[Buddha-l] Personalists. Was: Are we sick of dogma yet?

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan,

responding to the final part of your message:

>  > >but resist the well attested fact that "sunyataa-vaada
>>  >also a blanket term used for a variety of non-Madhyamaka schools
>(including
>>  >in Pali sources) is surprising.
>>
>>  I asked for evidence.
>
>We could start with the Vetulyas, discussed back in May on this list. I
>wrote at that time:
>
>As to who they were, the English tr. of the Kathaavatthu, _Points of
>Controversy_, states in an annotation to XVII.6 (another position attributed
>to them by the commentary) that "the Vetulya[ka]s, who are known as the
>Mahaasu~n~nataavaadins." There is some debate among scholars whether these
>Mahaa-"suunyataa-vaadins are to be identified with proto-Madhyamaka, other
>groups (such as that reflected in the Tattvasiddhi), or something else.

  The Kathaavatthu itself is not clearly referring to any kind of 
Mahaayaana here. So I think that the commentary (fourth or fifth 
century A.D.) may be in error with this attribution. Note that it 
specifically attributes the view to those 'nowadays'.

Most manuscripts and editions  refer to Mahaapuññavaadins here. 
Neither term is ever found elsewhere in Pali literature. In any case, 
whichever you read, they are some kind of Vetullaka (Vetulyaka is 
Minayeff's construction from his only two manuscripts which read 
Cetulyaka- and Vatullaka- respectively. Jayawickrame's edition used 
more manuscripts, etc. and has only Vetullaka-.) So the reference is 
to some kind of Mahaayaaana known in the fourth or fifth century.

>  >This is Lamotte's error. Yet he at least
>>  presents plenty of evidence against his own understanding.
>
>So this is why you wanted me to stick strictly to the Lamotte line? Lamotte
>did a service by merely bringing a (shall we say "initial") tabulation to
>our attention, though it took a number of decades for the import of that
>tabulation to be taken up by others.

I think most of us read it more carefully !

>For me the eye-opener was Thich Thien
>Chau's book, which focused less on demographics, and rather tried to recover
>from the Pudgalavadin texts themselves what the school in fact propounded.

His thesis and subsequent articles were most valuable.

>It was so unlike what they had been depicted as holding -- so much more
>reasonable and prefiguring later developments, especially in Mahayana.

I don't think it prefigures the Mahaayaana in any way.

>  The
>demographics, at least to me, are secondary, but significant. It's as if a
>long-lost important school (for its doctrines and sheer presence for over a
>millennium) was suddenly rediscovered.

It's important. But not quite as massively so as you want to argue.

Lance Cousins