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MADHYAMAKA
ARTICLE
-THE
GREAT
PHILOSOPHY
OF
HUMOR?
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Before going into details let me try to give a survey of what Eckels
fine book has to offer its readers: the first part (pp. 15-65) entitled
Jfianagarbha and the Growth of the Madhyamaka Tradition, discusses
Jiianagarbhas Madhyamaka background, the works ascribed to him,
the structure of the argument in the SDV, and, finally, his debt to
Dharmakirti. The second part gives us Eckels translation of the
Tibetan text, which is given as part four, after selections from
Santaraksitas Putijikti with explanatory notes. Finally the blockprints
of the Derge edition, a bibliography and indexes covering Sanskrit
terms and phrases as well as proper names are given.
Speaking of the principles that govern his translation Eckel (p. 9)
with approval quotes Dryden: I have endeavord to make Vergil
speak such English as he would himself have spoken, if he had been
born in England, and in this present age. Eckel is perfectly aware of
the difficult problems posed by condensed and technical Sanskrit
prose that has to be rendered into a modern and easy language. The
reader will find his translation clear, reliable and extremely readable. I
have not been able to detect any of the serious sort of misunderstandings that disfigure an alarmingly high percentage of recent
American translations of Madhyarnaka texts from the Tibetan and
Sanskrit.
The edition of the Tibetan text on the basis of Derge and Cone,
there being no Narthang or Peking ed. available, is very accurately
done. The SDV consists of a vGti in prose and 120 stanzas (46 basic
ones, 74 additional ones). A pity that the editor did not add numbers of lines which would have facilitated reference to the text. In the
Tibetan text I have noted the following misprints: p. 156, 1.3: for lhag
ma1 read lhag mao; p. 157, 1.10: after phyir add rollde nyid kyi phyir
mdo sde las ga yang mthong ba med pa ni de kho na mthong ba zhes
gsungs so, and delete ngo bo . . . gsungs so; p. 157, 1.23: for gno read
ngo; p. 158, 1.26: for synad read snyad; p. 159, 1.24: for ma ma read
ma; p. 162, 11. 15, 18 & 20: for bi read bl; p. 169, 1.6: for sa read
xi; p. 171, 1.16: for rnams read rnams las; p. 182, 1.21: for sha read
shti; p. 188, 1.21: for kun du read kun tu; p. 189, 1.9: for kun du
read kun tu.
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pp. 549-550 for the various sorts of satyu current in Yoga&a in the
time of Dharmakirti and his predecessors. JSnagarbha, in other
words, follows Dharmakirti closely, and Dharmakirti cannot be said to
be deliberately vague once we recognize the context properly.
p. 76: Jfianagarbhas verse: ni!edhytibhtivatah spa$ap na ni!edho
sti tattvatah, is almost an echo of Vaidalya, see my Nagarjuniana, p.
93.
p. 77: Eckel suggests(notes, p. 127) that Jfianagarbhas term
tuttvtirtha is similar to the term Stinyattirtha in Nagarjunas MK XXIV,
7, and renders it reality as object. It is said to refer to the expressible ultimate. (Note, to be sure, that only &intaraksita, not JGnagarbha
himself, employs the two technical terms saparytiya and apatytiyu (or
nihparytiya). What Nagarjuna actually means by Gyat&tha
is not
immediately clear. He seems to have taken it over from LarikGvuttirustitra II, 145 which would, of course, settle the question of interpretation. If, however, we are to believe Candrakirti, p. 491, we should
understand the term in the light of XXIV, 18 so that the meaning (of
the word) Gnyatti is the same as that of pratityasamutptida. Or should
we rather say that the three concepts in XXIV, 18 correspond to the
three concepts in XXIV, 7? In any case, Ratmivali I, 98 has the term
tattwirthanir~ya,
and in V, 37 praj% is defined as satytirthani&aya.
The additional artha may well suggest that tattva as artha is consciously distinguished from tattva as such. For tattvajfitina, etc.,
without artha, see Nagarjuniuna, p. 270. Assuming that Nagarjuna did
make a deliberate distinction between two approaches to tattva, which
is, after all, very natural, we could more easily understand MK XVIII,
8-11, q.v.
p. 77: The antarailoka is clearly an allusion to the same Prajfilfptiram&i passageas the one alluded to by Nagigarjuna,MK XXII, 11. It is
quoted in MadhytintavibhrigabhG~ya, p. 18 (ed. Nagao): sarvam idaq
na Stinya~ ntipi cG2zyam. It seems that Eckels addition in brackets
should be deleted as it refers to the aparytiyaparamttrtha being ni;prapafica, cf. MK XVIII, 9.
p. 78: To understand the first antaraSloka it must be recalled that
the VimalakirtinirdeSastitra introduces the term abhiitaparikalpa
(Lamotte, p. 270) perhaps from the Bodhisattvapitaka (see Peking ed.,
vol. XXII, 294b) and that this term was later interpreted as a synonym
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sarva evayam anurruin~numeyavyavah~ro
buddhyaru(thena dharmadharmibhedena na bahih sadasattvam apekate. See E. Frauwallner,
Kleine Schrifen, p. 840. - In the Tib. text p. 173, 1. 23 di tha snyad
kyi should probably be emended to tha snyud di ni. - Note that
ktiriktis 18- 19 are quoted in the Tib. doxographical work Blo gsul
grub mtha, pp. 178-180 (ed. Mimaki). Furthermore, the same text
quotes ktiriktis 17ab (p. 144) 3 (p. 148), 36 (p. 152), 12 (p. 154) 8
(p. 156) 21 (p. 170) 28 (p. 200) 18-19 (p. 208) 29-30 (pp. 21021 2) and 9cd-1 Oab (p. 226). On p. 126 ktirikti 9ab is quoted.
Mimaki claims that it differs considerably from the canonical version.
This is a mistake. The third line is actually part of the Vrtti! It is true
that we in Tib. doxographical works often find quotations from
Jnanagarbhas SDV. Though minor variants occur, they are always, to
the best of my experience, only orthographic, or due to lapsus
memoriae. There is, on this ground, no reason to assume the existence
of some paracanonical version of Jiianagarbhas SDV.
p. 88: The canonical quotation is not from the ,&yadharmadhtitupruk~tyasumbhedanirdeSa where the interlocutors are Maiijusri and
Sariputra. The PrujCiptirumitti passagehere referred to has been
quoted by R. Hikata, Suvikrtintavikrtimi-paripycchti
. . . p. lxix, q.v.
p. 88: The verse attributed to Nagarjuna by Santaraksita could
either hail from his Lokaparik+, or, more likely, Vyavahtirusiddhi. See
my Nagarjuniana, pp. 14 and 96.
p. 89: Coming to the third part of the definition of correct relative
truth, not subject to analysis, Eckel (p. 138, note 104) remarks that
The three elements of the formula could not have been brought
together before the time of Dharmakirti, since he introduced the term
artha-kriyti into the vocabulary of Buddhist logic. But elements of. the
formula occur separately in earlier works. I need not here speak of
hetujtita and arthakriytisamartha. The relevant passagesin Candrakirti
have been mentioned by Eckel. Candrakirti uses terms such as
avictiraprasiddha and itthat+c&Gprasiddhi.
In the same sense
Dharmakirti has avikalpya, ma brtags par. Even earlier we have
Alokamtflti 44, q.v. I still prefer to regard the verse in MRP I: . . . ma
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brtags nyams dgai mtshan nyid can/ rgyu las skyes dang don byed nusll
tshu rol mthong bai kun rdzob yin// as the source of all later authors,
beginning with Srigupta. See JIP 9 (1981) 196. It is not unlikely that
Bhavya adopted arthakriyasamartha from Dharmakirti (whom he
quotes later in the MRP), though, of course, the idea is at least as old
as the Vrtti to Vigrahavyavartanl 2, q.v. (karyakriyasamartha). The
source of the compound avicaramanohara (or avicararamaniya) is still
not clear. With regard to arvagdarsana Bhavyas source is probably
the Vrtti to Vakyapadiya I, 15 1, q.v. it is also used by Dharmakirti, in
his Pramanaviniscaya, at least twice. There are, to be sure, several
other references to Bhartrhari in the MRP.
p. 90: Emend abhinivesa to samklesa, Tib. has kun nas nyon
mongs.
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Perhaps the best category to describe Jfianagarbhas mode of argument is not dialectic
or paradox, but irony. No one would make the mistake of claiming that Jiiinagarbha
is one of the worlds great comic writers, but there is much in his argument that
reminds a reader of the deep sense of playfulness that in Indian civilization characterizes the freedom of the enlightened mind.
Eckel has certainly made an important point here. There are elements,
moments, that go beyond dry logic, &qkaturka, surely. And apart from
the sense of balance, playfulness and irony, there is a sense of the
beauty of a condensed and polished style, the beauty of the religious
imagery, etc. There is a tendency to be cryptic, elusive, and sarcastic,
and what if it turned out that Jfi&agarbha, like %ntaraksita, behind
the academic faqade, was an ardent adherent of Vajraytia? Very
ironic, indeed!
Personally, at the risk of being taken too seriously, I find that
Madhyamaka presents itself as a system of great humor. Humor has
to do with an awareness of opposites. Here it is more than just an
occasional attitude; it is rather a deep sentiment, a Lebensgefihl. A
Madhyamika has, to begin with, a belief in (or experience of) some
absolute values, but like all of us, he is also confronted with the
everyday world of plurality and relativity. One can very well say that it
is his sense of great humor that enables him to overcome the
opposites and incompatibilities of life, or, as he himself would say, to
follow a middle path between extremes. Great humor, when having
to express itself in communication, is sensitive to the inexpressibility of
the absolute, and finds a certain satisfaction in expressing itself in
paradoxes and negations. It achieves a certain dynamics, or agility,
which is the very soul of a spiritual attitude adverse to any sort of
dogmatic, clinging mode of behaviour. Madhyamaka texts are full of
sarcasm and sophistry, but it should not be forgotten that they are
always the outcome of great humor that has its deepest basis in a
belief in absolute values.
CHRISTIAN
LINDTNER