 The Mahāvibhāṣā of the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika similarly distinguishes between a dharma’s particular inherent and generic characteristics and identifies the former with intrinsic nature, thus discriminating “levels in the apprehension or discernment of dharmas that serve to clarify the ambiguity encountered in the application of the term svabhāva to both individual dharmas and to categorial groups” (Cox 2004A, 575). The difference between the analytical description of dharmas in terms of their intrinsic nature or their characteristics, notes Cox (ibid, 576), is that “whereas intrinsic nature acquires its special significance in the context of exegetical categorization, the starting point for the characteristics lies in perspectivistic cognition. Ontology is a concern for both systems, but the shift in terminology from intrinsic nature to the characteristics reflects a concurrent shift from a category-based abstract ontology to an epistemological ontology that is experientially or cognitively determined.” This new epistemological emphasis looms in through a modified definition of existence proposed by the mature Sarvāstivāda exegesis that sees the causal efficacy underlying all existence as cognitive. Representing this development in the history of Sarvāstivāda thought is Saṅghabhadra (fifth century CE), who states in his Nyāyānusāra: “to be an object-field that produces cognition (buddhi) is the true characteristic of existence” (ibid). This means that dharmas as the constituents of our experiential world are objectively identifiable through cognition.