Soullessness  as  a  kiud  of  general  consciousness  (älayavijiiäna)  of  whom  the 
separate  elements  were  so  many  aspects,  thus  giving  to  the  primitive  teaching 
an  idealistic  interpretation.  With  Vasubandhu  Buddhist  philosophy  receives 
once  more  an  idealistic  interpretation  to  which  the  greatest  buddhist  philo- 
sophers Dignäga  and  Dharmakirti  adhered  with  slight  modifications. 
Soullessness  was  later  on  conceived  in  a  pantheistic  sense  and  personified  as 
the  primeval  Buddha  Vairocana.  The  same  can  be  maintained  with  regard 
to  its  theistic  conception  personified  as  Buddha  Ami  tab  ha  whos  worship 
gave  rise  to  a  new  religion. 
All  the  different  forms  in  which  Buddhism  presents  itself  at  present 
and  in  the  past  may  be  viewed  as  so  many  attempts  to  reach  by  sympathetic 
intuition  the  original  idea  of  the  Master.  An  analysis  of  the  elements  of  life 
is  presupposed  by  all  of  them.  Vasubandhu  composed  his  treatise  accor- 
ding not  to  his  own  views,  but  mainly  (präyena)  in  accordance  with  the 
teaching  of  the  Vaibhäsikas  of  Kachmere.  His  plan  was  to  expose  his 
own  views  in  a  later  work  of  which  he  only  succeeded  in  composing  the 
mnemonic  verses.  The  appendix  mentioned  above  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  inter- 
mediate part,  a  link  between  both  these  works. 
It  seemed  desirable  to  give  a  translation  of  it  at  present,  without  awai- 
ting the  time  when  a  translation  of  the  whole  of  the  Abhidharmako§a  could 
be  carried  through  press.  It  deals  with  the  central  point  of  all  Buddhism  and 
is  remarkale  for  its  precision  and  the  beautiful  style  for  which  Vasubandhu  is 
renowned  in  the  Buddhist  world.  European  scholars  will  witness  their  great 
Indian  predecessor  at  the  same  work  of  elucidating  the  difficult  points  of 
doctrine  which  they  also  have  devoted  many  efforts  to.  They  will  see  him 
making  just  the  same  references  to  passages  in  Buddha's  sermons  which 
they  invoked  in  support  of  their  solutions.  They  will  see  that  there  is  no 
«glaring  contradiction))  between  the  scientifical  doctrine  of  Soullessness  and 
what  in  the1 ,  popular  style  of  the  Sermons  appears  as  a  transmigration  of 
Souls.  They  will  give  credit  to  the  universal  conviction  of  learned  Buddhists 
that  Buddha  in  his  sermons  very  often  had  recourse  to  figurative  speech  in 
order  to  approach  the  simple  souls  of  uneducated  people.  They  will,  as  I  hope, 
find  in  the  abhidharma  what  they  were  in  vain  looking  for  in  the  diffuse 
style  of  popular  sutras  —  «la  forte  structure  d'une  theorie  autonome,  sor- 
tant  toute  armee  d'une  speculation  maitresse  d'elle  meme»  \ 
The  translation  is  made  from  the  Tibetan  text  of  the  Bstan-hgyur, 
1  E.  Senart  іц  Melanges  Harlez,  p.  281. 
