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 its own and must be something different from the elements or entities of a personal life.  Moreover, such an eternal, uncaused and unchanging being would be without any practical efficiency (arthakriyakaritva) which alone determines or proves existence.  The soul can thus be said to have a mere nominal existence as a mere object of current usage.  There is no soul, but there are only the elements of a personal life.  But the Vatsiputtriya school held that just as fire could not be said to be either the same as the burning wood or as different from it, and yet it is separate from it, so the soul is an individual (pudgala) which has a separate existence, though we could not say that it was altogether different from the elements of a personal life or the same as these.  It exists as being conditioned by the elements of personal life, but it cannot further be defined.  But its existence cannot be denied, for wherever there is an activity, there must be an agent (e.g.  Devadatta walks).  To be conscious is likewise an action, hence the agent who is conscious must also exist.  To this Vasubandhu replies that Devadatta (the name of a person) does not represent an unity.  “It is only an unbroken continuity of momentary forces (flashing into existence), which simple people believe to be a unity and to which they give the name Devadatta.  Their belief that Devadatta moves is conditioned, and is based on an analogy with their own experience, but their own continuity of life consists in constantly moving from one place to another.  This movement, though regarded as

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[Footnote 1:  I am indebted for the above account to the unpublished translation from Tibetan of a small portion of Abhidharmakoia by my esteemed friend Prof.  Th.  Stcherbatsky of Petrograd.  I am grateful to him that he allowed me to utilize it.]

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belonging to a permanent entity, is but a series of new productions in different places, just as the expressions ‘fire moves,’ ‘sound spreads’ have the meaning of continuities (of new productions in new places).  They likewise use the words ’Devadatta cognises’ in order to express the fact that a cognition (takes place in the present moment) which has a cause (in the former moments, these former moments coming in close succession being called Devadatta).”