'sarvam' and 'asti' in Sarvāstivāda philosophy

Thesis

This dissertation argues that the Sarvāstivāda axiom sarvam asti is best read not primarily as an existential thesis about “the three times,” but as a higher-order thesis about the completeness of predication. On this reconstruction, sarvam marks the completeness of what may truly be predicated of a conditioned dharma, while asti functions as a tenseless copula and, in relevant contexts, carries truth-conditional force: for a dharma to be is, here, for it to have its defining properties. A conditioned dharma is thus nothing over and above the complete set of properties that define it and may be truly predicated of it.

Methodologically, the dissertation offers a philosophical-historical reconstruction guided by philological stratigraphy. It treats Sarvāstivāda and related materials as layered records of philosophical debate from which the functions of sarvam, asti, causality, and temporal predication may be reconstructed. It centres on Vaibhāṣika sources, especially the Mahāvibhāṣā, while also drawing on the Kathāvatthu, the Milindapañha, and comparative evidence from Sanskrit, Pāli, and Chinese renderings of asti (“is/has”). Central to the argument is British Library Gāndhārī manuscript BL 28, whose debate scene shows that what is at stake in sarvam asti is not merely an inventory of existents, but the conditions under which one may legitimately and truthfully say what a dharma is or has.

On this basis, the dissertation reconstructs a distinction between external or generative causality, which brings a dharma into occurrence, and internal or definitional causality, by which a dharma analytically unfolds its inherent properties. It further argues that the twelve āyatanas function as the canonical inventory delimiting and exhausting the predicational domain. The familiar tri-temporal reading thus emerges as a specific articulation of this broader account of completeness, causal explanation, and true predication.

Authors: Fu, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-j2agbprod
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Abhidharma; Buddhist metaphysics; Sarvāstivāda; completeness; predication
• Subjects: Buddhist Studies; Philosophy