Grosnick, W.

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William Grosnick(2024 - 2020)

Williiam Grosnick, Assistant Professor of Religion at La Salle College, Philadelphia, received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979. His articles on the Buddhist Tathāgatagarbha tradition have appeared in The Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies and the Proceedings of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan. (Source Accessed Jan 15, 2020)

Library Items

Article
Buddha Nature as Myth
William G. Grosnick, in his essay "Buddha Nature as Myth", makes a distinction between "empirically verifiable propositions", statements that make claims about the nature of reality whose truth both is and is expected to be capable of clear articulation and demonstration, and "mythic views of reality" that provide a nonverifiable framework of great religious power for the expression of fundamentally important religious orientations. He then argues that Buddha Nature thought—at least as expressed in the early Indic sūtras devoted to it—is of the latter kind. Its function, he suggests, is to provide a mythic orientation toward the world and the religious potential of the individual Buddhist, and so to make the practice of Buddhism possible. It is just because "all beings universally possess Buddha Nature" that the practice of the path is possible. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 4)
Grosnick, William. "Buddha Nature as Myth." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 65–74. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Book
Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota
This book contains ten essays on the topic of buddha-nature by prominent Buddhist Studies scholars, written in honor of Professor Minoru Kiyota (1923–2013), who taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1962 to 2008.
Griffiths, Paul J., and John P. Keenan eds. Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990. https://archive.org/details/buddhanatureafestschriftinhonorofminorukiyota_542_W/mode/2up.
Article
Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga: A Precedent for the Hsin-Nien Distinction of The Awakening of Faith
The question of the authorship of the Ta-ch'eng chi-hsin lun The Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna, tr. Paramārtha, hereafter referred to as the AFM), has long been a lively subject of discussion among scholars of Buddhism. Such eminent Buddhologists as Demiéville, Liebenthal, and Mochizuki (to name just a few), have debated the authenticity of the two Chinese translations of the text and discussed the possibility that the original text of the AFM might have been composed in China as part of a controversy between two branches of the Ti-lun sect.'"`UNIQ--ref-00002A00-QINU`"' In recent editions of the Journal of the IABS the question of the authorship of the AFM has been raised again. In a couple of intriguing essays, Professor Whalen Lai has presented some new arguments in support of the Chinese authorship of the text.'"`UNIQ--ref-00002A01-QINU`"'

      I do not intend here to try to resolve all of the many questions involved in determining the author of the AFM (such an undertaking is well beyond the scope of a short paper), but I would like to address an argument that Professor Lai raised in the first of his articles—namely his contention that the AFM's exposition of the relationship of hsin (mind) and nien (thought, thought-moment) bears such an "unmistakable sinitic stamp" that it must have been authored in China.'"`UNIQ--ref-00002A02-QINU`"' I will try to show that the AFM's central conception of an "unmoved," pure mind (hsin) existing as the basis of the deluded movement of thoughts (nien) has an important Indian precedent in the cittaprakṛti and ayoniśomanaskāra notions of the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (hereafter referred to as the RGV), a text with which the AFM's author may well have been familiar. I do not intend this as a criticism of Professor Lai's research—the parallels he finds between Chinese thought regarding hsin and nien prior to the period of the Six Dynasties and the elucidation of these notions in the AFM deserve serious attention. I simply would like to show that similar parallels—if not direct textual influences—exist between the AFM and the Indian-composed RGV, so that there is no compelling reason to conclude that the AFM theory of mind (hsin) and thoughts (nien) demonstrates Chinese authorship. (Grosnick, "Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga," 35–36)

Read more here . . .
Grosnick, William. "Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga: A Precedent for the Hsin-Nien Distinction of The Awakening of Faith." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 6, no. 2 (1983): 35–47. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8605/2512.
Article
Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa in the Early Tathāgatagarbha Literature
One of the most interesting notions found in the early tathāgatagarbha literature is the idea that nirvāṇa should be understood as nonorigination (anutpāda). This idea is explicitly formulated in two texts, the Ratnagotravibhāga, the only śāstra extant in Sanskrit which is completely devoted to the tathāgatagarbha and Buddha-nature teachings, and the Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra, the sūtra upon which the Ratnagotravibhāga bases its exposition of nonorigination. The Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra itself does not speak of the tathāgatagarbha or Buddha-nature doctrines, but the Ratnagotravibhāga takes the Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra explanation of nonorigination and links it to the view of nirvāṇa found in two of the important early sūtras that do speak of the tathāgatagarbha, the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa and the Śrīmālādevīsūtra. This interpretation of nirvāṇa in terms of nonorigination is of considerable importance in understanding the early tathāgatagarbha teaching, for it clarifies certain notions frequently associated with the tathāgatagarbha like the "natural purity of mind" (cittaprakṛtiviśuddhi)—notions which have been hotly debated ever since the doctrine's inception. It may also tell us something about the conceptual issues which divided the schools of early Buddhism and so hold clues for understanding the origin of Mahāyāna Buddhism. (Grosnick, "Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa," 33)

Read more here . . .
Grosnick, William. "Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa in the Early Tathāgatagarbha Literature." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, no. 2 (1981): 33–43. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8547/2454.
Article
The Categories of T'i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence that Paramārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith
The question of whether Paramārtha's version of the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (AFM)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' may really be a Chinese composition has long intrigued scholars of Buddhism. Because no original Sanskrit manuscript of the AFM has ever been found nor any reference to the AFM discovered in any Buddhist text composed in India, scholars have long suspected that the AFM might not be a Chinese translation of an Indian work. The traditional attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa is even more suspect—as Paul Demiéville pointed out, it is almost impossible to believe that the Aśvaghoṣa whom one associates with the Buddhacarita, the Mahāvibhāṣā, and the Sarvāstivadins could have composed any Mahāyāna text, much less a sophisticated Mahāyāna treatise like the AFM.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' And the discovery at the beginning of this century of Japanese references to the seventh century Buddhist figure Hui-chun, who is quoted as saying that the AFM was composed not by Aśvaghoṣa, but by a "prisoner of war" who belonged to the T'i lun School,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' prompted many distinguished scholars, including Shinko Mochizuki and Walter Liebenthal, to argue that the work was a Chinese fabrication by a person affiliated with the native Chinese T'i lun School, which devoted itself to the study of Vasubandhu's Daśabhūmivyākhyā.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' Indeed, as recently as 1958, Liebenthal went so far as to say that one could take it as "established" that a member of the T'i lun School composed the AFM.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' Few would go so far as actually to name the member of the T'i lun School who wrote the AFM, as Liebenthal did (indeed, as Liebenthal himself remarked, it is difficult to believe that any member of the T'i lun School could have written the AFM, given that the author of the AFM does not even seem to know the ten bodhisattvabhūmis described in the Daśabhūmivyākhya),'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"' but for a long time scholarly opinion has leaned in the direction of assigning authorship of the AFM to the Chinese. Just recently Professor Whalen Lai has brought forward some cogent new reasons for regarding the AFM as a Chinese composition.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000007-QINU`"'
      In light of all this, it might seem rather daring to suggest that an Indian actually composed the AFM, but that is what I propose to argue. I do not intend to suggest that the Sarvāstivādin Aśvaghoṣa, or even a "Mahāyāna Aśvaghoṣa" composed the AFM. The first place that any Aśvaghoṣa is listed as the author of the text is in Hui-yüan's Ta-ch'êng i chang, a work composed about a half century after Paramārtha was said to have translated the AFM, so the attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa probably postdated its composition. But there are a couple of pieces of important philological evidence, heretofore largely overlooked, that seem to point strongly to an Indian Buddhist, most likely Paramārtha himself, as the real author of the text, or at least of major parts of it '"`UNIQ--ref-00000008-QINU`"' The first piece of evidence is the use in the AFM of the three categories of t'i, hsiang, and yung, categories which I will try to show were derived by the author of the AFM from Sanskrit categories used in the Ratnagotravibhāgamahāyānottaratantraśāstra (RGV) and which could not have been formulated by anyone who did not possess a knowledge of Sanskrit. The second piece of evidence is Paramārtha's interpolation of passages from the RGV into the Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya (MSbh), which seems to show not only that Paramārtha was intimately familiar with the RGV and its categories, but also that he was personally concerned about issues central to the AFM. When examined together with some interesting biographical details from accounts of Paramārtha's life, this evidence seems to suggest the very real possibility that Paramārtha was the author of the AFM. (Grosnick, introduction, 65–66)

Read more here . . .
Grosnick, William. "The Categories of T'i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence that Paramārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 12, no. 1 (1989): 65–92. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8748/2655.
Article
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra
Grosnick, William. "The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra." In Buddhism in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 92–106. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Grosnick, William. "The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra." In Buddhism in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 92–106. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
PhD Diss
Grosnick, W.: The Zen Master Dōgen’s Understanding of the Buddha-Nature in Light of the Historical Development of the Buddha-Nature Concept in India, China, and Japan
. . . The present study will have a twofold purpose: 1) to examine the history of the Buddha-nature concept in an attempt to discover a central core of meaning inherent in the concept, and 2) to evaluate Dōgen's view of the Buddha-nature in the light of that central core of meaning. Parts I and II of this work, which examine the doctrinal history of the Buddha-nature concept in India and China, are devoted to the former task, and Part III, which examines Dōgen's thought concerning the Buddha-nature, is devoted to the latter. It is hoped that through the examination of Dōgen's conception of the Buddha-nature in the light of the previous articulation of the concept, it will be possible to form conclusions concerning the significance of Dōgen's thought in Buddhist doctrinal history. (Grosnick, introduction, 7–8)
Grosnick, William. "The Zen Master Dōgen’s Understanding of the Buddha-Nature in Light of the Historical Development of the Buddha-Nature Concept in India, China, and Japan." PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1979.

About this person

Publications

  • Grosnick, William H. "The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra." In Buddhism in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr, 92–106. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
  • Grosnick, William H. "Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa in the Early Tathāgatagarbha Literature." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, no. 2 (1981): 33–43.
  • Grosnick, William H. "The Categories of T'i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence that Parmārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 12, no. 1 (1989): 65–92.
  • Grosnick, William G. "Buddha Nature as Myth." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 65–74. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.

Affiliations & relations

  • La Salle College · workplace affiliation
  • Department of Religious Studies · workplace affiliation
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