[Buddha-l] Rain / Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[Stephen Hodge]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:

>  I will plainly admit that I am unaware of any cases of
> 而 being used in the way you say. In years of reading Chinese Buddhist
> texts, I've either never seen it, or didn't recognize it when it was 
> there.
> I perused the Chinese canon searching for such "Buddhist" usages, and 
> can't
> find any. Can you provide some actual examples?

Dear Dan,
Yes certainly, but not right now as I have more pressing matters at the 
moment.  Besides, details of the uses of 而 are probably too arcane for more 
than a tiny handful of folk here.

> I don't think I used those words -- I said that Xuanzang was more 
> accurate;
I've never disputed that Xuanzang's translation may be more "accurate" or 
specific here.  On the other hand, the Tibetan seems perfectly adequate, 
although the normal word for "vomit" has not been used.  It may be just a 
question of translation style, so it's difficult to say which actually 
captures the intended sense.  As you know, the Tibetans preferred to use one 
standardized equivalent per Sanskrit word, regardless of the nuances. 
Again, one might recollect that the Tibetan translators of the YBS had 
several Indian pandits on hand participating in the translation work, 
whereas Xuanzang did not.

> If one is concerned to identify the medical theory at play, then the aama 
> that
> doesn't vomit (as opposed to eliminating some other way) does make a 
> difference.
True, but that may not be possible.  Also to complicate things for you, 吐 
does not only mean "vomit" -- it can also mean "eject" etc.  In fact, the 
various meanings listed for 吐 have a degree of overlap with the Tibetan 
'byin-pa.

> While you
> have said repeatedly that Xuanzang didn't understand the passage, I think
> our exchange shows that he understood it better than the Tib translators.
No, I have not repeatedly said that Xuanzang didn't understand the passage. 
What I suggested was "One can suppose that he was faced with a term which he 
did not fully understand in its āyurvedic sense OR ELSE else he was unable 
to find an appropriate parallel term from Chinese medicine."  And there is 
no evidence that the Tibetan didn't understand the passage very well -- as I 
said above, it's a question of translation style.  As is well-known, the 
Tibetans generally tend follow the literal meaning of the individual 
Sanskrit words, whereas Chinese translators like Xuanzang did not.

> But, to repeat what I said which started this whole thing off, the sheng 
> for
> aama is still baffling (your "raw" theory is clever but not satisfying).
Another clever Lusthaus ploy !   Whenever I mentioned the meanings of aama, 
I always gave a range of possibilities ("raw, uncooked, immature, 
unrefined") to show the semantic range.  You are the one who has homed in on 
"raw" -- I never suggested that either aama or 生 should be translated thus 
in this case.  It think it is quite obvious that Xuanzang has used 生 for 
aama and that there is a reasonable overlap in the sematic range of these 
two words, apart from the specific gloss we give to the Ayurvedic term.

> As for the 生  熟 pair, you may be reading your rawness into the
> definitions. So, in the spirit of learning, do you have any actual 
> examples
> of a passage from a Chinese (Buddhist) text which uses sheng in the sense 
> of
> "raw"? Please share that.
This is actually quite irrelevent as I have explained above.  But just to 
satisfy you, I do not have too much time to search, but a quick look in the 
Bhaisajya Chapter of Mula-sarvastivadin Vinaya has this : 
醫人曰。宜服生肉。必當得差。(1448.2c).  If you want to quibble, you could say that it 
means "uncooked meat", but most people would say "raw meat".  I have not the 
time to look through all the other Vinayas for other examples.

One might also like to track down the Chinese Vinaya parallel for this: So 
sūkarasūnaṃ gantvā āmakamaṃsaṃ khādi, āmakalohitaṃ pivi. (Mahāvagga VI 
Bhesajja-kkandhako I.203)

In passing, note the following from the Pali canon:
âmaka-dhaññasuttaṃ (SN V.470)
âmaka-maṃsa-sutta (SN V.470)
âmaka-maccha-bhojino (JII.204)

OK, it's not aama, but it's close enough as aamaka is functionally 
equivalent.  Unfortunately, none of these Pali worls has a Chinese parallel, 
but we have here "uncooked grain", "raw / uncooked meat", "raw / uncooked 
fish".

> Here are some actual examples from the Buddhist canon (some have the added
> feature of including an 而 after the 生, though I think Stephen here will
> agree that each of these instances uses 而 in its standard conjunction
> function:
Most of your examples are not very useful because, obssessed with rawness, 
you are trying to prove something I have not claimed.

[snip]
> The usage in each of these is fairly consistent, and I wouldn't select 
> "raw"
> for any of them.
Nor would I.  You have set up a strawman argument and, I expect, wasted a 
lot of your time searching for those passages.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge