On the karmic nature of the intermediate being/state (antarābhava) between biological death and rebirth

This paper examines the Abhidharma Buddhist debates, preserved within the translation corpus of Xuanzang 玄奘 (602?-664 C.E.), the Sinitic scholar-monk of the Tang Dynasty, regarding whether the “intermediate being” (Skt.: antarābhava) has the capacity to generate new karma. Furthermore, if an intermediate being, the “extremely subtle” (Skt.: accha) embodied form that persists throughout the “intermediate state” (Skt.: antarābhava), the interstitial space and time between the biological death and the gross corporeal rebirth of an “individual sentient being” (Skt.: ātmabhāva; Chi: ziti自體), has the capacity to generate new karma, when and how are its consequences realized?