Other Lives: Mind and World in Indian Buddhism

343 Pages·2021·3.425 MB·English

by  Sonam Kachru

Other Lives
Other Lives
Mind and World in Indian
Buddhism
SONAM KACHRU
Columbia University Press
New York
Published with the support of
The Ludo and Rosane Rocher Foundation
Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance
given by the Office of the Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities of the
University of Virginia in the publication of this book.
Columbia University Press
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Copyright © 2021 Columbia University Press
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E-ISBN 978-0-231-55338-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kachru, Sonam, author.
Title: Other lives : mind and world in Indian Buddhism / Sonam Kachru.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020054758 (print) | LCCN 2020054759 (ebook) | ISBN
9780231200004 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231200011 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Dreams—Religious aspects—Buddhism. | Sleep—Religious
aspects—Buddhism. | Consciousness—Religious aspects—Buddhism. |
Vasubandhu—Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC BQ4570.D73 K33 2021 (print) | LCC BQ4570.D73 (ebook) |
DDC 294.3/442—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054758
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054759
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at
[email protected].
Cover design: Lisa Hamm
Cover image: Detail from the Gaki-zoshi (Scroll of the Hungry Ghosts),
handscroll, color on paper, 26.8 × 138.4 cm. Late Heian period (late twelfth
century). National Treasure, AK 229. Kyoto National Museum.
FOR JANE,
JANMĀNTARE ’PI NIDHANE ’PY ANUCINTAYĀMI
The main cause of a philosophical disease—is a one-sided
diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with only one kind of
example.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
It was like the case of a man who has dozed off in his
daytime in the midst of a large group of people and while
asleep sees a celestial city with beautiful mansions
appearing there in his dream, and sees the whole summit of
the polar mountain, with groves and gardens, with
innumerable nymphs all around, innumerable godlings living
there, and various celestial flowers scattered about, and
sees wish-fulfilling trees providing various celestial
garments, jewel ornaments, and flower garlands, and sees
musical trees producing all kinds of sweet celestial sounds,
and many kinds of forms of pleasure and diversion, and
hears the sweet sounds of the music and singing of the
heavenly nymphs, and perceives himself as being there,
seeing the adornment of the celestial arrays all over the
place. The group of people who are there in the same place
do not see this, are not aware of it, do not observe it,
because it is the vision of the man in his dream, not the
vision of the group of people in the same place. In the same
way the enlightening beings … by unhindered contemplation
of all the spheres of knowledge of enlightening beings saw
the inconceivable power and mastery of the Buddha.
—“Entry into the Realm of Reality,” in The Flower Ornament
Scripture (translated by Thomas Cleary)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
1. PRESENTATION, OBJECTS, REPRESENTATIONS
2. HOW NOT TO USE DREAMS
3. THE PLACE OF DREAMS
4. COSMOLOGY FOR PHILOSOPHERS
5. MAKING UP WORLDS
6. TRANSPARENT THINGS, THROUGH WHICH THE PAST SHINES
7. WAKING UP AND LIVING ASLEEP
CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF PAST SYSTEMS OF POSSIBILITY
Appendix: The Twenty Verses of Vasubandhu in Translation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I think often of what Apollonius said to Euxenus. Before committing
my thoughts to paper, I too should have liked “to practice silence
for a long time, reading more,” particularly as I’ve come to feel all too
well the truth of the (Chinese) Buddhist saying that I’ve picked up
from Michael Nylan, “Open your mouth and you’ve made a mistake”
(kaikou biancou). Where I haven’t, I owe it to others.
My principal debt remains to my advisors at the University of
Chicago: Daniel A. Arnold, Steven Collins, and Matthew K. Kapstein.
Though no longer with us, Steve has been a keenly felt presence
throughout the making of this book, and beyond. I no longer always
feel as if he is reading over my shoulder. Instead, I like to think that
some of the time I have been speaking with him.
My debts to Wendy Doniger are too many to list. I’ll say just this:
during the defense of my qualifying paper, she asked me whether I
really meant to call The Twenty Verses enigmatic and if so, why. This
book, born in that conversation, offers a belated and inarticulate
answer.
Acknowledgments make me anxious. I can’t bear thinking that I’ve
left anyone out. I here list those who over the years have helped
shape my thoughts as far as this manuscript is concerned, whether
through correspondence or conversation, criticism or
encouragement. I ask forbearance of those I have inadvertently
omitted. I thank Michael Allen, Dan Arnold, Eyal Aviv, Jordan
Bridges, Arindam Chakrabarti, Collett Cox, Lorraine Daston,
Jonardon Ganeri, Jay Garfield, Jennifer Geddes, David Germano,
Aaron Glasser, Charles Goodman, Phyllis Granoff, Janet Gyatso,
Maria Heim, Kapil Kachru, Birgit Kellner, Jowita Kramer, Emily
Lawson, Dan Lusthaus, James McNee, Karin Meyers, Shankar Nair,
John Nemec, Andrew Ollett, Cat Prueitt, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad,
Andy Rotman, Robert Sharf, Michael Sheehy, Mark Siderits,
Susanna Siegel, Sean M. Smith, Evan Thompson, Davey Tomlinson,
Roy Tzohar, Anand Venkatkrishnan, Devin Zuckerman.
Kurtis Schaeffer and David Germano conspired to get me to part
with an embarrassingly untidy first draft. I am grateful to them, as I
am to Wendy Lochner: she believed in this project from the start and
has worked wonders to see it through to print. My sincere thanks as
well to the many reviewers who endured a manuscript bereft of
insight and grace and whose criticisms have helped to make it better.
I am mindful of the extraordinary skill and effort that Adriana
Cloud, Zachary Friedman, Lowell Frye, Lisa Hamm, Leslie Kriesel,
and the rest of the staff at Columbia University Press have brought
to bear on my manuscript. They have my sincere gratitude.
I have accrued personal intellectual debts. Jane Mikkelson’s
pathbreaking work on philosophy in the first person and imaginative
experiments in early modern South Asia and Europe have been a
continual source of inspiration and edification. They have served as
a model for my own work. Richard Nance practically wrote an
essay’s worth of painstakingly detailed, philologically informed, and
philosophically imaginative criticism on a first draft. Bryce Huebner,
as outrageously supportive as he is incisive, has been unswervingly
generous with his time and his reflections for years. His thoughts
have shaped some of my own. Lastly, in the past two years I have
been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to think about and to
teach philosophy with Zachary Irving. This has changed my
intellectual life here.
During the run-up to this manuscript, I was fortunate enough to be
a part of three reading groups that have left their mark on this work.
Bryce Huebner and Eyal Aviv invited me to join weekly sessions
devoted to Xuanzang’s Ch’eng Wei-Shih Lun. I thank them, as well