The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v9.c83: Dharmapāla (560)
The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v9.c83
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Dharmapāla (560)
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Hsüan-tsang, a Chinese who was in India during the sixth century, gives us what must be considered fairly solid information about this author. We are told by him that Dharmapāla "was born in Kāñcī (modern Conjeeveram) in South India as the eldest son of a high official; subsequently, fearing that he was to be forced to marry a daughter of the king, he fled to a monastery and later became a famous Vijñānavādin teacher in the monastic university of Nalandā in the North. In 559 A.D. at the age of twenty-nine he retired from Nalandā to meditate in Bodh Gaya, where he remained until his death in 561 A.D."
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Dharmapāla seems to have written a work on Vyākaraṇa (or Grammar). Aiyaswami Sastri identifies it as the Śabdavidyāsaṃyuktaśāstra in 25,000 ślokas. The Chinese title is Sheng ming za lun, and Tillemans finds Sastri's reconstruction "rather improbable".
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None of Dharmapāla's works survives in Sanskrit, and they are also unavailable in Tibetan. Bhavya criticized Dharmapāla in Chapter Five of his Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā-Tarkajvālā; see the summary above of that Chapter for a representation of Dharmapāla's view on the three-natures theory.
169. Dharmapāla, Vyākhyā on Dignāgas Ālambanaparīkṣā (560)
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Dharmapāla's commentary on the Ālambanaparīkṣā is not available in its entirety. The Chinese translation is T. 1625; it was translated by I Ching. The translation extends only up to the seventh verse. It is reconstructed into Sanskrit and translated into English by N. Aiyaswami Sastri in his edition and translation of the Ālambanaparīkṣā itself; this is our "E and T".
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(E21-23; T56-60) The Vaiśeṣikas say: "The five sense-organs cause to be constructed five sensory awarenesses of real external objects. The mental consciousness does not do so, for it concerns objects which though real are not actually confronted and which do not have a form matching the one grasped."
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But the truth so realized, although it appears perceptible, is actually only realized through meditation; it is not the object of reasoning (*tarka*). There can be no real object grasped by mental consciousness.
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Vaiśeṣika objection: The contents of mental perception are what is first grasped by sensory awarenesses.
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Answer: That is not possible. It cannot do so at the first moment, since the sense is grasping then; and at the next moment since the object which constitutes its content has vanished.
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Objection: Then mental consciousness naturally grasps external objects.
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Answer: Then nobody can be blind or deaf!
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In fact there is no actual supporting object at all. The supposed content is just the joint product of the force that is the sense together with consciousness. This cause is not itself a substance, though it concerns a substance.
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The Vaiśeṣikas conceptually construct atoms as the supporting objects. But an atom is imperceptible, so they think the double-atom (*dvyanuka*) is actually the supporting object, since it is capable of existing at the time of perception and is caused by atoms.
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(E23-30; T61-73) So, others (Vaibhāṣikas) say that aggregates of atoms are the objects of awareness, since our awareness is in the shape of the aggregate.
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Answer: This inference lacks an *sp*. Further, we do not recognize the *h*, since we do not believe there is any external thing called an "aggregate"
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Atoms by themselves cannot constitute the supporting-object-cause of awareness any more than the sense-organs by themselves can, since neither one has the form (*ākāra*) of consciousness So it is consciousness itself that both has that form and grasps it. It arises in a form which resembles the mind (or internal organ, *manas*) when there is coordination (*sārūpya*) between consciousness and the content-condition (*viṣayapratyaya*) Really there is no object apart from consciousness, yet there is in the preceding moment something having the form of the content, and when it becomes reflected in consciousness we say that
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consciousness has grasped it as its object. A double-atom does not represent a form reflected in consciousness, and so cannot be the supporting object
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Objection: Whatever is the cause, that is the object.
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Answer: Then the sense-organ can be the object!.
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So we must conclude that the mind is not only the cause but appears as well as both sense-organ and in the form of the supporting object. How could an atom be both the cause and the object? Atoms are not contents of consciousness, because they do not manifest a form in which they are cognized, like the visual organ.
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Objection: Your reason (in the just-formulated inference) is inconclusive, since your *h* has nothing to do with yours. Atoms have an indeterminate (*anirdhāraṇa*) nature, are neither by nature form-manifesting nor non-form-manifesting. Various causes conspire to produce consciousness.
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Answer: Though an atom functions as a cause it is not the content of consciousness.
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Objection: Then let the aggregate of atoms be the content.
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Answer: Though the aggregate has the form of consciousness it is not its cause, since an aggregate is not an actual thing, any more than the vision of a double moon seen by one with a diseased eye is a vision of two real moons. Indeed, such an error is a mental consciousness.
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A mental consciousness does not arise immediately following the occurrence of visual awareness and its supporting object, but the combined form of those two arises depending on the images of those two.
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A supporting object has two parts: the reflection of its own form and the causality of the consciousness of it. The atom is not what is reflected in form, and the aggregate is not what causes the consciousness.
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(E31-39; T73-86) Sautrāntika: It is the combined form of atoms that causes the consciousness and is the content as well. That is, each atom has a combined form (of the four great elements) as well as an atomie form (single), just all things are commonsensically seen to be constituted of parts and yet single entities themselves.
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Answer: Then, since all atoms are composed of the same four great elements there would be no difference between them!
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Objection: Atoms may differ in other ways.
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Answer: Well, atoms have no parts, are very subtle, have precisely the same size, so how could they differ? But since aggregates have parts they must be unreal anyway, since they cannot grow or diminish in size, etc. So our ideas of the differences between pots, cups, etc. are as empty of real objects as are our feelings of satisfaction and frustration. That they are empty is shown by the following: One sees a pot; atoms of the pot are removed gradually; the result is we do not see a pot any more. Likewise, an army disappears when its component soldiers leave or are killed.
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Question: So what is it that we see?
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Answer: A form internal to consciousness itself that appears as if it were external. There are no external things. That part of an object which appears to exist externally is actually a part of consciousness itself, the part we speak of as "grasped" part. Consciousness has two parts, then.
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Objection: How can that part of consciousness, arising simultaneously with it, be itself a condition for consciousness.
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Answer: The knowable aspect of one awareness gives rise to another awareness.
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170. DHARMAPALA, *Vrtti on Aryadeva's Catuḥśataka (560)*
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The Chinese title of this work is *Guang bai lun shi lun*; translated by Hsüan-tsang, it constitutes T. 1571 and is not available in either Sanskrit or Tibetan. It is actually a commentary on the last eight chapters of the *Catuḥśataka*. There is a Japanese translation by N. Endo published in *Kokuyaku Issaikyo*.
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Tom J. F. Tillemans has translated two chapters of this work corresponding to Chapters 12 and 13 of our summary of Aryadeva's work published in Volume 8 of this Encyclopedia. We provide below a summary of those two Chapters, made entirely on the basis of the translation, referred to as T. A few sentences are translated by Giuseppe Tucci and Louis de la Vallee Poussin. Several passages in which Dharmapāla criticizes Bhavya are translated and studied in Yuichi Kajiyama, *Bhāvaviveka, Sthiramati and Dharmapāla*, Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens 12-13, 1968-69, pp. 200-203.
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Summary by Karl H. Potter
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CHAPTER FOUR (on Chapter Twelve of the *Catuḥśataka*)
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(T87-90) 1-4. A person needs three qualities to be a vessel for the dharma: unbiased gentleness, untiring application, and natural intelligence. If he lacks these he will not achieve understanding even with
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the help of a teacher. Outsiders understand nothing even if they should happen to hear the truth. This is not the Buddha's fault.
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The outsiders agree that liberation is a state where only the self remains free from bondage, inactive and indifferent. For us, though, liberation is not just the elimination of possessions but the very emptiness of the self itself, whereas you say that the self remains existent in liberation. This emptiness never ceases. Thus the outsiders will never realize liberation.
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(T90-93) 5. though they may say a few things that are true.
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Objection: The *Tripitaka* contains a number of incorrect claims, such as concern miracles, the Buddha's remarkable magical abilities, and that despite being free of desire he is still reborn, e.g., as a householder.
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Answer: If factors really occurred there might arise such doubts. But the Buddha teaches one thing only: emptiness. Factors are all either contents of thought or meant by words. But one object can produce at the same time many different thoughts, so factors do not correspond to one external object. As for words, they indicate universal properties, and universals are shared by many different factors, so are just nominal designations. The emptiness of factors is their. characterlessness; thus emptiness is a characteristic, but not a distinct entity.
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(T93-101) 6-10. Since outsiders are wrong about things in this world, they are likely to be wrong about the next. E.g., Vaiśeṣikas believe that there are an infinite number of limited universals (*sāmānyaviśeṣa*) which are perceptible by the senses. But cowness, horseness, etc. are actually nominal designations comprised of colors and the like. Since they are entirely present in each of their loci it is like inherence itself, which is entirely present in each of its loci and is imperceptible to the senses; thus cowness, horseness, etc. must also be imperceptible to the senses. Likewise, substances are conceptual constructions from factors like color and so are not directly perceptible, despite what the Vaiśeṣika claims, because awarenesses of substances arise from what are classed as their
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Tillemans uses this term to identify what Lang in her summary of Aryadeva's work calls "hypocritical philosophers". Tillemans says these outsiders include Pūrṇa Kāśyapa, Maskarin Gośāliputra, Ajita Keśakambalin, Kakuda Kātyāyana, Nirgrantha Jñātiputra and Saṃjayin Vairaṭiputra. But it is evident below that Dharmapāla uses the word to cover nonBuddhist philosophers as well.
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qualities (or motions) such as blue, etc. Awareness of things belonging to the other Vaiśeṣika categories are also not directly perceptible, for the same reason.
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The Sāmkhyas say that there are real things comprised of the three guṇas and that they are perceptible. But again they can only be nominal designations; they cannot really exist, since sattva, say, is found in many things. Also, since each guṇa has a distinct essential nature different from the others' how could they combine?
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Objection: Each of the three guṇas has the properties of all three, so we perceive them as constituting one thing.
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Answer: Then how could we ever know that the three are different from each other? And why should a combination of them produce anything else, say, a single thing, different from all three?
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(T101-102) 11. A sūtra says: "It is better to break moral discipline than to destroy the correct view." By moral discipline one gets a good rebirth; by the correct view one gains liberation.
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(T102-104) 12. Objection: If people hear that selflessness is the nature of all factors they will be led to nihilism, anticausality, etc.
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Answer: That's because their views are at fault; it is not a defect in the doctrine of selflessness.
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Objection: If the Buddha teaches emptiness to dispel erroneous grasping it will lead people to grasp all factors as empty.
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Answer: True. So the Buddha also teaches that factors exist.
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Objection: So which is true?
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Answer: Neither; it is beyond conceptualization.
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Objection: Then the Buddha should not teach emptiness for the most part, since both emptiness and nonemptiness are equivalently true or false.
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Answer: It is because people most often grasp at existence that the Buddha for the most part preaches emptiness. All language is metaphorical.
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(T108-111) 18-22. The shrewd ancient Brahmins invented the Vedas and passed them off as beginningless. But the Vedas are language and thus not natural entities, and the Brahmin caste is not worth venerating, since Brahmins beg for alms just as lepers do. Jain outsiders (= the "naked ascetics" of the summary of Aryadeva's text) are just bewildered. They are respected because they know a little about astronomy and can interpret birds, dreams and fortunes. People pity the Jains because they inflict suffering on themselves, but suffering is karmic
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retribution like caste status and is not a cause of liberation.
Chapter FIVE (Chapter Thirteen of Catuḥśataka)
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(T135-138) 1-4. The argument is directed at Sāmkhya. Since its tradition holds that each sense organ grasps only one kind of content, one cannot directly perceive e.g. a pot.
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(T145-147) 8-9. Vaiśeṣika: One can only see substances when they have the qualities of large size and color.
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Answer: But shapes (such as "large size") don't exist when divided and colors cannot be seen. What is the cause of color? Perhaps you say: a substance. Then you should be able to see substances separately, but you cannot. Perhaps you say: colorness. But since colorness is a universal everything should be visible. Perhaps you say: colorness is a limited universal. We have refuted this previously. Colorness cannot be seen with the eyes since it is all-pervasive. One cannot see two different things, a color and its colorness.
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(T148-149) 10. Tillemans explains Dharmapāla's interpretation of this verse (which is different from the interpretation found in our summary of Catuḥśataka): "If substances existed we would have to be able to see that they undergo change, but in fact we see nothing of the sort."
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Outsiders and other Buddhist schools can be refuted simply thus: Objects must either be resistant or not. If they are resistant they are divisible, and thus not substantially existent. If they are not resistant they are not existent either, like flowers in the sky.
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(T150-155) 11. Since the five sense organs are said by other Buddhists to have the same constituents, viz., subtle matter derived from the four great elements, how is it that only the eyes, say, can see and not the nose?
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Objector: It is because people have different karma. One karmic trace has many powers.
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Answer: Then why not just say that one act produces many different sense organs!
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Objection: Action (karma) produces traces (vāsanā) which later produce different kinds of awarenesses.
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Answer: Then that should happen in the immaterial realm too.
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Objection: No. In the immaterial realm one is without desire for material things, so visual, etc. consciousness doesn't arise there.
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Answer: But though one has become desireless the seeds of senseconsciousnesses are not necessarily destroyed. Actually, sense-organs are themselves the transformations (*pariṇāma*) of karmic traces, and consciousness conforms to these transformations: it is these transformations which are mistaken for manifest existent entities in the world. Of course, this itself is not the highest truth. The highest truth about karma is inconceivable; only the Buddha understands it. This is proved in the following way: The eye does not see, nor the ear hear, etc., because they are themselves elemental and the effects of karma.
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(T155-156) 12 is directed at Sāṃkhya, which teaches that the mind understands what the senses apprehend. But does the sensory act precede the mental one or are they simultaneous? Neither is possible, as the verse says.
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(T160-162) 17. Vaiśeṣika: Verses 13-16, addressed to Sāṃkhya, accost them because for them the sense organs are made of the same stuff (*prakṛti*) as their objects. But we differentiate organs from objects--each sense is composed of a distinct substance, and sees things made of certain specific substances.
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Answer: Still, your sense organs and your objects are both substances, so they can't very well see substances--they see qualities, according to you. You say that perception involves fourfold contact between the organ, the form/color/matter/object, the internal organ and the self. But (as the verse states) these things, lacking the necessary functions, cannot produce perception, since even when in contact they are no different than when apart.
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Abhidharmika: How so? When in contact they constitute sight.
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Answer: Do you mean that when together they are no longer what they were? Then they are not organ, form, and self by nature as you yourself hold they are. Two things cannot both be the same and different.
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(T162-164) 18. (Dharmapāla's understanding here seems to be different from the reading adopted in our summary of Catuḥśataka.) If linguistic sounds do not refer how can they produce awareness?
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Objection: It is because a mental consciousness (*manovijñāna*) arises whose content is a universal property.
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Answer: But by the time this mental consciousness arises the sound and the auditory awareness have ceased.
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Objector: Still, one remembers those previous events.
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Answer: But then the memory has as its content those events, Aryadeva's universal property. Anyway, a memory(-event) cannot recall more than one thing, e.g., it cannot recall both a sound and an auditory
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awareness.
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(T167-168) 21. If the mind lacks sense organs its going to the object would be useless. Also, if the mind goes out to the object the self must remain mindless, which is absurd.
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(T171-172) 23-24. Objection: Illusions are real, not false.
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Answer: What we mean by saying that things are illusory is that when one analyzes them properly one finds that factors are nonexistent, empty. Lots of things about the world are difficult to understand: how one mental act can produce endless different results, how a plant can grow, how a woman's body should cause arousal, etc. (ten things in all that are difficult to understand).
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171. DHARMAPALA, *Vrtti* on Aryadeva's *Śataśāstra* (560)
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Title in Chinese by Hsuan-tsang as Ta-ch'eng Kuang Pai-lun Shih lun this work is found as T. 1571 (our "E"). John P. Keenan has translated Chapter Ten of the work as *Dharmapāla's Yogācāra Critique of Bhāvaviveka's Mādhyamika Explanation of Emptiness* (Studies in Asian Thought and Religion 20: Lewiston 1997), pp. 67-126, and introduced the translation with a helpful Introductory study. The translation is our "T". Since Chapter Ten of the *Sataka* is the same as Chapter Sixteen of Aryadeva's *Catuḥśataka*, translated by Karen Lang and summarized by her on pp. 213-215 of Volume Seven of this Encyclopedia, we provide the numbering of the passages in that work for easy reference
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The summary that follows is made entirely and solely on the basis of the translation (T).
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Summary by Karl H. Potter
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1 (E242c21-243b16; T67-72) Objection: If all things are empty, how can we even speak about them?
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Answer: That is so from the standpoint of highest truth (*paramārthasatya*); still we can speak about them from the lower standpoint.
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2 Objection: If the speaker and what he is speaking about exist then emptiness cannot be the case.
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Answer: Since everything is causally conditioned neither the speaker, his words or their meanings exist. Or on another (the Yogācāra)
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interpretation the speaker, words and meanings are only consciousness and established conventionally, so do not exist ultimately. To be dependent on other things is what we mean by "empty".
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3 Now we have already refuted nonemptiness On preceding Chapters), so you can't prove nonemptiness merely by refuting emptiness.
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4 In order to disprove the theses of others one must prove one's own view.
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Objection: Then "emptiness" and "no self" do not mean anything!
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Answer: Precisely!
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5 (E243b21-243c24; T72-76) Thus our "theses" are merely provisional. In order to refute the positions of others we establish a thesis; once that is done, however, our own thesis has to be given up.
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Indeed, we shape our theses by basing ourselves on the opinions of others.
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6 Objection: Even so, your thesis that all things are empty is clearly wrong, since pots, etc. are clearly perceived to exist in the world.
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Answer: No. We do not accept that standard view that inference depends on perception, since pots, etc. are not directly perceived, as we have shown in preceding sections of this work.
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7 Objection: If nonemptiness does not exist, what is the argument for emptiness? It doesn't exist either!
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Answer: (7b) If you do not establish emptiness nonemptiness cannot be proved either.
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But the emptiness of which we speak serves only to dispel wrong notions, not to establish an alternative to it. Contrasts are found in things in the world, not in emptiness. In parallel fashion, for example, we argue for momentariness (impermanence) in order to refute eternalism, not to establish momentariness.
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8 (E244a5-15; T76-77) If there is no thesis of nonexistence then the thesis of existence cannot be proved.
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Objection: Then how can the things we perceive have different qualities, e.g., as fire has heat?
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9 Both fire and heat are conventional., not ultimately real.
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10 (E244a15-244b14; T77-80) Objection: If things really have no being what does emptiness refute? Emptiness is the opposite of being, so things must exist.
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If so, each of the four incompatible alternatives of the catuṣkoṭi must be true! You cannot seriously affirm that what is refuted actually exists; if it were so, there would be no error, only truth!
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11 Objection: If everything is nonexistent nothing is born and nothing dies.
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Answer: When have the Buddhas said that things do not really exist?
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Indeed, the Buddha explicitly said (In the Kāśyapaparivarta) that what lies between being and nonbeing cannot be asserted or denied. Talk of things is only conventional.
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12 (244b15-246a9) (T81-93) Objection: If nothing either exists or fails to exist why do you talk of conventional existence?
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Answer: Since you yourself believe it, why do you ask?
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13 Objection: If nothing exists then differences wouldn't exist either.
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Answer: It is clinging to existence that causes you to differentiate things.
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14 Objection: If things don't exist, an argument for that doesn't exist either!
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Answer: We've given the argument above.
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15 Objection: Refutation is easy; proof is hard.
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Answer: Just the reverse: establishing emptiness is easy, refuting it hard.
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16-17 Objection: The fact that we have the term "being" shows that things cannot actually be nonexistent.
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Answer: By the same reasoing, the fact that we have the word "nothing" shows that things cannot be existent.
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18 Everything we can speak of is only conventional.
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19 Objection: That is nihilism.
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Answer: No, we are merely removing false opinions.
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20 Objection: If you reject the nonbeing of reality you must accept the being of reality.
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Since both being and nonbeing do not really exist, reality is neither.
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The following objection to what has just been said ("reality is neither") has two possible interpretations.
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Interpretation One: What is under discussion is only conventional nonbeing, not something else, real nonbeing.
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T identifies this alternative interpretation in parentheses as that of Yogācāra.
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Answer: No. Nobody claims that a real nonbeing exists. That would be an affirmation.
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Interpretation Two: After one has achieved insight he never sees the conventional again, and that is what "reality is neither" intends.
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Answer: What it that is realized upon insight? Not "reality", since that is already "realized" in language and thought. And if what is referred to is an independent reality (the Absolute?! ) then it should not be held that everything is only constructions. Furthermore, scriptures tell us that to see reality is not to see anything.
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21 Objection: If one proves emptiness through an argument about being, then (since that argument itself is not empty) emptiness cannot be established.
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Answer: Since both a thesis and an argument are empty our argument has no basis in what exists. They are conventional.
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22 Objection: Moreover, an example (dṛṣṭānta) must either exist or not exist. If it exists then something exists, and if it does not exist it cannot prove anything, e.g., that all things are empty.
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Answer: The example is conventional too.
v9.c83.s1.t1.80
23' (246a15-247a3) (T94-101) Objection: Even if it is so, that everything is empty, what value is there in knowing that?
v9.c83.s1.t1.81
Answer: Meditating on emptiness can get one rid of his constructing of what was not (abhūtaparikalpa).
v9.c83.s1.t1.82
Objection: What is this constructing of what was not?
v9.c83.s1.t1.83
Answer: All awarenesses (citta) and associated mental factors (caitta). Though all such are empty, yet through imagining what is actually unreal we engender the appearances of defilements or purifications in beings as in dreams.
v9.c83.s1.t1.84
With some trepidation we provide Keenan's attempt to interpret this at T, p. 89, note 31: "Here the point seems to be that, even though one makes conventional and independently reasoned statements, and refutes naive affirmations of being, this does not entail another affirmation within that same context of being. Rather it entails an awareness of the disappearance of the entire horizon in which conventional affirmations and negations occur."
v9.c83.s1.t1.85
Keenan in T considers this the beginning of "Part II: The Yogācāra Perspective".
v9.c83.s1.t1.86
Objection: Activity requires a real agent. If it were not so, a hare's horn could function! So, since passions and good roots are nonexistent (according to you) and beings are still defiled and purified, people could have been liberated from their passions and still be subject to rebirth, and those without good roots could be liberated!
v9.c83.s1.t1.87
Answer (by a Svātantrika, according to T): Conventional things are not nonexistent.
v9.c83.s1.t1.88
Objection to the Svātantrika: It is contradictory to say that something both exists and does not exist.
v9.c83.s1.t1.89
Svātantrika: The same factor can be real qua relating to no object and conventional qua relating to an object. Likewise, for example, one and the same giving can be bad because contaminated and good because associated with the good roots.
v9.c83.s1.t1.90
Objection to the Svātantrika: But the two truths do not differ in their object. Rather, they differ as to the time of their functioning.
v9.c83.s1.t1.91
Svātantrika: Though occurring at the same time a thing can have one function and not another So (consciousness) is spoken of as "self" conventionally because of our attachment, but as "no self" from the ultimate standpoint. Any thing exists as itself ("the highest standpoint") but does "not exist" being dependent on others ("the conventional standpoint").
v9.c83.s1.t1.92
Answer to the Svātantrika: Nevertheless it is the same thing that is both conventional and real. The two truths were taught because of two different ways of cognizing, one through language and the other free from language.
v9.c83.s1.t1.93
(247a6-248b25) (T101-114) Dharmapāla : But direct perceptions as dependently originated cannot be described in language, so are not conventional truths, being nonlinguistic.
v9.c83.s1.t1.94
(Bhavya) : So there must be a third "truth" (the dependent
v9.c83.s1.t1.95
Identification of the participants in the following debate are provisional: we take our cue from Keenan, but without much conviction. (Keenan himself appears a bit unsure here: note 54, p. 103 begins "If I have interpreted the flow of the argumentation correctly...)!
v9.c83.s1.t1.96
Keenan points out that the text never identifies the opponent in what follow, but gives copious evidence that it is in fact Bhavya's views which are being considered.
v9.c83.s1.t1.97
(paratantra truth) neither conventional (since nonlinguistic) nor ultimate (since dependently originated).
v9.c83.s1.t1.98
Dharmapāla: If your position is that this "third truth" of perceptions is a variety of the conventional we are ready to accept that, since it is only on such a basis that the statements (alluded to above) about defilement and purification can have meaning.
v9.c83.s1.t1.99
(Bhavya): If that means that these things do not exist at all then, since nonconstructive wisdom could never arise at all, we object. Although the dependently originated perceptions are not themselves real, still they do manifest real things, even though ultimately those things do not exist.
v9.c83.s1.t1.100
Dharmapāla: Then you must know what ultimate truth is! But one cannot conceive the highest truth, since its content is undifferentiated and cannot be analyzed. So words cannot refer to ultimately real things.
v9.c83.s1.t1.101
(Bhavya): But if so how can language engender the activities of defilement and purification?
v9.c83.s1.t1.102
Dharmapāla: That is why we take the position that the construction of what was not is able to bind beings to the world, and that by suppressing it one can practic a path to realize emptiness. If it were nothing at all it couldn't bind anything to defilement, etc. That is, our position is that the dependent nature, by which we refer not to names (that is the constructed nature) but to things, does actually exist.
v9.c83.s1.t1.103
Bhavya: That is wrong. If names like objects arise from conditions they too must exist. Why do you say that one exists and the other doesn't?
v9.c83.s1.t1.104
Dharmarāja: The *Bhavasaṃkrāntisūtra* (quoted) reads as follows:
v9.c83.s1.t1.105
Here is Keenan's explanation of this obscure passage: Bhāvaviveka is trying to draw from Dharmapāla's contention that what is directly perceived is not included in worldly convention the implication that it must then be included in the truth of ultimate meaning, which is impossible, he argues, because then it would have no activity whatsoever saince the ultimate wisdom of awakening is beyond conventional objects. Bhāvaviveka would by contrast hold that since the conventional does exist as it appears, his position does not entail such a logical conundrum." (T, p. 103, note 54).
v9.c83.s1.t1.106
"We describe various things through the various names we establish. But the nature of things is such that those (names) essentially do not exist." You read the last line as "...that those objects do not exist". But you are wrong: names can only indicate common characteristics of things, not their individuating features. Common characteristics do not exist, while individuating features do. That is why this passage can only be read in the way we have given, not in your way.
v9.c83.s1.t1.107
Bhavya: The Buddha himself says that there are no essential natures.
v9.c83.s1.t1.108
Dharmarāja: The underlying meaning (*neyārtha*) of his words denies only dependent nature; they do not mean that everything is nonexistent.
v9.c83.s1.t1.109
Quotations from Buddhist literature are appealed to by both sides. (248c7-249a7) (T114-118) Objection: What kind of wisdom has dependence as its pattern?
v9.c83.s1.t1.110
Answer: It is worldly wisdom purified by conceptfree (*nirvikalpaka*) wisdom. Otherwise it could not have any effect in reality. If it could impossiblile do so because its object is constructed, then false judgments would lead to successful activity.
v9.c83.s1.t1.111
Objection: Anyway, your position is inconsistent with your own (*Yogācāra*) texts. They say that both ordinary folk and sages can have dependent awareness, not just the latter.
v9.c83.s1.t1.112
Answer: What happens is that awarenesses and mental concomitants arise from causes and conditions--the evolutions of consciousness--and we become aware of ourselves (*svasaṃvitti*) and of factors such as names, etc. as if they were external objects. But those objects are totally imagined and cannot be the supporting conditions (*ālambanapratyaya*) of our awarenesses. So they are not the contents of dependent awarenesses.
v9.c83.s1.t1.113
Objection: If the awarenesses and mental concomitant arising from causal conditions are merely imagined and everything is without an essential nature, how can they bind beings into transmigration?
v9.c83.s1.t1.114
Answer: Aryadeva surely supports our interpretation. Otherwise he would not have said that insight gained through realizing emptiness can terminate the bondage through construction of what was not. We can't actually see horns on a hare, but we can imagine them and come to reject the image. So, awareness and mental concomitants exist, but objects external to the mind do not.
v9.c83.s1.t1.115
(249a11-249c6) (T118-123) More quotations from scripture are offered to support this interpretation. The position defended here is summarily stated (249b28)
v9.c83.s1.t1.116
Wise men say there are three kinds of mental contents: those that can be spoken of and have features, those that are ineffable but have features, and those ineffable and without features. The first involves language, the second has a propensity toward language but no cognizance of language, and the third involves neither awareness of language not any propensity toward it.
v9.c83.s1.t1.117
24-25 (249c13-250a22) (T123-126) Reality can be neither one nor many. and all theses, like these, are likewise only true from the conventional standpoint.
v9.c83.s1.t1.118
172. DHARMAPALA, Commentary on Vasubandhu's *Trimśikā* (560)
v9.c83.s1.t1.119
Dharmapāla is regularly credited with a work, famous in China, entitled *Cheng wei shi lun* and referred to often as *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi*, supposed to have been translated by Hsüan-tsang into Chinese and available as T. 1591. However, as Tillemans points out, this is not an Indian text at all, but "a work by Hsüan-tsang himself...as a compilation of various Indian Vijñānavāda masters' thought". It "relied especially heavily on Dharmapāla's commentary to the *Trimśikā*, very possibly because Dharmapāla was himself the teacher of (Hsüan-tsang)'s guru, Śīlabhadra.", 13 Cf. Bibliography, Third Edition, p. 224 for some references.
Cites (7)
- Catuḥśataka — Āryadeva, Sanskrit
- Bhavasaṅkrāntisūtra — Sanskrit
- Ālambanaparīkṣā — Dignāga, Sanskrit
- Veda — Sanskrit
- Śataśāstra — Āryadeva, Classical Chinese
- Kāśyapaparivarta — Sanskrit
- Triṃśikā — Abhinavagupta, Sanskrit