{"id":93524,"date":"2019-10-02T15:21:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T22:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93524"},"modified":"2019-10-02T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T22:21:32","slug":"ancient-philosophers-who-attempted-to-resurrect-buddhas-dhamma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/02\/ancient-philosophers-who-attempted-to-resurrect-buddhas-dhamma\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Philosophers who attempted to resurrect Buddha’s Dhamma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor\u00a0 N. A.de S. Amaratunga<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

As Buddha had seen by experience that life is Anithya,\nDukka, Anathma\u201d (impermanent, sorrow, no-self) and as he did not want to\nbelieve what he could not perceive with his senses, he had to fight against the\ntwo extreme metaphysical views that were present in his time; the theory\nof  a permanent self and the theory of\nnihilism or annihilation. In Kaccayanagotta sutta (Samyuttanikaya) Budda had\nsaid; Everything exists \u2013 this Kaccayana is one extreme. Everything does not\nexist \u2013 this is the second extreme. \nKaccayana without approaching both these extremes Tathagata  preaches the doctrine through the middle.\u201d\nThen he went on to preach the Paticcasamuppadaya (Dependent Coorigination) .\nBuddha had also rejected another metaphysical view that attempted to introduce\ntranscendentalism (lokuthara) into Nirvana, Buddha-hood and Arahath-hood.\nHowever, after Buddha’s Parinirvana\u201d these views continued to be propagated\nand it had an impact on his disciples and Sanga. Consequently within the Sanga\ncommunity itself dissenting views of permanence, nihilism  substantialism,and also  transcendentalism, took root and caused\nrupture and formation of breakaway groups. In addition to these internal\nconflicts there were other philosophies such as Brahmanism that were on the\nascendancy. Thus there was a need for Buddhist philosophers to come forward and\nmeet these challenges from time to time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after Buddha’s parinirvana\u201d the younger monks, saddened\nby the demise of their beloved teacher and also perhaps influenced by other\nreligions and philosophies, started to make the historical Buddha a larger than\nlife being and built stupas and monuments in his memory. They attempted to make\nBuddha a transcendental phenomenon. The elder monks resisted these developments\nbut the trend among the younger monks continued to grow in strength. In an\nattempt to rid the Dhamma of these impurities and also to formulate a system to\npreserve the Dhamma the first Dhamma Sangayanava\u201d was held three months after\nBuddha’s demise by the older monks. This caused the first rupture of the Sanga.\nThe Sthavira\u201d group consisting of elder monks was formed. Theravada (Elders’\nSchool) the oldest of the existing schools is considered to be the descendant\nof Sthavira\u201d.  The other breakaway group\nmay have later developed into Mahayana and its branches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theravada could not continue without dissension and\ninternal conflict. The same disruptive forces that promoted substantialist and\nnihilistic views continued to plague it. As a result the second Dhamma\nSangayanava\u201d was held about seventy years after Buddha parinirvana\u201d. During\nthis period Buddhism had undergone much decay due to lack of royal sponsorship.\nFurther due to the challenge mounted by opponents of the theory of Anathma\u201d,\nparticularly regarding the question of responsibility in the operation of the\ntheory of Karma\u201d various ideas were introduced by groups of monks. This\nresulted in the formation of further breakaway groups such as Puggalavadins\u201d\nwho said there is a puggala\u201d (person) in addition to the panchaskandya\u201d (five\naggregates) which could take responsibility for karma\u201d ;  Sarvasthivadins\u201d who attempted to get over\nthe problem by introducing a permanent element called Svabhava\u201d into the\nformula of being; and Sauthanthrika\u201d who \nadvocated a nihilist approach through their Kshana Vadaya\u201d . In\naddition to these challenges Brahmanism was in the ascendancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Dharmasoka in the 3rd<\/sup> Century BC was\nplanning to propagate the Dhamma by sending Dhammaduta\u201d to foreign countries.\nHe wanted to hold a council before he undertook this task to make sure that the\nDhamma thus spread would be free of flaws and consequently the Third Dhamma\nSangayanawa\u201d was held. The Third Dhamma Sangayanava was conducted by Venerable\nMoggaliputha-tissa who delivered the sermon called Kathawattu\u201d (Points of\nControversy) which is included in the Pali Tripitaka. The venerable monk had at\nthis council refuted the three major flaws that had crept into the Dhamma ;\npuggalavada\u201d, sabbatthavada\u201d (realism) and lokuttaravada\u201d\n(transcendentalism).What was his method of argument? To refute\ntranscendentalism he showed that Buddha was a normal human being who was born,\nlived and died naturally by referring to historical events and suttas where\nBuddha had begun the preaching in the first person language. Venerable\nMoggalliputha-tissa’s argument against Puggalavada\u201d (Personalism) and\nSabbatthavada\u201d (Realism) was to show that there is no ultimately real person\nwho exists under all circumstances. He first asks Does a person exist as\nabsolute truth and ultimate reality?\u201d and when the answer is in the affirmative\nhe asks Whether a person who is absolute truth and ultimate reality arises out\nof whatever is absolute truth and ultimate reality\u201d. Then the answer was one\nshould not say so\u201d which goes to prove that something that is absolute and real\ncannot arise from another thing that is not absolute and real. When the\nconstituents of the panchaskandya\u201d is not absolute or real the person who is\nformed of the panchaskandya\u201d cannot be absolute or real. Venerable\nMoggalliputha-tissa goes onto prove that an absolute and real existence cannot\noccur under any circumstances.  Thus\nVenerable Moggaliputha-tissa was the first Buddhist philosopher who made a\nmajor attempt to resurrect Buddha’s Dhamma. However other Buddhist philosophers\nlike Buddhagosa who subscribed to a transcendentalist viewpoint has attempted\nto misrepresent Moggalliputha-tissa’s Kathavathu\u201d (see –\nPancappakaranatthakatha\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were three other great Buddhist philosophers of a\nlater period whose work has been misunderstood, misinterpreted and changed to\nsuit ulterior motive. Nagarjuna (1st<\/sup> to 2nd<\/sup> Century CE),\nVasubandu (4th<\/sup> to 5th<\/sup> Century CE) and Dinnaga (400 \u2013 485\nCE) were the philosophers who attempted to cleanse Buddhism of the material\nthat was not in keeping with what Buddha taught and its uniqueness based on the\ndoctrine of Anathma\u201d. Their work  has\nbeen distorted by their commentators, Chandrakirti, Sthiramati and Dharmakirti\nrespectively. By these means these great philosophers and their work  were converted to other schools; Nagarjuna to\nMadhyamaka, Vasubandu to Yogachara, which are both branches of Mahayana and\nDinnaga also to Mahayana. This conversion was done by misrepresenting their\nwork disregarding and nullifying the fact that \nthe purpose of those works was mainly the resurrection of Buddha word.\nThis may have been possible due to the enormous political power the Mahayanists\nand Brahamanists could wield. It must be remembered they almost succeeded in\nconverting the Buddha into Vishnu’s avatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nagarjuna, also called the second Buddha, wrote\nMulamadhymaka-karika\u201d (Fundamentals of the Middleway) mainly to refute\nsubstantialist and nihilistic views which are not found in the Suthra-pitakaya.\nHe had analyzed the word sunya\u201d (emptiness) which appears in Buddha’s\npreaching to show that what Buddha meant by sunya\u201d was that mind and matter\nare devoid of anything that could be identified as self. This fact is evident\nwhen one carefully studies Mulamadhyamaka-karika\u201d. However the Mahayanists\nlatched on to Nagarjuna’s idea and they used it to support their idealism which\nsaid everything is sunya\u201d in the sense that everything is a construct of the\nmind. Subsequently this point of view was further developed and the school\nknown as Madhyamaka was created with Nagarjuna as its author, after his\ndemise.  Further Nagarjuna had written\nVigrahavyavartani\u201d (Reversal of Refutation) mainly as a response to the\nre-emerging Brahmanism and the concept of Brahamma. In this work or in any\nother Nagarjuna has not deviated from his purpose, his intention was to\nresurrect Buddhism which was being ruined by Buddhist substantialists and\ntranscendentalists and also by Brahmanism. His works had no Mahayana features\nlike transcendentalism, idealism etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mulamadhyamaka-karika\u201d Nagarjuna shows that the\nword sunya\u201d or concept of emptiness is based on the Paticcasamuppadaya\u201d a\nnon-absolutist but empirical explanation of the existence of the world and\nlife. Further in this work he attempts to meet his critics who were trying to\nmisinterpret his views and give it a Mahayanic twist. He uses the logic known\nas Chathuskotiya\u201d or four cornered refutation also known as tetralemma.\nSeveral very important doctrinal concepts which were being distorted by\nmetaphysicians were examined by Nagarjuna in this text. These included the\nconcept of condition and an analysis of the four types of conditions which are\nimportant in dependent coorigination, the Buddhist concept of time in order to\nrefute the kshana theory\u201d of Sauthanthrika, the faculty of the eye to show the\nunreliability of human perception and the theory of realism, the agregates\n(panchaskanda\u201d) to show the absence of a self, the psychology of lust, dukka\u201d\nto explain in Buddha’s words the causation of suffering, Sankara\u201d to show its\nrole in life and how it could be prevented from progressing into suffering by\nits appeasement, Tathagata\u201d to show there is nothing transcendental in it, the\ndeed and the doer to explain the theory of karma\u201d, Four Noble Truths and host\nof others in twentyseven chaptors in all. Though Nagarjuna’s detractors and\nMahayanists have attempted to misinterpret his arguments and views a careful study\nof Mulamadhyamaka-karika would show that his was a very successful attempt to\ndebunk the ideas of breakaway groups such as Sarvasthavada and Sauthanthrika.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nagarjuna wrote Vigrahavyavartani\u201d mainly to counter\nthe resurgence of Brahamanism which was promoting the idea of an ultimate\nreality with a fresh interpretation of Brahmma. \nHe partly uses his theory of sunyatha\u201d for this purpose. Similarly he\nrefutes the idea of a cause, a beginning as such of the world. If something is\ncaused by another thing the former must be found within the latter. The tree is\nnot found within the seed. Nagarjuna asks how the knowledge of the cause was\narrived at. If this knowledge was obtained from the scriptures how did it come\nto the scriptures? In this regard Nagarjuna says if the source of knowledge\nwere to be established by other sources of knowledge, there would be infinite\nregress\u201d (DJ Kalupahana, 2008) which may end up with a metaphysical explanation\nsuch as god. In the vedic tradition not only the human being (Athma) and the\nUltimate goal (Brahamma) but also the moral order was based on metaphysical\ntheory. Moral code was based on the caste which was decided by Brahamma.\nNagarjuna rejected the theories of Athma and Brahamma in his work\nVigrahavyavartani\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After rejecting those metaphysical concepts Nagarjuna\nin his other major work  Suhrllekha\u201d\n(Letter to a Friend) thoroughly discusses the Buddhist moral order. He writes\nthis text in the form of a letter to his friend King Gauthampura Satakarni. He\nis comprehensive in his reference to Buddhas philosophy on morals and draws\nfrom every statement Buddha had made on moral behaviour suitable for a Buddhist\nas they appear in suttas. In D.J.Kalupahana’s opinion the collection of\nSinhalese verses Lovadasangarava\u201d by Venerable Vidagama Maitreya is an\nadaptation of Suhrllekha\u201d. There were several other writers who were\ninfluenced by Surhllekha\u201d including monks in Abhayagiriya monastery. These\nmonks may have had contacts with Nagarjuna when he lived in Nagarjunakonde, South\nIndia where there had been a Sinhalese temple. Nagarjuna’s work is not just a\ndescription of morals suitable for lay persons but a comprehensive discourse on\nthe moral philosophy of Buddha where the final goal is Nirvana and is based on\nPaticcasamuppada\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vasubandu was the half brother of Asanga who is\nbelieved to be the author of the school of Buddhism known as Yogachara , a\nbranch of Mahayana. Vasubandu’s major work was Vijnapatimatratasiddhi (The\nEstablishment of Mere Concept). This work has been deliberately changed with\nthe intention of making the text and its author Mahayanist and a metaphysical\nidealist (DJ Kalupahana, 2008). Vasubandu in this work has criticized the\nmetaphysical theories of the opponents who were trying to introduce such ideas\ninto Buddhism. He also summarizes Buddha’s psychological theories and his\nphilosophy of language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vasubandu’s main intention in this work was to develop\na theory to explain the evolution of consciousness. His theory starts by\nlooking at the end result of the evolution of consciousness rather than the\nbeginning. In Buddha’s Paticcasamuppadaya\u201d too Buddha had looked at the end\nresult and worked out the beginning which is the empirical method of analysis\nwhere one begins from what one could perceive. Thus Vasubandu was adhering to\nBuddha’s method and his empiricism in order to avoid metaphysical views.\nVasubandu invented the phrase Alaya-vinganaya\u201d to denote the final resultant\nconsciousness which carries all its seeds accumulated through one’s karmic\nexperience. These views had made his detractors interpret them as idealism\n(Vignanavadi).  Sthiramati apparently has\nradically altered the content and the altered versions have been adopted by\nother translators and commentators which resulted in wide acceptance of the\ndistorted version. And hence Vasubandu had been accepted as one of the major\nauthors of the Yogachara branch of Mahayana which subscribes to an idealist\n(Vinganavada\u201d) philosophy. The other major branch of Mahayana is Madhyamaka  and Nagarajuna has been made its founder by\nhis disciples after his death which is a gross injustice committed against one\nof the greatest Buddhist philosophers. What Vasubandu achieves in this work is\na refutation of both idealism which says everything exists only in the mind\nwhile nothing exists outside it and realism which says objects have an\nexistence quite independent of the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dinnaga was a pupil of Vasubandu. He is believed to be\nthe foremost Buddhist logician and he had used his expertise to clarify the\nrelationship between object and knowledge. His was a highly sophisticated\nanalysis of epistemology. He thought that the proper understanding of the\nobject depends on the source of knowledge. He was of the opinion that there are\nonly two sources of knowledge, perception and inference. He identified  two aspects of the object that corresponds to\nthe two sources; the particular and the universal, the former being the object\nof perception and the latter being the object of inference. For the Realist,\nwho thinks what one perceives exists as reality, the Object is substantial\nwhereas for the Idealist, who thinks what one perceives exist only in one’s\nmind, the source of knowledge (which here is the mind) is substantial. Dinnaga\nsteered clear of both these extreme views and supported Buddha’s\nnon-substantialist empirical point of view. One could see that Dinnaga’s views\nare empirically based arguments and there are no metaphysical elements in them.\nThere are no Mahayana ideas in any of Dinnaga’s work including his masterpiece\nPramanasamuccaya\u201d (A Digest of the Sources of Knowledge) where he discusses\nepistemological aspects of Buddha’s Dhamma. His had been a genuine effort to\nstrengthen Buddha’s preaching as found in the Pali suttas. His commentator\nDharmakirti, however, had deliberately misrepresented his major work in an\nattempt to convert Dinnaga to a Mahayanist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another very important Buddhist text which has been\nmisunderstood and interpreted as belonging to the School of Buddhism known as\nVajrayana  is Vajracchedika-prangnaparamita\u201d\nauthorship of which is disputed. Philosophers who recognized an ultimate\nreality that transcends language as well as logical analysis\u201d attempted to\ninterpret this text in accordance with their point of view (D.J.Kalupahana, 2008).\nThis text is written in the form of a conversation between Buddha and monk\nSubhuti whose name has appeared in the Pali Suttas including Aranvibanga-sutta\n(Majjhima-nikaya) which forms the basis for the Vajracchedika-\u201d.\nAranvibhanga-sutta\u201d (Discourse on the Analysis of Non-conflict) deals\ncomprehensively on the causality of conflict. In Buddha’s estimate Subhuti was\nthe best in leading a peaceful life. In Aranvibhanga-sutta\u201d  Buddha discusses seven issues that may be\nrelevant to peace and the seventh is about the extremist approach to the use of\nlanguage. Buddha advices the importance of not adhering to grammatical language\nas being the most correct and also not rejecting the common usage of language.\nAccording to Kalupahana (2008) Vajracchedika\u201d could be considered as an\nattempt to avoid the extremist use of language. \nBuddha had been an excellent linguist who had coined new words and\nphrases to explain his Dhamma for example Paticcasamuppada\u201d. The term prangnaparamita\u201d\nappears in Mahayana texts and it is also the name of Buddha’s queen according\nto Tantrayana school of thought which advocates sexual practice for\nBodhisathva\u201d in order to expedite the attainment of Nirvana. The use of terms\nsuch as pragnaparamita\u201d, Bodhisathva vehicle\u201d in the Vajracchedika may have\ncaused its wrong interpretation. The word Vajra means a special weapon that\ncould be used in achieving Nirvana. In Vajrayana the route to Nirvana involves\nchanting of manthra\u201d, dharanis\u201d,  use\nof mudras\u201d and also visualization of deities and Buddhas. Vajracchedika has no\nreference to any of these methods and in fact has no elements of Vajrayana\ndoctrine in it. All these attempts to distort Buddhist texts and misinterpret\ntheir authors and convert them to Mahayana and Vajrayana was carried out with\nthe intention of transforming Buddha’s Dhamma into a form that is closer to the\nVedic tradition and Hinduism for Buddha had taken up a strong and irrefutable\nstand against metaphysical views that cannot be supported by empirically\nperceived evidence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor\u00a0 N. A.de S. Amaratunga PhD, DSc
47\/4, Louis Peiris Mawatha, Kandy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

profamaratunga@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

0812223547, 0774411777<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor\u00a0 N. A.de S. Amaratunga As Buddha had seen by experience that life is Anithya, Dukka, Anathma\u201d (impermanent, sorrow, no-self) and as he did not want to believe what he could not perceive with his senses, he had to fight against the two extreme metaphysical views that were present in his time; the theory of  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-n-a-de-s-amaratunga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}