The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium CE

709 Pages·2018·2.47 MB·English

by  Jan Westerhoff

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
T H E O X F O R D H I S T O R Y O F P H I L O S O P H Y
The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
T H E O X F O R D H I S T O R Y O F P H I L O S O P H Y
French Philosophy, 1572–1675
Desmond M. Clarke
The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450–1700
Jonardon Ganeri
American Philosophy before Pragmatism
Russell B. Goodman
Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy since 1960
Gary Gutting
British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing
Thomas Hurka
British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century
Sarah Hutton
The American Pragmatists
Cheryl Misak

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
The Golden Age
of Indian Buddhist
Philosophy
Jan Westerhoff
1

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3
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© Jan Westerhoff 2018
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First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
In the world and world-transcendent,
Beyond the Wisdom Gone Beyond,
In ten-perfected form resplendent,
Wisdom-goddess, praise to you!
(From a hymn to the Perfection
of Wisdom, Pandey 1994: 125)

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my teachers, colleagues, and friends,
from whom I have learned much about the history of Indian Buddhist thought,
in particular to David Seyfort Ruegg, Jay Garfield, Mattia Salvini, Dan Arnold,
Jonathan Gold, Jonardon Ganeri, Tom Tillemans, Greg Seton, and Parimal
Patil. Special thanks are due to the Buddhist Studies Research Seminar at
King’s College London, where some of the material was presented, and to
Mark Siderits, who provided me with detailed comments on the fourth chapter.
Their comments have helped me greatly in improving this book; while
I cannot claim that the remaining mistakes are completely original, they are,
however, wholly my own work.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife Yuka Kobayashi and our daughter
Sophie for their support and patience while I was writing this book.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
Contents
Analytical Table of Contents
xiii
Diagrams of Schools and Thinkers
xxiii
Introduction
1
1. Buddhist Philosophy in India: A Wheel Ever Turning
1
2. Philosophy as a Game
2
3. Factors Determining the Game
4
a. Arguments
6
b. Sacred texts
7
c. Meditative practice
8
4. Narrating the Game: How to Structure the Material
9
5. The Sources of the Game
11
a. The bases of Buddhist philosophy
11
b. Debates
13
c. Commentaries
15
d. Doxographies
21
6. The Game’s View of the Game
24
1. Abhidharma
35
1. Introducing the Abhidharma
35
a. Matrices
37
b. Question-and-answer format
38
c. Providing a comprehensive theory
39
2. The Question of Authenticity
41
3. The Abhidharma Schools
43
a. Mahāsa :mghika
45
b. Sthaviranikāya: Theravāda
49
c. Sthaviranikāya: Pudgalavāda
53
d. Sthaviranikāya: Sarvāstivāda
60
e. Sthaviranikāya: Sautrāntika
73
2. Madhyamaka
84
1. The Rise of the Mahāyāna and Its Relation to Buddhist Philosophy
84
2. The Madhyamaka School
89
3. The Teachings of the Perfection of Wisdom
99
a. Criticism of the Abhidharma project
99
b. The doctrine of illusionism
101
c. An explicit acceptance of contradictions
104
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x
CONTENTS
4. Key Themes of Nāgārjuna’s Thought
107
a. Nāgārjuna and the criticism of the Abhidharma project
107
b. Illusionism in Nāgārjuna’s thought
115
c. Contradictions and Nāgārjuna’s thought
117
5. The Commentators
120
a. Buddhapālita
121
b. Bhāviveka
123
c. Candrakīrti
131
6. The Great Synthesizers: Śāntarak:sita and Kamalaśīla
139
7. Madhyamaka and Nyāya
142
3. Yogācāra
147
1. Five Stages of Yogācāra’s Development
147
a. Stage 1: The early Yogācāra sūtras
148
:
b. Stages 2 and 3: Maitreya and Asanga
150
c. Stage 4: Vasubandhu
154
d. Stage 5: Later Yogācāra
160
2. Proofs of Buddhist Doctrines
161
a. Rebirth
161
b. Other minds
164
c. Momentariness
166
3. Key Yogācāra Concepts
168
a. cittamātra
168
b. ālayavijñāna and the eight types of consciousness
179
c. trisvabhāva
182
d. svasa :mvedana
184
e. Three turnings
186
f. tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra
186
4. Factors That Shaped Yogācāra Philosophy
193
a. Argumentative factors
193
b. Textual factors
193
c. Meditative factors
194
5. Yogācāra and Other Schools of Buddhist Philosophy
200
6. Yogācāra and Vedānta
212
:
4. The School of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti
217
:
1. The lives of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti
217
2. Epistemology
220
3. Inference
225
4. Metaphysics
231
5. Language
235
6. Scriptural Authority and Yogic Perception
238
a. Scriptural authority
238
b. Yogic perception
247

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CONTENTS
xi
:
7. How to Classify Dinnāga’s and Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy
250
:
8. The School of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti and Its
Relation to Mīmā :msā
259
a. Mīmā :msā epistemology
261
b. Mīmā:sā philosophy of language
263
c. Mīmā :msā, historiography, and history
267
9. The End of Buddhist Philosophy in India
270
a. Śāntideva
271
b. Atiśa Dīpa :mkaraśrījñāna
276
Concluding Remarks
282
Bibliography
287
Index
308

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/3/2018, SPi
Analytical Table of Contents
Introduction
1
1. Buddhist Philosophy in India: A Wheel Ever Turning
1
The wheel: metaphor for the Buddhist doctrine
· Buddhist thought in India:
permanence and change
2. Philosophy as a Game
2
The game as a heuristic device for understanding philosophy
· Four factors
shaping a game
· Narrating the game · Sources the narration is based
on
· Foundational texts and commentaries · Philosophical debates in
ancient India
· Doxographical works · The game’s view of the game
3. Factors Determining the Game
4
Histories of Buddhist philosophy as partial pictures
· Period covered:
Abhidharma up to Dharmakīrti · Social, economic, political factors
a. Arguments
6
Arguments as driving the history of philosophy
· Development of Buddhist