Nihilists and Noble Ones: Ratnākaraśānti's Engagement with Nāgārjuna, Mādhyamikas, and the Mahāyāna in the Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti Público

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

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Religion
Subfield / Discipline	West and South Asian Religions
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Religion, Philosophy of Religion, General Religion, History of
Palavra-chave	Yogācāra Ratnākaraśānti Buddhist Philosophy Madhyamaka
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Sara McClintock, Emory University John Dunne, Emory University
Committee Members	Ellen Gough, Emory University

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