Saṅghabhadra's arguments for the existence of an intermediate state (antarābhava) between biological death and rebirth as translated by Xuanzang (602?–664 ce)

Abstract

The Buddhist doctrine of transmigration (saṃsāra) offers a coherent model of a cycle of existence wherein a sentient being continues throughout life, survives death, traverses the afterlife, and is, sooner or later, reborn, thus inaugurating another lifecycle as a new life-form. The Buddhist tenets of no-self (anātman) and impermanence, however, deny the possibility of a self, soul, or any form of spiritual substance that persists throughout the cycle of transmigration. This article examines the argumentation developed by the Indic Buddhist philosopher, Saṅghabhadra (fl. fifth- century ce), as part of his effort to reconcile the doctrines of no-self and karmic continuity. In his *Nyāyānusāraśāstra and the *Samayapradīpikāśāstra, two seminal, yet vastly understudied, doctrinal treatises of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Buddhism that survive only within the translation corpus of the Sinitic scholar-monk Xuanzang (602?–664 ce), Saṅghabhadra defines the antarābhava, the ‘intermediate state of existence’, as the interstitial space and interim time-period existing between the locus wherein the sequentially reproducing psychic constituents of an individual sentient being, including consciousness, desert the no-longer viable body at the moment of biological death, and the locus wherein these psychic constituents become associated with a new gross physical body in the form of a new viable embryo at the moment of rebirth. By instantiating the antarābhava as an actual interval with real extension in space and time, necessarily traversed by the vast majority of sentient beings after dying in order to reach the next gross physical body, Saṅghabhadra provides, for Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Buddhism, a rigorous account for how karma is transmitted, via the psychic constituents of a sentient being, beyond biological death into future lives, as well as future afterlives.

Introduction

Within the Abrahamic traditions, the lifecycle of the human being is envisioned as beginning with life from the moment of conception, having a brief segue with dying and/or biological death, before finally culminating in the eternal afterlife. In contradistinction to this, the earliest Sarvāstivāda Buddhist treatises describe the ‘individual sentient being’ (Skt.: ātmabhāva; Chinese, hereafter, Chi.: ziti 自體),¹ as cycling continuously through four ‘states of existence’ (Skt.: catvāro bhavāḥ; Chi.: siyou 四有):² living, dying and/or biological death,³ the afterlife, and rebirth. In the early models of the Buddhist life cycle, the ‘stage’ (Skt.: avasthā; Chi.: fenwei 分位)⁴ of living – defined as life as lived in association with a gross physical body – begins in the moment that immediately follows conception and terminates, not in death, but in rebirth (the stage wherein the sentient being is reassociated with a new fleshy body).

Later models of the sequence of the four stages of the lifecycle, as reflected by the Indic philosophers Vasubandhu (fl. fifth-century ce) and his slightly senior contemporary and rival Saṅghabhadra (fl. fifth-century ce) in their seminal Abhidharma treatises,⁵ envision the stage of living as beginning with the discrete stages of gestation leading up to, and including, birth. To Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra the stage of living begins immediately after a sentient being becomes reborn. During the moment of rebirth, a sentient being discards the ‘extremely subtle’ (Skt.: accha; Chi.: ji weixi 極微細)⁶ physical body with which it was associated during the entirety of the interim period known as the ‘intermediate state’ (Skt.: antarābhava; Chi. zhongyou 中有)⁷ and assumes a new gross physical embodiment. Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra mark the beginning of the stage of living as when the life-form that persisted throughout the intermediate state becomes reborn in association with a new physical body.

As formulated by Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra, the Buddhist lifecycle diverges from the Abrahamic model in four fundamental ways. First, biological death is not treated as the termination of the physically embodied existence of an individual sentient being. Second, the afterlife is not considered to be the final or culminating stage within the lifecycle. Third, the afterlife is understood to be a form of post-mortem existence that consists as an interim, rather than as a final, stage in the ongoing lifecycle of an individual sentient being. Fourth, the individual sentient being is continuously existent in that it undergoes, and outlasts, the radical changes – both substantial and qualitative – that take place during each stage of the lifecycle. Here the Abhidharma Buddhist theorists postulate that, across the lifecycle, a sentient being withstands the total material replacement of the constituents of the body yet maintains an identity as a distinct life-form with a unique karmic history that can be traced back through innumerable past lives.

This study examines the Abhidharma Buddhist doctrinal models of the intermediate state, the stage of the lifecycle during which an individual sentient being, in the moment after becoming deceased, traverses an interval of time and space while associated with a subtle body until becoming associated with another viable gross physical embodiment. It investigates the arguments in support of the existence of an intermediate state that are developed by Saṅghabhadra in his exegesis of the early Buddhist texts on the four stages of the Buddhist cycle, and in his rejoinder to Vasubandhu's analysis of the nature and existence of interstitial space in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya.

Saṅghabhadra lays out the framework for his conceptualization of the afterlife in two surviving treatises, the Nyāyānusāra (Chi.: Shun zhengli lun 順正理論) and the *Samayapradīpikā (Chi.: Apidamozang xianzong lun 阿毘達磨藏顯宗論),⁸ both extant in their complete forms only within the Chinese translation corpus of Xuanzang (602?–664 ce), the peripatetic Sinitic scholar-monk of the seventh century. In these two masterworks of the Abhidharma doctrine, Saṅghabhadra defines ‘life after death’ as an interstitial interval during which an individual sentient being, as an intermediate life-form, courses through time and space before becoming reimbodied as a new life-form.

In formulating his doctrinal theories of the intermediate stage of the lifecycle, Saṅghabhadra grapples with a knotty question: how does an individual sentient being withstand the changing conditions of living in the material world, survive the dissolution and loss of a functioning corporeal body, transmigrate through the afterlife, and transition into a new embodied form? Throughout his body of work Saṅghabhadra takes great pains to uphold the doctrine of the existence of the intermediate state as an actual spatio-temporal interval within the lifecycle of an individual sentient being. In his defence of the real existence of the intermediate state, Saṅghabhadra enlists the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma doctrines of survivability that are predicated upon the notion that an individual sentient being is comprised of a continuum (Skt.: saṃtāna) that survives the destruction and replacement of its constituent dharmas. He also draws upon the analysis by Vasubandhu, found in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, regarding the existence of the intermediate stage as a form of interstitial space, the interval of time and space between two gross physical bodies. Saṅghabhadra enlists the Abhidharma concepts of survivability and interstitial space to explain how an individual sentient being withstands the passage between the time and spatial location of biological death and the time and spatial location of rebirth.

Saṅghabhadra predicates his explanations for the survivability of the individual sentient being throughout the lifecycle on the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma postulate that each, and every, sentient being is comprised of a continuum of five sequentially reproducing psycho-physical aggregates (Skt.: skandhāḥ). These include one corporeal or ‘bodily form’ (Skt.: rūpa; Chi.: se) and four mental or psychological components: ‘sensation’ (Skt.: vedanā; Chi.: shou 受), ‘perception’ (Skt.: saṃjñā; Chi.: shou 受), ‘mental formation’ (Skt.: saṃskāra; Chi.: xing 行), and ‘consciousness’ (Skt.: vijñāna; Chi.: shi 識). While different series of sequentially reproducing physical aggregates provide the subserving basis for the physiological functioning of an individual sentient being passing through different lifecycle stages, the four mental aggregates that comprise the psychological profile of an individual sentient being perdure in a continuous series across space and time.⁹

The five psycho-physical aggregates are composed of innumerable individual dharmas, the indivisible bits of physical, mental, and neither entirely physical nor entirely mental stuff that make up the totality of reality. Dharmas are defined by their abilities to discharge a momentary burst of ‘causal efficacy’ (Skt.: kāritra; Chi. zuoyong 作用), the energy that brings material entities, discrete mental functions, and the psycho-somatic phenomena that are neither entirely mental, nor entirely physical, into being. Causal efficacy is the temporary exercise of ‘causal potency’ (Skt.: sāmarthya; Chi. gongneng 功能), the latent store of causal power that facilitates the activation of the specific characteristic function of a dharma.¹⁰ The collective causal efficacies of the multiple dharmas of the continua enable an individual sentient being to arise, abide, cease, expire, and arise again in an ongoing and unbroken sequence of momentary events that comprises the Buddhist cycle of life.

Saṅghabhadra employs the theories of the casual efficacy of the dharmas to support his arguments for the survivability of the individual sentient being, the ātmabhava, throughout the lifecycle. The multitude of dharmas that are assembled within the five psycho-physical aggregates engender the changes (in the form of the sentient being) that take place during the four stages of the lifecycle, yet maintain the continuity of the overall physical and psychological profile of the individual sentient being from one moment to the next and over extended periods of time. To Saṅghabhadra, the ongoing moment-to-moment decrepitude and dissolution of the five psycho- physical aggregates, each of which bundle innumerable individual dharmas of a corresponding type together, provide the serial continuity of the physical and mental existence of a single sentient being throughout the four stages of the lifecycle. Saṅghabhadra reasons that, because an individual sentient being is composed of multiple dharmas with specific capacities to engender and endure constant change and replacement, a sentient being can undergo radical change, yet remain the same entity.

In his formulations of the intermediate state, Saṅghabhadra assiduously addresses how the continuum of an individual sentient being persists while undergoing radical change over time. The theories of the Abhidharma Buddhists upheld by Saṅghabhadra maintain that a continuant – from one moment to the next and over extended periods of time – can evince mutually incompatible properties yet persist as the same entity.¹¹ Thus, the Abhidharma Buddhists predicate their arguments for continuity upon the premise that an entity persists by remaining wholly present through every moment of its existence, while rejecting the notion of persistence as necessarily predicated upon the continuous endurance, or the whole and unbroken presence of the self-same entity over time.

Throughout his body of work, Saṅghabhadra affirms the real existence of the intermediate state as an actual spatio-temporal interval within the Buddhist lifecycle. He predicates his explanation for the existence of an interstitial space and time between lives upon the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma postulate that the dharmas comprising the continuum of an individual sentient being all have specific temporal-spatial properties. The composite entities that comprise the continuum are comprised of both purely, and not purely, ‘physical dharmas’ (Skt.: rūpadharmāḥ; Chi. sefa 色法). The physical dharmas are ‘physically resistant’ (Skt.: sapratighā; Chi.: youdui 有對) and ‘mutually obstructive’ (Skt.: āvaraṇa; Chi.: you'ai 有礙) in that they compete with, and take up volume apart from, other physical dharmas.¹² Their specific properties of physical resistance and obstruction prevent different physical dharmas from crowding into the exact same spatial locus at the same time. A corollary flowing from this logical principle dictating the impossibility of two distinct physical dharmas perfectly coinciding is that the individual physical dharmas that constitute them are discrete. One distinct composite of physical dharmas cannot arise, discharge the store of causal efficacy contained in its constituent dharmas, decay, and expire in the same place and at the same time as another distinct composite of physical dharmas.¹³

Saṅghabhadra directly applies the Abhidharma Buddhist doctrinal theory regarding the nature and existence of physical dharmas to his understanding of the intermediate stage. He concludes that the state intervening between biological death and rebirth in the lifecycle of an individual sentient must necessarily consist in an ‘interval’ (Skt.: antarā) with actual spatial extension and temporal duration. His conclusion is that the intermediate state is definitely real, founded on two conditional propositions. First, if the dharmas that comprise the continuum of an individual sentient being are physically resistant to other concurrently active dharmas or mutually obstruct one another and compete with one another for space, then two distinct physical continua (both comprised of a multitude of physical dharmas) cannot be located in exactly the same place at the same time. Second, if an individual sentient being dies in one location at a certain time and begins life as a new life-form in another location at a later point in time, then an interstitial ‘state of being’ (Skt.: bhava) must necessarily exist between the two distinct states of grossly embodied existence, comprising its two ‘bookends’. Because the physical dharmas that comprise the dead body, and the physical dharmas that comprise the new living body, cannot exactly coincide in the same place and time, the dead body and the new living one are separated from one another within space and in time.

Saṅghabhadra advances detailed argumentation to bolster the doctrinal premise that the capacity of an individual sentient being to withstand the four stages of a lifecycle as a ‘fully-fledged life-form’ (Skt.: paripūrin; Chi.: yuanman zhe 圓滿者)¹⁴ depends upon the sequential reproduction of, and continued interactions between, the five aggregates that make an individual sentient being a distinct psycho-physical continuum. Here he dispels the notion that any one of the four psychic aggregates required for sentient life, including consciousness, is capable of perduring without an embodied basis in a corporeal aggregate. Saṅghabhadra clearly states that, aside from sentient beings who die and are reimbodied within the rarified ‘formless realm’ (Skt.: arūpyadhātu; Chi. wusejie 無色界) of the Buddhist universe, the continuous presence of a corporeal aggregate is essential to sustaining a fully-fledged life-form – whether animal or plant – over time.¹⁵ He argues that, while traversing a spatio-temporal interstice – from the locus of death to the locus of rebirth – four types of sequentially reproducing psychic aggregates must be affiliated with some bodily form, however subtle or tenuous, of a corporeal aggregate.¹⁶

This article examines the argumentation used by Saṅghabhadra to establish the persistence of an individual sentient being throughout the spatio-temporal interval of the intermediate state, and the three other stages, of the Buddhist lifecycle. The first section explores the models of the four sequential states or stages of existence used by Saṅghabhadra to conceptualize the intermediate state. These models appear in the venerable Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma doctrinal treatises, the Jñānaprasthāna (Chi. Fazhi lun 發智論) and the *Mahāvibhāṣā (Chi. Da piposha lun 大毘婆沙論), both of which are extant in their complete forms only within the translation corpus of Xuanzang. The second section describes how Saṅghabhadra arrives at his determination of the real existence of the intermediate state as a separate and distinct interstitial space and interim period that necessarily must be traversed by almost all types of sentient life-forms in order to locate another viable fleshy body (a new embryo), a process taking a certain amount of time (traditionally seven to forty-nine days).¹⁷ Here Saṅghabhadra puts pressure on Vasubandhu's analysis of the space intervening between the ‘reflection’ (Skt.: pratibimba; yingxiang 影像) appearing in the mirror and the surface of the mirror itself to see if it holds water as an exemplar of the existence of interstitial spaces between distinct physical bodies (found in Abhidharmakośabhāṣya 3.11). By upholding the inherited Sarvāstivāda arguments establishing the lifecycle as divisible into four discrete stages, and by testing the limits of the ontological status of interstitial space as exemplified by the reflection in the mirror, Saṅghabhadra instantiates for Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Buddhism the existence of the intermediate state as a spatio-temporally extended stage in the lifecycle through which (almost) all individual sentient beings must transmigrate as an invariable part of each lifecycle.

‘From death to death’: the four states of existence in the Buddhist lifecycle

The descriptions of the Buddhist lifecycle as extending not ‘from conception to death, but from death to death’ (Kachru (2021), 97) appear in the earliest Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma treatises, most notably the Jñānaprasthāna and the *Mahāvibhāṣā, the elaborate commentary on this ancient treatise. In conceptualizing his argument for the intermediate state, Saṅghabhadra draws from the inherited descriptions of the four successive states of existence and the doctrine of the ātmabhava, wherein an individual sentient being is said to transmigrate through all stages of the lifecycle in various different physically embodied forms while maintaining a continuous, uninterrupted psychological profile despite the instantaneous disaggregation from a defunct physical body taking place during the momentary event of biological death, and eventually in the moment immediately prior to the joining with a new gross physical body.

Saṅghabhadra contests the definition of the stage of living as a certain type of sentient being, presented in the *Jñānaprasthāna, as beginning in the moment immediately following conception. Instead, he contends that this stage of living begins prior to conception, in the moment following the intermediate state, concurring with his Sarvāstivādin forebears in envisioning the intermediate state as the stage of the Buddhist lifecycle wherein the individual sentient being, in association with the ephemeral bodily form of the antarābhava, traverses the spatial distance and the temporal interim between biological death and rebirth prior to embodying an entirely new gross physical form.¹⁸

In his two surviving Abhidharma masterworks, the Nyāyānusāra and the *Samayapradīpikā, Saṅghabhadra refines the sequence of the four stages of existence, positioning the beginning of the stage of living not with conception, but with the distinct substages of gestation leading up to birth. He bases his doctrinal refinements on his close readings of the *Jñānaprasthāna (T1544.26.1024a3) wherein the sequence of the stages of existence is defined. In his Chinese translation of the *Jñānaprasthāna, Xuanzang renders the order of the four stages of existence as follows:

1. 1. The ‘state of fundamental existence’ (Skt.: pūrvabhava; Chi.: benyou 本; Tibetan, hereafter Tib.: sngon dus srid)¹⁹ is defined by the editors of the *Jñānaprasthāna as that of ‘previous existence’ during which an individual sentient being is associated with a gross physical body for a longer or shorter period of time. Here, the editors of the *Jñānaprasthāna determine the state of living as the time in the lifecycle when an individual sentient being is associated with a gross physical body The Sanskrit word pūrvabhava literally means ‘previous existence’. Xuanzang consistently translates it across his body of work as ‘fundamental existence’ (Chi.: benyou 本有).

2. 2. The editors of the *Jñānaprasthāna determine the ‘state of becoming deceased’ (Skt.: maraṇabhava; Chi.: siyou 死有; Tib.: ‘chi ba'i srid pa) as the moment during which the individual sentient being ceases to be a particular life-form and becomes an ‘intermediate being’ (Skt.: antarābhava). They define the final termination of the state of living as beginning when the physical aggregate of the living body ceases to function. They describe how during this time, the four series of psychic aggregates that were formerly associated with, and sustained by, the previous living body, are no longer able to reproduce.²⁰ Elaborating upon the account found in the*Jñānaprasthāna, the Mahāvibhāṣā also depicts how at the time of cessation of the living body, the four psychological aggregates immediately, and without any discernible hiatus, latch onto a subtle body to form the profoundly evanescent and spectral form of the antarābhava, also known as an upapāduka, which is described as an instance of ‘spontaneous rebirth’ (Skt.: upa√pad; Chi.: huasheng 化生). The editors of the *Jñānaprasthāna define the ‘intermediate state’²¹ (Skt.: antarābhava; Chi.: zhongyou 中有; Tib.: srid pa bar ma) as the transitional time and space between the stage of dying and the stage of living. According to the *Jñānaprasthāna, while occupying the intermediate state, the sentient being takes the form of the antarābhava, which survives in this interim state from seven to forty-nine days, until the four psychic aggregates become associated with the physical aggregate of an embryo, thus initiating the stage of rebirth in an instantaneous state of fertilization. While it is implied by the doctrine postulate established in the *Jñānaprasthāna, and solidified in the Mahāvibhāṣā, in drawing from these inherited source materials, Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra explicitly point out that the antarābhava is a form of upapāduka, the most populous form of sentient life in the Buddhist universe, being considered to be even more numerous than insects.²²

3. 3. The ‘state of becoming reborn’ (Skt.: upapattibhava; Chi.: shengyou 生有; Tib.: skye ba'i srid pa) is defined by the editors of the *Jñānaprasthāna as the ‘state of becoming reincarnated’. This ‘moment of rebirth’ (Skt.: pratisaṃdhikṣaṇa; Chi.: jiesheng chana 結 生 刹 那)²³ is when the four psychic aggregates of the intermediate being disaggregate from the subtle physical aggregate of the antarābhava and become bundled together with a new gross physical body. The account located within the Jñānaprasthāna, and the more detailed exegesis presented in the *Mahāvibhāṣā, fundamentally concur that becoming reborn marks the beginning of another lifecycle as a new life-form.

As laid out above, the sequence of the stages of the lifecycle set forth in the*Jñānaprasthāna, and reinforced in the *Mahāvibhāṣā, orients the intermediate state as the final stage and the state of becoming reborn as the initial stage in the lifecycle. However, Saṅghbhadra positions the intermediate state as the initial stage in the lifecycle of an individual sentient being. In chapter 3 of the Nyāyānusāra, ‘The Discrimination of Dependent Arising’ (Chi.: bian yuanqi pin 辯緣起品), Saṅghabhadra writes:

就有情前後位別分析為四：一者中有，義如前說；二者生有，謂於諸趣結生剎那；三者本有，除生剎那，死前餘位；四者死有，謂最後念。

The prior and subsequent stages of individual sentient beings are fourfold: Firstly, the intermediate state, the meaning of which is described above; secondly, the state of becoming reborn, which refers to the moment of becoming reborn within the transmigratory realms; thirdly, fundamental existence, which excludes the moment of becoming reborn, and comprises the stage prior to biological death. Fourth, the state of becoming deceased, which refers to the final moment of cognition [occurring in association with a particular gross physical body]. (Cf. Abhidharmakośabhāṣya 3.13, trans. Xuanzang, T1558.29.46a15–17; corresponding to Pradhan (1967), 124)

In chapter 3 of the Nyāyānusāra (T1562.29.468a28–a29), Saṅghabhadra cites Vasubandhu's signature gloss on the antarābhava, which is located in the auto-commentary to the tenth stanza of the third chapter of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, the ‘Discrimination of the World’ (Lokanirdeśa; T1558.29.44b10–11):²⁴

於死有後、在生有前，即彼中間有自體起，為至生處，故起此身，二有中間，故名中有。T1558.29.44b10–11

Where there is the arising of an individual being (ātmabhava) in between the states of becoming deceased and becoming reborn, the body [of five aggregates] arises in order to get to the locus of rebirth. Because it lies between two transmigratory paths, it is thus called the ‘intermediate state’.

In their specific depictions of what occurs in the intermediate stage, Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra explain that, in the moment immediately following biological death, the four psychic aggregates detach from the gross physical aggregate to which they were bundled in life and latch onto an ephemeral corporeal aggregate to form the antarābhava. Both Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra regard the intermediate stage as the inauguration of an entirely new lifecycle, wherein a new ātmabhava – a sentient being that is causally connected, though distinct from the antarābhava of the intermediate stage – begins the stage of living life in association with another physically embodied form.

The ātmabhava as the embodied locus of transmigration

In his Chinese translations of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, Xuanzang glosses the Sanskrit term antarābhava as ‘the body [of five aggregates] that arises in order to get to the locus of rebirth’. Reflecting a similar understanding of this terminology to that of Xuanzang, Jinamitra (fl. eighth century ce), et al., in their Tibetan translation of Vasubandhu's work (Derge, vol. 136, no. 4066), render the Sanskrit term ātmabhava simply as ‘body’ (Chi.: shen 身; Tib.: lus),²⁵ although an explicit mention of a ‘body’ is absent in the original Sanskrit wording.²⁶ Here both Xuanzang and Jinamitra emphasize that it is a physically embodied entity that transmigrates across the four stages of the lifecycle, with consciousness and the other four psychic aggregates of sensation, perception, and mental formation that define an individual sentient being persisting only when clustered within a physical form.

Both Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra accept the basic contours of the account found in Mahāvibhāṣā, wherein the ātmabhava is defined as the embodied form of the individual sentient being throughout each, and every, stage of the Buddhist lifecycle. In this text the ātmabhava is characterized as necessarily consisting of one physical aggregate and the four psychic aggregates of sensation, perception, mental formation, and consciousness. The editors of the *Mahāvibhāṣā contend that the individual sentient being maintains continuity, and survives, the radical changes incurred during the stages of living (biological death, the intermediate state of the afterlife, and birth) precisely because the ātmabhava provides the embodied basis necessary for the perdurance of the four types of series of psychic aggregates. Therefore, immediately following the moment of biological death, the four types of series of psychic aggregates of the ātmabhava – which were previously bundled together with the deceased body – must rapidly enter the bodily form of the antarābhava prior to becoming associated with the physical aggregate of a new life-form. To Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra, the body of the antarābhava quite literally carries the psychological profile of the individual life-form from one stage of the lifecycle to the next. While the physical aggregate of the sentient being undergoes the transition from a gross corporeal body to an ephemeral body and back again, the psychic aggregates never cease their serial reproduction. This allows for a sentient being to undergo radical physical transformations yet maintain psychological continuity throughout the lifecycle.

The reflection in the mirror, the surface of the mirror, and the existence of interstitial space

To solidify his case for the existence of an intermediate state that is bracketed by the termination of one biological entity and the birth of another, Saṅghabhadra is hard pressed to prove the existence of interstitial space. Indeed, the credibility of Saṅghabhadra's argument in support of the existence of an intermediate state hinges upon the existence of a real spatio-temporal interstice between two discrete physical bodies that are either composed of a single dharma, or are a composite of multiple dharmas. To prove the existence of interstitial space between two physical bodies, Saṅghabhadra mounts an elaborate rejoinder to an attempt made by Vasubandhu to invalidate the Abhidharma contention that a reflection appearing on the surface of a mirror, and the material stuff of which the surface of the mirror itself is made, stands as a valid and literal example of an interstitial space between two real physical entities. While Vasubandhu seeks to discredit the stock example of the mirror and the reflection cast on its surface as basically irrelevant to accounts of the actual existence of the intermediate state, Saṅghabhadra endeavours to salvage this example of a real instantiation of the specific property that distinguishes the intermediate state as a spatio-temporal interstice of finite extension between two gross physical states: the state of becoming deceased and the state of becoming reborn.

In chapter 3 of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, Vasubhandu employs an interlocutor (Skt. pūrvapakṣin) to debunk the venerable Abhidharma exemplar wherein a reflection, and the space between a reflection appearing within the surface of a mirror, is used to stand in for the space between the state of becoming deceased and the state of rebirth. Vasubandhu argues that the example of the reflection appearing on the surface of the mirror fails to exemplify the ‘property to be proven’ (Skt. sādhya) – in this case, the existence of an interstitial space between two discrete physical bodies. Here Vasubandhu reasons that, because a reflected image can only come about in the presence of another real physical factor in the environment (the mirror), a reflected image is a pseudo-entity and devoid of any intrinsic reality of its own. Vasubandhu claims that the reflected image is as unreal as a shadow and, as such, cannot be equated to an actual physical thing. Xuanzang's rendition of Abhidharmakośabhāṣya 3.11cd further adduces the example of the moon's reflection appearing within the surface of water in a well, invariably seen as recessed from the aperture of the well, to attempt to dispel with the erroneous conception according to which reflection and surface are actually collocated:

又陜水上，兩岸色形同處一時俱現二像，居兩岸者，互見分明。

Again, on the opposite banks of a narrow channel of water a visible form appears simultaneously in the same spatial locus as two distinct reflections [each of which is] clearly and distinctly visible to [either of] two individuals residing on opposite banks.

曾無一處並見二色，不應謂此二色俱生。

But two physical things coinciding in one and the same spatial locus at the same time has never been witnessed. It is logically inappropriate to assert this [particular example] as [a case of] two physical things coinciding.

又影與光未甞同處。然曾見鏡懸置影中，光像顯然現於鏡面。不應於此謂二並生。

Again, shade and direct sunlight never coincide in the same spatial locus. Now, if one places a mirror in the shade [in a shed situated close to a pond lit by the sun], then one would clearly see in this mirror the reflection of the reflection of the sun on the surface of the water. It is logically inappropriate to say that this is an example of two physical things arising simultaneously [in the same spatial locus].

或言一處無二並者，鏡面月像謂之為二，近遠別見，如觀井水 (T1562.29.470a24–a29; Pradhan [1967, 120–121]; D4090.140.116b.3).

In stating that no two physical things coincide in one and the same spatial locus, ‘two physical things’ refers to the surface of the mirror and the reflection of the moon, seen as recessed and distinct, like observing the water in a well.

Throughout the auto-commentary on his own stanzas treating the doctrinal topic of the existence of the intermediate state, Vasubandhu contends that because the example of a reflection appearing within the surface of a mirror fails to confirm the existence of an actual spatial interval between two physical things, it cannot be used to validate the existence of an actual spatial interval between the demise of an embodied aggregate and the birth of a newly embodied form of life.²⁷ In the second line of stanza 3.11 of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, Vasubandhu states that the reflection on the surface of the mirror and the mirror itself do not represent two distinct physical bodies. He reasons that, because the stuff making up the reflection in the mirror and the mirror are ‘not equivalent’ (Skt. asādharmya; Chi. budeng 不等) in both being ‘actual entities’ (Skt. bhāva), they therefore cannot stand as exemplars of the equivalence of the states of dying and rebirth as distinctively gross physical states:

像實有不成

不等故非譬。(T1558.29.44b18–19; D4090.140.116b.2; Pradhan (1967), 120)

The real existence of the reflection is not logically established (Skt. asiddha); because the [stuff making up the mirror and the reflection] are not equivalent [in that they do not form a single continuum], therefore, the example [of the mirror and reflection to the states of biological death and of rebirth, respectively] is invalid.

Throughout his auto-commentary on the above two hemistichs of verse, Vasubandhu argues that a reflection on a mirror is not an actual entity with an intrinsic reality apart from the material stuff that makes up the surface of the mirror. Vasubandhu contends that, because a reflection is derived from a real entity composed of physical stuff, it lacks the causal efficacy to perform a distinctive function of its own and therefore lacks the mark of an intrinsic reality. To Vasubandhu, a reflection is akin to a shadow that is derived only from the absence of sunlight. Like a shadow, a reflection is a privation, in that it lacks the qualities of actual things that have an intrinsic reality of their own. Because a reflection is derived from actual material factors and other types of physical conditions existing in the world – namely, the material constitution and physical condition, as well as spatial orientation of both the mirror and the original stuff of the reflected object – a reflection, therefore, by definition, is not a real physical entity.²⁸ Vasubandhu therefore considers a reflection to have the same ontological status as a penumbra that comes into being when opaque stuff blocks direct light in a specific location. Vasubandhu, in the voice of the interlocutor, concludes that a reflection is a pseudo-entity and that his Sarvāstivādin forebears, in their interpretation of the reflection of an image in a mirror, have erroneously reified a reflection as an actually existing physical thing.²⁹

In the Nyāyānusāra and the *Samayapradīpikā, Saṅghabhadra mounts a rebuttal to Vasubandhu's interlocutor by arguing that the reflection appearing within the surface of a mirror succeeds in exemplifying the existence of the intermediate state as an actual spatial interstice between two physical entities. Saṅghabhadra contends that a reflection in the mirror, like a shadow, is a real physical entity in that it consists of actual visible ‘stuff’ (Skt.: rūpa; Chi.: se 色).³⁰ Here he avers that the material stuff making up the surface of the mirror and the ‘original stuff’ (Skt.: bimba; Chi.: benzhi 本質) that makes up the object reflected in the mirror are both real physical entities. Contra Vasubandhu, Saṅghabhadra argues that even if the reflection is derived from the mirror and the original object reflected, both the reflection and the mirror exist as real physical entities. In his rebuttal of Vasubandhu's denial of the reality of reflections, Saṅghabhadra contends that because the reflection and the mirror both exist as real entities, then the interstice between the reflection and the mirror stands as a legitimate example of a space existing between two physical entities.

Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra accept that the concept of interstitial space is required to explain two conventional aspects about ‘a reflection appearing in a mirror’. The first is that the reflection and the mirror are two separate entities; the second is that the reflection and the mirror do not occupy the same physical place. The two thinkers extend the concept of interstitial space to account for two aspects of the intermediate state: the first is that the dead body and the new viable body assumed in becoming reborn are two separate physical entities, and the second that they do not occupy the same spatial temporal loci within the lifecycle of a sentient being.

Saṅghbhadra endeavours to take Vasubandhu to task by refuting his denial of the reality of reflections as real physical entities, insisting that reflections are indeed distinctly real physical entities consisting in composites of different types of physical dharmas, taking up volume and necessarily separated from other discrete physical entities extended in space by interstices with finite extension. Thus, Saṅghabhadra attempts to rehabilitate the example of the reflection as a valid exemplification of the spatiality of the intermediate state and guard it from the withering criticism levelled by Vasubandhu. Saṅghabhadra defends the premise that a reflection, like all composite entities made up of individual physical dharmas, is characterized as a form of ‘conventionally real existence’ (Skt.: prajñaptisat). By this he means that a reflection, as a composite entity, derives its temporary existence and its particular function from its ‘ultimately real’ (Skt.: dravyasat) constituents: the individual physical dharmas that make up the reflected object and the dharmas that comprise the surface of the mirror.³¹ While the causal efficacy that distinguishes a reflection is not possessed inherently, like that of a shadow, a reflection is nonetheless a real physical thing with distinct ontological status that remains separate from the material stuff of the mirror.

For Saṅghabhadra, a reflection is a form of visible stuff and not a privation.³² A reflection is something real, in that it holds the causal potential under specific environmental conditions to serve as a basis for a certain range of sensory perceptions and mental images in observers. Instead of explaining the presence of mirror-images as akin to mirages – essentially fictitious pseudo-entities superimposed by the mind upon a basis in real physical factors in the environment³³ – Saṅghabhadra avers that mirror-images are actual physical entities, and are just like all other distinct physical entities, such as sunlight and shadow, that occupy discrete spatio-temporal loci and never overlap with one another in space and time (despite appearing to observers as coexisting in the same spot).³⁴ For Saṅghabhadra, although in the mind of an observer the mirror-image and mirror-surface indeed appear to cohabit in the same space at the same time, he remains committed to the principle of the impossibility of two distinct physical entities being in the same spatial locus at the same time, whether individual dharmas or composites made up of multiple dharmas.³⁵ In maintaining that the mirror-image and mirror-surface it is projected upon are both composed of real stuff of a physical nature, Saṅghabhadra repudiates Vasubandhu's premise that a reflection is not a valid example of something physical. In doing so, Saṅghabhadra reinstates the Abhidharma postulate that the interstitial space existing between the reflection on the surface of the mirror, and the material stuff of the surface, exemplifies the physical properties characterizing the intermediate state as a real state of existence – in that both are distinguished by the specific property of being between two distinct physical bodies, both of which necessarily occupy separate and discrete spatial loci.

Conclusion

To Saṅghabhadra, a mirror and a reflection on a mirror, like sunlight and shadow, or the physical aggregate in the conditions of becoming deceased and becoming reborn, are real entities separated from one another by a finite spatial interstice. In their analyses of the nature of interstitial space, Saṅghabhadra and Vasubandhu agree that two distinct physical things extended in space cannot be in the same place at the same time. They fundamentally disagree, however, about the ontological status of the physical composites that make up of many different individual dharmas. Remaining faithful to traditional Sarvāstivāda tenets, Saṅghabhadra maintains that a reflection is a real entity with characteristics that are distinct from the physical features of the original things they reflect and the physical stuff of the reflective surface. Saṅghabhadra argues that a reflection, the surface of the mirror, and the object reflected in the surface of the mirror are all constituted of actual physical stuff. He contends that production of a reflected image that is reliably and conventionally perceived cannot adequately be explained strictly in terms of the force of mental construction. Tenaciously upholding a realist stance, Saṅghabhadra regards seemingly non- concrete entities as negata, penumbra, mirages, and reflections as ultimately consisting of physical dharmas and therefore as constituting real entities. Vasubandhu diverges from traditional Sarvāstivāda doctrinal understandings by staunchly maintaining that, while the physical components that produce a reflection are real things, reflections are not. While Saṅghabhadra singles out the phenomenon of the reflectivity of a mirror in his discussions of this doctrinal topic, this article contends that for Saṅghabhadra, all related natural phenomena – from reflections to penumbra – serve not just as ‘formal analogies’ for the subtle physicality of the intermediate state between dying and rebirth, but as actual exemplifications in the mundane world of a distinguishing quality of the intermediate state’. In short, they are not absences of something physical, but actual physical presences.