Pudgalavada Buddhism: The Reality of the Indeterminate Self.

• Author: Duerlinger, James
• Position: Reviews of Books - Book Review

Pudgalavada Buddhism: The Reality of the Indeterminate Self. By LEONARD C. D. C. PRIESTLEY. South Asian Studies Papers, no. 12; monograph no. 1. Toronto: CENTRE FOR SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES, 1999. Pp. 255. $40 (cloth); $25 (paper).

In this book an attempt is made to reconstruct the Pudgalavada Buddhist theory of persons as it is represented in the Chinese translations of the Sammitiyanikaya Sastra (Sanmidibu lun) and the Tridharmakhandaka (Sanfadu lun) and in later Buddhist works in which the doctrines of the Pudgalavadins are summarized and criticized. It contains an introduction, followed by twelve chapters, a separate statement of a general conclusion, a bibliography limited for the most part to works cited, and an index.

In the introduction, the author briefly explains what task he has set for himself in the book, why this task has not been attempted before, and how what other scholars have accomplished provides him with the materials needed to undertake the task. In chapter one, "The Doctrine of Non-Self," he prepares the way for his discussion by setting out what the Buddha himself is represented as teaching about the doctrine of non-self and nirvana, and argues that these teachings are ambiguous and lend themselves to different interpretations. Chapter two, "The Development of the Pudgalavada," discusses the conflicting evidence about the identity of the original founder of the Pudgalavada schools and about the development of these schools. Chapter three, "Sources," surveys the surviving literature of the Pudgalavadin schools, the summaries of their doctrines in the various accounts of the formation of these schools, and the polemical works in which their doctrines were presented for refutation. In chapter four, "The Pudgala," he discusses the Pudgalavadins' view that persons are "inexpressible" and the different ways in which persons are said in the Tridharmakhandaka and Sammitiyanikaya Sastra to be conceived. The inexpressibility of persons lies in their ultimate existence without being either other than the five aggregates that comprise their bodies and minds or the same as them. In the Tridharmakhandaka, of which there are two rather different Chinese translations, it is said, in the shorter version, that persons are conceived according to appropriation, the past, or cessation, and in the longer version, that persons are conceived according to appropriation, approach, or cessation. In the Sammitiyanikaya Sastra it is said that persons are conceived according...