A History of Indian Philosophy Part 19

The sense of sight grasps the four main colours of blue, yellow, red, white, and their combinations, as also the visual forms of appearance ([email protected]_) of long, short, round, square, high, low, straight, and crooked. The sense of touch (_kayendriya_) has for its object the four elements and the qualities of smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger and thirst. These qualities represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by the objects of touch, hunger, thirst, etc., and are also counted under it, as they are the organic effects produced by a touch which excites the physical frame at a time when the energy of wind becomes active in our body and predominates over other energies; so also the feeling of thirst is caused by a touch which excites the physical frame when the energy of the element of fire becomes active and predominates over the other energies. The indriyas (senses) can after grasping the external objects arouse thought (_vijnana_); each of the five senses is an agent without which none of the five vijnanas would become capable of perceiving an external object. The essence of the senses is entirely material. Each sense has two subdivisions, namely, the princ.i.p.al sense and the auxiliary sense. The substratum of the princ.i.p.al senses consists of a combination of [email protected], which are extremely pure and minute, while the substratum of the latter is the flesh, made of grosser materials. The five senses differ from one another with respect to the manner and form of their respective atomic combinations. In all sense-acts, whenever an act is performed and an idea is impressed, a latent energy is impressed on our person which is designated as avijnapti rupa. It is called rupa because it is a result or effect of rupa-contact; it is called avijnapti because it is latent and unconscious; this latent energy is bound sooner or later to express itself in karma effects and is the only bridge which connects the cause and the effect of karma done by body or speech. Karma in this school is considered as twofold, namely, that as thought (_cetana karma_) and that as activity (_caitasika karma_). This last, again, is of two kinds, viz.

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that due to body-motion (_kayika karma_) and speech (_vacika karma_). Both these may again be latent (_avijnapti_) and patent (_vijnapti_), giving us the kayika-vijnnpti karma, kayikavijnapti karma, vacika-vijnapti karma and vacikavijnapti karma. Avijnapti rupa and avijnapti karma are what we should call in modern phraseology sub-conscious ideas, feelings and activity. Corresponding to each conscious sensation, feeling, thought or activity there is another similar sub-conscious state which expresses itself in future thoughts and actions; as these are not directly known but are similar to those which are known, they are called avijnapti.

The mind, says Vasubandhu, is called cittam, because it wills (_cetati_), manas because it thinks (_manvate_) and vijnana because it discriminates (_nirdis'ati_). The discrimination may be of three kinds: (1) svabhava nirdes'a (natural perceptual discrimination), (2) prayoga nirdes'a (actual discrimination as present, past and future), and (3) [email protected] nirdes'a (reminiscent discrimination referring only to the past). The senses only possess the _svabhava nirdes'a_, the other two belong exclusively to manovijnana.

Each of the vijnanas as a.s.sociated with its specific sense discriminates its particular object and perceives its general characteristics; the six vijnanas combine to form what is known as the Vijnanaskandha, which is presided over by mind (_mano_). There are forty-six caitta [email protected]@rta dharmas. Of the three [email protected]@rta dharmas akas'a (ether) is in essence the freedom from obstruction, establishing it as a permanent omnipresent immaterial substance (_nirupakhya_, non-rupa). The second [email protected]@rta dharma, [email protected] nirodha, means the non-perception of dharmas caused by the absence of pratyayas or conditions. Thus when I fix my attention on one thing, other things are not seen then, not because they are non-existent but because the conditions which would have made them visible were absent. The third [email protected]@rta dharma, [email protected] nirodha, is the final deliverance from bondage. Its essential characteristic is everlastingness. These are called [email protected]@rta because being of the nature of negation they are non-collocative and hence have no production or dissolution.

The eightfold n.o.ble path which leads to this state consists of right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture [Footnote ref 1].

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[Footnote 1: Mr Sogen mentions the name of another Buddhist Hinayana thinker (about 250 A.D.), Harivarman, who founded a school known as Satyasiddhi school, which propounded the same sort of doctrines as those preached by Nagarjuna. None of his works are available in Sanskrit and I have never come across any allusion to his name by Sanskrit writers.]

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Mahayanism.

It is difficult to say precisely at what time Mahayanism took its rise. But there is reason to think that as the [email protected] separated themselves from the Theravadins probably some time in 400 B.C. and split themselves up into eight different schools, those elements of thoughts and ideas which in later days came to be labelled as Mahayana were gradually on the way to taking their first inception. We hear in about 100 A.D. of a number of works which are regarded as various Mahayana sutras, some of which are probably as old as at least 100 B.C. (if not earlier) and others as late as 300 or 400 A.D.[Footnote ref 1]. These Mahayanasutras, also called the Vaipulyasutras, are generally all in the form of instructions given by the Buddha. Nothing is known about their authors or compilers, but they are all written in some form of Sanskrit and were probably written by those who seceded from the Theravada school.

The word Hinayana refers to the schools of Theravada, and as such it is contrasted with Mahayana. The words are generally translated as small vehicle (_hina_ = small, _yana_ = vehicle) and great vehicle (_maha_ = great, _yana_ = vehicle). But this translation by no means expresses what is meant by Mahayana and Hinayana [Footnote ref 2]. [email protected] (480 A.D.) in his [email protected]_ gives

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[Footnote 1: Quotations and references to many of these sutras are found in Candrakirtti's commentary on the _Madhyamika karikas_ of Nagarjuna; some of these are the following: [email protected]@tasahasrikaprajnaparamita_ (translated into Chinese 164 A.D.-167 A.D.), _S'atasahasrikaprajnaparamita, Gaganaganja, Samadhisutra, Tathagataguhyasutra, [email protected]@dhadhyas'ayasancodanasutra, [email protected]@tisutra, Pitaputrasamagamasutra, Mahayanasutra, Maradamanasutra, [email protected], [email protected]@rcchasutra, Ratnameghasutra, Ratnaras'isutra, Ratnakarasutra, [email protected]@[email protected], [email protected], Lalitavistarasutra, Vajracchedikasutra, Vimalakirttinirdes'asutra, S'alistambhasutra, Samadhirajasutra, Sukhavativyuha, [email protected], [email protected]@darika (translated into Chinese A.D. 255), Amitayurdhyanasutra, Hastikakhyasutra, etc.]

[Footnote 2: The word Yana is generally translated as vehicle, but a consideration of numerous contexts in which the word occurs seems to suggest that it means career or course or way, rather than vehicle (_Lalitavistara_, pp. 25, 38; _Prajnaparamita_, pp. 24, 319; _Samadhirajasutra_, p. 1; [email protected]@ndarika_, p. 67; [email protected]_, pp. 68, 108, 132). The word Yana is as old as the [email protected] where we read of Devayana and [email protected] There is no reason why this word should be taken in a different sense. We hear in [email protected]_ of S'ravakayana (career of the S'ravakas or the Theravadin Buddhists), Pratyekabuddhayana (the career of saints before the coming of the Buddha), Buddha yana (career of the Buddhas), Ekayana (one career), Devayana (career of the G.o.ds), Brahmayana (career of becoming a Brahma), Tathagatayana (career of a Tathagata). In one place _Lankavatara_ says that ordinarily distinction is made between the three careers and one career and no career, but these distinctions are only for the ignorant (_Lankavatara_, p. 68).]

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us the reason why one school was called Hinayana whereas the other, which he professed, was called Mahayana. He says that, considered from the point of view of the ultimate goal of religion, the instructions, attempts, realization, and time, the Hinayana occupies a lower and smaller place than the other called Maha (great) Yana, and hence it is branded as Hina (small, or low).

This brings us to one of the fundamental points of distinction between Hinayana and Mahayana. The ultimate good of an adherent of the Hinayana is to attain his own [email protected] or salvation, whereas the ultimate goal of those who professed the Mahayana creed was not to seek their own salvation but to seek the salvation of all beings. So the Hinayana goal was lower, and in consequence of that the instructions that its followers received, the attempts they undertook, and the results they achieved were narrower than that of the Mahayana adherents. A Hinayana man had only a short business in attaining his own salvation, and this could be done in three lives, whereas a Mahayana adherent was prepared to work for infinite time in helping all beings to attain salvation. So the Hinayana adherents required only a short period of work and may from that point of view also be called _hina,_ or lower.

This point, though important from the point of view of the difference in the creed of the two schools, is not so from the point of view of philosophy. But there is another trait of the Mahayanists which distinguishes them from the Hinayanists from the philosophical point of view. The Mahayanists believed that all things were of a non-essential and indefinable character and void at bottom, whereas the Hinayanists only believed in the impermanence of all things, but did not proceed further than that.

It is sometimes erroneously thought that Nagarjuna first preached the doctrine of S'unyavada (essencelessness or voidness of all appearance), but in reality almost all the Mahayana sutras either definitely preach this doctrine or allude to it. Thus if we take some of those sutras which were in all probability earlier than Nagarjuna, we find that the doctrine which Nagarjuna expounded

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with all the rigour of his powerful dialectic was quietly accepted as an indisputable truth. Thus we find Subhuti saying to the Buddha that vedana (feeling), samjna (concepts) and the [email protected] (conformations) are all maya (illusion) [Footnote ref 1]. All the skandhas, dhatus (elements) and ayatanas are void and absolute cessation. The highest knowledge of everything as pure void is not different from the skandhas, dhatus and ayatanas, and this absolute cessation of dharmas is regarded as the highest knowledge (_prajnaparamita_) [Footnote ref 2]. Everything being void there is in reality no process and no cessation. The truth is neither eternal (_s'as'vata_) nor non-eternal (_as'as'vata_) but pure void. It should be the object of a saint's endeavour to put himself in the "thatness"

(_tathata_) and consider all things as void. The saint (_bodhisattva_) has to establish himself in all the virtues (_paramita_), benevolence (_danaparamita_), the virtue of character (_s'ilaparamita_), the virtue of forbearance ([email protected]_), the virtue of tenacity and strength (_viryyaparamita_) and the virtue of meditation (_dhyanaparamita_).

The saint (_bodhisattva_) is firmly determined that he will help an infinite number of souls to attain [email protected] In reality, however, there are no beings, there is no bondage, no salvation; and the saint knows it but too well, yet he is not afraid of this high truth, but proceeds on his career of attaining for all illusory beings illusory emanc.i.p.ation from illusory bondage.

The saint is actuated with that feeling and proceeds in his work on the strength of his paramitas, though in reality there is no one who is to attain salvation in reality and no one who is to help him to attain it [Footnote ref 3]. The true prajnaparamita is the absolute cessation of all appearance ([email protected] [email protected] [email protected] sa prajnaparamita ityucyate_) [Footnote ref 4].

The Mahayana doctrine has developed on two lines, viz. that of S'unyavada or the Madhyamika doctrine and Vijnanavada.

The difference between S'unyavada and Vijnanavada (the theory that there is only the appearance of phenomena of consciousness) is not fundamental, but is rather one of method. Both of them agree in holding that there is no truth in anything, everything is only pa.s.sing appearance akin to dream or magic. But while the S'unyavadins were more busy in showing this indefinableness of all phenomena, the Vijnanavadins, tacitly accepting

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[Footnote 1: [email protected]@tesahasiihaprajnaparamita_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid p. 177.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid p. 21.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid p. 177.]

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the truth preached by the S'unyavadins, interested themselves in explaining the phenomena of consciousness by their theory of beginningless illusory root-ideas or instincts of the mind (_vasana_).

[email protected] (100 A.D.) seems to have been the greatest teacher of a new type of idealism (_vijnanavada_) known as the Tathata philosophy. Trusting in Suzuki's identification of a quotation in [email protected]'s _S'raddhotpadas'astra_ as being made from [email protected]_, we should think of the [email protected]_ as being one of the early works of the Vijnanavadins [Footnote ref 1].

The greatest later writer of the Vijnanavada school was [email protected] (400 A.D.), to whom are attributed the _Saptadas'abhumi sutra, Mahayana sutra, Upades'a, Mahayanasamparigraha s'astra, Yogacarabhumi s'astra_ and [email protected]_. None of these works excepting the last one is available to readers who have no access to the Chinese and Tibetan ma.n.u.scripts, as the Sanskrit originals are in all probability lost. The Vijnanavada school is known to Hindu writers by another name also, viz. Yogacara, and it does not seem an improbable supposition that [email protected]'s _Yogacarabhumi s'astra_ was responsible for the new name. Vasubandhu, a younger brother of [email protected], was, as Paramartha (499-569) tells us, at first a liberal Sarvastivadin, but was converted to Vijnanavada, late in his life, by [email protected] Thus Vasubandhu, who wrote in his early life the great standard work of the Sarvastivadins, _Abhidharmakos'a_, devoted himself in his later life to Vijnanavada [Footnote ref 2]. He is said to have commented upon a number of Mahayana sutras, such as [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]@darika, Prajnaparamita, Vimalakirtti_ and [email protected]_, and compiled some Mahayana sutras, such as _Vijnanamatrasiddhi, Ratnatraya_, etc. The school of Vijnanavada continued for at least a century or two after Vasubandhu, but we are not in possession of any work of great fame of this school after him.

We have already noticed that the S'unyavada formed the fundamental principle of all schools of Mahayana. The most powerful exponent of this doctrine was Nagarjuna (1OO A.D.), a brief account of whose system will be given in its proper place. Nagarjuna's karikas (verses) were commented upon by aryyadeva, a disciple of his, k.u.marajiva (383 A.D.). Buddhapalita and Candrakirtti (550 A.D.). aryyadeva in addition to this commentary wrote at

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[Footnote 1: Dr S.C. Vidyabhushana thinks that _Lankavatana_ belongs to about 300 A.D.]

[Footnote 2: Takakusu's "A study of the Paramartha's life of Vasubandhu,"

_J.R.A.S_. 1905.]

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least three other books, viz. [email protected]'ataka, [email protected]@rtti_ and [email protected]_ [Footnote ref 1]. In the small work called [email protected]@rtti_ aryyadeva says that whatever depends for its existence on anything else may be proved to be illusory; all our notions of external objects depend on s.p.a.ce perceptions and notions of part and whole and should therefore be regarded as mere appearance. Knowing therefore that all that is dependent on others for establishing itself is illusory, no wise man should feel attachment or antipathy towards these mere phenomenal appearances. In his [email protected]_ he says that just as a crystal appears to be coloured, catching the reflection of a coloured object, even so the mind though in itself colourless appears to show diverse colours by coloration of imagination (_vikalpa_). In reality the mind (_citta_) without a touch of imagination (_kalpana_) in it is the pure reality.

It does not seem however that the S'unyavadins could produce any great writers after Candrakirtti. References to S'unyavada show that it was a living philosophy amongst the Hindu writers until the time of the great [email protected] authority k.u.marila who flourished in the eighth century; but in later times the S'unyavadins were no longer occupying the position of strong and active disputants.

The Tathataa Philosophy of [email protected] (80 A.D.) [Footnote ref 2].

[email protected] was the son of a Brahmin named [email protected] who spent his early days in travelling over the different parts of India and defeating the Buddhists in open debates. He was probably converted to Buddhism by [email protected] who was an important person in the third Buddhist Council promoted, according to some authorities, by the King of Kashmere and according to other authorities by [email protected]'as [Footnote ref 3].

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[Footnote 1: aryyadeva's [email protected]@rtti_ has been reclaimed by Dr. F.W. Thomas. Fragmentary portions of his [email protected]_ were published by Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasada s'astri in the Bengal Asiatic Society's journal, 1898.]

[Footnote 2: The above section is based on the _Awakening of Faith_, an English translation by Suzuki of the Chinese version of _S'raddhotpadas'astra_ by [email protected], the Sanskrit original of which appears to have been lost. Suzuki has brought forward a ma.s.s of evidence to show that [email protected] was a contemporary of [email protected]]

[Footnote 3: Taranatha says that he was converted by Aryadeva, a disciple of Nagarjuna, _Geschichte des Buddhismus_, German translation by Schiefner, pp. 84-85. See Suzuki's _Awakening of Faith_, pp. 24-32. [email protected] wrote the _Buddhacaritakavya_, of great poetical excellence, and the [email protected]'astra_. He was also a musician and had invented a musical instrument called Rastavara that he might by that means convert the people of the city. "Its melody was cla.s.sical, mournful, and melodious, inducing the audience to ponder on the misery, emptiness, and non-atmanness of life." Suzuki, p. 35.]

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He held that in the soul two aspects may be distinguished --the aspect as thatness (_bhutatathata_) and the aspect as the cycle of birth and death ([email protected]_). The soul as bhutatathata means the oneness of the totality of all things (_dharmadhatu_). Its essential nature is uncreate and external. All things simply on account of the beginningless traces of the incipient and unconscious memory of our past experiences of many previous lives ([email protected]_) appear under the forms of individuation [Footnote ref 1]. If we could overcome this [email protected] "the signs of individuation would disappear and there would be no trace of a world of objects." "All things in their fundamental nature are not nameable or explicable. They cannot be adequately expressed in any form of language. They possess absolute sameness (_samata_). They are subject neither to transformation nor to destruction. They are nothing but one soul"

--thatness (_bhutatathata_). This "thatness" has no attribute and it can only be somehow pointed out in speech as "thatness."

As soon as you understand that when the totality of existence is spoken of or thought of, there is neither that which speaks nor that which is spoken of, there is neither that which thinks nor that which is thought of, "this is the stage of thatness." This bhutatathata is neither that which is existence, nor that which is non-existence, nor that which is at once existence and non-existence, nor that which is not at once existence and non-existence; it is neither that which is plurality, nor that which is at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity and plurality. It is a negative concept in the sense that it is beyond all that is conditional and yet it is a positive concept in the sense that it holds all within it. It cannot be comprehended by any kind of particularization or distinction. It is only by transcending the range of our intellectual categories of the comprehension of the limited range of finite phenomena that we can get a glimpse of it. It cannot be comprehended by the particularizing consciousness of all beings, and we thus may call it negation, "s'unyata," in this sense. The truth is that which