Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume IV

Buddhist Studies

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780520976672
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Daisetsu Teitar?¯ Suzuki was a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many outside Japan encountered Buddhism for the first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy have contributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. This fourth volume of Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki brings together a range of Suzuki's writings in the area of Buddhist studies. Based on his text-critical work in the Chinese canon, these essays reflect his commitment to clarifying Mahayana Buddhist doctrines in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese historical contexts. Many of these innovative writings reflect Buddhological discourse in contemporary Japan and the West's pre-war ignorance of Mahayana thought. Included is a translation into English for the first time of his "Mahayana Was Not Preached by Buddha." In addition to editing the essays and contributing the translation, Mark L. Blum presents an introduction that examines how Suzuki understood Mahayana discourse via Chinese sources and analyzes his problematic use of Sanskrit.

PART ONE

Early Years

1

The Mādhyamika School in China

1898

This is the first English-language publication by Suzuki under his own name. It exhibits a remarkable degree of detail about Indian thinkers associated with seventh-century Buddhist debates in India. Most of the Indic texts mentioned are reconstructed names based on Chinese translations that Suzuki is working from. I have corrected spelling when correct forms are known, but when not, I have left his Indic forms as is. Suzuki did not give sources for any of this material, and the reader might have had the impression that he had access to these texts in Sanskrit. In fact all of his materials are in Chinese, and the constructed Sanskrit clearly derive from Nanjō’s catalog of 1883, but many are slightly different.

Originally published in Calcutta in the Journal of the Buddhist Text Society of India 6, part 4 (1898): 23–30.

• • •

HISTORY

The introduction of the Mādhyamika philosophy into China, according to an opinion prevalent among Japanese and Chinese Buddhists, was effected by Kumārajiva¹ (A.D. 344–413) and Divākara who came to China A.D. 676.² The so-called “second” introduction by Divākara, however, is no introduction at all in the proper sense of the word. He neither translated nor wrote any work on the Mādhyamika. What he did was simply the impartation to Fazang, a famous leader of the Avataṃsaka³ sect, of some informations about the school, while he himself was most probably an advocate of the Vijñānavāda. The so-called second introduction therefore need not be considered.

Kumārajiva had four most eminent Chinese disciples who all helped him in his translation work as well as in the elucidation of the Mādhyamika philosophy. From Daosheng (died A.D. 434), one of the four, issues out the line of succeeding leaders of the Three Śāstra sect, which is the name given for the Chinese Mādhyamika school. In China, unlike in Tibet, the school suffered no doctrinal dissension whatever. But geographically one branch of the school was propagated in the South of the Yangtze River and the other in the North. It is the southern school which is the true representative of Nāgārjunean philosophy and which attained to its full development in the works of Jizang, generally known as Jiaxiang Dashi,⁴ that is properly called the Three Śāstra sect,⁵ for the northern school which scarcely made any growth, added the Prajñāpāramitāśāstra to the three canonical books.

One hundred and thirty-six years after Kumārajīva or one hundred and fifteen years after Daosheng, Jiaxiang Dashi was born in Jinling, and his active life continued up to the sixth year before Xuanzang made his pilgrimage to India. Besides his excellent commentaries on the three śāstras as well as some sūtras, he wrote the Dasheng xuanlun (Treatise on the Deepness of the Mahāyāna), the Sanlun xuanyi (Deep Significance of the Three Śāstras), and some other treatises, elucidating the principal doctrines of the Mādhyamika system, with occasional interpolations of his own original views. I have chiefly followed him in the succeeding brief exposition of the Chinese Śūnyatā philosophy.

The Three Śāstra sect did not flourish very long in China. Gradually declining after the death of Jiaxiang, it was completely excluded from the religious arena toward the end of the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618–907). The reason why it could not enjoy a further prosperity in China is due mainly to the peculiarity of the Chinese mind, which refuses to dwell on anything abstruse, and partly to the sweeping influence of the rival school, Dharmalakṣaṇa⁶ sect (Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda philosophy established by Asaṅga⁷), introduced and promulgated by Xuanzang. We cannot indeed expect such an abstract and highly speculative philosophy as propounded by Nāgārjuna to find any lasting support among the people who are the avowed advocate of Confucianism, a crystallization of practicality and conservatism. The work of Jiaxiang Dashi may be said accordingly to be the practical start as well as the terminus of the Mādhyamika movement in China.

OUTLINES OF THE DOCTRINE

The Mādhyamika philosophy has always emphasized its negative side both in India and China, and this has called forth the prejudiced and unfavorable comments of the critics of the West. But its position could be held only through the clear understanding of the negativistic view in question. One of the propositions stated by the Chinese Mādhyamika followers as the very kernel of the philosophy is the “Middle Path in the Eight negations or No’s” (babu zhongdao), that constitutes the first aphorism of the Mādhyamika-śāstra. In the following pages I will try to explain the statement in connection with other essential theses according to the view held by Jiaxiang Dashi.

(1) Two Forms of Truth

The discrimination of two forms of truth, Paramārtha- and Saṃvṛti-satya, has been prevalent among all Mahāyāna schools. Even the Yogācāra,⁸ the rival of the Mādhyamika, adopted the conception to some extent, but treating it in its own fashion. It seems that the antagonism between the two systems just mentioned reached its climax in India some three hundred years after Nāgārjuna. Bhāvaviveka, a powerful adherent of the Śūnyatā philosophy, wrote the Mahāyānatālaratnaśāstra⁹ against the Yogacārin Dharmapāla’s commentary on the Vijñānamātraśāstra; the former insisting on the śūnya-ness of existence, while the latter, the validness of the Parinispanna-lakṣaṇa, which corresponds to the Paramārtha of Nāgārjuna.

According to the Erdi yizhang (Views on the Two Satyas) compiled by a royal prince of the Liang dynasty (A.D. 502–555),¹⁰ there were already twenty-three different views in China concerning the two forms of truth. It will be noticed that the problem how to deal with the Paramārtha and Saṃvṛti,¹¹ absolute and conditional, one and many, noumena and phenomena, universal and particular, was of a vital importance to all sects of the Mahāyāna as was to the philosophers of the West. How did the Three Śāstra sect solve the problem?

The advocate of the sect declares that the discrimination between the Paramārtha and Saṃvṛti, or in other words, between what appears to us, and what is in itself, is not absolute; thus they have only relative value, because it is the condition by which our imperfect understanding conceives existence. Noumena and phenomena have no objective reality as some suppose; for if they have, the truth becomes dualistic and therefore conditional, and that which is conditional cannot be the truth. Nor are they subjective forms inherent in our mind as others affirm; for if so, our reason becomes incapable of grasping the truth which must be absolute, transcending all modes of relativity.

The Paramārtha and Saṃvṛti are no more than the tools or passages which are necessary for us to reach the truth. Buddha distinguished them simply to dispel our intellectual prejudices which oscillate from one extreme to another, never keeping its equilibrium or Middle Path. When it is said that things are what they appear, that they are real as characterized with individuality, ignorant minds cling to the view and entirely forget the other side of the shield, namely, that they are not what they appear to us, that they are śūnya, conditional, relative, phenomenal. But when the śūnya-ness of existence is thus emphasized, they again cling to this view, utterly ignoring the truth contained in the naive realism. Clinging or one-sidedness is therefore the prejudice of our intellect, preventing us from obtaining an insight into the truth.

The truth transcends every form of separation and individuation, and therefore the attainment of the truth consists in shaking off all conceptions smutted with dualism. The distinction of the Paramārtha and Saṃvṛti holds good as long as they serve us as instruments for removing our mental biases, but as soon as we cling to either of them as the ultimate truth, we are doomed. “They are like the finger pointing out the moon, they are like the basket carrying the fish.” As soon as the fish is caught in the hand and the moon is noticed, there is no need of bothering ourselves with the basket and the finger. Those who cling to the absolute validity of the two truths, forgetting what purpose they serve, are like an idiot who takes the basket for the fish and the finger for the moon.

Jiaxiang Dashi in this way refutes the views held by Indian as well as Chinese heretics (Daoists and Confucianists), by Hīnayānists, by the followers of the Satyasiddhiśāstra and of the Vaipulya-Mahāyānism.

From the religious point of view the Paramārtha corresponds to Prajñā, and the Saṃvṛti to Upāya. When Buddha proclaims that all beings in the universe have been saved by him, that they are eternally abiding in Nirvāṇa, that no one needs emancipation, he takes his standpoint on Prajñā, viewing things by the light of their Paramārtha-ness. But this being only one side of the truth, Buddha does not cling to it. He comes down from the eminence and mingles himself among the masses in order to lead them through every possible means to the final mokṣa. This is his Upāya, or to put it philosophically, the Saṃvṛti-side of things. Thus Buddha never deviates from the Middle Path.

(2) Middle Path

Jiaxiang Dashi distinguishes in the Sanlun xuanyi four aspects of Middle Path, which clearly show on what basis the Chinese Mādhyamika school stands.

They are: (1) Middle Path in contradistinction to one-sidedness; (2) Middle Path as the abnegation of one-sidedness; (3) Middle Path in the sense of Absolute Truth; (4) Middle Path as unity in plurality.

The philosophy of Being held by Hīnayānists and the philosophy of Non-being held by some Mahāyānists, both are one-sided and therefore imperfect, because the one cannot exist independently of the other. The philosophy which repudiates and avoids both extremes is to be called the doctrine of Middle Path.

A Middle Path therefore reveals itself when the two extremes are completely out of sight; in other words, the harmonization or unification of them leads to the perfect solution of existence. Neither the Āstika nor the Nāstika should be adhered to. They condition each other, and anything conditional means imperfection. So the transcending of one-sidedness constitutes the second aspect of the Middle Path.

But when we forget that the doctrin...

Table of contents

• Subvention
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction by Mark L. Blum
• Editorial Note
• Part One. Early Years
• Part Two. Ōtani Years
• Part Three. Mature Years
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index