Yogacara idealism

[Satya Upadhya]

birgit kellner <birgit.kellner at UNIVIE.AC.AT>

on  Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:53:40 -0500

>
>A last (I promise!) clarification on Satya Upadhya's last message on
>"Yogacara idealism":

--> My last post to u on this matter as well.

>The argument does not directly
>address the status of external objects.

--> It is my humble suggestion that you have not yet read the refutation of
the saholpalambha argument by the opponents of the Yogacara position (most
notable of these being the Nyaya-Vaisesika,Mimansaka, Jain, and Vaibhasika
Budhists). I would suggest that you do so to at least gain some perspective
on how the philosophical opponents of the Yogacara view this argument (and
how they refute it).

--> There does seem to be a remarkable uniformity in how the opponents of
the Yogacara view this argument, and the views of these scholars (opponents
of Yogacara) would not be in agreement of your views on this matter, in my
opinion.

--> Here is how the Mimansaka Kumrila Bhatta views this argument:

" You assert: 'The real reason for the co-comprehension is the identity of
the conception of the object comprehended.' But this is never true. And
certainly, you have not been questioned by me to afford you the occasion for
making any wild assertion you please.

None experiences the character of both the comprehender and the comprehended
with regard to a single entity. Nor can such a dual character be ever
established by inference, specially on the assumption  that everything is
sensation (for inference means the knowledge of something from something
else)."

-Kumarila Bhatta, Sloka Vartika, sunya-vada 64

--> Above is the basic objection of Kumarila; he goes on to point out
several other absurdities in the sahopalambha argument.

--> Here are just a few words of the Jain philosopher Akalanka on this
argument:

"Many persons perceive a blue thing at one and the same time. Now, here
though a person cognizes "the blue", he does not cognise the "cognition of
the blue" occuring in another person's mind. If the blue and the cognition
of the blue were identical, he would have perceived even the cognition of
the blue occuring in anothe person's mind."

And then again, says Akalanka--"na hi jatu visajnanam maranam
pratidhavati"--death does not result from the mere knowledge or the idea of
the poison. "If venom is not an external reality but only a form of
consciousness or an idea, how could there take place the phenomenon of death
on taking it? We do not die simply on account of our having an idea of the
venom. "

--quotes from "Akalanka's criticism of Dharmakirti's philosophy" by N.J.
Shah (pgs 175-177)

--> The Vaibhasika Budhist Subhagupta says: "When one entertains the view
that the mind alone is real, how can one fulfill the elementary duties such
as charities, etc.?..When one practises repeatedly and several times a
charity-thought (i.e. charity in the form of mere thought, or more simply,
the bare idea of charity), it never releases anybody from poverty."

--Subhagupta, Bahyartha Sidhi, 5-6

The main difficulty in your
>above rephrasings of this argument is the ambiguity of the word
>"object": You read the argument as talking about external objects; in
>fact, it deals with phenomenal object, with percepts, images,
>representations - in other words, that which appears in perception.
>This is one reason why the sn-argument cannot be taken to directly
>address the existence of external objects.

--> I will again repeat what i had written earlier. In his Pramana Vartika
(iii.353-5), Dharmakirti says: "How knowledge which is the sole existing
reality can appear in the form of objects, even i do not know...just as
people under the spell of magic, see pieces of mud, etc. not in their own
form but in certain other forms, so does knowledge appear there not in its
own form but in the form of objects."

[--> I had earlier specified that the above quote was from the NB; i was
wrong .]

>
>-->> Do you dispute the fact that the PS is the most important work of
>SU> Dignaga?
>I fail to see what this has to do with the sn-argument.

--> u have snipped out the context in which i made the above statement. You
had earlier said that Jinendrabudhi is not the most important commentator of
Dignaga in ur earlier post (in response to what i had claimed earlier). But,
if the PS is the most important work of Dignaga, and if it is only
Jinendrabudhi's commentary on this work that we now have available, then it
would appear that ur earlier statement was erroneous.





>
>-->> Your argument that we ought to disregard Vinitadeva because
>Dharmottara
>SU> disagrees with him appears presumptious.
>This was not my argument. My argument was that you lumped VinItadeva
>and Dharmottara together as those commentators of DharmakIrti that we
>should mainly rely on. I thought this to be quite ironic, because
>precisely amongst these commentators, you will find much disagreement
>and, in fact, a huge difference in approach to writing a commentary.

--> u will also find some serious differences between the commentators of
Kumarila Bhatta (in particular on Kumarila's views on "Moksha") between
Parthasarathi Mishra (the major commentator of Kumarila), and  the other
commentators of Kumarila. But just because two commentators disagree with
each other does not mean that we cannot take a look at both of them (to
better understand the source book).

--> Vinitadeva's book is also important in that it is simple and
straightforward. (Dharmottara is a lot more scholarly).


>As I stated above, there is a controversy amonst commentators
>regarding the interpretation of the qualifier "abhrAnta" in the
>DharmakIrtian definition of perception. VinItadeva and KamalazIla,
>perhaps also ZAntarakzita, interpret "abhrAnta" as "avisaMvAdaka"
>("non-belying"/"reliable") in order to harmonize the definition with both
>YogAcAra and SautrAntika
>presuppositions, whereas Dharmottara interprets it "not erroneous with
>respect to an object-suppoert", i.e. as solely based on SautrAntika
>presuppositions (the Tippani merely reiterates his view).

--> "Abhranta", so far as i understand, is taken to mean "non-illusory".
That is how Vachaspati Mishra (considered to be very reliable normally)
defines this word.

>
>The key issue underlying the discussion of "abhrAnta" is whether error is
>assumed to be due
>solely to conceptualization or also due to deficient sense-faculties:
>In the former case, perceptions like that of a double-moon which arise
>from damaged senses would either have to be admitted as correct or as
>instances of conceptual error - both approaches create further
>problems. In the latter case, problems arise regarding DignAga's
>definition of perception solely by the qualifier "devoid of
>conceptualization".

--> Which is why Vachaspati Mishra remarks that "The Master [Dignaga] has
dropped the characterestic of non-illusoriness ["Abhranta"], since he knows
this non-illusoriness is suicidal for his whole system." But why is it so?
Stcherbatsky, while commenting on this, explains: such an addition could be
"interpreted as excluding the view of the Yogacaras, for whom all emperical
cognition was a hopeless illusion" (Budhist Logic 156). If ideas, and ideas
alone are real, then all knowledge of ordinary life are necessarily
illusory. In other words, to talk of right perception as non-illusory
amounts to the surrender of the Yogacara position, something which Dignaga
does not wish to do.


>DharmakIrti clearly advocates both sensory and conceptual error,
>whereas DignAga's position is - as I see it - more difficult to
>reconstruct.

--> In fact Dignaga's position on sensory and conceptual error has, to my
knowledge, been reconstructed quite satisfactorily.


>There are passages like the famous list of
>"pseudo-perceptions" in PS I 7cd-8ab which may indicate an acceptance
>solely of conceptual error, but then there are others in which
>sense-faculties are also mentioned as producing error.

--> You, of course, do not tell me which " others" you are referring to
here.


At any rate, commentators introduced the criterion of a harmonization with
YogAcAra- and/or
>SautrAntika-presuppositions rather as a tool in order to justify their
>respective interpretations of this expression, and in order to
>harmonize DharmakIrti's definition with that of DignAga - the question
>as to whether DignAga/DharmakIrti ARE YogAcArins or SautrAntikas was
>not their main concern in this context.

--> Since sectarian jealousies and sharp  disputations were a common feature
of Indian philosophy, it is not difficult to see why the commentators would
feel uncomfortable in discussing as to whether Dharmakirti is speaking from
the Sautantrika position (in his works on logic). [ One remembers that the
Sautantrika is a school within Hinayana Budhism, while the Yogacara is
within the Mahayana Budhism.] There is no dispute about Dignaga, to my
knowledge: he speaks from the Yogacara position even when he deals with
logic (since he cleverly changes the ordinary meaning of perception and
drops the principle of non-illusion).



>I am not interested in exegesis of Chattopadhyaya, whose work is not
>available to me so that I cannot pass judgment on it (from the
>passages you quote, it seems to me that his English terminology is
>simply not refined enough to capture the implications of the arguments
>presented by DharmakIrti etc.), but in understanding and assessing
>arguments by Buddhist epistemologists.
>Chattopadhyaya should have taken into account commentaries and texts by
>Devendrabuddhi, ZAkyabuddhi, ZAntarakSita and PrajJArakaragupta. See
>for yourself whether he did, and how.

--> No doubt, the reason why his English terminology is not "refined enough"
is because he is criticising the Yogacara position (a school of thought u
are obliged to defend, being a Tibetan Budhist scholar).

--> In the foreward of his book Chattopadhyaya himself says that his book is
a "draft for discussion". So if one were to read it expecting fancy and
obscure terminology (which some modern scholars are very fond of afaik),
then one would indeed be dissappointed.

--> Never the less, here is the American philosopher Dale Reipe's estimate
of Chattopadhyaya (from Reipe's book "Objectivity and Subjectivism in the
Philosophy of Science with Special Reference to India", pg 93): "It seems
clear that without a knowledge of Debiprasad's Lokayata we cannot understand
the main ideas and arguments of classical to modern Indian philosophy, and
without "What is living and what is dead in Indian philosophy", we cannot
fathom the development of Indian metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics as we
find them today. As a worthy student of Surendranath Dasgupta, Debiprasad
has become his successor as the most important historian of Indian
philosophy of his own time."



>
>DignAga does not provide an explicit definition of pramANas, so I
>would find it quite difficult to actually find a definition that he
>"changed".

--> Several prominent scholars, ancient and modern, would disagree with you
here, but again, i'll let this pass.



>For the umpteenth time: I do not dispute the claim that YogAcAra
>philosophers admit the reality of only ideas. I have no opinion on
>this issue, because (a) the statement "admitting the reality of only
>ideas" is too vague, I think, to yield any philosophically interesting
>understanding of the issues at hand, and (b) I am not competent
>enough to assess the works ascribed to AsaGga, Vasubandhu, Sthiramati,
>DharmapAla and so forth in this respect. I merely aimed to point out
>that the sn-argument, and now also the dispute on "abhrAnta", are not
>good starting-points for looking into this question.

--> Yes, you have indeed said time and again that "i have no opinion on
this" when asked whether the Yogacara was an idealistic school, when asked
whether it denied external objects, etc. When you do not have an opinion on
such basic questions, and continue to be evasive with these kind of
statements, (despite claiming to be a Budhist scholar) it does seem a little
odd to me.

-->On the other hand, when it comes to the sahopalambha niyama, you quite
strongly protest to the effect that this argument does not deny the
independent existence of external objects (even though that is how the
opponents of the Yogacara have viewed this).

--> No doubt, a frank admission on ur part ( to the effect that the Yogacara
denies the reality of external objects) would mean that no one on this List
would take Tibetan Budhist scholars seriously anymore (since Tibetan Budhism
is really Mahayana Budhism as is well known).




>SU> Dharmakirti comes out with a remarkable answer to this. "How
>SU> knowledge," he says, "which is the sole existing reality, can appear in
>the
>SU> form of objects...<snipped> (NB i.14).
>
>This passage does not appear in NB, so please recheck your sources.

--> It is from the Pramana Vartika iii.353-5. Sorry about the mix up.

>
>On the whole, I have the impression that you are not reading my
>messages thoroughly, or if you do, that you are not taking my statements
>into account
>properly when you compose yours.

--> Not difficult to understand why since my views on the Yogacara are
radically different from yours.

>Otherwise I would not have to repeat myself
>for so many times, and I would not encounter statements in your
>messages again that I had already clarified before.

--> What clarifications? The clarification that "I do not have an opinion on
this" when it comes to fundamental questions like whether the Yogacara
denies the reality of external objects?

>You also have not made
>use of the important contribution by John Dunne, who pointed out
>many revealing passages and ideas that should assist in investigating
>the avobe issues.

--> I did take a look at what John Dunne had written, but i do not believe
it has any bearing on the issues we are now discussing.

>Furthermore, it seems to me that your key interest lies in defending
>Chattopadhyaya rather
>than evaluating his interpretations on the background of primary
>sources - which are, after all, what one should mainly be interested
>in, unless one were to establish Chattopadhyaya as an original
>philosopher rather than a scholar of Indian Philosophy.

--> I have read the primary sources in parts (i will definitely read them in
full when i have more time). Further, my interest lies not in defending
Chattopadhyaya but in criticising the Yogacara. I believe the Mahayana
Budhism (and also Hindu idealism) did great damage to India in the past (by
weakening the fighting spirit of the Indian people), and some of the
idealistic ideas (like "karma", etc. )are continuing to be an obstacle to
social progress, especially at the grass roots rural level.


>
>I consider this a rather unhelpful approach to discussing these
>issues, which is unlikely to generate any further or deeper
>understanding - which is why I shall bow out now and consider this
>thread closed at least from my side.
>

--> Likewise.

Best,
Satya
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