Nihilists and Noble Ones: Ratnākaraśānti's Engagement with Nāgārjuna, Mādhyamikas, and the Mahāyāna in the Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti Open Access
McNamara, Daniel (Summer 2019)
Abstract
This dissertation engages an important philosophical text by the Indian Buddhist scholar-saint Ratnākaraśānti (c. 970-1045 CE). While Ratnākaraśānti was a towering intellectual force in his own place and time, he came to be a controversial figure in Tibet. As a result, his sophisticated presentation of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path has only recently received significant attention in contemporary scholarship, and a great deal of confusion remains regarding his overall philosophical commitments as well as his specific positions and argument. This dissertation sets out to clear away some of this confusion, in both a specific and a general sense. Specifically, it offers a close reading of some of Ratnākaraśānti’s central arguments against competing Buddhist philosophical systems. More generally, this dissertation identifies and explicates Ratnākaraśānti’s underlying project—which is to present a unified view of Mahāyāna Buddhism which takes Maitreya as the primary philosophical interpreter. This explication is intended in part to explain just why Ratnākaraśānti’s thought has proven so difficult for scholars to interpret.
The bulk of this dissertation consists in a partial study of one of Ratnākaraśānti’s major philosophical works—entitled Proving the Middle Path: A Commentary on the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti Madhyamāpratipad-siddhi). The sections treated here are primarily concerned with Ratnākaraśānti’s criticisms of the Madhyamaka tenet system, a major strand of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy that became overwhelmingly dominant in Tibet shortly after his lifetime. Because of this dominance, there are very few examples of sustained argumentation against Madhyamaka—or, more precisely, against Mādhyamika thinkers. Proving the Middle Path therefore provides a valuable case study for the content and underlying structures of these arguments. Building on these criticisms, this dissertation argues that Ratnākaraśānti has proven so difficult to understand primarily because his works are in tension with overwhelmingly prevalent presuppositions about Nāgārjuna, Madhyamaka, and Indian Mahāyāna. This has led Ratnākaraśānti to seem inscrutable—not because of any failing on the part of his own scholarship, but rather due to a failure to appreciate his perspectives on Mahāyāna Buddhism, Madhyamaka philosophy, and the figure of Nāgārjuna.
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................ 1
Aim and Scope of the Work........................................................................................................ 1
Point of Departure: A Doxographical Conundrum..................................................................... 4
The Four Schools in the MAV and MAU................................................................................... 6
Ratnākaraśānti on the “Agreement” Between Yogācāra and Madhyamaka............................. 10
The Text and its Editions.......................................................................................................... 16
Outline of the Dissertation........................................................................................................ 24
Chapter One: Situating the Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti in its Historical and Doctrinal Contexts 28
Introduction............................................................................................................................... 28
Part I: Historical Background.................................................................................................... 29
Tracing the Fissure in Mahāyāna: Asaṅga, Bhāviveka, and Dharmapāla................................. 29
Śāntarakṣita’s Solution to the Fissure: Madhyamakālaṃkāra as Precedent, Opponent, and Foil for Ratnākaraśānti’s MAV 33
Part II: Theoretical Background................................................................................................ 40
Imagination of the Unreal, Emptiness, and the Three Natures................................................. 46
Dharmakīrti and Pramāṇa Discourse......................................................................................... 52
Chapter Two: Clarifying Nāgārjuna’s Intent: Two Truths, Three Natures, and the Yogācāra Background of the MAV (verses 1-4). 60
Introduction............................................................................................................................... 60
The Opening Verses of the MAV.............................................................................................. 63
Sources for Ratnākaraśānti’s Interpretation of Nāgārjuna........................................................ 73
The Middle Path and the Three Natures in the MAV............................................................... 75
Citations of Nāgārjuna in the MAV.......................................................................................... 77
The MAV’s Presentation of the Two Truths............................................................................. 90
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 94
Chapter Three: Ornamenting Madhyamaka: Refutations of Pseudo-Mādhyamika Accounts of Causality and Temporality (MAV verses 5–12).. 96
Introduction: Framing Ratnākaraśānti’s Concerns.................................................................... 96
Overview of the Two Main Pseudo-Mādhyamika Positions.................................................... 99
Verse Five: The Opening Critique of Those Who Say All is False........................................ 101
Verse Six: Engaging Pseudo-Mādhyamikas Who Say Nothing Exists................................... 105
Descriptions of Pseudo-Mādhyamikas at MMK XXIV.18..................................................... 109
Detailed Refutation of the Sarvālīkavāda............................................................................... 112
Correcting the Three Mādhyamikas’ Accounts of Non-arising.............................................. 119
A Nāgārjunian Critique of Śāntarakṣita.................................................................................. 121
Chapter Four: Relating Unreal Phenomena to their Real Nature (MAV verses 13–20) 130
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 130
Verse Thirteen: Appearance, Non-Arising, and the Middle Way........................................... 133
Equating Imputation (*samāropa) with the Imagined Nature................................................ 136
Relating Unreal Phenomena to Their Real Nature.................................................................. 139
Existence, Error, and Conceptuality........................................................................................ 141
A Necessary Excursus: Dharmakīrti on Internal Cognitive Distortion................................... 144
Ratnākaraśānti on Error and Conceptuality............................................................................ 148
Further Distinguishing Unreal Blue from Real Awareness.................................................... 151
Verse Seventeen: Ranākaraśānti’s Solution............................................................................ 160
Ordinary Experience: Carving “Blue” Out of Awareness...................................................... 164
Conclusions............................................................................................................................. 169
Chapter Five: Final Criticisms: MAV verses 21–22 and Later Passages.... 171
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 171
MAV 21: Avoiding the Neither-One-Nor-Many Argument................................................... 174
First Critique: Nature (ngo bo) and the Neither-One-Nor-Many Argument........................... 174
Second Critique: Self-Nature (bdag nyid) and the Neither-One-Nor-Many Argument.......... 178
Ratnākaraśānti’s Corrective.................................................................................................... 180
MAV 22: Condensed Refutation of Pseudo-Mādhyamika..................................................... 181
First Argument: Pseudo-Mādhyamikas Cannot Offer Evidence............................................. 186
Second Arguments: Pseudo-Mādhyamikas Cannot Offer a Subject....................................... 193
Third Argument: Refuting Those Who Say that Nothing Exists............................................ 198
Fourth Argument: Refuting *Sarvāstivādins........................................................................... 200
Fifth Argument: Engaging the Third Type of Mādhyamika................................................... 206
Ratnākaraśānti’s Own View of How Phenomena are Like Illusions...................................... 210
Concluding Notes: Madhyamaka, Mādhyamikas, and the Mahāyāna........ 213
Ratnākaraśānti’s “Definitive Explanation” of the Middle Way.............................................. 213
Nihilists and Noble Ones: Troubling the Madhyamaka-Yogācāra Typology......................... 215
Appendix: English Translations of Selections from Proving the Middle Path: A Commentary on the Ornament of the Middle Way.. 219
Passage One: Verses One Through Twenty-Two with their Commentary............................. 219
Passage Two: MAV on Yuktiṣaṣṭikā verse 34 (ad. MAV verses 33-34)................................ 232
Passage Three: The Two Truths (ad. MAV verses 42-44)...................................................... 233
Passage Four: Concluding Sections........................................................................................ 234
Works Cited........................................................................................... 237
Primary Texts.......................................................................................................................... 237
Translations and Secondary Literature.................................................................................... 237
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