Resurrecting Candrakirti

Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika

Kevin A. Vose

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780861715206
• eBook ISBN: 9780861717583
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

The seventh-century Indian master Candrakirti lived a life of relative obscurity, only to have his thoughts and writings rejuvenated during the Tibetan transmission of Buddhism. Since then, Candrakirti has been celebrated as offering the most thorough and accurate vision of Nagarjuna's view of emptiness which, in turn, most fully represents the final truth of the Buddha's teaching. Candrakirti's emptiness denies the existence of any "nature" or substantial, enduring essence in ourselves or in the phenomenal world while avoiding the extreme view of nihilism. In this view, our false belief in nature is at the root of our ignorance and is the basis for all mental and emotional pain and disturbance. For many Tibetan scholars, only Candrakirti's Middle Way entirely overcomes our false belief in inherent identity and, consequently, alone overcomes ignorance, delivering freedom from the cycle of uncontrolled death and rebirth known as samsara.Candrakirti's writings have formed the basis for Madhyamaka study in all major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. In Resurrecting Candrakirti, Kevin Vose presents the reader with a thorough presentation of Candrakirti's rise to prominence and the further elaborations the Tibetans have made on his presentation of emptiness. By splitting Madhyamaka into two subschools, namely the Svatantrika and Prasangika, the Tibetans became pioneers in understanding reality and created a new way to define differences in interpretation. Resurrecting Candrakirti provides the historical and philosophical context necessary to understand both Madhyamaka and its importance to Tibetan Buddhist thought.

1. The Indian Discovery of Candrakīrti

PROMINENT TIBETAN SCHOLARS of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries uniformly speak of a Prāsaṅgika school of Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”), founded by the Indians Buddhapālita (c. 500)¹ and Candrakīrti (c. 570–640),² developed in India—in some accounts by a lineage of mostly unlettered disciples but always including such luminaries as Śāntideva (early eighth century) and Atiśa (c. 982–1054)—and later propagated in Tibet. The Tibetan systematizers likewise speak of clear differences between the Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika interpretations of Madhyamaka and of the superiority of Prāsaṅgika in elucidating the “true thought” of Nāgārjuna (c. 200), the founder of Madhyamaka. In this vein, Candrakīrti is said to have “refuted” Bhāvaviveka (c. 500–570), the “founder” of the Svātantrika interpretation, and established the preeminence of Prāsaṅgika through writing his commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle.³ While the precise nature of the Prāsaṅgika-Svātantrika division was debated in the Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk schools throughout the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries and in the Nyingma school in the nineteenth century, there was no disagreement that just such a division accurately reflected Indian Buddhist developments of the sixth and seventh centuries.⁴ Tibetan scholarship on this distinction, from the fourteenth century into the present, has influenced a great deal of contemporary scholarship that continues to speak of two schools of Indian, and then Tibetan, Madhyamaka.

However, the Indian textual record presents a remarkably different view than fifteenth-century Tibetan scholars’ accounts. When we consider this record, we must conclude that Candrakīrti, rather than forming a school of Madhyamaka and triumphing over or refuting Bhāvaviveka, was in fact largely ignored in his day and for some three hundred years in both India and Tibet. Jayānanda (twelfth century)⁵ is the only known Indian commentator on the works of Candrakīrti,⁶ whereas there were eight Indian commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle and twenty-one Indian commentaries on Maitreya’s Ornament for Realization.⁷ The lineage of Indian Prāsaṅgika disciples stretching from Candrakīrti through Śāntideva and extending to Atiśa, the supposed progenitor of Prāsaṅgika in Tibet, varies widely in the Tibetan accounts and rarely includes figures known elsewhere.⁸ Furthermore, the argument from silence against Candrakīrti’s importance in India is bolstered by the fact that none of these shadowy figures is known by Tibetan scholars to have written on Madhyamaka (or anything else). This absence of any reported texts strongly suggests that, unlike the many volumes known to Tibetan scholars to have existed in India or Tibet in the past but no longer accessible to them or to us,⁹ no such texts by these figures ever existed. Rather, these figures would seem to represent Tibetan historians’ acknowledgment of great gaps in the Prāsaṅgika “lineage” and their attempts to fill in these holes with names, if not writings.

One can infer that the very survival of Candrakīrti’s writings down to the time of Jayānanda could only have been brought about by some kind of following, whether Candrakīrti’s writings were preserved in monastic libraries or transmitted in scribal families.¹⁰ Most strongly, we can imagine the existence of a marginal school of thought that did not champion Candrakīrti with new treatises (at least none that survived even until the time of Jayānanda) but studied and preserved his texts. It may have been this sense of a “lineage” that Tibetan authors imagined and attempted to enliven with names. A school, family, or library preserving Candrakīrti’s writings furthermore provides a more coherent picture of how his texts could later be popularized.

While the ongoing search for Sanskrit manuscripts could one day turn up a treatise from an early member of a putative Candrakīrti following, recent discoveries strengthen the case that Candrakīrti’s popularity arose long after his death. Studies of the recently recovered eighteen-folio Lakṣaṇaṭīkā show it to be a series of notes composed mostly in Sanskrit (with parts of four folios consisting of Tibetan notes) on three of Candrakīrti’s compositions.¹¹ The colophons to the texts that the “Lakṣaṇaṭīkā” was bundled with lead Yonezawa tentatively to conclude that these comments stem from Abhayākaragupta (c. 1025–1125) through the pen of Nur Dharmadrak, who served as the scribe.¹² While attributing these comments to Abhayākaragupta will require a great deal of further investigation into this manuscript and comparison with his known writings, the dating of the text seems secure, given Nur Dharmadrak’s role. A late eleventh- to early twelfth-century frame for these important notes on several of Candrakīrti’s major writings aligns well with the surviving evidence for Indian interest in his work. Thus, at present we can deduce that Candrakīrti’s writings did not spawn a literary tradition for many hundreds of years, with Jayānanda’s commentary and the “Lakṣaṇaṭīkā” representing the earliest known works that take Candrakīrti as their subject matter.

The silence of Candrakīrti’s supposed Middle Way adversaries rings even more tellingly. While Avalokitavrata (c. 700) in his subcommentary on Bhāvaviveka’s Lamp for Wisdom mentions Candrakīrti in a list of Indian scholars who wrote commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle,¹³ he says nothing about Candrakīrti’s lengthy criticisms of Bhāvaviveka. One can well assume that, in the Indian commentarial tradition, if Avalokitavrata deemed Candrakīrti’s attacks damaging, it would have been incumbent upon him to respond. His silence, in an otherwise extensive treatise (spanning three volumes in Tibetan translation), suggests that he viewed Candrakīrti’s criticisms as insignificant, not worthy of response, perhaps not even as serious philosophy.

Likewise, the important Mādhyamikas Śāntarakṣita (eighth century) and Kamalaśīla (c. 740–95) remained silent on Candrakīrti.¹⁴ Their extensive use of the Buddhist epistemological tradition, to an even greater degree than Bhāvaviveka, would require their responses to Candrakīrti’s attacks on that tradition, had they viewed his attacks to be damaging. Both authors, instead, were more concerned with Dharmapāla’s critique—from a Yogācāra viewpoint—of the feasibility of joining epistemology with Madhyamaka ontology.¹⁵ Furthermore, in Ichigō’s analysis, Kamalaśīla worked to refine Bhāvaviveka’s and Śāntarakṣita’s views, arguing against subtleties in their writings¹⁶ rather than concern himself with the widely divergent views of Candrakīrti. The wide success of Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s Yogācāra-Madhyamaka interpretation, an interpretation well at odds with Candrakīrti’s own, suggests Candrakīrti’s insignificance during this time.¹⁷ In contradistinction to what fifteenth-century Tibetan authors state, the textual evidence leads one to conclude that Candrakīrti was a marginal figure in his day and uninfluential in India until the close of the first millennium.

Tibetan evidence—translations of Sanskrit Madhyamaka texts and native Tibetan commentaries and doxographies—from the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet until 1000 show a similar disinterest in Candrakīrti. Whereas a wealth of important Madhyamaka texts by Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, and Śāntideva were translated during the “early diffusion” (snga dar) of Buddhism into Tibet, Candrakīrti’s major writings were not translated into Tibetan until the eleventh century. Only two of his commentaries, both on two of Nāgārjuna’s texts, Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning¹⁸ and Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness,¹⁹ were translated in the “early diffusion.” These commentaries would be likely candidates for translation as they represent the only Indian commentaries on these important Nāgārjuna texts.²⁰ In cases where Tibetans had a choice of commentarial tradition, for instance with Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle, Candrakīrti was left out.

As is well known, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, both later categorized as Svātantrika-Mādhyamikas,²¹ were instrumental in the early diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet, the former credited with creating the first monastery in Tibet at Samyé and ordaining the first Tibetan monks and the latter, his student, credited with establishing the orthodox “gradual path” at the purported Great Debate at Samyé. Their most important Madhyamaka texts were translated during the early diffusion, along with those by another key Indian author, Jñānagarbha, who blended components of Dharmakīrti’s epistemology with Madhyamaka thought.²² Not surprisingly then, the first Tibetan doxographies by Yeshé Dé (Ye shes sde) and Kawa Peltsek (Ka ba dpal brtsegs) in the eighth century esteem the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka synthesis created by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla as the highest Buddhist school of thought.²³ Bhāvaviveka’s Sautrāntika-Madhyamaka is ranked second. Candrakīrti is not mentioned. No Prāsaṅgika school is identified nor do we see the appellation, “Svātantrika,” which—as discussed in chapter 2—is first employed only in the twelfth century, in contradistinction to Candrakīrti’s views. This earlier bifurcation of Madhyamaka into Yogācāra and Sautrāntika sub-streams, to the apparent exclusion of Candrakīrti’s views, appears also in Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo’s (Rong zom Chos kyi bzang po, eleventh century) three doxographical works, perhaps our earliest sources for the Madhyamaka of the “later diffusion” (phyi dar) of Buddhism in Tibet.²⁴

The Indian and Tibetan evidence point to an eleventh-century resurrection of Candrakīrti’s writings in India and a twelfth-century birth of the Prāsaṅgika movement in Tibet. In addition to detailing Candrakīrti’s Indian rise, this chapter discusses the fragmented evidence that illuminates the philosophical and doctrinal issues (treated more fully in chapters 3 through 5) engendered by his writings that polarized Indian and Tibetan Buddhists in this period. The central issue around which Candrakīrti’s fame grew was his perceived denial of “valid cognition”²⁵—the epistemological enterprise foundational to Indian thought from at least the sixth century. As will be seen, both Candrakīrti’s supporters and detractors saw his philosophy as denying the validity of ordinary human cognition in the project of reaching enlightening knowledge. This denial held far-reaching ramifications, extending from a low appraisal of the value of human intellect to the very nature of buddhahood.

Reviving Candrakīrti’s Critique of Ultimate Valid Cognition

As mentioned above, fifteenth century and later Tibetan authors frequently group Śāntideva’s writings with Candrakīrti’s as “Prāsaṅgika” and place him in a lineage stretching from Candrakīrti down to these authors themselves. Śāntideva is the one figure in these lineage lists prior to Atiśa about whom we have literary information. However, Śāntideva’s own writings make no reference to Candrakīrti nor to any other of the figures that Tibetan historians would place in a lineage between Candrakīrti and Śāntideva. Śāntideva’s surviving writings, consisting of poetry and comments interspersing his collection of sūtra fragments,²⁶ allow a great deal of interpretive room. Several verses from the ninth chapter of Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Practice echo sentiments found in Candrakīrti’s writings, especially the denial that ultimate truth is a referent of human intellect, the explanation of ultimate truth as “non-seeing,” and the refutation of self-cognizing consciousness.²⁷

Despite this seeming harmony between Candrakīrti and Śāntideva, it is important to note that this text was commented upon from a decidedly non-Prāsaṅgika standpoint both in the early diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet and during the later spread. Saito points to two Indian commentaries, likely the earliest, that trea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism
• Series Titles Previously Published
• Publisher’s Acknowledgment
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The Indian Discovery of Candrakīrti
• 2. The Birth of Prāsaṅgika
• 3. Taxonomies of Ignorance, Debates on Validity
• 4. What Can Be Said About the Ineffable?
• 5. Prāsaṅgika vs. Svātantrika on Non-Abiding Nirvāṇa
• Conclusion: The Prāsaṅgika Victory
• Materials: The Arguments against Prasaṅgas and for Svatantra Inference in Chapa Chokyi Sengé’s Compilation of the Three Mādhyamikas from the East
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• About Wisdom Publications
• Copyright