JIABS 12-2

THE JOURNAL

Of THE· INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION Of

BUDDHIST STUDIES

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Roger Jackson Dept. of Religion Carleton College

Northfield, MN 55057

EDITORS

Peter N. Gregory University of Illinois

Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

Alexander W. Macdonald Universite de Paris X

Nanterre, France

Steven Collins

Concordia University

Montreal, Canada

Volume 12 1989

Ernst Steinkellner

University of Vienna Wien, Austria

Jikido Takasaki University of Tokyo

Tokyo,Japan

Robert Thurman

Columbia University

New York,NY, USA

Number 2

THE JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BUDDHIST STUDIES, INC.

This Journal is the organ of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Inc. It is governed by the objectives of the Association and accepts scholarl; contributions pertaining to Buddhist Studies in all the various disciplines such as philosophy, history, ~eligion, sociology, ~nthro~ology, ~rt, archaeology, psychology, textual studIes, etc. The ]JABS IS publIshed tWlCe yearly in the summer and winter.

Manuscripts for publication (we must have two copies) and correspondence concerning articles should be submitted to the JIABS editorial office at the address given below. Please refer to the guidelines for contributors to the ]JABS printed on the inside back cover of every issue. Books for review should also be sent to the address b~low. The Editors cannot guarantee to publish reviews of unsolicited books nor to return those books to the senders.

The Association and the Editors assume no responsibility for the views expressed by the authors in the Association's Journal and other related publications.

NOTE:

New Editor's Address

Roger] ackson ]JABS c/o Dept. of Religion Carleton College Northfield, MN 55057 USA

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Andre Bareau (France)

M.N. Deshpande (India)

R. Card (USA)

B.C. Cokhale (USA)

John C. Huntington (USA)

P.S. Jaini (USA)

Joseph M. Kitagawa (USA)

Jacques May (Switzerland)

Hajime Nakamura (japan)

John Rosenfield (US41:

David Snellgrove (U.K.) );c,t~)

E. Zurcher (Netherlaruls);

Both the Editor and Association would like to thank Carleton College for its financial support in the production of the Journal.

Copyright © The International Association of Buddhist Studies 1989 ISSN: 0193-600X

Indexed in Religion Index One: Periodicals, American Theological Library Association, Chicago, available online through BRS (Bibliographic Retrieval Services), Latham, New York, and DIALOG Infor~ mation Services, Palo Alto, California.

Composition by Publications Division, Grote Deutsch & Co., Madison, WI 53704. Printing by Thomson-Shore, Inc., Dexter, MI 48130.

CONTENTS

1. ARTICLES

1. The Integration ofCh'an/Son and The Teachings (Chiao/ Kyo) in Tsung-mi and Chinul, by Peter N. Gregory 7

2. Chinul's Ambivalent Critique of Radical Subitismin Korean Son by Robert Buswell 20

3. Controversy Over Dharmakiiya in India and Tibet: A New Interpretation of Its Basis, Abhisarnayalar(l,kiira, Chapter 8, by John J. Makransky 45

4. Jhiina and Buddhist Scholasticism, by Martin Stuart-Fox 79

II. BOOK REVIEWS

1. Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism, by Frank J. Hoffman (Roger Jackson) III

2. ].W. de Jong's review of Jeffrey Hopkins' Meditation on Emptiness: An exchange 123

Errata to Vol. lO.2 Erratum to Vol. 12.1

IlL ERRATA

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

130 131

132

The Integration ofCh'an/S6n and The Teachings (Chiao/Kyo) in Tsung-mi and Chinul*

by Peter N. Gregory

The first impression that someone already familiar with Tsung-mi's work has when reading Chinul is of the pervasiveness of the impact that Tsung-mi's thought had on Chinul. Other similarities stand out as well. Not only did Chinul adapt significant elements ofTsung-mi's theory of Ch'an practice in his own synthesis of Son and The Teachings (kyo), but, in its broad features, Chinul's personality and spiritual development also bear a number of striking parallels to Tsung-mi's. Surely such personal affinity must have been one of the reasons Chinul found a ready model in Tsung-mi. Another factor important for assaying the influence of Tsung-mi on Chinul was Chinul's perception that Tsung~mi was responding to problems that were fundamentally similar to those he saw in his own historical situation in twelfthcentury Koryo Buddhism.

Within the brief compass of this paper, I would like to take a step in the direction of assessing the general scope ofTsung-mi's influence on Chinul by looking at the problem of the relationship between Ch'an/Son and The Doctrinal Teachings (chiao/kyo). There is no doubt that Tsung-mi's approach to the issue, which has customarily been characterized as the correspondence of The Teachings and Ch'an (chiao-ch'an i-chih), provided a formative element in Chinul's construction of a uniquely Korean Buddhist synthesis. But Tsung-mi's position is more complex than is usually acknowledged, and there are important aspects of the way in which Tsung-mi connects Ch'an to The Teachings that were not adopted by Chinul. Thus, rather than merely focusing

7

8 JIARS VOL. 12 NO.2

on those aspects of Tsung-mi's thought taken over by Chinul, I would also like to pay attention to those aspects of Tsung-mi's thought ignored by Chinul. Such a tack should help clarify the differences in the historical contexts in which each of these great East Asian Buddhist thinkers operated. It should also suggest some of the ways in which Chinul's thought is distinctively his own.

Both Tsung-mi (780-841) and Chinul (1158-1210) were Ch'an/S6n men whose major religious experiences did not, as one might expect, occur while rapt in meditation or as a sudden insight in response to the turning words of a master; rather, their experiences were the direct result of their encounter with Buddhist texts. Such experiences were not only turning-points in their own personal development but also left an indelible stamp on their subsequent writing. In the case ofTsung-mi, his initial enlightenment experience was precipitated by his first encounter with the Yuan-chueh ching (Scripture of Perfect Enlightenment) while at the home of a lay patron sometime not long after he took the tonsure under the Ch'an master Tao-yuan in 804. As he recounts it, after only reading two or three pages, he had an experience whose intensity so overwhelmed him that he found himself uncontrollably dancing for joy.l Tsung~mi's second major religious experience occurred in 810 when he first became acquainted with Hua-yen Sutra through his encounter with the commentary and subcommentary ofCh'eng-kuan (738-839), an experience whose pivotal importance he compared to his meeting of Tao-yuan. 2 In a subsequent letter to Ch'eng-kuan, he likened this experience to "coming across sweet dew when thirsty or finding a wish-fulfilling jewel when impoverished." His "heart leapt with joy" and he "held [the books] up reverently in both hands and danced." The letter goes on to describe how Tsung-mi then sequestered himself for a period of intense study and meditation, forgetting to eat and sleep while he poured through the two works. 3

As is well known, Chinul's three major religious experiences likewise came about through his encounter with Buddhist texts. His first enlightenment experience was catalyzed by his reading of the Platform Sutra during his stay at Ch'6ngwon-sa sometime between 1182 and 1185; his second occurred at Pomun-sa in 1188 while reading Li T'ung-hsuan's commentary to the Hua-yen

INTEGRATION OF CH'AN/SON 9

Sutra; and his third was a result of his encounter with Ta-hui's Records sometime shortly after he came to Sangmuju-am in 1197.4

We may presume that the fact that texts played such a crucial role in the spiritual development ofTsung-mi and Chinul would have disposed them towards opposing a facile rejection of the study of Buddhist texts characteristic of much of Ch'an/S6n rhetoric. Indeed, both men were explicitly concerned with overcoming the rifts that divided the Buddhist world of their day, and both perceived the most serious rift as that separating the study of Buddhist doctrine and the practice of meditation.

One of the major reasons Tsung-mi gives for writing the Ch'an Preface (Ch'an-yuan chu-ch'uan-chi tu-hsu) , a work frequently cited by Chinul, is to overcome the often fractious divisions that rent the Chinese Buddhist world of the late eighth and ninth century. He delineates the contours of those splits as being drawn along two fronts: the first, and more general, between doctrinal scholars and textual exegetes, on the one hand, and Ch'an practitioners, on the other, and the second, and more narrow, among the various contending traditions of Ch'an themselves. The synthetic approach that Tsung-mi adopts in the Ch'an Preface is thus addressed to two complexly interrelated issues that are usually lumped together under the rubric of the correspondence of The Teachings and Ch'an (chiao-ch'an i-chih), which is often cited as one of the hallmarks of his thought. However, in order to understand what is going on in the Ch'an Preface, and to clarify how Tsung-mi's approach differs from Chinul's, it is useful to distinguish between them. In calling attention to this distinction, I am following the lead ofYoshizu Yoshihide, who in his excellent study, Kegonzen no shisoshi-teki kenkyu, argues that the rubric of chiao-ch'an i-chih oversimplifies the complexity of the Tsung-mi's thought. 5

In the first case (relating to the split between textual exegetes and Ch'an practitioners), Tsung-mi generally avoids the term chiao (Teachings') and uses the idea of The teachings in a broad, generic sense to refer to Buddhist scriptures (ching; sidra) and treatises (lun; sastra)-"the word of the Buddha" (fo-yen; buddhavacana) as he sometimes terms to it. In this case he is concerned to show how Ch'an in general corresponds to the word of the buddhas (who preached the scriptures) and bodhisattvas (who

10 JIABS VOL.J2 NO.2

wrote the treatises) as preserved in the Buddhist canon. Yoshizu suggests that Tsung-mi's approach in this case might be more accurately characterized as ch'an-chingi-chih (the correspondence of Ch'an and the canon). It is only in the second case (relating to the intramural divisions within Ch'an) that Tsung-mi explicitly and consistently uses the term chiao. And in this case chiao refers to the specific categories of teaching that occur in his doctrinal classification (p'an-chiao) scheme. Here Tsung-mi is concerned to show how the different Ch'an traditions (tsung) of his time correspond to the different teachings (chiao) within his doctrinal classification scheme. Yoshizu accordingly suggests that the approach Tsung-mi adopts in the second case might be more aptly characterized as tsung-chiao i-chih (the correspondence of the Ch'an Traditions and Doctrinal Teachings). The two issues are, of course, connected. It is precisely because Ch'an in general can be shown to correspond to the canonical teachings that Tsung-mi is able to link specific Teachings (chiao) with specific Ch'an traditions (tsung).

1. The Correspondence of Ch'an and the Canon (ch'an-ching i-chih)

In the beginning of his Ch'an Preface, Tsung-mi claims that there is no conflict between the enlightenment transmitted by the Ch'an patriarchs and the contents of the Buddhist scriptures as both the scriptures and patriarchal transmission derive from Sakyamuni Buddha. "The scriptures (ching) are the Buddha's words," he writes, "and Ch'an is the Buddha's intent (i). The minds and mouths of the buddhascertainly cannot be contradictory." Such a sentiment must have struck a sympathetic chord in Chinul, for we find it echoed in his Hwaomnon chOryo:

What the World Honored Ones said with their mouths are The Teachings (kyo). What the patriarchs transmitted with their minds is Son. The mouths ofthe buddhas and the minds of the patriarchs certainly cannot be contradictory. How can [students of son and kyo] not plumb the fundamental source but, instead, complacent in their own training, wrongly foment disputes and waste their

. time?6

Tsung-mi goes on to argue that the original unity of the Buddha's

INTEGRATION OF CR'AN/SON 11

teaching was gradually lost as iater generations began to specialize in different aspects of Buddhism. It was only in China, however, that the problem became severe. Realizing that the Chinese were overly attached to words, Bodhidharma "wanted to make them aware that the moon did not lie in the finger that pointed to it." He consequently 'Just used the mind to transmit the mind (i-hsin-ch'uan-hsin) without relying on written words'~ (pu-li wentzu). Tsung-mi explains that Bodhidharma adopted such an approach in order "to make the essential meaning clear and break attachments, and that it does not mean that [Bodhidharma] taught that liberation transcended written words." Tsung-mi maintains, however, that since Buddhists of his day do not under~ stand how this expression came about, "those who cultivate their minds take the scriptures and treatises to be a separate tradition (tsung) , and those who elucidate [the texts] take Ch'an to be a separate teaching (fa)." Even though the terminology used by textual scholars and Ch'an masters is quite distinct, they must both be understood in terms of the same fundamental concerns. Exegetes "do not realize that the cultivation and realization [that they discuss] are truly the fundamental concerns of Ch'an," and Ch'an practitioners "do not realize that the mind and Buddha [that they emphasize] are truly the fundamental meaning of the scriptures and treatises.,,7

The approach taken by Tsung-mi in this passage provided Chinul with a framework in which to reconcile Son and kyo, as the quotation from his Hwamnon Choryo suggests. Indeed, this passage from the Ch'an Preface is often cited as the basis for Tsung-mi's theory of the correspondence of The Teachings and Ch'an (chiao-ch'an i-chih).8 In a passage just before this one, Tsung-mi had defined The Teachings (chiao) as "the scriptures (ching; sidra) and treatises (tun; siistra) left behind by the buddhas and bodhisattvas ," and "Ch'an" as "the sayings and verses passed down by the good friends (shan-chih-shih; kalyiir:wmitra).,,9 What is important to note, however, is that the term "Teachings" is here used in the generic sense of the canonical texts and not in the sense of the specific p'an-chiao categories that Tsung-mi later connects with the different Ch'an traditions.

It is because the mind transmitted by the Ch'an patriarchs corresponds to the meaning of the canonical texts that Tsung-mi is able to defend Ch'an against its scholastic critics who denied that it was valid form of Buddhism because it was extracanonical.

12 JIABS VOL. 12 NO.2

At the same time he also establishes the importance of scripture against Ch'an iconoclasts who claimed that Ch'an enlightenment was beyond any textual authority. In fact, Tsung-mi goes on to argue that the scriptures provide a standard by which to gauge the genuineness of Ch'an enlightenment. He writes, "The scriptures are like a marking-line to be used as a standard to determine true and false." Just as a marking-line must be applied by a skilled craftsman, so "those who transmit Ch'an must use the scriptures and treatises as a standard." 10

Tsung-mi develops this point further in his discussion of the three sources of valid knowledge (liang,· prama1J,a): inference (pi-liang,· anumana) , direct perception (hsien-liang,· pratyasksa) , and the word of the Buddha (fa-yen,· buddhavacana). He contends that all three sources must coincide.

If one just depends on the sayings of the Buddha and does not infer for himself, his realization will be no more than a matter of baseless faith. If one just holds on to direct perception, taking what he perceives for himself to be authoritative, and does not compare it to the sayings of the Buddha, then how can he know whether it is true or false? Non-Buddhists also directly perceive the principles to which they adhere and, practicing according to them, obtain results. Since they maintain that they are correct, how would we know they were false [without the word of the Buddha]?!!

Tsung-mi concludes that, since the various Ch'an traditions for the most part only make use of inference and direct perception, they must be verified by the scriptures and treatises in order to fulfil the requirements of the three sources of knowledge.

Tsung-:mi's insistence on the correspondence of Ch'an and the canonical texts implies an approach to Buddhist cultivation that calls for both textual study and meditation practice. Such an approach parallels his emphasis on the inseparability of prajiia and samadhi. That the inseparability of prajiia and samadhi clearly connoted the integration of doctrinal study a.p.d meditation practice for Tsung-mi is borne out in an autobiographical comment in the Ch'an Preface. There he notes that for a ten-year period he "left the multitudes behind to enter the mountains" to "develop my concentration (samadhi) and harmonize my wisdom (prajiia).,,12 Except for a two-year hiatus (828-829) when he was


summoned back to the capital by an imperial edict, he spent 821-832 at different sites on Mt. Chung-nan. As Tsung-mi reveals in other works, this was a period of intense meditation, study, and productivity; he not only read through the canon, but also wrote a number of his major works, including his various commentaries and subcommentaries to the Yiian-chiieh ching. I3

The Ch'an Preface passage goes on to contrast his balanced ap-proach of textual study and meditation practice, prajna and samadhi, to the one-sided approach of "the ignorant Ch'an of 'those who vainly maintain silence or the mad wisdom of those who merely follow texts.,,14 It is on this basis that Tsung-mi establishes his own personal authority to bridge the gap that divided exegetes and Ch'an practitioners.

The parallel to the inseparability of prajna and samadhi recalls Chinul's early efforts to establish a society for the joint practice of prajna and samadhi in 1182, as well as his Kwon su chi5nghye kyolsa mun of 1190. The reformist spirit behind Chinul's vision of his ideal community not only entailed a rejection of

. the corruption that marked the Buddhism of the capital but also included the means for reconciling the two major divisions

.that split Koryo Buddhism in the late twelfth century.

II. The Correspondence oj the Ch'an Traditions and Doctrinal Teachings . (tsung-chiao i-chih)

It is because Tsung-mi is able to demonstrate the correspondence of Ch'an and the canonical texts that he is able to link the different Ch'an traditions (tsung) of his time with the different categories of Teachings (chiao) within his classification scheme. Doctrinal classification (p'an-chiao) was one of the major strategies devised by Chinese Buddhists to harmonize the wide discrepancies evident in the Buddhist texts with which they were familiar. It offered Chinese Buddhists a broad and flexible methodology for systematically organizing the Buddha's teachings into a coherent and self-consistent whole. By adopting the notion of upaya (jang-pien) p'an-chiao was able hierarchically to classify the various teachings on a gradient of expediency, beginning with the most elementary and culminating in the most profound. Such a methodology enabled Chinese Buddhists to integrate all of the Buddha's teachings within a single doctrinal


framework. It also provided the different Chinese Buddhist tra. ditions with a rationale for asserting their own sectarian claims against those of other traditions.

In addition to the general issue of the relationship of Ch'an practice to textual study, the Ch'an Preface is also concerned to reconcile the conflict between different Ch'an traditions. TsunO"_

t> mi points out that the different traditions (tsung) of Ch'an all profess different principles (tsung).

Some take emptiness as the true basis of reality while others take awareness (chih) as the ultimate source. Some say that tranquility and silence alone are true, while others say that [ordinary activities such as] walking and sitting are what it is all about (shih). Some say that all everyday discriminative activities are illusory, while others say that all such discriminative activities are real. Some carry out all the myriad practices, while other reject even the Buddha. Some give free reign to their impulses, while others restrain their minds. Some take the sutras and vinaya as authoritative, while others take them to be a hindrance to the Way.IS

Tsung-mi goes on to comment that such differences are not merely a matter of words. Each "adamantly spreads its own tradition and adamantly disparages the others. Since later students cling to their words and are deluded about their meaning, in their emotional views they obstinately contend with one another and cannot reach agreement.,,16 It is not that the different teachings emphasized by the different Ch'an traditions are wrong or heretical. The problem is that each takes itself to be the party in exclusive possession of what is right (tan yuan ko chieh tang wei shih) and criticizes the others as wrong, a situation Tsung-mi likens to the famous parable of the blind men and the elephantY Tsung-mi concludes that the views of the different traditions must be brought into harmony, something that can only be done by uncovering a more comprehensive framework in which such apparently conflicting views can all be validated as integral parts of a manifold whole-in which the trunk, leg, side, and so forth are all seen to belong to the same elephant. "Since the supreme Way is not an extreme and the ultimate meaning does not lean to one side, one must not grasp onto a single biased viewpoint. Thus we mustbring them back together as one, making them all perfectly concordant (yuan-miao).,,18 .


Fan-chiao presented Tsung-mi with just the kind of comprehensive framework he needed. Just as it had provided Chinese Buddhists with a viable methodology for reconciling doctrinal discrepancies among the Buddha's teachings, so the same methodology could be used to reconcile the differences among the various Ch'an traditions. In the Ch'an Preface Tsungmi thus correlates the three Mahayana teachings within his doctrinal classification system with three different types of Ch'an. The teaching that negates objects by means of consciousness (chiang-shih p'o-ching chiao-i.e., Fa-hsiang Yogacara) corresponds to the type of Ch'an that cultivates the mind by eliminating delusion (hsi-wang hsiu-hsin); the teaching of hidden intent that negates phenomenal appearances in order to reveal the nature (mi-i p'o-hsiang hsien-hsing chiao-i.e., the Madhyamaka teaching of emptiness) corresponds to the type of Ch'an that is utterly without support (min-chueh wu-chi); and the teaching that directly reveals that the mind is the nature (hsien-shih chen-hsin chi hsing chiao-i.e, the tathiigatagarbha teaching) corresponds to the type of Ch'an that directly reveals the mind as the nature (chih-hsien hsin hsing). Moreover, the first type of Ch'an is represented by the northern line of Shen-hsiu (606?-706) and his· disciples; the second, by the Oxhead line of Fa-jung (594-654) and his disciples; and the third, by the southern line of the Ho-tse lineage of Shen-hui (684-758) and the Hung-chou lineage of Ma-tsu Tao-i (709-788). Tsung-mi's system of classification can be represented in tabular form as follows:

TEACHING TYPE OF CH'AN LINEAGE

1. Negation of Objects Cultivates Mind by Northern by means of Consciousness Eliminating Delusion Line

2. Hidden Intent that Negates Utterly Without Ox-Head Phenomenal Appearances in Support Line order to Reveal the Nature

3. Direct Revelation that Directly Reveals Southern Mind is the Nature Mind as Nature Line

The underlying assumption behind Tsung-mi's synthetic approach is that the various Ch'an lineages, when viewed in isolation from one another and outside of their overall context of


the Buddha's teachings, are wrong in their self-absolutization . When understood within that context, however, each will b~

seen to be true. As Tsung-mi comments, "If taken in isolation (chiung chih), each of them is wrong (chi chieh fei). But if taken together (hui chih), each of them is valid (chi shieh shih)."19 This statement succinctly encapsulates Tsung-mi's basic methodology for dealing with discrepancies within Buddhism. Whether they lie in the formulation of scholastic dogma or the divergent approaches to practice advocated by the different Ch'an traditions of his day, Tsung-mi's characteristic tendency is always to articulate a comprehensive framework in which such discrepant perspectives can be harmoniously subsumed. Such a comprehensive framework not only provides a larger context in which the divergent perspectives can be validated as parts of a whole; it also provides a new and higher perspective that is superior to the others because it succeeds in sublating them within itself.

The doctrinal correspondences that Tsung-mi establishes thus enable him to place the various types of Ch'an in a hierarchical order. His use of p'an-chiao in the Ch'an Preface is not so much concerned with providing a hermeneutical framework in . which the different teachings can be systematically integrated as it is concerned with developing a framework in which the different types of Ch'an can all be included. The doctrinal ap" paratus Tsung-mi presents in the Ch'an Preface might thus more accurately be described as a p'an-ch'an.20

The different teaching (chiao) with which each Ch'an tradi- . tion (tsung) is connected provides a critical context for evaluating it on a hierarchical scale. While the professed attempt of Tsung- . mi's p'an-ch'an is to resolve the schisms that split Ch'an into contending factions and pitted Ch'an adepts against doctrinal exegetes, it also serves to elevate his own version of Ch'an to the supreme position. The criticism that Tsung-mi levels against· various doctrinal teachings are extended to their corresponding, type of Ch'an, and the other types of Ch'an are accordingly revealed to be inferior to that of his own Ho-tse tradition. Tsung~ mi's p'an-ch'an thus reveals the same ambivalence inherent in p'an-chiao: its simultaneously ecumenical and sectarian character.


'111. Differences from Chinul

Although the historical situation Chi nul faced bore some general ~imilarit! to that con~ronted by Tsung-mi, there. w~re also sigmficant dIfferences, whICh go a long way toward clanfymg both the scope and limit of Tsung-mi's influence on Chinul. For Chinul the major crisis in the Buddhist world lay in the hostility Clnd suspicion that divided Son from the scholastic schools, espe- .. dally Hwaom. From the beginning of its introduction into Korea, Son seems to have taken a combative and uncompromising attitude toward the older scholastic sects. Both Toui (d. 825) and Muyom (799-888) emphasized the qualitd':ive superiority of Son over the scholastic teachings. By the eleventh century the lines

. separating the two branches of the sangha had become hardened. The first to attempt to mend the rift was Uich'on (1055-1101). Under the banner of Kyogwan kyi5su Uoint cultivation of doctrinal study and meditative practice), he tried to unite the Son and

'scholastic schools together under the aegis of a revived Ch'ont'ae . school. But his efforts seem to have been largely unsuccessful, 'arid, as Robert Buswell has noted, he merely ended up creating another school in an already crowded sectarian arena. Moreover, his anti-Son biases only further alienated the Son schools from the scholastic schools.21

In regard to the broad issue of the split between Son and kyo, Chinul was able to adapt much from Tsung-mi. However, Unlike Tsung-mi, Chinul did not face serious intramural conflict among the different Son schools. The Son of the so-called Nine Mountains did not display the diversity so apparent among the various Ch'an traditions discussed by Tsung-mi. Not only may Uich'on's abortive effort at unification have encouraged them to close ranks, but the Nine Mountains were largely of the same lineal stock, what Tsung-mi had referred to as the Hung-chou line. Indeed, "seven were founded by disciples of first-generation successors of Ma-tsu.,,22

Not only did Chinul not have to deal with the intersectarian problem of reconciling the different Son traditions of his day, and consequently would have had little need for Tsung-mi's p'anch 'an , but the fact that the Korean Son traditions were mostly associated with the Hung-chou line posed further problems for ~dopting Tsung-mi's equation of the various Ch'an traditions


with different categories of doctrinal teachings. This was espe_ . dally true in regard to Tsung-mi's critical assessment of the Hung-chou line, from which Chinul's own Sangul-san line Was descended. Moreover, by Chinul's time the Ho-tse tradition had died out and the Hung-chou line, together with that descended from Ch'ing-yuan Hsing-ssu, had emerged as the dominant form of Ch'an in the Sung (960~1279).

In addition to the historical demise of the Ho-tse line, the problem for Chinul was that Tsung-mi's critical evaluation of the different Chinese Ch'an lines could not be so easily separated from the whole fabric of his thought. Tsung-mi's thought is remarkable for its systematic internal coherence. Each strand is integrally interwoven with every other strand in complexly interrelated ways. Thus the structure of his application of p'an-chiao to the different Ch'an traditions is connected with his vision of the nature and course of Buddhist practice, which is based on his theory of the process of phenomenal evolution by means of which beings became ensnared within sa'f[l,siira, which is· grounded on his theory of mind, and so on and so forth. Tsung~ mi's critique of Hung-chou Ch'an is thus reflected in both his ontology and soteriology. It is thus impossible for Chinul to purge Tsung-mi's critique of Hung-chou Ch'an without also affecting other aspects of his system. This fact accounts for some of the strains evident in Chinul's adaptation ofTsung-mi's theory of Ch'an practice in his Pi5pchip pyi5rhaeng nok chi5ryo pyi5ngip sagiespecially in the tension between the two models of Ch'an practice referred to as sudden awakening/gradual cultivation (tun-wu chien-hsiu/tono chi5msu) and sudden awakening/sudden cultivation (tun-wu tun-hsiu/tono tonsu) as is explored in the following article by Robert Buswell. In good Buddhist fashion, Chinul is forced to call upon the ever-versatile notion of upiiya to explain away the discrepancies between the sudden awakening/sudden cultivation model of Ch'an practice representative of the Hung-chou line (as well as the short-cut approach of the hwadu that he took over from Ta-hui) and the more conservative sudden awakening/ gradual cultivation model characteristic of the Ho-tse line with which Tsung-mi identified.

NOTES

* This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the International Conference on the Historical Significance of Chinul's Thought held at


SOIlgKWang-sa in Korea, Ju~y 8-10, 1988. . 1. See Yilan-chiieh chmg ta-shu ch'ao, Hsii tsang chmg 14.223a. 2. See ibid., 225a. 3. See T 39.577a. 4. For a discussion of the biographical context of Chinul's rapproche

rneIltbetweeri Son and The Teachings, see Robert E. Buswell, Jr., "Chinul's Systematization of Chinese Meditative Techniques in Korean Son Buddhism" in Peter N. Gregory, ed., Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 20l-202. For a more extended discussion of Chi nul's biography, see idem, The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), pp. 17-36 and HeeSung Keel, Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Son Tradition (Berkeley: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1984), pp. 1-55.

5. See Kegonzen no shisoshi-teki kenkyii (Tokyo: Daito shuppansha, 1985), 307-308.

pp. 6. Quoted from Buswell, "Chinul's Systematization of Chinese Meditative Technique in Korean Son Buddhism," p. 202.

7. See Ch'an-yiian chu-ch'iian-chi tu-hsii, T 48.400blO-26; cf. Kamata . Shigeo, Zengen shosenshii tojo, Zen no goroku, vol. 9 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1971), p. 44.

". In his annotated, modern Japanese translation of the Ch 'an Preface, for example, Kamata Shigeo entitles this section "kyozen itchi no seitosei" ("the legitimacy of the correspondence of Ch'an and The Teachings").

9. T 48.399cl8-20; Kamata, p. 33. 10. T 48.400c25-27; Kamata, p. 54. 11. Ch'an Preface, T 48.4Olal4-18; Kamata, p. 57. 12. T 48.399cl2; Kamata, p. 30. 13. See his subcommentary to his preface to the Yiian-chiieh ching ta-shu. 14. 399cl6 17; this phrase is repeated by Chinul in his Kwon su chiinghye

kyolsa mun, translated by Buswell in The Korean Approach to Zen, p. 104. 15. T 48.400c3-7; Kamata, p. 48. Cf. Ta-shu 119c7-12. 16. T 48.400c7-9. 17. T 48.402b4; Kamata, p; 81. 18. 400cl3-15. Tsung-mi strikes a similar note at the end of his preface

to the Yuan-jen lun, see T 48.708aI3-18. 19. 400c21-22; Kamata, p. 49; a virtually identical statement occurs at

the beginning of the Chung-hua ch'uan-hsin-ti ch'an-men shih-tzu ch'eng-hsi t'u, 433c10-11; Kamata, p. 267.

20. As Jeffrey Broughton suggested in the preface to his dissertation, "Kuei-feng Tsung-mi: The Convergence of Ch'an and the Teachings" (Columbia University, 1975), p. iii.

21. My historical summary is based on both Buswell's excellent introduction to his The Korean Approach to Zen and the first chapter of Keel's Chinul. . 22. Buswell, The Korean Approach to Zen, p. 9. The Sumi-san school was descended from Ch'ing-yuan Hsing-ssu (d. 740), from which the Ts'ao-tung line was eventually to emerge. Even though the oldest Son tradition, Hi1iyangsan, was founded by Pomnang, who had studied under Tao-hsin (580-651) in . China, by the time of Chinul it had become affiliated with the Hung-chou fine.

Chinul's Ambivalent Critique of Radical Subitism in Korean Son Buddhism

By Robert E. Buswell Jr.

One of the principal debates that helped to forge uniquely East Asian forms of Buddhist thought and practice concerned the process by which enlightenment was achieved-a process we may term "Buddhist soteriology." This debate specifically focused on the problem of whether enlightenment was achieved via a sudden (ton/tun) or gradual (chom/chien) program of spiritual development. By the middle of the Tang dynasty, exegetes in virtually all schools of Buddhist thought were exploring the issue carefully, producing in turn a number of different soteriological schemata. The Chinese Ch'an school was especially concerned with this issue, and by the mid-ninth century began to frame its own sectarian self-identity in terms of a "sudden" approach. The sudden/gradual debate was no less crucial in Korean Son. Chinul (1158-1210), the systematizer of the indigenous Chogye school of Son during the mid-Koryo dynasty, is virtually unique among Ch'an and Son masters for providing detailed analyses of important questions in Buddhist praxis. Rather than the apparent obfuscation often found in Ch'an and Son writings on such subjects, Chinul offers clear, defensible positions based on solid textual evidence. His treatments of the sudden/gradual question are particularly valuable. From his peninsular vantage point, isolated both geographically and temporally from the debate that raged in China several centuries before, Chinul offers unique perspectives that can help also to illuminate Chinese treatments of Buddhist soteriology.

20

CHINUL'S CRITIQUE OF SUBITISM 21

Chinul's Preferred Soteriology

Understanding Chinul's views is vital as well for delineating 'the subsequent evolution of Son in Korea. There is an incipient ,'tension in Chinul's work between "moderate" and "radical" sub~Wtisrn, which he never really resolves. In most of his writings, <Chinul enthusiastically supports a moderate form of sub it ism, ~hich involves an element of gradualism: initial sudden awaken

;jng (tono/tun-wu) followed by gradual cultivation (chamsulchien:hsiu). Chi nul is also generally critical of "radical subitism," which ,.for noW we may define as approaches involving both sudden '~wakening and sudden cultivation (tonsu/tun-hsiu). Late in his ~career, however, Chinul was markedly more sympathetic toward radical subitism, as long as it was developed in conjunction with :kanhwa Son/k'an-hua Ch'an (the Son of "investigating the critical. ~phrase"), a new form of Ch'an then making its way to the peninsula. In this article I seek first to explore Chinul's critique of ;radical subitism as presented in scholastic analyses of soteriologiral schemata. Subsequently, I will examine how Chinul sought ,to justify the subitism implicit in kanhwa meditation by positing f;iwhole new level of soteriological development beyond those hehad discussed previously. Many later Son masters thoroughly 'fommitted to the kanhwa technique, such as Sosan Hyujong (lS20-1604) in the Yi dynasty, still subscribe to Chinul's sudden a:wakening/gradual cultivation approach. These masters were Torced to go through considerable machinations in order to fit 'kanhwa Son into What was fundamentally an alien soteriological program. Hence, understanding the problem Chinul created by mixing these variant schemata of praxis is vital to understanding the solutions to this problem proposed by later generations of Korean Son adepts.

Chinul discusses the sudden/gradual issue in several of his writings, including his earliest work, Kwan su ChOnghye kyalsa mun (Encouragement to Practice: The Compact of the Samadhi and Prajna Community), written in 1190, and the treatise that is arguably his most popular, Susim kyal (Secrets on Cultivating the Mind), composed between 1203 and 1205. But his most extensive examination of this question appears in his magnum ;bpus, Papchip pyarhaengnok chOryo pyangip sagi (Excerpts from the Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record with Personal Notes;


hereafter Excerpts), completed in 1209, one year before his death. Excerpts was intended to present a comprehensive accoUnting of earlier analyses of Buddhist soteriology. His treatment includes copious quotations from relevant sources on the subject, accompanied by a commentary (his "personal notes") that sought to resolve the discrepancies in those variant interpretations. Chinul's purpose in Excerpts was not solely theoretical, however. Fearing that an improper understanding of the regimen of praxis would hinder the spiritual development of Buddhist meditators, he hoped that his description of soteriology would serve as a practical guide to meditation for his students. Hence, his explication of t];lis issue was always accompanied by applications of theory in actual practice. Unlike many Ch'an and Son masters, then, Chinul strongly advocated that even Son prac~ titioners required a firm grasp of Buddhist doctrine if their practice were to succeed.

As I have discussed at length elsewhere/ the soteriological approach Chinul most consistently advocated ill his writings is termed sudden awakening/gradual cultivation (tono chOmsu/tunwu chien-hsiu). In this approach, which Chinul derived from the Chinese Hua-yen/Ch'an exegete Kuei-fengTsung-mi (780-841), practice was to begin with a sudden, initial insight into the struc- . ture of the person's relationship with the world. This type of insight was termed "understanding-awakening" (haeo!chieh-wu), because it grounded the student in a correct intellectual come prehension of the nature and characteristics of both himself and· his universe. But while the student might at that point have the· understanding of a buddha, his practice would still be much too immature for him to act enlightened. Interminable habit-ener-. gies would continue to buffet his mind, infecting his action and inhibiting his ability to express the enlightenment he now knew to be inherent in his mind. Consequently, while making that initial awakening the basis of his training, the student had then to continue on to develop his awakening through "gradual cule

tivation" (chOmsu!chieh-hsiu), counteracting the inevitable defiled tendencies of mind and cultivating whole.some qualities. Once this cultivation was perfected, there would be a final "realizationawakening" (chungo/cheng-wu), in which the student's initial intellectual understanding was confirmed through direct realization. At that stage the person became a buddha in fact as well as


, otendal. "F In Excerpts Chinul specifically analyzes the sudden/gradual

uestion in terms of four representative schools of Ch'an, in Jrder to show that sudden awakening/gradual cultivation was

:the most appropriate strategy for the majority of practitioners. Of the four schools, Chinul singles out for "special practice" tpyorhaeng/pieh-hsing) the Ho-tse sch?ol of the Sixth Patr~arch's putative .successo:, Ho-tse Shen-hm (684-758). ~ccordmg to Tsung-m1 and Chmul, among all the schools of Ch an, only the JIo-tse school explained both the absolute and phenomenal aspects of dharmas; it also was the only school that provided an accurate description of the optimal course of practice through awakening and cultivation. While other accounts of Ch'an and Son practice might be at least partially valid, they provided expedients that were appropriate only for certain types of students 'at certain stages in their spiritual development. Only the Ho-tse approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation was of general application.

Different Conceptions of Radical Subitism

After outlining his preferred approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, Chinul continues in Excerpts with a detailed discussion of different programs of awakening and cultivation. This includes lengthy passages from three important treatises: Ch'eng-kuan's (738-840) Hua-yen ching hsing-yilan p'in shu (Commentary to the "Original Vows" Chapter of the Avata'f[lSakasutra);2 Tsung-mi's Ch'an-yilan chucch'ilan chi tou-hsil (General Preface to the Fountainhead of Ch'an Collection; hereafter Preface);3 and finally Yung-ming Yen-shou's (904-975) Wan-shan t'ung-kuei chi (The Unity of Myriad Good).4 Ch'eng-kuan's de~cription, the first covered by Chinul, outlines seven different soteriological schemata. The first three involve at least one gradual component: sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, gradual cultivation/sudden awakening, and gradual cultivation/ gradual awakening. Next are three different conceptions of radical subitism: sudden awakening/sudden cultivation, sudden cultivation/sudden awakening, and the simultaneity of sudden awa'kening and sudden cultivation. Finally he includes a seventh


alternative, which is actually a variation of the simultaneity of sudden awakening and sudden cultivation, using slightly differ. ent terminology. Since Ch'eng-kuan's divisions of radical sub. itism provide the model against which Chinul analyzes all other delineations, for the sake of convenience I will focus on those divisions here, as supplemented by related comments frorn Tsung-mi and Yen-shou.

The first alternative.is sudden awakening/sudden cultivation (tana tansu/tun-wu tun-hsiu), which Ch'eng-kuan claims is the program closest in structure to sudden awakening/gradual cultiva" tion. It too involves an initial understanding-awakening, which he defines in this soteriological context as a broad, all encompas_ sing cognition. The sudden cultivation that follows upon that awakening means to keep the mind in accord with that enlighten_ ment; it does not involve any forced efforts either to purify the mind through samadhi or to investigate one's world with prajiiii. Ch'eng-kuan describes cultivation in this schema in the following terms: "Neither to observe nor to purify, neither to accept nor to absorb, but to unite oneself fully with the path is cultivation."5 Chinul correlates this sort of cultivation with what he considers to be the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, noncon· ceptualization or "no-thought" (munyom/wu-nien), as well as with the practice of spontaneity (imun-suljen-yun-hsiu) commonly associated with the Hung-chou school of Ma-tsu Tao-i (709-788), and its Lin-chi descendent.6 Ch'eng-kuan compares this apc proach to a mirror, which is naturally reflective without having to be wiped clean. Tsung-mi's description is rather more evocative, describing cultivation here in terms drawn from his putative dharma-ancestor, Ho-tse Shen-hui: "When he cuts through obstacles it is like hacking a whole spool of thread: all its strands are sliced instantly. His cultivation of meritorious qualities is like dyeing a whole spool of thread: all its strands are dyed instantly.,,7 Sudden awakening thus prompts the student to realize instantaneously the nature of his mind, which causes him in turn to become endowed with the myriads of wholesome qualities that are inherent to that nature. As there are no series oPsteps through which the student must pass before perfecting his enlightenment, this is termed "sudden" cultivation.

In a statement that will prove to have enormous consequences for all later appraisals of this strategy, Tsung-mi finally


ondudes that sudden awakening/sudden cultivation is actually ~nlY sudden awakening/gradual cultivation when viewed from the limited perspective of the practitioner's final life: "These explanations [of. radical ~ubitism] are give~ fro~ th~ standpoint of this present lIfe. But If we extend our InVestIgatIOn far back into past lives, there could have been only gradualness, not suddenness. Any subitism perceived now is the product of gradual development over many lives."s

Yen-shou's treatment of this variety of radical subitism in his Wan-shan t'ung-kuei chi is heavily dependent on Tsung-mi's. Like Tsung-mi, Yen-shou presumes that sudden awakening/sudden cultivation aCtually implies the sudden maturation in the pr~sent of a progressive regimen begun many lives in the past. Yen-shou's particular concern, however, is to show that a person Who follows this approach would still remain engaged in social action, even though he himself may not require such training. yencshou explains that from the standpoint of the student's own personal benefit, he may have no need to cultivate the myriads of bodhisattva practices, just as a person who is not sick has no need of medicine. But at the same time, the student also realizes that he must benefit others as well, and thus willingly cultivates those practices for their sakes. After all, if he does not cultivate those practices himself, how will he ever be able to encourage others to cultivate them so that they too may attain enlighten-

Jnent?9 The converse of this approach, sudden cultivation/sudden

awakening (tonsu tono/tun-hsiu tun-wu) , involves the realization~wakening, though Tsung-mi declares that actually it encompasses both forms of awakening. 10 In this approach the student engages in a single, all-inclusive form of practice, which eventually results in awakening. Ch'eng-kuan compares cultivation here to ingesting a medicine that is instantly assimilated by the body, while awakening is the immediate relief that results therefrom.

The last alternative is simultaneous sudden cultivation and sudden awakening (suo ilsilhsiu-wu i-shih), in which there is no longer. any semblance of progression through a sequence of steps, such as sudden awakening/sudden cultivation or sudden cultivation/sudden awakening might imply. In this schema, sudden cultivation means that internally the meditator's mind remains in a state of nonconceptualization, while sudden awaken-


ing means that externally his actions are always spontaneous and appropriate. In Chinul's analysis, cultivation in this context involves both the passive cultivation of no-thought as well as the dynamic cultivation that deals with all matters (p'ansa-sulpan-shih hsiu) , while awakening involves both the understanding- and realization-awakenings. Tsung-mi explains how it is that both types of awakening can be implicit:

First, it is like the preceding explanation [given with reference to sudden cultivation/sudden awakening], which said, "Realiza_ tion and understanding are nondual." Hence each encompasses

. the other: realization is understanding and understanding is reali. zation. Second, [the awakening can be] either that of realization or understanding. Sudden comprehension or sudden pacification ... would be understanding-awakening. Sudden extinction or sudden enlightenment would be realization-awakening."l!

But what does it actually mean to engage in sudden cultivation? And how can one tell when a person is actually engaging in this most rarefied form of practice? In his first work, Encouragement to Practice, Chinul provides an interesting description of such an "ordinary person of great aspiration" (taesim pombu/ta" hsinfanju; alt. taesim chungsaenglta-hsin chung-sheng) who is imaf" fected by the defiled world around him and whose personal clarity of mind remains forever unsullied. That person would be totally undeceived by the chimeric reality of mundane things and could therefore interact with the world without feeling greed

. or hatred, which would prompt his mind to become defiled. His firm faith in the facts that his mind is the buddha-mind and that his own nature is the dharma-nature assures his total dedication to the inherent "noumenal wisdom" (ijilli-chih) while still being able to apply the "phenomenal wisdom" (sajilshih-chih) of expedients in order to help others. Because he knows that his own mind is always self-reliant, and forever free from defilement, he will never be in any danger of backsliding from his experience of enlightenment. Hence, his practice is resolute, keen, and consistent. "Those who cultivate the mind in this manner possess the highest faculties.,,12 . Tsung-mi provides an interesting simile describing sudden cultivation in his Preface, which helps to clarify the meaning of this problematic concept. In his description of sudden cultiva-


.on/O"radual awakening, Tsung~mi compares this process to a tlers;n training in archery, who time and again goes through fhemotion of shooting the arrow and trying to hit the bull's-eye. While he may be quite unskilled at the beginning of his training, his proficiency slowly grows until eventually he is able to hit the bull's-eye consistently. This slow development of his prowess in archery would be gradual awakening; but this proficiency came about through the continued repetition of the single act of shooting the arrow-that is, through sud~en :ultivation.13 ~udd~n cultivation, therefore, by no means lmphes that practICe wIll proceed faster than gradual cultivation, .since it :o~ld take~s long to perfect as even the most progreSSIve of trammgs. But It dcies suggest that the student devotes himself fully to a single act, working at it again and again until it becomes second nature; there is no gradual perfection of lesser skills until eventually the person becomes the master of an entire craft.

III. Problems with Radical Subitism

As an advocate of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, Chinul is fairly critical of approaches involving sudden cultivation, in which cultivation was said to be perfected instantaneously along with the insight generated through sudden awakening. In his treatment of the four Ch'an schools in Excerpts, for example, Chinul criticizes the Hung-chou school, which is claimed to have advocated a sudden awakening/sudden cultivation approach, for encouraging insouciance among Son practitioners. Chinul presumed this to occur because the Hung-chou school's exclusive emphasis on the awakening experience might foster the mistaken notion that cultivation had no role to play in spiritual praxis. After all, if, as Ma-tsu claimed, all beings are inherently endowed with the buddha-nature and all the defilements and discriminatory phenomena present in our ordinary world are inherently void, there then are really no wholesome qualities to be developed (for they are all present congenitally), no defilements to be counteracted (for they are all void), and no liberation to be achieved (for one is already enlightened). Ch'eng-kuan's hierarchy of soteriological strategies, which culminate in sudden awakening/sudden cultivation, implied too that


radical subitism was the supreme approach to practice. Indeed this view of the superiority of sudden awakening/sudden culti~ . vatian is prominent also in the later. Ch'an ~cho~l,. especially· through the influence of the teachers III the Lm-chl lme and its collateral Yang-ch'i and Mi-an branches.

To vindicate sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, Chinul had to refute this high appraisal of radical subitism. In Excerpts, he provides one of the most detailed critiques of sudden awakellc

ing/sudden cultivation found anywhere in sinitic Buddhist literature. Chinul's acceptance of a soteriological program that involved gradualism-virtually anathema to the mature Chinese Ch'an schools of his age-eventually would create problems for Chinul because of his embrace of kanhwa S6n, a technique founded on· radical subitism. In order to clarify the reasons behind this acceptance, it will be useful to consider the main· points of his critique.14 .

Chinul's criticism of radical subitism as portrayed in the Hsing-yuan p'in shu presumes that Ch'eng-kuan stressed exclusively a passive form of cultivation-that of no-thought. Ch'engkuan had described the sudden cultivation component of sudden awakening/sudden cultivation as that which involves neither observation nor purification, but which simply remains in harmony with the path. This Ch'eng-kuan took as equivalent to the practice of no-thought, in which full attention was given to the noumenon, or principle (illi). Sudden cultivation therefore refers to the noumenal wisdom that produces the fundamental single~ practice samiidhi (irhaeng sammae/i-hsing san-mei).15 In Chinul's view, this emphasis implies that the phenomenal, dynamic aspect of practice, the cultivation that can deal with all matters, is totally neglected. The result of such a strategy is that myriads of wholesome qualities inherent in the true nature of the mind were achieved in potential form only: those practices had not been perfected in any actual sense whereby the individual was free to use them at will on behalf of other beings, as were the buddhas. Hence some sort of gradual cultivation would still be necessary in order to bring those qualities to perfection in fact as well as potential.

Ch'eng-kuan also had stated in his account of the simultaneity of awakening and cultivation that both the understandingand realization-awakenings were perfected through that strategy.


Chinul rejects this claim. In his view, if only passive aspects of ••.••.. ractice were completed, then sudden awakening could refer ~nIy to the .unde:standing-aw.akening, not t~e final realizati~n

•. wakening III whIch both passIve and dynamIc forms of practICe a . were consummated.

Chinul treats Tsung-mi's description of subitism as being diametrically opposed to Ch'eng-kuan's. Chinul states that Tsung-mi's account of sudden cultivation, unlike that of Ch'engkuan, is made from the relative standpoint of the phenomenal . wisdom that is able to produce different, expedient kinds of samadhis. In Tsung-mi's account of the simultaneity of awakening a.nd cultivation, he declares that sudden cultivation referred to the cultivation that was able to deal with all matters-the dynamic aspect of practice. In such an instance, both the under-standing- and realization-awakenings would have been achieved, for the realization-awakening cannot occur until practice is completed. Despite their obvious differences, both Ch'eng-kuan's and Tsung-mi's accounts suggest the fatal flaw in subitism: an

. extremism regarding practice, emphasizing exclusively either the dynamic or the passive aspect of practice.

Sudden cultivation/gradual awakening (tonsu chi5mo/tun-hsiu chien-wu) fares no better as a soteriological program. Sudden cultivation in this context means the ability of the mental faculties to operate without hindrance of any sort, whether internal or external. It is that which brings the investigative powers of mind to bear on an exhaustive analysis of the phenomenal world. Through this approach there is a gradual opening into awakening-here, the realization-awakening-which is always the result of a long process of development. However, Chinul states that IlO true practice-not even sudden cultivation-can begin until after the sudden understanding-awakening. Through that initial awakening, the mental powers are sharpened so that the person can investigate with wisdom, not simply with the intellect. In Chinul's preferred plan of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, this understanding-awakening is followed by gradual cultivation of the potential inherent in that insight, until that potential is funy "realized" through the "realization"-awakening. However, perfecting the meritorious qualities of the bodhisattva is difficult enough even after the understanding-awakening, let alone through sudden cultivation/gradual awakening, which be-


gins without even that initial awakening. Hence, in this alterna_ tive, too, sudden cultivation cannot be demonstrated to be a viable technique. Finally, Chinul rejects all soteriologicat strategies th~t p.lace cultivation bef?re awakening, in~luding gradual cultIvatlOn/sudden awakemng, gradual cultIVation! gradual awakening, and sudden cultivation/gradual awakening.

There was a polemical purpose behind Chinul's critique of radical subitism: to validate his preferred soteriological approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation. Chi nul was looking fer an approach to practice that would be directly applicable to practitioners who were determined to become enlightened in this life, but were still ordinary persons as yet unaware of their innate enlightenment. On all accounts, Chinul considered sudden awakening/gradual cultivation to be the ideal vehicle for meditators in any school of Buddhist practice.

As we saw above in Chinul's treatment of Ch'eng-kuan, Chinul demands that an ideal soteriological strategy perfect both passive and dynamic types of practice. Exclusive attention to passive forms of practice, which emphasized the absolute reality of the noumenon, or principle, could lead to complacency and nihilism, resulting in the student grasping at a state of calmness and aloofness. This is the principal danger with radicalsubitism: no provision is made for counteracting the unwholesome tendencies of mind that, it is claimed, will inevitably arise. But equally virulent would be the problem created by presuming that negative character traits and mental attitudes must be counteracted and that wholesome states of mind must be developed-positions taken by advocates of radical gradualism (viz., gradual cultivation/gradual awakening). This approach could sustain the mistaken belief that there really were qualities external to oneself that needed to be practiced and goals not yet realized that needed to be achieved. The student then would never be able to lessen his grasp on the phenomenal world, for his whole worldview would be founded on the mistaken belief that dharmas do indeed exist in reality. He also would be unable to advert to his own inherent nature, which was considered to be the vivifying source of all those phenomena. The moderate subitism of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation addressed both concerns.

Chinul's ultimate conclusion in his Excerpts is that the sudden cultivation component in the regimens of both sudden cultiva-.

CHINUL'SCRITIQUE OF SUBITISM 31

don/sudden awakening and sudden cultivation/gradual awaken-ing is in fact indistinguishable from Tsung-mi's interpretation of gradual cultivation,16 which Chinul himself followed. Hence, in any case where sudden cultivation seemingly precedes, or occurs simultaneous with, awakening, it actually involves sudden c~wakening/gradual cultivation, in which the gradual cultivation of meritorious qualities follows the sudden understanding-awakening, leading eventually to the final realization-awakening.

Finally, sudden awakening/gradual cultivation is of wider and more immediate application than any other soteriological approach. Exclusively gradualist strategies were designed for students of inferior spiritual aptitude, who did not have the affinities necessary to achieve sudden awakening in this lifetime. Conversely, exclusively subitist approaches were useful only to the most advanced practitioners, whose spiritual capacities had already maturedP But even the most deeply committed of stu-

· dents would have had no way of knowing whether their store ()f merit and understanding was sufficient to succeed by following the most extreme forms of subitism. Chinul was concerned to find an approach that could be employed by an ordinary person of keen faculties and a-cute wisdom, who would be able. to achieve enlightenment in this lifetime if taught an appropriate soteriological strategy. For Chinul, sudden awakening/gradual cultivation was that strategy. Chinul gives examples to show that this was the approach that had been followed by saints in the

· past, by students in the present, and would remain applicable to all future generations as wel1. 1S As .the optimal approach to practice, sudden awakening/gradual cultivation could be confidently recommended to all, from the least to the most talented of meditators.

Perhaps the most devastating critique that can be made of radical subitism, which Tsung-mi first raised, is that it actually is nothing more than a limited view of sudden awakening/ gradual cultivation. From the standpoint of the present lifetime only, sudden awakening/sudden cultivation might seen the most ideal interpretation of practice, since it does not accept any role · in the achievement of enlightenment for practices that purport to deal with the world on its own terms. From the standpoint of past lives, however, it is clear that people who have successfully followed a sudden awakening/sudden cultivation approach in


this lifetime already had experienced sudden awakening in a past life. After that initial understanding-awakening, they Con_ tinued to cultivate their insight gradually through many lives until finally in this present life they had the realization-awaken~ ing, in which cultivation seems to have been perfected instantane_ ously. But in such a case, sudden awakening/sudden cultivation was in fact nothing more than a matured form of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation; for Chinul, there is no sudden perfection of the phenomenal wisdom.

This collapse of sudden awakening/sudden cultivation into sudden awakening/gradual cultivation is summarized by Chinul in his Secrets on Cultivating the Mind, where he confirms his previous judgment that virtually all soteriologies eventually end up being sudden awakening/gradual cultivation: .

Although sudden awakening/sudden cultivation has been advocated, this is the entrance for people of the highest faculties. If you were to probe their pasts, you would see that their cultivation has been based for many lives on the insights gained in a previous awakening. Now, in this life, after gradual permeation, these people hear the dharma and awaken: in one instant their practice is brought to a sudden conclusion. But if we try to explain this according to the facts, then sudden awakening/sudden cultivation is also the result of an initial [sudden] awakening and its subsequent [gradual] cultivation. Consequently, this twofold approach of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation is the track followed by thousands of saints. 19

Sudden awakening/sudden cultivation is therefore appropriate only fonhose few advanced bodhisattvas whose spiritual faculties have already matured. For the great majority of Buddhist adepts, sudden awakening/gradual cultivation is the only viable approach to practice.

IV. Sudden Awakening/Sudden Cultivation and the Kanhwa Technique

Despite the critical view Chinul usually holds of sudden awakening/sudden cultivation, he is more favorably disposed toward it in the context of kanhwa/k'an-hua meditation, a unique-


lyCh'an form of practice in which the student contemplates the "critical phrase" (hwadu/hua-t'ou) of a Ch'an "precedent" (kongan/ kung-an; Jpn. koan).20 Chinul's earlier works had not mentioned kanhwa practice, and it is only in the concluding portions of his 1209 Excerpts that it is first recognized as a unique system and 'given detailed explication. Even there, however, Chinul is hesi-tant to prescribe the technique to any but the most exceptional of meditators. Indeed, the coverage of kanhwa Son in Excerpts is hardly in keeping with the remainder of that treatise and looks somewhat incongruous. Chinul almost implies as much in his brief introduction to this section, where he states that his detailed examination of different soteriological strategies has shown that 'Tsung-mi's approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation is adequate for the needs of most students. To guard against students' becoming too attached to Tsung-mi's words, however, Chinul decides to present here some brief excerpts about kanhwa S6n, which show how this new meditation technique can lead beyond words to liberation. Perhaps tellingly, this section includes none of the trenchant analysis Chinul offered in all earlier .portions of his treatise: here he merely strings together without .comment a few quotations from the Records of Ta-hui Tsung-kao (1089-1163), a seminal figure in the Lin-chi school of Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. The structure leaves the reader with the distinct impression that Chinul had just come upon the kanhwa technique as he was putting the finishing touches on ~his treatise and had yet fully to work it into his preceding analysis of soteriology.21

. In Chinese Ch'an, the k'an-hua technique is usually presumed to involve the soteriological schema of sudden awakening/ sudden cultivation, because it focuses on the awakening experience, claiming that cultivation would automatically be perfected once full awakening was achieved. This Chinese view of k'an-hua meditation can be seen clearly in a verse by Chung-feng Mingpen (1263-1323), writing two generations after Chinul:

Investigating Ch'an (ts'an-ch'an; viz., observing the critical phase) does not involve any progression,

The absolute essence is free from all extremes and represen-tations.

It is difficult, using the limited mind, To cultivate the unconditioned path. In one realization, all is realized. In one flash of cognition, all is cognized.22


In Excerpts, however, Chinul still tries to fit kanhwa medita_ tion into his preferred soteriological strategy of sudden awaken_ ing/gradual cultivation. Chinul notes at the conclusion of Excerpts that kanhwa meditation is actually intended only for the mOst advanced of practitioners. For the average person to succeed in practice, he must instill in himself correct understanding of nature and characteristics and of truth and falsity-in other words, generate the understanding-awakening. Only after such a sudden awakening should the hwadu then be used.23 In this interpretation, generating correct understanding constitutes sudden awakening, while kanhwa Son would be the subsequent gradual cultivation. Hence, Chinul remains unwilling in Excerpts to deny the rectitude of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, despite his new interest in kanhwa Son.

In Excerpts, Chinul also raises some suspicions about the true efficacy of kanhwa meditation. Although a gifted meditator might be able to gain sudden awakening through investigating the hwadu, awakening for him would only mean that he was totally absorbed internally and thus free from any conceptual understanding. While in that state he might then appear to be fully enlightened, but as soon as he withdrew from his meditation and began to use his mind he would once again become immersed in conceptualization. His sensory contacts would be colored by value judgments, producing in turn passion and anger, and in all respects Ife would show himself to be still subject to the defiling tendencies of mind. Hence, his awakening remains deficient in the understanding that should precede cultivation according to Chinul's preferred moderate subitism. This deficiency occurs because kanhwa practice was not based on the correct doctrinal understanding generated through the sudden understanding-awakening, which should have initiated the meditator's training. Such mastery of doctrine would have familiarized the student with the true nature of the conditioned world, so that defiling tendencies would not pressure him after the rejection of conceptualization that occurs through hwadu practice. Hence right view as generated through the initial understanding-awakening was a crucial factor even for meditators investigating the hwadu. In fact, Chinul is so intent on incorporating kanhwa practice into sudden awakening/gradual cultivation .. that he recommends the more conventional techniques of the


dual-cultivation of samadhi and prajna, which he had discussed earlier in Excerpts, to kanhwa meditators who find themselves / till subject to defilement. Although the hwadu may thus be a ~ore refined technique than such conventional approaches, those too could lead to the same rarefied stages of the path as achieved through kanhwa practice.24

But Excerpts posits still another way of interpreting the ~oteriological process followed in kanhwa practice. Chinul suggests that the hwadu may also be viewed as a speciai kind of "shortcut expedient,,,25 which transcends all the soteriological s~hemata discussed previously in Excerpts. Kanhwa Son specifically targeted "accomplished meditators. . . who have the capacity to enter the path after leaving behind words," who would then come "to know the one living road which leads to salvation.,,26 Kanhwa Son was a supplementary technique, designed whelp skilled meditators overcome the conceptual understanding based on their knowledge of dharmas and attributes, understanding that was a product of Tsung-mi's sudden awakening/ gradual cultivation approach. While especially adept meditators might be able to work directly on the hwadu, in their case the so-called "shortcut" constituted an entirely separate approach from the radical subitism presented in the scholastic outlines treated previously in Excerpts. Hwadu investigation was just too advanced for most people, who would still need the correct understanding developed through Tsung-mi's system if they Were to have any chance of overcoming attachment and defilement. Only "truly an outstanding person ... [who is] not pressured by words and speech or by intellectual knowledge and conceptual understanding" would be able to succeed while using just the hwadu.27 Hence, despite the affinities Chi nul has for the kanhwa technique, he concludes in Excerpts rhatTsung-mi's approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation still remains the most appropriate soteriology.

Why is there this ambivalence toward kanhwa Son in Excerpts ? Excerpts is the culmination of a series of treatises by Chinul providing analytical treatments of Son, which go back to his earlier Encouragement to Practice and Secrets on Cultivating the Mind. In that series of works, written between 1190 and 1205, Chinul sought to prove the superiority of sudden awakening/ gradual cultivation as a soteriological strategy and to vindicate


the Son school's approach to praxis. When Chinul finally does decide to treat kanhwa practice in his Excerpts, passages frorn Ta-hui's Records are simply appended to this complex soteriolog_ ical discussion with little esprit de synthese. While Chinul reveals obvious sympathies in Excerpts with this new style of Son practice he has yet to synthesize it fully into his treatment of Buddhis~ soteriological systems. Hence, he treats kanhwa Son in two differ_ ent ways in Excerpts: as 1) an approach that can be incorporated albeit hesitatingly, into sudden awakening/gradual cultivation' or 2) as a separate technique that has nothing at all to do with previous scholarly accounts of the different schemata of awaken_ ing and cultivation.

This ambivalence is almost resolved in Chinul's posthumous work, Kanhwa kyorui-ron (Resolving Doubts about Observing the Hwadu; hereafter Resolving Doubts), the first written treatment of kanhwa Son by a Korean. In that treatise, Chinul accepts Chinese views about the kanhwa technique, portraying it as a sudden cultivation/sudden awakening approach that culminates in the realization-awakening. The second attitude toward kanhwa Son still inchoate in Excerpts-kanhwa Son as a completely sepa-. rate technique-is fully formed in Resolving Doubts and justified conceptually. This interpretation is upheld because meditators who are investigating the hwadu need not "pass through their· views and learning, their understanding and conduct,,28 before achieving realization, as does a follower of other soteriological. approaches. Instead practitioners of the "shortcut" approach of kanhwa Son, from the very inception of their meditation, are

unaffected by acquired understanding .... Straight off, they take up a tasteless hwadu and are concerned only with raising it to their attention and focusing on it. For this reason, they remain free of ratiocination ... and stay clear of any idea of a time sequence in which views, learning, understanding, or conduct are to be developed. Unexpectedly, in an instant they activate one moment of realization concerning the hwadu and, as disc cussed previously, the dharmadhatu of the one mind becomes perfectly full and clear.29

Resolving Doubts was compiled by Chinul's successor, Chin'gakHyesim (1178-1234), from material left after the master's death in 1210, and was first published in 1215. As I have


suggested elsewhere,30 Chinul's thought seems to have rapidly crystallized around kanhwa practice toward the end of his career, a process we see beginning one year before his death in the concluding portions of Excerpts, but which is fully realized in Resolving Doubts. In this last work, Chinul no longer a!:ts as the Son apologist, attempting to defend the Son school by demonstrating its parallelisms with the teachings of the Buddhist scriptures. Here he fully embraces the Lin-chi presentation of Ch'an, as enunciated by Ta-hui, and points out its superiority to all other forms of Buddhist praxis in purity of technique, speed of consummation, and orthodoxy of outlook. In scant few places in his oeuvre does Chinul evince such vehement displays· of Son partisanship as found in the following quote, cited in Resolving Doubts: "The separate transmission outside the teaching [viz., Son] far excels the scholastic vehicle. It is not something with which those of shallow intelligence can cope.,,31

Even in this most partisan of his treatises, however, Chinul .finally backs away and again tries to place kanhwa Son within the framework of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation. Chinul does this. by positing two distinct ways in which hwadu may be observed: investigation of its meaning (ch'amui/ts'an-i) and investigation of the word (ch'amgu/ts'an-chu).32 Investigation of the meaning of the hwadu engenders the same kind of intellectual knowledge as that generated by the understanding-awakening, but leaves the student subject to the obstruction of knowledge (jiieyavara7Ja). For the meditator to progress, he must abandon even this concern with the hwadu's meaning and concentrate just on the word of the hwadu itself. This nondiscursive form of meditation will eventually result in the final realization-awakening. Chinul thus leaves us with a progressive regimen of kanhwa Son, starting with the understanding-awakening catalyzed through the investigation of the hwadu's meaning and culminating in the realization-awakening that results from investigating just the word. This is, of course, precisely the regimen posited by sudden awakening/gradual cultivation. While Chinul lauds the investigation of the word, he despairs at the ability of presentday practitioners to cultivate that approach and finally comes out in favor of the vitiated investigation of the meaning.

Elsewhere in Resolving Doubts, Chinul reiterates this accommodation between kanhwa Son and sudden awakening/gradual

38 JIABS VOL 12 NO.2

cultivation through his doctrine of the three mysterious gates . (samhyon-munlsan-hsiian-men) , a hermeneutical principle developed by Chinul to clarify the connection between kanhwa Son and the Ch'an/Hua-yen synthesis of Tsung:mi (and most of Chinul's own works). To summarize these gates briefly, Chinul posits that the most basic level of Son discourse uses rhetoric similar to· that found in the doctrinal schools of Buddhism, such as Hwaom/Hua-yen, to explain the fundamental identity between enlightened buddhas and ignorant sentient beings. This first mysterious gate Chinul terms the "mystery in the essence" (ch'ejung-hyonlt'i-chung hsuan). In order to disentangle the student from the doctrinal concepts employed in the first gate, Son next pushes the student toward kanhwa Son, which keeps the meditator from stagnating at a purely intellectual level of understanding. This second gate Chinul calls the "mystery in the word" (kujung-hyonlchii-chung hsiian). Ultimately, however, even the words of the hwadu must be abandoned in favor of completely nonconceptual forms of pedagogy, such as striking, beating, and pregnant pauses. These peculiarly Son forms of expression Chinul terms the "mystery in the mystery" (hyonjunghyonlhsiianchung hsilan). 33 These three mysterious gates thus portray kanhwa Son as a natural outgrowth of the mystery in the essence-for our purposes here, Tsung-mi's approach to Ch'an, as followed closely by Chinul in all his previous works-and itself culminating in the still more profound teaching styles of Ma-tsu and Lin-chi. Hence, despite the polemical character of much of this posthumous treatise, Chinul continues to be ambivalent as to whether to treat kanhwa Son within his accepted system of moderate subitism or as a new and truly innovative form of radical subitism, as do later Chinese Lin-chi exponents.

There is some chance that the unusual intensity with which Chinul champions Son in Resolving Doubts may reflect the editorial hand of Hyesim, who became a strong advocate of kanhwa practice. Still it is clear that Chinul was himself moving toward a more sympathetic appraisal of the sudden awakening/sudden cultivation regimen advocated by the Lin-chi school. By the time he succeeded Chinul as leader of Suson-sa, Hyesim had all but abandoned the other meditation techniques taught by his predecessor. such' as the dual cultivation of samiidhi and prajiiii, in favor of kanhwa meditation, with its implicit agenda of radical

CHINUL'SCRITIQUE OF SUBITISM 39

subitism.34 This growing emphasis on kanhwa Son during the rnid- to late-Koryo period led to an increasing domination of Korean Buddhism by Lin-chi Ch'an views on philosophy and praXis. Althoug.h after. Chinul's time import~nt Son figures c~:mtinued to .pay hp servICe to sudden awakemng/gradual cultIvation, Korean Son practice came to be based almost entirely on the kanhwa technique. Chinul's original approach could readily accommodate variaht styles of Buddhist thought and practice, including both Hwaom and Son. But the coalescence of Korean Buddhism around the Lin-chi Ch'an technique of kanhwa meditation resulted in a drastic narrowing in the scope of the tradition. It would have been much more difficult for this coalescence to have occurred without the tacit approval provided by Chinul's ambivalent critique of radical subitism.

Chinul has recently been the subject of vigorous attack in a provocative, but entirely scholarly tome, Si5nmun chi5ngnok (The Orthodox Road of the Son School), by the present supreme patriarch (chongji5ng) of the Korean Chogye Order, Songch'o1.35 Songch'ol is an eloquent advocate of radical subitism and Chinese Lin-chi interpretations of the kanhwa technique. He dismisses Chinul as an advocate of what he considers a bastardized "Hwaom-Son" and forbids the teaching of Chinul's Excerpts in the lecture halls at Haein-sa. Songch'ol attributes much that he perceives to have been wrong with traditional Korean Bud- . dhism-especially the emphasis on practice over awakening-to the pernicious influence of Chinul's acceptance of gradual cultivation. Songch'ol also refuses to acknowledge that Chinul was the founder of the Chogye Order, a position advocated by many other Korean scholars, and instead traces the order's origins to T'aego Pou (1301-1382), who introduced the Chinese Lin-chi line to Korea in the fourteenth century.

Songch'ol's positions led to a spirited debate in contemporary Korean Buddhism between him and several other Buddhist scholars and monks, including Yi Chongik and Suryon Kusan (1909-1983), the past Son master at the Songgwang-sa, the monastery Chinul founded in the thirteenth century. I would submit, however that the enthusiasm for kanhwa Son exhibited late in Chinul's life was what set his successors, and eventually all of Korean Buddhism, on an inevitable course toward Lin-chi Ch'an. Chinul can certainly not be considered the direct ancestor


of the contemporary Chogye school of Buddhism; but neither for that matter can Taego Pou. Lineage will tell us next to nothing about the pedigree of the modern Korean tradition considering the many gaps that plague that line during the Yi dynasty (1392-1910). But regardless of the position one takes toward the veracity and utility of Chinul's system, it is clear that he occupies a crucial, even preeminent, position in the indigen_ ous development of Son. Whatever ideological flaws may be imputed to his approach to Son, then, it is Chinul more than any other figure who deserves to be called the true founder of the modern Korean tradition of Buddhism. By proposing that kanhwa Son could be either a sudden awakening/gradual cultivation or a sudden awakening/sudden cultivation approach, Chinul left himself with enough wiggle room that he can be considered an advocate of either regimen. Ultimately, however, it was Chinul's ambivalent attitude toward radical subitism that led to the eventual eclipse in Korean Buddhism of his preferred soteriological approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation. His very ambivalence left room for Lin-chi Ch'an, and its emblematic radical subitism, to gain a toehold within Korean Buddhism and, eventually, to dominate that tradition.

NOTES

This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper delivered in Korean at the International Symposium on Chinul's Thought (Songgwang-sa, Korea, 10-15 July 1988). That paper has since appeared in both English and Korean translation as "Tono tonsu-e taehan Chinul ui yangga-ch6k pip'an" (Chinul's Ambivalent Critique of Radical Subitism), in Pojo sasang (Chinul's Thought) (Songgwang-sa: Pojo sasang yon'guwon, 1989), vol. 2, pp. 45-88, translated by Mr. Kim Hosong. As that volume will not be distributed outside Korea, however, I wanted to make this revised article available to a wider audience. Sinitic logographs are given according to their Korean pronunciations, followed by the Chinese.

1. See my study and translation of Chinul's works, The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), pp. 56-61; hereafter I will abbreviate this book,as KAZ. For Chinul's conception of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation, see also my article, "Chinul's Systematization of Chinese Meditative Techniques in Korean Son Buddhism," in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 203-207. Tsung-mi's preferred soteriology, which so inspired Chinul, has been studied in Peter N.


Gregory's recent article, "Sudden Awakening Followed by Gradual Cultivation: Tsung-mi's Analysis of Mind," in Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii press, 1987), pp. 279-320. Material relevant to this article may also be found in chapter 2 of Hee-Sung Keel's Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Son Tradition, Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, no. 6 (Berkeley: Institute of South and southeast Asian Studies, 1984).

Citations to Chinul's works in this article are to my translation in KAZ. For ease of reference, I also cite the standard Korean editions of Chinul's works: An Chin-ho, ed., Popchip pyorhaengnok chOryo pyongip sagi (Seoul: P6mnyun-sa, 1957), hereafter cited as Popchip, and followed by page and line number (where relevant); and Pang Hanam, ed. and Kim Tanh6, trans., Pojo pilM (1937; reprinted., Ch6lla namdo: Songgwangsa, 1975; frequent reprints).

2. Hua-yen ching hsing-yiian p'in shu, in ten fascicles; Hsii-tsang ching (HTC) 227.5.48b-198a. Chinul always refers to it as the Chen-yiian Commentary, after the Tang reign-period during which this last translation of the Hua-yen ching was made. See KAZ, p. 350 n92 for bibliographical references to this text.

The passage in question appears ih fascicle 2, section five, HTC 227.5.64b-64c and is translated in Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 287-288 (Popchip, pp. 45.10---48.2). See also the discussion in Gregory, "Sudden Awakening," pp. 309-311. See also KAZ, p. 352 n109 for the debate as to whether there are six or seven soteriological alternatives described in this passage.

3. Ch'an-yiian chu-ch'iian chi tou-hsu 3, T 20l5.48.407cl2---408a5; translated in Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 295-297 (POpchip, pp. 59.4-63.5).

4. Wan-shan t'ung-kuei chi 3, T 20l7.48.987b--c. I have translated this passage in Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 304-305 (Popchip, pp. 75-77).

5. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 288 (Popchip, p. 47.3---4). 6. See Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 291,290 (Popchip, p. 52.10, 50.9), respectively,

for these two correlations. 7. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 296 (Popchip, p. 62.6); Ch'an-yuan chu-chuan chi

tou-hsii 3, T 20l5.48.407a23---408a2. 8. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 297 (Popchip, p. 63.3-5); Ch'an-yuan chu-chuan chi

tou-hsu 3, T 20l5.48.408a2-5. 9. Summarizing Excerpts, KAZ, p. 305 (Popchip, pp. 76.7-77.8); Wan

shan t'ung-kuei chi 3, T 20l7.48.987b--c. 10. See Excerpts, KAZ, p. 353 n112; quoting Tsung-mi's Yuan-chiieh ching

ta-shu ch'ao 3b, Zokuzokyo (ZZ) 245.9.536a22. 11. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 353 n1l3; quoting Yiian-chiieh ching ta-shu ch'ao 3b,

ZZ 245.9.536b6-8. 12. Paraphrasing Encouragement, KAZ, pp. 116-117 (Pojo pobO, pp. 24b-

25a). 13. Ch'an-yuan chu-chiian chi tou-hsii 3, T 20l5.48.407cl2-16; quoted in

Excerpts, KAZ, p. 295 (Popchip, p. 59.8-9). I have discussed this metaphor with reference to k'an-hua practice in my article, "The Short-Cut Approach of K'anhua Meditation: The Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese Ch'an Buddhism," in Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, p.349.


14. See Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 289-291 (Papchip, pp. 50.7-54.2), and pp 297-299 (Papchip, pp. 63.5-66.6). .

15. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 290 (Papchip, p. 50.9). 16. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 290 (Papchip, p. 52);. and see KAZ, pp. 297-299

(Popchip, pp. 63.5-66.6). 17. Time and again, Chinul says that radical subitism is appropriate only

for "outstanding persons" (Excerpts, KAZ, p. 339 [Popchip, p. 136.8]) or for a "sentient being of great aspiration who ... possesses the highest faculties" (Encouragement, KAZ, pp. 117-118 [Pojo poba, p. 24b]).

18. See summary at Excerpts, KAZ, p. 300 (Papchip, p. 69.1-2). 19. Secrets, KAZ, p. 143. (Pojo paba, p.41b). 20. For the evaluation of this technique in Chinese Ch'an, see my article

"The Short-Cut Approach of K'an-hua Meditation," pp. 321-377; I include there references to relevant work in Japanese and Western scholarship. For kanhwa practice in Korea, see my article "Chinul's Systematization of Chinese Meditative Techniques," pp. 216-226.

21. For this section, see KAZ, pp. 334-338 (Papchip, pp. 125.2-135); the introductory comments appear at KAZ, p. 334 (Papchip, p. 125.2).

22. T'ien-mu Chung-feng ho-shang kuang lu, Pin-ch'ieh edition (reprint ed., Kyongsangnamdo: Pulguk-sa Sonwon, 1977), kwon 17, p. 96b.

23. Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 338-339 (Papchip, pp. 135-136). 24. Excerpts, KAZ, pp. 338-339 (Papchip, pp. 135-136). 25. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 334 (Papchip, p. 125.10). 26. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 334 (Papchip, pp. 125.8-9, 126.l). 27. Excerpts, KAZ, p. 339 (Papchip, p. 136.8-9). 28. Resolving Doubts, KAZ, p. 250 (Pojo paba, p. 134b). 29. Resolving Doubts, KAZ, p. 250 (Pojo paba, p. 134b). 30. See "Chinul's Systematization," pp. 218-219. 31. Resolving Doubts, KAZ, p. 250 (Pojo paba, p. 134b). One of the few

other passages I have found appears in Excerpts, where Chinul discusses some of the shortcomings of Hwaom/Hua-yen doctrine and notes laconically that "the separate transmission [of Son] which is outside the teachings is not subject to the same limitations." KAZ, p. 296 (Papchip, p. 62.1-2).

32. I have discussed these two types of hwadu investigation in "ChinuI's Systematization," pp. 220-223.

33. See my earlier treatments of the three mysterious gates in my articles "Chinul's Systematization," pp. 223-226, and "Ch'an Hermeneutics: A Korean View," in Buddhist Hermeneutics, Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 6, edited by Donald S. Lopez,Jr., pp. 245-246 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988).

34. How much of this emphasis on kanhwa Son came as a direct result of Chinul's influence is unknown. Since Hyesim left Susan-sa in 1208, however, returning to assume the mantle of leadership only after his master's death, Chinul may not have played much of a personal role.

35. T'oeong Songch'ol, Sanmun ch6ngnok (Kyongsang namdo: Haein ch'ongnim, 1981), esp. chapters 13 and 18. A few hints of Songch'ol's attitudes toward Chinul appear in an English anthology of his dharma-talks, Echoes from


Mt. Kaya: Selections on Korean Buddhism by Ven. Song-chol, Patriarch of the Korean Chogye Buddhist Order, edited by Ven. Won'tek, introduction by Ven. Won-myong, translated by Brian Barry (Seoul: Lotus Lantern International Buddhist Center, 19-88), as, for example at p. 153 .

. GLOSSARY

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controversy over Dharmakaya in India and Tibet: A Reappraisal of its Basis, Abhisamayalamkiira Chapter 8

by John]. Makransky

1. Introduction

Approximately 1200 years ago a disagreement developed in India over the description of complete enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism. The disagreement focused on the Abhisamayalarrtkara (AA, c. 4th-5th century C.E.), a commentary on the Prajnaparamitasutros ascribed by late Indian scholars to Maitreya.! The AA's eighth and last chapter explained the final result of the Mahayana path, complete enlightenment (referred to as ''phaladharmakaya'') , in terms of multiple buddha kayos (buddha "bodies").2 But its verses, dense with possible meaning, were very ambiguous. Arya Vimuktisena (c. early 6th century) understood it to be teaching three kayos, while Haribhadra (late 8th century) thought it taught four. Ratnakarasanti (c. 1000) believed that their disagreement concerned not just the wording of the AA, but the nature of dharmakaya in nonTantric Mahayana Buddhism as a whole. He sided with Arya Vimuktisena, as did Abhayakaragupta (early 12th century). Later in Tibet, the Sa-skya scholar Go-ram-pa bsod-nams seng-ge supported Arya Vimuktisena in asserting three kayos, while dGe~lugspa scholars backed Haribhadra's assertion of four. Thus, if we take Haribhadra as its initiator, the debate over the number of kayas has continued from the late 8th century to the present day; having progressed from the Indian to the Tibetan branch of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Yet most modern scholars, basing themselves on Haribhadra and his Tibetan followers, have reported simply that the AA teaches four kayos, as if they were unaware of the controversy.3

45


Any attempt to analyze the debate is complicated by the fact that it has been a diachronic discussion rather than a synchronic one. It is not a discussion between two contemporaneous scholars. Rather it has been an ongoing'interchange conducted over centuries, in which scholars of each period, attempting to address the philosophical and religious problems of their OWn time and place, have written responses to scholars of earlier periods. Developments in religious thought since the last response forced reconsideration of old questions in the light of new viewpoints. What was important to say about enlighten_ ment, and what methods were used to analyze or describe it, changed somewhat from age to age and culture to culture.

If the historical perspective is lost, it becomes impossible to sort out what the whole debate has been about. One complicating factor is the abhorrence of orthodox scholiasts to give the appearance of personal innovation. From the perspective of Buddhist traditionalists, the truths of Buddhism were realized by buddhas and saints (such as Maitreya) and then revealed by them in sacred scriptures. The commentator's job in explaining those scriptures was not to innovate, but to explain the meanings intended by their authors, since those meanings were truths realized by those authors. At some stage within the Buddhist tradition the AA was taken to be such a sacred scripture (hence its ascription, by Haribhadra, to Maitreya). Each commentator obeyed the unwritten rules of orthodoxy according to which the only way to reformulate the tradition they received was to read their reformulation into the texts they inherited. Scholars, like other people, do not work in a vacuum. They are conditioned by their historical and cultural context. Although commentators

. made interpretations of the AA appropriate to their own times and places, they always did so within the context of explicating the original intentions of its author. Because of this, the debate over the number of kiiyas took on the appearance of a trivial disagreement over the meaning of a few verses of one abstruse text. Although Haribhadra's reinterpretation of AA 8 was innovative, it was within the rules of orthodoxy, because he read his meaning into the received text. 4

Therefore, the debate over the number of kiiyas, examined diachronically, resolves into a number of different stages of

-discussion in which the issues at stake partially changed over

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMAKA.YA 47

time. Broadly speaking, I would describe those stages as follows: the AA's 8th chapter represents an attempt, for the first time, to homologize two semi-autonomous Mahayana descriptions of enlightenment: a Prajiiaparamita (PP) sidra description and a three-kaya Yogacara sastra description (this will be the subject lllatter proper of this paper). Arya Vimuktisena's task was to explicate the very dense verses of AA 8 in a form which exposed its author's intention, while reiterating the Yogacara understanding of enlightenment as, in essence (svabhavika1;), an experience of the highest yogic realization, inconceivable to those who have not realized it, beyond discursiveness, unconditioned, and supramundane. Haribhadra, writing several centuries later, felt compelled in his reading of AA 8 to conduct an analysis of the kiiyas along clear Madhyamaka lines, in a way which addressed the conceptions of enlightenment which had developed since Nagarjuna's time, clarifying the new categories of multiple kayas

. in a way consistent with the earlier Madhyamaka dialectic. View. ing enlightenment not only as an inconceivable yogic realization but also as an object of logical analysis like any other object, he used his interpretation of the AA to separate out contradictory elements and assign them to their appropriate domains, resulting in four buddha kayas. Later in Tibet, Sa-skya and dGe-Iugs scholars chose either Arya Vimuktisena's or Haribhadra's view, depending on what implications for buddhology they saw in their project of developing an all-inclusive systematic philosophy out of the thousands of sutras and sastras. they had received from India. Within that systematic project, the Tibetans perceived a number of problems as inter-related: problems concerning the two truths, the perfect knowledge of them (which is enlightenment), and the description of that knowledge as "embodied" in buddha kayas. To analyze this 1200-year-old controversy, then, requires that we study it in each of its historical stages.5

It is logical to begin such a study by analyzing the received text upon which the debate explicitly centered at every stage, i.e. the AA. This will require a fresh look at AA's 8's place in the history of Mahayana thought. But even apart from the debate, it is well worth a fresh reexamination, because at the time that it was written, there was a tremendous diversity in the descriptions of buddhahood in Mahayana sutras and sastras, reflecting a diverse set of views which had developed in different milieus


and textual traditions. When the AA's eighth chapter is examined in relation to its textual antecedents and historical context, it can ~h~d light on the herme~eutic str~tegies ~sed by early Mahayana masters to homologIze these dIverse VIews. I believe that the reason AA 8 has always been so difficult to interpret is that its presentation of buddhahood is neither an independent creation, nor a restatement of what was said in other treatises of its time. Rather, it represents a synthesis of two different ways to describe buddhahood: a Yogacara siistra way and a PP sidra way. It functions like a grid to map a Yogacara model of enlightenment onto the Prajiiiipiiramitii sutras. 6

II. The Heart of the Controversy: Abhisamayalamkara Chapter 8, vss. 1-6

The controversy over the number of kiiyas centers on the first six verses of AA, chapter 8. Verse one describes a buddha's svabhavikakaya, Intrinsic Body:

sarviikiiriir{L visuddhir{L ye dharmii/:t priiptii niriisraviiJ;J sviibhiiviko munel; kiiyas te$iir{L prakrti-Iak$arJa/:tl1 AA 8.1

The undefiled dharmas which have obtained purity in all respects, The Intrinsic Body of the Muni has their innate nature as its characteristic.

Whatever this first verse means, all commentators agreed that it teaches the first kiiya of a buddha, the sViibhiivikakaya, understood in some sense to be the innate nature of the "undefiled dharmas." The undefiled dharmas (niriisrava- or anasravadharmii/:t) are a buddha's pure mental qualities, his gnoses (jiiana), obtained through the complete realization of the Mahayana path. Verses two through six list these undefiled dharmas, divided into twenty-one types, and then relate them to the word "dharma-kiiya": '

bodhipak$iipramiirJiini vimok$ii anupurvasa/:tl naviitmikii samiipatti/:t krtsnar{L daiavidhiitmakamll 8.2 abhibhviiyataniiny ~ta prakiiriirJi prabhedata/:tl

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMA.KA.YA

. arar;ii prar;idhijftiinam abhijftii/:t pratisamvidal:t/ I 8.3 sarviikiiriis catasro 'tha suddhayo vaJitii daJal baliini daJa catviiri vaiJiiradyiiny arakJar;amll 8.4 trividha7[l s7[lrtyupasthiina7[l tridhasa7[lmo~a-dharmattil vasanayii/:t samudghiito mahatI karur;ii janell 8.S iiver;ikii muner eva dharmii ye '~tadaseritiil:t/

sarviikiirajftatii ceti dharmakiiyo 'bhidhZyatell 8.6

"The factors which foster enlightenment, the measureless thoughts, the liberations, the nine meditative attainments, the ten meditative totalities, the bases of overpowering divided into eight kinds, the meditative power blocking others' passions, the knowledge resulting from resolve, the supernatural knowledges, the analytical knowledges, the four total purities, the ten sovereignties, the ten powers, the four forms of fearlessness, the three ways in which [a buddha] has nothing to hide, the threefold mindful equanimity, the nature of never forgetting, the complete destruction of [negative] propensities, the great compassion for living beings, the eighteen qualities unique to the Muni, and omniscient wisdom"·: thus is the dharmakiiya denominated.

49

Arya Vimuktisena, author of the earliest commentary extant, understood all six verses to be teaching one kaya of the buddha, which is first called "svabhavikakaya," and later "dharmakaya." He read "dharmakaya" of verse 6 as a synonym for "svabhiivikakaya" of verse 1.7 Over two centuries later, Haribhadra reinterpreted the verses, arguing that Arya Vimuktisena had been mistaken in his understanding of these two key terms. "svabhiivikakaya" of verse 1 and "dharmakaya" of verse 6 were not synonyms, he said. They referred to two different aspects of buddhahood: the first being the emptiness of the undefiled dharmas, and the latter being the collection of those dharmas themselves. 8

All commentators agreed that after the sixth verse, AA 8 taught two more kayas: sambhogikakaya (Enjoyment Body) and nairmar;ikakaya (Emanation Body). Therefore, the debate over whether it teaches three or four kayas, actually resolves into a debate over whether its first six verses teach one kaya or two. Three concepts found in these verses are at the very heart of the controversy: 1. svabhiivikakaya, 2. dharmakaya, and 3. the undefiled buddha dharmas (anasravadharmas). Any attempt to


resolve th.is controversy requir~s us to go back int~ t~e history of BuddhIst thought and examme these concepts withm textual traditions antecendent to the AA.

III. Sarviistiviida Abhidharma

Traditionally, the mark of a Buddhist has always been his or her going for refuge to the Three Jewels (triratna): the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Sarvastivada scholars posed the question: Precisely what is the Buddha refuge? When' one takes refuge in the Buddha what is one taking refuge in? The Abhidharmakosabhii~ya gives a reply:

One who goes to the Buddha for refuge goes for refuge to the afaik.$a dharmas which make him a buddha; [the dharmas] because of which the person is called "buddha"; [the dharmas] by obtaining which he understands all, thereby becoming a buddha. What are those dharmas? KJayajiiana, etc., together with their attendants.9

It goes on to say that one goes for refuge not to the Buddha's physical body, referred to as his "rupakiiya," but to the aSaiksa'~ dharmas comprising his mind. The reason is that these dharmas· are undefiled (aniisrava) , while his body remains defiled even after enlightenment.

On the same issue, the SarvastivadaMahiivibhii$iiSiistra says:

Some say that to take refuge in the Buddha is to take refuge in the body constituted by the Tathagata's head, neck, stomach, back, hands, and feet. It is explained, then, that the body, born of the father and the mother, is [composed of] defiled dharmas, and therefore not a source of refuge. The refuge is the Buddha's afaik.$a dharmas which comprise enlightenment (bodhi), i.e. the dharmakaya. 1o

In these formulations, the Sarvastivadins identified the qualities which· made a buddha a buddha, that is, his essence. They; identified this essence to be the undefiled qualities of his mind: his aniisrava (aSaik$a) dharmas. And they called it the "dharma:~, kiiya," which could be translated in this context as the "Body of

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMAKAYA 51

lfUndefiled] Dharmas." It was th~ dharmakiiya,.a budd~a's undeIDled essence, as opposed to hIS rupakiiya, hIS physIcal body, iWhich constituted the Buddha refuge. ~ttt It appears there were different traditions within Sarvasti~ada as to .the identity of the dharmakiiya's undefiled dharmas. ~Vasubandhu notes that some scholars identify the Buddha ref~hge primarily with the eighteen dharmas exclusive to a buddha, !the so-called "iive7Jika dharmas," which coexist with his kJayaJiiana. II ~hese .a~e explained at length in t?e Kosabhii$ya, where ,:they are IdentIfIed as the ten powers (dasabala) , four fearless!fiesses (vaiSiiradya), three mindful equanimities (smrtyupasthiina), !and the great compassion (mahiikarunii).12 With these, other men~lil qualities, possessed by both buddhas and non-buddhas, are :i:lescribed. 13 Together this collection constitutes close to the same riist of undefiled dharmas which is presented throughout the PP ~utras and in AA 8 vss. 2-6 quoted earlier. t Later, the Kosabhii$ya uses the term "dharmakiiya" in a new i~ay. It describes buddhahood as the ''phalasampad,'' the "attaini~ent of the fruit." In this context the term "dharmakiiya" refers !io buddhahood in its entirety, not just to its undefiled mental §ualities. Vasubandhu explains that dharmakiiya, meaning phalasampad, includes four attainments: jfiiinasampad (gnosis at:trunment), prahii7Jasampad (riddance attainment), prabhiiva~~mpad (power attainment), and rupakiiyasampad (physical body :attainment).14 This "dharmakiiya phalasampad" of Sarvastivada .inay be a precursor of the AA's "phala dharmakiiya," which also· !refers to buddhahood as a whole.

W. Dharmakayaand Buddhadharmas in the Prajiiaparamita Sutras ~~

.. The full enlightenment of a buddha, samyaksarrtbodhi, is not treated at any length as a separate topic or chapter within the PP sutras (except in the revised PP to be discussed later). In fact, reference to "dharmakiiya" and "rupakiiya" in the PP sutras !s only very occasional. However, these sutras do refer to buddhahood indirectly, and often, when they present formulaic lists of ~'all dharmas" (sarvadharmii/:t). The "all dharmas" are understood ~o comprise all phenomena in the universe, as described in Abhidharma. 15 Included among all phenomena, of course, are a


buddha's undefiled dharmas (aniisravadharmas), as they are listed' in AA 8. They are presented in extensive or abbreviated forn{ throughout the PP sutras. As the collection of buddha's mental' qualities, his aSaik$adharmas, they constitute what the Sarva_~; stivada Abhidharma referred to as his "dharmakiiya." It is impoi-_! tant to note;- however, that unlike in theAbhidharma, nowhere in the PP sutras is the collection of buddha's undefiled dharmas in itself identified as being the "dharmakiiya." The reason fof this probably lies in the difference between the ontologies of the Abhidharma and the P P sutras .Ji'

The purpose of the Abhidharma was to negate the apparent. permanence, etc., of things by analytically finding the dharmas which were their ultimate constituents. In contrast to this, the purpose of the PP sutras was to negate the ultimacy of th~ dharmas themselves, to deny their self-existence (svabhava). rd formulaic repetition of the dharma lists, which are drawn mainly~ from Abhidharma, was done in order to deny the self-existence' of everyone of the dharmas listed. The PP's analysis leadingt~ salvific insight (prajna) does not find dharmas. It finds only their emptiness of self-existence (svabhavasunyata).16 This realizatio~ is known as the "prajnaparamita," the perfection of wisdom. It! conjoined with the mind seeking enlightenment for the salvatio~~ of all other beings (bodhicitta), is the very heart of the Mahayana' path, which when completed, issues in buddhahood.l

Like the Abhidharma, the PP sutras identify the dharmaka:jd;; not the rupakaya (physical form), as that which really constitutel a buddha, his essence. But they differ as to what that essenc~ is.17 In the Abhidharma it was the buddha's undefiled dharm~;; these were his dharmakaya.But nowhere in the PP sutras is th~ dharmakiiya directly identified with the undefiled dharmas. T~is, is because the highest attainment in the P P is not a collectio~ of dharmas, no matter how exalted, but rather the perfect realiza~: tion of the emptiness of all dharmas. Since "dharmakaya" is on~! of the words used to describe that highest attainment, its mea~j ing in the PP sutras is quite different from its meaning in t~~ Abhidharma. In this regard, two observations should be mad~] 1. From the perspective of prajnaparamita, the buddhadharm~~ along with all other dharmas, are not perceived. What is not; perceived by perfect wisdom cannot be taken as the very essenctof a buddha. IS 2. This means that unlike the Abhidharma, the p~ ,,-,§


"'utras-do not identify the buddha's dharmakaya with the collection ;~fbuddhadharmas per se. They identify it instead with sunyata, 'the emptiness of all dharmas, and with prajiiaparamita, the realiiation of that emptiness. 19

Three Kayas in the Emerging Yogacara

In a number of early Mahayana sutras, along with references )0 the formless dharmakaya of the buddha, there are physical '~~escriptions of buddhas which go far beyond what is found in the Pali canon.20 Attempts have been made by scholars to trace

(the historical development of these ideas in Buddhism prior to the full-blown advent of the Mahayana. 21 Here I will just note :t}lat certain sastras seminal to a newly emerging Yogacara school 'reformulated earlier two-kaya descriptions in order to accomo;aate these new forms. They presented a new theory of three ',Was: the svabhiivikakaya, the sambhogikakaya, and the nairma,/t;ikakaya. Here "sambhogikakaya" was the term for the exalted 'io/thiigatas of the Mahayana sutras, while "nairmalJikakaya" re;~erred to a buddha's infinite emanations into the realms of living ~:beings. 22 Both of these kayas were to be considered sub-categories ?fthe earlier, wider category: rupakaya. The svabhiivikakaya corresponded broadly to what the Mahayana sutras called the i~'dharmakaya." It will be the focus of whatfollows. -" The earliest text known to formally introduce and explain Jdistinct terminology of three kayas was the MSA, in its ninth chapter, on enlightenment (bodhi). The MSA served as the basis ,for extensive discussion of the three kayas in the Msg, which yften quotes it. These two texts with their commentaries seem :.t(}(onstitute a core Yogacara literature upon which was based 'piscussion of three kayos in numerous other texts: the Kayatrayasutra and Kayatrayastotra, Kayatrayavatarasastra, Ratnagotra,vibhiiga, Buddhabhumivyakhyana, etc. Brief mention is also made of three kayas in the DhDh V and in the MA Vbhiisya (the AA, as ,~special case, will be discussed below).23 The MSA and Msg were f.uthored in the formative period of the Y ogacara school, the f?rmer perhaps in the 3rd to 4th century, the latter in the late 1th century C.E.24 Together, these texts give us a good picture of the intellectual milieu in which the three-kaya theory first


appeared. They explain the three-kaya theory by demonstratin its relation to other Y ogacara models of enlightenment: asraya~ . paravrtti, dharmadhatuvisuddhi, vimalatathata and nirvikalpajiiiina and dharmakaya. Here, I will only make a few points particularl; relevant to AA 8. .

To begin with, the MSA and its commentaries agree With the PP siltras that while the undefiled dharmas are acknowledged to b~ qualities ofa buddha, they ar? not taken as his defining qualIty or essence. MSA 9.4 says: [Buddhahood] consists of excellent qualities, but it is not defined by them."25 Sthiramati's commentary explains that buddhahood is obtained by ac~ complishing the various undefiled dharmas, etc., and when obtained, can be said to possess those qualities. But it is not defined by them, because those qualities, as understood through concep_ tual construction (parikalpita) , are not the nature of a buddha. Buddhahood involves no such conceptual tonstruction.26

We are also reminded of the PP siltras when MSA 9.79 says about enlightenment: "Those who see no attainment have the supreme attainment."27 Sthiramati comments: "At the buddha stage there is the highest attainment. That is the not seeing of the attainment of a sambhogikakaya, a nairmar.tikakaya, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, i.e., the not seeing of any of the [buddha] dharmas. Why is that? Because it is the supreme attainment, the highest of all dharmas, the dharmakaya."28 The passages which precede and follow this make clear that buddhahood, although associated with a collection of undefiled dharmas and form bodies, is not to be identified with them. It is identified with the dharmakaya, explained here as non-conceptual gnosis (nirvikalpajiiana). In other places, it is explained as purified such7.

ness (vimalatathata). 29 We saw above that the Abhidharmakosa, in one verse, used

the term "dharmakaya" in a special sense, to designate the state of buddhahood in its entirety. The term also carries this sense in Yogacara texts, notably the Msg and the commentaries on the MSA, where the dharmakaya is identified with a buddha's asrayaparavrtti (the transformation of the basis).30 The concept of "asrayaparavrtti" in Y ogacara texts is a model for full enlightenment in which the basis of ordinary existence is transformed into the full enlightenment of a buddha, through a process of yogic realization. Different models of asrayaparavrtti compete


PVith each other in early Y ogacara. Different models for the basis ~iayavHnana, samaliitathata, sarrtklesabhiigaparatantrasvabhiiva, etc.) ~e said to be transformed through yogic practice into different fbtreSponding models of enlightenment (dharmakaya, nirvikalpa~Mna and nirmalatathata, dharmadhiituviSuddhi, etc.).31 But at the ~u.ge of the literature at which the three kiiyas appear, all such ~bdels are considered equivalent to each other. When the dharf!taMya is identified as a buddha's iiSrayaparavrtti in the MSA, Msg ~ha. related texts, it refers to the yogic attainment of full en~ghtenment, b~ddhahood as a ~hole. In this usage it carries i!Jte same n:eamng as the term phala-dharmakaya" of the AA ~ommentanes. . i~f Now, when the earliest siistras known to teach three kayas ¥MSA, Msg, RGV, AA) list them, the first is called "svabhavi'lJ),kiiya." MSA 9.60 bhii$ya and Msg 10.1, lO.3 present what may ibe the earliest Y ogacara definition of svabhiivikakaya. They define· ~as being the dharmakaya, whose character is iiSrayaparavrtti. In ljilier words, they equate svabhavikakaya with dharmakaya in its p~~hse of buddhahood as a whole. But why, one might ask, do ~eneed another term for all ofbud~hahood? w.e already have ~so many of these terms. The answer IS that there IS buddhahood R~it actually exists, i.e., as a buddha has realized it (svabhavit/iakiiya); buddhahood as arya bodhisattvas perceive it (sambhogika~ya); and buddhahood as others perceive it (nairma7),ikakaya). t!buddha has achieved only one buddhahood, the dharmakaya. II'hat kiiya as it actually exists, as it is in its own nature (svabha- . 'f&JkalJ,) is the "own-nature body," svabhiivikakiiyaly,; as experienced '~y iirya bodhisattvas, causing them to enjoy the dharma (sambhorgikab,) , is sambhogikakaya; and as experienced by others in its reinanated forms (nairma7),ikaly,), is nairma7),ikakaya. This is the exI¥lanation of the three kaya names given in MSA 9.60 bhii$ya.32

lf~t is consistent with the way the terms are used throughout ~yogacara literature.33 The first kaya is the real one. It is what a tbuddha actually is, formless, and known only to a buddha. The toiher two kayas are how that kiiya manifests in physical forms 1jio the unenlightened.34

t Because within the early three kaya theory the svabhiivikakaya ;;is understood to be buddhahood, i.e., to be the dharmakaya, as ~l} actually exists, the early commentaries began to substitute the fterm "dharmakaya" for the term "svabhiivikakaya" in the list of ;>,',>, ;4-:. ~T (f'e ~~:;: ::;-,'

~~

56 ]IABSVOL.12NO.2

three kayas. In later literature, it gradually becomes the norm to name the three kayas: "dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, nirmii'I'Ja_ kaya."~5 Th~s the term "d~armakaya" possessed two cl~sely related meanmgs m Yogacara lIterature: dharmakaya meamng full enlightenment as a whole, and dharmakaya meaning the first o'r three kayas. And these two meanings were mediated by the term: "svabhiivikakaya. "

Some of the points made here are particularly relevant to the AA, and should be summarized: 1. In early Yogacara siistras although buddhahood is conceptually understood to possess th~ undefiled dharmas, it is not to be identified with them. It is more properly identified as being the culmination of a process ()f yogic realization which goes beyond conceptual construction understood as asrayaparavrtti, and referred to as "dharmakiiya'; (also referred to as "dharmadhatuvisuddhi," "anasravadhatu," etc.). 2. The first of the three kayas, svabhiivikakaya, is identified as being the dharmakaya, buddhahood, as it actually exists; as itis known only to a buddha. 3. It is therefore typical in Yogacar~ literature to use the word "dharmakaya" with two closely related meanings: dharmakaya meaning buddhahood as a whole, and dharmakaya meaning the first of three buddha kayas.

VI. Abhisamayalarp.kara Chapter 8's Relation to the Large Prajiiaparamita Sutra

We must now look at AA chapter 8's relation to the PP sutras. It is the Large PP sutra, especially in its 25,OOOsloka version., which served as the textual basis for the AA.36 Near the end of one version of this sutra, the version referred to in modern scholarship as the "revised Paiicavir(tsatisahasrika Prajiiaparamita,"37 there is a section which centers on the state of buddhahood, describing it in terms of more than two buddha kayas. Some important late Indian scholars, and all Tibetan scholars I am aware of, quoted this section and understood it to be the primary textual basis for the AA's teaching on the buddha kiiyas (AA 8 verses 1-33).38 Its passages are numbered "VIlLI,': "VIII.2," and "VIII.3" in Conze's editions of the sutra. In hi~ translation they read as follows39 :

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMAKAYA

VIII.l svabMvika/:t kaya/:t Again, Subhuti, of those all-dharmas, which are like a dream, which are nonentities, which have nonexistence for ownbeing, which are empty of own-hlarks, which are perfectly pure through the knowledge of all modes, which are undefiled, the essential original nature, which has one mark only, i.e. no mark, should be known as the Tathagata, the Arhat, the fully Enlightened One. It is thus that the bodhisattva, the great being, should train in perfect wisdom. rJnanatmako dharmakaya/:t] Subhuti: What again, 0 Lord, are those undefiled all-dharmas? The Lord: The 37 wings of enlightenment, the holy unlimited, the eight emancipations, ... the four perfect purities, the ten perfections, the ten powers, the four grounds of self-confidence, the three ways in which (the Tathagata) has nothing to hide, the threefold mindful equanimity, the nature which is never bewildered, the knowledge of all modes, the knowledge of the paths, all-knowledge-these, Subhuti, are the undefiled all-dharmas. It is thus, Subhuti, that the bodhisattva, the great being, should train in the perfection of wisdom. VIII.2 sambhogika/:t kaya/:t Moreover, Subhuti, when he has trained in perfect wisdom, when by the full attainment of just these dharmas he has known full enlightenment, his body always and everywhere adorned with the 32 marks of the superman and his 80 accessory characteristics, the Tathagata, the Arhat, the fully Enlightened One, demonstrates to the bodhisattvas, the great beings, the supreme dharma of the Mahayana which brings them unsurpassed delight and joy, happiness and ease. It is thus that the bodhisattva, the great being, should train in perfect wisdom. VIII.3 nairma1'!ika/:t kaya/:t Moreover, having trained in perfect wisdom, having, through the full attainment of just these dharmas, known full enlightenment, the Tathagata, Arhat, the fully enlightened Buddha, in the ten directions, in endless and boundless world systems, during the whole of time, works the weal of all beings by means of a multiform cloud of transformation bodies. It is thus that the bodhisattva, the great being, should train in perfect wisdom.

57

Late Indian scholars (at least from the time of Ratnakara-

.58 JIABS VOL. 12 NO.2

santi) and Tibetan scholars up to the present day have aSSUIlle;!,;;" that AA 8 was commenting directly on these siltra passages. For!!] that reason they all understood it to be a straightforward exposi.:c~ tion of the multiple kayas (either three or four) as they were) taught directly in the PP siltras.40)/i

The bad news, for those who have relied on Tibetan corre! mentaries for their understanding of the AA, is that this section1

of the siltra did not exist at the time theAA was written.41 Ther~! is very strong evidence that passages VlII.1-VIII.3 were an'! interpolation, added to the PP siltra long after the AA's composi~: tion. This means that AA 8 was commenting not on this section; but on a different section of the siltra, a section which, wheif properly identified, can give us a better. picture of the AA;;~

w' meamng.;~

What is the evidence of a late interpolation? Firstly, thed~ were three Chinese translations of the entire Paiicavi'Y(liatisiihasrt}~ kii PP siltra: Mok~ala's (291 C.E.), Kumarajlva's (403 CE.), anall Hsiian tsang's (659-663 C.E.). Passages VIII.1-VIII.3 are n<>t~ found in any of them.42 To my knowledge they are not foun~N in any Chinese translation of any Large PP siltra. This meaIi~l that they were probably a late addition to the 25,000 PP Silti~~ an addition not known to Chinese translators up to the seventli!~ century. Secondly, passages VIII.1-VIII.3 are not found in a~y: editions of the unrevised Large PP siltra extant in Sanskrit o~~ Tibetan, including the 100,000, 25,000 and 18,000 sloka veti~ sions. They are only found in one special version of the 25,OO~:j PP, the revised edition, found in the Tibetan canon but nevef) translated into Chinese.43 Thirdly, and most importantly, ArY~;; Vimuktisena (early 6th century), who wrote the first AA cOIIl~ mentary extant, tells us that the PP siltra of his time did no.t] contain the passages in question.;{~~

Within the eight chapters of the AA, there are seventy topics;:l !he last four topics are the subject of chapter 8. According t~ Arya Vimuktisena, they are: sviibhiivikakiiya, siimbhogikakaya!: nairmii1J,ikakiiya, and nairmii1J,ikakiiyasya karma (the nairmar],ik(j~ kiiya's activity in the world).44 The 'Primary purpose of ArY~i Vimuktisena's commentary is to align each topic of the AA. t~ its corresponding passage in the 25,000 PP siltra. He does th~~ by identifying the AA topic and then quoting or paraphrasiil~ it~ corresponding siltra passage. We know when he is quotiIlS

:,J,ll .,:::~

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARM.AK..AYA 59

r.'fparaphrasing the sutra, rather than giving his own explana~6rt, by his use of one or more of the standard. expressions frllployed in Sanskrit to signal quotations: "yad aha . .. iti" ("as {the siitra] said"), "yathii" ("as [said in sutra]"), "sutre" ("[as] in We sutra"), or "iti" (indicating a direct quote).45 For all 66 topics !{the AA's first seven chapters, he invariably follows this proceytre and methodically marks his references to the sutra. It is f{gnificax:t, then, that he sud?enly stops quotin.? t~e .sutr~ when :lli:tfoducmg the first two topICS of chapter 8, svabhavzkakaya and fainbhogikakiiya. There is no mark of reference to the sutra by t~U6te or paraphrase. He just presents his own explanations. fhen, upon introducing the third topic and fourth topics, 'ftdirmiir;,ikakiiya and karma (activity), he resumes quoting the PP ffttra. However, his quotes are drawn not from passages VIII.1-Win.3 presented above, but from the passages in the sutra which ~ffiinediately follow them (VIII.4-VIII.5 in Conze's numbering ~stem). _ If: What does this mean? At the point where Arya Vimuktisena . !~fnpleteshis explanations of the sViibhiivikakiiya and siimbho~kakiiya, he tells us. He says: "As for the teaching of these two [iJiyas] , they are taught in the section of the [PP] sutra which fe'aches the nairmiir;,ikakiiya's activity, [in the section on] the (flieans of collecting disciples which is the giving of supramun'llihe dharma~Therefore, they were not taught earlier."46 He is ;;T~'"\

~aYing that t e PP sutra does not contain any distinct sections ~~sViibhiivika iiya and siimbhogikakiiya. He finds their textual basis ~'" / h h fi d . .c :!~.' the same place were ems a textual basIs lor the ftiirmiir;,ikakiiya's activity. And that is in a later portion of the ~!fItra (VIII.5), quite different from the passages we quoted above [XIII.I-VIII.3) of which he was completely unaware.47 This means that pass~ges VIII.1-VIII.3 were added to the PP sutra §Ome time after Arya Vimuktisena, which was obviously a signif-1f~nt time after the AA was composed.. . ~!;! Where did these interpolated sutra passages come from? If ~ya Vimuktisena's own introductory remarks on each of the ~ree kiiyas are compared to PP passages VIII.I-VIII.3, it is ~~ite clear that these passages were composed and inserted into ~e sutra using Arya Vimuktisena's re:narks as their basis. For lP~ reasons given above, we know that Arya Vimuktisena's introi~ctory comments on sViibhiivikakiiya and siimbhogikakiiya are his

I~r .. ~~,' ~,~ ,. ~;"

____ ;~k'


own, and are not paraphrases of PP VIlLI-VIII.3. We know:1J in fact, that he had never heard of those passages. He also make~if ~utonomous ~o~ments abou~ nairm~1J,ikak~ya, prior t~ quoting~ Its textual basIs III PP VIII.4. Arya VUl1uktIsena's own mtroduc~7 tory remarks on sViibhiivikakiiya, siimbhogikakiiya, and nairmii'l'),ika~{1 kiiya are very' similar in wording to PP VIII. 1, VIIL2, and VIII.3 ij respectively. Late Indian and Tibetan scholars, seeing the c1os~:~ ness between Arya Vimuktisena's remarks and PP VIII.l_!? VIII.3, naturally assumed that he was paraphrasing the siltra:~ But in fact the reverse was true. PP VIII.I-VIII.3 were inserted; into the siltra as a paraphrase of Arya Vimuktisena!48>&

A careful reading of Arya Vimuktisena's commentary, then";:; tells us three things: 1. Contrary to what late Indian and Tibetan" traditions believed, AA 8 was not based on PP passages VIII.l15 VIII.3. 2. These Yf passages were a late interpolation. They: were written taking Arya Vimuktisena's AA 8 commentary as theifi

. basis. 3. AA 8 was probably based on the section of the 25,000 PP sidra identified by Arya Vimuktisena, consisting of passage~: VIII.4 and VIIL5 (which immediately follow the interpolateg' passages VIILI-VIII.3 in the revised PP).49/t;~

What do PP passages VIII.4 and VIII.5 teach, upon which;; AA 8 was actually based? Surprisingiy, they do not center ort" buddhahood, not even mentioning the buddha kiiyas or a buddha'~' activity. Instead, their teaching concerns the four ways in which' bodhisattvas gather disciples (catviiri sa1{Lgraha vastilni). The ·first of these ways is the giving of gifts, which includes the giving o( material gifts and the gift of dharma. Within the gift of dharma. are all the practices and realizations of Buddhists and non-Buddhists, all the dharmas of the three vehicles, including the achieve:' ment of the undefiled buddha dharmas, 32 marks and 80 signs; etc. 50 Thus, the qualities of buddhahood are not even the focus' of the passage. They are merely included within 4 large inven~; tory of realizations imparted by bodhisattvas. N umerous activitie~ to help beings are also mentioned in the passage. But they are carried out not by a buddha, but by bodhisattvas, the buddha merely observing them.51 Consistent with much of the rest of the PP siltra, the passage focuses on the activities of bodhisattvas, wh() work for living beings by engaging in the practice of prajiiiipara;. mitii conjoined with skill in means. Its mention of buddha qualitie~ is ancillary. . .


If AA chapter 8 were based on the P P passages quoted !~bove, we might follow Tibetan scholars in concluding that AA ~~hapter 8 t~ught whatever number of kayas those passages ~laught. But It was not based on them. It was based on passages f1which pres~nted the same sort of list of buddha dharmas which !~as to be found scattered throughout the P P sutras. In explicatiiirig them, AA. 8 was just explicating the PP sutras' ~os.t co~mon ~W~y ofreferrmg to buddhahood. But at the same tIme, WIthout ft"rty clear basis in the PP sutra, it used the specific terms "svabhii'iiJikakaya," "sambhogikakaya," and "nairma1'}ikakaya," which it ;'plainly drew from Yogacara sources.52

~IL:

it :YIlI. Conclusion $i1,~,"

I'i~; The author of AA, then, by explicating the PP's lists of ilfiud,dha qualities, was explaining the way the P P sutras generally • • lireferred to buddhahood. And, at the same time, he was relating t~this to the way Yogacara texts generally talked about buddha- . ~hood. What he sought to explain was not just the meaning of i~~·few short PP passages, but the relationship between the differr~ent ways buddhahood was generally described in two of the main ~j;Mahayana textual traditions of his time, the PP sutras and the ~jYogacara sastras. r:t Up to his time, nobody had explicitly related the PP's budIridhology to the increasingly popular Yogacara descriptions .. ~>Were the PP and the Yogacara talking about the same state of . i;enlightenment, or not? Surely the author of the AA would want ()o say that they were. But this would mean that what the PP {'referred to in terms of "undefiled dharmas," "marks and signs," ~"dharmakaya," etc., must be the same thing that the Yogacaras cireferred to in terms of "the three kayas". The obvious question ;would then be: how do the two descriptions correspond? Which 'items in the PP descriptions correspond to each of the three ')kayas of Y ogacara? This is the question the author of the AA ~would have wanted to address. And this would mean that the ;AA was indeed a three-kaya text, mapping Yogacara concepts ;:onto the PP sutra.

Given this background, let us pretend for a moment that we were the AA's first commentator (with no commentaries to


refer to). We analyze its 8th chapter, cognizant of the Yoga.ca.r and PP traditions which were prevalent at the time of its corn~ position.53 It is highly likely we wOllld interpret it as follows. The first of the three kiiyas ofYogacaraois called both "SViibhiivika~ kiiya" and "dharmakaya". This is to be eqllated with the dharmakiiy~ of the PP sutras. It is often designated in the PP by listing the names of the llndefiled buddha dharmas, but it is not to be iden_ tified with them, since it is beyond such designations. The sambhogikakaya of Y ogacara corresponds to the buddha in the PP sutra who is said to possess the 32 marks and 80 signs. And since the nairmii1Jikakiiya of Yogacara must have some correspondencf! in the PP, the limitless forms emanated by bodhisattvas in th~ PP (section VIII.5) will have to be understood as emanations of the buddha himself, their activity then, being his activity. As for the title of the chapter, it is also called "dharmakaya," where the term carries its second Yogacaran sense, meaning buddhahood as a whole. We should not be surprised, then, that this is precisely the interpretation of AA 8 which was made by its first great commentator, Arya Vimuktisena.54 And it continued to be the standard interpretation for several hundred years after him.55

We conclude, then, that AA 8 was not newly presenting a theory of four kayas, as many have claimed, but was instead performing a task which was far more pressing at the time it was written: to show, for the first time, the relation between PP descriptions of enlightenment and Yogacara descriptions. Ac~ cording to this theory, the AA is teaching three kayas. But it does so idiosyncratically, because rather than explaining them within a strict Yogacara context (as in MSA, Msg, etc.), it tries to show how they are tacitly expressed in PP passages which make no explicit mention of them. Here, I have formulated this theory based upon AA chapter 8, its textual antecedents, its first commentators, and historical considerations. There is much more evidence to support it in the Sanskrit of the AA and in other texts of its period, but that will be the subject of another paper.56

NOTES

1. Haribhadra (c. 770-810 C.E.), to my knowledge, was the first to

ascribe the AA to Maitreya. He did so in his Aloka and Sphutartha (Amano, p. 2).

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARNI.AK:AYA 63

~'rl:.lnlC;U that AsaIiga and Vasubandhu wrote commentaries on the AA, these have m:verbeen found. If true, the AA was composed by the

C.E. The first commentary extant in any language is Arya Vimukti(c. early 6th century). If this was the first commentary, it would put 's terminus ad quem in the 5th century. 2. The last verse of the AA names its final topic: "dharmakayaphalam,"

~n:::,".uL~"" dharmakaya," meaning the state of buddhahood. In Arya ViAA Vrtti (Peking 5185, fol. 100-3-7) the AA's final chapter is

;'chos kyi sku'i skabs bslab pa'i 'bras bu'i leu," "The Dharmakiiya Section, rh.,ntpr on the Result of the Trainings" ('''bras bu" = ''jJhalam''). In Hari

Sphutartha (Amano, p. 262) the AA's final chapter is called "Dharmahhisall~bo'af!la," "Complete Enlightenment: the Dharmakaya." In Indian commentaries on theAA (those by Arya Vimuktisena, Bhadanta

Dharmamitra, Ratnakarasanti, Abhayakaragupta), the word in "dharmakiiya" is etymologized in one or more of three ways: kaya = support, basis ("dharmakaya" = the support of all excellent qualities, ; kiiya = sarira: body ("dharmakaya" = body of dharmata); or kaya =

collection or accumulation ("dharmakaya" = collection of excellent dharmas). The term "kaya" in "rupakiiya," in both pre-Mahayana and

' .. "lva.uu texts, has generally meant "sar'ira," "body." 3. e.g. Conze, PP Lit., p. 103; Dutt,MahiiyanaBuddhism, p. 155; Poussin,

. pp. 790-791; Obermiller, Analysis of the Abhisamayiilamkara, pp. 11-12. 4. As far as we know, Haribhadra was the first to claim that the AA four kayas.

5. The statements of this paragraph were made for the purpose of i!i,'hT'OV1,OlI' 111: the broader context into which the subject matter of this paper fits.

aware that these statements require a great deal of supporting eviden<::e, . purpose of this paper is to begin providing that evidence, starting first 'an analysis of the AA's textual antecedents. Evidence for: my description

of the controversy's other historical stages will be taken up in future

6. One point should be made at the outset. Although the participants debate always read their views into the AA, if our analysis finally decides

the AA taught one kaya theory rather than the other, it does not comprise i!3.refutatj·ion of the other theory. It only establishes which theory the AA taught.

apart from the AA, both the three-kaya and four-kaya theories of enIl1)111lC:11lJIlClllin non-tantric Mahayana Buddhism are quite supportable within

tradition; based on other scriptures and on reason. ' 7. Abhisainayiilamkaravrtti, Pk 5185, Vol. 88, fols. 92-4-6-92-5-7.

for the first chapter of this text has been edited by C. Pensa. Up to present time, the rest of the text is available only in the Tibetan canon.

8. Sphutiirtha, Amano, pp: 268-270. Aloka, Wogihara, pp. 914-916. 9. Kosabh~ya, 4.32. '

10. Mahiivibh~a, 34.7. Po us sin, L'Abhidharmakosa, ch. 6, p. 76. 11. Kosabh~ya 4.32, 7.28. 12. Ibid. 7.28. 13. Ibid. 7.28: araT}iisamiidhi, prar;.idhijiiii1ia, the four pratisamvid, the six


abhijitas, the four dhyanas, the four arilpyasamapattis, the four aprama7].as, th'; eight vimo~as, eight abhibhvayatanas, and the ten krtsnayatanas. The 37 bOdh~' pa~as are described in detail in chapter 6. h

14. Ibid. 7.34. 15.' For the list of saivadharmal;" see Conze, Mahaprajiiaparamita Sutra

fols. P 165-169, section I.5; Conze, Large Sutra, pp. 120-123.),; 16, e.g, A~tadaSa.: Conze, The Gilgit Manuscript of the NtadaSasahasrika~'

prajiiaparamita, fo1. 276b, p. 35. Paiicavim: Conze, Mahaprajiiaparamitii, fol.: P.524:' "tad bodhisattvo mahiisattval;, prajiiaparamitayaT{! caran dvayo sunyatayo sthitva at yaH;: ntaSunyatayaT{! anavaragraSunyatayaT{! ca sattvanaT{! dharmam desayati / sunyaT{! trai~"i dhatukam eta[nJ niistyatra rilpaT{! va vedanii va samjiia va samskarii va vijiiiinaiT/,J va skandha va dhatavo va ayataniini va api tu khalu sarva ete dharma avastukii',; abhavasvabMviis . .. " "Thus the Bodhisattva, Mahasattva, engaging in the per~; fection of insight, having stood in the two emptinesses: the boundless empti_i1 ness and the emptiness without beginning or end, teaches the dharma fcir' living beings. [He tells them:] 'Everything in the three realms is empty. Here there is no form, feeling, perception, mental formations, or consciousness;;' There are no skandhas, no elements, no sense fields .... Rather, all these' dharmas are unreal. Their self-existence is non-existent .... '" Note here atil in the notes which follow that where I do not name the translator into English;; the translation is mine. .;;,

17. By the word "essence" here, I mean the most important quality ~t, qualities of a thing, those qualities without which, it would cease to be that: thing: The discussion here concerns the PP, which denies the self-existence" of all phenomena. Therefore, when I say "essence" I do not mean any kina' of self-existent or independent nature. I mean that which makes a buddha ~" buddha,:;

18. e.g. PaitcaviT{tSati: Conze, Mahaprajiiaparamita, fo!' P 78: d "yena prajiiiiea~u~a samanviigato bodhisattvo mahiisattvo na kaT{!cid dharmti,i;t:

prajanati saT{!Skritam vii asaT{!skritam va kusalam va akufalam va savadyamvii' anavadyam va siisravam va aniisravam vii samklesam va niJ;,klesam va laukikam va, lokottaram va samkl~tam va vyavadanam va. yena prajiiiica~~a bodhisattvena mahii~; sattvena Weid dharmo na d~to na sruto na mato na vijiiatal;,. idam bodhisattvasyaZ

mahiisattvasya pariSuddham prajiia ,ca~ul;,," Translated in Conze, Large Sutra;' p. 77: "A bodhisattva who is endowed with that wisdom eye does not know any dharma-be it conditioned or unconditioned, wholesome or unwholesome; faulty or faultless, with or without outflows, defiled or undefiled, worldly or supramundane. With that wisdom eye he does not see any dharma, or hear;' know, or discern one. This is the perfectly pure wisdom eye of a bodhisattva. ,,'

19. A~tasahasrikaPP fo1. 94: "saeet kaufika ayaT{! te jambudv'ipal;, paripufIJ-aS cUijika baddhas tathagataior

r'ira7].aT{! d'iyeta/ iyaT{! ca prajitaparamita likhitvopanamyeta/ tata ekatere7].a bhagena, pravaryamano 'nayor dvayor bhagayol;, sthapitayol;, katamaT{! tvaT{!' kaufika bhagam; grhr}'iyal;,// sakra aha/ saeen me bhagavann ayaT{! jambudv'ipal;, paripuT7].aS e#iM;' baddhas tathagataSar'ira7].am diyeta/ iyam ea prajiiaparamita likhitvopanamyeta/ tat~;, ekatarer}a bhagena pravaryamano 'nayor dvayor bhagayol;, sthapitayor imam evaha1jl, bhagavan prajiiaparamitaT{! parigrh7].'iyaT{!// tat kasya hetoJ;,! yatha 'Pi nama tathagatd


,C 'etff citrfkiire1Ja I etad dhi tathagatanaT{! bhiltarthikaT{! sarfram /1 tat kasya heto!t/ likltam hy etad bhagavata dharmakiiya buddha bhagavanta!t/ ma khalu punar imaT{! :ihikiava{L satkiiyaT{! kayaT{! manyadh~aT{!1 dharmakayaparini:;pattito maT{! bhi~avo 'drak!yathai/a ca tatMg~takayo bhutakofl prabMvito dr~favy~ yad ut~ prajiiiiparamltai/" ,'iiBhagavan: If, Kauslka, on the one hand you were gIven thIs world filled up : . the top with relics of the tatMgatas; and if, on the other hand, you could 't6are in a written copy of this perfection of wisdom; and if now you had to ,~h6ose between the two, which one would you take? Sakra: I would take just this perfection of wisdom rprajnaparamita]. Because of my respect for [it as] the guide of the tatMgatas. Because in actuality it is the body of the tatMgatas. 'As the Bhagavan has said: 'The dharmakayas are the buddhas, the bhagavans. Bilt, monks, you should not think that this [physical] body is my true body. Monks, you will see me ·from the perfection of the dharmakaya. And this

"tdthiigatakiiya should be seen as brought about by the true limit, i.e. by the :. perfection of ,,:isdom.'"

.," A~!asahaS1lka PP, fols. 512-514: "evam ukte dharmodgato bodhisattva maMsattva{L sadapraruditaT{! bodhisattvaT{!

mahasattvaT{! etad avocatl na khalu kulaputra tatMgata{L kutascid agacchanti va "'gOa;hanti val acalita h'i tathata ya ca tathata sa tatMgata!t/ na hi kula putranutpada agl1cchati va gacchati va yai canutpada{L sa tatMgata!t/ na hi kulaputra bhutako.tya

<agamanaT{! va gamanaT{!va prajnayate ya ca bhutako.fi{L sa tatMgata{L I na hi kulaputra Siinyataya agamanam va gamanam va prajniiyate yii ca sunyata sa tatMgata{L I . .. na hi kulaputriinyatrebhyo dharmebhyas tatMgata{L yo' ca kulaputrai~iim eva dharmii1JaT{! lathata yo, ca sarvadharmatathatii yii ca tatMgatatathata ekaivai~a tathatiil nasti kula'putra tathataya dvaidhZkiira{L ekaivai;;ii tathata kulaputra tathatii na dve na tism gOr;anavyativrta kulaputra tathatii yad utasattviitl ... dharmodgata ahal evam etat kulaputraivam etatl evam eva kulaputra ye kecit tatMgataruperJa va gho~erJa va jQhinivi~fas te tatMgatasy' agamanartl ca gamanaT{! cakalpayantil ... sarve te biila-1fJtiya du~prajnajatfya iti vaktavya!t/ tadyatM 'Pi nama sa eva puru~o yo 'nudake Udakasamjnam utpadayatil tat kasya heto!t/ na hi tatMgato rupakiiyato dra~tavya{L tdharmakayas tatMgata!t/ na ca kulaputra dharmata agacchati va gacchati val evam eva kulaputra nasti tatMgatanam agamanaT{! va gamanaT{! val . .. kulaputra sarvadharma{L svapnopamii ukta Bhagavata I ye kecit kulaputra svapnopamiin sarva dharmar{lS tatMgatena nirdeiitan yatMbhutaT{! na prajananti te tatMgatan namakiiyena va rupakayena va abhiniviSya tathiigatanam agamanaT{! vii gamanar[l va kalpayantil yatM 'Pi nama dharmatam aprajananto ye ca tatMgatanaT{! iigamanaT{! va gamanaT{! va kalpayanti sarve te biilajatfya{L prthagjana};, . . . I ye khalu puna};, kulaputra svapnopamiin sarvadharman svapnopama};, sarvadharma iti tathagatena desitan yathiibhutar[l prajananti na te kasyacid dharmasy' agamanaT{! va gamanaT{! va kalpayanti ... te dharmataya tathagatar[l prajananti I . . . ye ca tathagatasyedrSir[l dharmatii1[! prajananti te asanna anuttaraya};, samyaksambodhes caranti te ca prajnaparainitiiyar[l caranti/" "Dharmodgata: Son of the family, tathagatas certainly do not :tome from anywhere, nor do they go anywhere. For, indeed, such ness (tathata) is unmoving, and the Tathagata is suchness. Nor, son of the family, does non-arising come or go; the Tathagata is non-arising. Nor is a coming or ?,oing of the true limit (bhutakotiM known; the Tathagata is the true limit. Nor 1sa coming of emptiness (Sunyata) known; the Tathagata is emptiness ... Nor, son of the family, is the Tathagata other than the dharmas, for that which is


the suchness of these dharmas, that which is the suchness of all dharmas th which is the suchness of the Tathagata, is just this one suchness. For suchn ~t has no division. This suchness is just one, son of the family. Suchness is :8,8 two, not three. Suchness is beYQnd enumeration because it is not a bei:t (asattvat). .g

[Dharmodgata gives a metaphor of a foolish man who mistakes a mira': of water for actual water. He asks Sadaprarudita whether the mirage_wat~e has come from anywhere or goes anywhere. Sadaprarudita replies that, sine!" there is no water in the mirage, there is no coming or going of water, and the man who believes there is water in the mirage is foolish.]

Dharmodgata: Injust the same way, son of the family, those who hav~ adhered to the Tathagata through his form or his voice imagine a coming or going of the Tathagata. They are to be called foolish and stupid, just like the person who perceives water where there is no water. [This is] because the Tathagata is not to be seen from his rupakiiya. The dharmakayas are the tatha_ gatas, and the real nature of things [dharmata] does not come or go. Likewise there is no coming or going of the Tathagata .... The Bhagavan has said that all dharmas are like a dream. And those who do not know all dharmasto be like a dream as explained by the Tathagata, they adhere to the tathagatas through [their] name body [namakaya] or form body [rupakaya] and imagine there is a coming or going of the tathagatas . ... But those who know all dhaT1l!l.ls to be like a dream as they really are, as explained by the Tathagata, they do. not imagine a coming or going of any dharma, ... they know the Tathagata by means of the real nature [dharmata] . ... Those who know such a real nature [dharmata] of the Tathagata, they practice close to full enlightenment; they practice the perfection of wisdom rprajiiaparamita]." (Portions of this passage are very close to Vajracchedika PP, vs. 26).

Paiicavimsati: Conze, Mahiiprajiiaparamita, fo1. P 485b: "subhutir aha bodhir ityucyate kasyaitad adhivacanaml bhagavan aha: bodhir

iti subhute sunyataya etad adhivacanarrt tathataya etad adhivacanam bhUtakoter etad adhivacanam dharmadhiitor etad adhivacanam. . . . I api tu khalu subhute buddhanai[! e~a bhagavatarrt bodhis tasmad bodhir ityucyatel api tu khalu subhute buddhair e~ii bhagavadbhir abhisambuddhas tasmad bodhir ityucyate I" "Subhuti: 'Enlightenment' is spoken of, Bhagavan. For what is that a designation? The Bhagavan: 'Enlightenment' is a designation for emptiness. It is a designation for thusness. It is a designation for the true limit. It is a designation for the dharma-realm . . . . Moreover, Subhuti, because the buddhas, the bhagavans, have this enlightenment, it is called 'enlightenment.' Moreover, Subhuti, because it is realized by the buddhas, the bhagavans, it is called 'enlightenment.'''

Note in these passages how enlightenment (bodhi, dharmakaya, tathiigata-. kaya, etc.) is associated both with thusness, tathata, and with the gnosis that realizes it, prajiiaparamita.

The bases for this analysis are the descriptions of dharmakaya in versions of the 8000, 18,000 and 25,000 PP sutras avC'jlable in Sanskrit and Tibetan, and closely related descriptions inthe Vajracchedikii PP and the SaptaSatika PP. According to Professor Lewis Lancaster's studies of the development of the 8000 PP sutras in Chinese translations, the accounts of dharmakaya I have


en probably belong to the middle and late stages of the 8000 PP, whose v. st Chinese translations were made in the early 5th and mid-7th centuries

linson, pp. 16, 30t. The Vajracchedika PP was translated into Chinese at :beginning of the 5th centUry (Conze, PP Literature, p. 60). Obviously, se pp sutras had a significant period of development in India prior to their ':slation in China. A very similar account of dharmakaya vs. rupakiiyais found the Samadhirajasutra, whose terminus ad quem has been put in the 4th !tury (Regamay, Three Chapters from Samadhirajasutra, pp. 11-12. But see open, "Notes on the Cult of the Book," pp. 153 ff. and "Sukhavatl,"

204 where he notes that available evidence has pushed back speculative ·mations of the dates of the 8000 P P, Vajracchedika PP, and Samadhirajasutra,

: ·ng the latter two to perhaps the 2nd century C.E.). It is widely held among ern scholars, including Lancaster ("The Oldest Mahayana Sutra," p. 36), the two-kaya theory found in the P P sutras was a forerunner of the

adira three-kaya terminology,- a terminology which appears in the AA -bhavikakaya" "sambhogikakaya" "nairma1Jikakaya"). It is likely, therefore, that PP conceptions of dharmakaya discussed above developed prior to the

'iod of composition of the AA (ca 4th to 5th century), although expressions them continued to be added to the PP sutras throughout the following turies. . One point should be made parenthetically. Lancaster identified one menn_of the word "dharmakiiya" ih a passage of the 8000 PP which seems to -:ry the meaning "collection of dharma texts," rather then the meanings entified here: thus ness and prajiiaparamita. Lancaster believes that this paske is part of the earliest stage of development of the 8000 PP text ("The Idest Mahayana Sutra," p. 36). What I am focusing on here are the meanings the word "dharmakaya" in the middle and late texts which became especially portant to the Yogacaras and, I believe, to the author of the AA. '. 20. Sutras such as thePP,Avata'f!lSaka,A~ayamati, Sukhavatzvyuha, Vimalainirdesa, etc. In them, exalted tathagatas are described presiding over pure hakJetras, e.g., Sakyamuni, Ak~obhya of the PP sutras, Vairocana of the aT{lSaka, Amitabha of the Sukhavatzvyuha, etc. And descriptions are given

buddhas and bodhisattvas emanating infinite arrays of forms to teach living ngs at the times and places fitted to their qeeds.

'. 21. N. Dutt, Mahiiyana Buddhism, pp. 136-170; Hobogrin, article: "Busin" by P. Demieville; La Vallee Poussin, La Siddhi, pp. 762-813, "Notes sur

rtl~; Corps du Bouddha." . I:,!' 22. This summarizes part of the description of these two kiiyas found in ~~~ramati's and Asvabhava's :ommentaries on MSA 9.61 ;lOd in Vasubandhu's f:~,nd Asvabhava's commentanes on Msg 10.30. ~;! 23. MAVbhii.yya 4.14. DhDhV, sDe dge phi, fo!' 47b4, 51b6. RGV, chapter ~; presents a three-kaya theory at some length. Because its focus is so squarely ;~n the theory of tathagatagarbha, it stands apart somewhat from the other !t:xts mentioned here. However, it relates its basic model of enlightenment, 'l!.!rmala tathata, to the theory of three kayiis in much the same way that the t¥SA, Msg, and their commentaries relate dharmadhatuviSuddhi and nirmalata~!~ata/nirvikalpajiiana to the kayas. It quotes from MSA 9, and in one portion ~:?

~~i f:'" riG":' 1)-\,

~::"


of its second chapter it is clearly applying the MSA's buddhology to its theory of tathagatagarbha. See RGV, Johnson pp. 85-88, Takasaki, p. 4l.

24. A bibliography of modern scholars' speculations on the history of early Yogacara can be found in Nakamura, Indian Buddhism, p. 263. Summaries are found in Ruegg, La Theorie, pp. 30-55; Davidson, "Buddhist Systems of Transformation," pp. 14-49, 126-149. Davidson reexamines the questions of authorship of all early Yogacara sastras, and concludes that the authorship of the MAV, DhDh V, and AA is still unknown. I agree. _

25. Levi, MSA 9.4, p. 34. 26. Vrttibhii4ya, sDe-dge mi, fols. 108a2-108b4. 27. Levi, MSA 9.79, p, 48. 28. Vrttibhii4ya, sDe-dge mi, fols. 144a7-144b1. 29. Vrttibhii4ya, sDe-dge mi, fols. 144a2-144b7 (commenting on MSA vss.

79-81). On full enlightenment as vimalatathatii, see MSA 9.56-59 bhii4ya and vrttibhii4Ya.

30. Msg 10.3 characterizes dharmakiiya as iiSrayapariivrtti, the complete transformation of the basis which is full enlightenment (aprat~thita nirvii7j.a, Msg 9.1). The precedent for this is Samdhinirmocanasutra, 10.1-10.2, where the Bhagavan tells Maiijusrl that the dharmakiiya of the tathiigatas is to be identified with their iiSrayaparivrtti (on the etymologies and general semantic' equivalence of -pariivrtti and -parivrtti in classical Y ogacara texts, see Davidson, pp. 152-3). MSA 9.60 bhii4ya makes the same characterization. At 9.77 the bhii4Ya closely relates dharmakiiya with the anasravadhiitu, a MSA model of full enlightenment. Sthiramati's vrttibhii4Ya on MSA 9.60 and 66 identifies dharmakiiya directly with dharmadhiituviSuddhi, another Y ogacara model of full enlightenment.

31. Davidson, pp. 199-259 separates out several different models of iiSrayapariivrtti in Yogacara. The important point here is that the Yogacara understood its models of full enlightenment, including the three-kiiya model, in terms of iiSrayapariivrtti, i.e., as the completion of a process of yogic realization, not just an an object of logical analysis.

32. Levi, MSA bhii4ya, p. 45: "trividhaly, kiiyo buddhiiniiT(t/ sviibhiiviko dharmakiiya asrayapariivrttila!?Ja7j.aly,/ siiT(tbhogiko yena par~anma7J.dale~u dharmasaT(tbhogam karotif nairmiiniko yena nirmiinena satviirtham karotif"

33. MSA 9.60-62, bhii4Ya and vrttibha~ya; Msg7.11, 10, 1, 10.3 bh~ya and upanibhandhana: RGW ch. 2 preamble and vss. 2.38-2.61; Kiiyatrayastotra; Kiiyatrayasutra; KiiyatrayiivatiiraSastra; the three kiiya chapter ("sku gsum mam par 'byed pa") which appears in later editions of the Suvar7].aprabhasasutra.

34. This hearkens back to the PP sutras' opposition of dharmakiiya to

rupiikiiya which we saw earlier (the dharmakiiya being what the Buddha actually is; the rupakiiya being what fools think he is). Typical in Yogacara literature, is the description of the sviibhiivikakiiya as "pratyatmavedam," "known only to himself' (to the Buddha), not to others (Kiiyatrayastotra vs. 1; Kiiyatrayasutra Pk 949 Vol. 37, fo1. 108-3-2; RGV 2.42). MSA 9.60 describes the sViibhiivikakiiya as "subtle" (su!?Jma), Sthiramati explaining this to mean that it is not a cognitive object for sriivakas or pratyekabuddhas (vrttibhii4ya sDe dge mi, fols. 166b5-6).

35. MSA chapter 9 may well be the first presentation of three kiiyas in


'yogacara literature. It labels the first 'of the three kayas :"svabhavikakaya" (not ::;dharmakaya"). The next earliest texts to teach three kayas are probably Msg :chapter 10. (based on MSA 9), AA chapter 8, Ratnagotravibhaga chapter 2 (see ;Davidson, pp. 132-144 for recent speculations on the chronology of the "MaiItreya" corpus), and the Buddhabhumisutra (the four verses near the end of the !satra on dharmadhatuviSuddhi. The relative dating of the MSA and Buddhabhumi:Wtra is presently somewhat controversial, but that does not affect the argument 'here). Like MSA 9, all of these texts call the. first kaya "svabhavikaMya." Of all ,'the early Yogacarafastras to teach three kayas, only the Dharmadharmatavibhaga 'refers to the first as "dharmakaya." But this text mentions the three kayas only {in passing, and obviously drew the theory from other sources. It is in the commentaries and subcommentaries to these texts, ascribed to Vasubandhu, . .I\.svabhava, Sthiramati, etc., that the term "dharmakaya" begins regularly replacing the term "svabhavikakaya" in the list of three kayas. And this becomes the .)lorm in later texts such as the Kayatrayavatarafastra, Kayatrayasutra, Kayatrayastotra, and Madhyamakavatara.

36. By "Large PP sutra" I mean the suira which Conze identified as existing in three versions: 18,000, 25,000, and 100,000 flokas, all of which are hi.rgely the same in content but differ in the extent to which they repeat the :same PP formulas regarding the emptiness of all dharmas. Conze, PP Literature, 'pp. 10-11. There are three reasons for identifying the 25,000 floka version as the basis of the AA. First, upon analysis, the 8000-floka sutra does not provide an adequate textual basis for the last three and a half chapters of the AA, ihile the Large PP sutra does (this will be detailed in my forthcoming dissertation). Thus, only the Large PP could have been the textual basis fm the AA in its entirety. Secondly, as far as we know, the 25,000 PP was the first PP sUlra identified by classical Indian scholars as the AA's textual basis. And it 'took more than two hundred years before any other PP sutra was so identified (the 8000 PP by Haribhadra). Thirdly, more commentaries associate the AA .with the 25,000-floka version of the PP than any other, including the three : earliest AA commentaries.

37. Nancy R. Lethcoe, "Some Notes on the Relationship between the ,Abhisamayalamkara, the revised Paiicavimiatisahasrika, and the Chinese transla'tions of the unrevised Paitcavimfatisahasrika," JAOS, 96.4 (1976), 499. Conze (PP Literature, p. 36): calls the revised version of the 25,000 sloka PP sutra the "recast version of the Paiicavimiati. PP" (Pk #5188 in the Tibetan canon). I

,shall refer to it as the "revised 25,000 PP." It is a redaction of the 25,000 PP, composed, I believe, after Arya Vimuktisena, which shows the correspondence between the passages of the Large PP sutra and the topics of the AA. In it, each portion of toe sutra is labelled with the name of the AA section for which that portion of the sutra was thought to be the textual basis. The reason I think it appeared after Arya Vimuktisena will become clear in what follows.

38. I am referring here to Ratnakarasanti's Suddhamati, Pk 5199,281-5-2 ff. and Saratama, Pk 5200, 92-4-4 ff., Uaini's Sanskrit edition, p. 172); Abha

,yakaragupta's Marmakaumudi, Pk 5202, 198-5-6 ff. and Munimatala'T{Lkara, Pk 5299,232-1-3 ff.; Bu ston's Lung gi snye ma, vol. 2, p. 204 ff.; gYag ston's Rin po che'i phreng ba blo gsal mgul rgyan, vol. 4, p. 382 ff.; Tsong kha pa's Legs

70 JIABS VOL. 12 1,ro. 2

bshad gser phreng, vol. 2,465-4 ff.; rGyal tshab's rNam bshad snying po'i rgya p. 549 ff., Serarje btsun chos kyi rgyalmtshan's Chos sku spyi don, 14b3 to 15b7 n,

39. This passage is numbered VIlLI, VIII.2, and VIII.3 in Conze, La; e Sutra, pp. 653-4 and Mahii-Prajiiiipiiramitii Sutra, fols. P523a8-P523b5. Whe;e Conze translates "aniisrava" as "without outflows," I have substituted "unde_ filed" in order to keep the terminology of this paper consistent.

40. The titles: "sviibhiivikal; kiiyal;, " "siimbhogikal; kiiyal;," and "nairmii'IJ-ikah kiiyal;" appear in the revised 25,000 PP as the titles of their respective passag~S (Collze, Mahii-Prajiiiipiiramitii Sutra, fols. P523a8-523b5). Ratnakarasanti and Abhayakaragupta quoted these passages as the PP textual basis for AA 8, and as evidence that the AA teaches three buddha kiiyas (Siirattamii, Jaini, ed., p. 172; Marmakaumudi, Pk 5202, 198-5-&--199-1-1). The title ''jiiiiniitmako dharmakiiyal;" labels the portion of the passage which Tibetan scholars believed Haribhadra took as the textual basis for his description of the second bUddha kiiya (the kiiya which consists of the collection of buddha's gnoses, ''jiiiiniitmako dharmakiiyal;"). Haribhadra in his Aloka (W ogihara, pp. 914-916) and Spu{iirtha (Amano, pp. 262-271) delineated the jiiiiniitmako dharmakiiyal;, and Tibetan scholars identified Haribhadra's PP basis for it as it is labelled in the passage above (Bu ston's Lung gi snye ma, Vol. 2, p. 206; rGyal tshab's rNam bshad snying po'i rgyan, p. 551; Sera rjetsun pa's Chos sku phyi don, fol. 15a5); I have put the title ''jiiiiniitmako dharmakiiyal;" in brackets because it does not actually appear in the revised 25,000 PP, while the names of the other three kiiyas do.

41. E. Obermiller's groun?breaking study of the AA analyzed the AA by referring to Haribhadra's AA - Aloka and AA - Sputiirthii and by relying heavily on several majorTibetan AA commentaries (Analysis of the Abhisamayiila7[lkiira, 1933, pp. vii-viii). His report that AA 8 taught four buddhakiiyas was based on these sources. But the Tibetan commentators upon whom he relied (Bu ston, Tsong kha pa, rGyal tshab, '] am dbyang bshad pa) all identified revised 25,000 PP passages VIII.I-VIIL3 (quoted above) as the sutra basis for AA 8's buddhakiiya teaching (see note 38). A number of influential scholars since Obermiller have followed his lead, based on similar sources, reporting simply that AA 8 teaches four kiiyas (see note 3). In order to arrive at a proper interpretation of AA 8, it is important first to identify its actual textual basis in the PP sidra, and then to see if this can shed light on its teaching of the buddhakiiyas. This is what I will attempt to do in what follows. Because no modern scholar has yet done this, there has been a tendency to repeat what scholars such as Obermiller have said without realizing that the Tibetan sources upon which. he relied had misidentified the PP sutra basis of AA 8, and that this has a bearing on the interpretation of AA 8.

42. Lethcoe, op. cit., pp. 499-504. 43. For a description of extant PP sutras, see Conze, PP Literature, 31-74.

The revised 25,000 PP is extant in 18th and 19th century Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts and in the Tibetan canon (Pk 5188). Although included among siistras in the bsTan 'gyur of the Tibetan canon, I am treating it here not as a siistra but as a sutra. There are several reasons for this. Nancy Lethcoe, using Chinese translations of the 25,000 PP sutra, has charted the development of this sutra over a period of several centuries and has clearly shown that its

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMA.KAYA 71

"sed version, extant only in Sanskritand Tibetan, lies within that continuum r~;evelopment. It is a late version of the 25,000 PP sutra, revised by the ~ '. ertion of AA topic names, and less obviously, by occasional transpositions, l~ditions and deletions which bring the sutra more closely into line with the ~(Lethcoe,op. ~it .. not~ 37). It gives t~e app.earance of being just the 25,0?0 pp sutra itsel~; dIstmgUIshed only b~ Its ~avmg the names of the AA topICS 'serted into It after the correspondmg sutra passages. The passages are the l~ual dialogues between the Bhagavan, Subhuti, Sariputra, etc., without any Y tervening exegesis or commentary whatsoever. At some point Indian com:entators on the AA began quoting this revised version of the 25,000 PP when giving the sutra basis for the AA. Ratnakarasanti and Abhayakaragupta quoted revised 25,000 PP passages VIII.I-VIII.3 as a sutra basis for AA 8 (see Jlote 37). It may be that by the time of Ratnakarasanti (c. 1000 C.E.), and perhaps som:what ea:lier, Indian_scholars found the revised. 25,000 PP the most convement verSIOn of the sutra to use when commentmg on the AA, since only this version of the PP had its passages marked with the AA topic names' for ready reference. The Tibetan commentators then followed them iri this. When Indian and Tibetan scholars quoted the revised 25,000 PP (passages VIII.I-VIII.3), they referred to it as "mahiitz bhagavatz," or "sutre" (Tib., "mdo las"), which means they were treating it as a sutra, not as a fiistra

j(see note 38). ••. Since later Indian and Tibetan scholars quoted the revised 25,000 PP ias sutra, why was it put into the bsTan 'gyUT section of the Tibetan Tripitaka (the collection of fiistras, commentaries) rather than the bKa' 'gyur section (the

/wllection of sutras)? We can only surmise, but it would appear that because the topic names of the AA had been inserted into the sutra, it could not be considered simply the Buddha's word. After all, words of fiistra (the AA), even if only topic titles, are not the word of the Buddha. Furthermore, in the

,Tibetan translation of the revised 25,000 PP, Haribhadra is identified as the . compiler. Sutras are not supposed to have a compiler apart from the Buddha 'and those in dialogue with him. Some such considerations probably required 'that, for classification purposes, the revised 25,000 PP not be put into the bKa' 'gyur.

44. AA - vrtti, Pk 5185, Vol. 88, pp. 92-100. At 92-4-6 ff. Arya Vimuktisena identifies the three kiiyas as the first three topics of AA 8. At 98-4-7 and

,98-5-1 to 98-5-3, he explicitly identifies the fourth topic of AA as "sprul pa'i sku'i phrin las," "the activity of the nairmii1Jikakiiya."

45. Only the first chapter of Arya Vimuktisena's commentary is available to me in Sanskrit (Pensa's critical edition of the AA - vrtti), but it can be used to find the correlative Tibetan terms in the Tibetan translation of the rest of the commentary (Pk 5185): "zhes gang gsungs pa yin no," "zhes bya ba la sogs pa gang gsungs pa yin no," ''ji skad du," "mdo las," and "zhes bya ba."

For 51 of the 66 topics comprising the AA's first seven chapters, Arya Vimuktisena makes clear that he is quoting sutm directly, rather than paraphrasing, because he uses the vocative forms of the names of one or more characters from the siltm ("Bhagavan," "Subhute," "Sariputra," etc.). But even in the other 15 cases, he explicitly indicates he is either quoting or paraphrasing


by always using one or more of the Sans~rit markers mentioned above. Itis only when we come to the first two top~cs of AA 8 that .no such Sanskrit markers appear. He suddenly stops quotIng or paraphrasmg S1.ltra and JUSt presents his own explanations. ,

46. Pk 5185, p. 98-4-6 to 98-4-7; sDe dge ka, fo1. 205b2-3. The Tibetan reads: 'di gnyis kyi bshad pa ni sprul pa'i sku'i phrin las ston pa'i mdo las Jig rten las 'das pa'i chos kyi sbyin pa'i bsdu ba'i dngos po nyid kyis ston par 'gyur te des na" dang po ma gsungs so.

47. Arya Vimuktisena identifies the PP textual basis for all of AA 8 t~' be the portions of the LargePP sYira which Conze numbers "VIII 4" and "VIII 5" (Conze, Large Sidra, pp. 573-643; Maha-Prajiiaparamita Sutra, fols.' P523b6 to P594al). These portions are indeed found in all versions of the Large PP sutra extant in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan.

48. Relevant portions 6f Arya Vimuktisena's own introductory remarks on each of the three kiiyas in his AA - vrtti are as follows:

svabhavikakaya (commenting on AA 8 vss. 1-6): chos kyi dbyings dang , ldan par gyur ba zag pa med pa'i chos thams cad kyi rnam pa thams cad du rnam par

dag pa'i rang bzhin te ngo bo nyid gang yin pa de ni bcos ma ma yin pa'i don gy~ na bcom ldan '005 kyi ngo bo nyid kyi sku yin par shes par bya stel ... gang dag gis rnam pa thams cad du shintu rnam par dag pa'i ngo bo nyid chos kyi skur 'gyur ba zag pa med pa'i chos de rnams kyang gang zhig yin zhe nal byang chub phyogs mthun tshad med dangl rnam par thar dang mthar gyis nil . .. etc. (quoting AA 8 vss. 2-6 listing the buddhadharmas), Pk 5185, fols. 92-4-8 ff.

sambhogikakaya (commenting on AA 8 vs 12): sku des sangs rgyas bcam ldan 'das byang chub sems dpa' chen po sa chen po La zhugs pa rnams dang thabs cig tu ,ka na ma tho ba med pa theg pa chen po'i chos kyi longs spyod kyi dga' ba dang bde ba so SOT myong bar mdzad pa yin nol, Pk 5185, fols. 96-2-6 ff.

nairmii1;Iikakaya (commenting on AA 8 vss. 33-34a): 'bras bu'i gnas skabs rnam pa thams cad legs par yongs su rdzogs pa'i chos kyi sku thob pa ni 'khor ba ji srid par phyogs bcu'i Jig rten gyi khams rnams su sprul ba rnams kyis lhun gyis grub ching rgyun mi 'chad, par sems can gyi don sna tshogs pa 'jug par byed pa'i sgo nas gnas yongs su gyur ba'i phrin las kyi dbang du mdzad do I , Pk 5185, fols. 98-5-1 ff.

The revised 25,000 PP passages VIII.I-VIII.3 read as follows (I quote the Tibetan for comparison to Arya Vimuktisena's passages above): VIIUsviibha,vikakiiya: rab 'byor gzhan yang zag pa med pa'i chos rmi lam lta bu dngos po dang mi ldan pa dngos po med pa'i rang bzhin can rang gis mtshan nyid kyis stong pa rnam pa thams cad yongs su dag par 'gyur ba de dag thams cad kyi rang bzhin gang yin pa mtshan nyid gcig po 'di lta stel mtshan nyid med pa de ni de bzhin gshegs pa dg;ra bcom pa yang dag par rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas yin par rig par bya stel rab 'byor byang chub sems dpa' sems dpa' chen po de ltar shes rab kyi pha rol tu phin pa La bslab par bya'ol Irab 'byor gyis gsol bal bcom ldan 'das zag pa med pa'i chos thams cad kyang gang dag lagsl bcom ldan 'das kyis bka' stsal bal byang chub kyi phogs kyi chos sum cu rtsa bdun dangl tshad med pa bzhi dangl ... etc. (listing all the buddhadharmas)l rab 'byor 'di ni zag pa med pa'i chos thams cad ces bya'ol lrab 'byor de ltar byang chub sems dpa' sems dpa' chen po shes rab kyi :pha rol tu ph yin pa 'di La bslab pal' bya'o zhes bya ba ni ngo bo nyid kyi sku yin noll, Pk 5188, fols. 3-4-1 ff. This passage of the sutra appears to have been written based on Arya Vimuktisena's

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARM.A.l01YA 73

arks on AA 8 vss. 1-6 above, while also making use of the terminology of section VIII.4 which immediately follows interpolated passages VIII.1-.3 (PP VIII.4: ... chos thams cad rmi lam lta bu dngos po ma mchis pa dngo

mchis pa'i ngo bo nyid rang gi mtshannyid kyis stong pa roams la 'di dag ni te., fols.4-1-1 ff.). Note that Arya Vimuktisena raises a hypothetical . n in his- comments on svabhavikakaya: "gang dag gis roam pa thams ead

<kin tu roam par dag pa'i ngo bo nyid chos kyi skur 'gyur ba zag pa med pa'i chos rims kyang gang zhig yin zhe nal." "What are those undefiled dharmas whose pletely purified nature is the dharmakaya?~ As the answer to this he quotes vs. 2-6. The, author of PP VIII.1 puts Arya Vimuktisena's hypothetical

~stion into the mouth of Subhuti. If Arya Vimuktisena had been quoting Wi'VIIIJ, rather than the other way around, he would have indicated so with ~~propr~at~ quotation ~arkers, and by putt~ng ~h: names "Bhagavan" an~ ~Subhutl" In the vocatIve, as he_had done m SImIlar cases throughout hIS ~Snllnentary. To my knowledge, Arya Vimuktisena never raises a question as ~hypothetical when it was actually '~ised by a cha~cter in the su~ra. In such tases he always quotes the character m the sutra askmg the questIOn. ~;~;;" VIII.2-sambhogikakaya: rabk 'byor gzhan yang shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin

(#.'di la bslabs shing chos de dag thams cad thob nas bla na med pa yang dag par ~"fJlogs pa'i byang chub tu mngon par rdzogs par sangs rgyas tel thams cad tu thams I,"'t',:cfd, mam pa ~~ams cad nas thams c~d du de bzhin gshegs fa dgra bcom pa yang daFf t~rrdzogs pa z sangs rgyas roams kyz sku skyes bu chen po'z mtshan sum cu rtsha gnyzs t~ brgyan pal dpe byad bzang bo rgyad cus br~an pal. byang chub sems dpa' sems W4prz'chen po roams La theg pa chen po mchog gz chos kyz longs spyod bla na med pa 'lifdga'ba dangl bde ba dangl tshim pa dangl rab tu dga' ba ston par mdzad par 'gyur tl~'Utesl rab 'byor de Itar byang chub sems (dpa'sems dpa' chen po shes rab kyi pha rol ~~pkyin pa La bslab par bya'o zhes bya ba ni longs spyod rdzogs pa'i sku yin noll) ~h 5188,[0Is. 3-5-2 ff. There is no passage like this anywhere else in the PP [miras. It is clearly modelled on Arya Vimuktisena's remarks. ~., PP VIII.3-nairm~ikakaya: rab 'byor gzhan yang shes rab kyi pha rol tu '" . pa La sob pa na chos de dag thams cad rtogs par byas nas bla na m~d pa yang

, par rdzogs pa'i byang chub tu mngon par rdzogs par sangs rgyas nas phyogs bcu'i tftg rten gyi khams dpag tu med mtha' med par dus thams cad du de bzhin gshegs pa [¥gra bcom pa yang dagpar rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas kyi sku (sDe dge: "sku'i") sprul !Pfi sna tshogs kyi sphrin gyi (sDe dge: "gyis"j sems can thams cad gyi don mdzad pa llle ltar ni.b 'byor byang chub serns dpa' sems dpa' chen po shes rab kyi pha rol tu ph yin lpa la bslab par bya'o zhes bya ba ni sprul pa'i sku yin noll Pk 5811, fols. 3-5-6 ff. i!\gain, this is clearly based on Arya Vimuktisena's remarks. Arya Vimuktisena ~iIotes the P P textual basis for nairmaTJikakaya after making his own comments ;011 the subject; and that textual basis is PP VIII.4. He had never heard of PP

;~III·!·9. Arya Vimuktisena's identification of PP VIII.4 and VIII.5 as the 'I~xtual bases for AA chapter 8 is reasonable. These passages are found in all ~xtant recensions and translations of the Large PP Sutra in Sanskrit, Chinese 'f-nd'TIbetan. They are found in the Gilgit manuscript of the 18,000 PP which ,~ dated to 5th or 6th century C.E., and in Molq;ala's Chinese translation of !he 25,000 PP, dated 291 C.E. So there is no reason to doubt that they were


part of the Large PP Sutra at the time that the AA was composed, c. 4th-5th century C.E. Within the Large Pp, passages VIII.4-VIII.5 comprise the last

. part of the sutra, and immediately follow the passages identified by Arya Vlmuktisena and later commentators as the te~tual bases for AA chapter 7. The likelihood is that the author of the AA did indeed base his chapter 8 all. them.,;,

50. Conze, Large Sutra, Motilal edition, pp. 576-643, especially pp. 578-. 587. Conze, Mahii-prafniipiiramitii sUtra, VIII 4-VIII 5. Pk 731, pp. 137-2-4' to 187-3-3, especially pp. 139-1-1 to 145-5-5.

51. Conze, Large Sutra, Motilal edition, p. 578. 52. Dutt, Conze and Lethcoe have all noted that the revised 25,000 pp

sutra is a recast version ofthe 25,000 PP sutra, the section headings of the AX having been inserted into the corresponding sections of the sutra. In addition' Conze and Lethcoe noted that the sutra in its revised edition was altered id certain places (by additions and transpositions) to bring it more closely into line with the AA (Nalinaksha. Dutt, ed., The Paiicavi1[!Solisiihasrika Prajiiapiiramitii, Edited with Critical Notes and Introduction, [London: Luzac & Co" 1934] pp. v-xiii. Conze, The Prajiiiipiiramitii Literature, pp. 37-39. Lethcol "Some Notes," pp. 500 ff.): With specific reference to revised 25,000 PP pas: sages VIII.1-VIII.3, Conze, noting that these passages are missing in the Gilgit' Manuscript of the 18,000 PP, believed they were later addi~ions to the pi sutra (Conze, The Gilgit Manuscript of the NtiidaSasiihasrikiiprajiiiipiiramitii-sUtra, p. xvii). Elsewhere, however, based on the report ofTaranatha, Conze surmised that the revised 25,000 PP belonged to the 5th century, and that Arya Vimuk"; tisena consulted the revised PP before writing his own commentary on the' AA (P P Literature, p. 37). Lethcoe found that revised P P passages VIII.l-VIII$ were missing in all Chinese translations of the 25,000 PP (Lethcoe, p. 504)~ No scholar, up to the present time, has noticed the evidence of Arya Vimuk~ tisena's commentary, which proves thatPPpassages VIILl-VIII.3 were added after Arya Vimuktisena (and were composed taking his remarks as basis). Nor has anyone noticed the implications of this for the interpretation of AA 8.'~

The revised 25,000 PP Sanskrit manuscripts do not identify its compiler: . The Tohoku index of the bsTan 'gyur identifies Haribhadra a,s the com pilei] and in the final lines of the Tibetan translation, the compiler does clearly\~ identify himself as "Seng ge bzang po," Tibetan for "Haribhadra" (Pk 518S;; fols. 61-3-1 to 61-3-2). Conze's surmise that the revised 25,000 PP predateCii Arya Vimuktisena (early 6th century) cast its attribution to Haribhadra (Iate::1 8th century) into doubt. The proof presented here that passages VIII.-VIII.3~ post-date Arya Vimuktisena may indicate that the entire text post-dates him,'; thereby lending some further support for its attribution to Haribhadra.':~

Dutt, noting that the indexes to the Tibetan bsTan 'gyur give Haribhadra,% as the compiler, tentatively identified him as the author (referring to him as;: ."Sirphabhadra," a mistaken restoration of the Tibetan "Seng ge bzangpo"):;' However, he was very tentative about it, because, he claimed, Haribhad~i,j nowhere identified himself in the revised PP as its compiler (Dutt, ed. Thi,] Paiicavi1[!Satisiihasrikii Prajiiiipiiramitii, p. viii). However, as noted abov~~~; Haribhadra does identify himself as the compiler at the very end of the teX~,~


has.come down to us in its Tibetan translation. 53. At this point I would refer the reader back to the second section of

paper where AA 8 vss. 1-6 were quote~ and translated. 54. Pk 5185, fols. 92-4-6-100-3-7. Arya Vimuktisena is dated to the 6th centu.ry C.E. (Ruegg, Literature of Madhyamaka, p. 87). 55. As far .as we know, Haribhadra (late 8th century C.E.) was the first

this interpretation by newly proposing that the AA taught not three four kayas. 56. In a future paper, I will examine AAchapter 8's place within the

of the AA as a whole. Special attention will be paid to the AA's table COIlteJrltS and concluding verses. Certain idiomatic Sanskrit word construc

will be analyzed and compared to similar constructions found in other iN I'LJl'\a~~"~1 texts. This sort of philological and comparative textual analysis will

the theory formulated in this paper, by providing further evidence the AA teaches three (and not four) buddhakayas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

. PK = Peking edition of the Tibetan Tripitika. Tibetan Tripitaka Research Institute, Tokyokyoto, 1956 AA = Abhisamayala'T[1ltara DhDh V = Dharmadharmatavibhaga MA V = Madhyantavibhaga MSA = Mahayanasutralarrtkara Msg = Mahayanasarrtgraha P P = Prajnaparamita RGV = Ratnagotravibhaga

2iWIC MATERIALS

If:' ~~hidharmakosab~a. Shastri, Swami Dwarikadas, ed. Abhidharmakosa & Bhi¥ya rJ. of Acarya Vasubandhu with Sphutartha Commentary of Acarya Ya§omitra . . ~.'~' .. Bauddha Bharati Series, No.5. Varal).asi: Bauddha Bharati, 1971. f#hisamayalarrtkara-Aloka by Haribhadra. Wogihara, U. ed. Abhisamayalarrtkar'a~~: laka Prajnaparamitavyakhya. Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 1934. M-Durbodha-Aloka by Dharmakirtisri. Pk 5192, Vol. 91. ifA-Prasphutapada by Dharmamitra. Pk 5194, Vol. 91. rM-Sputartha by Haribhadra. Sanskrit reconstruction based on Aloka and TIbetI:; an translation by Hirofusa Amano: A Study on the Abhisamaya-alarrtkarai~ jro-rika-sastra-vrtti. Tokyo: Japan Science Press, 1975. Pk 5191, Vol. 90. ~-Suddhamati by Ratnakarasanti. Pk 5199, Vol. 91. M-varttika by Bhadanta Vimuktisena. Pk 5186, Vol. 88 M-vrtti by Arya Vimuktisena. Pensa, C. ed. Serie Orientale Roma XXXVII. \f~~

'76 ]IABSVOL.12NO.2

Rome: ISMEO, 1967 (just chapter 1 in Sanskrit is edited.) Pk 5185, Vol. 88. . ~tasiihasrikii-prajiiiipiiramitii-sutra. Wogihara, ed. with AA-Aloka. Conze, Ed.

ward, trans. The Peifection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines

A~tadaSasiihas~kii-prajiiiipii,!am;it~-sutr~. _Con~~~ E_d,:"a:~, e~l. and tra?s. The Gilgit. Manuscrzpt of the ~tiidasasahasrzkii-praJndPararmta: Correspondmg to the 6th'':' 7th and 8th Abhisamayas. Rome: ISMEO, 1974. '.

Kiiyatrayastotra. Pk 2015, Vol. 46. Roerich, George N. ed.and trans. The Blue> Annals, pp. 1-2.

Kiiyatrayasutra. Pk 949, Vol. 37. Kiiyatrayavrtti, by Jiianacandra. Pk 5291, Vol. 101. KiiyatrayiiramukhaSiistra by Nagamitra. Pk 5290, Vol. 101. Madhyiintavibhiiga. Nagao, Gadjin M., ed. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation

1964. .,

Madhyiintavibhiigab~a. Nagao, Gadjin M., ed. with Kiirikii. Mahiiyiinasa7[Lgraha Lamotte, Etienne, ed. and.trans. La Somme du Grand VChicu~'

d'Asariga. Publications de l'Institute Orientaliste de Louvain, No.8. Lou> vain: Institut Orientaliste, 1973.

Mahiiyiinasa7[Lgrahabh~ya. Pk 5551, Vol. 112 Mahiiyiinasa7[Lgrahopanibandhana by Asvabhava. Pk 5552, Vol. 113. Mahiiyiinasutriila7[Lkiira. Levi, Sylvain, ed. Mahiiyiina-Sutriila7[Lkiira-Expose de

Doctrine du Grand VChicule, Tome L Bibiotheque de l'Ecole des HauteS'; Etudes, fasc. 159. Paris: Librairie Honore Champion, 1907. ..

Mahiiyiinasutriila7[Lkiirabh~ya. Levi, Sylvain, ed. with MSA. Mahiiyiinasutriila7[Lkiiratikii by Asvabhava. Pk 5530, Vol. 108. Markaumudi, by Abhayakaragupta. Pk 5202, Vol. 92. Munimatiila7[Lkiira by Abhayakaragupta. Pk 5299, Vol. 101. Paiicavi1[!Satisiihasrika-prajiiiipiiramitii-sutra, revised. Conze, Edward. Mahii-Pra':

jiiiipiiramitii Sutra. Unpublished (Conze's typescript romanization of thl Sanskrit, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor). Dutt, Nalinaksha ed., The' Paiicavi1[!Satisiihasrikii Prajiiiipiiramitii, Edited with Critical Notes and Introduc: tion. London: Luzac & Co., 1934. Pk 5188, Vols. 88-90..

Ratnagotravibhiiga and Ratnagotravibhiiga-vyiikhyiina. Johnston, E.H., ed. Patna: .. The Bihar Research Society, 1950. D

Samiidhiriijasutra. Regamey, K., ed. and trans. chapters 8, 19,22. Warsaw: The: Warsaw Society of Sciences and Letters, 1938..:

Sa7[Ldhinirmocanasutra. Lamotte, Etienne, ed. and trans. Sa7[Ldhinirmocanri Sutra-l'Explication des Mysteres. Louvain: Bibliotheque de l'UniversitY;

·1935. ~:

Siirattamii by Ratnakarasanti. Jaini, P. ed. TIbetan Sanskrit Works No. XVIII: Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Research Inst., 1979. Pk 5200, Vol. 92.

Sutriila7[Lkiiravrttibh~ya by Sthiramati. Pk 5531, Vol. 108. Suvar7J.aprabhiisottama-sutra. Nobel, Johannes, ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1958. Vajracchedikii Praiiiipiiramitii. Conze, Edward, ed. Rome: Is.M.E.O., 1957.

CONTROVERSY OVER DHARMAK4YA

~~IGENOUS TIBETAN WRITINGs 'rf:;

77

iB~-ston rin-chen-grub. Sher 'grel rgyal cher bshad pa lung gi snyema. Varal}.asl: i;i'i Pleasure of Elegant Sayings, 1979 .. 'bo-ram-pa bsod-nams seng-ge. sBas don zab mo'i gter gyi kha 'byed. n.p., n.d. '$~. . . . Yum don rab gsal. n.p., n.d. ~al-tshab dar-ma-rinchen. rNam bshad snying po'i rgyan. Varal}.asl: Pleasure ~;S; of Elegant Sayings, 1980. , :Sera-Ije-otsun-pa. Chos sku phyi don. n.p., n.d. '{TI;ong-kha-pa. Legs bshad gser phreng. Dharamsala n.p., n.d. gYag-ston sangs-rgyas-dpal. Sher phyin mngon rtogs rgyan gyi 'grel pa rin po che'i

phreng ba blo gsal mgul rgyan. Rajpur (n.p., n.d.).

l1WORKS IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES tt~'F ti:Conze, Edward. The PrajfiaparamitaLiterature. 2nd ed. Tokyo: Reiyukai; 1978. ~;' . The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom. (translation of the revised SCI; Paficavi'T[l5ati. PP sutra with portions of the Sata. and 14tadaSa. PP sutras).

Jt Delhi: MO~I~h~a;:;;!~::s~)~~dom in Eight Thousand Lines (translation t',. of the 14tasahasrikaprajfiaparamita.) Bolinas, CA: Four Seasons Founda-liX. tion, 1975. _ / ~~Davidson, Ronald Mark. : "Afraya-parivrttil-paravrtti Among the Yogacara." Uni~k;. published Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1985. ~i'Demieville, P. "B usshin," in H obogirin: Dictionnaire Encyclopedique du Bouddhisme ~:l:;' d'apres les Sources Chinoise et Japonaises. Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonais, ii~i 1931. t~putt, Nalinaksha. Mahayana Buddhism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978. tJLa Vallee Poussin, Louis de. Vijfiaptimatratasiddhi: La Siddhi de Hiuan-tsang. ;;,:" Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1928-29. if . L'Abhidharmakosa de Vasubandhu-Traduction et Annotations. y;.

;{, Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1924. ;Lancaster, Lewis R. "The Oldest Mahayana Siitra: Its Significance for the .... Study of Buddhist Development." Eastern Buddhist, VIII.l (197 5), 30-41. ,~Lethcoe, Nancy R. "Some Notes on the Relationship between the , AbhisamayalarrWira, the revised PaficavimSatisahasrika, and the Chinese

translations of the unrevised PaficavimSatisahasrika." JAOS, 96.4 (1976), 499-511.

!,Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes. , Hirakata City, Osaka: KUFS Publication, 1980. . ;Obermiller, E. Analysis of the AbhisamayalaT{!kara. London: Luzac, 1933. ~Rawlinson, Andrew. "The Position of the 14tasahasrika Prajfiaparamita in the . Development of Early Mahayana," in Prajfiaparamitii and Related Systems:

Studies in Honor of Edward Conze. Edited by Lewis Lancaster. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1977. ' .


Regamay, K. Three Chapters from the Samiidhiriijasutra. Warsaw: The Warsaw Society of Sciences and Letters, 1938.

Ruegg, David Seyfort. La Thiorie du Tathiigatagarbha et du Gotra: Etude Sur la Soteriologie et la Gnoseologie du Bouddhisme. Pu?lications de I'Ecoie Fran<;aise d'Extreme-Orient, vol. 70. Paris: KF.E.O., 1969

_______ . The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India. Wiesbaden:. Otto Harrassowitz, 1981.

Schopen, Gregory. "The Phrase 'sa prthiv'ipradesas caityabhuto bhavet' in the Vajracchedikii: Notes on the Cult of the Book in Mahayana." Indo-Iranian Journal 17 (1975), 147-181. .

_______ . "Sukhavatl as a Generalized Religious Goal in Sanskrit Mahayana Sutra Literature." Indo-Iranian Journal 19 (1977), 177-210.

Takasaki, Jikido. A Study on the Ratnagotravibhiiga. Serie Orientale Roma, Vol. XXXIII. Rome: ISMEO, 1966.

Jhiina and Buddhist Scholasticism

:;by Martin Stuart-Fox

Buddhism teaches as its highest truth a path of meditative .practice for the attainment of a series of altered states of consciousness culminating in enlightenment and liberation. The. central place accorded this course of meditative techniques in .iearly Buddhism is reason enough to examine carefully and crit)cally the various descriptions of it given in the Buddhist canon. . An examination of the texts,. however, reveals both in:;adequacies and discrepancies. The more advanced techniques rare too sketchily described to serve as guides to practicing ~rneditators; descriptions of stages are repeatedly presented in stereotyped terms, discussed or elaborated upon only in much

later commentaries; the meanings of words are often unclear. ~Variant listings of stages on the path to enlightenment are frequent. 1 And, in certain cases, textual descriptions contain what appear to be outright contradictions.

The tendency has been for believers and scholars alike to attempt to explain away such discrepancies, rather thari to explain how they came to be present in the canon. In part this has been due to the concern of Buddhist scholars to extract \from the texts some definitive statement of Buddhist theory -and practice in order to reveal the "true nature" of Buddhism. -Unfortunately, this often entails an exaggerated and uncritical respect both· for the texts and .for those who compiled them, . together with a reluctance to question their accuracy, especially where they pertain tohigher meditative practices. Thus, it has been claimed that if paradoxes occur, these must have been

<deliberately designed by the ancient compilers to shake us out of established patterns of thought, thus preparing our minds for the revelation of Dhamma. 2 Other modern scholars either

79

--- -- --------------~- -----------------


have been content to accept the attempts of earlier commen_ . tators to reconcile evident contradictions, or have simply ign()red them.

Instead of explaining away textual discrepancies, however a more productive line of inquiry would be to examine the~ cI."itically for any light they may shed on the evolution of Buddhist thought and institutions. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to examine two related discrepancies: the first between two descriptions of the composition of first jhiina; the second, the insertion of an additiomiljhiina, designated in this paper asjhiina la, in certain later texts.

A comparison is first made between i:he descriptions of first jhiina in the fourfold series given in the Sutta-pitaka, and the descriptions of the first two jhiinas in the fivefold series in the Abhidhamma-pitaka. It will be maintained that neither the contradiction evident between the two descriptions of first jhiina, nor the insertion of jhana la have been satisfactorily accounted for either in the commentarialliterature or by modern scholars.3

It will be argued on various grounds that the description of first jhiina in the Abhidhamma account is phenomenologically questionable. A discussion then follows of how the conflicting descriptions are likely to have come into existence, given what we know of the historical conditions under which early Buddhism evolved~ It is suggested that the Abhidhamma listing is probably a product of Buddhist scholasticism, having no basis in meditative experience. The paper concludes by drawing out certain implications this study has for our understanding of the development of early Buddhism, and for the methodology of Buddhist studies.

1. Jhana in the Suttapitaka

The importance of the jhiinas as stages in Buddhist meditation is made abundantly clear time and a,gain in the Sutta-pitaka. Together the jhiinas comprise the last stage, right concentration (samma-samadhi) , of the Noble Eightfold Path.4 This indicates that the jhanas are stages in the practice of sa math a , or meditation for calm, where the mind is prepared for vipassana, the practice of insight. 5 This interpretation of the position of the jhiinas in the Buddhist path is supported by canonical accounts of

JRANA AND BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM 81

iGotama's own enlightenment, according to which attainment of >ihe fourth jhiina prepared his mind for developing the three forms of supernormal knowledge, (tisso vijja), the last of which 'appears to constitute enlightenment. 6 .

,',. Descriptions of the fourjhiinas occur frequently throughout 'the Sutta-pitaka, always in the same stereotyped form. The stand,ard description for the first two jhiinas, literally translated, and with certain key terms retained in their Pali forms, reads as followS.

(1) Detached indeed from desires, detached from unwholesome states, attaining the with-vitakka, with-vicara, detachmentborn, piti-sukha firstjhana, he abides [therein].

(2) From the suppression of vitakka-vicara, attaining inner tran- . quillity, one-ness of mind, the non-vitakka, non-vicara, concentration-bornpiti-sukha secondjhana, he abides [therein].7 .

;:the terms left untranslated-vitakka, vicara, pili and sukha-are 'those identified in the Abhidhamma as four of the five jhana factors (jhiinariga), to be discussed below. ~ .•• , Any analysis of the descriptions of- the jhiinas is hampered by difficulty in determining the meanings of key terms. Nevertheless, it is possible from these brief descriptions to gain some idea of (a) what constitutes firstjhiina; and (b) how the progression :{rQm jhiina 1 to jhiina 2 is achieved. To begin with, first jhiina is ;tharacterized by separation (vivicca) from desires and unwhole:some states. These are traditionally summed up in the five "hindrances" (nivara1J,a): sensory desire; malice, sloth and torpor, distraction and remorse, and doubt. 8 In addition first jhiina is described as "detachment-born" or "separation-born" (viveluLja'T[t), reinforcing the notion of separation from unwholesome mental states. On the positive side, first jhiina is characterized by the presence of vitakka, vicara, pili and s'Jl,kha. Pili (usually translated as 'joy") is subsequently transcended in the transition from second to third jhiina, and sukha ("pleasure") in the transition from third to fourth jhiina. As neither pili nor sukha are involved in the transition from first to second jhiina, they will hot be considered further in this discussion.

Vitakka and vicara together constitute that characteristic which is present in first jhiina but not in second. The meaning


of these terms is therefore crucial to an understanding of What is entailed in that transition. Let us, therefore, look first at what light the textual description of second jhiina may shed on the meaning of vitakka and viciira. The impOFtance of the elimination of vitakka and viciira for the attainment of the second jhiina is ' made clear by, the repetition involved in the statement that the attainment of second jhiina is achieved through the suppression of vitakka-viciira, and that the resulting state is non-vitakka, and non-viatra. Now when the description of second jhiina is compared with the structurally similar description of first jhiina, it, is clear that JUSt as first jhiina is born of the detachment or separation (viveka) necessary to counter desires and unwholesome states, so second jhiina is born of the concentration (samiidhi) necessary to suppress vitakka-viciira. The quality of concentration is indicated by the statement that second jhiina is characterized by inner tranquillity (ajjhatta1[L sampasiidanarrt) and one-ness of mind (cetaso ekodibhiiva1[L).

We are nqw in a position to investigate further the meaning of the two terms vitakka and viciira. In the Sutta-pitakaJ vitakka often stands alone to mean "reflection, thought, thinking,,,g, whereas viciira is only rarely found alone, and then in texts which reveal evidence of early Abhidhamma analysis, such as, the description of three types of samiidhi, to be discussed below.' Vitakka is thinking about something: for example, kiimavitakka translates as "thoughts about 10ve."IO Viciira, according to the definition given by Rhys Davids and Stede in their Pali-English Dictionary is "investigation, examination, consideration, deliberation,"U implying a deeper, more focused form of thinking. However Rhys Davids and Stede note that vitakka and viciir,a, when used together in the combined form vitakka-viciira found, in the description of second jhiina, denote "one and the same; thing: just thought, thinking, only in an emphatic way (as they' are semantically synonyrrious) ... one has to take them as one: expression." 12 The suggestion here seems to be that when vitakka . and viciira were used in combination, the effect of adding viciira was to reinforce or emphasize the denotation of vitakka, perhaps • extending it to cover all varieties of thinking, including sustained • and focused thought. It is thinking in this inclusive sense that the meditator suppresses through concentration when he attains one-ness of mind and thus moves from first to second jhiina.

JHANA AND BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM 83

So much can be gleaned from the stereotype description of ~ifirst and sec?nd j~ana gi~en. in the Sutta-~itaka. W~ile lacki~g rj;specific detaIls, thIS descnptIOn does provide certam essential ~;jnstructiop.s for the practicing meditator: to attain first jhiina, ipractice detachm.ent to over~o:ne desire~ and unwhole~ome men~ta.1 states; to attam second Jhana, practice concentratIOn to supfpress ~hinkin~. I~ addition, th.e description specifies the positive rgualiues that mdI~ate success m ~h.ese endeavours, most n.otably ~;me presence of mward tranqUillity and one-ness of mmd as ~~ignalling attainment of second jhiina. l . rtf. Jhana in the Abhidhamma

(c Elsewhere in the Tipitaka are found two other descriptions ~Cbfthejhiinas, both differing in important respects from the Sutta ticcount. They are formally set out only in the Abhidhamma-pitaka, ,';~here they either have the same general form as the Sutta ac['tount, or take the form of lists of ''jhiina factors.,,13 These lists ~'~ffactors are clearly not meant to be a comprehensive statement i?hfthe characteristics of the mental states constituting the various 'jhanas, as they omit some of the qualities included in the Sutta taccount. 14 Instead these lists of jhiina factors name only those :characteristics that are involved in the transition from each jhiina )0 the next. The device of listing jhiina factors as a means of :~haracterizing the sequence of jhanas was a relatively late de;velopmep.t, a typically Abhidhammic mode of analysis and presentation which effectively reduced the jhiina description to its 'barest essentials.

Sometimes four jhiinas are listed in the Abhidhamma; sometimes the number is extended to five by interpolating an additional jhiina (here called for convenience la) between the first and second jhiina of the Sutta account. Both the fourfold and fivefold Abhidhamma lists include mental one pointedness (ekaggata) as a characteristic (or factor) in all the jhiinas, thus conflicting with the Sutta account, which makes no mention of ekaggata .in first jhiina. In the fivefold list,jhiina lais characterized as with vicara but without vitakka. The two Abhidhamma descriptions, together with their counterpart from the Sutta-pitaka are therefore as depicted in the following three tables.


Table 1

The jhiina factors in the Sutta-Pitaka

jhiina 1 vitakka-viciira p'iti sukha

sukha

sukha

jhiina 2 p'iti

jhiina3

jhiina4

ekaggatii. (= ekodibhava*)

(ekaggatii)

(ekaggatii)

*Ekodibhiiva is specifically mentioned only in jhiina 2. Though not mentioned in jhiinas 3 or 4, it is clearly to be taken as characterizing these as well.

Table 2

The jhiina factors in the Abhidhamma fourfold jhiina

jhiina 1 vitakka-viciira p'iti sukha ekaggatii

jhiina2 p'iti sukha ekaggatii

jhiina3 sukha ekaggatii

jhiina4 ekaggatii

Table 3

The jhiina factors in the Abhidamma fivefold jhiina

jhiinal vitakka-viciira p'iti sukha ekaggatii

jhiina la viciira p'iti sukha e~aggatii

jhiina2 p'iti sukha ekaggatii

jhiina3 sukha ekaggatii

jhiina4 ekaggatii


There are in these tables two distinct, though related, disccrepancies which require explanation: the addition in both 1!bhidhamma versions of ekaggata in first Jhana; and the interpo~ation in the. fivefold Abhidhamma series of an additional stage [ijMna la), brought about through splitting vitakka-vicara into ttWo separate factors. l~L A comparison of tables 1 and 2 reveals that the only essential ~ifference between the Sutta version and the fourfold ~bhidhamma version lies in the addition of ekaggata as a factor fu.jhiina 1. But this is a most curious addition. Ekaggata (mental :linepointedness) is synonymous with "one-ness of mind" (cetaso ~kodibhiiva) and, as noted above, is that characteristic of second Jhfi,na whic~ arises with. the suppression of vita~ka-vicara thr?~gh :i:oncentratlOn, and whIch thereafter charactenzes the remammg ¥hfi,nas. It is synonymous with cittass' ekaggata. 15 One would ex:pect, therefore, that ekaggata, if it is to be recognized as a Jhana [actor, would appear only in second, third and fourth Jhanas. ~ri fact, however, in both the fourfold and the fivefold *-bhidhamma lists of Jhana factors ekaggata is included in first Jhana as well, along with the very factor, vitakka-vicara, it is said ;iIl the Suttas to suppress. This obvious anomaly clearly requires :~xplanation. i, One possible explanation might be that the ekaggata that the Abhidhamma ascribes to Jhana 1 may be somehow qualitatively :different from that of the other Jhanas. It seems reasonable to :~xpect the mental one-pointedness of the lowerJhanas to be less lWell-developed than that of the higher Jhanas, less "stable,,,16 so ;hiore likely to break down through the intrusion of "hindering 'thoughts." Credence is lent to this view by the existence, accord:ing to the Abhidhamma of a "weak" form of ekaggata defined as ;~'persistence of thought,,17 or "stability of mind,,,18 which is said ,to characterize other mundane states of consciousness. 19 About ~his form of ekaggata Buddhaghosa comments that none of the bther characteristics of ekaggata apply to it.2o Buddhaghosa in fact recognizes three degrees or kinds of ekaggata. The weakest kind is that present in "original consciousness." A degree stronger than this is the kind of ekaggata present in the transitional state of consciousness known as access-ihana, which characterizes the moment of entry into first Jhana. The third and strongest kind of ekaggata is that characterizing firstJhana. 21


In firstjhiina, ekaggata has already developed to the point where it is "touching the object well, as the lid above tOl.lches the surface of the box below.,,22 In other words, Buddhaghosa believed both that the ekaggata which characterizes firstjhana was qualita_ tively different from the weak form present in mundane states of consciousness, and that it was qualitatively identical with that characterizing the higher jhanas. Thus Buddhaghosa's accOunt with its three different grades of ekaggata, provides no resolutio~ of the anomaly of the presence of ekaggata, as a factor in the! first jhana.

This brings us to the second discrepancy noted above namely that in the fivefold Abhidhamma series only vitakka i~ su ppressed in movirig from first jhana to jhana lao Vicara is separately suppressed only in the transition to the next stage again (secondjhana). This description makes sense onlyifit is in practice possible separately to suppress first vitakka then vicara. In the Sutta-pitaka, the term vicara was used only to reinforce the meaning of vitakka. However, according to Rhys Davids and Stede: "With the advance in the Sangha of intensive study of terminology these terms become distinguished mutually. Vitakkl{ became the inception of the mind, or attending, and was no longer applied, as in the Suttas, to thinking in general.,,23 The Vibhariga distinguishes vitakka as "meditation, thinking, thought, fixation, focussing, application of the mind, right thought" froni ,vicara, which is "searching, examining, constant examining,' scrutinizing, constant connection of (and) constant inspection by consciousness.,,24 In other words, by the time of the Abhidhamma, vicara ,had already taken on the sense of steady, focused thinking. By the time of Buddhaghosa (fifth century CE), the distinction had become well established. According to Buddhaghosa, Vitakka "is literally 'one thinks about,' or a 'thinking about' .... Its [main] characteristic is the lifting of consciousness on to the object .... It has the junction of impinging, of tircumimpinging .... Its manifestation is bringing the mind near to the object." By contrast, vicara is "discursive work upon, or traversing of the object. It has threshing out (or contemplation) ", of object as characteristic, the linking of co-existent states to the object as junction, and continuous binding as manifestation.,,25. The question is, of course, whether the differentiation between vitakka and vicara in the Abhidhamma reflected a more refined;


riAtrospective phenomenological description of mind, or was fhierelY a scholastic distinction made in the process of intellectual %analysis. Here the commentarialliterature is unhelpful. As Rhys ~bavids and Stede warn: "The explanations of Commentators t~te mostly.of an edifying nature and based more on popular f~tymol~gy tha~ on r:atur~l psy~hol?gical grounds;"~6 ~\;.. ThIs termmologlcal dlstmctlOn m the fivefold senes between [tVitakka and viciira actually makes inclusion of ekaggatii in first ~~hiina .e:~n ~ore anom~lous. For thOl:gh there seems t? ~e some ~,plauslblhty m the claIm that sustamed thought (vzcara) can fcoexist with onepointednessof mind (in jhiina la), it is clearly ~Inpossible for the mental process of casting around and alight~ing on an object of thought (vitakka) to be able to exist with i"bnepointedness (in firstjhiina). In this connection, it is perhaps t'ilOt surprising to note that in the Abhidhamma listing there is Ydisagreement over the means of transition from first jhiina to Yhiina lao The Vibhanga states that jhiina la is vivekajaT{l (born of fdetachment), as is firstjhiina in the fourfold series;27 while the WDhammasangar;,i states it is samiidhijaT{l, (born of concentration), !~~s is jhiina 2 in the fourfold series.28This suggests, at the very neast, that the monastic compilers were in disagreement not only ~over how the interpolated jhiina ought to be characterized, but :also over how it should be attained. 29

tIll. Attempts at Reconciling the Discrepancies !:~," l'~'

~~. In view of these anomalies in both the four- and fivefold ;Abhidhamma lists, one might have expected Buddhists generally :10 have given preference to the Sutta description of first jhiina ,as being the "correct" version. Surprisingly, however, early com~'mentators and modern scholars alike have consistently opted Jor the Abhidhamma account. For. example, Buddhaghosa, while explicitly recognizing that ekaggatii is not present in first jhiina in the Sutta accounts, prefers the Abhidhamma version as superior even to that of the Buddha himself.

Among the factors, although collectedness of mind [ekaggata] is not shown in this [Sutta] reading, as "wherein is thinking applied and sustained," yet it is a factor, as is stated in the Vibhanga: ''jhiina is applied thinking, sustained thinking, rapture, bliss, collected-


ness of mind." Whatever may have been the intention of the Blessed One in making the outline, it is revealed in the Vibha;liga. 30

In fact, so eager is Buddhaghosa to paper over the difference between the Sutta and Abhidhamma accounts that in the chapter of his Visuddhimagga where he quotes the Sutta description, he goes on to refer in the next line to "the First Jhana, which has put away five factors, is endowed with five factors ... ".31

Modern scholars have tended to follow Buddhaghosa. Paravahera Vajiraiia.Q.a Mahathera, in his Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice, agrees that whatever the suttas say, ekaggatii was meant to be included in firstjhana,32 So too does Henepola Gunaratana, whose doctoral thesis on the jhanas is the most detailed modern study devoted to this most important aspect of Buddhist teaching. Gunaratana lists the four factors in first jhana as described in the Sutta accounts, but then comments, "the fifth, one-pointedness, is added elsewhere.,,33 Instead of discussing this discrepancy, he merely states that it is "more than obvious" that ekaggata ought to be included in firstjhiina. 34 .

To account for the omission of ekaggata from the Sutta a( count of jhana 1, Gunaratana suggests that "the prominence of ekaggata in the attainment of jhiina [by which he means specifically first jhiina] was so evident that it was felt unnecessary to mention it separately.,,35 This suggestion finds little textual support. Ekaggata is certainly prominent as a characteristic ofjhiinas· 2,3 and 4, but its prominence in them derives from the complete suppression of discursive thought; in jhiina 1 discursive thought is still present. Elsewhere, Gunaratana suggests that ekaggata is not mentioned in the Sutta account of first jhana because it is not until second jhana that "concentration first acquires eminence." He supports this with the observation that: "The concentration of the firstjhana, being subjectto the disturbing influence of applied thought [vitakka] and sustained thought [vicara], is still imperfect.,,36 But these two sugges!ions are based on contradictory premises. He cannot have it both ways: ekaggata cannot both be so prominent in firstjhana as not to warrant mention and not acquire eminence until second jhana.

There do exist, in the Sutta-pitaka, three references to the occurrence of ekaggata in firstjhana. It is conceivable, therefore,

. that the Abhidhamma description is merely the formalization of

JHA.NA AND BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM 89

t~ alter?~tive earl~er, ~anonicaJ.ly supported description. Howlfiver, cntIcal exammatIon of these three references reveals that ':11 are textually suspect, late interpolations or additions to the "ali corpus. Only one of the three references attributes a state~ent on the occurrence of ekaggatii in firstjhana to the Buddha ;Himself. It is found in the Saliiyatana-vagga of the Sarrtyutta and i~set in the context of a miraculous appearance by the Buddha tb the disciple Moggallana,37 a context which already suggests liliat the passage constitutes a later textual interpolation. In the t()urse of this appearance, the Buddha urges the meditating }disciple to practice mental onepointedness, repeating an identi(tal exhortation for each jhiina. Thus, for the first jhiina the lfofIllula becomes: "Make steadfast thy mind in the first trance ':UhiinaJ. In the first trance, make the mind one-pointed [cittam r~ekodirrt-karohi]. IIi the first trance compose the mind.,,38 That ~tliis same set formula is repeated without distinction for each r'jhiina could well be a consequence of faulty memorizing: refer~ence to onepointedness in subsequent jhanas may have been ~~xtended inadvertently to first jhana as well. But in view of the fll1agiographic reference to Moggallana it seems more likely that ~1his text is late, and was composed under Abhidhammic influ-tJ :: ~ence.

ig: Support for this conclusion comes from another source, [:one whose importance was appreciated by A.K. Warder,39 but ~jWhich has not been used as often as it might have been by Pali i,~cholars. That source is the Chinese counterpart of the four tpikiiyas (the Chinese iigamas). In the Chinese texts, this reference fo the practice of onepointedness, together with "virtually the ;~ntire Moggalliina-sarrtyutta" is missing,40 thus indicating that the 'entire section represents a late addition to the Theravadin canonY

A second example of a reference in the Sutta-pitaka to the "occurrence of ekaggatii in first jhiina occurs in the Mahiivedalla~utta of the Majjhima.42 There, the disciple Sariputta states that ,firstjhana is "five-factored," (counting vitakka-viciira as two fac:!ors instead of one and including ekaggatii). But Sariputta's description contains an inconsistency. When asked what charac.terizes firstjhiina, Sariputta answers by listing four factors: vit{j,kka, viciira, pZti and sukha, but then, on being asked how many factors are to be found in first jhana, he replies that there are


five: vitr:kka, viciira,pUi,sukha andekaggatii! Now, as Pande point~~ out, thIS Sutta bears all the hallmarks of a late text.43 What i? more, although its counterpart in the Chinese canon is othenvis~~ all but identical, it lacks precisely this section on the composiiioff\) of the jhiinas.44 This section therefore constitutes an even late~1 interpolation in a late text, almost certainly to be attributed toX the influence of early Abhidhammic analysis...,;;:

The third reference to ekaggata in first jhiina is found in th~;' Anupada-sutta. There ekaggatii is included in a list of sixteen; characteristics of first jhiina. 45 The list itself is full of anomalies'~! being both repetitive and inconsistent. It first follows th~' stereotype description of first jhiina with only vitakka-viciira, Pit! andsukha, but then goes on to list these same factors again, with ekaggatii. Other qualities listed include equanimity (upekkha) and

. "desire" (chanda). Equanimity is out of place because it is not' supposed to be attained until third jhiina. Desire is out of plac~~ both because it conflicts with equanimity, and because it should. be overcome with the attainment of firstjhiina. 46 Not surpris) ingly, the entire Anupada-:sutta does not exist in the Chinese canon, thus confirming Pande's identification of it as a demonj ' strably late text.47 Hi

We can only conclude that none of these three Sutta-Pitaka' references constitutes evidence that the Buddha himself ever taught that ekaggatii was present in first jhana. By including ekaggatii, Buddhaghosa, and a number of modern scholars as well, have without valid reason preferred the Abhidhamma de~: scription to that of the Buddha-a choice which itself is perhaps in need of explanation.'

When we turn to attempts to reconcile the second discrep~ ancy, concerning the interpolation of jhiina la in the fivefold Abhidhamma listing, we encounter another set of similarly un': satisfactory explanations. To the question "Why are four and five meditations taught?" the Vimuttimagga replies: "because the result depends on two sorts of men."

Q. How does a yogin induce the second meditation from the first?

A. He considers the coarseness of initial and sustained ap: plication of thought, knows the disadvantages of initial


and sustained application of thought, and induces the second meditation, which is free from initial and sustained application of thQught. This is the way of progress in the four meditations.

And again, there is another man. He is able to induce freely the second meditation out of the first meditation. He considers the coarseness of initial application of thought and knows the disadvantages of initial application of thought. He discerns the state of being free from initial application of thought. Possessing restricted sustained application of thought, he induces the second meditation. This is the way of progress in the five meditations. Therefore, the five meditations are taught.48

~t() this, Buddhaghosa, in the Atthasiilinz, adds a further reason: ~ffoadorn the teaching." This he explains as follows:

Those conditions of the Law by which, because they have been thoroughly penetrated, the teaching is adornedthose conditions were thoroughly penetrated by the Tathagata. Hence, because of the vastness of his knowl.edge, the teacher, who is skillfulin arranging his teaching; and who has attained the [art of] embellishing it, fixes that teaching by whatever factor that has come to hand, and in any way he chooses. Thus here he has classified a First Jhana of five factors, a fourfold Second Jhana 'without initial and with only sustained application of mind', a threefold Third Jhana, a twofold Fourth Jhana and a twofold fifth Jhana. This we have called embellishing the teaching.49

Neither ofthese two commentarial explanations can be said '!to be convincing. Modern scholars offer a variety of suggestions t.as to how the two lists arose. According to Rhys Davids and :;!Stede, the jhiinas form "one series of mental states, and the ·,stages might have been fixed at other points in the series."so ;This is to make Gotama's division into four stages all but arbi:trary, which is hardly convincing. Narasabho says: "It should be noted that the fivefold system is given with a view to varying


mental endowments as well as simplicity for cultivation of the aspirants [sic]. To some only vitakka appears gross whereas the remaining factors appear calm ... ,,51 Gunaratana agrees.52 Pande simply remarks that: "In the Abllidhamma-stage the four Jhanas were turned, for the sake of greater system, into a five-fold [ sic]. ,,53 Other scholars ignore either one account or the other. 54

Again, it might be suggested that the interpolation ofjhiina la in the Abhidhamma fivefold listing merely formalizes earlier distinctions between vitakka and viciira drawn in the Sutta-pitaka .. On five occasions in the Suttas, the following threefold classification of samadhi is given: (i) with vitakka and vicara; (ii) without· vitakka but with viciira; and (iii) without vitakka or vicara.55 Since the jhiinas constitute stages in the attainment of samma-samiidhi, this classification could possibly have led to the insertion ofjhiina la into the Abhidhamma.56 (At the same time, if ekaggatii is taken as the defining characteristic of samadhi, this classification could also suggest the possible presence of ekaggata in first jhiina.)

Reference to the Chinese texts throws some interesting light on these five references. The references in the Sarrtyutta and the Ariguttara are both late, as neither Pali sutta has any Chinese. counterpart. Chinese counterparts do exist for those suttas in the Dzgha and MaJjhima in which the remaining three references occur. In the case of the Sarigiti-sutta, itself a demonstrably late text comprising a series of Ariguttara-like numerical groups of short doctrinal statements,57 the Chinese text closely follows the Pali sequence, except at just the point where the reference to the three kinds of samadhi occurs.58 Of this there is no sign. In the Dasuttara-sutta, a slightly different situation pertains. The reference to three kinds of samadhi based on the presence or absence of vitakka and vicara is replaced by a reference to three kinds of samadhi characterized by emptiness, desirelessness, and signlessness.59 In this case, it would appear that an earlier, rather cryptic reference to three kinds of samadhi preserved in the Chinese rescension was replaced in the Theravadin canon by a simpler, but later classification.

It is the single reference to the threefold classification of samadhi that occurs in the MaBhima that permits us to narroW down the probable date of this curious doctrinal development. The reference occurs in the Upakkilesa-sutta, and is also found in the Chinese canon-with a single significant difference. The


;:secorid samadhi is described as one in which vitakka is absent and ~~tcara is reduced.60 In the Pali version, vicara is simply stated to tte present. The Chinese description is repeated several times ~llithis sutta, so it would appear that this may constitute a tran~Mrional veT-sion dating from the period when the distinction I'between vitakka and vicara was being drawn on the basis that t~fkr "initial thought" was eliminated, it took time to' eliminate ~i!~ustained thought." Now since it has been shown that the rchinese counterparts of the Dzgha and Ariguttara were probably ~~anslated from the Dharmaguptaka canon, whereas the MajU~ima an~ ~a1[1,yut~a were trans~a~;d fr?y? the Sa:vastivadin tianon,61 It IS possIble to date thIs transItIOnal versIOn" of the rthreefold classification of sam(idhi to the period between the lbreakaway of the Dharmaguptakas (no sign of the doctrine in ~llie Dzgha or Ariguttara) and the division between the TheravaI'llins and the Sarvastivadins (occurrence in the Majjhima, but not ~itl its final Theravadin form) . . j-:", !

flV: Resolving the Discrepancy

Ir~;" 1Jt; For modern scholars trained in the logic of textual analysis, !fue discrepancies evident between the Sutta and Abhidhamma ~aescriptions of the jhanas are too obvious to be disregarded. !Either ekaggatii can coexist with vitakka-vicara, or it cannot. Either fthere exists an intermediate stage (jhiina la) which is without ~itakka but with vicara, or there does not.62 Logic alone suggests ifliat vitakka, understood as discursive thought, cannot exist in . ~#iy state of consciousness entailing one-pointed mental concen,'ITation: if the mind is casting around for an object upon which 16focus, or is following one train of thought after another "like ,gwild monkey,,,63 it cannot be said to be one-pointed. ;if.: Whether or not vitakka-vicara can coexist with ekaggata in :f!rst jhiina clearly has a lot to do with how the terms themselves ::are understood. It is admittedly difficult to be sure exactly what ~sFates and processes the terms used in early Buddhist psychology ;actually referred to, but as already indicted, change in the mean- . ;ipg of terms is insufficient to resolve the problem. Even as "initial ~pplication," vitakka retains a discursive component. The change r!ll meaning of vicara noted above, while it may explain the

tf"," [,.

94 JIABS VOL. 12 NO; 2

interpolation of jhiina la in the Abhidhamma series, does nothinJ to eluddate the problem of first jhiina. Nor can change in th~ meaning of ekaggatii account for the presence of this factof" together with vitakka in first jhiina. Even Buddhaghosa did not' accept that ekaggatii as a factor of first jhiina was some weak form of attention such as was said to characterize less developed states of consciousness, including access-jhiina.64 ,

In the Sutta and Abhidhamma accounts we have two different' descriptions of what is purported to be the same mental state. But because the descriptions are different, different interpreta_ tions are possible. First jhiina, is usually interpreted as a state of deep concentration, achievement of which is beyond the cap,} acity of all but the most advanced meditators. This interpretation is based on the Abhidhamma account. From the Sutta account,; however; a rather different interpretation is required. Firstjhiind in the Sutta account is the stage before mental one-pointedness is established. Rather than being a state of deep concentration:' therefore, it seems to be a preliminary, stage preceding a series of such states (the higher jhiina and arupa jhiina). In the Suttd account, vitakka-viciira and ekaggatii do not coexist precisely be2: cause it is through the elimination of vitakka-viciira in the trans~: ition to second jhiina that one-ness of mind is attained. The firsl jhiina of the Suttas is evidently a state that can be readily attained by anyone who has practiced right mindfulness, a state tha~ many wandering samar]as would have been conversant with. '.'

In principle, it ought to be possible to test the Sutta descrip: tion of the transition from first to second jhiina through intro': spective analysis.65 Gotama learned the lower jhiinas from his earliest meditation masters, practiced them even as a child, and enjoined his disciples to do the same.66 It should be possible; therefore, for present-day practitioners of meditation to apply similar techniques to attain similar elementary concentrated states, and thereby test the accuracy of the textual description( Though introspective analytical reports "of the kind developed, in modern cognitive psychology67 could not be taken as in them;, selves providing conclusive empirical evidence in support of Buddhist claims for the effectiveness of meditation techniques, they would lend strong suppor( to textual accounts so con" firmed. 68 "

It is perhaps debatable whether this method of empiricar


I~Hfica~ion would be applicable !or ~i~her stages ~f the Buddhist fliieditatIve path, ~uch as the ar~pa Jhiinas or the Thr~e Knowlr~a.ges"; however Its use~ulness IS .much les~ ~roblematlc for the ~§wer stag~s. IntrospectIve analytIcal descn~tlOns of ele~entary I~tlcentratlon states could be checked agamst the findmgs of tiikt-based approaches such as those which make it possible to tllistinguish an earlier "primitive" Buddhism which .might be l:scribed to Gotama himself from later accretions through the rd1.ting of texts on the basis of language or content;69 or through Wotm-criticism of the kind pioneered by Biblical scholars.70

r~; One way to obtain empirical verification of whether or not ~ko,ggatii can possibly coexist with vitakka-viciira in. first jhiina l~buld be to conduct a survey of Buddhist meditation masters "$D"" ..

!from which presumably a clear consensus would emerge which !.!$ould resolve the contradiction between the Sutta and ~bhidhamma accounts offirstjhiina. There are, however, practical ~t,

~gifficulties in the way of conducting such a survey. Those under-W:loing training in Buddhist meditation are usually under strict ~hstructions not to discuss their experiences in the presence of ~i1yone but their meditation master. Masters themselves are likely It; be reluctant to advance any claim to have achieved higher ~editative states, if only for fear of the negative effect such a ~~laim is believed to have on spiritual progress toward nibbiina, ~~nd of the skepticism it might well provoke. However, meditation ~asters might be less reluctant to report on their introspective ~kperience of lower meditative stages..:.-especially if this took i!~e form of commenting upon published accounts by non-Budf~clhists applying Buddhist techniques. 71

~:i.' Descriptions of concentration practice by non-Buddhists 'provide a possible alternative means of verification, though only :p1jma facie evidence could be so adduced in support of one ~~~xtual description or another. Such prima facie evidence is avail;~ple, in fact, to anyone willing to embark on a course of elemen;fary concentration practice. The immediate goal of such practice ~sto achieve mental one-pointedness through concentrating atit~ntion upon some object of perception, such as the tactile sen~~:ation of the breath at the right nostril. 72 The most notable ;~haracteristic of this concentrated state, when one reflects upon i,~e experience, is that the chatter of thought is temporarily ~tilled. Most people have probably experienced this phenome-


·i non on occaSIOns when they have become totally engrossed fo som~ sensory sti~ulus-fo~ exam pIe when listening intently t~~ mUSIC, or when Immer~ed III the beauty of.a sunset: N?rmalIy,' t~e flow of thought qUIckly resumes, but wIth practI~e It is po~: sIble to extend the concentrated state to endure mmutes at it time. Even this elementary experiment in concentration indi! cates that mental one-pointedness cannot coexist with discursiv~ff thought. Phenomenological analysis thus confirms what lOgi2! would lead us to expect, namely that the Sutta description ih4 which first vitakka-viciira and ekaggatii do not coexist in firstjhiind! is the correct one. ~,i:;

, 'Now it is just conceivable that confusion over the compo~~% ition of firstjhiina could have arisen from exegesis of the passage~ of the SaT{tyutta-nikiiya quoted above in which the meditator i~ instructed to make the mind one-pointed in firstjhiina. Accord>: ing to the Sutta-pitaka account, the meditator must suppress air discursive thought in order to attain second jhiina. This would require that preliminary attempts to establish one-pointedness' be made in firstjhiina. 73 In this sense, ekaggatii could perhap~; be said to occur here. Even so, this one-pointedness of mind: would never coexist with discursive thought. During those short'l periods when on~-pointedness was achieved, discursive thought! would necessarily stop. One-pointedness of mind of significant: duration could only be said to be present when discursive1

thought no longer disrupted the concentrated state. If firstjhiind'; is characterized by the presence of discursive thought, it can hardly; also be characterized by mental one-pointedness, even if in thfi course of elementary concentration practice discursive thoughtl were to be momentarily restrained. Only when discursiy~j thought is fully suppressed through concentration could "one~;~ ness of mind" be termed a factor, that is, a permanent charac~l teristic of the state attained-and that is said to occur only iii) second jhiina. Thus, on the basis of the logic of definition, on~f; would have to conclude that the Abhidha,mmic first jhiina wa(i: inaccurately characterized, and that the Sutta description shoulq, be preferred. .,f:7,~

If logic and introspective analysis of concentration practic(!,i both confirm the Sutta description of first jhiina, and textu~j exegesis and change in the meaning of terms cannot explain,:~ the presence there of ekaggatii as a characterizing factor, on~~

"'\i;:i ,",.'i'

'~j j~


ust ask why all schools of Buddhism have accepted the later idhamma account in preference to what was in all probability

2tama's own earlier description. This is not the same as asking, +e fundamentally, how ekaggata came to be included in first

c.:.' a in the first place. Once ekaggata had become included in canon, Buddhists very naturally accepted the new descrip-

11 without question. The Abhidhamma-pitaka, as one of the ee "baskets/, not only is scripturally as authoritative as the < -pitaka; it even purports to be more analytically exact. If

" Abhidhamma says ekaggata is present in first jhana, no school '-N~fild contradict it. To elaborate the doctrine is one thing; to IDe issue with the most authoritative texts on Buddhist analyt~t'£I psychology would be quite another. Ii.' We should. not be surpris~d that once ekaggata had come

11£ be i~cluded m ~rst jhiina, thI~ was acc~pted by all schools of ~BuddhIsm. What IS noteworthy IS that thIS development neces~~Hly led to a reinterpretation of first jhiina. Once ekaggata had ~lften included, firstjhana could hardly be taken to be an elemen-1& stage in con~entration practice. Inste~d it came to be con,~~~~ed as so~ethm? far more exalted whICh fe~ monks could ~.ijQPe to attam-a VIew that would have been remforced by the f6~lief that gradual decline of the Dhamma was inevitable. I;~ The interesting question, however, is not why believing -1'B'llddhists accepted the Abhidhamma account once ekaggata had ik-1't'_:::,~

t~ecome a factor of first jhiina, but rather how it came to be fffiduded as a factor in the first place. As we have seen, prima t~f~e evidence that mental one-pointedness and discursive ~t~ought cannot coexist makes the possibility that the change in f~~scription was based on more refined introspective analysis I!fhlikely. It is possible that more refined introspective analysis W<iS responsible for drawing the distinction found in the Abhi¥J!-amma fivefold series between vitakka as the "initial application" ~fthought and vicara as "sustained" thinking about it. This pistinction between two modes of thought is one which most people would be familiar with, and could hardly have been ~verlooked by those responsible for the kind of psychological ~alysis we find in the Abhidhamma. Anyone who has thought geeply about anything knows that focusing attention on content ~an prevent the arising of random mental images.74

!~~ The description of jhiina la in the fivefold series as charac~:,j

'~1"'," l~'c-t:

98 ]IABSVOL.12NO.2

terized by both sustained thought and mental one-pointedness could, therefore, conceivably be defended as phenomenologi_ cally accurate on the grounds that sustained thought constitUtes a form of concentration, that concentrated focus on the COntent· of thought constitutes mental one-pointedness. However, this description of jhiina la could still be questioned on the grounds that ekaggatii as one-pointed concentration actually eliminates all thought. In any case, while it may well be that more refined Abhidhammic introspective analysis led to differentiation between vitakka and viciira, and even to the inclusion of ekaggata as a factor of the additional inserted jhiina la, this cannot with any plausibility explain how ekaggatii came to be considered to coexist with vitakka in first jhiina.

N either changes in the meanings of words, nor refinements in psychological analysis, can provide, with any plausibility, an . explanation for the discrepancies associated with the Sutta and Abhidhamma descriptions of the J"hiinas. Nor, as indicated above, did references in the Sutta-pitaka provide precedent for the inclusion of ekaggatii in first jhiina or the insertion of jhiina la, since the relevant·· sections did not form part of the early corpus of memorized texts upon which early Abhidhamma formalization would have been based.75 On the contrary, it is much more likely that both references to ekaggatii in first jhiina and the threefold classification of samiidhi were products of Abhidhammic scholasticism only later interpolated into the canon.

This conclusion would be further strengthened if it could be shown how the earlier Sutta description came to be altered to produce the Abhidhamma version. Unfortunately, conclusive historical evidence of this kind simply does not exist. What the historian can do, however, is attempt to construct a hypothetical account of how the alteration might have occurred, given what we know of the historical development of early Buddhism, and offer some assessment of the likelihood and coherence of such an account.

The following explanation for why the Abhidhamma listsfive factors in first jhiina takes particular account of Buddhist scholastic mentality. Let us begin with the jhiina factors. These are known collectively as the jhiinarigas, a term which does not occ~r in the Sutta-pitaka. Together with the concept it connotes, thIS term is a product of Abhidhammic scholasticism.74 It seems


faikely- that for the jhiinas, the characterizing factors first listed rwere those which necessarily had to be overcome in moving Wsuccessfully to higher jhanas (see table 1). Ekaggata would have ~.been included as a factor gained, not lost, because of its promi¥Jnence in characterizing the higher jhiinas and the emphasis rJplaced u'p~n i: by practicing meditat?~s. With the divisio~ of ;('Vitakka-vzcara mto two factors, first Jhana, the stage attamed ~through overcoming the five hindrances, was characterized by i~four factors. But for the scholastic mind, there existed an uncom~fortable asymmetry where five hindrances were juxtaposed with ~four jhiina factors. Five hindrances needed to be paired with a ~~ist of five factors, a compelling reason for discovering an addiI~tional factor in first jhiina-and the fa~tor most readily available ~(as comparison of tables 1 and 2 shows) was ekaggata. f. Scholastic concern over the relationship between the hin¥[drances and thejhiina factors provides the key to understanding thow the discrepancy between the Sutta and Abhidhamma descrip~tions of the jhiinas is likely to have arisen. A direct relationship ~as first stated in theMahavedalla-sutta, already referred to. There, ~Sariputta replies as follows to the question how many "factors" ~aie abandoned and how many possessed in first jhiina :

Your reverence, in regard to the first meditation, five factors are abandoned, five are possessed: if a monk has entered on the first meditation, desire for sense-pleasure is abandoned, malevolence is abandoned, sloth and torpor are abandoned, restlessness and worry are abandoned, doubt is abandoned, but there is initial thought and discursive thought, rapture and joy and one-pointedness of mind. Thus, your reverence, in regard to the first meditation, five factors are abandoned, five factors are pos- . sessed.75

tJt is never explicitly stated in the Tipitaka that each of the five Yhiina factors is instrumental in overcoming a specific hindrance. ~Buddhaghosa states that a direct one-to-one correspondence t;between the five jhiina factors and the hindrances is given in nhe Petakopadesa.76 But in this he is mistaken; all we in fact find :in the Petakopadesa is a statement that the "five-factored medita)tion [jhana]" is the "opposite" of the five hindrances." N everthetiess, by the time Buddhaghosa was writing, these equivalences ;'were well established: one-pointedness (ekaggata) was said to be


opposed to sensory desire (kamacchanda),joy (Jiiti) to malice (vya_ . pada) , initial application of mind (vitakka) to sloth and torpor

(tMnamiddha), bliss (sukha) to distraction and remorse (uddhacca_ kukkucca) , and sustained application of'mind (vicara) to dOUbt (vicikiccha).78 . . Now, some of these e.quivalences seem quite inapprop_

nate.79 For example, one mIght have expected ekaggata to neut. ralize uddhaccakukkucca (distraction and remorse) rather than sensory desire. As for vitakka, it is hard to see how it could be thought of as neutralizing anything. Apologists explain that the vitakka which counters sloth and torpor is of a special kind!8~ Nor does it seem likely that vicara would neutralize doubt. Or!' the contrary, doubt could actually be encouraged by sustained thought. Here apologists claim that viciira counteracts doubt only when it is "directed to jhiina.,,81 ....

The Vimuttimagga provides an even more bizarre exampl~ of the lists of one-to-one correspondences so dear to the schoJ lastic mind. There the relevant passage states: "The hindrances are overcome by the perfection of the five jhana factors. The overcoming of the first hindrance is the first meditation, jhiina: Thus the overcoming of the five hindrances results in five medi-' tations,jhiinas.,,82 The five hindrances are not overcome by five' jhana factors in firstjhana. Rather, the hindrances are overcom~ as the jhana factors are lost in moving through the series of five jhanas. This account is obviously inconsistent with the descrip~' tion of the first jhiina as characterized by separation from un~ wholesome states (all five hindrances), and makes no sense in' terms of the jhiinas as a sequence of ever more concentrated. mental states. .""

. The Vimuttimagga provides an excellent exam pIe of two rein-: forcing scholastic tendencies-to draw up neat and regular lists. wherever possible, and to equate lists so that individual items. in each are paired in symbolic relationship.83 Both tendencies are already evident throughout the later sections of the Tipitaka. It was this penchant in Indian scholasticism (for it is not foun<t only in Buddhist writings) for composing lists and drawing symj; bolic parallels that best accounts for both the inclusion of ekag;{ gatii in first jhana, and for the insertion of jhiina lao . '0.

The description of the jhanas in the Sutta-pitaka specifie~; the presence of ekaggatii only in second jhiina, but it is clearl~~

JHANA AND BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM lOl

~tobe understood as continuing to characterize third and fourth f'hii,nas. If ekaggata is included in jhanas 3 and 4, the asymmetrical kab1e 1 results. It would be natural for the scholastic mind to :"complete" the table by including ekaggata in first jhana. Subi~equently; .vitakka-vicara was divided into two separate factors 'almost certainly in order to "match" the previously existing set ~~f five hindrances with the necessary number of jhana factors,84 tather than as a result of more refined introspective analysis. irogether, these scholastic exercises would have given rise first ;to the Abhidhamma fourfold jhana setout in Table 2, and then t() the even neater and still more formally satisfying fivefold 'irrangement of Table 3. ',,' That the inclusion of a jhana stage in which vitakka is missing but vicara retained probably resulted from scholastic formalizing 1tather than introspective analysis is further indicated by the :ionflicting descriptions of this jhana in the Dhammasanga1'}i and .. fhe Vibhanga remarked on above, and by the treatment of the :Jhanas in the Katha-vatthu85 where the "Theravadins". are said Ito argue, against adherents of other schools, that no intervening stage exists between first and second jhanas in the Sutta account. . ~:And yet in the Theravadin Abhidhamma the fivefold listing clearly 'does include jhana la as just such an "intermediate stage." It appears that by this time the jhanas had for some monks hecome ,110 more than another "point of controversy." " The suggestion that the Abhidhammic description of first Jhiina resulted from scholastic elaboration rather than constituting a phenomenologically accurate reporting of an attained :meditative state is unthinkable only for those who approach the Abhidhamma as sacred scripture or with exaggerated deference for the wisdom of the arhats. In fact, we have strong historical evidence for the development of Buddhist scholasticism. Soon' after Gotama's death, the sangha changed from being a band of wandering mendicants to become a settled monastic order. 86 At the same time there developed an immense body of oral literalure, all of which had to be memorized until the canon was written down, some time after the reign of Asoka. To memorize these lengthy records groups of bhikkhus were responsible for different sections. Dutt describes the process:

Each group would then memorize and also specialize in its own


section, not as mere reciters (bhiinakas), but as professors, expositors, commentators-in short as custodians of both the texts and their true meaning.87

Thus, we find reference to Dhammakathikas (expounders of Dhamma), Vinayadharas (experts in the Vinaya), and Suttantikas (specialists on the Suttas). Another group were designated the Jhiiyins, literally those who practice the jhiinas. At Anguttara iii. 355 the tension is revealed that existed between the Jhayins (which Hare translates as "musers") and Dhammayogas (Hare's "Dhamma-zealots", followers of the Dhamma as texts to be studied).88 Each group apparently had been criticizing the other: . each considered its particular way of practice to be the only true way to nibbiina. The lesson of the text is that such disputes should end: each group should respect the methods of the other, for both lead to the same goal, though few enough of either group will attain it.

Two things should be noted about this text: first, that such mutual criticisms were being voiced; second, that there had already evolved an influential group of monks seeking to apprehend the supreme reality by means of the intellect,&9 rather than by the meditative techniques pioneered by the Buddha. A contest was taking place for the soul of the sangha between on the one hand, the Dhammayogas, those "puffed up, proud, excitable fellows, mouthy speechifiers, forgetful of mindfulness, lacking self-possession and composure, with their thoughts a-wander and their sense-governance rude," and on the other hand the Jhiiyins, those who had "touched with the body the deathless state.,,90 In this contest, the Jhiiyins lost. .

Further evidence for a steady decline in the practice ofjhiina in the sangha comes from the Vinaya-pitaka. As C.A.F. Rhys Davids points out, the Vinaya contains few references to the jhiinas as a system of meditation a monk should pursue, and only four references to Jhiiyins and their special needs. She concludes that the practice of jhiina had already seriously declined for:

there is no doubt that had the Sangha, during the centuries when the Vinaya was growing by accretions, held Jhana in its original worth, it would have produced a disciplinary chronicle glowing with Jhana atmosphere throughout. 91

JRmA AND BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM 103

From the admittedly fragmentary evidence that is available, !t is dear that the Jhayins within the early sangha soon became J it Il1inority, a trend undoubtedly accelerated by the rapid expan-sion of the sangha under Asoka.92 As meditators, they were 'probably as unconcerned with the organization and administra-tion of the sangha as they must have been with speculative debates on aspects of Dhamma, or the compiling and memorizing of texts. This was left to the scholastically inclined.

Long before the time of Buddhaghosa, the Buddhist sangha had become predominantly a worldly organization, concerned above all with its own preservation, with maintaining its popular 'a.ppeal and princely patronage. By tha~ time the meditative tradition may well have been reduced to httle more than an eccentric group of recluses. 93 Since most textual commentators stood squarely in the Dhammayoga tradition, it seems likely that most were not Jhayins but scholars and exegetes who elaborated scholastic discussions of the path while lacking acquaintance with the

:higher stages of meditative practice. It is not hard to see how, in the hands of such monks, the scholastic equating of five jhana Jactors with the five hindrances in firstjhana might have occurred.

V. Conclusion

This paper has argued that the two descriptions of first jhana, the four-factor Sutta listing and the five-factor Abhidhamma listing, are contradictory and cannot be reconciled. Attempts to achieve such a reconciliation, both in the commentarialliterature and by modern scholars, are unconvincing. Textual analysis alone suggests that the inclusion of ekaggata in first jhana is logically incompatible with the presence of vitakka, even given

. later modifications of meaning of both terms. Elementary con-centration practice confirms that coexistence of ekaggata with

.vitakka is at least phenomenologically questionable. There is a strong prima facie case, therefore, for supposing the later Abhidhamma description to be invalid, and the Sutta description to be the correct one.

This conclusion suggests that by the time the Abhidhamma texts came to be written down, a high degree of scholasticism characterized Buddhist thinking. Evidence of the incorrect description of firstjhana thus supports C.A.F. Rhys Davids' conclu-


sion that various "psychic" states are described in the Abhidhamrna~ in such a way as to indicate that "the compilers had not themselves:;; ~ny experienc~ at first hand of what they .were recording. ,,94 By accept:~ mg the Abhzdhamma texts as canonIcal, all later commentator~'; were faced with the problem of explaining away evident dis:"; crepancies. Rather than do this, one would be better advised u;i; treat Abhidhamma texts and the commentarial literature With";; more critical suspicion than has usually been the case, even; where the subject matter is the descriptive psychology of those; altered states of consciousness that the texts purport to reveal. '$;

Two wider implications should therefore be drawn front the above analysis, touching upon both the historical develop~~ ment of early Buddhism and the methodology of Buddhist studies. It would appear that the gap between those who spent their time in the sangha practicing meditation (the Jhayins) and. those who discussed and commented upon the Dhamma (the' Dhammayogas) was already wide and deep by the time th/' Abhidhamma-pitaka had taken shape. In part, no doubt, this wat due to different abilities and interests. But it was probably also' exacerbated by the form of esoteric transmission by which the.: meditative tradition was communicated to adepts. Divorced asci they most probably were from experience of those states of consciousness attained through application of advanced medita=! tive practices, Buddhist scholastics pursued their own course of elaborating increasingly complex lists of categories such as we find in the Abhidhamma. What they have to say about altered, states of consciousness should therefore be treated with caution .. '!

The second implication is that textual contradictions must be recognized as such. They must not be dismissed on the grounds that accounts of experiential states of mind "elude mere intellectual treatment.,,95 Contradictions arise as historical deJ velopments and require historical explanation. We cannot as! sume meditative practices to have remained constant during the •. millennium from the time of Gotama to that of Buddhaghosa/ any more'than we can assume textual compilation over this period to have been unaffected by the divisions and debates,; that were occurring both within the sangha with the rise of the Mahayana schools, and between Buddhism and resurgent Hin~ duism. As scholars, we must be even more critical than we have' been in studying the texts. By so doing, we will be in a position


~'both to thro~ further light on shaping ~istoricalcirc~mstan~es, IlJid to co~tnbute to a. better understandmg of Budd~st meditaitti\re techmque~. In thIS way, s.cholarly study may e::cplicate stages iiAthe BuddhIst path to enhghtenment of practIcal benefit to iftthodern day meditators. iii""

IROTES

1. This question has been dealt with by Rod BuckneUin "The Buddhist i5ifath to Liberation: an analysis of the listing of stages" ,Journal of the International (t1.hociation of Buddhist Studies 7 (1984), pp. 7-40. I gratefully acknowledge ~ffiucknell's valuable criticisms of successive drafts of this paper. . ~j~)~, 2. Cf. Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2nd ed. trans. by ~WiIliard R. Trask (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 250. il;ti 3. Recen.t studies of jh~na include: ~.S. Cousins, ':~uddhist jhana: its fpature and attamment accordmg to the Pah sources," Relzgwn 3 (1973): 115-rq31; Winston L. King, Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation of It~ga (University Park and London: Th,; Pennsylvania State University Press, 1}980), pp. 47-48; Donald K. Swearer, Control and Freedom: The structure '6fBuddhist Meditation in the Pali Suttas," Philosophy East and West 23 (1973) ~3~-455; and Paul Griffiths, "Buddhistjhana: a form-critical study," Religion "P(1983): 55-68. Ili" 4. Dii.313. '~:i. 5. The relationship between the two paths, of con.centration and insi~ht, fJsstill a matter for debate among scholars. See Paul Griffiths, "Concentration 12~ Insight: The Problematic ofTheravada Buddhist Meditation-Theory,"Jourfjia,l of the American Academy of Religion 49 (1981): 605-624. ~ri 6. Cf M i. 22.

7. (1) vivicc'eva kiimehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaT{t savicaraT{t yaT{t pUisukhaT{t patht;LmaT{t jhanaT{t upasampajja viharati.

(2) vitakka-vicaranam vupasama ajjhattaT{t sampasadanaT{t cetaso ekodibha. avitakkaT{t avicaraT{t samadhijaT{t pUisukhaT{t dutiyaT{t jhanaT{t upasampajja viha

li. This description occurs frequently, e.g., at D i.182ff. 8. Listed at, e.g., D i. 71-73, D iii.49, etc. The DhammasangaTji (hereafter

lists six hindrances, including ignorance (# 1152). 9. T.W. Rhys Davids and William Stede, Pali-English Dictionary (Lon

Luzac, 1959), p. 620. 10. M i.114f. cf. Rune E.A. Johansson,. The Dynamic Psychology of Early

~Buddhism (London: Curzon Press, 1979), pp. 185-190 for an analysis of the ," ...... au.111~ of vitakka.

II. Pali-English Dictionary, p. 615 12. Ibid., p. 620. 13. Vibhanga 263-266, (hereafter Vibh), translated as The Book of Analysis

Ashin Thittila (London: Luzac, 1969), pp. 344-348.


14. Cf. the list .of "fa~tors of associa~ion" gi~en in ~e Petakopadesa 139~ translated as The Pztaka-Dzsclosure ~y. BhIk~hu ~aI;lamoh (London: Luzad 1964), p. 186. In the Anupada-sutta, Sanputta Identifies numerous other facto"!; cha~acteristic of the jhiinas (M iii. ~5). This list i~ extended still further in t~~~ Abhzdhamma and later commentanes. Cf. Narada Maha Thera, A Manual ifi Abhidhamma (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1968), pp. 77-78.~;¥~

15. At D ii. '217, also M 1. 301, samiidhi is defined as cittass' ekaggatii. Se:~ . also Dhs 11 and 24 where cittass' ekaggatii and sammiisamiidhi are defined r '2

identical terms. (Cfalso Dhs # 287 and 291.)n j

16. Vibh #575. ~:~J~~ 17. Dhs #424 (translated by Caroline A.F. Rhys Davids as A Buddh~(:

Manual of Psychological Ethics, 3rded. (London: Pali Text Society, 1974), P.105j)~ . 18. The Expositor, vol II, p. 345 (translation of the Atthasiilini by Pe Maung':

Tm (London: Luzac, 1920). ...iJ 19. Dhs #556. Cf. Atthasiilini p. 293. Bhikkhu J. Kashyap in The;

Abhidhamma Philosophy (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1982), p. 46, states!! that ekaggatii varies in strength from "very feeble" to "fully steady" in thes~~ jhiinas. 'J

20. Atthasiilini #259. Cf. A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, p. 105:1 ~. ¥

21. Visudd~imagga # 147 (hereafter Vism) Translated as The Path of Puri~' by Pe Maung Tm (London: Luzac, 1923). '~i[

22. Ibid.,rj 23. Pali-English Dictionary,p. 620. .!~}J 24. Vibh #257 The Book of Analysis, p. 335. In A Buddhist Manual ij'

Psychological Ethics Caroline A.F. Rhys Davids states that, in her opinion, vitakkli; is a "distinctively mental procedure at the inceptiqn of a train of thought, thJ)

,deliberate movement of voluntary attention" (p. 8, note 1). Vicara is "the' movement and maintenance of the voluntary thought continuum," .something' which includes the senses of investigation, analysis, and discursive thought (p. 9, note 4). It

25. Atthasiilinz#1l4-1l5; The Expositor, pp. 151-152. Cf. also Vism #142;~ pp. 164-165. ,~~;}~:

26. Pali-English Dictionary, p. 620 A later text, the Abhidhammattha-Sanga:: ha, adds little or nothing to our understanding of the meaning of the terrml

under discussion. Vitakka in first jhiina is said to be directing of the mind to the "after-image," a meaning apparently compatible with the presence of ekaggatii, while the presence of ekaggatii in mundane states of consciousness is explained by denying that in such cases it connotes "concentration." C[ Compendium of Philosophy (London: Luzac, 1972), p. P8, note 5. Such modifi,. cations of meaning constitute attempts to explain away, rather than explain~ the presence of both vitakka and ekaggatii together in first jhiina in the Abhidhamma.

27. Vibh #264; The Book of Analysis, p. 345. 28. Dhs #168. 29. Henepola Gunaratana, A Critical Analysis of the Jhiinas in the Theraviida

Buddhist Meditation, Ph.D dissertation, American University, Washington 1980


'[\e.214-215, suggests an editorial error may have occurred in one or the ;.~l'~er description of jhiina la but is unable to deci_de which might be correct. ••.•. ~ ......... 30. Vism #147. The Path of Purity, p. 170. Na1).amoli translates the last ;'ntt~nce somewhat differently: "for the intention with which the Blessed One :r(~~"e the summary [i.e., the Sutta version] is the same as that with which he ~,~ve the exposition that follows it [iein the Abhidhamma]." The Path of Purififi'tion vol. 1, p. 153 . ... ca 31. Vism #139, ThePath of Purity, p. 161. ";2 32. Paravahera Vajiraiia1).a Mahathera, Buddhist Meditation in Theory and i.Practice (Colombo: M.D. Gunasena, 1962), p. 38. ;" 33. Gunaratana, A Critical Analysis of the Jhiinas, p. 105. , '34. Ibid., p. 196. (f' 35. Ibid., p. 143.

36. Ibid., p. 174. Cf Vism #126. 37. S iv. 263, translated as The Book of Kindred Sayings by F.L. Woodward

(London: The Pali Text Society, 1927), p. 180. 'r' 38. Ibid. .

39. A.K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970),

;tyP'~~~'Rod Bucknell, "The Importance of Pali/Chinese Comparisons in ,studies of Early Buddhist Doctrine," paper presented at the IXth annual .;conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religions, Canberra, A,ugust 1984, p. 4. ;;".41. Pande agrees that the "Sayings about Moggallana" are almost certainly late. G.C. Pande, Studies in the Origins of Buddhism 2nd ed. (Delhi: Motilal

;Banarsidass, 1974), p. 229. 42. Mi. 294.

,... 43. Pande concludes that the whole sutta is a late composition. See Pande, .prigins of Buddhism, p. 134.

44. Taisho 26 (211). See Bucknell, "The Importance of Pali/Chinese 'Comparisons," p. 4.

45. M iii. 25-29. 46. The translation of chanda as "desire" is LB. Horner's. A better trans

lation might be "impulse (towards something)." But in any case chanda should be overcome in first jhiina.

47. Pande, Origins of Buddhism, p. 318, calls this an early Abhidhammic text.

48. Vimuttimagga, translated as The Path of Freedom by N.R.M. Ehara, Soma Thera and Kheminda Thera (Colombo: D. Roland D. Weerasuria, 1961), p. 46. The "second meditation" referred to is our ''jhiina la."

49. Atthasiilini 179, The Expositor, vol. 1, p. 240. 50. Pali-English Dictionary, p. 286. 51. Phra Maha Singathon Narasabho, Buddhism: A Guide to a Happy Life

(Bangkok: Mahachulalongkornraja-vidyalaya, 1971), p. 66. 52. Gunaratana, A Critical Analysis of the Jhiinas, p. 211 Gunaratana illus

trates the relationship of the two systems through the metaphor of two mountain climbers who climb the same mountain using different ascent stages (pp. 211-212).


53. Pande, Origins of Buddhism, p. 534. 54. For .example, Edward J. Thomas does not mention fivefold jhii:na in

either The Life of Buddha (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), or The History of Buddhist Thought (London: Routledgt; and Kegan Paul, 1951). N~r does Winston King, in Theravada Meditation. Neither does Nalinaksha Dutt in~ Early Monastic Buddhism (Calcutta: Oriental Book Agency, 1960); but whereas" King quotes the Sutta account of first jhana, Dutt describes the fourfold Abhidhamma account with ekaggata included (p. 188). .

55. At D iii. 219; D iii. 274; M iii. 162; S iv. 360, 363; A iv. 300-301. 56. Buddhaghosa specifically refers to these three forms of samadhi.

Atthasalini: #179. 57. Pande, Origins of Buddhism, p. 115. 58. Taish6 i. 50. See Bucknell, "The Importance of PalilChinese Com-

parisons." p. 5. . 59. Ibid. Cf. TaishO i. 53. 60. Ibid. Cf. TaishO i. 538. 61. See Warder, Indian Buddhism, pp. 7-9. 62. For believing Buddhists, the problem may not seem so clear cut.'

The Indian tetralemma permits the two further alternatives of "both ... and ... " and "neither ... nor .... "

63. S ii. 94. 64. Vism #147. 65. Cf. Roderick S. Bucknell and Martin Stuart-Fox, The Twilight Lan

guage: Explorations in Buddhist Meditation and Symbolism (London: Curzon Press and New York: St Martins Press, 1986). . ,

66. CfM i. 246; D i. 74-76; Mi. 347. 67. As developed in, for example, Alan Richardson, The Experiential

Dimension of Psychology (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1984). . 68. Cf. Frank Hoffman, "The B.uddhist Empiricism Thesis," ReligioUs

Studies 18 (1982), pp. 151-158. 69. Cf. Pande, Origins of Buddhism. Also Kogen Mizuno, Primitive Bud

dhism, trans. by Kosho Yamamoto (Ube: The Karin Bunko, 1969). 70. Griffiths, "Buddhist Jhfma." Griffiths analyzed the 86 occurrences'

in the Sutta-Pitaka of the stereotype description of the four jhanas in order to, define the position of thejhanas in alternative soteriological paths. His conclu~; sions, though of interest; do not, however, go far enough, for the form-critical method fails to take account of historical context. We obtain no hint from Griffiths' study as to the origins of these different paths and the goals to which they lead. Nor is any light shed on the historical circumstances that led to the incorporation of variant paths in the Pali Canon. " '.

71. For examples of descriptions of meditation, see R.N. Walsh, "Initial meditative experiences," parts I & II, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 9 (1977), pp. 157-192 and 10 (1978), pp. 1-28; Rod Bucknell, "Experiments in Insight Meditation," Australian Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 3 (1983), pp. 96-117; and chapters 3 and 4 of Bucknell and Stuart-Fox, The Twilight Language.

72. Cf. the Anapanasati-sutta M iii. 82.


'73. Gunaratana suggests that the term samiidhija'l'{t (literally bDrn Df conl:fentratiDn) in the descriptiDn Df secDnd jhana cDuld be understDDd as meaning 'that secDnd jhana is bDrn Df the cDncentratiDn applied in first jhana ~':(Gunru:~tana,. A Critic~l ~nalysis of the jhanas, p. 175). ~Dwe:er, he l~ter equates hamjuj)u,ja'l'{t WIth ekodzbhava as synDnymDus terms remfDrcmg the ImpDrtance :~bf one-pointedness in secDnd jhana. Ibid., p. 178. FurthermDre, the analDgy :'with first jhana, describe~ as vivekaja1'{1. makes it clear that the reference Df

twords in "-ja'l'{t" is to. the factDr that effects the transitiDn, and.not to. a factDr f~{n the preceding jhiina. i1. 74. Such meditatiDn is practiced in all the majDr wDrld religiDns as, fDr :e;cample, in Christian meditatiDn Dn the cross. ~~i 75. See notes 37 to 47 above. t 76. Vism # 190. f 77. Mi. 294-295, translated as The Middle Length Sayings by LB. Horner ~iLondon: Luzac, 1954), p. 354 . . ', 78. Vism #141. The Path of Purification, p. 147.

79. Petakopadesa, 161. The Pitaka-Disclosure, p. 220 ", 80. E.g., at Vism #141. The Path of Purification, p. 147. See also. The if,xpositor, p. 221 Gunaratana argues that the hindrances were limited to. five ~:out of many such pDssible "factDrs Df abandDning" because there were Dnly :)ive jhana factors with which to. cDrrelate them (Gunaratana, A Critical Analysis for the jhiinas, p. 58). I argue just the DppDsite, that five jhiina factDrs were i,tequired because there already existed a well knDwn far mDre ancient list Df 1five hindrances which were said to. be DverCDme in first jhana. Cf. fDDtnDte ~86 below.

81. The jhiina factDrs are nDt alDne in counteracting the hindrances. At "S v. 105-106 there Dccurs a set of five "wise cDnsideratiDns" which are alSo. said to. eliminate the five hindrances.

82. Gunaratana, fDr example, says the vitakka which CDunters SIDth and torpDr is "Df a high quality and specialized functiDn"! Gunaratana, Critical

'Analysis ofthejhanas, p. 151. 83. Ibid., p. 151. The idea that viciira cDuld be "directed to. jhana" seems

part Df an attempt to. provide viciira with a new meaning, as a fDrm Df CDncentratiDn, in Drder fDr it to. be cDmpatible with ekaggatii.

84. The Path of Freedom, p. 93. 85. FDr a detailed discussiDn Df this develDpment see Bucknell and

Stuart-FDx, The Twilight Language, chapter 6. . 86. The five hindrances are fDund in the earliest sectiDns Df the Suttap#aka, e.g., at D i. 71-73, in the Siimaiiiiaphala-sutta'. See Pande,. Origins of 1Juddhism, p. 114.

87. Katha-vatthu, translated as Points of Controversy by S.Z. 1\ung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids (LDndDn: Luzac, 1960), pp. 327-330.

88. In the summary which fDIIDWS, I have drawn heavily Dn the wDrk ofSukumar Dutt. See bDth The Buddha and Five After-Centuries (LDndDn: Luzac, 1957) and Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India (LDndDn: GeDrge Allen and Unwin, 1962).

89. Dutt, The Buddha and Five After-Centuries, p. 92.


90. A iii. 355. The significance of this text was remarked upon by Louis .de la Vallee Poussin in "Musila et Narada: Ie chemin du Nirvana," Melanges chinois et bouddhiques 5 (1937): 189-222. .

9~. ~ trend culminating in the method of,Nagarjuna .. It. seems likely that thIS mtellectual trend was encouraged by the BrahmamstIc concept of jnana-yoga.

92. A iii. 355, translated as The Book of Gradual Sayings, vol 3 by E.M. Hare (London: The Pali Text Society, 1934), p. 252.

93. C.A.F. Rhys Davids, "Dhyana in Early Buddhism," Indian Historical Quarterly 3 (1927), pp. 695-696. I cannot, however, accept the conclusion of this paper that jhana had value over and above that of a state of mental preparation. Rhys Davids criticizes Ananda (A ii. 195) for takingjhana to be "pure and simple mind practice," and one of four "factors for utter purifica~ tion." But these factors~srla, samadhi, panna, vimutti-together comprise a statement of the Path. Samadhi (= four jhanas) is here, as elsewhere, a prepara_ tory stage.

94. :Further indirect evidence for the decline of the jhayin tradition comes from the decline both in status and numbers of the arhat in early Buddhism. Pande calls this decline "the most hotly debated point in the whole range of early sectarian controversy." Pande, Origins of Buddhism, p. 564.

95. Rod Bucknell and I have argued that knowledge of how to practice the higher meditative techniques became confined to an esoteric transmission in early Buddhism. See Rod Bucknell and Martin Stuart-Fox, "Did the Buddha impart an Esoteric Teaching?", journal of Indian History 61 (1983), pp. 1-17; also Bucknell and Stuart-Fox, The Twilight Language, chapter 2.

96 .. C.A.F. Rhys Davids, The Birth of Indian Psychology and its Development in Buddhism (London: Luzac, 1936), p. 333. .'

97. Gunaratana, Critical Analysis of the jhanas, p. 216, makes this statement after devoting a whole thesis to precisely such an intellectual treatment ofthe jhanas.

II. BOOK REVIEWS

- Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism, by Frank J. Hoffman. Delhi: Motilal Barnarsidass, 1987. 12 + 126 pp.

It often has been remarked that when European scholars "discovered" Buddhism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they tended to gravitate to that form of Buddhism that most closely reflected their own philosophical preoccupations. Thus, the rationalist French initiated the study of Indo-Tibetan scholasticism and metaphysics, while the British, with their long tradition of empiricism, found in the Theravada of occupied Sri Lanka and Burma what seemed like a perfect mirror of their own concern with ethics, equality and evidence. It is, of course, likely that what the Europeans encountered was not a mirror but something more akin toa projected film image. Nevertheless their interpretations of Buddhism have been influential, not only on subsequent generations of vVestern scholars, but also on some of the very Buddhists they sought to describe. This has been particularly important in the case of Sri Lanka, where native scholars educated in both their own and British traditions, most notably K.N. Jayatilleke (Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge), David J. Kalupahana (Causality: the Central Philosophy of Buddhism) and Walpola Rahula (What the Buddha Taught), provided interpretations of Buddhism that emphasized its compatibility with modern scientific and empirical approaches to the world. The fact that these interpretations have been proffered by "real Asian Buddhists" gave them an added authoritativeness, and it is probably safe to say that the majority of Westerners have had their understanding of Theravada (hence what the Buddha allegedly "really" taught) shaped by what is sometimes called "the Buddhist empiricism thesis."

This thesis, which often entails the correlate assertion that Buddhism is really more a "philosophy of life" than a "religion," has begun.to come under attack in recent years, from both Asian and Western scholars. For example, A.D.P. Kalansuriya, a Sri Lankan, has argued that advanced Buddhist meditative experiences cannot possibly be understood empirically, because they transcend the ordinary senses that are the only meaningful basis for "empiricism"; and David Snellgrove, who is English, devotes considerable effort in the early chapters of his recent indo-Tibetan Buddhism to criticizing the notion that the Buddha is "an agnostic teacher of ethics of entirely human proportions who was later divinized by the enthusiasm of his followers," which is, he argues, simply "a nineteenth-century European creation, corresponding to the similar efforts that were made to find a purely human

111

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ethical teacher behind the Jesus Christ of the Gospel accounts. In both cases the 'mythological' interests are primary, and since they dictate ... the form in which the story is told, not only does the story become trite when deprived by critical scholarship of its religious significance, but also a gap begins to yawn between the 'founder' himself and his believing followers" (vol.I,p.8). There is, in short, a growing belief among scholars not only that Buddhist philosophy per se cannot easily be subsumed under Western categories, but that the religious context out of which that philosophy emerges makes its identification as "scientific" or "empirical" particularly problematic.

This belief is at the heart of Frank J. Hoffman's Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism, which is the most sophisticated and many-pronged attack on the Buddhist empiricism thesis that has yet appeared. In this review, I will briefly layout, and comment upon, the argument of each of the book's six chapters, then remark on the book's style and structure, and conclude with some general observations.

In his first chapter, "Understanding Early Buddhism," Hoffman carefully qualifies the term "early Buddhism," indicating that it is simply a "shorthand" for "the Buddhism of the five nikiiyas," which are themselves assumed to be neither of the same chronological stratum, nor necessarily the words of Gautama Buddha. He goes on to describe his general purpose, which is to analyze certain philosophical issues and conceptual problems in early Buddhism. To do so, one must avoid both pure textual exposition-for this approach tends toward apologetics, and is insufficiently critical-and the temptation to "straightjacket" the texts into "an alien and perhaps pre-conceived philosophical framework" (p.2)-approach that fails sufficiently to respect the texts' own words and meanings. Hoffman's own approach, then, is to combine both emic and etic approaches, showing "on the one hand, sympathetic understanding of what is internally coherent and linguistically precise in the language of the Asian texts studied, and, on the other hand, attention to Asian thought from a critical philosophical point of view" (p.7). The "texts" Hoffman proposes to use are the nikiiyas, without recourse to their commentaries; "the critical philosophical point of view" is provided mostly by contemporary Anglo-American philosophers of religion, with a backward glance at Wittgenstein.

I am essentially in sympathy with Hoffman's stated goal and methodology: it seems a prudent and balanced basis for cross-cultural philosophical analysis. The only point with which I might quarrel is his insistence on dispensing entirely with the commen-

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'tarial tradition. Granted, it is' naive to suppose that commentaries give us the "true purport" of the texts on which they comment; Buddhaghosa, for example, wrote his commentaries on the nikiiyas several hundred years after the texts were composed, and brougJ:t to his analysis concerns peculiar to his own time and situation. Nevertheless, if commentary is not "pure" exposition of earlier texts, it is usually a part of the same intellectual continuum, and often can provide illumination of the possible meanings of the texts. Certainly, it is a "closer continuer" of the original texts than our own efforts are, and while attention to commentaries sometimes can lead us away from the meaning of the original, just as often it will provide contextual insights that enable us to check our tendency to impute our own radically different concerns into texts from another time and culture.

In chapter 2, "Rationality and Logic," Hoffman focuses on the "fourfold pattern" -often called the tetralemma-employed by the Buddha in analyzing the famous "unanswered questions." He is particularly concerned to rescue Buddhism from the accusation that it is philosophically incoherent because it invokes a logical "principle of contradiction" and then seeI;Ils to violate that principle by setting as the third and fourth of the four possible positions, "both X and non-X" and "neither X nor non-X." Hoffman argues (contra Jayatilleke) that early Buddhism has no term for, hence no real concept of, "propositions." Therefore, the tetralemma and the "principle of contradiction" are not ele- . ments of a formal logic, applied to propositions, but, rather, heuristic rules to be applied to utterances, which "can be understood properly as existential statements" that cannot be "formally symbolized" (p.21). Thus, when we consider, e.g., whether or not the tathagata exists after death, the third position is not that "he both exists and does not exist" -which is self-evidently contradictorybut, rather, that "part of the tathiigata survives death and part does not," and if the surviving part is taken as a "permanent iitman surrogate," it must be rejected (p.21).

I think Hoffman performs a service here by pointing out clearly that the tetralemma must be located within the context of actual utterances and discussions, and that it should not therefore too quickly be homologized to Western formal logic, nor, by the same token, should Buddhist utterances toofacile~y be translated into "propositions" that can quickly be "proved" or "refuted." I confess,' however, that I do nOt entirely understand the problem he seeks to resolve or agree with his particular solution to it. In the first place, Hoffman does not clearly identify those critics who feel that the third and' fourth members of the tet-


ralemma threaten to undermine Buddhism's philosophical coherence. Granted; the third and fourth members are not easily explained, but I do not think that they need to be rephrased in the manner-not clearly explicated in the original texts-that Hoffman suggests. Why should they not invoke a principle of contradictiori that simply says, e.g., the tathiigata cannot both exist and .not exist after death because survival and non-survival are mutually exclusive? This may, as some have suggested, involve setting up a philosophical straw-man, but it does not, I think risk the sort of self-contradiction Hoffman is concerned about-especially when we consider that the Buddha consistently rejects the "bothland"-as well as the "neither/nor"-alternative.

Further, though Hoffman is probably correct that there is no term for "proposition" in the nikiiyas, and though there no doubt is a legitimate distinction to be made between propositions and utterances, I do not think that this should obscure the fact that there is considerable interest in early Buddhism in distinguishing between "true" (sacca) and "false" (micchii) , with the former in some sense corresponding to, and the latter straying from, "things as they are" (yathiibhUtam). Now it may be more proper to regard what is "true" as an utterance than as a proposition, but I suspect that to do so is to underestimate the implicit propositionality of utterances, and to insist on a distinction that is in some ways more seman tical than real. Buddhist utterances may exist within a non-propositional, e.g., religious, context, but that does not mean that Buddhists believed their utterances to be relative to their particular context; after all, whether or not tathiigatas arise to explain it, the way things are is the way they' are. Hence, Buddhists descriptions of the way things are do conform to some meaningful sense of the term "proposition," if not necessarily to the most restrictive one.

Chapter 3, "Rationality and Pessimism," seeks to refute the common perception that Buddhism-whose first noble truth, after all, is that of suffering-is "wholly pessimistic and in that way 'irrational'" (p.27). Hoffman does riot specify why a "wholly pessimistic" outlook would be "irrational"; perpaps it is because. it would eclipse all meaningful discussion of "better" and "worse." In any case; he carefully examines the meaning of dukkha in a number of nikiiya passages, concluding that there is a narrower sense in which dukkha is "anguish"-i.e., overt suffering-and a broader, more fundamental sense in which it is descriptive of all experience insa1'{1Siira, where conditions are impermanent, hence unreliable. This, Hoffman observes, "is in contrast to the 'no

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. arising' and 'no falling' characteristics of ... nibbiina [which] is not characterized by impermanence" (p. 29). After examining a number of different versions of pessimism, Hoffman concludes that "pessimism a.dmits no consolation," whereas Buddhism, with its bel~ef the possibility of a virtuous life here, a better rebirth in the hereafter, and the ultimate attainment of nibbiina, "sees ... many sources of consolation," and so "cannot accurately be called pessimistic" (p.37). He ends the chapter by arguing (contra Radhakrishnan), that the Buddhist assertion that "all is dukkha" or "all is impermanent" must be understood as evalu.ative rather than descriptive and scientific-since "to see the world yatka bhutam is ... not to see what a video-camera would record but is in part to see in a hopeful manner the possibility of liberation" (pp. 42-43). There is, in short, in Buddhist "descriptions" of reality the deliberate inclusion of an element of value, and a lack of concern with issues of "verification" or "falsification," which clearly take those descriptions outside what we could comfortably characterize as "scientific"-and because Buddhism makes no pretense to being "scientific," it cannot be accused of confusing fact and value.

I am in complete agreement with Hoffman's refutation of Buddhist pessimism: it is a careful, lucid and compelling analysis. His analysis of factual and evaluative elements in Buddhism, which serves as a sort of coda to the discussion of pessimism, is important, but less convincing. He argues successfully, I think, that early Buddhism is not "scientific" or "factual" in precisely our sense of those terms: the Buddha is not setting forth "hypotheses" that must stand or fall on empirical evidence, and he clearly informs Buddhist descriptions of "the way things are" with presuppositions that are in turn rooted in "values," such as the hope of nibbiina. Once again, however, I think that the fact that early Buddhist assertions do not pretend to be "factual" in a sense that a modern scientist would recognize does not mean that Buddhists regard their assertions as, say, context-dependent conceptual schemes or language games; they clearly regard their assertions as universalizable, hence as independent of their particular assumptions. This, of course, entails precisely the sort of interweaving of facts and values of which Hoffman seeks to exculpate early Buddhism. I have no simple solution to this problem: perhaps there really is a confusion; or perhaps one could point to the incorporation of "values" and presuppositions into "factual" descriptions as a way of narrowing the apparent gap between the two types of assertions, thereby beginning to undercut the critique


of any set of assertions that overtly contains evaluative elements. ·1 will saya bit·more about this in my comments on chapter 5.

In chapter 4, "Mind and Rebirth," Hoffman addresses two major questions: (1) How does early Buddhism describe the rebirth process? and (2) Is there a systematic attempt in early Buddhism to explain. how there might occur "reidentification of persons across lives"? (1) In his analysis of nikiiya accounts of the rebirth process, he is careful to note that "there are several candidates for the rebirth link (sankiirii, Citta, gandabba, viiiiiii'TJ,a), and no consistent, technical view about this matter in early Buddhism" (p.5l). He also observes that "[i]n early Buddhism there is no 'doctrine of moments' (!?Ja'TJ,aviida)," no division of perceptions into "distinct existences" as in the later Buddhist Sautrantika school or, in the West, Hume (p.56). If there is no doctrine of momentariness, then the problem of radical discontinuity-with its potential for vitiating any account of causality-is not posed for early Buddhism. Nor, however, does Buddhism "offer a substitute for the concept of iitman" -no ·permanent substance is asserted (p.54). How then is continuity explained? Hoffman finds the most helpful image in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, where "the strength of a cord does not always depend on there being a single strand which runs from end to end, but sometimes depends on the interrelationship between overlapping and criss-crossing fibers, none of which runs the entire length of the cord. The early Buddhist doctrine of rebirth may be viewed like this: there is no permanent, unchanging iitman linking up successive lives with its continuous psychic fiber, but there is nevertheless continuity which is assured by overlapping and crisscrossing fibers" (p.5l). (2) Searching the nikiiyas for criteria for reidentification of persons across lives, Hoffman finds them lacking. He considers in detail a variety of possible criteria, including those of consciousness, memory and body, and sees all of them as problematic: "viewed externally there is no good reason to accept 'there is rebirth,' for it is not clear that the obstacle of providing conditions for the meaning of 'the same person' can be overcome" (p.76). This is not a problem, however, as long as one recognizes that early Buddhism is not interested in providing such criteria, but, rather, regards the doctrine of rebirth as part of its own "conceptual background," a presupposition "against which other beliefs may fit or fail to fit, since the tests are devised in terms of the background" (p.75).

Hoffman's discussion in this chapter is impressively detailed and generally convincing. I find his description of the processes

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·of change and rebirth in terms of the strands of a rope quite striking, and I suspect that it probably does capture the spirit of the early Buddhist attitude. I would be more comfortable with itif there were an exactly equivalent image in the nikayas, but I do not think Hoffman provides one: the closest parallel he can find is the image of the flame, which does express the concept of continuity within change, but does not account for the problematic interaction of various impermanent· elements in the way that the rope image does. I am in general agreement with Hoffman's analysis of the problem of establishing criteria for identifying

. persons across lives, though I am not entirely in accord with his rejection of the memory criterion. He argues that the memory of past lives is problematic in part because it is available to so few, in part because the lives one can in principle remember are infinite, hence the memory incapable of supplying "all the data," . leaving Buddhism with, at best, a "weakly quantified law" (p.70). The fact that the memory of past lives is available to so few, however, does not mean that it is not accessible in principle to everyone;. while the absence of "all the data" on rebirth, karma, etc., should not (problems of subjectivity aside) prevent supernormal perceptions of them from acquiring the same kind of evidentIal force as other inductive generalizations. This may still leave unresolved problems about the precise mode of reidentification, . but it would seem to leave the possibility open in principle. Finally, I agree with Hoffman that "proving" rebirth is not a major concern of early Buddhism. It should be noted, however, that not all Buddhists have considered it an unassailable presupposition: under attack from materialist critics, later Indian Buddhists, such as Dharmaklrti, provided elaborate rational.defenses of the doctrine of rebirth-and thereby implicitly recognized that the "factuality" of what might otherwise be relegated to the "evaluative" realm had become a concern of Buddhists-even if those concerns were, as Hoffman insists, latent or nonexistent in Buddhism's early period.

It is in chapter 5, "Mind and Verification," that Hoffman mOst directly attacks the Buddhist empiricism thesis. His discussion is threefold, dealing in turn with the role of saddhii ("faith"), the function of abhiiiiiii, and the degree to which early Buddhism fulfills the criteria for "empiricism." He argues first of all against those-most notably Jayatilleke-who claim thatsaddhii is invariably a "faith" in the Buddha subsequent to checking the truth of what he teaches, a "rational" faith that is to be contrasted with the "blind" faith ofbrahmins. Hoffman marshals textual evidence


for the view that there are at least some instances where saddhii . precedes and, indeed, facilitates one's understanding of what the

Buddha teaches. "Thus," concluded Hoffman, "there is an affective element in saddhii which is ignored if one treats believing in the Buddha as equivalent to believing that what he says is true" (p.83). If saddhii is in many cases affective and prior to understand_ ing the teaching, it loses the purely rational,a post(!riori quality with which Jayatilleke sought to invest it. Hoffman continues by arguing that neither the specific, paradigmatic event of the Buddha's enlightenment J.mder the bodhi tree, nor abhiiiiiii in general, should be seem simply as experiences that serve to confirm beliefs, but must be understood as informed by doctrinal assumptions and issuing in inspired activity in the world. Thus, abhiiiiia does not verify propositions, for "it is a mistake to think that there is a body of propositions which can be rightly labeled 'religious knowledge', in a sense even remotely analogous to scientific knowledge. Unlike 'religious knowledge', there may indeed be 'religious wisdom', but if there is, it is to be found embodied in the lives of religious people, and as with 'philosophical wisdom', cannot be embodied in a set of propositions but is embodied in practices" (pp. 95-96). Finally, Hoffman directly attacks the Buddhist empiricism thesis, arguing that "empiricism" requires criteria of falsification, and that early Buddhism simply does not provide these: even the Buddha's famous invitation to "come and see" (ehi passako) "will not be falsified by the assiduous meditating monk who meditates and yet does not 'see' rebirth .... At no point will the meditation teacher agree that the student has falsified the doctrine in case the student came and did not see" (p. 98).

I think that Hoffman's arguments succeed in refuting the Buddhist empiricism thesis-at least in the strong form that Jayatilleke, Kalupahana and others have presented it. There clearly is in early (as in later) Buddhism a place for. a priori ;'faith": not only is "confidence" not always "subsequent to checking," but one's checking may not "verify" doctrines if one does not possess that a priori faith. By the same token, "religious experi~ ences" (as Steven Katz and others have argued) cannot be isolated either from their informing assumptions nor from the "life" of which they are a part, and so cannot be regarded as having quite the same evidential status as scientific, empirical studies do. Nor do we see many (if any) instances where religious doctrines are "falsified" on the basis of experience. For all these reasons, it seems safe to say that early Buddhism is not "empiricism" as that term is used in Western philosophy. However, the fact that early

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'Buddhism involves a priori assumptions and attitudes, is not overtly propositional, and may not fulfill the definition of empiricism, does not-as I have indicated before-mean that early Buddhists were not making truth-claims of any sort. They were not and did not ci,!-im to be philosophical rationalists, but they did believe that their doctrines accurately described things as they are, that happiness depended on seeing things as they are, and that understanding of the way things are-while no doubt embedded in religious aspiration and practice-was in some sense verifiable by examination, whether through the senses or the abhiiiiiii, of actual conditions in the world. This may not be "propositional" or "empirical" in the strong sense, butl think that it is an outlook that entails certain propositions and a certain confidence in "check-ing" those propositions. _

Hoffman fears, I suspect, that if we concede that early Buddhism is attempting to be propositional it too easily may be shown

- to be irrational. No doubt the admission of philosophical motives does raise problems about presuppositions, coherence, etc., but they may not be insurmountable. Hoffman seems to me to have an exaggerated notion of the purity of scientific and empirical inquiry-as if they were not themselves informed by presuppositions and embedded within ideological (and even cultural) contexts. I am not trying to argue for a strong. Kuhnian position, or . maintain that "religion" and "science" are simply two alternative conceptual schemes, each valid in its own domain; I do think, however, that the degree to which we now appreciate the contextual nature of all understanding, including the scientific, has altered our notion of the conditions under which truth-claims may be made: because we are more modest about the "purity" of any and all evidence, we may, paradoxically, entertain truthclaims (even-shudder!-propositions) of more various types than we could, say, during the heyday of logical positivism. There are, of course, many issues left undecided about the commensurability between and relative merits of various types of truth-claims, but I do not feel that religions-early Buddhism included-require the "protection" afforded by the assertion of their non-cognitive, non-propositional nature. The relationship between "belief' and "understanding" is a complex and undoubtedly problematic one, but it is thus in all realms of "knowledge," and I think we may do religions as much of a disservice by understating the seriousness of their religious truth-claims as we do by overstating themfor if the latter results too often in oversimplification, the former risks trivialization.


The sixth and final chapter is devoted to "The Deathless (Amata)," i.e., to nibbiina, of which "the deathless" may be both a synonym and a quality. Hoffman argues first (contra Kalansuriya) that parinibbiina is not a transcendental state of immortality, on the grounds that such a view is not entailed by the Buddha's denial of the materialist uccedavada. He goes on to defend (contra Peter Masefield) the meaningfulness of the distinction between nibbiina and parinibbiina, arguing that the occasional application of the latter to a living arhant does not vitiate the distinction, but simply indicates a variant usage that is an exception to the general rule, i.e., that parinibbiina is applied after the death of an arhant. Finally, Hoffman analyzes the meaning of amata as it applies to both nibbiina and parinibbiina, arguing that when applied to the former, it simply means "the destruction of what defiles," i.e., greed, hatred and delusion (p.l13), and that when applied to the latter it indicates "the limit of a Buddhist stream of life, not an experience in that stream" (p.l14). The Buddhist view thus becomes that one lives not an "endless life" but an "eternal life" in which "it is possible to live in such a way that one is not limited by, but independent of, death" (p.l15). Since death, for Buddhists, is inextricably bound with rebirth, once one has achieved a state where rebirth no longer will occur, one is, by definition, free from death, for one's passing will not be like the death of unenlightened beings. Returning to the conundrum of the tathiigata's survival after "death," Hoffman concludes that from an emic perspective, there simply is no thesis that can be found, while from an etic perspective "the Early Buddhist position does suggest that there is no question of anything surviving in parinibbiina once the conditions for rebirth are gone" (p.l16). He ends by suggesting that Buddhists denied that parinibbiina is extinction as vociferously as they did (a) to avoid speculation on what did not yield to speculation, (b) to avoid confusion with materialism's uccedavada and (c) because one's own extinction cannot be experienced, hence cannot be asserted on philosophical grounds.

Hoffman's arguments and textual analyses in this chapter are generally solid. He gives a sound defense of the nibbiina-parinibbiina distinction. His interpretation of amatais persuasive with regard to nibbiina, and I am almost prepared to go along with his rather ingenious reading with regard to parinibbiina, too. Certainly, when we consider that parinibbiina entails the elimination of the aggregates, and the aggregates are the only com prehensible basis for experience, there seems little room left for the continuation of "anything" after the passing of an arhant. This does not,

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. however, it seems to me, completely rule out the possibility that parinibbiina is an endless transcendental condition-as long as we recognize that "transcendental" means "incomprehensible in terms of either existence, non-existence, both and neither," and that the specification "endless" could have very little meaning within such a transcendental state (any more than "temporal" is a meaningful characteristic of the Judeo-Christian God prior to creation). Some light might be shed on the issue by further examination of the meaning of amata (oramrta) in early Indian culture.

Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism is a detailed and highly nuanced book, and I cannot claim to have explicated or understood it in its entirety. Part of the fault lies with my own limited powers of comprehension, but part, I think, must be attributed to Hoffman. The book covers a great many topics of great importance, yet Hoffman's style is so compressed that he is sometimes difficult to follow. He refers continually to people and positions (including some of his own, in articles) that the reader is somehow expected to know. For example, he talks in the last chapter of defending Kalupahana's view of parinibbiina against Jayatilleke's, but never clearly states what those two views are. By the same token, he refers in his discussion of falsifiability in early Buddhism to his own "parable of the bhikku," but never sets it forth explicitly. In a work of serious philosophical analysis like Hoffman's, this sort of omission is a disservice to thereader, who needs as clear and complete an exposition of the positions under consideration as the author can afford. The book also· would have gained a bit more coherence had Hoffman (who clearly understands Pili) himself translated the nikiiya passages he cites, rather than relying on a variety of extant translations, which inflict upon the non-Piliglot reader an avoidable bewilderment as to the meanings of terms. My final stylistic criticism is that the book-ranging both as wide and deep as it does-needs a unifying conclusion. It's not that Hoffman's points don't come through, or that a careful reader will not be able to construct his or her own sense of Hoffman's overall position; it is simply a matter of authorial helpfulness to provide for the reader who has followed him through dense philosophical thickets a concluding view from on high that provides a perspective on the terrain that has been covered.

My stylistic and philosophical criticisms notwithstanding, I want to make it clear that I regard Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism as an important and insightful advance in our understanding of the ideology of the nikiiyas. Hoffman makes a vital


contribution with his analysis of the importance, in Buddhist . doctrine and experience, of conceptual and affective presuppos_

itions; he is quite correct in locating Buddhist doctrines and experiences within a particular lebenswelt; and I think he effectively demolishes the strong form of the Buddhist empiricism thesis, demonstrating that early Buddhism is not simply reducible to propositions that can be verified or falsified in the way that scientific hypotheses traditionally can. Although, as should by now be clear, I feel that Hoffman underestimates the degree to which (a) Buddhists are making universalizable truth-claims and (b) those claims can-very cautiously-be treated propositionally, I am very much indebted to him for helping to clarify my own· views on the complex problems he tackles, and I cannot conceive that any further discussions of the philosophical standpoint of early Buddhism (or even Buddhism as a whole) could proceed without reference to his book.

Roger Jackson

J .W. de J ong's Review of Jeffrey Hopkins' Meditation on Emptiness: An Exchange

Jeffrey Hopkins Replies to J. W. de Jong

Concerning Professor ].W. de Jong's review (JIABS, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 127-128) of my Meditation on Emptiness, I was surprised to find a large number of his points to be unfounded. The ten critical points of his review fall into four groups; he (1) is wrong about my translation of siidhyadharma, )"igs lta, avyabhiciirin, biidhii, siddha, and adhyiiSaya; (2) has m,issed the point of my note on rdo rje gzegs ma, (3) has understandably been confused by my inventive translation of the passage from the Ghanavyuhasutra, and (4) is right about the passage from the Dhiira1Jzsvarariijapariprcchiisutra and the translation of samyaktvaniyiima.

I cannot consider all of these points in the space allotted to a response to a review, but a few will illustrate my countercriticism. For instance, Professor de Jong makes an unsubstantiated retranslation: (p. 126)

"Wrong is Hopkins' rendering of siidhyadharma by 'predicate of the probandum' (p. 508). The siidhyadharma is the 'property to be proved', i.e., the probandum."

This is all he says....:....he gives no sources; and he could not be more wrong. De Jong's rendition is simply outside the pale of a ba&ic understanding of Buddhist logical terminology. As Masaaki Hattori says in the introduction to his Digniiga, On Perception: 1

"His great contribution to the cause ofIndian logic is the invention of the hetucakra, that is, the table which shows nine possible relations between the Reason (hetu) and thesiidhyadharma or predicate of the Thesis (pa~a, siidhya) to be proved."

De Jong has confused the siidhyadharma (the predicate of the thesis, or predicate of the probandum) with the siidhya (the thesis to be proved, the probandum). The compound siidhyadharma is not to be interpreted as a karmadhiirya, meaning the "property to be proved", but as a genitive tatpur~a, meaning the "predicate of that which is to be proved, i.e., of the probandum". This reading of the terms is confirmed also by the context, but it would

123


take too much space here to make the point.:'! In an attempt at correction, de Jong shows carelessness and

lack of comprehension: (p. 127)

"Hopkins has misread the text in Ngawang Gelek Demo's edition, p. 906.5: )"ig lta sangs rgyas- kyi gdung chad pa lta bu de dag gis ... Hopkins' text has )"igs lta, etc., and he translates this as follows: 'through fear [of the suffering of cyclic existence Foe Destroyers have forsaken helping others, and thus] their Buddha lineage has been severed' (p. 604). In this passage the Arhats are compared -. to those whose Buddha-lineage has been severed on account of it false nohon of personality ()"ig-lta, satkayadr~ti)."

First, de Jong's citation of Ngawang Gelek Demo's edition is flawed; the text reads )ig ita sangs rgyas kyi gdung bshad pa lta bu de dag gis, not )ig lta sangs rgyas kyi gdung chad pa ita bu de dag gis as cited by de Jong. Thus, that edition, if taken at face value, should be translated, in de J ong's vocabulary, as, "The false notion of personality is described as the Buddha lineage," not that the Buddha lineage is severed by such a false notion, as de Jong has it. Though such makes sense in the context of the Vimalak'irtinirdesa where this notion does indeed appear, it makes no sense here in the context of 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's explaining the meaning behind passages in the Sa'f[Ldhinirmocanasutra that indicate that certain sravakas never attain the highest enlightenment. For, it would indicate just the opposite-that even such a false view can contribute to their eventually becoming fully enlightened, thereby suggesting that these sravakas do indeed attain the enlightenment of Buddhahood. The passage has to be emended to make sense, and de Jong has indeed emended it, but he should have cited the original accurately and indicated his emendation.

Second, four of the five editions consulted read )igs lta (though such is to be expected, given that evidence shows that they stem from the same edition) whereas N gawang Gelek Demo's edition reads )ig lta, as de Jong prefers. (Indeed, if I had simply read )igs lta without it occurring to me that it might be )iglta [satkayadr,5#] I would deserve the reviewer's scorn, nevermind criticism.) My decision that the former reading is preferable, either as 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's intended meaning or as a more sensible interpretation, was based on an annotation by the Mongolian scholar Ngag dbang dpalldan, cited in the emendations (p. 968) and in note 555 (p. 871), neither of which de Jong apparently noticed. That note reads, "The bracketed material is from Ann,

BOOK REVIEWS 125

(lbu 62a.8." Since the bracketed material immediately follows the word "fear" which de Jong claims is a misreading of 'jigs for 'jig, I would have expected him to check out the reference before launching a criticism, but he obviously did not. The reference is to the Annotations3 of N gag dbang dpal Idan, used throughout my translation, who says (emphasis added):

"When one forsakes activities for the benefit of others due to viewing the suffering of cyclic existence fearfully, the Buddha line or lineage is severed. ('khor ba'i sdug bsngalla 'jigs par 1ta ba'i dbang gis gzhan don gyis bya ba dor na sangs rgyas kyi gdung ngam rigs chad b[sic]ar 'gyur ro)."

Ngag dbang dpal ldan, in a brilliant display of erudition, has ferreted out the meaning of 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's unusual terminology; he corrects not 'jigs to 'jig but (as is indicated in my emendations to the text, p. 968) gdung bshad to bdung chad. I speak of Ngag dbang. dpal ldan's "erudition" because 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa is addressing teachings in the Sarrtdhinirmocanasilatra that indicate that certainsnivakas never attain the highest enlightenment, and although Ngag dbang dpal ldan does not cite the passage, it must be one found in the seventh chapter where it is explained that a sravaka who proceeds solely to peacefulness (samathaikayanika, zhi ba'i bgrod pa gcigpu pa) cannot attain full enlightenment because of being deficient in compassion and because of being very afraid of sufferIng (dul;khiitibhayatas, sdug bsngal gyis shin tu 'jigs pa). That such sravakas are incapable of the highest enlightenment is depicted in 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's text (as corrected by Ngag dbang dpal ldan) by "their Buddha lineage has been severed" (sangs rgyas kyi gdung chad pa). Also, that the reasons for this include these sravakas' being very afraid of suffering is indicated by "fear" or, more literally, "viewing with fear" ('jigs lta, i.e., 'jigs par Ita ba). Ngag dbang dpalldan's contextual reading, based on philological analysis (i.e., associating the word 'jigs in the two texts), is most sound. Professor de Jong's criticism, however, turns out to be careless for not pursuing references in a note and an emendation and for mistakenly citing the reading that he prefers. Had he taken greater care, he would have perceived the appropriateness of Ngag dbang dpal ldan's explanation and, thereby, would not have wanted to emend 'jigs to 'jig. .

One of Professor de Jong's criticisms speaks directly to the important issue of style of translation, the reviewer disagreeing with my preference for rendering terms more literally. Referring

126 lIABS VOL. 12 NO.2

to my translation of the controversy between Bhavaviveka and Candraklrti from the first chapter of the Prasannapadii, he says; (p. 126)

"In part five of his book, Hopkins translates and explains the controversies between on the one hand, Buddhapalita, and on the other, Candrakirti .... For instance, Hopkins translates badhii (Tib. gnod-pa) by 'damage, harm' (cf pp. 502, 526 arid note 395), whereas the technical meaning of the Sanskrit term 'refutation annulment' is well-known from Sanskrit philosophical texts, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist."

First, the controversy is not "between on the one hand, Buddhapalita, and on the other, Candraklrti", but between Bhavaviveka and Candraklrti, who is defending Buddhapalita.

Since I chose this particular translation-equivalent, despite its obvious awkwardness, after much reflection, the term provides a good instance of what, at least on the surface, appears to be a clash of translation-paradigms. Simply put, I often find that the re-rendering of Sanskrit and Tibetan philosophical terminology into what some contemporary translators have identified as its philosophical meaning loses much of the psychological punch.

De J ong does not consider the fact that the eleventh century Indian and Tibetan translators-Mahasumati and Pa tshab nyi ma grags-and revisors-Kanakavarman and, again, Pa tshab nyi ma grags-who were well aware of Sanskrit technical terminology, undoubtedly consciously chose to translate the term biidhii as gnod, "damage" or "harm". The interpretation of Buddhist technical terminology by such Indian and Tibetan scholars strikes me as important and valuable because it provides a fascinating source for the understanding of Sanskrit terminology nine hundred years ago. Specifically, the psychological dimension of the Tibetan gnod, "damage" or "i~ure", as can be gained from contact with the oral tradition, is that the adherence that a person has to a wrong view needs to be counteracted, to be harmed, to be damaged. The martial imagery is not by chance; the aim of the battle is to be so affected by a good argument that one's own position is damaged. This does indeed mean to be "refuted", but such a translation does not convey the implications of the term.

As is obvious, oral traditions are often wrong and thus cannot simply be accepted at face value. However, in this case, we have the evidence that nine hundred years ago Indian and Tibetan scholars (not just those who translated this text but many other translators, too) avoided the many possible Tibetan equivalents

BOOK REVIEWS 127

for "refute" and chose to stick with "damage, injure", which we know to be one of many meanings of the Sanskrit. Thus, given the obvious connection with "refute" but in an earthier way, "damage" or "injure" is a better translation, for it at least has a chance of conveying (or contributing to conveying) the cultural background of the term. I am not putting forward a general theory that we should return to older, non-technical meanings of technical terms; I am asserting that it is helpful to check these supposedly non-technical meanings in order to overcome prejudiced adherence to translation-equivalents that, no matter how much we have become used to them, are actually sanitized versions that fail to communicate cultural dimensions. Thoroughgoing philology needs to take account of cultural context.

In conclusion, though I appreciate the corrections that are valid, I have been disappointed by the many errors and the frequent lack of substantiation, these being surprising in work by such an eminent scholar.

NOTES

1. (Cambridge: Harvard, 1968), p. 4. 2. In another criticism without substantiation, de Jong says:

(p. 126)

'~lso, in other instances Hopkins' renderings of technical terms are not very satisfactory, for example, 'un mistaken' (p. 485) foravyabhicarin (21.5)."

This is hard to answer since this is all the reviewer says! Suffice it to cite Vaman Shivaram Apte's The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary on vyabhicarin, the term without the negative prefix a; Apte gives "straying or deviating from, going astray, erring, trespassing; irregular, anomalous; untrue, false; faithless, unchaste, adulterous; profligate, wanton; departing from its usual meaning, having several secondary meanings; changeable, inconstant."

In another undocumented criticism that is a mere quibble about choice of translation terms: (p. 127)

"In the translation of this text, Hopkins is careless too in his renderings of technical terms. Probably nobody will recognize in 'unusual attitude' Tibetan lhag-bsam, Sanskrit adhyiisaya" (p. 604).

Suffice it to cite (1) Franklin Edgerton's Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary which for adhyasaya gives "mental disposition; (strong) purpose, intent determination (esp. religious)" and, in connection with


lhag pa'i bsam pa, gives "superior (adhi) thought, will, inclination" and (2) Etienne Lamotte's L'Enseignement de Vimalakfrti (Louvairl: 1962), p. 406, which, in a classic note, gives "haute resolution", "pensee profonde", and "haut sentiment". These are all very close, to "unusual attitude"!

3. Annotations for Uam-jang-shay-ba's) "Great Exposition of Tenets", Freeing the Knots of the Difficult Points, Precious Jewel of Clear Thought (grub mtha' chen mo'i rrichan 'grel dka' gnad mdud grol blo gsal gees nor), (Sarnath: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press, 1964).

J. W. de J ong Replies to Jeffrey Hopkins

I am sorry that I have not been able to convince Professor Jeffrey Hopkins on a number of points. Let me begin by correcting an error of mine. The controversy in the Prasannapadii is between Bhavaviveka and Candrakirti, and not between Buddapalita and Candrakirti.

Hopkins goes into much detail in order to defend his translation of the following passage on p. 604 of his book 'jigs lta sangs rgyas kyi gdung chad pa lta bu de dag gis. Hopkins rightly remarks that N gawang Geleg Demo's edition has gdung bshad pa, notgdung chad pa. Having read the Tibetan text at the end of the book (p. 26) and the correction on p. 969, I corrected the text of N gawang Geleg Demo's edition without pointing this out because we both agreed on this reading. As to the confusion between 'jigs lta and jig lta this is so common that it is almost unnecessary to draw attention to it. Hopkins uncritically follows Ngag dbang dpal ldan's fanciful explanation based on his failure to correct the wrong reading 'jigs lta. Hopkins refers to the seventh chapter of the SaT{ldhinirmocana but this does not say anything about "viewing with fear".

According to Hopkins I am wrong about his translation of siidhyadharma, avyabhiciirin, biidhii, siddha and adhyasaya. I remain unrepentant and continue to find it inadmissible to use such Tibetan Hybrid English renderings as "ren'owned" for siddha, "being renowned to the other [party]" for parata/:t prasiddhi, and "harm, damage" for biidhii. As to siidhyadharma, Hopkins has not taken into account the ambiguity of the term siidhya. 1 The context has to be taken into account. Candrakirti declares that if, as does Bhavaviveka, one rejects a subject or substratum (dharmin), one cannot prove the existence of a quality (dharma) such as anutpiida. 2

BOOK REVIEWS 129

The translation "unmistaken" for avyabhiciirin is not precise enough because it suggests a Sanskrit term abhriinta. As to the rendering of adhyiiSaya by "unusual attitude" this is a most awkward translation which is not found anywhere else.

Let me repeat once more that I have a high regard for the work done by Hopkins. It is exactly for this reason that I feel justified in critically examining his work in the hope that: "Du choc des opinions jaillit la verite."

NOTES 1. See the remarks by H.N. Randle in his Indian Logic in the Early

Schools (Oxford, 1930), p. 185, nJ, and his translation of siidhyadharma on p. 170. . '

2. See the translation of chapter one of the Prasannapada by Teruyoshi Tanji (Kansas University Press, 1988), p. 23. His translation i~ by far the best-of all existing translations of this often difficult chapter.


Errata to Vol. 10.2

Brian Galloway's "Notes on Nagarjuna and Zeno on Motion" (journal of the Inten:ational Ass.ociation of Buddh~t Stud~es 10(2) (1987) 80-87) reqmres correctIOn on the followmg pomts. .'

Figs. 1 and 2, first referred to on p. 81, were omitted are now given here.

On p. 81 l. 10, for 'by' read 'but'. On p. 83 l. 30, for the comma read a semicolon.; On p. 86, in the second displayed equation, the variable~.

h and v should be understood as being of normal type size (not: small as printed); the superscript numbers belong with the vari-. abIes and not with the subscripts. Thus for examfle the second; term should be understood as v;'/v! orv,h/(v) . To the rig4t; of the summation sign read a fraction bar between the tWb terms. Thus we should have

h + + + + ...

The fraction bars in the first equation should also have been horizontal. <

On p. 87 l. 1, for 'notion' read 'noting'; second line froni bottom, for 'de la ValU~e Poussin' read 'de La Vallee Poussin'.

The title of the article, given correctly on p. 80, is incorrect; on the contents page of JIABS 10(2); for 'in' read 'on'. .'

a x c • • •

Fig. 1.

a c x b • .,.

Fig. 2.

ERRATA 131

Erratum to Vol. 12.1

':Jhe name of the reviewer of Lambert Schmithauserr's Alayavi'!jnana (vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 170-177) was inadvertently omitted., ~iThereviewer is Paul J. Griffiths.

132 jIABSVOL.12NO.2

CONTRIBUTORS

Prof. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Dept. of East Asian Languages

and Cultures OJ01 290 Royce Hall UC.L.A. Los Angeles, CA 90024

Prof. J.w. de Jong Faculty of Asian Studies Australian National University Box 4, Post Office Canberra, A.CT Australia

Mr. Brian Galloway 2108 Shattuck Ave. #4 Berkeley, CA 74704

Prof. Peter N. Gregory Program for the Study of

Religion College of Liberal Arts and

Sciences 3014 Foreign Languages

Building . Univ. of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL 61801

Prof. Jeffrey Hopkins Dept. of Religious Studies Cocke Hall . University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903

Prof. Roger R. Jackson Dept. of Religion Carleton College Northfield, MN 55057

Mr. John J. Makransky Dept. of South Asian Studies 1242 Van Hise Hall Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706

Prof. Martin Stuart-Fox Dept. of History University of Queensland St. Lucia, Queensland Australia, 4067

JIABS 12-2

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