the so-called "double-truth"

[Steve Farmer]

I wrote (reporting the words of a fictional MASTER COMMENTATOR,
reconciling sharply conflicting layers of texts):

> For the statements
> 'X is Y' and 'X is not-Y' do not refer to the same but to
> different levels of reality -- higher and lower. In revealing
> this, I speak of the deepest, most secret, of all
> Truths hidden in the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS, which cannot err
> or contradict itself."

Stephen Hodge responded:

> Apart from a form of the "double truth" approach, Mahaayaana Buddhists
> and some of their precursors, such as the Mahaasa`ngikas and the
> Lokottarvaadins, also adopted a strategy which implicitly acknowledges
> the layering of texts you mention.   According to this approach, the
> Buddha is said to have a) never verbalized any teachings or b) uttered
> only one single sound.  The various "audiences" heard various
> teachings appropriate for their situation.  Thus, since the Buddha
> never actually said anything, one can have a range of apparently
> contradictory teachings without privileging any of them above
> others -- they are all accepted as equally valid inasmuch as they are
> suitable to the specific needs of trainees at different times and in
> different places.

Like "double truth" strategies, the common Buddhist hermeneutical
strategy that you point to here shows up often as well in Chinese
and Hebrew and Greek and Islamic and Latin traditions. In Western
traditions -- where it was still common in Milton's day -- it is
normally referred to (as elsewhere) as the "doctrine of
accommodation." In Confucian traditions (to cite one of many
pre-Buddhist examples), the doctrine was frequently justified by
reference to Analects 6:19, ascribed to Confucius: "To those
above average, one may speak of higher things; but to those below
average, one cannot speak of higher things." Like cross-cultural
variants of the "double truth," the "doctrine of accommodation"
was a handy way of explaining conflicting stories or concepts in
a sacred or semi-sacred canon. Its periodic reinvention in
premodern civilizations can be explained quite easily without
recourse to the idea of direct transmission.

Let's illustrate it in action in one of its many early forms
outside of India: Think of the case (e.g.) of a Master Hebrew
Exegete who has just revealed to his disciples the secret truth
that YHWH is formless, transcendent, a deus absconditus, etc. For
convenience, we can place our scene near the middle of the first
millennium BCE, when the idea that YHWH was a paradoxical being
first appeared in wholly developed form in Hebrew traditions --
emerging from the integration of older anthropomorphic notions of
deity fossilized in earlier layers of tradition. If YHWH is in
fact formless and transcendent, the disciples would naturally ask
the Master Exegete, why do we find Him so often represented in
Scripture in human form? Why, e.g., do we see Him strolling
casually in the Garden of Eden "in the cool of the evening" in
Genesis 2:5 ff.?

Enter the "doctrine of accommodation" in one of its many
cross-cultural forms. The canon is not inconsistent, the Hebrew
exegete would quickly explain. Instead, the places where the
Torah represents God in concrete images reflects the fact that at
times He has had to accommodate His message to the limited
understandings of His audience.

It is amusing to watch Galileo himself using this strategy in his
famous "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany" --
written less than 400 years ago!

It isn't necessary to explain the systematic byproducts of
exegetical strategies like the "doctrine of accommodation" (or
the "double truth") by invoking cross-cultural transmissions
either -- although (as I've acknowledged before) transmission was
clearly involved in a minority of cases.

Let's look at a generalized example of how exegetical strategies
could shape the philosophical/religious ideas seen in layered
sacred canons:

What happened when such a canon, pertinent (say) to some mythical
or semi-mythical eponymous figure, grew so large that it became
difficult to reconcile all stories about that figure with one
another? A dozen or so exegetical strategies were available
cross-culturally to deal with this problem. While most of them
showed up in one variant form or another in all literate
premodern civilizations, path dependencies ensured that some of
them were eventually applied to certain traditions more than
others. Many of them (not all) had systematic effects that tended
to accumulate in those traditions over time.

A few of those strategies:

1. Close the canon at some arbitrary point and dismiss any texts
that you don't approve of as "heretical." (The easiest method of all!)

2. Accept some "doctrine of accommodation" model. This
temporarily let the canon grow without privileging earlier layers
of traditions over later ones or one subtradition over another.
(When use of this strategy delayed the closing of a canon too
long, however, the reconciliative tasks of later commentators
became even more formidable.)

3. Reconcile the conflicts through use of one of the many
variants of the "double-truth." Alternately, harmonize conflicts
by introducing an increasingly complex series of "standard
scholastic distinctions." In either case, reality grew more
complex the more often these strategies were applied.

4. Apply allegorical methods or methods of
integration/abstraction to harmonize the conflicts. This once
again generated "higher" or "abstract" concepts alien to earlier
levels of tradition. Reality again became multilayered, with
contradictory concepts assigned to different ontological or
epistemological levels.

5. Alternately, assign contradictory stories or concepts not to
different ontological *levels* but to different temporal *eras*
-- along the way helping to articulate alternative models of
time. The contradictory stories or concepts could be assigned to
different historical periods in a linear temporal framework
(e.g., in Jewish/Christian/Islamic "typologies") or to different
eras in complex cyclical views of time (e.g., in Greek, Chinese,
Mesoamerican, or Vedic/Buddhist cosmologies). Comparison of
Eurasian and Mesoamerican parallel developments demonstrates once
again that use of this device evolved independently in different
parts of the world.

6. Assign contradictory stories in the canon to different Avatars
of the eponymous founder (or to earlier "types" of the founder in
Jewish/Christian/Islamic thought). Alternately, as in the case of
Mahayana Buddhism, you might claim that *different* Founders
(here, multiple Buddhas) were referred to in different canonical
texts. In this special case, it wasn't reality that was
multiplied, but the Founder himself!

7. Accept in a straightforward way the idea that all the
contradictory stories that accumulate in a canon about a single
Founder do, in fact, apply to Him alone. Once we accept this
idea, we have taken an important step towards divinizing Him,
since only a truly Divine figure could achieve so much in one
lifetime. Cf. the _Gospel according to John_ 21:25: "There were
so many other things that Jesus did, that if all were written
down the world itself, I suppose, would not hold all the books
that would have to be written." (Substitute "Jesus" here with
"Confucius" or "Buddha" or "Laozi" or "Plato," etc.)

(Alternately, if you accept some non-divine founder as the author
of all the works that accumulate in a growing canon  -- think
here of the Aristotelian corpus -- the founder is transformed
into a philosopher beyond equal. Who but the Philosopher himself
(i.e., Aristotle) could write all those books?!)

Does any of this sound familiar? Where *did* all those multiple
Divine Buddhas come from in later Buddhist traditions? You
certainly do *not* find them in early strata of Buddhist
traditions. :^)

General conclusion: People need to take a closer look at the
exegetical engines that helped drive those premodern
religious/philosophical systems. The fact that premodern
traditions developed in layers was *not* "systematically
neutral." To grasp the full importance of the transformations
worked in different layers of tradition by the repetitive use of
exegetical techniques, it helps to look at the process of
layering cross-culturally and over vast stretches of time. You
can't do that if you spend all your time studying single
traditions in one isolated cultural region, ignoring all their
close cousins located everywhere in the premodern world.

Steve Farmer