Vasubandhu on the Vatsiputriyas fire-fuel analogy

·期刊原文
Vasubandhu on the Vatsiputriyas' fire-fuel analogy

James Duerlinger
Philosophy East and West 32, no. 2(April, 1982).
(c) by the University Press of Hawaii.
pp.151-158

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P.151

In the final section of the Abhidharmako'sa, entitled
Pudgalanivi'scaya, Vasubandhu criticizes the
Vaatsiiputriiyas' use of an analogy to a fire and its
fuel to defend their claim that a person is an
inexplicable substance.(1) A person was said to be
inexplicable in the sense that he is neither
different from nor the same as the mind-body
aggregates in reliance upon whose presence he is
called a person. Vasubandhu's critique of this
analogy has not, to my knowledge, been correctly
translated or interpreted by modern scholars such as
Stcherbatsky.(2) I shall here offer what I believe to
be the correct translation and interpretation of his
critique.
Vasubandhu begins his investigation of the
Vaatsiiputriiyas' view after reminding the reader
that liberation is achieved only by destroying the
inborn idea of a self totally different from the
mind-body aggregates and that the term "self " is, in
fact, a convenient label for the collection of the
mind-body aggregates. The Vaatsiputriiyas, as
Buddhists, agreed with the first of these two claims
but not with the second, since they rejected the
notion that the mere collection of the mindbody
aggregates can be a self whose actions result in its
own sufferings and whose efforts give rise to its own
liberation. Instead, they asserted that the self or
person who can perform these functions cannot be said
to be either different from or the same as the
mind-body aggregates, that is, a person is
inexplicable, although he is called a person in
reliance upon the presence of his aggregates.
Vasubandhu first objects to this view by arguing
that if a person is called a person in reliance upon
the presence of the mind-body aggregates, whether in
reliance upon their having been perceived when
present or in dependence upon their presence in the
way that one phenomenon arises in dependence upon the
presence of another, then the term "person" would
still seem to apply only to those aggregates. Then
the Vatsiiputriiyas are represented as defending
their claim that an inexplicable person is called a
person in reliance upon the presence of his mind-body
aggregates by claiming that this case is analogous
to that in which a fire is called a fire in reliance
upon the presence of its fuel. The analogy is also
meant to defend the claim that a person is neither
different from nor the same as his mind-body
aggregates.
Vasubandhu's exposition of the Vaatsiputriiyas'
analogy I translate as follows:

They claim that a fire cannot be called a fire unless
its fuel is present and that it cannot be said to be
either different from or the same as its fuel. Their
argument is that if the fire were different, its fuel
could not become hot, and that if it were the same,
the very thing which is being burned would be that
which burns it. Similarly, it is claimed that a
person cannot be called a person unless his mind-body
aggregates are present and that he cannot be said to
be either different from or the same as his mind-body
aggregates. Their argument is that if the person were
different, the consequence would be eternalism, and
that if he were the same, the consequence would be
nihilism.(3)
_____________________________________________________

James Duerlinger is an Associate Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Iowa.

p.152

Let us first comment on the Vaatsiiputriiyas'
argument concerning a fire and its fuel, and then on
their argument concerning a person and his mind-body
aggregates.
The Vaatsiiputriiyas argued that if a fire were
different, that is, totally different, from its fuel,
then, contrary to fact, its fuel could not become
hot. This argument assumes the view that an agent
(kart.r) like a fire could not act on its patient
(karman) were it completely different from it. The
argument, that if a fire were the same, that is,
totally the same, as its fuel, then, contrary to
fact, its fuel would itself be the fire, assumes the
view that an agent such as a fire must be different
from its patient if it is to act on it. The general
assumption of the argument, then, is that an agent
cannot be either totally different from or totally
the same as the patient upon which it acts if it is
actually to act on that patient.
Among the Vaibhaa.sikas, only the
Vaatsiiputriiyas had accepted the notion of a
substantive agent which produces an effect in a
patient. Other Vaibhaa.sikas rejected this notion
precisely because a real agent could be neither
different from nor the same as its patient. The
Vaatsiiputriiyas elected to accept the substantive
existence of such agents, with the proviso that their
ontological status as either different from or the
same as their patients is inexplicable, since all
causal action, which is real, requires a real
agent.(4) The category of inexplicable substances,
constituted by such agents, included fires and
persons. All patients, however, were thought to be
reducible to one of the seventy-two kinds of
explicable substances, that is, those phenomena
(dharmas) which are totally different from one
another. Unlike other Vaibhaa.sikas, the
Vaatsiiputriiyas believed that the person is the
agency which produces the activities of the mind-body
aggregates, just as a fire is the agency which
produces the burning of its fuel.
The Vaatsiiputriiyas' second argument, which
concerns the inexplicability of the ontological
relationship between the person and his mind-body
aggregates, does not rely on the preceding causal
principle, since its use would have begged the
question. The first part of the second argument is
that if the person were different, that is,
completely different, from his mind-body aggregates,
then, contrary to fact, his eternalism is implied.
This part of the argument was accepted by all
Vaibhaa.sikas, and the key to understanding it is
that, in this circumstance, the eternalistic view of
the person is that he is a causally unconditioned
phenomenon (asa.msk.rtadharma). Since the
Vaibhaa.sikas included all causally conditioned
phenomena (sa.msk.rtadharmas) among the mind-body
aggregates, they argued that if the self were
completely different from the mind-body aggregates,
it would have to be, if it existed at all, a causally
unconditioned phenomenon. But the three kinds of such
phenomena accepted by the Vaibhaa.sikas did not
include the self. Moreover, the Vaibhaa.sikas claimed
that a causally unconditioned self does not exist
because it can be neither directly nor inferentially
cognized.
The second part of the argument is that if the
person were the same, completely the same, as his
mind-body aggregates, then the nihilistic view of
self is implied. Nihilism, in this case, is the view
that there can be no self which suffers the results

p.153

of its actions according to the law of actions and
their results. The Vaatsiiputriiyas realized that if
the person is completely the same as the mind-body
aggregates, conceived as a collection of momentary
substances, the person is actually many persons, each
existing for a single moment, with the result that
the person who performs an action cannot be the same
person who suffers its result. Thus, the law of
actions and their results, which requires that the
results of an action performed must be suffered by
the same person who performs the action, is violated.
Hence, the identification of the person with the
aggregates entails the denial of the law of actions
and their results, a denial which the Buddha labeled
nihilism.
Vasubandhu replies to the Vaatsiiputriiyas'
analogy by considering three accounts of a fire and
its fuel (actually offered, presumably, by the
Vaatsiiputriiyas) and then showing that none of the
three is consistent with their main thesis. A fire's
fuel, of course, is what can be burned and a fire
itself is what burns that fuel. Vasubandhu, however,
demands a more exact account.
The first attempt to give an account of a fire
and its fuel I translate as follows:

They say that the fuel of a fire is said by the world
to be things such as unignited wood, which are the
sorts of things which can be burned, and that a fire
is said to be things such as ignited wood, which are
the sorts of things which burn the fuel. A fire,
blazing and intensely hot, ignites and burns fuel
because it brings about a transformation in the
fuel's continuum. Both a fire and its fuel are
composed of the eight elemental substances, and the
fire arises in dependence on the presence of its
fuel, just as curds arise in dependence on milk and
the sourness of milk on its sweetness.(5)

The Vaataiiputriiyas' more exact account of a fire
and its fuel includes [1] an explanation of fuel as
ignitable material not yet ignited and a fire as an
ignited material which is an agent acting on its
fuel, and [2] an explanation of a fire and its fuel,
so defined, which accords with the Vaibhaa.sikas'
account of the elemental composition of gross
objects, as well as their account of their
dependent-arising.
Vasubandhu's retort is short and to the point:

But on this account of how a fire is called a fire in
reliance upon the presence of its fuel, it is
different from its fuel, since it exists at a
different time. Moreover, if a person, in the same
way, arises in dependence on his mind-body
aggregates, not only must he be different from them,
but also he must be impermanent.(6)

The main point Vasubandhu has made is that, so
defined and explained, a fire is not an inexplicable
substance, since it arises in dependence on its fuel
in the same way that one explicable impermanent
substance arises in dependence on another. An ignited
material arises after, and in dependence on, the
unignited material which is to be ignited. Therefore,
on this explication of a fire and its fuel their
causal relation does not entail the ontological
inexplicability of a fire, and so, neither does the
causal relation between a person and his mind-body
aggregates entail the inexplicability of a person.
The point is added that a person, like a fire, thus
explained, would also be impermanent, since a central
concern of the Vaatsiiputriiyas was to deny that a
person is impermanent.

p.154

The crucial problem with the Vaatsiiputriiyas'
first account is that a fire, as an ignitable
material already ignited, must exist after its fuel,
as an ignitable material not yet ignited, is present.
Consequently, the Vaatsiiputriiyas' second account
attempts to remedy this defect.

Then, again, suppose that the Vaatsiiputriiyas reply
that a fire is just the heat which occurs when things
such as wood are being ignited and that its fuel is
constituted by the three elements which co-exist with
that heat.(7)

Among the eight coexistent elemental substances which
were believed to constitute such gross objects as
ignited wood are the elements popularly called earth,
air, fire, and water, whose physical functions,
respectively, are repulsion, attraction, heat, and
motion. The suggestion is made that a fire, which is
a gross object rather than the fire element itself,
is the heat present in the ignited materials by
reason of the presence in them of the fire element,
and that its fuel is comprised of the materials
which are being ignited and are also in the ignited
materials by reason of the presence in them of the
earth, air, and water elements. If a fire and its
fuel are so explained, then a fire does not arise
after its fuel is present, since both exist only when
materials are being ignited. Since heat present in
the ignited materials is the agent which is
transforming materials into ash, and so on, it is,
properly speaking, the fire which burns the fuel.
Vasubandhu raises his first objection to this
account as follows:

But then a fire will still be different from its
fuel, since each has a different defining
property.(8)

The basis upon which the Vaibhaa.sikas distinguished
as completely different from one another the
seventy-five kinds of phenomena they counted as
substances knowable to the mind is that each had its
own defining property (lak.sa.na). Consequently,
since the heat present in an ignited material is not
other than the fire element present in it, and the
materials being burned are not other than the
elemental substances which constitute them, yet each
of the four elements has its own defining property,
if a fire is the heat present in the ignited material
and its fuel is the material being burned, a fire is
completely different from its fuel. Hence, a fire so
defined is not an inexplicable substance, and if it
is not, it is not a proper analog to the supposed
inexplicable person.
The second objection to the Vaatsiiputriiyas'
second account is as follows:

Moreover, what can "in reliance upon" mean now? How
can a fire be called a fire on the basis of the
presence of its fuel? The fuel would not be a cause
of the fire or of a fire being called a fire, since
the fire itself will now be the basis upon which it
is called a fire.(9)

The Vaatsiiputriiyas had originally claimed that a
fire is called a fire in reliance upon the presence
of its fuel, but if the fire itself is present, as
here implied, why should its being called a fire
depend upon the presence of its fuel? Moreover, if
the fire and its fuel are both present, how can the
fire arise in reliance unon the presence

p.155

of its fuel? In other words, its fuel would not then
be a cause of the arising of the fire.
An obvious way to sidestep the last objection is
to redefine "in reliance upon" so that when one thing
relies upon another for its existence, the first need
not exist after the second.

If it is said that "in reliance upon" signifies that
the fuel supports the existence of the fire and
co-exists with it then it follows that the mind-body
aggregates also support the existence of a person and
co-exist with him, in which case it is also clear
that the separateness of a person from his aggregates
is accepted.(10)

The point is that if the Vaatsiiputriiyas claim that
this same relation obtains between a person and his
mind-body aggregates, then the person is completely
different from them, just as the fire element and its
heat are completely different from the other three
elements.

Moreover, a person would not then exist when the
mind-body aggregates are not present, just as a fire
would not exist when its fuel is not present.(11)

The Vaatsiiputriiyas did not hold the view that a
person cannot exist apart from his mind-body
aggregates. Strictly speaking, their view is that a
person exists who cannot be given a name unless his
aggregates are present, since he cannot be perceived
unless they are present. Had they asserted that a
person exists only if his aggregates are present,
they would have been committed to a view they were
trying to avoid, namely, that after death the Buddha
no longer exists, since at death the Buddha's
aggregates cease to exist.(12) The Vaatsiiputriiyas'
view, therefore, conforms to the Buddha's own claim
that his own status after death is an undeclared
topic, since on their view, it cannot be said whether
or not the Buddha, a person, exists after death,
since the conditions under which the question could
be answered no longer exist. For this reason
Vasubandhu's objection hits the mark, since it shows
that if the Vaatsiiputriiyas claim that a person
coexists with, and his existence is supported by, his
aggregates, then, contrary to their own view, he
would not exist when his aggregates no longer exist.
Vasubandhu's last objection to the second account
of a fire and its fuel concerns its consistency with
the Vaatsiiputriiyas' argument that if a fire is
completely different from its fuel, its fuel could
not become hot.

Also, the Vaatsiiputriiyas' claim, that if a fire is
different from its fuel, then its fuel could not
become hot, becomes problematic. For what does "hot"
name? If it names that whose nature is heat
[au.s.nyam], then the fuel definitely lacks heat
because it is constituted by the other three
elements. But if it names that which possesses heat
[au.s.nyavat], then something other than a fire,
whose essence is heat, can also be hot, since it is
joined with heat. Hence, the difference between a
fire and its fuel no longer causes a difficulty.(13)

Vasubandhu is claiming that if a fire is identified
with the heat present in ignited materials and its
fuel with the materials constituted by the other
three elements, then the complete difference between
a fire and its fuel only implies that its fuel

p.156

cannot get hot in the trivial sense that heat is not
the essence of the materials constituted by the
earth, air, and water elements, since heat is
conventionally ascribed to all gross objects on the
basis of the presence in them of the fire element.
Consequently, the Vaatsiiputriiyas must abandon
either this second account of a fire and its fuel or
their argument for the claim that a fire cannot be
different from its fuel.
Thus far, a fire and its fuel have been equated,
on the one hand, with ignited materials and unignited
but ignitable materials, and on the other hand, with
the heat present in ignited materials and the
remaining materials of the ignited material,
respectively. Both accounts, however, are faulty
primarily because a real difference between a fire
and its fuel is still implied, since, in the first
case, they are really distinct objects, and in the
second case, they are really distinct parts of the
ignited ma terials. Consequently, to avoid this
problem, the final alternative account is given.

Then, again, suppose that the Vaatsiiputriiyas reply
that both a fire and its fuel are comprised of the
whole of the ignited wood, etc.(14)

Vasubandhu's reply is that this alternative implies
the sameness of a fire and its fuel, which is
inconsistent with the idea that the first is given a
name in reliance upon the presence of the second. And
so, with regard to their analogs:

But then how can it be explained that a person is
called a person in reliance upon the presence of his
mind-body aggregates? For if the aggregates
themselves are also the person, the view cannot be
avoided that they are the same.(15)

The Vaatsiiputriiyas initially claimed that a person
is called a person in reliance upon the presence of
his mind-body aggregates because they believed that a
person could not be said to be the same as them.
Therefore, this third account of a fire and its fuel
must be abandoned.
Having determined that none of these three
acounts of a fire and its fuel shows that a fire is
an inexplicable substance which receives its name in
reliance upon the presence of its fuel, Vasubandhu
concludes that the Vaatsiiputriiyas' conception of a
person as an inexplicable substance which receives
its name in reliance upon the presence of the
mind-body aggregates is not analogous to the idea of
a fire being called a fire in reliance upon the
presence of its fuel, since a fire is not an
inexplicable substance.

Therefore, it is not established that a person is
called a person in reliance upon the presence of his
mind-body aggregates in the same way that a fire is
called a fire in reliance upon the presence of its
fuel.(16)

The general argument for this conclusion has been
that the three ways in which the Vaatsiiputriiyas
have (or could have) explained what a fire and its
fuel are do not justify the claim that a fire,
because of its causal relation to its fuel, is an
ontologically inexplicable substance.

p.157

NOTES

1. Ahhidharmako'sa and Bhaa.sya of AAcaarya
Vasubandhu with Sphu.taarthaa Commentary of
AAcaarya Ya'somitra, Part IV, ed. D. Shastri
(Varanasl: Bauddha Bharati Series, 1973), PP.
1189-1234, esp. pp. 1193--1195 (hereafter cited
as ADK IV).

2. I have been able to discover only T.
Stcherbatsky's translation and interpretation,
which may be found in The Soul Theory of the
Buddhists, (Varanasl: Bhaaratiiya Vidyaa
Prakaa'sana, 1970), PP 15-19 (hereafter cited as
STB).

3. ADK IV., p. 1193. Stcherbatsky translates as
follows (STB, pp. 15-16):

Vaatsiiputriiya. If there is no fuel, neither (is
there anything) we can apply the name of fire to.
Nevertheless we neither can maintain that fire is
something different from burning fuel nor can we
assert that it is the same. Were it altogether
different, fuel could not contain any caloric
element, (which we know it always does contain). But
if there were no difference at all, then the
substance that burns and the something that singes
would be (one and the same substance). This
illustrates (the relation b etween the Individual and
its elements). If the elements of a personal life are
absent, we do not use the term Individual.
Nevertheless we neither can maintain that the
Individual is something different from its component
elements, nor can we assert that they are identical.
(In the first case) the consequence would be an
eternal (Soul), (in the second) its total absence.

In a long footnote (pp. 93-96) to this passage
Stcherbatsky explains "the Buddhist theory of matter"
so that the Vaatsiiputriiyas' argument against the
total difference between fire and fuel may be
understood. He believes, as his translation makes
clear, that they are arguing that the elemental
substance, called fire, could not be present in fuel
if fire were totally different from fuel. However, on
this interpretation the Vaatsiiputriiyas are made to
equivocate on "fire" (agni), since the fire which is
said to be not different from its fuel is not the
elemental substance called "fire," but what the world
calls fire. The Vaatsiiputriiyas accepted the
standard Buddhist account of the elemental fire,
which was held to he different from the other
elements which also compose all gross material
objects.

4. Cp. STB, p. 62. In his footnote (p. 107) to this
passage, Stcherbatsky fails to make the important
point that the Vaatsiiputriiyas themselves
accepted the view that the real existence of
causal action requires the existence of an agent.

5. ADK IV, pp. 1193-1194. Stcherbatsky translates
(STB, pp. 16-17) as follows:

Vaatsiiputriiya. Now, as used in common life (these
terms have the meaning of wood and flames). When wood
or any other fuel is bursting into flames, people
say: "this is fuel", "it is burning". With regard to
the flames they say: "This is fire", "it singes".
Flames and intense heat are the agency which burns,
i.e. destroys, fuel in the sense that the continuity
of its existence undergoes a change, (it is turned
into ashes). But (from the scientific point of view),
both fuel and fire are composed of (exactly the same
set) of eight primary constituents (the sole
difference consisting in the circumstance that in
fire the caloric element is more prominent than in
fuel). If the production of fire is conditioned by
the presence of fuel, it is just as the production
of curds which is conditioned (by the previous
existence of milk), or the milk's sour taste which is
conditioned by its previous sweet taste.

Stcherbatsky's rendition of this account of a fire
and its fuel falsely suggests that a fire is merely
the flames and beat which burn a fuel, which is
merely the wood, and so forth, which are being burned
by the flames. In fact, it is essential to the
account given that a fire is ignited material and its
fuel is unignited material. Vasubandhu's criticism of
this account would not apply to the view Stcherbatsky
ascribes here to the Vaatsiiputriiyas, since the
flames can only exist simultaneously with the mat-
erials being burned by them. The Vaatsiiputriiyas'
first vew, as represented by Vasubandhu, is that a
fire is a burning material and its fuel is a material
which can be burned by the burning material or fire.

6. ADK IV, pp. 1193-1194.

7. ADK IV, p. 1194. Stcherbatsky translates (STB, pp.
17-18) this passage as if it were a continuation
of Vasubandhu's critique of the first account of a
fire and its fuel. However, Vasubandhu clearly
marks off this new account, as he does the third
(ADK IV, p. 1195), with the words "atha puna.h."
Also, Stcherbatsky translates "u.s.nya.m" as
"caloric element" rather than as "heat," which
creates the false impression that the
Vaatsiiputriiyas meant to identify a fire with the
elemental fire rather than with its physical
function.

8. ADK IV, p. 1194.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

p.158

11. Ibid. Stcherbatsky seems to have interpreted this
sentence (STB, p. 18) not as a criticism of the
Vaatsiiputriiyas' position, but as a confirmation
of the Vaatsiiputriiyas' view that, when a fire
and its fuel are construed in this way, a person
cannot exist apart from his mind-body aggregates:

(Then indeed it would follow that) no Individual can
exist in the absence of its component elements, just
as well as no fire can exist in the absence of fuel.

However, had the Vaatsiiputriiyas espoused this view,
they could not have claimed that a person is a
substance (dravya).

12. Cp. Vasubandhu's later dispute with the
Vaatsiiputriiyas about the undeclared topics,
especially where the Vaatsiiputriiyas (BTS, p.
52) are represented as saying that the Buddha did
not state whether he existed after death for fear
of being misunderstood as maintaining the
position that a person is an eternal substance
completely different from his mind-body
aggregates.

13. ADK IV, p. 1195. Stcherbatsky translates this
passage (BTS, pp. 18-19) quite differently:

Vaatsiiputriiya. To this we have already answered,
that if fire be altogether different from fuel, the
latter could not contain any element of heat, (which
it always does contain). Vasubandhu. (Yes, you did
say so), but what do you understand by heat? If it is
the caloric element fuel never will be the same as
heat, since it is (in this case) represented by the
other constituents of matter. (They will be as
different as one constituent differs from the
others). Vaatriiputriiya. But then the other
coexisting element may be possessed of heat. In this
case it will be established, that they are different
from fire, as far as the latter is represented by the
caloric element, but they nevertheless will
represent heat also, in as much as they will be
pregnant with heat. Hence there is no fault in them
being different substances, (since they are thus
united).

Stcherbatsky interprets the last part of the passage
to be the Vaatsiiputriiyas' reply to the charge that
their second account of a fire and its fuel is
inconsistent with their argument for the claim that a
fire cannot be completely different from its fuel.
Their reply, he thinks, is that a fire is not
completely different from its fuel because both can
be hot, although only the fire "is represented by the
caloric element," that is, has heat as its essence.
However, I cannot see how the Sanskrit can be made to
fit Stcherbatsky's interpretation, He was most likely
led to this view by his misinterpretation of the
Vaatsiiputriiyas' initial argument.

14. ADK IV, p. 1 195. Stcherbatsky failed to notice
that an entirely new account of a fire and its
fuel are now being given ("atha puna.h") in order
to avoid the difficulty that, on the two previous
accounts, they are substantially different. He
interprets the sentence as Vasubandhu calling
attention to an implication of the
Vaatsiiputriiyas' reply to the charge that their
second account is inconsistent with their denial
of the total difference between a fire and its
fuel.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.