Scripture's Hidden Intent, and Why No Atom Can Ever Combine
This page carries Ru-Yi's translation of Part Two of Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikā. An opponent presses a scriptural objection: the Buddha himself taught that the twelve sense-processes — the eye and its objects, the ear and its objects, and so on — exist, so how can Consciousness-Only be right? Vasubandhu answers that this teaching carries a hidden, compassionate intent rather than asserting a mind-independent world, then turns the argument around entirely: whatever a rival school claims the external object to be — a single whole, many discrete atoms, or atoms combined — none of it can be made to work. This is the treatise's most celebrated argument, worked out here in full.
Translation Method
The Chinese source continues Xuánzàng's translation of Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikā (唯識二十論, T1590), with Vasubandhu's own prose commentary beneath each verse. Reading notes are drawn from Kuījī's Viṃśatikā Śāstra Vārttika (唯識二十論述記, T1834). Kuījī himself divides these eight verses — the seventh through the fourteenth of the treatise — into two blocks: three verses resolving the objection from scripture, and five verses (the treatise's longest sustained argument) refuting every possible account of what an external object could be.
Classical text is set in the left-hand column below, our English in the right. The atomism refutation in the second half of this page involves formal syllogisms in the original; we translate the substance of each argument in plain prose rather than reproducing the full logical apparatus, which Kuījī's commentary works out in exhaustive technical detail for specialists. See also this site's note on translation method.
8. Scripture's Hidden Intent
An opponent presses a scriptural objection left open at the close of Part One: if Consciousness-Only were true, and there were no real form and the rest apart from consciousness, then the Buddha should never have taught that the twelve sense-processes — form, sound, and the rest, together with the eye, ear, and the other faculties that perceive them — exist. Since he plainly did teach this, the opponent concludes, real external objects must exist after all. Vasubandhu answers that the teaching carries a hidden intent, not a literal assertion.
有教為因，謂若唯識似色等現無別色等，佛不應說有色等處。此教非因，有別意故。
[The opponent says:] there is scriptural authority as the reason [for our position] — for if Consciousness-Only merely appears as form and the rest, with no separate form and the rest actually existing, then the Buddha should never have taught that the processes of form and the rest exist. [We answer:] this scriptural teaching is not a valid reason, because there is another, hidden intent behind it.
頌曰：
「依彼所化生， 世尊密意趣，
說有色等處， 如化生有情。」
A verse:
"According to what fits those to be taught,
the World-Honored One, with hidden intent,
spoke of the processes of form and the rest as existing —
just as he spoke of a being spontaneously born in the intermediate state."
如佛說有化生有情，彼但依心相續不斷能往後世密意趣說，不說實有化生有情。說無有情我，但有法因，故說色等處。契經亦爾，依所化生宜受彼教，密意趣說，非別實有。
Just as, when the Buddha spoke of a being "spontaneously born" in the intermediate state, he spoke with hidden intent, relying only on the fact that the mind's continuum does not break off and so is able to pass on into a future life — he did not mean that a real, spontaneously-born being truly exists. [Elsewhere the Buddha] taught that sentient beings have no self, only dharmas and their causes — and it was for this reason that he spoke of the processes of form and the rest. The scripture's teaching [that the twelve processes exist] is exactly the same: spoken with hidden intent, fitted to what those to be converted were ready to receive — not because, apart from this, anything of the kind separately, truly exists.
Kuījī names four kinds of hidden intent a Buddhist scripture may carry: equality (as when the Buddha identifies himself with a past buddha), a different time (as in a vow whose fruit ripens only much later), a different meaning (as in teachings that all dharmas lack inherent nature, spoken with a specific one of the three natures in mind), and — the kind at work here — accommodating a listener's own disposition. The Buddha, he explains, once taught that an "intermediate-state being" carries a person from death into the next life, purely to counter listeners who denied any continuity between lives at all; he never meant that such a being is ultimately, substantially real. Teaching the twelve sense-processes as existing works the very same way: a skillful accommodation to the listener's need, not a literal claim about what ultimately exists.
9. What the Ten Processes Actually Are
Having established that the teaching carries a hidden intent, Vasubandhu now says precisely what that intent is: each of the ten physical sense-processes is simply a consciousness, arising from its own seed, that appears as if it were an object — relabeled, for the learner's benefit, as an "inner faculty" and an "outer object."
頌曰：
「識從自種生， 似境相而轉，
為成內外處， 佛說彼為十。」
A verse:
"Consciousness arises from its own seed
and unfolds appearing as if it were an object;
in order to establish the inner and outer processes,
the Buddha spoke of these as the ten."
似色現識從自種子緣合轉變差別而生。佛依彼種及所現色，如次說為眼處色處。如是乃至似觸現識從自種子緣合轉變差別而生。佛依彼種及所現觸，如次說為身處觸處。依斯密意，說色等十。
The consciousness that appears as if it were form arises from its own seed, through the coming-together of conditions and the distinct transformation that follows. The Buddha, on the strength of that seed and the form it manifests, called them, respectively, "the eye-process" and "the form-process." In just the same way, down to the consciousness that appears as if it were touch, arising from its own seed through the coming-together of conditions — the Buddha, on the strength of that seed and the touch it manifests, called them "the body-process" and "the touch-process." It is on the strength of this hidden intent that he spoke of the ten processes of form and the rest.
Kuījī reads "seed" here as identical to what the site's Mahāyānasaṃgraha and Cheng Weishi Lun pages call by the same name: a functional capacity within the consciousness-stream, not a stored copy of anything. The "eye-process," on this reading, is simply the seed capable of producing eye-consciousness; the "form-process" is simply the very same consciousness once it has arisen and appears, from within, as if a colored shape stood outside it. Nothing outside consciousness is required for either half of the pair — the whole distinction between "inner faculty" and "outer object," on which the Buddha's twelve-process teaching depends, is drawn entirely within a single consciousness and its own seed.
10. Two Kinds of Selflessness
Vasubandhu now explains why the Buddha taught in two stages rather than going straight to Consciousness-Only: the twelve-process teaching first dismantles belief in a self who sees, hears, and knows, before the further teaching of Consciousness-Only dismantles belief in the reality of the dharmas themselves. An objection follows immediately — if everything is ultimately empty, is Consciousness-Only itself not also empty? — which Vasubandhu answers by distinguishing what is truly denied from what is not.
頌曰：
「依此教能入， 數取趣無我，
所執法無我， 復依餘教入。」
A verse:
"By relying on this teaching, one can enter
the selflessness of the person who repeatedly takes rebirth;
the selflessness of the dharmas that are grasped at
is entered by relying on a further teaching."
依此所說十二處教受化者能入數取趣無我。謂若了知從六二法有六識轉，都無見者乃至知者，應受有情無我教者便能悟入有情無我。復依此餘說唯識教受化者，能入所執法無我。謂若了知唯識現似色等法起，此中都無色等相法，應受諸法無我教者便能悟入諸法無我。
By relying on this teaching of the twelve processes, those to be converted can enter the selflessness of the person who repeatedly takes rebirth. That is, if one thoroughly understands that the six consciousnesses arise from the six pairs of dharmas [the six inner and six outer processes], and that there is no "seer" at all — down to no "knower" — then, for one fit to receive the teaching of the selflessness of sentient beings, this brings about entry into that selflessness. By further relying on this, the teaching of Consciousness-Only spoken beyond it, those to be converted can enter the selflessness of the dharmas that are grasped at. That is, if one thoroughly understands that it is Consciousness-Only that manifests, appearing to give rise to dharmas such as form, and that within this there is no characteristic of form and the rest at all, then, for one fit to receive the teaching of the selflessness of dharmas, this brings about entry into that selflessness.
若知諸法一切種無入法無我，是則唯識亦畢竟無，何所安立？非知諸法一切種無，乃得名為入法無我。然達愚夫遍計所執自性差別諸法無我，如是乃名入法無我，非諸佛境離言法性亦都無故名法無我。餘識所執此唯識性其體亦無，名法無我。不爾，餘識所執境有，則唯識理應不得成，許諸餘識有實境故。由此道理，說立唯識教，普令悟入一切法無我，非一切種撥有性故。
[Objection:] If entering the selflessness of dharmas meant knowing that all dharmas, in every respect, do not exist, then Consciousness-Only itself must, in the end, not exist either — so what is left to establish? [Response:] Entering the selflessness of dharmas does not mean knowing that all dharmas, in every respect, do not exist. Rather, it means thoroughly realizing that the self-nature and the particular characteristics which the ignorant person discriminates and clings to — these dharmas — have no self; that alone is what "entering the selflessness of dharmas" means. It does not mean that the buddhas' own domain, the true nature beyond all words, also utterly does not exist. What has no substance is only this: the nature of Consciousness-Only as grasped at, mistakenly, by another consciousness — that alone is what "the selflessness of dharmas" means. Were it otherwise — were the object grasped at by another consciousness to really exist — the very principle of Consciousness-Only could never be established, since one would then be granting that other consciousnesses have a real object. For this reason, we say that the teaching of Consciousness-Only is established so as to bring everyone, universally, to realize the selflessness of all dharmas — not so as to deny, in every respect, that anything at all exists.
Kuījī reads this passage as Vasubandhu carefully protecting Consciousness-Only from collapsing into nihilism. What "selflessness of dharmas" denies is only the discriminated, attached-to nature (遍計所執) — the false, externally-projected object that ignorance superimposes onto experience. It does not deny the dependent nature (依他起), the ever-changing flow of consciousness itself, nor the perfectly accomplished nature (圓成實), that flow's true and empty character. A consciousness that mistakenly grasps at "Consciousness-Only" as if it, too, were some fixed external thing has simply committed the same error over again, one level up — but the teaching of Consciousness-Only itself, rightly understood as pointing beyond all such grasping, remains standing throughout.
11. One, Many, or Combined? Opening the Refutation of Atoms
With scripture's hidden intent explained, Vasubandhu turns the whole argument around: instead of merely defending Consciousness-Only, he now goes on the attack, demanding that any rival school specify exactly what an external object supposedly is. Every real candidate, he observes, falls into one of three kinds — and he sets out to close off all three before the section ends.
復云何知佛依如是密意趣說有色等處，非別實有色等外法為色等識各別境耶？
[Objection:] But how, exactly, do you know that the Buddha spoke of the processes of form and the rest with such a hidden intent, rather than there really being, apart from consciousness, external things such as form, separately serving as the objects of the consciousnesses of form and the rest?
頌曰：
「以彼境非一， 亦非多極微，
又非和合等， 極微不成故。」
A verse:
"Because that object could be neither a single whole,
nor many discrete atoms,
nor even atoms combined or aggregated together —
since a single, real atom cannot be established."
謂若實有外色等處與色等識各別為境，如是外境或應是一，如勝論者執有分色。或應是多，如執實有眾多極微各別為境，或應多極微和合及和集，如執實有眾多極微皆共和合和集為境。且彼外境理應非一，有分色體異諸分色不可取故。理亦非多，極微各別不可取故。又理非和合或和集為境，一實極微理不成故。
That is, if there really were, apart from consciousness, things such as the form-process, serving as the separate objects of the consciousnesses of form and the rest, then such an external object would have to be one of three things: either a single whole — as the Vaiśeṣika school holds, positing a single "whole-possessing form" — or many discrete atoms, each separately serving as an object — as the older Sarvāstivāda school holds — or many atoms combined or aggregated together — as the Sautrāntika and the later Sarvāstivāda hold. But first, that external object cannot reasonably be a single whole, because a "whole" distinct from its own parts could never be apprehended as such. Nor can it reasonably be many discrete atoms, because each atom, taken separately, could never be apprehended. Nor, again, can it reasonably serve as an object by combination or aggregation, because — as will now be shown — a single, real atom cannot in the first place be established.
Kuījī treats this three-way division as exhaustive on its own opponents' terms: Vaiśeṣika's "whole-possessing form" (有分色) is a single, indivisible object standing over its own parts, the way a piece of cloth is supposedly one thing over and above its threads; the older Sarvāstivāda's atoms are each individually real and each individually seen; the Sautrāntika's and later Sarvāstivāda's atoms are real individually but only ever perceived once combined into a mass. Ruling out the first two is quick — you can never actually get hold of a "whole" apart from its parts, and you can never actually see one lone atom by itself. The bulk of the section that follows is spent on the third and hardest case, since it requires showing that a single atom cannot be coherently defined at all, whether or not it combines with others.
12. Do Atoms Combine?
Vasubandhu now presses the hardest case: even granting real atoms, can they combine to form the mass of matter we actually perceive? He shows that either answer — yes or no — leads to absurdity.
云何不成？頌曰：
「極微與六合， 一應成六分，
若與六同處， 聚應如極微。」
How is it not established? A verse:
"If an atom combines with six surrounding atoms,
it should thereby come to have six parts;
and if it occupies the very same place as those six,
the resulting mass should be no larger than a single atom."
若一極微六方各與一極微合，應成六分，一處無容有餘處故。一極微處若有六微，應諸聚色如極微量，展轉相望不過量故，則應聚色亦不可見。
If a single atom, on each of its six sides — up, down, and the four directions — combines with one surrounding atom, it should thereby come to have six distinct parts, since one atom's location cannot also be another's. But if, instead, six atoms occupy the very same place as the one, then every mass built from them should be no larger than a single atom, since none would ever exceed the measure of the others — in which case no mass could ever be large enough to see at all.
加濕彌羅國毘婆沙師言：「非諸極微有相合義，無方分故，離如前失；但諸聚色有相合理，有方分故。」此亦不然。
[Objection, from] the Vaibhāṣika masters of Kashmir: "Atoms, strictly speaking, do not combine at all — since they have no spatial parts, they escape the difficulty just given. Only the resulting masses, which do have spatial parts, combine in the ordinary sense." But this, too, does not hold.
頌曰：
「極微既無合， 聚有合者誰，
或相合不成， 不由無方分。」
A verse:
"If atoms themselves do not combine,
then in a mass, what is it that combines?
Or else combination fails to be established for a reason
that has nothing to do with atoms lacking spatial parts."
今應詰彼所說理趣。既異極微無別聚色，極微無合，聚合者誰？若轉救言：「聚色展轉，亦無合義。」則不應言：「極微無合，無方分故。」聚有方分，亦不許合。故極微無合，不由無方分。是故一實極微不成。
We should press the logic of what has just been said. Since apart from atoms there is no separate mass, if atoms themselves do not combine, then in a mass, what is it that combines? And if [the Vaibhāṣika] retreats still further and says, "even masses, among themselves, do not truly combine either" — then it can no longer be said that atoms fail to combine because they lack spatial parts, since masses do have spatial parts, and yet combination is still being denied of them. So the atoms' failure to combine has nothing to do with their lacking spatial parts. Therefore, a single, real atom cannot be established.
Kuījī frames this as a trap with two doors, both closed. If atoms combine the way ordinary objects touch — face to face — then each atom needs at least six distinct faces to meet its six neighbors, and "partless atom" becomes a contradiction in terms. If, to dodge this, one atom is said to occupy the very same location as its neighbors, no mass could ever grow larger than one atom — plainly false, since mountains are visible and atoms are not. The Kashmiri Vaibhāṣika's retreat — atoms never truly combine, only masses do — buys nothing, Kuījī notes, because once a mass is admitted to have spatial parts of its own, denying that even masses combine removes the last place "combination" could ever have been doing real work. Every route back to a single, real atom is closed.
13. Do Atoms Have Parts?
Vasubandhu closes the trap from the other side. Having shown that whether atoms combine or fail to combine, no coherent atom results, he now shows the same for whether an atom has spatial parts or has none at all.
又許極微合與不合，其過且爾。若許極微有分無分，俱為大失。所以者何？
And granting that atoms either combine or do not combine — the difficulties just given follow either way. Granting, likewise, that atoms either have spatial parts or have none at all — both alternatives lead to grave difficulty. Why is this?
頌曰：
「極微有方分， 理不應成一，
無應影障無， 聚不異無二。」
A verse:
"If an atom has spatial parts,
it cannot, strictly speaking, count as a single thing;
and if it has none, there should be neither cast shadow nor mutual obstruction —
and since a mass is nothing apart from atoms, these two effects would vanish along with them."
以一極微六方分異多分為體，云何成一？若一極微無異方分，日輪纔舉光照觸時，云何餘邊得有影現？以無餘分光所不及。又執極微無方分者，云何此彼展轉相障？以無餘分他所不行，可說此彼展轉相礙。既不相礙，應諸極微展轉處同，則諸色聚同一極微量，過如前說。
If a single atom's six directional parts differ from one another and together make up its substance, how can it count as a single thing? But if a single atom has no distinct directional parts at all, then when the sun's disk first rises and its light touches an object, how could a shadow appear on the far side — since there would be no unlit part the light fails to reach? And again, for one who holds that atoms have no spatial parts at all — how could one atom and another ever mutually obstruct each other, since there would be no part, unoccupied by the other, that could do the obstructing? And if atoms cannot obstruct one another at all, then every atom should occupy the very same place as every other — so every mass of matter should be no larger than a single atom, the same difficulty as before.
云何不許影、障屬聚不屬極微？豈異極微許有聚色發影為障？不爾，若爾聚應無二。謂若聚色不異極微，影障應成不屬聚色。安布差別立為極微，或立為聚，俱非一實，何用思擇極微聚為？
[Objection:] Why not simply say that casting a shadow and obstructing belong to the mass, not to the atom? [Response:] But do you hold that there is, apart from the atoms, some separate mass that casts shadows and obstructs? [Objector:] No. [Response:] Then the mass should have neither of these two effects at all — that is, if the mass is nothing other than the atoms themselves, then casting a shadow and obstructing could never, strictly speaking, belong to it. Whether arranged and distinguished as "atoms" or as a "mass," in neither case is there a single, real thing — so what use is there in painstakingly distinguishing atom from mass at all?
Kuījī reads the shadow-and-obstruction argument as an appeal to plain observation, deliberately chosen because both rival schools already accept the facts it describes. A sunlit pillar casts a shadow on its far side — proof, Kuījī says, that the near side and far side are different parts of one thing, each blocking the light differently; two hands pressed together stop each other's motion — proof that the surface of contact differs from the rest of each hand. A genuinely partless point could do neither: with no "far side" distinct from its "near side," it could not selectively block light on one side only, and with no surface distinct from its interior, nothing could ever stop it from simply occupying the same point as anything else. Both effects are undeniably real, so an atom that could produce them can never, after all, be truly partless — completing the trap begun by the combination argument.
14. Is a Sense-Object a Single Thing?
With atoms fully dismantled, Vasubandhu returns to close off the Vaiśeṣika's original alternative — a single, unified "whole" — with five concrete, everyday tests that no truly single object could pass.
猶未能遮外色等相，此復何相？謂眼等境亦是青等實色等性。應共審思，此眼等境青等實性為一為多？設爾何失？二俱有過，多過如前。一亦非理。
[Objection:] This still has not ruled out the external character of form and the rest. [Response:] What character do you mean, exactly? [Objector:] I mean that the object of the eye and the other senses really does have the nature of blue and the other real forms. [Response:] Let us consider this together, carefully: is this real nature of blue and the rest, the object of the eye and the other senses, a single thing, or is it many things? [Objector:] Suppose it is either one — what is the difficulty? [Response:] Both alternatives are at fault. The difficulty with "many" has already been given above; "one" is unreasonable as well.
頌曰：
「一應無次行， 俱時至未至，
及多有間事， 并難見細物。」
A verse:
"If it were a single thing, there could be no walking by stages,
no simultaneous partial-touching,
no things with gaps between them, such as many elephants and horses,
and small creatures too fine to see should be impossible."
若無隔別，所有青等眼所行境，執為一物，應無漸次行大地理，若下一足至一切故。又應俱時於此於彼無至未至。一物一時，理不應有得未得故。又一方處，應不得有多象馬等有間隙事，若處有一亦即有餘，云何此彼可辯差別？或二如何可於一處有至不至中間見空？又亦應無小水虫等難見細物，彼與麁物同一處所，量應等故。
If, across an unbroken expanse, the entire visible field of blue and the rest that the eye ranges over is taken to be one single thing, then walking across the earth by stages should be impossible, since setting down one foot would already mean arriving everywhere at once. Again, a hand should simultaneously have arrived and not arrived at different parts of it — but a single thing, at a single time, cannot reasonably be both grasped and not yet grasped. Again, in a single place, there could not be many elephants, horses, and the like with gaps between them, since where there is one, there is, on this view, also all the rest — so how could this one and that other ever be told apart? Or how, in a single place, could a visible gap exist between what something has reached and what it has not yet reached? And again, there should be no such thing as a tiny water-insect too small to see, since it would occupy the very same place as the larger matter surrounding it, and so ought to be exactly the same size.
若謂由相此彼差別即成別物，不由餘義。則定應許此差別物展轉分析成多極微，已辯極微非一實物，是則離識，眼等色等、若根若境皆不得成。由此善成唯有識義。
[Objection:] Suppose we say that this and that become distinct things simply through a difference in appearance, and for no other reason. [Response:] Then you must certainly grant that this "distinct thing," analyzed further and further, resolves into many atoms — but it has already been shown that no atom can be established as a single, real thing. Therefore, apart from consciousness, neither the sense faculties such as the eye nor objects such as form can be established, whether as faculty or as object. By this, the truth that there is only consciousness is well established.
Kuījī draws out how ordinary each of the five tests is, deliberately so: a single step could never cover only part of a truly undivided field; a hand closing around an object could never be "partway" grasping it; a herd of elephants with visible gaps between them requires there to genuinely be gaps, not one seamless continuum pretending otherwise; and a water-insect too small to see would, on a single-object view, have to share the exact size of the ocean it swims in. When the Vaiśeṣika falls back on "difference of appearance alone, without any further difference in substance," Kuījī notes that this concedes the whole game: a "difference" with nothing behind it just is what dividing something into parts means, and parts pursued to their limit are exactly the atoms already shown, two sections above, to be impossible. There is nowhere left for a real external object to hide — which is why the treatise can now declare the case for Consciousness-Only closed.
Part Two Complete
This closes Part Two of Ru-Yi's translation: the hidden intent behind the Buddha's own teaching that the twelve sense-processes exist, the two kinds of selflessness that teaching makes possible, and the treatise's central argument — that no external object, whether a single whole, discrete atoms, or atoms combined, can be coherently established at all. Part Three turns to the remaining objections: whether direct perception still proves an external world, why dream and waking karma differ, how killing and other harm are possible without a real external victim, and the treatise's own closing verse.
Continue to Part 3 — Perception, Ethics, and Other Minds →