held that he was not really born in the world of men but sent a phantom to represent him, remaining himself in the Tusita heaven.  The doctrines attributed to the Uttarapathakas and Andhakas respectively that an unconverted man, if good, is capable of entering on the career of a Bodhisattva and that a Bodhisattva can in the course of his career fall into error and be reborn in state of woe, show an interest in the development of a Bodhisattva and a desire to bring it nearer to human life which are foreign to the Pitakas.  An inclination to think of other states of existence in a manner half mythological half metaphysical is indicated by other heresies, such as that there is an intermediate realm where beings await rebirth, that the dead benefit by gifts given in the world[573], that there are animals in heaven, that the Four Truths, the Chain of Causation, and the Eightfold Path, are self-existent (asankhata).

The point of view of the Katha-vatthu, and indeed of the whole Pali Tripitaka, is that of the Vibhajjavadins, which seems to mean those who proceed by analysis and do not make vague generalizations.  This was the school to which Tissa Moggaliputta belonged and was identical with the Theravada (teaching of the elders) or a section of it.  The prominence of this sect in the history of Buddhism has caused its own view, namely that it represents primitive Buddhism, to be widely accepted.  And this view deserves respect for it rests on a solid historical basis, namely that about two and a half centuries after the Buddha’s death and in the country where he preached, the Vibhajjavadins claimed to get back to his real teaching by an examination of the existing traditions[574].  This is a very early starting-point.  But the Sarvastivadins[575] were also an early school which attained to widespread influence and had a similar desire to preserve the simple and comparatively human presentment of the Buddha’s teaching as opposed to later embellishments.  Only three questions in the Katha-vatthu are directed against them but this probably means not that they were unimportant but that they did not differ much from the Vibhajjavadins.  The special views attributed to them are that everything really exists, that an arhat can fall from arhatship, and that continuity of thought constitutes Samadhi or meditation.  These theses may perhaps be interpreted as indicative of an aversion to metaphysics and the supernatural.  A saint has not undergone any supernatural transformation but has merely reached a level from which he can fall:  meditation is simply fixity of attention, not a mystic trance.  In virtue of the first doctrine European writers often speak of the Sarvastivadins as realists but their peculiar view concerned not so much the question of objective reality as the difference between being and becoming.  They said that the world is whereas other schools maintained that it was a continual process of becoming[576].  It is not necessary at present to follow further the history of this important school.  It had a long career and flourished in Kashmir and Central Asia.