YogĀcĀra - Madhyamaka disputes from NĀgĀrjuna to Rol pa’i rdo rje lCang skya II

By Dr. James K. Powell II

I wrote this twenty years ago, and when a school wished demonstration of publication, I felt it was long past time to share! I lost all my diacritics fonts since that long ago Windows 95 day. I hope corrected everything, but perhaps any reader will be so kind as to point out any errors of both omission and commission.

I help this paper will enable a practitioner or beginning scholar in this field, to understand the major conundrum facing these two schools viz. consciousness, a tricky matter even for scientists today.

This piece will outline some of the major issues that create for a debate between the Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”) and Yogācāra praxis Mahāyāna Schools of thought. So do please feel most encouraged to comment that I may learn more about my own topic!

These two systems are perfectly in accordance with the noble doctrine. Can we then say which of the two is right? Both equally conform to truth and lead us to Nirvāṇa. Nor can we find out which is true or false? Both aim at the destruction of passion (kleśa) and the salvation of all beings. We must not, in trying to settle the comparative merits of these two, create great confusion and fall further into perplexity.

For, if we act conformably with any of these doctrines, we are enabled to attain the Other Shore (Nirvāṇa), and if we turn away from them, we remain drowned, as it were, in the ocean of transmigration. The two systems are, in like manner, taught in India, for in essential points they do not differ from each other.

- I-tsing

Commencement of the disputes. There can be no doubt that by the time of I-tsing at the latest, Mahāyāna was fragmented into two specific schools: The Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra. It will be one major aim of this study to investigate the origins of this cleavage. We will be examining Tibetan claims of a very early date and we will be examining the severity of the disagreements.

Certain works tend to highly under-exaggerate the discrepancies, while other, especially early occidental works, and tend to over-exaggerate the differences between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra systems, often in the framework of “nihilism” versus “Idealism,” respectively.

Having reflected on this issue for some years, and while by no means having at all fully resolved it, it is our contention that truth lies in both the under- and over- exaggerated positions mentioned above - and yet, neither. We will be demonstrating both the perspectives shared by the two schools, especially relative to the Śrāvakayāna Schools. By implication more than explicitly, we will unveil the common ground of all these Buddhist schools share relative to non-Buddhist schools.

The multivalent aspects of this study. As evinced from the title of this study, we will be primarily concerned with the “Great Debate” engaged by the two schools over the course of some centuries, as recorded in the work of lCang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje (whose biography we will relate below). In chapters three, four and five, the heart of this work, is the translation and sub-commentary of lCang skya II’s opus magnum, A Beautiful Ornament for Mt. Meru of the Adept [[[Buddha’s]]] Teaching, a Clear Exposition Presenting the Limits of Proofs.

There are four textual layers employed in this study. Doubly indented are textual citations lCang skya himself employs to make his arguments. The translation of his own work immediately surrounds those citations of earlier works he cites.

Below the translation is a sub-commentary that is an elaboration of obscure points in his work. This sub-commentary in a descriptive manner sets out the meaning of the text from the standpoint of authoritative Gelukpa interpretation from two years’ work on it with Geshe Lhundhup Sopa.

A translator can only hope to eliminate obscurity in his/her translation to as great an extent possible. To help ensure clarity we have included this extensive sub-commentary partly as a control, for sometimes we are merely repeating the translation to affirm that what it states need be interpreted no further.

At other times we have included additional information without which the text, abbreviated as it often is, would be incomprehensible. Without the insights of Geshe Sopa’s tradition of scholarship to help flesh out the meaning of the root text, I would have been stymied in my efforts to translate at all accurately or fully.

Finally, the footnotes in this study contain not only additional information from secondary sources and other primary sources. It is in this format that we have presented views of certain modern scholars relevant to this study. These may be the insights of others that may conflict with the primary text of this study.

The two schools: essentially identical or essentially different? It is a pan-Mahāyānist philosophical standpoint to reject notions of “self-identity.” To say, for example, the two Mahāyāna Schools are identical would be to violate one of their own basic principles in defining them. In Nāgārjunan analysis, something strictly identical to another thing could not be ipso facto, differentiated at all, in thought, name or experiential reality.

To assert the identity of or even to say that they are “virtually” identical is to negate another vital aspect of Mahāyāna and all Buddhist doctrine, the doctrine of upāya: the “approach” or “method” a Buddha or any teacher employs to gradually train disciples. The manifold variety of approaches are all part of Buddha’s enticements into the dharma, all valid to varying degrees and intended for sentient beings who are also manifold and variegated. The final aim of the Buddha’s teaching is nirvāṇa itself, and this is inconceivable. All the schools are hence “interpretable” and “provisional.”

The nature of consciousness: the pivot around which the great debates unfold. The nature of consciousness is the primary subject of the great issues which distinguish a Madhyamaka stance from that of a Yogācārin. Does the Yogācārin possess an outlook that is svacitta - “mind-in-itself?” This is what [pseudo?] Nāgārjuna claims.

Is this school “Idealist?” The Yogacārin position hinges on its discusion of the self-awareness (rang rig), which is the subject of chapter four. Is this notion of a “self-aware” consciousness constitutive of some type of idealism? We offer arguments in our chapter on methodology as to why this occidental term is inaccurate.

As we shall see, perhaps “Consciousnessism,” (Vijñānavāda), “Mentalism” or “Mentationism” (Yogācāra), or “Cognitionism” (Vijñāptimātravāda) are more accurate, though some will contend that we are quibbling. The implications of the two schools’ contentions over the greater or lesser importance accorded mentation in the role of attaining liberation is central to this study. Connected with that is the relative emphasis on either theory or practice.

There exist major difficulties viewing either of the two schools strictly objectively. One always has an initial reference point. In the case of Gadjin Nagao, that reference point was that of the Yogācāra School. He admits that his study of that school was heavily influenced by his prior knowledge of Yoga-praxis positions. No scholar of any tradition, to our knowledge, maintains that the two schools are either exactly the same or that they are utterly to be differentiated. Relatively speaking, assertions of the gulf cleaving the two schools however, diverge widely.

There are definitive and interpretable doctrines. The Buddhist schools never in theory simply condemn the doctrines of other schools, however, they do rank them according to relative depth of insight, etc. In the case of these disputes, each claims the other’s doctrine “needs further elucidation” to hit the mark of the Buddha’s intention.

David Seyfort Ruegg, standing outside a particular Buddhist tradition, terms the disputes as between a positive or mystical current (cataphatic) and a negative theory (apophatic) theory concerning these issues. The notion that some texts and ideas are “interpretable,” having a different intention (abhiprāya) than the apparent meaning, rather than “definitive” meaning must be used with care. He states,

“...so powerful a hermeneutical instrument as the idea of an intentionally motivated ‘surface’ teaching of provisional or non-definitive meaning requiring interpretation in a sense other than the obvious surface one, and opposed to a ‘deep’ teaching of final and definitive meaning, had to be handled with care and restraint - and no doubt also as sparingly as possible - in order not to be tainted with arbitrariness and disregard for a canonical corpus.”

Finally, as Geshe Lhundhup Sopa has put it, all of the schools whose doctrines are included among the three cycles (which we will discuss below) have arguments as to the reasons and methods by which they avoid falling into the classical chasm of either nihilism or substantialism, anniḥiliationism or “permanence” thinking.

The Mahāyāna Saṃgrāha: Counteracting the extremes of positivism and repudiation. We have consulted Etienne Lamotte’s work to help “enflesh” our understanding of certain issues as evinced in the Saṃgrāha. The Sanskrit originals of these three works have been lost, leaving readers to rely on the Chinese and Tibetan translations. The Mahāyāna Saṃgrāha and the Bodhisattvabhūmi are the two most often quoted textual sources for lCang skya.

Three cycles of doctrine: the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra. This issue of the Three Cycles of the Wheel of Dharma (dharmacakrapravartana) defines the entirety of Buddhist doctrines - from the Mahāyāna perspective. This systematization of Buddhist schools is famously elucidated in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra.

The Sanskrit edition was lost most likely already by the thirteenth century. Numerous Tibetan (at least ten) and Chinese editions (at least three) exist, attesting to this sūtra’s widespread influence and authority. Legendary origin of the three cycles. Why are the doctrines of the three major divisions of Buddhist schools - according to the Mahāyāna Schools - called “cycles” or “wheels?”

“If [one asks] ‘[Why] is it a “wheel”?’ it is because it is a wheel of all the teachings of complete realization and scriptural teachings for the purpose of cutting off unharmonious [[[elements]]] in the mental continuum of the disciple by the Bhāgavan.

It is like the precious wheel of the cakravartin kings that travelled gradually from one region to another, conquering unharmonious elements through its power. Therefore, the [[[Buddhadharma]]] is similar to that wheel, since it conquers unharmonious elements such as attachment, etc., travelling gradually to the mental continua of disciples.”

Definitive versus provisional doctrines. The first cycle of doctrine: the Śrāvakayāna . Needless to say, representatives of what the Mahāyāna Schools term the so-called Hīnayāna (“Lesser” or even “Inferior” Vehicle) do not accept this elucidation of the Buddha’s teaching in the form of “three cycles of the wheel of Dharma.”

The only remaining school among the eighteen original schools included under this designation “Hīnayāna” are the various Theravāda traditions found in Wri Lavka and most of Southeast Asia. They accept only the teachings of the Buddha as found in the three baskets of the Pali canon as authoritative and view what they deem later Mahāyāna developments as imaginative fictions. On the other hand, certain scholars find śūnyatā and numerous other doctrines in the Pali canon itself.

Scholars of Mahāyāna traditions have viewed the Hīnayāna as a teaching for Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. These aspirants to Buddhist awakening have a self-serving agenda. They pursue only their own awakening to the selflessness of the individual among the skandhas, without regard to the suffering of fellow sentient beings. This system of the three cycles involves elements controversial to all forms of Buddhism.

The section of the sūtra elucidating the three turnings of the wheel (tricakra, khor lo gsum) appears in chapter seven, the questions of Bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata to the Buddha. Paramārthasamudgata begins his inquiry of the Buddha by noting,

“Bhāgavan, when I was in seclusion there arose this thought: ‘The Bhāgavan has spoken in many ways of the own-character of the aggregates and further spoken of their character of production, their character of disintegration, and their abandonment and realization. Just as he has spoken of the aggregates, he has also spoken of the sense spheres….[etc.]’”

Paramārthasamudgata continue, listing features of sentient consciousness the Buddha taught as having their “own characteristics” (svalaksana, rang gi mtshan nyid). Continuing, he refers to the Buddha’s teaching concerning the “own-characteristics” of the Buddhist Noble Eight-fold Path etc.

Interpretable nature of the first cycle. Here is a reference to what the sūtra exposes as the first turning of the Cycle of Dharma. All Mahāyāna traditions view doctrines contained within this wheel as “provisional” or “interpretable” - “requiring further elucidation” (neyartha). The reason for this is the realism concerning dharma theory found in the Abhidhammapitaka. In the Abhidharmakoṣa, a commentary on and compendium of theories from the piṭaka, dharmas (phenomena) are said to be the fundamental constituents of time/space reality.

A selection from the Abhidharmakosabhāṣyam by Vasubandhu depicting a dispute between two now non-existent so-called (by the Mahāyāna) “Hīnayāna” or “inferior” schools, the Vaibhāṣikas and Sautrāntika (with the former we can class the modern Theravāda tradition), illustrates the “realism” of dharma theory which served as one of many targets for the criticism of later Mahāyāna thinkers.

“[The Vaibhāṣikas say: the Sūtra teaches that] all rupa...is, individually, called skandha...thus each ‘real’ (atomic) element of past rupa...present...and future...receives the name of skandha. Thus the skandhas have real existence and not merely nominal existence.

[The Sautrāntika:] If this is the case, then the material āyatanas...have only a nominal existence, for the quality of being a ‘gate of arising of the mind...’ does not belong to atoms taken one by one, which are solely real, but to collections of atoms which constitute an organ of sight, a visible object, etc.”

Though both schools may disagree about the true reality or nominally reality of composite phenomena, both adhere to the teaching that dharmas (“atoms” in the translation) are the fundamental time/space constituents of reality. The view was demolished later by Vasubandhu by means of his critique of this “atom/dharma” theory.

Nirvāṇa as ‘unconditioned’ phenomenon. Further, nirvāṇa in the conception of the Hīnayāna School, was asserted to be an unconditioned state, an assertion rejected by Nāgārjuna in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikāḥ in chapter 25 (the “nirvāṇapārīksā”). This notion of nirvaa as “unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) was rejected as violating the notion of pratītyasamutpāda; nirvāṇa and saṃsāra are co-arising and mutually interdependent, according to Madhyamaka view.

Entical nature of First Cycle doctrines. Therefore, the Buddha promulgated this Turning of the Wheel for Śrāvaka disciples who adhered to “entical” or “essentialist” thinking, unprepared for the deeper truths of the Buddhadharma concerned with śūnyatā. In the seventh chapter, the Buddha explains to Paramārthasamudgata the reason for not explaining the lack of self-nature (“own being” in the translation) to certain types of beings:

“Paramārthasamudgata, I do not designate the three types of lack of own being because sentient beings in the realm of sentient beings...because of being bound to conventional designations or due to predispositions toward conventional designations, they strongly adhere to the character of the own-being of the imputational as the own-being of the other-dependent and the thoroughly established.”

He elucidates the view that sentient beings experience the world as having “inherent existence” or “self-nature” (svabhāva). They attach true existence to that which is merely conceptualized (parikalpita) and perceive “entities” where there are none.

This is the “conceptualization” or “imagination” of the “unreal” (abhutaparikalpa). They equate this level of comprehension with the deeper “own being” or “self-entity” of the interwoven-with-other. To teach the lack of self-nature (niḥsvabhāva) to such sentient beings would be to generate within them further afflictions for which they are unprepared to cope.

The Second Cyle of doctrine: Madhyamaka. The Second Turning of the Wheel refers to the rise of systems of thought associated with the Prajñāpāramitā literature. Within this corpus, ideas appear which seem to contradict teachings in the corpus of literature associated with the first Turning. Among the various Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, we read that the paths to awakening do not arise, that nirvāṇa, rather than being an unconditioned realm is directly accessible, and in fact, all phenomena are “quiescent from the beginning.” Nihilism in the Second Cycle?

The doctrine of śūnyatā is that which stands as the foremost teaching among these systems of thought. This doctrine seems like “nihilism” to both Hīnayāna Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. To Mahāyānist proponents of Madhyamaka doctrines, this is an extension of the Buddha’s teaching of anatta - the lack of an individual self among the skandhas - to the lack of selfhood for all phenomena (sarvadharmanairātmya) as well.

The Buddha responds to Paramārtha’s confusion as to why he would teach such doctrines that seem so to contradict his earlier teachings. The Buddha replies as follows:

“Paramārthasamudgata, I initially teach doctrines starting with the lack of own-being in terms of production to those beings who have not generated roots of virtue, who have not purified obstructions, who have not ripened their continuums.... They know [[[phenomena]]] as being impermanent...unstable, unworthy of confidence...whereupon they develope aversion and antipathy toward all compounded phenomena...their understanding is not infused with conventional designations.”

The Second Cycle: for the prideful who ‘lack roots of virtue. Therefore, while it is said that sentient beings who were unripe to receive teaching concerning śūnyatā. These disciples of the Second Turning are said to be those who lack “roots of virtue” etc. and develop an understanding of language and sense-perception as “conventional designation only” (Saṃvṛimātra). Their basis of understanding of reality needs to be demolished, and these doctrines are useful for reducing the pride of those too prone to adhere to the obstructions of entical views.

The doctrines associated with the Second Wheel, as that of the First Wheel, are said to be “interpretable,” “needing elucidation” (neyārtha), as the Buddha states in the following:

“With respect to this well-taught doctrine, degrees of conviction appear among sentient beings. Paramārthasamudgata, thinking of just these three types of lack of own-being, through the teachings that are Sūtras of interpretable meaning, the Tathāgata taught such doctrines as: “All phenomena lack own-being; all phenomena are unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start, and naturally in a state of nirvaa.”

The danger with the Buddha’s doctrines connected with the Second Turning is that

“[[[Disciples]]] believe in the doctrine, they strongly adhere just to the literal meaning of the doctrine, [[[thinking]]], ‘All phenomena just lack own-being; all phenomena are just unproduced, just unceasing, just quiescent from the start, just naturally in a state of nirvaa.’ Based on this, they adopt the view that all phenomena do not exist...they perceive what is not the meaning to be the meaning....”

Therefore, the meaning of these doctrines needs to be interpreted lest “undeveloped” mental continua misinterprete “sarva śūnyam” (all is empty) as a nihilismistic doctrine.

Two wrong attitudes with regard to the Second Cycle doctrines. The Buddha in these passages also chides those who reject this doctrine as a doctrine taught not by the Buddha, but by Māra. So there are two wrong attitudes to Second Wheel doctrines: 1] to accept them, but in a nihilismistic manner, and 2] to reject them as not taught by the Buddha and view as enemies those who propound these views.

The Third Cycle of doctrine: Yogācāra. The Bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata comprehended the Buddha’s teachings in the following way:

Initially, in the Varanāsi area, in the Deer Park...the Bhāgavan taught the aspects of the four truths of the Āryas for those who were genuinely engaged in the Śrāvaka vehicle. The wheel of doctrine you turned at first is wondrous...however, this wheel of doctrine that the Bhāgavan turned is surpassable, provides an opportunity [for refutation], is of interpretable meaning, and serves as a basis for dispute.

Then the Bhāgavan turned a second wheel of doctrine which is more wondrous still for those who are genuinely engaged in the Great Vehicle, because of the aspect of teaching emptiness...however this wheel of doctrine...is surpassable....[etc.]”

So the third wheel, from the standpoint of the Yogācāra School, is definitive (nitārtha) because it distinguishes the boundary between the first and second wheels, encapsulating all their doctrines. How is this done?

The whole of Buddhist teaching is encapsulated by the doctrine of the three natures. From the Yogācāra standpoint, the whole of Buddhist teaching is reinterpreted by means of the three natures (trisvabhāva) theory. They take the notion of “non-self-nature” (niḥsvabhāva) elaborated in Nāgārjuna’s works (foremost among them, the MūlaMadhyamakakārikāḥs) and apply it in a three-fold way.

The first of the three natures: conceptualization. The first of these three natures is the “conceptualized nature” (parikalpitasvabhāva). It involves the imputation of conceptual constructs creating “enticalized” objects. In fact, they do not exist of their own accord or concretely. This is the “conceptualization or imagination of the unreal.’ This is the Yogācāra evolution of the saṃvṛtisatya notion of the schools of the Second Turning (i.e. the various Madhyamaka Schools).

The second of the three natures: the other-dependent. The coining of the term paratantra was its expression of Nāgārjunan śūnyatā, expressing the idea elucidated logically by Nāgārjuna that entities exist only as “mutually dependent” (parasparāpekṣā), not as independent entities. “Interwoven-with-other” sums up the notion of niḥsvabhāva, in their view, because the implication of this notions is that no “entity” is self-existent though they are falsely imputed as being so; in reality, they are radically interwoven with what is mentated as “other” to itself. Hence they subsume the idea of the selflessness of the individual and phenomena (ātmadhrmanairātmya) under this notion.

The third of the three natures: the “perfected.” The Yogācāra assert their definitiveness as Mahāyāna teaching further by the term “pariniṣpannasvabhāva.” The term implies perfection of practice - the actualization of the awareness of paratantra through practice in meditation. Further it has been said that the Yogācāra School is a continuation of the Abhidhamma period having gone through the filter of Mahāyāna logic, etc. and by means of this, a “de-enticalization” of the Abhidhamma system occurred.

Yogācāra: school of definitive interpretation. They are a school of definitive interpretation, it is said, because they incorporate the Abhidhamma. If we accept the story as given by the tradition, the same Vasubandhu began his career as the great scholar of the Abhidharmakosa fame, who converted to the Mahāyāna upon learning of his half brother’s doctrine brought back from the Tusita realm. If this is true pre-Mahāyāna Abhidhamma thought is directly connected with Yogācāra thought in the works of one of its central thinkers.

One Vasubandhu. Frauwallner’s arguments to the contrary, it is not at all philosophically improbable that the author of the Koṣa is one and the same person as who wrote the Triṃsika, et. al.. Differences in style can be accounted for by the fact that different issues rose to concern. Specifically, how does one integrate the three-nature theory and the compelling standpoint of śūnyatā with abhidhamma categories? How does one then account for different meditative states and the various levels of consciousness realized through them?

Yogācāra critique of Madhyamaka. Rebirth: without the ālaya consciousness, how does one account for that psychic reality which is reborn? Vasubandhu’s thought enabled the new Mahāyānist synthesis of classical doctrines such as the twelve-fold chain of causation (dvādaṣaṅgapratītyasamutpāda). Further, from the Yogācāra standpoint, the Madhyamaka system is explanatorily weak. It illuminates the distinction between the conventional and ultimate relative to śūnyatā, but cannot incorpate all the teachings of the Buddha as the sūtra states. Finally, the śūnya doctrine is positively dangerous for those mental continuum is immature and for whom it would be “poisonous.’

Mādhyamika response to Yogācāra critique. The Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka can agree that the Madhyamaka doctrine is not for all trainees in the Mahāyāna system. Employing a type of “snob appeal,” They can indicate that Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka can indeed lead to a nihilismistic view for some mental continua (see Tsong kha pa’s view just below).

Therefore, they may assent to the notion that the Yogācāra elucidates an “extensive method” and venerate Asavga whom they see as of the lineage of Maitreya as on a par with Nāgārjuna, of the lineage of Mañjuwri. However, in their view, Asavga held as his ultimate view, the standpoint of Mādhyamika śūnyatā The third cycle is taught to forestall falling into the ‘Great Nihilism.’ Tsong kha pa himself states:

“Finally, [in the third wheel], the statements of the lack of intrinsic identifiability of the first nature and of the intrinsically identifiable existence of the latter two natures [are interpretable in meaning]. [They are] taught for those [[[disciples]]] of the Mahāyāna who would find no ground to establish cause-effect...in the intrinsic realitylessness that is emptiness with respect to intrinsically identifiable status, in order to forestall their falling into the great nihilism ....”

The Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra as definitive Madhyamaka text. Some Mādhyamika have held that the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra is a definitive text because it basically assents to the notion that the Second Turning is definitive, though too hard to comprehend for the trainee of less than superb faculties. In the end, even all holders of Vijñānavāda lineage will come to the profound view (of śūnyatā) in the end, when their mental continua are matured.

Here, our investigation requires some preferatory remarks. At times in past and present one finds sometimes a tendency to draw rather simple comparisons among schools. It has been and is in many circles still common to refer to the Yogācāra School as a form of “Idealism” because of its emphasis on the doctrine of “cognition-only” Vijñāpti- or vijñānamātra.

Variously called “Mind-only” (Yogācāra), “consciousness-only” (vijñānamātra) and more generically perhaps, the “Yoga-praxis” (Yogācāra) school, this philosophical system has received diverse treātment at the hands of occidental scholars struggling to find footholds of meaning in the craggy edifice of its centuries-long development textually. Complicating matters further is the fact that one’s definition of the school’s doctrines will depend greatly upon whether one is employing Central or East Asian sources for one’s interpretation.

In the hands of Gelukpa Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika scholars of Tibet and Mongolia, the Yogācāra seems more greatly to resemble occidental “Idealisms” (of necessity generally defined). The interpretation differs from the interpretations one is likely to find among the investigation of the original Indian Yogācāra systems to be found among Japanese scholars of the twentieth century.

Texts and authors. Nāgārjuna’s Bodhicittavivāraṇa. In this work we have an early and biting critique of Cittamātrin thinking. Whether this work is pseudepigraphal or not remains to be determined. Christian Lindtner holds that it is not. He notes that the Bodhicittavivāraṇa is referred to neither by Buddhapālita nor Candrakīrti, yet it serves as a basic authority for Bhavya “in his most mature work, the Ratnapradīpa.” He neglects quoting it in his earlier works, the Tarkajvāla, Prajñāpradīpa, however Asvabhāva and Śāntarakṣita both refer to this text.

It is Lindtner’s opinion that the Yuktiśāstika, the Catuḥśatakastava and the Bodhicittavivāraṇa “are the most frequently quoted among all works ascribed to Nāgārjuna in later Indian literature.” Lindtner holds that the consciousness-only doctrines Nāgārjuna refutes are likely derived from those extant in the Laṅkāvatarasūtra. On this point he states,

“Having seen how vehemently Nāgārjuna attacks any kind of acceptance of svabhāva one would also expect him to have criticized those who might have thought themselves justified in maintaining the absolute existence of vijñāna (citta). But in the texts dealt with hitherto this has only happened incidentally. Here Bodhicittavivāraṇa provides us with the missing link.”

For evidence that Nāgārjuna was indeed familiar with the doctrines of the Laṅkāvatarasūtra, Lindtner cites the following parallels:

The allusions to Vijñānavāda - or more precisely to the Vijñānavāda of the Laṅkāvatarasūtra...generally held to be posterior to Nāgārjuna - are quite consistent with the fact that Nāgārjuna also refers to this sūtra elsewhere.”

However, Lindtner’ comments are dubious, given that some will assert that holding Bhavya as genuine author of the Ratnapradīpa is itself open to question. Furthermore, Ruegg however holds that this text is the product of the so-called “tantric Nāgārjuna.” This Nāgārjuna seems to have lived in the seventh (or at the latest in the eighth) century. The Bodhicittavivarana may well be his composition....”

He makes mention of the fact that Indian and Tibetan records identify the writers of Tantric works with the writers of wastras with the same name living centuries earlier. The traditions hold that Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, etc., lived enormously long lives, even for several centuries. These records do sharply differentiate between the philosophical and tantric corpi associated with these writers however.

The issues involved are a bit like those associated with the “two Vasubandhus” theory, or the elusive “search for the historical Maitreya.” As discussed above, Frauwallner analyzed differences in the style of writing as found in the works of Vasubandhu the author of the Abhidharmakoṣa versus that of the Cittamātrin master of the same name. But perhaps there were also two Beethovens, one pre and one post Eroica; perhaps there were two Kants, one pre and one post Hume. If we compare a Beethoven Sonata with a symphony, again one could conclude that there were two Beethovens, even though the pieces may have been written contemporaneously.

The same may be said for a great number of authors whose views shifted during the course of their careers. In the case of the tantric Nāgārjuna versus the philosopher original, the issue is concerned with divergent materials and genres. If the Bodhicittavivāraṇa fits in with “Nāgārjuna.” The Prāsaṅgika Madhayamika renders more or less the same critique of a number of East Asian Buddhist schools influenced heavily by Yogācāra thought of the same kind of relatively substantialist “entity”-view. The problems with notions such as hongaku and Buddha Nature as seen in many of these schools are problems similar to that Gelukpa have with gZhan stong (or “zeroness of other”). Thinking in their own culture. It leads to a form of nihilism in the declaration of a pure nature which is empty - not inherently - but empty of defilements (kleśa).

How does this seemingly more positive doctrine lead to nihilism? Conceptualizing the Dharmakāya and the Buddha Nature within as the only real truth, concomitant with the notion of the non-existence of external objects lead to a devaluation of this world’s reality in declaring it all illusion and leads to a nihilism in the sense that language, observed phenomena are viewed as simply false. Such a view loses the notion of two truths. Saṃvṛti is a form of truth, albeit conventional.

With regard to the authenticity of the Bodhicittavivāraṇa and its professed Nāgārjunan authorship, with its grave opposition to Cittamātrin notions is a subject of dispute. Ruegg notes that this work was familiar to Haribhadra who lived in the ninth century.

This tantric Nāgārjuna he asserts, lived in the seventh century or eighth century at the latest. This means that in a span of no more than two centuries, the existence of this second Nāgārjuna would have been gone from memory and works of his authorship conflated with that of the original. The theories about all sorts of “multiple-personalitied” Masters is overly-involved. Ruegg himself cites the existence of a tantric Candrakīrti, a tantric Āryadeva, and so on.

One must note that it is odd that such a severe critique of the Yogācāra School, if known to Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti, would not receive reference from them, especially in the passages ascribed by Tibetan tradition as critiques of Yogācāra by Candrakīrti, i.e., the sixth chapter of the Madhyamakāvatara. But then, one must posit the existence of a tantric Bhāvaviveka to escape the reference to the Bodhicittavivāraṇa in his Ratnapradīpa.

The history and lineages of the Siddhas and Tantrin masters remains very obscure for us, and our sources sometimes give quite divergent accounts of them so that it is not yet possible to fit them coherently into the history of Indian and Buddhist thought.

While the major focus of our work here does not entail detailed redaction-critical work, it is important to make inquiry into whether this text is authentically Nāgārjunan because of the role it will play in our study. This brief text does set the themes for works which later appear on this topic and if we are to engage in historical investigation of these disputes, it is surely important to get our chronological ordering correct. While some will criticize us for dodging the issue, we accept Thurman’s arguments with regard to the tantric versus sastric Buddhist masters.

Thurman however puts this whole type of controversy into a post-modernesque framework which we find intellectually satisfying. He notes that with numerous authors of sastras, it has been fashionable to assert the existence of corollary “tantric” counterparts who are considered specious or pseudonymous of these given tantric texts. For example, while Nāgārjuna, Bhāvaviveka, et. al. are accepted as the genuine authors of certain treatises, so-called “tantric Nāgārjuna ” and “tantric Bhāvaviveka” are seen as later, pseudepigraphical authors.

He notes that since tantric traditions were oral for centuries and only entered written form near the close of the first millenium of the Common Era, it may be reasonable to hold that these later texts were the orally passed down teachings of the great Masters, the words of whom were written down only centuries later.

It is our aim to clarify this issues and others through the course of this study. For our purposes though, we find it highly aesthetically pleasing to accept the tradition at its word for now, and will examine the Bodhicittavivarana as an acceptable first manifestation of a Madhyamaka critique of key Yogācāra notions. We will prescind from making a judgment on this issue until the conclusion of our study.

Interpreting Candrakīrti’s ‘Abhimukhi’ Chapter: directed to ‘outsiders’ or ‘insiders?’

Candrakīrti: Madhyamakāvatara and its Bhāṣya

While Candrakīrti and Bhāvaviveka were by no means in full agreement on a number of issues, both nevertheless accounted themselves Mādhyamika scholars and held Nāgārjuna in highest esteem as an authority. Equally, they wrote critiques of Cittamātrin notions and are more or less in agreement concerning what they felt were problems with Yogācāra systems.

We have seen the initial stages of the disputes which are the subject of this investigation took place perhaps in the writings of Nāgārjuna himself. A short period of time later, critiques of “Mind-only” systems were written in more extensive fashion, by two of the most famous earlier disciples of Nāgārjuna, Bhāvaviveka and Candrakīrti. Later Tibetan tradition styles the first scholar “Svatantrika-Mādhyamika” and the latter, “Prāsaṅgika-Mādhyamika,” but in their own day relative to the adherents of “Cognition-only,” they were of like-mind.

There are three major aspects of Candrakīrti’s disagreement with Yogācārins with regard to the other-dependent nature. That it is manifest apart from apprehended external objects, that is exists in actuality and that its own inherent reality is lies beyond conceptual analysis.

Bhāvaviveka. In Bhāvaviveka’s commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Stanzas [Concerning] the Root of the Middle Way, he “castigates the followers of Mind Only as introducing the heretical notion of a ‘self’ (ātman) under another name.”

“If you say that tathatā (Suchness), although beyond words, is a real thing, then this is the ātman of the heretics which you designate with the different name of tathatā. Your tathatā is a real thing, and yet from the viewpoint of absolute truth it does not belong to the categories of being or nonbeing; but such is the ātman. The heretics also believe that the ātman, a real thing, is omnipresent, eternal, acting, feeling, and yet beyond all categories and concepts (nirvikalpa). Because it does not pertain to the sphere of words, because it presents no object ot the discursive intellect (vikalpa-buddhi), it is said to be beyond categories. The teaching of the heretics says: ‘Words do not reach there; thought (manas-citta) does not present itself; this is why it is called ātman.”

“Although such is the character of the ātman, you say non the less; ‘Knowledge that relies on the ātman does not.’ But what is the difference between your tathatā and the ātman, since both of them are ineffable and yet possess real self-nature? It is only out of a partisan spirit that you speak as you do. Therefore I cannot accept this tathatā, the same as the ātman, real yet nonexisting.”

Snellgrove feels that Bhāvaviveka’s “argument can only be pressed by taking ātman in a purified Vedanta sense and dissociating it from all notion of a personal sense.” He credits the “Mind Only” School with attempting to solve the problem of continuity over successive births, a basic Buddhist doctrine seemingly at odds with the doctrine of anātman. He notes that the issue of personality for the Cittamātrin is resolved at the level of the conceptualized nature (parikalpitasvabhāva).

At this relatively superficial level, an imaginary or imputed self-identity does indeed exist. At the next stage, the “interwoven-with-other” nature, the problem of individual personality dissolves, the second nature’s emphasis on all entities’ being dependent on what is “other” to themselves for their existence. Here, “the problem of differentiating individual streams of consciousness from the universal stream need not arise.”

With regard to the nature of the ālaya consciousness, he cites the passage of the Samdhinirmocana sūtra wherein it is discussed.

“This consciousness is known as the ‘apprehending consciousness’ in that it grasps at and comprehends this bodily form. It is also called “basic consciousness” in that it adheres and clings to this bodily form with a single sense of security. It is also called ‘mind’ in that it is an acucmulation and aggregation of appearances, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations of touch and of thoughts.”

He cites Scherbatsky’s reading of the ālaya as “one of the best descriptions” of the “basic consciousness” to be found among European works. While many will wish to contest this view given Scherbatsky’s “datedness,” nevertheless, he expresses features of the ālaya which serve as objects of Mādhyamika refutation. He calls it

“...a step towards the reintroduction of the dethroned Soul. Uddyotakara and Vacaspatimishra reject it as a poor substitute for their substitute for their Substantial Soul. ...This sacrifice Buddhism could not make. The anātma-vāda could not become ātma-vāda.

Buddhism continued to be a pluralistic dharma theory, but a monistic subway was added to it...[the ālaya] replaces both the external (nimitta-bhāga) and the internal (darśana-bhāga) worlds. But it is not a substance; it is a process; it runs underground of actual experience.”

He goes on to differentiate it from the Greek psyche, the Vedāntic ātman, etc., but nevertheless concludes “that it is a substitute for an individual’s surviving Soul is clear from the words of Uddyotakara and Vacaspati.”

We would personally refrain from employing the views of Vedic scholars to interpret a Buddhist term as complex as that of the basal consciousness, but as we shall have seen from the critiques of this notion rendered by Mādhyamika scholars, this is more or less their own problem with it: it is an idea promulgated for the purpose of attracting those afraid of relinquishing the ātman to Buddhist doctrine of a relatively less profound view than that outlined in the Prajñāpāramitā literature and upon which Mādhyamika scholars wrote extensive commentaries.

Having investigated Bhāvaviveka’s discussion of basic Cittamātrin notions, we turn to Candrakīrti on the same theme. Living approximately one century after Bhāvya, Candrakīrti’s critique of Cittamātrin notions is more extensive than that of Bhāvaviveka.

When these disputes became issues of concern is not easily or uncontroversially to be determined. Whether pseudepigraphal or not, we do have in hand a work by Nāgārjuna containing within it a hard-handed critique of basic Yogācāra notions. Indeed, whether spurious or authentically Nāgārjunan, the work at the very least indicates the seriousness with which the disciples of Nāgārjuna who attributed the work to him took Yogācāra doctrines. Like other great Tibetan Madhyamaka texts, lCang skya’s work is it should be kept in mind that the Beautiful Ornament is in large part apologetical. All the sections of the text culminate in the exposition of the definitive truth, which in lCang skya’s Gelukpa tradition is that established first by Nāgārjuna, descending through Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti through Tsong kha pa and his heirs.