Now, to enumerate the mistaken perceptions and aspects involved in the view of identity by summarising the positions that have been refuted, it is said:
Form’s not the self, the self does not possess the form,
There is no self in form, and form’s not within self –
All aggregates considered in this fourfold way
And added up amount to twenty views of self. (6.144)
When the five aggregates’ lack of self is considered in terms of the four aspects of the view of identity, the twentyfold view of identity emerges. But in the Treatise, in the context of the fivefold analysis, doesn’t it state the following?
He is not the aggregates, nor different from them,
The aggregates are not in him, nor is he in them,
The Tathāgata does not possess the aggregates –
So who is the Tathāgata?1
But how can that make twenty as mentioned above, when multiplied by five? This division of the view of identity is found presented in the sutras, and as there is no way of being caught up in a self without perceiving the aggregates, it is the fourfold way of perceiving the aggregates that is relevant. There would in fact be no way of coming to believe in a self if it weren’t for the aggregates, and the fifth aspect is therefore not possible in relation to the view of identity. The view of identity is therefore only twentyfold. The fifth way mentioned in the Treatise – that of otherness – should be taken as refutating the traditions of the misguided (tīrthika).
Title
Chapter 1: Pramuditā
