TITLES                        

Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 1)
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 2)
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 3)
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 4)
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 5)
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 6)
The Doctrine of Anatta
Culasunnata_Sutta.
002-The Diamond Sutra
Manuscripts about budh
The World As Emptinessbyalanwatts.
Zen Quotes D_ T_ Suzuki painting
The Mirror Of Essential Points.
Essential Advice On Meditation by Sogyal Rinpoche
Definitions of buddhism terms
The Heart Sutra


 

Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 1) by Jonah Winters

Introduction

The study of Buddhism has in recent years become quite a vogue in the West.
Post-Enlightenment Europe found Buddhism to offer an attractive alternative to
the authoritarianism implicit in Christianity's doctrine of revelation and in
its priestly structure. Buddhism seemed to offer a "natural" religion, one based
on common sense and teaching truths accessible to anyone, yet without
surrendering mysticism. FOOTNOTE: Cf. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 300 Buddhism also seemed curious
to the Western mind because, like so many Oriental philosophies, it was neither
really a philosophy nor a religion, but something with elements of both. As
such, it posed unique solutions to the problems of Western thought, as well as
whole new types of problems of its own.
The form of Buddhism that has most captured the attention of the West,
especially America, is Japan's Zen. Zen represents a religion that is in many
ways a diametrical opposite to America's Protestant Christianity. Its unorthodox
means of transmission, complete rejection of ritual, doctrine of the spiritual
nature of all beings, and emphasis on direct, personal perception of the Truth
have proven fascinating to the American mind. Unfortunately, this is often all
that is known of Buddhism. It is not uncommon to encounter the belief that Zen
represents the culmination of or even the entirety of Buddhism. This is far from
true. In fact, it could be defended that the history of Buddhism has witnessed
more internal philosophical diversity than almost any other religion, with the
possible exception of Hinduism. Even more egregious, the non-doctrinal nature of
Zen has allowed Westerners to conflate Buddhism with a number of other systems
of thought, be they "Eco- spirituality" or watery "New-Ageism," declaring them
all to be compatible. That Buddhism has dogma and is a widely variegated,
autonomous religion not always reconcilable with modern philosophies and
movements is often not seen.
The uniqueness of much of Buddhism lies in the way it seeks "Ultimate Truth" and
the manner of Ultimate Truth it finds. Truth, for Buddhism, is relative. There
is no single, unchanging, absolute ground of being like there is in most of the
world's thought. To make a broad generalization of Occidental philosophy, the
entire Abrahamic tradition, stretching from the pre-Israelites to the Baha'i
religion, sees the universe as in some way contingent on a transcendent,
absolute level of Being. Even the most mystical or skeptical of the early
Western schools of thought accepted an ultimate essence of reality. For
Pythagoras it was numbers, for Heraclitus it was a reification of process
itself, for Plotinus it was Mind, and for the Jewish Qabala it was a
super-attenuated form of divine light. Even the most skeptical of philosophers,
such as Zenoo or Pyrrho, did not deny an ultimate ground of being. Rather, they
just said that it was inconceivable. The Oriental religions, too, agree that
there is an ultimate essence in things. The Taoists insist that it is utterly
ineffable, Advaita Vedanta declares it to be beyond existence itself, and the
Materialists deny that it is of the nature of spirit. Nonetheless, all agree
that there is an "Ultimate." FOOTNOTE: This generalization is not meant to
suggest that the philosophies listed agree in any way on the nature of the
Ultimate. More, there were trends of thought within some of these philosophies
that come very close to the Buddha's theory of the Ultimate; the Rg-veda X.129,
for example, states that in the beginning "there was neither existence nor non-
existence, ...neither death nor immortality," and the Tao te Ching chapter II
says that "being and non-being create each other." Nonetheless, the general
trend within all of these schools of thought was to seek and find some form of
"Absolute."
In contrast with all of these is Buddhism. The Buddha did not teach that there
is an Ultimate, nor did he deny it. He did not declare the Ultimate to be
ineffable because mystical and inherently beyond the scope of thought, nor did
he embrace agnosticism and say that we just can never know its nature. The
Buddha simply would not talk about it. When a concept was discussed in relation
to a metaphysical thing, he would declare this concept to be neither wrong, nor
right, nor both, nor neither. It just should not be discussed. This approach has
no parallels. It is not a form of skepticism, for the Buddha was very clear in
enunciating doctrines that his followers must accept on at least a conventional
level. It is not agnosticism, for the Buddha did not just say that we cannot
know about the nature of Ultimate reality, but rather he said that it truly is
"not this, not that, not both, and not neither." It is not pessimism, for the
Buddha taught that all unpleasantries can be overcome and that there is a
definite goal to be striven for. Finally, it is not mere mysticism, for the
Buddha stressed the importance of directing one's consciousness to concrete
affairs.
This unique non-affirming non-negating approach of the Buddha is implicit in all
schools of Buddhism. It is the most explicit in three: the Perfection of Wisdom
school of the first centuries BE., the Madhyamika and Yogacara movement of the
first millenium C.E., and Zen and its predecessor, Ch'an, of the modern era. All
of these teach the non-dual, non-conceptual, non-existential nature of reality
and the applicability of mentation to the pragmatic sphere only. Any one of
these three would have been desirable subjects for study.
The one school I chose to research and explain here is Madhyamika. This school
has been chosen partly because early Buddhism has been little studied in the
West. Madhyamika has, of late, begun to attract much scholarly attention, but it
is still a little-recognized word and an even less- understood philosophy. The
Perfection of Wisdom school was, for my purposes, too early to be the focus of
study here. It was superseded by and amalgamated into the Madhyamika-Yogacara
movement, and so a discussion of the latter will explain much of the former.
Yogacara would also have been a fascinating object of study, but I feel that the
Yogacara school introduced concepts into Buddhism which were somewhat foreign to
the tradition. This is not a criticism, but what I desired to study was Buddhism
as expressed by the Buddha. Madhyamika seems to be the better of the two in
representing this. FOOTNOTE: Cf. Gadjin M. Nagao, "Yogacara, a Reappraisal" in
Madhyamika and Yogacara (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991),
219-225, where Yogacara is represented as adding to the tradition of Buddhism
and completing the move from the original Theravada to the innovative Mahayana.
Whether Madhyamika represents the original essence of the Buddha's teaching is a
matter of speculation that can never be fully resolved. However, many if not
most scholars of Madhyamika are of the opinion that it is perhaps the truest
philosophical systematization of the Buddha's ontology. Cf., for example,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, volume I (London: George Allen and
Unwin Ltd., 1929), 643, or T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism
(London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1960), 55 Perhaps my main reason for
selecting Madhyamika was the same as that felt by Europeans over a hundred years
ago when they first "discovered" Buddhism: it represents a fascinating approach
to philosophy and a general worldview the likes of which are not to be found in
the history of Western thought.
Finally, Zen, too, would have been a compelling research topic, and, unlike
Yogacara, it does not seem to conflict with or add to the philosophy of the
Buddha as preserved in the earliest writings. There is, however, one difficulty
in approaching Zen from an academic perspective. Both Zen and Madhyamika agree
that concepts have no final applicability, but they differ in their
internalization of this fact. If one asks a Zen master what the nature of
reality is, one is likely either to be hit or to be told "this flax weighs three
pounds." FOOTNOTE: Cf. the anecdotes told of Zen teaching methods in Paul Reps,
ed., Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books (no impress
date)) This may be an appropriate way of expressing the school's philosophy of
the nature of reality, but it does little good to one who needs to write about
that philosophy. A proponent of the Madhyamika school may, in essence, give the
same answer as the Zen master. He or she will, though, at least be kind enough
to explain the answer in words and sentences, making this school more amenable
to the scholarly approach.
Notes on the Methodology of this Thesis
The goal of this thesis is to present the philosophy of Madhyamika in as clear
and concise a manner as possible. Given both the length and time constraints of
this research project and the limited degree of education I have thus far
enjoyed, it was necessary to investigate this topic with a tight focus. I have
chosen to use only Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, "Verses on the Fundamentals
of the Middle [Way]," as the lens through which to view Madhyamika. This
treatise is the premier work both of Nagarjuna and of the school as a whole. It
includes all of the main themes of the school, it serves as the model for the
school's method of argumentation, and it is the focus of the subsequent history
of the school. Following Nagarjuna, Madhyamika commentaries addressed, not just
"what did the Buddha mean?", but also "what did Nagarjuna mean?"
In following this procedure of discussing only the Mulamadhyamakakarika, I often
faced the tantalizing temptation to draw quotes from other of Nagarjuna's works.
There are instances where a concept in this treatise may be spelled out
gradually over the course of five or so verses, while the same concept in
another text may be expressed succinctly and pithily. Unfortunately, these
cannot be quoted in such a context as this. Once another text of Nagarjuna's is
used, it is only a short step to back up Nagarjuna by quoting aryadeva, and then
only another short step to explain Nagarjuna by recourse to Candrakirti. Since
this would ultimately result in a distortion of the treatise, I have deemed it
best neither to quote nor discuss any other works.
The other methodological issue I had to consider is whether to use any concepts
or tools from Occidental philosophy in this analysis of Madhyamika. There are
numerous parallels between Madhyamika and various schools of thought in the
Western tradition. These parallels include concepts, intentions, methods, and
results. Once again, though, I chose to examine the Mulamadhyamakakarika on its
own and within the tradition of Buddhism only. It must be admitted that much
understanding of the work may have been lost by such a limitation.
Notwithstanding, there are two definite advantages of bringing to bear no
Western philosophy here. First, and most simply, I had neither room, nor time,
nor sufficient education. Even had I those luxuries, though, I doubt that I
would have utilized them. Interpreting Nagarjuna using Occidental tools may
seriously misrepresent him. For example, a major criticism of T.R.V. Murti's
analysis of Madhyamika is exactly this; in contrasting Nagarjuna with Kant, even
favorably, Murti may have seen Nagarjuna through distorting lenses. The approach
of this research project is thus to try to arrive at an understanding of
Madhyamika by examining only the central work of its central figure with as few
contrasts and comparisons as possible.
A final note of the methodology of this project regards which things were
selected for examination, and in what depth. What has been chosen was to explain
the philosophy as well as possible to the lay, not the scholarly, reader. An
extra chapter, "The Buddha and His Teachings," has been included that would not
have been necessary had the intended audience been a specialized one. This has
resulted in extra length of the thesis, but I deemed it well worth while. The
philosophy of the Buddha is not just foreign and difficult for a modern Western
audience, but was found to be abstruse even by the Buddha's ancient and Eastern
one. Providing plenty of background can only help in understanding this topic.
The depth of this study proved to be a trickier issue. On the one hand, each
chapter of the Mulamadhyamakakarika could be summarized in a mere five
sentences. On the other hand, fifty pages or more would not be sufficient to
explain fully any chapter, and entire books could be devoted to some of them.
Likewise for the three subjects highlighted as foundational for the school, i.e.
self-nature, dependent arising, and emptiness---each could have been explained
in one page or one hundred. The depth I have chosen is thus completely
arbitrary, guided only by considerations of what could investigated in one year
and in less than two hundred pages total.


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Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 2) by Jonah Winters

The Buddha and His Teachings

The Life of the Buddha

Siddhartha Gautama, the sage of the \'Sakya clan, founded a religion that is in
many ways the most anomalous of those surviving in the world today. He claimed
access to no divine wisdom, no unique intuition, no worldly or spiritual
authority, and no super-human status of any kind. The philosophy he taught
subverts common-sense notions about what the nature of the world is and uproots
the very beliefs that people tend to cherish the most: the existence of God, the
reality of the self, the promise of an afterlife, and the availability of
happiness. In their place he taught reliance on personal understanding and the
pragmatic uselessness of mere belief. FOOTNOTE: Walpola Sri Rahula, What the
Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1959), 3, 8-10 He taught that all
phenomena are impermanent and nothing can be counted on to endure; that there is
no soul to be found at any time, in any thing, anywhere; and that the
fundamental quality of life, even when it seems pleasant, is radically
unsatisfactory. And yet, the religion that has grown out of Gautama's teachings
has become a major world religion known for its equanimity, its compassion, and,
even, its joy.
Gautama was born in northeastern India in what is modern day Nepal in either 566
or 448 BE. and died eighty years later. FOOTNOTE: For a full discussion of the
Buddha's dates, see Etienne Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism, trans. Sara
Webb-Boin (Louvain-La-Neuve: Institut Orientaliste, 1988), 13-14 Gautama's
father Suddhodana was a minor king, the head of the Sakyas. Legend holds that
Gautama was so remarkable as a child that soothsayers predicted that he would
one day become either a universal monarch or an "awakened one," a "Buddha."
FOOTNOTE: The following biography of the Buddha is culled from a variety of
sources. The scriptural accounts of his life vary, and so this often-imaginative
biography is not to be taken as authoritative. Suddhodana wanted his son to be
the next head of the clan, and so did everything in his power to keep him
attached to the world and oblivious of things spiritual. Gautama was provided
with fine clothing, expensive perfumes, courtyard gardens and lily pools, and
all worldly delights, and was attended by female musicians in three palaces, one
for each season. Strict orders were given that he was not to be exposed to any
uglinesses or unpleasantries. He married a neighboring princess, Yasodhara, at
age sixteen, and they had a son, Rahula, when he was twenty-nine.
Legend relates that one day, shortly after the birth of Rahula, Gautama
requested to see the city that he had never before seen. Unable to dissuade him,
his father had runners clear the streets of all unpleasant sights and then
allowed Gautama to be taken out in a chariot. Serendipitously, or, as some
legends hold, at the will of the far-seeing God, the young prince was exposed to
four shocking sights which the runners had missed. First, Gautama saw a decrepit
man, gray-haired, broken-toothed, and bent with age, by the side of the road.
Since he had seen few humans other than his family and his 40,000 dancing girls,
he asked his charioteer in astonishment what sort of creature the man was. That
is what happens when people get old, explained the driver. The next day, the
prince asked to go out again. Though his father doubled his efforts to clear the
streets of all unpleasant sights, a sick person was missed. On seeing the person
lying by the side of the road, racked with disease, Gautama again turned to his
charioteer in surprise. That is illness, he was told. The following day he
embarked on another tour on which he was exposed to the sight of a human corpse,
and thus learned of the fact of death. Legend or not, this story portrays an
important element of the Buddha's later teachings: while the facts of age,
sickness, and death are known to us, it is still easy to forget them, and a
direct confrontation with their reality is often a novel and disturbing insight.
FOOTNOTE: Harvey, 18 Unless one is aware of suffering, one will never seek to
improve one's condition, a fact of which the Buddha was to make much use.
The prince made one more excursion into the city the next day, and, again, he
was exposed to something he had never before seen---a saffron- robed renunciant
with a shaven head, a begging bowl, and, most importantly, a tranquil and serene
demeanor. That night, after returning to his palace, he realized that all of his
previous pleasures were now but hollow delights. He waited until Yasodhara and
Rahula were asleep, took one last look at his son lying in his wife's arms,
kissed them both, and left. Such an exit was seen by some of the later writings
as setting a precedent for the renunciant monastic disciplines the Buddha later
organized, and the seeming callousness of it is mitigated by the claim that he
had to leave his family for the future benefit of all beings, that is, so that
he could attain his enlightenment and then teach it to others. FOOTNOTE: ibid.,
18 It is also pointed out that he was clearly not abandoning his family, for his
son later became one of his greatest disciples. However, the sense of solitude,
spiritual desperation, and determination portrayed by this episode is not
lessened.
It was with such a sense of determination that Gautama embarked on the next
stage of his life. He had seen the suffering from which he had been sheltered
for so long, and then he had seen proof in the form of the renunciant that such
suffering can be conquered. He now set himself the goal of learning how to
conquer it. He saw that his many years of living in opulence had not taught him
the way to enlightenment, so he now tried the opposite path. For six years he
practiced renunciation and asceticism. He first practiced raja yoga in an
attempt to conquer suffering through meditation and the control of
consciousness. Gautama soon surpassed his teachers by attaining states of
elevated awareness higher than the ones of which they were capable, but did not
feel that he had reached his goal yet. He left his yoga teachers and joined a
group of ascetics to practice rigorous physical austerities. His strong sense of
determination led him to practice self-mortifications so severe that he nearly
died.
By the time he could barely stand up and all of his hair had fallen out, Gautama
realized that asceticism was not going to bring him to his goal, either. He
recollected that he had once spontaneously experienced a certain meditative
state that could provide a path to awakening, and decided to give it one last
try. He took food, left the group of ascetics, and sat under a tree, determined
to gain enlightenment or die. As he began to meditate, the legendary demon
tempter, Mara, assailed him first with visions of beautiful women and then with
violent storms in an attempt to prevent Gautama's immanent enlightenment.
Gautama ignored Mara and entered deeper into meditation. He passed through state
after state of consciousness until he achieved the enlightenment he had so long
sought, nirvana. He was now a "Buddha," an "awakened" one. Reflecting on what he
had found, he saw himself as presented with a difficult choice, which is
sometimes portrayed as being Mara's final assault. He could either selfishly
enter parinirvana, the state of "nonreturning" liberation, or he could postpone
the final, ultimate freedom and return to the world to teach. The latter option
seemed pointless, for the awakening that he had experienced was so profound, so
subtle, and so "beyond the sphere of reason" that he feared it would be
pointless to try to teach it to anyone else. The deciding factor was the
Buddha's enlightened insight into the oneness of all beings, which led him to
sympathize with the suffering of others. He felt compassion and realized that he
must return, even if for the sake of only one person's understanding. Thus began
the ministry of the Buddha.
The biographies in the canonical texts, the sutras, give only sparse information
of the Buddha's life following his nirvana. A likely explanation for the greater
emphasis on his earlier life than on his later is that the core teaching of the
Buddha is the "path" to follow, the process one must go through to realize
nirvana for oneself. Thus, the Buddha's personal search for awakening is more
important than what he did after he had found his goal. The general picture
conveyed by the few details available is that he spent the rest of his life
wandering around the Ganges basin area on foot, with few possessions, teaching
his ever-growing group of disciples. Much of his teaching method would have been
seen as subversive by the society around him. He taught in the local languages
and dialects, spurning the Sanskrit which by this time was already associated
exclusively with the educated, elite priestly caste of Hinduism. FOOTNOTE:
Michael Coulson, Sanskrit (Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1992), xvii He taught
with no distinction, associating with all classes and castes of men and women.
He also shunned both the isolation of the forest and the community of the
cities, preferring to reside and teach in the outskirts of the urban areas.
After wandering and teaching for forty-five years, the Buddha prepared for his
death. He asked his followers if they had any last questions. When no one spoke,
he told them "All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your salvation
with diligence!" FOOTNOTE: Maha-Parnibbana-Sutta in T.W. Rhys- Davids, trans.,
Buddhist Suttas (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969), VI.10 and entered
parinirvana, the final liberation.

The Thought of the Buddha

The philosophical system that the Buddha taught is remarkably clear and simple.
It would, however, be very easy for a presentation of his thought to degenerate
into hundreds of pages of confusion and nonsense, and it could be argued that
much of the history and doctrinal development of Buddhism has been just such an
endeavor of obfuscation. His teaching is simple in that it can be summed up in
two words: the keyword of his philosophy is "impermanence" (anitya) and the
keyword of his religion is the "path" . FOOTNOTE: The question of whether or not
Buddhism is a religion will not be considered here. For purposes of this
discussion, "philosophy" will be taken to mean the intellectual explanation of
reality, and "religion" will be taken to mean the quest for salvation. Further
discussion of this question can be found in Regington Rajapakse, "Buddhism as
Religion and Philosophy," Religion 16 (January, 1986): 51-56 All elements of the
Buddha's teachings fall out from these two concepts. The purpose of the Buddha's
teachings is to bring people to their own enlightenment by means of the "Noble
Eightfold Path," the prescriptions for living the "noble" and beneficent life.
Thus, while his philosophy is the subject of this thesis, a brief presentation
of his soteriological teachings will be apposite here. The key to the moral life
is following the "middle way" between extremes. The Buddha had attained
enlightenment by renouncing the two extremes of worldliness and
world-renunciation. Neither his twenty-nine years of living in luxury nor his
six years of living in self-denial had led him to his goal; it was only after he
abandoned such extremes that his search came to an end. The first sermon the
Buddha delivered after his enlightenment opened with an admonition to give up
both the seeking after pleasure and the practice of asceticism. The correct way
to lead a proper life, he taught his first audience, is "the middle path, ...a
path which opens the eye, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of
mind," and eventually to nirvana. FOOTNOTE: Dhamma-Cakka- Ppavattana-Sutta 3 in
Rhys-Davids The significance of following the middle way is greater than merely
the renouncing of the two extremes of hedonism and asceticism: the middle way is
the principle which infuses the entire corpus of moral teachings of Buddhism.
FOOTNOTE: Whether or not, and in what way, such "middle-ism" also defines
Buddhist philosophy will be discussed in chapters four and five.
Buddhism is primarily a path, not a philosophy. As has been aptly stated,
Buddhists often insist "If you wish to understand the Buddha's doctrine, you
must practice it!" FOOTNOTE: Geoffrey Parrinder, ed., World Religions (New York:
Facts on File Publications, 1983), 271 (italics in original) The Buddha likened
the human situation to a man who has just been shot with a poisoned arrow by an
unknown assailant. If the man refuses to have the arrow removed until he finds
out who shot him, what caste the assailant is from, what color his skin is, how
tall he is, what kind of bow he used, and what types of feathers were on the
arrow, that man will die. The important thing for the man to do is to remove the
arrow. The arrow in the side of humanity is afflicted existence, duhkha. The
poison on the arrow is the cause of duhkha, which cause is craving. The way to
remove the arrow of duhkha and the poison of craving is by following the
Buddha's path and teachings, the Dharma. FOOTNOTE: The complete parable can be
found in Henry Clarke Warren, ed. and trans., Buddhism in Translations (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), 117-122 Duhkha cannot be satisfactorily translated
into English. It conveys the sense of the words "evil," "unsatisfactoriness,"
"unpleasantness," "imperfection," and "disease." The most felicitous single
translation is "suffering." Even if not exact, this is the term encountered most
commonly in translations. The fact of suffering constitutes the first of the
Buddha's four "Noble Truths." All things that are temporary and conditioned are
suffering, duhkha. Encounters with unpleasant things are, of course, suffering,
but even pleasant things are suffering because of the fact that, being
conditioned, they are subject to ending. FOOTNOTE: It may be important to
introduce here the concept of conditionality, for it is a concept that will
surface again and again in the following thesis. Briefly, a thing is conditioned
if it arose depending on a cause, such as a sprout arises depending on the
existence of the seed, or if it exists depending on a ground of support, as fire
exists depending on the fuel it is burning. A thing is also called "conditioned"
if it depends on something else for its differentiation and definition, as
"shortness" only exists in relation to "longness." Only something which is
uncaused and has an autonomous identity can be unconditioned. The cause of
suffering is the second Noble Truth. Suffering is occasioned by desire, be it
the thirst for pleasure or the craving for existence itself. This desire, having
impermanent things as its object, will always be frustrated because it can never
be satisfactorily fulfilled. The third Noble Truth is that it is possible to put
an end to such desire and thus rid oneself of suffering. Ridding oneself of
suffering occurs when one realizes the nonreality of existence in a peculiar
state known as nirvana, or freedom. Thus far, the Buddha presented an analysis
of the human experience which states that all existence is inherently unpleasant
due to its impermanency, that the reason we find impermanent phenomena to be
unpleasant is because we entertain desires and cravings which cannot be
satisfied by ephemeral things, and that the key to finding satisfaction is to
put an end to such desires.
The fourth and final Noble Truth is that there is a method available to us by
which we can appease desires and thus attain nirvana. This way is presented as
the Eightfold Path. The path is a systematized guide for living which will
enable one to curtail attachment to transitory things and to train oneself in
proper modes of thought and behavior to eventually achieve liberation. The eight
limbs of the path prescribe behavior which is "samyak." "Samyak" will here be
translated as "right," but it also carries the overtones of "complete" and
"perfect." FOOTNOTE: cf. Sir Monier Monier-Williams, ed., A Sanskrit-English
Dictionary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), 1181 A fuller understanding of
"samyak" can be had by keeping in mind the importance of "middle-ism" as
described above. Renouncing all behavioral extremes leads to a comportment that
could best be described as "moderate;" observing moderation in all actions and
thoughts and desires will lead, not just to proper behavior, but also to the
very enlightenment which is the goal of Buddhism. The Eightfold Path opens with
two guidelines for perfecting wisdom, namely right (samyak) views and right
thought. Personal apprehension of the Buddha's teaching, his Dharma (henceforth
translated as "Law"), is an essential aspect of accepting the Law and proceeding
on the path. This understanding must be translated into right thought, the
attitudes of the individual towards the rest of the world. Right thoughts are
selflessness, compassion, and non- violence. This is followed by three
guidelines for morality, namely right speech, right conduct, and right
livelihood. The moral life is not required merely for reasons of compassion for
others; appeasing the desires that cause one to suffer will be accomplished in
large part by leading a life free from egocentricity, greed, and selfish goals.
The final three steps on the path, right effort, right mindfulness, and right
concentration, detail the spiritual ascesis without which the attainment of
nirvana would be impossible. Right effort and mindfulness prescribe the
importance of being focused on the goal of liberation, and avoiding all things
which would be karmically unwholesome. Right concentration, samadhi, is that
drive of pointed meditation which allows for liberation, the final abandonment
of all desires and the attainment of alert equanimity and bliss.
The philosophy of the Buddha rests on one simple observation: all things are
impermanent (anitya). Impermanence is the first of three fundamental marks of
existent things, and from it follow the other two: suffering, and
"soul-less-ness." Transitorinessis the fundamental property of all existent
things, for all things come into being, persist for a time, and then pass out of
being again. Without such impermanence, no change would be possible, and thus
neither would liberation be possible. That is, it is the susceptibility of all
things to change that allows one the option of controlling one's life and
following the Eightfold Path. The Buddha's emphasis on the reality of
impermanence should not be seen as a doctrinal dogma as much as a simple
perception. Not only is continual flux perceptible to all who have insight, but,
moreover, a balance in reality requires that any thing which comes into
existence must also, some day, go out of existence. FOOTNOTE: The use of the
problematic term "reality'' must be explained. That signified by "reality" is
usually taken to be the real, i.e. that which exists. Here, it will occasionally
be used to refer to the cosmos as a whole, to the entirety of nature, yet
without expressly signifying "existence.'' For lack of a better term, the reader
is asked to accept that "reality," used here, is not necessarily meant to imply
existence as such, and the meaning of the term will vary according to context.
The significance of impermanence is beautifully expressed by the parable of the
conversion to Buddhism of the two friends Sariputta and Moggallana. Seeking
enlightenment and having found it nowhere, they made the pact that they would
split up and whoever should first realize nirvana would come and teach the
other. Sariputta went his way, and encountered a saintly monk, placid of
disposition and perfect of deportment. What is your secret, brother? asked
Sariputta. Whom do you follow, and what is the truth you have found? The monk
replied that he was but a novice and a new-comer to the doctrine that he had
found, and so could not expound the doctrine or describe its teacher. He could,
however, offer to Sariputta this tidbit of the teaching: all things that arise
will cease, said the monk. On hearing this, Sariputta suddenly understood,
clearly and distinctly, the noble doctrine, and became enlightened. He returned
to his friend Moggallana who, upon seeing Sariputta from afar, immediately
perceived that a profound change had come over his friend. What is the truth you
have found? asked Moggallana. I don't know the doctrine or its teacher, replied
Sariputta, but I can tell you this: all things that arise will cease. On hearing
this, Moggallana, too, became enlightened. FOOTNOTE: Warren, 87-89 A refusal to
accept transitoriness is the cause of suffering, as briefly discussed above. A
perception of such impermanence and of suffering, its corollary, is the key to
liberation. Humans tend to desire, and desires do not exist in a vacuum---they
are always desires for something, and if the object of the desire is subject to
flux, then the desire will, sooner or later, be frustrated.
The third mark of existence is also a direct corollary of impermanence: there is
no permanent, abiding, unchanging soul, atman, to be found in any existent
thing. This is perhaps the most revolutionary of all elements of the Buddha's
philosophy, for his time period was one of great emphasis on the reality of the
soul in the dominant zeitgeist of India, Hinduism. FOOTNOTE: Rahula, 55 The
period of the writing of the principal Upanisads had only recently ended, and
the orthodox schools of Indian thought were abuzz with theories of the
individual soul and its relation to Brahman, the universal soul. By denying the
reality of atman, the Buddha was subverting one of the most cherished of all
concepts in Indian religion. However, the doctrine of soullessness, anatman, was
an inescapable conclusion of the perception of flux; if all existent things are
subject to change, then there can be no unchanging essence that exists. And if
one tries to escape that conclusion by positing a soul "beyond" the realm of
existence, then one arrives at the same answer: the soul does not exist. It is
meaningless to posit something that is beyond existence, for it would be in no
way real.
The three marks of existence---impermanence, suffering, and
soullessness---define the nature and quality of reality as taught by the Buddha.
Inquiring into the ultimate cause and purpose of existence and its ontological
nature is fruitless. It is not that the answers to such metaphysical questions
are beyond human understanding, nor that the answers sought are conceptually
inexpressible; it is simply that they are irrelevant. If you do not remove the
arrow now, said the Buddha, you will die. One must leave metaphysics alone, for
the only thing of importance is to follow the path. FOOTNOTE: A usage note is
required here. The term "metaphysical" will be encountered often in this thesis,
and so a clarification of its meaning is crucial. Metaphysics must not be
understood as pertaining to the study of the supernatural, the mystical, or the
New Age movement; this is a very recent use of the word. Metaphysics is the
branch of rational philosophy that examines the nature of reality, especially
the relationships between mind and matter and substance and attribute. This
includes the connotational meaning of a priori speculation upon questions that
are unverifiable by observation, analysis, or experimentation.
Notwithstanding, the Buddha was in no way misologistic. That he did not scorn
the use of reason and philosophy is demonstrated by the fact that the first two
limbs of the Eightfold Path are right views and right thought. He offered a
positive metaphysics by presenting a complete teaching of causation known as the
theory of pratitya-samutpada, "interdependent origination," or "dependent
arising." As a teaching of the nature of all existent things, dependent arising
is a comprehensive philosophy which explains the origin of perception, the
essence of the individual, the workings of karma, and the nature of previous,
present, and future lives. Dependent arising is an extremely lucid and rational
explanation of the nature of all existent things, but not one that is easy to
understand without a great deal of reflection. The following explication of
dependent arising is thus not intended to be an explanation as much as a brief
introduction. (No more than an introduction is necessary here, because the
theory will be discussed extensively in chapter five.) Dependent arising,
simply, is the principle that all existent things are conditioned and relative
by virtue of having come into existence as interrelated phenomena. When this
arises, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases, explained the Buddha.
Impermanence and its corresponding dictum of soullessness preclude the
possibility of there being permanently-enduring or independent and
self-subsisting phenomena.
The "chain" of dependent arising consists of "links" of mutually interacting
causes and effects. The root of the chain is ignorance, avidya, on which basis
the second link, preferences and dispositions, comes to be. On the basis of
these preferences arises the third link, volitional will and consciousness. This
consciousness gives birth to the fourth link, the psychophysical individual. The
individual then experiences sensory stimulation which creates in him or her
desires to have certain sensations and to avoid others, which is a process of
the next three more links. On the basis of these desires one develops cravings,
link nine, and grasps onto perceived existence itself, link ten. This grasping
and clinging to existence is the cause of all suffering, for it leads to the
eleventh link, birth and rebirth, which is followed by the final link of old
age, disease, and death. The key to enlightenment, or cessation of afflicted
existence, is the reversal of the process by which afflicted existence has
arisen. One must appease, or let go of, cravings. In order to do this one must
seek wisdom, which wisdom will undercut ignorance, the initial cause of the
chain.
Although presented as a linear chain, dependent arising should be understood as
a circle, for all of the links of the chain influence all of the other links. It
is tempting to look at the ultimate cause of the chain, ignorance, and ask what
caused it to come into being, and thus embark upon infinite regress. There are
two reasons that this would not be appropriate, one philosophical and the other
pragmatic. First, it would not be proper to seek a cause for ignorance avidya),
for ignorance is not a positively existing entity. Rather, it is a lack. One
does not inquire into the cause of darkness, for darkness is nothing but the
lack of light. Second, the "cause" of ignorance is utterly irrelevant for the
Buddha's teaching. Ignorance is a deadly poisoned arrow which must be removed;
where the arrow came from is not important.
It is often said that the Buddha was neither a prophet nor simply a teacher, but
was a spiritual doctor. His presentation of the four Noble Truths paralleled the
practice of medical doctors in his day which was to 1) diagnose a disease, 2)
identify its cause, 3) determine whether it is curable, and 4) outline a course
of treatment to cure it. FOOTNOTE: Harvey, 47 This was exactly the Buddha's
method. All humans are afflicted with the disease of suffering; this disease is
caused by ignorance and the cravings which can follow ignorance; this disease is
not an unregenerate condition but can be cured; the cure is to follow the
Eightfold Path of moderation and understanding, which will lead to enlightenment
and freedom.
The Buddha's teachings may thus far appear simple and straightforward. This may
be true, but for one condition. All unenlightened humans, according to the
Buddha, are immersed in the mud of ignorance, and are thus incapable of seeing
clearly. "Men who are overcome by passions and surrounded by a mass of darkness
cannot see this truth," he once thought to himself. FOOTNOTE: Source not named:
quoted in Rahula, 52 However, there were also times when he reassured his
disciples that his philosophy was inherently difficult to grasp. Speaking to his
disciple Vaccha, he said "Profound, O Vaccha, is this doctrine, recondite, and
difficult of comprehension, ...and it is a hard doctrine for you to learn."
FOOTNOTE: Majjhima-Nikaya, quoted in Warren, 126 Whether the difficulty of
comprehending the Buddha's teachings is due only to the obscuring passions of
humans or whether it is indeed inherently abstruse, the subsequent history of
Buddhism demonstrates that the Buddha's teachings were anything but unambiguous
to his disciples and later Buddhist thinkers. The varieties of interpretation of
the Buddha's thought that have been propounded in the last two-and-a-half
millenia bear ample witness to this. It is this diversity of interpretation that
was to engender the Madhyamika school six hundred years after the Buddha's
death.


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Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 3) by Jonah Winters

Early Buddhism and The Historical Context of Nagarjuna

The Person of Nagarjuna

Legend reports that, in the second or third century C.E., a young Brahmin named
Nagarjuna mastered the Vedas and all of the existing Hindu sciences, including
magic, while still a young boy. When he was a teenager he used his magical
abilities to render himself and two of his friends invisible so that they might
slip unnoticed into the royal harem of the local king's palace. They took
advantage of the situation and then made their escape. On attempting to leave,
however, his friends neglected to make themselves sufficiently invisible and
were caught and executed. Nagarjuna escaped, but this experience caused him to
reevaluate the desires which had caused him to come so close to peril.
Inspired by this episode, Nagarjuna entered a Buddhist monastery. In a mere
ninety days he studied and mastered the whole of the Pali canon, the early
writings of Buddhism. He left the monastery in search of more advanced teachings
of the Buddha that he felt sure must exist. One day he was expounding upon the
doctrine of the Buddha to a group of listeners and noticed that, following the
lecture, two members of the audience disappeared into the ground. He followed
them to what proved to be their home, the kingdom of the Nagas, a land inhabited
by beneficent, half-divine, serpent- like beings. Here the Nagas presented
Nagarjuna with occult teachings and with several volumes of sutras, canonical
scriptures. These writings were the Prajnaparamitas, the "Perfection of Wisdom"
sutras. The Buddha had delivered these sacred teachings centuries before but had
decided that they were too profound for his contemporaries. He arranged to have
them hidden for safekeeping in the nether world until humankind had acquired the
necessary sophistication and spiritual development to allow them to appreciate
these teachings of "perfect wisdom." Now that the world was ready, Nagarjuna was
permitted to spread the Buddha''s final teachings. FOOTNOTE: One of the most
complete Buddhist accounts of Nagarjuna's life is to be found in the
eighteenth-century Tibetan text "Presentation of Tenets" by Jang-gya. cf. Donald
S. Lopez, Jr., A Study of Svatantrika (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications,
1987), 245- 252. A comprehensive account by a modern scholar can be found in K.
Venkata Ramana, Nagarjuna's Philosophy (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle
Company, 1966), 25-70
This colorful legend, like most, is told with many minor variations.
Unfortunately, there is not much known about Nagarjuna besides these legends. It
is certain that he was an actual historical person remarkable for his brilliant
and energizing philosophical spirit. FOOTNOTE: Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of
India (New York: Meridian Books, 1957), 520 His influence was so great that he
was regarded as more than merely an important philosopher. The teachings of the
Buddha were seen as the "first ``turning of the wheel,''" the setting in motion
of the dispensation of universal law, Dharma. The teachings of Nagarjuna came to
be regarded by the majority of Buddhism as the "second turning of the wheel,"
i.e. the renewal of and expansion of the Buddha's original doctrine. Throughout
northern India he is still spoken of as a veritable manifestation of the Buddha,
and his teachings are revered equally with "the sutras from the Buddha's own
mouth." FOOTNOTE: ibid., 520 Aside from such fanciful reverence of Nagarjuna,
this much is certain: he is generally agreed to be, by his admirers and
detractors alike, the acutest thinker in Buddhist history. FOOTNOTE: Mervyn
Sprung, trans., Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way: The Essential Chapters of
the Prasannapada of Candrakirti (Boulder: Prajna Press, 1979), 1 His
commentaries on Buddhist philosophy had such a great effect on the world of
Buddhism that a schism which had been brewing for some time, that of the new
"Greater School" of Mahayana diverging from the "Older School" of the Theravada,
now became crystallized and irrevocable. FOOTNOTE: cf. D.T. Suzuki, Outlines of
Mahayana Buddhism (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), 60 Nagarjuna's alleged
"authorship" and elucidation of the Prajnaparamita writings seems to have
provided the Mahayana with a claim to unique mystical insight which allowed this
school to divorce itself from what it considered to be the "lesser" teachings of
the Theravada.
Some of Nagarjuna's contemporaries found his thought to be so unique and worthy
that they regarded him as the founder of an entirely new school of wisdom, the
Madhyamika. New "Madhyamika" texts sprung up, many of which aimed to be nothing
more than interpretations of Nagarjuna's writings. This new school was so
compelling and vibrant that it, too, witnessed schisms into sub-schools.
Some scholars have interpreted the philosophy of Nagarjuna as an innovation, a
revolution in Buddhism. Others see Nagarjuna's philosophy as being little more
than a clarification and restatement of the Buddha's doctrines. To investigate
the thought of Nagarjuna and to address these claims, a brief summary of
Buddhist intellectual history from the time of the Buddha to the time of
Candrakirti, Nagarjuna's most famous commentator, is apposite. When Nagarjuna
completed his study of the original Pali canon and went in search of more
teachings of the Buddha, it appears that he was confronted with a multitude of
contending schools of philosophy. FOOTNOTE: Ramana, 37 The debates which both
preceded and were contemporary with Nagarjuna surely influenced his thought and
a summary of them will help in achieving an understanding of the Madhyamika
school.

Some Early Controversies

A central point of the Buddha's thought is that all is in flux; nothing which
exists can remain unchanged. A natural implication of this is that the Law, the
Buddha's teaching itself, would also suffer corruption and change. The original
scriptures announced various prophesies regarding this change. Some predicted
that the Law would remain pure for only 500 years, others that it would endure
for a thousand. Following this period of pure understanding, mere scholarship
would replace spiritual achievement. FOOTNOTE: Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its
Essence and Development (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 114-6 The simple fact
of the Buddha's historical life becoming a more and more distant memory is only
part of the story. It appears that the very methods of the Buddha's teaching
began to lose their efficacy, for the early writings contain accounts of large
numbers of people, sometimes thousands at a time, achieving sudden enlightenment
merely by hearing the Law. FOOTNOTE: cf., for example, Warren 302, where a sutra
reports that "the conversion of eighty-four thousand living beings took place."
Gradually fewer and fewer cases of conversion were reported, until the
conviction spread that the time of sainthood was over. One sutra conveys this
sentiment clearly by describing the death of the last saint at the hands of one
of the scholars. FOOTNOTE: Conze 1975, 116
Setting aside the fact that, according to the Buddha, flux is inevitable, there
are three obvious reasons why the Law witnessed change and reinterpretation. One
reason is simple geography. FOOTNOTE: ibid., 119 The teachings of the Buddha
were born in northern India and from there rapidly spread east and west,
eventually becoming diffused across the whole of southern and eastern Asia.
Following the death of its founder, such broad decentralization of the message
and the concomitant divergence of interpretations was inevitable. A second
factor which precipitated change was the fact of applying the Law to daily life
and all of its concerns. No matter how complete the Buddha's teachings,
inevitably some question would arise which he had not addressed. These were
usually precise disagreements over proper comportment of the monk, such as when
to eat food and whether to accept money as a gift. FOOTNOTE: Michael H. Kohn,
trans., The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1991),
37 A third and perhaps principal source of contention and change was the
somewhat agnostic stance of the Law itself. The Buddha did not leave the
community with a single source of authority following his death, telling the
monks to seek and follow the Law for themselves. This likely left the monks with
a sense of freedom to interpret the Law as they wished. FOOTNOTE: David J.
Kalupahana, A History of Buddhist Philosophy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1992), 125 He also had consistently refused to give conclusive answers to
many types of metaphysical questions, as the parable of the arrow shows.
However, as the Buddha fully knew, the human tendency to enquire into such
intangibilities is practically ineradicable. People were wont to philosophize on
even those very subjects about which the Buddha forbade speculation. This
inevitably led to differing opinions about the nature of reality. Even some
modern scholars have been misled by the Buddha's apparent agnosticism, calling
it a "vagueness" in the Buddha's teachings, a vagueness which caused "a great
divergence of views" to arise. FOOTNOTE: M. Hiriyanna, Outlines of Indian
Philosophy (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1967), 196
Buddhism remained relatively free of internal controversy for the first two
centuries after the Buddha's death. Minor disagreements over points of doctrine
persisted, but were not a major cause for concern. Then, during the reign of
King Asoka, 272-236 BE., another disagreement, this one regarding the nature of
the saint, arose and threatened the unity of the Order. King Asoka, a nominal
Buddhist whose influence in Buddhist history was enormous, wished to restore
peace to the Order. While the precise history of the debate is uncertain, a few
elements of it are widely accepted as being authentic and, more important to the
topic at hand, had a direct bearing on Nagarjuna's work. FOOTNOTE: A more
comprehensive discussion of the dates and the background of Asoka can be found
in Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India (London: Routledge,
1990), 64-70 Asoka invited a respected monk, Moggaliputtatissa, to convene a
synod of monks to discuss and settle disagreements. Moggaliputtatissa compiled
the proceedings of this council in a text that, despite being written two and a
half centuries after the Buddha, was so influential that it quickly was accorded
canonical status. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1992, 126 Although two hundred and
eighteen specific topics of monastic discipline and philosophy were debated, the
key philosophical issues boil down to three: "Personalism," "Realism," and
"Transcendentalism." FOOTNOTE: This division, which is perhaps somewhat
simplified and artificial, will be encountered repeatedly in this thesis. It can
also be quite confusing, and, hence, it should be summarized and more
technically clarified here. The Personalists were the Vatsiputriya, nicknamed
the Pudgalavada after "pudgala" = "person;" The Realists were the Vaibhasika and
Sautrantika sects of the Sarvastivada, the latter nicknamed after their belief
that "all," "sarva" exists (on the Sautrantika, see also page 124f.); The
Transcendentalists were the Lokattaravada sect of the Mahasanghika, so nicknamed
due to their belief in the " lokuttarra," the "supramundane." This factional
history, though technically confusing and incompletely documented, has extensive
import, for it was a precursor to the bifurcation into the "Greater" and "Lesser
Schools" of Buddhism. Broadly speaking, the Mahasanghika led to the formation of
Mahayana, while their opponents, the Sthaviravada, became the Hinayana, or
Theravada. These three will be summarized here and treated more fully later.
Broadly speaking, Indian philosophy has witnessed two opposing traditions
regarding the ultimate nature of reality. One tradition, which is represented by
practically the whole of Hinduism, asserts the existence of an immanent and
transcendent "soul," the atman. The atman is the soul both of the human
individual and of the universal God. It is the ultimate ground of being and is
immutable and eternal. Buddhism, on the other hand, denies this substratum. It
presents a doctrine of anatman, "soullessness." The Buddha taught that there is
no abiding self, but rather just five ever-changing aggregates (skandhas) of
elements: physical substance, sense-contacts, perceptions, psychological
tendencies, and consciousness. The individual person is an aggregate of these
five categories, and each category is in itself an aggregate of composite
elements (dharmas and dhatus). For example, the category of physical substance
is an aggregate of earth, air, water, and fire, and the category of
psychological tendencies is an aggregate of habits, likes, dislikes, greed,
willfulness, etc. The idea of a "person" is just a convenient way to refer to
these five categories and aggregates of elements. It is a mistake to believe
that there is an underlying and unchanging self in this dynamic agglomeration of
fluctuating elements. However, a small group of monks insisted that,
nonetheless, the individual self must be in some way real. If there is no self
more real than and transcending the aggregates of elements, they argued, still
at the very least it should not be wrong to say that the self is no less real
than the aggregates. They claimed that there is a subtle self which is neither
identical with nor different from the agglomeration of elements. FOOTNOTE:
Harvey, 85 Although Moggaliputtatissa and all other Buddhist schools rejected
this "Personalist" argument, the notion proved to be tenacious and long-lived.
As late as the seventh century C.E. a full one-quarter of Indian monks claimed
adherence to the Personalist school, FOOTNOTE: ibid., 85 and Nagarjuna as well
as numerous later writers, both Madhyamika and otherwise, felt compelled to
address this misbelief. FOOTNOTE: Nagarjuna, David J. Kalupahana, trans.,
Nagarjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way: the Mulamadhyamakakarika of
Nagarjuna (New York: State University of New York Press, 1986), XVI.2 and
XXIV.29-30 The "heresy" of Personalism presumably arose because some Buddhists
were unwilling to abandon completely the belief in the soul, and so claimed that
the aggregate of elements did not fully preclude the possibility of a self. The
controversy of "Realism" also arose from the doctrine of the aggregates, but for
an exactly opposite reason. The Realists asserted that, if there is no
metaphysical soul behind the aggregates, then the aggregates themselves must be
real. If the soul is not an ultimate entity, then the individual atomistic
elements (dharmas) of which the world is composed must be ultimately real. These
elements are reified, they taught, and each has its unique and individual atomic
"self-nature," svabhava. Only thus could the Buddha's teaching that all
aggregates are in perpetual flux be reconciled with the fact that objects are
observed to have individual and continuous identities. FOOTNOTE: ibid., 22
Furthermore, these atomistic elements are themselves eternal and unchanging;
while their form and the objects of which they are a part may change, their
self- nature, svabhava, remains real and constant. Hence the label "Realism."
The Realists were quite vocal against the concept of Personalism and insisted
that the Buddha's doctrine of anatman allowed no room for any type of belief in
self-hood. However, their assertion that the atoms comprising the world have
individual self-natures was seen by other Buddhists as being an unjustified
realism or as just another form of Personalism. Criticism of their concept of
self-nature became one of the key issues of the Madhyamikas.
The third false doctrine which Moggaliputtatissa reports being discussed was
Transcendentalism. The Buddha had left the community of his followers with no
single source of authority following his death, telling them instead to "be
lamps unto [them]selves." "The truths and rules of the order which I have set
forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be the Teacher to
you." FOOTNOTE: Maha-parinibbana Suttanta II.33 and VI.1, in Rhys Davids Despite
these words which the Buddha delivered from his deathbed, many disciples came to
believe that the Buddha had totally transcended the world, not just ceased to
exist. Mahayana Buddhists came to believe that, although the physical Buddha was
dead, his intelligence and his teachings remained in a form called the "Dharma
Body." FOOTNOTE: Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations
(London: Routledge, 1989), 176 Although it was claimed that this transcendent
form did not really exist (for that would contradict the Buddha's doctrines),
still the Dharma Body is an expression of the ultimate reality, the true nature
of things. FOOTNOTE: ibid.,175 The Dharma Body came to be known by diverse
terms, such as "Buddha- nature," "Thusness," or "Suchness of Existents," and its
nature has been interpreted in many ways. Moggaliputtatissa refuted this belief
in a transcendent nature of the Buddha by demonstrating that it is incompatible
with the Buddha's historicity. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1992, 141-3 Nagarjuna dealt
little with the theories of Transcendentalism, but it became an important topic
for later Madhyamikas. FOOTNOTE: cf. Williams, 175-179
Abhidharma and the Perfection of Wisdom Writings
Between the third century BE. and the third century C.E. a group of writings
whose purpose was the systematization of certain elements of the Buddhist
philosophy took shape. This was the Abhidharma, "Further Teachings." This
collection of writings purported to be, not a new set of teachings, but merely a
codification of the old. As such, it was accorded a canonical status and, along
with the sutras, the Buddha's discourses, and the Vinaya, the monastic rules,
comprises the official three-tiered Pali canon. There was little controversy
over the sutras and the Vinaya; although there is some variation in the latter
between schools, the two are almost universally accepted in Buddhism. The
Abhidharma, however, elicited a certain amount of conflict in subsequent
Buddhist thought.
The purpose for compiling the Abhidharma was to distill the essentials of the
Buddha's teachings on philosophy and psychology from the discourses and attempt
to avoid the inexactitudes and ambiguities occasionally found in these
scriptures. This codification was achieved by stating everything in exact
language and thereby providing a detailed enumeration of the elements of reality
(dharmas), the basic causal processes observed to operate between the elements
(pratyayas), the exact constituents of the human personality and consciousness
(skandhas and ayatanas) and, finally, to draw out the relations and
correspondences between all of these factors. FOOTNOTE: Harvey, 83
The endless lists and classifications found in the Abhidharma, which one modern
commentator has characterized as "ten valleys of dry bones," FOOTNOTE:
Nyanatiloka Mahathera quoted in Kalupahana 1992, 147 might seem to be of little
interest to all but the most devout Buddhist. There are, however, two reasons
why the Abhidharma directly relate to the study of later Buddhist philosophy:
the Abhidharma provided an exhaustive analysis of the base constituents of
reality, and it uncovered much of the implications of dependent arising, the
process by which these elements come into being and are perceived. What the
Abhidharma achieved was also twofold: its analysis of the elements coherently
and comprehensively described reality without any recourse to a theory of
self-hood or ultimate reality, and it refined the doctrine of dependent arising
by showing how the basic patterns of causation condition each other in a web of
complex ways. FOOTNOTE: Harvey, 83 Notwithstanding, the Realist school managed
to find in the Abhidharma classifications support for their view that the
elements do have a self-nature, svabhava, a view which had definite
repercussions on the doctrine of dependent arising. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1986,
22
The Abhidharma literature was avowedly part of the "Older School," Theravada.
Its sole purpose was to systematize the teachings found in the Pali scriptures,
and it made no use of the innovative interpretations and doctrines that were
becoming an important aspect of the "Greater School," Mahayana. The Abhidharma
was, however, being written during approximately the same time as the
Prajnaparamita writings. These "Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita)" writings
mark the inception of and the core teachings of the Mahayana, FOOTNOTE: based on
distinctions made by Edward Conze. cf. Conze 1975, 121-125 a school which
defined itself in large part as being the "new" Buddhism no longer bound by the
limitations of the old. The Abhidharma provided the starting point for the
Perfection of Wisdom school, both as historical influencer and by being the
focal point of criticism. Further, the Abhidharma thinkers did their job so well
that subsequent thinkers, such as those of the Prajnaparamita, had no choice but
to adopt a different tack in interpretating and expounding the Buddha's
teachings. That is, the general approach of the Abhidharma thinkers was to take
the agenda of analysis and systematization to its furthest extreme. "Rarely in
the history of human thought has analysis been pushed so far," said the scholar
of Buddhism Etienne Lamotte. FOOTNOTE: Lamotte, 605 The result of this is that
the Perfection of Wisdom writings, representing a reaction to this influence,
are quite unlike those of the Abhidharmas in style, thought, and intent.
The Perfection of Wisdom scriptures are a collection of voluminous writings from
ca. 100 BE. to 100 C.E. which emphasize the ultimate incomprehensibility of the
world. They utilized paradox and even nonsense to demonstrate that true wisdom
is intuitive and cannot be conveyed by concepts or in intellectual terms.
FOOTNOTE: Kohn, 171 The writers of the Prajnaparamitas regarded the Abhidharma
of the Older School of Buddhism, with its dry emphasis on the proper path
towards and means of achieving enlightenment, the rules of the Order, and the
niggling debates over fine points of ethics, as being on the wrong track.
FOOTNOTE: Zimmer, 485 This approach stifled the essence of the Buddha's
teaching, which essence is that all doctrines are empty of reality and are but
mental creations. According to the Prajnaparamitas, true wisdom consists, not in
cataloguing doctrines, but in intuitively understanding that the true nature of
the universe is this emptiness, sunyata.
The Perfection of Wisdom writings were in many ways a reaction to certain trends
found in Abhidharma thought, particularly that of Realism. The Realist school,
though refuted by Moggaliputtatissa, remained a potent force in philosophical
discussion for some time. A primary Prajnaparamita criticism of this realist
trend was that it did not go far enough in understanding the Buddha's doctrine
of anatman. FOOTNOTE: Harvey, 97 The Realists accepted that there is no
substantial soul abiding in the person, but just a series of fluctuating
elements whose agglomeration gives the appearance of a self- identity. However,
as explained above, the Realists took this analysis of elements too far. To
explain reality without invoking atman, the Realists defined the elements as
being point entities having absolutely small spatial and temporal extension. To
reconcile this infinitesimal atomism with the fact that the individual elements
still interrelate and that continuity is experienced, the Realists had to posit
a form of self-nature. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1986, 22 The Prajnaparamitas saw
this explanation as falling short of the mark.
The predominant themes of the Perfection of Wisdom teachings do not differ
either from the teachings of the Buddha as recorded in the discourses or from
the explanations of reality given in the Abhidharma. That is, the essence of
reality does not allow for real change or decay, origination or extinction,
identity or differentiation, unity or plurality, existence or non-existence. All
of the above are imagined only by the ignorant. The criticism lies in the fact
that some Buddhist schools were not satisfied with this description of reality
and felt the need to add the notion of svabhava, self-nature. This is not
necessary, the Prajnaparamitas taught, for the Buddha's theory of dependent
arising is alone sufficient to explain all perceptions of the world and its
elements as well as fully explain the ways in which these elements exist and
interrelate.
The authors of these texts most likely had no intention of producing innovative
theories and saw themselves as just explaining the teachings of the Buddha in a
deeper and more profound way, relying more on insight than on intellect.
Nonetheless, the Perfection of Wisdom writings are often defined as marking a
clear transition from old to new, Theravada to Mahayana. The emphasis on
emptiness as a characteristic of reality "revolutionized" Buddhism "in all
aspects," writes modern commentator T.R.V. Murti. FOOTNOTE: Murti 1960, 83 While
the intention of these writings was not to produce innovations in philosophy but
just to teach with a different emphasis, their method of philosophizing was
decidedly original. The Prajnaparamita adopted a dialectic that was only implied
in the original discourses, that of seeking the middle between all extremes, and
utilized this dialectic to a much fuller extent. This rejection of extremes led
to the assertion that all dualities are empty of reality. Notions whose basis is
one half of a duality, such as existence and nonexistence or atman and anatman,
can be used to speak of common, everyday truths, but their applicability fails
when referring to ultimate truths. The ultimate reality is devoid of all
dualities and thus is wholly impervious to conceptual thinking. It can only be
accessed in non-dual intuition, prajna. FOOTNOTE: ibid., 86 There are thus two
levels of truth: the everyday, relative truth and the higher, absolute truth.
One should not be confused, the Prajnaparamita taught, by the Buddha's use of
words like "person" or verbs like "exist," for he used these words only
pragmatically, as a necessity for discussing commonly perceived things. He in no
way intended for such relative concepts to be reified or applied to the absolute
sphere. FOOTNOTE: Peter Della Santina, Madhyamaka Schools in India (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), 12-13
The Perfection of Wisdom writings set the tone for what would become the
majority of Buddhism, the Mahayana. Its anti- dogmatic rejection of extremes,
mystical mood, use of paradox, and emphasis on intuitive wisdom are still famous
in the form of Prajnaparamita that has come down to us today, Zen. FOOTNOTE: cf.
David J. Kalupahana, "Reflections on the Relation between Early Buddhism and
Zen," in Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis (Honolulu: The University of
Hawaii Press, 1976), 163-176, or Kalupahana 1992, 228-236 This collection of
works was also found quite compelling by Nagarjuna and the subsequent Madhyamika
school.

The Main Figures of Madhyamika

It was to the exposition of the philosophy of the Perfection of Wisdom
scriptures that Nagarjuna, "one of the subtlest metaphysicians the human race
has yet produced," FOOTNOTE: Zimmer, 510 devoted himself. Although it is almost
certain that Nagarjuna did not write or discover them, as legend claimed, he may
have been influential in the formation of some of them, and he certainly is to
be credited with systematizing them and offering the most coherent and
authoritative interpretations of them. FOOTNOTE: Richard H. Robinson, Early
Madhyamika in India and China (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1967), 61-65 Furthermore, many scholars, both ancient and modern, regard
Nagarjuna's Madhyamika as the proper systematization of the voluminous and often
unorganized Prajnaparamita writings. His philosophy, though, is not to be seen
as a mere commentary on these sutras. He offers slightly revised interpretations
of their key concepts, i.e. dependent arising, emptiness, and self-nature, and
he draws out more fully the implications of the two truths. His basic
philosophical method is to take the Buddha's exhortation to follow the "middle
way" and apply this "middle-ism" to all sets of dualities. Hence the appellation
for this school: "madhyama" simply means "middlemost." FOOTNOTE: Monier-
Williams, 782 The Madhyamika method does not deal with dualities by attempting
to arrive at a compromise between the two sides or by formulating a position
that lies between the two. Rather, it attempts to supersede the sphere of
conceptual thinking and its attendant dualistic modes.
As Nagarjuna's philosophy is the primary subject of this investigation, no more
than the briefest summary of his school will be presented here. Conceptual
thinking operates using dualities, especially that of subject versus object,
perceiver versus the external world. However, Nagarjuna taught, it is this very
process of intellection and our grasping onto its products, i.e. concepts, which
prevents us from realizing enlightenment. One must "appease" the tendency to
conceptualize, and it is this appeasement which will allow one to see through
the illusions of dualities and grasp the "true nature" of things, the tathata.
This true nature is formless and beyond conceptual distinctions. It is devoid of
self-nature, and so is described as being "empty," sunya. The fact of dependent
arising, i.e. the fact that all existing things come into and go out of being
only in dependence with other existing things and that no thing can exist "on
its own," as it were, also demonstrates the fundamental "emptiness" (sunyata) of
all things. If one wished to speak in absolute terms and seek the ultimate
ground of being of the universe, one could say no more than that the universe is
characterized by ultimate emptiness. This is not a pessimistic denial of
existence, though, but rather just a description of the way things are. One who
sees the true nature of things simply perceives that they are empty of self-
nature. This realization, far from being nihilistic, is actually the very means
by which liberation is achieved.
Nagarjuna is credited with a great number of writings. Even excluding those
which are possibly or definitely not his, we are still left with a large body of
work. Nagarjuna wrote theoretical scholastic treatises, collections of verses on
moral conduct, teachings on Madhyamika practice and the Buddhist path, and a
collection of hymns. FOOTNOTE: cf. Chr. Lindtner, Nagarjuniana: Studies in the
Writings and Philosophy of Nagarjuna (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), 10-8,
for a list of writings attributed to Nagarjuna and a discussion of their
relative authenticity. This range of works demonstrates that his concern was not
just scholastics and theory but also monastic discipline and, as attested by his
hymns, religious veneration. The range of his thought, its acuity, and his
genuine devotional attitude to the Buddha inspired a number of subsequent
commentaries and independent works. The Madhyamika tradition enjoyed a vibrant
history in its native India until at least the eighth century C.E. The
philosophy was around this time imported to Tibet, where the Tibetan king
declared it to be his country's authoritative form of Buddhism. FOOTNOTE: Kohn,
132 Despite encountering various historical vicissitudes, it remains the
foundation for Tibetan Buddhism even today. FOOTNOTE: Santina, 23. It must be
admitted that this latter point is uncertain. Herbert Guenther writes that
"Reports coming from Tibet are uncertain... With the annexation of Tibet by
China, a chapter in the history of Buddhism... came to a close. (Encyclopedia of
Religion, 1987 ed., s.v. "Buddhism: Tibetan Schools.") Notwithstanding the
uncertainty of the situation in Tibet, though, the exiled Buddhist community
outside of Tibet is definitely keeping the Madhyamika tradition alive. Cf. C.W.
Huntington, Jr., The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian
Madhyamika (Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1989), 9
aryadeva was the chief disciple and successor of Nagarjuna, and it is to him
that the Madhyamika system owes much of its popularity and stability. Nagarjuna
directed his dialectic primarily against the Abhidharma philosophy, but, by the
time of aryadeva, there was need to consolidate the Madhyamika system against
non-Buddhist systems as well. FOOTNOTE: Murti 1960, 92 Aryadeva can be credited,
along with Nagarjuna, with founding and systematizing the school of Madhyamika.
FOOTNOTE: ibid.
The school began to encounter internal controversy approximately three centuries
later. A monk named Buddhapalita produced a commentary on Nagarjuna's major
work, the Mulamadhyamakakarika (henceforth abbreviated as karika). In his
commentary, Buddhapalita refuted the positions of his opponents using the tactic
of "reductio ad absurdum," a logical method whereby a position is shown to
result in unresolvable absurdities. The true Madhyamika can have no position of
his or her own, Buddhapalita wrote, and thus has no need to construct syllogisms
and defend arguments. His or her sole endeavor is to demonstrate that no
philosophical position whatsoever is ultimately acceptable; upon scrutiny of a
theory and its consequences, the theory inevitably dissolves into nonsense. This
section of Madhyamika is known as the Prasangika, after prasanga, "[logical]
consequences."
Buddhapalita's near contemporary, Bhavaviveka, also wrote a commentary on
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, in which he disagreed with the Prasangika
refusal to adopt a philosophical position. He argued that one must advance a
theory that is independent, svatantra, to provide a proper counter-argument to
the opponent's position and thus establish the Madhyamika position. Buddhapalita
used logic only to demonstrate the untenability of an opposing theory, and then
abandoned the logic. In contrast, Bhavaviveka felt that the Madhyamika did have
a certain justification for using and defending logical argumentation. This
school became known as the Svatantrika, the "Independents." FOOTNOTE: The names
Prasangika and Svatantrika are not found in any Sanskrit texts, and were
probably coined by later Tibetan scholars. Cf. The Encyclopedia of Religion,
1987 ed., s.v. "Madhyamika," by Kajiyama Yuichi The main difference between the
two schools was that they disagreed on the proper way to interpret Nagarjuna's
karika. As such, it may seem that the dispute is trifling. This may be true---it
may be the case that the only real difference between the two is the character
of the arguments which they employed in order to convince their opponents of the
truth of the Madhyamika, a philosophy which they mutually shared. However, the
significance of their different approaches may go deeper than that. The issue
which divides the two schools may be the result of their very interpretations of
reality and the degree to which they accepted Nagarjuna's wholesale denial of
self-nature. FOOTNOTE: Santina, xvii-xviii
The last figure in the history of Madhyamika who will be discussed here is
Candrakirti, who lived in the first half of the seventh century. He was the
chief and most famous exponent of the Prasangika school. His commentary on
Nagarjuna's karika, the Prasannapada, is of the utmost importance to us today
because in this work is the only copy of the karika which has survived in the
original Sanskrit, and, moreover, the Prasannapada is the only commentary on the
karika which has itself survived in Sanskrit. This fortuity aside, his influence
on the Madhyamika school is second only to that of Nagarjuna. His contribution
to Madhyamika literature is immense and erudite. He reaffirmed the reductio ad
absurdum approach of Buddhapalita, and, largely through Candrakirti's efforts,
the Prasangika school became the norm of the Madhyamika. The form of Madhyamika
which he championed was still studied in the monastic schools of Tibet and
Mongolia as late as this century, where it was considered to represent the true
philosophical basis of Buddhism. FOOTNOTE: Theodore Stcherbatsky, The Conception
of Buddhist Nirvana (London: Mouton & Co, 1965), 67. (It is no longer studied in
the Tibetan monasteries, because they have been destroyed. Cf. Guenther.)


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Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarikas (part 4) by Jonah Winters

Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika

Structure of the Karika

A study of Nagarjuna's philosophy encounters many initial obstacles. Not only
can his thought itself seemingly be impenetrable, but also the mythical stature
he has acquired obscures much understanding of him. One modern scholar of
Nagarjuna has admitted that the veneration of Nagarjuna "at times reached such
ridiculous heights that his name was sanctified and stamped everywhere with
reckless abandon." FOOTNOTE: Kenneth Inada, quoted in Kalupahana 1986, 3 One
result of this is that often it cannot be determined precisely which works
attributed to him are authentically his.
Of the more than one hundred texts bearing Nagarjuna's name, only thirteen are
almost certainly his. FOOTNOTE: Lindtner, 9-11 There are two reasons that it is
difficult to determine which of these many works are his: One, his influence was
extensive and his name venerated. It was not uncommon in Indian tradition for an
adherent of a school to attribute a work to the school's original founder, as a
means of paying respect. This certainly happened within Madhyamika. Two, there
was likely more than one author actually named Nagarjuna, and there may have
even been many. FOOTNOTE: A. K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1980), 375 Of these thirteen works that were authentically written
by the Nagarjuna in question, one stands out as being his chief work: the
Mulamadhyamakakarika, "Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle [Way]."
FOOTNOTE: Nagao writes that the name of this work was likely given to it by the
Sino-Japanese tradition. This tradition found one verse of the treatise,
XXIV.18, to be paramount; this verse concluded with the term madhyama pratipat,
"Middle Path," and the treatise was named after it. (Nagao 1991, 190) This work
stands supreme primarily because of its inherent merit, both in terms of
philosophical acuity and innovativeness. It is also one of the few works that
are indubitably his. The treatise also deserves to be regarded as unique because
it was historically pivotal; it inspired a number of subsequent commentaries by
other acclaimed thinkers and galvanized Buddhism into developing a wholly new
school of thought based on this work, the Madhyamika, the "Middle Way" school.
Finally, the Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan traditions are all unanimous in
considering the karika as Nagarjuna's magnum opus. FOOTNOTE: Lindtner, 10
The karika consists of 450 sententious verses. FOOTNOTE: (448 verses plus 2 in
the dedication) These verses have been preserved in the form of twenty- seven
short chapters, each dealing with one topic. (For sake of clarity, it was
necessary to differentiate between Nagarjuna's chapters and the chapters of this
thesis. To solve this, Nagarjuna's chapters will henceforth be referred to as
"sections," and the word "chapter" shall be taken to refer to chapters of this
thesis.) The entire karika, minus commentary, would only run to thirty or forty
pages. The chapter (section) structure in which the text is preserved is
possibly a later formalization, most likely by Candrakirti. This is evidenced by
the fact that the section titles provided by Candrakirti are often misleading as
to the actual contents of the section, and also because copies of the karika
preserved in Chinese and Tibetan occasionally contain very different section
headings. FOOTNOTE: Sprung, xv
The verses are written in a precise metered form which was the staple of
classical Sanskrit composition. FOOTNOTE: Coulson, 250 Each verse consists of
two lines of exactly sixteen syllables each which, while not rhyming, are very
poetic and rhythmic when read aloud or chanted. Part of the reason for this
writing style was to facilitate memorization. Books were often preserved in
writing by this period in time, but the chief means of transmission was still
oral. However, this is not the only import of the karika's poetic structure.
Nagarjuna was not merely a reflective philosopher. He was a monk, and the
purpose of monasticism was to facilitate meditation and traveling the path to
enlightenment. This work, like his hymns, was surely intended to be an aid in
meditation. One could memorize the karika and meditate on it by contemplating
one verse at a time. The verses were not intended to be prosaic explanations of
a philosophical position, but rather were meant to illuminate, in a terse and
often aphoristic manner, certain precise aspects of the Buddha's teachings about
the nature of reality and the proper path. Although the meaning of the verses is
usually clear, there are many that defy interpretation. Like the famous Zen
koans, some verses seemingly make no attempt to explain a philosophical theory
but instead aim to provoke an immediate transcendence of conceptual limitations.

Methodology of this Examination of the Karika

There is no easy and obvious way to approach the karika. Most modern
interpreters have opted to approach it by analyzing in isolation the broader
topics with which it deals, such as anatman or dependent arising, and pulling
quotes and examples from all sections of this work and from other works to
explain each topic. Other scholars have chosen to select merely one subject of
Madhyamika to address, such as emptiness, or one methodological consideration,
such as the use of dialectic. Such approaches seem unsatisfactory for the
present examination of Madhyamika because only the karika and its themes are the
focus here, not the spectrum of Madhyamika as a whole. Attempts have also been
made to categorize the sections of the karika into larger groupings of several
chapters each and indicate the broad themes which Nagarjuna supposedly had in
mind with each section. FOOTNOTE: cf. Kalupahana 1986, 27-31 This approach, too,
can be misleading and has no definitive validity; ultimately it may reveal
little more than the interpretive bias of the interpreter. The most fruitful
approach in the present context will be first to present in summary form the
scope and thought of the karika itself and only afterwards to discuss its
broader philosophical meaning and possible intent.
There are two admitted drawbacks of this approach, i.e. examining the karika and
the karika alone. One, it will not be possible to present "the thought of
Nagarjuna" as a whole. Other of his works show different sides to his thought
and character and provide fruit for differing interpretations of his place in
the broad spectrum of Buddhist thought. For example, the karika makes almost no
mention of any of the themes which came to be emblematic of the "Greater School"
of Mahayana, FOOTNOTE: The only exception is one mention of the
Bodhisattva-career in XXIV.32. However, even this mention does not demonstrate
Nagarjuna to be an advocate of Mahayana. and so it could be objected that an
examination of the karika only would attribute too much "Older School"-ness to
him. A second drawback is that presentations of his concepts could often be made
clearer by recourse to other of his or his follower's works. It will be
responded that these two drawbacks are not debilitating, and may not even be
handicaps. An exposition of solely the karika can be defended because this work
is truly the cornerstone of the entire subsequent Madhyamika school in all of
its variety. The karika is the vitalizing influence of Madhyamika and all the
main themes of the school are to be found in it. As mentioned above, the
Buddhist tradition is unanimous in considering it to be the keystone of
Madhyamika and perhaps even the single most influential work in all of Buddhism
after the original sutras.
What would perhaps be most desirable would be to skip a section-by-section
analysis of the karika and jump straight to a discussion of its broader themes
and significances. An attempt to do this was the initial intent of this thesis.
What quickly became apparent, though, was how great the amount of background
knowledge necessary to make sense of this work and how little of this knowledge
could be presupposed on the part of the reader. Take, for example, this
wonderfully cryptic verse: "The arising of arising is exclusively the arising of
primary arising. Again, the primary arising produces the arising of arising."
FOOTNOTE: karika VII.4. (All quotations from the karika, unless otherwise noted,
are from the translation of David J. Kalupahana in Kalupahana, 1986.) Lest the
reader be kept in suspense, this verse is explained in context below, page 57.
The obscurity of such a statement is not the fault of the translation; the above
is perhaps the clearest translation of this verse available. It is not to be
assumed that the meaning of a verse like this automatically becomes pellucid if
one has a background in Buddhist philosophy, but it does illustrate the
difficulties one faces in attempting to comprehend and communicate Nagarjuna's
thought. It was thus deemed necessary to summarize the basic themes of each of
the twenty-seven sections, one by one, and briefly introduce the reader to the
concepts contained therein. Only after this has been done can broader
observations be made and the philosophical significances extracted. Certain
translations of Madhyamika thought have presented only selections from the
original works, sometimes calling them the essential selections. FOOTNOTE: e.g.
Sprung 1979 The implication of this pointed out by David Kalupahana, translator
of and commentator on the Mulamadhyamakakarika, is that the remaining sections
are inessential. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1986, 27 This thesis will not adopt that
approach. While the following exposition of the karika may appear lengthy, the
reader must be assured that prolixity has been scrupulously avoided and only the
few most essential themes of each section have been mentioned.
Nagarjuna was both a Buddhist monk and an apologist for Buddhism. It is the
Buddha's philosophy, and this philosophy only, that engaged his thought and
veneration, as evidenced by frequent references to "the Buddha(s)" and "the
fully enlightened one." One thought informs the whole karika: the Buddha taught
that there is no substantial essence underlying and supporting the manifest
world. FOOTNOTE: The reader's attention is called to the etymology of the word
"substantial:" the Latin roots are sub = "under" + stare = "to stand." A
"substance" is that which stands under something and provides the ground of
being for it. The abiding soul and/or an absolute God posited by some schools of
thought is, by definition, not dependent upon any element of the world for its
existence, and the Buddha's philosophy holds that anything that is not dependent
cannot be real. It would either transcend or precede existence, and thus could
not exist. Notwithstanding, the mass of humanity perceives and believes in the
real existence of the world, all the elements contained therein, and the
characteristics of and relations between these elements. Nagarjuna devotes the
majority of his sections to an analysis of these aspects of the putative world,
such as cause-and-effect, the senses, action, and time. Following this, he
examines the Buddha's teachings themselves, focusing on the nature of the
enlightened being, the Noble Path, enlightenment itself, and dependent arising.

A Presentation of the Treatise

Section one--Causation, and some Initial Problems

Nagarjuna devotes his first section, "Examination of Conditions (pratyayas)," to
the subject of causation. A discussion of causation had to precede his
examination of the elements of reality (dharmas), for it is a thing's origin
that determines its ontological status. Discussion of causal theories held a
paramount place in Indian philosophy, because it was felt that a system's theory
of causality reveals the method of the entire system. FOOTNOTE: Murti 1960, 166
The Buddha's explanation of the causal process is dependent arising: "if this
arises, that arises. If this ceases, that ceases." It is unlike any of the
non-Buddhist theories of causation which fall in one of four categories: self-
causation, other-causation, a combination of the two, or no causation. The
first, self- causation, is exemplified by the Vedic tradition of asserting the
reality of the immutable Universal Soul, atman. Briefly, this declares all
effects to be inherent in their cause, which cause is in every case some form of
the eternal atman. FOOTNOTE: cf. David J. Kalupahana, Causality: The Central
Philosophy of Buddhism (Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1975), 6-15 A
problem with self- causation is that the effect must be inherent in the cause.
If so, then nothing new has occurred or come to be. Other- or external-
causation declares all change to be produced by some form of a deus ex machina,
such as God, fate, or a deterministic self- nature. FOOTNOTE: ibid., 5 A problem
with other-causation is that if cause and effect are different then the relation
is lost, and, for example, fire could be produced from water. A third type of
causal theory advocated by some schools is basically a combination of the self-
and other-causation. The problem with this is that both of the above two
problems are compounded. The final option is that neither self- nor
other-causation operates, which position is in effect an indeterminism that
denies all causation. If anything were to emerge ever, anywhere, then everything
could emerge at all times, everywhere.
The philosophy of Nagarjuna almost defies interpretation. By the second verse of
the first section, one is already hard-pressed to explain exactly what Nagarjuna
is saying. Following an introductory dedication to the Buddha, FOOTNOTE:
discussed below, pages 115-118 he opens the karika with, in the first verse,
what would appear to be an unqualified rejection of all the possible theories of
causation. "No existents whatsoever are evident anywhere that are arisen from
themselves, from another, from both, or from a non-cause," he declares.
FOOTNOTE: karika I.1 This can be, and has been, interpreted to be a pure denial
of causation. In the next verse, though, he lists the four conditions
(pratyayas) that function causally: "There are only four conditions (pratyayas),
namely, primary condition, objectively supporting condition, immediately
contiguous condition, and dominant condition." FOOTNOTE: karika, I.2 The word he
uses here for "condition," pratyaya, was often found in the early Buddhist texts
as a synonym of "cause." FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1975, 54 A condition, in this
context, is a foundation on the basis of which a thing can come to be: "[There]
are conditions (pratyayas), because, depending on them, [things] arise," defines
Nagarjuna. FOOTNOTE: karika I.7 A condition (pratyaya) seems to be a cause which
is necessary but not sufficient. It is that which cooperates in causing a thing
to arise, but is not the sole cause of its arising. The difficulty of
interpreting Nagarjuna's statements lies in the fact that, even if a condition
is only a part of the cause, it is still a cause. He has thus, in the first two
verses, denied the tenability of the four non-Buddhist theories of causation,
only to follow it with an assertion that conditioned causal relations do exist.
FOOTNOTE: A comprehensive discussion of the four conditions (pratyayas)
Nagarjuna mentions in verse two is beyond the scope of this examination.
There are a few very different ways to interpret Nagarjuna's stance on
causation. Of the hundreds of commentaries on and studies of Nagarjuna's
philosophy since his death, the main hermeneutical approaches boil down to only
a very few, and these few come into play even at this early point in the karika.
A brief summary of the various hermeneutical approaches is necessary here, at
the outset, partly because they offer differing ways to reconcile verse one
(denial of causality) and verse two (affirmation of causality), but also because
they will be seen to surface again and again in various guises throughout this
presentation of the karika. One way to interpret the disparity between the two
verses is that Nagarjuna is being selective about what type of causation he
admits. A "cause" in the sense of an active and determinate force that effects
change is rejected. What is admitted is only that, if certain conditions
(pratyayas) are present, a thing can arise dependent on them. A second possible
interpretation is that Nagarjuna in verse one is only denying that a
causally-arisen existent is evident; the causal process could perhaps be claimed
to be either hidden or transcendent, and thus not accessible to human
perception. A third interpretation also rests on the word "evident:" Nagarjuna
could be claiming that, while causal relations are perceived by an unenlightened
person, they are seen as illusory and unreal by the one who has realized
nirvana. Fourth, the crux of the argument could be the concept of real
existence. Verse one declares that no existents are evident that have come to be
through the workings of causation. Perhaps things do arise from causes, but
these things do not really exist. Whereas the previous interpretation holds that
the causal processes are illusory, this position would state that it is the
ontic status of the elements themselves that is under attack. A final exegesis
is that mentioned earlier: Nagarjuna can perhaps be seen as rejecting causation
in all its forms and manifestations. FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana solves this apparent
contradiction between the first two verses simply by stating that Nagarjuna was
denying causation but was neither denying nor confirming conditionality. This
interpretation is questionable and, even if it is valid, the problem is not
wholly resolved.
It may seem hasty to present so many interpretations so soon. However, as
mentioned, an immediate discussion of them is warranted, for, while here the
various positions relate only to Nagarjuna's treatment of causation, they can
and have been applied to almost all of the topics he examines. The five
interpretations as they relate to this context and their broader implications
can be summarized as follows: 1) Nagarjuna accepts causation, but selectively.
He isolates exactly which theory of causation he supports, clarifies this
theory, and rejects the rest. 2) Nagarjuna rejects the human ability to
understand the process, in this case the workings of cause-and-effect. The
mysterious mechanics of the universe are either too transcendent or too esoteric
for human investigation to access. 3) The whole process as well as its products
are illusory. The individual mired in the sphere of relativities may believe
that the world has certain qualities, but these specious beliefs evaporate when
one attains enlightenment and sees the true nature of things. 4) The issue
arises due to a mistaken understanding of existence. There are conditions
(pratyayas) dependent upon which things come to be, and one can speak of cause
and effect relative to these things, but they do not enjoy the status of having
substantial existence. Having no measure of independence, they cannot be said to
be real. 5) Nagarjuna is rejecting everything for the sake of nonsense. He
denies causation only to follow it with an assertion of causation. The point of
this is to force his readers to abandon concepts altogether and achieve an
unmediated awareness of the absolute, and nonconceptual, nature of the world.
These five opinions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It will be seen that
most or all are accurate in certain situations and that there may not be any one
single exegesis that will be accurate in all situations.
The following summary of the karika will first present Nagarjuna's basic
arguments on each topic and reserve commentary until all elements have been
examined. The above five interpretations can be kept in mind to help understand
his themes and what to make of them. It is hoped that this will not prove too
confusing at times; the reader is to be reassured that generalized elucidation
is forthcoming.
The majority of this first section seems to be an examination of what type of
relation holds between the effect and the conditions pratyayas) which gave rise
to it. The self-nature of the effect is not evident in the conditions
(pratyayas), he says in verse three, so the relation between cause and effect is
not one of identity. The effect is not inherent and preexisting in the cause. If
it were, then the self-nature of the effect would have to exist before the
effect itself came into manifestation. Yet this implies eternalism and leads to
a philosophical impasse like that the atman school faced when forced to explain
how change could occur if self- nature is eternal and immutable. Neither,
however, is the effect a new creation that is wholly different from the cause.
If the effect were not preexistent in the condition, then effects would not
depend on causes. This would allow for utter randomness---anything could arise
at any time. FOOTNOTE: karika I.12 It is thus not appropriate to see the effect
as arising either from conditions (pratyayas), which implies eternalism, or from
non-conditions (pratyayas), which implies anarchy.
Nagarjuna also demonstrates that one cannot view either conditions (pratyayas)
or the effects arising from them as existent. The two options are that an effect
either existed or did not exist at the time it was brought into being, but
neither position withstands scrutiny. The reason is that neither of the two
elements of the equation, the "effect" and its "cause," can exist independently.
They come into being only in dialectical relation to each other, and neither can
be isolated and examined separate from its dialectical component. If the effect
is said already to exist at the time of its rising, then what is the use of
saying it had a cause? If it already existed, then the concept of a cause
becomes superfluous. However, neither can one say that the effect did not yet
exist at the time of its arising. If so, then what would be the function of a
cause? "Of what use is a [cause] of the existing [effect]?" asks Nagarjuna.
FOOTNOTE: karika I.6. (pratyaya translated by me as "cause." cf. Monier-Williams
673) Neither can one attempt to resolve the dilemma by positing some agency that
is either a combination of existence and nonexistence or is a rejection of both.
There is thus no way to attribute any form of existence to an effect and still
speak of its cause. "Since a thing that is existent or non-existent or both
existent and non-existent is not produced, how pertinent in that context would a
producing cause be?" Nagarjuna summarizes. FOOTNOTE: karika I.7 Nagarjuna's
clear presentation of the implications of cause-and-effect demonstrates that the
entire problem stems from an over-analysis of the categories. There is only a
problem if one attempts to separate cause and effect and speak of each in
isolation. While the argument is clear and seemingly incontrovertible as he
presents it, the consequences of his conclusion are far- reaching. If cause and
effect arise only in mutual dependence, as the Buddha taught, then all talk of
real existence must be abandoned, a radical conclusion indeed. FOOTNOTE: It may
seem that an inherent contradiction in Nagarjuna's philosophy is exposed by his
language: in the very act of denying the reality of either existence or
non-existence the verb "to be" is used. For example, verse XXV.10 reads "nirvana
is neither existence nor non- existence" (italics mine). This problem stems from
translation only. Unlike English, Sanskrit does not rely on the verb "to be" to
express relations. In this example, the original is "na bhavo nabhavo nirvanam,"
which literally reads "Neither existence nor non- existence nirvana."
(Curiously, though Sprung pointed out this problem, he neglected to answer it.
Cf. Sprung 12)

Section two--The Relationship between Nominal and Verbal Subjects

Section one does not exhaust Nagarjuna's explanations of causality, for he
discusses it throughout the entire work and examines it in greater depth
especially in sections four and twenty. His intent in opening the karika with a
brief examination of causality probably was to preclude any initial
misunderstandings and to refute the theories of causality which were both the
dominant theories in the non-Buddhist world and which also had become prevalent
within Buddhist philosophy. His next subject, "Examination of the Moved and the
Not-Moved," is an investigation of the process, rather than the elements, of
dependent arising. The Buddha's doctrine of dependent arising shifted the
ontological emphasis from one of static "being" to one of dynamic "becoming." It
is the use of verbs rather than nouns that can express reality and its intrinsic
fluctuant nature. Nagarjuna discusses the notions of change by examining one
concrete example: motion and rest. He breaks down the verb into its three
components of the verb in the abstract, its subject, and its sphere of activity,
in this case motion, the mover, and the space within which motion occurs.
The concept of "movement" is dissected and scrutinized to demonstrate that the
three categories of the verb, its subject, and its sphere are all untenable.
There is indisputably a perception of action, but this perception cannot be
explained in a way that withstands logical inspection. First, a span of time is
necessary for activity to take place. Activity, of any kind, requires a process
of changing physical position or changing attributes. This change requires a
temporal extension, for an instantaneous change would be tantamount to the
complete disappearance of one thing and the appearance in its place of a wholly
new thing. Nagarjuna first points out that to speak of motion in the present
requires isolating the present moment. Movementin the past or in the future
obviously does not constitute present moving; neither the "has moved" nor the
"will move" is presently moving. When, though, did the motion of the
presently-moving object commence? Prior to its commencement it was the "will
move," but a "will move" is not moving. "How could there be a movement in the
not [yet] moved?" he asks. FOOTNOTE: karika II.13 Likewise, movement is not
initiated in the "has moved," for the "has moved," by definition, is not
partaking of present movement. Further, movement does not commence in the
"presently moving," for this is already moving---an action cannot begin anew in
a place where it is already present. The exact commencement of motion can never
be perceived, for, no matter how infinitesimally small the atomistic division of
time, there will always be one point at which the object is not yet moving.
"When the commencement of movement is not being perceived in any way, what is it
that is discriminated as the moved, the present moving, or the not [yet] moved?"
FOOTNOTE: karika II.14 Thus movement can only be perceived in the present
moment, and the activity's necessary time span is lost. With the loss of
temporal extension, the verbal activity becomes unfathomable, and hence unreal.
Even assuming that one could still speak of motion even when confined to a
single present moment only, one now has the problem of what moves. By
definition, only a mover can partake of movement. Likewise, separated from a
mover, there can be no such thing as movement in the abstract. The relation
between these two, the moverand the fact of its movement, is logically
meaningless. To say that a mover moves is redundant and superfluous. To say that
a non-mover moves is to state a contradiction. But these are the only two
options, for, "other than a mover and a non-mover, what third party moves?"
FOOTNOTE: karika II.8 It may sound reasonable to say that it is a mover who
partakes of movement. But it is not appropriate to speak of a mover without
movement for, if it does not move, then by what is it a mover? Either option
creates a disjunction between the subject and its actionthat is unacceptable.
The subject of motion is only half the story. One must further examine the lack
of motion, or rest. The problems encountered by the issue of rest are identical
as those faced by motion: a mover is not stationary, for this is a
contradiction, a non-mover is not stationary, for this is a needless tautology,
and there is no third party that is stationary. Further, a movercannot come to
rest, for it would then cease to be a mover. If a mover were to become a
"rester," then its identity would change and it would no longer be the same
subject; there would be the dissolution of the moving object and the instant
creation of the stationary object.
The obvious objection to the above arguments is to say that they assume an
untenable identity of a mover and its movement. This identity should be replaced
with a concept of difference, the opposition could declare: the mover is not the
same as its movement, but merely possesses movement. If this were so, though,
then movement would exist in the abstract and be independent of the mover. There
would be motion but nothing moving. Another problem of isolating the subject
from its movement is that this subject is not perceived in any way. This subject
devoid of attributes, what Western philosophy calls the "bare particular," would
be a metaphysical creation produced purely by the imagination, for it could
never be experienced. Nagarjuna closes this section with the summary statement
that neither motion, nor the mover, nor the space moved in is evident. FOOTNOTE:
karika II.25 He has up to this point not offered an explicit discussion of the
spatial dimension, but he states that the reality of space is to be negated in
the same way that motionand rest were.
The reader is at this point likely to be left with the thought that Nagarjuna
was a rampaging nihilist. All concepts are being summarily denied for some
obscure and perverse purpose. Admittedly, this is a conclusion that has
occasionally been drawn by admirers and detractors alike, both ancient and
modern. However, while it is not yet clear what Nagarjuna's intent is, it is
likely not one so simple. He appears to be negating, not the reality of subject
and object and their attributes, but rather just some way of thinking about
them. Regarding the topic of this section, he wrote "The view that movement is
identical with the mover is not proper. The view that the mover is different
from motionis also not proper." FOOTNOTE: karika II.18 It remains to be seen,
though, what view is proper.

Sections three through six--Factors of Personal Existence: Elements and Passions

Nagarjuna moves from these foundational examinations to an analysis of each of
the specific categories delineated by the Abhidharma: the spheres of sense
(ayatanas), the factors comprising the individual (skandhas), and the physical
elements dharmas). He begins with an examination of the sense faculty of the
eye, its function, and its object. He uses seeing as a paradigm for all of the
senses, because an examination of one sense faculty is sufficient to explain the
function of all of the senses. FOOTNOTE: More than this, the faculty of vision
was paramount in Indian philosophy. Truths were seen as being self- evident, so
much so that the term for a system of thought was darsana, "sight." The Buddha
also emphasized the unique significance of sight by telling his followers, not
to "believe" him, but to "come and see [for yourself]." Cf. Rahula, 8-9
The theory of perception explained in section three of the karika, ``Examination
of the Faculty of the Eye,'' is nothing more than a restatement of the Buddha's
teaching of dependent arising. On the one side are the six sense faculties, and
on the other are their six objective spheres. When these two come together,
sensory perception arises. (The mind is considered the sixth organ of sense. It
is not to be confused with consciousness, which infuses all six faculties, not
just the mental.) There was little controversy about the senses themselves,
FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1992, 164 so what likely inspired this section was a debate
regarding the specific functioning of the faculties. Hindu philosophy posited
two distinct elements necessary for seeing: the seeing of the object, and the
abstract noun "seeing." FOOTNOTE: ibid., 164 This is analogous to the
above-mentioned debate over motion, in which there was a tendency to isolate and
make abstract the process of "movement" as separate from the actual instance of
moving. There was also a disagreement regarding the functioning of the senses
within Buddhism. The older Theravada tradition held that the sensory objects
exist outside of and independent of the act of perception. This may not
necessarily violate dependent arising, for the sensory object consists only of
infinitesimal and momentary atoms and the functioning of the faculty of
perception is required to impose order on the atoms and create a perception.
FOOTNOTE: Hiriyanna, 204 While this theory may not be wrong per se, Nagarjuna
was still uncomfortable with the substantialism it implied. To clarify exactly
what dependent arising says about the function of perception, he used an
illustration: perceptions depend on their physical objective sphere "just as the
birth of a son is said to be dependent upon the mother and the father."
FOOTNOTE: karika III.7 That is, perception is wholly dependent upon the object
perceived for its functioning. Perception as an independent process or entity
cannot exist in the abstract, separate from the object perceived.
The other aspect of perception that he felt compelled to examine, after
perception and the perceived, was the subject perceiver. Again, the immediately
obvious alternative to the Buddha's teaching was the Hindu. The Upanisads
asserted an unchanging and eternal agent perceiver, and declared that this
eternal soul is the ultimate object of all perceptions. The truest and most
primal perception is that of the atman, the soul, being aware of itself. This
concept is surely what Nagarjuna had in mind in the second verse of this section
when he says that "seeing does not perceive itself, its own form." There must be
two separate elements for seeing to arise: the seer and the seen. Yet on the
other hand, seeing must in some way perceive itself, for "how can that which
does not see itself see others?" FOOTNOTE: karika III.2 A further confusion lies
in the seer's relation to his or her seeing. Like the mover and movement, "a
seer does not exist either separated or not separated from seeing." FOOTNOTE:
karika III.6 If the seer exists separate from the action of seeing, then there
will be some point at which the seer is not presently seeing, and thus is not
yet a "seer." If they are not separated, then there is no one engaging in the
activity of seeing, but rather one whose nature it is always to see. This theory
can perhaps be asserted metaphysically, but it is never experienced in fact. The
way to disentangle the paradox is by not positing either a strict bifurcation
between seer and seen, which would preclude their possibility of interacting, or
an identity between the two, which would obviate perception as a faculty. The
proper description of the relation between t