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CHAPTER 5:
AND VASUBANDHU
85
CHAPTER 5
5.1 Introduction
‟
various Abhidharma schools. The second part deals with the philosophy of Vasubandhu
that these two thinkers have a lot of points in common
and that ‟ a
clear manner and who cannot be classified as either realists or idealists.
5 the emptiness
In the second century AD, around seven centuries after the era of the Buddha, Buddhist
philosophy had become a full fledged philosophical movement which was immersed in all sorts
of metaphysical and ontological speculations and was certainly
, who with his philosophy of emptiness ( )
challenged the very foundations of the Indian philosophical schema, Buddhist and -
‟ phy in this chapter for three major reasons.
Firstly, ;
- -
esents the resurrection of
Buddhist philosophy from the speculative and metaphysical jargon of some of the Abhidharma
schools and the restoration of ‟ true message in its clearest form. Another such attempt
86
at clarifying the conceptual confusions in Buddhist thought and at understanding the true
message of the Buddha had already been made by Moggaliputta-Tissa
69
However, it corruption of the
‟ Abhidharma writings. The third and the most important reason is that in
order to understand what exactly Vasubandhu was doing in his writings (if he was not presenting
a metaphysics/ontology of realism or idealism)
juna and then try to comprehend
unlike most Abhidharma philosophers, was not presenting anything new but only trying to revive
the crux ‟ been lost in the speculative attitude of the
Abhidharma schools.70
Keeping these factors in mind, I have presented a brief sketch o
d the
non-Buddhist schools with penetrating insight and sharp intellectual acumen. Among the
Buddhist opponents, his principal attack was on the realist schools of Buddhism - the
and the - whose notions he thoroughly refuted in the celebrated -
Madhyamaka- (hereafter MMK).The foundation on which the philosophy of the realist
schools was constructed was the notion of that they presented in their writings. For
these realists, reality consists of discrete momentary elements of experience ( ) which
have an intrinsic nature ( ) and because of this intrinsic nature each entity of experience
happens to be the particular kind of entity that it was. For example, water is different from fire
because the intrinsic nature of water is to be wet whereas the intrinsic nature of fire is to be hot.
In other words a denotes a property which an object cannot lose without ceasing to be
that very object. Thus a substance cannot be called fire if it does not have the property of
hotness. Similarly, a substance cannot be called water if it does not have the property of w
was antithetical to the original teachings of the
‟
teachings would not hold if things had intrinsic natures. This is because he believed that there
69
Moggaliputta-Tissa (327BC-247BC) was a Buddhist monk-scholar who presided over the 3rd
-way teaching of the Buddha. (Kalupahana, 2005, pp.2,5) 70
David Kalupahana sees Mogaliputta- ‟ ‟ ‟
as the three major attempts in the history of Buddhist philosophy to resurrect the teachings of
the Buddha. (Kalupahana, 1987/1992, p.5)
87
was no way these substances with fixed could be accommodated in a schema whose
foundation was built on the process of impermanence. Either things have fixed and intrinsic
nature, in which case the phenomena
) claimed that
things have no fixed essences and are devoid of any intrinsic nature ( -
f throughout his
writings and proposed that the conception of is an untenable one and involves a lot of
logical contradictions. In this way he clearly and explicitly refuted the realist position. However,
he made quite sure that while refuting realism, he did not commit himself to the other extreme
view, that of idealism. In fact he refrained from taking any metaphysical view on the nature of
reality since for him reality was pure emptiness and there was no way this emptiness could
propagate either realism or idealism. In his MMK, he pulled the carpet from underneath classical
philosophical notions like causality, motion, perception and others and showed that taking a
substantialist or essentialist view of these notions involved logical contradictions which would be
unressolvable unless things are realized to have no essential or intrinsic nature.
‟
when properly understood could lead back ‟ original teaching of emptiness which
was lost somewhere by the systems built after his death.
theoretical position on the nature of reality. In fact he was a
sort of anti-theorist who thought that any theory about reality (realist or idealist or any other)
would miss the mark since the Real is beyond the scope of discursive thought. It is only when the
dichotomizing tendency of thought comes to an end that one gets into an existential touch with
the real. In one of his celebrated verses in the MMK, he writes
The bringing to rest of all apprehending is the bringing to an end
of the dichotomising tendencies of the mind and this is peace. No
dharma anywhere has been taught by the Buddha of anything. 71
(Inada, 1993, p.159)
71
. (MMK,xxv,24)
88
Throughout the length of the MMK ‟
language itself and by corollary any theory is utterly incapable of explaining the true nature of
reality.72
‟ at had
resulted in the misinterpretation of the ‟ ‟
Buddhist schools only because they were misinterpreting t ‟
origination. He writes:
in an ancient form recognized probably by all school of
Buddhists as the teaching of the Buddha, but attacks what he
sees as misinterpretation of the schools. He professes to be
simply restoring the original meaning of the old sutras, showing
that the innovations of the schools lead to contradictions and in
particular conflicts with what he takes to be the essential
teaching, namely conditioned origination. (Warder, 1973, p.84)
, like that of the Buddha, cannot be
accommodated in a schema of realism or idealism. In the next section, I have shown that an in
‟
masters, showed no inclination to take any position on the nature of reality (either realism or
idealism).
72
(MMK, xviii,7)
“ which
is neither originated nor destroyed, the true nature of things ( ” 1993 115) ;
(MMK,xxii,15)
“
description a ” 1993 135
89
5.3 Vasubandhu: Realist or Idealist?
Another
in, who with his
works made sure that he, e Buddha and
that he shares more affinity with the views of these two masters
than with any of the idealist or the realist trends in Buddhist thought.
In the next section, I have presented a few arguments in order to show that it is not
justified to try to accommodate Vasubandhu either into realism or idealism. These arguments
make an appeal both to the kind of philosophy that Vasubandhu espoused in his writings and also
to the life of Vasubandhu as he lived it. Nevertheless, all these arguments combined together
would show that Vasubandhu was not any ordinary philosopher but was rather a creative genius
and an enlightened master whose style of living and working has to be understood deeply before
we can pass any judgment on the nature of his philosophy.
5.3.1 The phenomenal and the noumenal in Vasubandhu
Whether one takes Vasubandhu as a realist or an idealist, there is an important fact to notice about
his philosophy. The fact is that for Vasubandhu, there are three aspects of reality - the constructed
(pariklapita), the other-dependent (paratantra) and the fulfilled ( ). To use more
familiar terms, the first two aspects correspond to the phenomenal nature of the world (the world
as it appears to us) while the fulfilled is the noumenal aspect (the way world really is) of the
reality. If we carefully understand the philosophy of Vasubandhu, we would come to realize that
all discussions about the real and ideal nature of the world proceed in the phenomenal aspect of
the world; in its absolute or noumenal aspect, reality is indescribable and known only to the
enlightened ones.73
In the noumenal state, which is beyond the bounds of finite thought and
linguistic discourse, there can never be any statement about the nature of the world, leave aside
any categorical ontological statement about the world being real or ideal. Hence, the real-ideal
debate is only a part of the phenomenal aspect of the world, an aspect which for Vasubandhu is
73
, verse 22 (Anacker, 2005, pp.174-175).
90
just the way ordinary unenlightened beings perceive the world and is in no way the true way of
knowing the world. The true way of perceiving the world by all means is obtained only in the
state of in which no such real-ideal debate can actually occur. Thus a careful
understanding of the philosophy of Vasubandhu would reveal that the very debate about the world
being real or ideal is in a sense a pseudo-debate which is part of the constructed nature of the
world.
The view that the real-ideal debate can happen only in the phenomenal aspect of the
world and not in its noumenal one is backed by the assumption that a real-ideal debate
presupposes the functioning of language for this debate to actually start.74
The noumena is
considered to be the actual truth by Vasubandhu and since this noumena is beyond the categories
of language, there is no scope for the real-ideal debate to arise in the true sense of these terms.
My contention is that when one is talking about the nature of the world, one has to take
into account the nature of the reality in its absolute sense, but then the nature of such absolute
reality is actually claimed to be ineffable by Vasubandhu. The subsequent passage discusses the
problems that can arise for a real-ideal debate if the world is thought to be cognitively qualified
by its phenomenal and noumenal aspects.
In an epistemological understanding of the world in terms of its phenomenal and
noumenal aspects, one can either claim that the noumenal sphere does not exist at all and is just a
metaphysical speculation with no grounding in reality or if it exists, it must be accessible to us in
order that we can pass a judgment on its real or ideal nature. In Vasubandhu, we see that both
these options are unavailable. The noumena ( panna) exist for sure, but then their nature is
ineffable. Now such a view about the nature of the world is very different from the way we
understand the world in the philosophy of some Western thinkers who have talked about realism
and idealism. Take for example the case of Absolute idealism of Hegel (1807). There is no such
division of phenomena and noumena in Hegel because for him, the real is the rational itself or in
74
E L 2002 ‟ -
idealism debate. He notes:
“In Wittg ‟
“ ”
provided by language. Language is thus for Wittgenstein a precondition of the distinction between real and unreal,
and this in a way akin to the way in which pure a priori concepts and categories are a precondition of experience for
” (Loomis, 2002)
91
other words the Absolute itself is reason being actualized by the dynamic movement of the world
spirit (Geist). In fact, at the heart of his philosophy is the criticism of the phenomena/noumena
division given by Kant, for Hegel believed that to talk of a noumenal sphere which we do not
have any epistemic access to is a contradiction of sorts, there being no way we can know about
the existence of such a sphere. Kant had claimed that the noumena were beyond the bounds of
senses. Hegel claimed that if it really were beyond the bounds of our senses, as Kant claimed,
there was no way in which Kant could pass any judgment on its existence without landing into a
logical contradiction (since it was beyond our epistemic access, Kant could never know anything
about it himself).
Another major philosopher who was considered an idealist, namely George Berkeley
(1710), also made no such division between the phenomenal and the noumenal in his philosophy.
When he talked about the world, the phenomenal world was all he meant. Reality for him
consisted of various ideas in the infinite mind of God who causes us to perceive the world by
directly willing us to perceive the so called external objects in our consciousness. Such a decisive
view about the nature of the world accommodated Berkeley into the categories of real or ideal
and hence he could conveniently be called a subjective idealist.
‟ reveals that his position is
closer to Kant than to Hegel or Berkeley. Kant (1781) also believed that there are two levels of
reality - the phenomena and the noumena. But there is one striking difference between the
philosophies of Kant and Vasubandhu. For Kant, the noumena can never be known since it is
beyond the limits of our sensory fields. So we are left with the understanding of the dynamics of
phenomena only. In the phenomenal realm, Kant claims that things are empirically real though
transcendentally they are ideal.75
Kant makes certain claims only about the phenomenal aspect of
the world since he knows that he can never get access to its noumenal aspect. However the case
is different with Vasubandhu. He had to, and in fact he does suspend his judgment about the
ultimate nature of the world not because it could not be known at all as Kant believed, but
because it could be known only by the enlightened Buddhas and hence the decision about the
ultimate nature of reality is best left to be decided by these enlightened ones. Interestingly, the
enlightened ones like the Buddha have never passed any categorical judgments about the real or
75
„ ‟ „ ‟
preconditions of knowing things (the forms of intuition and the categories of understanding) are in the mind of the
knower.
92
ideal nature of the world and had remained quiet when asked metaphysical questions.76
E
the second Buddha by many, talks about the Absolute nature of the
world, he does not talk about it being real or ideal but rather talks about its mystical and ineffable
nature.77
‟
thought. If we are bent on doing that, it would be a grave injustice to the subtle and deep
philosophy of Vasubandhu and a defeat of his entire philosophical project which dealt with
clarifying the path to and not with deciding about the real or ideal nature of the world.
5.3.2 Vasubandhu: A contrast with other philosophers
For an idealist, mind or ideas or consciousness is the only reality that exists and the so called
external or material world is nothing more than an appearance. However, if one carefully
examines ‟ siddhi, one would come to the conclusion
that for Vasubandhu, consciousness is not the only reality that is there in the world (as an idealist
would believe), it is just that consciousness is the only thing that has a certainty for him, and the
external world can at best be inferred. In my opinion, no decisive philosophical standpoint can be
deduced from such a position with certainty towards consciousness and uncertainty towards the
world. Interestingly, a similar position about consciousness and external world was held by the
. The also believed that the external object can only be inferred as the
source of our sensations. Taking this source of sensations to be something that existed without
doubt, the inferred the existence of the external world.78
In Western philosophy,
Kant also held such a position and hence called himself a realist in the empirical sense of the
term. By a similar logic, the - also
considered realist.
76
- of the ya of the Sutta Pitaka
person to lead a holy life. The Buddha advises his disciple to focus instead on the immediate act of human suffering,
its causes and its cessation. 77
Refer footnote 72 of this thesis. 78
“ - - ) as the cause of
those ideas that are independent o ” 2008 138
93
Vasubandhu as a predecessor as well as an inspiration for their philosophy should also be taken
as a realist (Kochumuttom, 1982, p.26). However, a very important difference between all these
indirect realists79
and Vasubandhu is that Vasubandhu never explicitly claimed the existence of
the external world (like the ikas, Kant or the - ). In fact in the
, he seems on the first glance an idealist who is thoroughly attacking the existence of
an external world. Nowhere in the text can one observe any explicit similarity with the
ntikas a so obvious and he was a realist
as Kochmuttom has suggested, Vasubandhu would not have been taken as an idealist by many
scholars who have commented upon his texts. Normally scholars obtain an idealist reading of the
siddhi because that is the primary picture one deduces by reading his theory of
- in the . It is therefore interesting that in spite of being uncertain about
the world, Vasubandhu never claims the uncertain world to be either existing or non-existing.
Standing on similar philosophical grounds, noted Western philosopher David Hume
(1748) believed that he only knew about the sense-data that his mind perceived and was not sure
about the source of these sensations. Hence he became a skeptic about the existence of an
external world. However Vasubandhu does not take this skeptic stance also because unlike
Hume, he believes that the true nature of the world is accessible to the enlightened minds and
nothing further can be said about this world because it is ineffable by its very nature. Thus
Vasubandhu can be called neither a realist like the or Kant or
(since he does not claim that the external world exists) or an idealist like Hegel (since he does
not says that consciousness or idea is the only reality) nor can he be called a skeptic like Hume
(because for him the enlightened ones can know the noumenal aspect of reality). Now, if
Vasubandhu seems to be taking such a noncommittal attitude about things, we must not attempt
aligning him with any of the aforementioned philosophical standpoints. Speaking in ‟
‟
of own being ( ) for if they had any essentialist overtones, they could be readily
accommodated into a realist or an idealist or a skeptic discourse. Instead we observe that the
more we understand his philosophy, the more difficult it becomes to actually fit him into any of
these camps. Since Vasubandhu is just describing the nature of experience and this fleeting
79
For an indirect realist, although external objects exist independent of the mind of the perceiver, we can never
know these objects as they actually are but only as they appear in our minds, in the form of various ideas that we
have about them.
94
experience cannot be fitted into any category of fixed essence, he must be understood as
someone whose philosophy is neither realism nor idealism.
This again makes it clear that Vasubandhu never commits himself categorically to any
metaphysical position in his siddhi. The supposedly idealist or realist readings,
when carefully analysed, can be reread in terms of a noncommittal thesis.
‟ losophical orientation, which can be gauged if we
take his life into consideration, is the fact that during different phases of his life, he was learning,
exploring and expounding different forms of Buddhist philosophy - whether
. His psyche was flexible enough to change, accommodating new
ideas and concepts as and when he encountered them in his life. Thus while he was influenced
in the early phase of his life, he later on came to r
, on the initiation of his half-brother Asa E one can
observe a marked variation in the content and style of the various works that have been ascribed
to him. Thus while his early writings like the and the
are works of an encyclopedic nature, what can be called his middle-period works (e.g. the
and the ) are treatises which hammer around a
single issue of analysis. However, his later works ( , ),
although written with equal philosophical rigor and intellectual acumen, are more aphoristic in
nature and also show signs of a mystical and para-psycholgical approach. Such is the diversity of
‟
Vasubandhus - one the writer of the and -
80
This flexibility of thought is quite interesting for a
conventional philosopher, since most philosophers adhere to a particular philosophical position
in the early years of their philosophical careers and then just revolve around their basic ideas in
the subsequent years of their lives. One notable exception in Western philosophy that readily
80
The theory of two Vasubandhus was given by E. Fraulwallner (1951). 1950‟ 60‟
most Buddhist scholars now do not accept this theory as plausible.
95
‟ L d
flexibility.81
Although Vasubandhu was undoubtedly a nist for the major part of his life,
this respect for the at he gained from the
school rather than from any strict doctrinal allegiance to any particular philosophical standpoint
of the same. Such a thinker therefore resists being categorized as a philosophical extremist who
would cling to a single and fixed view about the nature of reality.
Discussed below is an important incident of his life which points to the flexibility and
openness of his mind, and which clearly shows that for Vasubandhu, doctrinal affiliations and
philosophical views were not things which were terribly important and hence worth living and
dying for. The primary purpose of his life was to live a life of the Bodhisattva, actively engaged
with the world through his compassionate heart and refined wisdom.
debate in the court of Emperor Candragupta II, 82
he was awarded 300,000 pieces of gold by the
king himself. Vasubandhu used this money to build three monasteries. One of them was for the
scholars and monks; another was for the nuns of the Buddhist order. Interestingly,
the third monastery that was built with this money was for the . Now
were the people who were among the harshest critics and opponents of
Vasubandhu since the time he had refuted their philosophical positions in his
. They had no good words for Vasubandhu.83
In spite of this antagonism,
Vasubandhu made sure that he remembered his old colleagues and the people who introduced
him to the depths of Buddhist philosophical thought in his younger days.84
Hence he gave them
their due share and respect. On a casual glance, such an act might be considered an act of
Buddhist humility, but if one considers the amount of hatred and contempt one had for
81
‟ divided into two phases - the earlier one in which he wrote the
Tractatus-Logico-Philosphicus (1921) and the later one, in which the Philosophical Investigations (1953) was
written. The author is famously called the early-Wittgenstein and the later-Wittgensiein in order to denote the
variation in his thought during the different phases of his life. 82
‟
was away from Ayodhya. When he returned, Vasuba
a written work, . (Anacker, 2005, p.17) 83
s “ ” ”
subscriber to theories ” habhadra, , referred to
“ man whose theories have the coherence of the cries of a deaf-mute in a fever dream.”
(Anacker, 2005, pp.17-18) 84
Vasubandhu, while young, studied
teachings that he produced his magnum opus, the Abhidharmak .
96
philosophical opponents in the era to which Vasubandhu belonged,85
this act carries a lot of
weight and speaks volumes about how open min
as he must have believed t
„ ‟
Dhamma and the Sangha and who in their own ways were committed to spreading the message
of compassion and enlightenment to the countless humans immersed in suffering. This act
clearly shows that for him that the life of compassion, humanity and service that the Buddha
exemplified and expected his followers to live by was the ultimate thing to strive for and
philosophical standpoints were just secondary issues which were not to become primary factors
of concern in the Buddhist way of life. One can easily deduce from the above incident that he
was not a fundamentalist with regard to philosophical positions and doctrines. The same
approach is evident in his works (especially in the later writings like the
and the ) where he seems least committed to any fixed view about the nature
of reality and just describes the dynamics of the phenomenal aspect of reality in the acts of
consciousness. In keeping with the above, my intention is to place his thought beyond the narrow
confines of realism and idealism.
5.3.4 Vasubandhu: On Theory and Practice
An impor ‟ s that in addition to being a brilliant
intellectual and writer, he was a great monk who not just talked about the Buddhist way of life
but actually lived it. He had an avid interest in the various techniques of meditation since his
younger days which only grew stronger with age. In fact towards the end of his life, he spent
most of his time in meditational activities, to the extent that he almost stopped his writing and
85
Commenting on the extent of hatred that philosophical opponents had for each other in the times of Vasubandhu,
Steven Anacker notes the following:
“
8000
were not so drastic: they could mean formal recognition by the defeated side of the superiority of the winning party,
forced conversions, or, as in the case of Council of Lhasa, which was conducted by Indians, the banishment of the
” 2005 p.20)
97
debating, the very activities which are considered the hallmark of any great philosopher.86
As
Anacker aptly remarks- “ : If it ‟
” 2005 22
Thus when ‟ rival, challenged him for a debate
and asked Vasubandhu to defend his statements in the Abh , Vasubandhu
simply refused the offer and told his students that there was no need for such a debate. In the
twilight of his life, the enlightened master must have realized that there was more to Buddhism
than just engaging in scholarly debates. Hence he kept himself involved with the meditational
and contemplative exercises that became a norm during his later years. Those who have any
familiarity with the Indian tradition of debate know that such a refusal to debate is seen as a sort
of defeat and is considered humiliating by any competent scholar. However, Vasubandhu must
have thought that his meditational practices and living the Buddhist life of contemplation and
compassion were more important than the fame and recognition he would get while winning
such debates. The difference between theory and practice which he had realized is self-evident in
the tribute he reportedly gave : “ was a clever
and ingenious scholar. His intellective powers were not deep, but his dialectics were always to
” 2005 23 87
This remark clearly indicates that Vasubandhu recognized a
clear cut division between the meditative intelligence of a genuine monk and the scholarly
debating techniques of a true academician. Hence, for Vasubandhu the primary interest was
never scholarly formulation but always the practice of the Bodhisattva path.
Considered a serious practitioner of meditation himself, Vasubandhu is considered an
authority on meditational techniques in the many forms of Land
Buddhism as well as Zen Buddhism ascribes two of their fundamental texts to Vasubandhu.88
Even in his philosophic ‟ meditational practices over
scholarly analysis is evident. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition sees his
as a chief source for understanding the descriptions of Buddhist meditational practice (Anacker,
86
As Wittgenstein famously puts it, “A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never
g ” 1981) 87
Anacker has used Hsuan –Tsang, Records I, p.195 as his source for the quote. 88
The Pure Land scho C ‟ as a primary text for
meditating on 1978 249-290). Vasubandhu is also considered the
21st Z L „C ‟
considered an important text for Zen practioners. (See Yu and Luk, 1993, pp.159-200).
98
2005, p.194). Even in the and he talks about states which are beyond the
scope of finite intellect and discursive thought and can be understood only by the direct intuitive
wisdom of the Buddhas.89
In fact all notions and concepts like the - and the various
that he uses in his works should be taken not as marks of an absolute philosophy but
only as tools which help to extract the highest wisdom of the Buddha and the meditative state
bereft of subject-object dichotomy which he keeps on referring to in his works. His meditation
without props is considered his foremost contribution to the meditation practices which leads
towards the realization of emptiness of all phenomena. Thus Hsuan Tsang, while commenting
‟
Vasubandhu Bodhisattva was attempting to explain that which is
beyond the power of words to convey, and which came to him
by the mysterious way of profound meditation. (Anacker, 2005,
p.21)
As was
was trying to present the notion of emptiness only. Vasubandhu is credited with introducing a
techn L also stresses the
„ ‟
‟
profound understanding of the emptiness of all phenomena.
Thus we observe th ‟ s a
careful analysis of his works reveal that this many sided genius cannot be fitted into the narrow
philosophical confines of realism and idealism. Such is the range and depth of his thought and
writings that sometimes he seems to be pointing towards realism (like Kant), sometimes towards
idealism (like Berkeley), sometimes he seems like a phenomenologist (like Husserl) and more
interestingly sometimes he seems to leave philosophy and enter the zone of psychology and even
mysticism. However, a proper understanding of his philosophy can surely make one realize that
to bind him with any of these positions would be trying to force a great scholar into a narrow
89
Refer , verse 22 and , verses 29 and 30.
99
domain, neglecting the profundity and the depth of his works. My argument is that his
philosophy is rjuna since he also uses philosophy as a tool only to enter
the path of the dhamma, more for clarification of thoughts and concepts already existing rather
than to present a system of metaphysics or ontology. While it cannot be denied that
‟ epistemology/phenomenology (whose
contribution was mainly deconstructive),90
yet the primary purpose of the writings of both the
masters is clear: to expound the essential message of Buddha which was somehow lost in the
over-philosophization of the Abhidharma schools.91
and Vasubandhu: Different means, same end
At a casual glance Vasubandhu may appear as a philosopher with a realist or idealist leaning, but
a careful analysis of him would reveal that he was closer ‟ to any
other strand of Buddhism. Although both were trying to make certain similar points and
‟ , it was only due to their terminology and
conceptual framework that their respective philosophies diverged.
I guess the only reason for Vasubandhu presenting his noncommittal philosophy in a
style
which was dif
92
hat might have made him
interested in the theory of s and must be the fact that these were the
90
‟ ‟
‟ MVB “ ‟ - - ‟
- - ‟
) rooted in meditation (yoga ”
(Anacker, 2005, p.194) 91
” C
difference existed between them, these arise only with regard to the arguments and theories designed to establish the
old fundamental Canonical teaching, but not with regard to the teaching itse ” 1978 82-83) 92
apura, the birthplace of Vasubandhu is situated in modern day Peshawar in ‟
schools.
100
‟ understanding of the world and it was only by properly
understanding the workings of the and hence the mental world that the whole of the life-
world that we inhabit (regardless of whether it is internal or external) could be understood.
‟ -dimensional
teachings - an aspect in which the centrality of mind and consciousness in understanding
the Buddha which dealt with the non-substantiality of the self and the objects. Interestingly the
notion of non-substantiality occurs time and again in the teachings of Vasubandhu also and it is
because of these overlapping themes that many scholars of repute have always seen Vasuban
rather than proposing opposing views.93
Both
these scholars, in accord with the highest teachings of the Buddha made sure that in their
writings, words and concepts were used only as instruments in the path of salvation and not as an
end in themselves.
„ ‟94
because of the numbe
wanted to dissolve rather than reify various conceptual constructions. An important charge that is
held against in general and Vasubandhu in particular is that by presenting the thesis
of perception-only, they reified the notion of consciousness. Such an approach is seen
reifying them and who talked about emptiness of all phenomena, consciousness included.
However, I believe that Vasubandhu emphasized the notion of consciousness because the notion
of emptiness is too much for a normal intellect to grasp whereas with consciousness there is at
least something which one can use as a support and foundation for understanding the world, at
least in the initial stages of the spiritual path. In the final stage of realization however, even the
idea that consciousness is the only reality also drops away, otherwise there can be no non-dual
awareness.95
Thus Vasubandhu seems to be making a more stepwise entry into the notion of
93
Rahula (1978) and I.C. Harris (1991). 94
“ - -sutras once termed Vasubandhu as a
„ ‟ ” (Anacker, 2005, p.2) 95
- - - -
- - -
One does abide in the realization of perception-only
When one does not perceive also a supporting consciousness
101
emptiness. He makes a phenomenological enquiry into the nature of experience so that one can
understand that the object of consciousness is nowhere found except in consciousness. In the
absence of the object, the subject also drops away,96
and only emptiness remains. Although
Vasubandhu makes use of the notion of consciousness, he is never positing consciousness as
creating the world
Hence it is obvious that only the methods of Vasubandhu and -
Vasubandhu through his subtle phenomenological descriptions goes from consciousness to
emptiness, with his mighty deconstructive blows straightaway penetrates into
the heart of emptiness. The final goal of both Vasubandhu ; it is just
that they both take different approaches in pointing towards the same reality. This is something
akin to how the Buddha used to teach his different disciples;
higher intellects and the philosophers, whereas Vasubandhu can cater even to an average seeker.
This difference in style must not be mistaken for a difference in intent.
I. C. Harris (1991) has thrown light on the essential project of the great Buddhist scholars
of the rgues that the thought of
andhu forms a continuity of tradition whose real purpose is to
provide a scholarly refinement and clarification of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. He
cites important Buddhist scholars to add more weight to his argument. Thus he notes
According to these authors97
Vasubandhu are system builders in the generally accepted sense
of the term. Rather, they have set themselves the common task of
rendering traditional Buddhist doctrine in such a way that it can
be used to tackle particular problems. Furthermore it is pointless
For, the graspable objects being absent,
There cannot either be the grasping of that,
[namely the grasping of the supporting consciousness]
, verse 28 (Kochumuttom ,1982, p.159) 96
- - - -
That is, from the perception that there is only , arises the perception that there is no artha [object]; and then
from this non perception of artha arises the perception that there is not even mere . (MVKB I.7).
(Kochumuttom, 1982, p.8) 97
Harris is referring here to authors like D.T.Suzuki (1930) and W.Rahula (1972).
102
categorizing them as nihilists or idealists or anything else as the
kind. They should be seen as the expositors, adapting traditional
doctrine to meet the needs of particular tasks while at the same
time leaving the body of doctrine fundamentally unchanged and
” 1991 68
The theory of emptiness was an important part of the teaching of the Buddha in the
Tipitaka. In fact one of the greatest contributions of the Buddha to the Indian philosophical
thought was his novel explanation of personal identity in terms of a dynamic aggregate of
various physical and mental functions, thereby showing that the self was in reality empty of any
fixed and essential nature, unlike what the orthodox Indian schools had believed. N
this teaching of emptiness to its philosophical conclusion and showed that emptiness was at the
‟
In a similar way, the notions like mind, consciousness and perception, and his analysis of the
interaction of the cognitive faculties with the sense data was another very important theme in the
teachings of the Buddha. It was Vasubandhu who marks the philosophical conclusion of this
aspect o ‟ these masters, viz. N were
doing nothing but developing different aspects of two of the most essential themes in the
‟
5.5 Concluding Remarks
Thus we observe that in the post-Buddha period, where on the one hand Buddhist philosophy
‟ o heed
‟ not indulging in unnecessary metaphysical speculations
‟
and reclaiming the Buddh ‟ The chapter at hand showed how both
‟
‟ n that debates like
the realism-idealism one would not have interested the Buddha in the least in the kind of life he
lived and preached; the same would apply to Vasubandhu also. In spite of such strong historical
evidence of Vasubandhu being a philosopher whose writings have nothing to do with realist or
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idealist theories, he has consistently been projected either as an idealist or realist throughout the
history of Indian philosophy succeeding him.
The next chapter has therefore been devoted to tracing the history of the text, that is
hi and to observe the reasons how and why this subtle and masterly work of
Vasubandhu suffered varied interpretations and why it has been attached the philosophical labels
of idealism, realism and many others in the course of its history.