[Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta

[Dan Lusthaus]

Dear Jayarava,

First, I am presently working on a book on the early Buddhist development of
hetuvidya in India and China, from Asanga up to (but not including)
Dharmakirti (since Dharmakirti was never translated into Chinese in
classical times. This will all be documented in much greater there.

Secondly, there were several prongs to my claim, the fact that their
contemporaries and near contemporaries, and early commentators all
identified them as Yogacaras being only one of those prongs. Most are *not*
retrospective labelings, but actually fill the period *between* Dignaga and
Candrakirti. That means, for instance, that Bhavaviveka (ca. 6th c.) treats
Dignaga as a key Yogacara figure, devoting much of his effort at critiquing
Yogacara to dealing with Dignaga's system; Candrakirti does the same. So,
while Richard sees Madhyamaka in Dignaga (one could also say one sees
Madhyamaka in Yogacara without much strain), the Madhyamakans themselves did
not -- they saw him as an exponent of their rival, the Yogacaras.
Correlatively, when Jinendrabuddhi in his commentary on Pramanasamuccaya
sees Dignaga as a Yogacara, he is part of a long tradition by that time that
has been doing that. Dharmakirti, we learn, was considered part of that
tradition, and his commentators considered him as such. Sthiramati and
Dharmapala were also serious students of Dignaga; evidence of the former can
be found in his extant works, while in Dharmapala's case we know that
because of a number of commentaries he is said to have written on Dignaga's
works, only one of which, his commentary on Alambana-pariksa, survives (in
Chinese translation by Yijing only). Labeling is not definitive, but it does
mean something that amongst the earliest

The Alambana-pariksa was a particularly important text for Yogacara. It was
translated into Chinese by Paramartha (and Indian Yogacara), Xuanzang (a
Chinese Yogacara), and Yijing (a non-Yogacara, who translated works from
Madhyamaka, Yogacara, Mahasamghikas, and others).

To the question of what "innovations" did Dignaga bring to Yogacara, I would
suggest reading Vasubandhu's Vimsatika (20 Verses) in tandem with
Alambana-pariksa. The influence of the former on the latter will become
evident. The details are more than we can get into in an email, but, since
the idea of "own-seeds" and "others-seeds" has recently come up, if one
reads Dignaga's vrtti to the last two verses of Alambana-pariksa one will
discover that it is precisely that idea (which he recasts slightly) that is
his "solution" to the problem of what constitutes an alambana. If that is
still obscure, then wait for the dissertation being written by one of my
former students, Sonam Kachru, working at U Chicago under Dan Arnold. The
relation between the Vimsatika and Alambana-pariksa is his topic.

As for the example from the Heart Sutra, one needn't approach this
hypothetically. The two earliest Heart Sutra commentaries are by Kuiji
(Xuanzang's disciple and successor) and Wonch'uk (another Xuanzang disciple
and Kuiji's rival). I co-translated Kuiji's commentary with Heng-ching Shih
(published by Numata), and there are two English translations of Wonch'uk's
commentary (dissertations: Chang-geun Hwang, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison,
2000; B. Hyun Choo, Drew University, 2003). Since it is a prajnaparamita
text, both Kuiji (or K'uei-chi) and Wonch'uk deam it a text of the second
turning of the Dharma-wheel. According to the Sandhinirmocana sutra, there
are three turnings of the wheel: 1. the Sravaka teachings, 2. Prajnaparamita
(sometimes mistakenly identified as Madhyamaka teachings), and 3. Yogacara
teachings. So neither claims the text as a Yogacara text. However, for them,
it is susceptible to a Yogacara reading. What that means in Kuiji's case is
that for each line, key term, etc., of the sutra, Kuiji provides a
Madhyamakan interpretation and then a Yogacara interpretation. He has the
interpretations debate each other (though occasionally they are in
agreement), and, since he is a Yogacara, the Yogacara side invariably
triumphs. The important point in this context is that he does NOT claim the
text itself is a Yogacara text. It is a prajnaparamita text that still
requires the additional effort of a Yogacara reading. So, for instance, when
Kuiji tells us elsewhere that Dignaga was a Yogacara (as does Xuanzang),
this is not due to a need to conflate everything he likes under a strict
affiliation to Yogacara. Again, both Xuanzang and Yijing separately, at
different times, learned from their Indian informants (at Nalanda and
elsewhere) that Dignaga (and for Yijing, Dharmakirti) is a Yogacara.

Finally, as to what, in general, Dignaga does for Yogacara (or because of
Yogacara), aside from a multitude of aspects of his own writings that are
directly drawn from the writings of Asanga and Vasubandhu, is to follow and
further refine an important agenda proposed by Asanga and Vasubandhu, namely
focus on pramana theory for the mental exercise and persuasive power of
debate, and to clean up one's own and others' cognitive functions. Even his
apoha theory is developed from Asanga's language usage (Asanga does not lay
out a "theory" of apoha, but uses apoha moves to define key aspects of his
own pramana discussion, especially in his discussion of pratyaksa).
Vasubandhu took Asanga's recommendation to develop pramana and vada theory
and practice seriously and devoted some attention to that (and several
texts). Unfortunately, since his vada texts are not extant in full, we lack
all the details that would illustrate in what ways specifically he went
beyond Asanga and subsequently Dignaga went beyond him. But, as I've been
suggesting, even without Vasubandhu, one can see the direct and potent
influence of Asanga on Dignaga if one just looks for it [and, as I
mentioned, this is not my idea or discovery, but something already well
documented by Tucci back in the 1920s; G. Tucci, "Buddhist Logic Before
Dinnaga (Asanga, Vasubandhu, Tarka-sastras)", JRAS 1929, 451-488, 870].

Dan Lusthaus


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jayarava" <jayarava at yahoo.com>
To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 7:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta


> I'm intrigued by this argument - without knowing much about Yogacara or
anything about Dignaga my response is about form rather than content.
Richard says Dignaga is not a Yogacarin based on a reading of his surviving
works; while Dan argues that Dignaga is a Yogacarin because later sectarians
(and lets face it a century is a long time even in Buddhism) claim him as
one.
>
> Consider the Heart Sutra - all of the Tibetan commentaries show
unmistakable signs of being rooted in later tantric thought, which they
impute backwards onto the HS. But it was probably composed in China, on the
basis of the Large Perfection of Wisdom text, many centuries before for
example the Kalacakra or Hevajra Tantras. What's more it was quite likely
translated into Sanskrit in India by Xuanzang (following Nattier's
argument). It purports to be a Perfection of Wisdom text, but is recorded as
being a favourite of Xuanzang. Alex Wayman even composed a Yogacara style
commentary on the HS. But does all this make it a statement of Yogacara (or
even later Tantric) doctrine? It does not.
>
> I think Dan needs to go beyond the circumstantial and show in more detail
*how* what Dignaga says conforms with Yogacara ideas of his time or before.
In particular you need to show that what has *not* happened is that Yogacara
thought was modified *in the light* of Dignaga - because then they would be
latter day Dignagavadins rather than the other way around. Personally I
think this is a more plausible explanation of what you have presented so
far. It fits the patterns of the history of ideas generally, and influence
tends not to extent backwards in time.
>
> There is this tendency in Buddhology to start with what you like (X), and
then to work backwards looking for something similar (Y). Having found Y it
is then stated that Y is proto-X; or in this case simply Y is X. In extremis
we say that, despite other evidence to the contrary, the similarity between
X and Y proves that X actually dates from the same period as Y. Thus we push
Tantra back 4-600 years for instance; and Madhyamika to the time of the Pāli
texts, etc. Occam's Razor would seem to suggest that if Y resembles X, then
X is a *development* of Y.
>
> My interest is in finding Vedic precedents for Pāli suttas. But I'm very
cautious about what conclusion to draw. I don't think it means that Buddhism
is just Hinduism repackaged for export for instance. I don't think it means
that Gotama knew the Upaniṣads - although he was clearly familiar with some
themes and the general outline of the ideas some of them contain since he
makes fun of them in several texts. I think it means that there were complex
interactions between religious thinkers who were all looking for ways to
describe experiences which were new in language that was old. There was
interfaith dialogue between thinkers on a scale almost unimaginable in the
Christian west. Thinkers both within and across traditions changed their
views, or at least their terminology, on the basis of this dialogue. We have
every reason to believe that this continued to be the case throughout the
period we're talking about with Dignaga.
>
> Perhaps, Dan, your claim would be a good subject for a full length
article - because long lists of chapter headings make poor fodder for
Buddha-L, and don't seem to prove anything.
>
> Regards
> Jayarava
>
>
>
>
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