[Buddha-l] Withdrawal of the senses

[Richard Hayes]

On Friday 17 November 2006 00:38, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> >I would even say that
> > the are some thinkers who can be interpreted as being quite similar to
> > perrenialists. In other words, one can arrive at legitimate perennialist
> > interpretations of some Indian thinkers.
>
> Name one -- seriously.

Without too much difficulty one can come up with at least a family resemblance 
between neo-Platonists and advaita vedaanta. Among Buddhists, Ratnakiirti 
could legitimately be interpreted along neo-Platonic lines.

> Nagarjuna does not privilege the One over many, mind over matter, universal
> forms over concrete particulars, God over the mundane, or pretty much
> anything else neoplatonists try to peddle.

As you and I read Nagarjuna, he is not very neo-Platonic at all. But not 
everyone agrees with us. Nagarjuna as depicted by Venkata Ramanan and T.R.V. 
Murti is much more similar to a neo-Platonist approach. Their way of seeing 
Nagarjuna is not one that I prefer, but I am unwilling to dismiss their 
depiction as wrong-headed or just plain illegitimate. 

As you and I read Vasubandhu and Dignaga, these folks are quite a bit more 
like phenomenalists than like Berekleyan or Bradleyan idealists. But I may be 
less willing than you to dismiss the idealist interpretation altogether. I 
see it is a perfectly legitimate interpretation (that is, an interpretation 
that one could arrive at without too much straining of the texts), but one 
that I personally find so incompatible with my own personal beliefs that I 
would prefer not to advocate it.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes