[Buddha-l] A vocabulary question for Stephen and Lance (or anyone else)

[Richard Nance]

On 11/6/06, Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:

So which is ni"scaya (and therefore
> praj~naa)? Does anyone here have any knowledge (or strong convictions) about
> how these terms are used by Indian Buddhists?

Though you've done a lot more work than I have in this area, I can
offer the following observations, drawn from recent research (still in
progress) on glosses given to the term "yukti" by Indian Buddhists.

In Vasubandhu's _Abhidharmakośabhāṣya_, the topic of niścaya crops up
during a discussion of the three forms of prajñā (cf. the commentary
to AK 6.5).  As you know, prajñā is often broken down into three
categories by Indian scholastics: śrutamayī, cintāmayī, and
bhāvanāmayī. Vasubandhu follows this scheme, and proceeds to
identifies the intentional object (ālambana) of each variety of
prajñā. The ālambana of the first variety of prajñā is words (nāmāni).
By contrast, cintāmayī prajñā has as its intentional object(s) both
words and meanings (or objects: artha), while bhāvanāmayī prajñā has
as its intentional object meanings (or objects) alone.

Vasubandhu associates niścaya explicitly with the first form of
prajñā: śrutamayī prajñā is said to consist in "niścaya born from the
authority of a sage's utterance" (āptavacanaprāmānyajātaniścayā).  It
would be reasonable to conclude that the niścaya mentioned here
pertains to the intentional object appropriate to this form of prajñā:
the specific words that constitute a teaching.  Interestingly, neither
of the other two forms of insight is explicitly noted as constituting
or conferring niścaya with regard to its intentional object or
objects. Louis de la Valée Poussin's French translation (from the
Chinese) is thus misleading here, and should perhaps be modified
(though I don't know what the Chinese text in fact says). He
distributes the term niścaya over all three varieties of  prajñā
("...la prajñā cintāmayī est la certitude née d'un examen rationnel;
la sagesse bhāvanāmayī est une certitude née du recueillement."). This
reading diverges from both the Sanskrit (āptavacanaprāmāṇyajātaniścayā
śrutamayī yuktinidhyānajā cintāmayī samādhijā bhāvanāmayīti) and the
Tibetan (bsam pa las byung ba ni rigs pas nges par brtags pa la skyes
pa (=yuktinidhyānajā)  yin no / bsgom ba las byung ba'i ting nge 'dzin
las skyes pa yin no zhes bya ba).

As the quotation above makes clear, Vasubandhu goes on to associate
cintāmayī prajñā with reasoning (yukti), noting that this form of
prajñā is "born from investigation by means of reasoning"
(yuktinidhyānajā).  But the topic of certainty has notably dropped
out.

On Vasubandhu's account, it would thus seem that not all forms of
prajñā constitutively involve niścaya. Moreover, Vasubandhu implies
that reasoning -- the kind of reasoning that he wants to affirm as
productive of cintāmayī prajñā, and hence valuable in Buddhist
practice -- need not pursue (or eventuate in) niścaya with respect to
its intentional object(s).

While these observations may help us little in determing how best to
translate the term, they do seem to me to be worth pondering.

I look forward to hearing what others have to say on this issue.

Best wishes,

R. Nance