Introduction
In this essay, I would like to discuss the differences between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika by appraising the origin and process of their respective developments. In this regard, I will try to illustrate that different Madhyamaka masters’ ‘creative interpretation’ of different Madhyamaka texts, which are mainly based on their individual response to the challenge of their respective epochs. Specifically, by focusing on the disputes among Buddhapālita (ca.470-540), Bhāvaviveka (c. 490-570) and Candrakīrti (c. 600-650), I would like to suggest that the outbreak of Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika dispute in India was started and escalated by their responses to the challenge of epistemological reform, a quest for logic and reasoning in knowledge inquiry around 5th century. I agree that the difference between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika dispute in the early stage was mainly focused on the methodological differences, i.e., to what extent and how the Madhyamika should or should not re-present their teachings in the style of logical inference so as to catch up with the epistemological era. Moreover, with the promotion of Tsong kha pa (c. 1357-1419) in Tibet, the philosophical difference such as the debate on intrinsic nature (svabhāva) in conventional reality has been magnified and highly emphasized in the process of struggling of sectarian identity.
To understand the reasons why those Madhyamaka masters who advance in their arguments by having the unfair and even twisted ‘creative interpretations’, I strongly agree with José Ignacio Cabezón’s point of view, ‘Ascertaining motivation is always a difficult thing to do.’ However, on the other hand, to gain empathetic understandings to the masters’ attempts, it is worthy to try to call for a contextual and historical inquiry about the process of interpretation and re-interpretation. This may be one of the possible ways to answer those questions.
Therefore, in this essay, I will firstly have a brief review on Madhyamaka philosophy, Nāgārjuna’s ‘refuted only’ strategy and the development of Buddhist logic to serve as a basis for discussion. On top of these reviews, I will then focus on discussing how the above-mentioned Madhyamaka masters interpret and re-interpret the early Madhyamaka teachings and how it resulted in creating the differences between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika. My discussion will be made with reference to Tsong kha pa’s discussion in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lam Rim Chen Mo), the contributions of different scholars in The Svātantika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction and Th. Stcherbatsky’s Buddhist Logic.
Re-visit the Madhyamaka philosophy in general
Madhyamaka was founded by Nāgārjuna who is a legend in Tibetan and East Asian Mahāyāna who had been described as the second Buddha. He was also a prolific writer who had written extensively on many subjects related to Madhyamaka. Some of his more famous works included the Fundamental verses on the Middle Way or Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā (MMK), the Seventy Verses of Emptiness or Sunyatasaptati, the Sixty Verses on Reasoning or Yuktisastika, the Preparation for Enlightenment or Bodhisambharaka, and the Constituents of Dependent Co-arising or Pratityasumutpada-hrdaya which provided us with many references.
Moreover, Madhyamaka is a Sanskrit word that simply means ‘middle way’. In other words, it recommends transcending the two extremes, the materialism (ucchedavada) and spiritualism (sassatavada) and other dualistic understandings by introducing the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā). In fact, The Madhyamaka is best known for its doctrine of emptiness. Besides, its key teachings also include the middle way and the two-fold truth. As what the MMK stated as below:
We state that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness. That is dependent upon convention. That itself is the middle path.
And
The teaching of the doctrine by the Buddha is based upon two truths: truth relating to worldly convention and truth in terms of ultimate fruit.
Additionally, Madhyamaka affirms that the fact of dependent co-arising (pratītya-samutpāda) implies that dharmas have no intrinsic and no self-sufficient nature of their own. Thus, if things existed by their own intrinsic nature as what we perceived, they would be changeless. We will then come across the following predicaments as stated in Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā (MMK) as follows:
If you perceive the existence in terms of self-nature [not empty], then you will also perceive there existences as non-causal conditions. You will also contradict [the notion of] effect, muse, agent, performance of action, activity, arising, ceasing, as well as fruit”
Therefore, we can say that the ultimate concern of Madhyamaka is to negate the notion of intrinsic nature – a common shared false notion which developed upon our intrinsic ignorance. In other words, to realize there is no intrinsic nature in every single existence both in conventional and ultimate realities. In other words, to remove our intrinsic ignorance.
In brief, Madhyamaka affirms neither the reality is substantial nor it is non-substantial. They proclaim that they have no positive claim. It is because any positive claim implies the assertion of intrinsic nature, which will finally lead to be self-contradictory. In fact, this is the spirit of early Madhyamaka that is also thoroughly reflected by Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva’s use of ‘refuted only’ strategy or reductio ad absurdum argument when debating with his opponents.
Nāgārjuna’s method of de-construction
Nāgārjuna clearly stated that the teachings of Madhyamaka inherited from the Buddha. He thus saluted to the Buddha for his teachings at the very beginning in MMK:
I salute him, the fully enlightened, the best of speaker, who preached the no-ceasing and the non-arising, the non-annihilation and the non-permanence, the non-identity and the non-difference, the non-appearance and the non-disappearance, the dependent arising, the appeasement of obsessions and the auspicious.
Nevertheless, he was still accused of ruining the teachings of Buddha by Sarvāstivādins, the Buddhist substantialists. It was because they perceived that emptiness should be referred to nihilism. In responding to his opponents’ challenges, Nāgārjuna would undo the theories of his opponents neither by a method he himself invented nor by the philosophical methods of reasoning but by using what was known as the “refutaed-only” strategy with the inspiration to emptiness. For example, the Nāgārjuna revived the Buddha’s own “four error” (catuskoti) denial when debating with Buddhist substantialists. As such, he could defeat his opponents’ theories on metaphysical and epistemological issues. The “investigation of conditions” in MMK is a good example to illustrate the features of his arguments. From Nāgārjuna’s point of view, if things or phenomena have their respective own intrinsic nature, then they cannot interact with each other. As a result, the theory of four conditions (cause, object, immediate and dominant) cannot be established. And the thesis of ‘existed by intrinsic nature’ should be discarded accordingly. By the same manner, Nāgārjuna also deconstructed other theories such as time, space, action, Buddha nature and so forth by exposing their self-contradictory characteristic if the theory of intrinsic nature was established. Despite Nāgārjuna’s persistence, he had no intention to establish another affirmative philosophical thesis. As concluded by William, ‘Bhāvaviveka hold that Nāgārjuna’s reductio ad absurdum arguments imply syllogisms that simply negate one alternative without affirming another.’ In other words, the negation of Nāgārjuna was a ‘nonimplicative negation’ (prasajyapratiṣedha). Therefore, we can say that Nāgārjuna just want to illustrate the true nature of reality – the reality which corresponds to the fundamental teaching of the Buddha – is dependently co-arising, and how to free from the bondage of conceptual proliferations (prapañca). Not surprisingly, Nāgārjuna adopted mostly reductio ad absurdum arguments and catuskoti to refute those substantialists at his time. It was because they were the most appropriate means to manifest the Madhyamaka spirit of “refuted only” strategy and the teaching of emptiness. In sum, the philosophy and the methodology of the early Madhyamaka are highly integrated.
The challenge of the new era: The epistemological reform
Nevertheless, the success of the early Madhyamaka resulted in hindering the development of Buddhist logic (hetuvidya) the centuries that followed. Th. Stcherbatsky offered his impressive remarks regarding to such situation:
And this is quite natural. How could it have been otherwise as long as Nāgārjuna’s idea held the sway? For the cognition of the Absolute all logic was condemned. For practical aims in the empirical domain the realistic logic of the Naiyāyiks was admitted as quite sufficient. The necessary of its critique and improvement did not yet dawn upon the Buddhist of that time.
About two to three centuries later, at the age of Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka, Madyamaka was vigorously challenged by at least two different camps. One was from non-Buddhist philosophical schools such as Vaiśeṣika and the other was Yogācāra, a Buddhist school which gaining its prosperity in 5th to 6th century. When the influence of Nāgārjuna’s standpoint of extreme relativism weakened, Asaṅga (c. 300) and his half-brother Vasubandhu, the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra took up the study of Nyāya logic and the work of its adaption to the idealistic foundations of their philosophy. Asaṅga was probably the first Buddhist writer who introduced the theory of the five-membered syllogism of the Naiyāyiks into the practice of Buddhist circles and also established a body of rules on the art of debate. Later on, the great Buddhist logician, Dignāga (c. 400-480) renovated the five-membered syllogism into three-membered syllogism and contributed many other major improvements such as the definition of valid cognition (pramāṇa) i.e. direct perception and logical inference. Facing the challenge of this epistemological reform which flourished in the 5th century, how to response to the challenge was definitely the Madhyamaka masters’ major concern. As Nāgārjuna’s arguments could not be represented by the widespread India’s logic such as Naiyāyiks’s five-membered syllogism or Dignāga’s three-membered syllogism, it became a matter of concern as it puzzled the Madhymaka masters at that time. In order to assert their own theoretical system and to dispute with other schools by using a common language, they urged to ‘modernize’ Nāgārjuna’s arguments so as to catch up with the epistemological era. Otherwise, it was difficult for Madhymaka to continue as an independent philosophical school and avoid being weeded out when facing the challenges of Yogācāra and other non-Buddhist schools. Regarding this situation, Buddhapālita was the first one who responded to these challenges and later Bhāvaviveka and Candrakīrti joined the controversies as well. Around the 14th to 15th century, Tsong kha pa continued this debate with reference to his particular situation in Tibet, i.e., the struggling of sectarian identify.
‘Creative interpretation’ – a strategy to respond to the challenges
From Tsong kha pa’s point of view, there were two major differences between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika: one he rejected referred to their different methodological approaches such as the argument of adding the qualification ‘ultimately’ and the other one deliberately referred to their deep substantive and philosophical issues, viz whether should refute the intrinsic nature conventionally. As he mentioned in Lam Rim Chen Mo:
Consequently, we do not distinguish Svātantika-Madhyamaka and Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka by way of weather they add the qualification ‘ultimately’ to the negation. Instead, they differ in whether they refute the essential or intrinsic existence conventionally.
However, contemporary scholars like William L. Ams, C.W. Huntington, Jr., Chizuko Yoshimizu and other contributors of The Svātantika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction might not agree with Tsong kha pa’s conclusion easily. The editors, Georges B.J. Dreyfus and Sara L. McClintock revealed the complexity of the issue in the following:
Although all these essays [which are collected in the book The Svātantika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction] deal with the same questions, they often come to rather startlingly different conclusion. This disagreement reflects the individual perspective of the authors, but also signals the highly contested nature of the Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika itself.
To large extent, the complexity of the issues was mainly originated from the unavoidable ‘creative interpretations’ or ‘misreading’ of the masters to their opponents’ philosophical stands. For example, being the first one who responded to the challenge, Buddhapālita re-wrote Nāgārjuna’s catuṣkoṭi in MMKI.I, ‘Not from themselves, nor from another, nor from both, nor from no cause, do any originated entities (bhāva) ever exist anywhere.’ into four alternative arguments:
Nor do they originate from another…because it would follow that everything would originate everything.
Nor do they originate from both from themselves and another, because the faults of both [alternatives] would follow.
Nor do they originate from no cause, because it would follow that everything would always be origination from everything and because there would be fault that all undertakings would be pointless.
Thus because the origination entities is not possible in any way, therefore the term “origination” is a mere conventional expression (vyavahāramātra), sine origination does not exist.
In William’s conclusion, there were two major criticisms of Buddhapālita made by Bhāvaviveka. Firstly, he failed to provide reasons and examples in his arguments as what a formal Indian logic did at that time. Secondly, the four alternatives of his reductio ad absurdum arguments were self-contradictory because his argument against any one of the four alternatives to make one of the remaining three alternatives being correct against the specified one. It is because there is a common understanding that reductio ad absurdum arguments are normally used to prove that the second of two possible alternatives is correct. By Bhāvaviveka’s classification, Buddhapālita’s reductio ad absurdum arguments, in contrast to those of Nāgārjuna, was an ‘implicative negation’ (paryudāsapritiṣedha). Obviously, Buddhapālita would totally disagree with this reading and that was the reason why William commented Bhāvaviveka did not treat Buddhapālita fair enough when he criticized Buddhapālita’s commentary on MMK.
While he [Bhāvaviveka] is willing to find implicit syllogisms in Nāgārjuna’s work, he apparently holds that commentators must give syllogisms explicitly and thus finds fault with Buddhapālita for not doing so. Beyond this, he seems to interpret reductio ad absurdum arguments differently depending on whether they are found in Nāgārjuna’s verses or Buddhapālita’s commentary. This shift in interpretation enables him to criticize Buddhapālita without subjecting Nāgārjuna to the same criticism.
Having ‘creatively interpreted’ Buddhapālita’s commentary, Bhāvaviveka re-wrote Nāgārjuna’s arguments by adopting the three-membered syllogism one by one. For example, he re-presented Nāgārjuna’s idea that the entities did not originate from them (the first verse of MMKI.I) as follows:
[Thesis]: In ultimate reality, it is certain that the inner āyatanas [six sense organs] do not originate from themselves,
[Reason]: because they exist [already],
[Example]: like consciousness (caitanya).
Obviously, Bhāvaviveka’s new representation, methodologically, can have the common language when talking to other schools and accommodate to the new age. Nevertheless, Bhāvaviveka did pay a price for his modification that he set up his autonomous syllogism because he walked away from the early Madhyamaka’s primary standpoint of ‘refutation only’. Candrakīrti, on one hand, defended the correctness and orthodoxy of Buddhapālita; on the other hand, he criticized Bhāvaviveka for his inappropriateness to use autonomous syllogism to re-present the philosophy of Madhyamaka. As mentioned on the above, their focus was mainly on debating what would be the appropriate method to re-present the spirit of emptiness, the central philosophy of Madhyamaka. To a large extent, Candrakīrti shared the same understanding with Buddhapālita that to refute opponents’ argument is good enough. There was unnecessary to assert own thesis. This is was the reason why they were called as Prāsaṅgika. In fact, from Candrakīrti’s point of view, it was impossible to re-present Madhyamaka’s argument by three-membered syllogism due to the negation of intrinsic nature. The prerequisite of three-membered syllogism was to assert the intrinsic nature of its three components – the thesis, reasons and examples. Therefore, Candrakīrti insisted that the use of autonomous syllogism did go against the philosophical claim of Madhyamaka. He could have a very strong philological support as what Nāgārjuna asserted in MMK:
When an analysis is made in terms of emptiness, whosever were to address a refutation, all that is left un-refuted by him will be equal to what yet to be proved. When an explanation in terms of emptiness is given, whosever were to address a censure, all that is left un-censured by him will be equal to what is yet to be proved.
In other words, no matter answering or analyzing a question, Madhyamikas should firmly stand on the doctrine of emptiness. Additionally, Candrakīrti pointed out that the use of autonomous syllogism also suffered from the fallacies of ‘violating own doctrine’ (svaśāstra-viruddha), ‘disagreement of subject’ (aprasiddha-viśesana) and ‘resemble reason’ (hetu-ābhāsa) over the rules of debate in hetuvidyā. In order to make the theory possible, Bhāvaviveka added a qualification ‘ultimately’ to refute the idea of ‘intrinsic nature’ in his autonomous syllogism. However, followed the criticism of Candrakīrti, Tsong kha pa totally rejected Bhāvaviveka’s methodology (the adding of the qualification ‘ultimately’) and his standpoint of intrinsic nature (allowing intrinsic nature existed conventionally for the sake of communication). As what he stated in Lam Rim Che Mo:
Thus he [Bhāvaviveka] says that all internal and external things do not exist in [ultimate] reality but do exist conventionally. Hence, he does not omit the qualification ‘ultimately’ in the negation. In brief, if your in no way accept the addiction of the qualification ‘ultimately’ to the negation, then you will have no way to distinguish the two truths, and you will not be able to say, ‘Ultimately, it is such and such; conventionally, it is such and such.’ There is no explanation of such a Madhyamaka anywhere, so it is simply a wrong idea.
In Lam Rim Che Mo, Tsong kha pa continued the dispute by clarifying some Tibetan’s misinterpretations of the distinction between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika regarding the way of defining reductio ad absurdum arguments and autonomous arguments. There were four major misinterpretations listed which were concerned about the issues of valid cognition, the standpoint of no thesis and system but ‘refuted only’ argument; and the understanding of ultimate and conventional realities – whether the intrinsic nature existed in both realities or just existed conventionally. He then refuted them one by one. I regarded Tsong kha pa’s clarification of those misinterpretations was to develop his own criticism of Bhāvaviveka’s affirmation of ‘intrinsic nature existed conventionally’ so as to make sure that the Svātantika is rejected by the right reasons. Accordingly, he just wanted to reject the notion of intrinsic nature but to preserve syllogistic reasoning (not only just reductio ad absurdum argument) and valid cognition. In other words, the methodological difference was not his primary concern but the metaphysical stand of Bhāvaviveka towards intrinsic nature. He appeared to be making a shift of focus of dispute himself. From this point of view, it was noted that Tsong kha pa, the proponent of Prāsaṅgika, also had creatively re-interpreted Candrakīrti and Bhāvaviveka’s arguments and their philosophical stands.
Obviously, Tsong kha pa did offer a rather precise discussion to distinguish Svātantika from Prāsaṅgika in Lam Rim Che Mo, though the correctness of his interpretation was doubted by Chizuko Yoshimizu, a contemporary Japanese scholar. As what he stated:
This theoretical inconsistency between Candrakīrti and Tsong kha pa has puzzled scholars. One can understand, on the one hand, that Tsong kha pa reinterprets Candrakīrti’s arguments and applies them to the direct criticism of Bhāvaviveka’s acceptance of self-characteristic; but on the other hand, one might doubt whether Tsong kha pa’s interpretation is appropriate, as Tsong kha pa constructs his criticism on the ground of his own definition of the Svātantika ontology. For it is not Candrakīrti but Tsong kha pa who constricts the definition of the Svātantika-Madhyamaka as conventionally accepting a real self-characteristic.
Tsong kha pa’s influence and contribution to the development of Tibetan Buddhism were immense and undeniable. His attack to ‘intrinsic nature’ was in chorus with the tradition of Madhyamaka and his success, but it was at the expense of Bhāvaviveka at the same time. As illustrated, if the disputes among Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka and Candrakīrti were originated from their different response to the challenge of epistemological reform, then the renovation work of Tsong kha pa was the response to the struggle of sectarian identity in Tibet. As asserted by José Ignacio Cabezón:
But whether or not it is speak of motivations for specific doxographical moves, it is clear that the hard [Tsong kha pa] and soft [Rong ston pa] position on the Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika distinction had clear socio-political implications. Counterfactually, had Tsong kha pa not convincingly argued for a substantive distinction between Svātantikas from Prāsaṅgikas, it of course would have been impossible for him to have convincingly argued for the superiority of the former over the latter, or for his particular interpretation of the former. And if that had not taken place, one wonders given the important of establishing a unique Madhayamaka view to the construction of sectarian identity, whether the nascent dGe lugs pa school would have fared as well as it did.
Conclusion
In fact, the long-lasting debate the distinction between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika started from Bhāvaviveka’s first criticism of Buddhapālita to Tsong Kha pa’s discussion in Lam Rim Chen Mo and The Essence of Eloquence on the Interpretive and Definitive Teachings (Drang-nges legs-bshad snying-po), which reflected the sophisticated evolvement of Madhyamaka regarding their philosophical stands and syllogisms in history. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that there were two significant debates happened at the same time. One was between Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika and the other was between Madhyamak and Yogācrāra. The complexity of the issues was then largely increased.
Having reviewed on the contributions from those different contemporary scholars as mentioned above, we do achieve a better and clearer understanding of its evolvement through their rich textual analysis and comparison. It widened our perspective to find out how both of the masters of the antagonistic camps, Svātantika and Prāsaṅgika, have in fact ‘misread’ or ‘creatively interpreted’ their opponents’ philosophical stands. These ‘creative interpretations’ of different masters, as what I suggested, are originated from their individual responses to the challenge of their respective epochs. Nāgārjuna won his reputation by introducing the doctrine of emptiness and the use of ‘nonimplicative negation’ (prasajyapratiṣedha). However, the methodology of his argument was not substantial when the application of logical inference such as the five-menbered syllogism and three-membered syllogism being the dominant trend in the 5th century. To re-present Nāgārjuna’s ‘nonimplicative negation’ arguments becoming one of the necessary actions to maintain the prosperity of Madhyamaka. Similarly, Tsong kha pa that it was also purposefully and creatively interpreted his predecessor’s interpretations in these series of debates.
In this paper, I do treat all great masters with respect in regard to their contributions to those pragmatistic approach (if they really are). Their efforts paid in promoting the prosperity and vitality of Buddhism was highly appreciated. Provided that the intrinsic nature is an illusion as asserted by Madhyamaka, there will be definitely no self-sufficient texts too. All the meanings are then subject to interpretation because the accuracy of interpretation can always be controversial. However, controversies themselves are also the matter of interpretations. Finally, the idea of différence which introduced by Jacques Derrida was regarded as a good example to illustrate this point. As mentioned in Wikipedia:
The notion that words and signs can never fully summon forth what they mean, but can only be defined through appeal to additional words, from which they differ. Thus, meaning is forever “deferred” or postponed through an endless chain of signifiers.
Reference
- Berger, Douglas. “Nāgārjuna.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Eds. James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. 2008. 4 May 2008 < http://www.iep.utm.edu>.
- Georges B.J. Dreyfus and Sara L. McClintock edited (2003), The Svātantika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction: what difference does a difference make? USA: Wisdom Publication.
- Kalupahana and David J (1986), Nāgārjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way. New York: Albany State University of New York Press.
- Samanta Buddhist Glossary, Buddhist Door. .
- Tsong Kha Pa, The Great Treatise On The Stages Of The Path To Enlightenment, Vol. 1. Translated by The Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee in 2002. New York: Snow Lion.
- Wikipeddia. 9 May 2008. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differance >.