A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 - Surendranath Dasgupta (free ebook reader for android .txt) 📗

and the perceived) and there is also the instinct in the mind to experience diverse forms. On account of these four reasons there are produced in the âlayavijñâna (mind) the ripples of our sense experiences (prav@rttivijñana) as in a lake, and these are manifested as sense experiences. All the five skandhas called pañchavijñânakâya thus appear in a proper synthetic form. None of the phenomenal knowledge that appears is either identical or different from the âlayavijñâna just as the waves cannot be said to be either identical or different from the ocean. As the ocean dances on in waves so the citta or the âlayavijñâna is also dancing as it were in its diverse operations (v@rtti). As citta it collects all movements (karma) within it, as manas it synthesizes (vidhîyate) and as vijñâna it constructs the fivefold perceptions (vijñânân vijânâti d@rs'yam kalpate pañcabhi@h) [Footnote ref 2].

It is only due to mâyâ (illusion) that the phenomena appear in their twofold aspect as subject and object. This must always be regarded as an appearance (samv@rtisatyatâ) whereas in the real aspect we could never say whether they existed (bhâva) or did not exist [Footnote ref 3].

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[Footnote 1: Pañcâvatârasûtra, p. 44.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., pp. 50-55.]

[Footnote 3: Asa@nga's Mahâyânasûtrâla@mkâra, pp. 58-59.]

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All phenomena both being and non-being are illusory (sadasanta@h mâyopamâ@h). When we look deeply into them we find that there is an absolute negation of all appearances, including even all negations, for they are also appearances. This would make the ultimate truth positive. But this is not so, for it is that in which the positive and negative are one and the same (bhâvâbhâvasamânatâ) [Footnote ref 1]. Such a state which is complete in itself and has no name and no substance had been described in the La@nkâvatârasûtra as thatness (tathatâ) [Footnote ref 2]. This state is also described in another place in the La@nkâvatâra as voidness (s'ûnyatâ) which is one and has no origination and no essence [Footnote ref 3]. In another place it is also designated as tathâgatagarbha [Footnote ref 4].

It may be supposed that this doctrine of an unqualified ultimate truth comes near to the Vedantic âtman or Brahman like the tathatâ doctrine of As'vagho@sa; and we find in La@nkavatâra that Râva@na asks the Buddha "How can you say that your doctrine of tathâgatagarbha was not the same as the âtman doctrine of the other schools of philosophers, for those heretics also consider the âtman as eternal, agent, unqualified, all pervading and unchanged?" To this the Buddha is found to reply thus—"Our doctrine is not the same as the doctrine of those heretics; it is in consideration of the fact that the instruction of a philosophy which considered that there was no soul or substance in anything (nairatmya) would frighten the disciples, that I say that all things are in reality the tathâgatagarbha. This should not be regarded as âtman. Just as a lump of clay is made into various shapes, so it is the non-essential nature of all phenomena and their freedom from all characteristics (sarvavikalpalak@sa@navinivrttam) that is variously described as the garbha or the nairâtmya (essencelessness). This explanation of tathâgatagarbha as the ultimate truth and reality is given in order to attract to our creed those heretics who are superstitiously inclined to believe in the âtman doctrine [Footnote ref 5]."

So far as the appearance of the phenomena was concerned, the idealistic Buddhists (vijñânavâdins) agreed to the doctrine of pratîtyasamutpâda with certain modifications. There was with them an external pratîtyasamutpâda just as it appeared in the

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[Footnote 1: Asa@nga's Mahâyânasûtrâla@mkâra, p. 65.]

[Footnote 2: Lankâvatârasûtra, p. 70.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 78.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. p. 80.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid. pp. 80-81.]

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objective aspect and an internal pratîtyasamutpâda. The external pratîtyasamutpâda (dependent origination) is represented in the way in which material things (e.g. a jug) came into being by the co-operation of diverse elements—the lump of clay, the potter, the wheel, etc. The internal (âdhyâtmika) pratîtyasamutpâda was represented by avidyâ, t@r@s@nâ, karma, the skandhas, and the âyatanas produced out of them [Footnote ref 1].

Our understanding is composed of two categories called the pravichayabuddhi and the vikalpalak@sa@nagrahâbhinives'aprati@s@thapikâbuddhi. The pravicayabuddhi is that which always seeks to take things in either of the following four ways, that they are either this or the other (ekatvânyaiva); either both or not both (ubhayânubhaya), either are or are not (astinâsti), either eternal or non-eternal (nityânitya). But in reality none of these can be affirmed of the phenomena. The second category consists of that habit of the mind by virtue of which it constructs diversities and arranges them (created in their turn by its own constructive activity—parikalpa) in a logical order of diverse relations of subject and predicate, causal and other relations. He who knows the nature of these two categories of the mind knows that there is no external world of matter and that they are all experienced only in the mind. There is no water, but it is the sense construction of smoothness (sneha) that constructs the water as an external substance; it is the sense construction of activity or energy that constructs the external substance of fire; it is the sense construction of movement that constructs the external substance of air. In this way through the false habit of taking the unreal as the real (mithyâsatyâbhinives'a) five skandhas appear. If these were to appear all together, we could not speak of any kind of causal relations, and if they appeared in succession there could be no connection between them, as there is nothing to bind them together. In reality there is nothing which is produced or destroyed, it is only our constructive imagination that builds up things as perceived with all their relations, and ourselves as perceivers. It is simply a convention (vyavahâra) to speak of things as known [Footnote ref 2]. Whatever we designate by speech is mere speech-construction (vâgvikalpa) and unreal. In speech one could not speak of anything without relating things in some kind of causal

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[Footnote 1: La@nkâvatârasûtra, p. 85.]

[Footnote 2: Lankâvatârasûtra, p. 87, compare the term "vyavahârika" as used of the phenomenal and the conventional world in almost the same sense by S'a@nkara.]

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relation, but none of these characters may be said to be true; the real truth (paramartha) can never be referred to by such speech-construction.

The nothingness (s'ûnyata) of things may be viewed from seven aspects—(1) that they are always interdependent, and hence have no special characteristics by themselves, and as they cannot be determined in themselves they cannot be determined in terms of others, for, their own nature being undetermined, a reference to an "other" is also undetermined, and hence they are all indefinable (laksanas'ûnyata); (2) that they have no positive essence (bhâvasvabhâvas'ûnyatâ), since they spring up from a natural non-existence (svabhâvâbhâvotpatti); (3) that they are of an unknown type of non-existence (apracaritas'ûnyatâ), since all the skandhas vanish in the nirvana; (4) that they appear phenomenally as connected though non-existent (pracaritas'ûnyatâ), for their skandhas have no reality in themselves nor are they related to others, but yet they appear to be somehow causally connected; (5) that none of the things can be described as having any definite nature, they are all undemonstrable by language (nirabhilapyas'ûnyatâ); (6) that there cannot be any knowledge about them except that which is brought about by the long-standing defects of desires which pollute all our vision; (7) that things are also non-existent in the sense that we affirm them to be in a particular place and time in which they are not (itaretaras'ûnyatâ).

There is thus only non-existence, which again is neither eternal nor destructible, and the world is but a dream and a mâyâ; the two kinds of negation (nirodha) are âkâs'a (space) and nirvana; things which are neither existent nor non-existent are only imagined to be existent by fools.

This view apparently comes into conflict with the doctrine of this school, that the reality is called the tathâgatagarbha (the womb of all that is merged in thatness) and all the phenomenal appearances of the clusters (skandhas), elements (dhâtus), and fields of sense operation (âyatanas) only serve to veil it with impurities, and this would bring it nearer to the assumption of a universal soul as the reality. But the La@nkâvatâra attempts to explain away this conflict by suggesting that the reference to the tathâgatagarbha as the reality is only a sort of false bait to attract those who are afraid of listening to the nairâtmya (non-soul doctrine) [Footnote ref 1].

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[Footnote 1: La@nkâvatârasûtra, p. 80.

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The Bodhisattvas may attain their highest by the fourfold knowledge of (1) svacittad@rs'hyabhâvanâ, (2) utpâdasthitibha@ngavivarjjanatâ, (3) bâhyabhâvâbhâvopalak@sa@natâ and (4) svapratyâryyajñânâdhigamâbhinnalak@sa@natâ. The first means that all things are but creations of the imagination of one's mind. The second means that as things have no essence there is no origination, existence or destruction. The third means that one should know the distinctive sense in which all external things are said either to be existent or non-existent, for their existence is merely like the mirage which is produced by the beginningless desire (vâsanâ) of creating and perceiving the manifold. This brings us to the fourth one, which means the right comprehension of the nature of all things.

The four dhyânas spoken of in the Lankâvatâra seem to be different from those which have been described in connection with the Theravâda Buddhism. These dhyânas are called (1) bâlopacârika, (2) arthapravichaya, (3) tathatâlambana and (4) tathâgata. The first one is said to be that practised by the s'râvakas and the pratyekabuddhas. It consists in concentrating upon the doctrine that there is no soul (pudgalanairâtmya), and that everything is transitory, miserable and impure. When considering all things in this way from beginning to end the sage advances on till all conceptual knowing ceases (âsa@mjñânirodhât); we have what is called the vâlopacârika dhyâna (the meditation for beginners).

The second is the advanced state where not only there is full consciousness that there is no self, but there is also the comprehension that neither these nor the doctrines of other heretics may be said to exist, and that there is none of the dharmas that appears. This is called the arthapravicayadhyâna, for the sage concentrates here on the subject of thoroughly seeking out (pravichaya) the nature of all things (artha).

The third dhyâna, that in which the mind realizes that the thought that there is no self nor that there are the appearances, is itself the result of imagination and thus lapses into the thatness (tathatâ). This dhyâna is called tathatâlambana, because it has for its object tathatâ or thatness.

The last or the fourth dhyâna is that in which the lapse of the mind into the state of thatness is such that the nothingness and incomprehensibility of all phenomena is perfectly realized;

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and nirvâna is that in which all root desires (vâsanâ) manifesting themselves in knowledge are destroyed and the mind with knowledge and perceptions, making false creations, ceases to work. This cannot be called death, for it will not have any rebirth and it cannot be called destruction, for only compounded things (sa@msk@rta) suffer destruction, so that it is different from either death or destruction. This nirvâna is different from that of the s'râvakas and the pratyekabuddhas for they are satisfied to call that state nirvâ@na, in which by the knowledge of the general characteristics of all things (transitoriness and misery) they are not attached to things and cease to make erroneous judgments [Footnote ref 1].

Thus we see that there is no cause (in the sense of ground) of all these phenomena as other heretics maintain. When it is said that the world is mâyâ or illusion, what is meant to be emphasized is this, that there is no cause, no ground. The phenomena that seem to originate, stay, and be destroyed are mere constructions of tainted imagination, and the tathatâ or thatness is nothing but the turning away of this constructive activity or nature of the imagination (vikalpa) tainted with the associations of beginningless root desires (vâsanâ) [Footnote ref 2]. The tathatâ has no separate reality from illusion, but it is illusion itself when the course of the construction of illusion has ceased. It is therefore also spoken of as that which is cut off or detached from the mind (cittavimukta), for here there is no construction of imagination (sarvakalpanavirahitam) [Footnote ref 3].

Sautrântika Theory of Perception.

Dharmottara (847 A.D.), a commentator of Dharmakîrtti's [Footnote ref 4] (about 635 A.D.) Nyâyabindu, a Sautrantika logical and epistemological work, describes right knowledge (samyagjñâna) as an invariable antecedent to the accomplishment of all that a man

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[Footnote 1: Lankâvatarasûtra, p. 100.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid. p. 109.]

[Footnote 3: This account of the Vijñanavada school is collected mainly from Lankâvatârasûtra, as no other authentic work of the Vijñânavâda school is available. Hindu accounts and criticisms of this school may be had in such books as Kumarila's S'loka vârttika or S'a@nkara's bhasya, II. ii, etc. Asak@nga's Mahâyânasûtralamkâra deals more with the duties concerning the career of a saint (Bodhisattva) than with