Speaking for Buddhas: Scriptural Commentary in Indian Buddhism

309 Pages·2011·1.138 MB·English

by  Richard F. Nance

Speaking for Buddhas
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SPEAKING for BUDDHAS
Scriptural Commentary in Indian Buddhism
RICHARD F. NANCE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2012 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nance, Richard F.
Speaking for Buddhas: scriptural commentary in Indian Buddhism / Richard F. Nance.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15230-3 (cloth: alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-231-52667-8 (e-book)
1. Buddhist literature—India—History and criticism. 2. Buddhism—India—History.
I. Title.
BQ1029.I42N36 2011
294.3ʹ85—dc22
2011015986
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and
durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither
the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for Web sites that may have
expired or changed since the book was prepared.
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Contents
A cknowledgments vii
In troduction 1
1. Indian Buddhist Sūtra Commentaries 4
2. Normativity and Positivist Presuppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhism 7
3. The Structure of the Book 12
ONE Models of Speaking: Buddhas and Monks 14
1. Speaking as a Buddha: In Praise of Perfection 16
2. Speaking as a Monk: Speech Protocols in the Prātimok ṣ asūtra 36
3. Concluding Remarks 44
TWO Models of Instruction: Preachers Perfect and Imperfect 45
1. The “ B hā ṇ akaS ystem” 46
2. The Preacher “in Theory”: Models of Teaching 49
3. The Preacher “in Practice”: The Teaching of Models 68
4. Concluding Remarks 78
THREE Models of Argument: Epistemology and Interpretation 81
1. The P ramā ṇ a s: A Brief Sketch 83
2. The P ramā ṇ a s: Means of Correct Interpretation? 86
3. Concluding Remarks 95
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CONTENTS
FOUR Models of Explication: Commentarial Guides 98
1. On the Vyākhyāyukti 100
2. The Five Aspects 105
3. Concluding Remarks 120
C onclusion 123
APPENDIX A The Vyākhyāyukti , Book I 129
APPENDIX B T he Abhidharmasamuccayabhā ṣ ya( Excerpt) 153
APPENDIX C T he * Vivara ṇ asa ṃ graha ṇ ī 167
N otes 213
B ibliography 259
Index of Texts 287
I ndex 291
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Acknowledgments
This book has been in preparation for many years. Over the course of writ-
ing it, I have received feedback and encouragement from many people.
Thanks are due fi rst to my parents, Richard E. Nance and Ann M. Nance,
who have been unfailing in their support. At the University of Chicago, I
had the good fortune to be taught by a remarkable group of scholars, each
of whom contributed in diff erent ways to the work represented here. The
members of my dissertation committee—Matthew Kapstein, Paul J. Griffi ths,
and Sheldon Pollock—provided invaluable guidance on issues both philo-
logical and philosophical. While at Chicago, I also learned a great deal from
other faculty members inside and outside Swift Hall, among them Yigal
Bronner, Steven Collins, James Conant, Arnold Davidson, Wendy Doniger,
Franklin Gamwell, Ngawang Jorden, Bruce Lincoln, Leonard Linsky, Shirō
Matsumoto, Lawrence McCrea, H. V. N. Rao, and Michael Silverstein. For
fi nancial support during my years of graduate study, I am grateful to the
University of Chicago Divinity School, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the
University of Chicago Committee on Southern Asian Studies. Since 2007,
the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University has provided me
with a wonderfully supportive institutional home, and I am indebted to its
faculty for a very stimulating—and ongoing—conversation about the ideas
developed here. I also wish to thank the faculty of Indiana University’s De-
partment of Central Eurasian Studies, most especially Christopher Atwood,
Christopher Beckwith, and Elliot Sperling.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For comments on earlier drafts of, or thoughts on, material that ended
up working its way into this book, I wish to thank Dan Arnold, Jeremy Biles,
Heather Blair, David Brakke, Candy Gunther Brown, José Cabezón, Kate Lawn
Chouta, Lance Cousins, Collett Cox, Mario D’Amato, Ronald Davidson, John
Dunne, Constance Furey, Geoff rey Goble, Jonathan Gold, David Haberman,
Charles Hallisey, J. Albert Harrill, Richard Hayes, R. Kevin Jaques, Sylvester
Johnson, Ethan Kroll, Nancy Levene, Dan Lusthaus, Shaul Magid, Rebecca
Manring, Sara McClintock, Karin Meyers, Richard Miller, Parimal Patil, Lisa
Sideris, Aaron Stalnaker, Blake Wentworth, two anonymous readers for Co-
lumbia University Press, and the participants in the 2002 Luce Seminar at
the University of Chicago Divinity School. Thanks are also due to my editors
at Columbia University Press, Wendy Lochner and Christine Mortlock, for
their faith in this project and for their help in bringing it to fruition.
M y work in Ulan-Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russian Federation, was
aided by Andrey Bazarov and Nikolai Tsyrempilov. I wish to thank them
both for their extraordinary hospitality and their generosity in allowing me
to inspect a xylograph edition of the Vyākhyāyukti housed in the Institute
of Mongolian, Buddhist, and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. Thanks also to Peter Skilling, Stephen Hodge,
and the late E. Gene Smith for providing additional feedback, manuscripts,
and publications that I would not otherwise have been able to obtain.
P ortions of chapter 2 have previously appeared in “Indian Buddhist
Preachers Inside and Outside the Sūtras,” Blackwell Religion Compass 2, no. 2
(2008): 134–159, doi: 10.1111/j.1749–8171.2007.00057.x. Permission to re-
print these passages is gratefully acknowledged.
F inally, I wish to thank Kathryn Graber, who has made both this book
and its author much better than they otherwise would have been. For her
warmth, intelligence, humor, enthusiasm, and keen editorial eye—and for
much else—I am profoundly grateful.
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Speaking for Buddhas
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