Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka School

Richard King

Philosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683

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E A R L Y YOGACARA AND ITS RELATIONSHIP W I T H THE M A D H Y A M A K A S C H O O L

I Introduction D T Suzuki noted as early as 1928 that

Most Buddhist scholars are often too ready to make a sharp distinction between the Midhyamika and the Yogicira taking the one as exclusively advocating the theory of emptiness iiinyati) while the other is bent single- mindedly on an idealistic interpretation of the universe They thus further assume that the idea of emptiness is not at all traceable in the Yogicira and that idealism is absent in the Midhyamika This is not exact as a historical fact

As the second important philosophical school to develop in Indian Mahiy ina Buddhism the Yogicira school seems to have developed the distinctive features of its philosophy from a comprehensive analysis of meditative experience (hence the name Yogiciral-the practice of yoga) In discussing the philosophical perspective of the Asanga-Vasubandhu school of thought preference will be given to the doctrinally neutral term Yogicira in opposition to the epithets Vij iaptimitrati and Vij i inavida which are frequently used to designate this school This reflects the wider denotation of Yogicira and its relative indepen- dence from certain specific theoretical positions This is particularly im- portant when dealing with the early stages of a schools philosophical development It should be noted however that the term Vijiiaptimi- trata (Cognitive-Representation-Only) is preferable to Vi j i inavida (the doctrine that consciousness [alone] exists) when referring to the litera- ture of the early Yogicira since the former term (unlike Vi j i inavida) is at least used by Maitreyinitha Asanga and Vasubandhu In fact since the early Yogicirins did not accept the ultimate reality of subjective consciousness (vijnSna1 the term Vi j i inavida is particularly inaccurate This epithet nevertheless may be applicable to the later doctrinal posi- tion of the Dharmapilan lineage of the Yogicira which according to Yoshifumi Ueda upheld the view that the external world was merely a transformation of an ultimately real subjective consciousness (vijn2na- parinZma)2 As we shall see however even the term Vijiiaptimitrata may prove inappropriate as a final designation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu school of thought

The wide scope of the term Yogicira is clear from the fact that it was originally used in India as a general term for the practice of yoga (yoga-ac2ra) Thus the colophon to the Four Hundred Verses (CatuhSa- taka) of the Midhyamika Aryadeva describes the text as bodhisattva- yogZc2ra The term seems to have derived i ts later doctrinal and scholas- tic specificity from the title of Asangas major work the voluminous

Richard King

Lecturer in lndian Religion and Philosophy at the University of Stirling

Philosophy East amp West Volume 44 Number 4 October 1994 659-683

01994 by University of Hawaii Press

Stages in the Path o f Yoga (YogZcZrabhimi) This work however far from being a sectarian exposition of Yogicira ideas is a large-scale compen- dium of the stages of the Buddhist path of which only a small part is devoted to the specific interests of the Yogicira school This is a feature of much of Asangas literary output the other great example being his Compendium of the MahZyZna (MahWnasamgrZha) Although the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu do show a marked development of ideas in the delineation and analysis of the yogic path when compared to their Midhyamika predecessors this should not necessarily be seen as characteristic of an antithetical attitude toward the earlier exposition of Mahiyana philosophy The specific attribution of the terms Yogicara V$aptimZtratZt or VijnZnavZda to the thought of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu should always be used with extreme caution lest one read back the scholastic controversies of later times into the early stages of Yogicira thought

It is often stated that the first evidence of Yogiciira ideas can be found in the Samdhinirmocana-sitra This text is of great historical inter- est not only because it is a crystallization of a particularly early phase in the development of the Yogicira (in chapters four and eight) but also because of its description of the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma (dharma-cZkra) Thus the sitra declares that

By the first Turning of the Wheel of Doctrine [Buddha] taught the doctrine of the Zryasatya and on its basis the astivida of the Abhidharma has been developed This astivzda was negated by the Prajfiipiramiti and there has been established the Sfinyavidaof the Mahiyina The amalgamation of both asti and Sfinyavida is now done in the Samdhinirmocana and it is the last and the highest turning of the Wheel of Doctrine The ultimate doctrine of the Mahayina is no doubt taught in the Prajtiipiramiti but its way of exposition is with an esoteric meaning or with a hidden in ten t i~n ~

The Samdhinirmocana-sitra then does not see itself in terms of the establishment of a rival school to the SinyavZdins rather i t sees itself as the text which explicates the true meaning of emptiness Thus V113 declares that the sitras purpose is to establish the doctrine of the three-own-beings (trisvabhava) in terms of their lack of own-nature (nihsvabhZ~atZ)~This was understood to be a development from rather than a reaction to the philosophy of emptiness propounded in the Pra jriZpZram ita

The Samdhinirmocana-sitra is also the first Mahiy ina text to utilize the notion of a consciousness made up of all the seeds of past karmic fruition (sarvabijiakavijiZna) This seed-consciousness soon became one of the distinctive features of the Yogiiciira school as the concept of ZlayavijjiZna the store or repository-consciousness underlying the Philosophy East amp West

individuals experience of In the literature of the various sams~ra ~ Abhidharma schools there was already an exhaustive analysis of the five sense-consciousnesses and the mental consciousness (manov0nZna) that provide an awareness of sense objects (vi~aya) This was a development of the scheme of the eighteen dhZtu outlined innumerable times in the Sitta-Pitaka Thus we find Asanga arguing that the Z1ayavijnZna is mentioned in the Vehicle of the Hearers (SrZvaka-yZna) through various synonyms (paryZya)6 Thus as far as Asanga was concerned the seed- consciousness is little more than the application of a nomenclature to an idea already existent in Buddhism from its inception Asanga maintains that it is not recognized as the store-consciousness in the Srzvaka-yZna because it is a subtle cognizable (siiksmajneya) Asangas statement is particularly interesting since it suggests an inclusivist attitude toward the irzvaka-yZna Bearing this in mind one suspects that Asangas attitude to the Madhyamaka school is likely to be even more conciliatory Reading back later Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics into the works of Asanga is only likely to misrepresent the continuity between the two scholastic traditions at this early stage in their interaction

The comprehensive explication of the notion of emptiness as found in the philosophical literature (iZstra) of the Madhyamaka school provides a doctrinal key to unlock the abstruse meanings of the PrajfiZpZramitZ sutras As a Mahiy ina school the Yogicira developed as a response to the insights of those same siitras Under such circumstances it would have been difficult indeed to have ignored the centrality of the notion of SGnyatZ to these texts In fact the idea that the early classical Yogicira of Asanga and Vasubandhu found any difficulty whatsoever in embracing the basic insights of the Madhyamaka school disregards both the histori- cal and textual evidence which on the contrary displays a spirit of underlying continuity and acceptance

Both the Madhyamaka and the Yogicira schools accept the validity of the notions of pratYtyasamutpZda pudgala-nairztmya and dharma- nairZtmya the four Zrya-satyas the bodhisattva ideal and SiinyatZ among many others With such a level of doctrinal unanimity the two schools can hardly be said to be in great conflict with one another Admittedly both Asanga and Vasubandhu criticize those (Midhyamikas) who adhere to non-existence (nzstikas vainZi ika~)~ but this is only in their attempts to delineate the true nature of emptiness as the Middle Path between extremes Nevertheless one must accept that there appears to have been a significant development in the hermeneutics of the emptiness doctrine in the Yogicira school This as I shall argue in section I l l of this essay stems from a fear that the traditional Madhyamaka exposition was in danger of advocating (or at least appearing to advocate) the extreme position of nihilism (ucchedavZda) Richard King

II The Yogiicira Reformulation of the Middle Path One of the most important features of the Yogicira reformulation

of the Middle Path is a marked movement away from the negativistic interpretation of emptiness found in the Madhyamaka school For Asanga there are two types of extreme and erroneous view

(1)that one which clings to affirming (samiropata)the existence of what are nonexistent individual characteristics having essential nature only through verbal designation (prajiiapti) for a given thing and also (2)that one which with respect to a given thing (vastu)denies (apavadamano)the foundation for the sign of verbal designation which exists in an ultimate sense (para-mirthasadbhfitam) owing to its inexpressible essence (nirabhilZpyZtmaka-tayi) saying absolutely everything is nonexistent (sarvena sarvam n i ~ t i t i ) ~

Thus for Asanga a universal denial (sarva-vain2iika) of the bare given thing (vastu-matra) is a view which strays from the Buddhist path (~harma-vinaya)lo

Neither reality (tattva)nor [its] designation (prajiiapti)would be known when the bare given-thing of form (rupa)and so forth is denied Both these views are inappropriate

An important point to note is that Asanga here explicitly criticizes the view that denies that there exists a bare given-thing (vastu-matra) as the basis for the rips-skandha12 Indeed the Yogicira school seems to have accepted the traditional Sarvistiviida division of dharmas into five categories mind (citta) mental concomitants (caitasikai form (ripa) compounded factors independent of the mind (citta-viprayukta-samskara-dharmas) and the uncompounded factors (asamskyta)l3 This seems to be at variance with the naive idealism usually attributed to Yogiciira thought It should be made clear from the outset then that the Yogicira school is far more complex in its understanding of the nature of experience than is usually acknowledged

It must be realized however that the abhidharmic taxonomy of the Yogicira school (usually said to consist of one hundred specific dharmic types) is only provisional Such conceptual categories are existent only in a purely conventional and nominal sense (prajiiapti-sat) In his Abhidhar- masamuccaya for instance Asanga criticizes the idea that matter (r ipa) is a substantial and independent existent14 Thus

It is said that a mass of matter (rfipasamudZya)is composed of atoms Here the atom should be understood to be without a physical body (nihiarira)The atom is determined in the final analysis by the intellect (buddhi) in view of the abandonment of the notion of an aggregate (pindasamjiia7 and in view of the penetration into the relativity15 of matter as a substance (dravyaparini$pattipraveia)Philosophy East amp West

This argument was extended further by Asangas brother Vasubandhu in his ~ i ~ i a t i k i ~ with an attack upon the realist notion of matter (rfipa) as a substance existing independently of the experiencing subject Whether this is a case of idealism depends to a large extent upon ones under- standing of the term Certainly much of Asangas work presupposes a distinction between material and immaterial and external and internal Indeed in the ~bhidharmasarnucca~a ~ Asanga describes the grasping subject of perceptions (grahaka) as the material sense-organ (ripindriya) the mind (citta) and the mental factors (caitasika) The inclusion of a gross sense-faculty in the analysis of the subject is hardly what one would expect from an idealistic analysis Again in the same work Asanga makes a distinction between internal and external sensations (ZdhyZtma bahirdha vedani) Internal sensation is that which is produced from ones own body (kZya) while its external counterpart is that produced by an external bodylg However in Mahwnasamgraha 122 the notion of an external seed (bahya) is said to be purely conventional (samvrta) while that of an internal seed (Zdhyatmika) is said t o be ultimate (param~rthika)20Whether Asanga is an idealist or not internal or subjec- tive states (ZdhyZtmika) are given more validity than those based upon external (bshya) stimuli

Attempts to delineate the thoughts of one school of Indian thought from another in a rigid and clear fashion are however fraught with difficulty In the sixth century cEsubsequent t o the classical formulations of NZgiirjuna Asariga and Vasubandhu academic controversy did occur between the Madhyamaka and YogZcira schools of Mah iy ina Bud- dhism but as Stefan Anacker has noted

these are really the disagreements of sixth-century followers of Nigirjuna and Vasubandhu They belong to a time when Buddhism had become an aca- demic subject at places such as the University of Nalanda They may have disagreed because they were academics fighting for posts and re~ognition~

Much of this controversy surrounded the status of the paratantra- svabhava in the Yogicira school The main figures in this debate were Bhivaviveka Dharmapila and ~ t h i r a m a t i ~ ~ From the Madhyamaka point of view those Yogicira texts that asserted the existence of the paratantra-svabhiva were guilty of reification thus straying into the extreme of eternalism (SZsvata-vzda) It remains a moot point as to what the Yogicira school actually meant by terms such as paratantrZstit2 Does the term imply the independent existence (svatantrika) of a realm of mutual dependency (paratantra) or is it a descriptive (but non-ontologi- call term referring to the interdependent nature of existence O n the former interpretation the Yogicir in does indeed seem to be guilty of reifying the dependency realm itself O n the other hand the term may simply be an alternative to the Madhyamaka conception of pratityasa- Richard King

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

Stages in the Path o f Yoga (YogZcZrabhimi) This work however far from being a sectarian exposition of Yogicira ideas is a large-scale compen- dium of the stages of the Buddhist path of which only a small part is devoted to the specific interests of the Yogicira school This is a feature of much of Asangas literary output the other great example being his Compendium of the MahZyZna (MahWnasamgrZha) Although the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu do show a marked development of ideas in the delineation and analysis of the yogic path when compared to their Midhyamika predecessors this should not necessarily be seen as characteristic of an antithetical attitude toward the earlier exposition of Mahiyana philosophy The specific attribution of the terms Yogicara V$aptimZtratZt or VijnZnavZda to the thought of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu should always be used with extreme caution lest one read back the scholastic controversies of later times into the early stages of Yogicira thought

It is often stated that the first evidence of Yogiciira ideas can be found in the Samdhinirmocana-sitra This text is of great historical inter- est not only because it is a crystallization of a particularly early phase in the development of the Yogicira (in chapters four and eight) but also because of its description of the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma (dharma-cZkra) Thus the sitra declares that

By the first Turning of the Wheel of Doctrine [Buddha] taught the doctrine of the Zryasatya and on its basis the astivida of the Abhidharma has been developed This astivzda was negated by the Prajfiipiramiti and there has been established the Sfinyavidaof the Mahiyina The amalgamation of both asti and Sfinyavida is now done in the Samdhinirmocana and it is the last and the highest turning of the Wheel of Doctrine The ultimate doctrine of the Mahayina is no doubt taught in the Prajtiipiramiti but its way of exposition is with an esoteric meaning or with a hidden in ten t i~n ~

The Samdhinirmocana-sitra then does not see itself in terms of the establishment of a rival school to the SinyavZdins rather i t sees itself as the text which explicates the true meaning of emptiness Thus V113 declares that the sitras purpose is to establish the doctrine of the three-own-beings (trisvabhava) in terms of their lack of own-nature (nihsvabhZ~atZ)~This was understood to be a development from rather than a reaction to the philosophy of emptiness propounded in the Pra jriZpZram ita

The Samdhinirmocana-sitra is also the first Mahiy ina text to utilize the notion of a consciousness made up of all the seeds of past karmic fruition (sarvabijiakavijiZna) This seed-consciousness soon became one of the distinctive features of the Yogiiciira school as the concept of ZlayavijjiZna the store or repository-consciousness underlying the Philosophy East amp West

individuals experience of In the literature of the various sams~ra ~ Abhidharma schools there was already an exhaustive analysis of the five sense-consciousnesses and the mental consciousness (manov0nZna) that provide an awareness of sense objects (vi~aya) This was a development of the scheme of the eighteen dhZtu outlined innumerable times in the Sitta-Pitaka Thus we find Asanga arguing that the Z1ayavijnZna is mentioned in the Vehicle of the Hearers (SrZvaka-yZna) through various synonyms (paryZya)6 Thus as far as Asanga was concerned the seed- consciousness is little more than the application of a nomenclature to an idea already existent in Buddhism from its inception Asanga maintains that it is not recognized as the store-consciousness in the Srzvaka-yZna because it is a subtle cognizable (siiksmajneya) Asangas statement is particularly interesting since it suggests an inclusivist attitude toward the irzvaka-yZna Bearing this in mind one suspects that Asangas attitude to the Madhyamaka school is likely to be even more conciliatory Reading back later Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics into the works of Asanga is only likely to misrepresent the continuity between the two scholastic traditions at this early stage in their interaction

The comprehensive explication of the notion of emptiness as found in the philosophical literature (iZstra) of the Madhyamaka school provides a doctrinal key to unlock the abstruse meanings of the PrajfiZpZramitZ sutras As a Mahiy ina school the Yogicira developed as a response to the insights of those same siitras Under such circumstances it would have been difficult indeed to have ignored the centrality of the notion of SGnyatZ to these texts In fact the idea that the early classical Yogicira of Asanga and Vasubandhu found any difficulty whatsoever in embracing the basic insights of the Madhyamaka school disregards both the histori- cal and textual evidence which on the contrary displays a spirit of underlying continuity and acceptance

Both the Madhyamaka and the Yogicira schools accept the validity of the notions of pratYtyasamutpZda pudgala-nairztmya and dharma- nairZtmya the four Zrya-satyas the bodhisattva ideal and SiinyatZ among many others With such a level of doctrinal unanimity the two schools can hardly be said to be in great conflict with one another Admittedly both Asanga and Vasubandhu criticize those (Midhyamikas) who adhere to non-existence (nzstikas vainZi ika~)~ but this is only in their attempts to delineate the true nature of emptiness as the Middle Path between extremes Nevertheless one must accept that there appears to have been a significant development in the hermeneutics of the emptiness doctrine in the Yogicira school This as I shall argue in section I l l of this essay stems from a fear that the traditional Madhyamaka exposition was in danger of advocating (or at least appearing to advocate) the extreme position of nihilism (ucchedavZda) Richard King

II The Yogiicira Reformulation of the Middle Path One of the most important features of the Yogicira reformulation

of the Middle Path is a marked movement away from the negativistic interpretation of emptiness found in the Madhyamaka school For Asanga there are two types of extreme and erroneous view

(1)that one which clings to affirming (samiropata)the existence of what are nonexistent individual characteristics having essential nature only through verbal designation (prajiiapti) for a given thing and also (2)that one which with respect to a given thing (vastu)denies (apavadamano)the foundation for the sign of verbal designation which exists in an ultimate sense (para-mirthasadbhfitam) owing to its inexpressible essence (nirabhilZpyZtmaka-tayi) saying absolutely everything is nonexistent (sarvena sarvam n i ~ t i t i ) ~

Thus for Asanga a universal denial (sarva-vain2iika) of the bare given thing (vastu-matra) is a view which strays from the Buddhist path (~harma-vinaya)lo

Neither reality (tattva)nor [its] designation (prajiiapti)would be known when the bare given-thing of form (rupa)and so forth is denied Both these views are inappropriate

An important point to note is that Asanga here explicitly criticizes the view that denies that there exists a bare given-thing (vastu-matra) as the basis for the rips-skandha12 Indeed the Yogicira school seems to have accepted the traditional Sarvistiviida division of dharmas into five categories mind (citta) mental concomitants (caitasikai form (ripa) compounded factors independent of the mind (citta-viprayukta-samskara-dharmas) and the uncompounded factors (asamskyta)l3 This seems to be at variance with the naive idealism usually attributed to Yogiciira thought It should be made clear from the outset then that the Yogicira school is far more complex in its understanding of the nature of experience than is usually acknowledged

It must be realized however that the abhidharmic taxonomy of the Yogicira school (usually said to consist of one hundred specific dharmic types) is only provisional Such conceptual categories are existent only in a purely conventional and nominal sense (prajiiapti-sat) In his Abhidhar- masamuccaya for instance Asanga criticizes the idea that matter (r ipa) is a substantial and independent existent14 Thus

It is said that a mass of matter (rfipasamudZya)is composed of atoms Here the atom should be understood to be without a physical body (nihiarira)The atom is determined in the final analysis by the intellect (buddhi) in view of the abandonment of the notion of an aggregate (pindasamjiia7 and in view of the penetration into the relativity15 of matter as a substance (dravyaparini$pattipraveia)Philosophy East amp West

This argument was extended further by Asangas brother Vasubandhu in his ~ i ~ i a t i k i ~ with an attack upon the realist notion of matter (rfipa) as a substance existing independently of the experiencing subject Whether this is a case of idealism depends to a large extent upon ones under- standing of the term Certainly much of Asangas work presupposes a distinction between material and immaterial and external and internal Indeed in the ~bhidharmasarnucca~a ~ Asanga describes the grasping subject of perceptions (grahaka) as the material sense-organ (ripindriya) the mind (citta) and the mental factors (caitasika) The inclusion of a gross sense-faculty in the analysis of the subject is hardly what one would expect from an idealistic analysis Again in the same work Asanga makes a distinction between internal and external sensations (ZdhyZtma bahirdha vedani) Internal sensation is that which is produced from ones own body (kZya) while its external counterpart is that produced by an external bodylg However in Mahwnasamgraha 122 the notion of an external seed (bahya) is said to be purely conventional (samvrta) while that of an internal seed (Zdhyatmika) is said t o be ultimate (param~rthika)20Whether Asanga is an idealist or not internal or subjec- tive states (ZdhyZtmika) are given more validity than those based upon external (bshya) stimuli

Attempts to delineate the thoughts of one school of Indian thought from another in a rigid and clear fashion are however fraught with difficulty In the sixth century cEsubsequent t o the classical formulations of NZgiirjuna Asariga and Vasubandhu academic controversy did occur between the Madhyamaka and YogZcira schools of Mah iy ina Bud- dhism but as Stefan Anacker has noted

these are really the disagreements of sixth-century followers of Nigirjuna and Vasubandhu They belong to a time when Buddhism had become an aca- demic subject at places such as the University of Nalanda They may have disagreed because they were academics fighting for posts and re~ognition~

Much of this controversy surrounded the status of the paratantra- svabhava in the Yogicira school The main figures in this debate were Bhivaviveka Dharmapila and ~ t h i r a m a t i ~ ~ From the Madhyamaka point of view those Yogicira texts that asserted the existence of the paratantra-svabhiva were guilty of reification thus straying into the extreme of eternalism (SZsvata-vzda) It remains a moot point as to what the Yogicira school actually meant by terms such as paratantrZstit2 Does the term imply the independent existence (svatantrika) of a realm of mutual dependency (paratantra) or is it a descriptive (but non-ontologi- call term referring to the interdependent nature of existence O n the former interpretation the Yogicir in does indeed seem to be guilty of reifying the dependency realm itself O n the other hand the term may simply be an alternative to the Madhyamaka conception of pratityasa- Richard King

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

individuals experience of In the literature of the various sams~ra ~ Abhidharma schools there was already an exhaustive analysis of the five sense-consciousnesses and the mental consciousness (manov0nZna) that provide an awareness of sense objects (vi~aya) This was a development of the scheme of the eighteen dhZtu outlined innumerable times in the Sitta-Pitaka Thus we find Asanga arguing that the Z1ayavijnZna is mentioned in the Vehicle of the Hearers (SrZvaka-yZna) through various synonyms (paryZya)6 Thus as far as Asanga was concerned the seed- consciousness is little more than the application of a nomenclature to an idea already existent in Buddhism from its inception Asanga maintains that it is not recognized as the store-consciousness in the Srzvaka-yZna because it is a subtle cognizable (siiksmajneya) Asangas statement is particularly interesting since it suggests an inclusivist attitude toward the irzvaka-yZna Bearing this in mind one suspects that Asangas attitude to the Madhyamaka school is likely to be even more conciliatory Reading back later Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics into the works of Asanga is only likely to misrepresent the continuity between the two scholastic traditions at this early stage in their interaction

The comprehensive explication of the notion of emptiness as found in the philosophical literature (iZstra) of the Madhyamaka school provides a doctrinal key to unlock the abstruse meanings of the PrajfiZpZramitZ sutras As a Mahiy ina school the Yogicira developed as a response to the insights of those same siitras Under such circumstances it would have been difficult indeed to have ignored the centrality of the notion of SGnyatZ to these texts In fact the idea that the early classical Yogicira of Asanga and Vasubandhu found any difficulty whatsoever in embracing the basic insights of the Madhyamaka school disregards both the histori- cal and textual evidence which on the contrary displays a spirit of underlying continuity and acceptance

Both the Madhyamaka and the Yogicira schools accept the validity of the notions of pratYtyasamutpZda pudgala-nairztmya and dharma- nairZtmya the four Zrya-satyas the bodhisattva ideal and SiinyatZ among many others With such a level of doctrinal unanimity the two schools can hardly be said to be in great conflict with one another Admittedly both Asanga and Vasubandhu criticize those (Midhyamikas) who adhere to non-existence (nzstikas vainZi ika~)~ but this is only in their attempts to delineate the true nature of emptiness as the Middle Path between extremes Nevertheless one must accept that there appears to have been a significant development in the hermeneutics of the emptiness doctrine in the Yogicira school This as I shall argue in section I l l of this essay stems from a fear that the traditional Madhyamaka exposition was in danger of advocating (or at least appearing to advocate) the extreme position of nihilism (ucchedavZda) Richard King

II The Yogiicira Reformulation of the Middle Path One of the most important features of the Yogicira reformulation

of the Middle Path is a marked movement away from the negativistic interpretation of emptiness found in the Madhyamaka school For Asanga there are two types of extreme and erroneous view

(1)that one which clings to affirming (samiropata)the existence of what are nonexistent individual characteristics having essential nature only through verbal designation (prajiiapti) for a given thing and also (2)that one which with respect to a given thing (vastu)denies (apavadamano)the foundation for the sign of verbal designation which exists in an ultimate sense (para-mirthasadbhfitam) owing to its inexpressible essence (nirabhilZpyZtmaka-tayi) saying absolutely everything is nonexistent (sarvena sarvam n i ~ t i t i ) ~

Thus for Asanga a universal denial (sarva-vain2iika) of the bare given thing (vastu-matra) is a view which strays from the Buddhist path (~harma-vinaya)lo

Neither reality (tattva)nor [its] designation (prajiiapti)would be known when the bare given-thing of form (rupa)and so forth is denied Both these views are inappropriate

An important point to note is that Asanga here explicitly criticizes the view that denies that there exists a bare given-thing (vastu-matra) as the basis for the rips-skandha12 Indeed the Yogicira school seems to have accepted the traditional Sarvistiviida division of dharmas into five categories mind (citta) mental concomitants (caitasikai form (ripa) compounded factors independent of the mind (citta-viprayukta-samskara-dharmas) and the uncompounded factors (asamskyta)l3 This seems to be at variance with the naive idealism usually attributed to Yogiciira thought It should be made clear from the outset then that the Yogicira school is far more complex in its understanding of the nature of experience than is usually acknowledged

It must be realized however that the abhidharmic taxonomy of the Yogicira school (usually said to consist of one hundred specific dharmic types) is only provisional Such conceptual categories are existent only in a purely conventional and nominal sense (prajiiapti-sat) In his Abhidhar- masamuccaya for instance Asanga criticizes the idea that matter (r ipa) is a substantial and independent existent14 Thus

It is said that a mass of matter (rfipasamudZya)is composed of atoms Here the atom should be understood to be without a physical body (nihiarira)The atom is determined in the final analysis by the intellect (buddhi) in view of the abandonment of the notion of an aggregate (pindasamjiia7 and in view of the penetration into the relativity15 of matter as a substance (dravyaparini$pattipraveia)Philosophy East amp West

This argument was extended further by Asangas brother Vasubandhu in his ~ i ~ i a t i k i ~ with an attack upon the realist notion of matter (rfipa) as a substance existing independently of the experiencing subject Whether this is a case of idealism depends to a large extent upon ones under- standing of the term Certainly much of Asangas work presupposes a distinction between material and immaterial and external and internal Indeed in the ~bhidharmasarnucca~a ~ Asanga describes the grasping subject of perceptions (grahaka) as the material sense-organ (ripindriya) the mind (citta) and the mental factors (caitasika) The inclusion of a gross sense-faculty in the analysis of the subject is hardly what one would expect from an idealistic analysis Again in the same work Asanga makes a distinction between internal and external sensations (ZdhyZtma bahirdha vedani) Internal sensation is that which is produced from ones own body (kZya) while its external counterpart is that produced by an external bodylg However in Mahwnasamgraha 122 the notion of an external seed (bahya) is said to be purely conventional (samvrta) while that of an internal seed (Zdhyatmika) is said t o be ultimate (param~rthika)20Whether Asanga is an idealist or not internal or subjec- tive states (ZdhyZtmika) are given more validity than those based upon external (bshya) stimuli

Attempts to delineate the thoughts of one school of Indian thought from another in a rigid and clear fashion are however fraught with difficulty In the sixth century cEsubsequent t o the classical formulations of NZgiirjuna Asariga and Vasubandhu academic controversy did occur between the Madhyamaka and YogZcira schools of Mah iy ina Bud- dhism but as Stefan Anacker has noted

these are really the disagreements of sixth-century followers of Nigirjuna and Vasubandhu They belong to a time when Buddhism had become an aca- demic subject at places such as the University of Nalanda They may have disagreed because they were academics fighting for posts and re~ognition~

Much of this controversy surrounded the status of the paratantra- svabhava in the Yogicira school The main figures in this debate were Bhivaviveka Dharmapila and ~ t h i r a m a t i ~ ~ From the Madhyamaka point of view those Yogicira texts that asserted the existence of the paratantra-svabhiva were guilty of reification thus straying into the extreme of eternalism (SZsvata-vzda) It remains a moot point as to what the Yogicira school actually meant by terms such as paratantrZstit2 Does the term imply the independent existence (svatantrika) of a realm of mutual dependency (paratantra) or is it a descriptive (but non-ontologi- call term referring to the interdependent nature of existence O n the former interpretation the Yogicir in does indeed seem to be guilty of reifying the dependency realm itself O n the other hand the term may simply be an alternative to the Madhyamaka conception of pratityasa- Richard King

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

II The Yogiicira Reformulation of the Middle Path One of the most important features of the Yogicira reformulation

of the Middle Path is a marked movement away from the negativistic interpretation of emptiness found in the Madhyamaka school For Asanga there are two types of extreme and erroneous view

(1)that one which clings to affirming (samiropata)the existence of what are nonexistent individual characteristics having essential nature only through verbal designation (prajiiapti) for a given thing and also (2)that one which with respect to a given thing (vastu)denies (apavadamano)the foundation for the sign of verbal designation which exists in an ultimate sense (para-mirthasadbhfitam) owing to its inexpressible essence (nirabhilZpyZtmaka-tayi) saying absolutely everything is nonexistent (sarvena sarvam n i ~ t i t i ) ~

Thus for Asanga a universal denial (sarva-vain2iika) of the bare given thing (vastu-matra) is a view which strays from the Buddhist path (~harma-vinaya)lo

Neither reality (tattva)nor [its] designation (prajiiapti)would be known when the bare given-thing of form (rupa)and so forth is denied Both these views are inappropriate

An important point to note is that Asanga here explicitly criticizes the view that denies that there exists a bare given-thing (vastu-matra) as the basis for the rips-skandha12 Indeed the Yogicira school seems to have accepted the traditional Sarvistiviida division of dharmas into five categories mind (citta) mental concomitants (caitasikai form (ripa) compounded factors independent of the mind (citta-viprayukta-samskara-dharmas) and the uncompounded factors (asamskyta)l3 This seems to be at variance with the naive idealism usually attributed to Yogiciira thought It should be made clear from the outset then that the Yogicira school is far more complex in its understanding of the nature of experience than is usually acknowledged

It must be realized however that the abhidharmic taxonomy of the Yogicira school (usually said to consist of one hundred specific dharmic types) is only provisional Such conceptual categories are existent only in a purely conventional and nominal sense (prajiiapti-sat) In his Abhidhar- masamuccaya for instance Asanga criticizes the idea that matter (r ipa) is a substantial and independent existent14 Thus

It is said that a mass of matter (rfipasamudZya)is composed of atoms Here the atom should be understood to be without a physical body (nihiarira)The atom is determined in the final analysis by the intellect (buddhi) in view of the abandonment of the notion of an aggregate (pindasamjiia7 and in view of the penetration into the relativity15 of matter as a substance (dravyaparini$pattipraveia)Philosophy East amp West

This argument was extended further by Asangas brother Vasubandhu in his ~ i ~ i a t i k i ~ with an attack upon the realist notion of matter (rfipa) as a substance existing independently of the experiencing subject Whether this is a case of idealism depends to a large extent upon ones under- standing of the term Certainly much of Asangas work presupposes a distinction between material and immaterial and external and internal Indeed in the ~bhidharmasarnucca~a ~ Asanga describes the grasping subject of perceptions (grahaka) as the material sense-organ (ripindriya) the mind (citta) and the mental factors (caitasika) The inclusion of a gross sense-faculty in the analysis of the subject is hardly what one would expect from an idealistic analysis Again in the same work Asanga makes a distinction between internal and external sensations (ZdhyZtma bahirdha vedani) Internal sensation is that which is produced from ones own body (kZya) while its external counterpart is that produced by an external bodylg However in Mahwnasamgraha 122 the notion of an external seed (bahya) is said to be purely conventional (samvrta) while that of an internal seed (Zdhyatmika) is said t o be ultimate (param~rthika)20Whether Asanga is an idealist or not internal or subjec- tive states (ZdhyZtmika) are given more validity than those based upon external (bshya) stimuli

Attempts to delineate the thoughts of one school of Indian thought from another in a rigid and clear fashion are however fraught with difficulty In the sixth century cEsubsequent t o the classical formulations of NZgiirjuna Asariga and Vasubandhu academic controversy did occur between the Madhyamaka and YogZcira schools of Mah iy ina Bud- dhism but as Stefan Anacker has noted

these are really the disagreements of sixth-century followers of Nigirjuna and Vasubandhu They belong to a time when Buddhism had become an aca- demic subject at places such as the University of Nalanda They may have disagreed because they were academics fighting for posts and re~ognition~

Much of this controversy surrounded the status of the paratantra- svabhava in the Yogicira school The main figures in this debate were Bhivaviveka Dharmapila and ~ t h i r a m a t i ~ ~ From the Madhyamaka point of view those Yogicira texts that asserted the existence of the paratantra-svabhiva were guilty of reification thus straying into the extreme of eternalism (SZsvata-vzda) It remains a moot point as to what the Yogicira school actually meant by terms such as paratantrZstit2 Does the term imply the independent existence (svatantrika) of a realm of mutual dependency (paratantra) or is it a descriptive (but non-ontologi- call term referring to the interdependent nature of existence O n the former interpretation the Yogicir in does indeed seem to be guilty of reifying the dependency realm itself O n the other hand the term may simply be an alternative to the Madhyamaka conception of pratityasa- Richard King

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

This argument was extended further by Asangas brother Vasubandhu in his ~ i ~ i a t i k i ~ with an attack upon the realist notion of matter (rfipa) as a substance existing independently of the experiencing subject Whether this is a case of idealism depends to a large extent upon ones under- standing of the term Certainly much of Asangas work presupposes a distinction between material and immaterial and external and internal Indeed in the ~bhidharmasarnucca~a ~ Asanga describes the grasping subject of perceptions (grahaka) as the material sense-organ (ripindriya) the mind (citta) and the mental factors (caitasika) The inclusion of a gross sense-faculty in the analysis of the subject is hardly what one would expect from an idealistic analysis Again in the same work Asanga makes a distinction between internal and external sensations (ZdhyZtma bahirdha vedani) Internal sensation is that which is produced from ones own body (kZya) while its external counterpart is that produced by an external bodylg However in Mahwnasamgraha 122 the notion of an external seed (bahya) is said to be purely conventional (samvrta) while that of an internal seed (Zdhyatmika) is said t o be ultimate (param~rthika)20Whether Asanga is an idealist or not internal or subjec- tive states (ZdhyZtmika) are given more validity than those based upon external (bshya) stimuli

Attempts to delineate the thoughts of one school of Indian thought from another in a rigid and clear fashion are however fraught with difficulty In the sixth century cEsubsequent t o the classical formulations of NZgiirjuna Asariga and Vasubandhu academic controversy did occur between the Madhyamaka and YogZcira schools of Mah iy ina Bud- dhism but as Stefan Anacker has noted

these are really the disagreements of sixth-century followers of Nigirjuna and Vasubandhu They belong to a time when Buddhism had become an aca- demic subject at places such as the University of Nalanda They may have disagreed because they were academics fighting for posts and re~ognition~

Much of this controversy surrounded the status of the paratantra- svabhava in the Yogicira school The main figures in this debate were Bhivaviveka Dharmapila and ~ t h i r a m a t i ~ ~ From the Madhyamaka point of view those Yogicira texts that asserted the existence of the paratantra-svabhiva were guilty of reification thus straying into the extreme of eternalism (SZsvata-vzda) It remains a moot point as to what the Yogicira school actually meant by terms such as paratantrZstit2 Does the term imply the independent existence (svatantrika) of a realm of mutual dependency (paratantra) or is it a descriptive (but non-ontologi- call term referring to the interdependent nature of existence O n the former interpretation the Yogicir in does indeed seem to be guilty of reifying the dependency realm itself O n the other hand the term may simply be an alternative to the Madhyamaka conception of pratityasa- Richard King

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

mutpada One suspects that the ambiguity of the phrase is a reflection of the ambivalence of the Yogicira school itself Different answers may be given by different members of the school

It is interesting in this respect to note that various modern scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Dharmapila has given a peculiarly idealistic tone to the Yogicira message and that to this extent he has strayed from the original import of Vasubandhus ideas23 Thus Janice Willis (1979) notes

Assessments which claim to characterize the whole of Yogicira thought as being uniformly idealistic take little notice of the fact that historically-and according to the texts themselves-there existed at least two varying streams of Yogicira thought viz (1)what may be called an original thread pro- pounded by Maitreya Asariga Vasubandhu and Sthiramati and (2) a latef thread which found expression notably through such doctors as Dharmapila and Hsuan-tsang Both streams were introduced into China-the earlier by Paramartha and the later by Hsuan-tsang-and afterwards transmitted also to Japan Moreover while there is clear evidence that the later stream of thought as expounded by Dharmapila and others is idealistic in character the same cannot and should not be assumed for the earlier thread though in fact this has generally been the case24

It was this idealistic tendency that was the primary focus of Bhiva- vivekas attack upon the Vijni7navadins Many contemporary scholars have cast doubt upon the interpretation of the Asanga-Vasubandhu phase of Yogicira as a form of idealism25 Needless to say it would be rather presumptuous to assume that the differences between Bhivivi- veka and Dharmapila in the sixth century CE represent irreconcilable differences between the classical Madhyamaka and Yogicira positions as represented by Nagirjuna on the one hand and Asanga and Vasu- bandhu on the other In the eighth and ninth centuries of the Common Era we do in fact find a successful synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogicira ideas in the work of Jiinagarbha and ~ i n t a r a k ~ i t a One should note however that the two positions are accepted on an unequal footing (Madhyamaka being the ultimate truth) This might be taken to suggest that the two schools are to some degree incommensurable Yet again the possibility remains that later developments and interpretations of the two schools differ from the early formulations of the founding fathers of each school Let us turn therefore to the early Yogicira conception of iGnyatZ in order t o discern if it is appreciably different from its earlier Midhyamika counterpart

IllSearch for a Substratum-Redefining sGnyatZ in the Yogicira The classical Yogicira explication of emptiness is found at the very

beginning of the MadhyintavibhZga Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

There exists the imagination of the unreal there is no duality but there is emptiness even in this there is that26

Vasubandhu explains in his commentary that the imagination of the unreal (abhLita-parikalpa) is the discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper Emptiness is explained as the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper Thus for the Yogacarin iLinyat2 i s primarily the emptiness of grasper (ie subject) and grasped (ie object) (grzhaka-grzhya) Since our entire range of experiences is characterized by a dichotomy between subject and object (with the possible exception of some higher states of samzdhi) this amounts to a universal application of emptiness (SLinyata3 However the Yogicarin stresses that the range of fictive perceptions that does occur although not corresponding to an independently existing world of sub- jects and objects nevertheless does occur This particular emphasis in the use of the notion of emptiness is a specific feature of the Yogacira explanation of the term since even in emptiness there is an existent (viz the abh~itaparikalpa) which nevertheless persists as such

In this respect it might be argued that the Yogacira explication of iunyatti is more in line with the commonsense usage of empty Carma Chang states

It is believed that iunya was originally derived from the root svi to swell and SGnya implies relating to the swollen As the proverb says A swollen head is an empty head so something which looks swollen or inflated outside is usually hollow or empty inside snyati suggests therefore that although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial outside they are actually tenuous and empty within

It is interesting however t o note that prima facie there is nothing in this brief description of emptiness that would greatly trouble a Madhya- mika Buddhist One could argue that in defining emptiness in this way the Yogicarins are actually tidying up the earlier work of the Madhya- maka school This view is not an unattractive one and one suspects that throughout its long and varied history many Buddhists have understood the Yogicira analysis as such It is also a view that appears to be gaining increasing support from modern Western scholarship28

However the rather knotty problem of the status of the emptied entity is one that has caused some controversy in Mahiyana scholastic circles The Yogicarins continually maintained that that there was some- thing actually given in experience namely a nonobjective (and hence illusory) perception while the Midhyamikas responded by denying that existence could be predicated of such an imaginary entity Whether this amounts to little more than a quibble over the appropriate use of linguistic conventions is a moot point that perhaps needs further consideration Richard King

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

For the Yogicarin the interdependent f low of dharmas is such that they are empty in the same way that a container is said t o be empty There is no wine in an empty glass but there is nevertheless still a glass

There may be no substantiality t o our perceptions but they are neverthe- less still there29 Kochumottoms translation of Vasubandhus commen-tary on Madhy2nta-VibhZga 11 draws our attention t o what might be called the container conception of emptiness

Thus when something is absent [in a receptaclel then one seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing perceives that [receptacle] as it is and recognises that [receptacle] which is left over as it is namely as something truly existing there30 (My parentheses)

Again if we examine Asangas explication of SGnyatZ we find a similar understanding of its appropriateness

Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [others] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself31

Asariga continues

Wherever and in whatever place something is not one rightly observes that [place] to be void of that [thing] Moreover whatever remains in that place one knows (prajanati) as it really is that here there is an existent This is said to be engagement with emptiness as it really is and without way- wardness Without that wayward view he neither affirms nor denies the given thing Not otherwise would he rid himself of the object of conscious- ness (Zlambana) and dwell with equanimity32

All other interpretations are described by Asanga as emptiness wrongly grasped (durgrhita SGnyatety) (Interestingly this is the same term that Nagirjuna uses in his Madhyamaka-kZrikZ when criticizing those who take SGnyatZ t o be a view)33 Thus for Asanga the designation empty (SGnya) is only predicable of an existent thing since emptiness is only logical if something exists34 Again we find MadhyZnta-vibhiiga 113 declaring that

The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence this is the definition of emptiness It is neither existence nor nonexistence neither different nor identical35

The existence of nonexistence turns ou t t o be the specific definition of SfinyatZ found throughout the early Yog ic i ra literature In the Abhid- harmasamuccaya Asanga states that emptiness is the non-existence of the self and the existence of the n o - ~ e l f ~ ~ In fact within this text Asanga espouses a conception of the Middle Path based upon the M a h i y i n a notion of the other-dependent nature (paratantra pratityasamutpanna) of all dharmas Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

The real meaning of pratityasamutpada is the fact that there is no creator (nihkartykartha) the fact of causality (sahetukzrtha) the fact that there is no being (nihsatvZrtha) the fact of dependence (paratantrartha) the fact that there is no mover (nirhirtha) the fact of impermanence (anityzrtha) the fact that all is momentary (k~anikartha) the fact that there is an uninterrupted continuity of cause and effect (hetuphalaprabhandhZnupacchedZrtha)the fact that there is a conformity between cause and effect (anurupahetupha- lartha) the fact of the variety of causes and effects (vicitrahetuphalTrtha)and the fact of the regularity of cause and effect (pratiniyatahetuphalZrtha)

Moreover dependent origination is momentary but one can also find stability within it Dependent origination consists of nonmoving conditions but these conditions are also functional (sarnarthapratyaya) dependent origi- nation does not admit of a being (nihsatva) but it can also be understood in terms of a being Dependent origination does not admit of a creator but there is an uninterrupted flow of actions and their results It does not arise from itself nor from another nor from both It is produced neither from its own action nor from the action of another nor is it without cause (ahetuL3

Pratityasamutpida is t o be understood in terms of a realm of causally efficient but existentially dependent (paratantra) occurrences (dharmas) For an explanation of the causal process in terms of the paratantra-

laksana we need look no further than Asangas own Mahayinasamgriha

If the dependent nature is representation-only (vijiiaptimatra) the support of the manifestation of objects (arthZbhasZiraya) why is it dependent and why is it so called Because it arises from its own trace-seeds (vZsanZ-bqa) it is dependent upon conditions Because after its birth it is incapable of sub- sisting by itself for a single instant it is called the de~endent~

In this work we see a new gloss put upon the traditional Madhyamaka

explanation of the dependently arisen as that which arises dependent upon trace-seeds (visani-bGa) Nevertheless there is still a characteristi- cally Madhyamaka refusal t o use the dualistic language of existence and nonexistence No dharma has an independent self being dependent (paratantra) upon all other dharmas for its existence Thus a dharma exists only insofar as i t participates in the causal network of interdepen- dent dharmas As the Abhidharma had pointed out no dharma has

independent existence since it occurs as the result of a long and complex chain of interdependent factors (dharmas) which themselves are pro- duced in dependence upon other conditions Thus a dharma is empty of itself but not of another Dharmas then are in one sense existent (bhiva) but no t in the everyday sense of being a definable and indepen- dent entity or object

Dharmas are no t existent (bhava) in the everyday sense of the term since they are no t distinguishable and separate entities they have no independent self i n their constructed nature (parikalpita) Nevertheless

dharmas are not totally nonexistent (abhava) either since they are by Richard King

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

definition (svalak~ana) factors (dharmas) of experience that is they are cognizables Nevertheless dharmas are not as they appear to unen-lightened minds They are not objects in that they do not possess the existential substantiality required in order to be existent (viz that they are persistent and independent entities distinguishable from one an- other and definable in terms of a name or designation prajiapti) Thus we find in the Yogicira as in the Madhyamaka school a pointed refusal to become involved in an ontological debate

It is interesting that this type of analysis is something of a bridge- building exercise between what might be seen as an undue emphasis upon negative language (via negativa) in the exposition of emptiness by (some) Midhyamikas on the one hand and the overarching realism (via positiva) of the Abhidharma schools on the other hand As such the Yogicira movement can be seen as a re-forming of the Middle Path This is not to say that such a reformation is necessarily out of step with the understanding of SGnyatSas systematized in the Szstras of Nigir juna (who is clearly neither a nihilist nor a realist in the accepted senses of the terms) but merely that in i t s emphasis upon the given of meditative and so-called normative perception the Yogicira aim is to establish the appropriate parameters of linguistic usage and a rigorous logic for the establishment of the Mahiy ina position on experientially verifiable grounds

Another predominant feature of the early Yogicira exposition of the Middle Path is the explanation of the selflessness of dharmas (dharma- nairztmya) in terms of an ineffable intrinsic nature (nirabhilipya svab- havat$ All of these technical phrases are attempts to establish a concise definition of emptiness that would clearly distinguish it from an extreme and nihilistic interpretation It is here that we encounter the major prob- lem in explicating Sunyati one which I believe was an important factor in the early Yogicira attempts to reexplain this fundamental Mah iy ina concept

The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness is the view that if all is empty then it does not really exist Avoiding this conclusion without at the same time reifying what one declares to be empty of intrinsic nature (svabhiiva) has proved to be the major preoccupation of Midhyamika scholasts The problem however may prove to be insur- mountable within the realms of conventional language The nihilistic interpretation of emptiness can only be avoided by emphasizing the redeemed (or deobjectified) status of the given (vastu) in perception It is clear that such an endeavor is bound to lead the careless thinker toward the opposing extreme of eternalism The Mahiy ina Middle Path is indeed a thin tightrope on which to balance Let us consider this problem more fully in an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Midhyamaka and the early Yogicira Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

IV The Problem of Nihilism (UcchedavZda) in the Madhyamaka As we have seen the early formulations of classical Yogicira as

found in the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu place a specific emphasis upon what might be called the container conception of emptiness This is the declaration that for x to be empty x must exist in some form or other This is a clear attempt to secure the Mahiy ina conception of SinyatZfirmly on the rails of the Middle Path and resist the entrapments of an encroaching nihilism Such a tendency is also found in the renewed efforts t o establish some form of quasi-substantial basis t o the ap-pearance of the world Thus MahZyZna-samgrsha 112 says that the paratantra-laksana is the locus for the manifestation (ZbhssZSraya) of nonexistent (asat) and illusory objects (bhrZnta-artha) ilayavijni7na is described as the locus of the knowable ( jneyTSraya)39

The appeal t o a substratum ushers in a movement away from main- stream Indian Madhyamaka which explained the origination of the world in terms of a dynamic process of fluctuating and interdependently arisen (pratityasamutpanna) dharmas Both the Abhidharma and Madhyamaka perspectives are based upon the deconstruction of conventionally pos- tulated entities (prajnaptisamvyti-sat)such as tables chairs and persons (pudgala) into momentary events (dharma) The Abhidharmic schools developed a highly complex understanding of the causal process no single entity or dharma was the product of a single cause but rather was the end result of a multiplicity of causal factors contributing to its mani- festation on a number of different levels

Of course the various schools of Indian Buddhism had widely differ- ing conceptions of the nature of causality-ranging from the momentari- ness theories of the Sarvistividins to the denial of substance-causality as found in the Madhyamaka All the schools however were unanimous in focusing upon the notion of dependent co-origination (pratityasa- mutpsda) as the central conception for explaining the phenomenon of change The fact that all dharmas arise interdependently was subse-quently turned on its head by the Madhyamaka school which declared that dependent origination was no origination at all (anutpsda) This is because a conditioned and evanescent entity could not be said to exist since (from a Madhyamaka perspective at least) to exist means to exist absolutely Thus if there is no entity that originates then the concept of origination itself becomes devoid of meaning Nevertheless all schools agreed upon the centrality of pratytyasamutpada even if they did not agree upon its precise implications The importance of the dependent co-origination scheme lies in the fact that it does not require the exis- tence of some ultimate support over and above that which arises inter- dependently to account for that origination itself

The appeal t o a substratum shows a dissatisfaction in the early Yogicira literature with the efficacy of the Madhyamaka explanation of Richard King

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

the origination of the world The problem of course was brought about by the Madhyamakas insistence that dependent origination is no origina- tion at all (pratityasamutpada = anutpada) What the Madhyamaka means by this of course is not to deny the origination of entities which remains within the scope of conventional existence (samvyti-sat) but merely to point out the inappropriateness of such conceptions as origina- tion (utpiida) of inherently existing entities on an ultimate level (para- miirtha) In fact for the Madhyamaka school the conventional arising and cessation of entities is only possible because they are essentially empty For emptiness everything goes for nonemptiness nothing is possiblet40

However if x is empty and thus ultimately does not inherently exist then surely it cannot exist conventionally either This put rather sim- plistically is the import of the Yogicira attack upon the universal emptiness of (at least) some Midhyamikas To be fair to the Madhya- maka such criticism is largely irrelevant and misrepresents the schools basic position Emptiness is not a declaration of universal nonexistence or nihilism but is rather a further explication of the doctrine of dependent co-origination A denial of the emptiness of entities makes it impossible to assign any change to their intrinsic natures (svabhiiva) it is only if something is empty that it can originate subsist decay and cease to exist But as the Midhyamika is quick to point out the origination of an empty entity is not what we would normally consider origination at all

It is interesting to note then that the only way in which the Midhyamika can make his critic understand the meaning of emptiness is to lay stress upon the fact that in the debate over change (Becoming) vs entity (Being) the Midhyamika comes down firmly on the side of the givenness of change and impermanence and consequently desub- stantializes (or deconstructs) the notion of a nonempty entity41 This is not t o deny the givenness of the entity (ie its experiential facticity) but rather t o deny its reality as an inherently existing entity In other words it is a denial of the entityness of that entity The entity remains as such (tathati that is as an empty entity) devoid (SGnya) of its own intrinsic nature (svabhiiva)

The attempt to differentiate the Madhyamaka conception of SinyatZ from nihilism is liable to mislead insofar as it comes dangerously close to reifying the empty entity by making such statements as the entity remains as such This statement is necessary however for the Midhya- mika to make the point that his is not a blanket denial of everything Thus in attempting to differentiate emptiness (Sinyata3 from nihilism (uccheda- vada) one is inevitably forced to refer to that entity having already denied its own self-existence by declaring that it is empty The very explication of emptiness in conventional language therefore leads to apparent contradiction (whether the Madhyamaka position does in fact lead to paradox is a moot point since some Buddhist schools notably the Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

Tibetan dCe lugs pa suggest logical resolutions of such problems via the doctrine of the two levels of truth) The very act of referring to an entity necessitates its self-identity or self-referentiality that is to say in order to refer to the entity that has just been declared to be empty one must refer to it as an it (as an entity) and as such one is immediately guilty of reification Self-identity being denied one cannot help but refer to the emptied entity in an attempt to explain the nature of its emptiness Necessarily this involves an implicit affirmation of that (empty) entitys self-identity The problem appears insurmountable and reflects why the best answer from the Madhyamaka perspective is often said to be the profound silence that roars like a lion

The problem with any attempts to explain the internal dynamics of the emptiness doctrine is that they become embroiled in problems of ineffability and the limitations of language This has led to three common misinterpretations of the Madhyamaka position Firstly there is the view that Madhyamaka doctrine is little more than self-contradictory non-sense Secondly one might argue that it is a form of unabated nihilism or thirdly that it is the reification of an ultimate entity (ie a form of absolutism) That such misinterpretations occur is inevitable for as long as one fails to grasp the point of the Madhyamaka explanation-namely that an entity exists only insofar as it is empty of its own essence (nihsvabhava)

The self-contradictoriness of sGnyat2 is a frequent criticism of the Madhyarnaka school that is upheld in the main by the various non- Buddhist schools of philosophy ~arikaras attitude to the Madhyarnaka school seems to have amounted to no more than a contemptuous dismissal42 The second interpretation of the Madhyamaka position that it is a form of nihilism is a frequent cry of later YogZcZrins (eg ~ha rmapa la ) ~~The reification of an ultimate entity (Emptiness with a capital E) is the mark of the absolutistic interpretation of ~ a d h ~ a m a k a ~ ~ All three interpretations miss the point of the Madhyamaka enterprise which is not surprising since to a large extent to grasp fully the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness is tantamount to a conversion to its own position since the concept is fundamental to the basic para- digmatic orientation of the school Dharmas arise interdependently that is to say they have no independent basis-no substantiality However they are not completely nonexistent Because of the Madhyamakas radically deconstructive nature one cannot accept its arguments un- less one accepts that it has reduced all opposing arguments to absurdity

The Madhyamaka position is likely to seem peculiarly at odds with itself for as long as the Madhyamakas central premise is not accepted- that premise being that the emptiness of own-being (sunyatz-svabhava) is neither a denial of the object (being just a denial of its own-being) nor an assertion of i t s existence (existence presupposing own-being) Richard King

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

Nagirjuna makes it clear on many occasions that the terms emptiness (SGnyatd and dependent co-origination (pratTtyasamutpi7da) while hav- ing the same meaning (ekzrtha) strike a middle path between all dog- m a ~ ~ ~As such they are designations or pointers (prajiapti) and as the Mahiyana saying suggests the finger that points at the moon is not the moon

Emptiness was proclaimed by the Conquerors as the relinquishing of all views but those for whom there is a view of emptiness are declared to be incurable46

This view is supported by Nigirjunas pupil Aryadeva who argues in CatuhSataka XV125 that

No criticism can be leveled against someone who does not hold a thesis be it [about] existence non-existence or [both] existence and non-existence even if [you try1 for a long time47

V Soteriology as the Focus of the Dispute between the Schools Buddhism has always been primarily interested in the attainment of

salvation and freedom from suffering and one of the main problems of the post-Madhyamika thinkers was that of explaining and arguing for the existence of suffering given that everything was empty (Sinya) It would appear from the ideas and arguments of the developing Yogicara school that the Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness was seen by some to subvert the possibility of suffering Nagirjuna argues that it is only be- cause things are empty that change impermanence and suffering can occur Consequently without emptiness not only could the world of change never have occurred but there could also have been no way out of it48 Change can only occur because dharmas are not absolute

Having not dependently arisen how will there be suffering It has been said that suffering is impermanent Thus it is not self-existent49

However it would appear that many Yogicarins believed that an unqualified and universal declaration of emptiness subverted the reality of suffering in samszra and so was in danger of subverting the very basis of the Buddhist tradition namely the Four Noble Truths This concern clearly predates the Yogacara and is expressed by Nigirjuna himself at the beginning of the chapter on the Four Noble Truths in his Madhyamaka-ki7rik2 NNagirjunals response however does not appear to have been sufficient for the early Yogicirins since a concerted effort is made to further distinguish emptiness from the extreme of nihilism

According to the Yogacira formulation of the Middle Path dharmas are empty of the prapaica-based constructions (parikalpita) of discursive thought but are not empty insofar as they do exist in some form The Madhyamaka of course did not deny that dharmas exist in some form it Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

merely rejected their true or ultimate status as inherently existing entities For the Yogacirin the perception itself really existed though devoid of the reificatory notions of grasper and grasped (subject and object) What then was the status of these perceptions The Yogicira response was to say that they were like dreams and illusions But how could something be said to exist and yet also be an illusion The problem here is that these Mahiyana schools are involved in a debate which even on their own premises is in the realm of strict ineffability Conventional language just cannot do the work required of it because of the inevitable tendency for the unenlightened listener to reify its referents As we have seen it is possible to argue that the Yogicira definition of emptiness as the existence of nonexistence is merely an example of word-play in an attempt to clarify the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness While it seems possible that some Yogicarins understood the definition in this manner it is also possible that the search for a substratum evident within many Yogacara texts is strongly suggestive of a shift in paradigm

The search for a substratum to explain the origination of the world of duhkha was felt to be both unnecessary and fallacious by the Madhyamikas For Nigirjuna all such attempts to find a ground of exis- tence lead to absolutism in that they postulate a permanent (and thus absolute) entity In this way the author of the Madhyamaka-kiriki steered clear of all explanations of the world based upon an ontological distinction between appearance and reality The reason for this is that such endeavors are dangerously close to subverting the Middle Path in their acceptance of some form of absolute reality supporting and tran- scending phenomenal (that is dharmic) manifestation For Nigarjuna such a conception of the world process contradicts the fundamental principle of dharma-nairitmya Appearance or manifestation is only possible because all dharmas are empty of an intrinsic nature If there was any dharma that possessed such an essence (svabhava) then it could never be subject to change or dissolution Clearly such a conclusion was unacceptable to Nigirjuna Thus one should relinquish all belief in inherently existing entities

However outside the Madhyamaka school this explanation seems either to have been misunderstood (hence the frequent cries of uccheda- vidi ) or at best was felt to be inadequate The movement toward a more substrative model of reality can be seen in new ways of formulating the meaning of emptiness in the literature of the early Yogicira school For instance in commenting on the MadhyZnta-vibhZgals statement that defilements are adventitious (kleiasya Zgantukatvatah 123)Vasubandhu makes the following points [The purity of emptiness is established] by shaking off the adventitious defilements However this is not a change in own-nature Emptiness then is neither defiled nor pure by its very nature What is one to make of the reference to the nature of empti- Richard King

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

ness Is the phrase to be understood in the traditional Madhyamaka sense to mean that the inherent nature of things is their lack of an inherent nature or is there a postulation of some form of svabhdva here that would not be consonant with the Madhyamaka tradition Further- more one can also find references in the work of Asanga to the ineffable inherent-nature (nirabhilipya svabhavatil of dharmas Thus we find Asanga arguing in the Bodhisattva-bhimi that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas

[Hlaving penetrated the non-self of dharmas (dharma-nairztmya) and having realized because of that pure understanding the inexpressible nature (nir- abhilzpya svabhzvatci) of all dharmas know the sameness (sama) of the essential nature of verbal designation (prajiiaptivida) and the nondiscursive knowledge (nirvikalpajiieya) That is the supreme Suchness tat hat^)^

The movement away from an emphasis upon the lack-of-essential- nature (nihsvabhivatz) of dharmas to their ineffable-essential-nature may be interpreted as a subtle introduction of essentialism (svabhivati- vida) into the Mahiy ina tradition at a time when the nihilism of the Madhyamaka position may have been seen to be too extreme and uncompromisingly negative in its exposition

VI Doctrinal Ambivalence in the Early Yogicira The remarkable fact about the early formulations of classical

Yogicira as established in the texts of Asanga and Vasubandhu is their hermeneutical open-endedness It is possible to understand these works as attempts to express and reformulate the Madhyamaka message Alter- natively they may be seen as reactions to the nihilism of the Madhya- maka school In the former case the ineffable own-nature (nirabhilipya svabhivatil of dharmas is an attempt to explain that their emptiness transcends the categories of being (bhiva) and nonbeing (abhiva) As such their own-nature (svabhiva) is merely their common quality of lacking an own-nature (nihsvabhivati) However ineffability may also refer to the fact that there is some positive sense in which own-nature (svabhiva) can be found in dharmas In this case we have a quasi- substantialist position dharmas being real in some ultimate sense if not in any linguistically expressible sense If the latter were the correct inter- pretation then we would have pinpointed a clear difference of opinion between Asanga and Vasubandhu on the one hand and the Midhyami- kas on the other Whatever the allegiance of the earliest Yogicarins as the school developed i t did eventually develop its own distinctive under- standing of emptiness pace Madhyamaka The appeal to a substratum is a clear example of the Yogicira attempt to distinguish the Mahiy ina idea of emptiness from a nihilistic interpretation Philosophy East ampWest

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

In the light of the problem of explicating the notion of emptiness we are now in a position to reevaluate the import of the Yogiciras particular formulation of the doctrine The attempt to qualify the emptiness of an entity as allowing for the pure given-ness (vastumatra) of that entity clearly constitutes an attempt by the early Yogicirins to differentiate emptiness from nihilism The question of the relationship between the Madhyamaka and the early classical formulations of Asanga and Vasu- bandhu however remains a moot point It could be argued that Asanga conceived of emptiness along broadly Madhyamaka lines and that his own formulations of the doctrine are merely developing the Madhya- maka position by emphasizing what I have called the experiential facticity of objects (ie the given-ness of experience) This provides a characteristically Yogicira emphasis on experience without necessitat- ing a break with the Madhyamaka tradition on this issue

Attempts to differentiate emptiness from nihilism however inevita- bly lead to the assertion of the reality of the emptied thing and as such can lead to the reification of that empty entity The extent to which Asanga took his own formulation of Sinyats to be fundamentally differ- ent from those of his predecessors largely depends on the extent to which he takes his own use of language seriously Thus on the one hand Asanga may be defending Madhyamaka from a nihilistic interpretation by attempting to distinguish it from a blanket denial of everything while on the other hand he may have been attacking the Midhyamikas for their encroaching nihilism If the latter is in fact the case then Asanga took his own statements concerning the given-ness of the entity at face value and from the Madhyamaka point of view was indeed guilty of reification From this it would be clear that there is a different conception of emptiness at work in the treatises of the early Yogicirins Both interpretations of Asangas position are possible Determining which of these is correct may prove particularly problematic since the very paradoxicality of explaining emptiness in (reifying) language points to its inexpressibility

Any defense of emptiness against the charge of nihilism is always likely to result in the possibility of reification insofar as reference to the given-ness of the entity is taken literally that is not purged of its ontological implications This is an unfortunate consequence of the prob- lems inherent in the self-referential nature of language Thus on the one hand Asanga may be rescuing the Madhyamaka position from fallacious nihilistic interpretations or alternatively he may be criticizing the Mad- hyamaka school This hermeneutical problem is complex and any resolu- tion of it would necessitate not only an examination of Asangas own conception of emptiness but also a consideration of his attitudes toward his Madhyamaka predecessors Examining the latter proves particularly Richard King

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

difficult since Asanga wrote in an era before Madhyamaka-Yogicira polemics arose and his position vis-a-vis that question is thus not alto- gether clear The question of Asangas relationship to the Madhyamaka school is far from easily settled

If the early Yogicira movement was formulated as a reaction to rather than a reform of mainstream Madhyamaka Asanga and his suc- cessors have some difficulties in overcoming the Madhyamaka critique of their position For how can the other-dependent (paratantfa) realm be said to exist in some form without risking ontological attribution As Nigir juna argues if there is no independent self there can be no other to be dependent upon since other nature (parabhiiva) is the self-nature (svabhiiva) of an other (MKXV3) Bhivaviveka picks up on this argument in his disputations with the vijninaviidins pointing to the absurdity of asserting that an illusion exists (vi j iapt i N bhr i r~ t i -mat ra) ~~ Paul Williams puts the point very succinctly when he notes that

The vijiiZnaviida difficulty stems from reference to an entity at the same time as maintaining its ineffability and reflects a failure to transcend the Madhya- maka progression from conditional occurrence to nihsvabhavatci and thence to no occurrence at all Nevertheless the fact that the Madhyamaka position seems paradoxical cannot be doubted the interesting point being that for the Madhyamaka the vijiiinavZda position was paradoxical and vice versa Mu- tual incomprehensibiliy and paradoxically due to shifting structural presuppo- sitions was common to Indian philosophy54

One suspects that the developing Yogicira school felt uneasy about the Madhyamaka equation of pratityasamutpada with anutpiida Never- theless in the early Yogicira literature one can even find references to the renunciation of vij iaptimitrati usually taken to be the definitive concept of the Yogicira school In the Mahwnasamgraha for instance Asanga explicitly states that representation-only ivijnapti-matra) is to be relinquished once one has transcended dichotomizing-consciousness (vijniina1 and the duality of subject and object

Thus upon investigating the mental chatter (manojalpa)which appears as an object the bodhisattva enters the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhavaj Upon entering representation-only (vijiiaptirnztra)he enters the dependent nature How then does he enter the perfected nature (parinizpanna-svabhava) He enters it upon rejecting altogether the notion of representation-only (vijiiaptirnZtrasamjiia)Thus for the bodhisattva who has destroyed the notion of an object (arthasamjiia)the mental chatter resulting from the impression of the heard Dharma does not have the capability to arise with the appearance of an object and consequently does not arise anymore as representation-only When the bodhisattva resides in the name- without concept with regard to all objects (sarvi7rthe~unirvikalpakanama)Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

when he resides through yogic perception (pratyakzayogena)in the dharmad-hatu then he possesses nirvikalpajnZna in which the objective-support (Zambana)and the supported-consciousness are totally identified It is then that the bodhisattva has entered the perfected nature55

This supramundane ( lokott i ra) knowledge corresponds to the final stage of enlightenment outlined by Asanga and Vasubandhu where even the notion of representation (vi j i iapti) is relinquished For how can you talk of representation in the absence of an object that is being repre- sented Thus Vasubandhu declares in Trisvabhiva-nirdeia 36 that

Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra)there arises the nonperception of knowable things Through the nonperception of knowable things there arises the nonperception of mind also56

Taken at face value these statements suggest that there remains considerable room for debate as to the precise relationship between the doctrinal positions of the early Yogicira and the Madhyamaka schools It is also not clear that the early Yogicira philosophy is straightforwardly idealistic since there appears to be the acknowledgment at times that at the highest levels of attainment both citta and vi j iapt i -mitra are to be transcended One suspects that the early Yogicara of Asanga and Vasubandhu as laid down in such texts as the Bodhisattva-bhumi and the Trisvabhiivanirdeia represents a philosophical school in tran~it ion~

NOTES

1 - Suzuki 1928 p 255 Quoted in Willis 1979 p 21 and Harris 1991 p 68

2 - Ueda 1967 pp 155-165

3 - Samdhinirmocana-sutra V1130 See Lamotte 1935 pp 85 ff

4 - lbid pp 67 193

5 -Asanga evidently thought that the ii1ayavijnina was so important that he devoted the introduotory section of his Mahiyiinasamgriha to an examination of its meaning

6 - Mahwnasamgr i iha 111

7 - lbid 110

8 -For example see Willis translation of the Tattviirtha chapter of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva-bhijmi) in Willis 1979 pp 106 109 etc Richard King

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

9 - Willis translation ibid p 106

10 -See ibid p 106 and Wogiharas (1930-1936) edition of the Bodhi- sattvabhimi p 45

11 - Willis 1979 p 109 and Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 45-46

12 - Willis 1979 p 21

13 -Compare this with the statement made by Yasomitra in his Abhid- harmakoiabhiisyavyikhya 1I6 upalabdhivastumitragrahanam vedanidayastucaitasi viie~agrahanaripah 1 [The six conscious- nesses (vJi7ina)l apprehend grasping only the given-thing How- ever it is the mental concomitants of sensation that grasping specify the form (rupa) Williams (1980) p 15 says that the distinc- tion between vijnZna- and samjfiiskandhas largely marks the dif- ference between apprehending a composite thing and becoming consciously aware of the state of affairs marked by that thing Compare this also to the nineteenth-century British idealism of Francis H Bradley where reality is experience or pure apprehension (before the intervention of concepts)

14 - Rahula 1971 p 66

15 -A-parinispatti literally not-absolute or not-fulfilled Rahula trans- lates it as non-realite

16 -Thus VimSatiki vv 11-14 criticizes atomic realism on the grounds that the idea that the sense objects that one apprehends are made up of atoms is not demonstrable on purely experiential (ie phenomenological) grounds Simply speaking it contradicts the given-ness of perception The concept of a unique and indivisible atom (paraminu) is also rejected as such an entity would have no facets with which to connect to other atoms Thus v 12 states that One atom simultaneously conjoined with six other atoms must have six facets Yet if they are said to occupy the same space [being the smallest occupier of space possible] then their aggregate would be no more than a single atom (~atkena yugapadyogZtparamlI- oh~adamiati sannim saminadeiatvit pindah syZd anumitrakah)

17 - Rahula 1971 p 32

18 - lbid p 118

19 -Interestingly Asanga also makes room for a third category of sensa- tion that which is both internal and external This latter sensation is produced by the interaction of the external sense-spheres (bZhyZya- tana) which are the support of the sense-organs (indriyZdh$thina) and the spheres of internal form (idhyitmikiniripTny Zyatanini) which constitute the internal body (5dhyitmakZya) Philosophy East amp West

20 - Lamotte 1938 vol 2 pp 39-40

21 - Anacker 1984 p 3

22 -See Kajiyama 1969 pp 193-203 See also Hirabayashi and leda 1977 pp 341-360 and leda 1980

23 -See Ueda 1967 pp 155-165 for a brief but definitive examination of the differences between Paramartha and Dharmapila in their exegesis of Vasubandhus works See also Walpole Rahula 1972 pp 324-330

25 -See for instance Wayman 1965 passim Rahula 1972 pp 82-85 Nagao 1979 p 39 (or Nagao 1991 p 198) Willis 1979 pp 20-36 Kochumottum 1982 pp 197-234 and Harris 1991 pp 152-175

26 -MadhyZnta-VibhZga 11 abhita-parikalpo stidvayam tatra na vidyate SinyatZ vidyatetu-atra tasyZm-apisa vidyate

27 - Chang 1971 p 60

28 -For instance Rahula 1972 passim Willis 1979 pp 13-36 Anacker 1984 Nagao 1979 pp 29-43 reprinted in Nagao 1991 pp 189-199 and Harris 1991 pp 63-83 102-179

29 -For an interesting discussion of this see Nagao 1978 pp 66-82 recently reprinted in Nagao 1991 pp 51-60

30 - Kochumottom 1982 p 236

31 -yena hi sinyam tada-sad-bhZvZt yac-ca sinyam tad sad-bhZvZc chinyatZ yujyeta (trans in Willis 1979 p 114 see also Wogihara 1930-1936 p 47)

32 - Willis 1979 pp 117 121 Wogihara 1930-1936 pp 47 49

34 - tad sad-bhZvZc c h i n yatZ yujyeta See Wogihara 1930-1936 p 47

35 -MadhyZnta-vibhZga 113 dvaya-abhZvohi-abhZvasya bhZvah Sin-

yasya lak~anam na bhZvo na-api ca-abhZva hnapythaktva-eka- lak~anamSee also MadhyZnta- VibhZga 12 na sinyam nZpi cZSunyam tasmZt sarvam vidhlyate sattvZd asattvZt sattvZc ca madhyamZ pratipac ca sZ Neither empty nor nonempty so is everything described that indeed is the Middle Path for there is existence as well as nonexistence and again existence

36 - Rahula 1971 p 65

37 -Note that my translation is dependent upon the French translation of W Rahula (1971) 1 chap 1 sec 2 p 44 Richard King

679

38 - MahZyZnasamgrZha 11151 See Lamotte 1938 vol 2 p 107

39 - Ibid p 89

41 -The Madhyamaka position is grounded in the Buddhist conception of the world as impermanent (anitya) and lacking an abiding self (anatman)Thus we find Nigirjuna in Madhyamaka-kZrikZ XXI 4 suggesting the following axiom For impermanence is never absent in entities

42 -See lngalls 1954 pp 291-306 Biderman 1978 405-413 Whaling 1979 pp 1-42

43 - See Hirabayashi and leda 1977 pp 341-360

44 -The foremost example of the absolutistic interpretation of Madhya- maka is the work of TRV Murti Candrakirti notes in Prasannapadi 247-248 that the person who reifies emptiness is like the person responding to the merchant who has nothing to sell with the words all right let me buy some of that nothing Nevertheless the majority of critics attacked the Madhyamaka for its apparent nihil- ism The absolutistic interpretation of Madhyamaka was not preva- lent in traditional Indian sources absolutism generally being seen as a feature of the Brahmanical Upanisadic heritage and not the Buddhist

45 - See for instance VigrahavyZvartanlv 71

46 -Madhyamaka-kZrikZ 138 i i n y a t i sarvadrstinim prokt2 nihsara nam jinaih yean tu SinyatZdrgis tZn asZdhyZn babhampire

47 -sad asat sadasac ceti yasya p a k ~ o na vidyate upZlambhai cirenapi tasya vaktum na Sakyate (trans in Lang 1986 pp 150-151)

48 - See Madhyamaka-kZrikZ 24 18-28

49 -Ibid 2421 apratytyasamutpannam kuto duhkham bhavi~yati ani- tyam uktam duhkham hi tat svZbhZvye ne vidyate

52 - Trans in Willis 1979 p 79

53 -Madhyamakah~daya-kZrikZchap 5 PrajnZprad3a chap 25 Can- drakirti also attacks the views of the citta-mitra He does how- ever clearly grasp the fact that the Yogiicira position is not a naive form of subjective idealism In MadhyamakZvatZra V145 he points out that for the Yogicira school if the object is absent so too is the subject However the view which equates the dream and wak- Philosophy East amp West

ing states is criticized by Candrakirti in Madhyamakivatira V148-53 Again in Madhyamakirvatira V165 the author asks if the cognition of blue is mental and not sensory why is it that a blind man cannot see blue Candrakirti also clearly distinguishes the Madhyamaka conception of samvrti from the Yogicira notion of paratantra (see Madhyamakivatira V180-81)

54 - Williams 1980 p 12

55 - Mahiyinasamgraha 1119 See Lamotte 1938 vol 2 pp 164-165 [143a161

56 - Trisvabhiva-nirdeia v 36 citta-mitropalambhena jfieyirthZnupa- lambha t i jfieyirthinupalambhena syic cittinupalambhati See al- so Trimiiki v 29 Madhyintavibhiga 16 and the bh2sya upon it One might wish to argue that such statements are to be understood in a specifically yogic context only and so should not be taken to refer t o the YogZcZras own distinctive doctrinal position However in discussing such movements as this i t is difficult t o draw a hard and fast line between the theoretical and the practical This is reflected in the fact that the YogZcira derives some of the evidence to support its own philosophical perspective from meditative experi- ences See for instance the reference to yogic perception in MahSyinasamgriha 1119 quoted above

57 - Perhaps a distinction can be made between those texts written by Asariga for the Mahiy ina in general eg the voluminous Yogicira-bhimi(containing the Bodhisattva-bhimi) and the Mahiyinasam-griha and those texts written specifically for a YogZcZra audience

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anacker Stefan 1984 Seven Works of Vasubandhu The Buddhist Psychological Doctor Religions of Asia Series no 4 Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Biderman Shlomo 1978 ~ankara and the Buddhists Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 405-41 3

Chang Garma 1971 The Buddhist Teaching of Totality The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism Pennsylvania State University Press

La Vallee Poussin Louis de 1932-1933 Trisvabhivanirdeia Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 2 147-1 61

Harris 1 1991 The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogicira in Indian M a h w n a Buddhism Leiden E J Brill Richard King

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Hirabayashi and lida Shotaro 1977 Another Look at the Midhyamika vs Yogicira Controversy Concerning Existence and Non-existence In L Lancaster ed Prajiiparamiti and Related Systems Berkeley University of California Press pp 341-360

leda Shotaro 1980 Reason and Emptiness Tokyo Hokuseido Press

Ingalls Daniel 1954 Samkaras Arguments against the Buddhists Phi-losophy East and West 3291 -306

Kajiyama Yuichi 1969 Bhivaviveka Sthiramati and Dharmapila Wie-ner Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud-Und Ostasiens 13 193-203

Kiyota M ed 1978 M a h w n a Buddhist Meditation Honolulu University of Hawaii Press

Kochumottum Thomas 1982 A Buddhist Philosophy of Experience A New Transla tion and lnterpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the YogZcZrinDelhi Motilal Banarsidass

Lamotte Etienne 1935 The Samdhinirmocana-Sijtra Universite de Louvaine

1938 La Somme du Grand Vehicle DAsariga (Mahayanasam- graha)vols 1-3 Louvaine Bureaux de Museon

Lang Karen 1986 Aryadevas Catuhiataka On the Bodhisattvas Cultiva- tion of Merit and Knowledge lndiste Studier 7 Copenhagen Akademisk Forlag

Levi S ed 1925 Vimiatiki vols 241-245 Paris Bibliotheque de ~ ~ c o l e des Hautes ~tudes Libraire Honore Champion

Nagao G 1972 MadhyZtavibhZgaTokyo Suzuki Research Foundation

1978 What Remains in slnyati A Yogicira lnterpretation of Emptiness In Kiyota 1978 pp 66-82

1979 From Midhyamika to Yogacira an Analysis of MMK XXIV18 and MV 11-2 The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 2 29-43

1991 Mzdhyamika and YogZcZra New York SUNY Press

Rahula Walpola 1971 Le Compendium de la Super-Doctrine (Philo- sophie) (Abhidharmasamuccaya) DAsariga Publications de Lecole franqaise dextr6me-orient vol 78

1972 VfiaptimZtratZ Philosophy in the Yogicira System- Some Wrong Notions Maha Bodhi 1972 pp 324-330

1978 Zen and Taming of the Bull London Gordon Fraser

Suzuki D T 1928 Eastern Buddhist 4255Philosophy East amp West

Ueda Yoshifumi 1967 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogicara Philosophy Philosophy East and West 17 155-165

Vaidya P L ed 1960 The Mi la Madhyamaka-kZrik2 Darbhanga Mithila Institute

Wayman Alex 1965 Review of A K Chatterjee The YogZca Idealism Philosophy East and West 15 65-73

Whaling Frank 1979 ~ankara and Buddhism Journal of lndian Philoso- phy 7 1-42

Williams Paul 1980 Some Aspects of Language and Construction in the Madhyamaka Journal of lndian Philosophy 8 1-45

Willis Janice Dean 1979 On Knowing Reality The TattvZrtha Chapter of Asarigas Bodhisattvabhimi Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Wogihara Unrai ed 1930-1936 Bodhisattvabhimi Tokyo

Richard King

683

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Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

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2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

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23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

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25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

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42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

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NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

38 - MahZyZnasamgrZha 11151 See Lamotte 1938 vol 2 p 107

39 - Ibid p 89

41 -The Madhyamaka position is grounded in the Buddhist conception of the world as impermanent (anitya) and lacking an abiding self (anatman)Thus we find Nigirjuna in Madhyamaka-kZrikZ XXI 4 suggesting the following axiom For impermanence is never absent in entities

42 -See lngalls 1954 pp 291-306 Biderman 1978 405-413 Whaling 1979 pp 1-42

43 - See Hirabayashi and leda 1977 pp 341-360

44 -The foremost example of the absolutistic interpretation of Madhya- maka is the work of TRV Murti Candrakirti notes in Prasannapadi 247-248 that the person who reifies emptiness is like the person responding to the merchant who has nothing to sell with the words all right let me buy some of that nothing Nevertheless the majority of critics attacked the Madhyamaka for its apparent nihil- ism The absolutistic interpretation of Madhyamaka was not preva- lent in traditional Indian sources absolutism generally being seen as a feature of the Brahmanical Upanisadic heritage and not the Buddhist

45 - See for instance VigrahavyZvartanlv 71

46 -Madhyamaka-kZrikZ 138 i i n y a t i sarvadrstinim prokt2 nihsara nam jinaih yean tu SinyatZdrgis tZn asZdhyZn babhampire

47 -sad asat sadasac ceti yasya p a k ~ o na vidyate upZlambhai cirenapi tasya vaktum na Sakyate (trans in Lang 1986 pp 150-151)

48 - See Madhyamaka-kZrikZ 24 18-28

49 -Ibid 2421 apratytyasamutpannam kuto duhkham bhavi~yati ani- tyam uktam duhkham hi tat svZbhZvye ne vidyate

52 - Trans in Willis 1979 p 79

53 -Madhyamakah~daya-kZrikZchap 5 PrajnZprad3a chap 25 Can- drakirti also attacks the views of the citta-mitra He does how- ever clearly grasp the fact that the Yogiicira position is not a naive form of subjective idealism In MadhyamakZvatZra V145 he points out that for the Yogicira school if the object is absent so too is the subject However the view which equates the dream and wak- Philosophy East amp West

ing states is criticized by Candrakirti in Madhyamakivatira V148-53 Again in Madhyamakirvatira V165 the author asks if the cognition of blue is mental and not sensory why is it that a blind man cannot see blue Candrakirti also clearly distinguishes the Madhyamaka conception of samvrti from the Yogicira notion of paratantra (see Madhyamakivatira V180-81)

54 - Williams 1980 p 12

55 - Mahiyinasamgraha 1119 See Lamotte 1938 vol 2 pp 164-165 [143a161

56 - Trisvabhiva-nirdeia v 36 citta-mitropalambhena jfieyirthZnupa- lambha t i jfieyirthinupalambhena syic cittinupalambhati See al- so Trimiiki v 29 Madhyintavibhiga 16 and the bh2sya upon it One might wish to argue that such statements are to be understood in a specifically yogic context only and so should not be taken to refer t o the YogZcZras own distinctive doctrinal position However in discussing such movements as this i t is difficult t o draw a hard and fast line between the theoretical and the practical This is reflected in the fact that the YogZcira derives some of the evidence to support its own philosophical perspective from meditative experi- ences See for instance the reference to yogic perception in MahSyinasamgriha 1119 quoted above

57 - Perhaps a distinction can be made between those texts written by Asariga for the Mahiy ina in general eg the voluminous Yogicira-bhimi(containing the Bodhisattva-bhimi) and the Mahiyinasam-griha and those texts written specifically for a YogZcZra audience

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anacker Stefan 1984 Seven Works of Vasubandhu The Buddhist Psychological Doctor Religions of Asia Series no 4 Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Biderman Shlomo 1978 ~ankara and the Buddhists Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 405-41 3

Chang Garma 1971 The Buddhist Teaching of Totality The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism Pennsylvania State University Press

La Vallee Poussin Louis de 1932-1933 Trisvabhivanirdeia Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 2 147-1 61

Harris 1 1991 The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogicira in Indian M a h w n a Buddhism Leiden E J Brill Richard King

681

Hirabayashi and lida Shotaro 1977 Another Look at the Midhyamika vs Yogicira Controversy Concerning Existence and Non-existence In L Lancaster ed Prajiiparamiti and Related Systems Berkeley University of California Press pp 341-360

leda Shotaro 1980 Reason and Emptiness Tokyo Hokuseido Press

Ingalls Daniel 1954 Samkaras Arguments against the Buddhists Phi-losophy East and West 3291 -306

Kajiyama Yuichi 1969 Bhivaviveka Sthiramati and Dharmapila Wie-ner Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud-Und Ostasiens 13 193-203

Kiyota M ed 1978 M a h w n a Buddhist Meditation Honolulu University of Hawaii Press

Kochumottum Thomas 1982 A Buddhist Philosophy of Experience A New Transla tion and lnterpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the YogZcZrinDelhi Motilal Banarsidass

Lamotte Etienne 1935 The Samdhinirmocana-Sijtra Universite de Louvaine

1938 La Somme du Grand Vehicle DAsariga (Mahayanasam- graha)vols 1-3 Louvaine Bureaux de Museon

Lang Karen 1986 Aryadevas Catuhiataka On the Bodhisattvas Cultiva- tion of Merit and Knowledge lndiste Studier 7 Copenhagen Akademisk Forlag

Levi S ed 1925 Vimiatiki vols 241-245 Paris Bibliotheque de ~ ~ c o l e des Hautes ~tudes Libraire Honore Champion

Nagao G 1972 MadhyZtavibhZgaTokyo Suzuki Research Foundation

1978 What Remains in slnyati A Yogicira lnterpretation of Emptiness In Kiyota 1978 pp 66-82

1979 From Midhyamika to Yogacira an Analysis of MMK XXIV18 and MV 11-2 The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 2 29-43

1991 Mzdhyamika and YogZcZra New York SUNY Press

Rahula Walpola 1971 Le Compendium de la Super-Doctrine (Philo- sophie) (Abhidharmasamuccaya) DAsariga Publications de Lecole franqaise dextr6me-orient vol 78

1972 VfiaptimZtratZ Philosophy in the Yogicira System- Some Wrong Notions Maha Bodhi 1972 pp 324-330

1978 Zen and Taming of the Bull London Gordon Fraser

Suzuki D T 1928 Eastern Buddhist 4255Philosophy East amp West

Ueda Yoshifumi 1967 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogicara Philosophy Philosophy East and West 17 155-165

Vaidya P L ed 1960 The Mi la Madhyamaka-kZrik2 Darbhanga Mithila Institute

Wayman Alex 1965 Review of A K Chatterjee The YogZca Idealism Philosophy East and West 15 65-73

Whaling Frank 1979 ~ankara and Buddhism Journal of lndian Philoso- phy 7 1-42

Williams Paul 1980 Some Aspects of Language and Construction in the Madhyamaka Journal of lndian Philosophy 8 1-45

Willis Janice Dean 1979 On Knowing Reality The TattvZrtha Chapter of Asarigas Bodhisattvabhimi Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Wogihara Unrai ed 1930-1936 Bodhisattvabhimi Tokyo

Richard King

683

You have printed the following article

Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819941029443A43C6593AEYAIRW3E20CO3B2-V

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

[Footnotes]

2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

ing states is criticized by Candrakirti in Madhyamakivatira V148-53 Again in Madhyamakirvatira V165 the author asks if the cognition of blue is mental and not sensory why is it that a blind man cannot see blue Candrakirti also clearly distinguishes the Madhyamaka conception of samvrti from the Yogicira notion of paratantra (see Madhyamakivatira V180-81)

54 - Williams 1980 p 12

55 - Mahiyinasamgraha 1119 See Lamotte 1938 vol 2 pp 164-165 [143a161

56 - Trisvabhiva-nirdeia v 36 citta-mitropalambhena jfieyirthZnupa- lambha t i jfieyirthinupalambhena syic cittinupalambhati See al- so Trimiiki v 29 Madhyintavibhiga 16 and the bh2sya upon it One might wish to argue that such statements are to be understood in a specifically yogic context only and so should not be taken to refer t o the YogZcZras own distinctive doctrinal position However in discussing such movements as this i t is difficult t o draw a hard and fast line between the theoretical and the practical This is reflected in the fact that the YogZcira derives some of the evidence to support its own philosophical perspective from meditative experi- ences See for instance the reference to yogic perception in MahSyinasamgriha 1119 quoted above

57 - Perhaps a distinction can be made between those texts written by Asariga for the Mahiy ina in general eg the voluminous Yogicira-bhimi(containing the Bodhisattva-bhimi) and the Mahiyinasam-griha and those texts written specifically for a YogZcZra audience

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anacker Stefan 1984 Seven Works of Vasubandhu The Buddhist Psychological Doctor Religions of Asia Series no 4 Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Biderman Shlomo 1978 ~ankara and the Buddhists Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 405-41 3

Chang Garma 1971 The Buddhist Teaching of Totality The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism Pennsylvania State University Press

La Vallee Poussin Louis de 1932-1933 Trisvabhivanirdeia Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 2 147-1 61

Harris 1 1991 The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogicira in Indian M a h w n a Buddhism Leiden E J Brill Richard King

681

Hirabayashi and lida Shotaro 1977 Another Look at the Midhyamika vs Yogicira Controversy Concerning Existence and Non-existence In L Lancaster ed Prajiiparamiti and Related Systems Berkeley University of California Press pp 341-360

leda Shotaro 1980 Reason and Emptiness Tokyo Hokuseido Press

Ingalls Daniel 1954 Samkaras Arguments against the Buddhists Phi-losophy East and West 3291 -306

Kajiyama Yuichi 1969 Bhivaviveka Sthiramati and Dharmapila Wie-ner Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud-Und Ostasiens 13 193-203

Kiyota M ed 1978 M a h w n a Buddhist Meditation Honolulu University of Hawaii Press

Kochumottum Thomas 1982 A Buddhist Philosophy of Experience A New Transla tion and lnterpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the YogZcZrinDelhi Motilal Banarsidass

Lamotte Etienne 1935 The Samdhinirmocana-Sijtra Universite de Louvaine

1938 La Somme du Grand Vehicle DAsariga (Mahayanasam- graha)vols 1-3 Louvaine Bureaux de Museon

Lang Karen 1986 Aryadevas Catuhiataka On the Bodhisattvas Cultiva- tion of Merit and Knowledge lndiste Studier 7 Copenhagen Akademisk Forlag

Levi S ed 1925 Vimiatiki vols 241-245 Paris Bibliotheque de ~ ~ c o l e des Hautes ~tudes Libraire Honore Champion

Nagao G 1972 MadhyZtavibhZgaTokyo Suzuki Research Foundation

1978 What Remains in slnyati A Yogicira lnterpretation of Emptiness In Kiyota 1978 pp 66-82

1979 From Midhyamika to Yogacira an Analysis of MMK XXIV18 and MV 11-2 The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 2 29-43

1991 Mzdhyamika and YogZcZra New York SUNY Press

Rahula Walpola 1971 Le Compendium de la Super-Doctrine (Philo- sophie) (Abhidharmasamuccaya) DAsariga Publications de Lecole franqaise dextr6me-orient vol 78

1972 VfiaptimZtratZ Philosophy in the Yogicira System- Some Wrong Notions Maha Bodhi 1972 pp 324-330

1978 Zen and Taming of the Bull London Gordon Fraser

Suzuki D T 1928 Eastern Buddhist 4255Philosophy East amp West

Ueda Yoshifumi 1967 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogicara Philosophy Philosophy East and West 17 155-165

Vaidya P L ed 1960 The Mi la Madhyamaka-kZrik2 Darbhanga Mithila Institute

Wayman Alex 1965 Review of A K Chatterjee The YogZca Idealism Philosophy East and West 15 65-73

Whaling Frank 1979 ~ankara and Buddhism Journal of lndian Philoso- phy 7 1-42

Williams Paul 1980 Some Aspects of Language and Construction in the Madhyamaka Journal of lndian Philosophy 8 1-45

Willis Janice Dean 1979 On Knowing Reality The TattvZrtha Chapter of Asarigas Bodhisattvabhimi Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Wogihara Unrai ed 1930-1936 Bodhisattvabhimi Tokyo

Richard King

683

You have printed the following article

Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819941029443A43C6593AEYAIRW3E20CO3B2-V

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

[Footnotes]

2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

Hirabayashi and lida Shotaro 1977 Another Look at the Midhyamika vs Yogicira Controversy Concerning Existence and Non-existence In L Lancaster ed Prajiiparamiti and Related Systems Berkeley University of California Press pp 341-360

leda Shotaro 1980 Reason and Emptiness Tokyo Hokuseido Press

Ingalls Daniel 1954 Samkaras Arguments against the Buddhists Phi-losophy East and West 3291 -306

Kajiyama Yuichi 1969 Bhivaviveka Sthiramati and Dharmapila Wie-ner Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud-Und Ostasiens 13 193-203

Kiyota M ed 1978 M a h w n a Buddhist Meditation Honolulu University of Hawaii Press

Kochumottum Thomas 1982 A Buddhist Philosophy of Experience A New Transla tion and lnterpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the YogZcZrinDelhi Motilal Banarsidass

Lamotte Etienne 1935 The Samdhinirmocana-Sijtra Universite de Louvaine

1938 La Somme du Grand Vehicle DAsariga (Mahayanasam- graha)vols 1-3 Louvaine Bureaux de Museon

Lang Karen 1986 Aryadevas Catuhiataka On the Bodhisattvas Cultiva- tion of Merit and Knowledge lndiste Studier 7 Copenhagen Akademisk Forlag

Levi S ed 1925 Vimiatiki vols 241-245 Paris Bibliotheque de ~ ~ c o l e des Hautes ~tudes Libraire Honore Champion

Nagao G 1972 MadhyZtavibhZgaTokyo Suzuki Research Foundation

1978 What Remains in slnyati A Yogicira lnterpretation of Emptiness In Kiyota 1978 pp 66-82

1979 From Midhyamika to Yogacira an Analysis of MMK XXIV18 and MV 11-2 The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 2 29-43

1991 Mzdhyamika and YogZcZra New York SUNY Press

Rahula Walpola 1971 Le Compendium de la Super-Doctrine (Philo- sophie) (Abhidharmasamuccaya) DAsariga Publications de Lecole franqaise dextr6me-orient vol 78

1972 VfiaptimZtratZ Philosophy in the Yogicira System- Some Wrong Notions Maha Bodhi 1972 pp 324-330

1978 Zen and Taming of the Bull London Gordon Fraser

Suzuki D T 1928 Eastern Buddhist 4255Philosophy East amp West

Ueda Yoshifumi 1967 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogicara Philosophy Philosophy East and West 17 155-165

Vaidya P L ed 1960 The Mi la Madhyamaka-kZrik2 Darbhanga Mithila Institute

Wayman Alex 1965 Review of A K Chatterjee The YogZca Idealism Philosophy East and West 15 65-73

Whaling Frank 1979 ~ankara and Buddhism Journal of lndian Philoso- phy 7 1-42

Williams Paul 1980 Some Aspects of Language and Construction in the Madhyamaka Journal of lndian Philosophy 8 1-45

Willis Janice Dean 1979 On Knowing Reality The TattvZrtha Chapter of Asarigas Bodhisattvabhimi Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Wogihara Unrai ed 1930-1936 Bodhisattvabhimi Tokyo

Richard King

683

You have printed the following article

Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819941029443A43C6593AEYAIRW3E20CO3B2-V

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

[Footnotes]

2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

Ueda Yoshifumi 1967 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogicara Philosophy Philosophy East and West 17 155-165

Vaidya P L ed 1960 The Mi la Madhyamaka-kZrik2 Darbhanga Mithila Institute

Wayman Alex 1965 Review of A K Chatterjee The YogZca Idealism Philosophy East and West 15 65-73

Whaling Frank 1979 ~ankara and Buddhism Journal of lndian Philoso- phy 7 1-42

Williams Paul 1980 Some Aspects of Language and Construction in the Madhyamaka Journal of lndian Philosophy 8 1-45

Willis Janice Dean 1979 On Knowing Reality The TattvZrtha Chapter of Asarigas Bodhisattvabhimi Delhi Motilal Banarsidass

Wogihara Unrai ed 1930-1936 Bodhisattvabhimi Tokyo

Richard King

683

You have printed the following article

Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819941029443A43C6593AEYAIRW3E20CO3B2-V

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

[Footnotes]

2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

You have printed the following article

Early Yogcra and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka SchoolRichard KingPhilosophy East and West Vol 44 No 4 (Oct 1994) pp 659-683Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819941029443A43C6593AEYAIRW3E20CO3B2-V

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

[Footnotes]

2 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

23 Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

25 Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

42 akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list

Bibliography

akaras Arguments against the BuddhistsDaniel H H IngallsPhilosophy East and West Vol 3 No 4 (Jan 1954) pp 291-306Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281954012933A43C2913ASAATB3E20CO3B2-7

Two Main Streams of Thought in Yogcra PhilosophyYoshifumi UedaPhilosophy East and West Vol 17 No 14 (Jan - Oct 1967) pp 155-165Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-8221281967012F1029173A12F43C1553ATMSOTI3E20CO3B2-N

Review The Yogcra IdealismAlex WaymanPhilosophy East and West Vol 15 No 1 (Jan 1965) pp 65-73Stable URL

httplinksjstororgsicisici=0031-82212819650129153A13C653ATYI3E20CO3B2-R

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

NOTE The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list