Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy after Nagarjuna. Plain English Translations and Summaries ofthe Essential Works of Aryadeva, Rahulabhadra, Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka

358 Pages·2011·0.94 MB·English

by  Richard H. Jones (Translator)

INDIAN MADHYAMAKA
BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
AFTER NAGARJUNA
Volume 1
__________
Plain English
Translations and Summaries
of the Essential Works of
Aryadeva, Rahulabhadra,
Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka
__________
Translated and Summarized
by
Richard H. Jones
Jackson Square Books
New York
2011
Distributed by www.createspace.com

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright © 2011 Richard H. Jones

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Indian Madhyamaka Buddhism after Nagarjuna / translations with
commentaries by Richard H. Jones
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1460969892
ISBN-10: 1460969898
1. M~~
Contents
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
I. Translations
Aryadeva,
The Hand Treatise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Four Hundred Verses on Yogic Deeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Summary of One Hundred Verses and its Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Rahulabhadra, A Song in Praise of Perfected Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Buddhapalita, Summaries of Selections fromCommentary on Nagarjuna’s
Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Bhavaviveka, Summary of the Meaning of the Middle Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Selections from Verses on the Heart of the Middle Way . . . . . . . . . . . 146
II. Commentaries
The Death of Aryadeva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Buddhapalita’s Contribution to Madhyamaka Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Bhavavevika’s Innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
References and Other Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
211
iii
Abbreviations
CS — Aryadeva’s The Four Hundred Verses (Catuh-shataka-shastra-
karikanama)

HVNP — Aryadeva’s Hand Treatise (Hasta-vala-nama-prakarana)

MAS — Bhavaviveka’s Summary of the Meaning of the Middle Way
(Madhyamaka-artha-samgraha)

MHK — Bhavaviveka’s Verses on the Heart of the Middle Way
(Madhyamakahrdaya-karikas)

MK — Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamaka-
karikas)

MKV — Buddhapalita’s Commentary on Nagarjuna’s Fundamental
Verses on the Middle Way (Mula-Madhyamaka-karika-vritti)

R — Nagarjuna’s Jewel Garland of Advice (Ratnavali)

SS — Aryadeva’s One Hundred Verses (Shataka-shastra)

SSK — Nagarjuna’s Seventy Verses on Emptiness (Shunyata-saptati-karikas)

VP — Nagarjuna’s Pulverizing the Categories (Vaidalya-prakarana)

VV — Nagarjuna’s Overturning the Objections (Vigraha-vyavartanti)
YS — Nagarjuna’s Sixty Verses on Argument (Yukti-shashtikas)
iv
Preface
This book is the first of two companion volumes to my
Nagarjuna: Buddhism’s Most Important Philosopher (Jones 2010). It presumes
that the reader
is familiar with the earlier book and will contain no independent discussion
of Nagarjuna. Rather, it presents the developments of the Madhyamaka
tradition in India after Nagarjuna. The texts selected for inclusion here begin
with authors alive during Nagarjuna’s lifetime (Aryadeva and perhaps
Rahulabhadra) and continue with the most prominent authors of the next few
centuries (Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka). The next volume will contain
selections of the works of the most prominent authors in the culmination of
Indian Madhyamaka thought: Chandrakirti and Shantideva.
As with the earlier book, the translations from Sanskrit here are
attempts to make the works understandable to members of the general public
who are interested in philosophy. They are not literal translations designed
for scholars in Buddhist studies. The basic texts, unlike their commentaries,
were pithy because they were designed to be chantedand memorized (and
they are still chanted and memorized today). Many texts were also not
written down for a long time, and so they were intentionally kept short and
rhythmic to make transmission easier. Longer texts with more explanations
would have been helpful for us today, but the workswere never meant to be
understood independently of a teacher or a tradition’s commentary — it was
understood independently of a teacher or a tradition’s commentary — it was
understood that there would be a teacher there explaining the lines more
fully. Extensive commentaries were usually only recorded later. The texts
often repeat the same word or a variation of it more than once in a verse or
a passage to make memorization easier. Mostly the basic texts are in one
standardized form: verses of four lines of eight syllables each. But this means
making the number of syllables fit the meter count, and that leads to
problems for understanding the text: some lines are very condensed
thoughts, while others contain some extra words thrown only in to keep the
meter correct. Sometimes there is no verb in a line but only nouns and
ancillary words. That the listeners would share a common philosophical
background and thus already know the meaning of many of the technical
words also made it less necessary for the authors to expand their thoughts.
v
vi
Indian Madhyamaka Buddhism After Nagarjuna
In many lines, a pronoun is used to refer to a word in a previous verse or to
something that the listener has been told but that the translator must now
supply — sometimes even a pronoun is omitted.
The objective here is to glean the philosophical content of the works and
present it in an intelligible fashion for the reader today — if some of the
original author’s style is preserved, so much the better, but that is not the
original author’s style is preserved, so much the better, but that is not the
goal. As with the earlier book, the basic works have been reformatted here
from a series of verses into sentences and paragraphs grouped as the
subjectmatter dictates. This makes the texts much easier to follow and
understand.
Changing the grammar and syntax (e.g., changing a passive voice to active)
also helps clarify the meaning. Translations that attempt to follow rigidly the
form and word order of the works end up stilted. For many translations, the
reader still has to be able to look at the originalSanskrit in order to understand
what the translator is saying — and in that case, what is the point of the
translation at all? Attempts to modernize the works — e.g., translating a
word that means “unreasonable” or “unacceptable” as “illogical” or “logically
contradictory” or “logically impossible” — have beenresisted because of the
danger that they distort the original works and mislead the modern reader.
(One concession has been to change the experientialflavor of verbs denoting
“is not found’ or “it not seen” to the bare ontological claim “does not exist.”)
Certainly, overtly reading in contemporary philosophy and science into
premodern texts has been avoided.
But if something can be said in one language, it should be translatable
into another, even if the translation must be longer to make what was being
said in the original intelligible in another language. What Ludwig Wittgenstein
said in the preface to his Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus should apply to
translations too: “What can be said at all can be said clearly.” (Most people
who are not professional philosophers focus on the second half of the
sentence: “. . . and what one cannot speak of, one must be silent.”) These texts