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There is, however, one subject relating to the spread of Buddhism in Ṭhi-sroṅ-deu-tsen's reign, to which the Tibetan historian devotes his special attention and on which he dwells in detail. This is the strife between two parties into which the Buddhists of Tibet were at that time split. One of these parties consisted of the pupils and followers of Ācārya Śāntirakṣita who professed that form of Mahāyāna Buddhism which was generally acknowledged in India and Nepal, viz. the teaching of the Path to Enlightenment through the practice of meditation connected with the dialectical analysis peculiar to the Mādhyamika school of the Buddhists and with the practice of the six Transcendental Virtues (pāramitā).
The leader of the other party was a Chinese teacher (hwa-śaṅ or ho-shang) known by the Sanskrit name Mahāyānadeva, who preached a doctrine of complete quietism and inactivity. According to him every kind of religious practice, the meditative exercises and all virtuous deeds as well were completely useless and even undesirable: the liberation from the bonds of phenomenal existence was to be attained merely through the complete cessation of every kind of thought and mental activity,—by abiding perpetually in a state analogous to sleep. Bu-ston'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' relates how this party grew very powerful and found numerous adherents among the Tibetans, how the followers of Śāntirakṣita suffered oppression from it, and how the king who was an adherent of Śāntirakṣita's system, invited Śāntirakṣita's pupil, the teacher Kamalaśīla in order to refute the incorrect teachings of the Chinese party. The dispute between Kamalaśīla and the Chinese Ho-shang in which the latter was defeated is described by Bu-ston'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' in detail. We read that the leading men of the two parties'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' assembled in the presence of the king, that the Ho-shang was the first to speak in favour of his theory of quietism and inactivity and was answered by Kamalaśīla who demonstrated all the absurdity of the theses maintained by the Ho-shang and showed that the teachings of such a kind were in conflict with the main principles of Buddhism and were conducive to the depreciation and rejection of the most essential features of the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment. We read further on how the chief adherents of Kamalaśīla'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' likewise refuted the theories of the Ho-shang, how the latter and his party acknowledged themselves vanquished and were expelled from Tibet by order of the king who prescribed to follow henceforth the Buddhist doctrines that were generally admitted,—the teaching of the six Virtues as regards religious practice and the Mādhvamika system of Nāgārjuna as regards the theory.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"'
Thus the influence of the Chinese Ho-shang’s teachings over the minds of the Tibetans suffered a complete defeat and with it perhaps some political influence of China.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000007-QINU`"' This is certainly a most important event in the history of Tibetan Buddhism which has been duly appreciated by Bu-ston. It is therefore quite natural that we should be interested in finding out the sources of Bu-ston's historical record. But the text of Bu-ston's History which, as a rule, contains references to the works on the foundation of which it has been compiled, does not give us any information here. At the first glance the account of the controversy looks like the reproduction of an oral tradition and there is nothing that could make us conjecture the presence of a literary work upon which the record could have been founded- The following will show that it has now become possible to trace out this work, to compare with it the account given by Bu-ston and to ascertain its historical importance. (Obermiller, "A Sanskrit MS. from Tibet," 1–3)
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Among the Tibetan Collection of the Newark Museum in Newark (New Jersey) there is an incomplete manuscript Kanjur from Bathang in Khams (East Tibet). In spite of the fact that this
Kanjur was already donated to the museum as early as 1920 it is surprising that it has only recently become the object of a scholarly treatment of some length.[1] In his critical edition of the Mahāsūtras (cp. n. 1), Peter Skilling has used internal criteria to prove that the Bathang Kanjur is affiliated to neither the Tshal pa lineage nor to the Them spangs ma lineage of textual transmission. Its independent character can also be ascertained by external kanjurological
criteria: the collection of the texts, its grouping and its order within the volumes are unique. It becomes, therefore, very plausible that "the Newark Kanjur belongs to an old and independent textual transmission that predates the compilation of the Tshal pa and Them spangs ma collections."[2]
Contained in the ta volume of the sūtra section (mdo bsde ta) of this Kanjur is the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (TGS).[3] In the process of editing the Tibetan text of this important Mahāyāna work, of which no Indic copies have come down to us, I used most of the available, historically relevant Kanjurs.[4] Among these 13 versions alone the TGS found in this Kanjur from Bathang represents a different, second translation (Bth). As the existence of two independent Tibetan translations of the same Indic text are of rare occurrence, this study intends to throw light on the differences between the two Tibetan texts, to describe the particular features of Bth and finally to classify it within the history of Tibetan translation activities. (Zimmermann, introductory remarks, 33–35)
Notes
- For a description of the Kanjur cp. Eleanor Olson, Catalogue of the Newark Museum Tibetan Collection, Vol. III, Newark 1971, p. 114, dating it to the 16th century; the most detailed analysis of the 23 volumes of the Kanjur can be found in Peter Skilling's unpublished article Kanjur Manuscripts in the Newark Museum: A Preliminary Report, Nandapurī 1995; the only study including some texts of this Kanjur in a textcritical edition is Peter Skilling's (ed.) Mahāsūtras: Great Discourses of the Buddha, Vol. I: Texts, Oxford 1994 (The Pali Text Society, Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol. XLIV).
- Skilling, Kanjur Manuscripts. . . . , p. 4.
- Vol. ta, folios 245b1–258a8. The title at the beginning of the volume reads de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po zhes bya ba'i mdo' . The title at the beginning of the sūtra itself runs: de bzhin gshyes <pa'i> snying po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo. It seems remarkable that the Tibetan equivalent for Skt. ārya, 'phags pa, does not appear in the titles of the Bathang translation whereas it is common to all the other major Kanjurs. The spelling mdo bsde can be found "consistently on all tags" (Skilling, Kanjur Manuscripts. . . , p. 6, n. 16).
- The critical edition of the TGS is part of a Ph.D. thesis to be submitted at the University of Hamburg. The collation comprises the versions of the TGS as contained in the Kanjurs from Berlin, Derge, Lithang, London, Narthang, Peking (Ōtani reprint), Phug brag (three versions), Stog, Tabo (fragmentary) and Tokyo (Toyo Bunko) compared with the two Chinese translations. Bth will be appended as a diplomatic edition.
With reference to two of these 'ātmavādin’ tathāgatagarbha works, I present evidence that authors of this tradition used the idea of a Buddhist doctrine of the self to undermine non-Buddhist accounts of liberation: not only describing them as deficient, but as having been created (nirmita) by the Buddha himself. Such claims expand the boundaries of the Buddha’s sphere of influence, after the description of his activities found in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra: a clear influence upon these tathāgatagarbha sources. Other Mahāyānist literature of an ‘ekayānist’ orientation used this strategy also: i.e. that any teaching regarding liberation from saṃsāra finds its origin in the activities of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, but has its definitive expression in the Buddhist dharma. The tathāgatagarbha presented as a Buddhist doctrine of the self can hence be understood as a complement to a certain understanding of the Mahāyāna, here the archetype of all paths that claim to deliver an end to saṃsāra, and to an account of the Buddha as the architect of all ostensibly non-Buddhist accounts of liberation.
In 1931 E. Obermiller published a translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga from the Tibetan: "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation", Acta Orientalia, Vol. IX, Part II.III, pp. 81-306.[5] His interpretation of the text is based upon a commentary by Tsoṅ-kha-pa's pupil and successor rGyal-tshab Dar-ma rin-chen (1364–1432)[6] The Sanskrit text has been edited by E. H. Johnston and published by T. Chowdhury: The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (Patna, 1950). This edition is based upon two manuscripts found in Tibet by Rāhula Sāṁkṛtyāyana. The edition of the Sanskrit text has given a new impulse to the study of the Ratnagotravibhāga. Several passages of the Ratnagotravibhāga have been translated by E. Conze (Buddhist Texts through the Ages, Oxford, 1954, pp. 130-131, 181-184 and 216-217). In Die Philosophie des Buddhismus (Berlin, 1956, pp. 255-264) E. Frauwallner has given a summary of the ideas contained in this text and a translation of several verses.[7] In 1959 Ui Hakuju published a detailed study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Hōshōron Kenkyū) which contains a complete translation (pp. 471-648), together with a Sanskrit-Japanese glossary (pp. 1-60 with separate pagination).[8] Professor Takasaki's translation was undertaken during his stay in India (1954-1957) and continued afterwards. Apart from this book he has published between 1958 and 1964 ten articles relating to the Ratnagotravibhāga (a list is given on pp. xii-xiii).[9] . . .
The translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga by Professor Takasaki is the first to be based on the Sanskrit text and the Chinese and Tibetan translations. Obermiller utilized only the Tibetan version and his translation, excellent as it is, contains a number of mistakes which are obvious in the light of the Sanskrit text. Ui utilized both the Sanskrit text and the Chinese translation, but he was unable to consult the Tibetan translation directly. His knowledge of it was based upon a Japanese translation, made for him by Tada Tōkan, and upon Obermiller's English translation. It is clear from many indications that the Chinese translation is closer to the original than both the Sanskrit text and the Tibetan translation. However, as concerns the interpretation of the text, the Chinese translation is now always a reliable guide. There are several places where Professor Takasaki has been too much influenced by it but in general he indicates very well the wrong interpretations which are to be found in the Chinese translation. For the Tibetan translation Professor Takasaki has consulted only the Derge edition. A comparison of the passages quoted in the notes with the corresponding passages in the Peking edition (the only one at my disposal) shows that the Derge edition does not always give a satisfactory text. An edition of the Tibetan translation based on the Derge, Peking and Narthang editions would be highly desirable. In view of the importance of the vocabulary of the Ratnagotravibhāga for both Buddhist Sanskrit and Mahāyāna terminology, it would also be very useful to have indexes, on the lines of those compiled by Professor Nagao for the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra.
Notes
- P. Demiéville, BEFEO, XXIV, 1-2 (1924), p. 53.
- N. Peri, BEFEO, XI (1911), p. 350; Takasaki, p. 9.
- Cf. H. W. Bailey and E. H. Johnston, "A Fragment of the Uttaratantra in Sanskrit", BSOS, VIII (1935), pp. 77-89 (esp. p. 81) and Johnston's foreword to his edition of the Sanskrit text, pp. x-xii. To this Sthiramati the Tibetan tradition attributes a commentary on the Kāśyapaparivarta. The Chinese translation (Taishō, 1523) is due to Bodhiruci. According to Chinese catalogues this commentary, just as the Ratnagotravibhāga, has been translated by both Bodhiruci and Ratnamati. Cf. A. Staël-Holstein's edition (A Commentary of the Kāśyapaparivarta, Peking, 1933) and P. Pelliot's review, TP, XXXII (1936), pp. 75-76. According to Chinese traditions both Bodhiruci and Ratnamati have translated also the Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra (Taishō, No. 1522), cf. Noël Peri, "A propos de la date de Vasubandhu", BEFEO, XI (1911), pp. 352-353; Stanley Weinstein, "The concept of ālaya-vijñāna in pre-T'ang Chinese Buddhism". Essays on the History of Buddhist Thought. Presented to Professor Reimon Yūki (Tokyo, 1964), pp. 34-35. On the relations between Bodhiruci and Ratnamati see P. Demiéville, "Sur l'authenticité du Ta tch'eng k'i sin louen", Bulletin de la Maison Franco-Japonaise, II, 2 (Tōkyō, 1929), pp. 30ff.
- See the references given by Ét. Lamotte, L'Enseignement de Vimalakīrti (Louvain, 1962), pp. 92-93, n. 2. According to Hattori Masaaki, there is only one Sāramati who lived between Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga-Vasubandhu.
- Cf. La Vallée Poussin's interesting review, MCB, I (1931-1932), pp. 406-409.
- Cf. G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, I (Roma, 1949), p. 119: A Catalogue of the Tohoku University Collection of Tibetan Works on Buddhism (Sendai, 1953), No. 5434. Ogawa Ichijō, "Butsu (Nyorai) to Busshō (Nyoraizō) — Darumarinchen-zō Hōshōron Shakuso o shoe to shite", IBK, XIII (1965), pp. 247-250. Id.: "Indo Daijō Bukkyō ni okeru Nyoraizō-Busshō-shisō ni tsuite — Darumarinchen-zō Hōshōron Shakuso no kaidoku o kokoromite —", Tōhōgaku, 30 (1965), pp. 102-116. A complete translation of this commentary would be very welcome.
- According to Frauwallner Sāramati lived about 250 A.D.
- For completeness' sake mention must be made of a synoptic edition of the Sanskrit text in Roman letters and the Chinese translation by Nakamura Zuiryū: The Ratnagotravibhāga-Mahāyānottaratantra-çāstra. Compared with Sanskrit and Chinese, with introduction and Notes (Tokyo, 1961) (published originally in Ōsaki Gakuhō, 103-110, 1955-1959). More important are the following articles: Tsukinowa Kenryū, "Kukyōichijōhōshōron ni tsuite", Nihon Bukkyō Kyōkai Nenpō, VII (1935) pp. 121-139; Takata Ninkaku, "Kukyōichijōhōshōron no johon ni tsuite", Mikkyō Bunka, 31 (1955) pp. 9-37; Hattori Masaaki, "'Busshōron' no ichi kōsatsu", Bukkyō Shigaku, IV, 3-4 (1955), pp. 16-36 (I have not been able to consult the last two articles); Takata Ninkaku, "Hōshōron ni okeru tenne (āśrayaparivṛtti) ni tsuite", IBK, VI (1958), pp. 501-504; Ogawa Ichijō, "'Busshō' to 'buddhatva'", IBK, XI (1963), pp. 544-545.
- Not mentioned are two articles published in 1953: "Hōshōron ni okeru nyoraizō no igi", IBK, 1, pp. 368-369 ; "Nyoraizō to engi — Hōshōron o tegakari to shite —", IBK, II, pp. 244-247.
Takasaki argued that the first extant text to use the word tathāgatagarbha was the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. Since Takasaki's research was published, there have been some remarkable advances in research on the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, and in recent years scholars such as S. Hodge and M. Radich have begun to argue that it was the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra that was the first Buddhist text to use the word tathāgatagarbha. The question of which of these two sūtras came first has not yet been definitively resolved, but it may be generally accepted that both belong to the oldest stratum of Buddhist texts dealing with tathāgatagarbha.
On a previous occasion (Kano 2017), focusing on this point, I collected Sanskrit fragments of both texts containing the word tathāgatagarbha and discussed differences in the expressions in which it is used. In particular, taking into account the findings of Shimoda Masahiro, I argued that if the word tathāgatagarbha appearing in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra is interpreted as a bahuvrīhi compound qualifying stūpa, this would accord with the word's usage in this sūtra and with the gist of the chapter "Element of the Tathāgata" (Habata 2013: §§ 375–418). This does not mean, however, that this understanding needs to be applied uniformly to every example of its use in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra. Because in this earlier article I focused somewhat unduly on the interpretation of tathāgatagarbha as a bahuvrīhi compound, the fact that there are instances of wordplay making use of the multiple meanings of garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra needs to be added, together with some concrete examples. (In the passages of this sūtra, it is natural to understand the term tathāgatagarbha as a substantive in the sense of "garbha of tathāgata" or "garbha that is tathāgata," namely, tatpuruṣa or karmadhāraya, and I do not exclude this possibility as discussed in Kano 2017: 39–42.) In addition, there were some redundant aspects in the structure of my earlier article. In this article I rework these aspects so as to sharpen the focus on the points at issue and add some supplementary points. In the first half I clarify some grammatical characteristics to be observed in examples of the use of tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit fragments of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, while in the second half I ascertain the polysemy of the word garbha on the basis of some concrete examples. (Kano, "A Syntactic Analysis," 17–18)
La question n'est pas nouvelle; plusieurs fois déjà elle a été étudiée, et diverses solutions lui ont été données. Kern, dans son Histoire du bouddhisme dans l'Inde (1), rejetant l'opinion communément admise en Extrême-Orient, plaça Vasubandhu au VIe siècle de notre ère. Buhler (2) essaya vainement de le ramener au IVe : la thèse de Kern conserva la faveur des indianistes. En 1890, M. Sylvain Lévi, dans son remarquable ouvrage sur Le théâtre indien (3), tentait d'établir que la période d'activité de Vasubandhu couvrait toute la première moitié du VIe siècle ; et dans une note sur La date de Vasubandhu (4), il la reportait même jusqu'au milieu et à la fin de ce siècle. Depuis lors à diverses reprises, notamment dans ses Donations religieuses des rois de Valabhī (5) et dans ses Notes chinoises sur l'Inde parues ici même (6), il s'est efforcé d'étayer sa thèse de nouvelles considérations. M. Takakusu Junjirō, après avoir proposé les limites de 450–550 pour l'« àge moyen » (7) dans lequel Yi-tsing range Vasubandhu et Asaṅga, essaya ensuite de les préciser davantage en ce qui concerne le premier et d'établir qu'il avait vécu de 420 à 500 environ de notre ère (8). En 1908, M. Wogihara (9) démontrait en détail ce que les anciens catalogues chinois du Tripiṭaka, Nei tien lou, K'ai-yuan lou, etc., des écrivains comme Touen-louen des T'ang dans son Yeou-kia louen ki (1), еt M. Nanjio Bunyu (2) avaient déjà dit sommairement, à savoir qu'un ouvrage d'Asaṅga, le Yogācāryabhūmi çāstra (3), avait été partiellement traduit en chinois par Dharmarakṣa entre 414 et 421, soit dès le commencement du Ve siècle (4).
Enfin dans l'introduction de sa traduction du Mahāyāna-Sutrālaṃkāra (5) parue en 1911, M. S. Lévi, abandonnant sa première opinion, écrit à propos d'Asaṅga : « Son activité couvre toute la première moitié du Ve siècle, en débordant de part et d'autre sur les deux extrémités de cette période. » C'est peutêtre un peu long, car si Asaṅga a vécu soixante-quinze ans, les documents à notre connaissance nous disent qu'il chercha sa voie un certain temps. N'oublions pas d'ailleurs que le Yogācāryabhūmi çāstra, l'œuvre maîtresse d'Asaṅga, est de dimensions considérables: la traduction chinoise compte 100 kiuan. Son importance dogmatique n'est pas moindre. Il est l'expression d'une pensée maîtresse d'elle-mème, qui a dépassé la période des incertitudes et des tàtonnements. Il est assez peu vraisemblable, mème sans tenir compte des indications données par Paramārtha dans sa vie de Vasubandhu, qu'il ait été écrit par un tout jeune homme. En tout cas, quelque différence d'àge qu'on veuille admettre entre Asaṅga et Vasubandhu, — et il faut tenir compte de l'existence d'un troisième frère, Viriñcivatsa (6) — celui-ci, bien qu'il ait vécu quatre-vingts ans, n'aurait pu, dans ces conditions, dépasser ni mème atteindre la fin du Ve siècle.
D'une manière générale, il semble que dans les études qui ont porté sur ce sujet, quelques documents aient été ignorés et que d'autres aient été délibérément écartés de la discussion comme douteux. En bonne logique, ce simple doute qui ne parait pas avoir jamais été sérieusement éclairci, suffirait à enlever toute sécurité aux conclusions que l'on a cru pouvoir formuler sans en tenir compte, ou si l'on préfère, elles ne sauraient ètre que provisoires tant que la menace qu'il laisse planer sur elles n'a pas été définitivement écartée. La question me parait donc devoir ètre reprise, les documents déclarés douteux soumis à un nouvel examen, et mis en œuvre aussi ceux qui n'ont pas encore été utilisés. Je n'ai pas d'ailleurs la prétention d'ètre complet. C'est à peu près uniquement à la première série, (missing characters), du Supplément du Tripiṭaka de Kyōto, œuvres hindoues et chinoises, que sont empruntés les textes qu'on trouvera au cours de cette étude. Les quelque 700 fascicules déjà parus de cette admirable publication, d'une importance capitale pour les études bouddhiques, en contiennent sans doute d'autres encore, qu'une recherche plus approfondie et plus complète ferait découvrir. Je n'ai pu que feuilleter les œuvres qui m'ont paru devoir ètre les plus intéressantes pour mon sujet par leur date, leur auteur ou leur genre. (Péri, preliminary remarks, 339–41)
Notes
1. T. II, p. 414; Annales du Musée Guimet, t. XI, p. 450; il parle principalement d'Asaṅga, et se basant sur la date de l'avènement de Çīladitya (610, propose les dates de 485 à 560. C'est évidemment à cet ouvrage que la Chronology of India de Mrs. Mabel Duff les emprunte, et non au Buddhismus de Vassilieff, auquel elle renvoie. Celui-ci ne dit rien de tel; si je ne me trompe, il donne seulement la date bouddhiste de 900 ans, dont je parlerai plus loin.
2. Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunst-Poesie, dans Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1890, p. 79 sqq.
3. Cf. I, 165, et II, 35.
4. Journal Asiatique, 1890, II, p. 552–553.
5. Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes-Etudes. Sciences religieuses, vol. VII. Etudes de critique et d'histoire, p. 97.
6. La date de Candragomin. BEFEO, III (1903), 47-49.
7. A Record of the Buddhist religion.... by I-tsing, p. VIII.
8. La Sāṃkhyakārikā étudiée à la lumière de sa version chinoise, BEFEO, IV (1904), p. 37-56; et A study of Paramārtha's life of Vasubandhu and the date of Vasubandhu, dans Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1905.
9. Asaṅga's Bodhisattvabhūmi, ein dogmatischer Text der Nordbuddhisten, Leipzig. B. E. F. E.-O. T. XI. —22.
1. Grand ouvrage en 48 k., publié dans le supplément au Tripiṭaka de Kyoto, 1re
série, boites LXXV, fasc. 4 et 5, et LXXVI, fasc. 1 à 4. Le passage cité se trouve boite LXXV, fasc. 4, p. 308.
2. Cf. Nanjio, Catalogue, nos 1083, 1086, etc.
3. Nanjio, Catalogue. no 1170.
4. Le canon chinois contient sept ou huit traductions partielles de cet ouvrage, faites à des époques parfois très voisines les unes des autres, sous des titres différents ; encore n'avons-nous pas toutes celles qui le furent: le K'ai-yuan lou, k. 12, en cite une dizaine pour le mème texte. Le fait qu'il en existait des extraits si nombreux, assez différents pour que des contemporains les traduisissent séparément à quelques années de distance, permet de croire qu'un intervalle assez long sépare la composition de l'ouvrage des premières traductions d'extraits faites en Chine.
5. B. E. H. E. Sciences historiques et philologiques, fasc. 190, p. *2.
challenges the San-chieh-chiao attempted to meet, and it is the burden of Hubbard's careful exegesis to detail the subtle metaphysical and exegetical distinctions they
constructed to do so. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 4–5)Pabhassara Sutta
Kevaddha Sutta
Nibbana Sutta
Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra
Samdhinirmochana Sutra
Mahaparinirvana Sutra
Shrimaladevi Sutra
Tathagatagarbha Sutra
Lankavatara Sutra
Bodhidharma’s Breakthrough Sermon
Sengcan’s Song of the Trusting Mind
Hongren’s Treatise on the Supreme Vehicle
Huineng’s Platform Sutra
Yongjia’s Song of Realizing the Way
Shitou’s Record
Shitou’s Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage
Dongshan’s Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi
Caoshan’s Verse
Guishan’s Record
Mazu’s Record
Baizhang’s Record
Huangbo’s Transmission of Mind
Linji’s Record
Nanquan’s Record
Changsha’s Record
Yunmen’s Record
Yuanwu’s Letters
Hongzhi’s Record
Dogen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye
Ejo’s Absorption in the Treasury of Light
Keizan’s Transmission of Light
32nd Ancestor Hongren
34th Ancestor Qingyuan
38th Ancestor Dongshan
40th Ancestor Dongan
46th Ancestor Tanxia
49th Ancestor Xuedou
52nd Ancestor Dogen
53rd Ancestor Ejo
Chinul’s Complete Sudden Attainment of Buddhahood
Chinul’s Secrets of Cultivating the Mind
Bassui’s One Mind
Bankei’s Record
Hakuin’s Four Cognitions
Menzan’s Self-Enjoyment Samadhi
Shunryu Suzuki’s Mind Waves (from "Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind")
Shunryu Suzuki’s Resuming Big Mind (from "Not Always So")
Padmasambhava’s Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness
Dakpo Tashi Namgyal’s Clarifying the Natural State
Karma Chagmey’s Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen
There is no doubt excellent reason for such acclaim as this. The clarity, force, and elegance of Nāgārjuna's arguments are undeniable. They can easily overwhelm, and often have. However, the lavish traditional and modern appreciations of Nāgārjuna's thought have not been without untoward consequences for our understanding of other varieties of Mahāyāna. The Mahāyāna is a far more various thing than a reading of the Kārikas, or even of their antecedent Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, would indicate; and the Mādhyamika position has hardly gone unchallenged in Buddhist intellectual history. Indeed, much of the subsequent history of Mahāyāna thought may be read as a cumulative qualification of the Śūnyavāda that one finds in the Perfection of Insight Literature and in Nāgārjuna. Such at least was the case with the Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha traditions; and when Buddhism found its way to China, Chinese Buddhist thinkers often expressed a clear preference for the later qualifications or modulations of Mādhyamika rather than for the severity of an unadulterated Nāgārjunism. It may well be that our enthusiasm for Nāgārjuna along with the comparative complexity and inaccessibility of other traditions have predisposed us to give less attention than deserved to the alternative forms of Mahāyāna. Should this be so, the remarks that follow may be taken as an effort at compensation.
The criticisms, explicit or implicit, that have been leveled against classical Śūnyavāda are many and diverse. One might undertake to examine the question of whether Mādhyamika is normative for the whole of Mahāyāna by investigating, for example, the claim of the Madhyāntavibhāga that an understanding of emptiness is crude and incomplete unless tempered by an understanding of the reality and potency of constructive imagination. For the Yogācāra authors of this text, emptiness is always and ever coincident with the imagination of the unreal (abhūtaparikalpa; hsü-wang fen-pieh) and it is only the coefficiency of the two principles that can wholly account for the way things really are. It is in recognition of this—the essential duplexity of reality—that the Madhyāntavibhāga may say, as one would not expect Nāgārjuna to say:
na śūnyaṁ napi caśūnyam tasmat sarvvam vidhīyate
satvad asatvāt satvāc ca madhyama pratipac ca sā
ku shuo i-ch'ieh fa fei k'ung fei pu-k'ung
yu wu chi yu ku shih ming chung-tao i
Therefore it is said that all dharmas
Are neither empty nor nonempty,
Because they exist, do not exist, and yet again exist.
This is the meaning of the "middle-path."
One might choose also to consider the theory of the "three revolutions of the wheel of the law" found in the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra:
Formerly, in the second period and for the sake only of those aspiring to practice of the Mahayana-reckoning on the fact that all dharmas lack own-being, neither arise nor perish, and are originally calm and essentially of nirvāṇa—the Lord turned the Wheel of the Law which is characterized by a hidden intent (i yin-mi hsiang). [But] this too (i.e., like the first turning) had [other teachings] superior to it to which it deferred. It was of a sense still to be interpreted (yu wei liao-id; neyartha), and [thus] the subject of much dispute.
In the present third period and for the sake of aspirants to all vehicles—reckoning [again] on the fact that all dharmas lack own-being, neither arise nor perish, are originally calm and essentially of nirvāṇa, and have the lack of own-being as their nature-the Lord has turned the Wheel of the Law which is characterized [this time] by a manifest meaning (i hsien-liao hsiang). This is the most rare and precious [of teachings]. There is nothing superior to this Turning of the Wheel of Law by the Lord and nothing to which it defers. It is of truly explicit meaning (chen liao-i; nīthārtha) and not the subject of disputes.
The third revolution of the dharmacakra here described is, of course, the annunciation of what was to become Yogācāra Buddhism. The second corresponds to the Śunyavāda of the Prajñāpāramitā canon and, proleptically, to its Mādhyamika systematization. The implication of this passage is that although both dispensations of the law teach emptiness (here called "lack of own-being," "nonarising," etc.), the Prajñāpāramitā and Mādhyamika versions of the doctrine are inchoate, eliptical, imprecise and a source of controversy, whereas the Yogācāra version is definitive, explicit, and not liable to conflicting interpretations.
A third approach might be to follow the masterful lead of Ruegg, Takasaki, and Wayman in considering the claims of the Tathāgatagarbha tradition to superiority over classical Śunyavāda. The Tathāgatagarbha, after all, is a tradition which argues forcefully that the reality of all things is as much "nonempty" (aśūnya; pu-k'ung) as it is "empty" (śūnya; k'ung) and which employs such un-Mādhyamika terminology in its locutions about reality as "permanence" (nītya; chang), "purity" (śubha; ching), and even "self" (ātman; wo).
A fourth option, and the one we take here, is to look at the differences among Mādhyamika and the other varieties of Mahāyāna through the eyes of those Chinese Buddhist who, in devising their own systems of thought, were given the opportunity to compare and choose. I refer here to the numerous sixth-and-seventh-century Chinese thinkers who formulated "division of the doctrine" (p'an-chiao) and similar schemes in the course of fashioning new and uniquely sinic schools of Buddhism. Almost without exception these thinkers chose to subordinate Śūnyavāda of the sort one finds in the Perfection of Insight literature and the Kārikās to other kinds of Mahāyāna, often to doctrines and texts of Tathāgatagarbha provenance or association. The Hua-yen p'an-chiao system, for example, relegated Śūnyavāda to the category of "incipient" or "elementary" (shih) Mahāyāna but held the Tathāgatagarbha tradition to be representative of an "advanced" or "final" (chung) Mahāyāna, both of which fell short of the perfection of its own "rounded" or "comprehensive" (yüan) teaching.
A theme that unites all of these challenges to Mādhyamika primacy—the Yoācāra, the Tathāgatagarbha, and the Chinese—is a profound dissatisfaction with the seemingly relentless apophasis of Nāgārjuna and, to a lesser extent, of his sources. All are able to acknowledge Nāgārjuna's caution—that uncritical use of the constructive language of philosophical views is a species of intellectual bondage—but they acknowledge it only as a caution, a corrective to false views. They insist, however, that the way of denial and negation, the unremitting distrust of positive language, is necessary but not sufficient unto enlightenment. It allows one to fend off error but does not actively advance one toward the truth and may even impede the practical religious life by generating more subtle forms of error and by inhibiting compassion. Therefore, the various alternatives to Mādhyamika that we have mentioned took it upon themselves to reassert the salvific value of kataphasis, the spiritual utility of positive and affirmative language. They chose, in short, eloquence over silence.
[NOTE. The materials embodied in this list were received in a final form from Dr. Hoernle. early in 1918. The typed press copy prepared from them was after his death in November of that year checked with the original under the kind supervision of Dr. F. W. Thomas.
Owing to various reasons difficulty was experienced about verifying the exact reading of all extracts quoted by Dr. Hoernle from particular MSS., mainly in Khotanese language. It being thus impossible to assure in this respect the degree of accuracy which that most painstaking collaborator would have aimed at, I have thought it advisable to reduce the reproduction of such quotations within narrow limits. For convenient reference by future students the original Inventory ' slips' as received from Dr. Hoernle's hand, as well as a typed copy of them, have been deposited at the India Office Library.—A. STEIN.]
Notes
- Wangchuk, "rÑiṅ-ma Interpretations" 179. "Yet even though the [buddha-nature] theory has certainly been present from early times in the rÑiṅ-ma literature, it seems to have played quite an insignificant role and never gained prominence or an independent status, in the way it was conceived, for instance, in the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra" This conclusion is repeated by Almogi, Rong-zom-pa's Discourse on Buddhology 160.
- For a detailed discussion of the term buddha-nature, see Zimmermann 2002, 39-40.
- Although *sugatagarbha is not attested in Sanskrit (see Seyfort Ruegg, Traite du tathagatagarbha 68), Wangchuk, "rÑiṅ-ma Interpretations" 178 and n. 21, points out (on the basis of references provided to him by Kazuo Kano) that "the term bde gśegs sñiṅ po does occur in the Tibetan translations of the Aṅgulimālīyasūtra (P fol. 174a5; D fol. 166b2: bde gśegs sñiṅ po theg pa che las skyes) and Ghanavyūhasūtra (P fol. 62b 1; D fol. 55b 1: bde gśegs sñiṅ po dge ba'aṅ de; cf., however, Taisho 747a7) for which the Sanskrit is not extant." We may add that the term bde [bar] gshegs [pa'i] snying po occurs in a large number of Tibetan translations of Indian works. A search of the Derge Bka' 'gyur and Bstan 'gyur canons using the contraction bde gshegs snying po turned up occurrences in the following sūtras in addition to those mentioned earlier: Bhadrakalpika (D 94), Sūtrasammucayabhāṣtaratnālokālaṃkāra (D 3935), Laṅkāvatāravṛttitathāgatahṛdayālaṃkāra (D 4031), and Sūtrālaṃkārapaṇḍārtha (D4031). It is also found in twenty-two tantric works: D 453, 829, 832, 833, 834, 837 (these last four belong to the Māyājāla-Guhyagarbha cycle), 1202, 1401, 1407, 1414, 1613, 1630, 1644, 2128, 2304, 2626, 2816, 2834, 2837, 3713, 3723, and 4449. The unabbreviated bde bar gshegs pa'i snying po occurs in the following tantric works: Kaṇha's Hevajranāmamahātantrarājadvikalpamāyapañjikāsṃrtinipāda (Rgyud kyi rgyal po dgyes pa'i rdo rje zhes bya ba sgyu ma brtag pa gnyis pa'i dka 'grel dran pa'i 'byung gnas), which, however, does not contain the term buddha-nature, D 1187; Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgītiṭīkāvimalaprabhā ('Jam dpal gyi mtshan yang dag par brjod pa'i grel pa dri ma med pa'i od), D 1398; Bhagavatsarvadurgatipariśodhanatejorajatathāgatāhatsamyaksaṃbuddhamahātantrarājavyākhyāsundarālaṃkāra (Bcom Idan 'das de bzhin gshegs pa dgra bcom pa yang dag par rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas ngan song thams cad yongs su sbyong ba gzi brjid kyi rgyal po chen po'i rnam par bshad pa mdzes pa'i rgyan), D 2626; Vajravidāraṇānāmadhāraṇīpaṭalakramabhāṣyavṛttipradīpa (Rdo rje rnam par 'joms pa'i gzung zhes bya ba'i rim par phye ba'i rgya cher 'grel ba gsal ba'i sgron ma), D 2687; Tantrārthāvatāravyākhyāna (Rgyud kyi don la 'jug pa'i grel bshad), D 2502; Mahābalikarmakramavṛtti (Gtor ma chen po'i las kyi rim pa'i grel pa), D 3773. This is not the place for an analysis of these occurrences. It is hoped that future research may determine whether any of them can be traced to an extant Indian work containing the term *sugatagarbha.
- On problems of Tibetan historical periodization and a useful variant based on existing schemes, see Cuevas, "Some Reflections." For a useful doctrinal-historical periodization scheme based on developments in Tibetan Buddhist epistemology, see van der Kuijp 1989. Loosely following van der Kuijp's proposed periodization, we can distinguish (1) the Ancient (rnying ma) period (8th-9th c.) corresponding to the Early Dissemination (snga dar) and Early Translation (snga gyur) period, which witnessed a massive program of translating Indian works into Tibetan and the growth of early Tibetan monastic communities under the sponsorship of the Tibetan Empire; (2) the Preclassical period (late 10th-12th c.) corresponding to the Late Dissemination (phyi dar) and New Translation (gsar gyur) periods following the collapse of the Tibetan Imperium (and ensuing Period of Fragmentation, ca. 910-1056), which witnessed a campaign of new reformed translations of Indian Buddhist texts and the ascendency of the so-called New (gsar ma) Tibetan Buddhist schools (and their scholastic traditions) that were henceforth distinguished from the Ancients (rnying ma); (3) the Classical period (13th-14th c.), which was characterized by the expansion of the major Tibetan Buddhist schools and the consolidation and systematization of their representative doctrines and practices; and (4) the Postclassical period (15th c. onward) characterized by the intensification of intersectarian dialogue and polemicism fueled by the increasingly fractious sectarian politics as Tibetan orders vied for patronage by foreign powers (Mongols and Chinese) and domestic aristocratic clans.
The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020) by Christopher Jones
It has long been recognized that Indian Buddhist writings concerned with buddha-nature, or more narrowly the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha, have a complex relationship with foundational Buddhist teachings about 'not-self' (anātman). Drawing upon and developing recent scholarship concerning the relative ages of Indian Buddhist works that deal with buddha-nature, The Buddhist Self explores the likely trajectory of this complex relationship. Constituent chapters deal with all Indian texts, across Indic, Chinese and Tibetan sources, that deal with buddha-nature and the matter of how far it should be conceptualized in terms of selfhood. I argue that it is likely that our earliest sources for teaching about tathāgatagarbha, perhaps beginning with the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, are those which understood this term to refer to what could also be called the self (ātman). It is only later in the development of tathāgatagarbha literature that teachings about buddha-nature were elaborated to stress that this is not, after all, something of a caveat to teachings about absence of self. As such, teaching about tathāgatagarbha was perhaps originally presented as the Buddha's revelation of what is enduring and precious in the constitution of all sentient beings, and was in part a dynamic move to enter wider Indian discourse about the nature and value of the self. In 2021 The Buddhist Self was awarded the Toshihide Numata Book Award.
Kukyō ichijō hōshōron to higashiajia bukkyō: Go—nana seiki no nyoraizō, shinnyo, shushō no kenkyū『究竟一乗宝性論』と東アジア仏教 ── 五—七世紀の如来蔵・真如・種姓説の研究 [The Ratnagotravibhāga and East Asian Buddhism: A Study on the Tathāgatagarbha, Tathatā and Gotra between the 5th and 7th Centuries] (Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 2020) by Li Zijie
Buddhism has a profound and thoroughly developed set of teachings on human being. One might well argue that the question of human being is the question par excellence with which the Buddhist tradition as a whole struggles. According to the traditional account, for example, the point of departure for the Buddha's own search, discoveries, and teachings was the dilemma of the human condition. Moreover, vast numbers of Buddhist texts speak out of or address human experience as such, consciously focusing upon it as the source of both question and answer. Nonetheless, many questions a modern Westerner asks as a matter of course about human being are not directly addressed in the Buddhist texts. There are of course important reasons for this. Our concept of and assumptions about human individuality are profoundly different from Buddhist views of the same. Our two worlds of discourse about the value and meaning of finite bodily existence, the course of history, the meaning of suffering, and the nature of possible human greatness are set up on entirely different foundations. Thus, for a contemporary Westerner to ask the question "What is a person? What is a human being?" of a Buddhist text is to set oneself up to receive an answer that does not satisfy the intent of the question. Yet, while Buddhist views and assumptions differ so markedly from our own, Buddhist texts reveal in their own way a preoccupation with the human condition as intent as that of our own hyperindividualistic, anthropocentric culture.
With such a shared fixation, it is inevitable that persons on both sides of the cultural boundaries will attempt to gain light from the other side on this subject, despite the incommensurability of each other's questions and answers. The present essay is one such attempt: not an East-West comparison, but an effort to address a Buddhist text from the perspective of cross-cultural philosophy (still, despite the name, a thoroughly Western enterprise) . Herein I will engage in dialogue the Buddha Nature Treatise (Chinese: Fo Hsing Luna; hereafter, BNT), a text representative of the Buddha nature tradition that contains an extensive discussion of the concept of Buddha nature, a crucial component, if not the most crucial component, of the East Asian Buddhist concept of human being. I will attempt to wrest from the text answers to two categories of questions-it s view of the ontological nature of human being and its view of the existential status of human beings. In the course of the discussion I will ask such questions as: What roles do individuality and freedom play in the view of human being portrayed in this text? What value, if any, does an individual human personality possess? Is there anything of value in human history? Clearly, the text itself does not speak in these terms; these are the questions of a twentieth-century, philosophically inclined American. In order to bridge the cultural gap, I will first give a summary account of the text's concept of Buddha nature in its own terms and in its own format. Then, acknowledging that the text itself neither speaks this language nor shares my concerns, I will put my questions to the text and attempt to extract from the text its implications for the subject of my concern. In other words, I cannot claim that the author of the BNT does make the statements I will give as responses to my questions about human being, but I do claim that these views are implicit in and follow from the statements he does make about Buddha nature. Granting that human freedom requires us to expect the unexpected, nonetheless, I believe that if the author of the BNT were here today and could engage in dialogue with me, as long as my interlocutor remained consistent, something close to the views I will articulate in the course of this essay would emerge. (King, "Buddha Nature and the Concept of Person," 151–52)