A Review of 'The Speech of Gold" trans. by T. Thurman

7/28/2019 A Review of 'The Speech of Gold" trans. by T. Thurman

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THE JOURNAL

OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OFBUDDHIST STUDIES

E D I T O R - I N - C H I E FA.K. Narain

University of Wisconsin, Mad ison, USA

E D I T O R StL . M.Joshi Ernst Steinkellner

Punjabi University University oj ViennaPatiala, India Wien, Austria

Alexander W. Macdon ald Jikido TakasakiUniversile de Paris X University of Tokyo

Nanterre, France Tokyo,JapanBardwell Smith Robert Thurma nCarleton College Amherst CollegeNorthfield, Minnesota, USA Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

A S S I S T A N T E D IT O RRoger Jackson

Fairfield U niversityFairfield, Connecticut, USA

Volume 9 1986 Number 1


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C O N T E N T S

I . A R T I C L E ST h e M ean in g o f Vijnapti in Va sub and hu ' s Con cep t ofM ind , by Bruce Cameron Hall 7"Signless" M edi ta t ions in Pali B ud dh ism ,by Peter Harvey 2 5Do gen Casts Off "W hat ": An Analysis of ShinjinDatsuraku, by Steven Heine 53Buddhism and the Cas te Sys tem, by Y. Krishan 71T h e Early Chinese Buddhis t U nd ers ta nd ing of thePsyche : Ch en H ui ' s Co m m enta ry on theYin Chihju Ching, by Wha len Im 85The Specia l Theory of Pratityasamutpdda: T h e Cyc leo f D e p en d en t O r ig in a ti o n , by Geshe Lhundub Sopa 105

I I . B O O K R E V I E W SChinese Religions in Western L anguages: A Comprehensiveand Classified Bibliography of Pub lications in Eng lish,French and German through 1980, by La uren ce G .T h o m p s o n(Yves H erv ou et) 121The Cycle ofDay and Night, by Na mk hai N orbu(A.W. H an son -B arb er) 122Dharma and Gospel: Two Ways ofSeeing, edited by Rev.G .W. Hous ton

(Ch r i s topher Cha pp ie ) 123Meditation on Emptiness, by Jef frey H op kinsQ.W. de Jo ng ) 124


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5. Philosophy of Mind in Sixth Century Ch ina, P aramdrtha 's'Evolution of Consciousness, ' by D iana Y. Paul(J.W.deJong) 129D iana Paul Replies 133J .W.deJong Replies 1356. Seven Works ofVasubandhu: The Buddhist PsychologicalDoctor, by Stefan A nac ker(A . W. Ha nson-B a rbe r ) 1367. TsongKhapa 's Speech of Gold in the Essense of T ru eEloque nc e : Reason and Enlightenment in the CentralPhilosophy of Tibet, t ransla te d by Ro ber t A.F.T h u r m a n(Jan et Gyatso) 138

I I I . N O T E S A N D N E W S1. Election Resu lts, IAB S 1432. C o n f e r en c e A n n o u n c e m e n t s 1 448th Conference, I ABS 144

32ndICANAS 1457th World Sanskrit Conference 1453. AAR B u ddh i sm G rou p 146

O B I T U A R I E SL I ST O F C O N T R I B U T O R S 147156


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138 J I A B S V O L . 9 N O . 1events and then apply ing ant idotes to increase benef i t and decrease suffe r ing . These ca tegor ies of moment-events a re thendiscarded for the more advanced theor ies of the Yogacara , whichare seen as being based experientia l ly in medita t ion. This a l lowsfor a non-f ixed base of v iewing and a dynamic approach to thehu m an s i tua t ion . T h u s, the use of the word "psychologica l" mustbe unders tood in l igh t of Buddhis t no t ions , and not t ied to West e rn theor ies .

I have two minor reservat ions about this work. The f irst isthat the general index is so short as to be nearly useless. Someof the prob lem is correc ted by an ex tensive index of p ro pe rnames . Howeve r , more shou ld have been added to the gene ra lindex .T h e second is Dr . Anacke r ' s t endency to emp loy hy ph en a tedand mul t i -hyphena ted words to express technica l te rms. Although th is cannot a t a l l t imes be avoided , there a re def in i teexamples of abuse. A case in point : "A Discussion of the FiveAggregates," one wil l f ind the term"kusala mula" t ransla ted as"root-of-the-benefic ia l" (e .g. , p . 66). Certa inly there must be a lte rna t ives to t ransla t ing a te rm wi th three hyphens separa t ingthe e l emen t s .

Overa l l , th is i s an outs tanding contr ibut ion to the f ie ld ofB udd his t S tudies in genera l an d to Yogacara s tudies in par t icu la r :schola rs in te res ted in Mahayana deve lopments and la te r Indianphi losophy/psychology wi l l f ind considerable informat ion heretha t should prove most usefu l .

A . W . H a n s o n - B a r b e r

Tsong Khapa's Speech of Gold in the Essence o f True E loquence :Reason and Enlightenment in the Central Philosophy of Tibet, t r ans l a ted w ith an in t roduc t ion by Rob e r t A .F . T h u rm an . P r ince ton ,New Jers ey: P r ince ton Univers ity Press , Pr ince to n L ibrary ofAsian T ran sla t ion s, 1984. xviii + 4 42 pp .As Prof. Thurman po in t s ou t in h i s in t roduc t ion to th i s

book, "Even in recent t imes, great cri t ical scholars such as Stcher-batski (sic) and Murti were misled . . . into thinking that the Centr ists were 'metaphysical absolut ists ' who repudiated al l forms oflogic wh atsoever , a long wi th th e meanin gfuln ess of a ll lang uag e ."(p . 57) An outs tanding tes tament to the cont ra ry i s th is f ine


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R E V I E W S 139translat ion and s tudy of Tsong kha pa 's Legs bshad snying po a l o n gwith the versified rTen 'brel bstod pa, a milestone in the study ofMadhyamika phi losophy and in par t icu lar of the s igni f icant contr ibut ion of the Tibetan exegetes in that f ield.T h e Legs bshad snying po ( the "Essence") , a detai led exa m inat ion of some of the most subt le not ions in Buddhis t phi losophy,is famed in the Tibetan scholast ic community for i ts r igorous,f inely tu ne d ar gu m en ts and , for tha t rea so n, its gre at difficul tlyan d profund i ty . T h e work is pr imar i ly a pre sen tat ion a nd defenseof the Prasangika Madhyamika posi t ion (here rendered "Dialec-t ic i s t Cemrism") , and i t considers in depth the impl icat ions andflaws in the assert ions of the Svatantr ikas ("Dogmaticist Centrists"), Yogacar ins ("Exper ient ia l i s t s") , Saut rant ikas ("Tradi t ional ists") , Sautrant ika-Yogacarin logicians, Yogacara- Svatantr ika-Madhyamikas , and var ious Tibe tan p redecesso rs o f Tsong-kha-pa, including the Jo-nang-pas . (Cr i t ic i sm of these teachers , however, is handled del icately and with al l due respect by Tsong-kha-pa; for example, i t is implied that Asariga, in t rue Buddhistupaya-kaujalya-style, taught Yogacara to accord with the incl inat ions of his d iscip les , even tho ug h h is own un de rs ta nd ing was ofthe highest Centr ist sort . )T h e Essence opens wi th an examinat ion of the varying s ta tem en t s in the Budd h i s t t ext s con cern ing svalak$anasiddha ("intr insic identifiabili ty") and its relevance to the three nifysvabhdvas("unreal i t ies" : lak$ana, utpdda a n d paramartha) and the th reesvabhdvas ( "na tu res" : parikalpita, paratantra a n d parini$panna).Fro m the s tar t, the he rm en eut ic al ques t ion i s ra i sed as to whichof the three turn ings of the wheel are nitdrtha ("definitive") andwhich are neydrtha (" in terpretable") , and s ta tements f rom theSandhinirmocana-sutra and many o ther sc r ip tu res a re c i t edthroughout . The discussion el ici ts an invest igat ion of such keyB ud dh is t issues as the d i f fering M adhy am ika in terp retat io ns ofparamartha a n d samvrti satya ("ul t imate" and "superficial real i ty");the role of the pramanas ("val idat ing cognit ions") and of yukti("analyt ic reason") in establ ishing existence; the val idi ty of thesvatantrdnumdna ("private syl logism"); the nature of samdropa("reification") and apavdda ( " repud ia t ion" ) ; t he Sau t ran t ikatheory on the unreal i ty of universals and the Yogacar in posi t ionon svabhdva a n d vises,a vikalpana ("ascript ive" and "descript ivedesignat ion") ; the impl icat ions of posi t ing an alayavijnana ("fundamenta l consc iousness" ) and svasamvedand ( "appercep t ion" ) ;the real i ty status of external objects; the dist inct ion betweenprasajya a n d paryuaasa pratis,edha ("absolu te" an d " impl icative neg -


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140 J I A B S V O L . 9 N O . 1at ion") ; and d i ff e rences in the un de r s tan d in g of dharma a n d pud-gala nairatmya ("objective" and "personal selflessness").

The author of th is dense t rea t ise , the 14th-century Tsong-kha-p a B lo-bzang Grags-pa , is famed as a refo rm er a nd as fo und er of the dGe- lugs-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism, which hassince become the largest school in that country and the formalsectar ian affi liation of the Dalai La m as. In his int rod uc tio n, T h u r-ma n p rovides us wi th a de ta i led biog raph y of Ts on g-k ha -pa(a long with sho r ter accou nts of the l ives of the oth er ph i loso phe rsment ioned in the book) , and this a l lows us a gl impse of Tsong-kha-pa ' s impress ive t ra ining in Buddhis t thought and prac t ice .I h ur m an , Associa te Professor of Religion a t Am hers t C ol lege ,

is in fact on e of th e pr incip al scholars w ho have bee n en de av or in gto br ing this master 's work to l ight in recent years . Alex Wayman(whose Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real, New York, 1978,translates a major par t of the Ijam rim chen mo) and Jef frey H op kins (whose Tantra in Tibet a n d Yoga in Tibet, London , 1977 and1981, present the f irs t sections of the sNgags rim chen mo) are theother Buddhologis ts known for the i r work on Tsong-kha-pa , inaddi t ion to such competent phi losophers as Paul Wil l iams,Michae l Bro ido , Tom J .F . T i l l emans , and a number o f T ibe tanand Western scholars publ ishing t rans la t ions wi th the Library ofT ibe tan Works and Arch ives in Dharamsa la . Thurman h imse l fhas a l ready edi ted a col lec t ion of t rans la t ions of Tsong-kha-pa ' swork {Lifeand Teachings ofTsongKhapa, Dharamsala , 1982, inc luding a section from the Ijim rim chung ngu).

Thurman's cur rent book represents c lose to f i f teen years ofresearch , and h e deserves mu ch credi t for h is extens ive person alconta cts with the living Tib eta n tra dit io n, which inform this tran sla t ion throughout . His learned notes to the text itself, in whichhe provides copious ci tat ions f rom the Sanskrit works referredto there in , and his lengthy int roduct ion to the doctr ina l andhis tor ica l background of the text , a re t r ibutes to Thurman's ownabil i t ies . He f inds that most Western commentators have fallenei ther in to the t rap of making an over ly myst ica l in terpre ta t ionof Buddhism, or an overly relat ivis t ic and nihil is t ic one, in bothcases fai l ing to appreciate the sophist icated philosophical deve lopm ents in Bu ddh is t log ic , ep i s temology , e tc . T h u rm an , onthe contrary , wan ts to conceive of H u m e, K ant , Heg el , Nie tzsche ,He idegger and Wi t tgens te in a s the modern r epresen ta t ives o fthe l ineages of Mai t reya and Manjusr i . Thurman has been par t icular ly s t ruck by the appr op r ia te ne ss of g iving a Budd his t read ing to Wit tgens te in . This has a l ready been advanced in a genera l


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R E V I E W S 141way by Chr i s Gudmunsen {Wittgenstein and Buddhism, L o n d o n ,1977), who equated tha t phi losopher ' s c r i t ique of Ber t rand Russe l l wi th the Madhyamika cr i t ique of the Abhidharmis ts . Thur-m an ref ines th e pa rallel by asser t ing th at i t is the Svatan tr ikaadmission of a real " intr insic identif iabil i ty" on the conventionallevel that entails the most subtle and thereby most problematicalversion of a pr ivate lan gu ag e doct r ine . I am not qualif ied topronounce upon how closely the Prasahgika refusal to posit anysor t of independent ly rea l s ta tus , convent ional or absolute , i sanalogous with Wittgenstein 's thinking, but cer tainly this sor t ofcom par i son , if app roac hed cau tiously and wi th adequa te g ro un ding in both tradit ions, facil i tates a modern evaluation of the relevance of Buddhis t phi losophy.On only a few points must Thurman's s ta tements be quest ioned. One of the most noteworthy is his claim that the rNying-ma-pa ph i losopher Klong-chen-Rab- 'byams-pa prese rves the"Idealis t Dogmaticis t Centr ism of Santaraksita and Kamalasila"(p . 62): in fact i t is generally accepted that Klong-chen-pa putsfor th the supremacy of the Prasar igika view, in par t icular in hisYui bzhin mdzod and i t s commenta ry Padma dkar po (Gangtok ,1966). It shou ld also be po inte d o ut th at the dust jack et 's asser t ionthat Tso ng -kh a-p a is "universal ly acknow ledged as the grea tes tTibetan phi losopher" would not be assented to by members ofthe severa l Tibetan schools other than tha t of Tsong-kha-pa ,despite the high regard in which he is held.

T h e tran slation i tself is an adm irab le re nd er in g of a verydifficult text: if at times the English locutions seem wordy andcomplex, this can confidently be at tr ibuted in most cases to theor iginal Tibetan itself. T h u rm an is to be thank ed for h is nu m er ous explanatory notes , where he res ta tes some of the moreobscure arguments (usually in a s impler way) and f i l ls out themany e l lipses wh ere Tso ng-k ha-p a assum ed the reade r ' s famil iar i ty with the subject matter . Comparing two passages of the translation with the original for clarification on points of my ownin te res t , I f ound Thurman ' s comprehens ion of the t ex t to becons is tent ly sound. Apar t f rom such lapses as the dropping ofphrases (discovered, however , in both of the passages I consu l ted) , most ly to be remarked upon are the inevi table ques t ionsconce rn ing the t rans la tion of t echn ical t e rms . T hu rm an ' s r end er ings are usually ingenious and innovative, such as his ubiquitous"intr insic identi ty" for svalaks.ana\ the s imple " technique" forupdya; "fundamenta l consciousness" for dlayax>ijndna, followingthe Tibetan; and even his " thing" i'ordharma. O th er choices seem


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142 J I A B S V O L . 9 N O . 1rather s t ra ined, e .g . , " t ru th-habi t" for satyagraha which suggestsa posit ive co nn ota t ion for what in th is conte xt is a w ron g m enta lat t i tude, or "evolut ion" for karma. I would also l ike to remarkthat "Centr ism" for Madhyamika, whi le reading wel l in Engl ishas the name for a philosophical view, seems to lose some of thewonderful sense of unspecifiabil i ty that a more l i teral translationus ing "midd le " cou ld re ta in .

More ser ious , perhaps , i s a cer ta in lack of r igorous consistency in the rendering of the same technical term: admit tedlysuch terms can have different connotat ions in d ifferent contexts ,but when the same word appears several t imes in a s ingle passageand w ith the sam e m ea nin g, to vary its t rans lat ion a dd s unn ece ssary confusion an d is inexcusa ble . Exa m ples are yang-dag, whichis t rans lated both as "authent ic" and "real i ty ," the la t ter actual lyb e in g T h u rm an ' s t e rm fo r don in this passage (p. 283); bsam-pa,which becomes "men ta l hab i t s" and "hab i tua l thou gh ts" in th esame section (p. 284); and mngon-par brjod-pa, wh ich ap p ea r sal ternat ively as "verbal formulat ion ," "verbal izat ion ," and "formulation" in a single passage (p. 215 ff.) .

A f inal point concerns the lack of Tibetan-Engl ish andSanskri t -Engl ish g lossaries , which would have been easy enoughto generate , s ince an Engl ish-Sanskri t -Tibetan g lossary has beenpr ep ar ed . Th is absence makes it d i ff icult , for the rea de r w holacks a gra sp of T h u rm a n 's co nve nt ions , to use the ind ex to locatepassag es discus sing technical subjects of inte rest , an d is the rea sonwhy i t seemed useful to resurrect some of the principal Sanskri tterms at the beginning of th is review.

It is a ple as ur e to no te that th e useful fo otno tes to the tran sla t ion are p laced at the bot tom of each page, and that twelveTibe tan pa in t ings o f the ph i losophers represen ted in the tex thave been reproduced in this first-rate publication of PrincetonUniversity Press.

Jane t Gyatso

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A Review of 'The Speech of Gold" trans. by T. Thurman