The Literature of the Personalists of Early Buddhism

This is indeed a remarkable book. It has the best treatment of the schools called Vātsiputrīya and four other minor ones (p.5) that espoused the theory that a pudgala (a sort of person) supported the five personal aggregates (skandha) and made possible the Intermediate State (antardbhava) between death and rebirth. The author points out that this school of the Personalists (Pudgalavādin) once had its own version of three classes of scriptures (āgama) but they are now lost. The remaining schools of Buddhism condemned these personalists. And the author mentions that there are only four surviving texts of this sect, which are in the Chinese language (listed, p. 19). The author, obviously skilled in that period in the development of the Chinese language, devotes the major part of this book, originally written in French, to presenting the contents of those four treatises.