With reference to the religious history of India, consider the following statements: 1. Sautrantika and Sammitiya were the sects of Jainism. 2. Sarvastivadin held that the constituents of phenomena were not wholly momentary, but existed forever in a latent form. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Statement 1 is wrong. Sautrantika and Sammitiya are both Buddhist schools, not Jain sects. Sautrantika split from the Sarvastivada and accepted only the sutras as authoritative, rejecting the Abhidhamma. Sammitiya belonged to the Pudgalavada group, which argued for a continuing 'person' (pudgala). The Jain sects were the Digambara and Svetambara.

Statement 2 is correct. The Sarvastivadins held that dharmas exist in all three times, past, present and future (sarvam asti). Their dharmas are not wholly momentary: past and future dharmas persist in a latent form and only their activity manifests in the present. The Sautrantikas rejected this and held that only the present is real, which led to a strict momentariness theory.

Core concept: the Buddhist momentariness (kshanikavada) debate. It is useful for GS1 Mains on the philosophical schools of Buddhism and the spread of Buddhist thought through the councils and the Hinayana-Mahayana divide.

Trap: students who recognise Sautrantika as a Buddhist school sometimes mark statement 1 as correct after seeing Sammitiya paired with it. Remember that Sammitiya is also Buddhist, so statement 1 fails.