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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
There is much to support the opinion of Rāmānuja, Dr. Thibaut, and many others, that Śaṃkara's doctrine of “illusion” is a biassed rendering of the old Vedānta, Bādarāyaṇik as well as Aupanishadic. If that be granted, it is by no means self-evident that Buddhism has been without influence on Śamkara's speculation; and the last writer on the subject, Vasudev Anant Sukhtankar, a very able pupil of Professor Jacobi, does not conceal his opinion, or his surmise, that Śaṃkara is indebted to Nāgārjuna. That may be true, but I would object that we really know little or nothing about the history of Vedānta, and that conclusions based on philosophical parallels are by no means definitive. Autonomous developments— autonomous if not absolutely independent—are admissible. Nāgārjuna (or his predecessors, the anonymous authors of the oldest Mahāyānasūtras), by the very fact that he proclaims “voidness” to be the real nature of things, was prepared to distinguish the relative truth (saṃvṛtisatya) and the absolute one (pāramārthika); and his nihilism coupled with “idealism” might lead to the Vijñānavāda: “existence of pure non-intelligent (?) intellect.” On the other hand the Aupanishadas, from their main thesis (tat tvam asi, etc.), could derive the distinction of the two brahmans, of the two vidyās. Both developments are natural enough; the conception of the universal void (o) and the intuition of the infinite (∞) are convergent, in the end; but parallel and convergent as they are, these developments do not lose their primitive tinge.
page 129 note 1 The Teachings of Vedānta according to Rāmānuja (Inaugural Dissertation, Bonn, 08 12, 1908Google Scholar; Wien, Druck von Adolf Holzhausen, 1908).
page 129 note 2 I think that no unprejudiced reader will admit Rāmānuja's interpretation of the old pantheist or monist sayings of the Upanishads. Against Vasudev Anant Sukhtankar (p. 13), I adhere to the opinion of Dr. Thibaut: “The fundamental doctrines of Śaṃkara's system are manifestly in greater harmony with the essential teaching of the Upanishads than those of other Vedantio systems” (S.B.E., xlv, p. cxxiv). The “essential teaching” of the Upanishads is not their spiritual undogmatic or polydogmatic enthusiasm (the chief part from the point of view of the history of religion), but their ontological surmises.
page 130 note 1 M. de K. is the French translator of Sumner Maine, SirPollock, Frederick, and SirLyall, Alfred. One will find in the Études sur les mœurs religieuses et societies de l'Extrême Orient (Paris, Fontemoing, 1908)Google Scholar a splendid translation of the Asiatic Studies of Sir Alfred, with many notes, illustrations, and appendices of no small interest.
page 130 note 2 It is a pity that M. Th. de Stcherbatskoï is writing in Russian.
page 131 note 1 See Sāṃlchyapravacandbhāṣya, edited and translated by Professor Richard Garbe, index sub voc. bauddha, pracchannabauddha, vijñānavāda. With I, 22 (p. 16, 6–7), compare the readings of Padmapurāṇa (xliii) apud Aufrecht, , Cat. Oxoniensis, p. 14Google Scholar: “māyāvādam asac chāstraṃ pracchannaṃ bauddham ucyate, mayaiva kathitaṃ devi kalau brṃhmaṇarūpiṇā … parātmajīvayor aikyaṃ mamātra pratipādyate, brahmaoṇ 'sya paraṃ rūpaṃ nirguṇam vakṣyate mayā, sarvasya jagato 'py atra mohanāya kalau yuge.”
page 132 note 1 Chowkhamba S.S. (No. 36), p. 19. For this reference I am indebted to Vasudev Anant Sukhtankar, p. 19, who also refers to Rāmānuja, , Śrībhāṣya, ii, 2, 27Google Scholar.
page 132 note 2 This line occurs in Sarvadarśanasamgraha, p. 16 (Bibl. Indica, 1858)Google Scholar, and elsewhere; it is extracted from the Pramāṇaviniścaya of Dharmakrti (see Muséon, 1902, and Bouddhisme d'après les sources brahmaniques, p. 34; add reference to Śuklavidarśanā). It runs as follows: avibhāgo 'pi buddhyātmā viparyāsitadarsanaiḥ, grāhyagrāhakasaṃvittibhedavān iva lakṣyate (or kalpyate). Vasudev Anant Sukhtankar understands buddhyāātmā: the Buddhist attributes the false distinction … to buddhi, as the Pseudo-Buddhist attributes the same distinction to māyā. I prefer my translation.
page 132 note 3 Śākyamuni, has condemned Vijñānavāda-Vedānta, Majjhima, i, p. 329Google Scholar: viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ anantaṃ, sabbatopabhaṃ.
page 133 note 1 I have just read a good book, written from the “intellectualist” point of view, but very “matter of fact”, Pragmatisme, Modernisme, Protestantisms (Paris, Bloud, 1909Google Scholar; by A. Leclére, Dr. es-Lettres, Prof. agrégé à l'Université de Berne). The author says, p. 217, note—“Il vaudrait la peine, aprés avoir rapproché le modernisme catholique du Protestantisme libéral moderne ou modernisme protestant, d'étudier le modernisme israélite et le modernisme mahométan. On sait qu'il s'est récemment formé à Paris une association israélite en vue de mettre le Judaïsme, en le simplifiant, à la hauteur de la pensée contemporaine; ce mouvement a déjà une littérature; il s'est constitué par un minimisme assez analogue à ceux que nous avons signalés. D'autre part, le Babisme, si tangent chez ses meilleurs représentants avec la pure religion naturelle, et si bienveillant à l'égard de toutes les religions positives, qu'il prétend dépasser, modernise avec ardeur le vieil Islam. Autant de dissolutions des formes positives de la religion. L'écart est moins grand qu'on ne le pense généralement entre celles de ces dissolutions où on a l'illusion d'approfondir l'esprit de la doctrine qu'on transforme [as it is apparently the case with Nāgārjuna, with Śaṃkara], et celles où l'on a conscience d'évoluer tout à fait en dehors de la tradition.” (Neo-Buddhists ought to be aware that they are pouring new wines, and, alas! sophisticated alcohols, into old bottles.) A historical study of Neo-Buddhism would be very interesting, as an episode of the intellectual conquest of the East by the West and vice versa.
page 134 note 1 The following notes are by no means exhaustive.
page 134 note 2 Sanskrit Literature, p. 242.
page 134 note 3 Majjhima, ii, p. 240. “Syllables are of little importance: do not, O monks, dispute on mere trifles.”
page 135 note 1 Cowell's translation. Alaātacakram iva sphurantam ādityavarṇam … brahmana … apaśyat. (Comm.: tasya brahmana ātmābhedatvakhyāpanāya puṃlingair viśeṣsṇair viśinasti.) Id est, the unreal qualifications of brahman, “flashing like a firebrand circle,” are in the masculine “to show the identity between the neuter brahman and the masculine soul”, says Rāmatīrtha (and also to spare the undenotability and the unconcern of the Absolute). As a matter of fact, Brahman does not flash into unreal solar protuberances, but it appears, it appears to itself, to be flashing. Cf. vi, 17: Brahma … eko 'nantaḥ.
page 135 note 2 Mahāvyutpatti, § 139, 21.
page 135 note 3 Buddhist Text Society, p. 95.
page 135 note 4 The simile of the firebrand is also of use in the Sautrāntika school, to explain the quomodo of the “compound perceptions”. See Wassilieff', , Btiddhismus, p. 284 (312)Google Scholar: “The forms of the object penetrate one after the other into the understanding: the illusion of simultaneity is caused by the swiftness of this proceeding. Just so an arrow passes through the eight leaves of a flower, as it were, at the same time, and firebrand appears as a circle.”
From another point of view it is evident that any compound perception (i.e. every perception) is “born from imagination”, or subjective: “The notion of a cloth or a straw mat is gradually produced: therefore this notion has for real object the parts of the cloth or straw mat, and as such, as cloth or mat notion, it results from imagination. As in the case of a firebrand. The notion of a firebrand circle has for real object a firebrand which obtains successively different places owing to a rapid motion. Just so. Argument: cloth is not real, because the grasping of it depends on the grasping of its parts, as is the case with the firebrand circle” —yasmāt krameṇa paṭabuddhiḥ kaḥabuddhir vā tasmād avayaveṣv eva paḥāvayaveṣu kaḥāvayaveṣu vā tadbuddhiḥ paṭabuddhiḥ paṭabuddhir vā vikalpavaśād bhavati. alātacakravat. yathālāte śīghrasaṃcārāt tatra tatrotpadtymāne 'lātacakrabuddhir bhavati, tadvat. sādhanaṃ cātra: na dravyasat paṭo 'vayavagrahaṇasāpekṣagrahaṇatvād, alātacakravat (Abhidharmakośavyākhyā, MS. Soc. As., fol. 267a).
page 136 note 1 Quoted more than once by Vijñānabhikṣu; see Garbe's indexes. Madhyamaka, xvi, 5: na badhyante na mucyante.
page 137 note 1 Sāpi nānāvidhā māyā nānāpratyayasaṃbhavā, Bodhicaryāvatāra, ix, 12.
page 137 note 2 Ānandāśrama edition.
page 137 note 3 Bibliotheca Buddhica.
page 138 note 1 Buddhist Text Society.
page 140 note 1 Editor has tāpi(yi)naḥ tāpo (yo) saṃtānavato; MSS. tāpī, tāyī, tāpo, tāyo, saṃtāpavato—see M.W.2; tāy = to spread, to proceed in a continuous stream or line, Dhātup., xiv, 18. See Mahāvyutpatti, 1, 15; 96, 6; Nāmasaṃgīti, = trātar; Burn., Intr., p. 227; Kern, , ad Lotus, i, 73Google Scholar, ii, 47 (mighty, able, clever), iv, 40 (strenuous; Pān. i, 3. 38, kramate, tāyante), ix, 4 (mighty saint); Speyer, ad Divyāvadāna, Wien Z. xvi, p. 349.
page 140 note 2 See above, p. 137, No. 2.
page 140 note 3 tadanauyatvāt(?).