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Chinese Ressentiment and Why New Confucians Stopped Caring about Yogäcära

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Chinese Ressentiment and Why New Confucians Stopped Caring about Yogäcära

JASON CLOWER


Acknowledgments


242 ON BEHALF OF the contributors, I wish to thank the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (arranged through the good offices of Axel Schneider), and the Australian Research Council for providing grants that made it posSible to carry out the research and conduct the workshops that underpin this volume.


Contributors


Eyal Aviv—teaches in the Department of Religion and the Honors Program at the George Washington University. His research interests are Buddhist philosophy and Chinese intellectual history, His PhD dissertation (Harvard University, 2008) was on Ouyang Jingwu (1871—1943) and the revival of scholastic Buddhism. Recent publications include "Turning a Deaf Ear to Dharma? The Theory of*Šrutaväsanä and the Debate about the Nature of the Hearing and Mind in 20th Century China" (in Chinese; 2009); and "Ambitions and Negotiations: The Growing Role of Laity in 20th Century Chinese Buddhism" (2011), His current research focuses on Yogäcära philosophy in early twentieth-century China through the intellectual biography of Ouyang Jingwu.

Jason Clower—is a buddhologist whose work to date has focused on Mou Zongsan and the life of Buddhist philosophy in the New Confucian movement more generally. Recent publications include The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiantai Buddhism in Mou Zongsan's New Confucianism (2010). His next project is a new English translation of the Awakening ofFaith. He teaches at California State University, Chico.

Erik J. Hammerstrom—teaches at Pacific Lutheran University in his native Cascadia, He received a PhD in Religious Studies with departmental honors from Indiana University, Bloomington. In 2011 he was awarded Yale University's biennial Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize for Best Dissertation on East Asian Buddhism in North America for his dissertation, "Buddhists Discuss Science in Modern China (1895—1949)." He has published articles in Theology and Science, the Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal, ana the Journal of Chinese Religion. As an extension of his work on Chinese Buddhism, together with Gregory Scott he established the Database ofModern Chinese Buddhism.

John Jorgensen—is adjunct associate professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, and his doctoral dissertation (Australian

xii Contributors Contributors xiii

National University, 1990) was on Chan and poetics. Chief publicationS includé of Adelaide, National Taiwan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and

Inventing Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch: Hagiography and Biography in Early Ch'an ANU. He has recently completed an annotated translation ofXiong Shili's New (2005); three volumes of translation in the Collected Works of Korean Buddhism Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness. He is editor of the monograph series, [vol. 3, Hyujeong; Selected Works; vol. 7-2, Gongan Collections Il; vol. 8, Sean Dia- Modern Chinese Philosophy. logues] (2012); and a translation with Eun-su Cho, The Essential Passages Directly

Pointing at the Essence of the Mind: Reverend Baegm (1299—1375) (2005). He has Thierry Meynard S.J.—is Professor of Philosophy at Sun Yat•Sen University, published many articles on East Asian Buddhism and Korean new religions.. Guangzhou. Since August 2012, he has also been director of The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies, a study program established in 1998. In 2003, he obtained Chen-Kuo Lin—is Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, National his PhD in philosophy from Peking University, presenting a dissertation on Liang Chengchi University, Taiwan and holds a PhD (1991) in Buddhist philosophy Shuming.

From 2003 to 2006, he taught philosophy at Fordham University, New from Temple University. His research interests include Buddhist philosophy York. He has authored The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming.• The Hidden (Madhyamaka, Yogacãra), Chinese philosophy (Neo-Confucianism, Taoism), and Buddhist (2011) and Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687): The First Translation of comparative philosophy. In addition to.many book chapters and journal papers, the Confucian Classics (2011). he has also published three books (in Chinese): Emptiness and Modernity: From the Kyoto School, Modern Neo-Confùcianism to Multivocal Hermeneutics (1999); Viren Murthy—teaches Transnational Asian History at the University of A Passage of Dialectics (2002); and Emptiness and Method: Explorations in Cross. Wisconsin-Madison and specializes in modern Chinese and Japanese intellec-

Cultural Buddhist Philosophy (2012). He has held several visiting positions: In- tual history. His book, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance ternational Institute of Asian Studies and Leiden University (European Chair of of Consciousness, was published in 2012. He is currently working on a project on Chinese Studies, 1999—2001), Chinese University of Hong Kong (Philosophy, pan-Asian thought in Japan, China, and India. 2005), and Harvard University (Pusey Fellow, 2012). He is a past president of the

Taiwan Philosophical Association (2008—2009) and received a Distinguished Scott Pacey—completed his doctorate at the Australian National University in Research Award from the National Science Council in 2011. Currently he also 2011. His dissertation was on the Chinese monastic Taixu (1890—1947) and the serves as the Convener of Philosophy (Religious Studies) Section, National Sci- major Chinese and Taiwanese monastics that he influenced. After graduating,

ence Council, Taiwan. he was a Golda Meir Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is presently Lecturer in Buddhist Dan Lusthaus—a leading scholar of Yogäcära Buddhism, has published exten. Thought and Practice at the University of Manchester. His current research fosively on Indian, Chinese, and Japanese philosophy. His publications include cuses on debates between Buddhists and Christians in the 1950s and 1960s in

Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacära Buddhism Taiwan, and contemporary Buddhism in the PRC. and the Ch'eng wei-shih lun (2002); A Comprehensive Commentary on the Heart Sutra (Prajñäpäramita-hrdaya-sütra) by K'uei•chi (translated in collaboration with John Powers—is Professor of Asian Studies in the College of Asia and the PaHeng-Ching Shih; 2001); and numerous articles on Buddhist, Hindu, and Daoist cific, The Australian National University. He specializes in Buddhist philosothought. He has taught at UCLA, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, and phy and Tibetan history and has published twelve books and more than sixty Boston University, and has been a Research Associate at Harvard University articles on a wide range of subjects. Among these are five books and several since

2005. articles on Yogacära topics, including a translation of the Smpdhinirmocanasatra (Wisdom of Buddha; 1995) and a study of Yogäcära hermeneutics (Herme- John Makeham—is Professor of Chinese Studies in the College of Asia and the neutics and Tradition in the Samdhinirmocana-sütra; 1993). He is also co-chair of Pacific, The Australian National University (ANU), and a Fellow of the Australian the Yogäcära Section of the American Academy of Religion. Academy of the Humanities. His research interests are in Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, with a special interest in Confucian thought and the influence of Sinitic Buddhist philosophy on Confucian philosophy. Educated at ANU, has held academic positions at Victoria University ofWellington, University


Introduction


John Makeham


HISTORICALLY, CHINESE THOUGHT has been most profoundly influenced by two external intellectual traditions: disciplinary-based Western thought and Indian Buddhist thought. Western thought began to be introduced into China by Jesuit missionaries in the late-sixteenth century; disciplinary-based Western thought began to be introduced from Japan in the late-nineteenth century. In contrast, Indian Buddhist thought was first introduced into China two thousand years ago. Precisely because Buddhist thought was an integral part of the Chinese cultural landscape for so long, it shaped styles of reasoning, constructs of the world,

and ways of comporting oneself in society. This legacy has profoundly influenced how Chinese people view themselves collectively and individually, and also how they deal with other people. Buddhism also shaped the development of indigenous Chinese traditions of religion, philosophy, art, and literature. The Western roots of many aspects of modern Chinese thought have been well documented. Far less well understood, and still largely overlooked, is the influence and significance of the main exemplar of Indian thought in modern China: Yogäcära Buddhist philosophy. This situation is all the more anomalous given that the revival ofYogäcära thought among leading Chinese intellectuals in the first three decades of the twentieth century played a decisive role in shaping how they

engaged with major currents in modern Chinese thought: empirical science; "mind science," or psychology; evolutionary theory; Hegelian and Kantian philosophy; logic; and Confucian thought in a modernizing China. The influence and legacy of Indian thought have been ignored in conventional accounts of Chinaß modern intellectual history. This history urgently requires rewriting so that the role played by a major non-Western system ofthought in the formation of Chinese responses to modernity is duly acknowledged and its historical and contemporary implications are no longer ignored. This volume seeks to redress this imbalance and in doing so change the way we understand China's modern intellectual history.


Within the context of a broader renewal of interest in traditional philosophi- organized, systematized thought and concepts, but also a superior means to cal writings (including selected indigenous Chinese Mahãyäna texts) in the late- establish epistemological verification based on its accounts of the processes of Qing period (1644—1911), the corpus of Yogäcära writings attracted unparalleled cognition and the nature of reality.


attention. China's Yogäcära revival—specifically the Weishi (Nothing but Consciousness) School—from the late 1890s to the 1930s was spearheaded by Aims of this volume two generations of prominent intellectuals: monastics, lay believers, and secular figures alike. Why was Yogäcära so attractive to Chinese intellectuals of that A number of informative studies have been undertaken on aspects of Yogäcära period? thought in the writings of individual figures from the early decades of the

Yogäcära (Yuqie xingpai £ûffllfrift•, yogic practice) is one of the two most twentieth century. The sheer complexity of historical, linguistic, hermeneuinfluential philosophical systems of Indian Mahäyäna Buddhism, along with tic, and doctrinal issues, however, has meant that to date, no study has been Madhyamaka. Other names for the Yogãcära School include the Way of Con- undertaken to demonstrate (1) the nature and significance of the revival of sciousness (Vijñänaväda), and Nothing but Consciousness (Vijñapti-mätra). Yogäcära thought as a response to the challenges of modernity in the first four Historically,

both Weishi (Nothing but Consciousness) and Faxiang decades of the twentieth century and (2) its broader impact on the development (dharma-lak§mya•, dharma! characteristics) were synonymous with the Yogacära of modern Chinese philosophical thought. By coordinating and drawing on the School in China. After the Tang Dynasty, the term was used to denote the combined resources of a unique body of expertise in a highly innovative colfamous pilgrim and monk Xuanzang's (602—664) Yogäcära School, but it laborative undertaking, we believe this volume has made it possible to address soon became a mildly derogatory expression used by its opponents, who mocked these two important areas of study. The project from which this volume has the Yogäcäras for pursuing the "characteristics of dharmas" rather than the real drawn its findings involved the collaboration of a network of specialists around nature of dharmas (faxing Despite this, the

Yogäcaras later adopted the the globe—Australia, China, Canada, Germany, Israel, Taiwan, and the United term, and in Japan it continues to be the official name of this school (Hossö in States—to pool the strengths of scholars of Buddhism (covering Indian, TiJapanese). betan, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese traditions of Buddhism) and scholars As the name implies, Yogãcära focuses on meditative practice, as well as of Chinese intellectual history. Over a three-year period (2009—2011), proj. epistemology and logic. Competing traditions of Yogäcära thought were first ect members met regularly to present and discuss chapter drafts at focused, introduced into China during the sixth century, with the Weishi School rising themed workshops.


to preeminence in the seventh century. By the Yuan Dynasty (1271—1368), This volume sets out to achieve three goals. The first is to explain why this however, key commentaries of this school had ceased being transmitted in Indian philosophical system proved to be so attractive to influential Chinese in. China, and it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that a number of tellectuals at the very moment in Chinese history (1890—1930) when traditional them were re-introduced into China from Japan, where their transmission had knowledge systems and schemes ofknowledge compartmentalization were being been uninterrupted.

Crucial to the late-Qing revival of interest in Yogäcära confronted by radically new knowledge systems introduced from the West. The thought was the friendship between the Japanese lay Buddhist scholar Nanjö next goal is to demonstrate how the revival of Yogäcära thought informed Chi, Bun'yü (1894—1927) and the Chinese lay Buddhist scholar Yang nese responses to the challenges of modernity, in particular modern science and Wenhui (1837—1911). Between 1891 and 1896, Nanjö sent a total of logic. The third goal is to highlight how Yogäcãra thought shaped a major cur235 Buddhist texts to Yang, including thirty Yogäcära works that had long rent in modern Chinese philosophy: New Confucianism. A further aim, related

ceased being transmitted in China. Z Within a few short years, Yogäcära was to this last one, is to show why an adequate understanding of New Confucian being touted as a rival to the New Learning from the West, boasting not only philosophy must include a proper grasp of Yogäcära thought because only then can we understand why New Confucianism's most influential theorists all sided with Sinitic Buddhism—that is, traditions such as Huayan, Tiantai, and Chan,

which first developed in China—in constructing their philosophical systems.


1. Physical and mental phenomena.

Their implicit or explicit affirmations of the inherent enlightenment (benjue

2. Chen Jidong "Shinmatsu ni okeru Yuishiki Hösö tenseki no kankö ni tsuite doctrine associated with Sinitic traditions of Buddhism highlight a feature -c" (On the Publication ofYogäcära Texts at the End ofthe Qing Dynasty), Indogaku Bukkyügaku kenkya 44, no. 2 (1996): 811. of New Confucian philosophy that is generally muted or absent in contemporary


accounts that emphasize the movement's connections with Confucian traditions that at this point Yogäcära was treated not only as a doctrinal entity, but was also of the Song and Ming periods.) being used as a core part of monastic practice.


Before turning to introduce in some detail several themes that run across The Bodhisattvabhümi, however, does not discuss some of what came to be multiple chapters in this volume, the following section will provide an overview considered the signature doctrines of Yogäcära, such as the eighth consciousof Yogäcãra in China before its revival in the early decades of the twentieth cen- ness (alayavijñãna; alaiye shi the three natures (t risvabhãva; san Xing tury, focusing on the most salient landmarks and facts in that history.4 (John and "nothing but consciousness" (vijñapti•matra; weishi lifËâ). The text Powers' opening chapter to this volume in part 1 introduces the Indian origins credited with introducing those ideas is the Samdhinirmocana-sütra (fie shenmi of Yogäcäta.5) jing Discourse Explaining the Thought) (all but its introduction and chapter colophons are included in full in later sections of the Yogacärabhami).


1. Yogãcãra in China: Pre-twentieth century overview This Another text also sutra appears that in appeared China in early the first in half China of the containing fifth century.Yogäcära ideas,


1.1 Fifth to eighth centuries in China though mixed with tathagatagarbha (matrix ofbuddhas; rulaizang ýL13kÜ) 10 ideas Yogäcära ostensibly begins with the fourth-century Indian thinkers Asañga (for which see the chapters by John Powers and Eyal Aviv in this volume), is (Wuzhao and Vasubandhu (Shiqin their ideas began to appear in the Lañkãvatãra-sntra (Lengqiejing EÐIIZ •, Sutra on [the Buddha's] Entering [the China almost immediately. The precise details of the earliest introductions of Country of] Lanka), first translated into Chinese by *Dharmalçema between 412 Yogäcära materials to China are unclear, but among the first were two texts trans- and 433. So we see that *Dharmaksema was perhaps the first recognized importer lated by *Dharmaksema (Tan Wuchen 385—433) near the beginning of the fifth century: *Bodhisattvabhümi-sütra (Pusa di chi jing Stages of the Bodhisattva and *Bodhisattva Pratimok§a (Pusa jie ben


On Conferring Bodhisattva Vinaya). This second text contains excerpts from the 8. The term ãlayavijñäna is translated as "base consciousness" in this volume. In the Chia Yogãcãrabhümi-šãstra (Yuqie shidi lun Discourse on the Stages of nese tradition it is also rendered as "store consciousness" (zangshi As John Powers Concentration Practice; alt. Treatise on Grounds for Disciplined Practice),7 which explains in his chapter in this volume, the base consciousness

was intended as a ritual text for practicing Mahäyäna clerics, thus suggesting provides a mechanism for rebirth because it is the primary factor that moves from one life to the next and retains the seeds of volitional actions, carrying them toward the future, It also explains continuity of personality and memory within a particular life and the resumption of attitudes and past impressions after periods of meditative trance in which the continuum of consciousness is


"Neo-Confucian." suspended.

3. In English, the term "New Confucian" is to be distinguished from

New Confucianism is a modern neoconservative ph ilosophical movement, with religious By retaining the impressions of past experiences, the base consciousness "perfumes" new overtones. Proponents claim it to be the legitimate transmitter and representative ofortho- experiences on the basis of that previous conditioning, These habituated tendencies "condox ru fif (" Confucian") values. The movement is promoted and/or researched by promi- dition the seeds that constitute the mental stream, similar to the way in which perfume nent Chinese intellectuals basèd in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States.. pervades a cloth. The general disposition of any given mental continuum is a reflection and function of these accumulated tendencies." 4. This section is based substantially on notes generously provided by Dan Lusthaus, John

Jorgensen, and John Powers. I arn also grateful to Michael Radich for constructive critical 9. The first nature is the nature of existence produced from attachment to imaginafeedback on this section. tively constructed discrimination (bian ji suozhi Xing parikatpita- svabhãva). conven. The second nature is the nature of existence arising from causes and conditions (yi ia 5, When referring to the chapters of individual contributors to this volume, title the or pageqi Xing paratantra-svabhäya), and hence ultimately is a false construct, The tion adopted is simply to cite the au to thor other by name works with authored no reference by the volume's to chapter contributors, third nature is the nature of existence being perfectly accomplished (yuancheng shixing number. Where

reference is made parinispanna•svabhava). As Dan Lusthaus observes, however, since the notion of full citation details are provided. self-nature "presumes self-hood, it too must be eliminated. Thus the three self-natures are 6. This text describes the practices and outcomes of those practices for the bodhisattva in actually three non-self-natures," See his entry, "Yogäcära School" in Encyclopedia of Budthe Mahäyäna tradition. dhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell* Jr., vol. 2 (New York: Thomson Gale, 2004}, p. 918. See also John Powers's chapter in this volume.

7. Composed in India between 300 and 350, it was translated into Chinese by Xuanzang between 646 and 648. In East Asia its authorship is traditionally attributed-to one Mai-10. The tathãgatagarbha doctrine is the idea that the potentiality for buddhahood exists treya, but in Tibet its authorship is attributed to Asañga.embryonically in all sentient beings.


of Yogäcära texts to China, having introduced the Bodhisattvabhami as well as a monastic disciplinary rules text based on it and the Lañkövatara.


1.1.1 First major wave


Among learned scholastics interested in systematics and textual exegesis, sixthcentury Chinese Buddhism was primarily a battleground between competing versions of Yogäcära, starting with the disputes that broke out between translators Bodhiruci (Putiliuzhi d. 527) and Ratnamati (Lenamoti

d.u.) when, in 508, they attempted jointly to translate Vasubandhu's vyãkhyãna (Shidi jing lun Commentary on the Discourse on the Ten Stages [of the Bodhisattva or Dilun (Stages Treatise) for short. Bodhiruci and Ratnamati fought bitterly over how to interpret the text, and their conflicting interpretations carried over even after the project was finished, leading their disciples to found two competing schools that doxographers later labeled as •the Southern Dilun and Northern Dilun, respectively.


There were numerous issues of contention between the two schools that increased over the course of the sixth century, such as whether the base consciousness (älayavijñãna) was the problem that needed to be overcome (the northern position) or something akin to the tathägatagarbha, which is realized and reaches its pure form with full enlightenment (the southern position); whether "buddha nature" (foxing meant Ubuddhahood" that was acquired rather than inborn (the northern position) or an inherent nature associated with tathagatagarbha, the universal nature of all sentient beings (southern position); and so on. The two Dilun schools, which were basically competing versions of Yogäcära, were dominant for the first half of the sixth century until Paramärtha (see below) arrived in China.


1.1.2 Second major wave


Paramärtha (Zhendi 499—569) was from Ujjain in western India. He translated numerous foundational Yogãcara texts, including a partial translation ofthe Yogacärabhümi-šãstra called (Juedingzang lun


Compendium of Ascertainments), which introduced the idea ofan *amalavijñãna 15ñJJ$.Ëffi: a "pure consciousness" that his followers considered to be a ninth consciousness beyond the alayavijnana; Madhyãnta-vibhaga (Zhong bian fenbie lun Differentiation of the Middle and Extremes); Vasubandhu's

11. A type of monthly group "confessional" ritual that is also part of the initiation into the monastic community (samgha). It involves a communal recitation of the rules of monastic discipline.

12. The ten stages through which a bodhisattva proceeded on the way to nirvana.

Vimšatikä (alt. Vim§ika) (Weishi ershi lun Verses); Dignäga's

(sixth-century) Älambana-parïksa (Wu Xiang si chen lun Treatise on Considerations [of The Fact That] Objects of Thought Have No and, most importantly for the school that built itselfon his translations, Asañga's Mahayana-samgraha (She dasheng lun Compendium of the Great Vehicle; Shelun for short) as well as Vasubandhu's commentary on it (She dasheng lun shi Paramärtha's style of Yogäcära was called Shelun E, and it largely eclipsed the Dilun schools by the end of the Sui and beginning of the Tang dynasties (early seventh century).

An apocryphal text written in China but purporting to be the work of a well-known second-century Indian scholar-monk named Ašvaghosa (whose attested works give no evidence of Mahayana affiliation), with the title Dasheng qixin lun (Awakening of Mahäyäna Faith), was also claimed to have been translated by Paramärtha. While modern scholarship has shown that in language, style, vocabulary, and underlying models it has more in common with writers and translators other than Paramärtha, traditionally it was accepted as his text or as having been written by a member of his school, Dasheng qixin lun quickly struck a chord among East Asian Buddhists, who assigned it a central role in their thinking. Today it remains one of the foundational texts in Korea and still strongly influences the thinking of East Asian Buddhists. Dasheng qixin lun proposed a version of Yogacara blended with "matrix of buddhas" thought that its interpreters took to mean a grounding of all reality in One Mind that is inherently enlightened.


1.13 Third major wave


Another translator, who is frequently overlooked, is Prabhäkaramitra (Boluo. jiapomiduoluo 564—633). He arrived in the Chinese capital, Chansan, in 627 from Magadhä in central India and promoted both Madhyamaka and Yogäcära texts. One of Prabhäkaramitra's notable translation assistants was WÖnch'Ük/Woncheuk (613—696), who arrived from Korea around

13. This is the title given in Paramärtha's translation; Xuanzang translated the title as Bian zhongbian


14, Historically this text has different Chinese title¶ just as it has different Chinese translations. See the discussion in Dan Lusthaus's chapter. Lusthaus suggests Treatise on Considerations about Sense-objects as Lacking Materiality as a possible rendering for Wu xiang si chen tun Xuanzang's rendering, Guan suoyuan yuan tun can be translated as Theatise on Discerning the Condigionsfor the Causal Support of Consciousness. In this volume, Dan Lusthaus opts for Investigation of What Lies behind Perceptual Objects. The Sanskrit can be rendered more simply as Investigation ofÄlambana, Investigation ofthc Object or Investigation ofthe Percept. It was Xuanzang's rendering that was followed in the early decades of twentieth-century China.


the same time, Wönch'ük later joined Xuanzang's translation committees, be-As Eyal Aviv notes in his chapter in this volume, for the influential Buddhist coming a prominent disciple of Xuanzang who vied with Kuiji (632—682) layman Ouyang Jingwu (1871—1943) and his generation, "it was the only for succession when Xuanzang died (Kuiji prevailed). way to unlock the meaning of Demonstration ofNothing but Consciousness."


At the same time that Prabhäkaramitra was working in the Chinese capital* Due to Kuiji's successful efforts to lay exclusive claim to the authoritative in. Xuanzang arrived in India. Against a background of doctrinal disputes in China terpretation of Cheng weishi lun, his claim that it is Dharmapäla's text and that it involving the two Dilun schools and Paramärtha's school, Xuanzang was motivated would serve as the basic catechism ofhis school, with Dharmapäla becoming the to travel to India in 629, believing that these disputes could finally be resolved if a first patriarch of the Weishi tradition, has been accepted in East Asia to this day. complete translation of Yogäcãrabhÿmi-§ãstra was made available in China. In a certain sense that battle—often framed as the Awakening ofMahayana Faith

He returned to China in 645, with over 600 texts, 74 of which he translated, approach versus the Dharmapäla-Xuanzang-Kuiji approach—continues up to the including new versions of translations by his predecessors. Xuanzang attempted present, and certainly sparked lively debate among twentieth-century Chinese to recreate as much of the Indian context for Buddhist thought and practice as he intellectuals {see the chapters by Dan Lusthaus, Eyal Aviv, Lin Chen-kuo, and could through his translations in order to help Chinese students reach a proper John Makeham in this volume).


understanding of doctrine and practice. Finally, Yijing (635—713), seeking to follow in Xuanzang ts footsteps, travAside from the travelogue of his journey through Central Asia and India eled to India in 671 and returned to China in 695. His interest was primarily in ([Da Tang] Xiyuji Record of Western Lands), all his works were monastic discipline (vinaya), and so he began translating vinaya texts while still faithful translations of Indic originals, with the exception of the Cheng weishi lun abroad and continued to do so after returning to China. In addition, he trans (Demonstration of Nothing but Consciousness),

which was a com- lated works important to Yogäcära, including commentaries by Dharmapäla on posite of commentaries on Vasubandhu's Trimšikä (Weishi sanshi lun song Dignaga's Älambana-parïksa and on Vasubandhu's Vim§ika (Cheng weishi baosh Thirty Verses). In order to buttress his own claim as rightful eng lun successor to a "lineage" through Xuanzang, Kuiji claimed that Cheng weishi Kuiji was succeeded by Huizhao (650—714), the second patriarch of the lun was strictly based on ten Indian commentaries, with the opinion of sixth• Weishi School, who in turn was succeeded by Zhizhou (668—723). Without century Indian

Yogäcära exponent Dharmapala (Hufa invariably prevail- new translations to nourish it, however, the Weishi School was reduced to writ• ing. More recently, it has been argued that often it is the interpretations of the ing subcommentaries on subcommentaries, thus losing its vitality after a few seventh-century Yogäcära master Sthiramati (Anhui that is the authori- centuries.


tative position (demonstrable by comparing Sthiramati ts commentary, the only Among learned scholastics, Chinese Buddhism during the sixth and one of the supposed ten that is extant today, with Cheng weishi Addition- seventh centuries was dominated by various competing strands of Yogäcära ally, Cheng weishi lun draws on a variety of sources other than Trim§ika com. (Northern and Southern Dilun, Shelun, Weishi, etc.). Even the so-called mentaries. Be that as it may, it is important to bear in mind that Kuiji's Cheng Sinitic Mahäyäna schools—Chan, Huayan, Pure Land, and to some extent

weishi lun shuji (Commentary on Demonstration of Nothing but Tiantai—were strongly influenced by Yogacära models. Over time, however, Consciousness) is important for providing crucial glosses on Cheng weishi tun, Chinese Buddhists distanced themselves from their Yogäcära roots by (1) emthe foundational text of the East Asian Yogäcära tradition. As one of the texts bracing supplemental doctrines, some already mixed with Yogäcära in India, preserved in Japan and only reintroduced into China between 189T and 1896, such as matrix of buddhas thought, and some purely Chinese inventions, it had a seminal impact on the

revival of Yogäcära in the twentieth century" such as the theory of inherent enlightenment (benjue which espouses the view that all sentient beings are already enlightened; and (2) leveling harsh polemical attacks against Yogäcära doctrine, especially against the type 15. Hidenori Sakuma, uOn Doctrinal Similarities between Sthiramati and Xuanzangp" of Yogäcära introduced by Xuanzang in the seventh century. Since these poJournal ofthe International Association ofBuddhist Studies 29, no. 2 (200612009]): 357—382; lemical arguments continued to be repeated by the surviving Sinitic Buddhist Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism schools over the centuries, and were reiterated in Korea and Japan, a revival and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun, Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism Series (London: Rout.

2002), chapter 15. of Yogäcãra would entail responding to 1400 years of denigration and hos- ledge, tile interpretations that had become deeply ingrained in Chinese Buddhist 16. In his John Jorgensen reveals that this text also played an important role in the revival of interest in Buddhist logic in Meiji Japan. sensibilities.


1.1.4 Post-Tang decline

Studies of Yogäcära texts continued into the tenth century in Chang'an and on Mt. Wutai, but after the death of the doctrinal synthesizer Yongming Yanshou (904—975), many key Yogacãra texts were lost, We know from Japanese and Korean catalogues that in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Yogäcära texts, especially those on logic, were written in China but have not survived 17 Moreover, the school identified as "Faxiang" continued to exist in Yanjing under the Liao Dynasty and in the capital territory region of Northern Song (Bianjing, i.e., modern Kaifeng) and later in Zhengdingfu (modern Zhengding, south of Beijing) under the Northern Song through the Jin Dynasty and even into the Yuan Dynasty. The Khitan Tripi$aka contained a number of Yogäcära works, and Liao inscriptions provide evidence of the existence of several Liao Yogäcãra scholars-18


By the 1130s, there were at least three centers of Yogäcära studies in China: Zhendingfu, the Bianjing to Luoyang area, and Hangzhou. Several Yogäcära monasteries, which had been founded by refugees from the north after the Jurchen invasion in 1127, survived as Yogäcara centers well into the Yuan Dynasty, and there is evidence that Yogacära continued to be studied in Zhendingfu into the Yuan period 19


1.2 Late-Ming to early Qing Yogãcära studies


Despite a hiatus in Yogäcära studies lasting around two centuries, a revival occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Between 1511 and 1647 or thereabouts, at least thirty-five works on Yogäcära were written; virtually all were in the form of commentaries. The range of texts commented on was limited. Eight commentaries were written on Xuanzang's Cheng weishi Jun, two on Vasubandhu's five on Vasubandhu's


§ãstra (Dasheng baifa mingmen lun Lucid Introduction to the One Hundred Dharmas); four on Dignäga's Ãlambana-parïk§ä (Guan suoyuan yuan lun eight on logic (yinming and seven on Xuanzang's Bashi guiju song (Verses on the Structure of the Eight Consciousnesses). Two were written on a debate supposedly conducted in India where


17. Yang Weizhong Zhongguo Weishizong tongshi (A General History of the Weishi School in China), 2 vols. (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2008), pp. 861-

18. Chikusa Masaaki Sõ-Gen Bukkyö bunkashi

(Studies on the History of Buddhist Culture during the Song ånd Yuan Periods) (Tokyo: Kyükosh•a, 2000), pp. 28, 5—7.

19. Chikusa Masaaki, Sõ-Gen Bukkyö bunkashi kenkyü, p. 21.

Xuanzang established a proposition of true "nothing but consciousness" and defeated all his opponents.

It appears that the major Yogäcära commentaries*l were lost in the Northern Song period (960—1127), and so all attempts to interpret those Yogãcãra texts still in circulation had to rely on quotations and explanations found in Huayan jing shuchao (Subcommentary on the Flower Ornament Sutra) by the Huayan patriarch Chengguan (738—839) and Zongjing lw (Record of the Lineage Mirror) by the Chan scholar-monk Yanshou


Access to, and the ability to read, Sanskrit texts had of course long ceased. Most of the late-Ming Yogacära commentators were Chan monks, and so there was also a marked tendency for them to introduce Huayan, Tiantai, and Chan into their interpretations, and to reconcile so-called attributes/characteristics (xiang laksana) and nature (Xing (sva)bhäva, i.e., tathagatagarbha) themes, relying heavily on Dasheng qixin lun to do so.23


With the importation from Japan in the late-Qing period of the major lost commentaries written by Kuiji and several other Tang-Dynasty Yogäcära scholars, most ofthe Ming-Dynasty texts became redundant. Two qualified exceptions to this observation are the Ming scholars Mingyu (1527—1616) and Zhixu (1599—1655); each of whom wrote eight commentaries on Yogäcära texts. Specifically, their respective commentaries on Dignäga's Älambanä-parïk§ã were frequently cited in Ouyang Jingwu's (1871—1943) pioneering 1914 commentary on this work, Guan suoyuan yuan lun shijie (Interpretative Exposition on the Älambana-parïksã). Älambana.parïk§ä was an in. fluential text in the early twentieth-century revival of Yogäcära (as discussed below).


20. Shi Shengyan uMing mo de Weishi xuezhe ji qi sixiang


(Late-Ming Yogäcära Scholars and Their Thought), Zhonghua Foxue xucbao

For the last two titles, see also Ono Genmyö Bussho kaisetsujiten

(Encyclopedia of Buddhist Literature with Explanations}, 11 vols. (Tokyo: Daitö shuppansha, 1932—1936), vol. 3, pp. 78a-b, 232b.


21. In particular, three indispensable commentaries on Cheng weishi tun written in the Tang period: Kuiji's Cheng weishi lun zhangzhong shuyao (Essentials


Cf Cheng weishi lun in the Palm of One's Hand); Huizhao's Cheng weishi lun liaoyi deng (Lamp of the Discerned Meaning of Cheng weishi lun}; and Zhizhou's • (668—723) Cheng weishi lun yanmi (Elaboration ofthe Esoteric in Cheng veishi lun). Key commentaries written by these same three authors on Buddhist logic had also ceased being transmitted in China by the late-Ming period.


Shi Shengyan, "Ming mo de Weishi xuezhe ji qi sixiang," p. 4. Shi Shengyan, uMing mo de Weishi xuezhe ji qi sixiang," pp. 26—27; see also William ž;Chu, "The Timing of Yogacara Resurgence in the Ming Dynasty (1368—1643)," Journal of the' International Association of Buddhist Studies 33, nos. (2010): 5—25.


Commentary writing on Yogäcära texts continued on into the early Qing period, particularly on Bashi guiju. There appears, however, to have been a long period between the early and the late-Qing periods when Yogäcara was largely ignored.

The revival of Yogäcära in the late-Ming period prefigures the resurrection of Yogäcära studies in late-Qing and Republican China. Like the late Qing, in the late Ming, Buddhism was greatly weakened by the corruption of the monastic establishment; state restrictions on Buddhism in the name of control over popular sectarian Buddhist movements that threatened the state; and the impact of foreign ideas, The level of monastic education had fallen, and monks often

transgressed the precepts." There was also a thirst for new ideas as people tired of Cheng-Zhu (Cheng [1033—1107] and Zhu Xi * [1130—1200]) NeoConfucian orthodoxy, Some began to call for a more equal society and others turned to Catholicism, attracted also by the new scientific ideas introduced by the Jesuits 25 Therefore a demand emerged for a more robustly intellectual Buddhism than that offered by Chan or Pure Land piety. We might also note the revival of interest in Buddhist epistemology and logic, closely associated with Yogäcära, in the late Ming.


The arrival of Christian missionaries in China in the sixteenth century initiated a series of confrontations between the Europeans and adherents of traditional Chinese systems who faced unprecedented attacks on their doctrines and practices. The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552—1610) and other Christians brought their message directly to the Chinese populace, and some wrote treatises that attempted to refute Chinese Buddhism. 26 Jiang Wu has shown how Chan master Feiyin Tongrong (1593—1661) used Buddhist logic to counter


Ricci and other Christians. 27 Specifically, Tongrong adapted the Buddhist proof

Zhongguojindai Fojiao sixiang de zhengbian yufazhan

(Debate and Development in Modern Chinese Buddhist Thought) (Taipei: Nantian shuju. 1988), pp. 87—92.

25. Jiang, Canteng, Zhongguo jindai Fojiao sixiang de zhengbian yu fazhan, pp. 110—111, 118—121.

26. An example ofthis polemical literature is Ricci's treatise Tianzhu shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven). A collection of Chinese responses was compiled by the lay Buddhist scholar Xu Changzhi (1582—1672) in his Shengchao poxieji (Collection that Destroys Heterodoxy), published in 1633. This mainly includes Confucian works, but there are a number of Buddhist responses to Christianity in the last part of the collection.


27. Jiang Wu, "Buddhist Logic and Apologetics in 17 th Century China: An Analysis of the Use of Buddhist Syllogisms in an Anti-Christian Polemic," Dao: A Journal of Com. parative Study, 2.2 (June 2003): 273—289. This summarizes some of the research of his PhD dissertation, "Orthodoxy, Controversy and the Transformation ofChan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China," Harvard University, 2002.


sequence (often referred to as a " Buddhist syllogism"28) and used it to devise three major arguments against the Christian doctrine of God. According to Jiang,

Even in the Tang dynasty, when the study of Buddhist logic was promoted by Xuanzang, there is no evidence that Buddhist logic was successfully used in actual debates as an apologetic tool. In this sense, the emergence of Buddhist logic in the context of the seventeenth-century anti-Christian movement signaled a new development in Buddhist apologetics.29

Such efforts set a precedent in which Yogacära was construed as an authentically Buddhist system that provided conceptual resources for defending Buddhism against foreign attackers. Thus, when reformers sought to adapt Buddhism in response to the challenges of modernity in the early twentieth century, some followed the lead of these seventeenth-century thinkers and looked to Dignäga and other logicians for philosophical ammunition.


2. Yogãcãra thought in modern China: An oveæiew


Section 1 sought to provide a succinct account of the history of Yogäcära in China before the twentieth century. Section 2 now takes us to the main subject of this volume: the reception of Yogäcära in theearly decades oftwentieth-century China. It does this by introducing three major themes that run throughout the volume: science, logic, and New Confucian thought, and their relation to Yogäcära. An introduction to these three themes anticipates several key questions animating discussions in the individual chapters of the volume: What role did the Yogãcãra revival in the early decades of the twentieth century play in Chinese responses to the challenges of modernity? Why did Chinese intellectuals turn to a tradition that was not Chinese? How did the promoters of Yogäcära respond to the intellectual and institutional authority now commanded by science? In what ways

28. The full form of the standard yinming three-part inference or "syllogismn is as follows:

r. paksa (lizong thesis): Sound is impermanent.

2. hett. (yin E; reason) or Iifiga (xiang mark): because produced.

3. dr$änta (yu IQ; example):

[al Whatever is produced, that is known to be impermanent, like a pot, etc.

[b] Whatever is permanent, that is known to be unproduced, like space (akã§a), etc.

See Dan Lusthaus's entry under nengli fiž2L in the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, www.buddhism-dict.net.

29. Jiang Wu, "Buddhist Logic and Apologetics in 17th Century China," p. 286.

was logic significant for the reception of Yogäcära in modern China? Why does proposed that an alambana (suoyuan cognitive object from which Dasheng qixin lun (Awakening of Mahäyäna Faith) loom so large in mental impressions are derived—is composed of individual or clustered groups

the history of the modern reception of Yogäcära? What was the relation between of atoms. In Älambana.parrkŽsä Dignäga sets out a deconstructive argument and Yogäcära and the development of New Confucian thoUght? a constructive argument. The deconstructive argument refutes the thesis that either individual atoms or groups of atoms are capable of functioning as a per2.1 Yogäcära and science cept; the constructive thesis is the proposition that what we actually cognize

are mental images (ãkãra; xiang of our own making. As Dan Lusthaus notes in The decades immediately before and after 1900 witnessed a profound process of his chapter in this volume: intellectual and institutional translation in which Western disciplinary models challenged, superseded, and widely displaced traditional schemes of knowledge Although eventually the Ãlambana-parVk§ä was superseded in India (and classification in China. At the forefront of this

process of epistemological up- later Tibet) by more sophisticated and complex critiques of atomism, none heaval was that flag-bearer ofmodernity, the juggernaut called science, a category of those later works reached China and East Asia until the twentieth centhat itself was rapidly expanding in disciplinary and subdisciplinary complexity. tury. Thus, Ãlambana-parrk§ä represents the high water mark in the East With the tide of Western learning ever strengthening, and institutional support Asian appropriation of Indian Buddhist critiques of atomism, and as such for traditional schemes of knowledge

compartmentalization disappearing in the received much attention among twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals wake of the abolition of the civil examinations in 1905,30 the traditional category for its seeming relevance to modern scientific atomic theories as well as of "Natural Studies" (gezhi *641; inquiring into and extending knowledge) was contemporary trends in the psychology and philosophy of perception. being fundamentally displaced by kexue modern science.


Since the early twentieth century, science had been the criterion used to dis. Such alignments of Yogäcara with science could of course also be used to furtinguish "religionn (zongjiao from "superstition" (mixin ZË}. Within this ther agendas internal to Buddhist polemics. In the case of the Buddhist scholars context, demonstrating Buddhism's compatibility with science was necessary if Ouyang Jingwu and Ltl Cheng (1896—1989), one such aim was to critique

it was to gain intellectual and political acceptance. How did the promoters of "false Buddhism" and promote "genuine Buddhism" (see below and also LustYogäcära respond to the intellectual and institutional authority now commanded haus, Aviv, and Lin).


by science? The range of responses or positions is surprisingly varied, ranging In one essay dating from the period when he was in Japan (1906—1911), the from efforts to show that Buddhism is scientific, right through to arguments de- revolutionary, scholar, and philosopher Zhang Binglin (Taiyan signed to show how science validates Yogäcãra. What is consistent is the view that (1869—1936) had argued that Chinese versions of Yogäcära texts on Buddhist science and soteriology are not incompatible, •a view underpinned by the convic- logic and reasoning—having only recently become available again after a hiatus tion that Yogäcãra provided a superior means to establish verification. of many centuries—made it possible once again to gain a proper understanding of China's earliest writings on logic. On the face of it,31 in some ways this is curi-


2.1.1 The relevance of Yogacara to science ously similar to the position advocated by Lü Cheng that without a careful conOF ATOMS AND sideration of Sanskrit or Tibetan counterparts, a number of Chinese versions of


Against the backdrop of a renaissance of interest in logic and in Yogãcãra philosophy in the late-Qing and early Republican periods, the logician Dignäga's Alambana-parîk§ä (Discerning the Conditions for the Causal Support of Con- 31. Despite having identified problems with the claim that the Dasheng qixin lun was a sciousness) commanded considerable fascination in China during the 1910s and genuine Indian scripture, Zhang's personal commitment to its teachings seems not to 1920s. Älambana-parïk§ä is a debate text in which popular Indian Realist theories have pretative been accounts affected; of "The Suchness Buddha's (zhenru

teachings [tathatã]) are concerned and so it solely is necessary with developing to verify Such-interabout atoms are subjected to sustained analytical critique. Some ofthese theories ness as it actually is. In order to develop accounts of Suchness it is necessary to verify the 'matrix of buddhas' (ruiaizang Itathägatagarbha]). Rather than calling this [Bud. dhism] a religion it would be better to refer to it as 'that which provides philosophical verification based on evidence.' " Zhang Taiyan, "Lun Fofa yu zongjiao, zhexue yi ji xianshi 30. The civil service examinations had played a key role in government administration as Zhi guanxi (The Relationship between Buddhism, well as in the fabric of social and intellectual life since 650. Religion, Philosophy and the Real World), Zhongguo zhexue 6 (1981):300.

those texts would be difficult to understand and to reconcile with each other. Lü Dharmapäla-Xuanzang-Kuiji or Weishi School of Yogäcära—both came under sought to demonstrate this with the example of Atambana-parïl€a. For Lü there attack from a number of quarters (not least the so-called New Confucians; see was

far more here at stake than scholarly one-upmanship: he wanted to demon- Lin, Clower, and Makeham). As Eyal Aviv points out, as a consequence of this, strate that Sinicized forms of Buddhism are corrupt•and incompatible with the project of modernity and at the same time sought to defend the soteriological much of our view of them [has been] informed by polemical literature import of Yogäcära doctrine (see the chapters by Lusthaus and Lin). created by their opponents who doubted the patriotism of Ouyang and his As chief exponents and representatives of the movement that sought to followers and the 'Chinese-ness' of their Yogacãra teachings. They also "return to the roots" of original Indian Buddhism, with special attention being saw them as criticizing everything that. Chinese Buddhism stood for, one paid to Yogäcãra teachings, Lü and his teacher Ouyang }ingwu were opposed to important aspect of which was the tathägatagarbha teachings.


the doctrine of "inherent enlightenment" that had developed in China, on the grounds that it is founded on the notion of the matrix ofbuddhas—the idea that TELESCOPES, MICROSCOPES, AND ETHER the potentiality for buddhahood exists embryonically in all sentient beings—and Scott Pacey argues that the influential Buddhist monastic Taixu (1890—1947) hence this is only faith-based and not true Indian Buddhism. was more than a Buddhist reformer: he was also an intellectual

who contributed One of Ouyang fs and Lü's principal targets of criticism was to broader, ongoing debates about modernity in Chinese society. Sympathetic to Dasheng qixin lun, the most influential "matrix of buddhas" text in the tradi- science, Taixu even called for the study of science in order to spread Buddhism. tion of Sinitic Buddhism, but which since the late-nineteenth century had been By attempting to show that Yogäcära was compatible with science, he hoped to characterized by leading Japanese scholars as a Chinese forgery. For its critics propagate Buddhism, more generally. On the one hand, he called for Yogäcära to

it was the embodiment of what was wrong with East Asian Buddhism. Despite be discussed using scientific terminology, referring to this as the "new Yogäcära"; the attacks on the scripture's authenticity, it continued to be defended and re- on the other hand, he also attempted to show that Yogäcära could help improve vered as a genuine, if perhaps problematic, Buddhist text. The cultural "pull" of scientific method. In this latter respect, Yogäcãra was particularly useful because this text is such that even Ouyang himself later in life changed his views about it enables one to overcome flawed observation and to observe reality directly, tathãgatagarbha, as Eyal Aviv reveals in his chapter. We can perhaps even see thereby leading to improved scientific observations. According to Pacey, "This the philosopher, Rural Reconstruction Movement leader, and teacher Liang Shu- led Taixu to suggest that in the future, 'Yogäcära methods could . . . increase ming (1893—1988) as revealing traces of a similar "matrix of buddhas"— the limited powers of telescopes and microscopes.' Yogäcära would improve on

like disposition. As related by Thierry Meynard in this volume, the scientific method, augmenting scientists* powers of observation, so that they could use their scientific instruments to full effect."

Liang had an ontological faith in the sense that he believed there was a Taixu's vision of a "modernized Buddhism" was articulated under the rubric foundational reality of human experience and of the world. As a Buddhist of "Buddhism for the human world'* (renjianfojiao or "Buddhism for himself, he started with the existential questions of human suffering and human life" (renshengfojiao Both notions gained further theoretical impermanence. He adopted the Yogäcara method in order to deconstruct refinement in the hands of Taixu's student Yinshun E13Jffi {1906—2005). Then,

all the elements of experience. In the end, Liang believed that beyond the due to an influx of monks from the mainland beginning in 1949, the Taiwanillusory elements of experience he would find an ontological reality, or ese Buddhist world inherited the legacy of Taixu's (and Yinshun's) re-articu lated Suchness. We can say that Liang had a real faith in Suchness, something Buddhisms. Subsequently, members of a new generation of Buddhist monks


that was beyond his words and beyond his intelligence but which could be and nuns—most notably represented by Xingyun (b. 1927), Shengyan experienced.(1930—2009), and Zhengyan (b. themselves to the imple mentation and realization of many of Taixu's reforms and proposals. Taixu's use The alignment of Yogäcära with scientific rationality—such as the cri-of Yogäcärä philosophy thus must be placed within the context of his broader tique of atomism in Älambana-parïksa—served to bolster the authority of the aim, which was to demonstrate how Buddhism should be used to develop and criticisms that Ltl Cheng and others directed at "false Buddhism," as exem- benefit human life. Although he did not claim that Yogäcärä was preeminent plified by Dasheng qixin lun. Despite this (or perhaps also because of thisb among the Buddhist schools in China, he did believe that it was the one most


Ouyang and Lü—sometimes characterized as the modern defenders of the able to contend with Western scientific thought on its own terms. Alongside


Madhyamaka it thus formed an important component of his refutations of Western scientific materialism, theistic religion, and social theory (such as commu nism, socialism, and anarchism). It was in this way that Taixu was instrumental in using Yogäcära to inform subsequent developments in twentieth-century Chi nese Buddhism.

For other Chinese intellectuals, Yogacära provided a means by which to interpret and to understand science, and so make it more accessible to Chinese people. An example of this approach is Tan Sitong*s (1865—1898) pioneering at- tempt to use Yogäcära to explain contemporary neurophysiology. Tan completed his draft of Renxue (A Study of Benevolence) in 1897. One of the basic characteristics of Tan's understanding of ren (benevolence) is "interconnectedness" (tong 5M), a notion derived from Huayan Buddhism and applied in his efforts to synthesize Confucius's concept of ren, Mozi*s notion of ungraded concern, the

alaya consciousness of Yogäcära Buddhism, Christian love, and even ether, centripetal force, and gravitational force. In Huayan Buddhist thought, tong relates to the idea that the boundary between the absolute (Ii) and phenomena (shi) is nonexistent, thus allowing a metaphysical interpenetration of the two realms— an idea that in turn can be seen to be connected to themes in Dasheng qixin tun and early hybrid Yogäcãra thought.


Tan identified the brain, the nervous system, and electricity as all being composed of the same psychophysical substance: ether (yitai CL*). When ether was running free in space, it was electricity." As with benevolence, ether is produced by the mind. As Erik J. Hammerstrom points out, until Einstein's work appeared, the idea that physical and mental phenomena are composed of ether was still very much a live theoretical concept within physics, allowing Tan to unite the world of ethics, morals, and politics with that of physical matter. In his first essay Pacey relates how Tan "provided an answer to the unexplained relationship be- tween electricity and consciousness by combining discoveries about the brain's electrical functions with Yogäcara's cognitive architecture." Not long after this, as John Jorgensen relates, the reformer, philosopher, and scholar Liang Qichao

(1873—1929) maintained that Western enlightenment and scientific

32. The Wuchang Buddhist Seminary (Wuchang Foxue Yuan associated with Taixu—exerted a lasting influence on the institutions and thought of modern Chinese Buddhism through its network of individuals, seminaries, and periodi- cals that connected Chinese Buddhists in different parts of China. For members of the "Wuchang School*" as Erik J. Hammerstrom shows in his chapter, UYogäcära served as

an indispensable resource for understanding and critiquing the complexities of modern mind science," 33. The distinction echoes one made by Neo-Confucian Zhang Zai (1020—1077) be. tween his concept of.taixu (Ultimate Void) and qi (vital stuff).


discovery were governed by the cerebrum, or manas (the seventh consciousness), and that Chinese rote memorization belonged to the manovijñãna (the sixth consciousness or mental consciousness).


MIND SCIENCE yogäcära also played an important role in enabling Buddhists and, more generally, Chinese intellectuals to interpret the new discipline of psychology. By the late 1870s in Germany, scientific methods such as experimentation and the development of physiological tools provided the impetus for psychology to be differentiated from philosophy as a science, And although there were attempts after this in the United States to consolidate links between philosophy and psychology (most notably by William James), by the turn of the twentieth century psychology had begun to be established as an independent

academic discipline, even if courses were still referred to as moral or mental philosophy. The establishment of independent psychology departments was, however, a gradual process, as departmentalization in American tertiary institutions only began in earnest in the Ibos. China's first association dedicated to the study of psychology was not founded until 1921. At Peking University, psychology courses continued to be taught in the Philosophy Department in the 1910s through to the early 1920s; it was not until 1926 that the Psychology Department was established and the Philosophy Department ceased offering psychology courses.


As Hammerstrom clearly describes in his chapter, a major topic to which Buddhist writers in the 1920s applied Yogäcära was that of modern mind science. (Hammerstrom adopts the term "modern mind science" instead of "psychology" in order to represent the novelty of this field in China at the time.) The theories of mind science that were being translated in China at the time "were


not part of a stable discipline, but belonged to one where competing viewpoints on basic methodological assumptions vied for dominance." He shows how concepts drawn from Yogäcära such as "karmic seeds" and the "base consciousness" helped Chinese Buddhists, in particular, to "answer certain questions that were causing problems for modern mind science, such as the processes by which instinct and memory occurred."54

34. Writing in 1932, Xiong Shili was generally disdainful of psychology—even opined that "Today, psychologists have what they refer to as the sub-conscious. It is even possible that they have some glimpse into the deep source of seeds and so talk about them Iin such terms]." See Xin weishi lun (New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness), literary redaction (1932), Xiong Shili quanji (The Complete Writings of Xiong Shili) (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001),

2.1.2 The scientific validation of Yogäcära Ming periods. The evidential scholarship of Han Learning was the An appeal was also made to the claim that science could validate the insights of forerunner of science, and science is the forerunner of faxiang. This is because that whichfaxiang discusses must be verified in reality, and Yogäcära. Sometimes this involved accounts that appealed to unfolding trends in human history, some deep rooted, others less so. Thierry Meynard introduces the its doctrines must thoroughly adhere to principle. In character it is the intriguing example of Liang Shunning, who same as science." These words can be said to understand the trend in scholarship.36


attempted to understand how Yogäcara teachings could have appeared so 2.1.3 Using Yogãcara to critique science early in human history, describing the intellectual precocity (zaoshu -¥14) of Yogäcära as being the sublime product of genius such as that ofAsañga The relationship between Yogäcära and science was not restricted to how Yogäcära and Vasubandhu. Because of its complexity, their teaching was not under. might contribute to interpreting or even enhancing

science. Nor were attempts stood at that time. Only today, in the modern age, have people begun to to ence secure could the validate authority Yogäcära—Yogäcara of Yogäcara made by was appealing also used only to to critique the claim science that andsciunderstand Yogäcära because modern Western science is showing people scientists. Scott Pacey demonstrates how Taixu emphasized the similarities bethe validity of Yogäcära. tween Einstein's theory of relativity and Yogäcära, yet concluded that the theory


Zhang Taiyan similarly appealed to historical trends to argue that science of relativity lacked Yogäcãra's level of comprehensiveness. "He could therefore

could validate the insights of Yogäcära, making the point that only in recent invoke support Einstein—whom of Yogäcära, while he showing called his 'the ideas greatest to be contemporaryinadequate when compared times had scholarly advances in science in China developed enough to appreciate the insights of Yogacära: with Buddhism." The philosopher Xiong Shili invoked Bertrand Russell for a similar purpose. There


tive name is a for good the reason Weishi for School]. my singular Modern respect scholarship forfaxiang [in China] [an has alterna-gradu- began nine Bertrand months, to teach Russell based at Peking and in Dora Beijing University Black and arrived in giving 1922. in In lectures China one of in across his October lectures the 1920 country. titled and "ZhexuestayedXiong


ally followed the path of "seeking verification in actual events." Of course wenti ɥZ" (Philosophical Problems), Russell remarked that "nothing in the the detailed analysis carried out by Han Learning scholars [textual and philworld is more real than momentary In expounding on the fundamen- ological scholars of the Qing Dynasty] was far superior to that which scholars in the Ming were able to achieve. [Analogously,] with the beginnings tal Buddhist doctrine that "dharmas do not abide even momentarily"38 Xiong of [[[Wikipedia:modern|modern]]] science [introduced in China in the late nineteenth century] singled Russell out for maintaining "what is temporary on atomism is proposed real"; just by as on traditionalanother occasion when critiquing some arguments scholars applied themselves with even greater precision. It is for this reason

Indian Realist philosophers, he criticized Russell for purportedly asserting that thatfaxiang learning was inappropriate to the situation in China during the "cameras are able to see things."39

Ming but is most appropriate in modern times. This was brought about by Hammerstrom, in turn, cites the fascinating example of Wang Xiaoxu the trends that have informed the development of scholarship.½ (1875—1948), one of China's first great modern scientists and a founding member Zhang also approvingly cited the words of his friend and fin de siècle Buddhist networkert Gui Bohua (1861—1915), who had also studied under Yang Wenhui: 36. Zhang Taiyan, Zi she.} xueshu cidi (My Sequence in Learning), in Zhuo Han san yan (Three Books by Zhang Taiyan) (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), p. 166. Gui Bohua also said, "Over the recent three hundred years the style of scholarship has become vastly different from that of the Song and 37. Song Xijun (Collected and Essays Li Xiaofeng of Russell and Black) (comps.), (Beijing: Luosuji Weiyiti BotaÌwjiangyanjibaoshe, 1922), p. 11.

38. Xiong Shili, Xin weishi tun, vol. 2, p. 43. 35. Zhang Taiyan, "Da Tiezheng (Reply to Tiezheng), in Zhang Taipan ji

(Collected Writings of Zhang Taiyan), ed. Huang Xia'nian (Beijing: 39. Xiong Shili, Weishi xue gaitun (A General Account of Yogäcära Learning}, Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1995), p. 19. Xiong Shili quanji, vol. p. 107.


of Academia Sinica. Following the lead of Liang Shuming, Wang argued that And even though discussion of the particular distinction highlighted in empiricism—the basis of science—was merely the operation of inferential cogni- Schmithausen's and Lusthaus's respective accounts was not in vogue in 1920s tion/logical inference (biliang anumöna pramã4a), concluding that "because China, it would not have affected the point raised in Wang's critique. The soof this, science was

thus not capable of proving the truths that were described in called science and philosophy of life debates (or science and metaphysics debates) Buddhism, which had been apprehended by the direct perception (xianliang of 192341 in China reveal that even some of the harshest critics of metaphysics pratyal€a pramatta) utilized by advanced practitioners of the Buddhist path." promoted an epistemological stance that (unexpectedly) shares key similarities The issue

Wang touches upon also highlights an important yet curiously with the doctrine of nothing but consciousness, overlooked reason that many intellectuals in the 1910s and 1920s regarded The chief protagonists in the debates were the philosopher (later a politiYogäcãra as representing a legitimate epistemological position, This issue con- cian, and even later a retrospectively-identified New Confucian) Zhang Junmai cerns positivist epistemology, which, in some of its

formulations, seems close (Carsun Chang; 1886—1969), critic of scientism and materialism, and to being a variation of epistemological idealism, Epistemological idealism, of the geologist Ding Wenjiang (1888—1936), critic of metaphysics. The incourse, is one of the main ways in which Yogäcära (nothing but conscious. tellectual historian Charlotte Furth sees the debate between Zhang and Ding ness [vijñapti-mãtra)) has been, and continues to be, represented. John Powers as a

direct outcome of an agenda pursued in Liang Shuming's Dongxi wenhuaji provides a clear account of Yogäcära epistemological idealism based on the qi zhexue (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their PhilosoSamdhinirmocana-sütra: phies), according to which Eastern and Western civilizations each possessed its own inherent form of philosophical and ethical principles and that at the heart All perceptions are mediated and interpreted by the mind; no aspect of of the

contention was an attempt "to expose the underlying forces responsible the outside world appears directly to awareness. Sense impressions ofphe- for the two world systems and to reveal the primary axioms upon which a future nomena relay information to the mind and are then interpreted, and the Chinese society would have to be based "42 Hammerstrom similarly relates:


cognitions of a particular agent reflect the physical realities of his or her species and perceptual faculties, background, language, and life experi- These debates were over competing visions of modernity in China, and ence. There are no pure experiences outside of meditation, and all cogni- even competing visions of science. One of the main battle lines was betions have an interpretive overlay. tween those who supported a view of science founded upon values from the Enlightenment, and those, like Carsun Chang, who favored a worldTaking a different focus, Lambert Schmithausen chooses instead to describe view strongly

inspired by Romanticism and Romantic science. the basic epistemological stance of Yogäcära as the view "that there are no entities, especially no material entities, apart from consciousness, or, more precisely, In his essay "Xuanxue yu kexue (Metaphysics and Science), apart from the various kinds of mind [cittal and mental factors or mind-associates Ding advocates an epistemological stance he calls "skeptical idealism," which he [caittal." Dan Lusthaus, however, cautions that associates with the theories

ofperception subscribed to by Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, William James, Karl Pearson, and Ernst Mach: the key Yogãcäric phrase vijñapti-mätra does not mean (as is often touted Because they hold that sense perception is the only method by which we in the scholarly literature) that "consciousness alone exists," but rather can know objects (wuti), our concepts of objects are psychological phethat "all our efforts to get beyond ourselves are nothing but projections of nomena and hence we

say it is idealism. As to whether there are things in our consciousness." Yogäcärins treat the term vijñapti-matra as an epistemic caution, not an ontological pronouncement.40

41. Brought together in Zhang Junmai et al. (eds.), Kexue yu renshengguan (Science and Philosophy of Life) (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguant 1923).

See also Erik Hammerstrom's discussion ofthese debates in his chapter in this volume. 40. Lambert Schmithausen, On the Problem of the External World in the Ch'eng weishi lun (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2005), p. 9; Dan Lusthaus, 42. Charlotte Furth, Ting Wen-chiang.• Science and China's New Culture (Cambridge, MA: Buddhism and Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Harvard University Pressp 1970b p. 99. Liang himselfwould certainly have insisted that it Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 5. was three, not two, civilizations that were relevant, although at that time India was less so.

the realm beyond sense perception or behind self-consciousness, or what is no way we can learn about what is not of this world and even if one kind of things objects are, they all maintain that this is not known (bu Zhi should attempt to do so it would have no bearing on human affairs." Deny-Ffl-I)43 and should not be discussed, hence we say "skeptical.'44 ing that "benti" can be known was not some occasional, casual remark on his part but was the core of his entire philosophical thinking.


He contrasts the position of the skeptical idealist with that of the metaphysician, who claims that independent of the mind45 there exist noumena (bemi There is thus perhaps more than irony in the fact that Yan Fu should have such as Berkeley's notion of God and Zhang's notion of self. In charting cited Buddhist views in his support of Mill's claim that human knowledge is the demise of metaphysics and the rise of science, Ding parodies the metaphysi- bound by the limits ofsensory experience. 49 Yan began his translation of Mill's A cian's position as follows: System ofLogic in 1900 and the work was published in 1905. Intriguingly, this is exactly the period when the revival of interest in Yogäcära began in China. By the second half of the nineteenth century even psychology, the guard

dog of metaphysics, had become independent. into ontology. Thereupon Without metaphysicsany sign 2.2 Yogãcära and logic retreated from fundamental philosophy of repentance they [the metaphysicians) continued to put on airs in the The third volume of Joseph Levenson's trilogy Confucian China and its Modern face of philosophy saying, "You are unable to study self-awareness or the Fate, titled The Problem of Historical Significance, attempts to show how a parnoumena that lie beyond sense perception. You deal with the physical not ticular Usystem of ideas passed out of contemporary reality into history, how the metaphysical. You

are dead and I am living."46 what was once living tradition was handed over to traditionalists "50 The lateQing Confucian, like the modern diasporic Jew, was confronted by what Vera Even though most of the proscience participants in the debates would prob- Schwartz refers to as the separation of history and value, in which intellectuals ably have rejected skeptical idealism as a concession to metaphysics, it remains were compelled to find "value" in places other than in their own tradition.S' The a curious fact that skeptical idealism was well entrenched among the promoters case of Yogäcära differs from that of Confucianism: Yogäcära was privileged of positivism in China. This concern about noumena (benti being inher- precisely for what it represented in terms of "value" rather than what it repre-


ently unknowable was placed prominently on the intellectual agenda in China sented in terms of emotional attachment to "tradition," even if individual thinkthrough the pioneering translator Yan Fu's (1853—1921) introduction of ers varied in their attitudes to the question ofthe significance of the relationship

positivist philosophy. Contemporary Tsinghua University philosopher Hu Weixi that Yogäcära had with the Chinese past and indeed with the recovery of the


argues that like Huxley, Spencer, and Mill, Yan Fu was committed to the Chinese past.


epistemological premise that human knowledge is bound by the limits of sensory


experience:47

48. Hu Weixi, Zhuan shi Cheng zhi: Qinghua xuepai yu ershi shiji Zhongguo zhcxue

He concurred with Spencer's division of the world into the phenomenal (Transforming Consciousness into Wisdom: The Tsinghua School

and the unknowable, maintaining that all [genuine] knowledge is knowl- banshe, and 2005), Twentieth-Century pp. 124—125. Chinese Philosophy) (Shanghai: Huadong shifari daxue chuedge which relates only to the phenomenal world. Hence, [Yan said] "there

49. Yan Fu, Mute Mingxue (Mill's A System ofLogic), in his Yan yi mingzhu cong kan (Collection of Famous Writings Translated by Yan Fuh vol. 8 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan 1931), p. 58, 43. It may be that Ding actually means "unknowable."

50. Henry F, May, H. Franz Schurmann, and FredericWakeman, UniversityofCalifornia: In 44. Zhang Junmai, Kexue yu renshengguan, pp. 12, 13. Memoriam, December 1970," http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb629006wb&doc.

45. Literally "patterns of the mind" (xinli 'BE), 6, 2007. accessed May

46. Zhang junmai, Kexue yu renshengguan, p. 16. 51. Vera Schwartz, review Of The Mozartian Historian: Essays on the Works ofJoseph R, Lev-

47. See also Wang Hui, "The Fate of 'Mr. Science' in China: The Concept of Science and its enson, eds. Maurice Meisner and Rhoads Murphey, History and Theory 17, no.

Application in Modern Chinese Thought," in Formations ofColoniat Modernity in East Asia, See also Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: Trilogy (Berkeley and ed. Tani E. Barlow (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), p. 40. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), p. x.

What role did the Yogäcära revival in the early decades of the twentieth century play in Chinese responses to the challenges of modernity? A particularly common view is that intellectuals of the time regarded Yogäcära as a sophisticated knowledge system that could serve as an authoritative alternative to the knowledge systems being introduced from the West; that it was an "indigenized" intellectual resource that could be co-opted to counter the challenges posed by

the logic, philosophy, psychology, and science of the West. Whatever the merits of this explanation (one that is supported by statements made by protagonists of the day), it still does not account for why Chinese intellectuals should have turned to a tradition that might well be regarded as inherently non-Chinese. The conventional explanation is that even though Yogãcãra had its roots in Indian thought, it was still considered a "Chinese" system because for early twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals its most influential historical interpreters were Chinese commentators, extending back to early Tang times. (And as

noted above, even in the late-Ming period, it was employed as an aid in critiquing the foreign religion of Christianity.) The conventional explanation fails, however, to account for modern scholars such as Ouyang Jingwu and Lü Cheng, who were part of a movement that sought to "return to the roots" of original Indian Buddhism (see Aviv, Lusthaus, and Lin) with special attention being paid to Yogäcära teachings and texts. Lü, in particular, emphasized the importance of fluency in Sanskrit and Tibetan, reflecting a trend that had already begun in Japan in the mid-Meiji period (see


The conventional account also fails to give due recognition to how new knowledge systems—and despite its long history, Yogäcära did constitute a new knowledge system in late-Qing, early-Republican China—were used by some as tools in the recovery of tradition. European and Asian confrontations with modernity often differ in significant ways. European modernities commonly involve a radical repudiation of the past and of tradition in favor of innovation and individual creativity with a vision of a new social order and a new regime of knowledge. While some Asian modernities, such as the May Fourth Movement in China, follow a

similar route and propose the adoption of Western science, philosophy, and political thought, others (particularly movements led by people with a strong commitment to a traditional system like Buddhism or Confucianism) valorize and reappropriate classical (or imagined classical) traditions, texts, beliefs, and practices and mobilize them in the service of nationalistic agendas in response to an encounter with Western modernity. 52. Nanjö Bun'yü went to London to study Sanskrit with F. Max Müller in 1876 and this is when he met Yang Wenhui. Nanjö began lecturing on Sanskrit at Tokyo University in 1885.


Zhang Taiyan is a prominent exemplar of this second approach. Against the backdrop of an intellectual climate in Japan and China during the decades on either side of 1900, in which a premium had come to be placed on logic as a precondition for the development of philosophy, Zhang was one of the first Chinese intellectuals to follow the lead of Japanese scholars such as Kuwaki Genyoku (1874—1946) and Murakami Senshö (alt. Senjö) (1851—1929) in maintaining that classical Chinese philosophers had developed indigenous forms oflogic. Significantly, he further argued that Chinese versions of Yogäcära texts on Buddhist epistemology and logic (yinming BBA; only recently become available again after a hiatus of many centuries—made it possible once again to develop a proper understanding of China's earliest writings on logic. In Japan, the study of Western logic began in earnest in 1874 when the philosopher Nishi Amane (1829—1897) published Chichi keimö (Primer on the Extension of Knowledge), a work based on J. S. Mill's A System of Logic, and the first exposition of formal logic and inductive logic in Japan.S4 Parallel to this was a renewed interest in Buddhist logic. As Jorgensen notes in his chapter in this volume, Murakami Senshö, the most famous Meiji scholar of Buddhist logic, had

already published his Inmyögaku zensho (Complete Works on Logic Studies) in 1884, and the texts that Nanjö Bun'yü sent to Yang Wenhui between 1892 and 1896 included copies of Kuiji's commentaries and writings on logic and epistemology—including Kuiji's key commentary Yinming ru Zhengli lun shu (Commentary on Entryway into Logic), a discussion ofthe Sanskrit text Nyöyapraveša [Entryway into Logic]55), which had not been transmitted in China—as well as Japanese commentaries on texts dealing with Indian systems of logic developed in the Yogäcära tradition. In the 1890s, however, the attitude of many Japanese scholars to Chinese philosophy and to the history of Chinese philosophy was highly critical. Identifying

logic as the hallmark of order (soshiki AQ) and system (keitö taikei flB*), r 53. Yinming (knowledge of reasons) is the Chinese interpretation of Buddhist reasoning and logic: hettwidyä. See Christoph Harbsmeier, Language and Logic in Traditional China, in Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 7, pt. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, i998), pp. 358—408. On the introduction of logic into China and the development of Chirnese logic, see Joachim Kurtz, The Discovery of Chinese Logic (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

54. See Barry Steben, "Nishi Amane and the Birth of 'Philosophy' and 'Chinese Philosophy' in Early Meiji Japan," in Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philoso-

mphy as an Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China, ed. John Makeham (Hong Kong: ••}Chinese University Press, 2012), p. 60. An introductory text on Dignãga's logic, compiled by Šarnkarasvämin (sixth century) and translated by Xuanzang.


and the prerequisite for genuine philosophical discourse, there was widespread"Discourse on Making All Things Equal" (rather than "Equalizing Discourse on consensus that Chinese philosophy lacked systemization; that in method and Things" or "Equalizing Human Discourse"). By "equal," Zhang is not advocating organization it was simple and naïve; and that it fell far short of the standards some form of relativism or treating all things as having equal value; rather, he

set by Western philosophy. In 1898, the Buddhist scholaY Matsumoto Bunzaburö is proposing that when characteristics/attributes (xiang E) and names/concepts

(1869—1944) bluntly asserted: "There is no study of logic in Chinese (ming Z) are abandoned all that remains is the undifferentiated state of Suchness philosophy. Not only do the Chinese lack logic in their speculative thinking, we (Zhenru -WIfl; tathatä). It is from this perspective that he understood the

title to are not even able to find logical organization in Chinese philosophy."56 mean "making all things equal": "To equalize that which is not equal is but the The criticisms ofJapanese scholars subsequently influenced the high regard base attachment oflowly persons; [to realize) the equality of inequality is

the pro. that Chinese intellectuals such as Wang Guowei (1877—1927), Liang found discourse of the most exalted wisdom. Unless one abandons names and Qichao (1873—1929), Liu Shipei (1884—1919), and Zhang Taiyan attributes, how can this wisdom become realized?"" came to place on logic as a precondition for the

development of philosophy, as As Viren Murthy explains in his chapter, in Qi wu lun shi Zhang connects indeed did the views of a minority of Japanese scholars who found evidence of the term "equalization; making equal" (qi ß-) with "equality" (pingdeng in the development of logic in early China. These developments in

turn stimulated order to shift a "subjective stance from seeing things as equal, that is without Chinese scholars to make significant efforts to identify logic in the writings of high and low, to an epistemological position in which one is detached from the the pre-Qin masters, in particular in Xunzi and in Mozi,

words and concepts that make our world possible," Murthy shows how "equalizaAs I have argued elsewhere,57 Zhang, in particular, applied the benchmark tion" was targeted at the concept of universal principle (gongli Lk±Æ) promoted by of Yogacära Buddhist philosophy to assess the philosophical merit of individual prominent late-Qing intellectuals such as Yan Fu and Liang Qichao, who used pre-Qin texts such as Xunzi, Mozi, and Zhuangzi, seeking to show how early it to legitimize the state; and by the reformer and scholar Kang Youwei


Chinese texts "bear witness" to insights into realities that transcend individual (1858—1927), who advanced the idea that the universal principle is realized when cultures but are most fully and systematically articulated in Yogãcära systems the world evolves to a perfectly egalitarian society without national divisions. In of learning; and that classical Chinese Philosopher-sages had attained an aware- the case of the universal principle's being linked to state-and

society-building, ness of the highest truths, evidence of which can be found in their writings. He Zhang objected that this would entail sacrifice to a collective; and in the case of was also a pioneer in attempting to show how Indian logic and epistemology achieving an egalitarian society, he argued it would eradicate difference through could be used to recover the meaning of ancient Chinese philosophical texts— some type of evolutionary paradigm. According to Murthy, Yogacara Buddhism such as his analysis of a key passage in Mozi in his 1909 essay, "Yuan ming and Zhuangzi allowed Zhang to deal with such problems at

the level of episteJfiZ" (Tracing the Origins of [[[Philosophers]] of] ways that Western mology. He did this by "criticizing value judgments in order to delve into the epislogic could not. temological conditions for the possibility of these judgments, so that one could This was no mere exercise in philosophical archaeology—there was a pro- eventually go beyond them. . . . Zhang claims that the universal principle and nounced political dimension articulated in Zhang's philosophical reconstruc- evolution, which echo Hegel's philosophy, are both variations on a basic structions. In his celebrated commentary, Qi wu lun shi (An

Interpretation ture of confusion, alienation, and domination; in short, such phenomena emerge of "Discourse on Making All Things Equal"; 1910), he develops an extended, from consciousness. His goal is to overcome the confusion at the source of such complex Yogäcära reading of the "Qi wu lun" (Discourse on Making All Things phenomena "60 As John Jorgensen describes in his chapter, Equal) chapter in Zhuangzi. Zhang interpreted the title ofthe chapter to mean


59. Zhang Taiyant "Qi wu' lun shi ding ben (Definitive Edition of An Inter-

56. Matsumoto 5-4 (1898): 172.Bunzaburö, "Shina tetsugaku ni tsuite " (On Chinese Phi- pretation p. (Complete 61. of Works "Discourse of Zhang on Making Taiyan), All vol. Things 6 (Shanghai; Equal") Shanghai in Zhang renmin Taiyan chubanshe, quanji 1986),


Makeham, 57. Zhang John Makeham, Taiyan, Learning to "Zhang Emulate Taiyan, the Wise* Yogäcära pp. 115—123.Buddhism, and Chinese Philosophy," in shift in 60. modernity, Capitalism.can related to In capitalism this be seen same to to chapter, explain exhibit early the Viren equation globalizing Murthy of further Yogãcãra impetuses proposes with retrospectivély science an epistemologicaland identifiedmodern


58. "Yuan ming" (1909), in his Guogu tunheng (Discourses on the National Heritage Weighed in the Balance) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2004), Philosophy. Murthy's chapter also features a discussion of another key aspect of moder-

nity: subjectivity. P' 121.

Zhang linked Yogãcãra with revolution, justifying violence to eliminate caste or class discrimination, and with anarchism, which likewise sees rulers as nothing more than bandits Yogäcära could provide a phi losophy of equality through its "wisdom of equality." (pingdengxing Zhi or samata-jñãna) that was achieved by converting the self-centered seventh vijñãna (consciousness) into a wisdom that removed attachment to ego and so achieved true equality.

For Zhang, this self-transformation provided the basis not only for soteriology but also for political revolution. Indeed, already in his 1906 essay, "Jianli zongjiao lun (On Founding a Religion), Zhang had appealed to the Buddhist concept of equality (pingdeng as a justification for overthrowing the Manchu government of China.


2.3 Yogäcãra and Confucianism


The modern Buddhist scholars Ouyang Jingwu and Lü Cheng were part of a movement that sought to "return to the roots" of original Indian Buddhism, with special attention being paid to Yogäcära teachings, and so they were op• posed to the doctrine of "inherent enlightenment" that had developed in China. Therefore, New Confucianism—as represented principally by Xiong Shili and


Mou Zongsan be seen as the product of a sustained and conscious attempt to distance itself from the views of Yogäcära's modern defenders, despite New Confucianism's having grown in philosophical sophistication through sustained critical engagement with Yogäcära's conceptual frameworks and problematics, It is this ideological double•identity—ignored in conventional accounts—that this volume brings into sharp relief for the first time.


2.3,1 Yogäcãra and Liang Shuming


Retrospectively identified as one of the founding fathers of New Confucianism, Liang Shuming's relationship with Yogäcära is complex, not least because it changed over time. Thierry Meynard shows that in his earlier writings, Liang followed Dignãga (and post-Dignäga Yogäcära epistemology) in maintaining that there are only two valid sources of knowledge: inferential cognition/logical inference (biliang EtR) and direct cognition/perception (xiantiang IHR). When he wrote Dongxi wenhuaji qi zhexue, however, Liang expressed dissatisfaction with Yogäcära epistemology. As Meynard explains, even though Yogäcära epistemology was able to explain the functioning of the mind, ultimately it saw 3

the mind as an obstacle to overcome: by deconstructing the mental operations we may succeed in neutralizing them, not letting them operate, and be liberated from them. Although Liang continued to uphold this overall project of liberation, he wanted to accommodate, within the mental operations, some room for judgments that could bear positive meanings.


These positive meanings included moral judgments, and Liang introduced a new mode of knowledge: moral intuition (zhijue ËZ). Meynard continues: From this revised epistemology, Liang could link the three modes of knowledge to three moral options presented to individuals and to cultures. The three cultures of the West, China, and India, respectively, represented three moral options: the development of the self and of the nation (in the West and based on biliang), the deepening of harmonious relations with others (in Confucianism and based on zhijue) and the radical quest for transcendence (in Buddhism and based on xianliang).


Believing that Chinese culture was not yet developed to a stage that would enable it to enter a Buddhist cultural period (unlike India), Liang promoted Confucian moral values as a necessary preparatory stage on the path to Buddhism—a sort of convenient/skillful means (upaya). {As with Taixu's account of Yogäcära as the mature expression of the purest philosophy and purest science [see Scott Pacey's chapter on Taixul, strong traces of social Darwinism are also evident in Liang's philosophy of culture.)


This did not, however, mean that Liang abandoned his personal engagement with Yogäcära philosophy. As Meynard relates, With Yogäcära, Liang completely embraces the discourse of reason of his age, and yet, with Yogäcära, he is able also to subvert reason from within, showing that the discourse of reason is altogether limited. In this sense, Yogäcära has truly enabled a modern discourse ofreason, in which reason is able to criticize itself.


The subversion of reason referred to here is Liang's creative transformation Of Yogäcära, whereby he developed a special mode of valid cognition he first referred to as intuition (zhijwe) and later as moral reason {lixing £t±). According to Meynard,


This change of terminology, from intuition to moral reason, manifests Faith, in that the latter does not present the phenomenal world as ontologically Liang's shift from epistemological problems to ethical issues, applying distinct from the all-pervading, undifferentiated absolute reality (dharmakäya; Buddhist epistemology to Confucian ethics. . . . Here again, Liang's focus the "truth body" associated with buddhahood). Rather, it posits ignorance as on morality is truly modern. Because he considered morality important as hindering us from realizing that the phenomenal world lacks independent exissuch, he made it an independent mode of reason, distinct from the tran- tence, self-nature, reality (see Makeham, chapter 8).


scendental reason of religion and distinct from the instrumental reason It is a curious fact that, too often, Xiong's uncompromising critiques of ofworldly affairs. Yogäcära philosophy seem to have provided a convenient pretext for scholars to ignore other key elements of Buddhist thought in his constructive 2.3.2 Yogãcara and Xiong Shili philosophy. As I argue in my chapter, Xiong's critiques are grounded in the Together with Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili is conventionally regarded as a found* Mahäyäna doctrine of conditioned arising and the doctrine that the phenoming figure ofthe modern New Confucian school ofphilosophy and is

widely rec- enal world is not ontologically distinct from undifferentiated absolute real ognized as one of the most original and creative Chinese philosophers of the ity (dharmakãya), a thesis he develops using the noumenal reality/manifest twentieth century. And as Jason Clower points out, for Liang and Xiong alike, functioning (ti-yong) conceptual polarity. Critically appropriating important "Yogäcära was both a resource and a foil, a philosophy from which they borrowed terms, concepts, and problems from Yogäcära philosophy (strongly mediated ideas and also against which they defined themselves by contrast," through its Chinese interpretation), Xiong Shili went on to develop these eleOver the past three decades, there has been a widespread tendency to por- ments into his own

ontology: a metaphysics in which the primary ontological tray Xiong narrowly as a Confucian philosopher, who also happened to criticize realm of "Fundamental Reality" (bemi *fig) transforms and permeates all •Buddhist philosophy, but whose philosophical achievements lie in his accounts things such that Fundamental Reality and phenomena are seen to cohere as of the relationship between ontological reality (ti fifi) and manifest functioning a single whole.

(yong fid); the principle of Change (S); and the two concepts "contraction" (xi Xiong is not the only "New Confucian" to suffer this fate. Recently, in a simiand "expansion" (pi derived from Yijing (Book of Change). Scholars who lar vein, Thierry Meynard has argued that share this view claim to find evidence of

Xiong's Confucian persuasion• in his sustained critiques of Yogäcära thought. in the last twenty years, many studies in Mainland China have analyzed Xiong's main critique of Yogäcära philosophy (as principally represented by Liang's thought from the standpoint ofConfucianism, considering him to


Cheng weishi lun or the so-called Weishi tradition associated with Dharmapäla be the forerunner oftoday's Contemporary New Confucianism. . . . (The) and Xuanzang) is that it had hypostasized the doctrine of conditioned arising labeling of Liang as a Confucian or as a New Confucian prevents a com-

(yuanqi into a doctrine of seeds, effectively creating a structural realism. prehensive understanding ofhis thought and life that would articulate, in

It also entails various forms of ontological dualisms and even ontological plu- a meaningful way, both Confucianism and Buddhism.63 ralism, with seeds posited as the ontological basis of all things. One ofXiong's key objections to Yogäcära is that by positing seeds as causes of cognitive

ob- Similarly, as Jason Clower and Wing-cheuk Chan have each recently shown, Mou jects, the mind becomes bifurcated into a subject part and an object part, and its Zongsan's philosophical system cannot be grasped without also understanding inherent oneness thus becomes artificially and mistakenly severed. To address

the role of Sinitic Buddhist philosophy within his thought.64 this, Xiong appealed to the inseparability of ontological reality (ti) and its phenomenal functioning (pong), criticizing the Yogäcära position as advocating func-the (Brill: 63. Thierry Leiden, Meynardt 2010), pp. The xi, xii, Religious

xiii. Philosophy of Liang Shunting: The Hidden Buddhist manifestation of reality through function (ji yong Xian ti where tion is understood actually to exist, which for Xiong amounted to bifurcating 64. Jason Clower, The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiantai Buddhism in Mou Zongsan*s

New Con- ontological reality and the phenomenal world. Xiong's position can be seen to fucianism (Brill: Leiden, 2010). Wing-cheuk Chan, "On Mou Zongsan's Hermeneutic Ap- be implicitly consistent with the views expressed in the Awakening ofMahayana discussion plication of of Buddhism," the role of Journal Huayan ofBuddhism Chinese Philosophy in New Confucian no. 2 (June Tang 2011): Junyi's 174—175. thought, For seea

Yau-Nang William Ng, "Tang Chün-i's Idea of Transcendence: with Special Reference to his Life, Existence, and the Horizon of Mind-Heart" {PhD diss., University of Toronto, 62. That is, everything arises from causes and conditions and has no•inherent self-nature. 1996), pp. 194—202.


Xiong also drew substantial (albeit largely unacknowledged) philosophical Buddhism takes aim at any doctrine that posits an eternal, metaphysical subinspiration from the Dasheng qixin lun and the doctrine of nature origination stratum, underlying ground, or "locus" on which everything else is

ontologically (xingqi H:.a), as resources to affirm the phenomenal world, the life-world, and grounded, as it is contrary to the Buddha's teachings on impermanence. In parnot simply to repudiate it. The Dasheng qixin lun also has a more contemporary ticular, Critical Buddhism regards Sinicized forms of Buddhism as false Budconnection with Xiong Shili. After Xiong published the literary redaction of his dhism and as incompatible with the project ofmodernity

because they are not Xin weishi lun (New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness) in founded on rational critique. As Lin Chen-kuo points out, "Like Habermas, the 1932, two of his more trenchant critics were Ouyang Jingwu—the founder of critical Buddhists choose to carry out the project of modernity because they see the China Inner Learning Institute (Zhina Neixue Yuan the that both the West and Buddhism share the same idea of enlightenment, namely

Buddhist scholarCheng. (Xiong had, in fact, first studied Yogäcãra together as a quest for liberation from ignorance and domination."67 with Lü Cheng under the tutelage of Ouyang.) As already noted above, seeking In setting out his understanding ofthe concept of "transformation*' —a metato "return to the roots" of Indian Buddhism, Ouyang, Lü, and their colleagues phor for ontological reality—in the New Treatise, for example, Xiong describes promoted "true" Buddhism over

false" Buddhism, criticizing such core Sinitic one of its characteristics in the following terms: "Wondrously transforming, unBuddhist doctrines as "inherent enlightenment*' and "returning to the source." fathomable; the myriad things are unequal. Equal by virtue of being unequal, In 1943, the year Ouyang died, an extended series of polemical exchanges and so each is as what it is as." This is exactly the sort ofnotion of equality (which, took place between Lü Cheng and

Xiong Shili on the question of whether human as we have seen, was shared by Zhang Taiyan) that Critical Buddhists object to nature is innately quiescent (Xing ji or innately enlightened (Xing jue because, as Paul Swanson explains, g if one assumes a single basis and underly the details of which are set out in Lin Chen-kuo's chapter in this volume. ing reality for all things—that good and evil, strong and weak, rich • and poor, At the most general level, this question

touched upon the very legitimacy of the right and wrong, are fundamentally 'the same'—there is no need or incentive to philosophical foundations of East Asian Buddhism. More specifically, this point correct any injustice or right any wrong or challenge the status quo."6S In Xiong's of contention bears directly on a range of issues, including the interpretation of case, aa single basis and underlying reality for all things" is just what "transforthe doctrine that "the

nature of the mind is inherently pure" (xinxing benjing mation" is, in the same way that the pure buddha•nature intrinsic in all things and methods of cultivation, In regard to these two matters, Xiong {the matrix of buddhas concept)—the all-pervading, undifferentiated absolute upheld the view that the inherently awakened (and hence dynamic) nature of reality (dharmakaya)—functions in Dasheng qixin tun.


the mind can be personally realized through the "inner realization" of our own Critical Buddhists regard Dasheng qíxitl lun to be emblematic of so-called topminds and is associated in particular with the teachings of the Dasheng qixin lun. iCal Buddhism or topical philosophy—"notions of a universal, ineffable, precon(Later, Mou Zongsan accorded "inherent enlightenment" a central role in his ceptual ground or 'topos' from which all things are produced and to which

they philosophical system by attributing to it the capacity for "intellectual intuition.") return at of such constructions as "truth body" (dharmakaya) Lü Cheng, on the other hand, upheld the Yogacära view (represented by Xuan- and "matrix ofbuddhas" that seemingly contradict the doctrine of no-self. These zang and Kuiji) that although "the nature of the mind is inherently pure," realiza- constructions, in turn, are foundational for such doctrines as inherent

enlightention of that purity requires a transformation of consciousness,G5 ment (benjue *Z), a doctrine that appears to be inconsistent with the doctrine In more recent times, the standoff between the views upheld by Xiong, on ofdependent arising. the one hand, and by Ouyang and Lü, on the other, has resurfaced in the context As it happens, in modern China it has been topical philosophy (in the form of

controversies surrounding so-called Critical Buddhism. Critical Buddhism Of New Confucian metaphysics, especially Mou Zongsan's New Confucianism) is an intellectual movement initiated in the mid-i980s Japan by the Buddhist that has emerged victorious over scholastic forms of Critical Buddhism (Ouyang scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirö Critical


67. Lin Chen-kuo, "Metaphysics, Suffering, and Lfl)eration: The Debate between Two Buddhisms," in Hubbard and Swanson. Pruning the Bodhi Tree, p. 305.


65. The notion of innate clarity of mind has a long pedigree in India and is attested in Päli texts. 6 8. Paul L. Swanson, "Why They Say Zen is Not Buddhism," in Pruning the Bodhi Tree, p. 7.


66. Jamie Hubbard and Paul L. Swanson, (eds.), Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm over 69. Jacqueline Stone, "Some Reflections on Critical Buddhism," Japanese Journal ofReli. Critical Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997). gious Studies 26, no.

Jingwu and Lü Cheng) .70 Clearly, topical philosophy continues to have strong sup- products against those specifically from the West, rather than from one port in Chinese intellectual communities. Xiong's New Treatise provides us with of its former colonies Yogãcära is Indian and hence it is irrelevant to the first substantive attempt to respond to the modernist challenge of providing their nationalist purposes.


Chinese philosophy with and he did this in the form of an ontology. Thus understood, Xiong's New Treatise is also a response to modernity and, in its Mou did not, however, entirely wash his hands of Yogäcära. On the one hand, own Buddhist way, very much part of "a quest for liberation from ignorance and writes Clower, domination "72 even if the path he followed was metaphysics and

not scientific rationality. Mou used Yogäcara as a stand-in for two ofhis rivals, Ouyang Jingwu and Lü Cheng of the Inner Learning Institute, whom he loathed as traitors to


Chinese culture, and for Immanuel Kant, whom he regarded with "admi23-3 Yogacãra and Mou Zongsan ration and competitiveness," as both the epitome of the Western philoClower presents a stark account of the fate of Yogäcära among New Confucian sophical tradition and also a Western analog to Yogäcära's emphasis on philosophers after World War Il: the empirical mind at the expense of the transcendental mind.


Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi (1909—1978) removed Yogäcara On the other hand, Mou continued to draw inspiration from Yogäcära. De. from the New Confucian agenda. They no longer found Yogäcära impor- spite his ultimate and unambiguous privileging of Confucian philosophy over tant. And indeed since then, Yogäcära has lingered far from the center of Buddhist philosophy, as Clower has elsewhere pertinently remarked, the Chinese intellectual scene. . . . Mou demoted Yogäcära to the second poorest kind of Mahäyäna philosophy, and Tang ranked it dead last. What makes Mou noticeable . . . is his catholicity of interest and breadth of

reading in Buddhist writings and willingness to proclaim the philo• Mou instead directed most of his creative energy to Immanuel Kant while Tang sophical superiority of Buddhists to Confucians and the necessity for turned his to Hegel. Not only did Mou and Tang consider Yogäcära a spent force, Confucians to submit themselves to Buddhist tutelage, and then to openly they passed that belief on to later Confucians such that today in mainstream re-organize and re-evaluate the whole Confucian philosophical tradition New Confucian philosophy it is barely even of historical interest. Clower further in an explicitly Buddhist wayp argues:


The principal doxographical methodology to be applied to this reevaluation is The New Confucian project is based partly on national ressentiment di- Mou's appropriation of the Sinitic Buddhist method of "doctrinal classification" rected toward the West, and to the considerable extent that New Confu- (panjiao and his application ofit to the whole of Chinese philosophy. Within cians are also cultural nationalists, they twish to match Chinese cultural this scheme, Mou

identified the Tiantai paradigm of the Perfect Teaching (yuanjiao [Aü) as providing a theoretical model to demonstrate how Kant's ideal of due correspondence between virtue and happiness can be achieved without appeal to God. He further insisted that certain Song and Ming Neo-Confucians had articu- 70. [n his chapter on Ouyang, Eyal Aviv insists that Ouyang should not be too readily because where the Critical Bud* lated the most perfect "Perfect Teaching."


associated with the Japanese Critical Buddhist movement dhists completely reject the nthägatagarbha doctrine, later in his life Ouyang revealed a Mou identifies Yogäcära thought as a dialectical stage in a process of philomore sympathetic attitude to it. sophical development, which for him culminates in the

Tiantai Perfect Teaching. 71. Ever since the early 1900s, Chinese intellectuals have sought to respond to claims Yogäcära's dialectical value lies in having produced an "ontologywith attachment," initially made by Japanese scholars that Chinese philosophy lacks systemization; that in a key component of his dual ontology: a "phenomenal ontology" (xianxiangjie method and organization it is simple and naive; and that it falls fat short of the standards set by Western philosophy. I discuss this in detail in "The Role of Masters Studies in the Early Formation of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline," in Makeham, Learn- ing to Emulate the Wise, pp. 73—101. 73. Jason Clower, The Unlikely Buddhologist, p. 3; see also Serina N, Chan, The Thought of

72. Lin Chen-kuo, "Metaphysics, Suffering, and Liberation," p. 305. Mou Zongsan (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011).

de cunyoulun or "attached ontology" (Zhi de cunyoulun and a "noumenal ontology" (bentijie de cunyoulun or "non-attached ontology" (wuzhi de cunyoulun Whereas the former enables humans to realize their noumenal nature, the latter enables humans to function in the phenomenal world. Xiong Shili's analysis of phenomenon in the context of his "ontological reality"/ "manifest functioning" ontology (see Makeham, chapter 8) can also be regarded as having found fttrther development in Mou's "phenomenal ontology."


This volume shows that just like Xiong Shili's and Liang Shuming's philosophical systems, so too Mou Zongsan's philosophical system cannot be grasped without also understanding the role of Sinitic Buddhist philosophy within that system, a salient feature of which is the creative tension between Yogäcära and "matrix of buddhas" (tathägatagarbha) approaches to salvation. This reinforces the importance of recognizing the vital role Buddhist philosophy has played in the

construction of New Confucian philosophy and the ongoing presence it still retains in the historical constitution of New Confucian philosophy. Despite this, the Indian roots of Chinese philosophy—traditional or modern—continue largely to be ignored. It is hoped this volume will show why this is no longer a tenable position.



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