[INDOLOGY] “mīmāṃsā” in Chinese
Kiyotaka Yoshimizu
tautatita at gmail.com
Sun Jan 26 07:57:40 UTC 2020
Dear Dan,
In his commentary on the *Śatakaśāstra, a part of Āryadeva’s
Catuḥśatakaśāstra, Ji-zang (吉蔵) enumerates not only the four Vedas (皮陀)
but also all of the eighteen (十八) abodes of knowledge, vidyāsthānas
(明處), with brief definitions of each (Taishō Tripiṭaka, vol. 42,
251a20–b8). Ji-zang’s list of vidyāsthānas is partly different from that
which appears in Brahmanical literature because it includes Sāṃkhya and
Yoga, but Mīmāṃsā is included in it with written errors as 肩亡婆, which
must be 眉亡裟.
This was pointed out by Hakuju Ui (宇井伯壽) in pp. 463–467 of the notes on
his translation of Madhusūdana’s Prasthānabheda: “Various routes”
(Shuju-naru michi)「種種なる道」, Studies of Indian
Philosophy『印度哲学研究』4, pp. 425–575, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1927.
Ui maintains that Ji-zang may have received this information about the
eighteen vidyāsthānas from Paramārtha (499–569) because according to
Ji-zan’s biography he was very close to Paramārtha.
best wishes
Kiyotaka
Kiyotaka Yoshimizu
Saitama, Japan
---------------------------------------------
On 2020/01/26 7:52, Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Just to comment quickly, though I haven’t studied the Vajrasūcī in any
> depth, the same passage that Vincent highlighted, naming the Vedas,
> Grammarians, et al. is also the one that caught my attention,
> especially the mention of Mīmāṃsikas. As far as I can tell, while the
> others do get mentioned in Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, the
> only text preserved in Chinese that mentions Mīmāṃsikas is Xuanzang’s
> translation of Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa, which mentions them twice in
> close proximity:
>
> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22
> 觀如來品〉：「復有彌息伽外道言。佛家所說十二部經[1]者。非一切智人所說。有作者故。譬如鞞世師等論。」(CBETA,
> T30, no. 1566, p. 119, b15-17)
> [1]者＝有【宮】。
> [1]者＝有【宮】。
> “Again there are the non-Buddhist (tīrthika) Mīmāmsikas who say: ‘What
> is said by Buddhists In the twelve divisions of the their sūtras
> (canon), is that no person is omniscient, because they are conditioned
> (saṃskṭra), just as is stated in treatises by the Vaiśeṣikas, and so on.”
>
> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22 觀如來品〉：「如彌息伽外道所計韋陀聲是常者」(CBETA,
> T30, no. 1566, p. 119, c5-6)
> “This like the non-Buddhist Mīmāmsikas who imagine that the Word of
> the Vedas is eternal.”
>
> I have found no other mention of Mīmāṃsā in any other Chinese sources
> (if anyone has information on discussions I might have missed, please
> let me know). Bhāviveka, of course, devoted an entire chapter in his
> Madhyamakahṛdaya to Mīmāṃsā, but his description of their doctrines
> suggests they differed in several ways from the versions we are more
> familiar with post Prābhākara and Kumārila. It is the latter’s
> /Ślokavarttika/, of course, that made Mīmāṃsā hard to ignore for
> subsequent Buddhists.
>
> Harivarman’s /Tattvasiddhi/ (translated by Kumārajīva at the beginning
> of the 5th c) identifies (among others) Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, and
> Jains as pūrvapakṣins. More generally in Buddhist literature preserved
> in Chinese prior to the middle of the seventh century, the most
> commonly cited opponents are Vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya. Nyāya is mentioned
> infrequently, as are Jains.
>
> As for the pramāṇa issue mentioned by Matthew, the Vajrasūrī verse
> identifies what serve as authorities for non-Buddhists (the following
> verse turns to lineage):
>
> vedāḥ pramāṇaṃ smṛtayaḥ pramāṇaṃ dharmārthayuktaṃ vacanaṃ pramāṇam |
> yasya pramāṇaṃ na bhavetpramāṇaṃ kastasya kuryādvacanaṃ pramāṇam || 2 ||
>
> Which are more or less equivalent to śruti, smṛti, and āpti-pramāṇa,
> and analogous to “scripture and reason” (āgama, yukti) that was the
> established criteria for validity for Buddhists, even into the
> pramāṇavāda era. And, as I wrote elsewhere:
>
> /"Pramāṇa/-theory rst appears in the eleventh chapter of the first
> part (/Sūtra-sthāna/) of the /CS /[Caraka-saṃhitā]. Here the /CS
> /intriguingly proposes, along with the three /pramāṇas /one would
> expect (perception, inference, and authori- tative testimony), a
> fourth not found anywhere else: synthetic inductive reasoning
> (/yukta-pramāṇa/). Discussion of /pramāṇa /occurs in two other
> parts of the /CS/: part 3, /Vimāna-sthāna/, chap. 4 and chap. 8, but
> the unique /yukta-pramāṇa /is absent from those discussions, a sign
> of the strati ed nature of the text.”
>
> So a yukta pramāṇa suggest to me a possibly early date for that category.
>
> Has anyone considered whether it is possible that the verses may have
> been written by Aśvaghoṣa or someone relatively early while the prose
> exposition may have been added by a later hand?
>
> Dan
>
>> On Jan 25, 2020, at 4:35 PM, Eltschinger, Vincent via INDOLOGY
>> <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Matthew,
>> I was referring to/most/of the elements of the list I quoted, of
>> course, not to the entire/Vajrasūcī/. But you are right, Matthew:
>> the/Mahābhārata/plays an important role in the/Vajrasūcī/, as
>> does…Manu – which may be the reason for Patrick’s query. It is well
>> known that the/Vajrasūcī/attributes several verses to Manu that
>> cannot be traced in the extant/Mānavadharmaśāstra/(if I remember
>> well, this is the reason why some scholars tentatively attributed
>> them to a lost Mānava/Dharmasūtra/). Whatever the case may be, we
>> might perhaps agree that the/Vajrasūcī/is unlikely to have been
>> composed before the 3rd-4th century CE. I am inclined to believe that
>> it is even younger.
>> Very best,
>> Vincent
>>
>>
>> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
>> Directeur d'études
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
>> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
>> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>> <mailto:vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr>
>> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Von:*Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu
>> <mailto:mkapstei at uchicago.edu>>
>> *Gesendet:*Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 22:13:42
>> *An:*Eltschinger, Vincent; Olivelle, J P; indology at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Betreff:*Re: Vajrasūcī
>> Not wishing to differ with my learned colleague Vincent Eltschinger's
>> remarks (which are surely based on a deeper engagement with this
>> corpus than my own), I tend nevertheless to think it not quite
>> plausible that "most of its individual elements could have been known
>> around 100 CE."
>> My sense is that the several epic and puranic parallels point to a
>> somewhat later period.
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études,
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>>
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:*Eltschinger, Vincent <Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at
>> <mailto:Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at>>
>> *Sent:*Saturday, January 25, 2020 10:00 AM
>> *To:*Olivelle, J P <jpo at austin.utexas.edu
>> <mailto:jpo at austin.utexas.edu>>; Matthew Kapstein
>> <mkapstei at uchicago.edu <mailto:mkapstei at uchicago.edu>>;
>> indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>
>> <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
>> *Subject:*AW: Vajrasūcī
>> Dear Patrick,
>> As you know, Aśvaghoṣa directed some arguments against the
>> Brahmanical understanding of the caste-classes in one of his dramas,
>> the/Śāriputraprakaraṇa///Śaradvatīputraprakaraṇa/, several fragments
>> of which have been preserved in Central Asian manuscripts and edited
>> by Heinrich Lüders around 1910.It is thus plausible that Aśvaghoṣa
>> dedicated an individual treatise to this topic. The style, the method
>> and the philosophical ressources of the/Vajrasūcī/, however, are very
>> different from the ones we know from Aśvaghoṣa’s genuine works, and
>> may presuppose Buddhist works such as the/Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna/if not
>> Kumāralāta’s/Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅktiḥ/. Even if I am not
>> aware of any convincing argument against the attribution of
>> the/Vajrasūcī/to Aśvaghoṣa, I have always regarded the following
>> statement as anachronistic:/dṛśyante ca kvacic chūdrā api
>> vedavyākaraṇamīmāṃsāsāṃkhyavaiśeṣikanagnā*jīvikādisarvaśāstrārthavidaḥ//.
>> “And one observes in some cases that even/śūdra/s know the meaning of
>> all/śāstra/s such as the Veda, Grammar, Mīmāṃsā, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika
>> as well as [those of] the Jainas and the Ājīvikas.”
>> (*-/nagnā-/em. :/lagnā-/Ed.) Although such a list is not/per
>> se/impossible in Aśvaghoṣa’s time, i.e., although most of its
>> individual elements could have been known around 100 CE, I do not
>> believe that such an enumeration would have been possible,/as a
>> doxographic statement/, at that time, and even less so under
>> Aśvaghoṣa's "pen." (The absence of the Nyāya from the list is
>> intriguing.)
>> Another element possibly deserving some consideration is the Sanskrit
>> colophon in which Aśvaghoṣa is characterized as/siddhācārya/(/kṛtir
>> iyaṃ siddhācāryāśvaghoṣapādānām iti/), an expression the exact
>> meaning of which remains somewhat unclear to me.
>> I am looking forward to reading other opinions on this interesting topic.
>> Very best,
>> Vincent
>>
>>
>> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
>> Directeur d'études
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
>> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
>> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>> <mailto:vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr>
>> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Von:*INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info>> im Auftrag von Matthew
>> Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
>> *Gesendet:*Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 15:09:59
>> *An:*Indology List; Olivelle, J P
>> *Betreff:*Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>> Dear Patrick,
>>
>> You'll find some discussion of it, inter alia, in Vincent
>> Eltschinger,/"Caste" et Philosophie Bouddhique/WSTB 47 (2000). As you
>> no doubt know, the Chinese translation is late - 10th c. if I recall
>> correctly - and is attributed to DharmakIrti. I rather doubt that the
>> true authorship can be established, given the available evidence. The
>> emphasis on pramANa seems to suggest that it was written during the
>> second half of the first millennium, not much before. But the way in
>> which pramANa is used there does not resonate closely with the
>> Buddhist pramANa school. The precise milieu in which it was composed
>> remains a puzzle (at least to me!).
>>
>> all best,
>> Matthew
>>
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études,
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>>
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:*INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info>> on behalf of Olivelle,
>> J P via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
>> *Sent:*Saturday, January 25, 2020 6:59 AM
>> *To:*Indology List <indology at list.indology.info
>> <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
>> *Subject:*[INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>> Does anyone know of newer work on the identity and date of the author
>> of Vajrasūcī, often ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa? Any new ideas on its
>> possible date? With thanks and best wishes,
>>
>> Patrick Olivelle
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