastyk 2003: 398: "The parts of the body cannot, however, be counted because they are divided into tiny atoms (paramdam). and these are too numerous, too minute, and beyond perception."
