t did not exist and assert some efficiency it could
not have been the object of my knowledge, and deeds done in
past times could not have produced its effects in the present
time. The Sautrantika however thought that the Vaibha@sika's
doctrine would imply the heretical doctrine of eternal existence,
for according to them the stuff remained the same and the time-difference
appeared in it. The true view according to him was,
that there was no difference between the efficiency of an entity,
the entity and the time of its appearance. Entities appeared
from non-existence, existed for a moment and again ceased to
exist. He objected to the Vaibha@sika view that the past is to
be regarded as existent because it exerts efficiency in bringing
about the present on the ground that in that case there should
be no difference between the past and the present, since both
exerted efficiency. If a distinction is made between past, present
and future efficiency by a second grade of efficiencies, then we
should have to continue it and thus have a vicious infinite. We
can know non-existent entities as much as we can know existent
ones, and hence our knowledge of the past does not imply
that the past is exerting any efficiency. If a distinction is
made between an efficiency and an entity, then the reason why
efficiency started at any particular time and ceased at another
would be inexplicable. Once you admit that there is no difference
between efficiency and the entity, you at once find that
there is no time at all and the efficiency, the entity and the
moment are all one and the same. When we remember a thing
of the past we do not know it as existing in the past, but in the
same way in which we knew it when it was present. We are

117

never attracted to past passions as the Vaibha@sika suggests, but
past passions leave residues which become the causes of new
passions of the present moment [Footnote ref.1].

Again we can have a glimpse of the respective positions of
the Vatsiputtriyas and the Sarvastivadins as represented by
Vasubandhu if we attend to the discussion on the subject of
the existence of soul in _Abhidharmakos'a_. The argument of
Vasubandhu against the existence of soul is this, that though
it is true that the sense organs may be regarded as a determining
cause of perception, no such cause can be found which
may render the inference of the existence of soul necessary.
If soul actually exists, it must have an essence of it