Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciouness

YOGIC PERCEPTION, MEDITATION AND ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS EDITED BY ELI FRANCO In collaboration with Dagmar Eigner

ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE SITZUNGSBERICHTE, 794. BAND

BEITRÄGE ZUR KULTUR- UND GEISTESGESCHICHTE ASIENS NR. 65

ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE SITZUNGSBERICHTE, 794. BAND

Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciouness Edited by Eli Franco In collaboration with Dagmar Eigner

Vorgelegt von w. M. ERNST STEINKELLNER in der Sitzung am 13. März 2009

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data. A Catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Die verwendete Papiersorte ist aus chlorfrei gebleichtem Zellstoff hergestellt, frei von säurebildenden Bestandteilen und alterungsbeständig.

Alle Rechte vorbehalten ISBN 978-3-7001-6648-1 Copyright © 2009 by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien Druck und Bindung: Börsedruck Ges.m.b.H., A-1230 Wien Printed and bound in Austria http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/6648-1 http://verlag.oeaw.ac.at

Contents Eli Franco Introduction ................................................................................ 1

Part I: Yogic Perception in the South Asian and Tibetan Traditions Larry McCrea “Just Like Us, Just Like Now”: The Tactical Implications of the Mīmāṃsā Rejection of Yogic Perception ...................... 55 John Taber Yoga and our Epistemic Predicament ...................................... 71 Eli Franco Meditation and Metaphysics: On their Mutual Relationship in South Asian Buddhism ........................................................ 93 Anne MacDonald Knowing Nothing: Candrakīrti and Yogic Perception .......... 133 Vincent Eltschinger On the Career and the Cognition of Yogins ........................... 169 Dorji Wangchuk A Relativity Theory of the Purity and Validity of Perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism ............................... 215 Orna Almogi The Materiality and Immanence of Gnosis in Some rNying-ma Tantric Sources ..................................... 241 Philipp André Maas The So-called Yoga of Suppression in the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra ................................................... 263

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CONTENTS

Marcus Schmücker Yogic Perception According to the Later Tradition of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta .................................. 283 Marion Rastelli Perceiving God and Becoming Like Him: Yogic Perception and Its Implications in the Viṣṇuitic Tradition of Pāñcarātra ................................. 299

Part II: Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness from an Interdisciplinary Perspective Karl Baier Meditation and Contemplation in High to Late Medieval Europe .......................................... 321 Diana Riboli Shamans and Transformation in Nepal and Peninsular Malaysia ......................................... 347 Dagmar Eigner Transformation of Consciousness through Suffering, Devotion, and Meditation ........................ 369 John R. Baker Psychedelics, Culture, and Consciousness: Insights from the Biocultural Perspective .............................. 389 Shulamith Kreitler Altered States of Consciousness as Structural Variations of the Cognitive System .................. 407 Renaud van Quekelberghe Mindfulness and Psychotherapy: The Revival of Indian Meditative Traditions within Modern Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Medicine .............. 435

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Michael DelMonte Empty Thy Mind and Come to Thy Senses: A De-constructive Path to Inner Peace .................................. 449 Contributors ................................................................................... 481

ELI FRANCO

Introduction1

The present volume has its origin in a research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) from 2002 to 2004 (Project Nr. P14861) on the concept of para- and supra-normal perception in the Buddhist epistemological tradition. The project was conceived as part of the vast project “The epistemological-logical tradition in India and Tibet,” initiated by Ernst Steinkellner and directed by him for more than twenty years. The topic of para- and supra-normal perception, or extrasensory perception, constitutes a hitherto neglected theme in the study of Buddhist philosophy of religion, despite its considerable importance inasmuch as it concerns the very basis and foundation of the Buddhist religious tradition, namely, the core insights of the historical Buddha.2 In the classical period of Buddhist philosophy, these insights were classified and interpreted by the Buddhist tradition as examples of yogic perception. It is this notion of yogic perception, its theoretical conceptions and presuppositions, the arguments for and against it, its cultural and religious varieties, and its epistemological implications that form the central topic of the ongoing project and, to a large extent, of this volume.

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I would like to thank Prof. Dagmar Eigner for co-organizing the conference that was the starting point for this volume, especially for helping shape its interdisciplinary character, as seen in the chapters on psychology and shamanism in this volume's second half. I am also indebted to Anne MacDonald and Philipp Maas, who kindly read the introduction and made pertinent and very helpful remarks. This statement is not meant to express a position in the ongoing debate about the historicity of the Buddha and information about him found in the Buddhist texts. Paradoxical as it may sound, the more we know about the Buddhist canons, the less we know about the Buddha as a historical person. Rather the statement concerns the way the Buddha was (and still is) perceived by the Buddhist tradition and how the Buddhist tradition argued for the reliability of the teachings that are attributed to the Buddha.

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The belief in meditation3 as a source for extrasensory perception seems to have always been present in South Asian civilization. Some scholars trace the ideals of asceticism and the practice of yoga all the way back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Needless to say, in view of the absence of probative evidence, this must remain a matter of opinion and speculation.4 However, clear references to meditation can already be found in the late Vedic literature, for instance, in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, which states that the Self, or soul, cannot be apprehended by ordinary sensory means. Muṇḍaka 3.1.8 declares that the Self can be perceived neither by means of the eye (or better, by the faculty of sight), nor by speech, nor by other sense faculties (deva), nor by austerities (tapas), nor by ritual action (karman). Rather, the partless Self is seen by the meditating man5 when he (or his mind) has become pure through the lucidity of his knowledge.6 While in the initial historical stages the practice of meditation may have developed within the context of ritual and world-affirming values, it increasingly came to be associated with the śramaṇa milieu. The word śramaṇa is derived from the root śram, meaning “to strive, to make an effort,” or more specifically “to perform austerities.” Accordingly, the word śramaṇa refers to an ascetic or religious mendicant in general. The expression “śramaṇa milieu” or “śramaṇa movement” 3

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The term “meditation” is used in a wide variety of ways. I follow David Fontana, who suggests that the common features among the various forms and traditions of meditation may be reduced to three: concentration, tranquility and insight; see David Fontana, “Meditation.” In: Max Velmans and Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford 2007: 154-162, at p. 154. Antoine Lutz et al., however, explicitly reject any attempt to define meditation in general as involving unverifiable hypotheses and trivializing diverse practices; see Antoine Lutz et al., “Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness: an Introduction.” In: Philip David Zelazo et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. Cambridge 2007: 499-551, on p. 500. It is notable that unlike the case of the practice of austerities (tapas and similar terms) there are no clear correspondences to yoga and meditative practice in other ancient Indo-European cultures. However, even if the practice of yoga and meditation are genuine South Asian developments, it is not necessarily the case that they are related to the Indus Valley Civilization. The masculine form is used here; it is clear that the Upaniṣadic authors were not thinking, as a rule, of women gaining access to this privileged knowledge. See Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads. New York 1998: 450: na cakṣuṣā gṛhyate, nāpi vācā, nānyair devais tapasā karmaṇā vā / jñānaprasādena viśuddhasattvaṃ tatas tu taṃ paśyate niṣkalaṃ dhyāyamānaḥ //.

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refers to ascetics living, mostly celibately, on the fringes of or completely outside society, some of them loosely associated in small groups, others more tightly organized into religious orders. Many religious movements emerged from the śramaṇa milieu, not the least Buddhism and Jainism, as well as innumerable religio-philosophical movements and sects that did not survive to the present day or did not assume a dominant role. The śramaṇa milieu had a profound influence on South Asian civilization as a whole, spreading its characteristic values of world negation, world renunciation and liberation from rebirth far beyond the ascetic circles and into the mainstream of society, especially its brahmanic elite. The most typical and fundamental concepts of Indian religious philosophy originated in this ascetic milieu or were propagated by it: the view that the world is governed by a process of rebirth (saṃsāra) and is fundamentally frustrating and painful; the tenet that moral actions (karman) determine the form of rebirth; the idea that escape or liberation (nirvāṇa, mokṣa and similar expressions) from rebirth is the ultimate ideal and highest good for living beings; the tenet that liberation is attainable by cognitive means, namely, by means of a special insight; the belief that such insight is only possible when one renounces all worldly ties (wealth or material possessions, family, etc.); the practice of “non-violence” (ahiṃsā) and various forms of austerities (tapas) as the means for gaining control over the sense faculties and desires (kāma and similar expressions), to mention the most conspicuous notions. Of course, these tenets and ideals are blended in various manners. Buddhism, for instance, emphasizes the elimination of desires at the expense of the obliteration of karma.7 In Jainism it is the other way around.8 With the notable exceptions of Mīmāṃsā orthodoxy9 and materialistic-skeptic heterodoxy,10 Indian religious philosophy has been writ7

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Note that karma is not mentioned in the four noble truths of Buddhism; it is also not included in the twelve members of dependent origination, although later Buddhist interpreters claim that it is included in saṃskāra (“volitional impulses”). Next to these two dominating models of liberation, namely through the eradication of desires or of karma, one can add for the later period, with its spread of theistic movements, the notion of liberation through devotion to God and by divine grace. On yogic perception in the Vaiṣṇava tradition, see the papers by Marcus Schmücker and Marion Rastelli in this volume. See the contributions by Lawrence McCrea and John Taber in this volume. See Eli Franco, Perception, Knowledge and Disbelief. Repr. Delhi 1994.

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ten for the most part from the point of view of the renouncer or in acceptance of the values of the renouncer, even though the authors of philosophical works themselves were not always renouncers. Religiophilosophical works, such as the Bhagavadgītā, that repudiate renunciation and propagate the life of action within society are the exception rather than the rule. What is common to most of the ascetic movements is the belief that liberation can be attained through knowledge, through a fundamental extrasensory insight into the ultimate nature of reality, which is sometimes even equated with omniscience (sarvajñatva).11 Theoretically one can discern two models regarding the attainment of this insight. Either the capacity for such extrasensory perception is innate to the soul or the mind, and can be automatically attained by removal of the obstacles (impurities, karma) that prevent the soul or the mind from exercising its innate cognitive capacity, or this capacity for the liberating insight, or even omniscience, is not inherent in the soul or mind, but can be attained by means of spiritual cultivation and refinement. In general, the former model seems to be predominant in South Asian religions. A typical example is the Jaina theory that knowledge or cognition (jñāna) is the innate nature (svabhāva) of the soul and that the soul will, under the proper conditions, cognize everything that is knowable (sarvaṃ jñeyam).12 As Jaini puts it, “[t]he amount of karma destroyed correlates directly with the gain in purity of the soul and increase in the range of knowledge. Therefore, a total destruction of the forces of karma, together with the causes of their accumulation, must inevitably result in perfect purity, which would automatically usher in the state of

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The logical outcome of this belief is that the ultimate cause of bondage to this world is ignorance or error. This is especially emphasized in Sāṃkhya–Yoga, Vedānta and Buddhism. Everything that is knowable means the infinite number of souls (jīva), the infinitely infinite (anantānanta) amount of matter (pudgala), the principle of motion (dharma) and rest (adharma), space (ākāśa), time (kāla) and the infinite number of transformations (paryāya) through which they all pass. See Padmanabh Jaini, “On Sarvajñatva (Omniscience) of Mahāvīra and the Buddha.” In: Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies. Ed. Padmanabh Jaini. Repr. Delhi 2001: 97-123, on p. 101.

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‘omniscience.’”13 Consequently, according to the Jainas every liberated soul is omniscient.14 A similar belief can be encountered in Canonical Buddhism. Here we find the simile of gold ore and the mind. Gold ore is defiled with iron, copper, tin, lead, and silver, but when it is purified it shines with its natural luster. Similarly, “when the mind is emancipated from the five defilements, it becomes supple, pliant, lustrous, firm, and becomes rightly concentrated for the destruction of the defiling impulses.”15 Another simile compares cognition to a pure crystal which takes on the color of an object touching it; in the same manner cognition is defiled by desire, etc. Thus, the defilements are considered to be only adventitious to cognition, while its true nature is luminous. However, this view was rejected by some of the major schools of Conservative Buddhism, notably the Theravāda and the Sarvāstivāda.16 According to them, cognition is not naturally or originally pure, for it is defiled by passion and karma. If an originally pure and luminous cognition could be tainted by adventitious defilements, one might also assume that defilements could become pure by the association with pure cognition. Thus, in Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda it is assumed that when the connection with desires has been severed, an impure cognition ceases and gives rise to a new cognition that is free from obstacles.17 Even if the mind is not luminous and pure by nature, it nevertheless has been considered to have a latent capacity for paranormal perception. This capacity is cultivated in a negative way, not directly by increasing the faculty of perceiving, but by eliminating the obstacles to

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See Jaini, ibid., p. 102. Buddhists, on the other hand, often distinguished between the perfect enlightenment of the Buddha, which was also equated with omniscience, and the lesser enlightenment of the Arhat, the disciple who differs from the Buddha inasmuch as he/she can reach enlightenment only with the help of the Buddha or the Buddha’s teachings. Of course, this lesser enlightenment also consists in an extrasensory perception. Aṅguttara Nikāya III 16-17, quoted in K.N. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. London 1963: 423. See Étienne Lamotte, L'Enseignement de Vimalakīrti : Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. Louvain 1962: 53; André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule. Paris 1955: 6768, no. 44. See Louis de la Vallée Poussin, L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. Paris/Louvain 1923-1931. Vol. 6: 288.

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paranormal perception.18 The five obstacles (pañca-nivaraṇa) are covetousness (abhijjhā), ill-will (vyāpāda), sloth and torpor (thina-middha), restlessness and worry (uddhacca-kukkucca), and skeptical doubt (vicikicchā). A mind that has become free from these obstacles develops further by means of practice of tranquility (śamatha-bhāvanā) and concentration. The attainment of extrasensory perception is usually associated with dhyāna (Pali: jhāna) meditation.19 While dwelling in the state of the fourth dhyāna one attains what is usually termed abhiññā (Sanskrit: abhijñā), an early and common Pali term that is the closest equivalent to “extrasensory perception.” Abhiññā is usually said to have six components:20 (1) the knowledge of magical powers (such as making the earth shake, multiplying oneself, passing through walls, flying, diving into the earth as if it were water, walking on water, touching the sun and the moon with one’s hand, etc.), (2) clairaudience (“divine sense of hearing”), (3) telepathy or the knowledge of other minds, (4) recollection of previous lives, (5) clairvoyance (“divine sense of sight”), and (6) knowledge of the destruction of the defilements.21 These six capacities have close equivalents in the Pātañjala Yoga tradition.22 A substantial number of aphorisms in the Yogasūtra 18

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An analogy to this type of indirect approach may be found in the Buddhist path; in this context it is not required that one knows what the Self is, but rather that the empirical constituents of a person are not the Self. For a brief description, see my contribution to this volume. For a classical study on this topic, based mainly on the Pali canon, see Sigurd Lindquist, Siddhi und Abhiññā. Eine Studie über die klassischen Wunder des Yoga. Uppsala 1935. For a useful general survey, see Étienne Lamotte, Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse de Nāgārjuna (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra) avec une étude sur la Vacuité. Vol. IV. Louvain 1976: 1813-1817. See also the first section of Anne MacDonald’s paper in this volume. To these six, Jayatilleke (ibid. 439-441) adds another four: another type of telepathic knowledge and the threefold knowledge (tisso vijjā) attained in enlightenment. The historical relation between the abhiññās and the threefold knowledge is not entirely clear. It seems that the latter are included in or elaborated into the former. However, the first five abhiññās are considered to be mundane, that is, attainable also by nonBuddhist yogis. I distinguish here between yoga and Yoga: yoga is a technique of gaining control over the body, senses and mind in order to attain a liberating insight. It is a technique or a method and as such is not connected to any philosophy or religion in particular; thus we have Buddhist yoga, Jaina yoga, Vedānta yoga, and so on; Yoga (capitalized), on the other hand, is used here as the name of a particular philosophi-

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(hereafter YS) deal with the supranormal attainments or perfections (siddhi) of the yogi who has reached an advanced state of meditation. Among these attainments—which have been a cause of great embarrassment to Yoga scholars and practitioners alike23—one also finds special forms of knowledge, such as the recollection of past lives, by concentrating on traces left by past experience in these lives (YS 3.18), knowledge of other minds (YS 3.19), knowledge of the time of one’s own death and that of others (YS 3.22), knowledge of subtle and concealed objects (YS 3.25), knowledge of remote cosmic regions, such as the world of Brahma and Prajāpati, by meditating on the sun, and knowledge of the arrangement and movement of the stars by meditating on the moon and the pole star, respectively (YS 3.26-27), knowledge of one’s body by concentrating on the navel (YS 3.29), as well as supernatural sight, hearing, smelling, etc. (YS 3.36). However, yogis do not only attain such extraordinary forms of knowledge, but also miraculous powers such as the ability to become invisible (YS 3.21) or strong like an elephant (YS 3.24), to fly through the air (YS 3.42), to become as small as an atom, to levitate, to become as large as a mountain or a city, to stretch one’s body to the point of being able to touch the moon with one’s finger tips, to dive into the earth as if it were water, to control material things by causing them to be produced and destroyed, or by rearranging their parts, and to fulfill one’s wishes (YS 3.45 and commentaries thereon). The similarity between the siddhis of Yoga and the iddhis and abhiññās of Conservative Buddhism is not the only point of resem-

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cal tradition, closely affiliated with Sāṃkhya, whose foundational text is the Yogasūtra of Patañjali; thus one also refers to it as Pātañjala Yoga. On this tradition, though not specifically on the siddhis, see Philipp Maas’ contribution to this volume. On the embarrassed reactions to the descriptions of the siddhis by modern scholars, see Yohanan Grinshpon, Silence Unheard: Deathly Otherness in Pātañjala-yoga. Albany 2002: 32-35. It is indeed surprising how often the siddhis are only cursorily mentioned and neither enumerated nor described (not even by Grinshpon himself or by Mircea Eliade in his voluminous Yoga, Immortality and Freedom); for an exception, see Alain Danielou, Yoga. The Method of Re-Integration. Repr. London 1973: 149-157. Danielou lists and describes forty-six attainments: eight physical attainments, thirty subsidiary attainments and eight spiritual attainments. Critical and skeptical responses to claims of yogic attainments, especially to claims of extraordinary knowledge, were also voiced from within the South Asian tradition. The two contributions by McCrea and Taber in this volume reproduce these voices well.

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blance between the two traditions. It is probably not generally well known to what extent Buddhist scholasticism, especially of the Sarvāstivāda School, had a decisive influence on the author(s) of the Yogasūtra. A long list of similarities between the sūtras and various Buddhist doctrines was compiled by Louis de La Vallée Poussin.24 It suffices to mention a few of them: the four types of concentration (samādhi), which correspond to the four levels of dhyāna (see YS 1.17); the definition of God (īśvara) in YS 1.25 as the one in which the seed of omniscience reaches the highest degree (niratiśayaṃ sarvajñabījam), a definition that can only be understood in light of Buddhist Mahāyāna teachings (of Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha); the four brahmavihāras in YS 1.33; the threefold division of knowledge/wisdom (prajñā) into knowledge that “holds the truth” in contradistinction to knowledge which arises from study (śruta) or reasoning (anumāna) in YS 1.48-49; the interpretation of the doctrine of karma (YS 2.12-13, 31, 34, 4.7); the division of suffering into three kinds in YS 2.15 (pariṇāma-tāpasaṃskāra-duḥkha), which is clearly of Buddhist origin; the theory of the existence of three times (past, present and future) in YS 3.13 and 4.12, which is a reflection of the corresponding Sarvāstivāda theory; the doctrine of knowledge of other minds (paracittajñāna) as knowing only whether the cognition of another person is good or bad, but without knowing the object of the cognition (YS 3.20-21); the four perfections of the body (kāyasampad YS 3.46); and, of course, the five types of siddhi (YS 4.1), which are either innate, produced by the use of herbs, by uttering magical syllables (mantra), from the practice of austerities (tapas), or through the practice of meditation/concentration (samādhi). Such claims of extraordinary knowledge and supernatural bodily capacities were presumably not made, at least for the most part, by the persons to whom they are attributed, the Buddha,25 the Jina or other 24

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See Louis de La Vallée Poussin, “Le Bouddhisme et le Yoga de Patañjali.” Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 5 (1936–1937): 223-242. The direction of the influence is not always clear, but for the most part one can assume a Buddhist influence on Yoga; Maas dates the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra, which includes the sūtras as well as the earliest commentary, to a time span reaching from 325 to 425 CE (see p. 268 below), a period in which Buddhism was philosophically dominant in South Asia. Individual sūtras, however, may be of considerably earlier date. In canonical Buddhism the stance towards omniscience is ambiguous. The Buddha is reported to have said that actual omniscience, that is, knowing all things at once, is impossible; thus other religions, notably Jainism, are criticized on this account.

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accomplished yogis, but by their pious followers.26 They are primarily due, I assume, to the natural propensity to aggrandize one’s teachers, and even more so, the mythical founder of one’s tradition. Yet the crucial question remains: Is meditation a suitable means for gaining knowledge, especially knowledge that is not attainable otherwise? Some are of the opinion that in India all philosophical theories arose directly or indirectly from meditative experiences. Sweeping formulations such as “In India philosophy is the rational interpretation of mystical experience” (Constantin Regamey) are plainly absurd, but even more careful formulations are highly problematic, as I argue in my paper in the present volume. One has to distinguish here between theory and practice: In theory, the Buddha, the Jina and many others, although certainly not all founders of traditions,27 gained their deep insights into the nature of reality while absorbed in meditation, but in practice we see that also in India metaphysical theories were conceived and developed—is this really surprising?—by philosophers philosophizing. The same is true in the case of the Tibetan tradition. As Dorji Wangchuk points out in his paper in this volume, new philosophical theories in Tibet were mainly created in an attempt to resolve contradictions and inconsistencies found in the heterogeneous Buddhist scriptures. For the traditional practicing yogis, such as the followers of the Buddha and the Jina, the question of gaining new knowledge through meditation usually does not arise, at least not theoretically. For them there is nothing new to discover in the course of their meditation; the objective of meditation is to gain deeper understanding of the truths handed down by the tradition. The threefold sequence of study, reflection and meditation that is prescribed for Buddhist practitioners, briefly described by Vincent Eltschinger in this volume, means that one studies

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However, potential omniscience, i.e., that there is no part of reality that one cannot grasp, is admitted. See Jayatilleke [as in n. 15]: 203-204. After the second century CE, omniscience came to be regarded as an essential property of being a Buddha. On the various terms used to designate the omniscience of the Buddha with special reference to the Yogācāra tradition, see Paul Griffiths, Omniscience in the Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāra and its Commentaries. Indo-Iranian Journal 33 (1990): 85120, especially pp. 88-89. Grinshpon, ibid.: 60, however, suggests that the doctrine of siddhis may be based on near-death experiences. Notable exceptions are traditions like the Sāṃkhya, Yoga or Nyāya, which attribute their beginnings to the original visions of certain Rishis.

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the teachings of the Buddha, reflects on them with rational means, and then meditates on these same teachings. Similar procedures are well known in the Hindu traditions and are closely associated with Yoga and Vedānta. Although it is assumed that the knowledge attained in meditation is deeper and more certain than the knowledge attained by rational means, it is not really a different knowledge. Moreover, the teachings provide the structure and/or the basis for the interpretation of experiences in meditation. Accordingly, there is not much room for “new” experiences. Indeed, it would have been presumptuous for a traditional yogi to claim that s/he had attained new knowledge. And in addition, if a yogi would have claimed that he had discovered something new that is at odds with what was discovered by the founder of his tradition (the Buddha, etc.), he would have risked being ostracized as a heretic by his community.28 In other words, the traditional view about the results of meditation can be summarized with the phrase: You should not get out what you did not put in. What one gets out should conform, at least in its broad outlines, to previously established teachings. And this conception is hardly surprising in the context of a traditional society that believes that perfect knowledge was already attained in the past and may only have diminished in the present. The perspective changes, of course, when one considers the great founders of traditions like Buddhism. By definition, a Buddha is someone who reaches enlightenment by himself; unlike the later Buddhist disciples, a Buddha does not have another Buddha to guide him. In his case, meditation must impart new knowledge, be it only newly discovered long forgotten knowledge.29 Consequently, the Buddha’s claim to knowledge cannot be grounded in any tradition. Therefore, the question arises: Can the original insights of the meditating Buddha be verified by independent means? We may be caught here in the Mīmāṃsā dilemma, ably represented by McCrea and Taber in their contributions below: If these insights cannot be verified, why should they be ac28

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Accordingly, when defining yogic perception, the Buddhist philosophers limit the scope of such perception to the teachings of the Buddha; on this point, see my paper below p. 122. According to the Buddhist tradition, there were an infinite number of Buddhas in the past, each discovering the Buddhist teachings anew. Similar notions are found in the Hindu tradition, for knowledge disappears partly or completely during cosmic dissolution and has to be regained after each new creation.

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cepted? If they can be verified, we do not need them; whatever they tell us can be known from other sources. From a modern perspective, most of us, I assume, would adopt the position of the Mīmāṃsakas: Theories about the world gained from meditative practice are either uncertain or superfluous. For most of us, the external world is whatever the natural sciences say it is.30 And if a theory realized in the course of meditation happens to agree with what they say, this is interesting and all the better, and if it does not, all the worse—for the theory, not for the natural sciences. Incredulity towards the veracity of meditative visions was also felt within the Buddhist tradition. To repeat an example given by Wangchuk in his contribution, how is one to make sense of statements that in just a single atom there exist Buddha fields corresponding in number to the total number of atoms in the universe? The most elaborate attempt to establish the validity of the teaching of the Buddha was undertaken by the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti (ca. 600-660?) and his followers. According to them, the teachings of the Buddha can be divided into a main part and secondary parts; the main part, which is identified as the four noble truths and the doctrine of Non-Self (anātman), is independently verifiable, in principle by anybody, by means of perception and inference.31 Visions of the Buddha fields and other miracles32 would presumably have to be relegated to the secondary and nonessential parts of the Buddha’s teachings, be interpreted as only didactically useful, or not be accepted at all as being a genuine part of the teaching. The fact that certain teachings are secondary does not imply that they are false, but only that they need not be independently established and defended against external criticism. Dharmakīrti did believe in the possibility of extrasensory perception, but such perception, he 30

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Or, in fact, after Popper and Kuhn not even that; physical theories are no longer considered to be “true,” but only “approximations” (that lead periodically to paradigmatic changes) to a reality, which can never be known. There are an increasing number of studies on this topic; for a relatively recent discussion, see John Dunne, Foundation of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy. Somerville 2004: 223-252. On the complex and ambivalent stance towards miracles in Buddhism, see Phyllis Granoff, “The Ambiguity of Miracles. Buddhist Understandings of Supernatural Power.” East and West 46 (1996): 79-96. For a remarkable study of miracles employed by the Buddha to convert various beings, which combines Buddhist philology with art history, see Monika Zin, Mitleid und Wunderkraft. Wiesbaden 2006.

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thought, could only be utilized towards relatively minor aims such as the neutralization of the poison of snakes, not towards soteriological aims.33 Although Dharmakīrti was arguably the most important Buddhist philosopher of South Asia, it is hard to say whether this opinion was widely accepted in Buddhist circles. It was obviously formulated in a period when Buddhism was under pressure from powerful philosophical criticism and suffering from dwindling political support. Due to the encounter of Tibetan Buddhism with Western civilization in the second half of the 20th century, this Buddhist tradition seems to be slowly undergoing the process of coming to terms with natural sciences that the Catholic Church has been going through during the last centuries.34 Certain statements of the Dalai Lama, at least when addressing a Western audience,35 indicate remarkable openness and readiness to accept the world view of modern physics36 at the expense of Buddhist cosmology.37 Similar processes are occurring in Theravāda 33

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See Eltschinger, Dharmakīrti sur les mantra et la perception du supra-sensible. Vienna 2001: 109-114. That this process is far from being completed is clear from recent debates on intelligent design. See Thupten Jinpa, Science as an Ally or a Rival Philosophy? Tibetan Buddhist Thinkers’ Engagement with Modern Science. In: B. Allan Wallace (ed.), Buddhism and Science. New York 2003: 71-85, p. 79: “Unfortunately, so far no written work in Tibetan from the Dalai Lama has been published that articulates his views on the potential areas of engagement between Buddhist thought and science.” One of the main purposes of the “Mind and Life” conferences is to provide a “highlevel tutorial for the Dalai Lama” in quantum mechanics. We are told, for instance, that (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/3186) the “Dalai Lama did not have a problem with photons having both particle and wave-like properties, but was reluctant to accept that individual quantum events are random. For example, he refused to accept that we cannot know which path a photon takes in a two-path quantum interference experiment.” It is also remarkable that the Dalai Lama is now reportedly supporting the study of physics being part of the instruction at all Buddhist monasteries. See also Arthur Zajonc (ed.), The New Physics and Cosmology. Dialogues with the Dalai Lama. Oxford 2004. See http://www.dalailama.com/page.163.htm: “I [viz., the Dalai Lama] have often remarked to my Buddhist colleagues that the empirically verified insights of modern cosmology and astronomy must compel us now to modify, or in some cases reject, many aspects of traditional cosmology as found in ancient Buddhist texts.” Furthermore (ibid): “[I]n the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.” See also The Dalai Lama, The Way to Freedom. San Francisco 1994: 73, quoted in Donald S. Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La. Chicago

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Buddhism and in Japanese Buddhism, though in a less conspicuous manner, for other Buddhist traditions lack a central authoritative figure like the Dalai Lama. It is not difficult to notice that Buddhism (especially, but not only Tibetan Buddhism) is repositioning itself as a rational and empirical cognitive science, a science of the mind based on introspection and meditation, supplemented by altruistic ethics. Cosmology, if mentioned at all, is relegated to the background, and just as in Dharmakīrti’s argument, presented as unessential. Typical for this trend is Matthieu Ricard, who has become one of the most prominent figures representing Tibetan Buddhism in intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogues. According to Ricard, Buddhism is different from all other religions because it does not require an act of faith, and it could better be designated a science of the mind than a religion.38 A most extreme, almost belligerent form of this discourse, peculiar and displaying a surprising ignorance of the Buddhist tradition,

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1999: 186: “The purpose of the Buddha coming to this world was not to measure the circumference of the world and the distance between the earth and the moon, but rather to teach the Dharma, to liberate sentient beings, to relieve sentient beings of their sufferings.” Dharmakīrti’s statement (Pramāṇavārttika 2.33) that the Buddha’s absolute knowledge of the number of insects on the earth is of no use to us has not lost its relevance. See Wolf Singer, Matthieu Ricard, and Susanne Wasmuth, Hirnforschung und Meditation. Ein Dialog. Frankfurt am Main 2008:10: “[Buddhismus] … erfordert keine Glaubensakte. Man könnte den Buddhismus vielmehr als eine Wissenschaft des Geistes und einen Weg zur Transformation bezeichnen.” The rational and empirical image of Buddhism is clearly belied by studies of traditional Buddhist societies; for just one example among many, see B.J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic. Bangkok 1994. For a recent insightful and informative study (with an incongruously Maimonidian subtitle) of the relationship between Buddhism and Western science in the last hundred and fifty years, see Donald S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism and Science. A Guide for the Perplexed. Chicago/London 2008. Lopez notes that in order to spread across Asia, Buddhism assimilated the Vedic gods, the Tibetan “protectors of the snowy peaks,” and the Japanese kami; he then raises the question: “In order for Buddhism to establish itself in Europe and America, must the God of the West, the God of Science, also find its place in the Buddhist pantheon?” I believe that this is unlikely. Despite the political correctness and mutual respect that accompany the numerous attempts at rapprochement between Buddhism and science, defensive and apologetic undertones are clearly discernable throughout, even in the eloquent discourses of someone like Ricard. A more appropriate metaphor than the assimilation of the God of Science might be that of seamen caught in a shipwreck throwing overboard what is dispensable in order to safeguard the essential.

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has been propounded by B. Allan Wallace. Wallace, who attempts to apply the vocabulary of philosophy of science to Buddhism, claims that Buddhism “posits testable hypotheses” about the nature of the mind and its relation to the physical environment, and that Buddhist theories “have allegedly been tested and experientially confirmed numerous times over the past twenty-five hundred years, by means of duplicative meditative techniques.”39 Further, “Buddhist insights into the nature of the mind and consciousness are presented as genuine discoveries in the scientific sense of the term: they can be replicated by any competent researcher with sufficient prior training.”40 The distinctions and characterizations put forward by Ricard, Wallace and others are historically doubtful, for Buddhism had neither a scientific character—certainly not in the sense of “science” when applied to modern physics—nor was its scope limited to the mind. Buddhism had its own theories of matter in order to account for all elements of existence (dharmas). Nevertheless such new interpretations of Bud39

40

See Wallace 2003 [as in n. 35]: 7. The alleged experiential confirmation of Buddhist theories would be, in my opinion, closer to the experiential confirmation of witchcraft and divination (described in many ethnological studies such as of the Azande by Edward Evans-Pritchard) than to a confirmation of an experiment in modern physics or the cognitive sciences. In a similar vein, Wallace claims that “many Buddhist theories are obviously the expression of rational public discourse” (p. 5), but his idea of rationality remains a mystery to me. Wallace is hostile to the academic study of Buddhism, whose scholars he describes as “scholars who spent their time reading other people’s books and writing their own books about other people’s books.” He considers their lack of contemplative experiences as introducing “a glaring bias into modern academic Buddhist scholarship” (p. 7). Most scholars of Buddhism, he says, take “an Orientalist approach” and the study of Buddhism in Western academia is labeled “commonly unscientific” (p. 7). With such a cavalier approach, it is not entirely surprising that Wallace occasionally commits serious blunders such as mistaking “the attainment of cessation” (nirodhasamāpatti) for “a primary goal of Buddhist meditation” (p. 7). In fact, this meditation is not a part of the Buddhist path to salvation and may be considered a meditative luxury. Wallace quotes approvingly (p. 4) from Richard King’s Orientalism and Religion and seems to subscribe to the tenet that “pure” and “authentic” Buddhism is located in the experiences, lives and actions of living Buddhists in Asia and not in Buddhist texts, or as King calls them, “the edited manuscripts and translations carried out under the aegis of Western Orientalists.” Given that the vast majority of Buddhist traditions have not survived to the present day (Bareau discusses more than thirty “sects” for Conservative Buddhism alone), this approach, if followed, would severely limit and impoverish the scope of Buddhist studies. See Wallace 2003 [as in n. 35]: 8-9.

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dhism can be useful. Even though most scholars, myself included, are not looking at meditation as a source of knowledge of the external world, it may certainly be a source of knowledge in areas where the enhancement of concentration and memory may tell us something new and significant about ourselves. If rebirth is possible, and there is a considerable body of evidence in favor of this hypothesis41—but then the same can be said of miracles—meditation may perhaps be the means of awakening recollections from past lives. The study of meditation itself is not only crucial to the understanding of South Asian and Buddhist culture, but can also be employed in areas where introspection is called for, for instance in the study of the mind (as mind, and not as brain). It is not surprising, therefore, that the academic fields where meditative techniques have been studied and used best are psychology and psychotherapy. This is demonstrated by the papers in this volume by Michael M. DelMonte, Renaud van Quekelberghe and Shulamith Kreitler. It became clear already in early stages of the project that yogic perception is an ideal topic for interdisciplinary study. The present volume is the outcome of an attempt to initiate such a study, a study that centers on consciousness, body, mind and health, and that binds together such disparate disciplines as Buddhist and Tibetan studies, religious studies, philosophy and the history of philosophy, anthropology and psychology. One of the best available means of promoting cross-disciplinary studies are interdisciplinary symposia. They offer the participants the occasion to present the results of their research to a sympathetic and interested audience of scholars who work on similar topics in other disciplines; it creates a general framework for dialogue, and not of lesser importance, lets scholars and scientists experience their limitations. After the initial difficulty of getting accustomed to new terminology, new sets of questions, and new approaches, which initially makes communication seem impossible, one slowly comes to the realization that what other disciplines have to say is not only relevant, but greatly moti-

41

See Ian Stevenson, Cases of Reincarnation Type. 4 Vols. Charlottesville 1975-1983; European Cases of Reincarnation Type. Jefferson 2003; Satwant Pasricha, Claims of Reincarnation: An Empirical Study of Cases in India. Delhi 1990; Jim Tucker, Life

Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives. New York 2005.

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vating and inspiring. This, we hope, will also be the experience of the reader. In the following, we present the program of a conference of this type that was organized by Dagmar Eigner, Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek and myself at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in June 2006, and summarize those papers given at this conference that constitute the body of this volume. Some of them are of course significantly longer, modified versions of the talks that were presented. PROGRAM Tuesday, 27 June 2006 9:00 Welcome Ernst Steinkellner, Director, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences Opening address Eli Franco, Director, Institute for Indology and Central Asian Studies, University of Leipzig; Dagmar Eigner, Institute for the History of Medicine, Medical University of Vienna 9:30 John Taber, University of New Mexico Infinity in All Directions 10:15 Lawrence McCrea, Harvard University “Just Like Us, Just Like Now”: The Tactical Implications of the Mīmāṃsā Rejection of Yogic Perception 11:30 Orna Almogi, University of Hamburg The Physicality and Immanence of Gnosis in rDzogs-chen 12:15 Dorji Wangchuk, University of Hamburg A Relativity Theory of the Purity and Validity of Perception in IndoTibetan Buddhism

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15:00 Vincent Eltschinger, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia Dharmakīrti on the Career and Cognition of Yogins 15:45 Eli Franco, University of Leipzig Meditation and Metaphysics: On Their Correspondence and Mutual Interaction in South Asian Buddhism 17:00 Anne MacDonald, University of Vienna Seeing in Not Seeing: The Madhyamaka Experience

Wednesday, 28 June 2006 9:30 Karl Baier, University of Vienna Meditation and Contemplation: Late Medieval to Early Modern Europe 10:15 Marion Rastelli, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia Perceiving God and Becoming Like Him: Yogic Perception and Its Implications in the Tradition of Pāñcarātra 11:30 Yohanan Grinshpon, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Serpent and the Void: Kundalini and Empty Consciousness in Tantric Yoga 12:15 Elizabeth De Michelis, University of Cambridge What do Haṭhayogins Perceive? Dhyāna (meditation), samādhi (enstasy) and the Manipulation of Mind, Senses and Sense-organs (manas, citta, indriya) in Selected Classical and Modern haṭhayoga Texts 15:00 Philipp A. Maas, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia Mental Processes, Direct Perception, and [Meditative] Concentration (samādhi / māpatti) in Classical Sāṃkhya Yoga

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15:45 Marcus Schmücker, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia Between God’s Cognition and Normal Perception: Yogic Perception According to the Later Tradition of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta 17:00 Oded Maimon, Tel Aviv University Consciousness Phases According to Experience with Eastern Philosophies

Thursday, 29 June 2006 9:30 Dietrich Ebert, University of Düsseldorf and University of Leipzig Physiological Correlatives of Dharana and Their Meaning 10:15 John Baker, Moorpark College, California Psychedelics, Culture, and Consciousness: Some Biocultural Considerations 11:30 Diana Riboli, Panteio University, Athens Shamans and Transformation 14:00 Dagmar Eigner, Medical University of Vienna Transformation of Consciousness through Suffering, Devotion, and Meditation 14:45 Shulamith Kreitler, Tel Aviv University Altered States of Consciousness as Structural and Functional Variations of the Cognitive System Friday, 30 June, 2006 9:30 Renaud van Quekelberghe, University of Koblenz-Landau Mindfulness and Psychotherapy: The Revival of Indian Meditative Traditions within Modern Psychology, Psychotherapy and Medicine 10:15 Urs Rüegg, University of Vienna

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Psychotherapy and Altered States of Consciousness: Which Scientific Concept is Helpful? 11:00 Günther Fleck, University of Vienna The Consciousness Disciplines and Knowledge Production: An Epistemological Account 12:15 Michael M. DelMonte, St. Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin Empty Thy Mind and Come to Thy Senses: A De-constructive Path to Inner Peace 15:00 Discussion

SUMMARIES Part I: Yogic Perception in the South Asian and Tibetan Traditions Of the above twenty-three lectures, seventeen could be collected in the present volume. The following brief summaries of the papers accompanied by short comments are designed to help the reader to navigate through the presented terrain. In Indian philosophical texts, there are often two protagonists, an opponent and a proponent, with the opponent always speaking first (so that the proponent can have the last word). We will follow this fine procedure here and begin with two papers that present some of the most powerful objections to and criticism of yogic perception that were articulated in the Indian tradition. The Mīmāṃsā tradition is often labeled as the most orthodox of all Indian philosophical traditions. Yet this tradition rejects with vehemence some of the most distinctive tenets that one associates with Hinduism, notably, the existence of God,42 the cyclical dissolution and re-emergence of the

42

While the Mīmāṃsā does not reject the existence of deities who might play the role of recipients in sacrifices, the existence of an omnipotent or omniscient God, like Śiva or Viṣṇu, to whom the creation of the world, the composition of the Veda or a decisive influence on the human lot may be attributed, is vigorously rejected.

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cosmos, the ideal of liberation (mokṣa, nirvāṇa and similar expressions)43 and—what concerns us here—yogic perception. In “‘Just Like Us, Just Like Now’: The Tactical Implications of the Mīmāṃsā Rejection of Yogic Perception,” Larry McCrea shows why the Mīmāṃsaka philosopher Kumārila (7th c. CE) considered the very possibility of yogic perception a serious threat to the validity of the Vedic tradition. He presents Kumārila’s arguments succinctly and clearly and explains the context in which they were raised. The main concern of the Mīmāṃsā is to demonstrate that the Vedas (“the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism”) are the only source for knowing dharma.44 Thus, it is not yogic perception as such, but its potential as a source for knowing the dharma that makes the Mīmāṃsakas fervently oppose it. To begin with, even if a yogi such as the Buddha could indeed perceive truths that are beyond the range of perception of ordinary people, this would be useless for them. There is, as McCrea puts it, “an unbridgeable epistemic divide” (p. 58) between yogis and ordinary people. Thus an ordinary person can never know who is a genuine yogi and who is a quack or a swindler. “It takes one to know one.” On the other hand, if the statements of a yogi could be confirmed by ordinary means, they would be superfluous.45 At any given time, people as a rule lie. One cannot trust them today, and in the past they were equally unreliable. The constancy of behavior between past and present individuals, past and present societies, is one of the most characteristic assumptions of Kumārila. The same consistency or uniformity in the perceptual capacity of ordinary people is assumed to have existed throughout the ages. It is clear that people’s capacities can have quantitative differences: some people may be able to see objects that are far away or very small, objects that an-

43

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This human aim is absent in the early Mīmāṃsā texts, but was introduced in those written after the 6th century CE. Dharma is narrowly interpreted by the Mīmāṃsā as characterized by an injunction to perform a sacrifice. It is a far cry from dharma referring to moral or meritorious action; see Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection. Albany 1991, especially chapter 4: Vedic Apologetics, Ritual Killing, and the Foundation of Ethics. This criticism is reminiscent of a famous argument against the validity of inferences: inferences are either not established or they prove what has already been proved: sāmānye siddhasādhyatā, viśeṣe ‘nugamabhāvaḥ.

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other person cannot see, but there is no radical or qualitative difference between what all people see: colors are seen and not heard.46 A common move to substantiate the reliability of a person, be it a yogi like the Buddha or a God like Śiva, relies on his self-identity. If the Buddha’s statements about matters that can be examined by ordinary people (say, about medicine and healing) are invariably confirmed to be true, one may trust his statements about other matters as well (for instance, about karma and past lives). If the mantras revealed by Śiva that are applicable to everyday life function well (for instance, bring wealth to their user), one may assume that his other mantras function equally well. As Kumārila makes clear, an argument in this form is patently false. The fact that someone is reliable in area A does not imply that he is reliable in area B, especially when area B is beyond the reach of ordinary people. Would we accept metaphysical speculations about God because they are put forth by a physicist who has been proven reliable in physics? Kumārila also emphasizes the plurality of yogic visions and the ensuing contradictions. If the cognition of our yogis contradicts that of your yogis, whom shall we trust? In fact, no yogi can be trusted. Unless one possesses such knowledge oneself, one is unable to judge whether another person knows things beyond the reach of the senses. Any other standard opens the way to frauds or even honest but delusional people claiming knowledge about extrasensory objects they do not possess.47 Probably in response to Kumārila, later Buddhist and Hindu writers who attempted to establish religious authority put a strong emphasis on the speaker’s motivation. It is not enough that one knows the truth; one also has to have a positive motivation to communicate that truth (this motivation is usually identified with compassion towards living beings and the ensuing wish to help them) and a lack of motiva46

47

Actually there are people who do hear colors, as anyone with synaesthesia (apparently one out of every thousand people) or anyone who has had a psychedelic experience would know. In the last part of McCrea’s paper, which I do not summarize here, he briefly presents Kumārila’s positive arguments for the reliability and eternity of the Veda. It would be an interesting exercise to check whether the arguments about the impossibility of knowing whether a person is omniscient might not be applied to the impossibility of knowing that the Veda is eternal.

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tion to lie. Unlike Kumārila, who states that people usually lie, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti maintains that people tell the truth unless they have a motive for lying, and he further argues that the Buddha has no such motive because he has nothing to gain from lying to us.48 Although the aspect of motivation and compassion of the speaker can be found prior to Kumārila in discussions about religious authority and reliability (e.g., in the Nyāyabhāṣya), this aspect does not seem to have been emphasized before his time. However, even if one can be sure that the Buddha had no motivation for lying to his disciples, it is possible that he was deluding himself. Dharmakīrti counters this objection by maintaining that the major part of the Buddha’s teaching is not about objects beyond the reach of the ordinary perception and inference, but is about objects that are independently verifiable. So even if the Buddha were wrong about non-empirical matters such as karma,49 this would hardly matter as long as he is verifiably right about the phenomenon of suffering, its cause, and the way to remove this cause. Similarly, he may or may not be literally omniscient, but even if he isn’t, this hardly matters as long as he knows everything there is to know about how to stop suffering. As Dharmakīrti somewhat sarcastically puts it: we don’t care whether the Buddha knows the number of worms in the world. John Taber’s paper, “Yoga and our Epistemic Predicament,” covers partly the same ground as McCrea’s, but it is wider in scope. It begins with the question whether yogic experience is at all possible and investigates the epistemic conditions that would allow one to answer the question affirmatively. What matters to Taber is not whether such experiences are subjectively possible, but whether they are true. In other words, whether there can be a means for new knowledge, especially of

48

49

See Pramāṇavārttika 2.145b: vaiphalyād vakti nānṛtam. “He [The Buddha] does not tell a lie because [this would] be fruitless.” This verse is edited and translated in Tilmann Vetter, Der Buddha und seine Lehre in Dharmakīrtis Pramāṇavārttika. Vienna 1990: 52. Although karma is one of the causes of rebirth, Dharmakīrti explicitly rejects the possibility of eradicating karma in order to stop rebirth. As long as one lives, one continuously produces new karma and thus, the complete elimination of karma is never possible. The only way to stop rebirth is to eliminate desire, as is stated in the four noble truths.

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objects that are traditionally associated with yogic perception, such as past and future objects,50 or indeed of all objects. Historians of Buddhism and Indian philosophy, as well as scholars of religion, usually disregard the question of truth in many facets of their studies, not only with regard to yogic perception.51 Yogic perceptions, however, are important because the belief in them played such an important role in various societies and cultures. It is for this reason that Taber is not content with leaving the question of truth aside (p. 72): “Surely it is of the utmost significance if a particular society or culture attributes value to, and invests considerable cultural energy and resources in, something that is, at basis, an illusion—just as it would be if a particular person were to build his life around a belief that is patently false, say, a belief in the existence of some imaginary being. We would immediately suspect that some pathology is at work, distorting that society’s collective perception of reality.” Taber approaches the question of truth by examining a question that was debated over centuries in Classical India, the famous debate between the Mīmāṃsakas and the Buddhists (beginning in the 7th century and lasting until Buddhism had practically disappeared from the Subcontinent around the 12th century).52 Interestingly, for the most part the debate was not whether a particular person (such as the Buddha or the Jina) had acquired the right knowledge about what ultimately must be done and avoided, but about the very possibility of a human being acquiring such knowledge. A presupposition shared by all parties in the debate was that if such knowledge is at all possible, it would be acquired by yogic perception (yogipratyakṣa), for that is the only type of perception whose scope can go beyond the present. So who won this debate? Taber concentrates on the Proof of an Omniscient Person by the 50

51

52

Seeing past and future objects is counted by the Yogasūtra as one of the accomplishments (siddhi), i.e. the supernatural powers that the true yogi possesses; see Yogasūtra 3.16. The factoring out of the question of truth is not specific to Buddhist or Hindu studies, but is typical for religious studies in general. See Johann Figl, “Wahrheit der Religionen. Ein Problem der neueren Religionswissenschaft und der Religionsphänomenologie.” In: Gerhard Oberhammer and Marcus Schmücker (eds.), Glaubensgewissheit und Wahrheit in religiöser Tradition. Vienna 2008: 81-99. The debate began in earnest with Kumārila in the 7th century and continued till the 11th century in the writings of Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnakīrti.

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Buddhist philosopher Ratnakīrti (ca. 990-1050), who represents the last phase of Buddhist philosophy in South Asia. Taber compares the attribution of yogic perception to the Buddha to the attribution of miracles to Jesus. In both cases the credibility of the testimony must be weighed against that which speaks against it, e.g., witnesses being few, of doubtful character or having a vested interest in what they affirm. However, above all the credibility of the testimony has to be weighed against the improbability of the fact to which it testifies (p. 77-78). Can one show that yogic perception is not a miracle, that it does not violate the laws of nature? Yogic perception qua perception has to have two qualities: it has to be free of conceptual construction (or be vivid) and has to be non-erroneous. Concerning the first characteristic, it seems impossible to transform conceptual teachings like the four noble truths into a vivid visual image, no matter how long one meditates on them. In establishing the first characteristic, Ratnakīrti explains that one should not consider perception, as has been traditionally done, to be an awareness that is somehow related to the senses. Rather perception is nothing but an immediate awareness, and such awareness is not limited to sense data.53 Yet even if we grant that long, intense and uninterrupted meditation causes objects of cognition to appear with such clarity or vividness as if they stood before one’s eyes, the question of their veracity remains open. However, as far as I can see, Ratnakīrti does not elaborate on this issue, probably because he follows Dharmakīrti’s assumption that the Buddha’s main teaching and his reliability are provable by ordinary means of knowledge. Only towards the very end of his treatise does he attempt to prove genuine omniscience, without, I suspect, being entirely convinced of his own proof. Taber concludes his investigation with the failure of the Buddhists to prove the possibility of omniscience. Of course, the impossibility of omniscience remains equally improvable. This, however, is hardly 53

In this, Ratnakīrti follows his teacher Jñānaśrīmitra, who follows in turn an original development by Prajñākaragupta (ca. 750-810). The latter identified perception with immediate awareness (sākṣātkaraṇa) and consequently claimed that even inference can be perception; see Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana (ed.), Pramāṇavārttikabhāṣyam or Vārtikālaṅkāraḥ of Prajñākaragupta (Being a Commentary on Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārtikam). Patna, 1953: 111.20: tasmād anumānam api sarvākārasākṣātkaraṇapravṛttaṃ pratyakṣam eva.

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surprising, for practically no philosophical tenet can be proved. The question Taber raises next is crucial, namely, how to deal with the fact that yogic perceptions are widely, even cross-culturally, reported. Should one simply investigate such phenomena and put aside the question of their veracity? This is, in fact, the common practice in religious studies (as an academic discipline), no matter which culture or which religion forms the object of investigation. One may attempt to determine what is actually being said, what impact it has on a given culture, what function it fulfils in society, and so on without asking whether it is true, or even assuming it is untrue. But this is not the path Taber proposes to take. If societies and traditions are inherently healthy and rational, they cannot be based on falsehoods or on the thin theoretical possibility that that yogic perception is not impossible. Yet we must continue to collect data and keep our minds open, and we must be willing to consider yogic perception at its face value. For the time being, however, as long as our theory of nature cannot accommodate yogic perception, it will remain deeply problematic. Eli Franco’s paper, “Meditation and Metaphysics,” has a different concern altogether, but it may still belong to the pūrvapakṣa of this volume inasmuch as it challenges the role attributed to yogic perception in shaping Buddhist philosophy. The notion that Buddhist philosophy arose from meditation has been widespread among scholars of Indian philosophy. Sweeping formulations of this idea, such as by Constantin Regamey or Edward Conze, are clearly wrong and need not be further examined. However, even more careful and qualified formulations, such as that by Lambert Schmithausen, remain in the final analysis improvable and questionable. Schmithausen is, to the best of our knowledge, the only scholar who has not just pronounced this idea, but who has seriously attempted to prove it on the basis of rigorous philological analysis. Thus, his work deservedly forms the focus of the attention here. Franco examines this hypothesis in some detail and provides thereby a bird’s-eye view of most if not all the important philosophical theories in South Asian Buddhism. He argues that the relation between meditation and metaphysics in Buddhism cannot be reduced to a single model. In the final analysis, one cannot avoid the conclusion that certain philosophical theories (which are described in the paper) arose from meditative experiences and certain others did not, and that the origin of still others cannot be determined, in which case it seems preferable to

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suspend judgment. This conclusion may seem trivial and obvious, but it goes against the mainstream in Buddhist studies. Anne MacDonald’s contribution, “Knowing Nothing: Candrakīrti and Yogic Perception,” deals with the topic of yogic perception in the Madhyamaka tradition, one of the major schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism that had a profound influence both on Indian and Chinese Buddhism and is alive in the Tibetan tradition until the present day. While focusing on the objectless meditation on emptiness (śūnyatā), she also provides a succinct introduction to Madhyamaka philosophy in general. Nāgārjuna (2nd-3rd c. CE), the founder of the Madhyamaka tradition, said practically nothing on meditation or yogic perception in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikās. His main concern there was to disprove the existence of the elements of existence (dharma) as postulated in various metaphysical theories of Conservative Buddhism. To understand the Madhyamaka stance on yogic perception and related issues it is informative to turn to other works by Nāgārjuna and to his influential commentator Candrakīrti (600-650 CE). MacDonald notes that the supernatural capacities of knowledge (abhijñā)54 are barely mentioned in Candrakīrti’s writings owing to their negligible soteriological role. Candrakīrti’s interest in supramundane knowledge lies in an insight into the nature of reality that facilitates the break out of the “jail of saṃsāra.” This he equates not with an insight into the four noble truths, but into the emptiness or unreality of all things. Thus, the questions arise: How can one escape from something that is not real? And is nirvāṇa as unreal and as non-existent as saṃsāra? The Mādhyamikas reject the four possible views: that nirvāṇa exists, that it does not exist, that it both exists and does not exist, or neither. The thorough knowing (parijñā) of the non-existence of both existence and non-existence is, according to the Mādhyamikas, powerful enough to release one from the bonds of saṃsāra. Candrakīrti equates this knowing with non-perception of existence and nonexistence: When the yogi remains without an apprehension of any of the things accepted by others as existing or non-existing, the object of his thorough knowledge is different from and excludes all phenomenal entities. The true nature of dependently originated phenomena, MacDonald contends (p. 145), should be understood as the “Mādhyamika’s onto54

See p. 6 above.

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logical nirvāṇa.” The knowing of this nature, sometimes referred to as knowing the “thusness” (tattva) of things, is the knowing without object that the yogi cultivates in the meditative state. Later Mādhyamikas such as Kamalaśīla (740-795), who was heavily influenced by Dharmakīrti and the epistemological tradition (discussed in Eltschinger’s paper in this volume), interpreted this knowledge as cognition apprehending nothing but itself (svasaṃvedana). However, this interpretation would not have been acceptable to Candrakīrti. In the course of a debate with a Realist opponent who claims that the object confers its form to consciousness, Candrakīrti points out that consciousness of a non-existent object, such as the son of a barren woman, would have to conform to the non-existent form and be itself non-existent.55 When consciousness does not apprehend the image of an object, it simply cannot arise. Equally impossible is the epistemologists’ account of liberating insight being the culmination of meditation on the four noble truths. According to them, at the beginning of meditation its object is conceptual, i.e., a universal, but in the course of meditation it gains in vividness till it becomes a particular.56 This assumption, Candrakīrti maintains, is simply impossible, for a conceptual object can never become a particular.57 Indeed, the epistemologists themselves assume that the particular and the universal are mutually exclusive. Further, even if such a process were possible, cessation (nirodha) could not be perceived because consciousness cannot arise without an objective support (ālambana).

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Candrakīrti seems to play here on two meanings of the word “form” (ākāra), which can be understood as an image or as the own nature of a thing. The same ambiguity is present in other terms meaning “form,” notably the term rūpa. This process is compared in later times to someone so besotted with his lover that he perceives her in his mind with such vividness that it is as if she would be standing in front of his eyes. See also Franco, “Perceptions of Yogis. Some Epistemological and Metaphysical Considerations.” In: Proceedings of the 4th International Dharmakīrti Conference (forthcoming). It is indeed difficult to understand how an abstract and necessarily conceptual statement such as “everything is impermanent” can become a particular object, no matter how long and how intensely one meditates on it. This point was debated between Buddhists and Naiyāyikas for centuries (as long as Buddhism remained alive on the Subcontinent); on the last phase of this debate, see Taber’s paper in this volume.

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But what are the implications of this stance? Does it mean that ultimate reality is pure nothingness and the ultimate realization that one cannot know anything? MacDonald contends that Candrakīrti’s view is more sophisticated. For him the actual realization of the true nature of all things is performed by an altogether different type of awareness termed “gnosis” (jñāna).58 Unlike normal awareness (vijñāna), gnosis does not have an object and perceives the inconceivable reality that was always there; it has a form (or nature) that transcends all manifoldness (sarvaprapañcātītarūpa). Candrakirti also states that the Buddhas abide in this objectless gnosis. In advancing this interpretation, MacDonald goes against the construal of Madhyamaka by North American scholars such as C.W. Huntington and Dan Arnold. Vincent Eltschinger’s paper, “On the Career and the Cognition of Yogins,” is a remarkable contribution towards the reconstruction of the religious philosophy of Dharmakīrti. It consists of two parts. The first part sketches a systematic development of the meditating Buddhist monk from the stage in which he is still an ordinary person, beset by a false view of Self and Mine giving rise to desire, to the moment of enlightenment and the ensuing liberation. Dharmakīrti follows the traditional Buddhist scheme of three successive stages in understanding the Buddha’s teaching as epitomized by the four noble truths, these three stages being studying, reasoning and meditating.59 As soon as one attains a meditative vision of the four noble truths for the first time (darśanamārga), the yogi stops being “an ordinary person” and becomes a noble person (ārya). However, this vision can only remove the conceptual error about the existence of a Self; the deeply-rooted, innate conception of the Self (sahajasatkāyadṛṣṭi) is far more difficult to eradicate and one has to repeat the meditative vision of the four noble truths in various aspects again and again until this innate or instinctive conception of Self, which is present even in lower animals that are unable to conceptualize, is uprooted. According to the Yogācāra tradition, with which Dharmakīrti is affiliated, living beings are divided into various “families” (gotra) 58

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On various aspects of gnosis in the Tantric tradition, see Orna Almogi’s paper in this volume. A similar three-stage process of understanding can be found in Hinduism, and it is still practiced, especially in the Vedānta tradition: studying (śravaṇa), reflecting (manana), and meditating (nididhyāsana). See also YS 1.48-49 referred to above.

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that determine the mode of liberation either as Hearers (i.e., disciples of the Buddha who reach enlightenment with the help of the Buddha), or as Buddhas-for-themselves (pratyeka-buddha, who reach enlightenment by themselves, but do not help other living beings), or as Buddhas (who reach enlightenment by themselves and help others to reach it). While the path of the Hearers and the Pratyeka-Buddhas is relatively short, the Bodhisattva, the person who has resolved to become a Buddha, has to prolong his stay in saṃsāra in order to acquire additional skills that enable him to become a “teacher” for all living beings; he must eliminate imperfections of body, speech and mind, and become practically omniscient. The practice of the path ends in the so-called transformation of the basis (āśrayaparivṛtti), an expression that was first used for the change of sex (from woman to man), but which came to designate the irreversible elimination of all defilements and their latent causes (“seeds”), this elimination characterizing the state of being Buddha.60 The second part of Eltschinger’s paper deals with the cognition of a yogi in its epistemological dimension. Yoga is characterized as a chariot pulled by two horses, tranquility of mind (śamatha) and discernment (vipaśyanā).61 It carries one to an insight (prajñā) of the true nature of reality. Yogic perception, as every perception, must be reliable and free of conceptualization. The first characteristic does not seem to be problematic for Dharmakīrti; the reliability of yogic perception is grounded in the Buddhist scriptures, which are also established by independent means such as perception and inference. For instance, one meditates on the four noble truths that are already known to be true before the meditation begins.62 One may also meditate of course on a nonexistent object such as an imaginary disintegrating corpse. In this case the yogic cognition is simply not true (and therefore not perception— pratyakṣa) for the simple reason that its object has no correspondence in 60

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See also Hidenori Sakuma, Die Āśrayaparivṛtti-Theorie in der Yogācārabhūmi. Stuttgart 1998. See Louis de La Vallée Poussin: L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. Vol. 8. Repr. Brussels, 1980: 131, n. 2. This perspective changes radically from the 8th century onwards, due to the debates with the Mīmāṃsā. From this point in time it is not an ordinary yogi, but the Buddha himself, the yogi par excellence, who is the focal point, and it is not the reliability of the Buddhist yogi who follows the Buddha’s teachings which is at stake, but that of the Buddha, who cannot rely on a further Buddha to establish the truthfulness of the Buddhist teachings.

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reality. Dharmakīrti’s main concern, however, is how a conceptual cognition can become non-conceptual. His criterion for the absence of conceptualization is the vividness of a cognition—when one sees an object as if it were standing before one’s eyes. Dharmakīrti’s solution to this problem was not completely satisfactory, and later Buddhist philosophers (Kamalaśīla, Prajñākaragupta, Jñānaśrīmitra, Ratnakīrti) continued to deal with it and suggest still other solutions.63 However, if yogic perception apprehends an object that was already established by a means of knowledge (pramāṇa), how could it be itself a means of knowledge, for a means of knowledge must apprehend a new object, an object that was not perceived earlier? Dharmakīrti’s answer would probably be that although the object was previously established by scripture and reasoning, it was not established as a nonconceptual object. Thus, the process of meditation is the reverse of the process of perceiving in everyday life. In everyday life, the cognitive process begins with a non-conceptual perception of an object which gives rise to a conceptual cognition. In meditation one begins with a conceptual object, and the meditation culminates in the conceptual construction being cast away. This cognitive process consists in destroying ignorance and other defilements of consciousness so that the cognition may shine again in its intrinsic luminous nature, with which it can apprehend reality as it truly is.64 Dorji Wangchuk’s contribution, “A Relativity Theory of the Purity and Validity of Perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism,” extends our field of vision to Tibetan Buddhism, or better, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, for the philosophical developments of the Tibetan scholars cannot be understood without their Indian background. Wangchuk notes that one occasionally comes across philosophical theories and interpretations that are of purely Tibetan origin and most of the purely Tibetan 63 64

See also Taber’s paper in this volume. Or one could say that although the inferential cognition of the four noble truths (attained at the second stage, between studying and meditation) is true, it does not make one obtain its object, and thus it cannot be said to be non-belying (avisaṃvādin) in the usual sense of the term. A similar case might take place with inference. What happens when one infers fire and then goes to the place of the fire and sees it? Both cognitions are valid, both are connected to the same object, yet each cognition is said have a new object. In fact they only cognize the same object from different aspects and cannot have different efficient actions (arthakriyā), which is characterized as attaining an object, for the same object cannot be obtained twice.

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philosophical theories seem to be the product of an endeavor to resolve and systematize conflicting ideas found in heterogeneous Indian Buddhist systems. This thus tallies well with my observation that meditative visions have not played a crucial role in the development of philosophical theories in South Asian Buddhism. Wangchuk examines an intriguing tenet in the Buddhist theory of knowledge, namely, that various types of living beings perceive one and the same entity in different modes. For instance, what appears to ordinary humans as clean water is perceived by so-called hungry ghosts (preta) as dirty and disgusting (sullied with blood and pus, etc.),65 by the gods as nectar, and by yogis as a goddess or a woman who is capable of arousing samādhic ecstasy in them. The epistemological problem that arises from this tenet is clear: If the same object is perceived differently by different living beings, whose perception is true? How can one then distinguish between valid and invalid cognitions? Further, how can one substantiate yogic visions that seem downright impossible, as for instance the perception of innumerable Buddha fields in a single atom? Wouldn’t the acceptance of such visions lead to “ontological nihilism”? The renowned rNying-ma scholar Mi-pham (1846–1912) suggested making a distinction between various kinds of means of knowledge, most importantly between pure and impure worldly means (kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma = sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa). The degree of the purity of perception determines the degree of its correctness.66 The purity of perception can be enhanced by meditation, but there is also a difference in the degree of purity of perception of those who do not meditate at all. For instance, a human being perceives water as water, which is regarded as purer than the preta’s perception of it as pus, regardless of whether that human being and preta meditate or not. Mi65

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This example first entered the philosophical discourse in Vasubandhu’s Viṃśatikā. It is used by Vasubandhu to show that living beings (notably the pretas) can suffer from what may be called collective illusions due to similar karmic fruition. Vasubandhu, however, does not doubt the identity of water as an object in this example, but only attempts to prove that it does not exist outside the mind. As far as I know, the example is not further discussed in the Buddhist epistemological tradition from the perspective it obtained in Tibetan Buddhism, namely, that the identity of the object is doubtful. According to this theory, the cognition of water by ordinary people would have to be considered less true than the vision of the yogi who perceives the same substance as a goddess.

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pham’s theory was inspired by Rong-zom-pa, a rNying-ma scholar of the 11th century, who suggested that reality is “mere appearance” (snang ba tsam), behind which there is nothing. He also adduced a distinction in validity between human and non-human and between yogic and nonyogic perceptions. Thus, the validity of perception depends on the purity of perception, i.e., the purer the perception is, the more it agrees with ultimate reality, which is the absolute purity. Wangchuk also discusses briefly the Indian antecedents, especially in Madhyamaka sources, of this theory, which he calls “the relativity theory of the purity and validity of perception.” Meditation and yogic perception culminate in gnosis (jñāna, prajñā and similar expressions). The quasi-material aspects of this gnosis form the subject matter of Orna Almogi’s paper, “The Materiality and Immanence of Gnosis in Some rNying-ma Tantric Sources.” According to these sources, gnosis is immanent in the human body, more precisely, in the center of the heart. Before describing the “metaphysiological” aspects of gnosis, Almogi looks into the conception of the human body in Buddhism in general. As is well known, Buddhist sources, including already the Pali Canon, consider the human body to be a collection of impure and revolting substances such as hair, nails, flesh, bones, bladder, liver, pus, blood, excrement, and the like. Yet the body is also recognized as the basis for the human experience that enables one to tread the path of salvation. The Tantric attitude to the body is generally more positive. The Tantric practitioners conceive the body as a microcosm, and it is meditatively envisioned as the pure body of a deity; most importantly it is the abode of gnosis, the ultimate aim for all Buddhists. Although gnosis is to be acquired by practice, it is often conceived of as inherent, latent and changeless. It abides in the body like a lamp in a pot that can shine only if the pot is broken. The Buddha-Embryo theory—the theory that all living beings are potentially Buddhas and will eventually become Buddhas—is used as a foundation to substantiate the immanence of gnosis in one’s body. The resemblance of this notion of gnosis to the Brahmanic concept of a permanent soul (ātman) is obvious,67 and the rNying-ma scholars make a conscious effort to distinguish gnosis from such a soul. 67

In fact, the Ratnagotravibhāga, the foundational text of the Tathāgatagarbha tradition uses the terms ātman and paramātman in the exposition of the Buddha nature.

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The “meta-physiology” of gnosis involves channels, cakras, vital winds and seminal drops. Their divergent descriptions have been conveniently juxtaposed by Almogi in the form of tables. Each channel has its own color, a type of pure essence, and an essence-syllable that causes purification, phonic seeds that cause pollution, and birth caused by the pertinent phonic seeds and type of mind. For instance, the channel of gnosis has a blue light, which is square in shape, the pure essence of breath, the essence syllable hūṃ, and is inhabited by mental perception. It is clear that although gnosis is not a material entity, one does find statements describing it in terms of light, color, shape and sound. However, these are merely meant as aids to confused living beings, who have not recognized the permanent immanent gnosis within themselves. Nevertheless, it appears that these descriptions were sometimes taken literally. Almogi’s paper concludes the Buddhological section in this volume. Three contributions deal with yogic perception in the Hindu tradition. Philipp André Maas discusses the so-called Yoga of suppression as it appears in the first chapter of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, i.e., the Yogasūtra of Patañjali with its oldest commentary, the so-called Yogabhāṣya,68 a text that Maas has edited in an exemplary manner on the basis of twenty-one printed editions and twenty-five manuscripts. His starting point is Oberhammer’s pioneering yet largely ignored study Strukturen yogischer Meditation (Vienna 1977), which shows beyond doubt that the Pātañjalayoga teaches four different kinds of meditations—not two, as is commonly assumed—which differ from each other with regard to their objects, structure and content. Maas’ paper, however, limits itself to the first two of these meditation types, for which he suggests a new terminology. The common term for these types of meditations, which seems to have been coined by Frauwallner, is “Unterdrückungsyoga” or “Yoga of suppression.” This term, however, can be misleading inasmuch as it evokes the common psychological meaning of “complete deletion of a reaction,” in contradistinction to “inhibition,” which refers to an inner impediment to activity that can be removed. “Suppression” is also used to refer to a voluntary suppression of an impulse for action. Obviously, none of these meanings is applicable to yogic meditation, nor is “suppression” as used by Indologists meant to 68

Yoga in this section is short for Pātañjala Yoga.

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convey these meanings, but rather to refer to the definition of yoga as the elimination or stopping (“the shutdown” as Maas calls it) of all mental processes. Further, it is often said that the purpose of yoga is to eliminate cognition, but this statement has to be qualified insofar as yoga does not eliminate the Self (puruṣa), which is defined as pure consciousness. What yoga aims at is the elimination of all objects of consciousness. Maas also notes that the “Yoga of suppression” consists, in fact, of two different types of meditation; he suggests calling the first type “non-theistic yogic concentration” and the second “theistic yogic concentration.” In the former type, the path leading to the cessation of mental activities is the practice of gradual withdrawal or detachment, in a first stage from everyday material objects, in a second stage from matter as such, and it culminates in self-perception of the Self, which leads to liberation from the cycle of rebirths. The theistic concentration is similar to the non-theistic in many respects—most importantly it also culminates in self-perception of the Self—but differs from it inasmuch as in the initial stages it has God (īśvara) as its object. It is remarkable that in Yoga the concept of God lacks any sectarian or mythological elements. Moreover, there is no qualitative difference between God and any other liberated soul, except that the latter became liberated at a certain point in time, whereas God has always been liberated. Nor does God really intervene in the realm of matter, and his effectiveness within the world is rather limited. At the beginning of every re-creation of the world he “assumes” a mental capacity— doesn’t this imply that he must leave his state of liberation?—in order to teach a seer and thus start a succession of teachers and disciples. His presumed motivation to do this, just as in the case of the Buddha, is compassion. The concept of God being intrinsically identical to all other souls (or selves) can also be found in the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, a Vedānta school that is strongly affiliated with the Vaiṣṇava devotional movement, examined here by Marcus Schmücker in “Yogic Perception According to the Later Tradition of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta.” This tradition is particularly interesting in its contrast to the Buddhist tradition. To begin with, yogic perception is hardly discussed in the writings of Rāmānuja (traditionally dated 1017–1137), the founding father of the Viśiṣṭādvaita. He accepts the possibility of its existence, but does not consider it capable of perceiving absolute reality

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(brahman) (see n. 3 in the paper). However, Rāmānuja’s follower, Meghanādārisūri (13th century), deals with this topic in a more extensive manner. Unlike the Buddhists, who go to a great deal of trouble to prove that yogic perception is free of any conceptual construction (see the papers by Taber, Franco and Eltschinger in this volume),69 Meghanādārisūri assumes that all yogic perceptions are conceptual for the simple reason that they do not depend on the senses. This aspect of yogic perception puts it on par with the cognition of God (identified with Viṣṇu), or the highest Self (paramātman), as well as of the liberated souls—both those that have always been liberated (nityamukta) and those that became liberated at a certain point in time. The difference between the cognition of a yogi, who is still bound to saṃsāra, and the cognition of the liberated souls (God included) is that the latter have only conceptual cognitions. Of course the cognition of God is far larger in scope—it includes everything—than that of the yogi, but inasmuch as both are independent of the senses, both are conceptually constructed (savikalpaka). Furthermore, while the Buddhists consider every conceptualization to be false and claim that only non-conceptual cognitions are a true reflection of reality, Meghanādārisūri argues that an absolute correspondence between perception and reality is only possible in a conceptual perception. A non-conceptual perception, which depends on the senses and has only a momentary existence, is unable to perceive all properties of a given object. Especially the recurrent properties, the socalled common properties or universals (jāti), which are identified with the structure (saṃsthāna) of things, cannot be perceived as such when an object is seen for the first time. It is only in the second and subsequent cognitions that the recurrence of a universal can be perceived. Yet the common point between the Buddhist and the Viśiṣṭādvaita traditions is that the highest cognition, be it the omniscience of God or of the Buddha, is a subspecies of yogic perception.

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An exception, however, should be noted for the Buddhist Tantric work Tattvasiddhi attributed to Śāntarakṣita; see Ernst Steinkellner, “Is the Ultimate Cognition of the Yogin Conceptual or Non-conceptual? Part 2: Introducing the Problem in the Final Section of the Tantristic Tattvasiddhi with Analysis and Translation.” In: Esoteric Buddhist Studies: Identity in Diversity. Proceedings of the International Conference on Esoteric Buddhist Studies, Koyasan University, 5 Sept.–8 Sept. 2006. Ed. by the Executive Committee, ICEBS. Koyasan 2008: 291-306. The possibility of Vedāntic influence on the doctrine of the Tattvasiddhi still needs to be explored.

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The role of yogic perception in another Vaiṣṇava devotional tradition, the Pañcarātra, is examined in Marion Rastelli’s contribution, “Perceiving God and Becoming Like Him: Yogic Perception and Its Implications in the Viṣṇuitic Tradition of Pāñcarātra.” The earliest evidence of this tradition dates back to the pre-Christian era, and it is still present today in the Vaiṣṇava tradition in South India. Unlike the other Buddhist and Hindu traditions presented so far, the Pañcarātra offers its followers not only a means of pursuing liberation from rebirth, but also allows the pursuit of worldly pleasures such as wealth, offspring, the fulfillment of sexual desires, death of enemies and a great number of supernatural powers. For the most part, these aims are to be achieved by ritual means into which yogic practices are integrated, but yoga is also practiced independently. There are two kinds of yogic practices: the Yoga of Eight Members (aṣṭāṅgayoga), which is practically identical to the practice described in Pātañjala Yoga bearing the same name (briefly referred to by Maas p. 6), and the Laya Yoga or the “Yoga of reabsorption.” Some elements are common to both practices, as for instance, sitting in a particular posture, controlling one’s breathing, and the withdrawal of the mind from the object of the senses. However, the two practices differ in their object; while the object of the yoga of Eight Members is static, the object of the Laya Yoga is dynamic. The term laya evokes the cosmic dissolution of the material elements, these being reabsorbed, each into the respectively preceding one, in the reverse order that they were created or emanated until they are all absorbed into the primordial matter, which is itself a manifestation of God.70 The Laya Yoga imitates this process of destruction. The yogi visualizes object after object in the order of their destruction until he reaches a particular deity, this deity being an emanation of still another deity, and so on until one reaches the Supreme God. The Lakṣmītantra describes several deities that are to be meditated upon, and similar to the Buddhist Tantric meditation described by Almogi, each is associated with a special state of consciousness and with a specific sound (the various elements are conveniently presented by Rastelli in a table on p. 306).

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These cycles of cosmic emanation and dissolution are well known from Classical Sāṃkhya (see also Maas’ paper in this volume, pp. 269-270) and Purāṇic literature. However, in the Pāñcarātra tradition the material elements are considered a manifestation of the God Vāsudeva.

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In the Laya Yoga, the meditating yogi visualizes a deity and continuously recites a mantra until the deity appears to him; by concentrating on the deity the yogi becomes one with it and reaches a state called “Consisting of Him/Her” (tanmayatā), depending upon whether the object of meditation is a God or a Goddess. In other words, the subject and object of meditation become identical. What this identity means exactly is not entirely clear, however. Rastelli suggests that the identity cannot be complete or numerical; rather “consisting of Vishnu” is analogous to saying “consisting of wood”: consisting of something would thus mean having all the properties of that thing. Thus, the result of meditation varies according to the object one meditates on. If one meditates on brahman (absolute reality) one attains the state of brahman, which means liberation from rebirth; if one meditates on Sudarśana, one attains the supernatural powers of Sudarśana, and so on. In the Pañcarātra tradition, it is also possible to become “consisting of God” by ritual means, above all through a mental identification with the deity. This identification can be induced verbally by means of mantras, or by assuming the outward appearance of a deity, for instance, by wearing garments that are usually associated with the deity or certain adornments that are typical for it. A still easier way to attain the same goals, provided one has the financial means, is to offer fire oblations (homa) to the deity. It is interesting to note that all of these rituals, if performed well over a period of time, leave the deity no freedom of choice. It must appear before the yogi or the devotee.71 Part II: Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness from an Interdisciplinary Perspective The second part of this volume examines broader aspects of altered states of consciousness beyond those occurring in yogic perception. In the first four papers, Karl Baier deals with meditation and contemplation in the Christian tradition, Dagmar Eigner and Diana Riboli focus on shamanic trance in Nepal and Malaysia, while John Baker clearly shows that drug-induced altered states of consciousness are an element present 71

In this respect the Pāñcarātra tradition follows an older Vedic and Mīmāṃsā tradition which claims that the gods who are the recipients of certain sacrifices are in fact passive players inasmuch as they are obliged bring about the result for which a sacrifice is prescribed.

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in all traditional and modern societies. Thus, altered states of consciousness are by no means limited to meditative traditions. Karl Baier’s contribution, “Meditation and Contemplation in High to Late Medieval Europe,” is a useful reminder that Europe had its own rich tradition of meditation which has fallen into disuse, a tradition that, in an odd twist of fate, shows signs of revival under the growing influence of Indian meditative traditions. Baier examines the period between the 12th and 15th century, a period that differs significantly from the preceding and subsequent centuries. He deals primarily with four trends that became prominent during this period: the development of elaborate philosophical and theological theories dealing systematically with meditation and contemplation; the democratization of meditation and contemplation; the emergence of new imaginative forms of meditation; and a differentiation between meditation and contemplation. Baier considers these trends and related developments by examining three texts: Benjamin minor (also called The Twelve Patriarchs) of Richard of St. Victor (?-1173), the Scala Claustralium of Guigo II (1174-1180) and the anonymous Clowde of Unknowyng. In Benjamin minor, Richard of St. Victor develops a hierarchical system of different modes of cognition, correlating them to four basic cognitive faculties: sensus, imaginatio, ratio and intelligentia (sense-perception, imagination, discriminative rationality, intuitive insight). The lowest mode of awareness is termed cogitatio. It is “the careless looking around of the mind,” motivated by curiosity and other passions. Meditation is a more focused way of thinking; it emerges when the cogitatio becomes seriously interested in an object it has uncovered. Its dominant mental faculty is ratio, discursive thinking, and it investigates the cause (causa), mode (modus), effect (effectus), purpose (utilitas) and inner structure (ratio) of its objects. Meditation culminates in contemplation, the fulfilled insight. Cogitatio is like crawling on the floor, meditatio like walking and sometimes running, but contemplatio is comparable to free flight (liber volatus) and beholding from above, this allowing the whole landscape be viewed at once. Richard discriminates between different levels of ecstasy: a state in which the activity of the corporeal senses is only suspended, one in which imagination has come to a standstill, and a final absorption in

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which even intelligentia is no longer active. All forms of ecstasy are accompanied by exaltation and intense joy.72 Guigo’s Scala Claustralium (ladder for monastics), also known as Scala paradisi (the ladder to paradise) and Epistola de vita contemplativa (letter on the contemplative life) contains one of the most concise analyses of spirituale exercitium (spiritual exercise) written in the High Middle Ages. His intent was to integrate meditation and contemplation into the reading and interpretation of the Bible. In the early medieval period reading the Bible chiefly meant memorizing the text for liturgical purposes. In the 11th century the tradition of the Desert Fathers was revived, and the new order of the Carthusians integrated the lifestyle of the hermit with monastic community life. This led to an interiorization of religious reading, as is reflected in Guigo’s text. The practice contained three stages, which, again, are strongly reminiscent of Buddhist, Yoga and Vedānta practices: lectio, the monk reading the Bible in his cell and following the literal sense of the text as attentively as possible, which led to meditation and the monk beginning to repeat a passage that touches his heart again and again;73 oratio, the monk asking God to open his soul to His presence; and contemplatio, the monk gaining the deepest level of understanding of the biblical texts and experiencing their mystical sense (anagogia, sensus mysticus), which, as a direct encounter with God, can only be fully realized in contemplation. The basic distinction between meditation and contemplation is that in meditation the different faculties of the soul are still at work, whilst in contemplation their activities have calmed down and the ineffable center of the soul awakens. In the centuries after Guigo, the link between reading the Bible and meditation lost its importance. The imaginative techniques had the effect of the Bible being replaced by manuals of meditation, such as Vita Christi, which were better suited for visualization and easier to grasp. Meditation and contemplation ceased to be a monastic privilege that could be practiced only in the solitude of monasteries; they could 72

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One is immediately reminded of the Buddhist descriptions of dhyāna and āyatana meditations, briefly described in Franco’s paper, as well as of saṃprajñāta samādhi as discussed in Maas’ contribution, but the differences are strong enough to reasonably exclude the assumption of borrowing or influence of one tradition on the other. This practice is traditionally called ruminatio, rumination on the text.

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also be practiced in the flourishing towns. Book production developed enough to create a market of religious texts; these were usually compilations of monastic mystical theology, simplified schemes for the ascent to God, edifying stories about saints and miracles, and prayers. These books were not written in Latin, but in the vernacular languages. Thus, from the Late Medieval Period onwards, meditative and contemplative practices became increasingly popular among all strata of the literate European Christian society. Older forms of mysticism, based on withdrawal from the world and programs of asceticism and contemplative prayer, did not die out, but they were challenged by new lifestyles encouraging more democratic types of mysticism that were open to all (and therefore also communicated in the vernacular) and that did not demand retreat from the world.74 The Clowde of Unknowyng, written between 1375 and 1400 and today one of the most famous of all late medieval mystical texts, is a good example of the developments outlined above. The text follows the traditional distinction between vita activa (actyve liif) and vita contemplativa (contemplatyve liif). The first stage of active life consists of works of mercy and charity, the second, which is concurrently the first stage of contemplative life, is goostly meditacion, the third and final stage is specyal preier. The latter is described as blynde thoucht or nakyd feeling and culminates in ecstasy (excesse of the mynde, overpassyng of thiself), in which one is to leave behind distinct considerations of the self, sins, creation and God and enter a “cloude of forgetyng.” In the 15th century, the methodical structuring of thought within meditation became extremely elaborated. However, the more meditation became formalized, the more its limitations and dangers became obvious; the practice of contemplation began to decline. As Baier concludes, “only with the growing influence of Eastern religions and the revival of Western mysticism from the end of the 19th century onwards did the popularization of contemplative practices start all over again. The 20th century became the Age of the decline of the Baroque form of European meditation and gave birth to a second contemplation movement within Western Christianity.” Diana Riboli’s contribution, “Shamans and Transformation in Nepal and Peninsular Malaysia,” is an introduction to the different be74

Here, too, the emergence of the Mahāyāna bears striking if superficial similarities.

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liefs related to shamanic transformation into animal and plant forms, in particular in the ethnic groups of the Chepang in south-central Nepal and the Jahai and Batek of peninsular Malaysia. Despite the necessary adaptations of shamanic cultures to changes in social, economic and political conditions, the figure of the shaman generally remains that of a “hunter of souls,” even in societies no longer based on hunting and gathering. Riboli describes the rain forest as a closed universe from the Batek and Jahai point of view, divine and perfect, a sort of maternal uterus that satisfies all the basic requirements of its inhabitants and which is the beginning and end of everything.75 In what is clearly an implicit critique of Lévi-Strauss and his followers, she claims that for the societies she has studied, a conceptual distinction between “nature” and “culture” has little or no significance. Quite often the shamans’ faculty of transforming themselves into animal or vegetal forms, of communicating with animals and deities, or flying between cosmic zones is seen as a relic from a mythical “Golden Age,” a time when all human beings had these abilities. However, in some shamanic societies ecstatic journeys and altered states of consciousness are almost completely absent, although considered by Eliade and others to be an essential and defining element of shamanism. Riboli points out that what scholars call “altered states of consciousness” or simply “trance” is a complex phenomenon, and that the Chepang language has no single term corresponding to it.76 In spite of trances often having a similar physical appearance—the shaman’s body jerking, trembling and sweating profusely, as well as appearing to undergo sensorial detachment—there are different types, and they are not experienced as the same by shamans or their audience. Riboli distinguishes between “incorporatory trances,” in which shamans embody supernatural beings, and “trances of movement,” in which shamans travel to other cosmic zones. In her earlier studies she included the category “initiatory trances,” and noted that there are certainly still other types of altered states of consciousness, these being, however, 75

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The most friendly inhabitants of the rainforest are the cenoi, poetic creatures somewhat like our fairies, described as perfect little men and women living inside flowers who offer help to humans in distress. The same is true, of course, of what one calls “meditation,” a rather vague term that has no exact correspondence in any South Asian language (see also n. 3 above).

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difficult to document. Similarly, “shaman” itself is not a consistent category; the Chepang distinguish between pande,77 who are allowed to travel to all cosmic zones, and gurau, who can transform themselves into animal forms.78 The Jahai use halak and jampi to refer respectively to shamans of greater and lesser powers. Though Riboli has noted a decline in many of the shamanic practices described by Endicott in the 1970s, she nevertheless confirms, contrary to observations by certain scholars, that despite the strong pressures and tensions they are continually subjected to, both Batek and Jahai forms of shamanism are still very much alive today. In fact, after the recent passing away of one of the oldest and most venerable shamans, many young men have been receiving dreams in which the old shaman is teaching them about the shamanic vocation. A new generation of young shamans seems to be emerging. Dagmar Eigner’s contribution, “Transformation of Consciousness through Suffering, Devotion, and Meditation,” investigates the spiritual and personal development of shamans and mediums in Central Nepal. It is based on Eigner’s study of traditional healers in Central Nepal undertaken for a total of thirty-six months between 1984 and 2005. Her research has focussed on Tamang shamans living in the middle hills east of Kathmandu Valley. The Tamang constitute the largest ethnic minority in Nepal and there are many shamans among them. These shamans mostly treat a multi-ethnic, socially disadvantaged clientele, who seek cures for a wide variety of ailments. Some shamans have moved away from traditional healing methods, partly because of their lack of the needed knowledge and partly in order to accommodate the multi-ethnic environment. In this context, Eigner has investigated the similarities between the healing methods of different healers and the role of ethnic-specific knowledge of myths in the shamanic procedures. Contact with a deity is considered a basic component of a shaman’s power. Shamans and mediums usually experience a vocational calling, in which they are chosen by a spiritual power to become a healer. Often this is not immediately recognized and the unusual behav77

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It seems that about ten percent of pande are women; Riboli investigated thirty pande, three of whom were women. This second category seems to be mythical or defunct; in eight years of extensive field work, Riboli has not encountered a single shaman who claimed to possess this ability.

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iour of the chosen person is interpreted as a disturbance of her/his well being. The period of crisis is attended by physical and psychic suffering that is not alleviated by standard medical treatment. On the contrary, in some cases attempts to force the so-called evil spirits to depart causes the suffering to intensify. Sometimes several years pass before deities or ancestor spirits reveal themselves through the persons they have chosen. After the initial crisis, such a person forms a strong relationship with the spiritual world. They then begin a process of granting the deities and tutelary spirits increasing space within their psyche, and of diminishing the desires and expression of their own ego. Devotional exercises slowly alter the mind of a shaman so that with growing experience, the chosen person remains continuously in a state of transformed consciousness. Having attained this altered level of consciousness, they are able to carry out whatever is needed during healing sessions without effort and without a conscious decision on their part. Their change in personality is primarily realized during treatments, in which their patients experience the power of the deities, this being the core of the healing process. Eigner’s paper presents a number of narratives of shamans and mediums from Central Nepal describing this process of transformation. Briefly presented are various healers’ perceptions of the spiritual world, their own connection to it, and their understanding of the cures they achieve. These narratives show that the strong connection with the spiritual world changes these healers for the rest of their lives; their status in the community, their relationships with the people around them, and their sense of identity have become irreversibly altered. In “Psychedelics, Culture, and Consciousness: Insights from the Biocultural Perspective,” John Baker suggests that the use of psychedelic substances to alter consciousness is more ancient than all of the other techniques discussed in this volume. He also argues that studies of psychedelic experiences can be very useful for discerning the roles that cultural expectations and individual characteristics play in shaping and understanding altered states of consciousness. Baker’s interactionist position assumes that consciousness is affected by both “top down” and “bottom up” phenomena. Consequently, the study of consciousness states requires a comprehensive framework that incorporates biological and psychological insights into the study of socio-cultural phenomena. The number of plants, fungi, minerals, and even animals capable of inducing altered states of consciousness is large, and the use of

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these substances has been documented throughout the world since ancient times. The use of such substances reflects both the basic human predilection to enter altered states and the fact that almost any psychoactive substance can be utilized for personally integrative and culturally constructive purposes when used appropriately. In contrast to the traditional use of psychedelic substances in non-Western cultures, many Westerners have a “hallucinophobic” attitude about psychedelics. This attitude has its roots in the proscriptions against pagan religions issued by the Emperor Theodosius in 380 CE, when he adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire and suppressed the ancient mystery cults. During the next sixteen hundred years, most European knowledge about the proper ways to use these substances and exploit their effects for constructive purposes was lost. Consequently, few were prepared for the renaissance in psychedelic use that began in the 19th century and accelerated in the 20th, especially after the discovery of LSD. With the spread of LSD and other psychedelic substances, millions of individuals were able to experience and explore highly unusual states of consciousness. Lacking traditional frameworks for using these substances or understanding their effects, some people experienced “bad trips” or suffered physical injury because they were temporarily unable to react appropriately to external events. Laws were quickly passed that prohibited the manufacturing, distribution, use, or possession of psychedelic substances. By the mid-1960s, all psychedelic research on human subjects had been curtailed. As a result, many people in the West continue to view psychedelics in a highly negative light. Baker uses the terms “sacrament” and “sacramental” to distinguish between psychedelic use in societies that embrace such use and in those that condemn it. In the former, a person’s first use of a psychedelic substance often has an initiatory quality and occurs after a period of training in which the individual has been taught to anticipate and “correctly” interpret such experiences. Here, psychedelics often serve culturally integrative purposes. In the second type of society, psychedelics are typically used clandestinely and without proper guidance. In such contexts, psychedelic experiences may lead an individual to question his or her society’s values and world view. In spite of this, such experiences are often interpreted in near-mystical terms and can have profoundly positive effects upon the user.

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The “sacrament/sacramental” distinction recognizes that cultural attitudes play a profound role in shaping states of consciousness. At the same time, the biological underpinnings of modern anthropology remind us that the uniqueness of each person begins at the genetic level, and is expressed in differences in the make-up of our individual nervous systems as well as our life histories. Consequently, every experience of an altered state of consciousness is unique, and is open to multiple interpretations. Baker concludes that psychedelic agents do not only represent important tools for studying consciousness, but also have the potential to “democratize” consciousness by making it possible for large numbers of people to explore domains previously accessible to only a few. He suggests that the near-universal desire to experience an altered state of consciousness can—and should—be channeled in a way that minimizes the possibility of problems and maximizes the potential for personal and social gain. Shulamith Kreitler’s contribution, “Altered States of Consciousness as Structural Variations of the Cognitive System,” presents a new approach to defining consciousness in terms of an innovative theory of meaning. Most approaches to consciousness have been based on the assumption that differences in consciousness consist primarily in degrees of awareness, so that it may seem superfluous to dwell on the characterization of various so-called altered states of consciousness. However, an analysis of different states of consciousness reveals several major dimensions in which they indeed do differ, e.g., salience and the status of the “I,” the sense of control and the ability to control, clarity of thought, precision of perception with regard to external reality and environment, emotional involvement, as well as the arousal, accessibility and inhibition of certain kinds of information. These specified dimensions allow the common states of consciousness to be characterized according to their differences in terms of major cognitive, emotional and behavioral features. The differences between the states of consciousness imply that a new approach is necessary. The new suggested approach is cognitive and based on a theory of meaning dealing with the contents and processes underlying cognitive functioning. Meaning is defined as a referent-centered pattern of meaning values. A referent is the input, the carrier of meaning, whereas meaning values are cognitive contents assigned to the referent in order to express or communicate its meaning. Together, the referent and the meaning value form a meaning

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unit. Five sets of variables are used for characterizing the meaning unit: meaning dimensions, which characterize the contents of the meaning values; types of relation, which characterize the immediacy of the relation between the referent and the cognitive contents; forms of relation, which characterize the formal regulation of the relation between the referent and the cognitive contents; referent shifts, which characterize the relation between the referent and the presented input; and forms of expression, which characterize the forms of expression of the meaning units. Each individual person functions cognitively in terms of a specific meaning profile (i.e., a set of meaning variables habitual for that person) that determines his or her range of cognitive potentialities and also affects manifestations at the level of emotions and personality. Cognition is a function of the structure and activation of the meaning system. Kreitler’s main thesis is that states of consciousness are a function of comprehensive changes in the cognitive system brought about by specific organizational transformations in the meaning system. One major kind of reorganization consists in changing the dominant types of relation that regulate the functioning of the cognitive system in ordinary wakeful states, namely the attributive and comparative, to the exemplifying-illustrative and metaphoric-symbolic that regulate the functioning of the cognitive system in certain states of consciousness. Structural changes of this kind may be attained by either psychological or physiological means. When they occur, cognitive functioning, personality manifestations, mood and affect, as well as physiological processes may be affected. Kreitler describes the changes in consciousness attained by means of experimentally-induced changes in meaning, as well as the resulting changes in cognitive and emotional functioning. The new approach may enable the matching of cognitive tasks to suitable states of consciousness, the production of states of consciousness by selfcontrolled cognitive means, and even the definition of new states of consciousness. The two final papers, by Michael M. DelMonte and Renaud van Quekelberghe, consider the use and integration of meditation in psychotherapy. Van Quekelberghe begins with a brief discussion of “mindfulness” (Pali: sattipaṭṭhāna, Sanskrit: smṛtyupasthāna) in the context of Theravāda Buddhism. The purpose of mindfulness is to increase the powers of concentration as a preparatory stage to meditation properly speaking (samādhi). It consists in the conscious awareness of

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everyday activities such as breathing, thinking, feeling, moving, eating and even defecating. In the last decade or so, cognitive behavior therapy and psychoanalysis has begun to focus on mindfulness as a constructive method for overcoming clinical symptoms and suffering. Quekelberghe notes that the recent shift in cognitive therapy from symptoms as the “content” to symptoms as the “context” offers an analogy to the traditional Eastern (Buddhist and other) distinction of consciousness directed towards an object and consciousness without an object. “Context” would correspond to emptiness, peace of mind, pure silence, crystal-like transparency and an empty mirror; while “content” would correspond to ego-related passions, mirages, thoughts and feelings. This dichotomy indicates the need to step back from the many to the one, from the changing to the changeless, from bondage to freedom. In the second part of his paper Quekelberghe offers a very useful survey of the relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism from the 1930s to the present day. He begins with the well-known study “Buddhist training as an artificial catatonia” by Franz Alexander (also summarized by DelMonte), which has inspired many leading psychiatrists to focus on the parallels between schizophrenic regression and meditation. However, there were also exceptions to this general trend and some psychiatrists, such as Johannes Schulz and Arthur Deikman, considered yogic traditions positively, fighting against the “naïve arrogance” of psychiatry and psychoanalysis towards the Eastern meditative practice. Jung rejected the psychoanalytic view of Asian or Buddhist meditation as infantile regression, autistic defense formation or narcissistic neurosis. Yet he too believed that an integration of Western psychotherapy and Eastern meditation was—if at all possible—not desirable. On the other hand, the so-called Neo-Freudians, including Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Harold Kelman, involved themselves with Zen-Buddhism in the 1950s and emphasized points of convergence of their discipline with it. Kelman, for instance, considered psychoanalysis to be a meditative training in mindfulness and the development of therapist-client relationship as analogous to the guru-devotee relationship. In the 1980s, Jeffrey Rubin tried to integrate Buddhist ideas into a so-called contemplative psychoanalysis, although oddly enough he somehow confused the Buddhist conception of egoless-ness (Pali: anatta, Sanskrit: anātman) with the psychoanalytic narcissism theory. The dialogue between Buddhism and psychotherapy has continued un-

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interruptedly until the present day, with Barry Magid currently its most prominent proponent. W.L. Mikulas was the first behavior therapist who integrated Buddhist meditation into behavior therapy. He emphasized self-control skills and few theoretical constructs, focused on the concrete content of conscious experience, and made a clear distinction between observable behavior and problematic concepts such as person, ego, identity and the world. Quekelberghe summarizes the work of a number of behavior psychotherapists who found correspondence between the Buddhist teachings and techniques of behavior therapy, namely, stress reduction programs based on mindlessness. These include Da Silva, Kabatt-Zinn, Grossman, Linhan, Perls, Hayes, and last but not least, Quekelberghe himself. Another important area of dialogue between Asian meditative traditions and psychotherapy is transpersonal psychology and therapy79—a school of psychology that studies and encourages spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and other metaphysical experiences of living. In an earlier work,80 Quekelberghe described the main fields of this spiritually oriented psychotherapy. Quekelberghe ends his article with a plea to establish modern “wisdom research centers” after the model of the famous Buddhist monastery Nālandā. Michael DelMonte’s paper, “Empty Thy Mind and Come to Thy Senses: A De-constructive Path to Inner Peace,” studies the beneficial effects of Yoga practices, Qi-gong, and modern Gestalt therapy on psychological growth (Eros). In an age when our minds and our senses are over-stimulated and our emotions over-aroused, meditation may be positively used as an antidote to mental over-drive. Paradoxically deep “mindfulness,” when competently practiced, may lead to peaceful “mindlessness,”81 a state of “no thought.”82 Such techniques are particu79

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The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology describes transpersonal psychology as “the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness.” Transpersonale Psychologie und Psychotherapie, Ed. Dietmar Klotz. Eschborn bei Frankfurt/M. 2005. In this respect, meditative therapy is the opposite of the “talking cure” typically used in Freudian and other therapies. DelMonte’s view of the relationship between thought and consciousness strikes me as being potentially anti-Darwinist (§4): “Although consciousness without thought

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larly effective in cases of unhealthy attachments, be they attachment to victimhood and self-righteous misery, obsessive attachment to people or objects, or fear of loss as linked to separation anxiety. These attachments lead to defensive detachment which DelMonte calls “schizoid defense”; in extreme versions this defense is found in the affective nonattachment of borderline personalities, defensive isolation, extreme egotism, or solipsism. However, DelMonte also warns us of the risks of using meditative techniques inappropriately; their use may become detrimental to social engagement and emotional attachment, foster “narcissistic emptiness,” pathological de-realization and de-personalization as well as pathological regression—fixated on Thanatos, i.e, the wish to return to an undemanding pre-incarnate state. Meditation is not suitable for everybody nor is everyone ready for it. The challenge for all self-conscious and reflective beings is how to build up an internal sense of self while being and living in an impermanent world. We all have a quest for knowledge as well as two typical orientations: introversion and extroversion, which need to be in equilibrium. Successful meditation helps one find the right balance between, on one hand, introspection and self awareness and on the other, social adaptation. Not surprisingly, introspection tends to become more important as we age. A final point is what DelMonte calls “the obsessive Western focus on individualism” that leads to a strong individual identity being forged at the risk of this over-valued “mask” or “false self” being taken too seriously. The traditional Eastern society, says DelMonte, does not overly focus on individualism83 and may facilitate attempts to dis-

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is a possibility, its opposite, thought without some consciousness is not (excluding the Freudian repressed unconscious). Consciousness thus appears to be primary, and from it emerges thought as a secondary epi-phenomenon: An epi-phenomenon that can become “parasitic,” in the sense that consciousness can play the role of a reluctant host to our unbidden thinking.” DelMonte touches here on a set of problems that are especially associated with the work of Louis Dumont (see especially his Homo Hierarchicus. Le système des castes et ses implications. Repr. Paris 1979). However, Dumont’s inspiring work also met with strong criticism. The issues involved are too complex and multifaceted to be dealt with here, but to risk a generalization about Indian civilization (for I have no overall competence in “Eastern” civilization), I would say that the tensions and inner conflict between “Homo Hierarchicus” and “Homo Equalis” are present also within Indian society.

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identify from over-invested individualism. It is interesting that the aim of yoga as a psychotherapy is not to become “atomized emotional islands,” although this is precisely the purpose of traditional yoga (see for instance Maas’ paper in this volume): Liberation consists in the awareness that one is an isolated “island,” albeit not an emotional one. CONCLUDING REMARKS The above papers fall into two broad categories, those dealing with historical-philological aspects of yogic perception and meditation, and others broadly falling into the social sciences of anthropology and psychology. The need for an interdisciplinary approach between textual and sociological disciplines is so obvious that it hardly needs to be mentioned. But at the risk of stating the obvious: The benefits of an interdisciplinary approach as practiced here should go in at least two directions. On one hand, after taking a walk in the modern social sciences, the textual scholars should be able to go back to their sources and gain a better understanding of them. The social scientists, on the other hand, who study meditative experiences as a cultural phenomenon, would certainly benefit from the historical depth that can be gained from the study of texts. As Richard Gombrich once said—I paraphrase from memory— Buddhism has been around for 2500 years: who in his right mind would want to restrict one’s study of it to the last century? The same is true of course for Hinduism and the European civilization. To conclude, I should mention perhaps what was underrepresented at the conference and is completely lacking in the present volume: the natural sciences. This reflects the approach and interests of the organizers. Collingwood once chastised someone who thought the mind is what proves recalcitrant to an explanation by the natural sciences: “In the natural sciences, mind is not that which is left over when explaining has broken down; it is what does the explaining. If an explanation of mind is what you want, you have come to the wrong shop; you ought to have gone to the sciences of the mind.”84 Our intention is not to question the relationship between the mind and the brain, or their possible ontological identity. At present, however, we do not yet seem to gain much when quantum physicists 84

R.G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan. Oxford 1942 (Repr. 1944), p. 11, § 2.48.

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tell us that consciousness is related to the collapse of a wave function which is used to describe the probability of distribution of all possible states of an observed system. Nor do we wish to dwell on the concept of relativity in Madhyamaka Buddhism as a precursor of modern physics or on the resonance of emptiness and quantum mechanics. We also consider of little relevance to our studies whether gamma or alpha rays increase or decrease in deep meditation. It may be fascinating to observe the physical changes that occur in meditation, which include metabolic, autonomic, endocrine, neurological, encephalographic and digestive effects, galvanic skin responses, hormone levels in blood, as well as limbic arousal in the brain. We deny neither the merit nor interest nor importance of these studies, but have deemed them of peripheral relevance to the studies undertaken in this volume.

Part I Yogic Perception in the South Asian and Tibetan Traditions

LAWRENCE MCCREA

“Just Like Us, Just Like Now”: The Tactical Implications of the Mīmāṃsā Rejection of Yogic Perception

The practitioners of traditional Indian hermeneutics, or “Mīmāṃsā”, are often described as the most “orthodox” upholders of the Vedic tradition, but even a cursory survey of the central works of the Mīmāṃsā tradition is sufficient to reveal that their positions were often quite radical, placing them at odds with most or all rival philosophical systems, even those within the “Hindu” fold. They were by and large skeptical about, or outright deniers of, many of the stock elements of Hindu cosmology—for example, the existence of gods, the cyclical dissolution and reemergence of the cosmos, the possibility of liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Similarly, the Mīmāṃsā position on yogic perception is decidedly at odds with what we might describe as “mainstream opinion” among Sanskrit philosophers. In opposition to virtually all other schools of thought in pre-modern India, the Mīmāṃsakas totally reject the possibility of yogic or supernatural perception. The only other group of philosophers who made this absolute denial were the materialist Cārvākas (with whom the Mīmāṃsakas otherwise have very little in common). In this paper I want to briefly consider some of the principal arguments the Mīmāṃsakas raised against yogic perception, in the hope of shedding some light on what made this skeptical stance so appealing to them or, perhaps more to the point, what made the admission of supernormal perception, even on the part of upholders of the Vedic tradition, seem so threatening to them. I will focus primarily on the arguments of the seventh century Mīmāṃsaka Kumārilabhaṭṭa, as he proved to be the most articulate and influential critic of yogic perception. In interpreting Kumārila’s arguments against yogic perception and attempting to understand their motivation, it is crucial to attend to the context in which they are made. Kumārila’s most important discussions of yogic perception are found in the Codanāsūtra and

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Pratyakṣapariccheda sections of his Ślokavārttika.1 The central question of the Ślokavārttika, and of the section of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra on which it comments, is to demonstrate that it is only from scripture, specifically from the Vedas, that people can gain knowledge of dharma and adharma—that is to say, of the beneficial or adverse karmic results that will follow from present actions, including but not limited to otherworldly results such as the obtainment of heaven or spiritual liberation. The primary purpose of raising the question of yogic perception in both of the passages mentioned above is to rule it out as a rival means of knowing dharma, leaving scripture as the only possible means of acquiring such knowledge. Now, the Mīmāṃsakas are not of course alone in wishing to ground their beliefs about the nature of the soul or the afterlife in purportedly reliable scriptural texts. Most of the rival philosophical/religious traditions they confronted accepted one or another set of scriptures as a reliable guide to otherworldly matters. What sets the Mīmāṃsakas apart from nearly all of their rivals is their understanding of how it is that scriptures can contain reliable information on such matters. Rival accounts of scriptural validity—both those of extra-Vedic rivals such as the Buddhists and Jains, and of those who upheld the validity of the Vedas, such as the Naiyāyikas—take the reliability of their scriptures to derive from the knowledgeability of their authors. Intuitively enough, they take the position that scriptures should be understood to be reliable insofar as it can be determined that those who composed them knew whereof they spoke. The remembered and recorded words of “seers” such as the Buddha and the Jina are seen as valuable insofar as they give us access to truths which they could perceive, but we cannot. It is, above all, against such claims of personal authority in matters of dharma that the Mīmāṃsakas direct their fire. It is therefore not primarily the existence of yogic perception, but its usefulness as a means for validating scriptural claims, that they wish to deny. They do offer arguments against the very possibility that any person could have the sort of extraordinary perceptual powers claimed for the Buddha and the like; but, crucially, they argue further that even if this were possible—even if certain individuals really did have the power to perceive dharma, for instance—this would be of no help to 1

For a brief overview of Kumārila’s position, see Bhatt 1962, pp. 160-163.

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ordinary people—to people like ourselves who are not yogis—in gaining knowledge of dharma for themselves. This concern to demonstrate the epistemic uselessness of yogic perception can be clearly seen in Kumārila’s seminal discussion in the Codanāsūtra section of the Ślokavārttika. The codanāsūtra itself (the second of the aphorisms of Jaimini, which form the basis of the Mīmāṃsā system) indicates that the commands of the Veda (codanā), which the Mīmāṃsakas take to be eternal and authorless, are the only means through which one can come to know dharma.2 In the course of defending this claim, Kumārila’s predecessor Śabara remarks that the statements of human beings cannot be considered reliable when they concern matters “beyond the range of the senses” (anindriyaviṣayam), for such things, as he says, “could not be known by a person, except through a verbal statement”.3 Yet if this verbal statement is made by another person, this only pushes back the epistemological problem one more step: how could the speaker of this statement have any knowledge of supersensory matters to impart? “In matters of this sort,” says Śabara, “human statements have no authority, just like the statements of congenitally blind people regarding particular colors.”4 Śabara’s brief comments, without offering any detailed arguments to this effect, presuppose a general uniformity of sensory capacities among people: what is “beyond the range of the senses” for one person will be so for another (barring sensory impairments such as blindness). Yet this is precisely what the advocate of yogic perception denies. The yogi is presumed to have sensory capacities that exceed those of ordinary persons, such that his statements would have the capacity to impart to those ordinary persons information about supernatural matters which they could not acquire for themselves. Obviously, if claims for this sort of extraordinary perception are allowed to stand, Śabara’s argument, and the central Mīmāṃsā claim it upholds, will collapse. Hence Kumārila, in commenting on and defending this passage of Śabara’s work, seeks to rule out the possibility that the statements of yogis could serve as a reliable source of 2 3

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See Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.2 (MD, Vol. 1, p. 13): codanālakṣaṇo ‘rtho dharmaḥ. Śābarabhāṣya ad 1.1.2 (MD, Vol. 1, p. 17): aśakyaṃ hi tat puruṣeṇa jñātum r̥te vacanāt. MD Vol.1, p. 18: naivaṃjātīyakeṣv artheṣu puruṣavacanaṃ prāmāṇyam upaiti, jātyandhānām iva vacanaṃ rūpaviśeṣeṣu.

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knowledge for ordinary, non-yogically-endowed people such as us. Due to this focus on the statements of yogis and their putative validity, the issue he confronts is not so much an ontological question—Do yogis actually exist?—but an epistemological one—How, if at all, could one reliably determine whether the statements of any self-proclaimed yogi are reliable or not? The upholders of yogic perception, and of the authorial model of scriptural authority, need to argue that their yogis, and specifically the authors of their scriptures, have direct and privileged access to certain truths—about the nature of the universe, the soul or its absence, our fate after death, and so on—that are totally beyond the range of what ordinary people can know by their own devices. The value of scriptures lies precisely in their capacity to transmit to us the knowledge of those who can perceive what we cannot. But, one of the key strategies of Kumārila’s argument in the Codanāsūtra is to show that—even if we were to admit the existence of yogis—the privileged access to truth that is claimed for them, far from making their words a valuable source of knowledge for ordinary persons, actually renders them entirely useless to us. He attempts to show that the perceptually privileged status ascribed to yogis would create an unbridgeable epistemic divide between us and them, such that their own knowledge, however accurate it might be, would necessarily remain inaccessible to us. I will examine his arguments in more detail below, but briefly his position is that “it takes one to know one”—that there is simply no way one can satisfactorily evaluate the knowledgeclaims of purported seers or yogis, unless one can confirm independently that they really do know truly what they claim to. Yet one cannot do this unless one has the same extraordinary perceptual capacities that they do. Hence, the statements of those who claim extraordinary perceptual powers can be held valid only insofar as they are redundant—we can only know them to be true when they tell us what we are able to find out for ourselves. So, even if it could be established that such extraordinary perceptual powers exist in some individuals, their epistemic value for ordinary people would be nil. One could never tell the difference between a genuine yogi and a fraud without being a yogi oneself. Kumārila’s argument against the epistemic usefulness of yogicperception claims is grounded in a pervasive skepticism regarding the reliability of human beings and their utterances, summed up in his bracingly cynical dictum that:

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At all times, people are, for the most part, liars. Just as there can be no confidence in them now, in the same way there is no confidence in statements of things past.5

We know—from abundant experience, alas—that people nowadays are often less than entirely truthful in what they say. And just as people are nowadays frequently seen to make unreliable statements, we may reasonably suppose that people in the past were similarly undependable. We have, then, strong prima facie reasons to doubt the veracity of human statements past or present. In ordinary situations, this presents only a minor practical problem; if one doubts the accuracy of statements people make about everyday matters, it is easy enough to to confirm or disconfirm them through direct observation. Yet, in the case of statements made by the Buddha, the Jina, or others who claim to possess extraordinary perceptual powers (and, in fact, claim to be literally omniscient), we are asked to place our trust in claims we are absolutely incapable of verifying for ourselves. We are asked, moreover, to accept that those who made these claims gained their own knowledge through a kind of “perception” wholly unlike any perception we have ever experienced ourselves, or witnessed in others. Here Kumārila resorts to one of his most characteristic moves: what we might call an “inference from the ordinary.” He argues that, in the absence of strong counterevidence, we may legitimately infer that the perceptual capacities of other persons—past, present and future— are basically similar to our own. Since people, in our own experience, have no ability to perceive—for example—objects existing in the past or future, we can legitimately extrapolate from this experience and conclude that people in the past were similarly limited in their perceptual capacities.6 As he says: People can apprehend objects of a certain sort by certain means of knowledge now. It was the same even in other times. Even where a heightened ability [in some sense faculty] is seen, it occurs without overstepping the natural object [of that sense faculty], as, for example,

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ŚV, Codanā 144: sarvadā cāpi puruṣāḥ prāyeṇānr̥tavādinaḥ | yathādyatve na visrambhas tathātītārthakīrtane || For an argument that awareness of past or future objects must be excluded, by definition, from the scope of perception, see ŚV, Pratyakṣa 26-36, and (for a translation and explanation of the passage) Taber 2005, pp. 54-57.

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LAWRENCE MCCREA when someone sees objects which are far away or very small. But one’s hearing cannot apprehend color. And one never sees, even in the smallest degree, a capacity to perceive a future object ...7

In our own experience, we observe that there are variations in people’s perceptual capacities. Some people are better than others at seeing distant or minute objects, and, extrapolating from this experiential base, we could plausibly enough imagine people who can see farther or smaller objects than any we have known. But we could not plausibly imagine people who could “see” sounds or smells; it seems to be inextricably part of the nature of “seeing” that what we see are colors and shapes, nothing else. As Kumārila sees it, supposing, in contradiction our own present-day experience, that people such as the Buddha could “see” the future involves a similar category error. To suppose that anyone could perceive future objects would fly in the face of our own experience in the same way as supposing that one could hear colors. This sort of argument—that, in general, things or people in the past may legitimately inferred to be “like nowadays” (adyavat, idānīm iva) or “like people nowadays” (adyatanavat), and that people outside the range of our own experience may be inferred to be “like persons such as ourselves” (asmadādivat)—is pervasive in Kumārila’s work, and underlies many of the key arguments of the Ślokavārttika (not only arguments against supernormal perception, but arguments in support of the eternality of Sanskrit, and of the Vedas, and against the occurrence of cosmic dissolution).8 It may seem a rather cheap argument—not much more than a reflexively conservative attitude—but it does appear to generate formally valid inferences, and is not without a certain basic plausibility. If we do not base our understanding of the nature of

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ŚV, Codanā 113-115: yajjātīyaiḥ pramāṇais tu yajjātīyārthadarśanam | bhaved idānīṃ lokasya tathā kālāntare ‘py abhūt || yatrāpy atiśayo dr̥ṣṭaḥ sa svārthānatilaṅghanāt | dūrasūkṣmādidṛṣṭau syān na rūpe śrotravr̥ttitā || bhaviṣyati na dr̥ṣṭaṃ ca pratyakṣasya manāg api | sāmārthyaṃ... || Similar statements from Kumārila’s (lost) Br̥ḥāṭṭīkā are quoted in Ratnakīrti’s Sarvajñasiddhi (RNĀ, p. 8) and Śāntirakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha (TS, vss. 3160-3163, 3170-3171). See for example ŚV, Codanā 99, 117, 144, 151; ŚV.Pratyakṣa.35; ŚV, Nirālambanavāda.85, 127; ŚV, Saṃbandhākṣepaparihāra 67, 77, 97, 113, 116; ŚV, Ātmavāda.137; Tantravārttika ad 1.3.1 (MD, Vol. 2, pp. 71, 75).

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perception on our own experience of it, then what, after all, are we to base it on? The key question then is this: since neither we ourselves nor anyone in our own experience possesses the kind of perceptual capacities claimed for persons like the Buddha, what sort of evidence might there be that would lead us to lay aside the evidence of experience and accept these claims at face value? Ex hypothesi, we have no perceptual evidence that would support such claims. On the other hand, if one were to rely upon scripture itself to support the knowledge claims, problems of regress would arise. To conclude that a purported seer possesses extraordinary knowledge because he himself claims to do so in a text he himself has authored is plainly circular. But if one relies on a claim made in a text composed by another author, one simply presses the problem back one level: How can one know that this second author himself possesses the relevant knowledge to support his claim?9 It might seem that the most promising avenue to pursue in attempting to validate omniscience claims in the eyes of non-omniscient persons would be inference. If we see that a person such as the Buddha invariably speaks accurately about matters that are confirmable through perception or other ordinary means of knowledge, may we not infer that his statements about supersensory matters are similarly accurate? To this Kumārila responds as follows: If, having seen that [an author] makes true statements in matters where a connection between the object and the sense organ is [possible] (i.e. in matters accessible to ordinary perception), one were to conclude that he also makes true statements about matters that must be taken on faith, because they are his statements [121]; then one will have demonstrated that the authority [of his

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See ŚV, Codanā 117-118. Somewhat different problems would arise if one attempted to support the knowledge claims of a human scripture-author with claims made in a purportedly eternal scripture such as the Veda: an eternal text could not contain information about a historically limited author (as it would have to have existed before he did). Eternal texts, the Mīmāṃsakas argue, cannot refer to particular historical persons or events. Those passages in eternal texts which appear to refer to such persons and events must be understood as figuratively praising or otherwise referring to elements of the (eternally recurrent) Vedic sacrifice—what the Mîmāṃsakas call arthavāda. Hence, any apparent reference in a purportedly eternal text to the omniscience of a particular scripture-author would either have to be an arthavāda passage (and accordingly be interpreted figuratively), or, as a historical reference, would show that the text is not in fact eternal—see ŚV, Codanā 119-120.

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LAWRENCE MCCREA statements] is dependent [on perceptual confirmation]. If they are authoritative in and of themselves, then what dependence would there be on sense-organs and the like? [122] Just as, in this case, the authority [of his statements] is due to being determined by sense-organs and the like, it would be the same even in matters which must be taken on faith. [Their] authority is not established independently. [123]10

The inference does not establish what it is intended to establish. If the only testably valid knowledge claims an author makes are those concerning matters accessible to ordinary means of knowledge such as sense perception, then this can establish the authority of the author's claims only in so far as they depend on these ordinary means of knowledge. It can in no way establish that this pattern of accuracy extends to supersensory matters as well. Kumārila does not himself offer any example of the sort of testable knowledge claims which might be advanced as evidence for the accuracy of their speakers, but his commentators all mention the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness in this connection.11 If the Buddha’s claim that all things are momentary could be shown to be true on grounds other than his own assertion, would this not confirm his reliability? But Kumārila’s argument is well-suited to get around this sort of example. If the momentariness of all things really were demonstrable on grounds other than the Buddha’s assertion, then it would in fact be a truth accessible through ordinary means of knowledge, and hence could not serve as evidence for his accuracy in matters beyond the scope of these ordinary means of knowledge. The same would be true of any claim of a purported yogi which could be verified through ordinary means of knowledge. In addition, Kumārila challenges the inferential argument for yogic reliability with the following counterinference: Furthermore, when [human statements] concern objects beyond the range of the senses, they are false, because they are human statements. [In this

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ŚV, Codanā 121-123 (=ŚV(U), pp. 75-76, ŚV(S), Vol. 1, p. 127): yo ‘pīndriyārthasaṃbandhaviṣaye satyavāditām | dr̥ṣṭvā tadvacanatvena śraddheyārthe ‘pi kalpayet || tenāpi pāratantryeṇa sādhitā syāt pramāṇatā | prāmāṇyaṃ cet svayaṃ tasya kāpekṣānyendriyādiṣu || yathaivātrendriyādibhyaḥ paricchedāt pramāṇatā | śraddheye ‘pi tathaiva syān na svātantryeṇa labhyate || See Umbeka, Sucaritamiśra, and Pārthasārathi ad ŚV, Codanā 121, ŚV(S), Vol. 1, p. 127, and ŚV, p. 83.

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inference] each of the extra-Vedic schools will serve as an example (lit.: similar case, sapakṣa) for the others.12

Because there are multiple and conflicting claims about what exactly yogic perception reveals about the ultimate nature of things—the Jainas saying one thing, and the Buddhists another, for instance—each of these schools must argue that the others are wrong, and that their claims of supersensory knowledge are false. But this allows the Mīmāṃsaka to use each case as an example in constructing an inference to counter the other. The Buddhists must admit that the Jainas claim accuracy for their scriptures based on the demonstrable accuracy of the Jina’s testable truth claims, and yet are wrong. And the Jainas must admit the same regarding the Buddhists. Thus each can be used to demonstrate to the other the insufficiency of the inference from accuracy about ordinary matters to accuracy about supersensory ones. This line of argument suggests another basic problem with accepting the claims of yogic perception. The non-yogi attempting to judge for himself whether yogic claims should be taken seriously or not is confronted, not with one person’s claim to accuracy in supersensory matters, but with a whole host of mutually conflicting claims—from Buddhists, Jainas, Sāṃkhyas, and others. Even if one were to admit yogic perception as a general possibility, how, lacking any means for judging among this welter of conflicting claims, could one hope to determine which claims one should believe? Once the door has been opened to claims of extraordinary perception, a free-for-all ensues. It seems that almost anyone can make any claim based on such privileged perceptual knowledge with more or less equal plausibility. Yet, because any number of these conflicting and untestable knowledge-claims can be (and are) made, no one such claim can convince. Kumārila touches briefly on this issue in the Nirālambanavāda section of the Ślokavārttika (88-94). The (Buddhist-Idealist) opponent claims that all our awarenesses exist without any extra-mental object, like dreamawarenesses. Kumārila, challenging the parallel between waking and 12

ŚV, Codanā 126: api cālaukikārthatve sati puṃvākyahetukam | mithyātvaṃ vedabāhyānāṃ syād anyonyaṃ sapakṣatā || The printed edition of ŚV reads vedavākyānāṃ, as does ŚV(S), but it’s clear from his comments (ŚV(S), Vol. 1, p. 129) that Sucaritamiśra read -bāhyānāṃ; ŚV(U) prints the text correctly as vedabāhyānāṃ (p. 76).

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dream awareness, notes that in the case of dreams we conclude that our awareness lacked an extramental object only after we wake up. Our experience of waking serves as a blocking awareness (bādhikā buddhiḥ) which invalidates the dream. But in the case of our waking awareness, there is no such blocking awareness, and therefore no reason to conclude that the objects that appear to us in waking life are unreal. The Buddhist counters that the awareness of yogis does indeed reveal the unreality of everyday objects, and therefore stands in contradiction to our waking awareness. But, Kumārila retorts, “[the awareness] of our yogis [yogināṃ cāsmadīyānām] stands in contradiction to what you have said.”13 Kumārila’s reference to “our yogis” seems rather tongue in cheek. Since the Mīmāṃsakas themselves absolutely deny yogic perception, the “us” in question must demarcate some broader affiliation of “āstikas” or “followers of the Vedas” (what we would now call Hindus). The point, of course, is not to claim that “our” yogis are better and more trustworthy than those of the Buddhists, but to show that anyone can play the “yogi”-card in any debate, and that such claims are consequently useless in settling philosophical disputes. Along the same lines, and still more facetiously, Kumārila mocks the opponent’s inference for the reliability of yogic perception (in the Codanāsūtra section) as follows: [I say:] “The Buddha and other such people are not omniscient.” This statement of mine is true, because it is my statement, just as [when I say], “Fire is hot and bright.” And one can perceive that I have made this statement; you have to prove that [those statements] were made by the that person [i.e. the Buddha or whoever]. Therefore, mine is a sound inferential reason; yours is open to the suspicion that is not established [in the desired locus].14

If the ability to make true statements about ordinary things is all that is required to speak with authority on supersensory matters, then anyone can claim such authority—even Kumārila himself. Again, the real point is not to reveal the untenability of the Buddhist claim in particular, or even the general impossibility of yogic perception, but to expose the indeterminacy and consequent irresolvability of arguments based on 13 14

ŚV, Nirālambana 94cd (=ŚV(S) 2.60): yogināṃ cāsmadīyānāṃ tvaduktapratiyoginī || ŚV, Codanā 130-131: buddhādīnām asārvajñyam iti satyaṃ vaco mama | maduktatvād yathaivāgnir uṣṇo bhāsvara ity api || pratyakṣaṃ ca maduktatvaṃ tvayā sādhyā taduktatā | tena hetur madīyaḥ syāt saṃdigdhāsiddhatā tava ||

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claims of privileged perception. Since there is simply no way to test such claims, or to sort out good ones from bad ones, there is nothing to prevent anyone from claiming the authority of yogic perception for any conclusion he wishes to advance. All claims to privileged or supernormal perceptual knowledge are suspect precisely because of their privileged status. Statements based on such knowledge, if they are to be at all useful, must be transmitted at some point from persons who have this privileged perceptual knowledge to those who do not. Yet the recipients of this knowledge, because they have no access to the perceptual awareness from which it is derived, are in no position to evaluate its accuracy. Thus the “revelatory moment”, when the yogi or the omniscient person imparts his knowledge to those who lack his perceptual ability, is doomed to fail epistemically. To quote Kumārila again: How could people at that time who wish to know whether that person is omniscient understand this, if they have no awareness of his knowledge and its objects? And you would need to postulate many omniscient persons—anyone who is not himself omniscient cannot know an omniscient person. And, if a person does not know him to be omniscient, then his statements would have no authority for that person, since he would not know their source, just as with the statements of any other person.15

Even actual omniscience is not sufficient to make one’s statements trustworthy from the perspective of ordinary people. One’s omniscience could underwrite the authority of one’s statements only if it were known to one’s hearers that one is omniscient. But they cannot truly know this unless they already know what you know—unless they too are omniscient. It takes one to know one. Hence, even the utterances of a genuinely omniscient person would be, for epistemic purposes, absolutely worthless. One could be confident of their accuracy only if one already had independent knowledge of the information they convey. To adopt any less rigorous standard than this in judging the validity of a person’s statements regarding supersensory matters is to leave oneself no defense against charlatans or delusional people 15

ŚV, Codanā 135-136: kalpanīyāś ca sarvajñā bhaveyur bahavas tava | ya eva syād asarvajñaḥ sa sarvajñaṃ na budhyate || sarvajño ‘navabuddhaś ca yenaiva syān na taṃ prati | tadvākyānāṃ pramāṇatvaṃ mūlājñāne ‘nyavākyavat ||

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claiming knowledge they do not possess, and opens one up to a multitude of irresolvable and contradictory claims, as discussed above. Kumārila’s hermeneutic of suspicion is absolute and uncompromising. Even God himself (were such a being to exist) could not be seen as a reliable informant in supersensory matters. In the Sambandhākṣepaparihāra section of the Ślokavārttika, Kumārila, having already set forth arguments against the existence of a creator God, goes on to show that, even if He did exist, no one could ever trust His claim that he created the world. As he says: He could not be known by anybody, at any time. Even if he were perceived with his own form, the fact of his being the Creator would not be known. How could even the first beings in creation know this? They would not know how they were born here, or what the prior state of the world was, or that Prajāpati is the creator. Nor could they have certain knowledge of this due to His own statement; for, even if he hadn’t created the world, He might say it, in order to promulgate His own lordship.16

So no person, human or even divine, could be taken as a reliable informant on matters beyond the scope of ordinary means of knowledge. You can’t be too careful. Yet, despite their thoroughgoing suspicion regarding the reliability of any person’s utterances, the Mīmāṃsakas are not skeptics. They believe in a soul, they believe in an afterlife, and they believe it is possible for us to acquire reliable knowledge about such things. But how, in the light of the preceding arguments, can they believe anything of the kind? Famously (or infamously) they do so by pushing aside the issue of personal authority altogether, by arguing that their own scriptures are not they product of any authors at all—human or divine, yogically perceptive or otherwise—but are instead eternal and uncreated texts, passed down orally from teacher to student in a beginningless and unbroken chain of transmission. As we have seen from Kumārila’s arguments above, it is the “moment of revelation”, when the knowing author transmits his knowledge verbally to his perceptually limited 16

ŚV, Sambandhākṣepaparihāra 57cd-60: na ca kaiścid asau jñātuṃ kadācid api śakyate || svarūpeṇopalabdhe ‘pi sraṣṭr̥tvaṃ nāvagamyate | sr̥ṣṭyādyāḥ prāṇino ye ca budhyantām kiṃ nu te tadā || kuto vayam ihotpannā iti tāvan na jānate | prāgavasthāṃ ca jagataḥ sraṣṭr̥tvaṃ ca prajāpateḥ || na ca tadvacanenaiṣāṃ pratipattiḥ suniścitā | asr̥ṣṭvāpi hy asau brūyād ātmaiśvaryaprakāśanāt ||

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hearers, that lies at the heart of the epistemic problem he finds with authored scriptures. But in the case of the Veda, at least for the Mīmāṃsakas, there is no moment of revelation. The text, and the knowledge it contains, are always already the property of many. And one need postulate no extraordinary perceptual or cognitive abilities on the part of the receivers and transmitters of the tradition in order to account for its epistemic effectiveness. As Kumārila explains: Because it exists in many people, and because it is learned and remembered within a single lifetime, there is nothing to impair independent authority in the case of the Veda. And, if there were any alteration [of the Vedic text], it would be prevented by many people. Whereas if [the text] were revealed to one person, it would be no different from one created [by that person]. So, in this tradition, no one person is required. Many people can be dependent [on it]; for they are all men, just like nowadays.17

Knowledge of the Veda is thus always embedded in a community. There is no time, and has never been any time, when its hearers were faced with the dilemma that confronted the Buddha’s first audience: Faced with a person who claims to “see” the ultimate nature of reality, how is one to judge his trustworthiness, or the accuracy of his knowledge? Is one simply to accept his claims on faith? In the case of the Veda, there is not, and never has been any one person in whom one needs to place this kind of trust. The key features of Kumārila's argument are thrown into relief if we compare them with his discussion of the authority of smr̥ti texts in his other major work, the Tantravārttika (TV), commenting on MS 1.3.1-2. These texts are held to be the work of human authors (such as the Mānavadharmaśāstra, held to be the work of the human sage Manu), but are nevertheless held to be authoritative in matters of dharma, since they are thought to contain a restatement of matter derived from lost or otherwise inaccessible Vedic texts (which are therefore said to be “remembered” [smr̥ta], rather than “heard” [śruta]). The hypothetical opponent (pūrvapakṣin) who presents the case against the Mīmāṃsā position here employs arguments strikingly similar to 17

ŚV, Codanā 149-151: anekapuruṣasthatvād ekatraiva ca janmani | grahaṇasmaraṇād vede na svātantryaṃ vihanyate || anyathākaraṇe cāsya bahubhiḥ syān nivāraṇam | ekasya pratibhānaṃ tu kr̥takān na viśiṣyate || ataś ca saṃpradāye ca naikaḥ puruṣa iṣyate | bahavaḥ paratantrāḥ syuḥ sarve hy adyatvavan narāḥ ||

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those deployed by Kumārila himself in rejecting the authority of scriptures composed by self-proclaimed “omniscient persons” such as the Buddha or the Jina. We see the same invidious comparison with deceptive “present day persons” (“Even nowadays some people are seen to declaim things with no scriptural basis by passing them off as scripture”18), and the same problem of indeterminacy (“And, as in a legal proceeding in which the witness is dead, if one may postulate a lost Vedic recension as the basis [for claims made in smr̥ti texts], one can take as authoritative anything that one pleases” 19), leading to the same difficulty that even the scriptural claims of rival traditions could be validated on the same basis (“If [smr̥ti texts] are supposed to be based on lost Vedic recensions, then, by this means, it would follow that all smr̥tis—even those of Buddhists and the like—would be valid.” 20). The key distinction, for Kumārila, between the Mīmāṃsā defense of authored texts and that given by rival traditions such as Buddhism is that the Mīmāṃsakas claim for smr̥ti-authors such as Manu no special insight or sensory power beyond those observed in ordinary people nowadays—people “just like us”. 21 As Manu's text is universally held to be valid among those who uphold the Vedic tradition, one may reasonably infer that the claims he makes are themselves grounded in that tradition, even if the specific Vedic texts which serve as the source of these claims are not presently accessible to us. There is nothing contrary to our experience in supposing that Manu learned the truths imparted in his work in the ordinary manner, by memorizing a Vedic text taught to him by an ordinary human teacher.22 The process by 18

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dr̥śyante hy anāgamikān apy arthān āgamikatvādhyāropeṇa kecid adyatve 'py abhidadhānāḥ (MD, Vol. 2, p. 71). mr̥tasākṣikavyavahāravac ca pralīnaśākhāmūlatvakalpanāyāṃ yasmai yad rocate sa tat pramāṇīkuryāt (MD, Vol. 2, p. 71). yadi tu pralīnaśākhāmūlatā kalpyeta tataḥ sarvāsāṃ buddhādismr̥tīnām api taddvāraṃ prāmāṇyaṃ prasajyate (MD, Vol. 2, p. 74). Kumārila specifically rejects the suggestion that Manu had any “capacity contrary to those of the general class of all persons nowadays” (idānīṃtanasarvapuruṣajātiviparītasāmarthya) which would allow him to directly experience the truths contained in his work; “this has been rejected,” he says, “in the discussion of omniscience” (etat sarvajñavāde nirākr̥tam)—seemingly referring back to his own discussion in the Codanāsūtra section of his Ślokavārttika (MD, Vol. 2, p. 75). As the scriptures of extra-Vedic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism contradict, and indeed directly attack, the Vedas, and explicitly seek to ground their authority

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which these Vedic texts may have been lost is likewise a part of our everyday experience: “For even nowadays one sees that texts are lost, while their meanings are remembered.”23 Even when ascribing authority to texts of human authorship, the Mīmāṃsakas retain the basic principles of the textual epistemology developed above: that no faith can or should be put in statements which depend on claims of supernormal perception or insight, and that knowledge of otherworldly matters, in order to be reliable, must always already belong to a (beginningless) community of knowers—ordinary persons like ourselves—and can never be made to depend on such claims of epistemic privilege. The Mīmāṃsakas’ attempt to ground the reliability of Vedic scriptures on their eternality, and on the absence of any person who either composed or revealed them, whatever one may make of its intrinsic philosophical merits, is a brilliant tactical move in the Mīmāṃsā polemic against the their principle rivals, the Buddhists and the Jainas. Because both traditions look back to historical founders, neither can claim, or would want to claim, authority for their scriptures on the only basis Kumārila’s argument allows for. It is an inescapable feature of both traditions that their emergence into our world (at least in the present time) is due to the teachings of their founders, and that the trustworthiness of their central claims rests on the personal authority of these founders’ own words. By calling the whole notion of personal authority into question, the Mīmāṃsaka is able to avoid the interminable and rather sterile “Our sages are better than your sages” sort of arguments that those (such as the Naiyāyikas) who defend the reliability of the Vedas by claiming omniscience for their authors, seem always to be drawn into. They capitalize on the one feature that plainly sets the Vedic tradition apart from that of the Buddhists or the Jainas— its immemoriality. ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Bhatt 1962

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Govardhan P. Bhatt, The Epistemology of the Bhāṭṭa School of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies XVII, Varanasi 1962.

on the supernormal perceptual capacities of their founders, they cannot be plausibly supposed to derive in this way from lost Vedic texts. dr̥śyate hy adyatve 'py arthasmaraṇaṃ garnthanāśaś ca (MD, Vol. 2, p. 77).

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RNĀ ŚV ŚV(S) ŚV(U)

Taber 2005 TS

LAWRENCE MCCREA Mīmāṃsādarśana, ed. Vāsudeva Śāstrī Abhyaṅkar and Gaṇeśaśāstrī Jośī, Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series 97 [7 vols.], 2nd ed., Poona 1970-1977. Ratnakīrti, Ratnakīrtinibandhāvali, ed. Anant Lal Thakur, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series 3, Patna 1957. Kumārilabhaṭṭa, Mīmāṃsāślokavārttika, ed. Rāma Śāstrī Tailaṅga, Chowkhambā Sanskrit Series 11, Benares 1898. The Mīmāṃsāślokavārttika with the Commentary Kāśikā of Sucaritamiśra, ed. K. Sāmbaśiva Śāstrī, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series Nos. 23, 29, and 31, Trivandrum 1927-1943. Umbeka, Ślokavārttikatātparyaṭīkā [2nd. ed.], ed. S.K. Ramanatha Sastri, revised by K. Kunjunni Raja and R. Thangaswamy, University of Madras, Madras 1971. John Taber, A Hindu Critique of Buddhist Epistemology, Routledge Curzon, London/New York 2005. Śāntarakṣita, Tattvasaṃgraha, ed. Embar Krishnamacharya, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 31 [2 vols.], Baroda 1926.

JOHN TABER

Yoga and our Epistemic Predicament

In this paper I would like to consider the question, Is yogic experience possible? It may seem odd, even inappropriate, that such a question would be asked at a conference on yogic perception, meditation, and altered states of consciousness. Surely, one would think, one ought to be able to assume the existence of the topic of the conference! I raise this question, however, in order to draw attention to the somewhat awkward methodological predicament in which the participants of this conference must find themselves. I suspect that most of us set ourselves apart from our colleagues in our respective disciplines – and a wide range of fields are represented here – by our interest in yoga, yogic perception, and altered states of consciousness. I know that philosophers, at least, tend to steer clear of these topics, which they lump together with paranormal phenomena, just as they avoid the topic of mysticism. The reason is that the status of these states of consciousness, in the modern world, is very much in doubt. By that I mean whether what people who have such experiences report experiencing when they have them, really occurs: whether a yogin or yoginī really sees past lives (where someone’s “seeing” a certain state of affairs implies the existence of that state of affairs in same the way in which it visually appears to that person); whether he or she really sees events that will take place in the future, or really sees everything at once; and even whether he or she ever really sinks into a completely thoughtless state, a state of “pure consciousness” (i.e., samādhi or nirodhasamāpatti). In short, are these states of consciousness more than mere hallucinations? If not, why should they merit our attention? Many, I believe, would respond that, regardless whether they are hallucinations or not, they merit our attention because the belief in them has played an important role in various societies and cultures. The belief in the supernormal cognition, even omniscience of the Buddha, for instance, played a central role in Buddhist apologetics in India in the first millennium C.E., as the basis for maintaining the authority of the Buddhist scriptures against the skepticism of outsiders. Altered states of

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consciousness, whether they are authentic encounters with a transcendent reality, a spirit world, or just hallucinatory experiences, are assigned a value and serve a variety of social functions in many other societies. Perhaps in our research we can focus on these aspects of these phenomena, which can be observed empirically or documented textually, and suspend judgement about their nature as experiences, i.e., whether they belong to the category of veracious cognitions or to something else? This, however, will not do. Surely it is of the utmost significance if a particular society or culture attributes value to, and invests considerable cultural energy and resources in, something that is, at basis, an illusion – just as it would be if a particular person were to build his life around a belief that is patently false, say, a belief in the existence of some imaginary being. We would immediately suspect that some pathology is at work, distorting that society’s collective perception of reality; and that would be a notable characteristic of that society, which a complete social-scientific or historical account of it could not very well leave out. Indeed, this is precisely what Freud suggested is the case for European society – a certain collective pathology supports our belief in a Supreme Being and sustains all the practices of religion which accompany it, which of course from a purely sociological or anthropological perspective serve many useful social and cultural functions.1 Therefore, I raise at the outset of this conference the question that no one really wants to answer, and that is whether it is possible for us to accept reports of yogic experience and altered states of consciousness at face value, as veracious supernormal cognitive acts, e.g., actual perceptions of things which normally lie beyond the range of our sense faculties (states of affairs in the past or the future, for instance), or, in the case of samādhi in particular, as the removal of all objects altogether from consciousness, without the extinguishing of consciousness itself.2 What conditions, specifically, would have to be met in order for us to take such claims seriously? I shall approach the question by examining a debate that actually took place in classical Indian philosophy, between certain highly orthodox representatives of the Brahmanical tradition on 1 2

See Freud 1961. Even in India in classical times doubts were raised about the possibility of samādhi. See, e.g., Nyāyasūtra and Bhāṣya 4.2.38-40 (NBh 1090, 5 – 1092, 3).

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the one hand, and defenders of the so-called heterodox traditions of Buddhism and Jainism on the other, about the possibility of yogic perception.3 In this way we will not only become aware that we are not the first to consider this problem; we will also get a sense of how one school of thinkers, at least, went about solving it – by presuming to be able to prove that yogic perception is possible! An examination of their proposed solution to this problem, I believe, will at least indicate, by its strengths and weaknesses, the basic elements that any affirmative answer to the question of whether yogic experience is possible should possess. Other scholars at this conference will also be referencing this debate, but my purpose will be rather different. They, for the most part, will be concerned with assessing it as historians, to determine the meaning and importance of the doctrine of yogic perception in classical Indian thought. I, on the other hand, shall be assessing it as a philosopher, to determine who wins. For since we ourselves are interested, or should be interested, in the question of whether yogic experience is possible, it is of particular interest to us to see whether a particular school of philosophers who thought they could prove that it is possible actually succeeded in doing so. In order to orient ourselves toward the problem of yogic perception in Indian philosophy I shall rely on Eli Franco’s important study, Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth.4 One of Franco’s most significant achievements in that book was to work out a convincing account of the “proof strategy” of the first chapter of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika, a much discussed problem in Dharmakīrti scholarship. Dharmakīrti, who probably lived in the first half of the seventh century, was, together with his predecessor Dignāga (early to mid-sixth century), co-founder of the important logico-epistemological school of Buddhist philosophy. One of the principal concerns of that school was to place the authority of the Buddhist scriptures on a firm footing, which in Dignāga’s and Dharmakīrti’s period was being increasingly effectively challenged by Brahmanical thinkers. Franco shows that Dharmakīrti attempts to do this by actually employing a strategy originally devised, perhaps, by one of the Brahmanical schools of philoso3

4

A remarkably similar debate took place in fourth-century China between Confucians and Taoists about the existence of the Taoist immortal (hsien). See Ware 1967. See Franco 1997.

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phy, the Nyāya, in establishing the validity of their own scripture, the Veda.5 Nyāya philosophers believed the Veda to be true because it is a valid form of “testimony” (śabda), that is to say, it has an author or authors who are āpta, “reliable witnesses.”6 This was in marked contrast to the approach of another leading Brahmanical philosophical school of the classical period, the Mīmāṃsā, which held that the Veda should be considered true precisely because it is eternal and authorless – the Mīmāṃsakas denied that the Veda was composed by human beings, or even by God – for error in a statement or text can only derive from an author. According to the Nyāyabhāṣya, the earliest commentary on the Nyāyasūtra to have come down to us, someone is an āpta if he or she possesses the qualities of having (1) direct knowledge of things, (2) compassion toward living beings, and (3) a desire to teach things as they are. Thus, one is able to determine that someone is an āpta, in general, by confirming his or her statements in regard to things one is able to verify for oneself. One is able to determine that the “seers and teachers” of the Veda are āpta, in particular, by verifying the truth of the prescriptions of the Āyur and Atharva Vedas, which contain medical remedies and magical formulas for curing diseases and averting other evils. One assumes that all portions of the Veda have the same seers and teachers. By confirming the truth of certain parts of the Veda one can be confident that the seers and teachers of the Veda are trustworthy in general, i.e., have the qualities required of those who are āpta, therefore, that all parts of the Veda are true. Dharmakīrti appears to follow this strategy, Franco argues, by attempting to demonstrate in the Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of his magnum opus, the Pramāṇavārttika, the validity of the Four Noble Truths, the central part of the Buddha’s teaching! Having confirmed for ourselves, through reasoning (with Dharmakīrti’s help), this, the most important and profound doctrine expounded by the Buddha, we may be confident that the Buddha is an āpta (for Dharmakīrti the term āptavacana is equivalent for āgama, scripture), that he possesses all the qualities expressed by the epithets of the famous dedicatory verse of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya, which Franco convincingly shows parallel the 5 6

Franco 1997, chap. 1, pp. 28 ff. The Nyāyabhāṣya refers to “the seers and teachers” (draṣṭāraḥ prayoktāraś ca) of the Veda (NBh 568, 3-5), who were probably considered its composers. By the time of Vācaspatimiśra the Veda is believed to have a single, divine author.

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qualities of an āpta as presented in the Nyāyabhāṣya. Thus, one may be confident that all the Buddha’s teachings are true, including in particular his statements about the results of good and bad actions, which imply recommendations about how one should live – what should be done and not done. In other words, we may be confident that the way of life the Buddha prescribed for his disciples – his “Dharma,” which deviates in significant respects from the Dharma of the Brahmins as well as the way of life of the Jainas – will indeed lead to salvation, liberation from the cycle of rebirth, if not also well-being and prosperity on earth and in heaven. Criticisms of the Buddhist attempt to demonstrate the authority of the Buddha by other schools, in particular, the Mīmāṃsā, indicate that they understood the Buddhist argument along these same lines. The Mīmāṃsā philosopher Kumārila (also first half of the 7th c. C.E.) points out that expertise in one area does not necessarily transfer to another; just because someone is smart in grammar doesn’t means he knows astronomy; and certainly, the fact that one knows a lot about the sorts of things we can know through perception and reasoning hardly implies that he is able to know anything about transcendent matters.7 Besides, if we have to verify the Four Noble Truths in order to be confident of them, it makes sense for us to verify other statements of the Buddha. Why, indeed, accept anyone’s word about anything?8 But the debate quickly came to focus on one particular implication of the claim that the Buddha had knowledge of Dharma, and that is that he was possessed of some kind of supernormal cognitive ability. Dharma pertains to the good and bad results of actions. One ought to do X because doing X will yield a good result – pleasure or happiness; one ought to avoid Y 7 8

See TS, 3163-66, which cites Kumārila’s lost work the Bṛhaṭṭīkā. I am rather freely paraphrasing some of Kumārila’s points. See ŚV, Codanā 121 ff.; for a more detailed account of Kumārila’s position see the contribution by Lawrence McCrea in this volume. It should be kept in mind that in the first chapter of the Pramāṇavārttika Dharmakīrti indicates that the reliability of someone’s statements in regard to things we are able to confirm does not strictly establish the truth of his statements regarding other, supersensible things; for there is always the possibility of a “deviation” (PVSV 167,23-168,3). Dignāga stated that the notion of the reliability of the statements of an āpta is an “inference” only “because there is no other way” of being guided in acting in regard to supersensible matters, according to Dharmakīrti (PV 1.216; PVSV 108, 1-6; 109, 19-22). Strictly speaking, Dharmakīrti says, scripture is not a pramāṇa (PVSV 168, 2-3)!

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because doing Y will yield a bad result – pain or suffering. But one is able to know such things only insofar as one is able to see that a certain action committed in the past yielded a certain result and a certain action committed in the present will yield a certain result. Knowledge of Dharma entails the ability to perceive states of affairs in the past and the future, which ability is beyond the scope of ordinary human beings – or so, at least, the Mīmāṃsaka insists. Or else, Dharma is simply “that which ought to be done and avoided.” But that, too, most Indian philosophers believed, is something ordinary mortals are unable to know independently of scripture.9 The truth of the Buddha’s recommendations about how one should live, about what should and should not be done, believed to have originated from him and not some other scriptural source, are thus called into question. In short, his statements about such matters cannot be trusted, because he had no way of knowing them. Thus the debate about the possibility of supernormal cognition, synonymous in most texts with yogic perception, yogipratyakṣa, begins in earnest across a broad range of texts in Indian philosophy. I do not intend to survey the history of this debate here. Rather, I will be concerned with what came to be the main Buddhist argument for the possibility of the Buddha’s omniscience, including especially his ability to know the results of good and bad actions, which presupposes the power to see the past and the future.10 I shall ask, what are we, in this day and age, to make of this argument? Is it at all persuasive? Does it really establish that the perception of the past and the future, of things far away, very small (atoms), or concealed (beneath the earth), is possible? I shall consider this argument in its mature form, as presented by Ratnakīrti in his Sarvajñasiddhi, “Proof of an Omniscient Person.” This text, which represents the culmination of a long development, was translated into German by Gudrun Bühnemann in her doctoral dissertation, written 9 10

See Taber 2005: 51-56. The Buddhist argument under consideration here is actually presented as proving only that the Buddha knew all things relevant to salvation, that is, as Dharmakīrti puts it, “the reality of what is to be accepted and rejected and the means [thereto]“ (PV 2.34), not absolutely every thing in every way. See SS 1, 9-19. Dharmakīrti suggests that proving omniscience in the latter sense would be otiose, though some Buddhists clearly accepted it (see Jaini 1974); and it is not clear that the argument for the omniscience of the Buddha just in regard to all things relevant to Dharma doesn’t actually imply total omniscience.

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under the supervision of Prof. Ernst Steinkellner and published in 1980.11 Before I turn to Ratnakīrti’s argument, however, I would like to draw attention to certain considerations that have shaped the attitude toward the supernatural among philosophers in our culture and therefore define the context in which we think about it today. The category of supernatural or supernormal phenomena with which Western philosophers have traditionally been concerned has been, not yogic experience, of course, nor even extrasensory perception, but miracles, especially biblical miracles, which have been frequently cited by Christians as proof of the divinity of Jesus and of the authenticity of the Bible. The classic statement on this matter is that of David Hume in his An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It has provoked an extensive literature, which continues to grow to this day.12 Hume’s concern was whether there can ever be a valid reason to believe that a miracle has occurred. He assumes that few of us ever witness miracles ourselves, therefore the question becomes whether the testimony of others can ever suffice to establish the occurrence of a miracle. Now trust in testimony, Hume observes, is founded on experience. Normally, we notice, the statements of people conform to the facts. Humans generally have decent memories, an inclination to tell the truth, and a sense of probity accompanied by a sense of shame when detected in a falsehood.13 Thus, we are inclined to believe what they say. Yet, Hume says, “a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence,” 14 and we should take all the evidence into account. What speaks in favor of the credibility of testimony must be balanced against what speaks against it. We become suspicious of testimony, for example, when witnesses contradict each other; when they are few, or of doubtful character; when they have an interest in what they affirm, and so on. In particular, we become suspicious of testimony when it reports something highly unusual. The improbability of the event testified to can indeed neutralize the authority of the person or persons testifying to it. Here Hume cites the Roman saying, “I would not believe such a story 11 12

13 14

See Bühnemann 1980. For a recent bibliography see Levine 1996. One of the most important recent contributions is Coady 1992. Hume 1955: 119. Ibid., p. 118.

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were it told to me by Cato.”15 Transposing this into Indian terms, the āptatva of a witness, based on considerations about the witness’s character, his compassion and so forth, and even a solid track-record of correct statements in the past, is not sufficient by itself to guarantee the truth of what he says. It must still be weighed against the improbability of the fact to which he testifies. From this Hume concludes that no testimony can ever be sufficient to establish a miracle, which by definition is a violation of the laws of nature, hence contrary to all experience. Or else, no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony can be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, so that the superior gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains ... When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.16

One might think that while this analysis of testimony might pose a problem for Christians, it doesn’t for Buddhists, since the Buddha was not given to reporting miracles. But he did make statements about the consequences of actions, which have implications about right and wrong, about how one should conduct one’s life. For Indians in classical times, as discussed above, that suggests that he had an ability to know things that ordinary mortals are unable to know, specifically, the past and the future. Such an ability is prima facie miraculous by Hume’s definition: it is contrary to common experience. Therefore, the Buddha’s statements, despite his authority established on the basis of our alleged confirmation of the most important and profound part of his teachings, the Four Noble Truths, are called into question by the miracle or miracles that would have had to occur in order for them to be expressions of a valid state of knowledge on his part.

15 16

Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., pp. 123-4.

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One can see from Hume’s discussion that the key to affirming the Buddha’s authority is to show how yogic experience is possible, and that would seem to entail showing how it is not a violation of the laws of nature, i.e., not really a miracle at all. In other words, one must suggest a plausible natural mechanism that can explain it. That is precisely what Ratnakīrti tries to do in his Sarvajñasiddhi. Ratnakīrti’s central argument – unfortunately I do not have space to treat his views comprehensively – goes roughly like this. If one thinks long enough and intensely enough about something, then the object of one’s reflection will eventually present itself in propria persona: one will have a vivid, intuitive experience of the object as if it were actually present. A lovesick man, obsessed with a beautiful maiden, for example, and constantly thinking of her, will eventually experience a vivid apparition of her, as if she were bodily present. Now the Buddha reflected on the Four Noble Truths uninterruptedly over a long period of time; we may expect that this reflection eventually culminated in a vivid intuitive experience of the Four Noble Truths. Since the Four Noble Truths are universal in scope – they state that everything is duḥkha, the cause of all duḥkha is desire, and so forth – his intuition of those truths encompassed everything in the past, present, and future. And so, when the Four Noble Truths became vividly evident to him, the properties of all things past, present, and future became evident to him as well. I have of course taken liberties in paraphrasing the argument. Ratnakīrti’s own formulation is closer to the following. Any property or quality of the mind (cetoguṇa) which is accompanied by attentive, continuous, and sustained practice (abhyāsa) is capable of becoming vivid (sphuṭībhāvayogya), like the mental representation (ākāra) of a maiden of a lovesick man. The mental representations of the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha are like that – they are mental qualities that were cultivated by attentive, continuous, and sustained practice. Hence they were capable of becoming vivid (SS 1, 20-25).

Ratnakīrti is aware of course that this does not directly prove the omniscience of the Buddha but just the possibility of a mental state achieving, through continuous repetition, a kind of intuitive quality (SS 4, 24 ff.). Vividness is the hallmark of perception for Ratnakīrti, as we shall see; hence, for any vivid, intuitive awareness there is a presumption in favor of its truth. It is only by further implication that the person who has achieved a vivid intuition of the Four Noble Truths through this kind of

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practice can have a vivid intuition of all things in the past, present, and future, which comprise the subject of the propositions which are the Four Noble Truths (except perhaps the fourth) (SS 10, 18-21).17 It is sufficient to establish merely this possibility, says Ratnakīrti, in order to refute those who deny there could be any cause of omniscience (i.e., the Mīmāṃsakas and Cārvākas [materialist philosophers]) (SS 5, 12-13). In fact, if one maintained that a vivid intuition will arise from the constant repetition of a particular mental state, then one would be inferring an effect from its cause, which is illegitimate (SS 5, 4-5). That specifically the Buddha had such a (veracious) intuition is then indicated by the correctness of his teachings of the momentariness and selflessness of all entities, which are established by other pramāṇas but which other sages alleged to be omniscient reject (SS 6, 10-21) – that is to say, in effect, by his āptatva, his compassion and wisdom as established by our own confirmation of the truth of his main teachings. It would be impossible to prove directly that a particular person such as the Buddha is omniscient, because there is no class of omniscient persons with which to compare him and in which he would be included if he possessed a certain characteristic mark. Thus, the crux of Ratnakīrti’s proof is the attempt to establish the possibility of bringing a cognition to complete vividness, in effect raising it to the status of a perception, through constant and intense repetition. The first thing that strikes the modern reader about the proof is the example, which is supposed to ground the generalization that mental states that are practiced attentively, constantly, and over a long period of time indeed yield vivid intuitions. What is Ratnakīrti talking about when he says that the lovesick man, obsessed with the maiden, eventually sees her (as if) before his very eyes? This is not the sort of thing that is often reported in our culture. Nor, for that matter, does it seem to 17

This, however, is from the Buddhist pūrvapakṣa of Vācaspatimiśra’s Nyāyakaṇikā which Ratnakīrti quotes (see below) – and the point is made in regard to knowledge of the selflessnessness of all entities, not the Four Noble Truths. Ratnakīrti does not make the point explicitly himself. Cf., however, TS 3440-42. McClintock 2000 offers an analysis of how Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla thought a cognition of all things could follow from the cognition of one general object, such as emptiness or selflessness. It should be noted, however, that the notion of omniscience as the ability to know all objects at once is rejected in the Pali Canon. See Jaini 1974, 80-82.

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have been a staple of Indian literature. Kuntidevī in the Mahābhārata is able to call into her presence the various gods, but she was given a mantra to do that. Visualization practices are known throughout Tantric and sectarian Hindu literature, and of course bhāvanā has a lengthy history in Buddhism prior to Ratnakīrti, but those are precisely the sorts of techniques the efficacy of which is in question here. To cite them as examples for establishing the connection of the logical reason of this inference with the property-to-be-proved would be an obvious petitio principii. I shall return to this point presently. Vācaspatimiśra, however, the Brahmanical writer, in his discussion of this argument in his Nyāyakaṇikā, has the Buddhist maintaining that this is something we can actually observe, if only indirectly. We know from the speech and gestures of a lovesick man that he finds himself in the presence of the woman he is obsessed with, for he says, “Come, you enchanting creature with the jug-like breasts, eyes of a deer, and slender, golden body – embrace me like the vine of the Kandalī plant. I fall down at your feet!”18 But if this is what Ratnakīrti is talking about, his example, at the same time that it establishes the possibility of a very vivid intuitive cognition arising from constant and sustained reflection, also suggests its falsehood. The lovesick man may indeed be seeing a beautiful woman, but if we can’t see her, too, then she is not real! Vācaspati raises essentially this objection in his discussion of an earlier version of the Buddhist argument in his Nyāyakaṇikā, which Ratnakīrti quotes at length in the Sarvajñasiddhi and attempts to refute (SS 10, 15 – 11, 25).19 (Vācaspati, by the way, is a somewhat puzzling figure in that he wrote, besides the Nyāyakaṇikā, in which he attacks the very possibility of yogic perception, also a commentary on the Yogasūtrabhāṣya, in which he takes all kinds of yogic experience very seriously.) We will grant, Vācaspati says, that someone might produce a vivid intuitive cognition of an object through constant reflection or contemplation (bhāvanā) on it, but that cognition will not be a pramāṇa, a valid means of knowledge; for, neither identical with nor arising from that object, it can deviate from it, that is, it can turn out that the object is quite different from how it is represented in the cognition. The Bud18

19

Adapted from Vidhivivekaḥ, 1218,10-1220,3. Dharmakīrti also suggests that the fact that a person is experiencing the object as if it is bodily present can be inferred from his behavior; see the contribution by Vincent Eltschinger in this volume. In the Nyāyakaṇikā the discussion extends from 1214,8-1224,9.

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dha’s vivid intuitive cognition of all entities as duḥkha and so forth, as a result of his meditation on the Four Noble Truths, which are propositional in nature and which he arrived at presumably through some process of reasoning, did not actually arise from all the entities in the universe, the ultimately real particulars themselves, but from his thought about them. The Four Noble Truths refer to “everything” only in a general way; they do not specifically mention that entity A is duḥkha, entity B is duḥkha, and so forth. If one were to maintain that the Buddha’s intuitive cognition of all entities nevertheless arose indirectly from all ultimately real particulars (svalakṣaṇas), in the same way that an inferential cognition of fire from the observation of smoke arises indirectly from the svalakṣaṇa of fire that produces the svalakṣaṇa of smoke that one observes, and in the same way that a vivid intuitive cognition of fire resulting from continuous and sustained contemplation on that inferred fire might be said to arise indirectly from the particular fire and thus be caused by its object – if one were to take this view, one must still acknowledge that the intuitive cognition of fire resulting from the meditation on the fire we inferred to exist from the heavy smoke rising from, say, the top of the ridge, is usually quite different from the searing blaze we are confronted with when we finally get to the top of the ridge! In general, says Vācaspati, the intuitive cognition resulting from bhāvanā is produced not by its object but by the bhāvanā – as if to say, it is a state of subjective effervescence or intensity engendered just by the mental activity of contemplation. It can have an unreal object just as easily as a real one, as we see indeed in the case of the lovesick man. If we were ever to encounter such a person in our day we would tend to dismiss him, saying something like, “He’s really worked himself into a state!”20 20

Dharmakīrti tries to escape this problem by stipulating that yogic perception must be reliable, saṃvādin (PV 3.286) – or else “consistent with a pramāṇa” (pramāṇasaṃvādin), if one reads the verse according to Franco’s recommendation (see Franco forthcoming). He recognizes that some of the meditational exercises that form part of the preliminary path for the Buddhist adept achieve vivid, nonconceptual cognitions of unreal (abhūta), imagined objects, such as a corpse in various stages of decay (PV 3.284). For a yogic cognition to count as an instance of the pramāṇa perception its object must be established by other pramāṇas, in particular, reasoning. Thus, the chief, if not indeed the sole, object of (valid) yogic perception for Dharmakīrti is the Four Noble Truths, which he establishes by means of reasoning in the second chapter of his Pramāṇavārttika. See, again, the contribution by

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Ratnakīrti’s response to this, which I take to be the main criticism of his argument as I have reconstructed it, is not unsophisticated; in the end, however, it does not seem completely satisfactory. He stresses at the outset, partially in reply to objections raised by other authors, that the essence of perception does not consist in its being produced by an external sense faculty, but in its involving the immediate presentation of its object (sākṣātkāra) (SS 16, 32-33). The vivid intuitive cognition of all things produced by bhāvanā on the Four Noble Truths is a mental cognition that immediately reveals its object and therefore qualifies as a perception. “Just as the visual sense, without violating its [normal] capacity, functions to produce its specific [visual] cognition dependent on an object located in an appropriate place, so the mind, which is also a sense faculty, joined with bhāvanā on an existing object, which opposes all ignorance, and reaching (prāpya!) an object located in an appropriate place, will function to produce its specific cognition (svavijñānajanana)” (SS 17, 2-4). Just as visual perception is possible without coming directly in contact with its object, so is mental cognition – of objects in the past and the future – possible – but not for everyone! The key here is the practice of a kind of bhāvanā that destroys the defilements that normally restrict the capacity of perception to objects proximate in time and space, in particular, bhāvanā on the Four Noble Truths or on the momentariness and selflessness of all entities (SS 17, 4-14). Once one fully comprehends these things, ignorance is destroyed, which uproots the other defilements (kleśas). This kind of bhāvanā, which reveals the object as it truly is even though the mind is not in immediate contact with it – in the same way, for the Buddhist, the senses of vision and hearing apprehend their objects without being directly in contact with them – must be said to arise from the object itself, and not just from the bhāvanā, and so it is a pramāṇa. Vācaspati’s example of an intuitive cognition produced from contemplation on an inferred fire, which is seen not always to correspond to its object, is therefore a sheer fantasy and cannot be taken as challenging the generalization the Buddhist really wants to establish, namely, that bhāvanā on an object yields a veracious intuitive cogniVincent Eltschinger in this volume. The unfortunate consequence of this kind of approach, as we shall see, is that it leaves no other example of yogic perception to point to in proving the possibility of the Buddha’s perception of the Four Noble Truths.

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tion. No one would practice bhāvanā on a fire (SS 19, 21-25)!21 And it would seem that the main point Ratnakīrti is emphasizing, that the kind of bhāvanā he is talking about is the kind that destroys ignorance, desire, and other defilements, thereby releasing perception from its usual constraints (of proximity to its object in time and space, and so forth), could be used to turn aside the objection Vācaspati (and I) raised earlier against the example of the lovesick man, namely, that this is a case of hallucination, not a valid cognition; for Ratnakīrti could say that in this case, too, we are not dealing with the right kind of bhāvanā, the kind that really destroys the defilements and has the power immediately to present its object as it really is. In fact, if there ever were a case of the wrong kind of bhāvanā, the type that would reinforce avidyā and the other defilements, not remove them, surely this is it! Now, however, Ratnakīrti – the Buddhist – is faced with a new and equally serious problem, which in the end seems fatal to me. He has, in effect, in responding to Vacaspati's objections, revised his inference so that it might be stated as follows: The proper kind of bhāvanā focused on the right kind of object will yield a veracious, intuitive experience of that object. The Buddha’s contemplation of the Four Noble Truths was precisely that – the proper kind of bhāvanā focused on the right kind of object. Therefore, the Buddha achieved a veracious, intuitive experience of the Four Noble Truths.

His problem now is that he is still in need of an example for his inference, one that will support the generalization that the right kind of bhāvanā on the right kind of object will lead to a veracious, intuitive experience of the object. He needs an example, moreover, that is drawn from everyday experience; for the positive example of an inference must be siddha, not taken from the class of things to be proved but already accepted by both opponent and proponent. Obviously, Ratnakīrti cannot, in grounding the generalization on which his inference is based, appeal to the alleged fact that yogis have veracious, intuitive experiences as a result of the destruction of defilements by means of bhāvanā all the time! No such example from everyday experience, however, appears to be forthcoming. This is hardly surprising; for it is of the essence of ordinary perception that it is restricted to objects that exist here 21

Someone who is cold will simply move toward a fire he has inferred, not contemplate it.

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and now, are of a certain magnitude, and directly affect the sense faculties. It’s beginning to look as if “you can’t get there from here,” you can’t base an argument for the possibility of supernomal perception on observations about everyday experience. Everyday experience speaks against the possibility of supernormal experience at every turn. Ratnakīrti is also faced with a problem concerning the vyatireka of his inference. The logical reason or hetu of an inference has to satisfy not only the requirement of anvaya, being found together with the property-to-be-proved, which is documented by the positive example, but also the requirement of vyatireka, not being found to occur in the absence of the property-to-be-proved, which is documented by a negative example. Is it the case, however, that no mental state that is practiced assiduously over a long period of time ever fails to yield a veracious, vivid intuitive cognition? Well, we certainly hear plenty of reports from disappointed meditators practicing all kinds of techniques, including visualization techniques, to the effect that the promised result never comes about: the object of meditation does not materialize even after sustained and arduous practice. The only question is how long and hard does one have to keep practicing without results before one deems that the generalization that such practice will eventually yield a vivid, veracious intuition is disconfirmed? In short, the relation between logical reason and property-to-be-proved in this inference seems rather tenuous. I think we can begin to see from this very brief treatment of Ratnakīrti’s main argument that, when it comes to the attempt to prove the possibility of supernormal, yogic experience by means of some kind of inference, anumāna, the skeptic – the Humean or the Mīmāṃsaka – will always have the advantage. The Mīmāṃsakas understood this very well. For every proof, sādhana, of the omniscience of the Buddha that the Buddhist puts forward, they said, there will be a counterproof, a pratisādhana. Whatever characteristics the Buddha might have that speak in favor of his possession of supernormal abilities – his long meditation on momentariness and selflessness, which would seem to destroy ignorance along with all the other kleśas, his compassion and accuracy concerning things we are able to verify for ourselves – will be offset by all his other ordinary human characteristics, which indicate he really wasn’t any different from the rest of us. (As a modern skeptic might put it: he had to put his pants on one leg at a time, just like us!) The Mīmāṃsaka lists among these mundane characteristics: his being

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an object of cognition, being an object of a valid means of knowledge, being a living being, a human being, a speaker, and possessed of sense faculties.22 It seems, then, that the Buddhist cannot win at the anumāna (inference) game when it comes to debating about the existence of supernormal powers or beings with supernormal abilities. He cannot prove the possibility of supernormal perception by means of some inference. Inference, by its very nature, appeals to experience. It is therefore difficult to see how it can ever reveal to us anything, even the possibility of anything, beyond experience. This is what two of the greatest Indian thinkers outside the epistemological tradition, Bhartṛhari and Śaṅkara, pointed out. Reasoning cannot tell us about what lies beyond the senses, only scripture can. But this is hardly a satisfactory solution to the problem of evidence for yoga and yogic experience that confronts the modern yoga researcher! It would seem that the Buddhist failure to prove the possibility of yogic perception has implications for the question of whether yogic experience is possible in general. The Buddhist case suggests that any attempt to prove that yogic experience is possible is bound to fail. For any proof – unless of course it is an a priori proof, which seems hardly to come into question here – must somehow extrapolate from common experience; and our common experience of human cognition is that it is opposite in nature to yogic experience: it is characterized by intentionality (directedness toward objects) 23 and dependent on the stimulation of the nervous system by internal and external stimuli. More specifically, in order to show that yogic experience is possible, one must be able to suggest a causal mechanism that could account for it. Any such mechanism, however, would have to be consistent with our scientific understanding of nature, to which humans of course also belong – which understanding must ultimately be based on common experience, including observations we make about normal human perception and other cognitive processes. Thus, it seems one could never prove yogic experience to be possible. Indeed, the whole enterprise of attempting to devise

22

23

See SS p. 23, 11-14: sugato ‘sarvajñaḥ jñeyatvāt prameyatvāt sattvāt puruṣatvād vaktṛtvād indriyādimattvād ityādi rathyāpuruṣavat; cf. ŚV, Codanā 132; TS, 3156. Samādhi, on the other hand, is depicted as a state of pure consciousness, awareness without an object.

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some kind of proof of the possibility of yogic experience seems fundamentally misguided. At the same time, however, it becomes apparent that one cannot prove that yogic experience is impossible, either. The fact that something “violates the laws of nature” – i.e., the principles that underly our scientific understanding of nature – does not establish its impossibility, as Hume seems to think, unless we are confident that those “laws” capture the way things really are.24 We are sophisticated enough nowadays – we have obtained sufficient distance from the great discoveries that revolutionized Hume’s world – to know that that is unlikely. We know that the foundations of our scientific picture of the world are periodically called into question and revised, and that we can, at any moment in the history of science, only be confident that we are progressing closer toward a correct, comprehensive understanding of nature, but never that we have finally arrived there. Moreover, we have become aware that science advances only by posing questions to which precise and definite answers can be provided, which restricts its focus to a certain range of phenomena; we are painfully aware that, for all the amazing progress of the physical and social sciences, there is still much we do not know. Under these circumstances, to consider compatibility with “the laws of nature” as science currently understands them the criterion of possibility would be rather arbitrary. Nevertheless, this offers little if any succor to those who would like to believe in yogic experiences. That something is not impossible of course implies that it is possible, but mere theoretic possibility is hardly the same as plausibility. The fact that something is incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature makes it, if not impossible, then certainly extremely unlikely. Indeed, that may have been all that Hume meant when he referred to something as a “miracle.” Let us now return to the situation of the yoga researcher and see if these considerations somehow give us a new purchase on the problem of whether yogic experience is possible. The yoga researcher is faced 24

See Hume 1955: 122: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established those laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” This passage suggests that “the laws of nature” Hume has in mind are ones to which we have epistemic access, hence the laws of nature as defined by contemporary science.

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with the following predicament: Over against the “impossibility” of yogic experiences and altered states of consciousness stands the fact that they are widely, even cross-culturally, reported. Committed to a scientific view of the world, convinced that everything will eventually yield itself to a scientific – and that means a physical – explanation, one may be inclined to adopt the position that there simply are no valid clairvoyant or clairaudient experiences – no one ever really sees things in the past or the future, let alone all things at once – or genuine states of objectless trance, and that reports of such experiences and the preoccupation with them in certain cultures or traditions have to be understood in terms of the role the idea of such experiences plays in them. Yet I believe that a yoga researcher may also reasonably resist this conclusion, because it just presents us with another disturbing incongruity, namely, that certain cultures and traditions should attach so much importance to experiences that are essentially erroneous or hallucinatory. Yet the latter researcher must also have a response to the Humean challenge: Shouldn’t reports of yogic experiences simply be dismissed on the grounds that they are violations of the so-called laws of nature and therefore ipso facto undermine the credibility of anyone who would report them? For, otherwise, on what basis could one ever believe that such experiences actually occur? Here it must be noted, however, that Hume’s attitude – quite reminiscent, in fact, of the Mīmāṃsā attitude that people and the world have always been, and presumably will continue to be, more or less as they are today25 – when taken to an extreme, becomes unreasonable and unscientific. If “the laws of nature,” determined just by what we have experienced thus far, rigidly dictated what counts as valid experience, we would never learn anything really new. Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World would never have been taken seriously – the “miracle of the fact” would have cancelled out the credibility of the witnesses – nor any other major geographical, archaeological, and astronomical discovery of history. We would have dismissed out of hand reports of magnetism produced by an electric current, x-rays, black holes, static electricity, vacuums, cloud chambers, and many, many other phenomena. In general, the Humean principle that science immediately overrules reports of experiences inconsistent with it is insensitive to the fact that science and experience 25

Cf. ŚV, Codanā 113; cf. also McCrea’s paper in this volume.

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exist in a kind of tension with each other. Our current scientific picture of reality may tell us what is “possible,” but experience can call scientific theory into question and sometimes even overrule it – indeed, if it couldn’t, science would not be empirical. Of course, that happens only in certain circumstances, which modern history of science has helped us to understand; in particular, it happens when the resources are available to construct a new theory that not only accounts for the problematic phenomenon but also has greater overall predictive power and fecundity than the old one. Moreover, the kind of experience to which science is attuned is, ideally, repeatable and intersubjectively verifiable, and yogic experience is typically not like that. Nevertheless, in light of our modern understanding of the dynamic relationship between scientific theory and empirical observation, Hume’s attitude that an established scientific theory should automatically overrule reports of experiences of phenomena that are inconsistent with it (because the “miracle of the fact” will always be greater than the “miracle” that the testimony is false) seems too strong and even dogmatic.26 26

I have not attempted here to do justice to all of the subtleties of Hume’s position, let alone consider all the interpretations, revisions, and refinements of it that have emerged in two-and-a-half centuries of discussion of it. Suffice it here to point out that while Hume may have thought that testimony about the occurrence of a miracle, which by definition is a violation of the laws of nature, is a priori incredible, testimony about other extraordinary events, which are “analogous” to other events known from experience, may be acceptable under certain circumstances. He considers the case of “all authors, in all languages” agreeing that on January 1, 1600, the entire earth was plunged into darkness for eight days. “... Suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travelers, who return from foreign countries, bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction: it is evident, that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought search for causes whence it might be derived” (Hume 1955: 137-8). One could argue that yogic experience is more like this; it is less of a prodigy than an outright miracle – think of Moses turning the Nile into blood (Exodus 7:14-24), for example – and bears certain analogies to common experience. (Another Buddhist author, Śāntarakṣita, suggested, in attempting to prove the possibility of yogic perception, that it is analogous to the ability of certain animals to see in the dark or see great distances [see TS, 3404-6]. Moreover, he argued, directly contradicting the Mīmāṃsaka, that just as one might increase one’s capacity to jump through constant practice, so one can increase, proportionately to one’s practice, one’s mental powers [TS, 3424-30]. For that matter, the argument for the possibility of yogic perception from the observation that one may bring about a vivid, “intuitive” experience of an

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In summary, unable to prove either that yogic experience is possible or that it is impossible, it would seem that one ought to suspend judgement about the matter. But of course that leaves open the possibility that yogic experience is possible, and that means, by application of a well-known rule of modal logic, that it is possible. But the mere theoretic possibility of yogic experience is too thin a basis for taking reports of yogic experience seriously, i.e., at face value. Those historians and social scientists who are inclined to do so require an additional, fairly powerful reason. Such a reason, I believe, would be the conviction that the societies and traditions they study are inherently healthy and rational. That they would attribute great value and importance to certain experiences – even to the point of considering them the most important experiences one can have – that misrepresent reality and are rarely, if ever, confirmed, simply does not make sense. The urge simply to overrule reports of experiences that are incompatible with our current scientific picture of reality, to which Hume has forcefully given expression, can reasonably be resisted by noting that, in the end – even taking into account all the considerations brought to bear on this matter by proponents of scientific holism – our scientific picture of reality is built up from and justified by experience, not vice versa. Until we are confident that we have worked out a complete theory of nature, including human nature, we must continue to collect data with open minds, and that means, we must willing to consider it at face value. Nevertheless, as long as yogic experience remains incompatible with the picture of nature presented to us by the physical and biological sciences, it will continue to be deeply problematic. The only thing that could eventually object by constant meditation can be seen as pursuing this same strategy; it renders it less incongruous by showing it to be continuous with other known phenomena.) In light of this, one might well argue that testimony about yogic experience should be accepted because it actually meets Hume’s standard for acceptability, namely, its falsehood would be more improbable than the phenomenon it reports; for, as I have suggested, given the importance vested in yogic experience and altered states of consciousness in so many cultures, the imaginary or illusory status of these experiences would be would be highly problematic. That, however, is ultimately a complex methodological question in the social sciences which also cannot be adequately dealt with here. For a trenchant presentation of the dominant attitude toward religious experience within the academic discipline of religious studies in North America – with which this paper is of course completely at odds – one may consult McCutcheon 2001.

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dispel the air of mystery around yoga and yogic experience would be a (radically) revised theory of nature that can accommodate it – which, however, at this time is not on the horizon. ABBREVATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Bühnemann 1980

Coady 1992 Franco 1997 Franco forthcoming

Freud 1961 Levine 1996 Hume 1955 Jaini 1974 McClintock 2000

McCutcheon 2001 Nyāyakaṇikā NBh

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PVSV

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Gudrun Bühnemann, Der Allwissende Buddha. Ein Beweis und seine Probleme. Ratnakīrti’s Sarvajñasiddhi. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 4. Wien 1980. C. A. J. Coady, Testimony: a Philosophical Study. Oxford 1992. Eli Franco, Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 38. Wien 1997. Eli Franco, “Perceptions of Yogis - Some Epistemological and Metaphysical Considerations.” Proceedings of the 4th International Dharmakīrti Conference. Wien, forthcoming Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion. New York 1961. Michael Levine, “Miracles.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles 1996. David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Charles W. Hendel, Indianapolis 1955. P. S. Jaini, “On the Sarvajñatva of Mahāvīra and the Buddha.” In: Buddhist Studies in Honor of I. B. Horner. Dordrecht 1974 Sara McClintock, “Knowing All through Knowing One: Mystical Communion or Logical Trick in the Tattvasaṃgraha and Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23/2 2000. Russell T. McCutcheon, Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Albany 2001. Vācaspatimiśra, Nyāyakaṇikā. In: Vidhiviveka. Vātsyāyana, Nyāyabhāṣya. In: Nyāyadarśanam with Vātsyāyana’s Bhāṣya, Uddyotakara’s Vārttika, Vācaspati Miśra’s Tātparyaṭīkā & Viśvanātha’s Vṛtti, ed. Taranatha Nyayatarkatirtha and Amarendramohan Tarkatirtha. Calcutta 1983 Dharmakīrti, Pramāṇavārttika of Acharya Dharmkirtti with the Commentary ‘Vrtti’ of Acharya Manorathanandin, ed. Swami Dwarikadas Shastri, Bauddha Bharati Series 3. Varanasi 1968. Dharmakīrti, Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti. In: The Pramāṇavārttikam of Dharmakīrti: the First Chapter with the Autocommentary, ed. Raniero Gnoli, Serie Orientale Roma 23. Rome 1960. Kumārilabhaṭṭa, Ślokavārttika. In: Ślokavārttika of Śrī Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, with the Commentary Nyāyaratnākara of Śrī Pārthasārathimiśra, ed. Svāmī Dvārikadāsa Śāstrī, Prāchyabhārati Series 10. Varanasi 1978. Ratnakīrti, Sarvajñasiddhi. In: Ratnakīrtinibandhāvalī, ed. Anantalal Thakur, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series 3. Patna 1975.

92 Taber 2005 TS

Vidhiviveka

Ware 1967

JOHN TABER John Taber, A Hindu Critique of Buddhist Epistemology. London 2005. Śāntarakṣita, Tattvasaṅgraha. In: Tattvasaṅgraha of Ācārya Shāntarakṣita, with the Commentary ‘Pañjikā’ of Shri Kamalashīla, ed. Swami Dwarikadas Shastri, Bauddha Bharati Series 1-2. Varanasi 1981. Maṇḍanamiśra, Vidhivivekaḥ with Commentary Nyāyakaṇikā of Vācaspatimiśraḥ and Supercommentaries Juṣadhvaṅkaraṇī and Svaditaṅkaraṅī of Parameśvaraḥ: the Pūrvapakṣa, ed. Elliot M. Stern, 4 vols., unpublished disser., University of Pennsylvania (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1989). James R. Ware (trans.), Alchemy, Medicine, and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei pien of Ko Hung (Pao-p’u tzu). Cambridge, Mass. 1967.

ELI FRANCO

Meditation and Metaphysics On their Mutual Relationship in South Asian Buddhism1

It is well known that Buddhism developed and prescribed a large number of meditative exercises. It is equally well known that Buddhism developed some highly original metaphysical doctrines, such as the anātman-doctrine, i.e., the doctrine that there is no soul and no substance, the doctrine of momentariness, i.e., the doctrine that all things, even those that seem permanent such as stones and mountains, last for only a moment, the doctrine of Emptiness of the Madhyamaka according to which nothing really exists and all things are but an illusion, or the idealism of the Yogācāra which professes that the external world is merely an image in our consciousness. However, it may be less well known that all metaphysical doctrines of Buddhism have their correspondence in meditative practice, and some of them may even have arisen from such practice. There are at least two main reasons for this state of affairs. First the general tendency in Indian thought to presuppose a correspondence theory of truth. In other words, if the objects visualized by the yogi during meditation are to be considered true, they must have a correspondence in reality. In this respect, the perception or awareness of yogis is not different from any other perception. The second reason is that in the majority of Buddhist traditions, Enlightenment, or liberating insight,

1

I would like to thank Lambert Schmithausen very warmly for personal and written comments on a previous draft of this paper and I regret that he was unable to comment on this final draft. I am also indebted to Karin Preisendanz who read several versions of the paper and made highly perspicacious comments and suggestions at all stages. Further thanks go to Nobuyoshi Yamabe who kindly shared his thoughts with me about the nature of meditation and its relation to philosophical theories.

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consists in a right insight into the true nature of reality.2 And this profound insight into the absolute truth, it is generally assumed, cannot be achieved only by way of rational thinking which is connected to concepts and language, but has to be deepened in meditation. One should not only learn and think about the teachings of the Buddha, but also meditate upon them repeatedly. Thus, because Enlightenment is usually an insight into the true nature of the world, the metaphysical teachings were being taught as subjects of meditation, and their content was postulated as part of liberating insight. It goes without saying that this content differs from tradition to tradition. In a realistic tradition the liberating insight is an insight into the true nature of the final elements of existence (dharma); in an illusionistic tradition it consists in the insight that precisely these elements are unreal.3 It is undisputed that there are close relationships between meditation and metaphysics in Buddhism. However, some scholars of Buddhism go as far as to claim that all metaphysical doctrines in Buddhism have arisen from meditative practice, and indeed this opinion seems to be widely spread. I will mention here only three of its most influential variants. Constantin Regamey claims that not only Buddhist philosophy, but Indian philosophy in general is the rational interpretation of mystical experience (Regamey 1951: 251): Notre philosophie est née de la curiosité et du besoin de savoir, d’expliquer le monde d’une façon cohérente. En Inde la philosophie est l’interprétation rationnelle de l’expérience mystique.

This is the most sweeping generalisation on the subject that I have come across so far. According to Regamey one would have to assume that every Indian philosophical theory, from the atomism and ontological categories of the Vaiśeṣika to the logical developments of Navya Nyāya, is a rational interpretation of mystical experience. In a less 2

3

This in contradistinction to Jainism, where the means of liberation consists in the elimination of karma, or certain theistic systems, where liberation depends on the grace of God, etc. In addition to these two reasons, one may mention the subjective feeling of the meditating person, who sometimes feels transposed to another space (cf. for instance the case of the dhyāna meditation below). The journey of the spirit is a phenomenon well known from many cultures, even though the modalities of such journeys are not often theorized.

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sweeping but similar manner Edward Conze, one of the most influential Buddhist scholars in the second half of the twentieth century, states (Conze 1967: 213): The cornerstone of my interpretation of Buddhism is the conviction, shared by nearly everyone, that it is essentially a doctrine of salvation, and that all its philosophical statements are subordinate to its soteriological purpose. This implies, not only that many philosophical problems are dismissed as idle speculations, but that each and every [philosophical] proposition must be considered in reference to its spiritual intention and as a formulation of meditative experiences ... I cannot imagine any scholar wishing to challenge this methodological postulate …

However, the most influential formulation of this hypothesis was put forward by Lambert Schmithausen in his renowned paper “Spirituelle Praxis und philosophische Theorie im Buddhismus” (Schmithausen 1973: 1854): Es scheint sich somit bei dieser Entwicklung von philosophischen Theorien aus spirituell-praktischen Ursprüngen um einen Vorgang zu handeln, der für die buddhistische Geistesgeschichte geradezu t y p i s c h ist. ... Für die zentralen, das Ganze bestimmenden philosophischen Theorien gilt, dass sie, zum mindesten zum größten Teil, unmittelbar aus der spirituellen Praxis hervorgewachsen sein dürften.5

4

5

A shorter English version of this paper was published as “On the Problem of the Relation of Spiritual Practice and Philosophical Theory in Buddhism,” cf. Schmithausen 1976a. This shorter version was reprinted in Williams 2005: 242-254. “It seems, therefore, that philosophical theories developing out of meditative exercises is a process that is really t y p i c a l for Buddhist intellectual history. It is valid to say that the central philosophical theories, which define the whole, may have directly arisen, at least for the most part, from spiritual practice (=meditative practice).” The expression “spirituelle Praxis” can be understood, of course, in a very broad manner. Indeed, any mental activity can be so described. However, if this term is to describe something that is typical for Buddhism and to stand in contradistinction to philosophical theory, its scope has to be narrowed down. Schmithausen defines “spirituelle Praxis” (p. 162) as “die geistige Seite religiöser Übungen, d.h. solcher Übungen oder Handlungen, die direkt oder indirekt auf das Heil ausgerichtet sind. Im Falle des Buddhismus handelt es sich dabei vor allem um moralisch-ethische Übungen sowie um Versenkungspraktiken.” Since moral-ethical exercises are not further discussed in Schmithausen 1973 and 2005, and do not seem to be directly relevant to the arising of metaphysical theories, I will confine my remarks to “Versenkungs-

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Unlike Regamey, Conze and others, Schmithausen does not only claim that philosophical theories in Buddhism arose from meditative practice, but actually attempts to prove that this is the case. I will, therefore, confine my remarks to his paper.6 Schmithausen’s thesis is seductive because if it could be confirmed, it would capture an essential and special characteristic of Buddhism that would distinguish it not only from Western philosophies and religions, but also from other Indian traditions. However, the relationship between meditation and metaphysics is in my opinion more complex and heterogeneous, and I shall argue that its varieties cannot be reduced to a single homogeneous model. Let me begin with two cases that fit Schmithausen’s hypothesis well. The close relationship between meditation and metaphysics can be clearly seen in the case of dhyāna-meditation. This type of meditation is generally considered to belong to the earliest strata of the Buddhist canon (see, for instance, Vetter 1988: 3ff.), and it already appears within the framework of the four noble truths. The fourth truth laconi-

6

praktiken” which I translate as “meditative practice,” “meditative state” or simply as “meditation.” Regamey uses the term “expérience mystique” to refer, presumably, to the same meditative experiences. Cf. also Schmithausen 1973: 165 where he refers to Conze’s thesis (Conze 1962: 251ff. cf. also May 1971) that the roots of Yogācāra are to be looked for above all (in erster Linie) in meditative practice, in opposition to Masuda’s hypothesis that the Yogācāra developed as a reaction to the absolute Negativism of the Madhyamaka. In Schmithausen 2005: 247, Schmithausen also uses the expression “transphenomenal state” to refer to the Buddhist spiritual practice. As I understand it, Schmithausen’s thesis clearly implies that all the important or central philosophical theories in Buddhism arose mainly from meditative practice. However, in what follows I will examine a number of philosophical theories that are not discussed in his paper. In this respect, I may be going beyond his original intention. Ideally, one would have to determine first what Schmithausen considers central and what philosophy, but these are issues that I hope Schmithausen himself will clarify on a different occasion. In my opinion, all the philosophical doctrines discussed below are central to Buddhism, but it goes without saying that others may be of a different opinion. On the use of the term “philosophical” here, cf. n. 55 below. I am however not the first to criticize Schmithausen’s thesis. An extensive criticism was formulated in Robert Sharf’s impressive paper (Sharf 1995). A more limited criticism that concerns only the Yogācāra portion of Schmithausen’s paper was voiced in Bronkhorst 2000: 77-93. But my approach here is different and, I hope, has not been made redundant by these previous criticisms.

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cally describes the path of a person from the moment he meets the Buddha and comes to realize that life is fundamentally frustrating, painful and hopeless till the moment he reaches Enlightenment through meditation. Right meditation, which is the culmination of the path, is divided into four stages. The first stage is characterized by bodily wellbeing (kāyasukha) and mental joy (prīti). This joy arises from the fact that one has succeeded in ridding oneself of one’s desires. Conceptual thinking, that is, thinking connected with language, continues at this stage. When concentration further increases, one reaches the second stage, at which conceptual thinking ceases. Bodily well-being and joy continue, but they now arise directly from the power of meditation. When concentration increases even further, one reaches the third stage, at which joy is replaced by equanimity. Finally, at the fourth stage, even bodily well-being disappears and absolute equanimity and lack of sensation are reached. In this fourth dhyāna the mind becomes absolutely clear. One can remember one’s own previous lives and see how certain deeds lead to certain results—good deeds to pleasant births, bad deeds to painful ones. Then, with the so-called divine eye one can observe the same phenomena for countless other living beings. Finally, after one perceives in this manner the entire saṃsāra both in time and in space, one reaches the certainty that the present life is one’s final life, that one will not be born again. It is interesting to note that this dhyāna meditation has (or better, has obtained in the late or post-canonical period) a cosmological correspondence. According to the Ābhidharmikas of the Conservative Buddhism, the world consists of three layers. The first, the layer of desire (kāma-dhātu), is the one we live in. On the top of it there is a second layer, the layer of desireless corporeality (rūpa-dhātu), and it corresponds precisely to the four stages of the dhyāna meditation (cf. AKBh 3.2). The sixteen, seventeen or eighteen subdivisions of this cosmic layer7 are divided into four groups that are also called dhyāna. Moreover, the first three dhyānas are further divided each into three layers which correspond to weak (mṛdu), middle (madhya) and intense (adhi7

On the different opinions concerning the number of layers, cf. La Vallée Poussin, chapter 3: 2-3.

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mātra) concentrations. The fourth cosmic layer contains further layers, primarily those in which the Buddhist saints who no longer return to the layer of desire (anāgāmin) stay till their definitive disappearance into nirvāṇa.8 The highest cosmic layer, the ārūpya-dhātu, the layer that lacks corporeality, corresponds in its fourfold division to a division of stages of another type of meditation. In the ārūpya meditation, the yogi turns his mind to a succession of objects, each subtler than the preceding one. The starting point of this meditation is the so-called kasina exercise. The yogi concentrates on an object, such as a piece of earth or a patch of color, until he no longer observes a difference between the inner mental image and the immediately perceived image. In other words, the yogi sees the object just as clearly and vividly with closed as with open eyes. The yogi can then stand up and go elsewhere taking the image with him. Now he has to concentrate on this image until a second image is produced; i.e., the first image functions as the immediate image of the external object and it gives rise to a second mental reflex. When the yogi observes this secondary image for a long time, it disintegrates and fades away slowly, and in its place the incorporeal presentation of the infinity of space appears. Herewith the first stage of the ārūpya meditation is attained. After meditating on the infinity of space (ākāśānantya), the yogi naturally moves on to meditate on the infinity of the mind or conscious-

8

Unfortunately I was unable to find a visual description of the three layers in Indian or Tibetan art. As a rule, only the lowest layer, the layer of desire, is depicted. This is understandable, for the abstract content of the layer of desireless corporeality (rūpa-dhātu) and of lack of corporeality (ārūpya-dhātu) cannot be easily illustrated. Martin Brauen, in his book The Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism, has generated a computer model according to the ancient descriptions. This model is basically the same as the one in the Abhidharmakośa, but differs in some detail because Brauen follows the Kālacakra cosmology. For instance, Mount Meru is round and not quadrangular. A reproduction of a modern painting of the three dhātus can be found in the catalogue of “The Tibet Exhibition in Japan 1983” (Tokyo: Mainichi Communications, 1983) plate nr. Tsu 77. According to the catalogue it is often placed at the entrance of Tibetan temples, paired with a saṃsāracakra. For sketches illustrating Buddhist cosmology according to the Pāli tradition, cf. Adolf Bastian 1894.

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ness (vijñānānantya);9 next the stage of nothingness (ākiñcanya) is reached, i.e., the meditation has no object whatsoever. Finally, without an object consciousness becomes so weak that it hardly deserves its name. Accordingly, this stage of meditation is called “neither consciousness nor non-consciousness” (naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñā).10 When this meditation is further intensified, consciousness disappears altogether. The meditation now has neither subject nor object. This stage is called saṃjñāvedayitanirodhasamāpatti, i.e., the meditation which consists in the suppression of consciousness and feelings. Because at this stage all consciousness and feelings disappear, this state of meditation has no cosmological correspondence. At this stage the yogi is almost dead; his body is unconscious and numb like a corpse. Only by his bodily heat can one may know that he is still alive.11 We thus see that the psychological aspects of the dhyāna meditation have a cosmological correspondence, whereas in the case of the ārūpya meditation there is cosmological correspondence to the object of meditation as well as to a special state of consciousness of the meditating person. What does this mean? In the first case, one could understand that the yogi or the yogi’s mind is transposed to the corresponding cosmological region through the attainment of a special state of mind. Further, all living beings inhabiting this region experience this state of mind or are somehow connected to it. In the second case, the content of the meditation in the first two stages corresponds to a cosmic realm and to cosmic (material, but not corporeal) elements; in the next two stages, by attaining a special state of consciousness, the yogi is transposed to a specific cosmic realm in a manner comparable to the case of the dhyāna meditation. The “suppression of consciousness and feeling,” where both object and subject are eliminated, has no cosmic or ontological correspondence because there is nothing left to be corresponded to. 9

10

11

Note that consciousness was considered to be a cosmic element which consists in subtle incorporeal matter, obviously even more subtle than space (or ether – ākāśa) which is also material but not corporeal. Cf. Langer 2001, esp. 43-50. According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha practiced this meditation with his teachers Ārāḍa Kālāma and Rudraka Rāmaputra. It thus may be a pre-Buddhist form of meditation. One more factor distinguishes the yogi from a corpse, namely, the power of life (āyus), but this factor is, of course, not observable.

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The case of dhyāna meditation and at least the last two stages of the ārūpya meditation seem to confirm Schmithausen thesis. However, these practices cannot be taken to represent all meditations in Buddhism. There are other meditative exercises that have their metaphysical correspondences in the sense that they reflect the ultimate reality according to various ontological doctrines, for instance, the selflessness, the substancelessness and the momentariness of all existing things. Yet in the case of these exercises, Schmithausen’s thesis does not work smoothly. Schmithausen himself has retracted his thesis that the doctrine of momentariness of all things has arisen from spiritual practice (Schmithausen 1976b: 285f., and n. 5). But is this the exception that confirms the rule or is it the clear case that refutes it? I will argue for the latter alternative by pointing out that momentariness is not a single tree in the savannah. There are indeed other conspicuous doctrines that certainly qualify as “central philosophical theories” and which are not taken into consideration by Schmithausen in the above-mentioned paper. Two such doctrines that immediately come to mind are the doctrine of Dependent Origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Sarvāstivāda theory of existence of past and future objects. Concerning the former, there is hardly any need to argue that it did not directly arise from meditation or spiritual practice. Schmithausen himself has contributed a fundamental study of this doctrine, where he argues that the list of twelve members as we know it today is the result of three different lists that were put together in the course of a development that is reflected in the heterogeneous materials of the Pāli canon (cf. Schmithausen 2000). In this case, I assume, Schmithausen himself would argue for systematizations of earlier lists and redactional motives, rather than spiritual practice, as decisive for the origin of the doctrine. As for the doctrine of rebirth as such that is reflected in most if not all these lists, it is preBuddhist in origin and is presupposed and taken for granted in the earliest strata of the Pāli canon. Thus, it too cannot have arisen from meditation, at least not from Buddhist meditation.12 12

Thus, it is excluded by Schmithausen from his investigation; cf. the beginning of his paper (Schmithausen 2005: 243): “Thus, the philosophical theories whose relation to spiritual practice I am going to discuss in this article are those which are exclusively Buddhists and which are freshly developed by Buddhism.” Also uncertain would be

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The Sarvāstivāda theory that all final elements of existence (dharma) exist in all three times (past, present and future) also presents a clear case of a central philosophical theory that was not developed from meditative practice. The Abhidharmakośa provides four reasons for this counterintuitive doctrine. The first reason is simply that the Buddha himself said so. In a similar vein, the second reason is that this doctrine is implied by certain statements of the Buddha. The third reason has to do with the tenet that every moment of awareness is supposed to have an objective support. Thus, recollection too requires such support, and that support must be a past object; similarly, certain cognitions have future objects and thus future objects must exist. Finally, past objects must be assumed in order to account for the functioning of the law of karma, more specifically, to account for the fact that a past act can produce its result in the future, long after the act was committed.13 In connection with this tenet, four philosophical theories of time were developed that aim to explain the difference between past, present and future objects (cf. Stcherbatsky 1923: 78-80). None of these theories seems to have arisen from spiritual practice. On the contrary, they seem to be theoretical reflections meant to reduce the difference between past, present and future objects to a bare minimum. Similarly, the Sarvāstivāda theory that every element of existence is accompanied by four characteristic entities (lakṣaṇas) responsible for its arising, subsistence, decay and destruction and by four secondary characteristic entities (anulakṣaṇas) that play a part in the causation of the first four entities is clearly due to theoretical reflections about causality and the philosophical inclination to avoid infinite regress. They also reflect the rejection of the idea of a substance and a special hermeneutical approach towards the canonical writings, but there is no evidence to connect their origin to meditative practice. 14 Furthermore, the postulation of the three eternal entities, spaceether (ākāśa), “suppression through careful consideration” (pratisaṃ-

13 14

the assumption that the various lists found in the Pāli canon are “exclusively Buddhist,” but even if they are, whether they are due to mystical experience, introspection, rational investigation or other sources is anybody’s guess. Cf. AKBh 5.24, p. 295, translated by de La Vallée Poussin, chapter 5 : 50-51. Cf. AKBh 2.45cd-46ab, p. 75.19ff., translated by de La Vallée Poussin, chapter 2: 222ff.

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khyānirodha) and “suppression without careful consideration” (apratisaṃkhyānirodha), as well the factors dissociated from thought (cittaviprayuktasaṃskāra) could hardly be said to have arisen immediately from meditative experience. It seems rather that the Sarvāstivāda, like the Ābhidharmikas of other schools, were analytically striving to identify and systematize the final constituents of physical and mental reality in dependence on canonical materials. This concern is also apparent in the so-called abhisamayavāda (“the doctrine of intuitive grasp”) of Dharmaśrī with its ten “propensities” (anuśaya) and sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. According to Frauwallner, who made a detailed study of the historical development of this theory,15 it did not arise from spiritual practice. In fact, it is questionable whether the entire Abhidharma enterprise, from the early lists (mātṛkā)16 to the later developments by Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra,17 can be said to have arisen from meditation or spiritual practice, rather than the collection, organization, systematization and theoretical development of canonical materials. The Conservative Buddhists developed a considerable number of philosophical theories about matter, causation, space and time, and about epistemological, ethical and soteriological issues. Practically none of them were taken into consideration by Schmithausen (who probably did not consider them to be central) or by any of the other scholars who generalized the origin of Buddhist philosophical theories. It is sufficient to leaf through a work such as Points of Controversy (Kathāvatthu)18 to understand the extent of the disagreement among the various Buddhist schools, and to see how difficult, not to say impossible, would be the 15 16

17 18

Cf. Frauwallner 1971a; English translation in Frauwallner 1995: 149-184. On the mātṛkās and their relationship to meditation, cf. Gethin 1993. On the traditional account of the arising of mātṛkās, cf. DN 33, where the Buddha asks Śāriputra to prepare lists summarizing his (the Buddha’s) teachings in order to prevent strife among his disciples after his death, as was the case among the disciples of the Jina. Thus, at least according to the traditional account, the mātṛkās have not arisen from meditative experience, but from the practical necessity to determine, secure and summarize the Buddha’s teaching. On Saṅghabhadra, cf. Cox 1995. Cf. Aung and Rhys Davids 1969. An extensive list of theses of controversy among Conservative Buddhists was conveniently presented in Bareau 1955: 260-289. Note, however, that many of these points of controversy are not philosophical in nature.

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task of anyone wishing to establish the origin of all philosophical theories in Buddhism, even if one were to limit oneself to the most important ones. Interestingly, meditation does not seem to play a role in the philosophical debates documented in the Kathāvatthu. (On the other hand, it plays a decisive role in the doctrines that are rejected as harmful in the Brahmajālasutta; cf. below.) In what follows I shall mostly limit myself to those theories taken into consideration by Schmithausen. Perhaps the most important and typical theory of Conservative Buddhism is the anātman theory, the theory that there is no Self or Soul. This theory was indeed considered by Schmithausen, but the evidence he adduces for the hypothesis that it has its origin in meditative experience is rather meager. Schmithausen is one of the most learned scholars of Buddhism of our time, and yet for the negation of the Soul (ātman) in meditation he could find no earlier testimony than Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra,19 (sixth century CE), which was composed many centuries after the establishment of this doctrine. Furthermore, in recent times an alternative explanation of the origin of the anātman doctrine has been proposed, namely, that it developed not from spiritual practice, but as a reaction to the pudgala theory of the Vātsīputrīyas.20 This hypothesis, however, was suggested after Schmithausen’s paper was written and thus he could not take it into account while formulating his thesis. In any case, it is a reasonable alternative hypothesis that casts serious doubts on Schmithausen’s assumption that the anātman theory was developed from meditative practice. 19 20

Cf. Schmithausen 1973, note 55 which quotes Madhyamakāvatāra VI 120. Cf. Steinkellner 2002: 183: “Die theoretische Lehre von ‘Nicht-Selbst’ (anātmavāda) als eines philosophischen Dogmas verdankt ihre Entstehung offenbar nicht dem Bedürfnis, diese Praxis ontologisch abzustützen, sondern der Notwendigkeit, eine einflussreiche Fehlentwicklung zurückzudrängen, nämlich die Lehre von der sogenannten ‚Person’ (pudgala), die ein Mönch Vātsīputra um 300 v.u.Z. vertreten hat.” Possibly the same opinion, though formulated more vaguely and in a less committed manner, is expressed by Vetter 1988: 42-44. An earlier formulation—or at least by way of implication—of this opinion is to be found in Frauwallner 1971b: 121 (=[9]), where Vātsīputra’s doctrine of pudgala is said to have broken the ice: “Damit war gewissermaßen das Eis gebrochen. Nun begann man auch andere Probleme zu überdenken und, wenn es nötig schien, die überkommenen Lehren weiterzubilden oder umzuformen.” Cf. also the quotation in the next note.

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This inevitably leads us to the question about the origin of the pudgala theory. Is there any evidence to connect its origin to meditative experience or was it motivated, as Frauwallner and others assume, by the need to fill a theoretical gap in the canonical materials?21 And while we are at it, is there any evidence to connect the origin of the doctrine of the five groups (pañcaskandha) of the empirical person to meditative practice? This concept is ubiquitously present in the Pāli canon, but we know nothing about its origin. For all we know, it may not even be Buddhist in origin. The doctrine of anātman as we know it from the post-canonical literature must have meant at its first stage that human beings, or living beings in general, lack a permanent Self or Soul. However, sooner or later it was reinterpreted in a more general way to mean that all things lack substance. Could one maintain that the development of this more sweeping doctrine is due to meditation? Again, evidence is lacking and one could make up various scenarios all equally speculative. To conclude the discussion on Conservative Buddhism, let us briefly consider the four noble truths. Surely, one may think, if any philosophical theory originated from meditation in an immediate manner, this so-called original message of the Buddha would be it. However, such an assumption is highly unlikely. Bareau, who closely studied all extant versions of the text, concluded that it is “not only apocryphal, but rather late.”22 This in itself need not refute the thesis that the four noble truths originated from meditation, but there are at least two reasons against such an assumption and they both concern the fourth truth. First, there is some evidence to suggest that this truth was added to the first three at a later stage.23 But more importantly, the fourth truth presup21

22

23

Cf. Frauwallner1971b: 121: “Aber der Buddha ist ihr [der Frage nach dem Ich] ausgewichen, weil er wußte, daß sie zu endlosen theoretischen Streitigkeiten führen würde … Dieses Vermeiden einer klaren Aussage hat sich im allgemeinen behauptet und auch bewährt. Aber es war nicht zu vermeiden, dass sich die Frage nach dem Ich schließlich doch wieder vordrängte.” Cf. Bareau 1963 : 180: “[L]e texte de ce premier sermon, tel que nous le trouvons dans les trois Vinaya, est non seulement apocryphe, mais assez tardif.” The fourth truth is sometimes transmitted without the first three, notably in the Dharmacakrapravartana-sūtra, and it is also formulated in a different style. It is possible that the third truth was originally the truth of the path (i.e., the way to avoid suffering is to eliminate its cause, desire) and that the function of representing the

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poses the saṅgha (monastic order), and its content has as much to do with monastic rules and the way of life befitting a monk (or a nun) as with meditative practice. Its eight members summarize the career of a monk from the moment he meets the Buddha and arrives at the right view that the Buddha’s way is the right way towards eliminating suffering till the moment he reaches enlightenment by the right meditation. Thus, it seems that in Conservative Buddhism most philosophical doctrines did not originate directly from meditative practice. However, can it be said that they originated indirectly from such practice? Before we can answer this question, we have to understand what could be meant by “originating indirectly.” If we understand this phrase as originating primarily from philosophical reflection on meditative practice,24 one could still maintain that most philosophical theories would not fulfill this requirement, or more precisely, that we lack decisive evidence that they do. If, on the other hand, we were satisfied to water down the qualification of “indirectly originating” to “origination somehow connected,” the qualification may be true, but trivial. Everything is indirectly connected to everything, and nobody disputes that meditation is a central phenomenon in Buddhism. Let us turn now to the fundamental metaphysical doctrines of the Mahāyāna. Shortly before or after the beginning of the Common Era something extraordinary happened in the history of Buddhism. A large number of apocrypha, the Mahāyānasūtras, were composed by Buddhist monks, or perhaps even lay persons, in which radically new teachings were attributed to the Buddha. These teachings stand in clear contradiction to what was known of the Buddha’s teachings until then. The basic fundamental teaching of the Mahāyāna is the so-called illusionism, the doctrine that all elements of existence (dharma) are illusory, unreal, do not really exist. Even the Buddha himself was an illusion. Furthermore,

24

path was taken over by the fourth truth when it was appended to the first three. Needless to say, a thorough investigation would be required to prove such an assumption. In contradistinction to, say, being developed in a different context and later applied to spiritual practice (as could be the case of the five skandhas), or being due to systematization of older materials (as could be the case of pratītyasamutpāda), or a generalization of an already existing philosophical theory (as could be the case for the doctrine of no-soul to the doctrine of no-substance).

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desire and suffering too are illusions, and this means that all living beings, who do not really exist, are also not really tormented by unreal suffering, which cannot arise from an unreal illusion. Nirvāṇa as the lack of suffering has thus always been there. Therefore, one may say that there is no difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. Of course, these new apocrypha caused protests and opposition from the Conservative Buddhists. However, it was apparently not so easy to prove that the new Sūtras were falsifications of the original teachings of the Buddha. The protests of the Conservative Buddhists (or Mainstream Buddhists, to use Paul Harrison’s expression) could not prevail; even worse: the Conservative Buddhists were presented as fools. Their canonical sermons and other teachings ascribed to the Buddha which they transmitted orally and later on in written form were considered to be half-truths and thereby disparaged. Only the Mahāyānasūtras contain the absolute truth. The Hīnayānasūtras are merely addressed at monks who are not mature enough to receive the ultimate truth. The Mahāyāna movement is undoubtedly one of the most successful religious movements ever. Nowadays it is still alive in Tibet, in Mongolia and East Asia (China, Korea, Japan). One of the reasons why the Mahāyāna apocrypha could be so successful is that the composition of Buddhist apocrypha had begun much earlier.25 Next to the canonical collections, independent works (muktaka) were always circulating, some of which were designated as apocrypha, lit., ‘superimposed’ (adhyāropita). This phenomenon is mentioned already in the Pāli canon. Lamotte (1974: 180) refers to two passages, in Samyuttanikāya (II, 267) and Aṅguttaranikāya (I, 72-73),26 in which the Buddha prophesizes that the authentic sūtras will disappear and that people will believe in apocrypha composed by poets (kavikata). The oldest Mahāyānasūtra is considered to be the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand verses.27 25

26 27

The authenticity of treatises and sermons ascribed to the Buddha was a problem that all schools of Buddhism (including Madhyamaka and Yogācāra) had to face, and several attempts were made to formulate criteria for the authenticity of Buddhist sūtras; cf. Lamotte 1988, Skilling 2000 and Mathes forthcoming. Both references are to the editions of the Pali Text Society. For an extensive summary, cf. Conze 1975.

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It is a relatively extensive work; an English translation would probably run for more than a thousand pages. The Sūtra was translated into Chinese already in 179 CE by Lokakṣema. Now, what is the perfection of wisdom that is repeatedly praised in this Sūtra? It is the insight that all final elements of existence (dharmas) are unreal, and this insight is realized during a meditation that causes the suppression of all consciousness and feelings. In other words, when the perfection of wisdom is attained, the world disappears; all dharmas vanish and nothing remains: neither objects, nor feelings, nor consciousness. This state is similar to the one attained in the nirodhasamāpatti mentioned above, but there is one important difference: the content of this meditation corresponds to absolute reality. When the yogi emerges from the meditative state, he generalizes his experience: Just as all final elements of existence do not exist during meditative state, they not exist outside of it. The whole world is but an illusion; it contains elements of existence that only appear to be real, but in fact are empty and unreal. The correspondence between the content of the meditation and the metaphysical truth is clear: The absence of the final elements of existence during meditation reflects their inexistence in reality. Can we conclude that this counterintuitive doctrine has arisen from meditative practice? I fail to see that there is evidence for such a conclusion. There are at least three possible hypotheses that may account for the development of the Perfection of Wisdom. One based on philosophical reflection: One may claim that qualities can only exist as something supported by a substance, and if substances do not exist, qualities cannot exist either. And if there are neither substances nor qualities, nothing exists. Alternatively, one may explain the origin of the Mahāyāna Illusionism as a generalization of the meditative “experience” in the nirodhasamāpatti. A third hypothesis was proposed by Frauwallner, who assumed that the Mahāyāna philosophy is due to the mystical experience of the highest Being (höchstes Sein) and the tendency to assume that only this Being is real (cf. Frauwallner 1994: 144). As far as I can see, the question whether philosophical reasoning or spiritual practice is responsible for the arising of the Mahāyāna illusionism cannot be answered because the relevant materials are lacking. The

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doctrine is absent in the old canonical literature,28 and it is already presupposed by the earliest Mahāyānasūtras. In other words, either the evidence that may have let us determine the origin of this doctrine is no longer available, or the doctrine came into the world like the aupapādukas, or Athena from Zeus’ forehead, in a fully developed form and thus provides no clues for determining the context of its arising. Therefore, it seems preferable in this case to suspend judgment and refrain from putting forward hypotheses about its origin. On the basis of the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras, Nāgārjuna (fl. 2nd-3rd c. CE) developed the Madhyamaka philosophy, especially in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, which is considered the foundational text of this school. Schmithausen is silent on the Madhyamaka philosophy. Prima facie, however, it would be rather difficult to prove that the argumentative philosophy of Nāgārjuna is the result of meditative experience, especially after a series of studies by Claus Oetke that bear on this subject (for instance, Oetke 1988). However, Schmithausen’s pièce de résistance is no doubt the Yogācāra system and the doctrine of vijñaptimātratā. It seems, in fact, that Schmithausen first developed his thesis in the context of his investigations into the Yogācārabhūmi and then extended and generalized it as being typical for Buddhism as a whole. Schmithausen’s hypothesis about the origin of vijñaptimātratā has already been criticized in some detail by Johannes Bronkhorst in his monograph Karma and Teleology. A problem and its solution in Indian philosophy (cf. Bronkhorst 2000: 77-93). Bronkhorst argues in some detail that the materials presented by Schmithausen can be better explained in relation to the karma theory. It seems to me that Bronkhorst’s arguments are as inconclusive as Schmithausen’s, but I will not attempt to discuss the matter here.29 Instead, I would like to take a closer look at the method employed by Schmithausen and examine how it could be applied to the Yogācāra texts. 28

29

The use of illusory terms in the Pāli canon (e.g., SN III 95 (3) Pheṇam, pp. 140ff.) in respect to the final elements of existence cannot be taken by itself as pointing at the origin of the Mahāyānistic notion of emptiness, for they are used there to express the worthlessness of dharmas, not their inexistence. For a more thorough criticism, though from a different perspective, cf. Robert Sharf’s paper (Sharf 1995).

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Schmithausen states that he wants to prove his thesis by means of a rigorous historic-philological method (“nach streng historischphilologischer Methode” Schmithausen 1973: 163) and explains that “[f]or this purpose, the oldest sources for a given philosophical theory have to be made available and the context in which the theory appears examined” (“Hierzu müßten für eine gegebene philosophische Theorie die älteste Quellen ausfindig gemacht und der Zusammenhang, in dem die Theorie dort erscheint, geprüft werden.”). Similarly, in the English version of his paper (Schmithausen 2005: 243) he says: “[T]here is still much work to be done from the point of view of a strictly historicophilological method. In order to arrive at reliable results, one has to find the oldest sources for each philosophical theory and to check the context in which the respective theory appears there.” However, “the oldest sources” is a relative term. What if the earliest source for a given theory is centuries later than the theory itself? In the main part of his paper Schmithausen examines the Sandhinirmocanasūtra, which may be as late as the 4th century CE because it is later than the Daśabhūmikasūtra, which was translated into Chinese in the last decade of the third century (cf. Schmithausen 1973: 172, Schmithausen 2005: 248). To what extant can one rely on this source, which is not a historiographic source and which perhaps originated two centuries after the theory of vijñaptimātratā, in order to draw a conclusion about its origin? On the other hand, the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra, which is the oldest source for the vijñaptimātratā doctrine, and was translated into Chinese as early as 179 C.E., receives less attention from Schmithausen. In the following I will confine my remarks to this work, as it is indeed our earliest source for the vijñaptimātratā doctrine. 30 30

In Schmithausen 1984: 438 (see also Schmithausen 2005: 245) it is stated that Sandhinirmocanasūra VIII.7 is “in all probability, the oldest extant passage announcing, by the very term, the doctrine of vijñaptimātra, i.e., the central doctrine of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda.” It is actually quite possible that the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra uses only the term cittamātra and not vijñaptimātra (the original Sanskrit of both texts is now lost), but in any case both terms refer to the idealistic doctrine and I fail to see why Schmithausen considers the later passage of the Sandhinirmocanasūtra to be the oldest occurrence of the doctrine. I use “vi-

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Like the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, this Sūtra too was also translated by Lokakṣema and counts as one of the earliest Mahāyānasūtras. While the Aṣṭasāhasrikā is considered to be a source for the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna, the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra is assumed to be a foundation of the idealism of the Yogācāra. In the type of meditation described and praised in this Sūtra, the yogi visualizes one, or even several present Buddhas, foremost Amitābha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light/Luster. When he reaches the highest degree of concentration, he perceives the Buddha(s) face to face. Only after he emerges from the state of meditation does he understand that he did not go to the Buddha, nor did the Buddha come to him. The whole encounter took place only in jñaptimātratā doctrine” above to refer to the doctrine that the so-called external objects are in reality images in one’s consciousness, no matter whether this doctrine is referred to by cittamātra, vijñaptimātra, or by another term. Schmithausen seems to distinguish between Mahāyānasūtras and Yogācāra texts; thus, while recognizing that the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra is considerably earlier than the Sandhinirmocanasūtra, he still considers the latter to be the earliest Yogācāra source. Even if the distinction is cogent, it raises difficulties for Schmithausen’s analysis of the Sandhinirmocanasūtra. Either the authors of this Sūtra already knew the doctrine from the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra or from another source and borrowed it, or the doctrine has originated twice, each independently of the other. In the former case, the Sandhinirmocanasūtra would hardly qualify as the earliest available source of the doctrine, and even if one were to assume that in the Yogācāra texts/school the doctrine was borrowed in the context of spiritual practice, that would hardly imply that it originated in this context. If, on the other hand, the latter is assumed, one would have to face the charge of kalpanāgaurva. Assuming, as Schmithausen seems to do (e.g., 1984: 455, 2005: 250) that cittamātra is an older term than vijñaptimātra, what does the introduction or occurrence of a new term for an older doctrine tell us about origin of this doctrine? According to my understanding, even if we accept all of Schmithausen’s conjectures and assumptions, the change in terminology indicates an attempt to put an idea that is not new (that is, it may be new only in Yogācāra context, not new as such) into an old garb. In that case, the Sandhinirmocanasūtra could tell us at most when/where the doctrine was borrowed, not when/where it originated. Yet Schmithausen (1984: 454) does not seem to assume that the doctrine has been borrowed, but that it has been newly incepted: “[The double entendre in Sandhinirmocanasūtra VIII.7] can be appreciated as purposeful only in the context of the introduction of a new idea on which its discoverer wanted to confer as much of a traditional garb as was available.”

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his mind. And again the yogi generalizes: Just as during the meditation all objects were mere images in my mind or consciousness, so are all external objects: they are nothing but images in one’s mind. The external world, i.e., the world outside consciousness, does not exist.31 It is worthwhile noting that in this case there is no one-to-one correspondence between the content of the meditation and a metaphysical doctrine. The yogi in meditation does not have an insight into the true nature of reality. On the contrary, the objects of his meditation, the Buddha(s) that he visualizes, are false. Epistemologically speaking, they have the same status as an illusion. Only after the state of meditation, from without, does the yogi reach the correct conclusion. As the text states, he did not go to the Buddha, and the Buddha did not come to him. (Nevertheless, the meditation is not entirely without foundation in reality because the mind of the Buddha indeed operates from a distance directly on the mind of the yogi.32) Therefore, when Schmithausen states that the metaphysical doctrines in Buddhism arose in an immediate manner from spiritual praxis (“unmittelbar aus der spirituellen Praxis hervorgewachsen sein dürften”), he uses the expression “arose in an immediate manner” in different meanings. In one case, the expression refers to the molding of meditative experience into a philosophical or religious doctrine, in the other case to the molding of the experience into a doctrine that contradicts it because the experience in the state of meditation is declared to be false.33 Next, let us consider the meaning of “checking the context.” According to the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra the yogi attains an understanding of a metaphysical doctrine after and on the basis of his experience during meditation. Can we rely on this 31 32

33

For an English translation, cf. Harrison 1990, esp. chapter 3. Three factors are necessary for the obtaining of the vision of the Buddhas (Harrison 1990: 41): “[t]he might (Skt. anubhāva) of the Buddha, the application of the force of their [the Bodhisattvas’] own wholesome potentialities, and the power [which is the result] of attaining samādhi.” Cf. also ibid., pp. 49 and 51 where it is stated that the Bodhisattvas are established in the samādhi while being supported by the Buddha. In a personal communication Schmithausen informs me that he would now withdraw the adverb “unmittelbar” (“in an immediate manner”), but still maintains that philosophical theories arise in a mediate manner from meditation.

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presentation of the context and draw historical conclusions about the origination of this metaphysical teaching from it? The Mahāyānasūtras are obviously not historical narratives or reports in the sense that they provide information on the historical situation in which their teachings came into being. In other words, if a Mahāyānasūtra narrates that a certain yogi reached the right view about vijñaptimātratā in meditation, this would hardly allow us to infer that this was in fact the way the doctrine came into being, even if the contextual connection in the Sūtra seems smooth. Besides, the Mahāyānasūtras in general and our Sūtra in particular do not describe the meditating yogi as discovering anything that was not already taught by the Buddha. The yogi does not enter meditation as a tabula rasa, but only after studying (or “hearing”) what has to be practiced during meditation. Thus, the Sūtra’s own account does not leave any room for innovation. Rather, one could say that no matter how a metaphysical doctrine arose, the Mahāyānasūtras present it as the Buddha’s word and as an object of meditation. The mode of presentation has more to do with religious topology and literary conventions than with an actual historical situation. If we were to take the Mahāyānasūtras as historical accounts, we may just as well start looking for the origin of Mahāyāna theories on the Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha. It would also not be advisable, as some scholars attempted only a generation ago34 with respect to the Sūtras of Conservative Buddhism, to discard those parts of the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra that are obviously mythical and assume that what remains corresponds to a historical reality. Such a procedure was applied, for instance, to the biography of the Buddha, with results that seem more and more doubtful. Imagine subtracting the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and assuming that the rest of the story corresponds somehow to historical reality. Moreover, even if one were to accept that the presentation in this particular Sūtra is a true and faithful mirror of its origin, this still does not lead to conclusive results in this case, or better, it leads to more than one result. The crucial passage adduced as evidence for the thesis that the doctrine of vijñaptimātratā originated in meditative practice can also be adduced as evidence that the same doctrine was developed as a result 34

Indeed, not only a generation ago; cf. Schumann 2004.

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of thoughts about the reflection of light in mirrors and similar shiny objects. Let us have a look at the passage to understand how precarious the textual material is (Harrison 1990: 41-42): [3K] ‘For example, Bhadrapāla, there are certain women or men with a natural bent for washing their hair and putting on jewelry, who might decide to look at themselves in a vessel of clear oil, or a vessel of clear water, or a well-polished round mirror, or a patch of ground smeared with azurite[?]. If they see therein their own form, Bhadrapāla, what do you think? Does that appearance of the form of the men or women in the vessel of clear oil, or the vessel of clear water, or well-polished round mirror, or patch of ground smeared with azurite mean that there are men or women who have gone inside those things or entered them?’ Bhadrapāla said: ‘No Reverend Lord, it does not. Rather, Reverend Lord, because the oil and the water are clear and undisturbed, or the mirror is highly polished, or the patch of earth smeared with azurite is clean, the reflections stand forth; the bodies of the men or women have not arisen from the water, oil, mirror, or patch of earth, they have not come from anywhere nor gone anywhere, they have not been produced from anywhere, nor have they disappeared anywhere.’ [3L] The Lord said: ‘Well done, well done, Bhadrapāla! You have done well, Bhadrapāla! So it is, Bhadrapāla. As you have said, because the forms are good and clear the reflections appear. In the same manner, when those bodhisattvas have cultivated this samādhi properly, those Tathāgatas are seen by the bodhisattvas with little difficulty. Having seen them they ask questions, and are delighted by the answering of those questions. In thinking: ‘Did these Tathāgatas come from anywhere? Did I go anywhere? They understand that the Tathāgatas did not come from anywhere. Having understood that their bodies did not go anywhere either, they think: ‘Whatever belongs to this triple world is nothing but mind (~cittamātram idaṃ yad idaṃ traidhātukam). Why is that? Because however I imagine things, that is how they appear.’

I’m afraid that nothing decisive can be concluded from this or similar passages. Furthermore, in the same chapter of the same Sūtra (chapter 3) the doctrine that all final elements of existence are illusory is presented in connection with the phenomenon of dreams. After a dream, one generalizes and comes to the conclusion that the experience in a dream is the same as all everyday experience and the illusory character of dreams is extended to the latter.35 This connection between dreams 35

Cf. Harrison 1990: 39: “‘Bhadrapāla, formerly in the past, a certain man travelled into deserted wilderness, and having become hungry and thirsty was overcome by

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and vijñaptimātratā is also contextually smooth and given the significance of dreams in Indian culture, apparent already in the Vedic period, one could even argue for certain plausibility in its favor. 36 However, here Schmithausen would object, as he kindly did in a personal communication, that his method consists in examining the oldest source for a key term (“Schlüssel-Terminus”)37 in a specific meaning (“in einer bestimmten Bedeutung”) and asking whether the occurrence of the term in its context is plausible,38 i.e., whether the in-

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torpor and lethargy; he fell asleep, and in a dream obtained a great quantity of food and drink. On obtaining it he ate his fill, and his hunger and thirst vanished. When he awoke, neither his body nor his belly had grown any larger, and so he thought: ‘There exist certain dharmas which are so, that is, like a dream;’ understanding that to be so he obtained the patient acceptance of the fact that dharmas are not produced (Skt. anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti); and he also became unable to regress from the supreme and perfect awakening.” The text continues that in the same manner the Bodhisattvas who “concentrate their thought on the Tathāgata in that quarter, they will obtain a vision of the Buddha. They should not entertain the apperception of an existing thing, but should entertain the apperception of an empty space.” The connection between the vijñaptimātratā doctrine and dreams in the context of this sūtra has already been pointed out by Sharf (Williams 2005:287-288, n. 10). He quotes Schmithausen 1976: 246 who compares the Bodhisattva’s understanding that he has not met the Buddha in his meditation to “a man, awaking from a dream, comprehends that all phenomena are illusory like dream visions.” He then adds: “Remarkably, Schmithausen cites this text in support of his claim that, ‘the thesis of universal idealism originated from the generalisation of a situation observed in the case of objects visualized in meditative concentration, i.e., in the context of spiritual practice’ (ibid.: 247). Yet this scripture suggests quite the opposite, in so far as it succeeds in explicating a doctrinal point by drawing an analogy to dreaming.” This emphasis on a key term does not yet appear in Schmithausen’s 1973 paper and in the English version of 1976, but is formulated in his Ālayavijñāna (Tokyo 1987) § 1.4, pp. 9-10; cf. note 39 below. Plausibility is, of course, a rather vague criterion. What is plausible for one observer is implausible for another. If one believes that philosophical theories in Buddhism arise from meditative experiences, it seems plausible that this is also the case in the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra; if, on the other hand, someone, like Bronkhorst or Sharf, does not share this belief, this would seem implausible. What seems plausible to us is bound to become implausible to the next generation. Dumezil once gave a wonderful answer to the question whether he was right about the tripartite ideology: J’ai raison, mais j’aurai tort! (“I am right, but I will be wrong!”)

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troduction of the term in the relevant meaning is reasonably motivated, as he has done with regard to the term ālayavijñāna.39 The emphasis on a key term raises the question whether a given theory and the term that designates it coincide. In the case of the terms vijñaptimātra or cittamātra we know this not to be the case. Schmithausen himself pointed out that the term cittamātra was first used to negate emotional and volitional factors beside the mind, not the existence of real objects.40 The expression prajñaptimātra was used in the Bodhisattvabhūmi and Bodhisattvabhūmiviniścaya in the sense of “mere denomination,” i.e., alluding to a nominalistic theory that denies the correspondence between human concepts and things in reality, but does not deny that things exist in reality. In another use of the same term, it refers to a theory which maintains that false conception really produces things (outside the mind).41 The statement that the whole world is just mind (cittamātram idaṃ yad idaṃ traidhātukam) in the Daśabhūmikasūtra can be understood as denying the Self (ātman), not the existence of real objects.42 So what can be concluded from the fact that vijñaptimātra or cittamātra occur in the Sūtra in a different (not necessarily new) meaning? What can be inferred from the fact that they denote here an idealistic doctrine? Do the terms tell us how this doctrine arose? The terms are after all descriptive of a certain tenet; they do not wear a tag saying how the tenet they refer to came about.43

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40 41 42 43

“Aber ich gehe nicht von einer beliebigen Stelle aus, sondern vom ältesten erreichbaren Beleg eines Schlüssel-Terminus in einer bestimmten Bedeutung, und frage mich, ob dessen Auftreten dort im Kontext plausibel ist, d.h. die Einführung des verwendeten Terminus in der relevanten Bedeutung einleuchtend motiviert (vgl. Ālayavijñana § 1.4).” Does the word ‘Einführung’ imply that the term was used there for the first time? Surely that would be an unlikely assumption. Considering the state of available materials, the assumption that such a source did not survive is more plausible. Schmithausen clearly says “erreichbaren Beleg.” Note the (unintended?) switch from the neutral “Auftreten” to “Einführung,” which is not neutral. Schmithausen 1976: 244. Schmithausen 1976: 245. Schmithausen 1976: 249. In the case of the term ālayavijñāna one may argue that its literal meaning reflects its first function because the term was coined with that function in mind. However, such an inference is not possible in the case of cittamātra or vijñaptimātra; they do not disclose the context of their origin.

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Furthermore, couldn’t one assume that a doctrine existed before a specific term was adopted to refer to it? And couldn’t it be that a source where a technical term does not yet appear indicates an earlier stage of development before the theory was crystallized and obtained a special designation? Consequently, is it not possible that a source where a technical term does not yet appear gives us a better clue as to how the theory in question originated? Imagining two passages proclaiming the same idealistic theory, one using the key term vijñaptimātra, the other not referring to it, do we have to conclude that the first passage gives us the decisive clue as to how the theory arose and not the second?44 To conclude the examination of the issue of vijñaptimātratā, we may say that although there is some evidence for the arising of this theory from meditative experience, though certainly not in an immediate manner, the evidence is inconclusive and the methodology used by Schmithausen uncertain. One should also recall that Schmithausen’s theory is not, so to speak, the only one on the market. Following Paul Harrison, the idealistic teachings of the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasāmadhisūtra can be seen as an attempt to harmonize a certain meditative practice with the Mahāyāna teachings which stand in contradiction to it, namely, the practice of the visualization of the Buddha with the doctrine that everything, including the Buddha himself, is unreal. If this hypothesis were confirmed, the doctrine did not arise from meditative practice, but from the need to harmonize contradictory theories: a previously existing doctrine and/or practice of meditation being adjusted to

44

Consider for instance two passages that refer to the Sāṃkhyistic doctrine of the three guṇas as constituent parts of all matter. I do not think that anyone would argue that the passage where the technical term guṇa or the technical terms for the specific guṇas appear for the first time in the available sources is necessarily older and gives us a better clue about the origin of the doctrine. To take another example, the doctrine of the Tathāgatagarbha referred to below appears in rudimentary form, and without association with a technical term, in the Lotus Sūtra in connection with the eccentric monk Sadāparibhūta. Should one, therefore, conclude from a methodological point of view that the passage where the key term occurs for the first time, rather than the one where it does not occur, gives us the key about the origin of the doctrine?

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a new philosophical theory.45 One may also speculate that the buddhānusmṛti-Meditation was first harmonized with a previously existing vijñaptimātratā doctrine, because the author of the Sūtra emphasizes that the buddhānusmṛti functions within the frame of the vijñaptimātratā doctrine by assuming a mutual influence between the mind of the meditator and that of the Buddha. Then, in a second stage of development, the vijñaptimātratā doctrine was integrated into Mahāyāna Illusionism, according to which even the mind and its images are unreal.46 Furthermore, the vijñaptimātratā doctrine is the only Yogācāra doctrine that is examined by Schmithausen. However, there are other philosophical doctrines associated with this “school,”47 such as the doctrine of the three natures (trisvabhāva), the transformation of the basis (āśrayaparivṛtti),48 a special theory of Buddhahood,49 Nirvāṇa (apratiṣṭhitanirvāṇa) and tathatā, and indeed of the general Mahāyāna ideal of Bodhisattva.50 It remains to be proved that all these theories—which do not seem less central than the vijñaptimātratā—arose from meditative experience or from spiritual practice. As far as I can see, it would even be hard to prove that theories about meditation arise from meditative practice (cf. below). My skepticism about the role of meditation in the formation of philosophical theories is not alleviated when I consider the most impor-

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48 49 50

Cf. Harrison 1978. One could argue perhaps that even in this case the vijñaptimātratā doctrine arose indirectly from meditation, namely, from thinking about the compatibility of buddhānusmṛti-meditation with Mahāyāna Illusionism. However, I do not think that Schmithausen would argue for this hypothesis because what is decisive here is the philosophical desire for coherence, not the spiritual practice as such. As far as I know, the doctrine of vijñaptimātratā without connection to Mahāyāna general illusionism or tathatā Monism appears only in later works such as the Triṃśikā of Vasubandhu. This does not mean, of course, that this doctrine (i.e., that the final elements of existence are mental dharmas that are not themselves illusory) originated with Vasubandhu. The notion of school is rather problematic in the Indian philosophical context; I use this term here merely for the sake of convenience, cf. also Franco 1997: 89-92. Cf. Sakuma 1998. Cf. Griffiths 1995. Cf. Dayal 2004. How much of the Bodhisattva doctrine can be said to have arisen from spiritual (moral-ethical or meditative) practice?

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tant individual Yogācāra philosophers, Maitreya51 and Asaṅga. Frauwallner described Maitreya’s philosophy as follows (Frauwallner 1994: 297-298): “Im großen gesehen ist die Lehre Maitreyanāthas ein kunstvolles Gebäude, in dem die verschiedenen älteren Lehren mit wertvollen eigenen Gedanken zu einer Einheit verschmolzen sind.” Among the older teachings, Frauwallner mentions the theory of the highest Being of Sāramati, earlier Yogācāra ideas (“Anschauungen”) and various elements from the Madhyamaka. These diverse elements were systematized to form a philosophical system which may be termed idealistic monism. What I fail to see, however, is that the conception of this system is the result of meditative experience. To be sure, liberating insight is said to be attained only in a state of meditation, but one cannot show that the philosophical or mystical doctrine realized in this state actually arose from it or was conceived on its basis. The systematization of older materials into a coherent and new philosophical system hardly requires or presupposes meditative experience. Similarly, when one considers the writings attributed to Asaṅga, the assumption that they arose from meditation becomes doubtful, for his basic work consists in patient reorganization and reworking of older Hīnayāna Abhidharma materials within the new framework of Yogācāra idealism.52 The next Mahāyāna tradition I would like to consider is the Tathāgatagarbha, the so-called Buddha-embryo school. According to this school all living beings are potential Buddhas and, even though it will certainly take much time, will eventually become Buddhas. In other words, all living beings are Buddha embryos that will grow to become fully developed Buddhas or—according to another meaning of the word garbha which may mean not only “embryo” but also “womb”—all living beings represent wombs in which Buddhas will grow. The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra is presumably the earliest source in which the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine is expressed in association with this term itself.53 Michael Zimmermann, to whom we owe the most extensive study of this 51

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The historicity of Maitreya is dubious, but there is no need to discuss this issue here because it does not affect my argument. Cf. Frauwallner 1994: 328: “Für sein System ist … vor allem die Übernahme der Begriffswelt der Hīnayāna-Dogmatik kennzeichnend.” The Ekayāna doctrine, however, which is presupposed or implied by the Tathāgatagarbha philosophy, predates the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. Cf. also note 44 above.

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Sūtra, also investigated its origin and I cannot but fully agree with his conclusion (Zimmermann 2002: 75): Of course, we cannot know whether the idea of the Buddha-nature in living beings resulted from a novel meditative experience or because the authors felt the need to assert its existence in order to improve an unsatisfactory worldly or philosophical state of affairs, or whether it is based on other experiences. All this is mere speculation.

The last philosophical tradition I would like to examine here is the so-called Pramāṇa School. How much of the Buddhist philosophy presented in the pramāṇa works can be said to have arisen from meditative practice? We are relatively well informed about the origin of this tradition and its philosophical theories, and it seems that they do not have anything to do with meditation. Rather, in the first stage (as reflected in the *Tarkaśāstra, *Upāyahṛdaya, the final part of the Spitzer Manuscript,54 and fragments from Vasubandhu’s lost works Vādavidhi and Vādavidhāna), the Buddhists borrow very heavily from Brahminical manuals of debate, adding, modifying and developing here and there. In the later period, from the sixth century onwards, Buddhist philosophy, focusing mainly but not exclusively on epistemology, logic and theory of language, is developed above all in response to and in controversy with the Brahminical philosophers from the Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā traditions. It is clear that when Schmithausen speaks about philosophical theories, he thinks primarily of ontological theories and leaves aside epistemology, logic, theory of language and to large extent even ethics.55 Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Dharmottara, Prajñākaragupta, Śaṅkaranandana and Jñānaśrīmitra are generally considered the most outstanding Buddhist philosophers, but one cannot point at anything in their writings as having originated from meditation. For all we know,

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Cf. Tucci 1929 and Franco 2004. It is also clear that Schmithausen’s understanding of the term “philosophy” is not restricted to philosophy in the technical sense, which is characterized by the use of special reasons and arguments. It is only by following Schmithausen’s usage of the term “philosophy” that I used here “philosophical theory,” “philosophical doctrine” and similar expressions while referring to Buddhist Sūtras and Abhidharma literature.

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these Buddhist philosophers may not have practiced meditation at all,56 or if they did, perhaps only for short and insignificant periods of time.57 At this point it may be worthwhile to raise the question how the Buddhist tradition itself considered the relationship between meditation and metaphysics. I mentioned above that meditation plays a decisive role in the doctrines that are rejected as harmful in the Brahmajālasutta. This Sūtra, which is placed first in the collection of sūtras in the Pāli canon, discusses some sixty-four58 erroneous views held by various ascetics and Brahmins. A large number of these false views arise directly from meditative experiences. I will mention only two such views, one claiming that the world is finite, the other that it is infinite. It is clear that the

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We have practically no biographical data about the Buddhist philosophers. Prajñākaragupta was probably a lay person (upāsaka) (cf. Taranātha 1997: 296) and Śaṅkaranandana was perhaps not even a Buddhist; cf. Krasser 2001 and Eltschinger forthcoming. A pertinent observation by Eltschinger is worth quoting in this connection (2008: §16): “Le bouddhisme indien nous confronte donc à la situation suivante. D’un côté, des sectes nombreuses dont les spécificités disciplinaires et doctrinales nous sont plus ou moins bien documentées; de l’autre, des discours philosophiques plus ou moins bien connus eux aussi, mais dont l’ancrage institutionnel sectaire nous échappe. En d’autres termes, ces deux ordres de réalité, l’institutionnel et le philosophique, ne coïncident ou ne se superposent qu’en de très rares cas en l’état actuel de nos connaissances.” I would only want to add that even if we knew more about the sectarian and institutional affiliation of the Buddhist philosophers, we would still not know if, and to what extent, an individual philosopher followed such disciplinary and doctrinal specifications in practice. To these, one may add perhaps Vasubandhu, whose strength, so it seems, lies more in his ability to systematise and expound various theories than in conceiving original philosophical doctrines. There is a biography of Vasubandhu by Paramārtha, which is, to be sure, partly legendary. Yet it is interesting that Paramārtha never depicts his hero meditating. Rather, Vasubandhu studies the Buddhist writings, summarizes them, refutes them, argues by means of logical reasoning and on points of grammar, and engages in debates with teachers of rival schools, both Buddhists and nonBuddhists, on the whole not unlike modern philosophers. Cf. Takakusu, 1904: 269296. One should add perhaps that Paramārtha also describes Asaṅga as encountering Maitreya in Tuṣita-heaven. In any case, it is hardly possible to determine the origin of philosophical doctrines from hagiographies. Sixty-four is a number that designates a certain completeness (cf. the sixty-four arts and crafts [kalā]). While there are certainly more than sixty-four wrong views in the world, the author nevertheless seems to be striving for an exhaustive enumeration of all views concerning the world (loka) and the self (atta).

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author(s) of this Sūtra distrust(s) meditative visions and trances as a source for philosophical theories (Anonymous 1987: 32): He [a certain samaṇa or brāhmaṇa] says thus: “This world is finite. It is circumscribed. Why can it be said so? It can be said so because having achieved utmost mental concentration by dint of ardent, steadfast, persevering exertion, mindfulness and right attentiveness, and having established my mind in highest concentration, I abide in the view that the world is finite. Based on this, I know that the world is finite and that it is circumscribed.”

Exactly the same formulation is used to substantiate the contradictory view that the world is infinite:59 He [a certain samaṇa or brāhmaṇa] says thus: “This world is infinite, with no limit. Those samaṇas and brāhmaṇas who assert that the world is finite and that it is circumcised are wrong. In fact, this world is infinite, with no limit. Why can it be said so? It can be said so because having achieved utmost mental concentration by dint of ardent, steadfast, persevering exertion, mindfulness and right attentiveness, and having established my mind in highest concentration, I abide in the view that the world is infinite. Based on this, I know that the world is infinite, with no limit.”

As mentioned above, both views are rejected by the Buddha (or more precisely, by the author of the Sūtra), however, not because he rejects that the meditating persons achieved “utmost mental concentration by dint of ardent, steadfast, persevering exertion, mindfulness and right attentiveness,” that is, not because he questions the quality of their meditative practice, but because meditative visions, such as recollections of numerous past lives, are not in themselves a sound basis for the formation of metaphysical doctrines. The topic of the special perception of yogis is extensively dealt with in the Buddhist epistemological tradition, where it is intimately related to the fundamental issues of the Buddhist religion, such as the reliability and omniscience of the Buddha. According to this tradition, as well as most, if not all Buddhist traditions, the Buddha already discovered everything one needs to know in order to achieve Enlightenment. Therefore, theoretically the yogi cannot innovate anything on the basis of his meditative experiences, at least not anything soteriologically true and useful, but has to meditate on the content of the Buddha’s 59

The same formula is adduced as a reason for the false claims that the world is permanent, impermanent, partly permanent, etc. Cf. ibid., pp. 19, 21, 22, etc.

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words.60 The characterization of the special perception of yogis in the Pramāṇasamuccaya, the foundational work of the Pramāṇa tradition, may seem surprising at first sight: “The yogin’s intuition which is not associated (avyavakīrṇa) with any conceptual construction of the āgama (the authoritative words of the teachers) and which apprehends only a thing in itself is also perception.”61 Read as such, this statement may create the impression that the perception of yogis has, by definition, nothing to do with the Buddhist authoritative writings (āgama), but in fact the contrary is the case. What Dignāga means, and this is also how his followers understood him, is that the yogi studies the Buddhist teachings, meditates on them and in the process of meditation casts away all conceptual constructions, all cognitions related to language, and arrives at an immediate, non-conceptual understanding of these very teachings, perceiving them as vividly as one perceives an object in front of one’s eyes. Therefore, the characterization of Dignāga in fact limits the scope of perception of yogis to the content of the Buddhist works which profess the Buddha’s word (or if Dignāga also had nonBuddhist yogis in mind, to the scope of the authoritative teachings of the respective traditions).62 In other words, it is theoretically impossible that the yogi will discover anything new and true in his visions that is not already included in his authoritative tradition. The literature of the Buddhist epistemological tradition is particularly interesting because it also provides us with theories about meditative trance. Here we can learn not only what the yogis perceive in a trance, but also about the nature of trance, how it arises, what its distinctive qualities are and so on. Moreover, we possess the individual writings of the most important philosophers of this tradition and can thus see how their theories were developed. The topic of meditation or perception of yogis (yogipratyakṣa), as it is usually called, became an 60

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In this respect Robert Sharf is certainly right when he points out that the Buddhist tradition distrusted any new meditative experiences. Cf. PS on I.6cd: yoginām apy āgamavikalpāvyavakīrṇam arthamātradarśanaṃ pratyakṣam. The translation is taken from Hattori 1968: 27. At least according to Dharmakīrti and later commentators, only the Buddha’s teachings, mainly the four noble truths, are an appropriate object of meditation. NonBuddhist meditations do not count as yogic perceptions, but as mere delusions; cf. Franco forthcoming.

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important issue of controversy in the epistemological tradition to the extent that Jñānaśrīmitra (ca. 980-1040), the last important Buddhist philosopher in South Asia, devoted a special treatise to it.63 However, yogic perception and related issues were hotly debated for hundreds of years before that, especially with the Mīmāṃsā philosophers, who recognized the potential danger yogic perception posed to the authority of the Veda.64 In addition, epistemological problems inherent in the notion of yogic perception were independently raised. Already Dharmakīrti (ca. 600-660) was faced with the problem how abstract statements, such as those that constitute the four noble truths, could be perceived in an immediate manner, that is, without involving concepts (cf. Franco forthcoming). Later generations were particularly concerned with the problems related to omniscience. Is it really possible for a yogi, such as the Buddha, to know everything? What is the object of an omniscient cognition? Can one really know all individual things in a single act of awareness? Or is it only possible to know the essence of one thing and from that knowledge understand the essence of all things?65 Another problem concerns the veracity of yogic perception. If yogic perception is to be considered true, its object must exist, just like the object of any other perception. However, yogis in the Indian (not just Buddhist) tradition are believed to have direct perceptions of past and future objects.66 Accordingly, Prajñākaragupta (ca. 750-810) argues that past and future objects must exist. This tenet, in its turn, leads to a development in the theory of time, which must account for the difference in the mode of existence of past, present and future objects. Prajñākaragupta maintains that time taken as an independent and permanent entity does not exist. He seems to conceive of time as a relational property. Speaking of time as a separate entity, for instance, when one says: “the time of this thing,” is similar to saying “the body of this 63

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For a general introduction to the topic of yogic perception in the Pramāṇa literature and a summary of the Yoginirṇaya, cf. Steinkellner 1978. Cf. McCrea’s and Taber’s papers in this volume. Cf. McClintock 2000, Moriyama 2004, Moriyama forthcoming, Franco forthcoming. The perception of past and future objects is already mentioned in the Yogasūtra as one of the “accomplishments” or supernatural powers (siddhis) of yogis. Cf. YS 3.16.

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torso.” Past or future objects are, therefore, objects that are not seen at present. And to say that yogis perceive the past or the future means that they perceive what is not being seen, that is, not being seen by other ordinary people. Therefore, being a past or future entity depends on its not seeing by ordinary people. The yogi himself perceives past and future objects as present; only after emerging from the state of meditation does he determine them as past or future.67 When one follows this discussion in detail, it is clear that the deliberations are purely philosophical. It is in fact quite certain that Prajñākaragupta developed the theory of the existence of past and future objects in the context of his proof of life after death and merely adapted a ready-made theory to the context of yogic perception. It can also be observed that the discussion of meditation in general in the Buddhist epistemological tradition is not related to actual experience in meditation.68 To what extant this was also the case in the earlier Abhidharma tradition cannot be determined because the mode of presentation in the Abhidharma texts is impersonal and does not provide a context for possible personal innovations by individual philosophers. It is doubtful whether the authors of the Mahāyānasūtras, the Yogācārabhūmi or manuals of meditation69 were themselves practicing yogis or whether 67

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PVABh, 113,7–9: tasmād atītādi paśyatīti ko ’rthaḥ? anyenādṛśyamānaṃ paśyati tad dṛśyamānatayā vartamānam eva tāvatā tad iti na doṣaḥ. anyāpekṣayā tasyātītāditvam. tasmād yat sākṣātkṛtaṃ tad evāstīti nātītād<āv> akṣavyāpāras tasya sākṣātkṛtatvenāst[h]itvāt. It is symptomatic that the example of the infatuated lover who sees his beloved as if she were standing right before his eyes is based on Dharmakīrti’s exposition and that it is repeated for hundreds of years. However, the poverty of examples, i.e., the fact that the same old examples are repeated again and again and hardly any new ones are introduced into the philosophical discourse is typical for Indian philosophy in general. For an example of a Buddhist manual of meditation, cf. Schlingloff 2006. Schlingloff points out that the purpose of the manual is not to teach the methods and techniques of meditative practice (their knowledge is presupposed), but to present the individual visions systematically, and classify and underpin them dogmatically (Schlingloff 2006: 30): “Dieses [das Yogalehrbuch] hat die Aufgabe, die einzelne Visionen als systematische Übungen darzustellen, zu gliedern und dogmatisch zu untermauern.” “The practical part” (der praktischer Teil) too is anchored in the tradition; just as Maudgalyāyana penetrates heaven and earth, the yogi too visualises them, etc. (ibid.). On the whole, the meditation manual leaves little or no room for

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they were not rather systematizing the experiences of others. The latter state of affairs would hardly be typical for Buddhism alone. For as Grinshpon repeatedly emphasizes, the author of the Yogasūtras was a Sāṃkhya philosopher who certainly was not actively practicing yoga (cf. Grinshpon 2002 passim). To conclude, I would like come back to Schmithausen’s thesis. In the above-mentioned paper, Schmithausen attributes the peculiarity that all central theories in Buddhism arise immediately from spiritual practice to the Buddha himself: „Der Grund für diesen Unterschied [zwischen Buddhismus auf der einen Seite und europäischer und hinduistischer Philosophie auf der anderen Seite] liegt gewiss letztlich in der Person des Buddha selbst, der mit einer wohl einmaligen Konsequenz und Radikalität alle für das Heil irrelevanten theoretischen Spekulationen abgewiesen hatte.“ [“The reason for this difference [between Buddhism on the one hand and European and Hindu philosophy on the other] certainly lies, in the final analysis, in the personality of the Buddha himself, who rejected once and for all, and with unique consequence and radicalness, all theoretical speculations that are irrelevant to salvation.”]70 Schmithausen’s thesis could be crucial for Buddhist studies. If it could be shown to be true, he would have discovered an essential driving force that played a crucial role during the entire history of Buddhism. One could almost see the Hegelian spirit entering Buddhist philosophy and determining it in a decisive manner and to a surprising degree. Not being a Hegelian myself, I find it difficult to accept that in the long and complex history of Buddhism in South Asia the causal relationship between meditation and metaphysics was in all central cases one-directional, spiritual practice always being the cause and metaphysics always the effect. As I have tried to show above, this as-

70

personal innovations. The language is both descriptive and prescriptive; it not only describes what the yogi supposedly sees, but also what he should see. The individual spontaneous visions are in fact modelled after the Buddha’s biography and other canonical materials. The same hold good for other manuals and descriptions of meditations, cf. Yamabe 1999 and forthcoming, Bretfeld 2003. The historicity of the Buddha and our ability to extract his original teachings from the canonical writings are clearly presupposed in this passage and need not be spelled out. Those were obviously more optimistic times.

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sumption involves a number of problems and there are considerations clearly speaking against it. On the whole, it is simply not provable. Indeed, it would be difficult to prove that spiritual practice is the cause of something when the spiritual practice itself is all but unknown to us.71 As far as I can see, the relation between meditation and metaphysics in Buddhism cannot be reduced to a single model. In the final analysis, one cannot avoid the conclusion that certain philosophical theories arose from meditative experiences and certain others did not, and that the origin of still others cannot be determined, in which case it seems preferable to suspend judgment. On the basis of the examples mentioned above, I would say that the dhyāna meditation and the higher levels of the ārūpya meditation (at least the last two levels), which incidentally are not mentioned by Schmithausen,72 seem to fit his model very well. The cosmic layers that bear the same name seem to have been conceived as cosmological parallels to the content as well as the psychological characteristics of the corresponding visions. This is clear already from the terminology. On the other hand, the theory of momentariness, as Schmithausen himself conceded, seems to have been developed out of philosophical considerations. The same can be maintained for the doctrine of the pudgala and the anātman doctrine. The doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda seems to have arisen as a systematization of older canonical materials, and perhaps redactional reasons were the primary driving force behind it. Reflection on the law of karma and the phenomenon of memory, as well as textual considerations, seem to have led to the Sarvāstivāda assumption of past and future objects. The question whether meditation or philosophical reasoning caused the arising of the Mahāyāna doctrine of emptiness cannot be answered because relevant unambiguous materials are lacking. The same holds true for the vijñap71

72

This difficulty is relevant not only for Schmithausen’s thesis, but also for recent attempts to use Pierre Hadot’s interpretation of Greek philosophy as a model for Buddhist philosophy; cf. McClintock 2002: 6-8 and Kapstein 2003: 3-16. The problems and shortcomings of this approach are discussed in Eltschinger 2008. Eltschinger rightly concludes (§ 20): “… nos textes [i.e., les textes de la philosophie bouddhique] ne se laissent pratiquement jamais reconduire à leurs conditions historiques de production, ne quittant jamais le terrain de l’argumentation et du raisonnement purs.” The reason for this is not clear to me; perhaps he does not consider them to be Buddhist in origin.

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timātratā doctrine. To be sure, there is some evidence that connects this doctrine to the visualizations of the Buddha(s), but I fail to see how one could determine whether this doctrine arose from reflections on such visualizations or whether it originated independently and was applied to the meditative context to show that visualizations of the Buddha(s) are meaningful even within the Mahāyāna illusionistic context. Furthermore, even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that all central philosophical theories in Buddhism were developed indirectly by reflection on spiritual practice, one could still argue that the dichotomy between spiritual practice and philosophical theory as such is not always tenable. For what happens when a philosopher thinks about spiritual practice—quite possibly without first-hand experience of this practice—and develops a new theory? Could it be said that in this case the doctrine arose from spiritual praxis in contradistinction to philosophical and theoretical considerations? Finally, it is worth repeating that the yogi, even if he were to arrive at a new metaphysical doctrine on the basis of meditation, does not enter meditative experience in the state of tabula rasa. It is highly unlikely that a Buddhist yogi will meet God the Creator in his visions, nor that a Jewish mystic or a Sufi will experience the anātman-doctrine. Even the purest meditative experience is culturally and linguistically bound, and is engrossed in a tradition.73

ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

AKBh Anonymous 1987

73

Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu. Ed. P. Pradhan. Patna 1975. Ten suttas from Dīgha Nikāya. Rangoon 1984. Repr. Varanasi 1987.

In this connection one has to note especially the extensive work of Stephan Katz. He argued convincingly and repeatedly that mystical experiences are determined to a considerable degree by language and culture, e.g. Katz 1992: 5: “[Mystical experiences] are inescapably shaped by prior linguistic influences such that the lived experience conforms to a pre-existent pattern that has been learned, then intended, and then actualized in the experiential reality of the mystic.” Cf. also Katz 1983: 3-60.

128 Aung and Rhys Davids 1969 Bareau 1955 Bareau 1963

Bastian 1894

Brauen 1998 Bretfeld 2003

Bronkhorst 2000 Conze 1962 Conze 1967 Conze 1975

Cox 1995 Dayal 2004 DN Eltschinger 2008

Eltschinger forthcoming

Franco 1997 Franco 2004

ELI FRANCO Points of Controversy or Subjects of Discourse. Transl. Shwe Zan Aung and Rhys Davids. Repr. London 1969. André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule. Saigon 1955. André Bareau, Recherches sur la biographie du Bouddha dans les Sūtrapiṭaka et Vinayapiṭaka anciens : De la quête de l‘éveil à la conversion de Śāriputra et de Maudgalyāyana. Paris 1963. Adolf Bastian, Graphische Darstellung des buddhistischen Weltsystems. Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte Jahrgang 1894. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 26 (1894) 203-213 (additional unnumbered pages for tables III-VII). Martin Brauen, The Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism. London 1998. Sven Bretfeld, Visuelle Repräsentation im sogenannten „buddhistischen Yogalehrbuch“ aus Qïzïl. In: Sven Bretfeld und Jens Wilkens (eds.), Indien und Zentralasien. Sprach- und Kulturkontakt. Wiesbaden 2003, 167-205. Johannes Bronkhorst, Karma and Teleology. A problem and its solution in Indian philosophy. Tokyo 2000. Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India. London 1962. Edward Conze, Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies. London 1967. Edward Conze, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses & its Verse Summary. Bolinas (second printing) 1975. Collett Cox, Disputed Dharmas. Early Buddhist Theories of Existence. Tokyo 1995. Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit literature. Repr. Delhi 2004. Dīghanikāya (Pāli Text Society). Vincent Eltschinger, Pierre Hadot et les « exercices spirituels »: quel modèle pour la philosophie bouddhique tardive ? Asiatische Studien/ Etudes Asiatiques 62 (2008) 485-544. Vincent Eltschinger, Les Oeuvres de Śaṅkaranandana : Nouvelles ressources manuscrites, chronologie relative et identité confessionnelle. Forthcoming in Annal dell’ Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli. Eli Franco, Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth. Wien 1997. Eli Franco, The Spitzer Manuscript. The oldest philosophical manuscript in Sanskrit. Wien 2004.

MEDITATION Franco forthcoming

Frauwallner 1971a

Frauwallner 1971b Frauwallner 1994 Frauwallner 1995 Gethin 1993

Griffiths 1995 Grinshpon 2002 Harrison 1978

Harrison 1990 Hattori 1968 Kapstein 2003

Katz 1983 Katz 1992

Krasser 2001

Lamotte 1974 Lamotte 1988

La Vallée Poussin 19231931 Langer 2001

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Eli Franco, Perceptions of Yogis - Some Epistemological and Metaphysical Considerations. Proceedings of the 4th International Dharmakīrti Conference. Wien, forthcoming. Erich Frauwallner, Abhidharma-Studien. III. Der Abhisamayavādaḥ. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 15 (1971) 69-102. Erich Frauwallner, Die Entstehung der buddhistischen Systeme. Göttingen 1971. Erich Frauwallner, Philosophie des Buddhismus. 4th ed. Berlin 1994. Erich Frauwallner, Abhidharma Literature and the Origins of the Buddhist Philosophical Systems. Albany 1995. Rupert Gethin, The Mātṛkās: Memorisation, Mindfulness, and the List. In: J. Gyatso (ed.) In the Mirror of Memory. Repr. Delhi 1993, 149-172. Paul Griffiths, On being Buddha. The classical doctrine of Buddhahood. Repr. Delhi 1995. Yohanan Grinshpon, Silence unheard. Deathly otherness in Pātañjala-yoga. Albany 2002. Paul Harrison, Buddhānusmṛti in the Pratyutpannabuddha-samukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra. Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 (1978) 35-57. Paul Harrison, The Samādhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present. Tokyo 1990. Masaaki Hattori, Dignāga, On Perception. Cambridge Mass. 1968. Matthew T. Kapstein, Reason’s Traces. Identity and Interpretation in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Thought. Delhi 2003. Steven T. Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Religious Traditions. New York 1983. Stephan T. Katz, Mystical Speech and Mystical Meaning. In: Stephen T. Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Mystical Language. New York 1992. Helmut Krasser, On the Dates and Works of Śaṅkaranandana. In: Le Parole e I Marmi. Ed Rafaelle Torella. Roma 2001, 489-508. Étienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien. Louvain 1974. Étienne Lamotte, The Assessment of Textual Interpretation in Buddhism. In: D. Lopez (ed.) Buddhist Hermeneutics. Honolulu 1988, 341-361. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. 6 Vols. Paris/Louvain 1923-1931. Rita Langer, Das Bewusstsein als Träger des Lebens. Wien 2001.

130 Mathes forthcoming

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PS I PVABh

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ELI FRANCO Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Exegetische Prinzipien des Madhyamaka und Yogācāra—Die hermeneutische Tradition der beiden Mahāyāna-Schulen im Vergleich. Forthcoming in Beihefte zu Saeculum. Jacques May, La philosophie bouddhique idéaliste. Asiatische Studien XXV (1971) 265-323. Sara McClintock, Knowing All through Knowing One: Mystical Communion or Logical Trick in the Tattvasaṃgraha and Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23/2 (2000) 225244. Sara McClintock, Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason in the Tattvasaṃgraha and the Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Harvard University 2002. Shinya Moriyama, Is the proof of the omniscient Buddha possible? Hōrin 11 (2004) 183-197. Shinya Moriyama, Omniscience and Religious Authority: Prajñākaragupta's Commentary on the Pramāṇavārttika II 8-10 and 29-33. Wien, forthcoming. Claus Oetke, Rationalismus und Mystik in der Philosophie Nāgārjunas. Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 (1989) 1-39. Ernst Steinkellner, Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya Chapter 1: http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Mat/dignaga_PS_1.-pdf. Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana, ed. Pramāṇavārttikabhāshyam or Vārtikālaṃkāraḥ of Prajñākaragupta (Being a commentary on Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārtikam). Patna 1953. Constantin Regamey, Tendances et méthodes de la philosophie indienne comparées à celles de la philosophie occidentale. Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie IV (1951) 245-262. Hidenori Sakuma, Die Āśrayaparivṛtti-Theorie in der Yogācārabhūmi. Stuttgart 1998. Dieter Schlingloff (Hrsg. von Jens-Uwe Hartmann und Hermann-Josef Röllicke), Ein buddhistisches Yogalehrbuch. Unveränderter Nachdruck der Ausgabe von 1964 unter Beigabe aller seither bekannt gewordenen Fragmente. München 2006. Lambert Schmithausen, Spirituelle Praxis und philosophische Theorie im Buddhismus. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft. Heft 3/73 (1973) 161-186.

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Lambert Schmithausen, On the Problem of the Relation of Spiritual Practice and Philosophical Theory in Buddhism. In: Cultural Department of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (ed.), German Scholars on India. Varanasi 1973, 235-250. Lambert Schmithausen, Die vier Konzentrationen der Aufmerksamkeit. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 60 (1976) 241-266. Lambert Schmithausen, On the Vijñaptimātra Passage in Sandhinirmocanasūtra VII. 7. In: Studies of Mysticism in Honor of the 150th Anniversary of Kobo-Daishi’s Nirvāṇam. Acta Indologica VI (1984): 433-455. Lambert Schmithausen, Zur zwölfgliedrigen Formel des Entstehens in Abhängigkeit. Horin 7 (2000) 41-76. Lambert Schmithausen, Reprint of Schmithausen 1976a in: Paul Williams (ed.), Buddhism. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. Vol. II: The Early Buddhist Schools and Doctrinal History; Theravāda Doctrine. London and New York 2005, 242-254. Hans Wolfgang Schumann, The Historical Buddha. The Times, the Life and the Teachings of the Founder of Buddhism. Delhi 2004. Robert Sharf, Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience. Numen 42 (1995): 228-83. Reprinted in P. Williams (ed.), Buddhism. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. Vol. II: The Early Buddhist Schools and Doctrinal History; Theravāda Buddhism. London and New York 2005, 255-299. Peter Skilling, Vasubandhu and the Vyākhyāyukti Literature. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23/2 (2000) 297-350. Samyuttanikāya (Pāli Text Society) Theodor Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word “dharma”. London 1923. Ernst Steinkellner, Yogische Erkenntnis als Problem im Buddhismus. In: G. Oberhammer (ed.) Transzendenzerfahrung, Vollzugshorizont des Heils. Wien 1978, 121134. Ernst Steinkellner, Zur Lehre vom Nicht-Selbst (anātman) im frühen Buddhismus. In: J. Figl and H.-D. Klein (eds.), Der Begriff der Seele in der Religionswissenschaft. Würzburg 2002, 171-186. Taranātha, History of Buddhism in India. Transl. from Tibetan by Lama Chimpa. Ed. by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. Simla 1970. Repr. Delhi 1997.

132 Takakusu 1904 Tucci 1929 Vetter 1988 Williams 2005 Yamabe 1999

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ELI FRANCO Junjirō Takakusu, The Life of Vasubandhu by Paramārtha (A.D. 499-569). T’oung pao, ser. 2: 5 (1904) 269-296 Giuseppe Tucci, Pre-Dignaga Buddhist Texts on Logic. Baroda 1929. Tilmann Vetter, The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism. Leiden 1988. Paul Williams (ed.), Buddhism. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. New York 2005. Nobuyoshi Yamabe, The Significance of the “Yogalehrbuch” for the Investigation into the Origin of Chinese Meditation Texts. Buddhist Culture 9 (1999) 1-74. Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Two Chinese Meditation Manuals in Conjunction with Pozdneyev’s Mongolian Manual. In : Eli Franco and Monika Zin (eds.), From to Turfan to Ajanta. Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Râma Prasâda, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras with the commentary of Vyâsa and the gloss of Vâchaspati Misra. Delhi 1978. Michael Zimmermann, A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. The Earliest Exposition of the BuddhaNature Teaching in India. Tokyo 2002.

ANNE MACDONALD

Knowing Nothing: Candrakīrti and Yogic Perception1

1. INTRODUCTION Individuals who have reached advanced stages on the Buddhist path are renowned for being able to apprehend things beyond the ken of ordinary persons. A plethora of anecdotes, narratives and expository material in Indian Buddhist works, beginning with the earliest suttas and extending through the compositions of the Conservative (the so-called Hīnayāna) schools to the Mahāyāna scriptures and śāstras, depict and describe practitioners who have gained perceptual and cognitive access to remote objects and otherwise inaccessible information, who know distant environments, the hidden or invisible in their immediate surroundings, and/or the fundamental nature of the world. The ability of these adepts to experience distinct phenomena, states of affairs, dimensions and supreme realities concealed to others is often attributed to their mastery of concentrative states and meditative techniques, and the acquisition of refined levels of consciousness generated on their basis. Given the specifically Buddhist focus of these persons’ striving, their efforts tend to be ultimately aimed at the direct cognition of or immediate insight into their tradition’s conception of the final truth, this truth being presented in early and Conservative Buddhism as, e.g., the four noble truths, and in the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism as emptiness. Nāgārjuna (2nd/3rd c. CE), the founder of the Madhyamaka school, although without doubt convinced of an ultimate state of affairs, has little specific to say about perception of the out-of-the-ordinary in 1

Research for this article was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation in the context of the FWF-Project S9805-G08. I am most grateful to Prof. Eli Franco, Dr. Dorji Wangchuk and Terry Chantler for carefully reading the present paper and for offering insightful comments and suggestions. I also thank Dr. Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi for sharing with me his knowledge of the abhijñās.

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his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (henceforth MMK), and focuses its 447 verses primarily on refuting the existence of the phenomena known to the world, or, more particularly, on disproving the entities, categories and concepts accepted and taught by the Conservative Buddhist schools.2 With the exception of the very general reference in MMK 24.24 to the cultivation (bhāvanā) of the path (mārga),3 Nāgārjuna also does not mention or discuss in the MMK the means, such as meditation techniques, for arriving at apprehension of the parokṣa, the imperceptible, or, as described by later scholars, the atyāntaparokṣa, the radically inaccessible. This dearth of references to methods and processes and his limited delineation of the result leave his stance on exactly what those who dare to appropriate and internalize his radical critique might in the end perceive, achieve or experience open to interpretation, and contribute to it remaining a topic of debate among scholars. Although the complementary scrutiny of other writings attributed to him contributes to the illumination of his views, for more explicit and detailed statements about yogic perception and the objects of yogic perception in Madhyamaka it is necessary to examine the works of later authors and commentators. The present paper will mainly concentrate on statements by Candrakīrti (600–650 CE) that address, and allude and relate to the topic of yogic perception. These can be found scattered throughout his works; I rely here on his commentary on the MMK, i.e., the Prasannapadā, his commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s Yuktiṣaṣṭikā and Śūnyatāsaptati,4 and on his independent work the Madhyamakāvatāra, together with its bhāṣya. 2

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See Vetter 1982: 96, n. 21, where he considers MMK 7.4 to represent the view of a Sarvāstivāda opponent; MMK 9.1-2 and 9.6 that of a Pudgalavādin, possibly a Sāṃmitīya; MMK 17.1-11 to represent the view of an opponent who would at least later be termed a Sautrāntika; and MMK 17.12-20 to possibly be that of a Sāṃmitīya. See also Kragh 2006, Chapter 3 for more detailed discussion concerning references to the opponents dealt with in MMK 17.1-20. Nāgārjuna’s approach in the MMK is apophatic, but he does refer to and even characterize (primarily negatively) the ultimate state (see, e.g., MMK 18.9); important references to the highest truth and nirvāṇa in the MMK have been noted and discussed in Vetter 1982. MMK 24.24: svābhāvye sati mārgasya bhāvanā nopapadyate | athāsau bhāvyate mārgaḥ svābhāvyaṃ te na vidyate ||. The mārga is also referred to in MMK 24.25 and 40, bhāvanā in 24.27. Candrakīrti’s authorship of the Śūnyatāsaptativr̥tti is not completely beyond doubt. The work is not mentioned in Indian literature, and only the colophon of the Tibetan translation of the work (in all four Canonical editions of the Tanjur) and later Ti-

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2. CANDRAKĪRTI ON EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION Before proceeding to a presentation of the Madhyamaka understanding of the ultimate and an investigation of Candrakīrti’s views on its perception, it might be noted that Candrakīrti also makes allowance for more general types of extrasensory knowledge. One interesting reference to the wonder of yogic perception in its wider sense is encountered at Madhyamakāvatāra 3.11, where Candrakīrti recites some of the attainments gained by the practitioner who has reached and dwells on the third Bodhisattva level of awakening, the bhūmi called prabhākarī, the “Illuminating.” 5 He states that the Bodhisattva who abides on this level, in addition to completely destroying his craving and hatred and perfecting the dhyānas,6 attains supernormal knowledge, or, as it is sometimes interpreted, “direct knowledge” (mngon shes, *abhijñā). In the commentary on his verse, it is made clear that with his mention of supernormal knowledge he intends a traditional five-fold group of abhijñās, four of which might broadly be seen as types of clairvoyance.7 These five types of supranormal capability are generally said to be produced on the basis of the practitioner having reached the fourth dhyāna, an intensified concentrative state characterized by one-pointedness of mind and emotional equanimity. The first of the five abhijñās referred to in Candrakīrti’s commentary consists in the ability to perform various types of paranor-

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betan historians name him as its author. For internal criteria that nonetheless appear to support attribution of the work to him, see Erb 1997: 1-10. MA 3.11 (MABhed 53.17-20): sa der rgyal sras bsam gtan mngon shes dang || ’dod chags zhe sdang yongs su zad par ’gyur || des kyang rtag tu ’jig rten pa yi ni || ’dod pa’i ’dod chags ’joms par nus par ’gyur ||. The word bsam gtan (*dhyāna) is explained in the bhāṣya as intending the four dhyānas, the four samāpattis, and the four apramāṇas. For references to the group of five abhijñās, cf. Lamotte 1976: 1814; on the six abhijñās, cf. 1809ff. Lamotte notes (p. 1809) that the first five are usually given in the order r̥ddhividhijñāna (Pāli: iddhividha) / r̥ddhiviṣayajñāna; divyaśrotra (Pāli: dibbasota); cetaḥparyāyajñāna (Pāli: cetopariyañāṇa) / paracittajñāna; pūrvanirvāsānusmr̥tijñāna (Pāli: pubbe nivāsānussatiñāṇa); cyutyupapādajñāna (Pāli: sattānaṃ cutūpapātañāṇa), also known as divyacakṣus (Pāli: dibbacakkhu). Cf. also de La Vallée Poussin 1931; Lindquist 1935; Ñāṇamoli 1995: 37 (with references to Majjhima Nikāya suttas 6, 73, 77 and 108); AK 7.42-56 and AKBh thereon; Dayal 1932: 106ff.; Gethin 1998: 185f.; Gethin 2001: 84. On methods for developing the iddhis and the abhijñās, see Visuddhimagga chapters 12 and 13 (iddhividhāniddeso and abhiññāniddeso) and AKBh on 7.43d; see also Gethin 2001: 101f.

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mal feats (r̥ddhi), such as being able to manifest mind-made bodies, to pass through physical matter such as walls and mountains, to fly, to walk on water and dive into the earth, to blaze like fire and shower down rain from oneself, and to touch the sun and the moon. The second abhijñā mentioned is the divine ear (divyaśrotra), by way of which the yogin is able to hear any sounds, divine or human, that he wishes to listen to. The third abhijñā enables him to know the state of mind of other beings (paracittajñāna), the fourth, to recollect millions of his previous lives in great detail (pūrvanivāsānusmr̥tijñāna). With the fifth supranormal achievement, that of the divine eye (divyacakṣus), he is able to see beings dying and being reborn, and knows the wholesome or unwholesome karma that takes them to their respective good or difficult destinations. As astounding and fascinating as these powers and supernormal perceptions might be, Candrakīrti has nothing special to say about them himself, choosing instead to elaborate on them in his bhāṣya by citing verbatim the Daśabhūmikasūtra’s brief but detailed account of the five abhijñās.8 His interest in them is exhausted in this account. As is obvious from Candrakīrti’s reliance on a Mahāyāna sūtra for their description, these five abhijñās are not unique to the Madhyamaka school; we are, in fact, familiar with presentations of them in Canonical and Abhidharma works, and two of them, the recollection of past lives and the divine eye, figure in a number of Canonical portrayals of the Buddha’s own awakening.9 Individual abhijñās, explained as resulting automatically upon attainment of the fourth dhyāna (as in the case of the Buddha or persons who trained in them in previous lives) or as needing to be developed through effort by the yogin on the basis of this dhyāna,10 were viewed early on as extraordinary but mundane types of knowledge because they did not on their own accomplish release from saṃsāra for the practitioner, even though they might be conducive

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De La Vallée Poussin presents the Sanskrit text of the Daśabhūmikasūtra citation in an appendix to his translation of MA chapter 3; see MABhtr 1907: 305-307. For the section cited, see also Rahder 1926: 34-36 (= section M). For suttas in which these two abhijñās do not appear, see Schmithausen 1981: 221, n. 75. Cf. Gethin 2001: 102. Cp. AKBh on 7.44b. On the dissociation of liberation from attainment of the dhyānas in some Canonical texts, see Schmithausen 1981: 219222.

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to it.11 Canonical descriptions of the abhijñās in the context of the liberation process therefore usually included a further item, termed “knowledge of the destruction of the taints” (Pāli: āsavakkhayañāṇa, Sanskrit: āsravakṣayajñāna), the “taints” being [craving for] sensual pleasures (kāma), [craving for] existence (bhava), and ignorance (avidyā).12 This abhijñā came to be known as the supramundane abhijñā, for it informed of one’s attainment of freedom from birth and death, of one’s nirvāṇa, and in the stereotypical account of the attainment of liberation has as a main component the insight that effects liberation.13 It is probable that two of the abhijñās included in the Canonical liberation accounts, viz., the recalling of former lifetimes and the witnessing of beings propelled by their earlier actions to new existences, were considered to provide experiential confirmation of soteriologically relevant truths, especially the truths of suffering and the origin of suffering, and in this way to contribute to the liberation process. Both Canonical and post-Canonical authors also acknowledged the usefulness of other abhijñās, such as the ability to read others’ minds and the capacity to perform miracles, for benefitting ordinary persons, especially for converting them to Buddhism.14 Transferred to the Mahāyānist Bodhisattva context, the first five abhijñās – the sixth either reserved for Buddhahood or revised inasmuch as the end of the taints would deliver the Bodhisattva to a premature nirvāṇa and thus abruptly end his career15 – must have been interpreted as serving to deepen the adept’s 11

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See Ñāṇamoli 1995: 37; cp. the discussion and classifications in AKBh chapter 7 ad verse 42. See also Schmithausen 1981: 221f., where he suggests that the abhijñās may have been considered especially necessary in the case of the Buddha’s original discovery of the Four Noble Truths. De La Vallée Poussin (1931: 338) remarks: “À ces cinq savoirs, fut ajouté un sixième: la connaissance que prend le saint de sa sainteté. Le caractère scolastique de cette invention n’est pas douteux.” For the “stereotypical account,” see Schmithausen 1981: 203-205. On āsavakkhayañāṇa in the context of the stereotypical account, see Schmithausen 1981: 204, n. 16. On Canonical views regarding the performance of miraculous feats, see, e.g., Gethin 2001: 97-101. Cf. AKBh on AK 7.47 regarding the value of miracles and mindreading for conversion; note also Granoff 1996 for problems connected with the performance of miracles. The Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, for example, distinguishes between an incomplete and complete āsravakṣayajñāna in order to explain statements in Prajñāpāramitā literature that connect Bodhisattvas with the sixth abhijñā. In the case of the incomplete form, the kleśas are stopped, but the vāsanās are not; see Lamotte 1976:

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experience and strengthen his dedication to reach the final goal of Buddhahood, and as being of use in augmenting both his desire and ability to inspire and aid others. It is difficult to know whether Candrakīrti’s single-word reference to the abhijñās in his Madhyamakāvatāra verse and his uncommented citing of the Daśabhūmikasūtra indicate much more than a tipping of his hat to tradition; their mention may demonstrate his acknowledgement of the view that the acquisition and employment of miraculous powers serve the Bodhisattva’s programme of helping other beings. However, his disinterest in further elaborating the five abhijñās signals that regardless of their value as useful sideeffects of the Bodhisattva’s endeavour, for him they are of minor importance owing to their negligible soteriological value, both individually and collectively having little, if anything, to contribute to the actual achievement of liberation. Yet like the early authors whose inclusion of a sixth abhijñā was inspired by a primary concern with knowledge with soteriological function, Candrakīrti’s main interest is in a type of knowledge that can be classified as supramundane and that provides the insight which breaks one out of, as the texts have it, the “jail of saṃsāra.” Writing nearly a millennium after the Canonical authors composed their accounts of the Buddha’s and his disciples’ liberation process, Candrakīrti, however, does not assert that the escape from repeated birth and death is effected through meditative stabilization in the fourth dhyāna and subsequent profound insight into the four noble truths accompanied by vanquishment of the taints. He declares rather that it is brought about by profound insight into the emptiness (śūnyatā) of things. 3. THE MĀDHYAMIKA’S NIRVĀṆA: AN ILLUSION? In brief, Candrakīrti propounds the view that the world, including the subject perceiving and experiencing the world, is of an illusionary na1816ff. Candrakīrti explicitly refers to āsravakṣayajñāna when he recites and comments on the ten powers (bala) of a buddha in MA 12.21 (cf. MABhed 369.13: zag rnam zad pa mkhyen stobs); in MA 12.31 he declares that it informs the newly accomplished buddha of the destruction of the kleśas together with their vāsanās. Included in the stock list of the ten powers in MA 12.21 is the ability to recall past lives (sngon gnas dran pa mkhyen pa, *pūrvanivāsānusmr̥tijñāna) and the knowledge of the birth and death of beings (’chi ’pho skye blo, *cyutyupapādajñāna).

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ture; it may be appropriate to refer to his view in this respect as one of metaphysical illusionism.16 According to him, the phenomena of the world, or universe, which appear and seem to be real, in actuality do not exist. He and others of the Madhyamaka tradition do admit that the things of the world appear to ordinary, unawakened persons, but they deny that these things truly are as they appear to be, i.e., real as opposed to unreal. The Mādhyamikas maintain that the things of the world are empty of a real nature that would support or justify any claim to their being ontologically existent. Phenomena must be empty of a real nature, of an own-being (svabhāva), the Mādhyamika argues, because they arise in dependence (pratītyasamutpāda) upon other things; whatever arises in dependence, in being reliant on something else and thus not capable of existing without the other’s support, obviously does not exist of its own accord, by its own nature. Would things exist on their own, i.e., be real, they could as a consequence neither arise nor perish, for a real thing, a thing with its “own” being (sva-bhāva), would on account of this not require causes for it to come into being or to pass out of being; it would not arise in dependence on something else nor decay or vanish due to the influence of some other factor. Such an entity would exist forever, and change would be impossible. That the phenomena experienced by the unawakened are indeed apprehended to arise in dependence, and to change, reveals that they are empty of an own-being, and thus bereft of true existence. Their arising in dependence translates into not truly existing, to not actually arising in dependence. The merely apparent existence of the things of the world therefore inspires the Mādhyamikas to compare them to, among other illusory phenomena, the objects apprehended in dreams and mirages, or conjured by a magician. Even though such objects appear and seem to be real during the dream, on a hot day in the desert, or, in the case of a magical illusion, while one beholds the magic show, the elephants in the dream, the water in the mirage and the beautiful damsel produced by the magician are empty of real existence and do not actually exist. Upon awakening from the dream, approaching the mirage for water, or seeing the magician dissolve the damsel, one relinquishes − even though their reality had been taken for granted until then − all ideas of the existence of these objects. Like these illusory objects, the dependently-arisen phenomena 16

On Nāgārjuna as a propounder of metaphysical illusionism, see Oetke 2007: 16ff.

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of the world that are unquestioningly believed to be genuine by the unenlightened have only an apparent reality, a semblance of, a superficial, “fake” realness. The teaching of the emptiness of things thus discloses the deceptive nature of worldly phenomena: they are mere fictions, unreal appearances masquerading, so to speak, as real things. As fictions they are actually no things, ontologically nothing, and thus in the final analysis, inexistent. According to the Mādhyamikas, no thing has ever really existed and no thing will ever come into existence. The cycling through repeated births and deaths that constitute the saṃsāric wandering − this too has never really occurred. Thus the question arises: If, according to the Mādhyamikas, saṃsāra is actually a fiction, what, then, of nirvāṇa? Can one escape from something that never was? Does nirvāṇa, unlike saṃsāra, exist? Or is liberation also a fiction, and the counsel to strive for it, a Mahāyānist joke? Aid for answering these questions can be found in MMK chapter 25, the “Examination of nirvāṇa,” and in Candrakīrti’s commentary on its individual kārikās. It should be mentioned that large circles within early Buddhism and some of the Conservative schools did indeed maintain a positively characterized nirvāṇa. A number of passages in early Buddhist works present nirvāṇa as an unconditioned and enduring state or sphere, and as such as similar to the higher spheres of yogic concentration but radically transcending them; nirvāṇa appears in these specific cases to have been conceived as a metaphysical, or rather, meta-physical, world-transcending dimension into which the liberated mind/self would enter.17 The Theravādins, in spite of their dogmatic 17

For references, see Frauwallner 1953: 226f. [= Frauwallner 1984: 178f.]; Schmithausen 1969: 158f. Schmithausen (1969: 159) remarks that the occurrence of a far greater number of passages negatively characterizing nirvāṇa as the process or state of the termination of suffering derives from the fact that the positive nature of nirvāṇa, as it is in itself, was beyond the reach of thought and speech and experienceable only in a meditative state; positive statements might indicate its not being nothing, but detailed speculation, given the nature of language, was dubious. He adds that such speculation on the nature of nirvāṇa was superfluous for the goal of Buddhism: inasmuch as all of worldly existence, on account of its impermanence, was considered to be suffering, liberation from this suffering sufficed as the goal, regardless of whether it might be characterized as a positive state or as pure annihilation. The tradition thus recognized the existence of a positive though indescribable dimension as the “place” of liberation, but particularly emphasized its negative function as the ending of suffering.

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denial of the existence of a self that might enter or experience nirvāṇa, postulated it as a positive, unconditioned, and enduring − and to that extent joyful − entity. Nirvāṇa in the Sarvāstivāda school has the unique characteristic of being a hypostatized elimination or stopping of the defilements and suffering, an existing “non-being,” and was thus considered a real, unconditioned and permanent entity.18 Nāgārjuna addresses the issue of an existent nirvāṇa in the fourth, fifth and sixth kārikās of MMK 25,19 commencing by unhesitatingly rejecting the possibility. He argues that if nirvāṇa would be an existent thing, it a) would have to be characterized by aging and death (jarāmaraṇa), b) would have to be conditioned (saṃskr̥ta) and c) would have to be reliant on something else (upādāya), since all existent things have the characteristics of aging and death, are conditioned and are reliant. No Buddhist would accept a nirvāṇa so characterized. Nāgārjuna likewise rejects the view that nirvāṇa is non-existence (abhāva).20 The equating of nirvāṇa and non-existence was, however, not completely foreign to Buddhism, for the Sautrāntika school did assert a nirvāṇa − at least an ontological nirvāṇa − that is mere non-existence. The Sautrāntika nirvāṇa is exhausted in its designation: it is solely the name for the fact that the emotional and intellectual defilements, and suffering, no longer arise, onto-

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Even though the Sarvāstivādins’ presuppositions that individual existence ends with the death of the liberated person and that an ātman (which might continue) does not exist relegated the spiritual experience of nirvāṇa without remainder to mere annihilation, the school did make room for the liberative effects of nirvāṇa prior to death. These occurred in the form of a consecutive separation from the defilements brought about by religious praxis and by pratisaṃkhyānirodha (cessation resulting from consideration/insight, equated by the Sarvāstivādins with nirvāṇa), which of necessity was viewed as a succession of real, existent pratisaṃkhyānirodhas, or “nirvāṇas,” equivalent in number to the number of defilements removed. See, e.g., Schmithausen 1969: 161f.; Cox 1994; Cox 1995: 87f., 90f., 323 n. 72. MMK 25.4: bhāvas tāvan na nirvāṇaṃ jarāmaraṇalakṣaṇam | prasajyetāsti bhāvo hi na jarāmaraṇaṃ vinā ||. MMK 25.5: bhāvaś ca yadi nirvāṇaṃ nirvāṇaṃ saṃskr̥taṃ bhavet | nāsaṃskr̥to vidyate hi bhāvaḥ kvacana kaścana || (pāda c emended following MacDonald 2007: 40f.). MMK 25.6: bhāvaś ca yadi nirvāṇam anupādāya tat katham | nirvāṇaṃ nānupādāya kaścid bhāvo hi vidyate ||. He rejects this possibility in MMK 25.7-8. 25.7: bhāvo yadi na nirvāṇam abhāvaḥ kiṃ bhaviṣyati | nirvāṇaṃ yatra bhāvo na nābhāvas tatra vidyate ||. 25.8: yady abhāvaś ca nirvāṇam anupādāya tat katham | nirvāṇaṃ na hy abhāvo ’sti yo ’nupādāya vidyate ||.

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logically nothing at all.21 Explicating Nāgārjuna’s rejection of nirvāṇa conceived as non-existence, Candrakīrti states that in the world a thing is termed non-existent when it gives up its own-being and becomes otherwise, i.e., becomes other than existent.22 But since nirvāṇa was never established as something that exists, it cannot relinquish its existence and become otherwise; that is, not having obtained the necessary prerequisite of having the state of a thing, it is not in a position to abandon this state and become inexistent. Speaking to the Sautrāntika view of nirvāṇa as the cessation and thus end of the defilements, as their “having become otherwise,” Candrakīrti declares that if the nonexistence of the defilements23 is nirvāṇa, then the impermanence of the defilements (to be understood as their momentary perishing in the saṃsāric continuum) will have to be accepted as nirvāṇa. This is definitely not accepted by the Sautrāntikas, asserts Candrakīrti, because it would entail that liberation is automatically achieved, without any effort on the part of the practitioner.24 Yet even though the Mādhyamikas reject a nirvāṇa conceived and classified either as an existent or as non-existence (as well as one characterized by both existence and non-existence, and by neither existence nor non-existence),25 they continue to speak of nirvāṇa. This is confirmed, for instance, by Candrakīrti’s commentary on MMK 25.10. In 21

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The Sautrāntika nirvāṇa as a spiritual event consists in liberation from the defilements and suffering existence; nirvāṇa without remainder thus expresses itself as the complete destruction, i.e., the end, of the body-mind continuum. Candrakīrti’s statement here relates to MMK 25.7. See de Jong 1978: 245, entry for p. 527.6 (the sentences are missing from PsPed 527): iha hi bhāvaḥ svabhāvaparityāgād anyathā bhavann abhāva iti vyapadiśyate | yatra ca pakṣe nirvāṇaṃ bhāvo na bhavati vihitadoṣatvāt tatra pakṣe ’bhāvo ’pi nirvāṇaṃ na bhavati bhāvasvarūpeṇāsiddharūpasyābhāvarūpatānupapatter iti abhiprāyaḥ |. Candrakīrti mentions birth (janman) along with the defilements (kleśa). In his commentary on Yuktiṣaṣṭikā 4cd, Candrakīrti informs an opponent who holds that saṃsāra, specified as the skandhas, i.e., the body-mind continuum, exists and that its cessation is nirvāṇa understood as non-existence (abhāva), that such is indeed taught, but it is merely a strategy. The teaching is necessary because the unenlightened have been habituated since beginningless time to the belief that things really exist, and are not able to turn away from attachment to them without being told, as an antidote, that nirvāṇa is the cessation of saṃsāra. In coming to believe that the attainment of nirvāṇa involves great happiness, they are able to turn away from the pleasant things of saṃsāra, not to mention the disagreeable. Cf. MMK 25.11-15 and 25.16-17 and Candrakīrti’s commentary thereon.

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the kārikā, Nāgārjuna makes reference to a statement of the Buddha’s in which he has proclaimed that being (bhava) and non-being (vibhava) have to be abandoned, and from this Nāgārjuna concludes that nirvāṇa is appropriate neither as existence (bhāva) nor as non-existence (abhāva).26 Citing a sentence from a Canonical work which negates that release from existence can be found by way of being or non-being,27 Candrakīrti declares that even though existence and non-existence are to be abandoned, the Buddha did not state that nirvāṇa is to be abandoned; he rather asserted that it is not to be abandoned.28 Following Candrakīrti’s interpretation of the MMK on nirvāṇa thus far, this would mean that the practitioner who has come to understand that the world and even what was thought to be the escape from it are neither existing nor not existing (nor both nor neither) – this practitioner is nevertheless to continue to strive for liberation, for nirvāṇa. One might be inclined to interpret this call to continued effort from a subjective point of view, as meaning that even though the Mādhyamikas reject an ontologically existent nirvāṇa, and even though they equally reject nirvāṇa as the cessation of an ontologically existent saṃsāra, they do accept nirvāṇa as a spiritual event. As an event it will belong to the conventional level, but as the paramount and decisive spiritual event it will effect the practitioner’s release from repeated birth and death, which are ultimately unreal but experienced as real until the event occurs. It is, as stated earlier, a profound insight, sharpened, deepened and solidified by meditative concentration, which is said to effect the release. In Yuktiṣaṣṭikā 4cd, Nāgārjuna declares that the thorough knowledge (parijñā) of existence and non-existence is the liberating factor.29 In his commentary on this half-verse, Candrakīrti explains that because existence and non-existence are mutually dependent, they are not established by own-nature, i.e., they cannot exist in reality (for 26

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MMK 25.10: prahāṇaṃ cābravīc chāstā bhavasya vibhavasya ca | tasmān na bhāvo nābhāvo nirvāṇam iti yujyate ||. PsPed 530.7: tatra sūtra uktam | ye kecid bhikṣavo bhavena bhavasya niḥsaraṇaṃ paryeṣante vibhavena vā ’parijñānaṃ tat teṣām iti |. De La Vallée Poussin (PsPed 530, n. 4) determines the text closest to the sūtra cited by Candrakīrti to be attested in the Udāna (p. 33, iii.10). PsPed 530.8-9: na caitan nirvāṇaṃ prahātavyam uktaṃ bhagavatā kiṃ tarhy aprahātavyam |. YṢ 4cd: dngos dang dngos med yongs shes pas || bdag nyid chen po rnam par grol ||. I rely in this paper on Scherrer-Schaub’s edition of the YṢ as contained in the YṢV.

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whatever is dependent cannot really exist), but the spiritually immature do not know this and, conceiving existence and non-existence and therewith engendering desire and other defilements in regard to the two, they are bound and doomed to wander in saṃsāra.30 Awareness of the lack of real existence and non-existence, on the other hand, has the power to ultimately terminate the continuum of desire and other defilements because it jettisons the objective basis onto which desire is projected. Thorough knowledge of the non-existence of both existence and non-existence is on account of this potent enough to break the bonds of the cycle of birth and death and deliver one from saṃsāra; it is thus suitable as a means of liberation. That thought and conceptual activity have no part to play in this thorough knowing is indicated in Candrakīrti’s commentary to Yuktiṣaṣṭikā 4cd, where he describes it as having the nature of the nonimagining of an own-being of existence and non-existence. More epistemologically, he equates it with the non-perception of existence and non-existence.31 It thus appears that for him thorough knowledge is the result of cultivation of the understanding that nothing exists, and involves, conceptually, the ceasing of all conceptualizing of and in regard to existence and its contingent opposite, and perceptually, the nonapprehension of these two, i.e., of any thing or any lack of existence predicated upon a thing. When the yogin as “knower” is without the concept of, or apprehension of any of the things accepted as existing or not existing by the world or by the other Buddhist schools, the “object” of the thorough knowing must exclude all possible phenomenal entities and non-entities. The object, conventionally speaking, is the truth behind the veil; the yogin’s thorough knowing characterized as the nonapprehension of existence or non-existence bespeaks a penetration of the world of fictions to its true nature, a nature which is untouched by conceptuality and stripped of the manifoldness of the illusion. It is a 30

31

Related text and French translation in Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 32.9-23 and 132-134 (I rely on Scherrer-Schaub’s edition of the YṢV in this paper). See alternatively Loizzo 2007: 259.6-260.6 and 140f. (Loizzo’s YṢ and YṢV translation is often unreliable). … yongs su shes pa dngos po dang dngos po med pa’i rang gi ngo bo la sogs pa yongs su mi rtog pa’i rang bzhin … (Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 32.12-14; Loizzo 2007: 259.7-9); dngos po dang dngos po med pa mi dmigs pa ni ... (Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 32.23-24; Loizzo 2007: 260.6-7).

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nature described in Madhyamaka works as peaceful (śānta) and the pacification of all objective manifoldness and all manifold conceptual and verbal activity (praprañcopaśama),32 and is such because nothing has ever arisen to disturb its calm: nothing has ever come into being, and nothing has ever ceased. Thus even though it is neither a “thing” nor a dependently conceived “non-thing,” the object of the thorough knowledge, viz., the true nature of the dependently originated and the dependently designated, is appropriate to be understood as the Mādhyamika’s ontological nirvāṇa. This true nature of the world coincides with nirvāṇa conceived as the removal of the defilements and the abandoning of all suffering existence because like all other things, the defilements and suffering, in never having arisen, have always been “abandoned.” Similar to the traditionally described nirvāṇa,33 the Madhyamaka nirvāṇa is set forth as the pacification of all manifoldness, but in contradistinction to the previously mentioned interpretations of nirvāṇa, which envisioned it as an existent and enduring dimension or entity removed from the world, as an existent non-existent, or as the stopping of real defilements and a real personal continuum, the Madhyamaka nirvāṇa is the world itself – in its innate and eternal state of peaceful non-arising. As the true nature of the world and the phenomena constituting it, it is not even, as the other schools’ nirvāṇa is, something to be attained through escape from the world, for it is already ontologically anticipated in things themselves and merely requires insight into this fact.34 The old opposition between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra is replaced in 32 33 34

Cf. MMK 7.16, 18.9, 25.24. Cf. Aṅguttara Nikāya II.163 where nirvāṇa is characterized as papañcavūpasama. Cf. Vetter 1982: 92f.: “Ich weise hier nur darauf hin, dass das von Nāgārjuna als Ziel genannte Nirvāṇa kein jenseitiger Ort ist, auch kein isolierter Zustand in der Welt, auch kein Nichtmehrsein von etwas Besonderem, sondern die Welt selbst, insofern sie ihrer Bestimmtheiten und damit Bedingtheiten entkleidet und darum nicht mehr als solche wahrnehmbar ist.” (“I will here only point out that the nirvāṇa named by Nāgārjuna as the goal is not a place beyond, not an isolated state in the world, also not the being no more of something particular; [it is] rather the world itself insofar as it is stripped of its determinacies and with that its conditionalities and therefore no longer perceptible as such.”). Cf. MMK 25.9: ya ājavaṃjavībhāva upādāya pratītya vā | so ’pratītyānupādāya nirvāṇam upadiśyate ||. See also Vetter 1982: 93, where he asserts that the Madhyamaka interpretation of nirvāṇa assures its definiteness: “... diese Endgültigkeit kann nur dadurch garantiert werden, dass es schon immer nur das Nirvāṇa gibt und dass die Welt nur eine falsche Vorstellung

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Madhyamaka with an identification of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, or rather with an identification of nirvāṇa and the true nature of saṃsāra. nirvāṇa as a spiritual event involves seeing through the world, the manifoldness of existence, such that its true nature is experienced. It is against this larger background that the seemingly paradoxical statements found in Madhyamaka texts as well as in Prajñāpāramitā and Mahāyāna literature in general which state that the yogin sees the ultimate by not-seeing, or that “non-seeing is seeing” are to be understood.35 The knowing of the true nature of things, of the ultimate peacefulness of existence that has always been at its heart, or as the texts sometimes refer to it, of “thusness” (tattva), is a knowing that is without objects or appearances, one in which the yogin does not apprehend any thing. To dwell in a meditative state in which nothing appears is to see reality. In his commentary on Yuktiṣaṣṭikā 6cd,36 Candrakīrti also defines nirvāṇa via the seeming paradox: he asserts that the thorough knowing of the non-arising of a real nature of existence which occurs by way of non thorough-knowing, is said to be nirvāṇa.37 4. PERCEPTION OF EMPTINESS ACCORDING TO A POST-CANDRAKĪRTI MĀDHYAMIKA As realization of the ultimate was deemed to be direct and unmediated, with the rise of the Buddhist epistemological-logical tradition Mādhya-

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ist.” (“This definitiveness can only be guaranteed when there was always solely nirvāṇa and the world is only a wrong idea.”). See, e.g., MABhed 229.18-20 (MABhtr 1911: 279): rnal ’byor pa ’phags pa’i lam mngon du mdzad par gyur pas ma gzigs pa’i tshul gyis de kho na nyid gzigs pa dag gis … . Cf. also PsPed 265.3-5. The author of the Tarkajvālā quotes the sentence mthong ba med pa ni de nyid mthong ba’o (similar to the oft-cited adarśanaṃ bhagavan sarvadharmāṇāṃ darśanaṃ saṃyagdarśanam); see Heitmann 2004: 98f. and 99, n. 3. On interpretations of such statements, see Keira 2004: 99, n. 151. YṢ 6cd: parijñānaṃ bhavasyaiva nirvāṇam iti kathyate || (Sanskrit cited in ScherrerSchaub 1991: 144, n. 125). Tibetan text and translation in Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 37.21-22 and 146; Loizzo 2007: 268.1-2 and 147. Text of the entire relevant passage and translation in Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 37.2338.2 and 146-147; Loizzo 2007: 268.3-6 and 147. See also Scherrer-Schaub p. 146, n. 129, where she remarks that the aparijñāna defined as nirvāṇa may be best interpreted as a state of consciousness without subject or object. Note that Candrakīrti has defined existence (bhava, srid pa) as the five appropriated skandhas in his commentary to Yuktiṣaṣṭikā 6ab.

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mikas felt increasingly behooved to explain how the soteriologically critical non-seeing occurred, and in doing so to situate it in an epistemologically suitable context.38 Candrakīrti’s presentation of the direct perception of the non-existence of phenomena was, as we shall see, in part a response to the influence of the epistemologists. In order to highlight the distinctiveness of his presentation, it may be instructive to briefly describe, as a point of contrast, the theory of ultimate perception set forth by Kamalaśīla (740–795), a later Mādhyamika who dealt with the issue by appropriating and revamping the ideas of the epistemologists. Heavily influenced by Dharmakīrti (c. 600–660), Kamalaśīla relied on his theory of non-perception (anupalabdhi) for the theoretical elucidation and traditional grounding of the vision of emptiness. Slightly modifying Dharmakīrti’s theory, which determines that the non-perception of a specific thing X implies a perception other than that of thing X (anyopalabdhi) and indeed a perception of something other than X, viz., Y, (anyabhāva), Kamalaśīla maintains that the non-perception consisting in the non-seeing of any and all things is a perception other than that of X (anyopalabdhi) because it is a perception that is different from the seeing of things, but rejects that the perception of something other than X (anyabhāva), that is, of some other thing, plays a role because no other thing truly exists which might serve as the object of perception.39 38

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R. Keira (2004: 47-49) explains: “Now, since ordinary beings cannot perceive the ultimate nature of entities, it is also impossible that they would perceive the voidness (śūnyatā) of entities, since that is what entities ultimately are. Here, however, the following problem arises: if nobody could understand the Mādhyamika thesis of the absence of real intrinsic nature by means of direct perception, the Mādhyamikas would not have a method for obtaining the nonconceptual wisdom of thusness. In that case the religious project of Mādhyamika philosophy would not be fulfilled: bodhisattvas would not be able to progress spiritually on the path to buddhahood by directly realizing the ultimate thusness, i.e., the absence of real intrinsic nature. The Mādhyamika theory of meditation upon all dharmas as being without real intrinsic nature thus could not be established. Furthermore, if the Mādhyamikas could not prove the possibility of a direct perception which understands the absence of real intrinsic nature, they also could not prove the existence of the Buddha’s wisdom directly understanding selflessness (nairātmya). Therefore, since the Buddha would not be established to be someone who can directly realize thusness, his authority would accordingly be lost, as it is an essential facet of the Buddha’s wisdom that it be nonconceptual and direct.” On Dharmakīrti’s theory of non-perception, see Keira 2004: 52-64; on Kamalaśīla’s revision of this theory for Mādhyamika consumption, see pp. 64-86.

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Put simply, knowing the ultimate involves a cognition which does not take any thing as its support. Kamalaśīla admits that like all other things, this cognition does not ultimately exist, but he unambiguously declares that it, like the yogin in possession of it, does exist conventionally.40 Even though the conventionally existing cognition which knows the true nature of things is a cognition devoid of content, it is proper to confer on it the status of valid direct perception because it is clear (spaṣṭa), that is, non-conceptual (kalpanāpoḍha), and non-belying (avisaṃvāda). Opponents who, in consideration of the fact that cognition by definition requires an object, would argue that non-existing things are incapable of generating cognition are countered by Kamalaśīla’s assertion that the gnosis (ye shes) which arises from meditation clearly realizes the thusness (de kho na nyid) of the selflessness of things; by no means, he states, on occasions where this gnosis is said, e.g., in the Dharmasaṅgītisūtra,41 to involve “non-seeing” is a nonimplicative negation, i.e., no cognition at all, intended.42 Even so, it is challenging to imagine how yogic cognition, as a clear perception in which nothing appears, might have as its “object” the state without appearances; as R. Keira has noted, Kamalaśīla could be criticized for assuming an anyopalabdhi which has non-existence (abhāva) as its object.43 Kamalaśīla deals with the problem by turning to reflexive cognition (svasaṃvedana) − the aspect of cognition which knows the content of cognition and makes memory possible. According to him, when the yogin reaches the stage in his meditation on the selflessness of phenomena in which nothing appears, the reflexive aspect of his cognition, here in the role of anyopalabdhi, takes the clear perception without appearances as its object, first recognizing that it lacks any appearances and subsequently recognizing that the cognition itself does not truly exist. On the basis of this experience, the yogin is afterwards, upon emerging from the non-conceptual state, able to understand by way of a conceptual subsequent [judging] cognition (phyis rjes su thob pa’i shes pa) that

40

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42 43

See Keira 2004: 105-110. For the Madhyamakāloka text containing Kamalaśīla’s affirmation of the conventional existence of yogic cognition, see ibid., pp. 226-228. Dharmasaṅgītisūtra (as cited in the Śīkṣāsamuccaya): adarśanaṃ bhagavan sarvadharmāṇām darśanaṃ samyagdarśanam iti; see Keira 2004: 69-71 and 99. See Keira 2004: 98-104; for the Madhyamakāloka Tibetan text, see ibid., p. 225f. See ibid., p. 83f.

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the cognition lacked appearances and that it also lacks true existence, and, as the upshot of this, that all things are without a real nature.44 5. CANDRAKĪRTI ON PERCEIVING NOTHING Candrakīrti, who is estimated to have been active approximately a century and a half before Kamalaśīla and who seems not to have known Dharmakīrti’s views on non-perception, would concur with Kamalaśīla that the yogin’s perception of reality occurs in the form of a direct perception. In a section of his Yuktiṣaṣṭikā commentary, to which I shall return shortly, Candrakīrti explicitly asserts that there is direct perception of reality. His understanding of the nature of the cognition that directly perceives the final nature of things is, however, quite different from Kamalaśīla’s. A passage relevant to Candrakīrti’s views on cognition of the ultimate, albeit occurring in another context, can be found in his commentary on the second kārikā of Nāgārjuna’s Śūnyatāsaptati.45 The discussion there, sparked by the kārikā’s reference to the self (bdag, *ātman), commences with Candrakīrti’s rebuttal of an opponent view that the words “I” and “mine,” although without an objective support for the Buddhas who have relinquished the belief in a self (ngar ’dzin pa, *ahaṃkāra) and the belief in “mine” (nga yir ’dzin pa, *mamakāra), do have an objective support when it comes to ordinary, unenlightened people because they still maintain the belief in a self; Candrakīrti argues that this is not the case because the self simply does not exist. The opponent responds that even if the self does not exist, the belief in a self nevertheless exists as a mind associate (sems las byung ba, *caitta) and therefore cannot be just a word. Candrakīrti inquires what the objective support (dmigs pa, *ālambana) for this mind associate might be, and when the opponent states that it is the self, Candrakīrti reiterates that the self does not exist, and points out that in the absence of an objective support, consciousness and its associates cannot arise. He then moves on to address the Yogācāra objection that consciousness and its associ44

45

I rely on Keira for this explanation. Kamalaśīla’s assertions on this point from the Madhyamakālaṃkārapañjikā, etc., and R. Keira’s elucidation of them may be found in Keira 2004: 77-81. For the text and a German translation of the entire relevant passage, see Erb 1997: 218.33-223.32 and 46-53.

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ates arise and exist without an external object, as they do in dreams, etc.,46 and chides the Yogācāra opponent for not adhering to the wellestablished worldly convention that consciousness occurs together with an object, arguing that consciousness and its associates, which are in fact produced by an object, cannot exist when the object is missing. An extended discussion with another opponent follows in which a favourite non-existent of Indian philosophy is made topical, with the opponent contending that not all consciousnesses have an (existent) object because otherwise the consciousness which apprehends the son of a barren woman (mo gsham gyi bu, *vandyāputra) could not occur. Candrakīrti asserts that the designation (ming, *nāman/*abhidhāna) “son of a barren woman” serves as the consciousness’s object, and asks the opponent why he would then say that this consciousness is objectless. The opponent retorts that if the mere name would be the object when one hears “son of a barren woman,” then with the utterance of the sentence “The son of a barren woman does not exist,” the designation should also not exist, but since this is not the case, the name cannot be the object of consciousness. The opponent goes on to argue that non-existence (dngos po med pa, *abhāva) would constitute the object-support (dmigs pa, *ālambana), positioning himself in the well-known ākāra theory of perception attributed to the Sautrāntika school and recognized by epistemologists like Dignāga, according to which the object bestows its image to consciousness and is cognized by means of this image;47 for those admitting external things consciousness knows the outer object exclusively via the image of the object reflected in it. Consciousness thus appears with an image that conforms to its object; for example, consciousness of the colour blue arises assuming the aspect of its object, namely, blue. Consciousness of a barren woman’s son, in the view of Candrakīrti’s opponent, would therefore arise with non-existence as its image. Candrakīrti attacks this idea, likewise in reliance on the Sautrāntika theory that consciousness assumes the image of the object, focusing first on the idea that the image is not in its nature different from consciousness. Given that the opponent presumes that the son of a barren 46

47

Cf. also Candrakīrti’s rebuttal of the dream example for the Yogācāra argument that consciousness arises without an object in MABhed on MA 6.48-53; see MABhed 140.5-145.9 and MABhtr 1910: 328-333. Cf. AKBh 62.6, 473.25-474.1; Cox 1988: 38-40; Hattori 1968: 98, 102; Erb 1997: 142, n. 400.

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woman as object transfers its image of non-existence onto consciousness, the consciousness, Candrakīrti points out, in conforming to the sheer non-existence of the image, will not be able to be existent. It is not logically possible, he asserts, for an existent consciousness to take on the image of that which is bereft of existence, because existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive and cannot occur simultaneously in a single phenomenon. If it would nevertheless be supposed that the consciousness would become both existent (to accommodate its own existence) and non-existent (to accommodate the image of the son of a barren woman), then the opponent will be forced to accept a double consciousness. When the opponent shifts the focus to the object and argues that the case of the apprehension of non-existence will exactly parallel the case of the apprehension of blue, i.e., the appearing image will reflect the object, he is informed that the image concerned (and the consciousness by implication), in conforming to the inexistence of the son of a barren woman, can only be non-existent, because otherwise the object and its image, the former non-existent, the latter existent, would contradict each other. In the same vein, Candrakīrti stresses a few lines later that inasmuch as consciousness does not have a nature different from the image, a consciousness that is produced through conforming to non-existence will have to be non-existent, since non-existence and an (existent) image are incompatible. He adds that consciousness lacks any nature prior to its arising, and not apprehending the image of an object, it simply does not arise.48 The debate does not stop here, but the main point has been made: for Candrakīrti, a consciousness of which the objective support is non-existence is a non-existent one. The lack of an object for consciousness precludes the arising of consciousness. While the above discussion from the Śūnyatāsaptativr̥tti deals with the Sautrāntika ākāra theory in the context of a response to opponents who rely on it to defend their own doctrinal theories, in other of his works Candrakīrti independently introduces it and adopts it for the sake of underpinning his own views; he appears to have accepted this doctrine on the conventional level.49 Perhaps his most interesting use of the ākāra theory occurs in the passages in which he describes and defends his interpretation of consciousness’s apprehension of ultimate 48 49

Cf. Erb 1997: 221.14-15 and 49. For references, see Erb 1997: 142, n. 400.

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reality, ontological nirvāṇa. An epistemologically focused discussion on this topic can be found in his comments on Yuktiṣaṣṭikā kārikā 8,50 where he attacks fellow Buddhists for the sake of demonstrating that his view regarding consciousness and the ultimate is the sole logically and epistemologically viable one. Proceeding from the kārikā’s characterization of the Buddhist opponents’ nirvāṇa as (a real) cessation (’gog, *nirodha),51 Candrakīrti commences by exposing the inadequacy of the Vaibhāṣika and the Sautrāntika nirvāṇa conceived as the ceasing of the defilements and the psycho-physical continuum (in the case of the Vaibhāṣikas the conclusion of a series of hypostatized “stops,” and in the case of the Sautrāntikas nothing but the utter end of the continuum) when it comes to realization, i.e., direct perception, of this cessation.52 Among other arguments, he denies that cessation, and thus perception of it, could occur as long as the aggregates still exist and adverts to the fact that, as the kārikā has indicated, once the psycho-physical continuum has come to an end there is no subject left to apprehend the cessation.53 Candrakīrti then turns to the views of the logical-epistemological school on direct perception of the ultimate. Quoting from and paraphrasing Pramāṇasamuccaya I.6cd and its auto-commentary, he sets forth Dignāga’s definition of yogic perception, presenting it as the yogins’ seeing of the mere thing (don tsam, *arthamātra), a seeing that is 50

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YṢ 8: rnam par ’jig pas ’gog ’gyur gyi || ’dus byas shes pas ma yin na || de ni su la mngon sum ’gyur || zhig ces pa de ji lta bu ||. See also YṢ 7: dngos po skyes pa zhig pa la || ji ltar ’gog pa brtag pa bzhin || de bzhin sgyu ma byas pa ltar || mkhas pa dag gis ’gog par dgongs ||. As Scherrer-Schaub (1991: 149f. [n. 141]) has already indicated, Candrakīrti exploits the traditional notion that nirvāṇa/nirodha must be “realized’ (sākṣātkr̥) to bring the discussion onto epistemological terrain. “La discussion qui s’ouvre avec la kār 8 et se poursuit jusqu’à la kār 12 et son commentaire … porte sur la nature de l’arrêt (nirodha) et de la connaissance de l’arrêt (nirodha-jñāna). Les sources scripturaires et les traités parlent de cette dernière comme d’une connaissance directe, un ‘vue devant les yeux’: ainsi de l’opération sur la troisième vérité, où l’arrêt doit être perçu directement (nirodha-sākṣātkāra). … La synonymie des expressions sākṣātKR̥- et pratyakṣī-KR̥-, de leur dérivés et expressions apparentées, autorise Candrakīrti à déplacer le centre de la discussion sur le terrain de l’épistémologie.” Cf., e.g., Saṃyutta Nikāya V, 422.19-22: Taṃ kho panidaṃ dukkhanirodham ariyasaccaṃ sacchikātabban ti me bhikkhave … āloko udapādi ||; further references in ScherrerSchaub 1991: 150 (n. 141). For text and translation of these and other arguments, see Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 39.3-40.11 and 151-155; Loizzo 2007: 270.3-272.7 and 148-150.

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without the superimposition of a unitary object and not mixed with conceptuality deriving from the guru’s teaching;54 he declares that such a view of yogic perception is not suitable when it is a question of direct perception of cessation. The opponent epistemologist responds by specifying that it is generally established (grags, *prasiddha) that when a real particular (rang gi mtshan nyid, *svalakṣaṇa) is meditated upon by way of its general characteristics (spyi’i mtshan nyid, *sāmānyalakṣaṇa), the gnosis arisen from meditation (bsgoms pa las byung ba’i ye shes, *bhāvanāmayam jñānam) gradually arises. That which is apprehended by this non-conceptual gnosis (rnam par mi rtog pa’i ye shes, *avikalpajñāna), he adds, being free of any conceptual superimposition, is nothing but the particular. Thus, when one realizes, e.g., impermanence, one knows the mere thing (dngos po tsam).55 The opponent concludes his argument by stating that since the object apprehended by gnosis is the particular, this object, like the object in the case of consciousness perceiving mere blue, etc., is directly perceived. The nonconceptual gnosis is thereby situated at the culmination of the epistemologist yogin’s meditation on, we may assume, the four Noble Truths, with the “mere thing” the real aspects such as impermanence, suffering, emptiness, selflessness, etc., connected with these Truths. The yogin envisaged by the opponent would thus initially meditate on a conceptual image or conceptual ascertainment of his object, such as impermanence or emptiness, and his intense concentration and repeated effort would effect a gradual refinement of the conceptualized object, with the end result that the meditation would issue in a direct, i.e., exclusively nonconceptual, perception of the object.56 In the view of certain later 54

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YṢV: rnal ’byor pa rnams kyi bla mas bstan pa las skyes pa rnam par rtog pa dang ma ’dres pa gcig tu yul sgro btags pa med pa don tsam mthong ba gang yin pa de yang ’gog pa la mi srid do || (Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 40.12-14; Loizzo 2007: 272.79. Translation in Scherrer-Schaub p. 155f.; Loizzo p. 150). Pramāṇasamuccaya I.6cd: yogināṃ gurunirdeśāvyavakīrṇārthamātradr̥k; (see Steinkellner 2005: 3; the fragments presented in Hattori 1968: 94 read °āvyatibhinnā° for °āvyavakīrṇā°). Pramāṇasamuccayavr̥tti to I.6cd: yoginām apy āgamavikalpāvyavakīrṇam arthamātradarśanaṃ pratyakṣam (Steinkellner 2005: 3; see also Vincent Eltschinger’s article in the present volume, n. 93, as well as Eli Franco’s article in the present volume p. 122). Cf. Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 40.12-21; Loizzo 2007: 272.10-273.2. For a concise summary of the basic structure of the yogic path according to Dharmakīrti, see section 3.1 (under “The Path to Salvation”) of Vincent Eltschinger’s ar-

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Mādhyamikas like Kamalaśīla, who is known for having appropriated a number of the logical-epistemological school’s doctrines, the yogin involved in conceptual meditation on the emptiness of things would be able to evolve the meditation to the point that upon reaching the “ultimate limit of [conceptual] meditation” (bhāvanāprakarṣaparyanta), a non-conceptual perception of emptiness would arise,57 which, as previously explained, would take the form of a cognition without content and would be recognized and registered by the self-knowing aspect of cognition. The postulation of Dignāga’s,58 later elaborated by Dharmakīrti and his commentators, and tailored to fit Madhyamaka requirements by Kamalaśīla, that extended conceptual cultivation of an object would issue in direct perception of the object, is dismissed by Candrakīrti as preposterous. He asserts that when the idea being maintained is examined more closely, the epistemologists, given that they strictly maintain the distinctiveness, i.e., the mutual exclusivity, of the particular and of the general characteristic, respectively the object of direct perception and conceptual cognition, will have to admit that it is logically unacceptable to hold that the object used for meditation on the general characteristic could be the particular, since this would involve overextension (ha cang thal bar ’gyur ba, *atiprasaṅga) – I assume because the scope of the particular is thereby extended to include general char-

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ticle in the present volume. For Dharmakīrti’s description of the cognitions and the meditative process the yogic path involves, see section 4 (“Yogijñāna as an Epistemological Topic”) of the same article. Cf. Keira 2004: 50, 69ff. Though I here attribute to Dignāga the idea that extended conceptual cultivation of an object issues in its direct perception, it should be noted that this theory is not recorded in any of his works available to us and is usually associated with Dharmakīrti. While it is of course possible that Dignāga set forth this view in one or more of his non-extant works and our YṢV passage provides documentation for this, its absence in the extant materials brings up the question of whether Candrakīrti might have known Dharmakīrti. Christian Lindtner, solely on the basis of text in the Catuḥśatakaṭīkā which appears to refer to the Pramāṇavārttika assertion pramāṇam avisaṃvādi jñānam, maintains that it “seems probable” that Candrakīrti did know Dharmakīrti (see Lindtner 1992: 57; the Catuḥśatakaṭīkā clause Lindtner cites, viz., mi bslu ba’i shes pa ni ’jig rten na tshad ma nyid du mthong na, can be found in Tillemans 1990: 67.11-12 [vol. 2]). The evidence is still too slim for definitive conclusions. I am grateful to Dr. Helmut Krasser for discussions on the matter and for providing me with valuable references.

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acteristics. Candrakīrti’s rejection of the epistemologists’ theory thus focuses on the fact that if the particular free of all conceptual overlay is the actual object of meditation and, on account of this, the final object of yogic direct perception, then during the long and repeated course of the meditation, this particular cannot also be its opposite, the general characteristic constituted purely by conceptuality. The epistemologists, in maintaining that a yet unrealized particular can be conceptually contemplated to the point that it finally escapes the superimposition of general characteristics, contradict their fundamental differentiation of the objects of cognition with this, in his view, fogging of the distinction between the two and overlapping of their definitions. The mutually exclusive nature of the two objects and their respective cognitions otherwise posited by the epistemologists automatically prohibits any coinciding, intersection or reconciliation. As stated, Candrakīrti obviously intends to expose the faults of the views of his Buddhist colleagues in order to clear the way for his own position on perception of the ultimate. In the discussion on kārikā 8 preceding the altercation with the epistemologists, he is asked if direct perception takes place at the moment of seeing, and responds that because there is the making known (rnam par rig pa, *vijñapti) of the object by consciousness (rnam par shes pa, *vijñāna) even after seeing has ceased, this may be designated “direct perception.”59 He uses this as a lead-in to reference to the Sautrāntika theory of direct perception, according to which it is the image in consciousness, which conforms to the actual object, that is actually perceived, invoking here the theory’s stock example of the consciousness of blue. The discussion is taken in another direction by a Vaibhāṣika objection, but subsequent to his refutation of the epistemologists’ theory of yogic direct perception, there is another allusion to the Sautrāntika theory. Candrakīrti initiates the presentation of his Madhyamaka view by rhetorically asking how, even if the meditative process posited by the epistemologists would be correct, there could be the direct perception of the consciousness of cessation (’gog pa, *nirodha) when in cessation there does not exist even a trace of an entity having the form of the cessation of suffering. Next, in reliance on scriptural testimony which states that awareness of the nonarising of suffering is direct perception, he argues that it would, in fact, 59

Cf. Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 39.19-22; Loizzo 2007: 271.3-5.

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be impossible for consciousness to arise when its objective support (dmigs pa; *ālambana) has the form of non-arising; in such a case consciousness would definitely assume the mode of non-arising,60 that is, it would not arise at all. With this last brief statement Candrakīrti’s initially seemingly unusual take on direct perception of the ultimate is disclosed. For him, at the time of perception of the ultimate, of the emptiness of things that were never really there in the first place, inasmuch as there is nothing whatsoever to be perceived, that is, since an object for consciousness does not exist, consciousness will simply not come into being; Candrakīrti’s assertion that consciousness assumes the mode of non-arising translates into no consciousness at all. Yet in this way consciousness still fulfills the Sautrāntika demand that the consciousness resemble, conform to, its object: like its object, the non-arisen true nature of things, consciousness “takes,” so to speak, a non-arisen and nonexistent form. In Candrakīrti’s words: If consciousness, like its object, has the form of non-arising, it is proper to maintain that it has proceeded by way of the object just as it is.61 And given its proceeding by way of its object, its conforming to its object, it is proper to designate it direct perception. In the everyday world, too, he avers, situations occur in which one speaks of “direct perception” in regard to non-existent things. He provides the following example: A traveller sees an area off in the distance that appears to be abounding in clear water. He intends to cross the water but feels incompetent and nervous to do so, and therefore inquires of a local farmer just how much water might actually be out there. In response, the local, apparently taken aback by the question, asks where the water might be that the traveller claims to see, and then explains that what indeed looks like water off in the distance is actually only a mirage. He adds that if the traveller doesn’t believe him, he should go and look for himself; then he will directly perceive what he has just been told. It is the same in regular life, Candrakīrti points out, where things that do not exist and are not perceived are conventionally designated as directly perceived; therefore, from the point of view of worldly concealing truth, it is not contradictory to call a consciousness of non-perception (mi dmigs pa’i shes pa) − which for Candrakīrti is no 60 61

Cf. Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 40.28-41.3; Loizzo 2007: 273.7-11. Cf. Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 41.3-5; Loizzo 2007: 273.11-12.

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consciousness at all – “direct perception.” He bolsters his position by referring to a scriptural statement which asserts that the determination (yongs su gcod pa, *pariccheda) of an object, corresponding to the way it is, by that which makes it known (shes pa byed pa, *jñāpaka) is direct perception. Candrakīrti considers this statement applicable to the present case because the consciousness which does not arise on account of the fact that its object is non-arisen accurately reflects, makes known, the fact that the object is non-arisen, i.e., that the object does not exist; therefore, inasmuch as the exact state of the object is accurately reflected through consciousness’s own inexistence, it is appropriate to term it direct perception. Candrakīrti had earlier presented basically the same view, although in another context, in the fourth verse and its commentary in the chapter on the level of a Buddha in the Madhyamakāvatāra.62 There he is replying to an opponent who contends that if the peaceful (zhi ba, *śānta), viz., the eternal calmedness of all non-arisen things, is reality (de nyid, *tattva), the mind will not proceed in regard to this, and when the mind does not proceed, it cannot thoroughly know its object; as a consequence, statements to the effect that precisely the non-existence of thorough knowledge (yong su shes pa med pa) constitutes thorough knowledge of reality, or complete non-knowing is knowing, are inappropriate. In his verse response, Candrakīrti admits that in this specific case of the mind relying on the aspect (rnam pa, *ākāra) of reality, it is only “as if” (lta bu, *iva) consciousness knows the ultimate, clarifying in his commentary, after reciting the Sautrāntika main requisite for perception, namely, that the consciousness be in conformity with the aspect of the object, and illustrating this with the example of blue, that it is metaphorically stated that the consciousness “arising” in conformity with the aspect of reality knows reality. It is owing to conceptuality that one establishes that this consciousness knows reality; in actuality there is not any consciousness of anything because neither consciousness nor its object come into being. Yet even with the qualification, Candrakīrti intends for the idea of a merely metaphorical apprehension of the ultimate to be taken seriously, indicating in the course of his explanation

62

Cf. the discussion in MABhed 356.18-358.20. See also the analysis of MA 12.3-4 in Dunne 1996: 546-548.

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that his reference to the Sautrāntika model of perception supplies a generally established example for the argument.63 6. KNOWING THE ULTIMATE So what exactly, we might ask, is the point of all this, besides the fact that Candrakīrti has displayed his agility in the performance of a very nice little pirouette with the Sautrāntika theory of perception? And why does he insist on describing the Mādhyamika yogin’s lack of consciousness as direct perception? One might initially conjecture that Nāgārjuna’s explicit mention of the realization of cessation, i.e., of nirvāṇa, in kārikā 8 of the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā inspired Candrakīrti, whose criticism of the other Buddhist schools demonstrates his awareness of the prevailing theories regarding nirvāṇa and the perception of it, to come up with his own specifically Madhyamaka view on the topic as he composed his commentary on the kārikā. But this is too simplistic, and we have just seen that he had already given a less developed explanation of the knowing of the ultimate in his earliest composition, the Madhyamakāvatāra. It is more probable that Candrakīrti took Nāgārjuna’s reference to realization of cessation primarily as an opportunity to confront Dignāga’s school, with its developed epistemological theories his main rival on the issue of direct perception of the ultimate, in order to both discredit its explanation of it and to set forth, in an argumentative and scripturally backed form, his own ingenious but typically pragmatic version. His intent, one assumes, would have been to enter the arena of Buddhist theories of perception of the ultimate and defeat the epistemologist on turf that was quite possibly already monopolized by him. It was certainly necessary that Candrakīrti find a way to acknowledge direct perception of nirvāṇa, for not to have done so would have left him open to attack regarding the Mādhyamika’s and even the Buddha’s direct realization of nirvāṇa, and as a consequence, easy prey when it came to questions of the value of Madhyamaka doctrines and to the issue of the Buddha’s establishment as an authority. At the very least, by securing his own rather unusual portrayal of the consciousness that “directly perceives” nirvāṇa as the ultimate state of things by means of scripture and a widely accepted theory of perception, Candrakīrti was 63

Cf. MABhed 358.13-14.

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able to retain his faction’s standing within the general Buddhist tradition on these issues of fundamental importance. His specifically unique presentation of the consciousness of the ultimate, on the other hand, spared him from having to compromise his integrity as a Mādhyamika. But what are the implications of the stance that when the final state of things is realized there is no object to be known, and no consciousness to know this? Would it mean that the ultimate is a sheer void, or a pure abstract nothing, and that the ultimate realization of this is in the end impossible since one can’t know nothing? I would contend that our author’s view is more sophisticated and suggestive than this. One of the main points, if not precisely the point that Candrakīrti intends to make in the above discussions is that consciousness (vijñāna) as conceived by his fellow philosophers and accepted by himself on the conventional level is fundamentally incapable of knowing the ultimate, because its functioning is restricted to occurring in relation to objects, and the ultimate is no object and has no objects in it. One can be quite certain that Candrakīrti would have rejected Kamalaśīla’s version of the highest awareness as clear perception not only because it is based on the epistemologist’s model but also because in this version the clear perception does not escape being described in terms that relate it to and therefore bind it to the conventional level; Kamalaśīla in fact allows this consciousness conventional existence. Candrakīrti’s non-acceptance of reflexive awareness would further have led him to repudiate the idea that non-existence is not the object of the consciousness and to charge that the positing of consciousness devoid of content, i.e., bereft of an object, would contradict the general Buddhist doctrine that consciousness occurs in tandem with an object. Candrakīrti’s underscoring that consciousness does not arise when the object is the ultimate is secondarily intended to point to the fact that for him all perceptual activity as we know it − as well as all conceptual and linguistic activity − ceases in the experience of the true nature of things, of ontological nirvāṇa.64 Toward the end of the Śūnyatāsaptati’s earlier referenced discussion of the perception of the son of a barren woman, Candrakīrti declares that the 64

Cf., e.g., Candrakīrti’s commentary on MMK 5.8, where he states that the pacification of all visibles (draṣṭavyopaśama) that is free of the net of all conceptuality (sarvakalpanājālarahita) has the nature of the ceasing of consciousness (here intended in the sense of conventional consciousness) and the object of consciousness (jñānajñeyanivr̥ttisvabhāva).

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Mādhyamikas accomplish the clearing away, the elimination, of the factors of existence (chos, *dharma) in the sense that with the nonperception of any of these factors, all of which are of the nature of nonexistence, consciousness stops.65 This statement is followed by two supporting scriptural citations, one of which is Āryadeva’s famous verse that states that consciousness (rnam shes, *vijñāna) is the “seed of existence.”66 For Candrakīrti, the actual realization of the true nature of things is performed by a completely different category of awareness, if I may call it that, namely, by jñāna, “gnosis,” which does not belong or relate to the everyday level. I am aware that a number of Madhyamaka scholars construe the situation regarding ultimate knowledge and its object quite differently, in large part because they interpret the fundamental Madhyamaka stance on the possibility of existence – in my interpretation that it is impossible – as espousing it. I digress with this, but let it be noted that C.W. Huntington in his book “The Emptiness of Emptiness” describes the consciousness which knows the ultimate, i.e., jñāna, as a non-dualistic knowledge that is coterminous with the bodhisattva’s everyday experience “in both its conceptual and perceptual aspects.” He writes, “The Mādhyamika does not advocate any radically unconventional category of epistemic act, but rather a radically unconventional form of life, in which one is constantly and profoundly in touch with the holistic, contextual nature of all experience—with ‘the suchness of dependent origination.’”67 Huntington’s jñāna, albeit acknowledged to be 65

66

67

See Erb 1997: 221.40-222.2 and 50-51. It is to be noted that antecedent to this text passage, in the extended debate concerning perception of the non-existent Candrakīrti adverts to the absurd consequence entailed by acceptance of objectless consciousness in regard to nirvāṇa, namely, that (ordinary) consciousness would permanently continue, taking nirvāṇa as its objective support. He also briefly weaves in his view of the status of consciousness at the time of perception of the ultimate; see ibid., 221.31-222.12 and 50-51. Cf. also 223.7-16 and 52. Cf. Catuḥśataka XIV.25 (Suzuki 1994: 360): srid pa’i sa bon rnam śes te || yul rnams de yi spyod yul lo || yul la bdag med mthong na ni || srid pa’i sa bon ’gag par ’gyur ||. The verse as cited in the ŚSV reads: srid pa’i sa bon rnam par śes || yul ni de yi spyod yul la || mthong ba’i yul rnams bdag med phyir || srid pa’i sa bon ’gag par ’gyur ||; see Erb 1997: 222.9-12 and p. 144, n. 421. Huntington 1989: 119f. One notes also other comments in reference to jñāna: “Jñāna is the essential clarity and unerring sensibility of a mind that no longer clings to reified concepts of any kind. It is a direct and sustained awareness of the truth, for a bodhisattva, that meaning and existence are found only in the interface

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meditatively cultivated, is essentially a rational insight into a profound interconnectedness inherent in the truly existing world, and thus merely a worldly, lived awareness of a state of affairs, and one that is involved not only with perception but with conceptual thought. Dan Arnold does not refer to jñāna per se in his book “Buddhists, Brahmins and Belief,” but he does speak of a realization, which he qualifies, at least parenthetically, as “radically transformative.”68 He clarifies that the subject of such a realization would be “a Buddha.” Arnold states that the object of the realization would be ultimate truth, but rejecting Madhyamaka argumentation as world-denying, he contends “that, for Candrakīrti, the only ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth—that the ‘ultimate truth,’ in other words, is the abstract state of affairs of there being no set of ‘ultimately existent’ (paramārthasat) ontological primitives like the dharmas of Abhidharma.”69 “‘[U]ltimate truth’ (nirvāṇa),” he writes, attempting to explain MMK 25.19ab, “does not consist in something fundamentally different in kind from ‘conventional’ reality (saṃsāra); rather, what is ‘ultimately true’ is simply the fact that there is nothing fundamentally different from the world as conventionally described.”70 According to him, the content of a Buddha’s realization would therefore consist in knowing that there is not something more real than the dependently arisen, but truly existing, world;71 similar to Huntington’s, Arnold’s ultimate insight is a real rational insight into the way the de-

68 69 70

71

between the components of an unstable and constantly shifting web of relationships, which is everyday life” (ibid., p. 104), and in reference to prajñā (Huntington states that it is “difficult to draw a distinction” between prajñā and jñāna): “Perfect wisdom graphically reveals the holistic, contextual nature of all forms of existence and knowledge and allows the bodhisattva to adjust his attitude so that it accords with the ‘suchness’ of all experience, with the self, and with the world, as they are in the context of the moment. In this way, he is invested with the ability to act effectively and in harmony with the demands of every situation as it presents itself in the web of interrelated events (ibid., p. 88).” Arnold 2005: 204. Ibid., p. 184. Ibid., p. 172. Two sentences before the one quoted, he states, “Thus, the point of insisting on the ‘emptiness of emptiness’ is to throw us back into the world and to compel the recognition that, although events are dependent, contingent, and conventional, they are, for all that, real.” Arnold (2005: 204) writes, “That claim [= Candrakīrti’s] is that the ‘ultimate’ consists not in some radically ‘other’ state of affairs but in the realization (radically transformative, to be sure) that there is nothing more real than this.”

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pendent but real world, inclusive of its concepts, exists. Taking up John Dunne’s claim (a claim based on the previously mentioned Madhyamakāvatāra verse which states that suchness is only metaphorically known by the non-arisen consciousness) that a buddha would know neither ultimate reality nor the ordinary world because nothing occurs in his mind, Arnold contests that such a being would indeed perceive something, though certainly not an ultimate reality: “It seems that the ordinary world is all that such a Buddha would see.”72 On my reading of Candrakīrti’s works, however, neither Huntington nor Arnold come near to capturing what our author intends to convey with his references and allusions to the knowing of reality or his more general pronouncements on the nature of things. To return to my understanding of Candrakīrti’s perspective on the ultimate and its awareness: The cessation of all consciousness in the face of no objects is pivotal for the realization of emptiness, the true nature of things; it does not, however, fully define it. The coming to rest of consciousness merely serves as the necessary condition for the experience of the ultimate. As stated, it is a completely different type of awareness, viz., “gnosis” (jñāna), that knows it. Unlike ordinary consciousness, gnosis does not take a thing, or as Candrakīrti sometimes terms it, a mark (nimitta), as its object.73 The fact that its object-support is conventionally described by Candrakīrti to be emptiness74 does not, however, necessarily mean that the ultimate realization is a realization of nothing, or that it involves acquiescing to absolute nothingness, to a sheer, abstract void. Emptiness elucidated as the pacification of all manifoldness (prapañcopaśama) implies that no concept or linguistic designation applies to the true nature of the world; nothing can be predicated of it, not even “non-existence.” The notion of emptiness has in this context a spiritual function; as Lambert Schmithausen has stated, 72 73

74

Arnold 2005: 204. Arnold is referring to Dunne 1996: 548. Cf. Candrakīrti’s commentary on MMK 25.16 (PsPed 533.11-15), where he argues that nirvāṇa, in this case conceived by the opponent as both “existent and nonexistent,” cannot be ascertained by vijñāna because there is no nimitta in nirvāṇa: kenaitad itthaṃvidhaṃ nirvāṇam astīti paricchidyate | saṃsārāvasthitaḥ paricchinattīti cet | yadi saṃsārāvasthitaḥ paricchinatti sa kiṃ vijñānena paricchinatti uta jñānena | yadi vijñāneneti parikalpyate tan na yujyate | kiṃ kāraṇam | yasmān nimittālambanaṃ vijñānaṃ na ca nirvāṇe kiṃcin nimittam asti |. See PsPed 533.16: yasmāj jñānena hi śūnyatālambanena bhavitavyam |.

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“The concept ‘emptiness’ is also not intended to make a positive statement about this reality; it is rather merely a call to thought to deliver itself to its negation, to think itself away, to shake off all manifold conceptuality and thereby enable the manifestation of the inconceivable reality that was always there.”75 The ceasing of all conceptual and perceptual activity in the Madhyamaka yogin would thus act as a catalyst for experience of the concept-, designation- and percept-transcending ultimate that is neither an existent entity nor pure nothingness. Consciousness’ coming to rest would create, so to speak, a vacuum in which emptiness as thusness (tattva), the true nature of the world free of any appearances or conceptual content, could reveal itself. Inasmuch as the pacification of manifoldness coincides in meaning with the cessation of all things worldly, to which belong karma and the defilements, emptiness as the true nature of the world is equivalent to nirvāṇa;76 the experience of emptiness, then, would translate into an experience of nirvāṇa, and the gnosis that has, conventionally speaking, emptiness as its object-support (ālambana) would convey this experience of nirvāṇa. But if gnosis is not a real consciousness that takes the nonexistent as its object or a conventionally existing clear, contentless consciousness, just how does Candrakīrti envision it? Given the general Madhyamaka focus on demonstrating the ontological impossibility of known or postulated phenomena, and Candrakīrti’s hesitancy to attempt to describe an ultimate that could mistakenly be construed as existent or non-existent, details regarding the nature of gnosis are extremely rare in his works. There is, however, one interesting passage in which he does dare to sketch its features; it occurs in his commentary on MMK 25.16, 75

76

Schmithausen 1969: 166: “Auch der Begriff ‘Leerheit’ soll keine positive Aussage über diese Wirklichkeit machen; es ist vielmehr lediglich eine Aufforderung an das Denken, sich zur Negation seiner selbst zu vermitteln, sich zu zerdenken, alle vielfältige Vorstellung abzuschütteln und dadurch die Manifestation der immer schon vorhandenen unbegreiflichen Wirklichkeit zu ermöglichen.” Schmithausen (1969: 166) describes the intersection of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra: “Das Nirvāṇa (als metaphysische Größe) ist also im Madhyamaka kein Jenseits; es ist nicht außerhalb der Welt, es ist vielmehr in ihr; ja, Nirvāṇa und Welt sind überhaupt nicht verschieden, sofern man nur die Welt nicht in ihrer unwahren Endlichkeit, sondern in ihrem wahren Wesen nimmt.” (“Nirvāṇa (as a metaphysical dimension) is therefore in Madhyamaka not a ‘beyond’; it is not outside the world, it is rather in it; indeed, nirvāṇa and the world are not at all different, as long as one takes the world not in its unreal finitude, but in its true nature.”)

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in which he contrasts consciousness (vijñāna) and gnosis (jñāna) and, as already noted, asserts that gnosis’ object-support is emptiness. Immediately after this reference to its object-support he qualifies gnosis by way of two adjectives, namely, “having the form of non-arising” (anutpādarūpa) and “having a non-existing own-form” (avidyamānasvarūpa), both of which could be applied to the consciousness which in Candrakīrti’s pirouette “directly perceives” the ultimate, and both of which could also be taken to support the idea that there is no experience of reality, or that its non-experience is experience of it. It is the third adjective given − although at first glance seemingly insignificant − that provides perhaps one of the most telling references to his take on it. The modifier is “having a form that transcends all manifoldness” (sarvaprapañcātītarūpa), and in contrast to the previous two, it clearly does not intend a purely negative characterization. With it, there is allusion to an awareness that surmounts all manifold conceptualization and designation, one which neither exists nor does not exist, and is as unfathomable as its so-called object, the thusness that is true reality, ontological nirvāṇa. Of course as an awareness that is diametrically opposed to ordinary consciousness, it will not be configured in a subject-object relationship with emptiness, expressed as its focus for conventional convenience; its functioning would rather be non-dual. Intimated by this and the third adjective is the idea that gnosis consists in a radical mystical experience. Elsewhere, Candrakīrti states that the Buddhas abide in the objectless gnosis, far beyond the spiritually immature.77 It will not be irrelevant to mention, in this connection, that Nāgārjuna, in his chapter on the Tathāgata in the MMK, describes the Buddha, here understood not as a distinct person but as the true reality that is his nature, in the same way that Candrakīrti describes gnosis, namely, as “transcending all manifoldness” (prapañcātīta).78 Just as striking is Candrakīrti’s comment in the same chapter where he declares that the Mādhyamikas do not teach that the Tathāgatas are inexistent inasmuch as they are

77

78

Cf. YṢV on YṢ 4cd: de’i phyir de dag skye bo byis pa rnams las shin tu ’das pa dmigs pa med pa’i ye shes la gnas pas de dag nyid che ba’i phyir bdag nyid chen po zhes bya ste | (Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 32.16-18; Loizzo 2006: 260. 1-3). MMK 22.15: prapañcayanti ye buddhaṃ prapañcātītam avyayam | te prapañcahatāḥ sarve na paśyanti tathāgatam ||. Cf. also PsPed 446.5: sarvās tv etāḥ kalpanā niṣprapañce tathāgate na saṃbhavanti |.

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“completely outside [the domain of] manifoldness.”79 These descriptions of the awakened beings and their gnosis, limited to being made by way of modifiers indicating indescribability and inconceivability, merely point to the unfathomable state beyond the nothingness of worldly phenomena. It is probably not inappropriate to state that for the Mādhyamika as yogin the final goal, and the final state, is not nothingness, but transcendence. Although he is more often occupied with and thus associated with rigorously arguing an uncompromising denial of the world, it is in passages such as the ones examined here that we encounter Candrakīrti, as he moves on from this to allude to the outcome and purpose of that denial, as a conveyer of spiritual, mystical experience.

ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY AK AKBh Arnold 2005

Cox 1988

Cox 1994

Cox 1995

79

Abhidharmakośa. See AKBh. Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu. P. Pradhan, ed. Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series 8. 2nd ed. Patna, 1975. Dan Arnold, Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Collett Cox, “On the Possibility of a Nonexistent Object of Consciousness: Sarvāstivādin and Dārṣṭāntika Theories.” In Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 11 (1988): 63-105. Collett Cox, “Attainment through Abandonment: The Sarvāstivāda Path of Removing Defilements.” In Paths to Liberation. The Mārga and its Transformations in Buddhist Thought. R.E. Buswell, Jr. & R.M. Gimello, ed. Delhi 1994: 31-87. Collett Cox, Disputed Dharmas: Early Buddhist Theories on Existence. Studia Philologica Buddhica: Monograph Series, 11. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1995.

PsPed 443.11: na ca vayaṃ sarvathaiva niṣprapañcānāṃ tathāgatānāṃ nāstitvaṃ brūmaḥ… |.

166 Dayal 1932

Dunne 1996

Erb 1997

Frauwallner 1953 Frauwallner 1984 Gethin 1998 Gethin 2001 Granoff 1996

Hattori 1968 Heitmann 2004

Huntington 1989

de Jong 1978 Keira 2004

Kragh 2006

ANNE MACDONALD Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul Ltd., 1932. Reprint Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978. John Dunne, “Thoughtless Buddha, Passionate Buddha.” In Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXIV/3 (1996): 525-556. Felix Erb, Śūnyatāsaptativr̥tti: Candrakīrtis Kommentar zu den „Siebzig Versen über die Leerheit“ des Nāgārjuna [Kārikās 1-14]. Tibetan and Indo-Tibetan Studies 6, Institute for the Culture and History of Indian and Tibet at the University of Hamburg. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997. Erich Frauwallner, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie, I. Band. Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, 1953. Erich Frauwallner, History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1. Bedekar, V.M., tr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984. Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Rupert Gethin, The Buddhist Path to Awakening. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992; 2nd edition Oxford: Oneworld, 2001. Phyllis Granoff, “The Ambiguity of Miracles. Buddhist Understandings of Supernatural Power.” In East and West 46 (1996): 79-96. Masaaki Hattori. Dignāga, On Perception. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. Annette L. Heitmann, Nektar der Erkenntnis. Buddhistische Philosophie des 6. Jh.: Bhavyas Tarkajvālā I-III.26. Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2004. C.W. Huntington, Jr., The Emptiness of Emptiness. An Introduction to Early Indian Mādhyamika. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. J.W. de Jong, “Textcritical Notes on the Prasannapadā.” In Indo-Iranian Journal 20 (1978): 25-59; 217-252. Ryusei Keira, Mādhyamika and Epistemology. A Study of Kamalaśīla's Method for Proving the Voidness of all Dharmas. Introduction, Annotated Translations and Tibetan Texts of Selected Sections of the Second Chapter of the Madhyamakāloka. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 59. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 2004. Ulrich Timme Kragh, Early Buddhist Theories of Action and Result: A Study of Karmaphalasambandha. Candra-

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Lamotte, 1976

La Vallée Poussin 1931 Lindquist 1935 Lindtner 1992 Loizzo 2007

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MABhtr

MacDonald 2007

MMK Ñāṇamoli 1995

Oetke 2007 PsPed

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kīrti's Prasannapadā, Verses 17.1–20. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 64. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 2006. Étienne Lamotte, Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse de Nāgārjuna (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra) avec une étude sur la Vacuité. Tome IV. Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 12. Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, Université de Louvain, 1976. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, “Le Bouddha et les Abhijñā.” In Le Muséon (1931): 335-342. Sigurd Lindquist, Siddhi und Abhiññā. Eine Studie über die Klassischen Wunder des Yoga. Uppsala 1935. Christian Lindtner, “On the Date of Dharmakīrti etc.” In The Adyar Library Bulletin (1992): 56-62. Joseph Loizzo and the AIBS Translation Team, Nāgārjuna’s Reason Sixty with Candrakīrti’s Reason Sixty Commentary. New York: The American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, 2007. Madhyamakāvatāra. See MABhed. Madhyamakāvatāra par Candrakīrti. Traduction Tibétain. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, ed. Bibliotheca Buddhica IX. St. Petersburg, 1907-1912. Reprint: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992. “Madhyamakāvatāra, Introduction au Traité du Milieu de l’Ācārya Candrakīrti, avec le commentaire de l’auteur, traduit d’aprés la version tibétaine.” Louis de La Vallée Poussin, tr. In Le Muséon VIII (1907): 249-317; XI (1910): 271358; XII (1911): 235-328. Anne MacDonald, “Revisiting the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: Text-Critical Proposals and Problems.” In Studies in Indian Philosophy and Buddhism 14 (2007): 2555. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. See PsPed and de Jong 1978. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, tr., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. Claus Oetke, “On MMK 24.18.” In Journal of Indian Philosophy 35 (2007): 1-32. Mūlamadhyamakakārikās (Mādhyamikasūtras) de Nāgārjuna avec la Prasannapadā Commentaire de Candrakīrti. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, ed. Bibliotheca Buddhica 4. St.

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Schmithausen 1969

Schmithausen 1973

Schmithausen 1981

ŚSV Steinkellner 2005

Suzuki 1994

Tillemans 1990

Vetter 1982

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ANNE MACDONALD Petersburg 1903-1913. Reprint Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970. Johannes Rahder, Daśabhūmikasūtra. Leuven, 1926. M. Leon Feer, ed. London: Pali Text Society, 1898. Reprint 1960. Christina Scherrer-Schaub, Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvr̥tti. Commentaire à la soixantaine sur le raisonnement ou Du vrai enseignement de la causalité par le Maître indien Candrakīrti. Bruxelles: Institut Belge Des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1991. Lambert Schmithausen, “Ich und Erlösung im Buddhismus.” In Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 53 (1969): 157-170. Lambert Schmithausen, “Spirituelle Praxis und philosophische Theorie im Buddhismus.” In Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 57 (1973): 161186. Lambert Schmithausen, “On some Aspects of Descriptions or Theories of ‘Liberating Insight’ and ‘Enlightenment’ in Early Buddhism.” In Studien zum Jainismus und Buddhismus. Gedenkschrift für Ludwig Alsdorf. Klaus Bruhn and Albrecht Wezler, ed. Wiesbaden 1981: 199-250. Śūnyatāsaptativr̥tti. See Erb 1997. Ernst Steinkellner, Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya, Chapter I. A hypothetical reconstruction of the Sanskrit text. Online publication (http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Mat/dignaga_PS_1.pdf), 2005. Kōshin Suzuki, ed., Sanskrit Fragments and Tibetan Translation of Candrakīrti's Bodhisattvayogācāracatuḥśatakaṭīkā. Tokyo: The Sankibo Press, 1994. Tom J.F. Tillemans, Materials for the Study of Āryadeva, Dharmapāla and Candrakīrti. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 24. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 1990. Tilmann Vetter, “Die Lehre Nāgārjunas in den MūlaMadhyamaka-kārikās.” In Epiphanie des Heils. Zur Heilsgegenwart in indischer und christlicher Religion. Arbeitsdokumentation eines Symposiums. Gerhard Oberhammer, ed. Publications of the de Nobili Research Library, Vol IX. Vienna 1982: 87-108. Yuktiṣaṣṭikā, Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvr̥tti. See Scherrer-Schaub 1991.

VINCENT ELTSCHINGER

On the Career and the Cognition of Yogins1

In the present paper, I shall first attempt to reconstruct Dharmakīrti’s notion of a yogin’s career on the basis of the statements one can find scattered throughout his very influential Pramāṇavārttika. I shall try to draw a coherent picture of both yoga and yogins, from the first insights (prajñā) that take place when still in the stage of an “ordinary person” (pṛthagjana), who is beset by a false view of self (satkāyadṛṣṭi), to the culmination of the yogic endeavour at emancipation (mukti) and/or enli1

The present paper is the fifth in a series of studies of Dharmakīrti’s religious philosophy, see Eltschinger 2005a and b, 2007 and forthcoming. Most sincere thanks are due to Prof. Ernst Steinkellner, Prof. John Taber and Dr. Helmut Krasser, who carefully read through the present paper, and to Mrs Cynthia Peck-Kubacek, who very kindly improved my English. Though I could not do justice to all his suggestions and remarks, I am much indebted to Prof. Eli Franco’s very insightful comments on this paper. Since the present study was written in 2005, it did not take into consideration John Dunne’s 2006 essay on the yogins’ cognition. Dunne’s exegetical hypothesis is, however, diametrically opposed to mine. To put it in a nutshell, Dunne argues that “Dharmakīrti does not choose to present yogic perception as a mystical gnosis that encounters or uncovers real things in the world” (Dunne 2006: 500), or, to put it in other words, that “Dharmakīrti deliberately chooses to downplay the notion that, through spiritual exercises, an adept gains extraordinary sensory abilities” (Dunne 2006: 504). As I shall try to argue in the second part of this paper, I think that Dharmakīrti actually did hold the opinion that, at the completion of the path, the yogin has a direct perceptual encounter with reality itself. In my opinion, Dharmakīrti inherits from ideas that can be found, e.g., in the Śrāvakabhūmi, and which have been summarized recently by Lambert Schmithausen. According to the latter (Schmithausen 2007: 232/79), “the contemplation process culminates in a non-conceptualizing (nirvikalpa) perceptual cognition or insight (pratyakṣaṃ jñānadarśanam) that transcends the mental image and directly apprehends the respective object itself.” To be more precise, the path described in the Śrāvakabhūmi “culminates in a non-conceptualizing (nirvikalpa) perceptual cognition (pratyakṣajñāna) of the four Noble Truths” (Schmithausen 2007: 232/79). Research for this article was supported by the Austrian Science Fund in the context of the FWF-Project P19862 (“Philosophische und religiöse Literatur des Buddhismus”).

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ghtenment (bodhi). The description aims at presenting the religious conceptions that form the background of Dharmakīrti’s epistemological account of a yogin’s perception (yogipratyakṣa). In the second part of this paper, I shall adduce a new and somewhat provocative hypothesis concerning the still rather unclear subject of the nature of the yogin’s cognition. I shall try to show that the properties Dharmakīrti ascribes to a mystic’s perception (pratyakṣa), viz., vividness (spaṣṭābhatā), nonconceptuality (nirvikalpatā) and reliability (avisaṃvāditā), should be taken at face value. To put it in other words, I shall attempt to demonstrate why, though of an admittedly much higher type, the yogins’ perception of the (Buddhist) truths does not differ from ordinary perception. THE CAREER OF A YOGIN 1. On Ordinary Persons (pṛthagjana) and Nescience (avidyā) 1.1. Pṛthagjanatva. The intrinsically painful and unsatisfactory condition from which a yogin wishes to free himself is traditionally described as the state of an ordinary/worldly person (pṛthagjanatva). Buddhist definitions of this state are of a mainly negative character: the ordinary person is one in whose psychic stream the path of seeing (darśanamārga), the four noble truths (āryasatya) or, to be more precise, the supramundane (lokottara) noble factors (āryadharma), have not yet arisen (see below §3.2). According to the Sautrāntikas, the state of an ordinary person – which is denied any reality as a separate entity2 – is to 2

The Vaibhāṣikas, some of whom at least classify pṛthagjanatva as a factor dissociated from the mind (cittaviprayuktadharma), define pṛthagjanatva as follows (AKBh 66,9–12 together with AK 2.40bc1): mārgasyāprāptir iṣyate | pṛthagjanatvam | pṛthagjanatvaṃ katamat | āryadharmāṇām alābha iti śāstrapāṭhaḥ | alābhaś ca nāma aprāptiḥ |. “[T]he non-possession of the noble path is held to be the nature of an ordinary person (pṛthagjanatva). As the śāstra states: ‘What is the nature of an ordinary person? It is the non-acquisition of the noble factors.’ Nonacquisition is a synonym for non-possession.” Translation (of Saṅghabhadra’s Nyāyānusāra 399a) in Cox 1995: 202. According to Cox (1995: 223n. 102), śāstra here refers to Jñānaprasthāna 2, 298c5ff, and Mahāvibhāṣā 45, 232b9ff: “What is the nature of an ordinary person? The nature of an ordinary person is the present, past, and future non-possession of noble factors, noble heat, noble views, noble patience, noble inclination, and noble insight.” Translation in Cox 1995: 223n. 102.

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be defined as follows3: “The state of an ordinary person is the stream in which the noble factors have not arisen.” Not surprisingly, Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika definition coincides with the one put forth by Yogācāras, who hold the state (gnas skabs = avasthā?) of an ordinary person to be one in which the supramundane (lokottara) noble dharmas have not arisen (ma bskyed pa = anutpanna?).4 Idealist sources moreover regard the state of an ordinary person, which they also consider being besieged with erroneous clinging to (the notion of) person(s) and dharmas (pudgaladharmābhiniveśasaṃmoha), as the obstacle (āvaraṇa) that prevents one from entering the first Bodhisattva stage (bhūmi).5 Provided the yogin has not, still as an ordinary person, gone through (parts of) the so-called mundane path of cultivation (laukikabhāvanāmārga), his condition is characterized by entanglement in nescience (avidyā, or ignorance, ajñāna, delusion, moha) and the depravities, moral faults and defilements (āsrava, doṣa, [upa]kleśa, etc.) nescience is responsible for, all of which make one subject to rebirth

3

4

5

See also Siddhi I.57–58. Note that, at least for the epistemologists, the category of arvāgdarśin (“jemand, dessen Erkenntnis von unserer Art ist,” Steinkellner 1979: 79n. 258) is wider than the category of pthagjana: whereas the second refers to those who have not yet entered the path of vision/first Bodhisattva stage, the first is often though not systematically used as an equivalent of asarvadarśin (“nonomniscient”), i.e., seems to refer to all persons who are not Buddhas. AKBh 66,20: anutpannāryadharmasantatiḥ pṛthagjanatvam |. The Mahāvibhāṣā (45, 231b26–29) ascribes to the Dārṣṭāntikas the conception according to which pṛthagjanatva is no real entity (Cox 1995: 224n. 109). See also AKVy 154,28–31 on AKBh 66,20: anutpannāryadharmā santatir iti. anutpannā āryadharmā asyām ity anutpannāryadharmā santatiḥ pṛthagjanatvam. anutpannāryamārgā skandhasantatir ity arthaḥ. arthād utpannāryadharmā santatir āryatvam ity uktaṃ bhavaty āśrayaparāvṛtteḥ. VinSg P77a8, as quoted by Kritzer (2005: 63): so so‘i skye bo gnas skabs gaṅ la gdags | rnam pa du yod ce na | smras pa | ‘jig rten las ‘das pa ‘phags pa‘i chos ma bskyed pa‘i gnas skabs la‘o ||. According to SNS 9.5.1 (see Lamotte 1935: 240), each stage or bhūmi opposes a specific type of error (saṃmoha), the first opposing pudgaladharmābhiniveśasaṃmoha (SNS 127,12–13: sa daṅ po la ni gaṅ zag daṅ chos la mṅon par źen pa kun tu rmoṅs pa). According to Vasubandhu’s commentary on MS 5.1 (see Lamotte 1973: II.196 as well as II.39*, which contains numerous bibliographical references to pṛthagjanas), pṛthagjanatva opposes the first stage. Siddhi II.642 explicitly identifies the SNS’s saṃmoha to Vasubandhu’s pṛthagjanatā, the latter being defined as the (bījas of the) kleśa° and jñeyāvaraṇa of the speculative type (see Siddhi II.639– 640 as well as II.590).

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(punarjanman) and re-existence (punarbhava), i.e., to the intrinsically painful (duḥkha) cycle of transmigration (saṃsāra).6 1.2. Satkāyadṛṣṭi. Dharmakīrti identifies the traditional Buddhist concept of nescience with the equally traditional concept of false view of self (satkāyadṛṣṭi, or °darśana),7 the latter being in turn equivalent to the belief in a self (ātmagraha) or in a (personal) being (sattvagraha).8 What does the false view of self consist of? According to Śākyabuddhi and Karṇakagomin, satkāyadṛṣṭi is to be explained as clinging or adherence to the self and one’s own (ātmātmīyābhiniveśa),9 which is close to the definitions of pṛthagjanatva provided earlier by the Sautrāntikas as well as the Yogācāras. According to (the Sautrāntika) Vasubandhu, satkāyadṛṣṭi consists in the false view of the self and one’s own (ātmātmīyadṛṣṭi),10 and is to be explained as an “aberration relative to the things which constitute the pseudoperson.”11 According to the Yogācāra VinSg, which Vasubandhu most likely relied upon,12 satkāyadṛṣṭi it to 6

7

8

9

10

11

12

On pthagjanas in epistemological literature, see PVP D195a2–3/P227b6, PVṬ Ñe D205b2/P253b2–3 (ad PV 3.217b; for the context, see Eltschinger 2005b: 168– 171); PVP D58a6/P66b1–2 (ad PV 2.140–141a; for the context, see Eltschinger 2005a: 415–416). See Vetter 1990: 22–26 and Schmithausen 1987: II.517–519 (= n. 1421). On satkāyadṛṣṭi in general, see Rahder 1932, Kośa 5.15–17 + nn. 2–3 (AKBh 281,17– 282,3 on AK 5.7), TṛBh 23,12 and 29,21, Traité II.737n. 3. On the reasons for such an identification (rejected by Vasubandhu, see AK 3.29c), see Eltschinger (2007a, Appendix D, §1). According to PV 2.211 and PV 2.196. For a more complete list of conceptual equivalents, see Vetter 1990: 22–23. PVṬ Je D252a6/P299b8–300a1 = PVSVṬ 401,23: satkāyadarśanād ātmātmīyābhiniveśāt |. AKBh 281,20: ātmadṛṣṭir ātmīyadṛṣṭir vā satkāyadṛṣṭiḥ |, and AKBh 281,24: ātmātmīyadṛṣṭir eva satkāyadṛṣṭiḥ |. See AKBh 290,19–21: api cānayor dṛṣṭyoḥ svadravyasaṃmūḍhatvād aparapīḍāpravṛttatvāc ca | svargatṛṣṇāsmimānayor apy evaṃ prasaṅgaḥ | sahajā satkāyadṛṣṭir avyākṛtā | yā mṛgapakṣiṇām api vartate | vikalpitā tv akuśaleti pūrvācāryāḥ |. English translation of Kośa 5.41 in Pruden 1991: III.798. See also AKVy 463,8–10: svadravyasaṃmūḍhatvād iti. svasantatipatitānām upādānaskandhānām ātmātmīyatvena grahaṇāt svadravyasaṃmūḍhā satkāyadṛṣṭiḥ |. See Kritzer 2005: 292–293 (“Saṃghabhadra identifies this as the opinion of the sūtra-master [T. 1562: 618a17–19] and refutes it”). The first of the two passages quoted by Kritzer (2005: 293) runs as follows (VinSg P112b6–113a1): de la ‘jig tshogs la lta ba gaṅ źe na | ñe bar len pa‘i phuṅ po lṅa po dag la bdag gam bdag gir

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be defined as “the false view of self and one’s own (ātmātmīyadṛṣṭi), clinging (abhiniveśa) and ‘mentalization’ (sems la ‘jog pa) with regard to the five constituents-of-personality being clung to (upādānaskandha).” According to all the schools mentioned – the Yogācāras, the Sautrāntikas, and epistemologists such as Dharmakīrti – this false view of self is twofold, viz. speculative (parikalpita VinSg, ASBh, LAV, PVP, PVṬ, vikalpita AKBh) and innate/spontaneous (sahaja).13 The speculative false view of self characterizes heretics (anyatīrthya, VinSg), i.e., substantialist philosophers such as Sāṅkhyas and Vaiśeṣikas (AKVy),14 and arises out of the meditation on (heterodox) treatises (śāstracint[an]ādi, PVṬ).15 The innate view of self is common to puerile worldly people (bālapṛthagjana, VinSg) as well as to animals like antelopes and birds (mṛgapakṣin, VinSg, AKBh)16 and arises out of beginningless latent tendencies (anādivāsanā, PVṬ).17 According to Dharmakīrti, both the speculative and the innate false views of self characterize the type of living beings traditional Buddhist scholasticism classifies as ordinary persons. 1.3. Pratītyasamutpāda. Nescience traditionally forms the first link in the Buddhist twelve-membered chain of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and as such at least indirectly conditions thirst or craving (tṛṣṇā, or love, sneha, or desire, rāga). This craving is in turn regarded as the cause of suffering (duḥkhahetu), i.e., the factor that prompts deluded people to act in order to quench their thirst, hence to

13

14 15

16 17

ba lta ba daṅ | mṅon par źen pa daṅ sems la ‘jog pa gaṅ yin pa de ni ‘jig tshogs la lta ba źes bya‘o || de‘aṅ rnam pa gñis su rig par bya ste | lhan cig skyes pa daṅ kun brtags pa‘o || de la lhan cig skyes pa ni byis pa so so‘i skye bo thams cad daṅ tha na ri dags daṅ bya rnams kyi yaṅ yin no || kun brtags pa ni gźan mu stegs can rnams kyi yin par blta bar bya‘o ||. LAV 117,17–118,13, AKBh 290,19–21 (see n. 11 above), VinSg (see n. 12 above), PV 2.199 (see n. 47 below). Note that Prajñākaragupta and Manorathanandin call the first of these two kinds of satkāyadṛṣṭi “ābhisaṃskārikā;” Manorathanandin defines it as skandhavyatiriktātmādhyavasāyinī (see PVA 139,27–28 and PVV 79,20– 23). AKVy 463,17–18: yā ātmavādibhiḥ kapilolūkādibhir vikalpitā |. PVṬ Ñe D131b6–7/P162a7–8: kun tu brtags pa ni bstan bcos sems pa la sogs pa‘i sgo nas byuṅ ba‘o || lhan cig skyes pa ni thog ma med pa‘i bag chags las byuṅ ba‘o ||. See nn. 11 and 12 above. See n. 15 above.

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be bound to saṃsāric existence.18 Dharmakīrti devotes many pratītyasamutpāda-like passages to account for the rise of craving and the other defilements out of the belief in the person. One of the clearest runs as follows19: “The one who sees a self has a constant love for this [self, thinking of it as] ‘I’. Because of [this] love [for the self] he craves for the delights [for that self, and this] thirst conceals [from him] the drawbacks [of the things he deems conducive to these delights]. Seeing [but] qualities [to these things], he craves [for them thinking of them as having to become] ‘mine’, and appropriates (upā√dā) the means [that are conducive] to them. Therefore he [remains] in saṃsāra as long as he clings to [that] self.” These texts exhibit the traditional chain that links nescience, craving, appropriation (upādāna) and (re-)existence (bhava[/jāti]), but fail to inform us further about the rise of passions or defilements other than craving. The PVSV provides us with the most exhaustive picture of Dharmakīrti’s account of the genealogy of defilements20: “The birth of all kinds of [moral] faults is due to the [false] view of self [i.e., to the clinging to self and one’s own, and] this [false 18

19

20

See PV 2.146a (duḥkhaṃ saṃsāriṇaḥ skandhāḥ) and PV 2.185d (tasmāt tṛṣṇā bhavāśrayaḥ) in Vetter 1990: 53 and 88. PV 2.217–218: yaḥ paśyaty ātmānaṃ tatrāsyāham iti śāśvataḥ snehaḥ | snehāt sukheṣu tṛṣyati tṛṣṇā doṣāṃs tiraskurute || guṇadarśī paritṛṣyan mameti tatsādhanāny upādatte | tenātmābhiniveśo yāvat tāvat sa saṃsāre ||. “Genealogy” as a free rendering of Karṇakagomin’s krama (lit. sequence, succession; PVSVṬ 401,25–26: kena punaḥ krameṇa doṣāṇāṃ satkāyadarśanād utpattiḥ |). Satkāyadarśana is the prabhava (PVSV 111,11, gl. utpattikāraṇa PVSVṬ 401,20), the mūla (PV 2.196), the ekayoni (PV 2.211) of the defilements. PVSV 111,13–20 (together with PV 1.222): sarvāsāṃ doṣajātīnāṃ jātiḥ satkāyadarśanāt | sāvidyā tatra tatsnehas tasmād dveṣādisambhavaḥ || na hi nāhaṃ na mameti paśyataḥ parigraham antareṇa kvacit snehaḥ | na cānanurāgiṇaḥ kvacid dveṣaḥ | ātmātmīyānuparodhiny uparodhapratighātini ca tadabhāvāt | tasmāt samānajātīyābhyāsajam ātmadarśanam ātmīyagrahaṃ prasūte | tau ca tatsnehaṃ sa ca dveṣādīn iti satkāyadarśanajāḥ sarvadoṣāḥ | tad eva cājñānam ity ucyate |. See also PV 2.196ac: mohaś ca mūlaṃ doṣāṇāṃ sa ca sattvagraho vinā | tenāghahetau na dveṣaḥ … “Delusion is the root[-cause] of [moral] faults, and this [delusion] consists in the belief in a [personal] being. In the absence (vinā) of this [belief, there can be] no aversion for a cause of evil (agha) [since the error of an injury to the self does not occur for one who does not see any self].” PV 2.211: ātmagrahaikayonitvāt … rāgapratighayoḥ … “Because both desire and hostility have the belief in a self as their only source.” PV 2.212cd: tanmūlāś ca malāḥ sarve sa ca satkāyadarśanam ||. “All the defilements have this [delusion] as [their] root[-cause], and this [delusion] is the [false] view of the self.” On this point, see Franco 2001: 295–296.

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view of self] is nescience [itself]; with regard to the [object which is clung to as being self and one’s own arises] love for those [i.e., for self and one’s own, and] from this [love] are born such [evil defilements] as aversion. Indeed, the one who, without grasping (parigraha), sees that there is neither I nor mine, does not love anything and, [being so] unattached, does not hate anything [either], for there is no [aversion] for that which does not hinder the self or one’s own, nor of that which opposes the [said] hindrance.21 Therefore the [false] view of self, which is born from the repeated habit (abhyāsa) of the [previous very] same [false view of self], generates the [false] view of one’s own. Both of them then [produce] love for those [two things, self and one’s own], and this [love in turn generates] such [evil passions] as aversion. Therefore all [moral] faults are born from the [false] view of self, and it is this [false view of self] that is called ‘ignorance’ (ajñāna) [in our doctrinal system].” Provided, once again, that he has not yet gotten rid of those defilements that an ordinary person can eliminate by means of the mundane path of cultivation, the pṛthagjana is first and foremost typified by his erroneous superimposition of ego-related aspects onto the selfless constituents of reality, and by the correlative defilements that make him slave to saṃsāra and suffering. 2. The Idea of a Way Out 2.1. Gotra, kalyāṇamitra and the śrutamayī prajñā. There are some reasons to believe that at least some of Dharmakīrti’s commentators and epigones assented to the (mainly) Mahāyānist doctrinal complex that entails such key notions as gotra (“family”), kalyāṇamitra (“spiritual friend”), bodhicitta (“thought of enlightenment”) and praṇidhāna (“vow”).22 Asked to account for the cause(s) of a Bodhisattva’s first im21

22

See PV 2.219: ātmani sati parasaṃjñā svaparavibhāgāt parigrahadveṣau | anayoḥ sampratibaddhāḥ sarve doṣāḥ prajāyante || “When there is [a notion of] a self, [there is] a notion of the other; from [this very] distinction between a self and another, both grasping (parigraha) and aversion [are generated and], bound to these two, all the [moral] faults arise.” On gotra, see PVP D16a5/P18a3–4, PVṬ Ñe D88b5/P108a3–4, TSP K872,1– 7/Ś1055,14–20 and PVV 20,12–17 (on this passage, see Franco 1997: 24); on bodhicitta and praṇidhāna, see PVP D85a5/P98a1 (byaṅ chub kyi sems sṅon du soṅ ba can gyi brtse ba) and PVV 79,9 (praṇidhāna). See Eltschinger (2008, §§3.2–3 and 5.4).

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pulse toward the practice of compassion (karuṇā), Devendrabuddhi, Śākyabuddhi and Kamalaśīla mention a particular type of living being (sattvaviśeṣa, PVP), i.e., a (specific) family (gotra PVṬ, gotraviśeṣa TSP) that we must understand as consisting of the bodhisattvagotra (“family of Bodhisattvas,” in contrast to the families of the Hearers [śrāvakagotra] or Buddhas-for-themselves [pratyekabuddhagotra]). Indeed, the bodhisattvagotra is intrinsically linked to compassion.23 His belonging to this family causes the Bodhisattva, still as an ordinary person, to generate the (conventional) thought of enlightenment and to make the vow of striving for awakening in order to alleviate the suffering of living beings.24 Elsewhere I have argued that Dharmakīrti’s PV 2.131cd–132ab can be interpreted as providing us with a functional equivalent to the arising of the thought of enlightenment25: “[Wishing to calm other people’s suffering,] the compassionate [Bodhisattva] engages in [the cultivation of] means to [calm suffering] in order to eradicate [his own] suffering: for whom the goal (upeya) and [its] cause remain imperceptible (parokṣa), it is indeed a difficult task to [correctly] teach [others about them].” True to a well-documented Yogācāra tradition, Devendrabuddhi, Śākyabuddhi and Ravigupta also consider companionship with and service (sevā) to a “spiritual friend” to be instrumental (< pratyaya) in the the rising of the first impulse of a (novice) Bodhisattva toward the practice of compassion.26 In addition to his exhortation to engage in compassion, this kalyāṇamitra’s main function is to teach Dharma or the path toward awakening (bodhimārga). From such a Buddha or skilled Bodhisattva, the yogin hears or learns (√śru) the Good Law (saddharma) or Word (pravacana) of the Buddha27: this is the so-called wisdom born of listening (śrutamayī prajñā), which, just

23

24 25

26 27

See MSA 3.5 together with MSABh 11,18, Maithrimurthi 1999: 268 and nn. 153– 154. See BoBh D10,12–13/W15,11–12 and MSABh 15,2. PV 2.131cd–132ab: dayāvān duḥkhahānārtham upāyeṣv abhiyujyate || parokṣopeyataddhetos tadākhyānaṃ hi duṣkaram |. See Eltschinger (2008, §§5.3–5). See Eltschinger (2008, §3.4). See Eltschinger (2008, n. 75). Interestingly, the Buddha’s Word seems to be ninemembered (navāṅga) rather than twelve-membered (dvādaśāṅga) in the few places it is mentioned by the epistemologists. See PVP D120b4–5/P139b3 (together with PVṬ Ñe D150b3–4/P186a2–3) and TSP K877,4–6/Ś1062,7–9. On this distinction, see Lamotte 1976: 157–159.

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like the following “wisdom born of (rational) reflection,” the (novice) Bodhisattva obtains still as an ordinary person.28 2.2. Cintāmayī prajñā.29 The wisdom born of (rational) reflection mirrors the concerns of a human “type” who is ideally possessed of two properties: first, his desire to engage (pravṛttikāma) in a religious path and second, his practical rationality (prekṣāvattva, prekṣāpūrvakāritva). At this stage, the (novice) Bodhisattva submits the scriptural contents he has previously heard/learnt to a rational inquiry (yukti) or examination (parīkṣā, vicāra, etc.) that mainly proceeds by means of inference (anumāna, sādhana). Wisdom born of (rational) reflection consists in an ascertainment (niścaya, nirṇaya) of scriptural contents through the so-called means of valid cognition (pramāṇa), and results in (a) cognition(s) that is/are termed “agreeing with the means of valid cognition” (pramāṇasaṃvādin), i.e., whose objects (artha) have proved to stand critical analysis by means of pramāṇas (pramāṇa[pari]śuddhārtha, pramāṇa[pari]dṛṣṭārtha) and hence are deemed to be worthy of (religious) exertion/endeavour (abhiyogārha). Typical of this kind of object are the four Noble Truths, which form the core or principal point (pradhānārtha) of the Buddhist teaching and which a rational person subjects to inferential investigation in order to assess the reliability (avisaṃvāditva) of scriptures (āgama). In a philosophical narrative,30 28

29

30

See MSAVBh D142b5–6 on MSA 9.76a1 (dhāraṇāt): daṅ po so so‘i skye bo‘i dus na dge ba‘i bśes gñen la brten nas | dam pa‘i chos mñan pa daṅ | mñan nas tshig daṅ don gzuṅ ba daṅ gzuṅ ba rnams bsam źiṅ … “First when [still] an ordinary person (pṛthagjanakāle), [the Bodhisattva] learns (√śru) the Good Law (saddharma) relying on a spiritual friend (kalyāṇamitram āśritya), grasps (√grah) the word (vyañjana?) and the meaning (artha) after he has learnt (śrutvā) [them] and reflects (√cint) upon the [things thus] grasped (gṛhīta) … ” On the cintāmayī prajñā, see Eltschinger (forthcoming 1). The present section is but a summary of (parts of) the second part of this study. PV 2.132cd–135: yuktyāgamābhyāṃ vimṛśan duḥkhahetuṃ parīkṣate || tasyānityādirūpaṃ ca duḥkhasyaiva viśeṣaṇaiḥ | yatas tathā sthite hetau nivṛttir neti paśyati || phalasya hetor hānārthaṃ tadvipakṣaṃ parīkṣate | sādhyate tadvipakṣo ’pi heto rūpāvabodhataḥ || ātmātmīyagrahakṛtaḥ snehaḥ saṃskāragocaraḥ | hetur virodhi nairātmyadarśanaṃ tasya bādhakam ||. “Reflecting on [the means and the goal] through reasoning (yukti) and the Scriptures (āgama), [the compassionate Bodhisattva] inquires into the cause of the suffering [that is to be eradicated] and, through the particularities of suffering itself, [he inquires also] into the impermanent nature, etc., of the [cause in question]. Since in this way [he who wishes to eradicate suffer-

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Dharmakīrti relates how the compassionate Buddha-to-be, rationally and scripturally (yuktyāgamābhyām), reflects upon the cause of suffering and the antidote (vipakṣa, pratipakṣa) to that cause. The Bodhisattva first determines love (sneha, i.e., craving), itself generated by the belief in self and one’s own (ātmātmīyagrahakṛta), to be the (destructible) cause of suffering. He then identifies the means (upāya) or factor (dharma) that is able to oppose, contradict (vi√rudh, √bādh) and destroy the cause of suffering: this antidote or antagonistic factor consists in the view or perception of unsubstantiality or emptiness (nairātmyadarśana or °dṛṣṭi, śūnyatādṛṣṭi). In the stage of rational reflection, pramāṇas (i.e., inference) ascertain or determine the real aspects (bhūtākāra, impermanence, painfulness, emptiness in the sense of the lack of one’s own [AKBh 400,2–3], selflessness, etc.) of entities and hence provide the reflecting yogin’s cognition with aspects (ākāra) and objects (ālambana) that contradict, oppose or counteract the superimpositions (samāropa, etc., namely, permanence, delight, one’s own, self, etc.) that ignorance, as a generalized erroneous perception (mithyopalabdhi), is responsible for. What the yogin is intent upon here is nothing other than following a path that will enable him to counteract (pratipakṣamārga) the adventitious (āgantuka) filth of passions and ing] sees that there is no end to the effect so long as the cause remains, he inquires into the antidote of the [cause of suffering] in order to eliminate it. [As for the dharma forming] the antidote of that [cause, it] is also ascertained by the [Bodhisattva’s] knowledge of the nature of the cause [itself]. [That] cause [is] attachment bearing on dispositions, [an attachment which] is due to the belief in self and one’s own; [as for] the antidote to that [cause, it is] the perception of selfnessness which opposes it.” On this important passage, see inter alia Franco 1989: 84–90, Vetter 1990: 11–12, Eltschinger 2005: 397–408, Eltschinger (forthcoming 1, §2.4) and Dunne 2006: 505–507. It is easy to show that this passage narrates the Bodhisattva’s rational determination of the Noble Truths. PV 2.131cd–132ab present us with a mahāyānist account of the Bodhisattva’s being struck by his own as well as the other living beings’ suffering (duḥkhasatya). This of course needs not be further investigated since duḥkha is but an empirical fact. PV 2.132c–133ab and 135ac1 account for the Bodhisattva’s inquiry into the origin of suffering (samudayasatya), whereas PV 2.134bd and 135c2d describe his determination of the path leading to the destruction of suffering (mārgasatya). As to the destruction of suffering (nirodhasatya) itself, it cannot be made the object of an analysis, but merely be hinted at, which we can observe in PV 2.133cd–134a, with its characteristic allusion to nivṛtti. On that passage, see in general Eltschinger 2005a: 397–408 and Eltschinger (forthcoming 1, §2.4).

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hence establish his mind (citta = vijñāna) in its naturally radiant (prabhāsvara) and flawless (nirāsrava) condition. 3. The Path to Salvation 3.1. Pratipakṣamārga.31 According to Dharmakīrti, nescience consists in an erroneous perception (PV 2.213) that he identifies with the innate false view of self. This false view gives rise to thirst or craving, which is regarded as the cause of suffering. The yogin who is eager to rid himself of suffering will thus have to eliminate craving and other defilements by eradicating their cause. In other words, he will have to develop and cultivate the perception of unsubstantiality or emptiness, which acts as an antidote or antagonistic factor to the false view of self, in order to free himself from craving and suffering. This antagonism between avidyā = satkāyadṛṣṭi and nairātmyadarśana is based on the fact that these mutually opposing factors display contrary aspects of the object (viparītālambanākāra).32 Two stanzas of PV 2 account well for this mutual incompatibility and for Dharmakīrti’s general conception of the yogic path33: “Having[, due to nescience,] superimposed sixteen unreal aspects, viz. ‘lasting’, ‘pleasant’, ‘mine’, ‘I’,34 etc., on the four [Noble] Truths, one experiences craving [for such a superimposed object as delight, etc.]. 35The correct view, well cultivated,36 destroys the thirst together with its suite [of defilements such as selfishness, envy, etc.,37 insofar as this correct view], with regard to these [four Noble 31 32

33

34 35

36

37

Pratipakṣamārga in PVṬ Je D252a1–2/P299a8–b1 = PVSVṬ 401,12–13. PVP D115b3/P134a4: ‘gal ba de yaṅ* dmigs pa’i rnam pa phyin ci log pa’i sgo nas yin no ||. * = ma rig pa daṅ bdag med pa ñid mthoṅ ba ‘gal ba according to PVṬ Ñe D147a3/P181b5–6. PV 2.270–271: sthiraṃ sukhaṃ mamāhaṃ cetyādi satyacatuṣṭaye | abhūtān ṣoḍaśākārān āropya paritṛṣyati || tatraiva tadviruddhārthatattvākārānurodhinī | hanti sānucarāṃ tṛṣṇāṃ samyagdṛṣṭiḥ subhāvitā ||. On anurodhin, see Vetter 1990: 27n. 14. See PVP D115b4–6/P134a5–8 and PVṬ Ñe D147b1–3/P182a5–8. According to PVP D116a2–3/P134b4–5, Dharmakīrti shows now that the path is the counteracting factor because it is possessed with aspects that are contrary to the ones superimposed by nescience. According to PVP D116a6/P135a1, once the perception of unsubstantiality has become coessential (sātmībhūta) with the mind through cultivation; on PVV 103,8 (subhāvitā sādaranirantaradīrghakālābhyāsaprāptavaiśadyā), see below §3.5. Mātsarya and īrṣyā according to PVP D116a6/P135a1–2 and PVV 103,8–9 .

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Truths], conforms to (anurodhin) the real aspects of the thing38 which are contradictory to the [ones falsely ascribed by ignorance].”39 Nescience has one superimpose or grasp such unreal aspects as permanence.40 Once craving and all kinds of defilements arise, they bear upon objects whose aspects have been superimposed.41 Now the perception of unsubstantiality entails or goes along with the sixteen real aspects of the Noble Truths,42 i.e., is provided with aspects that are contradictory to those superimposed by nescience. Cultivating this perception to its maximum degree of intensity, i.e., up to the point where it becomes essential to the mind or the psychic stream, will annul not only the innate false view of self, but also all the defilements that it gives rise to by providing them with (pseudo-)objects. Such is the basic structure and goal of Dharmakīrti’s path (mārga). Though this structure remains basically the same for all types of Buddhist yogins (Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas), differences are mainly concerned with the initial motivation (nimitta, prayojana) guiding the yogin, and hence with

38

39

40

41

42

Literally: “aspects which constitute the true reality of the thing.” See Devendrabuddhi’s and Manorathanandin’s explanations in PVP D116a3/P134b5 and PVV 103,6– 8 respectively. PVP D116a1–2/P134b3–4: lam ma rig pa daṅ ‘gal bar gyur pa na sred pa daṅ yaṅ don gyis ‘gal ba yin no źes bstan to ||. “[Dharmakīrti] teaches [here] that if the path is contradictory to nescience, it is [then] indirectly (arthāt) contradictory to craving too.” PVP D115b6–7/P134a8–b2 presents us with the following unreal aspects with regard to tṛṣṇālakṣaṇo duḥkhahetuḥ: erroneous superimposition of asamudaya°, ahetu°, apratyaya° and aprabhavākāra. PVṬ Ñe D147b3–5/P182a8–b2 supplies for Dharmakīrti’s and Devendrabuddhi’s °ādis in the following way: superimposition of anirodha°, aśānta°, apraṇīta° and aniḥsaraṇākāra with regard to nirodhasatya; superimposition of amārga°, anyāya°, apratipatti° and anairyāṇikākāra with regard to mārgasatya. Note PVṬ Ñe D147b5–7/P182b2–4: sgro btags nas ni yoṅs su sred ces bya ba‘i tshig gis log par sgro ‘dogs pa sṅon du soṅ ba can gyi sred pa ñid gsal bar bstan pa yin no || sgro ‘dogs pa‘i yul la ‘jug pa‘i sred pa de yaṅ sgro ‘dogs pa‘i rnam pa ñid yin la | sgro ‘dogs pa‘i rnam pa can gyi yul can gyi ñon moṅs pa daṅ ñe ba‘i ñon moṅs pa thams cad ñid ma rig pa ñid yin pa de ltar na de‘i raṅ bźin can ñid kyaṅ bstan pa ñid yin no ||. See AKBh 343,16–19 together with Kośa 6.163 (Pruden 1991: III.930) and, for definitions, AKBh 400,1–401,17 together with Kośa 7.30–39 (Pruden 1991: IV.1110–1116).

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the length of the cultivation as well as with the quality or scope of the salvational result.43 3.2. Darśanamārga. When he practiced rational reflection on scriptural contents, the yogin was still an ordinary person, and the compassion he was endowed with still bore upon a hypostasised notion of living beings (sattvālambana).44 To put it in a more traditional way, we could say that at this stage, the yogin was a Bodhisattva who has formed the initial resolution (prathamacittotpādika), abiding in the so-called adhimukticaryābhūmi (“stage of zealous conduct”). The supramundane noble factors that an ordinary person is per definitionem bereft of are those that arise on the so-called path of vision/seeing (darśanamārga), which (normally) opens up the Buddhist religious path properly speaking and coincides, in a Mahāyānist perspective, with the Bodhisattva’s entrance into the first stage (most commonly known as the “joyful stage,” pramuditā bhūmiḥ).45 The state of an ordinary person ceases as soon as the yogin has entered the path of vision46: at this time, the yogin becomes a noble person (ārya[pudgala]) and enters the path of those who are undergoing religious training (śaikṣamārga). Like all the path structures that have been inherited from the Vaibhāṣika abhisamayavāda, Dharmakīrti’s path is basically twofold, divided into a path of vision and a path of cultivation (bhāvanāmārga, though both are here included in the broader category of bhāvanā). Dharmakīrti spells it out as follows47: “[Objection:] Inexistence (abhava) [i.e., liberation from saṃsāra,] 43

44

45 46

47

For differences between the darśanamārgas of the Śrāvakas and the Bodhisattvas, see MS 3.15. PVṬ Je D24b6/P29b2–3 = PVSVṬ 53,9: sattvālambanā pṛthagjanānām |. “sattvālambanā” refers itself to karuṇā and more generally, to the four “immeasurables” (apramāṇa). See e.g. BoBh D223,22–25/W326,22–327,1. There are at least two interpretations with regard to the nature of the noble factors referred to in the Vaibhāṣika definition of the state of an ordinary being: “To the non-acquisition of which factors does the nature of an ordinary person refer? [According to two interpretations, it is maintained that the nature of an ordinary person] is either the general non-acquisition of all (sarva) noble factors or the [specific] non-acquisition only of the presentiment of the knowledge of the doctrine with regard to suffering (duḥkhe dharmajñānakṣānti).” Nyāyānusāra 399b as translated in Cox 1995: 203. See also Kośa 6.182–183n. 1 (Pruden 1991: III.1056–1057n. 165). PV 2.199ac: satkāyadṛṣṭer vigamād ādya evābhavo bhavet | mārge cet sahajāhāner na …

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should occur [already] on the initial path [i.e., during the path of vision],48 for the [false] view of self[, which is the cause of the connection to a new birth,] ceases [at that time].49 [Answer:] No, because [at that time] one does not rid oneself of the innate [false view of self].” We see thus that Dharmakīrti also accepted the two above-mentioned satkāyadṛṣṭis: whereas the speculative one is to be eliminated by the path of vision, the innate one, which arises from beginningless latent tendencies, can only be eliminated by the path of cultivation (bhāvanāmārgaheya, PVṬ, PVV). Since one does not rid oneself of the innate satkāyadṛṣṭi, i.e., the cause of rebirth (punarbhavahetu, PVP), by the path of vision,50 love for the self (ātmasneha PVP, tṛṣṇā PVV) continues beyond the path of vision and results in re-existence (punarbhava PVP, janmaprabandha PVV).51 This amounts to saying that such Bud48

49

50

51

PVP D85a7/P98a4: lam daṅ po ste | mthoṅ ba‘i lam; PVV 79,19: ādya eva mārge darśanamārge. According to Śākyabuddhi (PVṬ Ñe D131b5/P162a6), Dharmakīrti calls the darśanamārga the “initial path” because darśanamārga occurs before the path of cultivation, the path of those who are undergoing religious training (śaikṣamārga) and the path of those who no longer need religious training (aśaikṣamārga). On śaikṣas and aśaikṣa = arhat, see AKBh 365,16–366,7 and Kośa 6.230–233. The category of Śaikṣa covers seven types of saints or noble persons (āryapudgala) according to AKBh 365,18–19 (sapta pūrvoktāḥ pudgalāḥ śaikṣā iti |), viz., four “candidates” (pratipannakāḥ) and three “abiders” (phale sthitāḥ, AKBh 366,1–2): the ones who are in the progress of realizing the four states of Srotaāpanna, Sakṛdāgāmin, Anāgāmin and Arhat, and those who in fact are Srotaāpanna, Sakṛdāgāmin and Anāgāmin (AKBh 366,2–3). On the Srotaāpanna, see AK 6.29cd together with AKBh 353,20–22 (Kośa 6.194, Pruden 1991: III.953); on the Sakṛdāgāmin (devān gatvā sakṛn manuṣyalokāgamanāt sakṛdāgāmī, AKBh 358,1–2), see AK 6.35 together with AKBh 358,1–3 (Kośa 6.208–209, Pruden 1991: III.964–965); on the Anāgāmin (kāmadhātvanāgamanāt, AKBh 358,16–17), see AK 6.36d together with AKBh 358,16–17 (Kośa 6.209–210, Pruden 1991: III.965–966). Conclusion, PVP D85a7/P98a4–5: de yaṅ mi ‘gyur ba de‘i phyir bdag tu chags pa skye ba‘i mtshams sbyor ba‘i rgyu ma yin no źe na |. “But it does not occur [at that time]; therefore, love for the self (ātmasneha) is not the cause of the connection to a [new] birth.” Note also PVP D121a1/P139b7–8 (about abāhyaśaikṣas, i.e., Buddhist śaikṣas): lhan cig skyes pa‘i ‘jig tshogs su lta ba ma spaṅs pa‘i phyir ro ||. See PVP D85b1–2/P98a5–7: bdag tu lta ba‘i rnam pa gñis te | kun brtags pa daṅ lhan cig skyes pa‘o || kun tu brtags pa de ni de dag gis śin tu kun tu spyod pa‘i chos ma yin pas na spaṅs pas de ni skye ba‘i kun nas ‘chiṅ ba‘i rgyur mi ‘gyur ro || ‘jig tshogs su lta ba lhan cig skyes pa yaṅ srid pa‘i rgyu gaṅ yin pa de ni de dag ñid kyis spaṅs pa ma yin no || de ma spaṅs pa‘i rgyu‘i phyir bdag tu chags pa ma log pa ñid yin pa de ltar na yaṅ srid pa yod pa yin no ||. PVV 79,20–23: dvidhā hi satkāyadṛṣṭir

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dhist saints as the stream-enterer (srotaāpanna), the once-returner (sakṛdāgāmin) and the non-returner (anāgāmin) are still possessed of an innate erroneous nescience (*sahajāvidyā viparītā?) that they will have to eradicate by the path of cultivation.52 3.3. Bhāvanāmārga. At the end of the path of vision, the śaikṣas of the śrāvaka type obtain the religious fruit or result (phala) they were a candidate for (pratipannaka) before entering the path. Depending on the extent to which they have, still as ordinary persons, eliminated the bhāvanāheya defilements by means of a mundane path of cultivation,53 they obtain the results of stream-enterer, once-returner and non-returner.54 As such they are reborn, respectively, seven times in the realm of desire (kāmadhātu), or only once, or no more, before they reach emancipation from saṃsāra, i.e., nirvāṇa. The supramundane path of cultivation they

52

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ābhis[a]ṃskārikī yā skandhavyatiriktātmādhyavasāyinī sahajā ca | tatra prathamā darśanamārge hīyate | na dvitīyā bhāvanāmārgaheyā | sā ca mohas tṛṣṇāyāś ca hetur iti bhavati janmaprabandhaḥ |. PVṬ Ñe D131b7/P162a8–b1: de dag ñid kyis spaṅs pa ma yin no źes bya ba ni thog ma med pa‘i bag chags las byuṅ ba de ni bsgom pa‘i lam ñid kyis spaṅ bar bya ba ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro ||. For a similar distinction between speculative-darśanaheya and innate-bhāvanāheya āvaraṇas, see Siddhi II.572 and Siddhi II.639–640. PVṬ Ñe D131b7/P162b1–2: bdag tu chags pa khas len pa ñid kyi phyir | rgyun du źugs pa la lhan cig skyes pa‘i mi śes pa phyin ci log yod pa yin no źes bstan pa‘i phyir |. See also ASBh 62,3–4, as quoted by Schmithausen (1987: II.440n. 931): sahajā satkāyadṛṣṭir bhāvanāprahātavyā: yām adhiṣṭhāya utpannadarśanamārgasyāpy āryaśrāvakasyāsmimānaḥ samudācarati |. “Innate [false] view of self is to be eliminated through cultivation: based on this (yām adhiṣṭhāya) [innate false view of self], egotism (asmimāna) occurs even in a Noble Hearer (āryaśrāvaka) in whom the path of vision has arisen.” ASBh 62,9–11, as (partly) quoted by Schmithausen (1987: II.440–441n. 932): darśanamārgeṇa prahīṇaparikalpitasatkāyadṛṣṭimalasyāpy āryaśrāvakasya pūrvābhiniveśābhyāsakṛtam … ātmadarśanam anuvartate yat tat punar mārgabhāvanayā prahātavyaṃ bhavati |. “Even in a Noble Hearer in whom the impurity consisting in the speculative [false] view of self has been eliminated by the path of vision, the [false] view of self, caused by the repeated habit of former clinging, goes on existing, which is still to be eliminated by the cultivation of the path.” Laukikabhāvanāmārga at PVV 107,5–6; see also TS 3496–3497, and Kośa 6.iv–xi (Pruden 1991: III.xiv–xxii). PVP D85a7/P98a4: rgyun du źugs pa la sogs pa; PVV 79,19: srotaāpannasya. PVṬ Ñe D131b5–6/P162a6–7: rgyun du źugs pa la sogs pa źes bya ba la sogs pa‘i sgras ni lan cig phyir ‘oṅ ba daṅ phyir mi ‘oṅ ba gzuṅ ṅo || sdug bsṅal gyi bden pa mthoṅ ba ñid kyis de dag gis ‘jig tshogs su lta ba spaṅs pa yin no ||.

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still need in order to get rid of the remaining defilements is then extremely short. Highly different is the situation of the śaikṣa who is destined for Buddhahood and not for Arhatship, and who, still as an ordinary person, had made the vow to reach enlightenment in order to alleviate living beings’ suffering by teaching them the path to liberation. As far as I can see, this Buddha-to-be still must rid himself of three major elements as he exits the path of vision. (1) Like Hearers and Buddhasfor-themselves, he will have to uproot the innate false view of self together with its attendant defilements, but (2) unlike Hearers and Buddhas-for-themselves, he will have to eliminate these defilements together with their traces or after-effects (vāsanā), which regularly manifest themselves in Arhats through corporeal, vocal or mental deficiencies (kāyavākcittavaiguṇya). (3) The Buddha-to-be still must uproot the so-called undefiled nescience or ignorance (akliṣṭāvidyā, or °ajñāna, or °saṃmoha). To put it technically, the Bodhisattva must eradicate two kinds of obstacles (āvaraṇa) in addition to the innate false view of self: the obstacle that consists in the defilements together with their after-effect (savāsanakleśāvaraṇa), and the obstacle that conceals the knowable (jñeyāvaraṇa).55 Needless to say, this threefold uprooting demands an incomparably longer path of cultivation than that taken by Hearers and Buddhas-for-themselves.56 Whoever the yogin may be, the cultivation or repeated practice (abhyāsa) consists in the yogin’s practicing (prayoga) or generating (utpādana, utpatti) repeatedly, “again and again” (punaḥ punaḥ, paunaḥpunyena),57 the salvational means, viz., the perception of unsubstantiality, in order to finally reach a direct perceptual realization58 (sākṣātkaraṇa) of it. 3.4. Anābhogatā and svarasavāhitva. Dharmakīrti’s conception of a Bodhisattva’s cultivation is based on a Mahāyānist path structure that 55 56

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On all this, see Eltschinger 2005a: 408–436, and below §3.5. On the duration of the various religious careers (and especially the one of Bodhisattvas), see Traité IV.1842, and n. 5 (pp. 1842–1843), and Siddhi II.731–733. Abhyāsa is defined as punaḥ punar nairantaryeṇotpādanam (PVSVṬ 398,9), as paunaḥpunyenānādikālam utpattiḥ (PVṬ Je D252b7–253a1/P300b6 = PVSVṬ 402,19), or else as punaḥ punaḥ prayogaḥ (AKVy 649,26), or as punaḥ punaś cetasi viniveśanam (NBṬ S11,18–19/M67,5). See PVP D54b7/P62a8, PVA 108,20 and 26, PVV 57,4, TS 3339–3340ab, TSP K16,1–3/Ś20,12–13, K876,17–19/Ś1061,14–16, passim.

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entails various stages (bhūmi) as well as the parallel development of insight (prajñā, vipaśyanā) and compassion (karuṇā, kṛpā, dayā).59 In the most authoritative traditional accounts of a Bodhisattva’s career (caryā), the entrance into the eighth (or seventh) stage (acalā DBhS, niyatā BoBh, or the tenth abode, vihāra BoBh) stands out as a decisive turning point. The Bodhisattva is now possessed of the “presentiment that dharmas (ultimately) have no arising” (anutpattikadharmakṣānti); from now on his progression is irreversible (avaivartika). Especially noteworthy is the fact that all the factors and operations characterizing him have now become spontaneous (< svarasena eva) on account of the intensity of the cultivation (bhāvanābāhulyāt),60 and develop without any intentional effort (anābhogena).61 This pertains to the Bodhisattva’s wisdom as well as to his compassion, which from now on can properly be termed “great compassion” (mahākaruṇā), and which no longer bears upon anything (anālambanā, because the Bodhisattva no longer sees sattvas or dharmas).62 Note should also be made that the entrance into the eighth (or seventh) stage coincides with the acquisition of “unfixed” nirvāṇa (apratiṣṭhitanirvāṇa).63 The epistemologists’ assent to this complex of ideas can be easily documented. Dharmakīrti himself accepts the notion of an objectless compassion (anālambanā karuṇā),64 which Śākyabuddhi and Karṇakagomin declare to be proper to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who, in contradistinction to ordinary persons and noble beings (ārya), have rid themselves of the clinging to the object-subject dichotomy.65 Moreover, 59

60 61

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Note Devendrabuddhi’s explanation of hetusampad in PVP D57b2/P65b2: bcom ldan ‘das kyi thugs rje daṅ thabs goms pa rgyu yin no źes rgyu phun sum tshogs pa gsuṅs pa yin no ||. Upāyābhyāsa = nairātmyadarśanābhyāsa = prajñābhyāsa. Devendrabuddhi’s prayoga at PVP D57a1–3/P64b7–65a2 (see Eltschinger 2005a: 405n. 45) makes it perfectly clear that nairātmyadarśana is prajñā. See BoBh D219,17–220,2/W320,24–321,2 and Eltschinger (2008, §4.3 and n. 103). See DBhS (VII F) 58,6–9, (VIII C) 64,15–16 and 25–26, (VIII K) 67,10–19, and (VIII C) 64,26–27. This is also termed the anābhogacaryā at LAV 43,9 (see Suzuki 1999: 221–230). See Eltschinger (2008, §4). On the apratiṣṭhitanirvāṇa, see the bibliographical references in Lamotte 1973: II.47*–48*; see also Siddhi II.671–672 and Nagao 2000: 2–4. See PVSV 9,14–15. PVṬ Je D24b6–7/P29b3–4 = PVSVṬ 53,9–10: anālambanā grāhyagrāhakābhiniveśavigatānāṃ buddhabodhisattvānām |.

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Dharmakīrti associates “great compassion” (mahatī kṛpā) with Bodhisattvas who are possessed of a durable substratum (sthirāśraya) and remain in saṃsāra (in contradistinction to Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas).66 Last but not least, Dharmakīrti argues at length that compassion proceeds spontaneously (svarasena) as it becomes the very nature (svabhāva) of the psychic stream and no longer requires any effort (yatna) in order to increase.67 The same doctrinal pattern also seems to obtain in the case of discernment (vipaśyanā), which, defined as “wisdom bearing upon unsubstantiality” (nairātmyālambanā prajñā),68 is equivalent to the already mentioned perception of unsubstantiality and the counteracting path it defines. The yogin’s nearly endless cultivation of nairātymadarśana gradually results in the latter’s becoming “coessential” or “conatural” to the mind (citta), a process (or rather its result) the epistemologists usually describe in terms of sātmya or sātmībhāva: after a certain point, the mind or the psychic stream (santāna) acquires discernment as its own nature,69 which amounts to saying that it is coessential with the perception or cultivation of unsubstantiality, also referred to as the path or the antidote of the defilements (doṣapratipakṣa/°vipakṣa).70 Devendrabuddhi uses the expression *anābho66 67

68

69

70

See PV 2.197–198, below n. 73. See PV 2.120–131ab, and Eltschinger (2008, §2) for an English translation and explanations. PVṬ Ñe D134b3/P166a1: lhag mthoṅ yin la źes bya ba bdag med pa la dmigs pa‘i śes rab bo ||. Note also BhK 1.219,23–220,4, where vipaśyanā bears upon the unsubstantiality of all dharmas (sarvadharmaniḥsvabhāvatālambana), and Kamalaśīla’s definition of vipaśyanā at BhK 3.5,17–20: bhūtapratyavekṣaṇā ca vipaśyanocyate | bhūtaṃ punaḥ pudgaladharmanairātmyam | tatra pudgalanairātmyaṃ yā skandhānām ātmātmīyarahitatā | dharmanairātmyaṃ yā teṣām eva māyopamatā |. “La vipaśyanā est une analyse correcte. Elle est correcte parce [qu’elle porte] sur l’inexistence de l’individu et sur l’inexistence des dharma. L’inexistence de la personne consiste en ce que les agrégats sont privés de Moi; l’inexistence des dharma est le fait qu’ils sont pareils à une magie.” Translation in Lamotte 1987b: 340. PVSVṬ 400,13: vipaśayanāsvabhāvasya; PVP D90a1/P103b8: raṅ bźin yaṅ lhag mthoṅ ba yin; PVSVṬ 401,14: vipaśyanāsātmani sthitasya (= PVṬ Je D252a2, as against P299b1). PVSV 110,18 (sātmībhāvāt – see PVṬ Je D249a6/P295b1 = PVSVṬ 398,11, where the santāna is said to be sātmībhūtadoṣapratipakṣa, to be treated as a bahuvrīhi compound), PVSV 110,24 (doṣavipakṣasātmatve, where the doṣavipakṣa is nairātmyadarśana according to PVṬ Je D250b1/P297a5–6 = PVSVṬ 399,17), PVSV 111,3 (vipakṣasātmanaḥ puruṣasya), PVSV 111,8 (pratipakṣasātmya°); PVV

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ganairātmyadarśanaḥ puruṣaḥ to refer to this state,71 while Śākyabuddhi regards nairātmyadarśana as proceeding spontaneously (svarasavāhitva, or *svarasapravartakatva).72 As for “unfixed” nirvāṇa, an allusion (at least according to Śākyabuddhi) is found in a passage in which Dharmakīrti contrasts Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas on the one hand, and Bodhisattvas on the other73: “It is not true (na) that there [can be] no liberation [from saṃsāra], because once the previous saṃskāra [= karman] has been exhausted, there is no connection to another [painful birth. However,] those whose saṃskāra is of unexhausted force do remain [in saṃsāra out of compassion, after having meditated upon the benefit of the other living beings,74 and are] immaculate. And because compassion is weak [since it has not been cultivated intensively before], the effort in order to remain [in saṃsāra] is not great [and hence the abode in saṃsāra does not last]; on the contrary (tu), [those] whose commiseration (kṛpā) is great do remain [in saṃsāra, being entirely] devoted to the other [living beings].” It is commonplace in Mahāyāna literature for Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas75 to hasten to reach nirvāṇa because they are terrified of saṃsāra, whereas Bodhisattvas76 remain in

71

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59,24: nairātmyabhāvanāsātmye; PVṬ Je D251a1–2/P298a2 ≈ PVSVṬ 399,25: sātmībhūtaṃ mārgam; PVP D89b1/P103a5: lam de‘i bdag ñid can gyi sems; PVV 83,14–15: sātmībhūtamārge. Note Devendrabuddhi’s definition of mārga at PVP D89b3/P103a8: bdag med pa ñid mthoṅ ba‘i mtshan ñid can gyi lam (cf. PVV 83,11: nairātmyadarśanasya mārgas[ya]). Note also PVṬ Ñe D133a6–7/P164a7–8: dṅos po ji ltar gnas pa bźin du ‘dzin pas źugs pa‘i bdag med pa‘i lam ni sems kyi raṅ bźin ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro ||. PVP D58a7–b2/P66b3–6 and D58a2–4/P66a4–6: bdag med pa ñid mthoṅ ba lhun gyis grub pa‘i skyes bu. PVṬ Ñe D118b1–2/P144b8: raṅ gi ṅaṅ gis ‘jug pa ñid kyis raṅ bźin ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro ||. Note also TSP K895,8–9/Ś1082,22–23: … iti svabhāvatvena prajñādīnāṃ sakṛdāhitānāṃ svarasata eva pravṛttir bhavatīti siddham |. PV 2.197–198: nāmuktiḥ pūrvasaṃskārakṣaye ’nyāpratisandhitaḥ | akṣīṇaśaktiḥ saṃskāro yeṣāṃ tiṣṭhanti te ’naghāḥ || mandatvāt karuṇāyāś ca na yatnaḥ sthāpane mahān | tiṣṭhanty eva parādhīnā yeṣāṃ tu mahatī kṛpā ||. According to PVP D85a1/P97b3–4: gal te chags pa med pa dag sñiṅ rjes gnas pa de‘i tshe sñiṅ rje[s] gnas nas sems can gyi don yid la byas nas de dag yun riṅ por ci‘i phyir mi gnas |. See also the prayoga that follows (PVP D85a1–3/P97b4–6). PVP D85a3/P97b7: dper na ñan thos daṅ raṅ saṅs rgyas dag lta bu‘o ||. PVV 79,11: śrāvakāṇāṃ tu karmaṇo niyatakālasthitikadehākṣepakatvāt. PVP D84b7/P97b3: dper na byaṅ chub sems dpa‘ rnams kyi lta bu‘o ||. Note, however, Manorathanandin’s (PVV 79,10) explanation of anaghāḥ as samyaksambuddhāḥ.

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saṃsāra in order to honour their commitment to alleviate living beings’ suffering.77 Though these Bodhisattvas are dispassionate (vītarāga?) and “endowed” with an undefiled (nirdoṣa?) series of aggregates (skandhasantati?),78 the force of their karmic impulses is unexhausted,79 “because all [their] provisions [of merit and knowledge] result in unfixed nirvāṇa (*sarvasambhārasya apratiṣṭhitanirvāṇaphalatvāt).” Because of his great compassion, a Bodhisattva does not remain in nirvāṇa (unlike Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas), and because of his insight or wisdom, he does not remain in saṃsāra either (unlike ordinary people).80 As Devendrabuddhi puts it,81 “the reason why these great beings (mahāsattva) who are extremely affectionate without any [selfish] motive (akāraṇaparamavatsala) remain uninterruptedly [in saṃsāra] is [their] great compassion (mahatī kṛpā), which proceeds spontaneously (svarasavāhin), because its practice (kṛpābhyāsa) is preceded by the thought of enlightenment (bodhicittapūrvaka).” 3.5. Āśrayaparivṛtti and Buddhahood. The practice of the path ends with the so-called transmutation of the basis [of personal existence]82 (āśrayaparivṛtti), which, like Vasubandhu (the Kośakāra), Dharmakīrti interprets (only in PV 2!) from a Sautrāntika perspective as the final and irreversible elimination (niranvayavināśa) of defilements together

77

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80 81

82

See BoBh D27,9–28,6/W40,3–41,12, TSP K872,1–7/Ś1055,14–10, and Eltschinger (forthcoming 1, §2.6). See PVṬ Ñe D131b2/P162a1–2: gaṅ ‘du byed nus zad med can źes bya ba ni phuṅ po‘i rgyun skyon med pa skyed pa la | ‘dod chags daṅ bral ba gaṅ dag la las kyi nus pa zad pa med pa yod pa źes bya ba‘i don to ||. According to PVṬ Ñe D131b2–3/P162a2–3: [dper na byaṅ chub sems dpa‘ rnams kyi lta bu‘o źes bya ba ni byaṅ chub sems dpa‘ rnams ni las kyi nus pa zad pa can ma yin te |] tshogs thams cad mi gnas pa‘i mya ṅan las ‘das pa‘i ‘bras bu can ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro ||. See MSAVBh D63b5–64a4, and Eltschinger (2008, n. 51). According to PVP D85a4–6/P98a1–2: gaṅ dag sems can chen po rgyu med par mchog tu mñes gśin pa byaṅ chub kyi sems sṅon du soṅ ba can gyi brtse ba goms pa‘i stobs kyis raṅ gi ṅaṅ gis ‘jug pa‘i brtse ba chen po rgyun mi ‘chad par gnas pa‘i rgyu mṅa‘ ba [de dag gźan gyi ṅor ni bźugs pa yin | sems can gyi don gyi phyir | dus thams cad du bźugs pa … ] Note PVV 79,15: yeṣām akāraṇavatsalānāṃ mahatī kṛpā, as well as PVV 79,9: yeṣāṃ punar mahākṛpāṇāṃ praṇidhānaparipuṣṭasya … PV 2.205ab: ukto mārgas tadabhyāsād āśrayaḥ parivartate |.

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with their (productive) latent tendencies or germs (bīja).83 Whereas this (minimal) definition seems to be true of all the Buddhist liberated minds whatsoever, it must be considerably enlarged when regarding the transmutated basis of the Bodhisattva who has just (i.e., ipso facto) become a Buddha/Sugata. Dharmakīrti first spells this out in PV 2.135– 136ab84: “The qualities and drawbacks of the [perception of unsubstantiality and its opposite] become [perfectly] clear to the [Bodhisattva] who practices the means [i.e., insight/discernment] repeatedly, in various ways and for a very long time. And because of the intensity the cognition [of unsubstantiality has reached] due to this [extremely long repetition of practice], the after-effect of the cause [of suffering] is abandoned.” Because he sees in all clarity the qualities of the salvific means and the drawbacks of its opposite, the Buddha is able to instruct living beings in the path or the four noble truths,85 i.e., is possessed with śāstṛtvasampad and conversion through the teaching (anuśāsanīprātihārya).86 But no less important here is the fact that, due to this nearly endless cultivation, the Bodhisattva has rid himself of the (nonproductive) trace or after-effect of defilements. This after-effect of defilements consists in a corporeal (kāya°), verbal (vāc°) and mental (buddhi°) defectiveness (vaiguṇya) or unwieldiness (akarmaṇyatā).87 This still affects liberated saints like the Arhat Maudgalyāyana, who kept hopping around because he had been born as a monkey 500 lifetimes earlier, or the Arhat Pilindavatsa who, because he had been a brāhmaṇa before, continued to say harsh and belittling words to his

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On the āśrayaparivṛtti in Dharmakīrti’s works, see Eltschinger 2005b. Niranvayavināśadharman in PVSV 110,22, TSP K875,20/Ś1060,13, is explained by Śākyabuddhi and Karṇakagomin (PVṬ Je D250a3–4/P296b5–7 = PVSVṬ 399,7–9) as follows: anvayaḥ kleśabījam | anvety utpadyate ’smād doṣa iti kṛtvā | nirgato ’nvayo yasmin vināśe sa niranvayavināśaḥ | sa dharmo yeṣāṃ doṣāṇāṃ te niranvayavināśadharmāṇaḥ | vāsanayā saha vināśadharmāṇa ity arthaḥ |. On Vasubandhu’s views as regards āśrayaparivṛtti, see Eltschinger 2005b: 181–182. PV 2.135–136ab: bahuśo bahudhopāyaṃ kālena bahunāsya ca | gacchanty abhyasyatas tatra guṇadoṣāḥ prakāśatām || buddheś ca pāṭavād dhetor vāsanātaḥ prahīyate |. As a tāyin or “protector” of the living beings (see PV 2.145–146ab). PVP D61a2–3/P69b5–7 (Eltschinger 2005a: 424). See Kośa 7.110–112 (Pruden 1991: IV.1166-1167). See PV 2.141c.

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fellow monks.88 In other words, the (Bodhisattva/)Buddha has eliminated the obstacle consisting of defilements together with their aftereffects (savāsanakleśāvaraṇa). But yet another type of abandonment distinguishes him from Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas: contrary to them (or to Arhats), a Buddha has rid himself of unskilfulness in teaching the path (mārgoktyapaṭutā),89 which I interpret as Dharmakīrti’s allusion to undefiled ignorance (akliṣṭāvidyā, °ajñāna, °saṃmoha).90 If this hypothesis holds good, we can safely consider our Bodhisattva’s transmutation of the basis also to entail the elimination of the obstacle that conceals the knowable (jñeyāvaraṇa, and hence an omniscience of the sarvasarvajñatā-type), for the equation akliṣṭāvidyā = jñeyāvaraṇa is easy to document in Buddhist Mahāyāna literature.91 Moreover, most of the definitions of āśrayaparivṛtti include the elimination of both obstacles, the epistemologists being no exception.92 THE COGNITION OF A YOGIN 4. Yogijñāna as an Epistemological Topic Let us now turn to the epistemological dimension of yoga proper.93 Dharmakīrti devotes two main passages to the so-called perception of 88

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On the vāsanāsamudghāta, see Lamotte 1974, Traité IV.1755–1758, and Eltschinger 2005a: 419–422. On the story of Maudgalyāyana, see PVṬ Ñe D118b4– 5/P145a4–5, Lamotte 1973: II.300, Traité I.117n. 4 and Lamotte 1974: 92. On the story of Pilindavatsa, see PVṬ Ñe D118b5–6/P145a5–7. See PV 2.141d. See AKBh 1,13–15 (Kośa 1.2, Pruden 1991: I.1–2), Jaini 2001: 167–179, Eltschinger 2005a: 423–424. See Eltschinger 2005a: 429–434. See PVṬ Je D115a1/P135b6 ≈ PVSVṬ 211,8–9. Among Buddhist philosophers, Dignāga (480–540?) is likely to have been the first one to discuss the perception of mystics within the general framework of perception (pratyakṣa) as a means of valid cognition. However, the following statement seems to exhaust Dignāga’s opinion on the subject: “[T]he yogin’s intuition of a thing in itself unassociated (avyatibhinna) with the teacher’s instruction [is also a type of perception]. The yogin’s perception which is not associated (avyavakīrṇa) with any conceptual construction of āgama (the authoritative words of the teachers) and which apprehends only a thing in itself is also perception.” Hattori’s (1968: 27) translation of PS 1.6cd and PSV thereon. Sanskrit texts (< Vibh. 191n. 3 and 203n. 1) in Hattori 1968: 94 nn. 1.48 (yogināṃ gurunirdeśāvyatibhinnārthamātradṛk) and

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yogins (yogipratyakṣa),94 both of which refer their reader back to the religious ideas we have considered so far, i.e., to the religious philosophy as expounded in PV 2. What do yoga and yogins consist of? Dharmottara (740–800) is one of the few authors to supply any substantial definitions of these two terms. According to ordinary understanding (loka), yoga consists of (psychic) concentration (samādhi), but according to (Buddhist) authoritative treatises (śāstra), it consists of tranquillity (of mind, śamatha) and discernment (vipaśyanā), which have (psychic) concentration and insight (prajñā) for their nature (°ātman), respectively. A yogin is one who is possessed of tranquillity of mind and discernment into the nature of things, one who strives for constant concentration (< nityasamāhita) and discrimination of true reality (tattvapravicaya?).95

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1.49 (yoginām apy āgamavikalpāvyavakīrṇam arthamātradarśanaṃ pratyakṣam). Steinkellner’s reconstruction of PS(V) 1.6ab reads as follows: yogināṃ gurunirdeśāvyavakīrṇārthamātradṛk |. Note that PSV is also quoted in PVP D210b3/P246b56. Interestingly enough, Dignāga’s presentation is based on two notions the subsequent tradition will seemingly disregard. First, the perception of yogins grasps a “thing in itself” (arthamātra); this expression I do not dare interpret further than Jinendrabuddhi’s comment to the effect that °mātra (“only,” “in itself” in Hattori’s translation) aims at excluding superimposed objects (PSṬ 56,15–57,1: mātraśabdo ’dhyāropitārthavyavacchedārthaḥ |). Second, this perception is totally free from, or unmixed with scriptural concepts (āgamavikalpa), which on the one side matches the definitory non-conceptuality of perception well, but on the other side seems to conflict with the subsequent tradition’s insistence upon the four Noble Truths (on this point, see Franco in present volume). PV 3.281–286, PVin 1.27,7–28,8; see also NB 1.11. On yogipratyakṣa, see Vetter 1964: 41, Steinkellner 1978, McDermott 1991, Pemwieser 1991: 21–50, Dreyfus 1997: 413–414. According to the following passages: PVinṬ D117b2–3/P135b1–2: ’jig rten na ni mñam par gźag pa la rnal ’byor (em. ’byor: DP ’byor ba) yin la | bstan bcos las ni tiṅ ṅe ’dzin daṅ śes rab kyi bdag ñid źi gnas daṅ lhag mthoṅ la yin te | rnal ’byor ba de dag la yod pa de dag ni rnal ’byor bas te | rtag tu mñam par gźag pa daṅ | de kho na rnam par ’byed pa la brtson pa’o ||. NBṬ S12,8–9/M70,2: yogaḥ samādhiḥ | sa yasyāsti sa yogī | (≈ PSṬ 56,12: yogaḥ samādhiḥ | sa yeṣām asti, te yoginaḥ |), and DhPr 70,19–22 thereon: yogaśabdasya vyutpattim āha | yoga iti | samādhiś cittaikāgratā | iha dharmottareṇa lokaprasiddhir āśritā | viniścayaṭīkāyāṃ tu śāstrasthitis tenāvirodhaḥ | yad vā samādhigrahaṇasyopalakṣaṇatvāt prajñā ca vivekakaraṇaśaktir draṣṭavyā | sa yasyāsti sa nityasamāhito vivekakaraṇatatparaś ca yogī |. PVA 327,17–18: tathā ca śamathavipaśyanāyuganaddhavāhī mārgo yoga iti vacanam |.

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Let us start with Dharmakīrti’s definition of perception in his PVin and NB, and disregard the possible evolution of his ideas on this topic (cf. Franco, forthcoming). In PVin 1.4ab1, Dharmakīrti defines perception as cognition that is free from conceptual thought (kalpanāpoḍha) and is non-erroneous (abhrānta),96 conceptual thought being in turn characterized as a cognition whose appearance or image may be expressed verbally.97 We may thus offer two defining conditions that the cognition of a yogin must meet in order to be termed a “perception”: first, it must be non-conceptual (and hence its content cannot be adequately expressed by words); second, it must be non-erroneous and reliable/non-belying (avisaṃvādin). The criterion of a given cognition’s non-conceptual character lies in its presenting a clear or vivid (spaṣṭa, sphuṭa) appearance or image. The vividness and hence the non-conceptuality of a yogin’s cognition comes from the fact that this cognition is born of cultivation (bhāvanāmaya, etc.) and arises out of this virtually endless process characterized as punaḥ punar utpādanam, as we have seen above.98 Dharmakīrti spells this out as follows99: “[We have already] presented the cognition of the yogins above [in the second chapter]. This [cognition] of the [yogins] is born of cultivation [and therefore is] free from the [deceptive] net of conceptual thought (kalpanā)[; because it is of a non-conceptual character, this cognition] presents a vivid image.” This depiction is indeed the forerunner of Dharmakīrti’s opening statement on the subject in PVin 1, where the second definitory criterion has been duly integrated100: “That cognition which, as in the case of fear, etc., vividly appears by force of cultivation, [and which is] 96

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PVin 1.4ab1 = NB 1.4: pratyakṣaṃ kalpanāpoḍham abhrāntam. Note also Dharmottara’s (PVinṬ D117a4/P135a2–3) definition of pratyakṣa in this context: gsal bar snaṅ ba don byed par bzod pa’i dṅos po’i raṅ bźin la ma ’khrul pa daṅ | rtogs pa med pa’i śes pa ni mṅon sum yin no ||. PVin 1.7,7 ≈ NB 1.5: abhilāpasaṃsargayogyapratibhāsā pratītiḥ kalpanā |. See n. 57 above. PV 3.281: prāg uktaṃ yogināṃ jñānaṃ teṣāṃ tad bhāvanāmayam | vidhūtakalpanājālaṃ spaṣṭam evāvabhāsate ||. To be connected with PV 3.285 = PVin 1.31: tasmād bhūtam abhūtaṃ vā yad yad evātibhāvyate | bhāvanāpariniṣpattau tat sphuṭākalpadhīphalam ||. “Therefore, [be it] real or unreal, whatever is intensively meditated upon (atibhāvyate) results in a clear and non-conceptual cognition when the cultivation is perfected.” PVin 1.28: bhāvanābalataḥ spaṣṭaṃ bhayādāv iva bhāsate | yaj jñānam avisaṃvādi tat pratyakṣam akalpakam ||.

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reliable [as well as] non-conceptual (akalpa), this is a [direct] perception [too].” As Dharmottara has it,101 “due to cultivation, [this cognition] appears vividly; because it appears vividly, [this cognition] is established (siddha) as non-conceptual; since it bears upon an entity that has been ‘purified’ by the means of valid cognition (pramāṇapariśuddhavastuviṣaya), [this cognition] is non-erroneous; therefore, why should it not be a perception, [if all] the other perceptions also appear vividly, are non-conceptual and non-erroneous?” A cognition’s being the outcome of the intense cultivation of an object by no means implies that the said cognition bears upon a real (bhūta) object (artha, viṣaya). Dharmakīrti adduces several examples in order to show that the cultivation of unreal (abhūta) objects may also result in a vivid and hence non-conceptual cognition. He says102: “[People who are] deluded by confusion due to love, sorrow or fear, and by dreams about thieves, etc.,103 see [the respective objects] as if [these would] stand before [them,] though [these objects are] unreal.” But, one may ask, how do we know that these deluded persons see, because of their cultivation of it, the object as if it would stand before them?104 This is to be inferred on the basis of these persons’ outward behaviour, as Dharmakīrti says105: “Since we see that, in accord with the delusion 101

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PVinṬ D117a7–b1/P135a7–b1: bsgoms pas gsal bar snaṅ źiṅ | gsal bar snaṅ ba’i phyir rnam par rtog pa med par grub pa yin la | tshad mas yoṅs su dag pa’i dṅos po’i yul can yin pa’i phyir ma ’khrul pa yin pas ci’i phyir mṅon sum ñid du mi ’gyur | mṅon sum gźan yaṅ gsal bar snaṅ ba daṅ rtog pa daṅ bral źiṅ ma ’khrul pa yin no ||. PV 3.282 = PVin 1.29: kāmaśokabhayonmādacaurasvapnādyupaplutāḥ | abhūtān api paśyanti purato ’vasthitān iva ||. According to PVP D210b5/P247a1, this stanza answers the following question: gaṅ daṅ gaṅ śin tu bsgoms pa de daṅ de las gsal bar snaṅ bar ’gyur ro źes bya ba de ñid gaṅ las yin źe na |. PVP D210b7/P247a4 explains “etc.” as: myur du bskor ba daṅ ’chi ltas la sogs pa gzuṅ ṅo ||. See also PVṬ Ñe D215b6–7/P266b1–2 thereon: sogs pa smos pas ni myur du bskor ba daṅ ’chi ltas la sogs pa gzuṅ ṅo źes bya ba la | ’di ltar ’khor lo bźin du lus myur du bskor ba las dṅos po g.yo ba med pa yaṅ g.yo ba bźin du gsal bar dmigs par ’gyur ba ’aṅ ’chi ba’i dus na lus daṅ sems kyi gnas skabs ’ga’ źig ’chi ltas kyi miṅ can dṅos po yaṅ dag pa ma yin pa mthoṅ bar ’gyur ro ||. PVinṬ D119a1/P137a4: yaṅ de dag gis de mdun na gnas pa bźin du mthoṅ ba źes bya ba ’di gaṅ las śe na |. PVin 1.30ab: yathāviplavam āvegapratipattipradarśanāt |. “To be inferred” according to Vibh. 203n. 3 (anumeya). Eli Franco kindly suggests to me that one can interpret this statement in a slightly different manner: … since they show (their delusional) cognition by their agitation.

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[they are the victims of], they act with agitation.” Some explanations may not be out of place. By “agitation” (āvega), we should understand physical states such as trembling with joy, or being thrilled (romaharṣa). By “behaviour” is meant a physical action (anuṣṭhāna) that conforms to the specific vision of a deluded person: the first will stretch his arms out in order to embrace his beloved, the second mourns or sighs, and the third boastfully seizes a sword.106 But one may also wonder why the cognition at stake should be of an immediate (pratyakṣa) rather than of a mediate (parokṣa) character.107 This Dharmakīrti answers as follows108: “Because we do not see any behaviour of that kind when [someone] is conscious that his/her cognition is a mediate one (parokṣa).” However, cultivating unreal objects is by no means limited to deluded or passionate people. The Buddhist meditation exercises that build up, among other things, the (remote) preparatory path (prayogamārga) are also endowed with utterly unreal objects, as Dharmakīrti tells us in both his PV and PVin109: “We hold that, though [they are] unreal, the loathsome, the totality of earth, etc., which are created by force of cultivation, are vivid and [hence] non-conceptual.” This includes meditation such as cognizing a corpse turning blue (vinīlaka) or rotting (vipūyaka), or of a corpse that has become a skeleton (asthi-

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See PVinṬ D119a1–3/P137a4–6: gus pas ni grims pa ste | spro ba’i dbaṅ gis ’dar ba’i mtshan ñid can nam ba spu laṅs mtshan ñid kyi lus kyi gnas skabs so || bsgrub pa ni mthoṅ ba daṅ rjes su mthun par nan tan du byed pa ste | sdug pa la sogs ’dren pa daṅ | ’di na su su źes smra ba daṅ | ṅa rgyal daṅ bcas pa ral gri la sogs pa la ’ju ba ste |. PVP D210b7–211a1/P247a5–6: de ltar na de ltar mthoṅ bas don mṅon du gyur pa bźin du | de daṅ rjes su mthun par bsgrubs pa la dmigs par ’gyur na | gaṅ gis na de dag ’dir lkog tu gyur pa’i miṅ can du yaṅ ’gyur ba ma yin no źes bya ba de ṅes par gzuṅ bar mi ’gyur |. PVV 203,9: yasmāt tadanurūpāṃ pravṛttiṃ ceṣṭante |. According to PVinṬ D119a3/P137a6–7: ’di sñam du gus pas bsgrub pa mthoṅ du zin kyaṅ | mṅon sum bźin du de dag gsal bar snaṅ ba yin par ji ltar ṅes śe na |. PVin 1.30cd: parokṣagatisaṃjñāyāṃ tathāvṛtter adarśanāt ||. PV 3.284: aśubhāpṛthivīkṛtsnādy abhūtam api varṇyate | spaṣṭābhaṃ nirvikalpaṃ ca bhāvanābalanirmitam ||. PVin 1.28,7–8: tathā hy aśubhāpṛthivīkṛtsnādikam abhūtaviṣayam api spaṣṭapratibhāsaṃ nirvikalpakaṃ ca bhāvanābalaniṣpannam iṣyate ||. “It is indeed accepted [by us Buddhists] that [meditative exercises] like [the contemplation of] the loathsome and the totality of earth, which arise by force of cultivation, present a vivid image and are non-conceptual despite [their] having an unreal object.”

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saṅkalā),110 or meditation that has all entities (vastu) appearing as the earth, or as water, as they have unreal objects despite the fact that the image they display is perfectly clear once the cultivation process has been completed.111 The reason why these meditations have unreal objects is, according to Vaibhāṣikas and to Dharmottara, that they consist in acts of attention that are directed towards imaginary or, better, volitional objects (adhimuktimanas[i]kāra).112 Since they arise from intensive cultivation of their objects, the aforementioned direct or immediate cognitions display a vivid image and hence are non-conceptual. In this respect, they all meet the first defining condition of a perception. But since they bear upon imaginary or volitional objects such as a beloved, an enemy or a putrefying corpse, they fail to meet the second. As belying/unreliable (visaṃvādin, asaṃvādin) cognitions, they do not lay claim to the “validity” that is inherent in a true perception. As Dharmakīrti himself says,113 “among these [vivid and non-conceptual cognitions that result from cultivation,114 we] accept as a means of valid cognition [only] that perception which, born of cultivation, is reliable,115 just like [the one that is related

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See PVinṬ D119b2/P137b7: mi sdug pa źes bya ba ni rus pa ’brel pa’i rnam pa can gyi tiṅ ṅe ’dzin to ||, PVV 203,22: aśubhā vinīlakavipūyakāsthisaṅkalādikā. On aśubhā, see Kośa 6.148–153 (Pruden 1991: III.916–921). PVinṬ D119b2–3/P137b7–8: zad par sa ni dṅos po mtha’ dag sar snaṅ ba’i tiṅ ṅe ’dzin to || sogs pa smos pas ni zad par chu la sogs pa’o ||, PVV 203,22: pṛthivīkṛtsnādi bhūmayatvādi. On kṛtsnāyatanas, see Kośa 8.213–215 (Pruden 1991: IV.1277–1278). PVinṬ D119b4/P138a1–2: mos pas byas pa rnal ’byor ba’i spyod yul du ’gyur ba rus pa la sogs pa rnams … On adhimuktimanas[i]kāra in the case of aśubhā, see Kośa 6.150 and 152 (Pruden 1991: III.918–919 and 920); on adhimuktimanas[i]kāra in the case of the kṛtsnāyatana, see Kośa 8.214n. 1 (Pruden 1991: IV.1306n. 203). About this meaning of adhimukti, see Bhsd 14b–15a s.v. adhimucyate (2). Note also Devendrabuddhi’s (PVP D211b2–3/P248a1) explanation: raṅ gi rnam par rtog pa tsam gyis kun nas bslaṅ ba yin no || (*svavikalpamātreṇa samutthitāḥ), as well as Prajñākaragupta’s (PVA 327,14): atattvamanaskāratvād aśubhādīnām. PV 3.286: tatra pramāṇaṃ saṃvādi yat prāṅnirṇītavastuvat | tad bhāvanājaṃ pratyakṣam iṣṭaṃ śeṣā upaplavāḥ ||. According to PVV 204,9: tatra bhāvanābalabhāviṣu spaṣṭ[a]nirvikalpeṣu; PVP D211b4/P248a4: de sgom pa’i ’bras bu’i śes pa de dag la. See PVV 204,9: saṃvādy upadarśitārthaprāpakam.

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to] the matter (vastu) [we] determined above [in chapter two]. All the remaining [cognitions] are [mere] delusions.116” The condition of a yogic cognition’s reliability lies in its bearing on an object that has proved to stand critical analysis by means of pramāṇas. In other words, this object must have been submitted to rational inquiry (yukti), “purified” ([pari]śuddha) or ascertained as agreeing (saṃvādin) with the means of valid cognition. This is tantamount to saying that the object of a yogin’s cognition is one that has been reflected upon (< √cint), examined (< vi√car) or ascertained (< niś√ci, vyava√sthācaus, nir√nī) by means of the above-mentioned cintāmayī prajñā. It is obvious that, as Dharmakīrti himself makes clear, this object only consists of the four Noble Truths117 that he submitted to inferential evaluation in the second chapter of his PV.118 When commenting on Dharmakīrti’s statement to the effect that yogic cognition has already been treated, all commentators add that it has been explained “as bearing upon the (four Noble) Truths” ([caturārya]satyaviṣaya), and this in the satyavicāracintā of the Pramāṇasiddhi chapter.119 In other 116

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PVP D211b5/P248a5: dper na zad par sa la sogs pa lta bu’o ||; PVV 204,13–14: śeṣā ayathārthā upaplavā bhramā yathā aśubhāpṛthivīkṛtsnādipratyayāḥ |. See PVinṬ D118a2–3/P136a2–4 for a short summary on the four Truths: ‘bras bur gyur pa ñe bar len pa‘i phuṅ po lṅa ni sdug bsṅal lo || de dag ñid sred pa daṅ lhan cig pas rgyur gyur pa ni kun ‘byuṅ ṅo || ṅes par legs pa‘i raṅ bźin du gyur pa‘i sems ni ‘gog pa‘o || raṅ bźin de ñid thob pa‘i rgyur gyur pa bdag med pa la sogs pa‘i rnam pa can gyi sems kyi khyad par ni lam mo ||. “Suffering (duḥkha) consists of the resultant (phalabhūta) five constituents[-of-a-person] which one clings to (pañca upādānaskandhāḥ). The origin (samudaya) [of suffering] consists of the same [five constituents] with the status of a cause (hetubhūta) because [they are] accompanied by craving (tṛṣṇāsahita?). The destruction (nirodha) [of suffering, i.e., nirvāṇa,] consists of the mind (citta) having turned into a blissful condition (niḥśreyasasvabhāvabhūta?). The path (mārga) [that leads to the destruction of suffering] consists of a particular mind (cittaviśeṣa?) which, endowed with such [real] aspects as unsubstantiality (nairātmyādyākāra[vat]?), is the cause of obtaining this very condition (tasya eva svabhāvasya prāptihetubhūtaḥ?) [that defines nirvāṇa].” PV 3.286b: prāṅnirṇītavastuvat; PVin 1.27,11–12: āryasatyadarśanavad yathā nirṇītam asmābhiḥ pramāṇavārttike; note also PV 3.281a: prāg uktaṃ yogināṃ jñānam. On PV 3.281a: PVV 203,1: prāk prathamaparicchede (= Pramāṇasiddhi) yogināṃ jñānaṃ satyaviṣayam uktam; PVA 326,23: caturāryasatyaviṣayaṃ yogināṃ jñānaṃ prāg uktam; PVP D210b3–4/P246b6–7: sṅar bśad rnal ’byor śes pa ni sṅar ‘phags pa’i bden pa bźi’i yul can du bśad pa na | bden pa dpyod pa gaṅ yin pa de źes bya ba’i don to ||. On PV 3.286b: PVV 204,12–13: prāk prathamaparicchede nirṇītaṃ

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words, as Devendrabuddhi has it,120 “not all cognitions of yogins are perception (pratyakṣa), but (kiṃ tarhi) [only] the one that has been stated before, i.e., the one that has been stated before as bearing upon the four Noble Truths.” According to Dharmottara,121 “the cognition that perceives (darśana) these [four Noble Truths], i.e., is aware of them in immediate manner (sākṣāt°/pratyakṣīkaraṇa), is perception (pratyakṣa).” And according to the same author,122 Dharmakīrti in his PV has explained “how the four Noble Truths are ‘purified’ by pramāṇas, and how they are to be cultivated (bhāvanīya) under such aspects as impermanence (anityādi).” Now provided a yogin’s cultivational and hence non-conceptual cognition has the four Noble Truths for its object, it meets the second defining condition of a perception.

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vastu satyacatuṣṭayaṃ tasminn eva; PVA 327,32–33: prāṅnirṇītavastu paralokacaturāryasatyādikaṃ tadviṣayam eva pratyakṣam | na tu kāmādiviṣayam |; PVP D211b5/P248a5: sṅar bden pa dpyad pa’i skabs su tshad ma’i dṅos po yaṅ dag par bstan pa bźin no. Note also NBṬ S11,18/M67,3–4: bhūtaḥ sadbhūto ’rthaḥ | pramāṇena dṛṣṭaś ca sadbhūtaḥ | yathā catvāry āryasatyāni |, and PVV 203,2 (satyasvarūpaviṣaya) or 204,3 (āryasatyādi as a gloss on bhūtam). Prajñākaragupta’s paraloka is the only exception I am aware of in this particular context. The presence of an “etc.” (°adi) is no argument since most if not all °ādis are explicable or even explained as nairātmya or anitya[tā], which of course amounts to the four Noble Truths (note also that Dharmakīrti does not introduce an °ādi in this particular context). PVP D210b3–4/P246b6–7: rnal ’byor ba’i śes pa thams cad mṅon sum ma yin no || ’o na ci yin źe na | sṅar bśad rnal ’byor śes pa ni [= PV 3.281a] | sṅar ’phags pa’i bden pa bźi’i yul can du bśad pa na |. PVinṬ D118a3–4/P136a4–5: ’di [= bden pa] dag mthoṅ bar mṅon sum du byed pa’i śes pa gaṅ yin pa de mṅon sum yin pa |. PVinṬ D118a4/P136a5: ’phags pa’i bden pa bźi po rnams ji ltar tshad mas rnam par dag pa daṅ | mi rtag pa la sogs pa de dag rnam pa ji lta bu bsgom par bya ba. Note the whole of Dharmottara’s account of Dharmakīrti’s PV 2 (PVinṬ D118a4– 6/P136a5–8): ‘phags pa‘i bden pa bźi po rnams ji ltar tshad mas rnam par dag pa daṅ | mi (D:P bi) rtag pa la sogs pa de dag rnam pa ji lta bu źig (D:P om. źig) bsgom par bya ba daṅ | skye ba brgyud pa du mas dus ji srid kyi mthar thug par goms par bya ba daṅ | rgyu gaṅ la goms par byed pa byaṅ chub sems dpa‘ rnams kyi ni sñiṅ rje las yin la | de las gźan rnams ni ‘khor ba las yid byuṅ ba źes bya ba gaṅ yin pa de thams cad ni | ji ltar Tshad ma rnam ‘grel du gtan (D:P bstan) la phab pa‘i rnam pa de ñid kyis ‘phags pa‘i bden pa mthoṅ ba thabs daṅ bcas | yul daṅ bcas | rnam pa daṅ bcas par khoṅ du chud par byas te | ‘dir ni yaṅ dag pa‘i yul can gyi rnam par rtog pa goms pa las de‘i don la dmigs pa‘i mṅon sum skye ba ñid do źes bya ba de tsam źig bsgrub (P:D bsgrubs) par ‘dod pa ‘ba‘ źig tu zad do ||.

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In a most interesting statement of the PVin, Dharmakīrti relates the topic of yogijñāna back to the basic path-structure of Buddhism. The traditional threefold sequence or gradual progression (bhāvanākrama) of insights is deemed to be the cause of a yogic cognition’s vividness and reliability123: “Having first grasped objects through a cognition born of listening [to treatises that are favourable to cultivation124], and [then] ascertained [them] through a [cognition] born of reflecting [upon them] by means of rational inquiry (yukti) [i.e., by means of pramāṇas],125 yogins cultivate [those objects]. The [cognition] which, at the completion of this [cultivation], appears as vividly as in such cases as fear [or sorrow, and hence is] non-conceptual [but which also] has a true object [because it bears upon an object that has been formerly ascertained by pramāṇas], this is [also] the pramāṇa perception.” Note should be made in this connection that the cognition at stake is said to be “born of cultivation” (bhāvanāmaya), which the commentators explain as “caused by cultivation” (bhāvanāhetu[niṣpatti]ka),126 an expression that matches Dharmakīrti’s own formulations well (bhāvanāja, bhāvanābalanirmita, bhāvanābalaniṣpanna, bhāvanābalataḥ127). In other words, this cognition does not consist in cultivation, but arises at the very end of cultivation, once the cultivation proc-

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PVin 1.27,7–8: yoginām api śrutamayena jñānenārthān gṛhītvā yukticintāmayena vyavasthāpya bhāvayatāṃ tanniṣpattau yat spaṣṭāvabhāsi bhayādāv iva, tad avikalpakam avitathaviṣayaṃ pramāṇaṃ pratyakṣam. Dharmottara’s introduction (PVinṬ D117b1–2/P135b1) runs as follows: ’di ñid rnam par ’grel pa na gsal bar snaṅ ba ñid kyi rgyu bsgom pa’i go rim ston par byed do ||. See PVinṬ D117b3–4/P135b3–4: thos pa las byuṅ bas bsgoms pa daṅ rjes su mthun pa’i bstan bcos mñan pa’i rgyu can gyis bzuṅ ba ṅes pa’i don bsgom par bya ba |. See PVinṬ D117b4/P135b4: rigs pas te tshad mas sems śiṅ ṅes par rtog pa ni rigs pas (em. pas: DP pa) sems pa’o ||. PVA 326,23–24: bhāvanāhetukam; PVV 203,1–2: bhāvanāhetuniṣpattikam. Respectively, PV 3.286c (bhāvanāja also PVV 203,10, PVV 204,10); PV 3.284d; PVin 1.28,8; PVin 1.28a (see also PVinṬ D117a5/P135a4 and D119b3/P138a1, where stobs is explained as mthu; PVP D211b4/P248a3; bhāvanābalāt PVV 327,8 and PVA 328,1). The commentators provide us with plenty of expressions: bsgoms pa’i stobs las skyes pa (PVP D211b1/P247b7–8), bhāvanābalaja (PVV 203,18 and 204,13), bhāvanābalabhāvin (PVA 327,32), bsgoms pa‘i ’bras bu’i śes pa (PVP D211b4/P248a4, PVinṬ D119a7/P137b4 and D119b1/P137b6), bsgoms pa‘i mthu las (PVinṬ D119b5/P138a3).

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ess has been completed (bhāvanāpariniṣpattau, tanniṣpattau128). This is indeed the way Dharmakīrti accounts for yogijñāna in the definition he supplies in his NB129: “Arisen from the ultimate degree [reached by] the cultivation of a real object, the cognition of yogins, too[, is a direct perception].” 5. Yogijñāna in a Soteriological Perspective 5.1. Dharmakīrti repeatedly reminds his readers of the fact that he has already accounted for yogināṃ jñānam in the second chapter of his PV. This remark is a little puzzling insofar as this chapter does not provide any explicit treatment of the topic. Nevertheless, I think it supplies enough materials for us to proceed further in our interpretation of the yogin’s cognition. It is my contention that Dharmakīrti’s account of the yogin’s cognition as vivid, non-conceptual and non-belying refers to the mind’s gnoseological condition at the end of the “cleansing” path, i.e., at the moment when all superimpositions and their concomitant defilements, even those of an extremely subtle nature, have been thoroughly and absolutely eliminated. In other words, Dharmakīrti’s presentation concerns the mind or cognition of the mystic whose basis-of-existence has just been transmuted. The coincidence between Dharmakīrti’s bhāvanāpariniṣpattau in the context of yogijñāna and his remark to the effect that the basis-of-existence is transmuted due to the repeated practice of the path (tadabhyāsāt), is striking. It is brought out with particular clar128

129

PV 3.285c = PVin 1.31c (note PVV 204,4–5: bhāvanāyāḥ sādaranirantaradīrghakālapravartitāyāḥ pariniṣpattau); PVin 1.27,10 (sgom pa rdzogs śiṅ PVinṬ D117b5/P135b5). Note also Devendrabuddhi’s explanation of bhāvanāmaya as bden pa sgom pa rdzogs pa las (PVP D210b4/P246b7–8), as well as Dharmottara’s bsgoms pa mthar phyin pa (PVinṬ D119a6/P137b3). The process traditionally ends up with or culminates in the so-called “absorption similar to a diamond” (vajropamasamādhi, see AKBh 364,13–365,10 [Kośa 6.227–229, Pruden 1991: III.981– 983]). This final moment in the path of cultivation marks the end of the “cleansing” process. I hold it to coincide with Dharmakīrti’s bhāvanāprakarṣaparyanta (NB 1.11), or with his bhāvanāpariniṣpatti (PV 3.285c). NB 1.11: bhūtārthabhāvanāprakarṣaparyantajaṃ yogijñānaṃ ceti ||. Dharmottara interprets °paryanta° as ablative case (NBṬ S11,23/M68,2: tasmāt paryantāt yaj jātam), contrary to Jñānaśrīmitra’s locative (bhāvanāprakarṣaparyante, in Steinkellner 1978: 130n. 42).

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ity in Devendrabuddhi’s commentary130: “Due to the [repeated] practice (abhyāsa) of the [aforementioned] path (mārga), i.e., once the cultivation (bhāvanā) of the path defined as the perception of unsubstantiality (nairātmyadarśanalakṣaṇa) has been completed (niṣpatti), the basis[-ofexistence] is transmuted (āśrayaḥ parivartate, = PV 2.205b): the defiled (doṣavat?) mind (citta) [now] has the property (dharma) absolutely [never] to [re]arise (atyantānutpatti?). The meaning (artha) [intended by Dharmakīrti is the following]: the mind is [now] coessential with the path (mārgasātmani sthitam).” Highly interesting in this connection is an allegedly Vaibhāṣika objection occurring in Prajñākaragupta’s PVA. Just before he turns to his criticism, the Vaibhāṣika opponent concedes the following point:131 “It is true that [the cognition in question] presents, due to [intense] cultivation, a vivid image of an object (vastu) that has been [previously] established by the means of valid cognition, because [in it] the object (artha) appears in its own [particular] form (svena rūpeṇa) when the opacity of nescience (avidyākāluṣya) has been [entirely] wiped away through cultivation.” I conjecture that the doctrine that provokes the Vaibhāṣika’s assent encapsulates Dharmakīrti’s position with regard to the cognition of yogins. As we shall see, this hypothesis accounts both for the vividness and for the truth that are deemed inherent in a yogin’s cognition. 5.2. In the second chapter of his PV, Dharmakīrti presents us with the following “realist” account of the nature (prakṛti) of cognition (vijñāna)132: “[Provided one accepts, unlike the idealist,133 that] the property of [all] cognition is to grasp an object, [one must also admit that]

130

131

132

133

PVP D87a4–5/P100a7–b1: lam de goms pa las bdag med pa mthoṅ ba’i mtshan ñid can gyi lam de’i sgom pa rdzogs pa na rten ni yoṅs su gyur par ’gyur | ñes pa daṅ bcas pa’i sems śin tu skye ba med pa’i chos can yod na lam de’i bdag ñid la sems gnas par ’gyur ro źes bya ba’i don to ||. PVA 327,8–9: (vaibhāṣikā āhuḥ | nanu) vastuni pramāṇaprasiddhe bhāvanābalāt spaṣṭābhateti yuktam | bhāvanayāvidyākāluṣyāpagame svena rūpeṇārthasya pratibhāsanāt |. PV 2.206–207a1: viṣayagrahaṇaṃ dharmo vijñānasya yathāsti saḥ | gṛhyate so ’sya janako vidyamānātmaneti ca || eṣā prakṛtiḥ … On the epistemological presuppositions of that passage, see PVP D87b5– 88a4/P101a3–b3 (Eltschinger 2005b: 185–186), and TSP K872,27– 873,7/Ś1056,21–25 (McClintock 2002: 213–214).

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this [object] is grasped as it [really] is [i.e., as impermanent, etc.134]. This [object] generates this [cognition of itself] by [its] existing nature (vidyamānātmanā). And this is [the object’s and the cognition’s original] nature [i.e., that the object generates a cognition that grasps it as it really is, and that the cognition grasps a real aspect of the object].” Dharmakīrti’s presentation relies on a Sautrāntika doctrine, according to which direct perception is explained by the fact that the object casts or “projects” (arpaṇa) its own aspect (ākāra) and hence generates the cognition itself. Dharmakīrti spells this out in the third chapter of the same work135: “Experts on rational inquiry consider that to be an object/be perceptible consists in being a cause [which is] capable of projecting a [true] aspect [of itself] onto the cognition.” I believe we are left with no other possibility than to accept the alleged reality of the aspects the entity casts onto consciousness. As Devendrabuddhi makes clear,136 these real aspects are those we already met in Dharmakīrti’s description of the sixteen aspects of the four Noble Truths, impermanence, painfulness, emptiness, selflessness, etc. The conclusion is then easily drawn, as Kamalaśīla has it137: “It has been settled that the original nature of the [mind/cognition] is to grasp the real aspects of the object. It has also been explained that the real nature of the object consists in momentariness, selflessness, etc. Therefore, [the mind] has but the grasping of unsubstantiality for its nature.” In order to present us with the nature of cognition, the epistemologists resort to, and reinterpret accordingly, two highly valued traditional topoi, i.e., the alleged natural “luminosity” (prakṛtiprabhāsvaratā) of the mind or cognition,138 and the perception of true reality (tattvadarśana). Dharmakīrti describes the first in PV 2.208ab139: “[Therefore,] the mind is radiant by [its very] nature [i.e., grasps an object as it really is,140 whereas] impurities (mala) 134 135 136 137

138

139 140

Anityādyākāra in PVP D87b6/P101a4, D88b3–4/P102a4–5. PV 3.247b2d: grāhyatāṃ viduḥ | hetutvam eva yuktijñā jñānākārārpaṇakṣamam ||. See PVP D88a4–5/P101b3–4. TSP K873,5–7/Ś1057,2–4: bhūtaviṣayākāragrāhitā asya svabhāvo nija iti sthitam | bhūtaś ca svabhāvo viṣayasya kṣaṇikānātmādirūpa iti pratipāditam etat | tena nairātmyagrahaṇasvabhāvam eva. See Eltschinger 2005b: 180 and 190–192. On the mind’s natural luminosity, see Seyfort Ruegg 1969: 410–454 and Lamotte 1987a: 51–60. PV 2.208ab: prabhāsvaram idaṃ cittaṃ prakṛtyāgantavo malāḥ |. According to PVP D89a5/P103a1: ‘di‘i raṅ bźin ‘od gsal te | yaṅ dag pa ji lta ba bźin du ‘dzin pa‘i raṅ bźin no ||.

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[such as the view of self or craving] are [purely] adventitious [i.e., are not its nature,141 and hence are removable].” According to the second topos, which, as far as I can see, Dharmakīrti does not explicitly allude to in this particular context, to see the real aspects of things amounts to perceiving true reality. Thus, Devendrabuddhi142: “By its [very] nature, the mind thus consists of the perception of true reality, [whereas] impurities are [merely] adventitious.” Or, as Śāntarakṣita has it,143 “the mind, which consists of the perception of true reality, is radiant [by its very nature].” Now how are we to account for the indisputable fact that we actually do not perceive true reality, i.e., do not perceive real entities as impermanent, painful, empty or selfless? In other words, how is it that we ordinary persons can at best infer these real aspects of things, and hence have but conceptual and nonvivid notions of them? Dharmakīrti’s answer is as follows144: “On account of a certain cause (nimitta) [i.e., on account of an adventitious cause of error], the [mind] shifts (skhalat) from this [inherently veracious nature, superimposing such erroneous aspects as permanence on the object,145] and becomes uncertain (adṛḍha), requiring a condition146 (pratyaya) for the removal [of this state], like the cognition of a piece of rope [as a snake].” In order to understand the first part of Dharmakīrti’s explanation, we should remember what the state of an ordinary person consists of. The innate false view 141 142

143 144

145

146

According to PVP D89a6/P103a2: glo bur ba yin gyi de‘i raṅ bźin ni ma yin no ||. PVP D89b1/P103a5–6: ’di ltar sems ni ṅo bo ñid kyis de kho na ñid mthoṅ ba’i bdag ñid can yin la | dri ma rnams ni glo bur ba yin pa. See also PVP D89b2/P103a7: sems kyi de kho na ñid mthoṅ ba de’i bdag ñid can; PVP D87b4/P101a1: sems kyi raṅ bźin ñid kyi de kho na ñid mthoṅ ba de’i bdag ñid can; TSP K895,10/Ś1083,11: tattvadarśanātmakam eva vijñānasya (sic); TSP K895,7/Ś1082,21: prakṛtyā tattvadarśanātmakatayā cittasya; TSP K895,19/Ś1083,15–16: tattvadarśanātmakam eva cittaṃ siddham iti bhāvaḥ; TSP K896,4 (with no equivalent in Ś!): tattvadarśin; PVV 107,6: tattvadarśitvāt (said of the Blessed One); PVV 107,5–6: atattvadarśinaḥ (said of the vītarāgā bāhyāḥ). TS 3435K/3434Ś: prabhāsvaram idaṃ cittaṃ tattvadarśanasātmakam |. PV 2.207a2d: asyās tan nimittāntarataḥ skhalat | vyāvṛttau pratyayāpekṣam adṛḍhaṃ sarpabuddhivat ||. According to PVP D89a2/P102b4–5: rtag pa la sogs pa‘i rnam par sgro ‘dogs pas ‘jug pa ni gźan du gyur pa‘o || (where gźan du gyur pa is the Tibetan rendering of Sanskrit skhalat[/skhalana]). PVP D89a2–3/P102b5–6: rkyen la ltos pa yin te | de ltar skyes bu‘i ‘khrul pa gnod pa can gyi tshad ma la ltos pa daṅ bcas pa yin no ||.

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of self, i.e., nescience, causes pṛthagjanas to superimpose sixteen unreal aspects onto the four Noble Truths, e.g., permanence, pleasantness, mine and I. Because they are attached to I and mine, or to self and one’s own, ordinary beings crave for objects that delight the (pseudo-)self, and act accordingly in order to grasp them; they also develop aversion of whatever is deemed a threat to the self or its alleged property. Thus defilements and depravities arise out of the false view of self.147 This is the situation that Dharmakīrti alludes to when he says that the mind or the cognition shifts from its own true nature.148 But, as Dharmakīrti has it, this superimposing cognition is as uncertain or unsteady as the mistaken cognition of a piece of rope as snake at night in a place where one may suspect the presence of snakes.149 In the same way, nescience and the superimpositions it is responsible for, no matter how deeply rooted in the mind, are removable because they are adventitious or unnatural to the mind. Now what is needed to get rid of this shift? The epistemologists’ answer is unambiguous: an ordinary person who is deluded by the false view of self must resort to the means of valid cognition and especially to inference. Here again we should remember that, still as an ordinary person, one may, on account of belonging to a specific “family” and/or having met a “spiritual friend” like a Buddha or an advanced Bodhisattva, listen to the Buddhist scriptures and hence develop faith or conviction (adhimukti), but one may also set about rationally reflecting upon scriptural contents by means of pramāṇas. This rational inquiry, mainly consisting of the ascertainment of the true aspects of the Noble 147 148

149

See §§1.1–3 above. We should, however, be cautious not to ascribe to him the mythological notion of a “fall” or decay of the mind that would in turn imply the path to consist in the gradual recovery of a lost condition. Nescience is a beginningless (anādi) erroneous perception (mithyopalabdhi) that arises out of its own seeds (bīja) or latent tendencies (vāsanā) and that has been nourished by, and nourishes in turn, the so-called incorrect judgement (ayoniśomanaskāra). On this last doctrinal point, see PVSV 8,20–21 (ātmātmīyābhiniveśapūrvakā hi rāgādayo ’yoniśomanaskārapūrvakatvāt sarvadoṣotpatteḥ |), PVṬ Je D249b6–7/P296a6–7 ≈ PVSVṬ 398,25–26, PVṬ Je D253a4– 5/P301a4 = PVSVṬ 403,8–9, PVV 101,10 and 367,10–11. On ayoniśomanaskāra as the root of satkāyadṛṣṭi, see MS 2.20.9 in Lamotte 1973: II.115, Paramārthagāthā 20 in Wayman 1961: 170, BhK 1.215,8–15. See PVP D87b7/P101a6: dper na sbrul du ’dris pa’i phyogs mi gsal bar thag pa la sbrul gyi śes pa lta bu’o ||. Cf. Vibh. 82n. 4: (mandamandaprakāśe) sarpopacite pradeśe. See also Lamotte 1973: II.109–110, and MS 3.8.2 in Lamotte 1973: II.163.

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Truths, aims at shaping the salvational means (upāya), i.e., the perception of unsubstantiality as an antagonistic or opposing factor of satkāyadṛṣṭi. There can be no doubt that Dharmakīrti’s vyāvṛttau pratyayāpekṣam (PV 2.207c) refers in the first place to the inferential analysis that is typical for the cintāmayī prajñā.150 As we have seen above, the cultivation of the salvational means that the yogin carries out is simultaneously of a cognitive and cleansing character. The more our yogin sharpens his realization of the Truths and their corresponding aspects, the more he succeeds in uprooting the opposite false views as well as the superimpositions and defilements they are responsible for. But eradicating the adventitious impurities amounts to gradually freeing the mind of those malignant obstacles that prevented it from grasping the object as it really is, i.e., with its real aspects of impermanence, emptiness, etc. During the path of vision, the yogin gets rid of gross superimpositions such as those the speculative false view of self gives rise to. Much more difficult to eliminate however, is the innate false view of self, along with the remaining defilements (i.e., the bhāvanāheyakleśas) and their productive and nonproductive vāsanās, the uprooting of which, in many Mahāyānist accounts, necessitates no less than eight complete stages or bhūmis (bhūmis 2-9). During the first six of these bhūmis (2–7), the yogin must devote constant effort and “intentionality” (vikalpa) to his cultivation of the cleansing means; during the last two bhūmis (8–9), insight becomes spontaneous, effortless, and unintentional. The removal of the most subtle categories of bad dispositions now proceeds as “automatically” or “naturally” as the perception of unsubstantiality itself. At the end of the path of cultivation, the entire filth of impurities has been irreversibly destroyed, a psychological and existential situation described as a transmutation of the basis-of-existence. Now the mind only consists of the path; it has the perception of unsubstantiality or discernment for its unique and indestructible nature. Dharmakīrti describes this as follows151: “Of [these impurities] that were incapable [of annulling the mind] before [the perceptual realization of unsubstantiality152], what (kva) [could] therefore be the capacity afterwards, with regard to a [mind] that [once the practice of nairātmyadarśana has been completed, 150 151 152

See §§2.1–2 above. PV 2.208cd: tat prāg apy asamarthānāṃ paścāc chaktiḥ kva tanmaye ||. According to PVP D89a6/P103a3: bdag med pa mthoṅ ba‘i mṅon sum du byas pa.

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entirely] consists (maya) of the [path]153?” The following excerpt of Devendrabuddhi will provide a useful summary as well as transition to the concluding part of my hypothesis154: “[Moral] faults [i.e., defilements,] lack the capacity to re-occur in the mind of the one who is of one essence with the path (mārgasātmye sthitasya), for the nature (svabhāva) of the mind (citta) consists in the perception of true reality (tattvadarśanātmaka);155 it does not have for its essence the [moral] faults that are bound to [i.e., derive from] aspects that are contrary (viparītākāra) [to the ones which are ascertained by the means of valid cognition]. Now its (= the mind’s) depravities (upakleśa) [arise] by force of a [purely] adventitious condition (āgantu[ka]pratyayavaśāt?).156 If something opposes (√bādh) them,157 the mind that rests in its own [original] nature (svasvabhāva) provides the [moral] faults with no support/resting-place (āśraya) anymore (na punar), because its nature exists by force of [real] entities (vastubalapravṛtta).”158 As Devendrabuddhi has it, the mind or cognition now abides in its own proper and undefiled nature, which is nothing other than the grasping of the real aspects of the object projected onto it. The practice of the path, i.e., 153

154

155

156

157

158

According to PVP D89a7–b1/P103a5: bdag med pa mthoṅ ba goms pa grub pa na de‘i raṅ bźin lam de’i bdag ñid can gyi sems la (*nairātmyadarśanābhyāsaniṣpattau tanmaye mārgasātmani citte). PVP D87a7–87b2/P100b2–5: lam goms pa la gnas pa’i sems la ñes pa rnams yaṅ ’byuṅ ba’i nus pa yod pa ma yin no* || de ltar na sems kyi raṅ bźin ni de kho na ñid mthoṅ ba’i bdag ñid can yin gyi | phyin ci log gi rnam pa daṅ rjes su ’brel pa’i ñes pa de’i bdag ñid can ni ma yin no || ’di’i ñe ba’i ñon moṅs pa gaṅ yin pa de yaṅ glo bur ba’i rkyen gyi dbaṅ gis yin no || de la gnod pa yod na raṅ gi raṅ bźin la gnas pa’i sems ni yaṅ ñes pa’i rten byed pa ma yin te | dṅos po’i stobs kyis źugs pa’i raṅ bźin ñid yin pa’i phyir ro ||. *Cf. PVV 82,1–2: mārgasātmye ’pi sthitasya cetasi na doṣāṇām utpattuṃ sāmarthyam asti |. PVṬ Ñe D133a3–4/P164a2–3 explains tattvadarśanātmaka as follows: dṅos po ji lta ba bźin du gnas pa‘i ‘dzin pa‘i bdag ñid can (*yathāvasthitavastugrahaṇātmaka < PVV 82,14–15). PVṬ Ñe D133a5/P164a4–5 explains āgantu(ka)pratyaya as follows: rgyu mtshan ’ga’ źig las bdag la sogs par sgro btags pas ’jug pa’i ’khrul pa’i śes pa. PVṬ Ñe D133a5–6/P164a5–6: de la gnod pa yod na źes bya ba glo bur ba‘i rnam pas | de‘i rgyu can gyi ñe ba‘i ñon moṅs pa bdag med pa‘i lam gyis bsal ba yod na źes bya ba‘i don to ||. PVṬ Ñe D133a6–7/P164a7–8: dṅos po stobs kyis źugs pa‘i raṅ bźin ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro źes bya ba ni dṅos po ji ltar gnas pa bźin du ‘dzin pas źugs pa‘i bdag med pa‘i lam ni sems kyi raṅ bźin ñid yin pa‘i phyir ro || (*yathāvasthitavastugrahaṇapravṛttasya nairātmyamārgasya cittasvabhāvatvāt).

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cultivation, has freed the cognition of the obstacles that avidyā was ultimately responsible for; in other words the mind is now free from the obstacle that concealed the knowable. Of the real and pramāṇa-ascertained aspects the object imposes upon it, which are the real aspects of the four Noble Truths, the mind can have but a vivid and hence nonconceptual image. In other words: whereas the cintāmayī prajñā, i.e., the (initially purely conceptual) ascertainment of true reality by means of pramāṇas, is responsible for the reliability of the yogin’s cognition, the bhāvanāmayī prajñā gradually frees the mind of the defilements in such a way that the aspects objects cast upon it appear vividly. Irrespective of all subsequent interpretations of the yogināṃ jñānam, this in my opinion is what Dharmakīrti has in mind when he rather cryptically describes the cognition of yogins. I would like to add a final remark. As far as I know, Dharmakīrti does not describe the nature of discernment during the path itself, i.e., before the āśrayaparivṛtti takes place. Now it is clear that, before entering the path of vision, the yogin has but an inferential and hence conceptual notion of such real aspects as impermanence, emptiness and the like. I would incline towards considering that his cognition of them remains a conceptual one, albeit extremely refined and hence vivid, throughout the path. But we ought not to forget that the mind is a purely momentary entity: the cognition that the path or the cultivation generates again and again may well be nothing like the cognition of the liberated one. This is exactly what the following stanzas of the Paramārthagāthās account for159: “39. Defiled mind, of course (hi), is [something] that arises and ceases each time together with the Defilements. For it, liberation from the Defilements has [therefore] neither [already] happened nor will it [ever] happen. 40. [For it is] not that this [very same defiled mind] arises afterwards as a pure one, but [rather what] arises [afterwards is] another [mind which is pure]. And [it is] 159

Paramārthagāthā 39–41: sahotpannaniruddhaṃ hi kleśaiḥ kliṣṭaṃ manaḥ sadā | kleśebhyas tasya nirmokṣo na bhūto na bhaviṣyati || na tad utpadyate paścāc chuddham anyat tu jāyate | tac ca pūrvam asaṃkliṣṭaṃ kleśebhyo muktam ucyate || yat kliṣṭaṃ tad ihātyantāc chuddhaṃ prakṛtibhāsvaram | na ceha śudhyate kaścit kutaścid vāpi śudhyate ||. Text and translation in Schmithausen 1987: I.232–233 (see also the commentary on the stanzas in Schmithausen 1987: I.161–162). See also the Vaibhāṣika’s account of liberation (vimukti) in AKBh 388,19–389,4, and Eltschinger 2005b: 190–192.

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this [other mind that, although it had] not [been] defiled before, is called ‘liberated’ from Defilements. 42. That which is defiled is, in this [system], absolutely [defiled]; [what is] pure is radiant by nature. And [thus (?) there is], in this [system], no [person or even dharma which] is purified, nor is [he/it, a fortiori,] purified from anything.” ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY AK(Bh)

AKVy

ASBh

BhK I

BhK III

Bhsd

BoBh

BoBht Cox 1995

D

DBhS

Prahlad Pradhan: Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu. Patna, 1975: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, 8). Unrai Wogihara: Sphuṭārthā Abhidharmakośavyākhyā, the Work of Yaśomitra. Tokyo, 1989 (19361): Sankibo Buddhist Book Store (The Publishing Association of Abhidharmakośavyākhyā). Nathmal Tatia: Abhidharmasamuccayabhāṣyam. Patna, 1976: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, 17). First Bhāvanākrama (Kamalaśīla). Pp. 497/187–539/229 of Giuseppe Tucci: Minor Buddhist Texts. Delhi, 1986: Motilal Banarsidass. Third Bhāvanākrama (Kamalaśīla). Giuseppe Tucci: Minor Buddhist Texts, Part III: Third Bhāvanākrama. Roma, 1971: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Serie Orientale Roma, 43). Franklin Edgerton: Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. Volume II: Dictionary. Delhi, 1970: Motilal Banarsidass (New Haven, 1953: Yale University Press). D = Nalinaksha Dutt: Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ [Being the XVth Section of Asaṅgapāda’s Yogācārabhūmiḥ]. Patna, 1978: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, 7). W = Unrai Wogihara: Bodhisattvabhūmi. A Statement of Whole Course of the Bodhisattva (Being Fifteenth Section of Yogācārabhūmi). Tokyo, 1971: Sankibo Buddhist Book Store. D n°4037, Wi 1b1–213a7/P n°5538, Źi 1b1–247a8. Collett Cox: Disputed Dharmas. Early Buddhist Theories of Existence. An Annotated Translation of the Section on Factors Dissociated from Thought from Saṅghabhadra’s Nyāyānusāra. Tokyo, 1995: The International Institute of Buddhist Studies (Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series, 11). Jikido Takasaki/Zuiho Yamaguchi/Noriaki Hakamaya: sDe dge Tibetan Tripiṭaka bsTan ‘gyur preserved at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo. Tokyo, 1977–1981. Johannes Rahder: Daśabhūmikasūtra et Bodhisattvabhūmi, Chapitres Vihāra et Bhūmi. Paris/Louvain, 1926: Paul Geuthner/J.-B. Istas, Imprimeur (Société Belge d’Études Orientales).

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Dharmottarapradīpa (Durvekamiśra). See NBṬM. Georges B.J. Dreyfus: Recognizing Reality. Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy and Its Tibetan Interpretations. New York, 1997: State University of New York, State University of New York Press, Albany (SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies). Dunne 2006 John D. Dunne: “Realizing the unreal: Dharmakīrti’s theory of yogic perception.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 34, pp. 497–519. Eltschinger 2005a Vincent Eltschinger: “Études sur la philosophie religieuse de Dharmakīrti: 1. Le Bouddha comme Śāstṛ et comme Sugata.” Études Asiatiques/Asiatische Studien 59–2 (2005), pp. 395–442. Eltschinger 2005b Vincent Eltschinger: “Études sur la philosophie religieuse de Dharmakīrti: 2. L’āśrayaparivṛtti.” Journal Asiatique 293–1 (2005), pp. 151–211. Eltschinger 2007a Vincent Eltschinger: Penser l’autorité des Écritures. La polémique de Dharmakīrti contre la notion brahmanique orthodoxe d'un Veda sans auteur. Autour de Pramāṇavārttika I.213–268 et Svavṛtti. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Eltschinger 2008 Vincent Eltschinger: “Studies in Dharmakīrti’s Religious Philosophy: 3. Compassion and its Place in PV 2.” To be published in Eli Franco/Helmut Krasser/Horst Lasic/Birgit Kellner: Proceedings of the Fourth Dharmakīrti Conference (Vienna, August 2005). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Eltschinger (forthcoming 1) = Vincent Eltschinger: “Studies in Dharmakīrti’s Religious Philosophy: 4. The Cintāmayī Prajñā.” To be published in Piotr Balcerowicz: Logic and Belief in Indian Philosophy. Delhi, 2008: Motilal Banarsidass (Warsaw Indological Studies, 3). Franco 1989 Eli Franco: “Was the Buddha a Buddha?” Journal of Indian Philosophy 17, pp. 81–99. Franco 1997 Eli Franco: Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universität Wien (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, 38). Franco 2001 Eli Franco: “Dharmakīrti’s Reductionism in Religion and Logic.” Pp. 285–308 of Raffaele Torella: Le parole e i marmi. Studi in onore di Raniero Gnoli nel suo 70° compleano. Vol 1. Roma: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (Studie Orientale Roma, 92.1). Franco forthcoming Eli Franco: “Perception of Yogis–Some epistemological and metaphysical considerations.” To be published in Eli Franco/Helmut Krasser/Horst Lasic/Birgit Kellner: Proceedings of the Fourth Dharmakīrti Conference (Vienna, August 2005). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

CAREER Hattori 1968

Jaini 2001 Jñānaprasthāna Kośa

Kritzer 2005

Lamotte 1935 Lamotte 1973

Lamotte 1974

Lamotte 1976

Lamotte 1987a

Lamotte 1987b

LAV Mahāvibhāṣā Maithrimurthi 1999

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Masaaki Hattori: Dignāga, On Perception, being the Pratyakṣapariccheda of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (Harvard Oriental Series, 47). Padmanabh S. Jaini: Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies. Delhi, 2001: Motilal Banarsidass. T26 (1544). Louis de La Vallée Poussin: L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. 6 Vol. Bruxelles, 1980: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises (Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques, 16). Robert Kritzer: Vasubandhu and the Yogācārabhūmi. Yogācāra Elements in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. Tokyo, 2005: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series, 18). Étienne Lamotte: Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, l’explication des mystères. Louvain/Paris, 1935: Université de Louvain. Étienne Lamotte: La Somme du Grand Véhicule d’Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṅgraha). 2 vol. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1973: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste (Publications de l’IOL, 8). Étienne Lamotte: “Passions and Impregnations of the Passions in Buddhism.” Pp. 91–104 of L. Cousins/A. Kunst/K.R. Norman: Buddhist Studies in Honour of I.B. Horner. Dordrecht/Boston, 1974: D. Reidel Publishing Company. Étienne Lamotte: Histoire du bouddhisme indien. Des origines à l’ère Śaka. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1976: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste (Publications de l’IOL, 14). Étienne Lamotte: L’enseignement de Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa). Louvain-la-Neuve, 1987: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste (Publications de l’IOL, 35). Étienne Lamotte: “Le troisième Bhāvanā-krama de Kamalaśīla. Traduction de la version tibétaine.” Pp. 336–353 of Paul Demiéville: Le Concile de Lhasa, une controverse sur le quiétisme entre bouddhistes de l’Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne. Paris, 1987: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises (Publication de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 7). Bunyiu Nanjio: The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. Kyoto, 1923: The Otani University Press (Bibliotheca Otaniensis, 1). T27 (1545). Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi: Wohlwollen, Mitleid, Freude und Gleichmut. Eine ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung der vier apramāṇas in der buddhistischen Ethik und Spiritualität von den Anfängen bis hin zum frühen Yogācāra. Stuttgart, 1999: Franz Steiner Verlag (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien herausgegeben vom Institut für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets an der Universität Hamburg, 50).

210 McClintock 2002

McDermott 1991

MS MSA(Bh)

MSAVBh Nagao 2000

NB(Ṭ)

M

Nyāyānusāra P

Pemwieser 1991

Pruden 1991

PS(V)

PSṬ

PV 1–4

VINCENT ELTSCHINGER Sara McClintock: Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason in the Tattvasaṃgraha and the Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. Charlene McDermott: “Yogic Direct Awareness as Means of Valid Cognition in Dharmakīrti and Rgyal-tshab.” Pp. 144–166 of Minoru Kiyota: Mahāyāna Buddhist Meditation. Theory and Practice. Dehli, 1991: Motilal Banarsidass. See Lamotte 1973: I. Sylvain Lévi: Asaṅga. Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṅkāra, Exposé de la doctrine du Grand Véhicule selon le système Yogācāra. Tome 1: texte. Paris, 1907: Librairie Honoré Champion. Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāravṛttibhāṣya (Sthiramati). D n°4034, Mi 1b1–Tsi 266a7. Gadjin M. Nagao: “The Bodhisattva’s Compassion Described in the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra.” Pp. 1–38 of Jonathan A. Silk: Wisdom, Compassion, and the Search for Understanding. The Buddhist Studies Legacy of Gadjin M. Nagao. Honolulu, 2000: University of Hawai’i Press (Studies in the Buddhist Traditions). S = Th. I. Ščerbatskoj: Nyāyabindu. Buddijskij učebnik’’ logiki sočinenie Dharmakirti I tolkovanie na nego Nyāyabinduṭīkā sočinenie Darmottary. Osnabrück, 1970 (Petrograd, 19181): Biblio Verlag (Bibliotheca Buddhica, 7). Paṇḍita Dalsukhbhai Malvania: Paṇḍita Durveka Miśras’s Dharmottarapradīpa (Being a sub–commentary on Dharmottara’s Nyāyabinduṭīkā, a commentary on Dharmakīrti’s Nyāyabindu. Patna, 1971: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, 2). T29 (1562). Daisetz T. Suzuki: The Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking Edition, Kept in the Library of the Otani University, Kyoto. Tokyo/Kyoto, 1957: Tibetan Tripitaka Research Institute. Monika Pemwieser: Materialien zur Theorie der yogischen Erkenntnis im Buddhismus. Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des magistergrades an der Universität Wien. Wien, 1991 (unpublished). Leo M. Pruden: Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam by Louis de La Vallée Poussin. English Translation by Leo M. Pruden. 4 vol. Berkeley, 1991: Asian Humanities Press. Ernst Steinkellner: Pramāṇasamuccaya(vṛtti). Chapter I. www.oeaw.ac.at/ias/Mat/dignaga_PS_1.pdf. See also Hattori 1968. Ernst Steinkellner/Helmut Krasser/Horst Lasic: Jinendrabuddhi’s Viśālāmalavatī Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā, Chapter 1. Part I: Critical Edition. Beijing/Vienna, 2005: China Tibetology Research Center/Austrian Academy of Sciences. Yūsho Miyasaka: “Pramāṇavārttika-kārikā (Sanskrit and Tibetan).” Acta Indologica II (1971–1972), pp. 1–206. See also

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PVV; for PV 2–3, see also PVA; for PV 1, see also PVSV; for PV 2.131cd–285, see also Vetter 1990. My numerotation of the verses in PV 2 follows the one of Vetter. PVA Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana: Pramāṇavārttikabhāṣyam or Vārtikālaṅkāraḥ of Prajñākaragupta (Being a Commentary on Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārtikam). Patna, 1953: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute. PVin 1 Ernst Steinkellner: Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścaya, Chapters 1 and 2. Beijing/Vienna, 2007: China Tibetology Publishing House/Austrian Academy of Sciences Press (Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, 2). PVinṬ Pramāṇaviniścayaṭīkā (Dharmottara). D n°4229, Dze 1b1–Tshe 178a3/P n°5727, Dze 1b1–We 209b8. PVP Pramāṇavārttikapañjikā (Devendrabuddhi). D n°4217, Che 1– 326b4/P n°5717, Che 1–390a8. PVSV Raniero Gnoli: The Pramāṇavārttikam of Dharmakīrti. The First Chapter with the Auto-Commentary. Roma, 1960: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Serie Orientale Roma, 23). PVSVṬ Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana: Karṇakagomin’s Commentary on the Pramāṇavārttikavṛtti of Dharmakīrti. Kyoto, 1982: Rinsen Books Co. (Allahabad, 1943: Kitab Mahal). PVṬ Pramāṇavārttikaṭīkā (Śākyabuddhi). D n°4220, Je 1b1–Ñe 282a7/P n°5718, Je 1b1–Ñe 348a8. PVV Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana: “Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika with Commentary by Manorathanandin.” Published as an appendix of the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society 24–26 (1938–1940). Rahder 1932 Johannes Rahder: “La Satkāyadṛṣṭi d’après Vibhāṣā, 8.” Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 1 (1931–1932), pp. 227–239. Schmithausen 1987 Lambert Schmithausen: Ālayavijñāna. On the Origin and the Early Development of a Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy. 2 volumes. Tokyo, 1987: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series, IVa/b). Schmithausen 2007 Lambert Schmithausen: “Aspects of Spiritual Practice in Early Yogācāra.” Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 11, pp. 213(/98)–244(/67). Seyfort Ruegg 1969 David Seyfort Ruegg: La théorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra. Paris, 1969: École Française d’Extrême-Orient (Publications de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, Université de Paris, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences humaines). Siddhi Louis de La Vallée Poussin: Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi. La Siddhi de Hiuan-Tsang. 2 volumes. Paris, 1929: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner (Buddhica, Documents et travaux pour l’étude du bouddhisme publiés sous la direction de Jean Przyluski, Première série: Mémoires, 5). SNS Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra. See Lamotte 1935.

212 Steinkellner 1978

Steinkellner 1979

Suzuki 1999

T Traité

TṛBh

TS(P)

Vetter 1964

Vetter 1990

Vibh. VinSg

VINCENT ELTSCHINGER Ernst Steinkellner: “Yogische Erkenntnis als Problem im Buddhismus. Pp. 121–134 of Gerhard Oberhammer: Transzendenzerfahrung, Vollzugshorizont des Heils. Das Problem in indischer und christlicher Tradition. Arbeitsdokumentation eines Symposiums.” Wien, 1978: Publications of the de Nobili Research Library, 5. Ernst Steinkellner: Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścayaḥ. Zweites Kapitel: Svārthānumānam. Teil II: Übersetzung und Anmerkungen. Wien, 1979: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, 15). Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki: Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. Delhi, 1999 (London, 19301): Motilal Banarsidass (Buddhist Tradition Series, 41). Junjirō Takakusu/Kaikyoku Watanabe: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō. Tōkyō, 1924–1932: Taishō Issaikyō Kankōkai. Étienne Lamotte: Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nāgārjuna (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra). 5 volumes. Louvain-laNeuve, 19812, 19812, 1970, 1976, 1980): Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste (Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste, 25, 26, 2, 12, 24). Triṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣya (Sthiramati). Sylvain Lévi: Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, deux traités de Vasubandhu: Viṃśatikā et Triṃśikā. Paris, 1925: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Sciences historiques et philologiques, 245). K = Embar Krishnamacharya: Tattvasaṅgraha of Śāntarakṣita With the Commentary of Kamalaśīla. 2 vol. Baroda, 1984: Oriental Institute. Ś = Swami Dwarikadas Shastri: Tattvasaṅgraha of Ācārya Shāntarakṣita with the Commentary ‘Pañjikā’ of Shri Kamalshīla. 2 vol. Varanasi, 1981: Bauddha Bharati (Bauddha Bharati Series, 1). Tilmann Vetter: Erkenntnisprobleme bei Dharmakīrti. Wien, 1964: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Kommissionsverlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philologisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 245). Tilmann Vetter: Der Buddha und seine Lehre in Dharmakīrtis Pramāṇavārttika. Der Abschnitt über den Buddha und die vier edlen Wahrheiten im Pramāṇasiddhi-Kapitel. Wien, 1990: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universität Wien (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, 12). Vibhūticandra’s notes to PVV. See PVV. Viniścayasaṅgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi. P n°5539, Zi 1b1 – ‘i 142b8.

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Alex Wayman: Analysis of the Śrāvakabhūmi Manuscript. Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1961: University of California Press.

DORJI WANGCHUK

A Relativity Theory of the Purity and Validity of Perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism* The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n. John Milton (1608–1674), Paradise Lost One devoid of self-cognitive mind that cognises true [reality], Would perceive even [pure] Buddha fields to be domains of bad destinations (e.g. hells). [For] one who realises the [true] reality of equality [taught by] the Supreme Vehicle, The very domains of bad destinations are domains of the Akaniṣṭha [and] Tuṣita [heavens]. sGyu ’phrul le lhag and rDo rje gsang rgyud1

1. INTRODUCTION On the whole, Tibetan Buddhist scholars have honestly striven to adhere to the doctrines of Indian Buddhism. But we do encounter from time to time philosophical theories and interpretations that are of purely Tibetan provenance. Most of them seem to be the product of an attempt to resolve conflicts and inconsistencies found in the heterogeneous Indian Buddhist scriptures and systems, which, as I have already tried to illustrate on the basis of the Buddha Nature theory, were dealt with in different ways.2 No doubt differences in interpretations provoked heated debates, but it is precisely these and similar doctrinal disputes that gave * 1

2

I owe my thanks to Philip Pierce for kindly proofreading this article. sGyu ’phrul le lhag (p. 425.6–7) and rDo rje gsang rgyud (p. 332.3–4): yang dag shes pa’i rang rig blo med na || bde gshegs zhing yang ngan song gnas su mthong || theg mchog mnyam pa’i don nyid rtogs pa ni || ngan song gnas nyid ’og min dga’ ldan gnas ||. Note that the rDo rje gsang rgyud erroneously reads bla instead of blo in pāda a. This verse is cited by Mi-pham in his ’Od gsal snying po (pp. 94.6–95.2), with the sGyu ’phrul rgyas pa named as his source. Instead of ni in pāda c, he has na. Wangchuk 2004.

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rise to fascinating philosophical ideas that are uniquely Tibetan. One of the most intriguing examples is the debate surrounding an Indo-Tibetan Buddhist theory of knowledge, namely, on how beings of various realms and spiritual levels are said to perceive a common entity, for instance, what is known to us humans as water. Some of the questions that Tibetan scholars have asked were whether what we call water exists at all as water, whether our perception of water is a valid cognition, or whether it may be that water is not simply water after all but in fact pus (pūya: rnag), as it is perceived by hungry ghosts (preta: yi dwags); nectar, as it is perceived by gods; a goddess, as it is perceived by yogins; or still something else. They also pondered upon such questions as whether there is a common and shared object of perception, and if so, what it is, and which of the perceptions—if every sentient being of the six realms perceives it differently—is valid, and what the criteria of perceptual validity are. Scholars from the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism (dGe-lugs, Sa-skya, bKa’-brgyud, and rNying-ma) who reflected upon these questions came to varying conclusions, which will be discussed elsewhere. This paper seeks to introduce a relativity theory of the purity and validity of perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, one essentially the result of attempts made by some scholars of the rNyingma (or the Ancient) School of Tibetan Buddhism to answer the above queries, having apparently drawn their inspiration from Indian Buddhist sources. The theory that I intend to present has revealed itself, as is often the case, as more complex than initially assumed. Firstly, this theory of perception does not concern an anthropocentric view of perception, and is not limited to human knowledge, but embraces the entire spectrum of karmically conditioned perceptions experienced by the six classes of sentient beings, namely, gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and beings in hell. Secondly, human beings for one may have access to various dimensions of perception. For instance, based on karmic influences, a man may perceive an entity “x” as water—as something that can quench his thirst—but he may also be able to meditatively enhance his perception and perceive “x” as a female being capable of arousing samādhic ecstasy in him. Thirdly, this theory presupposes varying understandings of ontology, logic and epistemology (pramāṇa), gnoseology (i.e. the theory of jñāna, which in the Buddhist context can be understood as higher epistemology), and soteriology—in the varying Buddhist philosophical systems—and this

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makes the matter all the more complicated. Fourthly, there is a certain terminological constriction in having to express eastern thought in western languages, and one cannot always adopt or else try to get around using western scientific or philosophical terms such as “relativity” and “relativism”3 without running risks of being misunderstood. 2. THE HISTORICAL AND DOCTRINAL SETTING Of the four periods of the history of Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa) in Tibet as proposed by Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp,4 namely, Ancient (i.e. pre-Glang-dar-ma Period, that is, pre-9th century), Pre-Classical (beginning with Klu-mes Tshul-khrims-shes-rab in the 10th century), Classical (beginning with Sa-skya Paṇḍita Kun-dga’rgyal-mtshan in the 12th century), and Post-Classical (beginning in the 15th century), the Ancient Period witnessed the translation of only a few Indian works on Buddhist logic and epistemology.5 One is likely to assume that beyond these few translations Tibetan scholars of the Ancient Period have really nothing to say or offer on matters pertaining to Buddhist logic and epistemology. Such an assumption would certainly be justified if we were to think exclusively in terms of commentaries on pure Pramāṇa treatises belonging to the DignāgaDharmakīrti school of Buddhist logic and epistemology, but not necessarily if we were to consider Buddhist theories of knowledge and their application in more general terms. For example, the theory of four kinds of yukti (“logical reasoning”), namely, reasoning [based on the principle] of dependence (apekṣāyukti: ltos pa’i rigs pa), reasoning [based on the principle of the ability of things to] cause effects (kāryakaraṇayukti: bya ba byed pa’i rigs pa), reasoning that establishes 3

4 5

I would like to thank John Taber for kindly acquainting me with Maria Baghramian’s monograph on relativism (Baghramian 2004). Unfortunately, it has not been possible to go into a discussion of whether my own employment of the terms “relativity” and “relativism” conforms to one or more of the numerous semantic nuances and usages presented therein. I shall have to leave it up to readers for themselves to judge if and to what extent the theory presented in this paper can be described in those terms. van der Kuijp 1989: 8–9. For the Pramāṇa texts translated during the Ancient Period in Tibet, see Frauwallner 1957.

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the tenability [of the other three types of reasoning] (upapattisādhanayukti: ’thad pa sgrub pa’i rigs pa), and reasoning [based on the ruleboundedness] of reality [itself] (dharmatāyukti: chos nyid kyi rigs pa), is particularly interesting, for it existed in India prior to Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, for the most part within the Maitreya-Asaṅga or Yogācāra textual milieu. Some of the earliest sources of the four yuktis may well be the Śrāvakabhūmi6 and Bodhisattvabhūmi7 (and not the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra,8 in spite of its sūtra status). The four yuktis are either merely alluded to or discussed in greater detail in these and other Indian works. In Tibet, the topic seems to have been quite popular from early on, as the commentaries on the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the bKa’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma ascribed to the Tibetan King Khri-srong-ldebtsan9 adequately demonstrate. One of the most detailed and systematic explanations and applications of the four yuktis I have seen thus far, however, is that of the eleventh-century rNying-ma scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po (henceforth Rong-zom-pa),10 who evidently relied on Candragomin’s Nyāyasiddhyāloka.11 Rong-zom-pa’s explanations and applications of these four yuktis are very useful, containing as they do intriguing deliberations on a number of ontological, epistemological, soteriological, and gnoseological issues.12 Although the four yuktis will not be discussed in this article, it should be pointed out that early Tibetan deliberations on theory of knowledge, including what I call the relativity theory of the purity and validity of perception, can best be understood at the backdrop of these four yuktis. 6 7 8 9 10

11 12

Śrāvakabhūmi (pp. 236.10–240.15). Bodhisattvabhūmi (p. 293.17–18). Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra X.7 (pp. 155–158). See Steinkellner 1989 and Powers 2004: 20, n. 43. dKon mchog ’grel (pp. 102.9–103.15); mDo rgyas (pp. 308.22–314.10); Theg tshul (pp. 487.20–491.20); sNang ba lhar sgrub (pp. 560.6–563.1). Mi-pham also discussed the four yuktis on a number of occasions; see, for example, his mKhas ’jug (pp. 296.3–300.4), his commentary on Madhyamakālaṃkāra 65 (dBu ma rgyan ’grel, pp. 241.3–249.2), mDo sde rgyan ’grel (pp. 667.2–668.4), Shes rab ral gri and Shes rab ral gri’i mchan (pp. 790.1–792.4), and sKad gnyis shan sbyar (pp. 235.6– 236.1). For the role Mi-pham envisioned for the four yuktis within the general Mahāyāna context, see his Legs bshad snang ba’i gter (p. 897.1–4). See also Kapstein 2001: 317–343. For a discussion of the authorship of the Nyāyasiddhyāloka, see Steinkellner 1984. Rang byung ye shes (pp. 124.21–125.22); dKon mchog ’grel (pp. 103.15–109.9); sNang ba lhar sgrub (pp. 563.1–567.6).

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It was, however, only in the nineteenth century that the rNyingma school managed to “colonise” the field of classical Buddhist logic and epistemology, primarily thanks to the efforts of Mi-pham rNamrgyal-rgya-mtsho (1846–1912),13 who became an authority in the field in his tradition. One of Mi-pham’s most significant contributions to theories of knowledge is his systematisation of the theory of two kinds of means of conventional valid cognition (i.e. cognition that has the conventional as its object) (kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma: sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa),14 namely, one based on ordinary (lit. “of this-side,” i.e., this-worldly) perception (tshu rol mthong ba: arvāgdarśana/aparadarśana)15 and the other based on pure perception (dag pa’i gzigs pa: *śuddhadarśana).16 Mi-pham himself thought his theory to be a matter of great profundity (shin tu zab pa’i gnad) crucially relevant for both tantric and non-tantric Buddhist systems. What can his motive for introducing such a theory have been? Mi-pham was, like Tsong-kha-pa Blo-bzang-grags-pa (1357–1419), a champion of the Pramāṇa and Madhyamaka systems, and he strongly believed in an intimate and natural relationship between Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇa and Nāgārjuna’s 13

14

15

16

The few Pramāṇa works by Mi-pham are: (a) Tshad ma rnam ’grel gyi gzhung gsal por bshad pa legs bshad snang ba’i gter (MS, vol. 20, pp. 1–901); (b) Tshad ma kun las btus pa’i mchan ’grel rig [= rigs?] lam rab gsal snang ba (MS, vol. 8/hūṃ, pp. 473–619); (c) Tshad ma rigs pa’i gter mchan gyis ’grel pa phyogs las rnam par rgyal ba’i ru mtshon (MS, vol. 11/kha, pp. 549–751); and (d) bsDus tshan rtsod rigs smra ba’i sgo ’byed (MS, vol. 27, pp. 285–353). See the bsTan pa’i mdzes rgyan (pp. 676.5–677.2)—a work of mKhan-po Kun-bzang-dpal-ldan, or in short Kun-dpal (1872–1943), which includes some additional Pramāṇa writings of Mi-pham, of which the Tshad ma rnam ’grel gyi bsdus don nyi zla’i phreng ba seems particularly noteworthy. For a discussion of Mi-pham’s theory of interpretation (as presented in his Shes rab ral gri), see Kapstein 2001. The term sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa is attested in Prajñākaramati’s Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā (p. 180.25) and in Prajñākaragupta’s Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (e.g. pp. 3.14, 5.23, 226.8). Cf. Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (p. 487.28): sāṃvyavahārikaṃ pramāṇam. Prajñākaragupta also employs terms such as vyāvahārikapramāṇa (ibid., p. 226.8) and sāṃvyavahārikapratyakṣa (ibid., p. 13.4). (I would like to thank Eli Franco for drawing my attention to Prajñākaragupta’s work.) Note that Tibetan sources also employ the expressions tha snyad dpyod pa’i tshad ma and tha snyad (pa’i/kyi) tshad ma. Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā (p. 182.9, 13); Jackson 1987: 401, n. 103. Cf. Negi 1993– 2005: s.v. tshu rol mthong ba. Mi-pham, ’Od gsal snying po (pp. 82.1–84.5) and Shes rab ral gri (pp. 800.3– 801.4).

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Madhyamaka,17 or between the systems of the “Two Kīrtis,” namely, Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti.18 Harmony between the doctrines of Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti also meant for him harmony between Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, and so too between the Nāgārjuna and Maitreya-Asaṅga traditions. The means of absolute valid cognition (i.e. cognition that has the absolute as its object) (don dam pa’i tshad ma: pāramārthikapramāṇa)19 emphasised by Nāgārjuna and the sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa emphasised by Dharmakīrti are often referred to as the two means of valid cognition of the two kinds of reality (bden pa gnyis kyi tshad ma gnyis).20 The explicit or implicit argument—analogous to Dharmakīrti’s argument for the number of pramāṇas—is that because there are two kinds of prameya, namely, conventional and absolute realities, there must be two kinds of pramāṇa, namely, sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa and pāramārthikapramāṇa.21 If something such as fire exists on the conventional level, it must be attestable through sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa for if it is not attestable through such a cognition, it cannot exist on the conventional level. Similarly, if there is an absolute reality such as emptiness, it must be attestable through pāramārthikapramāṇa, 17

18

19

20

21

Mi-pham, dBu ma rgyan ’grel (p. 46.5–6): khyad par don dam pa’i tshad ma dpal ldan klu yis ji ltar bzhed pa dang | tha snyad kyi tshad ma dpal chos kyi grags pas ji ltar bzhed pa gnyis rags [= rigs] pa’i rgya mtsho chen por ro gcig tu bskyil zhing |. See also ibid. (p. 47.3): dbu tshad seng ge mjing bsnol. See the intermediate verses (bar skabs kyi tshigs su bcad pa) in the dBu ma rgyan ’grel (pp. 13.6–15.2). The term pāramārthikapramāṇa is attested, for example, in Prajñākaragupta’s Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (p. 30.22; cited in Franco 1997: 50, n. 12). Cf. Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (p. 67.12–13): pāramārthikaṃ pramāṇam. Prajñākaragupta also employs the term pāramārthikaprameya (ibid., p. 215.13). Note that Tibetan sources also use the term don dam dpyod pa’i tshad ma. The terms tha snyad pa'i tshad ma and don dam pa'i tshad ma seem to go back to the Pramāṇaviniścaya (p. 44.2–5): sāṃvyavahārikasya caitat pramāṇasya rūpam uktam | atrāpi pare mūḍhā visaṃvādayanti lokam iti | cintāmayīm eva tu prajñām anuśīlayanto vibhramavivekanirmalam anapāyi pāramārthikapramāṇam abhimukhīkurvanti |; Tibetan translation (Vetter 1966: 100.20–24): ’di ni kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma’i rang bzhin brjod pa yin te | ’di la yang pha rol rmongs pas ’jig rten slu bar byed pa’i phyir ro || bsam pa las byung ba nyid kyi shes rab goms par byas pas rnam par ’khrul pas dben zhing dri ma med la log pa med pa don dam pa’i tshad ma mngon sum du byed do ||. See also Mi-pham, Legs bshad snang ba’i gter (p. 553.14– 17). Such an argument is clearly inspired by Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya 1.2 (Steinkellner 2005: 1) and Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika 3.1 (see the Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra, p. 169.10–11).

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for reality that is not attestable through pāramārthikapramāṇa is not an absolute reality. However, Mi-pham also belongs to a tradition that postulates the indivisibility of the two truths. Accordingly, he posits that ultimately there is only one single prameya,22 and hence only one single pramāṇa, which he equates with self-occurring gnosis or with the gnosis of the Self-occurring One (i.e. the Buddha) (svayaṃbhūjñāna: rang byung gi ye shes). Tsong-kha-pa, when discussing, for example, Madhyamakāvatāra 6.71b, points out the consequence of denying the established Pramāṇa theories.23 He, for his part, apparently feared that a denial of the Pramāṇa theories would lead to logical, ontological, epistemological, and ethical-moral indeterminism (or arbitrariness), or as Thubten Jinpa in his study of Tsong-kha-pa’s Madhyamaka philosophy correctly points out, to “epistemological scepticism,” “ontological nihilism,” and “moral relativism,” all of which were for Tsong-kha-pa different aspects of the same problem and equally objectionable.24 Mi-pham, too, could not imagine a world where there are no reliable criteria to differentiate between valid and invalid cognition. If a cognition were to be arbitrarily regarded as valid or invalid, how could one determine what is correct and incorrect, and what is right and wrong? He could thus in principle share Tsong-khapa’s concern. Mi-pham, however, had a concern of another kind, which was obviously not shared or addressed by his fellow Tibetan scholars from the gSar-ma (“New”) schools. The established epistemological paradigm, which is perhaps common to most Tibetan Buddhist schools, must have appeared too narrow and inadequate to him, for it did not and could not address or explain Buddhist doctrines which he thought were of greater significance. Buddhist scriptures are full of allusions to the ideas of supernatural or supramundane phenomena or perceptions that make no sense to the ordinary human understanding. For instance, in just a single atom there are said to exist Buddha fields numbering as 22

23

24

For a similar idea, see Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika 3.53d (as cited in the Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra, p. 212.28): meyaṃ tv ekaṃ svalakṣaṇam. Tsong-kha-pa, dGongs pa rab gsal (fol. 178b2–3): de ltar go ba de’i don yin par bzung nas tshad mas grub pa la yid brtan med do zhes smra na ni | don ’di kho bos ’di ltar rtogs so zhes pa gcig kyang gzhag tu med cing | tshad ma thams cad la skur pa ’debs pas na shin tu mi ’thad pa’o ||. Jinpa 2002: 34, 175.

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many as the total number of atoms. It is even explicitly stated that neither has the size of the Buddha fields been contracted nor the size of the atom expanded. How is one to deal with such an idea? One alternative would be to dismiss it as mere rhetoric. Most Buddhist scholars would not go for this alternative. Another alternative would be to explain it as a miracle demonstrated by the supernatural power of a buddha, which de facto means that such a phenomenon or event is not attestable through any means of valid cognition. Some Tibetan scholars might accept this explanation. The problem with it, though, is the absurd implications that it involves, particularly in a context where the same entity “x” that appears to ordinary humans as water appears to yogins—who have fewer or no defilements or obscurations, who undergo fewer or no sufferings, and are partially or totally released from saṃsāric bondage—as something else. At least from a Buddhist point of view, the supposition that our ordinary perceptions, obscured by intellectual-emotional defilements, pain, sufferings, and bondage, are valid or true, whereas yogic perceptions free from intellectualemotional defilements, pain, sufferings, and bondage, are invalid or false sounds quite absurd and supercilious. Mi-pham’s motive thus seems to have been to propose an upgraded and updated theory that could explain otherwise logically unexplainable phenomena, particularly the idea of pure appearances and pure perceptions (thematised in both tantric and non-tantric Mahāyāna scriptures). 3. MI-PHAM’S THEORY OF THE TWO KINDS OF SĀṂVYAVAHĀRIKAPRAMĀṆA Mi-pham argues that there must be two types of sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa, for any phenomenon on the conventional level has two modes, namely, the mode of appearance (snang tshul) and the mode of existence (gnas tshul). A conventional entity “x” such as water may appear to be impure, but it always exists in a pure state; in its absolute mode of existence, however, it is always characterised by emptiness (śūnyatā: stong pa nyid).25 He thus classifies means of valid cognition into two types: sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa and pāramārthikapramāṇa. Sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa is further divided into one based on ordinary 25

Cf. the tables in Pettit 1999: 431–434.

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perception (tshu rol mthong ba la brten pa kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma) and one based on pure perception (dag pa’i gzigs pa la brten pa kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma). He distinguishes them on the basis of their cause (rgyu), nature (ngo bo), function (byed las), result (’bras bu), and example (dpe), as follows: Distinctions between the Two Types of Sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa Basis of Distinction

Sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa Based on Ordinary Perception (tshu rol mthong ba la brten pa kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma) Given rise to by dint of a correct assessment of its limited object, the [perceptible] phenomenon (rang yul chos can nyi tshe ba la tshul bzhin brtags pa’i stobs las skyes pa)

Sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa Based on Pure Perception (dag pa’i gzigs pa la brten pa kun tu tha snyad pa’i tshad ma) Acquired as an outcome of the correct appropriation of true reality [during meditative absorption] (chos nyid ji lta ba tshul bzhin dmigs pa’i rjes las ’thob pa)

1.

Cause (rgyu)

2.

Nature (ngo bo)

Cognition that is provisionally non-deceptive in regard to its mere object (rang yul tsam la gnas skabs mi bslu ba’i rig pa)

Discriminating insight of great range possessed by a subject [surveying] the full gamut [of phenomena] (ji snyed pa’i yul can rgya che ba’i shes rab)

3.

Function (byed las)

Elimination of superimposition [and depreciation] in regard to the objects of ordinary perception (tshul [= tshu rol] mthong gi yul la sgro ’dogs sel ba)

Elimination of superimposition [and depreciation] in regard to the [normally] inconceivable domain (bsam gyis mi khyab pa’i spyod yul la sgro ’dogs sel ba)

4.

Result (’bras bu)

Proceeding on after the pertinent object has been exactly determined (skabs don yongs su bcad nas ’jug pa)

Gnosis that cognises [phenomena] to the full extent (ji snyed mkhyen pa’i ye shes)

5.

Analogy (dpe)26

Human sight (mi’i mig)

Celestial sight (lha’i mig)

Mi-pham presented these two types of sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa on at least two occasions, namely, in his general commentary on the *Guhyagarbhatantra (a fundamental tantric scripture of the rNying-ma school) called ’Od gsal snying po, and in his work on hermeneutics 26

Not counted separately by Mi-pham.

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called Shes rab ral gri, on which he also wrote an annotated commentary.27 One important question is how original Mi-pham was and how much he owed to his Indian and Tibetan predecessors. As far as I can see, no one before him had proposed and explained two kinds of sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa. On the other hand, although the Sanskrit term for dag pa gzigs pa’i tshad ma (*śuddhadarśanapramāṇa) has yet to be traced in Indian sources,28 the idea of pure perception (śuddhapratyakṣa: dag pa’i mngon sum) is attested in the Hetuvidyā section of the Yogācārabhūmi29 as shown by Hōjun Nagasaki in his article “Perception in Pre-Dignāga Buddhist Texts,”30 where it is listed and explained as one of the four kinds of pratyakṣa, the other three being perception by means of corporeal sense faculties (rūpīndriyapratyakṣa: dbang po gzugs can gyi mgnon sum), perception [in the form] of mental experience (manonubhavapratyakṣa: yid kyis myong ba’i mngon sum), and mundane perception (lokapratyakṣa: ’jig rten gyi mngon sum). Nagasaki interprets śuddhapratyakṣa in two ways: (a) as manonubhavapratyakṣa and (b) as lokottarajñāna. One wonders whether śuddhapratyakṣa could have meant both pure mundane gnosis (śuddhalaukikajñāna: dag pa ’jig rten pa’i ye shes) and non-conceptual gnosis (nirvikalpajñāna: rnam par mi rtog pa’i ye shes). In Tibetan sources, the idea of means of pure valid cognition occurs primarily in the context of what is called “establishing the divinity of appearance” (snang ba lhar sgrub pa), that is, establishing the supramundaneness of the very mundane, the divinity of the very earthly—according to Mipham, a uniquely rNying-ma concern, which stems from the eleventhcentury rNying-ma scholar Rong-zom-pa, and is described by him as the “Lion’s Roar” (seng ge’i nga ro) of this scholar.31 Indeed Mi-pham’s theory of pure sāṃvyavahārikapramāṇa is clearly largely inspired by 27 28

29 30 31

’Od gsal snying po (pp. 82.1–84.5); Shes rab ral gri (pp. 800.3–801.4). Compare the expression pramāṇapariśuddhasakalatattvajña in the Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (p. 51.22). Hetuvidyā (p. 340.2–13). Nagasaki 1991: 223–225. Mi-pham, Nges shes sgron me (p. 103.4–5): snang kun rang bzhin lhar sgrub pa || snga ’gyur ring lugs kho na ste || kun mkhyen rong zom paṇḍi ta’i || legs bshad seng ge’i nga ro yin ||. For an English translation, see Pettit 1999: 222.

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Rong-zom-pa’s writings, particularly those passages attempting to establish the divinity of appearance.32 4. RONG-ZOM-PA ON ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, SOTERIOLOGY, GNOSEOLOGY, AND THE INDIVIDUALITY OF PERSONS Undoubtedly Rong-zom-pa’s work on establishing the divinity of appearances is unprecedented in the world of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. He is said to have composed a set of seven works of varying size, what one might call his “heptalogy,” on the establishment of the divinity of appearances, of which only one is extant.33 The fundamental idea behind the establishment of the divinity of appearances is that phenomena, which appear to us in manifold ways, are in reality primordially pure regardless of whether we perceive them as such or not. One of Rong-zom-pa’s main arguments is that a dharma (“phenolmenon”) can hardly be impure if its dharmatā (“true reality”) is pure, for there is an essential connection between dharma and dharmatā. Both dharma and dharmatā are thus pure, and hence also divine. For him, then, divinity means purity. Where could Rong-zom-pa have got this idea from? The proposition that all phenomena are completely pure is widespread in tantric and non-tantric Mahāyāna literature. In particular, it plays a dominant role in the *Guhyagarbhatantra, a tradition to which Rong-zom-pa belonged, and wherein the so-called (a) external world or habitat (snod), comprising five elements, (b) its inhabitants (bcud), made up of five psycho-physiological aggregates (phung po), and (c) mental continua (rgyud), a set of eight kinds of “mind” (rnam par shes pa tshogs brgyad), are all said to be pure, the purities of the external habitat (snod dag pa), its inhabitants (bcud dag pa), and the mental continua (rgyud dag pa) being referred to as “three kinds of purity” (dag pa rnam pa gsum).34 The central philosophy of the *Guhyagarbhatantra is that all phenomena are in their conventionality characterised by great purity (dag pa chen po) and in their absoluteness 32

33

34

For Mi-pham’s own efforts to establish the divinity of appearance, see his ’Od gsal snying po (pp. 77.2–97.1). See Rong-pa Me-dpung’s list of Rong-zom-pa’s writings (Tho yig, p. 239.5–6): snang ba lha sgrub che phra bdun du grags pa la sogs pa dag yin te |. See also Almogi 1997: 248–249; 170–171. Rong-zom-pa, dKon mchog ’grel (p. 184.1–6).

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by great equality (mnyam pa chen po), and that the two modes are characterised by great indivisibility (dbyer med pa chen po). One of the main devices employed to establish such propositions is the four kinds of reasoning referred to above. We may now set the theory proposed by Rong-zom-pa in the wider context of his assessment of the Mahāyāna doctrine. Broadly speaking, Mahāyāna Buddhism can be classified into tantric and nontantric, although the borderline tends to be quite fluid or permeable. One generally assumes that non-tantric Mahāyāna is doctrinally more conservative than tantric Mahāyāna. This is, however, not always the case, inasmuch as some sūtras contain ideas that are more developed than those found in certain tantras. This may help to explain why Rongzom-pa occasionally—for example, in his dKon mchog ’grel—speaks of common (thun mong) and uncommon or special (thun mong ma yin pa) Mahāyāna. A distinction between the two is clearly made in accordance with the degree of doctrinal conservatism. By “special Mahāyāna,” he means a school of Buddhist thought which postulates the idea of the indivisibility of the two kinds of truth (bden pa rnam pa gnyis dbyer med pa), that is, the idea that there is in reality one single truth, and that its division into conventional and absolute is merely a device for enabling access to that single truth. This “special Mahāyāna” of Rongzom-pa includes both tantric and non-tantric forms. To the group of scriptures of the “special Mahāyāna” belong both sūtras, such as the Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra and Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā, and tantras, such as the *Guhyagarbhatantra. According to him, the “special Mahāyāna” is special for five reasons, which may be explicated as follows:35 (a) It is special because it proposes a special kind of ontology. Specifically, the only viable ontological reality is what the author calls “mere appearance” (snang ba tsam), behind the facade of which there is nothing. Even this “mere appearance” may or may not endure depending upon the presence or absence of necessary and sufficient causes and conditions. (b) It is special because it proposes a special kind of soteriology. According to this special soteriological model, one sees and seeks a solution in the problem itself, nirvāṇa in saṃsāra itself; release in 35

dKon mchog ’grel (pp. 42.2–43.13). For a critical edition of the pertinent text and an English translation, see Almogi 2006: 468–470 (text), 319–322 (translation).

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bondage itself. In other words, the very duḥkhasatya is seen as a nirodhasatya; the very samudayasatya as a mārgasatya. (c) It is special because it proposes a special kind of gnoseology. Seeing (or, knowing) the gnosis through which release is attained (vimuktijñānadarśana: rnam par grol ba’i ye shes mthong ba)36 is special, because this gnosis is not conceived as something that can be attained or generated at a certain stage, place, and time but as being immanent here and now, for our ordinary minds and mental associates are by nature self-occurring gnosis (svayaṃbhūjñāna: rang byung gi ye shes). (d) It is special because it proposes a special kind of epistemology. It offers, that is, a unique theory of perception in regard to the scope and validity of the various human and non-human, yogic and non-yogic perceptions. This is one of the sources feeding into the relativity theory of the purity and validity of perception. We shall return to it later. (e) I am not sure how best the fifth aspect of the special Mahāyāna can be expressed. The author apparently alludes to a special spiritual proclivity or disposition within the person, namely, the uniqueness of his or her cognitive, conative, and emotive faculty which allows access to the so-called “non-dual mode” (gnyis su med pa’i tshul), clearly meaning the indivisibility of the two kinds of truth referred to above. 5. THE PHILOSOPHICAL-DOCTRINAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE THEORY The theory of the purity and validity of perception proposed by Rongzom-pa can perhaps be best understood against the backdrop of three kinds of presuppositions, namely, his concept of ontology, soteriology, and epistemology. I employ the term “perception” in the sense of the Tibetan terms mthong ba (or gzigs pa) and snang ba. Tibetan mthong ba seems to mean primarily the “perception of an appearance” and secondarily the “perceived or perceptible appearance” whereas snang ba seems to mean primarily “perceived or perceptible appearance,” and secondarily “perception of an appearance.” A direct ontic-epistemic correspondence between appearance and perception is presupposed by most Tibetan scholars, since only that which is ontologically possible is epistemically cognisable; and only that which appears is perceived or perceptible. 36

Negi 1993–2005: s.v.

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(a) The Ontological Presuppositions of the Theory One cannot talk about the theory of perception or knowledge if no knowable or perceptible is presupposed. Various Buddhist systems may argue about the ontological status of the knowable, but I would assert that within the Buddhist systems one tacitly assumes that there is a kind of reality, or nature to phenomena (whatever it may be) that is cognisable, timeless, and independent of being cognised and the person who cognises it.37 It is said that buddhas may come and go, but the truth remains as it is (yathābhūtam), unaffected by its occasional rediscovery or oblivion. This idea can be found in non-Mahāyāna sources (such as the Saṃyuttanikāya and Aṅguttaranikāya), in non-tantric Mahāyāna literature (such as the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, and Jñānālokālaṃkārasūtra), and tantric sources (such as the Vairocanābhisaṃbodhitantra).38 As we have just seen, for Rong-zompa, the only ontological reality is what he calls “mere appearance” (snang ba tsam). It is conceived of as being totally hollow, without any defining characteristics whatsoever, rootless, bottomless, invariable, and soteriologically neutral, and yet it is (i) the only viable basis for bondage and release, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa;39 (ii) the basis of defining characteristics (mtshan gzhi), that is, the basis for assigning various defining characteristics (mtshan nyid sna tshogs),40 (iii) the only viable premise allowing for a dialogue between sentient beings of the six realms; yogins and non-yogins; experts and non-experts; (iv) the only viable shared object of independent perceptions. 37 38

39

40

See Vetter’s remark in Bsteh 2000: 48. For the universality of reality and its being independent of the appearance of a tathāgata in both non-Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna sources, see Wangchuk 2007: 41– 42, 78, n. 24. Rong-zom-pa, Theg tshul (p. 513.4–6): mdor na gzhi gcig la rnam par dag pa’i ’jig rten du snang ba dang | ma dag pa’i ’jig rten du snang ba ste | de la ma dag par snang ba ni | bslad pas bsgribs pa yin no zhe’o ||; ibid. (p. 513.20–22): snang ba de nyid kyang byang grol dang ’ching ba gnyis ga’i rkyen du ’gyur bar mnyam pas | tshul gnyi’ ga ltar yang bsgrub du [= tu] rung bar snang ngo ||; ibid. (p. 522.4–5): snang ba la skyon med na sems can gang gis bslus te ’khor zhe na |. Rong-zom-pa, Theg tshul (p. 465.20–24): snang ba tsam ni mkhas pa paṇ ṭi [= ḍi] ta nas blun mo [= po] ba glang rdzi yan chad gang yang rung ste | las kyi bsgo skal la spyod pa mthun par snang ba dang | yongs su dag pa dang ma dag pa la stsogs pa snang ba bye brag mthun pa rnams la snang ngo zhes bsgrub mi dgos te | mtshan nyid sna tshogs rnam par ’jog pa’i mtshan [= mtshon?] gzhi yin no || mtshan nyid ni ji ltar snang ba de ltar bsgrub pa rdul ’phra’ mo tsam yang myed do ||.

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Why can a nondescript appearance appear as various specific appearances, such as pus, water, nectar, and so forth? Mi-pham’s main argument is that where there is appearance-and-emptiness, everything is possible, and where there is no appearance-and-emptiness, nothing is possible.41 Except for a slight modification in the wording, this is a clear reference to Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24.14, according to which everything is possible for anything that exists in harmony with emptiness.42 According to Rong-zom-pa,43 appearances (snang ba) appear (snang) on account of (a) the power of delusion (’khrul pa’i dbang), (b) the power of self-cognition (rang rig pa’i dbang), and (c) the power of the non-origination of true reality (chos nyid skye ba med pa’i dbang). These three causes or factors of appearances (snang ba’i rgyu/rkyen gsum) have been explained as follows: First, the power of delusion is for all practical purposes the diverse latent tendencies implanted in the ālayavijñāna (“fundamental mind”) by the deluded mind (’khrul pa’i shes pa). Second, the power of self-cognition is explained as the ability of the mind to cognise itself; that is, mind, being always self-cognitive, is not an inanimate entity (bem po) and offers no physical resistance (rdos can). If the mind were not self-cognitive or devoid of any cognitive characteristics (shes rig gyi mtshan nyid dang 41

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Mi-pham, Nges shes sgron me (p. 101.4–5): des na rang gi lugs la ni || snang stong ris su ma chad pa’i || gzhi nyid cir yang ma grub pa || gang snang kun la mnyam pa’i phyir || dngos gcig sna tshogs par yang snang || gang la snang stong rung ba na || de la thams cad rung bar ’gyur || gang la snang stong mi rung ba || de la thams cad rung mi ’gyur ||. For an English translation, see Pettit 1999: 220–221. Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24.14 (cf. Vigrahavyāvartanī 70). See, for example, the Tshig don mdzod (pp. 7.3–29.2), where Klong-chen-pa discusses seven positions on the universal basis (gzhi), alluding thereby to several rDzogs-chen tantras. It is explained that the universal basis is neither (1) spontaneously present (lhun grub), (2) indeterminate (ma nges pa), (3) determinate (nges pa), (4) malleable (cir yang bsgyur du btub pa), (5) arbitrary (cir yang khas blang du btub pa), nor (6) manifold (sna tshogs), but (7) primordially pure (ka dag). The primordially pure universal basis is said to consist of the three inseparable qualities of emptiness, luminosity, and all-embracing compassion. Rang byung ye shes (pp. 120.16–123.21).

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bral ba zhig), nothing would appear. Third, the power of the nonorigination of true reality is also explained as the natural and intrinsic purity (rang bzhin gyis rnam par dag pa / ngo bo nyid kyis rnam par dag pa) of all phenomena. Phenomena, not being anything (cir yang ma yin pa), can appear in any way (cir yang snang du rung ba), for they are devoid of resistance (gegs med pa). Of the three factors of appearances, purity and the ability of the mind to cognise itself are the dominant conditions for appearances of both “pollution” (saṃkleśa: kun nas nyon mongs pa) and “purification” (vyavadāna: rnam par byang ba). The latent tendencies form the general conditions for the appearance of both pollution and purification. Nonetheless, those appearances that are caused by negative latent tendencies (nag po’i bag chags) are called deceptive (slu ba), untrue (mi bden pa), fallacious (’khrul pa), and unreliable (yid brtan du mi rung ba), whereas those appearances that are caused by positive latent tendencies (dkar po’i bag chags) are called non-deceptive (mi slu ba), true (bden pa), non-fallacious (ma ’khrul pa), and reliable (yid brtan du rung ba). Although none of the appearances is ultimately true (yang dag par bden pa), the less deceptive ones are provisionally regarded as nondeceptive by the wise, for they are non-deceiving to the extent that they bring about salvation. (b) The Soteriological Presuppositions of the Theory The main soteriological presupposition of the theory is that at least in principle anybody, at any given point in time and space, can gain full access to true reality by means of meditative insight, and the correct cognition or insightful penetration of the truth has a soteriological or salvific effect on the person who cognises or penetrates it. In other words, a person is liberated by gaining meditative insight into the truth. For most Buddhist scholars and mystics, it is the correct cognition of true reality, regardless of how it is defined by the various Buddhist systems, that makes the spiritual or soteriological breakthrough possible, and that the gnosis (jñāna: ye shes) of a buddha is by definition direct valid cognition (pramāṇa: tshad ma). This notion of release upon seeing true reality is found in tantric sources such as the Caryāmelāpakapradīpa, and also in non-tantric Mahāyāna sources such as the

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Abhisamayālaṃkāra and Ratnagotravibhāga.44 According to Rong-zompa, release upon seeing true reality is an idea common to all Buddhist systems,45 which implies that the actual spiritual breakthrough in Buddhism is intellectual and not emotional.46 (c) The Epistemological Presuppositions of the Theory The basic epistemological assumption is that a variety of perceptions of one and the same entity “x” is possible. If all sentient beings of the six realms (or yogins and non-yogins) were to perceive an entity or reality “x” in an identical way, there would be no need for a dialogue. The main point of divergence among sentient beings of the six realms (or yogins and non-yogins) is the characteristics of a so-called “mere appearance” as it appears to various beings in various degrees of impurity and purity. Rong-zom-pa explains that (1) hungry ghosts perceive water as extremely impure (shin tu ma dag par snang); (2) human beings as somewhat impure (cung zad ma dag par snang), (3) individuals of the pure realms as pure (dag par snang), (4) yogins or vidyādharas (“knowledge bearers”), who have command over phenomena, as extremely pure (shin tu dag par snang), and that (5) those who have exhausted all latent tendencies, clearly meaning buddhas, are free from all appearances (snang ba thams cad dang bral), since for them all manifoldness has undergone complete cessation (spros pa thams cad yongs su zhi bar gyur). If all these perceptions were equally valid or invalid, it would mean that there would be nothing that one could call reality. If there were no such standard as the validity or invalidity of perception, there would be no incentive for a dialogue. Rong-zom-pa thus rejects the arbitrariness of perceptual validity. 6. THE THEORY Rong-zom-pa’s position is that in general no perception is independently valid or invalid. Depending on the varying degree of 44 45

46

For several primary sources, see Wangchuk 2007: 199–200, n. 11. bDen gnyis ’jog tshul (p. 32.6–8): ’di ltar nyan thos kyi theg pa nas gzhi bzung nas | rdzogs pa chen po’i mthar thug gi bar du | gang zhig yang dag pa’i don mthong na rnam par grol lo zhes thun mong du grags pa yin la |. See also Wangchuk 2007: 43–45, 199–200.

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purity and impurity of perception, there is only a relative validity of perception; that is, the human perception of appearance “x” as water is pure, and thus valid, when compared to the preta’s perception of it as pus, but is impure when compared to the god’s perception of it as nectar, and thus invalid. The most maculate and thus the most invalid perception of all is that of a hell-being, whereas the most immaculate and thus the most valid perception of all is that of one who is subject to no obscuration whatsoever. It is this theory that I call the relativity theory of the purity and validity of perception, and it can be formulated as: “The validity of perception is directly proportional to the purity of perception.”47 7. THE INDIAN BACKGROUND OF THE THEORY While Rong-zom-pa certainly deserves credit for suggesting that the degree of purity of perception determines the degree of its validity, it is clear that he drew his inspiration from Indian sources, particularly regarding the validity of yogic versus non-yogic perceptions. The idea that the perception of a person who has attained salvific release can invalidate the perception of a person who is still bound can also be found in several Indian sources. For example, Candrakīrti argued that a non-yogin who has no gnosis and is not released is not an authority, and that if this were not the case, it would imply that such a person has perceived true reality and eliminated ignorance, and this in turn would 47

Rong-zom-pa, dKon mchog ’grel (p. 43.6–7): “It should be known that if one evaluates objectively, the purer these perceptions (snang ba), the truer (bden pa) [they are]” (gzu bo’i blos gzhal na snang ba de dag kyang ji lta ji ltar dag pa de lta de ltar bden par shes par bya’o ||). Ibid. (p. 104.4–7): “If these are evaluated with an objective mind, the purer the perceptions (mthong ba), the truer (bden pa) [they are], inasmuch as [the objects of valid perceptions] are objects [perceived by] the lords among those who have purified the obscurations (āvaraṇa: sgrib pa), and because [perceptions] are relatively (ltos te rnam par bzhag na) enduring and non-deceiving (brtan zhing mi bslu ba)” (de rnams la gzu bo’i blos gzhal bar byas na | ji ltar ji ltar mthong ba dag pa de ltar de ltar bden pa yin te | sgrib pa’i dri ma dag pa rnams kyi dbang po rnams kyi yul yin pa’i phyir dang | ltos te rnam par bzhag na brtan zhing mi bslu ba’i phyir ro ||). Ibid. (p. 105.2–3): “… if an objective assessment is made, as [stated] above, the [degree of] correctness corresponds to the [degree of] purity” (… gzu bo’i blos rnam par gzhag na | ji ltar dag pa ltar rig [= rigs] pa che ba ni snga ma bzhin no ||).

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imply the redundancy of the spiritual paths of the noble ones (āryamārga: ’phags pa’i lam).48 That an undefiled cognition of a yogin can invalidate the defiled cognition of a non-yogin and not vice versa has been clearly stated by him in his Madhyamakāvatāra:49 The perception of eyes with a timira [disorder] Does not invalidate the perception [of eyes] without a timira [disorder]. Similarly, a cognition that is devoid of immaculate gnosis Does not invalidate an immaculate cognition.

He also states that only the gnosis of a buddha, and not other types of gnosis, given their limitation (ekadeśatva: nyi tshe ba nyid), can be pratyakṣa.50 Veridical relativism is also suggested by Śāntideva in his Bodhicaryāvatāra 9.3–4ab. According to him, people (loka: ’jig rten) are of two kinds: ordinary people (prākṛtako lokaḥ: ’jig rten phal pa) and people who are yogins (yogiloka: rnal ’byor ’jig rten). The perception or knowledge (dhī: blo) of the ordinary world can be invalidated by that of the yogiloka, but not vice versa, as made explicit by Prajñākaramati.51 A qualitative distinction is also made among the perceptions of the various yogins, with the perceptions of the more advanced yogins successively able to invalidate the perceptions of the less advanced yogins. Following this logic, buddhajñāna, or the yogipratyakṣa of a buddha, will certainly be assumed to be the supreme cognition that can invalidate the perceptions of all yogins who have not yet attained Buddhahood.52 In particular, Mañjuśrīmitra’s Bodhicittabhāvanā and Bodhicittabhāvanānirdeśa (also attributed to him) seem to have directly inspired Rong-zom-pa.53 48 49

50 51 52 53

Candrakīrti, Madhyamakāvatāra 6.30. Madhyamakāvatāra 6.27: mig ni rab rib can gyi dmigs pa yis || rab rib med shes la gnod min ji ltar || de bzhin dri med ye shes spangs pa’i blos || dri med blo la gnod pa yod ma yin||. Madhyamakāvatāra 6.214. Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā (p. 158.11). Cf. Nāgārjuna, Ratnāvalī 4.91. Bodhicittabhāvanā (P, fols. 2b7–3a2; D, fol. 2b1–3; S, vol. 33, pp. 810.18–811.5); Bodhicittabhāvanānirdeśa (P, fol. 59a5–b5; D, fol. 48a1–7; S, vol. 33, pp. 188.20– 189.20). See particularly the latter (P, fol. 59a8; D, fol. 48a3; S, vol. 33, p. 189.6–7): sems can gyis mthong ba rnams ni ’khrul pa yin par mngon no ||; ibid. (P, fol. 59b5; D, fol. 48a7; S, vol. 33, p. 189.18–20): de ltar sems can gyis mthong ba rnams ni rig

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8. CONCLUDING REMARKS We have seen that the only feasible ontology for Rong-zom-pa is mere appearance, which is rootless, unrestricted, invariable, soteriologically neutral, and yet the only viable basis for saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Strikingly, for him, mere appearance, like a mirage, operates in accordance with the principle of dependent origination (rten cing ’brel bar ’byung ba: pratītyasamutpāda). Depending on the presence or absence of causes and conditions, it may appear or disappear. What he does seem to posit is the sphere in which the mere appearance operates, namely, the dharmadhātu, the sphere of reality itself, just as he posits the space in which mirages appear or disappear. According to his epistemology, a mere appearance may be perceived as extremely impure, somewhat impure, pure, extremely pure, or not perceived at all, and the degree of the purity of perception determines the degree of its validity. Here the person by whom mere appearance is not perceived at all is a buddha, whose gnosis (if it exists at all)54 represents the upper limit of the perceptual scale. Just as a mirage is an optical illusion and the perception of it a perceptual delusion, a mere appearance is an illusion, and the perception of it, no matter how pure or impure, ultimately a mere delusion. A buddha, being free from all delusions, perceives no illusions. Not perceiving an optical illusion such as a mirage in the open air may be designated as seeing space. Similarly, not perceiving any mere appearance in the dharmadhātu, the sphere of reality, is clearly designated as perceiving the dharmadhātu. ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Almogi 1997 Almogi 2006

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Orna Almogi, The Life and Works of Rong-zom Paṇḍita. MA thesis. Hamburg: University of Hamburg, 1997. Id., Rong-zom-pa’s Discourses on Traditional Buddhology: A Study of the Development of the Concept of Buddhahood with Special Reference to the Controversy Surrounding the Existence of Gnosis (ye shes: jñāna) at the Stage of a Buddha. Doctoral Dissertation. Hamburg: University of Hamburg, 2006.

[= rigs] pas kyang ’khrul par [ba D] mngon zhing | sangs rgyas kyi lung las kyang ’khrul pa yin par gsungs so ||. On the Indian and Tibetan controversies on whether a buddha possesses gnosis (jñāna: ye shes), see Almogi 2006.

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bar byed pa’i tshig don rin po che’i mdzod. In mDzod bdun. Gangtok: Dodrup Chen Rinpoche, n.d. Reprint: Thimphu: National Library of Bhutan, n.d., vol. nya. Tilmann Vetter, Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścayaḥ, 1. Kapitel: Pratyakṣam. Einleitung, Text der tibetischen Übersetzung, Sanskritfragmente, deutsche Übersetzung. Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Kommissionsverlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1966. Kamaleswar Bhattacharya, E.H. Johnson, and Arnold Kunst, ed. & tr., The Dialectical Method of Nāgārjuna: Vigrahavyāvartanī. Fourth Edition (Revised and Enlarged): Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998. Dorji Wangchuk, “The rÑiṅ-ma Interpretations of the Tathāgatagarbha Theory.” WZKS 48, 2004 [appeared in 2005], pp. 171–213. Id., The Resolve to Become a Buddha: A Study of the Bodhicitta Concept in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series 23. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2007. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens

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The Materiality and Immanence of Gnosis in Some rNying-ma Tantric Sources*

1. INTRODUCTION In certain rNying-ma (“Ancient”) tantric sources one finds the notion that gnosis is immanent in the human body, or more precisely, in the centre of the heart. From the description of gnosis found in these sources (i.e. as having, for example, colours and shapes), one gets the impression that the gnosis abiding in the body is in a way understood as a material entity. In this paper I shall attempt to present what may be called the meta-physiology of this gnosis and its abode as conceived in these sources. First of all I shall briefly look into the perception and role of the human body in Buddhism in general, and then discuss shortly the concept of the inherence and immanence of gnosis and the soteriological goal and models relevant to the discussion. This will be followed by a discussion of gnosis itself, which is conceived of as a focal point of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa that is laid bare at some critical moments such as death, and if recognised could trigger the collapse of the entire saṃsāric machinery. 2. THE PERCEPTION AND ROLE OF THE HUMAN BODY IN BUDDHISM In non-Mahāyāna Buddhism, the psycho-physiological complex of a person comprising five aggregates (phung po lnga: pañcaskandha) is considered impure, impermanent, painful, and non-substantial. In particular, the human body is perceived as consisting of thirty-six impure substances1 and is often meditated upon on the basis of nine *

1

I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Eli Franco for his useful comments and to Philip Pierce for proofreading this paper. These impure substances (mi gtsang ba’i rdzas) are various bodily parts and fluids— hair, nails, flesh, bones, bladder, liver, pus, blood, excrement, and the like. The list of thirty-six, however, varies slightly from one source to another. See, for example, the lists found in the Śikṣāsamuccaya, p. 209.3–11 (a translation is found in Bendall

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notions of repulsive [objects], that is, by imagining the various stages of the decomposition of the body.2 Such meditation is clearly intended to combat one of the numerous intellectual-emotional defilements (nyon mongs pa: kleśa)—the greatest challenge for the seekers of salvation in Buddhism—namely, attachment, particularly to one’s body and the bodies of others. In Mahāyāna, the human body is also conceived of as illusory and empty. Nonetheless, despite an apparent negative attitude towards the human body, the usefulness of the body has been recognised as being the basis for human existence, which latter enables one to tread the path to salvation. The Buddha’s teachings are considered as mere aids with the help of which one is to cross the river of saṃsāra and are thus often compared to a boat that one leaves behind after crossing the river.3 This analogy is occasionally also employed in the case of the human body—for example, in Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, where it is stated that a bodhisattva should view his body as being like a boat and use it to fulfill the needs of living beings.4 In the tantric context, the human body, which plays now a greater role, particularly in the so-called higher tantric systems, is often compared to

2

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& Rouse 1922: 202); Arthaviniścayasūtra, pp. 23.5–24.4 (reference to further sources and a short discussion of the development of the list and differences between existing lists are provided by the editor in n. 9), and p. 41, where a slightly different list is given. Note that most of these substances are included in the list of bodily parts found in the Mahāvyutpatti, nos. 3929–4065. The nine kinds of meditation on repulsive [objects] (mi sdug pa sgom pa: aśubhabhāvanā), also referred to as nine notions of repulsive [objects] (mi sdug pa’i ’du shes dgu), are listed in the Mahāvyutpatti (nos. 1155–1164) as follows: (1) the notion of a bluish [corpse] (rnam par (b)sngos pa’i ’du shes: vinīlakasaṃjñā), (2) the notion of a putrefying [corpse] (rnam par rnags pa’i ’du shes: vidhūtika/ vipūyaka-saṃjñā), (3) the notion of a maggot-infested [corpse] (rnam par ’bus gzhig/ bzhigs pa’i ’du shes: vipaḍumakasaṃjñā), (4) the notion of a decomposing [corpse] (rnam par bam pa’i/’ber ba’i ’du shes: vyādhmātakasaṃjñā), (5) the notion of a reddish [corpse] (rnam par dmar ba’i ’du shes: vilohitakasaṃjñā), (6) the notion of a devoured [corpse] (rnam par zos ba’i ’du shes: vikhāditakasaṃjñā), (7) the notion of a lacerated [corpse] (rnam par mthor ba’i ’du shes: vikṣiptakasaṃjñā), (8) the notion of a burned [corpse] (rnam par tshig pa’i ’du shes: vidagdhakasaṃjñā), and (9) the notion of a skeleton (rus gong gi ’du shes: asthisaṃjñā). See also BHSD, s.v. aśubhabhāvanā, where several sources are provided. For references, see Almogi 2009: 272, n. 98. Bodhicaryāvatāra 5.70. See Steinkellner 1981: 57 (for a German translation of the pertinent verse) and Crosby & Skilton 1995: 40 (for an English translation). See also Catuḥśataka 2.1 (Lang 1986: 32 (Tibetan text) and 33 (English translation)).

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a boat, here, however, in a somewhat different sense; that is, the body itself is now to be steered to reach the shore of salvation.5 One of the arguments offered by some Tibetan Buddhist authors for the essentiality of a human body for tantric practices is the indispensability of a body endowed with the six elements (khams drug gi bdag nyid can: ṣaḍdhātvātmaka),6 which only a human body is said to possess.7 This is apparently because the so-called “white” and “red” bodhicitta, that is, the male “semen” and female “blood,” which are substances which only a body endowed with the six elements can possess are necessary for the “secret empowerment” (gsang ba’i dbang: guhyābhiṣeka) and “insightgnosis empowerment” (shes rab ye shes kyi dbang: prajñājñānābhiṣeka).8 One finds different lists of these six elements. The most common is that of the six (cosmic) elements found already in Pāli sources which include earth, water, fire, wind, space, and the mental element.9 In the tantric context, one occasionally finds a slightly different list in which the mental element (rnam par shes pa’i khams: vijñānadhātu) is replaced with “gnostic element” (ye shes kyi khams: jñānadhātu).10 5

6

7

8

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For examples of the analogy of a boat with the human body in the tantric context, see Dasgupta 1962: 44–45 & 90, where several songs by tantric adepts are translated and discussed. See Negi 1993–2005, s.v. khams drug gi bdag nyid can, where the Vimalaprabhā is given as a source. See also Vajragarbha’s Hevajrapiṇḍārthaṭīkā 6.73d (Shendge 2004: 44; Tibetan: 123.13), where the expression ṣaḍdhātukaṃ kulam (khams drug rig can) is employed. See Mi-pham’s bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (pp. 65.4–66.2), where the necessity of a physical body endowed with six elements for the practice of Vajrayāna is discussed. For a discussion of “white” and “red” bodhicitta, see the section on what has been designated by Dorji Wangchuk “psycho-physiological bodhicitta” in Wangchuk 2007: 217–225. See, for example, Majjhima Nikāya iii 63 (an English translation is found in Horner 1959: 105; Ñāṇamoli & Bodhi 1995: 926, §5), where also other lists of six elements are provided. For a discussion of these six (cosmic) elements, see Langer 2001, chap. 6, which however focuses on the mental element (viññāṇa). Tshig mdzod chen mo, s.v. khams drug ldan: nam mkha’| rlung| me| chu| sa| ye shes kyi khams rnams ldan pa’i mi’i lus rten gsang sngags rdo rje theg pa sgrub pa’i snod du rung ba|. See also Negi 1993–2005, s.v. ye shes kyi khams, where references to the Vimalaprabhā are given. Cf. Vajragarbha’s Hevajrapiṇḍārthaṭīkā 6.73–74 (Shendge 2004: 44; Tibetan, 123.12–15), where the six elements mentioned consist of the four great elements—earth, water, fire and wind—and in addition semen (śukra: khu ba) and (menstrual) blood (rajas: rdul), and where jñānadhātu is also mentioned, but not as one of the six. This source is cited by Mi-pham in his Dus ’khor ’grel pa (p. 710.3–4). Semen and (menstrual) blood are commonly considered

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The tantric attitude towards the human body is generally more positive than the one found in non-tantric Buddhism. The body is now conceived of as a microcosm containing the entire universe, is meditatively envisioned as the pure (though illusory) body of a deity, and is not to be abused in any way.11 Most important of all, the body is considered the abode of gnosis, the attainment of which is the soteriological goal of all Buddhist vehicles and the unfolding of which is often referred to in the tantric context as great bliss.12 3. THE INHERENCE AND IMMANENCE OF GNOSIS Normally, gnosis is conceived of as a liberating insight that is acquired by a yogin by sheer dint of sustained and correct meditative practices on the path, which culminates with the gnosis of a buddha.13 Yet one encounters not only the concept of acquired (or transcendental) gnosis, but also the concept of inherent (or immanent) gnosis, which is changeless. This idea is greatly underscored by the rNying-ma tantric traditions, and such rDzogs-chen expressions as “gnosis that abides on

11

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in Indian works, including Buddhist ones, procreatory elements stemming from the father and mother, respectively (Das 2003: 3–5, §1.5 and 14–29, where the problem of identifying the female fluid is discussed). This reminds one of yet another list of six elements, that is, bone, marrow, and semen, inherited from one’s father, and flesh, skin, and blood, inherited from one’s mother recorded in the Tshig mdzod chen mo (s.v. mngal skyes khams drug: ’dzam bu gling pa’i mi mngal skyes rnams ma’i mngal du tshang bar ldan pa’i khams drug ste pha las thob pa’i rus pa dang| rkang| khu ba bcas gsum dang| ma las thob pa’i sha dang| pags pa| khrag bcas drug|). This list more or less corresponds to the list of seven elements commonly listed in Indian (medical) works which has in addition the “nutrient fluid” or “chyle” (rasadhātu), and “fat” instead of “skin” (Das 2003: 19–20, § 2.4); “skin,” however, is occasionally included as one of the seven elements, commonly replacing rasadhātu (ibid. pp. 273ff., §§10.7ff.). It is also reported that there is some confusion between two lists found in tantric literature: one of seven, beginning with skin instead of rasa, and of six, again having skin but lacking semen (ibid. p. 276, §10.8). On the importance of the body in tantric practices, see Dasgupta 1962: 88–92; Snellgrove 1987: 288–294. bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (pp. 43.6–44.3). On the notion of great bliss, see Almogi 2009: 134–137. It may be noted that although teachings on the gnosis of the Buddha or a buddha pervade the diverse Buddhist scriptures, the true existence of such a gnosis has been a subject of debate among Buddhist scholars, particularly in Mādhyamika circles. For more on this issue, see Almogi 2009.

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the [universal] ground” (gzhi gnas kyi ye shes) and “gnosis that illumines from within” (nang gsal gyi ye shes) are quite popular. But the idea that gnosis abides and pervades the body can be found in a number of Indian sources as well. For example, the Dharmadhātustava attributed to one Nāgārjuna compares the gnosis which abides in the body wrapped in kleśas to milk in a container that is mixed with water, and states that just as a goose is able to extract the milk from the water, so is a yogin able to mine the gnosis abiding in the body from within the kleśas. Similarly, the Caryāmelāpakapradīpa, apparently roughly citing from the Dharmadhātustava, compares the gnosis abiding in the body to a lamp inside a pot that can shine without only if the pot is broken, and so the gnosis can manifest only when the body is “broken” with the help of a master.14 Other sources, too, such as the Hevajratantra,15 Vajraghaṇṭa’s (or Ghaṇtāpāda’s) Cakrasaṃvarapañcakrama,16 the rDo rje me long gi rgyud,17 and dPe chung rang gnas,18 a small work 14

15

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See Wangchuk 2007: 202–203, where sources in which this idea is found, including the Dharmadhātustava, Hevajratantra, and Caryāmelāpakapradīpa, are provided. The Hevajratantra is often cited in this connection by rNying-ma authors. See, for example, the gSang bdag dgongs rgyan (p. 23.2–3), gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, p. 278.1–3), and bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (p. 61.3–4). Cakrasaṃvarapañcakrama (p. 152.13–14): hṛdaye vartate nityaṃ bindur eko nirakṣaraḥ | tañ ca bhāvayatāṃ puṃsāṃ jñānam utpadyate dhruvam ||. I thank Prof. Harunaga Isaacson for drawing my attention to the Sanskrit version of this text. The Tibetan text reads (p. 160.8–11; P, fol. 261a5–6; D, fol. 225a5; S, vol. 11, p. 569.15–17): rtag tu snying la gnas pa yi|| thig le gcig la ’gyur med de|| de sgom byed pa’i skye bo la|| nges par ye shes skye bar ’gyur||. This verse is cited in the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (p. 61.4). rDo rje me long gi rgyud (p. 536.5–6): lus can snying la gang gnas pa’i|| rang ’byung zag med ye shes gzugs|| mi shigs thig le bde chen po|| nam mkha’ lta bur kun khyab pa|| mi gnas chos sku’i rang bzhin te||. Cf. the citations in the gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, p. 429.1–2) and bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (p. 61.3–6). dPe chung rang gnas (P, fol. 594a1; S, vol. 43, p. 1234.18–19): mi shigs ye shes thig le ni|| sku gsung thugs kyi rdo rje’i bdag||

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attributed to Vilāsavajra, are often cited as scriptural support for the idea that this gnosis pervades the body and is changeless. The rDo rje me long gi rgyud, for example, describes this inherent and immanent gnosis as self-occurring (rang byung), undefiled (zag med), an indestructible seminal drop (mi shigs thig le), great bliss (bde ba chen po), pervasive in the same way as space (nam mkha’ lta bur kun khyab), unfixed (mi gnas), and as having the nature of the dharmakāya (chos sku’i rang bzhin). Likewise, the dPe chung rang gnas describes it as an indestructible gnostic seminal drop (mi shigs ye shes thig le), the nature of a buddha’s Body, Speech, and Mind, free from singularity and plurality, and as appearing in manifold ways, and so indeterminable. The Buddha Nature (tathāgatagarbha) theory is employed to doctrinally legitimatize the inherence and immanence of gnosis within one’s body,19 and indeed this gnosis is identified with the Buddha Nature itself.20 Such an idea, however, is not without its doctrinal problems, particularly given its similarity to the non-Buddhist idea of an eternal “soul” (ātman). The problem becomes even more acute when the inherent and immanent gnosis, as we shall see later, is described in terms of colours and shapes. One thus sees efforts on the part of rNyingma scholars to distance the Buddhist idea of inherent and immanent gnosis from the non-Buddhist idea of an eternal soul.21 4. THE SOTERIOLOGICAL GOAL AND MODELS The fact that gnosis is inherently and immanently present and pervasive in the body is in itself regarded as soteriologically irrelevant; that is, unless one explores and exploits this gnosis, one remains bound in saṃsāra and will continue to suffer. Gnosis should be elicited from the body primarily by manipulating the physiological bases skilfully. If gnosis were not found within one’s body, it could not be elicited by such techniques, just as oil cannot be gained from sand or butter from water.

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gcig dang du ma rnam spangs pa|| sna tshogs snang ba mtshon du med||. Cf. the citation in the gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, p. 429.2). See, for instance, the gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, p. 278.3–6). See, for example, Klong-chen-pa, Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fol. 13b1): de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po chen po’ang de yin te|. See the gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, pp. 278.6–280.4).

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Different tantric traditions may have one or more models for gaining access to the gnosis inherent and immanent in one’s body. Here, I should like to allude to the two tantric soteriological models found in the rNying-ma tantric tradition, namely, the models of (1) “Way of Efficient Strategy” (thabs lam) and (2) “Way of Release” (grol lam), primarily as presented by Mi-pham rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho (1846– 1912) and rDo-grub ’Jigs-med-bstan-pa’i-nyi-ma (1865–1926).22 In the rNying-ma tradition, the sGyu ’phrul rgya mtsho’i rgyud, regarded as the explanatory tantra of the *Guhyagarbhatantra, is often quoted as a scriptural authority for the division into these two models.23 Thabs lam uses special yogic techniques called “striking at the core” (gnad du bsnun pa: marmaprahāra) of the physical bases (rten: ādhāra), namely, the channels (rtsa: nāḍī), vital winds (rlung: vāyu), and seminal drops (thig le: bindu), and as a result the gnosis emerges inevitably (btsan thabs su: haṭhena). This model is subdivided into two types, involving (a) the upper aperture (steng gi sgo: ūrdhvadvāra) and (b) the lower aperture (’og gi sgo: adhodvāra). Grol lam, on the other hand, uses special yogic techniques to strike directly at the core of the gnosis, so that it emerges without having to depend on the body.24 Since thabs lam concerns the manipulation of the physiological bases (channels, vital winds, and seminal drops), it is particularly relevant to the present discussion. The idea behind these yogic practices involving the exploitation of one’s physiological bases and resources for soteriological purposes is that the various degrees of spiritual realisation and qualities that a bodhisattva following the non-tantric 22

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For a description of the thabs lam and grol lam, see Mi-pham’s ’Od gsal snying po (pp. 47.6–51.6) and rDo-grub’s mDzod lde (pp. 424.2–440.1). See also Klong-chenpa’s Yid kyi mun sel (pp. 143.2–146.2); Lo-chen Dharma-shrī’s gSang bdag dgongs rgyan (pp. 20.1–23.3); Kong-sprul’s Shes bya mdzod (pp. 810.2–811.23). gSang bdag zhal lung (vol. e, p. 301.4); mDzod lde (p. 424.2–3); Shes bya mdzod (p. 810.4): bshad rgyud rgya mtsho las| grol lam thabs su rnam par bstan|| zhes so||. The text in the sGyu ’phrul rgya mtsho’i rgyud itself reads (p. 10.2): grol thar [= thabs?] lam du rnam par bshad||. The alchemic procedure of transforming iron into gold instantly by the efficient manipulation of a mineral called mākṣika (MW, s.v.) is given as an analogy of the thabs lam technique, while the alchemic procedure of transforming iron into gold gradually by efficiently manipulating a jewel called kaustubha (MW, s.v.) is given as an analogy of the grol lam technique (gSang bdag zhal lung, pp. 303.1–304.2; ’Od gsal snying po, pp. 48.1–49.5; mDzod lde, p. 426.2–3). For more on these models, see Wangchuk 2007: 224–225.

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Mahāyāna is said to accrue at the various stages (sa: bhūmi) and on the various paths (lam: mārga), and the two kinds of accumulation, namely, the accumulation of beneficial resources (bsod nams kyi tshogs: pūṇyasaṃbhāra) and the accumulation of gnosis (ye shes kyi tshogs: jñānasaṃbhāra), can be accrued by a yogin by making his normally dysfunctional channels, vital winds, and seminal drops functional (las su rung ba).25 5. THE META-PHYSIOLOGY ACCORDING TO THE GSANG THIGS AND RELATED WORKS We shall now delve briefly into “meta-physiology,” particularly its relation to immanent gnosis and its abode. It is not possible to provide a comprehensive picture of the divergent descriptions of the channels, vital winds, and seminal drops found in the various old and new tantric sources. Even within the rNying-ma tradition alone there seems to be no one shared understanding of the matter. I shall, therefore, limit myself to a few works of the tradition of the *Guhyagarbhatantra, the most fundamental tantra of the rNying-ma school, and primarily to a short work entitled gSang thigs/thig (i.e. Secret Seminal Drop) and a commentary on it, both attributed to the Indian master Vimalamitra.26 Notably enough, although these two works are classified as Mahāyoga texts, their content seems to be also found in texts belonging to the Anuyoga and Atiyoga systems. I shall begin with the main channels and the six points of psychophysiological energy called cakras. Commonly there are said to be three axes (srog shing: akṣa)27 and four or six cakras. The three axes are:28

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Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fol. 106a1–b4). The sGyu ’phrul rdo rje is cited to bolster this idea. The gSangs thigs (spelt there gSang tig) is listed in the lDe’u chos ’byung (p. 318.15) as one of the thirty-one minor pieces of literature on the Māyājāla cycle. See, for example, the sGyu ’phrul rgya mtsho’i rgyud (p. 11.1–2): ’khor lo bzhi dang srog shing gsum|| me rlung ’gro bas nam mkha’i ba|| bzho ba steng du rnam par grags||. This verse is cited in the Yid kyi mun sel (p. 145.5–6), mDzod lde (p. 427.6), and Shes bya mdzod (p. 810.14–16). Elsewhere the three axes are also called the “three chiefs” (gtso mo gsum). See, for instance, the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (pp. 58.5, 63.5) and Negi 1993–2005, s.v. gtso mo, where the Hevajratantra is indicated as a

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1. the central main channel, called dbu ma or dbu ma’i rtsa (madhyanāḍī),29 and referred to elsewhere as kun ’dar ma (avadhūtī) 2. the right main channel, called ro ma (rasanā) 3. the left main channel, called rkyang ma (lalanā) The six cakras are identified as:30 1. the “cakra of great bliss in the forehead” (spyi bo bde chen gyi ’khor lo) 2. the “cakra of the Saṃbhoga[kāya] at the throat” (mgrin pa longs spyod kyi ’khor lo) 3. the “cakra of the Dharma[kāya] at the heart” (snying ga chos kyi ’khor lo) 4. the “cakra of the Nirmāṇa[kāya] at the navel” (lte ba sprul pa’i ’khor lo) 5. the “cakra of fire” (me dkyil), also called the “fire of Brahmā” (tshangs pa’i me), situated four fingers below the navel 6. the “cakra of conditions” (rkyen gyi ’khor lo), situated below the “cakra of fire” The *Guhyagarbhatantra tradition emphasises the cakra of the Dharma[kāya] at the heart,31 which is therefore described in the

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source. These three channels are also said to stand like three pillars (ka ba’i tshul du gnas). See the Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fols. 9a3, 10a3). mDzod lde (p. 428.2): srog shing gsum ni| dbu rkyang ro gsum mo||. Negi 1993–2005, s.v. rtsa referring to the Vimalaprabhā. mDzod lde (pp. 427.6–428.2): ’khor lo gsum phrag gnyis ni| spyi bo bde chen gyi| mgrin pa longs spyod kyi| snying ga chos kyi| lte ba sprul pa’i ’khor lo ste rtsa ba’i ’khor lo bzhi dang| de ’og sor bzhi gzhal bar lte ba’i gtum mo las yar ’bar ba rgyud gzhan du tshangs pa’i me zhes grags pa’i me dkyil dang| de’i ’og na me de sbor byed thur sel gyi rlung ste rkyen gyi ’khor lo gnyis so||. See also the Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fols. 9a5–10a3), where varying numbers of cakras are discussed. mDzod lde (p. 429.6): lugs ’dir snying ga’i gnad gtso bor byed de|. See also the Shes bya mdzod (p. 810.16–24), where it is stated that the meditative practices involving the manipulation of the cakras at the heart, navel, throat, and forehead are taught in the thirteenth chapter of the *Guhyagarbhatantra, and that the meditative techniques of striking at the core (gnad du bsnun pa) of these four cakras are called the “quintessential instruction (or rather, here, meditative technique) of Samantabhadra” (kun tu bzang po’i man ngag), the “quintessential instruction of Samantabhadrā” (kun tu bzang mo’i man ngag), the “quintessential instruction of accurate procedure”

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associated literature in greater detail, and with which I shall be mainly concerned in this paper, since it is the location where gnosis is said to abide. (a) Eight Pure Essence Channels (rtsa’i dwangs ma brgyad) or Eight Petals of Channels (rtsa’i ’dab ma brgyad) in the Centre of the Heart The gSang thigs and its commentary, which seem to be the main sources for this particular meta-physiology, are not without textual problems.32 Nonetheless the main points can be more or less extracted, occasionally with the help of other works dealing with the same topic, such as Klong-chen-pa’s Shing rta chen po.33 According to these works, there are eight pure essence channels (rtsa’i dwangs/dangs/dwang ma), commonly referred to in the literature as petals of channels (rtsa’i ’dab ma), in the cakra of the Dharma[kāya] in the heart. Three of them, described as great, are said to be outer ones, and five of them inner ones. In the centre of the five inner ones there is the seminal drop (thig le: bindu) of bodhicitta (i.e. bodhicitta in its gnoseo-physiological sense). It is located in an empty space within the heart, where the eight pure essence channels form a network with secondary channels (rtsa bran) said to resemble a curved rope (thag pa gug pa). Of these eight pure essence channels, three are said to be of true reality (chos nyid kyi rtsa), one of gnosis (ye shes kyi rtsa), three of one’s continuum (rang rgyud kyi rtsa), and one of qualities (yon tan gyi rtsa).34

32

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(sbyor ba dag pa’i man ngag), and the “quintessential instruction of great pervasion” (khyab rdal chen po’i man ngag), respectively. Most particularly, the commentary does not seem to be a coherent text. It appears that it is the result of the merging of two different commentaries, possibly by two different authors, since each point is explained twice and often slightly differently, not so much, that is, in a contradictory as in either a repetitive or supplementary manner. Moreover, the reading of both the basic text and its commentary is often uncertain. The fact that the extracanonical versions found in the NyK often offer readings different from the ones found in the canon only adds to the ambiguity of the reading. To resolve these problems a careful edition of these texts and the consultation of related works will be necessary, a task that cannot be undertaken in the present paper. Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fols. 8b5–17a3, 50b4–55a2). Note that according to the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad, three channels are of true reality, three of gnosis, one of the continuum, and one of qualities (pp. 58.6–59.1): snying ga’i rtsa ’dab brgyad kyi gsum ni chos nyid kyi rtsa zhes bya| gsum ni ye shes

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These essence channels are described as follows: Inside the channels of true reality there is a yellow light (’od ser po), circular in shape (dbyibs zlum po) and resembling a mixture of mercury (dngul chu) and melted butter (zhun mar). Its essence-syllable (snying po: hṛdaya) is OṂ; its phonic seeds (sa bon: bīja) are SU, situated on top of the essence-syllable, and TRI, situated beneath it. The colour of these three syllables is said to be like the colour of a pitched tent made of silk brocade (za ’og gi gur phub pa). Inside the channel of gnosis there is a blue (mthing ga) light that is square in shape, and like a raised rope (zhags pa bsdogs/thogs pa).35 It resembles a mirage on the surface of a river in springtime, or a dewdrop (zil pa) on the tip of an ash-coloured leaf of grass (rtsa skya’i kha na).36 The essence-syllable is HŪṂ, and the phonic seeds are A, situated on top of the essence-syllable, and NRI, situated beneath it. Inside the channels of one’s continuum there is a red light (’od dmar po) in the shape of a crescent (zla gam). It resembles a red silk pennon (le brgan lce) running through a crystal ball (shel sgong). The colour is also said to resemble liquid copper tinged with brass. The essence-syllable is ĀḤ,37 and the phonic seeds are PRE, situated on top of the essencesyllable, and DU, situated beneath it. The channel of qualities is described only briefly in the gSang thigs and its commentary, and in the other works consulted by me. It can be merely stated at this stage that the light found in it is dark-red (’od dmar nag),38 and that the qualities situated in it are said to be both good and bad.

35

36

37 38

kyi rtsa zhes bya| gcig ni rang rgyud kyi rtsa zhes bya| gcig ni yon tan gyi rtsa zhes bya ste de ltar brgyad do||. The precise meaning of zhags pa bsdogs pa and its connection with a square shape is not quite clear. Cf. the Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fol. 12a5–6): zhags pa thogs pa’am sbrul ’khyil ba dang ’dra’o||. See also the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (p. 59.3), where the shape is also compared to a “coiled snake” (sbrul dkyus pa). The text names here as an alternative the colour red in the shape of a crescent (zla gam) and compares it to a red silk pennon (le brgan lce) running through a crystal ball (shel sgong) and compares the light of the following channel to a mirage, and so forth. It seems, however, that the description of these two channels was mistakenly reversed. The forms A and Ā are also found, but they seem to be faulty. This detail is missing in the gSang thigs and is supplemented from the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (p. 59.4–5). Note, however, that some paragraphs later there is a reference to the dark-red colour which runs through the channel’s pure essence of

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The syllables A and NRI are said to run through the breath’s impure essences (snyigs ma: kaṣāya); SU and TRI, through the channel’s impure essences; and PRE and DU, through the blood’s impure essences. The channel’s pure essence (rtsa’i dwangs ma) runs through the yellow light; the breath’s pure essence (dbugs kyi dwangs ma), through the blue; and the blood’s pure essence (khrag gi dwangs ma), through the red. The phonic seeds are the causes of saṃsāra, and the essence-syllables are the causes of gnosis and thus nirvāṇa. These two, namely, the causes of purification and pollution, are said to be commonly mixed with one another, and they in turn to be mixed with the seminal drop of bodhicitta. The yellow light of the channels of true reality houses the fundamental mind (kun gzhi’i rnam par shes pa: ālayavijñāna); the blue light of the channel of gnosis, the mental perception (yid kyi rnam par shes pa: manovijñāna); the red light of the channels of one’s continuum, the defiled mind (nyon mongs pa’i yid: kliṣṭamanas); and the dark-red light of the channel of qualities, the five types of sense perception (sgo lnga’i rnam shes). Taking birth as a god or a human is said to be facilitated by the mental perception, and the seeds of such births are found in the syllables A and NRI; taking birth as a semi-god (lha ma yin: asura) or an animal is facilitated by the fundamental mind, and the seeds of such births are found in the syllables SU and TRI; and taking birth as a hungry ghost (yi dwags: preta) or hell-being is facilitated by the perceptions of the senses and the defiled [mind], and the seeds of such births are found in the syllables PRE and DU.39 This arrangement is said to be found in the continuum of each of the sentient beings of the six realms. The above description of the eight essence channels in the heart can thus be summarised in the form of a table as follows:

39

the five doors, that is, the five sense organs—with no mention, though, of the channel of qualities. The correlation of the phonic seeds TRI and PRE with animals and hungry ghosts, respectively, is according to rDo-grub’s mDzod lde (p. 431.1–6). The gSang thigs ’grel pa has it the other way around, which is obviously an error, evidently due to confusion between these two phonic seeds (TRI being often spelt TRE).

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Type of channel

3 channels of true 1 channel of 3 channels of reality (chos nyid gnosis (ye shes one’s continukyi rtsa) kyi rtsa) um (rang rgyud kyi rtsa)

1 channel of qualities (yon tan gyi rtsa)

Colour

yellow

blue

red

dark-red

Shape

circle

square

crescent

Type of pure channel’s pure essence (dwangs essence (rtsa’i ma) dwangs ma) Essencesyllable (snying OṂ po: hṛdaya) = cause of purifycation/ gnosis / nirvāṇa

breath’s pure blood’s pure essence (dbugs essence (khrag gi dwangs ma) kyi dwangs ma) HŪṂ

ĀḤ

Phonic seeds (sa bon: bīja) = causes of pollution /ignorance /saṃsāra

SU and TRI run through the channel’s impure essence (rtsa’i snyigs ma)

A and NRI run through the breath’s impure essence (dbugs kyi snyigs ma)

PRE and DU run through the blood’s impure essence (khrag gi snyigs ma)

Type of mind residing in the channel

Fundamental mind (ālayavijñāna)

mental perception (manovijñāna)

defiled mind (kliṣṭamanas)

Birth caused by the pertinent phonic seeds and type of mind

semi-gods & animals

gods & humans

hungry ghosts & hell-beings

five types of sense perception

(b) The Five Pure Essences (dwangs ma lnga) The gnosis immanent in the body is closely related to the pure essences just mentioned, which are described as follows: 1. The channel’s pure essence (rtsa’i dwangs ma), located in the centre of the heart, resembles a white silk thread (dar dkar gyi skud pa) and is said to be as thin as 1/50th of the diameter of a strand of a horsetail (rta rnga) and to have the form of a cobweb (ba thag), serves from beginningless time as the support of the psycho-physiological complex (phung po’i rten byed), and therefore is a pure essence of the elements.

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On the saṃsāric level it appears as the element of earth, while on the nirvāṇic level it appears as the female deity Locanā; it is in fact the gnosis of great emptiness (stong pa chen po’i ye shes), for it serves as the base from which everything assumes the nature of the purified dharmadhātu (rnam par dag pa’i ngang du ma gyur pa med pa’i rten byed). 2. Within the channel’s pure essence is the blood’s pure essence (khrag gi dwangs ma), which resembles cinnabar (mtshal cog la ma). This, too, is a pure essence of the elements, for it purifies the psychophysiological complex (phung po dag par byed) from beginningless time. It appears as water, while in reality it is the female deity Māmakī. It is in fact the gnosis of equality (mnyam pa nyid kyi ye shes: samatājñāna), whose nature it is to collect or gather everything into the sphere apart from anybody’s bidding (bkol ba med par dbyings gcig tu sdud pa’i bdag nyid). 3. The breath’s pure essence (dbugs kyi dwangs ma), said to steam like a vapour (rlangs pa: bāṣpa) of fine grains of gold (sa le sbram) that have been found beneath the earth, functions from beginningless time as a basis for the lightness and mobility of the psycho-physiological complex (phung po yang zhing g.yo ba’i rten byed), and so it, too, is a pure essence of the elements. It appears as wind, but in reality it is the female deity Samayatārā (dam tshig sgrol ma). It is the gnosis of performing (beneficial) activities (bya ba sgrub pa’i ye shes: kṛtyānuṣṭhānajñāna), whose nature it is to move in the sphere of great bliss (bde ba chen po’i dbyings su bskyod pa’i rang bzhin). 4. The warmth’s pure essence (drod kyi dwangs ma) is said to resemble the glittering (’od kyi ngad) or mere shimmer (ngad tsam zhig) of a mirror in the sun. Its nature is to ripen (smin par byed pa’i rang bzhin) the psycho-physiological complex from beginningless time, and thus it, too, is a pure essence of the elements. It appears as fire, while it is in reality the female deity Pāṇḍaravāsinī (gos dkar mo). It is the discerning gnosis (so sor rtog pa’i ye shes: pratyavekṣaṇajñāna), that is, gnosis that realises everything as the sphere of great bliss (thams cad bde ba chen po’i dbyings su rtogs pa’i ye shes). 5. Within this multi-coloured light exists the great seminal drop of bodhicitta. It is the great pure essence (dwangs ma chen po). It serves as a support for the illumination of the psycho-physiological complex (phung po gsal bar byed pa’i rten byed), and thus it, too, is a pure essence of the elements. It appears like space, but it is in fact the allpervading gnosis, the female deity Samantabhadrā (kun tu bzang mo). It

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provides space for all that both appears and is empty to be illuminated in the absolute sphere of reality (snang stong thams cad yang dag pa’i dbyings su gsal ba’i go skabs ’byed). This seminal drop, which resembles liquid gold or the disk of the rising sun, is insight, the essence of all female deities. That which looks like a precious stone called ze’u ka/kha40 placed in the cavity of this liquid gold is the essence of the male deities including Samantabhadra, the king of method, and that which looks like the quartz karketana41 hanging from a rail (gdang) is the mirror-like gnosis (me long lta bu’i ye shes: ādarśajñāna). This is the essence of the sphere of reality (dharmadhātugarbha), the cause of all ultimate goals (don dam). The above description of the five pure essences is summarised in the next page. In brief, the gnosis (or “awareness,” as it is often referred to in the rDzogs-chen literature) inherent and immanent in the body, whose essence is said to be primordially pure (ngo bo ka dag gi rig pa), abides in the centre of the heart of all sentient beings as the great pure essence in what Klong-chen-pa calls the “precious secret womb” (rin po che’i sbubs), or the “naturally luminous palace,” which is a residence consisting of light, whose radiance flows through the eight petals in the form of the remaining pure essences, corresponding to the various kinds of gnosis. Mi-pham,42 however, equates the first four pure essences with the pure essences of the earth element (sa’i dwangs ma), water element (chu khams kyi dwangs ma), fire element (me’i sa bon dwangs ma), and wind element (rlung gi dwangs ma), respectively, while also designating the brilliant inner space (bar snang sang sang po), which provides the needed room (go ’byed), as the pure essence of the space element (nam mkha’i dwangs ma). Within the concentrate of these five pure essences (dwangs ma lnga ’dus) is said to reside the mind’s pure essence (sems kyi dwangs ma), which is referred to above as the great pure essence (dwangs ma chen po) and described as bodhicitta, the great seminal drop that has gnosis as its essence (ye shes snying po’i thig le chen po). Thus the expression “six great pure essences” (dwangs ma chen po drug) is employed by him.43 40 41 42 43

It is not clear what precious stone ze’u ka/kha might be. See Mahāvyutpatti no. 5949; MW, s.v. karkeṇata; karketana. bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad (pp. 59.6–61.1). See ibid. (p. 62.2).

256

Type of Pure Essence

ORNA ALMOGI

Resemblance

Function

Appearance (saṃsāra) = one of the elements

Actual na- Type of ture (nirvā- gnosis ṇa) = one of the five female deities

1. channel’s white pure silk essence thread

serves as a earth support for the psychophysiological complex

Locanā

gnosis of great emptiness (stong pa chen po’i ye shes)

2. blood’s pure essence

cinnabar

purifies the water psychophysiological complex

Māmakī

gnosis of equality (mnyam pa nyid kyi ye shes: samatājñāna)

3. breath’s pure essence

“vapour” of gold

serves as the wind basis for the lightness and mobility of the psychophysiological complex

Samayatārā

gnosis of performing (beneficial) activities (bya ba sgrub pa’i ye shes: kṛtyānuṣṭhānajñāna)

4.warmth’s pure essence

glittering of a mirror in the sun

ripens the fire psychophysiological complex

Pāṇḍaravāsinī

discerning gnosis (so sor rtog pa’i ye shes: pratyavekṣaṇajñāna)

5. great pure essence = seminal drop of bodhicitta

liquid gold or the disk of the rising sun

imparts space glow/radiance to the psychophysiological complex

Samantabhadrā

all-pervading gnosis = mirrorlike gnosis (me long lta bu’i ye shes: ādarśajñāna)

6. NATURAL EXPOSURE TO THE INHERENT AND IMMANENT GNOSIS According to the rNying-ma tantric tradition, a qualified master introduces the disciple to the inherent and immanent gnosis within him, and the disciple is supposed to recognise it and finally experience it as a soteriological event by practising one or more of the prescribed yogic practices. If a yogin succeeds in achieving the desired soteriological goal during his life, so much the better, but even if he does not, a

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number of options have been put at his disposal. We have seen that the meta-physiological bases and the inherent and immanent gnosis have been conceived of as having a “support-supported relationship” (rten dang brten pa’i ’brel pa), which is, strictly speaking, a very weak relationship. The question is what happens when the psycho-physiological bases of a person give in and cease to function as substrata for the inherent and immanent gnosis. Such moments, such as upon the occasion of dying, are opportunities that a yogin is supposed to seize and turn to soteriological advantage. Dying in Buddhism may be defined as a process during which the physiological constituents of a person gradually withdraw and cease to function as substrata for the psychical constituents (i.e. mind and the mental factors), and during which the entire psycho-physiological apparatus of an individual totally collapses. It is said that the intellectual-emotional defilements (nyon mongs pa: kleśa) described as the eighty inherent conceptual entities (rang bzhin gyi rtog pa brgyad bcu), namely, thirty-three associated with desire (’dod chags: rāga), forty associated with aversion (zhe sdang: dveṣa), and seven associated with disorientation (gti mug: moha), succumb at the end of the dissolution process. The process of dissolution is vividly described by Klong-chen-pa in his Shing rta chen po.44 The white pure essence of the right main channel (inherited from one’s father) dissolves into the upper end (yar sna) of the central channel, marked with the syllable HAṂ. The red pure essence of the left main channel (inherited from one’s mother) dissolves into the lower end (mar sna) of the central channel, marked with the syllable A. The white and red pure essences dissolve finally into the “great pure essence of the luminous gnosis in the heart” (snying ga’i ye shes ’od gsal gyi dangs ma chen po). All gross and subtle conceptual entities cease, and the inherent and immanent gnosis is laid bare. This is a unique moment in saṃsāric existence—when the inherent and immanent gnosis is rid of all its obscurations (sgrib pa: āvaraṇa) and is in all respects identical with a buddha’s gnosis. In the event of recognition at this juncture, this gnosis would remain naked forever and not be defiled ever again. In other words, a sentient being would become a buddha then and there. According to Klong-chen-pa, this is what makes the idea of the so-

44

Shing rta chen po (vol. 2, fols. 106b5–109a6).

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called “release on the primordial ground” (ye thog tu grol ba) found in the rDzogs-chen literature so rational.45 An ordinary person would simply pass by this critical moment without even having realised it. For a yogin who has still not been able to make the final breakthrough, the amount of time in which the inherent gnosis remains in its immaculate state would depend on the length of what is called a “meditation day” (bsam gtan gyi zhag), which varies according to the quality of the yogin’s meditative training. A meditation day is the period of meditative absorption that is completely free from conceptual thoughts. In other words, it is the gap between the preceding and the following conceptual thought, and is thus characterised by luminosity and lucidity. The longer one manages to abide in such a meditation day during the meditative practice, the greater is the chance that one becomes completely awakened during such moments of a total collapse of the psycho-physiological apparatus, and one is thus commonly advised to stabilize one’s meditative concentration while still alive.46 7. CONCLUDING REMARKS In the present paper an attempt has been made to provide a general idea of the meta-physiology of the gnosis said to be inherent and immanent in the centre of the heart of all sentient beings; its abode; and how one’s physiological constituents can be exploited to induce this gnosis to manifest. It has also been shown that although this gnosis can be caused to emerge by means of meditative techniques, it can also become manifest in the course of a natural process of dissolution, and that then even an ordinary being can come very close to a state normally accessible only to a fully awakened being. I should like to conclude by stating that, while one does occasionally find statements that descriptions of this gnosis in terms of light, colours, shapes, and the like are merely meant as aids for confused sentient beings who have not yet recognised this gnosis within themselves,47 the physicality and 45

46 47

Ibid. (vol. 2, fol. 109b3): bzhi pa’i dus su phra ba thim pas sgrib pa mtha’ dag bral ba’i skabs shig der ’byung bas ye thog tu grol ba’i ’thad pa ste| sangs rgyas mngon du byed dus bzhin no||. Ibid. (vol. 2, fols. 109b3–110a4). Prajñāpraveśa (P, fol. 413b5–6; S, vol. 43, pp. 837.19–838.2): sems can ma lus thams cad la||

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materiality ascribed to gnosis in such descriptions is too vivid to be ignored, and it appears that such descriptions have been often taken literally. ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Almogi 2009

Arthaviniścayasūtra

Bendall & Rouse 1922

BHSD

bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad

Bodhicaryāvatāra Cakrasaṃvarapañcakrama

Catuḥśataka

Orna Almogi, Rong-zom-pa’s Discourses on Buddhology: A Study of Various Conceptions of Buddhahood in Indian Sources with Special Reference to the Controversy Surrounding the Existence of Gnosis (ye shes: jñāna) as Presented by the Eleventh-Century Tibetan Scholar Rongzom Chos-kyi-bzang-po. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series 24. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. N. H. Samtani, The Arthaviniścayasūtra & Its Commentary (Nibandh[a]na) (Written by Bhikṣu Vīryaśrīdatta of Śrī-Nālandāvihāra). Critically edited and annotated for the first time with introduction and several indices. Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1971. Reprint: 2005. Cecil Bendall & W. D. Rouse, trs., Śikṣā Samuccaya: A Compendium of Buddhist Doctrine Compiled by Śāntideva Chiefly from Early Mahāyāna Sūtras. 1922. Reprint: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999. Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Volume 2: Dictionary. 1953. Reprint: Kyoto: Rinsen Book Co., 1985. Mi-pham rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho, dPal sgrub pa chen po’i bka’ brgyad kyi spyi don rnam par bshad pa dngos grub snying po. In MS, vol. 21, pp. 1–207. Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya, ed., Bodhicaryāvatāra. Bibliotheca Indica 280. Calcutta 1960. Vajraghaṇṭa alias Ghaṇṭāpāda, “Śrīcakrasaṃvara-pañcakrama of Ghaṇṭāpāda. dPal ’khor lo sdom pa’i rim pa lnga pa| mdzad pa po| rDo rje dril bu pa.” Dhīḥ 39, 2005, pp. 149–168; P 2150; D 1433; S 0331, vol. 11. Āryadeva, Catuḥśataka. See Lang 1986.

ye shes lnga yis kun khyab kyang|| rang gi rnam rtog bsgribs byas te|| ye shes lnga yi don ma mthong|| ma mthong rmongs pa thams cad la|| ye shes mtshan nyid bstan pa’i phyir|| dkar dang dmar dang ser ba dang|| ljang gu la sogs nag por bstan||.

260 Crosby & Skilton 1995

D

Das 2003

Dasgupta 1962

dPe chung rang gnas Dus ’khor ’grel pa gSang bdag dgongs rgyan

gSang bdag zhal lung

gSang thigs gSang thigs ’grel pa Hevajrapiṇḍārthaṭīkā Horner 1959

KShG Lang 1986

Langer 2001

ORNA ALMOGI Kate Crosby & Andrew Skilton, trs., Śāntideva. The Bodhicaryāvatāra. With a general introduction by Paul Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. The sDe-dge Edition of the bsTan-’gyur. Nos. according to: Hakuju Ui et al., eds., A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Bkaḥ-ḥgyur and Bstan-ḥgyur). Sendai: Tōhoku Imperial University, 1934. Rahul Peter Das. The Origin of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female According to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature. Indian Medical Tradition 6. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003. Shashi Bhusan Dasgupta, Obscure Religious Cults. Second and revised edition of 1946. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1962. Vilāsavajra (attributed), sGyu ’phrul dpe chung rang gnas kyi rim pa. P 4748; not found in D; S 2624, vol. 43. Mi-pham rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho, Dus ’khor nang gi le’u’i ’grel pa. In MS, vol. 17, pp. 601–927. Lo-chen Dharma-shrī, dPal gsang ba’i snying po de kho na nyid nges pa’i rgyud kyi ’grel pa gsang bdag dgongs rgyan. In NyK, vol. 32 (khi), pp. 5–458. Id., dPal gsang ba’i snying po de kho na nyid nges pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po sgyu ’phrul drwa ba spyi don gyi sgo nas gtan la ’bebs par byed pa’i legs bshad gsang bdag zhal lung. 2 vols (e & waṃ). In NyK, vols. 33–34 (gi–ngi). Vimalamitra (attributed), gSang ba’i thigs pa’i man ngag. P 4738; not found in D; S 2600, vol. 43; KShG, vol. 81 (zhu), pp. 45–47. Id. (attributed), gSang ba’i thigs pa’i man ngag gi ’grel pa. P 4765; not found in D; S 2641, vol. 44; KShG, vol. 81 (zhu), pp. 49–67. Vajragarbha, Hevajrapiṇḍārthaṭīkā. See Shendge 2004. I. B. Horner, tr., The Collection of the Middle Length Sayings (Majjhima-Nikāya). Vol. 3: The Final Fifty Discourses (Uparipaṇṇāsa). 1959. Reprint: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2004. bKa’ ma shin tu rgyas pa. Compiled and edited by mKhan-po ’Jam-dbyangs. 120 vols. Chengdu, 1999. Karen Lang, Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka: On the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation of Merit and Knowledge. Indiske Studier 7. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1986. Rita Langer, Das Bewusstsein als Träger des Lebens: Einige weniger beachtete Aspekte des viññāṇa im Pālikanon. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 52. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2001.

MATERIALITY lDe’u chos ’byung

Mahāvyutpatti

mDzod lde

MS

MW Ñāṇamoli & Bodhi 1995

Negi 1993–2005

NyG NyK

’Od gsal snying po P

Prajñāpraveśa rDo rje me long gi rgyud

S

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mKhas-pa lDe’u, rGya bod kyi chos ’byung rgyas pa. Chief ed. Chab-spel-tshe-brtan-phun-tshogs. Gangs can rig mdzod 3. Lhasa: Bod-ljongs-mi-rigs-dpe-skrun-khang, 1987. Sakaki Ryōzaburō, ed., Honyaku myōgi taishū (Mahāvyutpatti). 2 vols. 1916. Reprint: Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1987. rDo-grub ’Jigs-med-bstan-pa’i-nyi-ma, dPal gsang ba’i snying po’i rgyud kyi spyi don nyung ngu’i ngag gis rnam par ’byed pa rin chen mdzod kyi lde mig. In NyK, vol. 35 (ci), pp. 367–588. ’Jam mgon ’ju mi pham rgya mtsho’i gsung ’bum rgyas pa sde dge dgon chen par ma. The Expanded Redaction of the Complete Works of ’Ju Mi-pham. Reconstructed and reproduced from the surviving prints at the order of H. H. Dilgo Chhentse Rimpoche. Paro: Lama Ngodrup & Sherab Drimey, 1984–1993. Sir Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. 1899. Reprint: Tokyo: Meicho Fukyukai Co., 1986. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli & Bhikkhu Bodhi, trs., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. 1995. Second Edition: Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001. J. S. Negi et al., Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary. 16 vols. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Dictionary Unit, 1993–2005. rNying ma rgyud ’bum [mTshams-brag Edition]. Thimphu: National Library of Bhutan, 1982. rÑiṅ ma Bka’ ma rgyas pa. A Collection of Teachings and Initiations of the Rñiṅ-ma-pa Tradition Passed through Continuous and Unbroken Oral Lineages from the Ancient Masters. Completely edited and restructured by H. H. Bdud-’joms Rin-po-che on the basis of the successive Smin-grol-gliṅ and Rdzogs-chen Rgyal-sras redactions. Kalimpong: Dupjung Lama, 1982–1987. Mi-pham rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho, gSang ’grel phyogs bcu mun sel gyi spyi don ’od gsal snying po. In MS, vol. 19, pp. 1–271. The Peking Edition of the bsTan-’gyur. Nos. according to: Daisetz T. Suzuki, ed., The Tibetan Tripitaka. Peking Edition: Catalogue & Index. Reduced-size Edition. Kyoto: Rinsen Book Co., 1985. Vimalamitra (attributed), Mahāyogaprajñāpraveśacakṣurupadeśa. P 4725; not found in D; S 2601, vol. 43. rDo rje sems dpa’i sgyu ’phrul dra ba gsang ba thams cad kyi me long zhes bya ba’i rgyud. In NyG, vol. 22 (za), pp. 481–692. bsTan ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma). Sichuan: Krung-go’i-bodkyi-shes-rig-dpe-skrun-khang, 1994–2005.

262 sGyu ’phrul rgya mtsho’i rgyud Shendge 2004 Shes bya mdzod

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Snellgrove 1987

Steinkellner 1981

Tshig mdzod chen mo Wangchuk 2007

Yid kyi mun sel

ORNA ALMOGI sGyu ’phrul rgya mtsho zhes bya ba’i rgyud. In NyG, vol. 22 (za), pp. 1–103. Malati J. Shendge, ed., Ṣaṭsāhasrikāhevajraṭīkā: A Critical Edition. Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan, 2004. Kong-sprul Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho, Theg pa’i sgo kun las btus pa gsung rab rin po che’i mdzod bslab pa gsum legs par ston pa’i bstan bcos shes bya kun khyab [rtsa ’grel] (on cover: Shes bya kun khyab). Eds. rDo-rje-rgyal-po & Thub-bstan-nyi-ma. Beijing: Mi-rigs-dpe-skrun-khang, 2002. Klong-chen-pa Dri-med-’od-zer, rDzogs pa chen po sems nyid ngal gso’i ’grel pa shing rta chen po. 2 vols. In Ngal gso skor gsum, vols. nya & ta. Gangtok: Dodrup Chen Rinpoche. Reprint: Thimphu: National Library of Bhutan, n.d. Cecil Bendall, ed., Çikshāsamuccaya: A Compendium of Buddhist Teaching Compiled by Çāntideva Chiefly from Earlier Mahāyāna-sūtras. 1897–1902. Bibliotheca Buddhica 1. Reprint: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992. David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors. 1987. Reprint: Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002. Ernst Steinkellner, tr., Eintritt in das Leben zur Erleuchtung (Bodhicaryāvatāra): Lehrgedicht des Mahāyāna aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt. Śāntideva. Diederichs Gelbe Reihe. Munich: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1981. Reprint: 1989. Krang-dbyi-sun et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo. Beijing: Mi-rigs-dpe-skrun-khang, 1993. Dorji Wangchuk, The Resolve to Become a Buddha: A Study of the Bodhicitta Concept in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series 23. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2007. Klong-chen-pa Dri-med-’od-zer, dPal gsang ba’i snying po’i spyi don legs par bshad pa’i snang bas yid kyi mun pa thams cad sel ba. In NyK, vol. 27 (sha), pp. 5–182.

PHILIPP ANDRÉ MAAS

The So-called Yoga of Suppression in the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra∗

In his outstanding pioneering study “Strukturen yogischer Meditation” Oberhammer1 shows beyond doubt that the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra (PYŚ) teaches four kinds of yogic meditations which differ from each other with regard to their respective objects of meditation as well as with regard to their structure, i.e. in the treatment (or development) of content of consciousness within meditation.2 The present paper takes up Oberhammer’s line of thought with regard to the first two kinds of meditation which are the subject of larger parts of the PYŚ’s first chapter, the Samādhipāda. A fresh look at these meditations has become possible (and indeed necessary), as there has been a good deal of scientific progress within the last thirty years. First of all, there has been a considerable advancement in yoga philology. Oberhammer had to rely on the first edition of the Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa (Madras 1952), which is based on one single manuscript. The version of the basic text (i.e. the YS together with the YBh) published together with the Vivaraṇa is not, as the title of the edition might suggest, a critically edited text. Very probably the editors simply copied it from the edition published by Kāśīnātha Śāstrī Āgāśe as No. 47 of the Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series in 1904.3 Every now and then the editors of the Vivaraṇa modified the text of their exemplar with ∗

1 2

3

Sincere thanks to Professor Eli Franco for his thought provoking comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Susanne Kammüller, M.A. and Dr. Elizabeth De Michelis for taking a close look at my English. Cf. the review of Oberhammer’s work by Alper 1980. Oberhammer 1977: 134–230. Since the publication of Oberhammer’s study, Frauwallner’s interpretation of the PYŚ as dealing with only two different kinds of meditation (1953: 427–443) is clearly outdated. Bronkhorst 1993: 68–75, who apparently is not aware of Oberhammer 1977, distinguishes two kinds of meditation in the YS leading to saṃprajñāta samādhi and to asaṃprajñāta (samādhi) respectively. Cf. Maas 2006: xiii–xxv.

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readings they derived from a reconstruction of the Vivaraṇa’s basic text.4 In the meantime, we have not only come into possession of a new critical edition of the Vivaraṇa’s first chapter (YVi), but also of a critical edition of the first chapter of the YS together with the YBh, based on 21 printed editions and 25 manuscripts (Maas 2006).5 According to manuscript colophons and secondary evidence, both texts taken collectively bear the common title Pātañjala Yogaśāstra and, as I argue in the introduction to my edition, probably have one single, common “author” named Patañjali.6 This author would have collected the sūtras from different sources and furnished them with explanations, which in later times came to be regarded as the YBh.7 The date of the work is still uncertain, but a time span reaching from 325 to 425 A.D. seems to be most likely.8 In accordance with Frauwallner (1953), Oberhammer calls the first two types of yoga as discussed in the PYŚ “yoga of suppression” (Unterdrückungsyoga). This, however, is an unfortunate designation, as it evokes misleading associations. “Unterdrückung,” according to Fröhlich’s Wörterbuch der Psychologie has a double meaning. In psychology the word designates “the complete deletion of a reaction; in contrast to ‘inhibition’ (Hemmung) which can be removed ….” In psychoanalysis, on the other hand, ‘suppression’ means a “voluntary suppression of certain impulses for action (Handlungsimpulse); in contrast to repression (Verdrängung)”.9 In the course of this paper it should become obvious 4 5

6

7

8 9

Cf. Maas 2006: xiix. Critically edited texts, of course, facilitate the correct understanding of passages which have been corrupted in the course of the transmission. The critical edition of PYŚ I.29 provides two striking examples for an improved text. The vulgate reads the corrupt svarūpadarśanam instead of the correct svapuruṣadarśanam in I.29,3, and instead of the correct madīya puruṣaḥ, it reads yaḥ puruṣaḥ (or simply puruṣaḥ) in the next line. For a more detailed discussion of these variants cf. Maas 2006: lxviii f., 104 f., and 168 f. Bronkhorst 1985: 191–203 comes to the same conclusion, albeit for different reasons. The identification of Patañjali’s “source books” is of course impossible as no systematic expositions of pre-classical Yoga have come down to us. For the considerable influence of Buddhist terminology on Patañjali see La Valée Poussin 1936–1937. Maas 2006: xii–xix. Fröhlich 1993: 413, col. 2, s.v.: “Unterdrückung (suppression). [1] Bezeichnung für die vollständige Löschung einer Reaktion; im Unterschied zur Hemmung, die durch

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that neither of these meanings is applicable in yoga psychology. In using the designation “yoga of suppression” Frauwallner has neither a psychological nor a psychoanalytical connotation in mind. In his view, the use of “suppression” is justified by the type of meditation which Patañjali teaches in the first chapter of his work, starting with YS I.2 yogaś cittavttinirodhaḥ “yoga is the shutdown of the mental capacity’s processes.”10 The aim of this type of yoga, according to Frauwallner is to “suppress all mental activity, and to eliminate cognition”11. The second part of this statement is not fully consonant with the text from which it is derived. If deletion of cognition as a whole were the aim of yoga, this would imply not only a deletion of mental processes, but also a deletion of the self, which is per definitionem pure consciousness. Paradoxical as this might seem, the aim of yoga is not the elimination of consciousness but the deletion of consciousness content.12 Moreover, the term “suppression” should be avoided because of its use as technical term in psychology and psychoanalysis. In replacing the term, I would suggest the expression “non-theistic yogic concentration,” which would do justice to its theistic variant, as well as to samāpatti and to saṃyama, which are under discussion in later parts of the PYŚ.13 Before discussing “non-theistic yogic concentration,” I would like to briefly brush up our knowledge of the metaphysical and ontological foundations of Sāṅkhya Yoga, as far as they are indispensable for the following discussion of yogic states of consciousness and forms of meditation.14 Classical Sāṅkhya Yoga is known to be an ontologically dualistic philosophy. It upholds that the world is divided into two fundamentally different kinds of entities. On the one hand there exists an infinite

10

11

12

13 14

spontane Erholung u.ä. wieder aufgehoben werden kann. … [2] Allgemeine psychoanalytische Bezeichnung für das willkürliche Unterdrücken bestimmter Handlungsimpluse bzw. Handlungsweisen; im Unterschied zur Verdrängung, die durch unbewußt wirksam Abwehrmechanismen erfolgen soll.” Oberhammer 1977 argues convincingly that the first chapter of the PYŚ does not deal with one single kind of meditation, but with three different types. Frauwallner (1953: 438): “… sucht man durch den Yoga jede geistige Tätigkeit zu unterdrücken und damit auch jede Erkenntnis auszuschalten.” Cf. the immediately following summary of “the metaphysical and ontological foundations of Sāṅkhya Yoga.” For which see Oberhammer 1977: 177–209, and 209–230. Cf. Schmithausen 1968: 331.

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number of transcendental “selves,” or “spirits” (puruṣa). The selves are pure consciousness, bare of any content. They are infinite—not only in number but also with regard to time and space—inactive, and unchangeable. Besides the selves, the world consists of the products of primordial matter (prakti) which is completely unconscious, active and changeable. The products of matter not only make up all things of the outside world, but in human beings they also fashion the sense-capacities (buddhīndriya) as well as the mental capacity which is most frequently called citta.15 These metaphysical assumptions are crucial for the view of classical Sāṅkhya Yoga on epistemological issues, as mental processes are thought to depend upon the existence—and as it were “interaction”—of both kinds of entities. The mental capacity supplies the content of a mental process to the self, which by “seeing” it “provides” the mental content with consciousness. Everyday experience, of course, does not conform to this analysis. We neither experience consciousness without content, nor do we experience content without consciousness. According to Sāṅkhya Yoga, however, the analysis of mental processes in every day experience as being of a uniform nature is wrong. It is caused by nescience (avidyā), which deludes the self about its own true ontological status. The self—pure consciousness—is attracted by the mental capacity like iron is attracted by a lodestone. This “attraction” is possible because of the mutual compatibility or fitness (yogyatā) of the self and the citta. The mental capacity, which consists mainly of the luminous substance sattva, one of three constituents of primordial matter, is often called “the visible” (dṣya). It displays its content to the self, which frequently is designated as “the seer” (draṣṭ). Their compatibility is determined by their nature and cannot—in terms of Sāṅkhya Yoga—be meaningfully questioned. Being under attraction of the mental capacity, the self identifies with it. The self is erroneously convinced to be affected by the content of experience. It feels happiness and suffers pain, although these, as well as all other kinds of mental events, exclusively take place within the mental capacity. In reality, the self, due to its transcendental ontological status, is incapable of being anything else than it is, viz. pure, contentless, and unchanging consciousness.

15

The terms manas or buddhi are also in frequent use without any apparent difference in meaning. Cf. Frauwallner 1953: 411.

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The aim of Sāṅkhya Yoga in its soteriological dimension is to end the wrong identification of the self with its mental capacity once and for all, which amounts to the final liberation from the cycle of rebirths and its innate suffering. The means to this end is the realization of the ontological difference between the self and matter in meditative concentration, which is therefore called “knowledge of the difference” (vivekakhyāti). This knowledge is the final content of consciousness, the last involvement of the self with its mental capacity. When the citta is no longer interested in such “knowledge of the difference,” even this content ceases to exist and gives room for the un-eclipsed self perception of the self. The mental capacity continues to exist as long as the liberated yogi lives, due to mental impressions (saṃskāras) which it has stored. Finally, after the physical death of the yogi, the mental capacity dissolves in matter (prakti). The self, on the other hand, continues to exist in isolation (kaivalya), freed from the bonds of the cycle of rebirths. Right at the beginning of his work, Patañjali (PYŚ I.1,2 f.) defines yoga in a very general way: yogaḥ samādhiḥ; sa ca sārvabhaumaś cittasya dharmaḥ. kṣiptaṃ mūḍhaṃ vikṣiptam ekāgraṃ niruddham iti cittabhūmayaḥ. tatra vikṣipte cetasi vikṣepopasarjanībhūtaḥ samādhir na yogapakṣe vartate. yas tv ekāgre cetasi sadbhūtam arthaṃ dyotayati, kṣiṇoti kleśān, karmabandhanāni ślathayati, nirodham āmukhīkaroti, sa saṃprajñāto yoga ity ākhyāyate. sarvavttinirodhe tv asaṃprajñātaḥ. tasya lakṣaṇābhidhitsayedaṃ sūtraṃ pravavte—yogaś cittavttinirodhaḥ (YS I.2). Yoga is awareness / concentration; and this is the quality of the mental capacity in all its states (literally: levels). Fixed, dull, distracted, one-pointed, and shut down [these] are the states of the mental capacity. Of these, awareness / concentration which exists in [the first three states including] the distracted one, as they are under the influence of distractive factors (like disease, lethargy etc.16), do not belong to the part of [the enumeration which makes up] yoga [proper]. On the other hand (tu), [concentration being] conscious [of an object] (saṃprajñāta) is called yoga, which [occurring] in a one-pointed mental capacity, makes the really true object appear,17 destroys the defilements, loosens the bonds of karman, [and] brings about the shutdown [of mental processes]. When all mental processes are shut down, however, [concentration] is not conscious [of any object]. With the intention to give a definition of this [concentration not conscious of an object], the [following]

16 17

The whole group of distractive factors is listed in YS I.30. I take the expression sadbhūtaṃ artham to refer to the self (puruṣa).

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PHILIPP ANDRÉ MAAS sūtra (YS I.2) has been composed: Yoga is the shutdown of the processes of the mental capacity.

Patañjali uses the word “yoga” in a number of related meanings. In its broadest sense “yoga” designates awareness as a characteristic of mental processes in general. There are, however, different kinds of awareness, which qualify five states of the mental capacity. Three states are not specifically yogic, and this is the reason why Patañjali excludes them from his exposition. Nevertheless, as Wezler convincingly shows on the backdrop of information provided by the Vivaraṇa, the arrangement not only of those states specific to yoga, but also of the first three ones is “quite consistent[ly] … determined by the final goal” of yoga, viz. stopping the mental processes in general.18 The first state, called “fixed,” is characterised by a strong and involuntary connection between the mental capacity and its object.19 The mental capacity, completely attached to its object, is incapable of becoming aware of any different object. It is quite obvious that an involuntary fixation to a single object completely rules out the possibility of mental training, and this is the reason why Patañjali places this state at the beginning of his enumeration. The second place is held by the “dull” mental capacity, which is equally involuntarily connected to a single object. Its connection to the object, however, is very weak. Although the explanations of the YVi are not comprehensive, one can quite safely regard the dull mental capacity as having a very basic and limited awareness of its object only.20 The mental capacity is not able to perceive the object distinctly. This weakness is the reason why the dull state in terms of yoga psychology is superior to the state called “fixed.” The lack of firmness seems to provide the condition for an awareness of different objects, which leads to a possible transition of the mental capacity to the next higher state, called distracted. 18

19

20

Wezler 1983: 23. Wezler is not aware of Oberhammer 1977 and clings to Frauwallner’s differentiation of nirodha- and aṣṭāṅgayoga. YVi 150,2 f.: kṣiptam aniṣṭaviṣayāsañjanena stimitam. “The attached [mental capacity] is paralysed by clinging to a not deliberately chosen object.” Cf. Wezler 1983: 20. Oberhammer (1977: 136, n. 6) translates as “... das durch die Färbung durch nicht angestrebte Gegenstände gebannte [psychische Organ].” I do not see any necessity to emend °sañjanena to °rañjanena. Moreover, the grammatical number of °viṣaya° is singular; cf. the following interpretation of this passage. The only explanation is mūḍhaṃ nirvivekam (YVi 150,3).

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For this state, too, the explanations of the YVi are quite scarce. It simply paraphrases vikṣiptam as nānākṣiptam “being fixed to several [objects].” Wezler takes this to mean that the mental capacity is bound to several objects simultaneously.21 I doubt that this interpretation is correct. The distracted mind is rather bound to several objects in a short succession of time. It corresponds to our everyday awareness, which usually lacks permanent concentration on a single object. The content of consciousness changes according to the different sense data which come to the mind by means of the sense capacities. The mental capacity is attached to one object for a more or less short period of time, and becomes attached to the next when it has lost interest in the preceding one. Presumably because the mind in its distracted state is connected to several objects, it develops a certain distance, or—as the author of YVi has it—impartiality to its objects. This impartiality provides the mental capacity with the freedom to deliberately choose a desired object, which, of course, not only is the precondition for acting as an autonomous subject, but also for entering upon the path of mental training and spiritual progress. A voluntary connection of sufficient strength between the mental capacity and a deliberately chosen object, which comes about every now and then in the distracted state, is the characteristic of the state called one-pointed (ekāgara), the first of the specifically yogic states. Patañjali’s discussion of yoga proper starts with PYŚ I.12. This passage deals with two methods conducive to the shutdown of mental processes, viz. practice (abhyāsa) and detachment (vairāgya). Their efficiency is elucidated by a comparison of the mental capacity with a river being capable of flowing in two directions. The mind-river either flows, when guided by practice and detachment, in the direction of well-being (kalyāṇa) or, when uncontrolled, in the contrary direction of a bad condition (pāpa). Detachment in this context is said to obstruct the stream towards objects, in other words, it prevents the mind from entering into an involuntary connection with objects. Patañjali elaborates on the concept of detachment in PYŚ I.15– 16. He teaches that detachment is of two kinds, a lower and a higher one. Lower detachment refers to all things which are subject to perception, like women, food, drinks and the execution of power. Moreover, it 21

Wezler 1983: 22:“[The] citta clearly … [does] not [have] one object only, but several at a time.”

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also applies to objects which are known from authoritative tradition, like heavenly objects. The detached mental capacity, even when in contact with these objects, keeps a neutral attitude. It neither wants to avoid nor does it want to possess them, because it sees their defect, which obviously lies in their transient nature. This sovereignty of the mind in dealing with objects is called “consciousness of the controllability [of all objects]” (vaśīkārasaṃjñā).22 The second kind of detachment is called “detachment from the constituents of matter” (guṇavaitṣṇya) and refers to the entities belonging to the realm of matter (prakti) in Sāṅkhya Yoga ontology. The mind, because of practice of “perception of the Self” (puruṣadarśanābhyāsāt), is satisfied with the self’s difference from the realm of matter, and therefore becomes detached from all potential objects. The highest degree of detachment, according to Patañjali, is “only clearness of knowledge” (jñānaprasādamātra). This is knowledge without content, in other words, an unrestricted self-perception of the self, which is—or leads to—the liberation of the self from the cycle of rebirths. In order to achieve this self-perception, the yogi has to cultivate detachment as an all-embracing and unrestricted attitude towards the content of his consciousness. Even the liminal content which exists in the mental capacity at the border with liberation has to be given up in a final step. When unrestricted perception of the self has been achieved, this experience terminates attachment once and for all. Patañjali, in a remarkable passage, lets the liberated yogi describe the degree of his detachment. He says: “prāptaṃ prāpaṇīyam, kṣīṇāḥ kṣetavyāḥ kleśāḥ, chinnaḥ śliṣṭaparvā bhavasaṃkramaḥ, yasyāvicchedāj janitvā mriyate, mtvā ca jāyate“, iti (PYŚ I.16,5 f.). “I have attained all that is attainable, I have destroyed all defilements being subject to destruction, I have cut the succession of existences with its [tightly] connected joints, due to the continuation of which after having been born, one dies, and after having died, one is born [again].”

22

Cf. the YVi’s gloss in 218,8 ff.: vaśīkartuṃ śakyante ’syām avasthāyāṃ sarve gauṇāḥ padārthāḥ, vaśīkartavyatvena saṃjñāyante. vaśīktāni ca tasyām avasthāyām indriyāṇi saṃjñāyante. vaśīkaraṇam vā saṃjñāyate ’syām iti. In this state [of mind] all things (padārtha) consisting of the constituents of matter (gauṇa) can be controlled [so that] one is aware of their being controllable. And one is aware of the sense-capacities as being controlled. Or one is aware of their control in this [state of mind].

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As mentioned before, PYŚ I.12 names a second concept besides “detachment” which is conducive to the shutdown of mental processes, i.e. “practice” (abhyāsa). Within a comparison of the mental capacity to a river “practice of perception of the difference [between the self and matter]” (vivekadarśanābhyāsa) is said to open the stream to wellbeing.23 In the passage immediately following Patañjali gives a more detailed definition: “… practice is the effort for steadiness (YS I.13).”24 He explains: “The mental capacity’s state of flowing calmly, when its processes are reduced, is steadiness. … Practice [means] complying to the methods with the desire to produce this [steadiness].”25 This quotation confirms the analysis of the specifically yogic form of concentration (samādhi) outlined above. In order to belong to yoga proper, concentration has to fulfil two requirements: (1) It must consist of a stable connection between the mental capacity and an object, and (2) the object has to be a deliberately chosen one. The second requirement corresponds to “detachment” from all objects being potentially subject to an involuntary connection caused by attachment. The first requirement, i.e. stability of the connection, is the aim of practice. The structure of the “non-theistic yogic concentration” as being conscious of its object is briefly described in PYŚ I.17: vitarkavicārānandāsmitārūpānugamāt saṃprajñātaḥ (YS I.17). vitarkaś cittasyālambane sthūla ābhogaḥ. sūkṣmo vicāraḥ. ānando hlādaḥ. ekarūpātmikā saṃvid asmitā. tatra prathamaś catuṣṭayānugataḥ samādhiḥ savitarkaḥ. dvitīyo vitarkavikalaḥ savicāraḥ. ttīyo vicāravikalaḥ sānandaḥ. caturthas tadvikalo ’smitāmātraḥ. sarva ete sālambanāḥ samādhayaḥ (PYŚ I.17,2–6).26 [Concentration is] conscious [of an object], because it is accompanied by thinking, by evaluation,27 by joy, and by the form [?] (rūpa) of individuality (YS I.17). 23 24 25

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PYŚ I.12,6 f.: vivekadarśanābhyāsena kalyāṇasrota udghāṭyate. … sthitau yatno ’bhyāsaḥ (YS I.13). cittasyāvttikasya praśāntavāhitā sthitiḥ. […] tatsaṃpipādayiṣayā sādhanānuṣṭhānam abhyāsaḥ (PYŚ I.13,2 f.). The parallels to the Buddhist dhyāna meditation (for which see Eimer 2006: 25) have been noted by Bronkhorst 1993: 71; cf. also Cousins 1992: 148 and 151 ff. The meanings of vitarka (Pāli vitakka) and vicāra as stages of samādhi in Buddhism and Yoga are the subject of Cousins 1992. He concludes that “[f]or the canonical abhidhamma, vitakka … is the ability to apply the mind to something and to fix it

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PHILIPP ANDRÉ MAAS “Thinking” is the mental capacity’s gross investigation28 of an object29. The subtle investigation is “evaluation.” “Joy” is pleasure. Consciousness having a single form is “individuality.” Of these [four kinds], the first concentration, which is accompanied by all four [kinds of consciousness content], is accompanied by thought. The second, which is devoid of thought, is accompanied by evaluation. The third, which is devoid of evaluation, is accompanied by joy. The fourth, which is devoid of this [joy], is individuality only. All these concentrations have an object.

Four key words sketch the development of the mental capacity towards conscious concentration: Thinking (vitarka), evaluation (vicāra), joy (ānanda), and individuality (asmitā). Each keyword is characteristic of one phase in the development of concentration. In the first phase, all four forms of mental activity exist in succession. Nevertheless, it is “thinking” which establishes the connection between the mental capacity and its deliberately chosen object, the self.30 “Thinking” obviously has to be understood as the comprehension of the teachings concerning the “self” in Sāṅkhya Yoga philosophy, which provides a basis for the practice of the perception of the self (puruṣadarśanābhyāsa). In the second stage, the connection between the mental capacity and its object is

28

29

30

upon a (meditative) object. Vicāra … is the ability to explore and examine an object” (153). Oberhammer (1977: 149 f.), whose work seems to be unknown to Cousins, draws upon Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and Yaśomitra’s commentary thereon. He concludes his discussion stating that “… Vitarka und Vicāra ein von Sprache … begleitetes diskursiv-begriffliches Erfassen des Gegenstandes ist. Der Unterschied der beiden scheint … darin zu liegen, daß der Vitarka ein prüfendes Überlegen (ūhaḥ, paryeṣaṇam) ist, während der Vicāra jene erwägende Einsicht am Ende ist, in der das prüfende Überlegen auf das Ergebnis hin überstiegen wird, und die daher subtiler als jenes genannt werden kann” (150). ābhoga according to BHSD (99, col. 2, s.v), means “effort,” “endeavour.” Oberhammer (1977: 148) takes it as “tasting (Verkosten)”; Cousins (1992: 148) presumably in accordance with the meanings “ideation, idea, thought” which are recorded in PTSD (103, col. 2, s.v.) translates more appropriately as “directing (the mind) towards.” With some hesitation I decide to translate as “investigation,” which should be taken as “directing the mind towards an object in order to grasp it conceptually.” The meaning “object” for ālambana is recorded in pw (187, col.1, s.v.) for Buddhist texts. It was not properly included in MW (“also dharma or law belonging to manas” 153, col. 2, s.v.), but it found entry into BHSD (105, col. 2, s.v.). Oberhammer (1977: 148) in translating “Objektstütze” apparently follows Woods’ (1914: 40) “supporting [object].” The correct translation was already known to Ganganatha Jha (1934: 30). Cf. Oberhammer 1977: 156.

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fixed to a degree which makes a rethinking of yoga philosophy dispensable. The yogi can draw upon the insights he has gained from his occupation with yoga teachings concerning the self, and does not need to investigate the subject again. This presumably is the reason why “evaluation” is termed a “refined” investigation of the object in comparison to “thinking” which is seen as gross. In the third phase, which is characterised by joy, the connection between the mental capacity and its object is deprived of its conceptual and linguistic dimension. The self, which in the previous phase was the object of conceptualisation, now turns into the content of a direct, joyful experience. The passage cited unambiguously states that the penultimate concentration has two aspects, the characteristic aspect of joy, and a secondary aspect of individuality. The last mentioned aspect is not only a constituent of consciousness in this phase of concentration, but of experience in general. Experience by its very nature belongs to an individual, who is able to refer to the subject of experience with the pronoun “I.” Usually, however, individuality is eclipsed by the content of consciousness, and does not turn into an object of perception. In the final stage of conscious concentration the situation is different. As joy, the content of consciousness characteristic in the previous phase has been given up, it is now the form of consciousness that turns into a content of consciousness, experienced as individuality, or—according to the author of YVi—as the state of being experience only (pratyayamātratā).31 Nevertheless, consciousness here still is a consciousness of something. It is being conscious of belonging to an individual. The self, therefore, does not experience itself as being ontologically different from matter. It still perceives as the subject of perception in association with its mental capacity. And the existence of a content within the mental capacity justifies the designation “concentration being conscious of an object” (saṃprajñātasamādhi) even in its ultimate phase. The transition from concentration having a content to contentless concentration is the subject of PYŚ I.18: athāsaṃprajñātaḥ kimupāyaḥ, kiṃsvabhāva iti? virāmapratyayābhyāsapūrvakaḥ saṃskāraśeṣo ’nyaḥ (YS I.18). … tasya paraṃ vairāgyam upāyaḥ. sālambano ’bhyāsas tatsādhanāya na kalpyate, iti virāmapratyayo nirvastuka ālambanīkriyate. tadabhyāsapūrvakaṃ cit-

31

YVi 223,8: asmitā pratyayamātratā.

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PHILIPP ANDRÉ MAAS taṃ nirālambanam abhāvaprāptam iva bhavati. sa eṣa nirbījaḥ samādhir asaṃprajñātaḥ (PYŚ I.18,1–7). What means is there for [concentration being] not conscious of an object, and what is its nature? The other [concentration], which has a remainder of impressions, is preceded by practicing the cessation experience (YS I.18). … The means to this [concentration] is higher detachment. Practice having an object is not capable to bring about this [concentration]. Therefore, the cessation experience, which does not refer to a thing (nirvastuka), is used as its object. The mental capacity, preceded by the practice of this [cessation experience], having no object [at all], seemingly becomes non-existent. This seedless (= having special impressions [?])32 concentration is not conscious of an object.

Higher detachment is the means to bring about concentration that is not conscious of an object. This supports the role of detachment as outlined above. In order to finish the interaction between the mental capacity and the self, the remaining content of consciousness, viz. the experience of individuality, has to be given up. The consequence is severe. The yogi, in order to let the transcendental self appear within the mental capacity—clear and un-eclipsed by any content of consciousness—even has to detach himself from the coherence of his own existence as an individual. The yogi, as it were, gives up his empirical personality in order to win his true self. How can this goal be achieved? The very nature of “individuality,” the content of consciousness in the ultimate phase of conscious concentration, rules out the possibility of any act of will. The only reason for a transition from concentration with content to concentration without content therefore is the self-perception of the self (puruṣa), which by itself leads the mental capacity away from the realm of matter. It seems that it is this dynamism that found its way into the definition of higher detachment in the following statement:

32

YVi 226,15 glosses nirbījaḥ with saṃskāraviśeṣasvabhāva[ḥ] but this does not contribute much to my understanding of the term. Maybe Patañjali alludes to a concept discussed in PYŚ II.4. There we learn that defilements may exist in the mental capacity in a latent (prasupta) form. These defilements exercise their effect as soon as the mental capacity comes into contact with an object which serves as a trigger. This, however, does not happen in the case of yogis who have “burned” the defilement-seeds with the fire of prasaṃkhyāna meditation.

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puruṣadarśanābhyāsāt tacchuddhipravivekāpyāyitabuddhir vyaktāvyaktadharmakebhyo viraktaḥ (PYŚ I.16,2 f.).

275 guṇebhyo

Because of practising sight of the self (puruṣadarśanābhyāsāt) the [yogi] having his mental capacity satisfied with distinguishing the pureness of the [sight] (or: of the self) [from the sight itself]33 is detached from all constituents of matter, whether their characteristics are manifest or not manifest.

The starting point for the development to concentration without content is individuality. This content decreases in proportion to the increasing clearness of the perception of the self. When almost no content is left, the very insignificant remainder serving as “support” of the mental capacity is called “cessation-experience” (virāmapratyaya). The YVi explains the compound “cessation-experience” as a descriptive determinative (karmadhāraya) compound.34 Accordingly, the expression does not denote an experience having the content of cessation, but an experience being characterised by cessation. In other words, it is the final experience of the mental capacity immediately before its complete loss of content. The YVi gives an illustrative example. It compares the liminal experience with the final flame of a fire that has consumed its fuel.35 In the state of being free from content, the mental capacity makes room for the unlimited consciousness of the self. In dealing with this state of consciousness Oberhammer correctly refers to PYŚ I.3 33

34 35

YVi 219.10 ff.: tad iti puruṣadarśanam parāmśyate. tasya śuddhis tacchuddhiḥ. nirṇiktakleśādimalatvam. athavā tasya puruṣasya śuddhis tacchuddhiḥ. tacchuddes tadālambanadarśanam pravivicyate. tatpravivekenāpyāyitā buddhir asya yoginaḥ. [The word] “its” (tad) refers to the sight of the self. The compound tacchuddhiḥ is a dependent determinative compound with a genitive case relation. [“Pureness of the sight of the self” is] the sate of having the defilements of taints (kleśa) etc. cleansed. Or otherwise, “its pureness” [means] the pureness of the self. [The yogi] distinguishes the pureness [of the self] from the sight, which has the [self] as its object. The yogi’s mental capacity is satisfied with distinguishing it. YVi 225,10: virāmaś cāsau pratyayaś ca virāmapratyayaḥ. YVi 225,11-13: sarvaviṣayebho vinirvartamānasya vinirvartanakāle prāg apratyayā-{read apratyayatā-}patteḥ pratyayarūpatvam etat{instead of etat read etasya [?]}. yathā pāvakasya jvalataḥ prakṣīyamāṇendhanasya śanaiḥ śanir upaśāmyataḥ prāg aṅgāratāpatter jvalātmatā. At the time of turning away, [immediately] before the state of non-experience occurs, [the mental capacity] which is turning away from all objects [still] has [some] experience, like a flaming fire, when its fuel is being consumed, little by little becomes diminished, immediately before it assumes the state of being embers, [still] consists of a flame.

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which gives a very short description of the cessation of all mental processes:36 tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe ’vasthānam (YS I.3). svarūpapratiṣṭhā tadānīṃ cicchaktir, yathā kaivalye (PYŚ I.3,2 f.). Then the seer (i.e. the self) abides in his own form (YS I.3). At that time the capacity of consciousness (i.e. the self) is grounded in its own form, just as in isolation.

The second yogic concentration, which I am going to discuss briefly, is a variant of yoga as outlined so far. It shares, however, the general aim of meditation, i.e. the realization of unrestricted self perception of the self, and therefore also culminates in concentration which is not conscious of an object (asaṃprajñāta samādhi).37 In its initial stages it has the supreme lord (īśvara) as its object. I would therefore like to name this kind of yoga “theistic yogic concentration.” The “theistic yogic concentration” is based on a special concept of God which lacks any sectarian or mythological element.38 The summary of Sāṅkhya Yoga ontology given above did not even once refer to the supreme lord. This exclusion was justified, as the ontological dualism of Sāṅkhya Yoga includes the concept of a supreme lord alongside of the transcendental selves (puruṣa), but only as in principle identical with liberated selves, the only difference between the supreme lord and “ordinary” liberated selves being that the latter, before becoming liberated, were subject to bondage. The supreme lord, on the other hand, was never bound to the realm of matter in the past, nor will ever be bound in future. Apart from this, God and the selves are identical.39 They are pure, unchanging, contentless consciousness. The question arises of course about how the transcendental nature of God can be brought in harmony with the concept of God’s activity within the world according to Sāṅkhya Yoga? In other words: How can a transcen36 37 38 39

Oberhammer 1977: 161. Cf. Oberhammer 1977: 177. Cf. for the following exposition Oberhammer 1977: 162–177. PYŚ I.24,1–10: atha pradhānapuruṣavyatiriktaḥ ko ’yam īśvara iti? kleśakarmavipākāśayair aparāmṣṭaḥ puruṣaviśeṣa īśvaraḥ (YS I.24). … kaivalyaṃ prāptās tarhi santi bahavaḥ kevalinaḥ. te hi trīṇi bandhanāni cchittvā kaivalyaṃ prāptāḥ. īśvarasya tatsaṃbandho na bhūto, na bhāvī. yathā muktasya pūrvā bandhakoṭir jñāyate, yathā vā praktilīnasyottarā bandhakoṭiḥ saṃbhāvyate, naivam īśvarasya. sa tu sadaiva muktaḥ sadaiveśvara iti.

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dental self, pure consciousness, which per definitionem is totally free from any kind of activity, intervene in the world which is the realm of matter? The texts points out that God’s effectiveness within the world is quite limited. At the beginning of each of the cyclically reoccurring creations of the world, he assumes a perfect (prakṣṭa) mental capacity, made out of the luminous substance sattva, in order to provide instruction to a seer, and to start a lineage of teachers and pupils.40 This process, according to Sāṅkhya Yoga, is not an activity in the full sense of the word. It is an event that takes place in accordance with His compassionate nature. Besides this, the concept of God in Sāṅkhya Yoga leaves no room for a this-worldly activity. The soteriological efficiency of devotion to the supreme lord is therefore not a result of God’s action. It is brought about by “theistic yogic concentration.” Patañjali provides a basis for his discussion of “theistic yogic concentration” by way of philosophical reflections on the relationship between verbal denotations (vācaka), i.e. words, and the objects of denotations (vācya), i.e. the referents of words. God, according to PYŚ I.27, is denoted by the praṇava, the sacred syllable om, which is his denotation.41 Patañjali holds a theory of language, which claims a permanent connection (saṃbandha) between the objects of denotations (vācya), and verbal designations (vācaka).42 This permanence apparently can be put down to an identical structure of language and its referent. Although the relationship between language and its meaning is constant and non-accidental, the shape of phonetic entities—viz. the form of words—is non-constant and accidental, because it is established and maintained by convention (saṃketa). The form of phonetic entities can be subject to change, the logical structure of language cannot. The author of YVi adds an empirical argument. The connection between the syllable om and God is fixed, because the employment of the mantra inevitably brings about its effect. It is therefore comparable to the connection between food, which is the object of cooking, and fire, which is the agent of cooking. If there was no fixed connection between 40

41 42

PYŚ I.25,8–11: “jñānadharmopadeśena kalpapralayamahāpralayeṣu saṃsāriṇaḥ puruṣān uddhariṣyāmi“, iti. tathā coktam: “ādividvān nirmāṇacittam adhiṣṭhāya kāruṇyād bhagavān parama ṣir āsuraye jijñāsamānāya provāca“ (Pañcaśikha, according to TVś and YVā), iti. PYŚ I.27,1: tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ (YS I.27); vācya īśvaraḥ. PYŚ I.27,3: sthito ’sya vācyasya vācakena saṃbandhaḥ.

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these two entities, fire would not be a suitable means for cooking. In the same way, if there was no fixed connection between the syllable om and God, muttering of the mantra would not bring about a direct experience of the supreme lord.43 The means to this direct experience is described in the opening passage of PYŚ I.28: vijñātavācyavācakatvasya yoginaḥ—tajjapas tadarthabhāvanam (YS I.28). The yogi, who has thoroughly understood that [God] is the object of denotation and [the syllable om] is its denotation, mutters the [syllable om] and makes its referent visible.

The interdependence of mantra-muttering and yogic concentration is the subject of a stanza from the Viṣṇupurāṇa, which Patañjali cites as authority for his outline of the theistic yogic meditation. svādhyāyād yogam āsīta yogāt svādhyāyam āmanet | svādhyāyayogasaṃpattyā para ātmā prakāśate || (PYŚ I.28,5 f. = VPurāṇa 6.6.2) One should practice yogic meditation after mantra-repetition, after yogic meditation, one should perform mantra-repetition. By means of the accomplishment of mantra-repetition and of yogic meditation, the highest self becomes visible.

The author of YVi explains the process leading to an experience of God as follows: Initially mantra-repetition establishes an orientation of the mind towards the supreme lord. Once this orientation is secured, the yogi practices a meditative vision (dhyāna) of God. When his mind is undistracted and the vision has become solid, he takes up an internalised form of mantra-repetition, which apparently increases the clearness of the vision, until finally the supreme lord is the only content of consciousness.44 Then the mental capacity of the yogi attains one-pointedness.45 43

44

YVi 278,1–3: vācyavācakayor asthitasambandhatve tu praṇavarūpeṇābhimukhībhavatīśvara iti nāvakalpate. na hi pācyapācakasambandhe ’navasthite pācakāgnyupādānam pākārthaṃ kalpate. If the denotation and the object of denotation did not have a settled connection, the direct appearence of the supreme lord in the form of the praṇava would not be possible. As [for example], if the connection between [food which is] the thing to be cooked and the thing that cooks were not settled, the utilization of fire as the agent of cooking would not be fit for the purpose of cooking. YVi 279,14–280,2: … “svādhyāyāt” praṇavajapād īśvaram praty avanatacittaḥ san “yogam āsīta” tadartham īśvaran dhyāyet. tadarthadhyānāc ca pra{ instead of ca

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The similarity between the non-theistic yogic concentration having a consciousness content (saṃprajñāta samādhi) and its theistic variant is obvious. The states of the mental capacity are identical in both cases in that they both have a single content, which at first sight, however, seems to differ. In the first case it was the individual self, in the theistic variant the content is the supreme lord. If we remember the concept of God as outlined above, the difference is practically reduced to nothing, as both are identical in nature. Patañjali provides an account of the experience of identity of the self and God in PYŚ I.29, which sums up the result of the theistic yogic concentration: kiṃcāsya bhavati tataḥ pratyakcetanādhigam[aḥ] … (YS I.29). … svapuruṣadarśanam apy asya bhavati: “yathaiveśvaraḥ śuddhaḥ, prasannaḥ, kevalo, ’nupasargas, tathāyam api buddheḥ pratisaṃvedī madīyaḥ puruṣaḥ,” ity adhigacchatīti. (PYŚ I.29,1-5) Moreover, from this (mantra-repetition and yogic meditation) [t]he [yogi] acquires the realization of his inner consciousness (YS I.29). [This means,] he even acquires sight of his own self (puruṣa). He realizes: “As God is pure, clear, alone and free from trouble, so also is my self here that experiences its mental capacity.”

The yogi’s realization that his own self is identical in nature with the supreme lord must not be understood as knowledge gained by conceptual thinking. This would, of course, not be compatible with the onepointedness of the mental capacity. The realization rather has to be seen in analogy with the non theistic yogic concentration with content as described above. In non-theistic meditation the content of consciousness is

45

pra read cāpra with manuscript L}calitamanāḥ “svādhyāyam” praṇavam “āmanet” manasābhijapet. … tathā ca praṇavajapaparameśvaradhyānasampatyā “para ātmā” parameṣṭhī “prakāśate” yogina iti. … “after mantra-repetition”—after muttering the syllable om—[the yogi] inasmuch as he has a mental capacity which is directed to God should “practice yogic meditation”—should visualise God, the referent of the [syllable om]. And after the visualisation of the referent [of the syllable om], [the yogi] having a mind which is not wandering [around] should practice mantra-repetition—[he] should [silently] mutter the syllable om in his mind. … And this way, by means of the accomplishment of muttering the syllable om and of visualising the supreme lord, the highest self—the one who is standing at the highest position— “becomes visible” to the yogi. PYŚ I.28,2–4: tad asya yoginaḥ, praṇavaṃ japataḥ, praṇavārthaṃ bhāvayataś, cittam ekāgratāṃ saṃpadyate.

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the individual self which experiences itself as the subject of individuality. The self-realization in this state is imperfect, since the self as the subject of an experience is still bound to its own mental capacity. In the course of development, the remaining content of the mental capacity is reduced, and finally the self perceives itself as pure consciousness. In the theistic variant the starting point is similar. Here too the self experiences a self, viz. God. This experience is not a direct one. The self can only perceive the content of its own mental capacity, and therefore just has an image of God. In the course of the meditation, this content of consciousness gradually decreases. The image of God as a self becomes weaker and weaker, and the eclipse of pure consciousness by a content of consciousness vanishes. Finally, when all mental processes are shut down, the mental capacity allows for an unrestricted self-perception of the self, a concentration which is not conscious of any object (asaṃprajñāta samādhi). ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Āgāśe 1904

Alper 1980

BHSD

Bronkhorst 1985 Bronkhorst 1993

Cousins 1992

Eimer 2006

Frauwallner 1953

K. Ś. Āgāśe (ed.), Vācaspatimiśraviracitaṭīkāsaṃvalita Vyāsabhāṣyasametāni Pātañjalayogasūtrāṇi. Tathā BhojadevaviracitaRājamārtaṇḍābhidhavttisametāni Pātañjalayogasūtrāṇi <Sūtrapāṭhasūtravarṇānukramasūcībhyāṃ ca sanāthīktāni.> … Tac ca H. N. Āpaṭe ity anena … prakāśitam. Puṇyākhyapattana [= Pune] 1904 (Ānandāśramasaṃsktagranthāvaliḥ, 47). H. P. Alper, Review of Strukturen Yogischer Meditation: Untersuchungen zur Spiritualität des Yoga by Gerhard Oberhammer. Philosophy East and West 30,2. (April 1980), 273–277. F. Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. Vol. 2: Dictionary. New Haven 1953 (William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series). J. Bronkhorst, Patañjali and the Yoga Sūtras. Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 10 (1985), 191–212. J. Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India. Reprint of the 1st Indian edition [1st ed. Stuttgart 1986]. Delhi 2000. L. S. Cousins, Vitakka/Vitarka and Vicāra: The Stages of Samādhi in Buddhism and Yoga. Indo Iranian Journal 35 (1992), 137– 157. H. Eimer, Buddhistische Begriffsreihen als Skizzen des Erlösungsweges. Wien 2006 (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, 65). E. Frauwallner, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie. Bd. 1. Die Philosophie des Veda und des Epos. Der Buddha und der Jina.

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Das Samkhya und das klassische Yoga-System. Salzburg 1953 (Wort und Antwort, 6). Fröhlich 1993 W. D. Fröhlich, dtv-Wörtebuch zur Psychologie. 19. bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage (1st ed. 1968). München 1993. Ganganatha Jha 1934 Ganganatha Jha (transl. of PYŚ, engl.), The Yoga-Darshana. Comprising the Sūtras of Patañjali. With the Bhāṣya of Vyāsa. Transl. into English with Notes. 2nd ed. thoroughly revised. Madras 1934. La Vallée Poussin 1936–1937 = L. de La Vallée Poussin, Le Bouddhisme et le Yoga de Patañjali. Melange chinois et bouddhiques 5 (1936–1937), 223– 242. Maas 2006 Ph. A. Maas (ed.), Samādhipāda. Das erste Kapitel des Pātañjalayogaśāstra zum ersten Mal kritisch ediert. = The First Chapter of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra for the First Time Critically Edited. Aachen 2006 (Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis) (Geisteskultur Indiens. Texte und Studien, 9). MW M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. New Ed. Greatly Enlarged and Improved with the Collaboration of E. Leumann … C. Cappeler … [et. al.]. Oxford 1899. Oberhammer 1977 G. Oberhammer, Strukturen yogischer Meditation. Untersuchungen zur Spiritualität des Yoga. Wien 1977 (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 322) (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, 132). PTSD T. W. Rhys Davids and W. Stede, Pali-English Dictionary (Reprint of the 1st ed.: The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary. London 1921–1925). Delhi 1989. pw O. Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung. (Reprint of the ed. in 7 vols. St. Petersburg 1879–1889) Delhi 1991. PYŚ Pātañjala Yogaśāstra ed. Maas 2006. Schmithausen 1968 L. Schmithausen, Zur advaitischen Theorie der Objekterkenntnis. In: Beiträge zur Geistesgeschichte Indiens. Festschrift für Erich Frauwallner. Aus Anlass seines 70. Geburtstages herausgegeben von G. Oberhammer. Wien 1968 (WZKSO 12). TVŚ Tattvavaiśaradī by Vācapatimiśra ed. Āgāśe 1904. Vivaraṇa Pātañjala-Yogasūtra-Bhāṣya-Vivaraṇa of Śaṅkara-Bhagavatpāda. Critically ed. with Introduction by … P. Sri Rama Sastri … and S. R. Krishnamurthi Sastri … Madras 1952 (Madras Government Oriental Series, 94). VPurāṇa Viṣṇupurāṇa: The Critical Edition of the Viṣṇupurāṇam. Vol. 1–2. … by M. M. Pathak. Vadodara. Vol.1: 1 to 3 Aṃśas. 1997. Vol. 2: Aṃśas 4–6 & Pāda-Index prepared by … P. Schreiner. 1999. Wezler 1983 A. Wezler, Philological Observations on the So-Called Pātañjalayogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa (Studies in the Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa I). Indo-Iranian Journal 25 (1983), 17–40.

282 Woods 1914

YBh YS YVā

YVi

PHILIPP ANDRÉ MAAS J. H. Woods (transl. of PYŚ and TVś, engl.), The Yoga-System of Patañjali. Or the Ancient Hindu Doctrine of Concentration of Mind, Embracing the Mnemonic Rules, Called Yoga-Sūtras, of Patañjali and the Comment, Called Yoga-Bhāshya, Attributed to Veda-Vyāsa, and the Explanation, Called Tattva-Vaiçāradī, of Vāchaspati-Miçra. (Reprint. 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass. 1914) Delhi 1992 (Harvard Oriental Series, 17). Yogabhāṣya, traditionally ascribed to Vyāsa. Patañjali’s Yogasūtra. Yogavārttika of Vijñānabhikṣu. Text with English Translation and Critical Notes along with the Text and English Translation of the Pātañjala Yogasūtras and Vyāsabhāṣya. (Ed. and transl. by) T. S. Rukmani. Vol. 1: Samādhipāda. Delhi 1981. A Critical Edition of the Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa. First Part. Samādhipāda with an Introduction ed. by K. Harimoto. 1999. (A Dissertation in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania).

MARCUS SCHMÜCKER

Yogic Perception According to the Later Tradition of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta∗

Normally knowledge depends on a corresponding object. In the case of perception the correspondence is even stronger; the object has usually to exist at the same time and place as the perception that gives rise to it. But can perception as a means of valid knowledge bring something into consciousness, at least in some special cases, if the object is absent? Must the validity of perception be confirmed by empirical evidence, or can it be valid even if its object is not presented to consciousness through a contact between sense and object? These questions deal with general problems in a theory of knowledge. They are also crucial to the Rāmānuja School’s division of perception (pratyakṣa) into sense perception (indriyapratyakṣa) and other types of perception such as perception of yogins (yogipratyakṣa). Rāmānuja himself discusses in his Śrībhāṣya the difference between sense perception and other types of cognition whose object was either perceived earlier or is in no way perceptible (Śrībh 27,15-20). In this context he considers recollection (smaraṇa) and means of valid knowledge, such as inference (anumāna), authoritative tradition (āgama) and the perception of yogins. Although these kinds of means of valid knowledge have no directly perceived object, they are nevertheless considered to be valid. He admits that means of valid knowledge like perception born from a sense faculty (indriyajanman), requires a simultaneous object, i.e. its nature is restricted (svabhāvaniyama) to an object being present at the moment it is perceived (svasamakālavartin). However, Rāmānuja argues, this is not the case for the above-mentioned means of valid knowledge and differentiates between them in the following way: ∗

I would like to express my gratitude to Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek and Will Rasmussen for improving the English of this article. I am also indebted to Vincent Eltschinger and to Eli Franco for valuable suggestions with regard to my Sanskrit translations and the clarity of my thoughts.

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“For such indeed is the natural restriction of a perception born from a sense faculty that it grasps an object which exists at the same time [as its perception]. [But] this is not the case for all cognitions and means of valid cognition, because one observes that recollection,1 in1

Although recollection is listed here together with inference, etc., it is not considered by Rāmānuja to be a means of knowledge (pramāṇa). For this reason he states “cognitions and means of valid cognitions”; recollection is to be subsumed under the former, but not under the latter. Cf. also n. 3 below, where Rāmānuja rejects the validity of yogic cognition on the ground that it is mere recollection. However, the status of recollection in the Rāmānuja School is somewhat ambiguous, for recollection plays a significant role in the process of gaining valid knowledge, as frequently pointed out by later exponents of the viśiṣṭādvaitic tradition. Their views, however, diverge. For Meghanādārisūri the view that recollection lacks validity is not acceptable (NDy 183,17: … smṛtitvam aprāmāṇyam ity anaṅgīkārāt). He distinguishes between two aspects of recollection. Recollection relies on an object that was previously perceived by some other means of cognition, and by which a mnemonic trace (saṃskāra) is left on the soul. In this respect recollection lacks validity. However, recollection does not amount only to an image of an object, but by the mere fact of its own independent existence (svasattayā) or by the fact of being a recollection (smṛtitvam) it distinguishes itself from its own basis/support (svāśraya), i.e. the preceding perception, and is in this respect independent and valid. Cf. NDy 183,18-19: sāpekṣatvam evāprāmāṇyam. sāpekṣatā ca viṣayaparicchede smṛter iti tatraivāprāmāṇyam. svasattayaiva svāśrayaṃ prati svaparicchedān na tatra sāpekṣateti na prāmāṇyahānis tatra. “The invalidity [of recollection consists] only in its dependency [on a means of valid cognition like a previous perception]. And the dependency consists in the recollection’s determination of the object. Therefore only in this respect recollection lacks validity. [But] because it determines itself, by its mere existence, as different from its own basis/support (lit. it discriminates itself in respect to its basis), it does not depend on that [support]. Thus, it does not lack validity in respect to that [self-determination].” For Parāśarabhaṭṭa, another important exponent of the Viśiṣṭādvaitic tradition, see Oberhammer 1979: 115; Oberhammer comments on the passage smṛtiḥ pratyakṣaṃ aitihyam anumānaṃ catuṣṭayam iti pratyakṣādyaviśeṣeṇa vedānuvādāc ca quoted in Veṅkaṭanātha’s NP 67,15 (in Oberhammer 1979: 44-45 (Fragment 8): “Fest steht, daß er [Parāśarabhaṭṭa] die Erinnerung, die auf einer durch Erkenntnismittel hervorgerufenen gültigen Erkenntnis beruht, ebenfalls als gültige Erkenntnis betrachtet hat. [...]. Es sieht so aus, als sei der von ihm erwähnte vedānuvādaḥ im Anschluß an einen oder mehrere Gründe (vgl. vedānuvādāc ca) vorgebracht worden, um die Gleichwertigkeit der Erinnerung mit den anderen durch Erkenntnismittel entstandenen Arten gültiger Erkenntnis durch ein autoritatives Zeugnis zu belegen.” For Veṅkaṭanātha’s discussion of smṛti see for example NP 45,1: smṛtimātrāpramāṇatvaṃ na yuktam iti vakṣyate, abādhitasmṛter loke pramāṇatvaparigrahāt. For more detailed explanation to relationship between perception and recollection cf. NP

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ference, authoritative tradition, the perception of yogins, etc., grasp an [object] even if it exists in another time. And this is precisely the reason why the means of valid cognition are invariably connected to their objects. For a means of valid cognition’s relation with [its] object does not consist in [its] invariable connection with a contemporaneous (svasamakālavartin) [object], but rather in its opposing the falsehood of the aspect [of the object] such as it appears [in the cognition] as related with this [i.e. the means of valid cognition’s] space, time, etc.”2 Although in this passage Rāmānuja presents a clear distinction between means of valid knowledges whose object is absent (kālāntaravartin) and means of valid knowledge whose object is present at the same time as the means itself (svasamakālavartin) and admits the validity of a means of knowledge, even if the contact between sense faculty (indriya) and object (viṣaya) is not simultaneously given, in his Śrībhāṣya he does not elaborate much on yogipratyakṣa and its difference from a means of valid knowledge like sense perception.3 Perception (pratyakṣa), according to Rāmānuja, presupposes an object (viṣaya) which usually has to exist at the same time (svasamakālavartin) as the cognition it gives rise to. This requirement becomes clear in his concepts of non-conceptual (nirvikalpaka) and conceptual (savikalpaka) perception. Both perceptual forms of cognition – which are enabled by the differentiating features of the object (saviśeṣaviṣaya) and which rely on sense faculties (indriyāpekṣa) – are dependent on

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289-293. For Veṅkaṭanātha’s commentary on the quoted passage of the Śrībhāṣya, especially to the word smaraṇa, see TṬ 144,27. Śrībh 27,15-20: indriyajanmanaḥ pratyakṣasya hy eṣa svabhāvaniyamaḥ, yat svasamakālavartinaḥ padārthasya grāhakatvam. na sarveṣāṃ jñānānāṃ pramāṇānāṃ ca, smaraṇānumānāgamayogipratyakṣādiṣu kālāntaravartino ‘pi grahaṇadarśanāt. ata eva ca pramāṇasya prameyāvinābhāvaḥ. na hi pramāṇasya svasamakālavartināvinābhāvo ‘rthasaṃbandhaḥ, api tu yaddeśakālādisaṃbandhitayā yo ‘rtho ‘vabhāsate, tasya tathāvidhākāramithyātvapratyanīkatā. The context of the other passage where Rāmānuja deals with yogic perception is the following: Having refuted that Brahman cannot be proved by normal perception, he goes on to refute that perception produced by yoga is a pramāṇa for Brahman, even if yogic perception as mentioned in the quotation above is accepted as means of valid cognition. He states Śrībh 97,16-18: “[…] Neither [can perception] produced by yoga [prove Brahman]. Even if this [cognition], which is born at the end of intense meditation, presents [its content] vividly, it has no validity as a means of knowledge, because it consists only in the memory of what has been experienced before.” (nāpi yogajanyam. bhāvanāprakarṣaparyantajanmanas tasya viśadāvabhāsatve ‘pi pūrvānubhūtaviṣayasmtimātratvān na prāmāṇyam.)

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each other and are necessary for reaching a complete knowledge of an entity (vastu). Thus, although the first perception apprehends the object together with its differentiating features (saviśeṣaviṣaya) and could be verbalised in words such as “this [object] is of such and such [quality]” (ittham ittham), it is nevertheless incomplete4 in determining the object, because the generic structure (saṃsthāna) is cognised by the nirvikalpakapratyakṣa in only one perceived individual/object. Therefore, for Rāmānuja, the two perceptions deviate from each other by the fact that the recurrence (anuvṛtti) of the generic structure which is common to different objects or beings like cows cannot be grasped in the first perception, but is indeed recognised in the second and subsequent perceptions, the savikalpakapratyakṣa. The required succession of the two perceptions and their dependency on an object which is present at the same time it is perceived, is summarized by Rāmānuja in the following words: “When grasping the object the first time, it is not known that [the universal] cowness, etc., has a form that recurs. [But] in the [following] second and subsequent cognitions of the thing, there is the knowledge of recurrence. [The fact] that cowness etc., which has the form of the generic structure of the object that is connected to the first cognition, is qualified by the property of recurrence, is to be ascertained by the second and subsequent cognitions of the object; therefore the second and subsequent cognitions are conceptual. The recurrence of cowness, etc., which has the nature of the generic structure of the object such as the dewlap is not grasped during the first cognition of an object; therefore the first cognition of an object is non-conceptual.”5 However, the manner in which Rāmānuja describes this process of the two perceptions is quite closely connected with the knowledge’s 4

5

Śrībh 23,5-6: “A cognition [of an object] with some qualities is called non-conceptual, It is not devoid of all distinguishing qualities, because such a kind of cognition is never observed and is impossible.” (nirvikalpakaṃ nāma kena cid viśeṣeṇa viyuktasya grahaṇam, na sarvaviśeṣarahitasya tathābhūtasya kadācid api grahaṇādarśanād anupapatteś ca.) Śrībh 23,9-14: prathamapiṇḍagrahaṇe gotvāder anuvttākāratā na pratīyate. dvitīyādipiṇḍagrahaṇeṣv evānuvttipratītiḥ. prathamapratītyanusaṃhitavastusaṃsthānarūpagotvāder anuvttidharmaviśiṣṭatvaṃ dvitīyādipiṇḍagrahaṇāvaseyam iti dvitīyādigrahaṇasya savikalpakatvam. sāsnādivastusaṃsthānarūpagotvāder anuvttir na prathamapiṇḍagrahaṇe ghyata iti prathamapiṇḍagrahaṇasya nirvikalpakatvam.

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dependency on sense faculty. But it seems that Rāmānuja does not pursue the matter further, for example he does not raise the question how yogic perception (yogipratyakṣa) could proceed even if the object is absent (kālāntaravartin) and can be known independent of sense faculties (indriyānapekṣa). His follower Meghanādārisūri, an important 13th century expo6 nent of the Rāmānuja tradition, provides more details about yogipratyakṣa. In his Nayadyumaṇi, in the chapter defining the means of valid cognition (pramāṇanirūpaṇa), especially in the section defining perception (cf. pratyakṣanirūpaṇa, NDy 187-194), Meghanādārisūri describes not only the conditions under which an object (viṣaya) can be known by means of valid knowledge, but also refers to yogic perception (yogipratyakṣa) and its taking place independently of a sense faculty (indriyānapekṣa), whereas perception (pratyakṣa) directed towards sense-objects is normally defined as arising through the contact between an object and the senses (indriyārthasaṃnikarṣaja). After explaining non-conceptual (nirvikalpaka) and conceptual perception (savikalpaka) he equates the first to sense dependent and the second to sense independent perception and identifies yogic perception with savikalpakapratyakṣa (NDy 191,20-24). However, the definition of yogic perception as independent of senses – also defined as extrasensory perception (atīndriya) – requires some further explanation, because, for Meghanādārisūri, other beings like the highest Self, i.e. the paramātman, the released souls (mukta) and the eternal souls that have always been free from saṃsāra (nityamukta), are also characterized as having this kind of perception. But are they therefore to be classified as yogins and is their type of extrasensory perception to be characterized as conceptual perception (savikalpakapratyakṣa)? To provide the background that clarifies where Meghanādārisūri places yogic perception between normal perception and perception of other transcendent beings, the following account will be guided by two questions: (1) What conditions define normal perception? (2) How does normal perception differ from yogic perception?

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Meghanādārisūri’s lifetime cannot be dated exactly. Because he does not mention Veṅkaṭanātha (1268-1369), but quotes Śrīharṣa (1125-1180) he can be dated to the beginning of the 13th century.

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(1) DEFINITION OF NORMAL PERCEPTION In comparison to Rāmānuja’s view of objective reality and the individual being’s process of cognition Meghanādārisūri’s explanations seem to elaborate and do not deviate from the authoritative statements of the Śrībhāṣya. Nevertheless his exposition of the perceptions process are more detailed and facilitates its description. Also for Meghanādārisūri empirical evidence is achieved by different qualifying properties (dharma) such as being not separately (apthak) connected to an underlying substrate. Thus an object (viṣaya) can be analysed as qualificand (viśeṣya) and qualifier (viśeṣaṇa), i.e. a substrate together with its qualifying property (dharma). It is important to note that this definition of an object’s constitution is essential for speaking about perceptible objects which are qualified entities (viśiṣṭavastu). Thus, it cannot be argued that properties (dharma) alone can exist if they are not based on an underlying substrate, nor can the substrate alone (vastumātra) exist if it is not qualified by properties.7 What kind of cognition of an individual being corresponds to such a defined objective reality and in which way is its cognition described? Even according to Meghanādārisūri already the first moment of perception, defined as non-conceptual perception (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa) enables the distinct identification of an object. Here again, one can point to the general thesis of the togetherness of qualificand (viśeṣya) and qualifier (viśeṣaṇa): Just as no entity, i.e. an object, exists without qualifier, so is no cognition without an object.8 7

8

The relation (saṃbandha) between a substrate and its qualifying properties is not defined as being a third, connecting entity; rather the substrate and its qualifying entity are defined as innately connected to each other. In general, it can be said that the Rāmānuja school’s concept of a self-relating qualifier and qualificand differs from other views of the relationship between the two, as for instance the monistic Advaitic position, which argues that the mere substrate (vastumātra) is perceived, denying its relation to something else by rejecting the cognition of manifold qualifiers (viśeṣaṇa). In this respect, the tradition of Rāmānuja school also argues against defining the relation (saṃbandha) between qualifier and qualificant as inherence (samavāya). A discussion against inherence (samavāya) can be found in Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāṣya to Brahmasūtra 2.2.12; for Meghanādārisūri’s refutation of the relation (saṃbandha) as inherence (samavāya) compare NDy 193,3-14. Strictly speaking, the term ‘non-conceptual’ (nirvikalpa) is possibly misleading against this background of such a fundamental thesis of the Rāmānuja school, because one is already aware of qualifying (viśeṣaṇa) properties (dharma) in the first moment of perception.

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The requirements for non-conceptual perception are illustrated by Meghanādārisūri in the following passage: “And a non-conceptual [perception] does not reveal a bare entity [i.e. without any qualifiers], because the appearance of such a bare entity is not possible without properties like universal, etc. […]. Therefore, the knowledge of all [people] [arises] as indeed being qualified by some qualifiers.”9 Again in this context one can point out that perception of reality is enabled by an object as being qualified. If one argues that the substrate alone (vastumātra) is the object of perception, a second perception that brings about full knowledge of the object would be impossible, because what has been perceived in the first instant must be recollected in the second perception. Neither the substrate alone nor only properties ungrounded in an underlying substrate can be recollected, but only something which is qualified by properties. Thus, Meghanādārisūri goes on to describe the process of knowledge in the following words: “Otherwise, in the second and subsequent cognitions [of the same object], no recognition of the object that is connected to the first [cognition] would be possible. And if there is no [recognition of the object that was initially perceived], there would be no cognition of [an object] being qualified by many qualifiers.”10 A person is unable to be entirely aware of an object in the first moment, because of the swiftness (śaigrya) of the first moment it is seen (NDy 188,13). Therefore the initial perception of an object does not enable a person to grasp it completely; this requires a second level of knowledge, i.e. the conceptual perception (savikalpakapratyakṣa). Nonetheless, in Meghanādārisūri’s view, what enables the transition to the second level, the knowledge of the object being qualified by many qualifiers (anekaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭatvadhī)? And what differentiates the two cognitions, i.e conceptual and non-conceptual perception? Even if an object is completely known, only a few qualities are perceived in the first moment. The difference between non-conceptual perception and conceptual perception lies in the fact that a normal person cannot cognize the particular generic structure (saṃsthānaviśeṣa) at 9

10

NDy 188,8-9: na ca vastumātrāvabhāsakaṃ nirvikalpakam, jātyādidharmavidhuratayā vastumātrasya pratibhāsānupapatteḥ. […] ataḥ kenacid viśeṣeṇa viśiṣṭatayaiva sarveṣāṃ jñānam. NDy 188,11-12: anyathā dvitīyādipratyayeṣu prathamābhisaṃhitārthapratyabhijñānaṃ na syāt. tadabhāve ca tasyānekaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭatvadhīr na syāt.

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the initial non-conceptual stage. For the perceiving person, such a particular generic structure appears through its recurrence (anuvtti) which is itself explained as a property (dharma) and of which one does not become conscious (ullekhita) during the first moment of perception.11 Thus the process of knowledge can be described in the following way: initially one is aware of just a few qualifiers (katipayaviśeṣaṇa). This is followed by the knowledge of the object as qualified by many qualifiers (anekaviśeṣaṇa). The second perception, therefore, is a conceptual perception entailing the knowledge that an object is qualified by many different qualifiers and that the object’s many qualifiers correspond to the manifold concepts (vividhavikalpa) of the perception.12 Only at this point is the full correspondence between a perception based on a sense faculty and an object completed. It is due to the recurrent nature of the universal that qualifies the substrate, qua qualifying property,13 that the object that was initially incompletely perceived becomes completely known in the subsequent step of knowledge.14 Also in the next passage, Meghanādārisūri clearly states that an object is known as being qualified, and it is recognized through the qualifying property, i.e. recurrence, in a second perception: “In this manner, when one grasps [an object] as qualified by [a universal] such as cowness, which is called the generic structure of the entity, this 11

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14

Cf. also NDy 188,5-7: nirvikalpakaṃ ca ghaṭāder anullekhitānuvttidharmaghaṭatvādikatipayaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭatayārthāvacchedakaṃ jñānam. “Non-conceptual [perception] is a cognition which determines an object such as a pot to be qualified by [just] a few qualifiers such as potness, whose properties [such as] recurrence have not [yet] been consciously figured out.” Cf. NDy 188,15: vividhatvaṃ ca dharmabhedaktam ity anekaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭatvadhīr eva savikalpakam. It is perhaps quite important to point out in this context that the recurrence (anuvtti) is to be understood as a property (dharma) of the generic character (saṃsthāna), i.e. the universal (jāti) qualifying a certain individual; this is clear from compounds like anuvttyādidharma- (NDy 188,16), anullekhitānuvttyādidharma- (NDy 188,18), anullekhitānuvttidharmaghaṭatva- (NDy 188,5), ullekhitānuvttyādidharma- (NDy 191,20); and from the following quotation (Śrībh 23,9-14): gotvāder anuvttidharmaviśiṣṭatvam. Especially a compound like anullekhitānuvttidharmaghaṭatva(NDy 188,5) (for the translation, see fn. 7) makes clear that recurrence (anuvtti) is a dharma of the universal (jāti), i.e. the generic character (saṃsthāna) of the particular object. That Meghanādārisūri follows closely Rāmānuja’s concept of perception is obvious from Śrībh 23,9-14.

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[grasping] is conceptual, because in the second and subsequent cognitions, the concepts of properties such as recurrence [gradually] arise.”15 The last key-term which is necessary for demonstrating the process of cognizing briefly according to Meghanādārisūri is saṃsthāna, i.e. generic structure, which in turn he—following closely Rāmānuja—equates with a universal (jāti) (NDy 188,27 saṃsthānarūpajātiº, NDy 189,2 gotvādisaṃsthānaº). In the first perception one grasps only the object as qualified by the generic structure (NDy 189,4 saṃsthānādiviśiṣṭavastumātragraha); it is not known as the particular generic structure of an object; but in the second cognition, i.e. the conceptual perception (savikalpakapratyakṣa), a particular structure (saṃsthānaviśeṣa) is consciously figured out (ullekha). And for recognizing the particular saṃsthāna of the particular object it must become conscious by the cognition of its recurrence (anuvttidhī) in many individuals; such a cognition arises from the recurrence of the first perceived generic character not associated with the particular object (NDy 189,2 gotvādisaṃsthānādimātrānuvttiº). The following list summarizes the key terms Meghanādārisūri uses to differentiate the two forms of perception: nirvikalpakapratyakṣa katipayaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭa anullekhitānuvttidharma anuvttyullekhābhāva saṃsthānādiviśiṣṭavastumātragraha

savikalpakapratyakṣa anekaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭa ullekhitānuvttidharma saṃsthānaviśeṣollekha

Thus both forms of knowledge, i.e. non-conceptual (nirvikalpaka) and conceptual (savikalpaka), are necessary for someone who depends on the first cognition, i.e. on the use of sense faculty. This presentation of Meghanādārisūri’s definitions of perception was necessary to understand the context in which he deals with perception of a yogin (yogipratyakṣa).

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NDy 188, 15-19: tathā vastusaṃsthānākhyagotvādiviśiṣṭatayā grahe dvitīyādipratītiṣv anuvttyādidharmavikalpodayāt savika[l]patā tasya.

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(2) HOW DOES PERCEPTION OF A YOGIN (YOGIPRATYAKṢA) DIFFER FROM NORMAL PERCEPTION? For explaining the way in which Meghanādārisūri deals with yogic perception two important issues must be taken into consideration. One is the sense-independency; the other is the difference between the yogin and other beings like the mukta, i.e. ‘liberated,’ the nityamukta, i.e ‘eternal souls that have always been free from saṃsāra,’ and the highest Being, i.e. the paramātman, whose perception is also said to be independent of sense faculties. Because Meghanādārisūri understands the yogin as a being still existing in the saṃsāra (saṃsārin), perception is still affected by the influence of karman;16 thus, the perception of the yogin is not to be equated with the cognition of these mentioned transcendent beings, which are liberated from bondage. Apropos the first point: for Meghanādārisūri, the distinction between normal perception and yogic perception concerns exactly the necessity of a first, sense-relying immediate perception. Yogic perception, on the other hand, is immediate knowledge that nevertheless determines an object (arthāvacchedaka) independently of the sense faculties. Meghanādārisūri distinguishes between the two forms of cognition, i.e. normal perception and yogic perception, by stating: “The knowledge which determines an entity in an immediate manner is a conceptual [perception], because it is qualified by many qualifiers whose properties such as recurrence etc., are consciously figured out. And the exclusion from non-conceptual perception is [pointed out] through the words ‘consciously figured out’ (ullekhita) etc. And [such a conceptual knowledge] is twofold: yogic perception and non-yogic perception. Of these, the perception of a yogin is an immediate cognition determining the

16

According to Meghanādārisūri, the knowledge (jñāna) of the souls still bound in the saṃsāra (baddhāḥ) as ‘contracted by the connection with the body which is caused by karman’ (NDy 249,1 karmanimittadehasaṃbandhasaṃkucitajñānāḥ). Compare also Veṅkaṭanātha’s passage in NP 70, 2-4, where he establishes his division of pratyakṣa in yogipratyakṣa and ayogipratyakṣa also by reason of karman: asmadādipratyakṣaṃ dvividhā – yogipratyakṣam ayogipratyakṣaṃ ceti. tatra yogipratyakṣaṃ prakṛṣṭādṛṣṭaviśeṣajam. tat yuktāvasthāyāṃ manomātrajanyam. viyuktāvasthāyāṃ tu bāhyendriyajanyam api.

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object independently of the senses etc. The demarcation from non-yogic perception [is seen in the expression] ‘independent of the senses’.”17 For the yogin every relevant factor for the progress of cognizing beginning with the non-conceptual perception (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa) like the swiftness (śaigrya) of the first moment of the object’s perception or the crossover to the knowledge of the recurrence (anuvttidhī) of many properties (anekadharma) can be omitted, because he is able to determine the object (artha) without a simultaneous and sense dependent perception. So far it is clear from this passage that yogic perception is a means of explaining how knowledge can have an object independent of the time and place in which it is perceived.18 Meghanādārisūri characterizes such a knowledge later on by the expression deśādiviprakṣṭārthāvacchedaka, i.e. ‘[a knowledge, which] determines an object that is remote from the place, etc., [where it is perceived]’ (NDy 192,11). Nevertheless for such an object it is necessary to have been cognised in an earlier time through an earlier cognition, being then evoked again in a conceptual cognition. To the second point: both, the yogin and the highest Self (paramātman) together with the other kinds of souls (mukta, nityamukta) mentioned above are characterized as having perception that is independent of the senses. Meghanādārisūri’s discussion about the meaning of ‘independent of senses’ should be presented in the following. The passage in which he explains the difference between the perception of the yogin and that of the highest Self starts with an objection in which the opponent denies that the Śrībhāṣya teaches yogipratyakṣa. By showing 17

18

NDy 191,20: ullekhitānuvttyādidharmakānekaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭatayā sākṣādvastuvyavacchedakaṃ jñānam savikalpakaṃ. ullekhitetyādipadān nirvikalpakavyāvttiḥ tac ca dvividham – yogipratyakṣam ayogipratyakṣaṃ ceti. tatra yogipratyakṣam indriyādyanapekṣam arthāvacchedakaṃ sākṣājjñānam. indriyādyanapekṣam ity ayogipratyakṣavyavacchedaḥ. Again it can be pointed out in this context that what is defined by Meghanādārisūri as non-yogic perception presupposes an object known by sense faculties and belongs to the above mentioned process of nirvikalpika- and savikalpikapratyakṣa of a normal person; he states NDy 192,27-28: purodeśādisaṃbaddhapadārthānām indriyāṇāṃ ca saṃnikarṣaviśeṣasāpekṣaṃ sāksādavacchedakaṃ jñānam ayogipratyakṣam. “A non-yogic [conceptual] perception is a cognition which determines [its object] in immediate manner [and] which depends on a special connection between things that are connected to place, etc., [being located] before [the perceiver] and the senses/sense faculties.”

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that even the highest Self can be called a yogin (cf. NDy 192,20-21) and can be connected with extraordinary qualities such as supernatural knowledge (jñāna) and power (śakti), Meghanādārisūri argues that Rāmānuja, too, considers yogic perception to be acceptable. And since other beings such as the above mentioned nityamuktas, ‘souls that have always been free from saṃsāra,’ muktas, ‘liberated souls,’ and even saṃsārins, ‘souls still bound in the saṃsāra,’ can be connected to such extraordinary qualities, they can, according to Meghanādārisūri, also be classified as yogins. But this does not imply that every being which is definable as a yogin cognizes by a conceptual perception (savikalpakapratyakṣa) and it does not imply that the sense-independent cognition of the yogin and of the other beings can be equated. For instance, the yogin remains still in contrast to the highest Being and other beings, because such a yogin is focused in the conceptual perception on particular objects (artha), albeit remote in time or space, whereas the highest Self’s cognition is turned to everything (sarvatra). These distinctions become clear in the following passage, by which Meghanādārisūri tries to demonstrate that yogic perception is accepted in Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāṣya. He refutes the opinion of an opponent that Rāmānuja does not teach yogipratyakṣa by the following argument: “Even the perception of the highest Self and the liberated souls is included in yogic perception, because it is the same [as yogic perception] inasmuch as it is independent of senses etc. Precisely for this reason one can read in the section about the antaryāmin [=Śrībh 175,16-18]: ‘And for the highest Self, its being a seer, etc., does not rely on the senses’.”19 But the opponent raises the objection against the equivalence, because it is the case that the paramātman is able to have immediate awareness of everything (sarvasākṣātkārasāmarthya), but for a soul still remaining in the saṃsāra, even if it is a yogin, immediate perception of everything is impossible. A second time Meghanādārisūri points out that also the perception of the highest Self (paramātman) is contained in the yogin’s form of perception; he argues: “Also for the highest Self, etc., their way of perceiving is contained in the way the yogin perceives, because of

19

NDy 191,28: paramātmamuktapratyakṣasyāpi yogipratyakṣa evāntarbhāvaḥ, tasyāpīndriyādyanapekṣatvasāmyāt. ata eva hy antaryāmyadhikaraṇe na ca parasyātmanaḥ karaṇāyattaṃ draṣṭtvādikam ity uktiḥ.

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their [i.e. the paramātmans and the yogin’s] identity by an added condition (upādhi) consisting in the independency from the senses, etc.”20 In the following passage he differentiates step by step the meaning of ‘independent of senses’ (indriyānapekṣa). The yogin’s way of knowing as conceptual cognition (savikalpaka) is still connected to a limited area of objective reality, while ‘being independent of senses’ ascribed to the highest Self means that such a being has a cognition of the reality on the whole; another aspect of their difference in perception consists of the meaning of the body (śarīra). The yogin like every other being in the saṃsāra has a body, which he can transcend in state of meditation, but, in contrast, for the highest Self never any dependency on a body and sense faculty is necessary. According to the School’s tradition for the highest Self the cognition by senses connected with the body is only a play (līlā). It is further noticeable that Meghanādārisūri uses the expression atīndriyārthajñāna, i.e. ‘knowledge of extrasensory objects,’ for qualifying the cognition of every transcendent soul. But the yogin’s knowledge can be only qualified in this manner during the state of meditation (yuktāvastha), whereas Meghanādārisūri applies the independency of senses (indriyānapekṣa), when he discusses either the identity (sāmya/aikya) of perception between the yogin and the highest Self, or when he considers the conceptual perception of the yogin alone. The implication might be that independency of sense faculty does not entail cognition of extrasensory objects (atīndriyārtha), because it can be applied for the savikalpakapratyakṣa just as well. Nevertheless every knowledge of extrasensory objects (atīndriyārtha) is independent of senses. Meghanādārisūri continues his defence of yogic perception in the following words: “If [perception] depends on the senses, etc., the fact that it (i.e., perception) determines objects that are spatially, etc., remote is not established. But the perception of a yogin is only a conceptual perception, because it does not depend on the grasping of the object. For, if the process of knowledge depends exclusively on the means of the senses, the recurrence, etc., of the generic structure, etc., is not known. […] The cognition of yogins, however, determines all objects, together with their qualities, which are found in a place that extends only as far as the place connected [to the yogins]. In contrast, the support of the highest Self 20

NDy 192,11: indriyādyanapekṣatvarūpopādhyaikyāt paramātmādipratyakṣasyāpi yogipratyakṣāntarbhāva eva.

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etc., is not only referring to yogic perception, but it is referring to everything. However, for souls still bound in saṃsāra, an object that is beyond the senses is only determined in the state of meditation; at any other time, there is [still] dependency on the senses.”21 Again Meghanādārisūri differentiates between the knowledge of these souls still bound in the saṃsāra and of the highest Self together with the liberated souls: “The highest Self and the liberated souls always have knowledge whose objects are beyond the senses. For them, appropriating themselves a body, senses and so on, is only a play. At that time (i.e., when they play), [their] knowledge determines an object also by the way of sense faculty etc.”22 It is clear from this passage that the meaning of sense independent perception which determines an object varies and is not the same, when it is ascribed to the yogin and to the highest Self. But to establish why in fact even the highest Self could be called a yogin Meghanādārisūri refers to another meaning of the word yogin: the Self’s being a yogin is based on the meaning of ‘being connected with’ (ºyogitvam) supernormal qualities. The same kind of knowledge he applies for the souls ‘that have always been free from saṃsāra’ (nityamukta) and for the liberated (mukta) souls after the time of their release. But for the yogin still bound in the saṃsāra becoming qualities equal to the highest Self, i.e. to be connected with extraordinary qualities, is according to their merit (puṇya). Meghanādārisūri concludes the passage in the following words: “And here and there it is observed that the highest Self, etc., is referred to by the word yogin, etc. The reason for the use of the word yogin to the highest Self is because it is also endowed with qualities like knowledge, power, etc. And it is only due to the innate natures of [the souls] that have always been free from saṃsāra that they are endowed 21

22

NDy 192,11-17: indriyādyapekṣatve deśādiviprakṣṭārthāvacchedakatvam asiddham. yogipratyakṣaṃ tu savikalpakam eva, viṣayagrahaṇe vilambābhāvāt. jñānaprasarāpekṣāyāṃ hi saṃsthānāder anuvttatvādyapratītiḥ. […] yogināṃ tu jñānasya yāvaddeśasaṃbandhaḥ taddeśasthasarvapadārthānāṃ saguṇānām evāvacchedakatvam. paramātmyādyanugrahas tu na yogipratyakṣa eva, kiṃ tu sarvatra. saṃsāriṇāṃ tu yuktāvasthāyām evātīndriyārthāvacchedakatvam. anyadendriyādisāpekṣam eva. NDy 192,17-19: paramātmā muktāś ca sarvadātīndriyārthajñānāḥ. teṣāṃ śarīrendriyādigrahaṇaṃ tu līlāmātram. tadendriyādidvārāpy arthāvacchedakatā jñānasya.

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with these qualities [i.e. jñāna, śakti, etc.]. But for [souls that have become] released, they manifest [these qualities] after their release. By contrast, for yogins still bound in saṃsāra, the degree of their manifestation [of these qualities] is due to the degree of their merit.”23 To sum up: By referring to passages in Meghanādārisūri’s section defining perception (pratyakṣanirūpaṇa) it could be pointed out that for different souls various forms of perception are required; their form of cognition alters according to the distance or the soul’s being bound to the saṃsāra. Non-conceptual perception (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa) is connected only to perception relying on sense faculty. The normal soul, whose body is still affected by karman depends on such kind of first perception, but it is also able to cognize objects by yogic perception, i.e. a conceptual perception (savikalpakapratyakṣa). Even if the latter itself does not rely on sense faculty it is in line with empirically perceived objects. Already for transcendent souls, i.e. the liberated, the eternally liberated and the highest Self, complete independency from sense faculty (atīndriyārtha) can be established. Sense independent (indriyānapekṣa) means here a cognition which has an object, but which in no manner is experienced by normal sense faculty.

ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY NDy

NP

Oberhammer 1979

Śrībh 23

Nayadyumaṇi by Meghanādārisūri. Critical edition with introduction and notes by Krishnamacharya and T. Viraraghavacharya. [Madras Government Oriental Series 141] Madras 1956. Nyāyapariśuddhi: Nyāyapariśuddhiḥ by Sri Venkatanatha Sri Vedāntāchārya with a Commentary called Nyayasar by Sri Nīwāsāchārya ed. with Notes by Vidyābhusan Laksmanāchārya of Brindāban. Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series 251. Benrares 1918-1923. Gerhard Oberhammer, Materialien zur Geschichte der RāmānujaSchule I. Parāśarabhaṭṭas Tattvaratnākaraḥ. [Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Klasse = Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens Heft 14]. Wien 1979. Śrībhāṣya by Rāmānuja. Publishers: Academy of Sanskrit Research.

NDy 192,20-24: paramātmādeś ca yogiśabdādivācyatā tatra tatra dśyate. jñānaśaktyādiyogitvam api yogiśabdapravttinimittaṃ paramātmanaḥ. nityamuktānāṃ ca svabhāvād eva tadyogitvam. muktānāṃ tu muktyuttarakālaṃ tadāviṣkāraḥ. saṃsāriyogināṃ tu puṇyatāratamyāt tadāviṣkāratāratamyam.

298

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MARCUS SCHMÜCKER Melkote 1995. Tattvaṭīkā: Śrīmadvedāntadeśikagranthamālāyāṃ vyākhyānavibhāge ttīyasaṃpuṭam.Tattvaṭīkā-Nikṣeparakṣā-Saccaritrarakṣā-Śrīpañcarātrarakṣā-savyākhyāna-Bhugalonirṇayādika. Śrīkāñcī Prativādibhayaṅkaraḥ Aṇṇaṅgarācāryaḥ. Kanjīvaram 1941.

MARION RASTELLI

Perceiving God and Becoming Like Him: Yogic Perception and Its Implications in the Viṣṇuitic Tradition of Pāñcarātra1

Yogic perception, even if not always understood in the same manner as in Buddhism, also holds its own position in the theistic traditions of India. This paper will examine yogic perception and its implications in the tradition of Pāñcarātra. The Pāñcarātra is a Hindu tradition that worships Viṣṇu as Supreme God. The earliest evidence of this tradition dates back to the pre-Christian era,2 and the tradition is still present in certain aspects of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition in South India today. This paper is mainly based on texts from about the ninth to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.3 A follower of the Pāñcarātra has two religious goals, liberation (mukti, mokṣa) from transmigration on the one hand and worldly pleasure (bhukti, bhoga; literally: enjoyment) on the other. The Pāñcarātra teachings concerning liberation from transmigration describe, as in many other Indian religions, a continuous cycle of rebirths that are characterised by suffering. This suffering can only be stopped by the termination of transmigration. Worldly enjoyment is the fulfilment of all wishes one can imagine, as for example wealth, offspring, the fulfilment of sexual wishes, the death of an enemy, or the attainment of supernatural powers. For the most part these two goals are striven for through the performance of rituals in which Viṣṇu or his spouse Lakṣmī, or still another subordinate deity, is worshipped. In these rituals, yogic practices 1

2 3

I am grateful to Eli Franco for his helpful comments as well as to Cynthia PeckKubaczek for suggesting various stylistic corrections of the English manuscript. Cf. Härtel 1987. For the dates of the JS, SS, AS and PārS, see Rastelli 2006: 49-54, on the date of the PādS ibid. 58f., on the date of the LT ibid. 274, n. 832.

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are very often used. However, Yoga can also be independently practised as means for reaching these goals outside of the rituals. First I will deal with Yoga as an autonomous practice. Here we can basically differentiate between two kinds of practices. One is a practice that usually consists of eight elements, which for the most part are to be practised one after the other. This practice is called aṣṭāṅgayoga, Yoga with eight constituents, and is similar to Classical Yoga.4 The other practice is called layayoga, “reabsorption Yoga”. In this yogic practice, several objects are meditated on in a particular order, each object being reabsorbed into the next. In the following, I will look at these practices in more detail. The first two elements of the aṣṭāṅgayoga,5 restraint (yama) and observance (niyama), are prerequisites for this Yoga practice. They include ideal mental attitudes of the yogin, such as abstinence from causing injury, veracity, compassion and patience, and practical precepts for his daily life, such as moderate eating habits, ascetic exercises, worship of God and the study of holy texts.6 The third constituent is the correct posture (āsana) that the yogin is to assume during his Yoga practice. The fourth component is breath-control (prāṇāyāma), which helps the yogin to control his mind. The fifth element is called “withdrawal” (pratyāhāra). This means that the mind is withdrawn from the objects

4 5

6

Cf. Phillip Maas’ paper in this volume. The following description of the aṣṭāṅgayoga is based on the yogapāda of the PādS and AS 31-32. The practice of the aṣṭāṅgayoga is also mentioned in LT 16.31a and 28.39d-48b. In this paper, I will not deal with all the Yoga descriptions in Pāñcarātra texts available to me, but primarily with those that explicitly speak about perception in the state of Yoga. The full list of yamas and niyamas in the AS (31.18-30b) is as follows: yamas: truth (satya), compassion (dayā), steadiness (dhṛti), purity (śauca), celibacy (brahmacarya), patience (kṣamā), straightforwardness (ārjava), moderate food (mitāhāra), abstinence from theft (asteya) and from causing injury (ahiṃsā). niyamas: hearing (i.e., the study) of the settled doctrines (siddhāntaśravaṇa), munificence (dāna), resolution (mati), worship of God (īśvarapūjana), contentment (saṃtoṣa), mortification (tapas), faith (āstikya), shame (hrī), recitation (japa) of mantras and other texts, following observances (vrata). A similar list can be found in PādS yp 1.7-10b. For further lists of yamas and niyamas in Pāñcarātra texts as well as other texts, cf. Rastelli 1999: 179-182.

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of the senses and is focussed on the object of meditation.7 The next, sixth, step is the fixation (dhāraṇā) of the mind on the object of meditation. The seventh element is the visualisation (dhyāna) of the object of meditation in a manner that is exactly prescribed. The eighth and final constituent is absorption (samādhi), the immersion in meditation. I will deal with its nature a bit later. Some of the aṣṭāṅgayoga elements are also practised in the framework of the layayoga8. The yogin here also has, of course, to sit in a particular posture, control his breath and withdraw his mind from the objects of the senses.9 And he is to visualise an object of meditation. In this visualisation, however, one finds a difference between the aṣṭāṅgayoga and the layayoga. While in the former a single, static object is meditated on, the object of the layayoga is dynamic. In the layayoga, several objects are visualised in a particular order, namely in the “order of destruction.” What does this mean? According to the Pāñcarātra’s concept of creation there is a fixed sequence in which the various constituents of the world arise. The material constituents, which are considered to be manifestations of God,10 arise out of the primary matter, which also is considered to be a manifestation of God. The various divine manifestations of God arise out of the Supreme God Vāsudeva. In some texts the two series of creation are combined with one another.11 At the time of the destruction of the world, its constituents are dissolved into each other in the reverse order of their creation, until only its ultimate source, primary matter and, finally, God, remains. The layayoga imitates this process of destruction. The yogin visualises object after object in their order of destruction until he finally reaches the Supreme God. 7

8

9

10 11

AS 32.56-57, PādS yp 4.8c-9b. PādS yp 4.9c-13b also gives an alternative definition of pratyāhāra: the drawing of the mind from one point of the body to another and in each case the subsequent fixation of the mind on these altogether eighteen points. The following description of the layayoga is based on SS 6.194c-214, PārS 7.484494, and LT 24.23c-32. For translations into German of the first two passages, see Rastelli 2006: 508-509 and 491-493. These elements are explicitly mentioned in SS 6.198c-203b. They are also probably implied in the other descriptions. Cf. Rastelli 1999: 98f. For the creation of the divine manifestations and of the material constituents of the world cf., e.g., Rastelli 1999: 45-60; for the combination of the two creations, see ParS 2.29ff. and Rastelli 2006: 354.

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To illustrate such a process I will give a similar example from the Lakṣmītantra. In this meditation, three immaterial aspects of creation are traced back from their most immanent form to their most transcendent, namely, the states of consciousness, the Vyūhas, which are the most important divine manifestations of Viṣṇu, and the constituents of the mantra om. In doing so, the elements of the various levels are equated with each other. state of consciousness

deity

constituents of om

waking (jāgrat)

Aniruddha

a

dreaming (svapna)

Pradyumna

u

deep sleep (suṣupti)

Saṃkarṣaṇa

m

fourth state (turya)

Vāsudeva

ṃ

state beyond the fourth (turyātīta)

Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa

The yogin begins with the visualisation of the deity Aniruddha, who is equated with the waking state. He then mentally dissolves Aniruddha into the first constituent of the mantra om, the letter a. a is then dissolved into the deity Pradyumna, equated with dreaming, and Pradyumna is again resorbed into the letter u. u is dissolved into the deity Saṃkarṣaṇa, who is equated with deep sleep. The text then says that Saṃkarṣaṇa is to be resorbed into the deity Vāsudeva without mention-

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ing the intermediate step of the letter m.12 Vāsudeva, who is equated with the “fourth state”13 and with the last constituent of the mantra om, the anusvāra (ṃ),14 is reabsorbed into the brahman, the most transcendent form of God, which is represented by the couple Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa in this context15 and which is equated with the state beyond the fourth (turyātīta) state.16 Through steps such as these, in the layayoga the yogin moves gradually from more immanent levels to the most transcendent. Common to both kinds of Yoga is the mental visualisation of an object, be it a single object or a final object in a series of visualised objects. The object of meditation can be of various types and depends on the yogin’s aim. As mentioned above, very often the object is Viṣṇu or 12

13

14

15 16

Saṃkarṣaṇa is equated with the letter m of the mantra om; cf. LT 24.8. There are two possible reasons why this intermediate step of Saṃkarṣaṇa’s dissolution into m is not mentioned. One possibility is that beginning from the level of Saṃkarṣaṇa upwards, deities and letters are no longer differentiated; cf. LT 24.30-31b, which says that Vāsudeva is the “half measure-unit” (ardhamātraka, i.e. the letter ṃ, the last constituent of the mantra om; cf. also LT 24.19-20) without differentiating between deity and letter. The other possibility is that from this point the intermediate steps with regard to the letters are implied but not explicitly mentioned. The fourth state is a state of the soul that is beyond the three states of consciousness normally experienced in life. The concept of these four states of consciousness originally derives from the Māṇḍūkyopaniṣad. For the given context, cf. the LT’s definition of the four states of consciousness: “Waking is the manner of proceeding of the external senses. The activity of the internal organ, in which impressions (saṃskāra) remain, when the power of the external senses is overcome by darkness is to be known as dreaming. When this [activity] is not existent, [this] is deep sleep. When the activity of the external and internal senses of a wise one who is not overcome by darkness [and] adheres to sattva stops, the continuous flow of tranquillity of pure sattva, is called fourth state.” (LT 22.23b-26b: jāgrad bāhyendriyakramaḥ | bāhyendriyāṇāṃ tamasābhibhūte vibhave sati || 23 antaḥkaraṇavṛttir yā saṃskārapariśeṣiṇī | sā svapna iti vijñeyā tadabhāve suṣuptikā || 24 tamasānabhibhūtasya sattvasthasya vipaścitaḥ | bāhyāntaḥkaraṇasthāyā vṛtter uparame sati || 25 śuddhasattvaprasādasya saṃtatis turyasaṃjñitā | Cf. also LT 7.19c-24b for another passage defining the four states of consciousness). There are several concepts of how the mantra om is broken into elements. The number of units is often dependent on the number of entities that are equated with it (cf. Padoux 1990: 19ff.). Here, four constituents are needed in order to equate them with the four states of consciousness and the four Vyūhas. Thus, the mantra om is considered to be made up of the four units a, u, m, and ṃ. Cf. LT 2.15c-16b. LT 24.25c-32a.

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Lakṣmī or a deity subordinate to Viṣṇu. How this object is visualised is prescribed by the texts exactly. Often the alternative is offered of visualising the God or the Goddess with or without a form; see again an example from the Lakṣmītantra: “Being well concentrated17, he is to visualise me18 as the unparalleled, inexplicable, unconceptualizable, spotless Lakṣmī, who is easily attainable everywhere, who is present in every cognition. Alternatively, the yogin [is to visualise me] with a form, as the Supreme Padmā, with hands [showing] the vara[da-] and the abhaya[mudrā]19, resembling the calyx of a lotus, with a lotus in the hand, endowed with auspicious marks. Or else [he is to visualise me as] the Goddess sitting on Nārāyaṇa’s lap, attaining the same essence [as He], consisting in consciousness and bliss, as well as Śrī’s husband who has the same nature [as I have].”20 Prolonged visualisation in this or a similar manner leads to absorption (samādhi). It is usually in this state that the object of meditation is perceived, moreover, only this object and nothing else; cf. again the Lakṣmītantra: “Having effected the visualisation in the right manner, he is to resort to absorption, in which [all] three, [i.e.,] the visualising [person], the visualisation and the visualised [object] are dissolved. Then I alone appear, the eternal, complete I-ness. When I, the great ocean of consciousness, have reached singleness, then nothing else appears, I alone, the Supreme One.”21

17

18 19

20

21

Although derived from the same root (samā √dhā) as the term samādhi, here susamāhita probably does not mean that the yogin is in the state of samādhi as he attains this state only later (cf. LT 28.46ab; see below). Rather it probably expresses the fact that the yogin needs more “power of concentration” to visualise the formless Goddess than for visualising her in a particular form. I.e., Lakṣmi, who is giving this prescription. The mudrā granting wishes (varada) consists in the right hand being raised with its palm turned away from the body; the mudrā for fearlessness (abhaya) consists in the left hand hanging down with its palm turned towards the body; cf., e.g., JS 8.104105b. LT 28.41d-44: māṃ dhyāyet susamāhitaḥ || 41 anaupamyām anirdeśyām avikalpāṃ nirañjanām | sarvatra sulabhāṃ lakṣmīṃ sarvapratyayatāṃ gatām || 42 sākārām athavā yogī varābhayakarāṃ parām | padmagarbhopamāṃ padmāṃ padmahastāṃ sulakṣaṇām || 43 yad vā nārāyaṇāṅkasthāṃ sāmarasyam upāgatām | cidānandamayīṃ devīṃ tādṛśaṃ ca śriyaḥ patim || 44. LT 28.46-48b: samyaṅ nidhyānam utpādya samādhiṃ samupāśrayet | dhyātā dhyānaṃ tathā dhyeyaṃ trayaṃ yatra vilīyate || 46 ekaivāhaṃ tadā bhāse

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For a better understanding of this description of achieving the perception of the object of meditation, I would also like to quote a few definitions of the state of absorption: “Absorption is produced by the constituents [of Yoga] such as restraint, etc. [It is] persistence in the Supreme brahman, which is called ‘abode of Śrī’. [It is] indeed devoid of any activity. Indeed it consists in direct perception. [It is] the state of those who know the true brahman. [It] abides in the non-distinction of the visualising [person] and the visualised [object and] is produced by my grace.”22 “The third [method for attaining the ultimate goal], however, is the undeviating, steady perception that has the nature of absorption. It is an excess of grace indeed that is produced by excellent sattva.”23 “The yogins know this [visualisation] that in this manner is gradually increased by a continuous flow of remembrance and that is the appearance of only the object as absorption.”24 What do these passages tell us about the nature of samādhi? First of all, it is a continuous, persistent, steady state that is devoid of any activity. In this state, which starts with visualising an object, the visualising person and the visualised object become one. This is emphasized very often.25 We will see that there are different ways to under-

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pūrṇāhaṃtā sanātanī | aikadhyam anusaṃprāpte mayi saṃvinmahodadhau || 47 nānyat prakāśate kiṃcid aham eva tadā parā |. LT 16.31-32: yamādyaṅgasamudbhūtā samādhiḥ saṃsthitiḥ pare | brahmaṇi śrīnivāsākhye hy utthānaparivarjitā || 31 sākṣātkāramayī sā hi sthitiḥ sadbrahmavedinām | dhyātṛdhyeyāvibhāgasthā matprasādasamudbhavā || 32. LT 16.39: tṛtīyas tu samādhyātmā pratyakṣo ’viplavo dṛḍhaḥ | prakṛṣṭasattvasaṃbhūtaḥ prasādātiśayo hi saḥ ||. AS 32.70c-71b: tad evaṃ smṛtisaṃtānajanitotkarṣaṇaṃ kramāt || 70 arthamātrāvabhāsaṃ tu samādhiṃ yogino viduḥ | This definition could be influenced partly by Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāṣya, which describes meditation (dhyāna) as “having the form of a continuous flow of uninterrupted remembrance, like a stream of sesame oil” (Śrībh I 55,1-56,1: dhyānaṃ ca tailadhārāvad avicchinnasmṛtisantānarūpam.), and partly by the Yogasūtra’s definition of absorption (“Just this [visualisation] that is the appearance of only the object [and] that is, as it were, void of its own form is absorption.”; YSū 3.3: tad evārthamātranirbhāsaṃ svarūpaśūnyam iva samādhiḥ.) See also SS 6.213c, PārS 7.493c, PādS yp 5.17 (see p. 309). Not all Pāñcarātrins, however, agree that the yogin achieves a complete non-difference with his object, as this is against the doctrine of the Viśiṣṭādvaitavedānta. Viśiṣṭādvaitavedānta is influential in the Pāñcarātra and teaches a “differentiated” (viśiṣṭa) and not a complete non-difference between the soul and the Supreme God; for a discussion of this, cf. Rastelli 2006: 511-516.

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stand this statement. Here, we have to relate it to the statements that absorption consists in “direct perception”, that it is “undeviating, steady perception”, that “only the object” appears and nothing else. This means that the yogin perceives only the object and loses his awareness of self. Finally, two of the quoted passages state that the state of absorption is produced by grace. This means that the yogin must make an effort to achieve this state, but if the Goddess appears to him is still her own step. However, I would like to emphasize that both passages mentioning grace are from the Lakṣmītantra, and that I could not find similar passages in any other Pāñcarātra text to date. Thus, the necessity of grace to achieve the state of absorption is not a general Pāñcarātra view. The yogin is now in the state of absorption and perceives his chosen object, for example, Viṣṇu or Lakṣmī. This perception is, however, not the end of the Yoga practice and not the ultimate goal of the yogin. Rather it brings about a state that is literally called the “state of consisting-in-Him/Her/it” (tanmayatā), depending on which object was chosen for meditation.26 Let us look at a passage from the Sātvatasaṃhitā that describes this process. In this particular case, the process is preceded by mental visualisations of mantras of the four Vyūhas of Viṣṇu, which were already mentioned above, namely, Aniruddha, Pradyumna, Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva. These visualisations are accompanied by recitations of the respective mantras, and both the mental visualisation and the recitation aim at the yogin’s identification with the mantra.27 After describing 26

27

The attainment of tanmayatā is also described in Śaiva texts; cf. Vasudeva 2004: 433-435. Cf. SS 6.206-210b: “And then, having mentally repeated the mantra-king Aniruddha, who is in the waking state (cf. p. 302 for the equation of Aniruddha with the waking state), a hundred [times] with an ātman that is not different from him, his (i.e., Aniruddha’s) majesty and knowledge arise for him (i.e., for the yogin) on account of the efficacy of the recitation of his mantra, which (efficacy) is connected with the persistence in the identity [with Aniruddha]. At the end of a year [the yogin] possesses non-duality with him on account of [this] repeated exercise. Having, however, then repeated the Pradyumnamantra two hundred [times], also continually with the [thought] characterised by non-duality: ‘I am he’ in exactly the same manner, he becomes wise [and] one whose doubts are dispelled by [this] exercise on account of its (the Pradyumnamantra’s) power in the course of this same time.” (tato jāgratpadasthaṃ cāpy aniruddhaṃ ca mantrarāṭ (mantrarāṭ can be used in the sense of an accusative in “tantric Sanskrit”. I am grateful to Harunaga Isaacson for this information.) | parāvartya śataṃ buddhyā tadabhinnena cātmanā ||

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this meditation, the Sātvatasaṃhitā states: “By means of this method, which is accompanied by an increase [in the number] of recitations, he also is to make the whole group of mantras mentioned before the subject [of his meditation] till the Venerable One, whose manifestation is dissolved, who is spotless, infinite, a treasure of glowing splendour, compact consciousness and bliss, transcendent, unparalleled, [and] calm, appears at the place with the characteristics mentioned (?), till he (the yogin), concentrating his self on Him and giving up the performance of recitation, through the non-difference of the visualising [person] and the visualised [object] attains the state of consisting in Him. When he who is joined with the Venerable One attains stability in absorption that is free of a cognizable [entity] on account of repeated exercise, he then becomes28 the brahman.”29 The procedure here is described quite clearly. The yogin visualises and recites the mantra until Vāsudeva, i.e. Viṣṇu, appears to him. Then he, ending his recitation, concentrates on Vāsudeva until the difference between himself, the visualising person, and Vāsudeva, the visualised object, disappears and the yogin becomes “consisting in Vāsudeva”.30

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206 tanmantrajapasāmarthyāt tādātmyasthitibandhanāt | mahimā tu savijñānas tadīyas tasya jāyate || 207 abhyāsād vatsarānte tu tadadvaitasamanvitaḥ (v.l.) | atha pradyumnamantraṃ tu parāvartya śatadvayam || 208 yo ’yaṃ so ’ham anenaivāpy advaitena sadaiva hi | evam eva samabhyāsād matimāṃś chinnasaṃśayaḥ || 209 tatprabhāvāc ca tenaiva tathā kālena jāyate |). sampadyate can mean “he becomes” or “he attains”. Following Alaśiṅga Bhaṭṭa, who quotes MuṇḍU 3.2.9: brahmaiva bhavati to explain this expression (SSBh 120,12), I choose the first meaning. Cf. Rastelli 2006, nn. 1630 and 1640 for different possibilities of understanding the word sampadyate in this context . SS 6.210c-214: anena kramayogena japavṛddhyānvitena tu || 210 nikhilaṃ cāpy adhīkuryād mantravṛndaṃ puroditam | yāvad ābhāti bhagavān sthāne pūrvoktalakṣaṇe || 211 pralīnamūrtir amalo hy anantas tejasāṃ nidhiḥ | cidānandaghanaḥ śānto hy anaupamyo hy anākulaḥ || 212 samādhāyātmanātmānaṃ tatra tyaktvā japakriyām | dhyātṛdhyeyāvibhāgena yāvat tanmayatāṃ vrajet || 213 yadā saṃvedyanirmukte samādhau labhate sthitim | abhyāsād bhagavadyogī brahma sampadyate tadā || 214. Cf. also the much shorter description of the AS: “Having then resorted to absorption, the one having attained the state of consisting in Him obtains the complete power of the one abounding in śakti.” (AS 32.71c-72b: tataḥ samādhim āsthāya tanmayatvam upāgataḥ || tasya prabhāvam akhilam aśnute śaktiśālinaḥ |).

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What “consisting in God” means can be seen more clearly in other passages in the Saṃhitās.31 The following passage gives us an idea about the nature of the state of “consisting in God”, although it is not from a yogic context but that of a ritual: “By means of the visualisation that was taught before, he is then to visualise himself and [his] body in the form of Viṣṇu, which is abounding with the aggregate of the six [divine] qualities, in [his] own form, in all forms or in a form as desired. ‘I am the Venerable One; I am Viṣṇu, Nārāyaṇa, Hari. I am Vāsudeva indeed, the Pervader, the abode of beings, the Spotless One.’ Having effected a very firm self-awareness of such a form, O Sage, the best of the sādhakas soon becomes consisting in Him.”32 As in the SS (cf. n. 27), but here more clearly expressed, the devotee attains the state of consisting in God by means of a meditative reflection in which he forms his self-awareness in such a way that he conceives his I as being Viṣṇu, feeling himself as Viṣṇu in the sense of “I am Viṣṇu”. Consequently he “consists in Viṣṇu”. We also find similar descriptions in other Saṃhitās. The LT says at the end of the prescriptions for the layayoga described above: “And having dissolved this fourth state into the state beyond the fourth state, which has the nature of [the couple] Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa, he himself is to assume the divine ‘I-ness’ of Viṣṇu. Having attained such a state of dissolution, the one consisting in this [I-ness] then gradually [is to ...]”33. In a description of a yogic exercise for attaining the brah-

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Becoming “consisting in Viṣṇu” in the context of yogic meditation is, however, not always connected to a visual perception. There are several descriptions of this process in which visual perception is not mentioned. Although in these cases tanmayatā is also a result of mental visualisation, immediate perception does not occur. It arises immediately after the visualisation (see SS 17.451c-452c ≈ PādS yp 5.24c25c, PārS 7.493, LT 24.32, 38cd, 44.12.). The following part of this paper, which discusses tanmayatā, is based on Rastelli 2006: 503-507. JS 11.39c-42: tatas savigrahaṃ dhyāyed ātmānaṃ viṣṇurūpiṇam || 39 pūrvoktadhyānayogena ṣāḍguṇyamahimāvṛtam | svarūpaṃ viśvarūpaṃ vā yathābhimatarūpakam || 40 ahaṃ sa bhagavān viṣṇur ahaṃ nārāyaṇo hariḥ | vāsudevo hy ahaṃ vyāpī bhūtāvāso nirañjanaḥ || 41 evaṃrūpam ahaṅkāram āsādya sudṛḍhaṃ mune | tanmayaś cācireṇaiva jāyate sādhakottamaḥ || 42. LT 24.31c-32: turyātīte ca tat turyaṃ lakṣmīnārāyaṇātmani || 31 pravilāpya svayaṃ divyām ahaṃtāṃ vaiṣṇavīṃ śrayet | tanmayas tādṛśaṃ prāpya layasthānaṃ tataḥ kramāt || 32.

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man, the PādS gives: “... and, thinking of the eternal brahman that looks like a thousand lightning bolts [and] resembles the fire at the end of the yuga in the centre of the heart-lotus, having made his consciousness to consist in it ...”34 In these two passages, the “I-ness of Viṣṇu” is assumed, or the individual consciousness is made to “consist in the brahman”. Thus these passages also indicate that the devotee feels himself to be Viṣṇu or the brahman. As I mentioned above, the state of absorption, which is a precondition for attaining tanmayatā, in which the visualising person and the visualised object become one, can be understood in different ways, namely, the subject becoming one with the object or the object becoming one with the subject. If we look again at the end of the passage from the SS quoted above: “... till he, concentrating his self on Him and giving up the performance of recitation, through the non-difference of the visualising [person] and the visualised [object] becomes ‘consisting in Him’. When he who is joined with the Venerable One attains stability in absorption that is free of a cognizable [entity] on account of repeated exercise, he then becomes the brahman.”35, it is rather the object that merges into the subject than vice versa. The devotee is in a state in which he identifies his I with Viṣṇu, i.e., his self-awareness is that of being Viṣṇu, and in a state that is “free of a cognizable entity”. We also find other passages that describe the disappearance of the object of meditation in the state of absorption: “And he is to contemplate the object so long until he does not contemplate the object [anymore]. For if the existence [of the object] has become non-existent, his nature is declared as the Supreme One.”36 “The oneness of both the personal soul and the Supreme One is to be known as [the state of] absorption, which accomplishes the goals of virtuous people. Performing the visualisation ‘I indeed am the Supreme brahman’, being constantly firm like a pillar, he does not perceive objects. Just as external water that enters the motionless ocean abandons [its] moving nature, in the same manner the personal soul of the yogin who is in absorption be34

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PādS yp 5.24c-25: hṛtpuṇḍarīkamadhyasthaṃ smaran brahma sanātanam || 24 vidyutsahasrasaṃkāśaṃ yugāntānilasannibham | tanmayaṃ ca svacaitanyaṃ kṛtvā (…) || 25. PādS yp 5.24c-28 is based on SS 17.451c-456. SS 6.213c-214 (for the Sanskrit text see n. 29). JS 33.34c-35b: tāvac ca bhāvayel lakṣyaṃ yāval lakṣyaṃ na bhāvayet || 34 bhāve hy abhāvam āpanne svasvabhāvaḥ paraḥ smṛtaḥ |.

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comes dissolved into the Supreme ātman (paramātman) in Vaikuṇṭha.”37 However, we have seen that there is also another perspective on this state. Let us look again at the passage from the AS quoted above: “The yogins know this [visualisation] that in this manner is gradually increased by a continuous flow of remembrance and that is the appearance of only the object as absorption. Having then resorted to absorption, the one having become consisting in Him obtains the complete power of the one abounding in śakti.”38 In this description of becoming consisting in God, self-awareness is not mentioned. And the definition of absorption does not say that it is free of objects. On the contrary, this state consists in the appearance of an object. Subjectivity and thus selfawareness disappear. This difference is, however, indeed only one of perspective, since the final result is the same, namely, the yogin becomes “consisting in God”. According to the one viewpoint, the subject, i.e., the yogin, and the object, e.g. Viṣṇu, become one. The subject becomes the object and the object disappears. This means the yogin becomes Viṣṇu; he is, in his self-awareness, Viṣṇu. According to the other perspective, the subjectivity of the yogin disappears and the object alone appears. This does not mean, however, that the yogin ceases to exist. He continues to exist, but in his self-perception he has become the object that he has meditated upon. In the context of the AS, the object of meditation is Sudarśana,39 Viṣṇu’s manifestation as a discus (cakra), a weapon used in battle. This means that in the state of absorption only Sudarśana appears for the yogin and the yogin becomes “consisting in Sudarśana”. Concretely this means that the yogin possesses all of Sudarśana’s abilities.40 These abilities include, for example, superhuman powers such as becoming as 37

38 39 40

PādS yp 5.17-20b: jīvātmanaḥ parasyāpi yad aikyam ubhayor api | samādhiḥ sa tu vijñeyaḥ sādhvarthānāṃ prasādhakaḥ || 17 aham eva paraṃ brahma tad iti dhyānam āsthitaḥ | sthāṇubhūto dṛḍhaḥ śaśvad viṣayān nāvabudhyate || 18 yathā bāhyajalaṃ vārāṃ praviṣṭaṃ niścalaṃ nidhim | calasvabhāvaṃ tyajati tathā jīvaḥ pralīyate || 19 paramātmani vaikuṇṭhe samādhisthasya yoginaḥ |. AS 32.70c-72b (for the Sanskrit text see nn. 24 and 30). Cf. AS 32.59. Cf. AS 32.72ab: “He obtains the complete power of the one abounding in śakti.” (for the Sanskrit text see n. 30).

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small as an atom, the ability to destroy many enemy armies singlehandedly, the attainment of whatever one desires, the subjugation of all beings, and even omniscience and omnipotence.41 The possession of these abilities clearly shows that the yogin has subjectively become Sudarśana. Thus, the final result is ultimately the same, independent of whether the subject has become the object, or whether only the object exists in the end. A passage from LT 44 even describes these two possibilities side by side: “Constantly thinking [of Tārikā’s saṃjñāmantra42], the yogin, whose body has been made to consist in Her (i.e., Tārikā) by repeated exercise, having become consisting in myself, attains my state. Or I, being known by him, having come to [his] direct perception, fulfil every wish, whatever the yogin desires.”43 This passage describes first a procedure by which the yogin becomes consisting in Tārikā by means of the meditation on her saṃjñāmantra. By this he becomes consisting in the Goddess of which Tārikā is a manifestation, and he reaches the state of being the Goddess. Alternatively, the passage describes a process in which the Goddess enters the yogin’s perception. The yogin is faced with the Goddess as an object, probably as the only object. This means that the yogin either becomes the object of meditation – he becomes consisting in it – or he faces the object, perceiving it exclusively.44 “Consisting in him” (tanmayatva, tanmayatā) probably does not mean that the yogin and God are completely identical. One could explain the state of tanmayatva perhaps by the following analogy: An object made of wood “consists in wood”. It has all properties that wood has. Nevertheless the object is not identical with wood. In the same way the yogin “consists in Viṣṇu” and has all his properties, but he is not identical with Viṣṇu insofar as Viṣṇu cannot be reduced to the person of the yogin.

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AS 32.72c-76. śrīṃ svāhā; see LT 44.7ab, 9, and 11ab. LT 44.12-13: smaran satatam abhyāsāt tanmayīkṛtavigrahaḥ | yogī manmayatāṃ prāpya madbhāvaṃ pratipadyate || 12 ahaṃ vā bodhitā tena sākṣātkāram upeyuṣī | vidadhe sakalaṃ kāmaṃ sa yogī yaṃ yam icchati || 13. The actual difference here could be that in the first alternative, the yogin attains liberation (mokṣa; indicated by the expression “he attains my state” [madbhāvaṃ pratipadyate]?) and in the second, enjoyment (bhoga).

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The concrete consequences of tanmayatva are not the same in every case, but they are determined by the object of meditation, which in turn has been chosen according to the goal being striven for. If the goal is liberation from transmigration, an adequate object of meditation is the Supreme brahman. By means of the meditation on the brahman, the yogin becomes “consisting in brahman,” he achieves the state of brahman, which means liberation. If the goal of the yogin is supernatural powers, he is to meditate on a manifestation of Viṣṇu that is able to bestow them, such as his discus manifestation Sudarśana, as we have seen in the example from the AS. Through the meditation on Sudarśana, the yogin becomes “consisting in Sudarśana” and thereby attains the same powers as this divine manifestation. Up to now I have described the achievement of the state of “consisting in God” by yogic means, i.e., by mental visualisation and absorption, which in some cases are accompanied by the perception of the object of meditation and in other cases are not. However, the perception of God and the state of “consisting in Him” can also be attained by other means. I mentioned at the beginning that the religious goals of Pāñcarātrins are mainly reached by rituals. In some of these rituals, God can also be perceived and/or the state of tanmayatā can be attained. Such rituals are mainly for the purpose of the achievement of worldly pleasure (bhukti, bhoga).45 These rituals are usually performed in an isolated place, where the devotee, following several observances, lives for a certain period. His main duty is to worship a particular manifestation of God, which he has chosen according to the aims he wants to achieve.46 A general principle in Tantric ritual worship, to which Pāñcarātra worship also belongs, is that everything involved in the ritual, that is, the devotee, the implements and substances used in the ritual, the ritual place, etc., must be suitable for the deity being worshipped. What is 45

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tanmayatā can, however, also be attained in rituals for the purpose of liberation from transmigration and is actually a precondition for them; cf. the quotation from JS 11.39c-42 above (p. 308) or JS 13.8c-10b. In the following, I only give a very condensed description of this kind of ritual worship, including only the elements most important for understanding the achievement of tanmayatā and the perception of deities. For a detailed description, cf. Rastelli 2000.

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adequate for a deity is only that which is like the deity. Nothing that is inferior to the deity is suitable for it. Thus the devotee must make everything involved in the ritual like the deity, including himself. There are several methods for making something like the deity. One is placing (nyāsa) mantras onto an object. Placing mantras means, for example, that the devotee places several mantras that represent various aspects of the deity onto his body.47 Doing this, he makes these aspects of the deity present on his body and thus his body becomes “like the deity”. This effect is intensified by another method, namely, the devotee’s mental identification with the deity, as given in the passage quoted from the JS (p. 308).48 A further method is assuming the outward appearance of the deity being worshipped. If the deity, for example, is usually considered to wear red garments and certain types of adornments, the devotee is to wear similar garments and adornments in order to have the same outward appearance as the deity. This method is also usually supported by the mental identification with the deity.49 We see that the devotee has to become like the deity, “consisting in it” (tanmaya), already before its worship. However, “consisting in the deity” can also be the result of ritual worship. There are two main means for worshipping a deity for the purpose of the fulfilment of worldly wishes. One is the repeated recitation (japa) of a mantra a huge number of times. A mantra is a manifestation of the deity. It has two forms, a language form, e.g., the words oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, and a visual form, e.g., an anthropomorphic body.50 By reciting the language form of the mantra, which is accompanied by the visualisation of the mantra’s visual form, the deity is made present in both aspects. 47

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For a detailed description of placing mantras on the devotee’s hands and body, cf. Rastelli 1999: 239-246. Cf. also JS 6.185c-187b: “Listen well, Divine ṛṣi. I tell you [the upāṅgamantras] along with their secret doctrine. On account of their placing, the mantra manifestation is mastered by the sādhaka wherever it be and it soon gives fruits to the one consisting in it. On account of their placing [and] on account of the meditation on [their] pervasion, the one who has mastered the mantras is equal to the Lord of the gods.” (samyak śṛṇuṣva devarṣe sarahasyaṃ vadāmi te || 185 yadvinyāsāt sādhakasya siddho vai yatra kutracit | phalado mantramūrtis syād acirāt tanmayasya ca || 186 syād deveśasamo mantrī tannyāsād vyāptibhāvanāt |). Cf. Rastelli 2000: 329-331. For more details on the mantra, see Rastelli 1999: 119-140.

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The other means is offering huge numbers of oblations (homa) to the fire in which the deity has been made present previously, although this is generally done fewer times than the recitations. These aim at satisfying the deity.51 By these two methods, making the deity present by reciting and visualising its mantra and satisfying it by fire oblations over a long period, the deity is forced to appear to the devotee. It then appears face to face with him and comes into his perception. It admits that it has been mastered by the devotee and will be at his disposal from that time on: “Then, Brahmin, the Venerable Jayā herself comes. ‘You have mastered me well, Son. Free of fear and affliction, perform the action that is desired with my mantra.’ Having so spoken, the Goddess, who has the nature of Nārāyaṇa, disappears.”52 The devotee has now attained his goal. By means of the mantra he has mastered he can fulfil every wish that comes to his mind. Some passages mention that this ability is accompanied by tanmayatā: “He who has mastered the mantra, having attained the state of consisting in him, obtains all wishes.”; “Making Vāsudeva evident to his senses by means of many hundred recitations53 [and] by the same number of offerings to the fire, he firmly becomes consisting in Him. What is the use of these many words? By means of worship rituals, a man attains whatever state is desired [by him].”54 Obviously, the state of tanmayatā described as the result of worship has another quality than the tanmayatā that must be attained as a 51

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53 54

For the mantra recitation and the oblations to the fire, see Rastelli 2000: 332-334 (referring to the JS). References from other Saṃhitās are, e.g., NārS 5.7 and PādS cp 24.83 (see below). JS 27.118c-120b: tato bhagavatī vipra samāyāti jayā svayam || 118 susiddhāsmi ca te putra manmantreṇa samācara | yad abhīṣṭaṃ tu vai kāryaṃ niśśaṅko vigatajvaraḥ || 119 uktvety adarśanaṃ yāti devī nārāyaṇātmikā | Cf. also Rastelli 2000: 334-336 (referring to the JS). For references from other Saṃhitās see, e.g., AS 44.21-22b, PādS cp 24.83 (see below), 169c-170, 25.266c-267, 28.77c-78b, 33.140c-141b. Literally: by a hundred recitations in very large numbers (mahaughaiḥ). NārS 5.35cd: sarvān kāmān avāpnoti mantrī tanmayatāṃ gataḥ || PādS cp 24.83-84: mahaughaiś śatajāpena tāvadāhutisaṃkhyayā | sākṣātkurvan vāsudevaṃ tanmayo bhavati dhruvam || 83 kim ebhir bahubhiḥ proktaiḥ padaṃ yad yad abhīpsitam | tat tad āpnoti puruṣaḥ samārādhanakarmabhiḥ || 84. Cf. also NārS 3.119-120b (see here especially the v.l. advayatāṃ [“non-duality-ness] in the place of tanmayatāṃ). NārS 3.55cd gives tanmayatā as the particular achievement after the vāsudevamantra has been recited 600,000 times.

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precondition of ritual worship. By becoming “consisting in God” as a precondition of worship, the devotee becomes like God in order to be adequate for worshipping him. This state is, however, neither permanent nor does it mean that the devotee is able to fulfil all his wishes through it. tanmayatā as the result of successful worship, on the other hand, has these qualities: it is permanent and the devotee can obtain all his wishes. We have seen that perception of God and the state of “consisting in Him” can be attained by different means: by yogic meditation on the one hand and by ritual worship on the other. At first view, these means seem to be very different, but in fact they have a lot in common. They use similar methods that, despite their different emphasis, aim at the same two goals, namely, making an object present and thus perceptible on the one hand, and identification with this object on the other. Let us compare yogic meditation and ritual worship as described above. Yogic meditation starts with the visualisation (dhyāna) of an object, for example, Viṣṇu. This visualisation can be connected with the yogin’s conscious mental identification with his object and/or with the recitation of the mantra that represents the object.55 Sometimes it is even preceded by placing mantras on the devotee’s body, as I have described in the ritual context.56 Prolonged visualisation leads to absorption (samādhi). Here the visualisation is perfected to such a degree that the object of meditation appears to the yogin so realistically that he actually perceives it. He perceives it exclusively, leaving behind even his perception of himself. Or, from another point of view, the yogin’s identification with his object is perfected to such a degree that he actually feels he is this object. In both cases he may achieve tanmayatā, that is, become like the object. Ritual worship done in order to master a mantra and thereby to achieve worldly pleasure is preceded by placing mantras on the devotee’s body and sometimes by assuming the outward appearance of the deity worshipped. These are the first steps of identification with the deity being worshipped. In this ritual practice, the repeated recitation (japa) of the mantra, many times and over a long period, is central. It is 55

56

Cf. the example from the SS described above (p. 306), in which both identifying visualisation and recitation are applied. In the JS, recitation is also explicitly taught as an element of Yoga practice (JS 33.10d-12b; cf. also Rastelli 1999: 339f.). This is the case in the yogic meditation of the SS described above (p. 306); cf. SS 6.195-197b.

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connected with the visualisation of the mantra, thus making both aspects of the mantra present, the linguistic and the visual. Fire offerings seem to be a purely physical activity. However, this physical activity, done with the purpose of satisfying the deity, makes the devotee aware of the presence of this deity and enables him to enter the right frame of mind for its presence. Through these methods that make the deity present and allow the devotee to identify himself with it, the presence of the deity becomes so real that on one hand it appears to the devotee in manifest perception, and on the other, he feels himself to be the deity and thus to possess all its powers. To sum up, we have considered yogic perception and the perception of supernatural objects effected by other means, both of which are followed by the yogin’s becoming like the object. The methods used to reach these states are different. Despite that, the various methods are similar in that they all make their object mentally present and let the adept identify with it. ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY AS

cp Härtel 1987

JS LT MuṇḍU

NārS Padoux 1990 PādS

Ahirbudhnyasaṃhitā: Ahirbudhnya-Saṃhitā of the Pāñcarātrāgama, ed. M.D. Ramanujacharya under the Supervision of F. O. Schrader. Revised by V. Krishnamacharya. 2 vols. Adyar 2nd ed. 1966 (repr. 1986). caryāpāda. H. Härtel, Archaeological Evidence on the Early Vāsudeva Worship. In: Orientalia Iosephi Tucci Memoriae Dicata, ed. G. Gnoli et L. Lanciotti. Roma 1987, 573-587. Jayākhyasaṃhitā: Jayākhyasaṁhitā, ed. E. Krishnamacharya. Baroda 1931. Lakṣmītantra: Lakṣmī-Tantra. A Pāñcarātra Āgama, ed. V. Krishnamacharya. Madras 1959 (repr. 1975). Muṇḍakopaniṣad: In: Eighteen Principal Upaniṣads. Vol. I. (Upaniṣadic Text with Parallels from extant Vedic Literature, Exegetical and Grammatical Notes), ed. V.P. Limaye and R.D. Vadekar. Poona 1958, 38-47. Nāradīyasaṃhitā: Nāradīya Saṁhitā, ed. R.P. Chaudhary. Tirupati 1971. A. Padoux, Vāc. The Concept of the Word in Selected Hindu Tantras. Translated by J. Gontier. Albany 1990. Pādmasaṃhitā: Padma Samhita, crit. ed. S. Padmanabhan and R.N. Sampath (part I), S. Padmanabhan and V. Varadachari (part II). Madras 1974, 1982.

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PārS Rastelli 1999

Rastelli 2000 Rastelli 2006 Śrībh SS SSBh Vasudeva 2004

yp YSū

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Paramasaṃhitā: Paramasaṁhitā [of the Pāñcharātra], ed. and translated into English by S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar. Baroda 1940. Pārameśvarasaṃhitā: Pārameśvarasaṃhitā, ed. Govindācārya. Śrīraṅgam 1953. M. Rastelli, Philosophisch-theologische Grundanschauungen der Jayākhyasaṃhitā. Mit einer Darstellung des täglichen Rituals. Wien 1999. id., The Religious Practice of the Sādhaka According to the Jayākhyasaṃhitā. Indo-Iranian Journal 43/4 (2000) 319-395. id., Die Tradition des Pāñcarātra im Spiegel der Pārameśvarasaṃhitā. Wien 2006. Śrībhāṣya: Śrībhāṣya, ed. T. Vīrarāghavācārya. 2 vols. Madras 1967. Sātvatasaṃhitā: Sātvata-Saṁhitā. With Commentary by Alaśiṅga Bhaṭṭa, ed. V.V. Dwivedi. Varanasi 1982. Sātvatasaṃhitābhāṣya: see SS. Somadeva Vasudeva, The Yoga of the Mālinīvijayottaratantra. Chapters 1-4, 7, 11-17. Critical Edition, Translation & Notes. Pondichéry 2004. yogapāda. Yogasūtra: Pātañjala-Yogasūtra-Bhāṣya-Vivaraṇam of ŚaṅkaraBhagavatpāda, crit. ed. P.S.R. Sastri and S.R. Krishnamurthi Sastri. Madras 1952.

Part II Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

KARL BAIER

Meditation and Contemplation in High to Late Medieval Europe

In the Western European history of meditation and contemplation the period from the 12th to the 15th century differs significantly from the times both before and after. Earlier forms undergo important changes and the foundations are laid for spiritual practices of which several dominated until the 20th century. Four trends are of special importance: • The development of elaborate philosophical and theological theories which treat meditation and contemplation systematically. • The democratization of meditation and contemplation. • The emergence of new methods, especially imaginative forms of meditation. • The differentiation between meditation and contemplation and their establishment as methods in their own right accompanied by discussions about their relation and the transition from one to the other. The following article will treat these trends and other related developments concentrating on Richard of St. Victor, the Scala Claustralium of Guigo II and the Clowde of Unknowyng. A. RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR’S EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH The Regular Canons of St. Victor, an abbey outside the city walls of Paris, ran one of the most famous schools for higher education in the 12th century. They developed a new form of philosophy and theology, unifying the monastic mystical tradition and spiritual practice with a spirit of critical reflection and systematical thinking typical of the rising scholasticism. In a practical and theoretical sense the Victorines connected science with a specific form of life.1

1

Cf. S. Jaeger, Humanism and ethics at the School of St. Victor in the early twelfth Century, in: Mediaeval Studies 55 (1993) 51-79.

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Richard of St. Victor (?-1173) “must be counted as the most significant of the Victorine mystics, both for the profundity of his thought and his subsequent influence on the later Western tradition.“2 He affected Thomas Gallus and Bonaventura, the English mystics Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and the anonymous author of the Cloud-texts, as well as German and Flemish mysticism. It is probable that his influence extended (indirectly) as far as the Spanish Carmelites of the 15th century, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.3 Richard wrote two works concerning meditation and contemplation which are of special importance. Benjamin minor, also called The twelve Patriarchs, interprets Jacob, his wives, concubines and twelve sons as stages of preparation for the state of ecstasy which is symbolized in Benjamin, the last of the patriarchs. Emphasis is given to self-knowledge and the development of certain virtues.4 Benjamin major or De gratia contemplationis, also known as The Mystical Ark, is a comprehensive manual on contemplation.5 In Benjamin major I, 3-4 Richard develops a hierarchical system of different modes of cognition and correlates it to four basic cognitive faculties which he took from Boethius: sensus, imaginatio, ratio and

2 3

4

5

McGinn 2004: 398. See S. Chase, Contemplation and Compassion. The Victorine Tradition, Maryknoll 2003, 141. The symbolical meaning of Benjamin is based on the Latin version of Psalm 68:27: Ibi Benjamin adulescentulus in mentis excessu (“There is Benjamin the youngest, in ecstasy of mind.“) On Richard’s concept of self-knowledge see H. Nakamura, “Cognitio sui“ bei Richard von Sankt Viktor, in: R. Berndt and others (ed.), „Scientia“ et „Disciplina“. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2002, 127-156. The Latin texts of most of Richard’s works are found in: Richardi a Sancto Victore Opera Omnia, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, Paris 1855 (Patrologia Latina 196). I quote the Latin text of Benjamin maior from the edition by Aris. Translation of main works into English: Richard of St. Victor, The twelve patriarchs. The mystical arc. Book three of the Trinity. Transl. and introd. by G. A. Zinn, Mahwah 1979. For interpretations of his theory of meditation and contemplation see J. Ebner, Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St. Viktor, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen. Bd. XIX, Heft 4, Münster i. W. 1919; Ruh 1990: 397-406; S. Chase, Angelic Wisdom. The Cherubim and the Grace of Contemplation in Richard of St. Victor, Notre Dame, London 1995; Aris 1996; Spijker 2004: 127-184; McGinn 2004: 395-418.

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intelligentia (sense-perception, imagination, discriminative rationality, intuitive insight).6 The lowest mode of awareness is termed cogitatio which is dominated by the first two of the Boethian faculties of the mind. It is “the careless looking around of the mind tending to deviate.”7 This kind of thinking is essentially driven by curiosity and other passions. It is a restless movement, lost in the multiplicity of things and does not lead to any valid results. “The senses [with the help of imagination, KB] offer images to reason (ratio) where they become the objects of all kind of thoughts. These wander around purposelessly. When the mind comes upon one of these free-floating thoughts and wants to know more about it, it has to concentrate and cogitation turns into meditation.”8 Meditation is a much more focused way of thinking. It emerges when cogitatio starts to become seriously interested in something which it has uncovered. Meditatio and the following ways of cognition are subsequent steps on a progressive path towards truth.9 Richard defines it as “the eager exertion of the mind which affectionately tries to investigate something.“10 The dominant mental faculty is ratio, discursive thinking, which investigates the cause (causa), mode (modus), effect (effectus), purpose (utilitas) and inner structure (ratio) of its objects. Meditation finally merges into contemplation, the fulfilled act of insight that meditation is in search of: “If the mind after a long time of searching finally finds the truth, then it usually happens that it receives the new insight with appetite, gazes at it 6

7

8 9

10

See Boethius, Philosophiae Consolatio, ed. Ludwig Bieler, Turnhout 1957 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 94) V, 27-30. Benjamin maior I, 4 (Aris, 9, 31-32): Cogitatio autem est improvidus animi respectus ad evagationem pronus. If not mentioned otherwise the translations of the Latin texts are mine. Spijker 2004: 145. See Benjamin maior V, 12 (Aris, 137, 19-21): Ecce quibus promotionum gradibus sublevatur animus humanus. Meditatione profecto assurgitur in contemplationem, contemplatione in admirationem, admiratione in mentis alienationem. (“Look, through which stages of advancement the human mind is elevated. Through perfect meditation it is raised into contemplation, through contemplation into admiration/astonishment, through admiration/astonishment into the alienation of the mind.“) Benjamin maior I, 4 (Aris, 9, 28-30): Meditatio vero est studiosa mentis intentio circa aliquid investigandum diligenter insistens [...].

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with wonder and jubilation and stays in this amazement for a longer time. This means to exceed meditation within meditation and to proceed from meditation to contemplation. Because the characteristic of contemplation is to dedicate itself to that which it sees full of joy and with astonishment/admiration.”11 Contemplation is a free gaze of the mind into the visible manifestations of (divine) wisdom accompanied by astonishment/admiration, a gaze which – as already Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141) said, whom Richard quotes in this respect – is poured out everywhere over the things to be known.12 Whereas cogitatio is like crawling on the floor and meditatio like walking and sometimes running, contemplatio is comparable to a free flight (liber volatus) and a view from above, which sees the whole landscape at once whereas the meditating person has to wander on the surface of the earth from one point to the other discriminating and collecting the different parts and dimensions of the meditated object. The disclosure of truth in contemplation is intrinsically connected with the mood of astonishment/admiration (the meaning of the Latin “admiratio“ as Richard uses it is somehow located between “astonishment“ and “admiration“). That is because what is revealed to the contemplative mind expands the established horizon of understanding (it is supra aestimationem as Richard says) and opens the human cognition in an unexpected way (praeter spem) towards an insight which exceeds its former capacity of understanding.13 We feel astonishment/admiration, whenever we realize a new perspective or discover something new (novitas visionis et rei), which changes our way of look-

11

12

13

Benjamin maior I, 4 (Aris, 10,13-17): Nam veritatem quidem diu quaesitam tandemque inventam mens solet cum aviditate suscipere, mirari cum consultatione, eiusque admirationi diutius inhaerere. Et hoc est iam meditationem meditando excedere et meditationem in contemplationem transire. Proprium itaque est contemplationi iucunditatis suae spectaculo cum admiratione inhaerere. Benjamin maior I, 4 (Aris, 9,25-28): Contemplatio est libera mentis perspicacia in sapientiae spectacula cum admiratione suspensa vel certe sicut praecipuo illi nostri temporis theologo placuit, qui eam in haec verba definivit: Contemplatio est perspicax et liber animi contuitus in res perspiciendas usquequaque diffusus. Cf. Benjamin maior V, 9 (Aris, 133,15-134,18).

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ing at things. In contemplation the leading faculty of the mind is pura intelligentia, pure intuitive insight into sublime and divine things.14 Contemplation is followed by the highest level of cognition, excessus or alienatio mentis, which is treated primarily in the fifth book of Benjamin Major.15 “The alienation of the mind happens when the mind looses the remembrance of things present and, transformed by divine action, acquires a state of the soul, that is alien and inaccessible to human effort.“16 The soul is then outside itself in that sense, that it is transcending its natural capabilities and for a while loses the perception of the world around it and even of itself. Richard uses a poetic metaphor for this process: As the light of dawn vanishes when the morning sun appears, so the light of human insight is flooded with divine light and sees things beyond the limits of mere human comprehension. This state of mind is mainly brought about by a deep love of the Divine. Richard distinguishes between different levels of ecstasy: a state in which only the activity of the corporeal senses is suspended, one in which imagination has come to a standstill and a final absorption in which even intelligentia is no longer active. All forms of ecstasy are accompanied by exaltation and intense joy. After the excessus mentis the mind returns once again to itself and can then recollect and meditate or contemplate the gifts which have been bestowed upon it. Richard bases his theory of meditation and contemplation on general epistemological and ontological considerations, and thereby does not restrict it to certain Christian presuppositions and spiritual disciplines. But of course it is related to practices which formed a part of his daily life as a monk for whom the bible was the ultimate source of 14

15

16

Benjamin maior I, 3 (Aris, 9,19-20): Specialiter tamen et proprie contemplatio dicitur, quae de sublimibus habetur, ubi animus pura intelligentia utitur. Evagrios Pontikos and Dionysios Areopagita discriminate in an analogous manner between theoría and ékstasis. See W. Völker, Kontemplation und Ekstase bei Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, Wiesbaden 1958; Ruh 1990: 57-63 and Aris 1996: 53-54. For an extensive treatment of ecstasy in medieval piety and theology see B. Weiß, Ekstase und Liebe. Die Unio mystica bei den deutschen Mystikerinnen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Schöningh: Paderborn 2000; specifically for the 12th century see R. Javelet, Extase chez les spirituels du XIIe siècle, in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique 4, 2109-2120. Benjamin maior V, 2 (Aris, 124, 324-27): Mentis alienatio est quando praesentium memoria menti excidit et in peregrinum quendam et humanae industriae invium animi statum divinae operationis transfiguratione transit.

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wisdom and salvation. Albeit strong systematical intentions he articulates his thoughts on spirituality and contemplation often in the form of biblical exegesis. Moreover, his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is in itself meant as a process which aims at spiritual transformation. Richard’s exegetical works are a written articulation and model of this process and are intended to lead the reader towards contemplation. “Richard presents the biblical text as a starting point from which the reader, participating in the reconstruction of the text, will compose his thinking (cogitationes) and his feeling (affectiones) by mimetically following the text. In this way, Richard describes and guides the inner process. Sometimes he will emphasize the way to contemplation; at other times, the subject of contemplation.”17 This way of writing has its roots in the monastic practice of reading the Bible, lectio divina. Indeed, the trias of lectio, meditatio and contemplatio appears regularly in the writings of the Victorines.18 Perhaps more than anything else, meditation and contemplation were integral parts of their interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. It was the Carthusian Guigo II (?-1188 or 1192/93), who, influenced by the Victorines, elaborated what was probably the most influential medieval theory of lectio divina leading from simple reading to the ecstatic union with God. B. GUIGO II: MEDITATION AND CONTEMPLATION AS PART OF BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS Guigo’s Scala Claustralium (ladder for monastics), also known as Scala paradisi (the ladder to paradise) and Epistola de vita contemplativa (letter on the contemplative life) contains one of the most concise analysis of spirituale exercitium (spiritual exercise) written in the High Medieval Ages.19 The abbot of La Chartreuse unfolds an elaborate understanding 17 18 19

Spijker 2004: 130. See e. g. Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon III, 10; V, 9. For a critical edition of the text see Guigo II. Introductions and interpretations: The introduction to the above mentioned volume Sources Chrétiennes 163, 7-79; Tugwell 1984: 93-124; Ruh 1990: 220-225. McGinn 2004: 357-359; Dariuz Dolatowski, Die Methode des inneren Gebetes im Werk “Scala Claustralium sive tractatus de modo orandi“ des Guigo II. des Karthäusers, in: J. Hogg (ed.), The Mystical Tradition and the Carthusians, vol. 2 (AC 55/2), Salzburg 1995, 144-167.

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of meditation and contemplation which integrates the two as well as prayer into the reading and interpretation of the Bible. Lectio divina was the fundamental individual monastic practice of Benedictine monasticism which usually took two to three hours a day. In the course of the early medieval period it had become more or less identical with the memorizing of biblical texts for liturgical purposes. It was only in the 11th century that the tradition of the Desert Fathers was revived and the new order of the Carthusians who took part in this reform movement united the lifestyle of the hermit with monastic community life. This led to an interiorization of religious reading which is reflected in Guigo’s text.20 Influenced by the early scholastic culture he approaches his topic in a systematical way, trying to clearly define the various stages of the hermeneutical process which leads to a mystical understanding of the Holy Scriptures: “Reading is a busy looking into the scriptures with an attentive mind. Meditation is a studious activity of the mind, which searches for some hidden truth under the guidance of one’s own reason. Prayer is a devout turning of the heart to God to get evils removed or to obtain good things. Contemplation is a certain elevation of the mind above itself, being suspended in God, tasting the joy of eternal sweetness.”21 The whole exercise can be described in more detail as follows (I use the masculine form because the text was addressed primarily to monks):

20

21

The shift towards personal experience is part of broader changes in spirituality, away from the liturgical, ritual devotions of the earlier Middle Ages. These changes continue during the 12th century. See G. Constable: The Reformation of the 12th Century, Cambridge 1996. C. W. Bynum, Jesus as Mother. Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages, Berkeley, Los Angeles 1984, 16-17 sums up the developments which also affected the spirituality of the Victorines: “The fundamental religious drama is now located within the self, and it is less a battle than a journey – a journey towards God. Hagiography [...] focuses increasingly on inner virtues and experiences (often accompanied by external phenomena as trances, levitation, and stigmata) rather than grand actions on the stage of history.“ Guigo II, 84,32-38: Est autem lectio sedula scripturarum cum animi intentione inspectio. Meditatio est studiosa mentis actio, occultae veritatis notitiam ductu propriae rationis investigans. Oratio est devota cordis in Deum intentio pro malis removendis vel bonis adipiscendis. Contemplatio est mentis in Deum suspensae quaedam supra se elevatio, aeternae dulcedinis gaudia degustans.

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• lectio: The monk reads the Bible in his cell – usually murmuring the texts with a low voice – and follows the literal sense of the text as attentively as possible. • meditatio: If he comes across a passage or a single sentence which touches his heart and awakens his special interest, he starts to repeat it again and again (a practice which traditionally is called ruminatio, the rumination of the text). He illumines it with the help of rational thinking (ratio) by connecting the passage in a free, associative manner with other texts of the Bible which come into his mind, because they contain the same or similar keywords as the text which he is actually reading. The focus of meditatio is the moral sense (sensus moralis) of the Bible. It aims at insights as to what is of real importance in life according to the Word of God, how one should act in order to achieve this, what evils in one’s own soul would be obstacles to attain it and how to overcome them. The example Guigo is giving for this process shows that he defines meditatio according to the somewhat rationalized Victorine understanding and like it at the same time still clings to the traditional monastic way of dealing with the Bible. This line of thought is not so much shaped according to Aristotelian syllogisms or philological accuracy as in later academic theology. Using the scripture in a very free way the meditating monk wove a web of allusions and quotations which were meant to create an emotional impact and deepen it. In this respect Guigo’s art of meditation is very similar to the rhetoric of medieval monastic sermons and the style of exegetical works of his time. The basis for this kind of thinking was the mnemonic culture of the monasteries.22 • oratio: The next step is to ask God for everything that is required for the necessary change of one’s life and for opening the soul to His presence. The Christian tradition has always seen a close connection between meditation/contemplation and prayer. If we take the widest sense of the word and understand prayer like John of Damascus as every kind 22

M. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought. Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200, Cambridge 1998, 115: “Though the goal of spiritual life is the unmediated vision of God, divine theoria, one can only get there by travelling through one’s memory. A person’s entire memory is a composition among whose places, routes, and pathways one must move whenever one thinks about anything. This is why the most powerful, the most fruitful engine of the mind in meditation was considered to be that pia memoria of which Hugo of Rouen spoke.”

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of “elevation of the mind towards God” then of course meditation and contemplation are just different forms of prayer.23 Guigo uses the term in the popular restricted sense of petitionary prayer and describes it as the spontaneous result of meditation on the moral sense of the Bible. The view that meditation leads to petitionary prayer was a common feature in High Medieval spirituality, founded on the belief that a substantial change of one’s way of life would only be possible with the help of the Divine. Hugh of St. Victor recognizes the same transition and St. Bernard explains it in a very similar way to Guigo: “Meditation teaches us what is lacking, prayer obtains it for us [...] By meditation we recognize the dangers which beset us and by prayer, at the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, we escape them.”24 • contemplatio: God “does not wait until it [the soul, KB] has finished speaking, but interrupts the flow of its prayer in mid-course and hastens to present himself and come to meet the yearning soul, bathed with the dew of heavenly sweetness.“25 The deepest level of understanding of biblical texts is gained when one experiences their mystical sense (anagogia, sensus mysticus). This can only be fully realized in contemplation as a direct encounter with God. Guigo does not discriminate between contemplatio and excessus mentis as Richard did. For him contemplation is the immediate ecstatic encounter with the Divine. He describes the experience of God’s loving presence as sweetness (dulcedo), a very popular expression in medieval monastic literature.26 The most important biblical reference is psalm 33: 9: Gustate et videte quam suavis est Dominus!: “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is!“ In our text dulcedo is an ecstatic bliss compared by Guigo with sexual ecstasy, a common thought, since medieval exegesis interpreted the erotic poetry 23

24

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26

John of Damascus: De fide orthodoxa III 24 [PG 94,1089]: elevatio mentis ad Deum. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Feast of St. Andrew 10 cited according to Tugwell 1984, 115. Guigo II, 96,159-164: Dominus autem [...] non expectat donec sermonem finierit, sed medium orationis cursum interrumpens, festinus se ingerit et animae desideranti festinus occurrit coelestis rore dulcedinis perfusus [...]. I quote the English translation of Tugwell 1984, 96. See F. Ohly, Geistige Süße bei Otfried, in: Friedrich Ohly, Schriften zur mittelalterlichen Bedeutungsforschung, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt 1977, 93-127; R. Fulton: „Taste and see that the Lord is sweet“ (Ps. 33: 9): The Flavour of God in the Monastic West, in: The Journal of Religion 86 (2006) 169-204.

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of the Song of Songs as an allegory of the mystical union between God and the soul.27 According to our abbot and many other medieval authors the encounter with God takes place in the acies mentis, the peak of the mind. This word and its many synonyms like apex mentis, synderesis, radix animae and abditum mentis signify the very core of the human person which was considered to be the ‘place’ of the mystic union with God. The unity of the human soul, its undivided, centered being, was thought of as transcending the manifold cognitive, emotional and volitive faculties and their respective activities. One of the basic differences between meditation and contemplation is that in meditation the different faculties of the soul are working, whilst in contemplation their activities are calmed down and the ineffable center of the soul awakens.28 In the eyes of Guigo, whose Chartusian way of life was directed towards silence, solitude and prayer, the experience of tasting the sweetness of the Lord is not something very extraordinary. God answers to the longing of the soul with His self-communication even before its petition has come to an end. Contemplation thus appears to be a not unusual culmination of the lectio divina. After distinguishing between the four stages of spiritual exercise Guigo shows how they depend on each other. Reading without meditation remains without fruit, while meditation without the guidance of reading can lead to errors. Prayer without meditation is lukewarm. Meditation not followed by prayer has no effect, while prayer leads to contemplation. The attainment of contemplation without prayer happens only rarely.29 This very coherent system of spiritual exercise remains influential until the present day where the protagonists of a revival of lectio divina relate to it.30 But through developments that began in the time 27

28

29 30

See D. Turner, Eros and Allegory. Medieval Exegesis and the Song of Songs, Kalamazoo 1995. For the history of the concept which can be traced back to stoic and neoplatonic philosophy see E. von Ivánka, Plato christianus. Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter, Einsiedeln 21990, 315-351. See Guigo II, 112,349-354. See e.g. M. Casey, Sacred Reading. The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina, Ligouri 1995, 58-63; E. Friedmann: Die Bibel beten, Münsterschwarzach 1995, 18-23; J. Johnston: Savoring God’s Word. Cultivating the Soul-Transforming Practice of Scripture Meditation, Colorado Springs 2004, 87-91.

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when the Scala Claustralium was written, the different steps that Guigo had unified into a single practice either lost their importance, changed or differentiated themselves into separate disciplines. C. SURVEY OF THE NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LATE MEDIEVAL AGES 1. The decline of lectio as spiritual practice Which changes with respect to meditation and contemplation did Christian Spirituality undergo in the two centuries after Guigo? Firstly, the link between the reading of the Bible and meditation lost its importance. “One of the reasons for the relative downfall of the old tradition of reading as the essential discipline of the spiritual life was the combination of more rigorous canons of exegesis with a more frankly speculative notion of meditatio.“31 Also the rise of imaginative techniques (which will be treated below) had the effect that the Bible was often replaced by manuals for meditation like the Vita Christi which transformed the biblical narratives into a sequence of scenes more suitable for visualization and surrounded by commentaries which were easier to digest than the original text. Whereas the quantity of devotional literature was exploding, only few Christians had access to the Bible, at least to the whole text. As many heretical sects based their criticism of the Church on a careful study of the Holy Scripture, the Church officials were not very enthusiastic about translations and the spreading of too much Bibleknowledge. 2. Democratization of Monastic Practices It is characteristic of the Late Medieval Ages, that meditation and contemplation ceased to be a monastic privilege and became more and more popular. This development is linked to social changes which did not happen in the solitude of La Chartreuse but in the flourishing towns of that time. Increasing participation and creativity of lay people were important factors in almost every dimension of the late medieval urban culture. One side of this development was the growing wish to play an active part in religious life. We also find a steady expansion of lay liter31

Tugwell 1984: 107.

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acy in urban society especially among the mercantile and artisan classes. The techniques of bookmaking had been developed enough to let a market of religious books emerge. Spiritual Handbooks (called speculum or rosetum) became widespread. They usually contained compilations of monastic mystical theology, simplified schemes of the ascent to God, prayers, descriptions of visions and edifying stories about saints and miracles.32 These books were not written in the language of the Latinate elite but in the vernaculars and contributed to the transfer of Latin theology and monastic spiritual literature into the common language of the people. The rising religious interest of the lay people was moreover strengthened by the resolutions of the 4th Lateran-Council (1215) which prescribed annual confessions as a duty and formulated the program of religious education for everybody. Within this context the scheme of penance-meditation was of increasing importance and became probably the most influential and popular form of meditation. It usually starts with a reflection on the calamity and corruption of man and the confession of one’s own sins (miseria nostra), while the second part deals with the compassion of God especially as revealed in the life of Christ (misericordia Dei). The meditation ends in praise of God.33 This way of meditating was a kind of internalization of popular methods of catechesis, preaching and education. It helped to stabilize the reign of the religious system and therefore it is not astonishing that its practice received official encouragement. An extra-liturgical, individualized piety flourished “which, though often originating in religious communities, quickly found favour with the laity.“34 The patterns of the new spirituality were often related to more or less traditional monastic forms, which have been adopted for the needs of the urban citizens. Typical for the dispersion of monastic spirituality in the world outside the monasteries is the title given to the

32

33

34

See Steinmetz 2005: 82 and M. G. Sargent, Minor Devotional Writing, in: A. S. G. Edwards: Middle English Prose. A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, New Jersey 1984, 147-175. Penance-meditation was originally a monastic practice. The most influential literary paradigms for it´s secularized use are John of Fécamp, Meditationes sancti Augustini and Anselm of Canterbury, Meditationes et Orationes, both 11th. century. Duffy 2005: 233.

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Middle English version of Guigos Scala Claustralium: “Ladder of cloysteres and of othere Goddis lovers“.35 The secularized forms found their way back into the monasteries and hermitages and influenced the practice of monks and nuns. The new mendicant orders which consciously chose the urban societies as their field of activity led a much more ‘worldly’ life than the traditional communities which lived in the countryside and followed the Benedictine rules. Therefore they also had to face the need to develop new ways of religious practice. Of course the clergy was also affected by the spread of monastic forms of spirituality in the Christian cities. So, from Late Medieval Times onwards meditative and contemplative practices became increasingly popular among all strata of the literate European Christian society. 3. The New Mysticism One side of this popularization was the emergence of what Bernard McGinn has called “New Mysticism.” He characterizes this movement as follows: “In Western Christianity, mysticism remained closely bound to monasticism until the thirteenth century, when reforms in religious life, especially the Beguines and the Mendicants, marked an important change. Older forms of mysticism, based on the withdrawal from the world and programs of moral discipline and contemplative prayer, did not die out, but they were challenged by new lifestyles encouraging types of mysticism that were more democratic, in the sense of being open to all (and therefore also communicated in the vernacular), as well as ‘secular’ in not demanding flight from the world.”36 Part of the New Mysticism was a revival of Denys the Areopagite. Thomas Gallus (the last important theologian from the school of St. Victor) and others reinterpreted his apophatic theology in the light

35

36

Guigo II, A ladder of foure Ronges by which man mowe wele clyme to heven: Deonise Hid Divinite, ed. P. Hodgson, London 1955 (Early English Text Society 231), 100/6-7. See Steinmetz 2005: 139. B. McGinn, Mysticism, in: Hans J. Hillebrand (ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Vol 3, New York/Oxford 1996, 119-124: 119.

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of a dichotomy between intellectus and affectus, intellect and love.37 God is incomprehensible through the intellect, they said, but love transcends rational thinking. It alone is able to touch the divine mystery and to unite with it. The apex or acies mentis is now qualified as apex affectionis, the centre of a pure selfless love of God (amor castus) which does not want anything from Him, transcends all bounds of knowledge and meets God in mystical darkness. In order to cultivate this approach to the Divine New Mysticism emphasized special forms of practice, which supported imageless devotion and the calming of thoughtactivities. The term “contemplation” was increasingly used not only to describe a state of mind but also to denote these methods. Meditation and Contemplation which used to be different stages of one continuous process now became autonomous spiritual practices.38 Whereas meditation, as shown above, found its place within the framework of the official religious system, the popularization of techniques of contemplation regularly caused tensions with the authorities of the Church, which finally led to the marginalization and even condemnation of this form of religious life. 4. The Rise of Imaginative Techniques In the Late Medieval Ages meditation is understood as a practice not so much based on associative and argumentative thinking like in the 12th century but on imagination. It no longer starts from reading the Bible but rather from the imagination of biblical scenes which have been removed from their original context and retold in special manuals for their usage within imaginative meditation techniques. Anselm of Canterburys Meditationes, Bernhard of Clairvaux and especially Aelred of Rievaulx’s method of meditation (which was originally meant as a part 37

38

For the differences between this view and Denys’ mystical theology see D. Turner, The Darkness of God. Negativity in Christian Mysticism, Cambridge 1995, 186194. It is oversimplified to think that an exaggeration of analytical thinking was responsible for the destruction of what is idealized as the innocent unity of medieval prayer. For this view see T. Keating, Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Life, New York 2004, 21: “Unfortunately this passion for analysis in theology was later to be transferred to the practice of prayer and bring to an end the simple, spontaneous prayer of the Middle Ages based on lectio divina with its opening to contemplation.”

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of eremitical piety) had created the basis for this form of meditation. Now the imagination of the Life of Christ and especially the passion became the central devotional activity. One should imagine oneself directly taking part in the mysteries of the life of the saviour. As Aelred of Rievaulx says: “Sta nunc quasi in medio“, “Place yourself quasi in the middle [of the imagined situation].“39 The imaginations were not limited to visual phantasies, therefore I hesitate to call them visualizations. The meditator did not look at inner images but participated in a dramatic event in which all senses were involved. This included the performance of certain postures and movements, talking with the imagined persons, touching them, smelling the odors of heaven and hell and sometimes even swallowing drops of Jesus’ sweat and blood. The paradigms for the most popular forms of imaginative meditation are to be found in the Meditationes Vitae Christi (≈ 1300, wrongly attributed to Bonaventura) and in Ludolf of Saxony’s Vita Christi (after 1348) one of the most widespread spiritual books of the Late Medieval Age. A passage from Ludolf’s book shows that the follower of imaginative meditation considered this approach as superior compared to the hearing and reading of the Bible and imageless devotion: “Oh good Jesus, how sweet you are in the heart of one who thinks upon you and loves you [...] I know not for sure, I am not able fully to understand, how it is that you are sweeter in the heart of one who loves you in the form of flesh than as the word, sweeter in that which is humble than in that which is exalted [...] It is sweeter to view you as dying before the Jews on the tree, than as holding sway over the angels in Heaven; to see you as a man bearing every aspect of human nature to the end, than as God manifesting divine nature, to see you as the dying Redeemer than as the invisible Creator.”40 Famon Duffy comments on this: “The enormous imaginative power of this form of meditation, and its spread into the world of the 39

40

Aelred of Rievaulx, De institutione inclusarum in: C. H. Talbot (ed.): Aelredi Rievallensis Opera Omnia (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 1), Brepols 1971: 639-682: 679 (§ 33). Quoted according C. A. Conway, The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony and late medieval devotion centred on the incarnation. A descriptive analysis ( Analecta Cartusiana 34) Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur: Salzburg 1976, 56.

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[...] laity, is evident from the accounts Margery Kempe has left of her visionary experiences, which seem in places to be little more than literal-minded paraphrases of the relevant sections of the Meditationes Vitae Christi or of Richard Rolle’s almost equally influential Meditations on the Passion, works read to her by the spiritual directors she found in such abundance in fifteenth century East Anglia.”41 Visual media were used to support and sometimes also to replace the imaginative methods of meditation. In the daily life practice of lay people as well as in the monasteries, visualization was often replaced by contemplating pious paintings, drawings and woodcuts, which were created especially for this purpose. Images should serve as simulacra of visionary experience.42 The Books of Hours (Horae) which were from the 14th century onwards among the first mass produced books are good examples for this. They not only contain psalms and other prayers which should be performed at certain times of the day, but also illustrations as visual material for meditation and prayer. Paintings or woodcuts of the Trinity, of the life of the Virgin, of the saints with their emblems, above all scenes depicting the suffering and death of Christ, served in themselves as focuses of the sacred, designed to evoke worship and reverence. They were often conceived as channels of sacred power independent of the texts they accompanied. The fifteenth century had seen the circulation of devotional woodcuts which the faithful were encouraged to meditate on, to kneel before, to kiss.43 The arguments of the theoreticians who tried to substantiate the practice of imaginative meditation are very similar to the arguments rhetoricians traditionally used to underline the importance of imagination for the art of creating impressive speech. It could well be, that generally the late medieval introduction of imagination into meditation is 41 42

43

Duffy 2005: 237. See J. Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: The Image in Late Medieval Monastic Devotions, VIATOR (Medieval and Renaissance Studies) 20 (1989) 161-182: K. Krüger, Bildandacht und Bergeinsamkeit. Der Eremit als Rollenspiel in der städtischen Gesellschaft, in: H. Belting, D. Blume (ed.), Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit: die Argumentation der Bilder, Hirmer: München 1989, 187-200 and K. Kamerick, Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages. Image Worship and Idolatry in England 1350-1500, New York 2002. Duffy 2005: 214.

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only an extension of the rhetorical structure which is so typical for the Western European style of meditation from the Hellenistic schools of philosophy until Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556).44 It is, for example, obvious from the style of Aelred of Rievaulx´s writings that he was very well educated in rhetorics and purposely uses colourful images to create emotional responses within the reader´s mind. From here it is only a short step to the new forms of meditation, as in meditation imagination is also is used “ad maiorem impressionem“, to create a greater impression as Ludolf says.45 It thus functions as a link between the cognitive and the emotional faculties of the human being. The meditative imagination of biblical scenes (Is this different from “visualization”?) aimed at the emotional involvement in the life of Jesus and Mary.46 It should finally lead to conformatio, a deep emotional mimesis with the protagonists (not only Jesus and Mary but also the shepherds who adore the new borne Jesus or Simone of Cyrene who helped Jesus to carry the cross etc.) of the holy drama – further supported by practices like real or imagined self-flagellation or standing with widespread arms to imitate the crucifixion etc.47 This identification should not only intensify the experience of God’s redeeming love as present in the life and death of Jesus Christ. According to rhetoric and the late medieval theory of Christian meditation affectus mentis and effectus operis correspond with each other: only the arousal of proper emotions is able to affect a certain behavior. In the long run the emotional conformatio with the biblical moral examples should build up good habits, cultivate virtues like compassion, humility, obedience etc. This intention of the imaginative techniques is quite close to Guigo’s understanding of meditatio, but the means to attain it have changed significantly. As already mentioned, the tie between meditation and contemplation was loosened. The new meditation techniques tended to become 44

45 46

47

See P. Rabbow, Seelenführung. Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike, München 1954. Vita Christi 4b, cited according Baier 1977: 484. See F. O. Schuppisser, Schauen mit den Augen des Herzens. Zur Methodik der spätmittelalterlichen Passionsmeditation, besonders in der Devotio Moderna und bei den Augustinern, in: Walter Haug, Burghart Wachinger, Tübingen 1993, 169-210. See P. Dinzelbacher, Christliche Mystik im Abendland. Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters, Paderborn 1994, 333-334.

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self-sufficient rituals without any space for contemplative prayer. In Ludolfs Vita Christi the basic unit of practice consists of three parts: lectio, meditatio (sometimes completed by conformatio) and oratio in the form of a concluding prayer.48 He has no distinct concept of contemplation and uses considerare, contemplari, meditari and attendere as equivalent expressions.49 At the end of some chapters or certain passages Ludolf summarizes the content of the previous meditation and invites the practitioner to become absorbed with it. But even this more contemplative mental process is connected with thoughts, intense emotional movements, exclamations of pain, questions etc.50 D. THE EMERGENCE OF CONTEMPLATION AS AN INDEPENDENT EXERCISE IN THE CLOWDE OF UNKNOWYNG The Clowde of Unknowyng, written between 1375 and 1400, and nowadays one the most famous of all late medieval mystical texts, is suitable to exemplify the outlined developments.51 The anonymous author was probably a Carthusian. He addresses his text to a disciple, a young man, who was about to start an eremitical life. The text is an introduction to contemplative prayer which the author conceives as the highest form of Christian spirituality. “His prime motive is to teach a ’special prayer’ over and above the ’preiers that ben ordeynid of Holy Chirche’.“52 The author is very conscious about the fact that his manual, written in Middle English, will not only circulate among Latinized circles of religious specialists but is bound to reach a broader audience. Therefore he in48 49 50 51

52

See Baier 1977: 488-489. See Baier 1977: 489. See Baier 1977: 497-498. The full title of the text is A Book of Contemplacyon, the whiche is clepyd the Clowde of Unknowyng, in the whiche a Soule is onyd with God. I use the critical edition by P. Hodgson. Introductions and interpretations: W. Johnston, The Mysticism of ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’. A Modern Interpretation (Religious Experience 8) St. Meinrad 1975; P. Hodgson, Introduction, in: P. Hodgson (ed.), The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises, ix-lxii; R. W. Englert, Scattering and Oneing. A Study of Conflict of the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ (Analecta Cartusiana 105), Salzburg 1983; J. P. H. Clark: The Cloud of Unknowing. An Introduction. Vol. 1: An Introduction (Analecta Cartusiana 119/4), Salzburg 1995, Vol. 2: Notes on ’The Cloud of Unknowing’, (Analecta Cartusiana 119/5), Salzburg 1996; Steinmetz 2005. P. Hodgson, Introduction, xxi with reference to Cloud 41, 1-2.

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cludes instructions concerning the distribution of the book. It should not be given to those who are merely curious about its content, but rather to people who fulfill the criteria of being ready for contemplation. Those to whom the book is passed on should be advised to take the time to read the whole book, not only parts of it.53 Obviously he wants to propagate the practice of contemplation, but on the other hand he emphasizes that he does not simply call upon everybody to just try it. Instead those who feel motivated to try his method should first thoroughly test themselves.54 The text follows the traditional discrimination between vita activa (actyve liif) and vita contemplativa (contemplatyve liif). It also alludes to a stage in-between which is at the same time the second degree of active life and the first degree of contemplative life.55 So altogether we have three stages. The first stage of vita activa consists of works of mercy and charity. The second stage of vita activa which is at the same time the first stage of vita contemplativa is goostly meditacion. The second stage of vita contemplativa attends to the specyal preier. These different ways of religious exercise are related to the active life in the world and to monastical or eremitical life respectively. The author is in favor of the second, which he thinks is the perfection of Christian life and the best condition for contemplative prayer. But, as already said, the Cloud was not written for monastics and hermits only. The prologue explicitly says, that the following explanation of contemplative prayer is also meant to help people who are living an active life but are motivated by the Holy Spirit to participate at least from time to time in the specyal preier as highest practice of contemplative life.56 Moreover, because it is written in Middle English one could say that the Cloud answers to the growing interest of the laity in the vita contemplativa and participates in the democratization of contemplation. The author attempts to maintain a standard of quality, to avoid the vulgarization of contemplative practice.

53 54 55

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See Cloud 74, 72-73. See Cloud 75, 74-75. Out of reasons which cannot be discussed here, the author of the Cloud avoids speaking about a vita mixta which since Augustine and Gregory the Great was the usual expression for a form of life participating in both, vita activa and vita contemplativa. Cloud 2, 7-13.

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1. The Concept of Meditation Meditation is thought of as a practice for beginners, a preparation for the achievement of contemplation. The author knows Guigos’ scheme and mentions the first three parts of it as three “menes [...] in the whiche a contemplatiif prentys schuld be ocupyed, the whiche ben theese: Lesson, Meditacion, & Oryson.“57 These three are now taken together as one exercise called goostly meditacion. Its main topics should be mans owne wrechidnes connected with sorrow and contrition, the Passion of Christe with the awakening of pity and compassion and the joyes of heven resp. the chiftes (of God) which should evoke thanks and praises.58 The Cloud here obviously refers to the main points of repentance-meditation. Not only reson and affeccioun but also ymaginacioun is needed for this exercise. Of course the author was familiar with the imaginative methods of meditation which were flourishing in his religious surroundings. Within the context of the Cloud meditation fulfills a positive function as a kind of necessary domestication of the powers of imagination.59 Because of their corroboration with sin the inner images and with them the emotional part of the human soul have to be trained and reshaped. Through correct meditation one can overcome the manifold distracting thoughts and empty fantasies which usually preoccupy the mind of the practitioner. But the author makes clear, that the techniques of imagination and meditative reflection are nothing more than a beginning, and that he is obviously not interested in detailed analysis and explanations. Instead much space is given to the treatment of dangers which arise from imaginative techniques. He criticizes the literal understanding of images and metaphors. He makes jokes about different kinds of hysterical behavior caused by a wrong practice of affective and imaginative meditation and warns of deceptive visions.60 The activity of imagination in meditation is repeatedly connected with a harmful coriouste which only scatters the attention of the practitioner.61 The very

57 58 59 60 61

Cloud 39, 23-25. Cloud 29, 35-47. See Cloud 65, 65-66. See Cloud 52,28-59,18. For the role of coriouste in the Cloud-texts see Steinmetz 2005: 63-87.

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heart of spiritual life is only reachable through a radical abandoning of the imaginative interior space. 2. Entering the Cloud. The Practice of Contemplation The Middle English term contemplacyon or contemplaccion is only rarely used by the author of the Cloud.62 Instead he prefers to describe it with terms like blynde thoucht or nakyd feeling or calls it specyal preier. The latter is not conceived as the last phase or perfection of meditation. Although it culminates in an ecstasy (excesse of the mynde, overpassyng of thiself) of the kind which Guigo describes as contemplation, it is not identical with it. Contemplation in the Cloud of Unknowing is not only a state of mind or a certain experience of union with God. It has become an exercise in its own right, which is caused by a call from above that changes the whole spiritual life significantly, leading to a new form of practice. The author mentions different signs which show that the time for starting contemplative prayer has come: a spontaneous and longlasting joy when one hears or reads about the possibility of contemplation and a decrease of inspiration in usual meditation.63 The step from meditation to contemplation means starting to practice a form of prayer which aims at a wordless silence filled with the love of God. Inner silence is produced and supported through undivided attention on the meaning of single monosyllabic words, especially Sin and God, without any discursive mental acts.64 The method of reducing prayer and meditation to a very short formula or as in our case to one word (very often the name of Jesus) has a tradition which goes back to the Desert Fathers. It was, and in the Cloud still is, meant as a support of the so-called continual prayer which should accompany the activities of daily life and act as a means to gain mystical union with God.65 In the late Medieval period it was a well known monastic practice, as one can see for example from nuns’ vitae like the Dominican Tößer Schwestern-

62 63 64 65

See Steinmetz 2005: 171-176. See Steinmetz 2005: 133-137. See Cloud, 40,15-44,14. For the historical roots see I. Hausherr, The Name of Jesus, Kalamazoo 1978.

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buch (14th century).66 The Cloud adds something new to these informal, individual practices. It contrasts the already well established system of meditation with a systematized form of contemplation. By recommending Sin and God as mantras the two most important topics of repentance-meditation are connected with contemplative prayer and elevated to a higher level of understanding. The transition from meditation to contemplation in his time started to become a much discussed question and the author of the Cloud tries to develop criteria which are able to evaluate when one is ready to begin with contemplation. Through the proposed way of contemplation one should leave behind distinct considerations of the self, sins, creation and God under a “cloude of forgetyng.” What should remain in the end is an empty mind surrendered to “nakyd” i.e. self-forgetful love, which aims at God himself and not at one of his divine goods which the practitioner may desire to possess. In order to reach out towards union with God, one must beat upon the cloud of unknowing which lies between ourselves and God, with the ’sharp darte of longing love’. This has to become a settled habit.67 As in the theology of Thomas Gallus with its priority of love, for the author of the Cloud the pointe of spirit (apex mentis) is an apex affectionis, syngulertee of affeccioun, which transcends cognition and therefore resides in a cloude of unknowyng. If the practitioner reaches this point he enters a nothing (noucht) which is everything (Al) because in it one learns to comprehend all things at once without discriminative knowledge.68 In this nothingness God and the soul are revealed in their oneness. It may seem difficult to reach this point, but like many contemplatives after him, the author of the Cloud assures us that contemplation is a very easy and fast way to God, presupposed that through divine grace the flame of love has been ignited.69

66

67

68 69

E. Stagel, Deutsches Nonnenleben. Das Leben der Schwestern zu Töß und der Nonne zu Engelthal. Eingel. und übertr. von M. Weinhandl. Vorw. von A. Haas, Stein am Rhein 2004. J. P. H. Clark, The Cloud of Unknowing: An Introduction, Vol. I: Introduction, Salzburg 1995, 32. See Cloud, 67,37-68,21. See Cloud, 9, 25-26.

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E. LATER DEVELOPMENTS In the 15th century not only the meditation of the Life of Christ flourished but also the methodical structuring of thought within meditation became extremely elaborated. The representatives of the Devotio moderna wanted to establish a most effective program of spiritual training which should guarantee the spiritual success of each of the devotees by a systematical cultivation of the inner man. Wessel Gansfort (14191489) went beyond all previous efforts in systematizing meditation. He constructed an ordo scalaris rationalis, a rational system of meditation, whose twenty-four steps are based on the structure of the human mind, which Gansfort in Augustinian manner divided into memoria (memory), intelligentia (intellect) and voluntas (will and emotion).70 Extensively using concepts of humanistic rhetoric he constructed a method capable of developing any topic for any length of time by systematically arousing the three faculties. The Devotio moderna influenced Ignatius of Loyola whose ejercicios espirituales and especially his – compared to Gansfort – simplified method of meditation with the three powers of the soul became the most powerful paradigm of Christian meditation until the 20th century. The more meditation became formalized the more its limitations and dangers became obvious. “The ignorant find it too great a tax on their energies; the imaginative cannot pursue it without encountering endless distractions; the simple-minded ask if no more direct approach can be found for them to the sanctities of prayer.“71 There was the tendency of too much self-reflection, a scrupulous observation of ones own mental processes which never reaches the point of a simple opening towards the divine mystery. Fear of hell was often more cultivated than the pure love of God. Protagonists of contemplative prayer continued to spread their forms of practice in reform (lay) circles, religious orders and a large number of spiritual books. The limitations of meditation, the misuse of it, the transition from meditation to contemplation and the cultivation of inner silence remained a topic of discussion among the Spanish Mystics 70

71

See D. Snyder: Wessel Gansfort and the Art of Meditation, Diss. Cambridge/Mass. 1966. R. A. Knox: Enthusiasm. A Chapter in the History of Religion, Notre Dame 1994, 245-246.

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of the 16th century, Madame Guyon and her companions and also in pietism. Although nobody went so far as to abandon contemplation in toto practitioners of contemplation had to face serious repressions. The points of criticism remained the same through the ages: neglect of the cultivation of Christian virtues, antinomianism, denial of salvation through the mediation of the Church and its sacraments. The inquisition persecuted several groups which were connected with the practice of contemplation. It started with the heresy of the „Free Spirit“ (condemned in 1311), followed by the Alumbrados (condemned in 1525). The last strike hit Quietism. With the condemnation and imprisonment of leading Quietists at the end of the 17th century, the contemplation movement which had started in late Medieval Europe came to its end. Only with the growing influence of Eastern religions and the revival of Western mysticism from the end of the 19th century onwards did the popularization of contemplative practices start all over again. The 20th century became the Age of the decline of the Baroque form of European meditation and gave birth to a second contemplation movement within Western Christianity. Shortly after the end of World War II Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro – an expert in Christian meditation and contemplation who later became one of the important reformers of the Second Vatican Council – asked: “Why did the rich blossom of prayer methods which characterized the 17th and 18th century expire completely today? Why do they hardly survive – with the exception of the Ignatian which is too often explained and taught in a miserable way […]? Why was discursive prayer declared to be the ultimate stage attainable without the help of extraordinary Grace?”72 People did not wait until clerics and theologians had found proper answers to these questions (in fact hardly anybody went further into them), but instead started to practice Yoga, New Age- and Buddhist meditation or attended courses in which old forms of contemplative Christian prayer were taught in a modern way. But this is another chapter altogether.

72

G. Kardinal Lercaro, Wege zum betrachtenden Gebet, Basel/Freiburg/Wien 1959 [1947], 357.

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ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Aris 1996

Cloud Baier 1977

Duffy 2005 Guigo II

McGinn 2004

Ruh 1990

Spijker 2004

Steinmetz 2005 Tugwell 1984

M.-A. Aris, Contemplatio. Philosophische Studien zum Traktat Benjamin Maior des Richard von St. Viktor. Mit einer verbesserten Edition des Textes, Josef Knecht: Frankfurt/Main 1996. The Clowde of Unknowyng, in: The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises, ed. by P. Hodgson, Salzburg 1982, 1-74. Walter Baier, Untersuchungen zu den Passionsbetrachtungen in der Vita Christi des Ludolf von Sachsen. Ein quellenkritischer Beitrag zu Leben und Werk Ludolfs und zur Geschichte der Passionstheologie (Analecta Cartusiana 44), Institut für englische Sprache und Literatur: Salzburg 1977. F. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, New Haven/London 22005. Guigo II, Epistola de vita contemplativa (Scala claustralium), in : E. Colledge, J. Walsh (ed.), Guigues II le Chartreux: Lettre sur la vie contemplative (L'Échelle des moines). Douze méditations, Introduction et texte critique, Traduction française par un chartreux [Maurice Laporte], Sources Chrétiennes 163, Paris 1970, 82-123. B. McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, Vol. II: The Growth of Mysticism, The Crossroad Publishing Company: New York 2004. K. Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik. Band 1: Die Grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jahrhunderts, Beck: München 1990. I. van’t Spijker, Fictions of the Inner Life. Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Century, Brepols: Turnhout 2004. K.-H. Steinmetz, Mystische Erfahrung und mystisches Wissen in den mittelenglischen Cloudtexten, Berlin 2005. S. Tugwell, Ways of Imperfection. An Exploration of Christian Spirituality, Darton, Longman and Todd: London 1984.

DIANA RIBOLI

Shamans and Transformation in Nepal and Peninsular Malaysia This article is dedicated to halak Macang

INTRODUCTION This article is a preliminary presentation of the different beliefs related to shamanic transformation into animal and plant forms in Asian shamanism and in particular in the ethnic groups around which my field research has been and is currently centered: the Chepang of southern central Nepal and the Jahai and Batek in peninsular Malaysia. Despite the geographical distance and significant cultural differences between Malaysia and Nepal, it is particularly interesting to note the similar attitude towards the forest. Both the Chepang – even though they abandoned their nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyle around forty years ago – as well as the Jahai and the Batek of peninsular Malaysia are still dependant on the rainforest to a great extent. In fact, there is still one nomadic hunter gatherer group of Batek living in the large jungle – now a national park – of Taman Negara. The theories (Hamayon 1990: 293-320, Ripinsky-Naxon 1993: 22-23, Vitebsky 1995) about how the different forms of shamanism throughout the world are intimately linked to the world of hunting, nature and the wild, at least historically speaking, are well known. Despite the necessary changes and adaptations of shamanic cultures to mutations in social, economic and political conditions, the figure of the shaman generally remains that of a “hunter of souls” even in societies no longer based on hunting and gathering. For the Chepang, despite the fact that they have been sedenterized for several decades now, the most important deity in their pantheon is Namrung, the god of hunting. According to Chepang mythology, Namrung, believed to reside in the world of humans, was created by the other deities so he could hunt for them and provide them with fresh food every day. Namrung lives alone, surrounded only by his ‘hunters’ (Namrung shikāri), a pack of wolves (or wild dogs) that follow him

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wherever he goes. Certain Chepang shamans describe Namrung as being a half man and half wolf (or half dog) that avoids the company of humans despite the fact that he lives in their world. While most of the other deities in the Chepang pantheon currently have Hindu names despite the fact that their characteristics often differ significantly, Namrung has never been associated with any other supernatural being in any other religion or different ethnic group. Chepang shamans are somewhat reticent about Namrung: in the areas inhabited by the Chepang hunting has been prohibited for many years and the Chepang believe that for this reason Namrung has turned against humans and conjures up different problems for them as he no longer receives daily offerings of blood from wild animals. The Namrung-pujā, a ceremony dedicated entirely to this deity and performed generally by old and expert shamans at least once a year, during which a ritual hunt takes place in the course of which at least one wild animal is killed (Riboli 2000: 213-219), is held in secret in many Chepang areas. It is interesting to note that the Semang-Negrito of peninsular Malaysia and in particular the Jahai and Batek, who have been the subject of my research for the last three years, do not appear to have any supernatural being particularly linked to hunting activities despite the fact that hunting is still an essential component of these cultures. The Batek and the Jahai recognize the existence of one deity only, called Gobar or Karei, the irascible god of thunder that punishes humans by sending down storms. Neither the Batek nor the Jahai acknowledge the existence of other deities, only benign spirits that live in the jungle and help humans in difficulty. For the Batek and the Jahai the rainforest is a closed universe, divine and perfect, a sort of maternal uterus that is the beginning and end of everything. For this reason, as we shall see below, the rainforest is also the world where shamanic journeys take place. For hunter gatherer populations like the nomadic Batek bands or populations that have more or less recently abandoned a regime of hunting and gathering such as the Jahai of peninsular Malaysia and the Chepang of southern central Nepal the separation of the two conceptual worlds ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ which has been the subject of many anthropological debates has no particular significance. In the words of Tim Ingold: …I shall argue that hunter-gatherers do not, as a rule, approach their environment as an external world of nature that has to be ‘grasped’ conceptually and appropriated symbolically within the terms of an imposed cultural design, as a precondition for effective action. They do not see themselves as mindful sub-

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jects having to contend with an alien world of physical objects; indeed the separation of mind and nature has no place in their thoughts and practice. (Ingold 2000: 42)

In the Jahai and Batek of peninsular Malaysia and the Chepang of southern central Nepal the jungle represents a perfect cosmos where plant, animal and human spheres co-exist in harmony. In this sense the forest in some way represents a primordial world that reconnects with a mythical ‘golden age’ when there was no clear distinction between the human, plant and animal worlds and no distinction between these spheres and the supernatural world either. Numerous mythologies throughout the continents refer to the existence of this perfect and almost undifferentiated primordial world using similar patterns. One of the most complete accounts is that narrated by Nâlungiaq, a Netsilik woman, to Knud Rasmussen, according to which at the time of the myth humans lived happily and all had supernatural forces (Rasmussen 1931: 208). At that time humans were able to communicate directly with the deities and could also fly, assume any form and move freely between the three cosmic zones – the heavens, earth and the underworld – there was no distinction as death and suffering were inexistent. Freedom was absolute, animals were extremely friendly and also communicated with the human race. Humans could transform themselves into animals at will, and animals could transform themselves into humans. The same language was spoken by all, and all lived and hunted in the same way. As a result of a series of cosmic events and catastrophes this harmony was destroyed and the three cosmic spheres separated, as did the spheres of the animal, plant and human worlds. From that point onwards only shamans, despite the fact that they are often believed to be much less powerful than their forefathers, can in some way relive and re-enact the harmony of primordial non-differentiation. Those who receive the call to shamanism, which in itself for the most part pre-supposes the possibility of communication between the world of the divine and the world of humans, acquire the ability to move between the three cosmic zones. Similarly, the two worlds – animal and plant – and the animal world in particular, appear to play an extremely important role for shamans, who are in many cases attributed with the ability to effectively undergo metamorphosis. Shamanic metamorphosis into animal and vegetal forms – in the same way as shamanic journeys – is only a re-elaboration of the pri-

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mordial pattern when harmony, peace and perfection were possible due to the non differentiation-collaboration between all living beings and between the latter and supernatural beings. Shamanic journeys and transformation into animal and vegetal forms pre-suppose an alteration of effective reality, the reality experienced by most humans. In other words, shamans overcome their limits and the human limitations of the five senses, and reacquire (recall?) the languages and abilities of other worlds, in particular those of the animal and plant worlds. TRANSFORMATION AND ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS The ability to undergo transformations is mainly only attributed to those in possession of the faculty to temporarily abandon a state of consciousness common to human beings in order to enter ‘altered’ states of consciousness. Though Mircea Eliade (Eliade 1951) and others have acknowledged in ecstatic journeys an essential element which should illuminate, define and distinguish shamanism from other complexes and practices, at present, also thanks to much field research and to more specific and extensive work, it is a well known fact that there are other shamanic complexes in which altered states of consciousness and ecstatic journeys are almost absent. It should be noted however that in many cases these are shamanic cultures, such as those of many Siberian groups, which have experienced dramatic historical and cultural developments. Moreover, in order to clarify the content and argument of this text, I would like to emphasize that generally speaking, despite the fact that different shamanic activities such as certain therapies appear to be performed in some ethnic groups without the assistance of altered states of consciousness and without the requirement for cosmic journeys, for shamanic transformation or metamorphosis into animal and plant forms altered states of consciousness appear to be absolutely necessary. These states can have different natures and entities: they can take on the form of violent and apparently uncontrollable trances or can be experienced almost without any movement when the shaman (as we will see in the case of the Batek and the Jahai) leaves his sleeping body at night to send his shadow soul into an animal to which he is especially attached. Altered states of consciousness (ASC) are one of the most studied topics in shamanism. However, what scholars simply call “trance”

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or ASC is probably a much more complex cultural and sociological matter. Physical manifestations during shamanic trance states appear to be almost always identical, but what began to puzzle me during my fieldwork in Nepal with the Chepang ethnic group (1991-1999) was that not all altered states of consciousness during a shamanic séance are felt and experienced by shamans, patients and the surrounding public in the same way. In fact, there are trance states during which shamans embody supernatural beings or ancestors’ spirits – which in one of my earlier works I named “incorporatory” trances – and trance states during which the shaman’s soul is supposed to journey to other cosmic zones. I named this last category “trances of movement” (Riboli 2002: 143-159). As already indicated, the physical manifestations of both types of trances can be very similar: the shaman’s body jerks and trembles and he/she begins to sweat profusely, experiencing what appears to be sensorial detachment. Both instances involve a journey. However, in the first case the journey is undertaken by the supernatural being toward the shaman, whereas in the second case, it is the shaman’s soul that moves to the supernatural world. Beside these typologies of ASCs that mostly occur during shamanic séances in public, there are more personal and secret altered states of consciousness experienced by shamans who are able to transform themselves into other entities, mostly into animal form. I decided to name this third category “trances of transformation.” Shamanic transformation and shape-shifting has been documented and is well known worldwide, despite the fact that not much specific research has been conducted on the subject. This is probably one of the most difficult fields to investigate because – as far as we know – the majority of shamans need to be alone in order to leave their human form. As indicated earlier, the shamans’ faculty to transform themselves is quite often linked to something like a past mythological ‘golden age’ when all shamans were extremely powerful, could transform themselves at will into animal and plant forms and were sometimes even believed to live together with deities and supernatural beings. During my field research in Nepal and peninsular Malaysia I noted that what scholars generally term trance or ACS is actually a collection of states experienced in different ways by shamans and the so-

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cieties they belong to, quite distinct from the purely physical manifestations that appear during trances. I arrived at this conclusion first of all by observing that the Chepang language has no single term for the word “trance,” and according to the documents and writings of Roberte Hamayon there is no such definition in most of the Siberian languages either (Hamayon 1990: 33). In fact, after discussing this with shamans or pande as they are known in Chepang, it was pointed out that it would be impossible for there to be one single term to describe situations in which supernatural beings are believed to possess the body of the shaman, and therefore journey to the world of humans, and situations where the opposite is the case, when shamans undertake the journey and abandon their terrestrial bodies to travel to other cosmic zones. As mentioned earlier, I decided to name the first type of trance “incorporatory trance” and the second category “trance of movement.” In earlier works, I added the category of “initiatory trances”, or altered states of consciousness, which occur during the call to the profession and shamanic initiation, and differ from the earlier categories in that the latter are usually not controlled by the shaman him/herself, who, at least apparently, would appear to play a much more passive role (Riboli 2002:165). There are most certainly other types of shamanic trances and other types of altered states of consciousness more difficult to document in that most occur when the shaman is alone and often occur outside shamanic séances, which are open to the public (trance of transformation). Many forms of shamanism throughout the world document the belief that shamans can transform into non-human entities, and animal forms in particular. Aside from any eventual transformations, the link between the animal world and the world of the shaman is present and important the world over. The guiding spirits of shamans often present themselves in animal form and the ornithomorphic symbols of many Siberian shamanic costumes is a clear reference to the magic flight to the skies (Djakonova 1978: 160-161), whereas the use of skins, bones and other parts of different animals such as the reindeer and the bear in shamanic costumes is linked to journeys into the underworld (Holmberg 1922: 1418, Lommel 1967: 108). In many cases shamanism is still linked to the magic of hunting. Many Chepang pande are carried to the skies during their journeys by a large bird, and journey to the underworld on a large fish. In other parts of the world it is believed that the most powerful

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shamans can understand animal language and communicate with them (Stutley 2003: 16-17). In contrast to most of the dominant religions of the planet, where the animal world is held to be inferior to the world of humans, shamanism universally believes that the animal world is powerful and close to the world of the supernatural, and it is therefore only logical that shamans in many parts of the world should be able in some way to contact and somehow encompass animal elements. It is probably not easy to investigate shamanic transformation into animal form, because in many cultures (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975: 43) shamans believe this to be a private act as some may not have total control over their instincts in animal form and could act in a manner totally contrary to the traditional ethical norms of their cultures. CHEPANG SHAMANISM AND TRANSFORMATION In Nepal and amongst the Chepang especially, the idea that pande have the ability to transform into animals is linked to a mythical time, a golden age when shamans had extraordinary powers far superior to those they have today, when the distinction between the world of humans and the world of animals was still not very clear (Riboli 2000:127-130). As in many other shamanic cultures the Chepang believe the world is divided into three zones: the heavens (akās) – which has nine levels - the earth in the middle where humans live, and the underworld (pātāl). The pātāl is described as being a beautiful place full of forests, rivers and animals for hunting, inhabited by the forefathers and most Chepang deities. Access to the underworld is believed to be extremely dangerous and only expert and powerful pande can undertake the journey there. Most journeys undertaken by pande are to the underworld and this is why the Chepang refer to their shamans (and very often the whole ethnic group) as ‘tunsuriban’ what describes this ability. According to Chepang mythology, initially the pātāl was inhabited by humans as well as by supernatural beings. At that time illnesses, suffering and malign spirits were unheard of. Humans and animals spoke the same language and deities and all the inhabitants of the underworld had the ability to undertake journeys and fly to other cosmic zones. Some versions note that primordial harmony was shattered because humans had begun to spoil the underworld with their physical needs. As a result, certain deities decided to create a land far from their

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own and send the humans to live there. While this intermediary land was being created two male deities – Batisé and Tiwasé – sacrificed the cow Lendemuri. Its hide became the soil of the intermediary land and its bones hills and mountains. Unfortunately, however, the two deities failed to decapitate the cow in one fell swoop and it took three attempts before they succeeded, during which the animal groaned in pain. These sounds gave birth to demons and malign spirits that had not existed up to that point. From that point onwards only the pande are allowed to journey to all the cosmic zones and communicate directly with supernatural beings. The more powerful pande are also believed to have the ability to transform themselves into animals, mainly felines. Shamans believed to be able to undergo transformation are called gurau, but it would appear that there are only very few of these in existence, and in eight years of research I have never met anyone who talked about this openly. One of the clans that make up the Chepang is called gurau, though none appears to remember the reason for this name. All pande set the time of the last gurau as being more or less at the time of their grandparents and all agree that at the dawn of humanity all shamans were gurau or extremely powerful humans able to transform themselves at will into different animals, especially tigers. The nature of these first pande and perhaps of other men was not yet well defined and distinct from the world of animals, which would appear to be proved by the fact that the Chepang believe that at that time both men and pande in particular could also understand the language of animals and were therefore able to communicate with them. In the course of my research, which was centred on around thirty pande, I only encountered three women in the profession, though all three were considered to be particularly powerful. One of these, Dam Maya, a well-known pande to whom people come for advice from villages many days walk away, is one of the few cases that I suspect could be a gurau. Dam Maya is in fact the only pande I met who said that she could call up a tiger in the course of a shamanic séance, what was confirmed by the other inhabitants of her village. In fact, these were not real tigers, but a sort of smaller feline of similar dimensions to a leopard. Despite the fact that she never admitted to being able to transform into a tiger or other dangerous animal, Dam Maya freely recounted that she often transformed herself into an insect, bird or “some other animal” (Riboli 2000: 121) in order to journey to the pātāl.

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My research in this field may well have been fairly superficial, as transformation into predatory animals is often believed to be linked to black magic. In fact, in one village I was told of a pande whom everyone considered to be expert in black magic who was held responsible for making a girl very ill, and was thought to be responsible for the mauling of the few animals – mainly chicken and goats – usually kept in Chepang villages. After these serious acts, the pande was maltreated and forced to go and live in another village. Neither the person in question nor the inhabitants of the village would confirm this story directly but everyone gave the impression that the animal predator that had killed the domestic animals was the pande himself transformed into feline form, as there were no animals of this type in the area where the village was located. Almost all the Chepang believe that the souls of dead shamans can transform into different animals where the human part is still recognizable from certain physical peculiarities such as missing paws, parts of the faces or even missing beaks in the case of birds, or parts of the body which have developed irregularly. The primordial and perfect original world of the Chepang attributed all humans with the ability to transform into tigers, and felines and other animals were believed to be able to transform into human form. At that time there was obviously no differentiation between the two conceptual worlds of nature and culture, no evil or suffering and no black magic. The natural world and its forests, courses of water and wild animals was in perfect harmony, a sort of ideal world which for the Chepang is embodied only in the underworld where the souls of worthy forefathers go to live after death. The equivalence between the natural and primordial worlds and perfection changed when at some point the world of humans was forced to separate from the world of the supernatural for different reasons. According to the Chepang, all pande initially remained gurau with the ability to transform into animal and feline forms in particular. For a certain period of time, certainly up to the point when the ethnic group was forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering, according to sources there was an absolute permeability between the world of humans - or rather between the shamanic world - and the natural world which had extremely positive valences. As the world of humans progressively and clearly distanced itself from nature, many began to associate the dimension of the ‘wild’ –

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as represented by the felines – with negative connotations linked to danger and black magic. It is probably no coincidence that while many Chepang pande state clearly and proudly that up to a few generations ago their shaman forefathers were gurau, or shaman-tigers, they are reticent about their personal abilities to metamorphose into animal and feline forms for fear of being accused of dabbling in black magic. As we shall see, this situation differs significantly from that of the Semang-Negrito groups in peninsular Malaysia, who are still intimately linked to the rainforest and its flora and fauna. SEMANG-NEGRITO SHAMANISM AND TRANSFORMATION Shamanic transformation into animals would appear to be substantially more documented for South-East Asia. For the past three years I have been working on a research project in peninsular Malaysia entitled “Traditional Medicine and Traditional Beliefs among the SemangNegrito of Peninsular Malaysia with particular reference to the Jahai and Batek Ethnic Groups.” In Malaysia, indigenous groups are referred to with the collective term “Orang Asli”, or “Original People.” Now unfortunately making up only 0.8% of the population, the Orang Asli have been divided up into three groups on the basis of their different ethnic and linguistic origins: the Proto-Malay, the Senoi and the Semang-Negrito, each of which consist of different ethnic groups. The first inhabitants of this area would appear to be the Semang-Negrito, who lived in the area for at least 4000 years. Groups of Negrito still exist in different parts of Asia, especially in the Andaman Islands and the Philippines. Unfortunately, anthropologists have not yet found a satisfactory alternative term for Negrito, particularly offensive and reminiscent of colonial times, which translates from the Spanish as “little black man” and for this reason some of the scholars working in the area prefer to add the term Semang, another term used to describe these groups. The term “Negrito” was used because of the physical attributes of the individuals in these ethnic groups, who differ from the rest of the population in their very dark skin, frizzy hair and short stature, particularly noticeable in older generations. All the Semang-Negrito of peninsular Malaysia have very strong ties with the world of the rainforest and, as noted earlier, some groups of Batek still lead nomadic lifestyles in one of the oldest jungles

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in the world. Though it is not known exactly how many nomadic Batek there are, numbers could be estimated at something between 400 and 500 individuals. Many Orang Asli groups experienced a rapid abandonment of nomadic life at the end of the 1940s, during the so-called “Emergency,” when the British colonial empire, concerned about the uprising of communist guerrillas using the jungles as a base, and even more concerned about possible collaboration between the former and the Orang Asli, decided to relocate many indigenous groups out of the jungle. Many Orang Asli and most of the Semang-Negrito still live in villages allotted to them by the government. For centuries Malaysia has been a multiethnic country. Malay Muslims, who currently hold the political power, make up around 60% of the population, with around 30% Chinese, who are generally in control of the economy, 8% Tamil from southern India and the remainder representing the Orang Asli and other minorities. A few years ago a project was introduced for the Islamisation of many Orang Asli groups based on what has been defined by the government as “positive discrimination,” which provides material goods and better opportunities for education and employment for those who convert to Islam. However, in many aspects Islam is poles apart from the traditional cultures of most Orang Asli and this is also reflected in the different considerations that Muslim Malays and ethnic minorities have about the rainforest and animals. For the Malays the world of the jungle is dark, wild and terrifying, and populated by malevolent spirits and ghosts, in total contrast to the ideas of progress and modernity favored by the dominating class. For the Orang Asli and the Semang-Negrito in particular, the jungle represents a comforting maternal uterus, being there to satisfy all the primary requirements of its inhabitants or of those who respectfully turn to her for help (Tuck Po 2004). Despite all the dangers that the jungle undeniably presents, the Semang-Negrito and Batek in particular with their nomadic life based on hunting and gathering have no fear of it, and most supernatural beings believed to live there are considered to be friendly towards humans. Most friendly of all are the poetic cenoi, something like our fairies, described as tiny beautiful perfect men and women who live inside flowers and offer help to humans in distress. The animal and plant worlds hold particular importance for the Semang-Negrito. One of the most powerful taboos, the breaking of

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which can bring extremely serious consequences, is to laugh at animals or subject them to ridicule. Though shamanism amongst the Semang-Negrito seems to be in decline, until not long ago the most powerful shamans were believed to be able to transform themselves into plants, animals and tigers, the biggest felines in the rainforest, in particular, and this belief may still be encountered today. Though tigers are feared, the nomadic Batek still identify with them in some way. As pointed out by Tuck Po, tigers have many characteristics in common with the Batek. As part of the animal world, tigers should belong to the category of game, instead they are predators, not hunted by humans or any other animal. Tigers inhabit the Batek’s favorite habitat: they move following courses of water, enjoy playing in the water, and belong to the foothills (Tuck Po 2000: 174). Their habits and environments are fairly similar, though it is very important that there be reciprocal respect and that a certain distance be kept between the two. The analogies appear to have remained unchanged since the primordial period when there was no differentiation between humans and animals, but following the separation of the two spheres, as there was no longer any possibility of direct communication, any close contact between the two would be dangerous. According to many Batek and Jahai sources, tigers and elephants have abilities which are superior to those of other animals. Most importantly, tigers possess the ability to see potential prey in red even at night and elephants see anything that can be consumed in green. Apart from the chromatic distinction linked to the search for food, these animals and tigers in particular are attributed with a sort of second sight. When tigers encounter humans, the feline immediately sees a form of xray image that can distinguish bones and all internal organs. This second sight is also associated with the ability of tigers to ‘instantly read’ the hearts of humans, their morality, good nature and generosity. Many Jahai and Batek believe that good humans have nothing to fear unless starvation forces animals to attack immediately. Some Jahai and Batek elders, one of whom is the old shaman Macang referred to in detail below, believe that ordinary human beings can also communicate with the big cats. When asked what course of action to take in a close encounter with a tiger or elephant, the old men explained that it was usually better to stay still. One should try not to feel fear (the smell of fear will incite the tiger or elephant to attack) and

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look the animal in the eye in a gentle and friendly fashion. An old Jahai man recounted that many years ago when he was out hunting one day he found himself a few meters away from a large female tiger and felt no fear. He crouched down and looked the tiger gently in the eyes, reassuring her that he would not disturb her and excusing himself for inadvertently entering her territory. The conversation with the animal continued for some time as the man explained he was searching for food for the many children he had left behind at the camp. He told the tiger he had three children and found out that the tiger was also hunting for food for her cubs. When asked what language was used for this communication between himself and the cat my informant was unable to explain exactly. He said he spoke Batek with the tiger and that she replied simply by looking at him and communicated her thoughts to him by what I would call telepathy. The man later added he suspected this was no ordinary tiger but a shaman in tiger form. In any case what is interesting is that there is still, albeit limited, communication between humans and animals. The strong tie between tigers and humans is also illustrated in many stories related to were-tigers. In the words of Tuck Po: A number of myths posit the problems of were-tigers: sometimes a human is revealed to be a tiger in disguise, at other times, a tiger longs for human relationships and assumes human form to achieve it. It is one thing, as with shamans, for the Bateks to appropriate the tiger’s power for benign purposes; it is quite another when the tiger turns that power against people. For then the control is coming from the tiger: the more or less equal co-existence – the partnership between people and tigers – is upset. Things become upside down. The general problem then is that the boundary between human and tiger societies is extremely thin. (Tuck Po 2000: 175)

Generally speaking, it is preferable for the worlds of felines and humans to remain separate despite and perhaps due to their similarities, though in certain cases there would still appear to be some form of communication between the two. This certainly does not apply to Batek and Jahai shamans who instead mainly transform themselves or send their shadow-souls into plants and animals in a return to the harmony of their origins. According to documentation collected by Kirk Endicott at the end of the 1970s, the Batek believe that certain especially powerful shamans have tiger bodies that they can use at night in the forest (Endicott 1979: 132-141). At night, while the shaman is sleeping, his shadow-soul abandons his body to enter the body of the tiger. At sunrise

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the shadow-soul returns to its human body, and the tiger goes off to sleep in the depths of the forest. The function of these tiger shamans would appear to be linked to positive acts and they are believed to be able to protect humans from attacks by real tigers during the night. Once the shamans take on their tiger forms they run the same risks as the real felines, the difference being that in the event of illness or non mortal injury, as their animal body was guided by the shadow-soul, the shaman may know the cure. However, if they fall into a trap their destiny will be the same as that of a real tiger. For this reason tiger shamans stay as far away as possible from groups of humans and hunters in particular. Despite the fact that the tiger shamans retain some of their human features even though this may not be very evident and consists mainly of resemblance to physical traits of the face of the shaman with the muzzle of the tiger his shadow-soul has entered, hunters might not realize this and could proceed with a kill. When a tiger shaman is killed in his animal form by mistake, the same destiny will face the sleeping shaman immediately. Similarly, when the shaman dies in his human form the same destiny applies to his tiger-body. Though I have noted a decline in many of the shamanic practices described by Endicott in the 1970s, I can however confirm, contrary to the beliefs of certain scholars, that despite the strong pressures and tensions they are continually subjected to, both Batek and Jahai forms of shamanism still survive today. As mentioned earlier, part of my research is centered round groups of Batek who are still nomadic, and another part is being conducted in a village of Jahai who have been sedenterized for around thirty years. Shamans are known by the Batek as halak and by the Jahai as jampi. In fact, it should be noted that certain Jahai use the term jampi to indicate shamans with lesser powers, similar to herbalists, and the term halak to refer to real shamans. Batek halak and Jahai jampi do not appear to experience trances with very evident external physical manifestations. All knowledge and songs, especially those of a therapeutic nature, are received in the course of dreams, which are very personal and in many cases kept secret. In fact, for these ethnic groups dreams and trances are considered to be almost the same, which probably also explains the fact that tiger shamans only abandon their human body for the body of one of the big cats which mainly move about and hunt at night when the shamans are sleeping and probably dreaming.

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To indicate the state of trance and its experience, both halak and jampi use the Malay expression ‘berjalan dalam mimpi,’ or ‘walking in your dreams’. Thanks to the clearly therapeutic songs they receive, shamans can carry out spirit journeys, which mainly take place in the realm of the earth. In the course of field research carried out in the jungle of Taman Negara in 2005, I had the opportunity of meeting and working with one of the oldest and most respected Batek halak: Macang. Macang was probably already very ill with tuberculosis and died in June 2006. His death appears in some way to have been a form of encouragement for the younger generations rather than another blow for Batek shamanism. One day, when I was walking with Macang in the thick jungle in search of medicinal plants, the old halak asked me to stop and rest a while. After we had sat down, slightly apart from each other, he began to sing quietly and move his arms about almost as if in a dance. Later on he explained that the very act of walking in the jungle corresponded to a shamanic journey; only his body was walking with me, but his soul was flying from a mountain to a river to rest on a tree or flower. When he was younger, Macang was able to transform into a tiger during these states, but given his venerable age, he no longer had the strength and preferred to transform himself into a tree or flower. In any case, whether in the form of tiger, tree or flower, the need to become part of the lush vegetation the Batek live in is evident. This is no longer, as in many other forms of shamanism, a journey to the heavens or the underworld, but a form of return to that mythical age when all beings lived in harmony and the boundaries between the worlds of humans and animals and even plants were still not clearly defined. Macang, now at the end of his life, recounted that he had found it particularly pleasant to transform himself into a flower. For Batek culture, like that of the Jahai, flowers have a strong symbolic significance and are closely linked to the world of the supernatural. As observed by Kirk and Karen Endicott: During all-night singing sessions, which might culminate in trancing and communication with the superhuman being, both men and women donned bandoliers of fragrant leaves, mainly wild gingers, and wore flowers or fragrant leaves in their waistbands and hair. People said these decorations were pleasing to the superhuman beings because they are what the superhumans themselves wear. The good smells of the flowers and leaves were also thought to attract the superhuman beings to come down and listening to the singing. (Endicott, Kirk and Karen, 2008: p.32)

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In many of the therapeutic songs received during dreams by Macang, names of plants and flowers with extraordinary powers are repeated. The halak himself told me that the very act of knowing and repeating a particular melody (kept a secret from most people) and chanting the names of two specific plants bestows the ability to fly anywhere on earth to any destination. In a way the jungle and all its creatures are considered to be closer to the sphere of the deities and are certainly in themselves divine. This concept is probably what makes the Batek pantheon appear to be so lacking in supernatural beings. As already noted, most Batek and the Jahai believe in only one god1, known as Gobar by the Batek and Karei by the Jahai. Despite the fact that neither Batek nor Jahai speak willingly of this divinity, it is still greatly feared and respected. Gobar-Karei would appear not to be particularly interested in human affairs and usually manifests himself in the role of punisher. In any case, most Batek and Jahai appear to believe that the god of thunder does not live in the heavens, as one would naturally presume, but on the earth, alongside the cenoi, the spirits which guide and help humans and shamans in particular. During one of my last periods of fieldwork in Malaysia from July to September 2006, I met more groups of Batek and Jahai and discovered that a few of them believe that Gobar-Karei probably lives in the sky. Gobar-Karei is also believed to live in the depths of the jungle, probably on a mountain, in complete isolation and solitude. The rainforest is again centre of the universe, in some way all-encompassing so that anyone becoming part of it comes closer to the world of the divinities. With this assumption it would be easy to understand how shamanic journeys correspond to journeying through the forest-universe, even better if in the form of a tree, flower or animal, and especially in the form of the tiger, the most powerful, most respected, most mysterious and feared feline of the jungle. When I learnt of Macang’s decease, believed by many to be the last of the great halak, I was afraid that a significant part of traditional Batek culture and beliefs had also been lost. Towards the end of his life, 1

During the seventies Endicott collected many testimonies about the existence of other Batek deities (Endicott 1979:161-190). The Batek and Jahai I have encountered to date only mention the god of thunder and very rarely the existence of the wife of this divinity who in any case is described as a sort of double of the latter.

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the Batek and nomadic bands of Taman Negara with whom the old halak lived appeared no longer to have complete faith in his abilities despite their respect for him. However, after his death, his knowledge and powers would appear to have been passed on to a new, very young generation of shamans. On the first day of my return to Taman Negara months later, I was immediately informed that after the funeral ceremony Macang’s shadow-soul had entered a tiger that had often visited the different Batek camps at night without ever attacking any humans. The tiger had calmly entered the camp I had visited a couple of nights earlier and everyone said they had recognized the features of Macang’s face on the tiger. In this way Macang had regained full vigor, the strength of his youth and his powers. Despite their great fear, also considering the increase in the number of attacks against humans, the Batek appeared to find the presence of the big cat near the camp reassuring. Macang in tiger form would be able to protect humans from eventual attacks by other wild animals and was somehow a living testimony to the ‘force of the jungle’ many young people had begun to lose faith in. That same evening, while discussing the event, a group of youngsters little more than adolescents enthusiastically declared that this appearance clearly demonstrated that the Batek were still able to ‘receive’ and ‘use’ the force of the jungle, which would soon once again re-invigorate their ethnic group so threatened by a multitude of external problems and in particular by the radical change of customs proposed by the official culture of the country. While continuing my research I learnt that many young people had begun to receive dreams in which Macang taught them about the shamanic profession. Thus, in the course of the last few months, completely unexpectedly, a new generation of halak appeared to be forming, though it is still too early to arrive at definitive conclusions given that the future shamans, many of whom are little more than adolescents, confess that Macang himself had explained that it would be years before their knowledge was complete and they would be able to celebrate ceremonies. Of the many young persons selected to become future halak, one of the most mature candidates, who confessed he had received the call before Macang’s decease, is a young man who for the moment prefers to remain anonymous and whom I shall refer to simply as B.

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B. believes he is a scorpion-shaman, as he feels strong ties to this animal. Almost every night he sends his shadow-soul into the body of a large scorpion and pushes his way to the river to catch crabs. For B. this transformation is an extremely satisfactory experience. As soon as he finishes his favourite food, he allows himself to be transported by the waters of the river to the bank and crawls back into the foliage of the plants and large trees. The other young persons who have received the call more recently have stated they belong to the category of halak-butterflies. They frequently enjoy flights through the jungle in the form of butterflies though their knowledge is still limited and sometimes confused. Both B. and these young people recount that when they venture out into the jungle alone, at some point, apparently without meaning to, they lose the sense of perception of their surroundings. For many hours they are not aware of what is happening to them and usually, after these states are over, awake at a location in the forest, they have no recall of having journeyed to. For the moment no-one has the ability to send their shadow-souls into tigers or elephants, and in fact, this form of transformation requires full knowledge and awareness. The increase in shamanic vocation and generally speaking the current status of Semang-Negrito shamanism could well reflect a certain more or less conscious resistance to the propagation of the dominant Islamic religion. During my fieldwork with a group of Jahai sedenterized around thirty years ago I came across several shamans, whose powers were considered to be inferior to those their colleagues had been attributed with in the past. The Jahai village is located in the north of Malaysia, close to the borders with Thailand, and is surrounded by jungle. Though the consumption of game and wild boar in particular is prohibited in Islam, the Jahai diet is still mostly based on the products of the jungle. The jungle is missed, respected and loved, and though it is feared much more by the Jahai than the Batek nomads, even in this case it continues to be the centre of the universe. Jahai jampi also ‘walk in their dreams,’ receive magic chants and fly to beautiful and mysterious places in the forest. For the moment, only one of the jampi I have had frequent conversations with has said he himself cannot transform into tiger form, but has a tiger-spirit whom he can call on at will to defend the village in the event of danger and espe-

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cially if there are real tigers roaming in the area at great peril for village inhabitants. This tiger-spirit is perfectly visible, but never attacks human beings, and at night it even engages in fierce battles with real tigers that come too close to the village. The similarities with evidence collected by Kirk Endicott are numerous, though at this actual stage in my research, this tiger-spirit would not seem to be hosted by a human shadow-soul. The same jampi said he was sure there were still many Jahai shamans who could transform themselves into animal forms such as tigers and elephants, and plant forms such as flowers and trees. Both Jahai and Batek also believe that in most cases, as noted with the decease of the old halak Macang, once the souls of deceased shamans have abandoned their human forms, they enter the body of a tiger to continue living in the jungle, a form of reversion to the primordial situation. Participation in the world of the rainforest is clearly evident in the deep respect and knowledge Jahai and Batek have of the jungle, and even in simple everyday gestures such as the adornment of hair and body with flowers and leaves which the women in particular undertake long and tiring expeditions to collect. The jungle provides food, shelter and medicinal plants for a whole multitude of illnesses. It is a perfect, autonomous universe that has no need of any help from the outside. And it is for this reason that the forest is in a way used for dressing: it may take hours to find a rare flower to wear in one’s hair, but all efforts are rewarded in the end because in some way the sublime beauty and perfection of that flower will transfer to the person wearing it. Transformation into animal and plant forms of Batek halak and Jahai jampi is experienced as a form of return to a natural state perceived as supreme and perfect, in exact contrast with the Malay perception where nature is diametrically opposed to culture. In its quality as a perfect and supreme state, nature is always perceived in a positive fashion, and metamorphoses into dangerous animals are never interpreted as expressions of black magic, in contrast with the gradual change in perception in the Chepang of southern central Nepal. The Malays and many environmentalists would prefer the nomadic Batek to abandon their way of life and would like the jungle to become a mere destination of great interest for tourism. But for the Batek and in a way also for the sedenterized Jahai, a jungle without human presence is a dead jungle, because in order for the universe to

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maintain its equilibrium all its creatures should be present and in continuous exchange. Betraying the jungle by abandoning it or repudiating it would correspond to the loss of a culture and identity, the consequences of which would be very serious. Though the Batek nomads fear the tiger, as we have seen, they do not feel particularly threatened by it. In fact, in the jungle where they live, which is part of the national park, there is still sufficient space to allow the big cats plenty of hunting grounds, and it is only on extremely rare occasions that there have been reports of tigers attacking humans. The situation is somewhat different for the sedenterized Jahai, as the tropical forest area they live in has been dramatically reduced to create space for oil palm plantations. It is no longer rare for there to be occasions when starving tigers, confused by the continuous and brusque changes in territory, enter villages and attack humans. This situation is extremely stressful for the Jahai, who interpret it as a form of vengeance wreaked on them by Mother Forest, who has been betrayed and wounded. For this reason in particular the role of the jampi is more important than ever, as he can still communicate with the jungle and can even, in the form of an animal or by calling on the assistance of the spirit-tigers, control this justified rage. BIBLIOGRAPHY Djakonova 1978

Eliade 1951 Endicott 1979

Endicott 2008

Hamayon 1990 Holmberg 1922 Ingold 2000 Lommel 1967

P. Djakonova, The Vestments and Paraphernalia of a Tuva Shamaness. Shamanism in Siberia (V. Diószegi and M. Hoppál edrs.), ed. Akademia Kiado. Budapest 1978. 68-78. M. Eliade, Le chamanisme et les techniques archaïque de l’extase, ed. Payot. Paris 1951. K. Endicott, Batek Negrito Religion: The World-View and Rituals of a Hunting and Gathering People of Peninsular Malaysia, ed. Clarendon Press. Oxford 1979. K. and K. Endicott, The Headman was a Woman. The Gender Egalitarian Batek of Malaysia, ed. Waveland Press. Long Grove 2008. R. Hamayon, La chasse à l’âme. Esquisse d’une théorie du chamanisme sibérien, ed. Société d’Ethnologie. Nanterre 1990. U. Holmberg, The Shaman Costume and its Significance. Annales Universitatis Fennicae Aboensis B, 1, no. 2. 14-18. T. Ingold, The Perception of the Environment. Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill, ed. Routledge. New York 2000. A. Lommel, Shamanism: The Beginning of Art, ed. McGraw-Hill. New York 1967.

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Raichel-Dolmatoff 1975 G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, The Shaman and the Jaguar: A Study of Narcotic Drugs among the Indians of Columbia, ed. Temple University Press. Philadelphia 1975. Rasmussen 1931 K. Rasmussen, The Netsilik Eskimos: Social Life and Spiritual Culture. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-1924, vol.8, Copenhagen 1931. Riboli 2000 D. Riboli, Tunsuriban. Shamanism among the Chepang of Central and Southern Nepal, ed. Mandala Book Point. Kathmandu 2000. Riboli 2002 D. Riboli, Trances of Initiation, Incorporation and Movement: Three Different Typologies of the Shamanic Trance. SHAMAN, Vol. 10 (2002). Molnar and Kelemen Oriental Publishers. Hungary. 143-159. Ripinsky-Naxon 1993 M. Ripinsky-Naxon, The Nature of Shamanism. Substance and Function of a Religious Metaphor, ed. State University of New York Press. New York. Stutley 2003 M. Stutley, Shamanism: An Introduction, ed. Routledge. London Tuck Po 2000 L. Tuck Po, Forest, Bateks, and Degradation: Environmental Representation in a Changing World. Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2, September 2000. 165-184. Tuck Po 2004 L. Tuck Po, Changing Pathways: Forest Degradation and the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia, ed. Lexington Books: Lexington Vitebsky 1995 P. Vitebsky, The Shaman, ed. Duncan Baird Publishers Ltd. London 1995.

DAGMAR EIGNER

Transformation of Consciousness through Suffering, Devotion, and Meditation

This paper deals with the spiritual and personal development of shamans and mediums in Central Nepal. It is based on the work I have done with traditional healers in Central Nepal. The study was carried out from 1984 to 2005 for the total duration of 36 months.1 Initially I focused on Tamang shamans living in the middle hills east of Kathmandu Valley. The Tamang constitute the largest ethnic minority in Nepal. They came from the southern part of Tibet and speak a Tibeto-Burmese language (Bista 1967:52ff). A great number of shamans can be found among the Tamang. Especially in the multi-cultural areas of Central Nepal, a large part of their clientele are members of other ethnic groups, because it is the healers’ reputation rather than their cultural background that attracts customers. During those inter-ethnic consultations Nepali, the lingua franca of Central Nepal, is spoken. Due to economic and political pressures, more and more people of all ethnic groups have moved from the middle hills to the Kathmandu Valley. This in turn has resulted in an increasingly dense population of predominantly low-status people who strive to make a living and due to bad working conditions have a lot of health problems. To visit hospitals, that may sometimes be rather poorly equipped, is a fairly expensive and alienating undertaking. Furthermore, Western-style doctors usually do not offer treatment for psychosocial problems and provide no emotional support for those who do not come to terms with their new living conditions, especially children who have been sent to town by their parents in order to make some cash for increasing the family income.

1

I would like to thank the Austrian Funds for the Advancement of Research and Science for the generous financial support of this research (1995 to 1997: Charlotte Bühler habilitation stipend, 2001 to 2003: Research project “Shamans’ Comments in their Rituals”).

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Due to the changing social situation, the study focused on intercultural therapies, with a special emphasis on the following basic issues: How much common background or assumptions about the world and the functioning and values of societies is necessary for rendering intercultural therapies effective? Which roles do the myths, that have been handed down the generations, play for successful healing of patients? What has become of shared knowledge and worldview in an interethnic setting? What are the similarities and differences in the healing methods applied by various specialists? An investigation of this kind calls for the integration of different types of traditional healers belonging to different ethnic groups. In Central Nepal healers who establish a strong connection to the spiritual domain are mainly shamans, mediums and tantrics. The tantrics were difficult to approach because their practice is based on a secret body of knowledge that is accessible only to few people, and in addition a fair number of them do not use their abilities for healing. The mediums and shamans may differ in their contact with the spiritual world. Even though Reinhard (1976:16), in his definition of a shaman, states that he or she either becomes possessed (that is the case for a medium as well) or goes on a magical flight, there are considerable cultural differences. Because of that I use the term medium for those who are not in the Himalayan tradition, and reserve the term shaman for those healers among the ethnic minorities in the middle hills of Nepal who have also migrated into the Kathmandu Valley. Most of the mediums in the Kathmandu Valley belong to the ethnic group of Newar. They are the original inhabitants of the Valley and still comprise a large percentage of the population. They have their own language, Newari, which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group (Bista 1967:16ff, Gellner 1994:30). Due to continued migration into the valley there is an ongoing shift in population and cultural dominance. Today there are also non Newar mediums and Newar healers who work more in the style of shamans and trace their shamanic power back to their forefathers. They even claim to have received some paraphernalia handed down from ancestors and to have learned ritual techniques from them. One Tamang healer I have met calls herself a tantric, but she has not undergone a formal initiation specific for tantrics, and the mantras she works with have not been given to her by a human teacher but in her dreams and visions. Some of the shamans who belong mainly to the groups of Tamang, Gurung, Magar, Sherpa, Chetri and Brahmin have changed traditional healing methods, partly because a

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lack of traditional knowledge, and partly because of the need or pressure to adjust to the multi-cultural area they live in. The question arises to what extent the concepts of illness causation and the understanding of symbolic therapeutic actions have to be shared by healers and patients. According to most traditional healers it is the connection with deities and tutelary spirits that is crucial in order to make the treatments effective. THE CALLING Shamans and mediums usually have a calling experience, which signifies that they have been chosen by a spiritual power to become a healer. Often the experience is not recognized as such right away, and the chosen person’s unusual behavior is at first interpreted as a disturbance of her or his well-being for a variety of reasons. The cause to which the disturbance is attributed depends on the chosen person’s social environment and the interests of lay people or the point of view of medical specialists who make the diagnosis. Thus, there are often contradicting assumptions regarding the cause of a person’s unusual behaviour. Pfeiffer (1994:213) has pointed out that maybe we should not speak of an initial illness but of a crisis. When an ordinary illness is cured, the person can go back to her or his life. In contrast, due to the experiences the person has undergone she or he probably has grown and can continue life on a higher level. A crisis will definitely change people’s life; if someone is able to overcome the crisis he or she will move on as a more mature person; but if a crisis is not resolved, the chances are high of gliding into pathology. A calling experience is obligatory and if it is not complied with it will lead to death or madness. In any case, a call will bring with it a lot of difficulties. Therefore most of the chosen persons beg the deities to stop the process, because they are afraid of the changes in their lives, the confrontation with the illnesscausing powers and the suffering they will have to go through. In addition, they can never be sure that they will overcome the crisis and become respected persons who are likely to be re-integrated in their communities. A shaman’s or a medium’s crisis often starts with a period of disturbing events that cause indisposition or a feeling of being ill due to unknown reasons. The hardships that persons usually have to undergo in the course of the process of becoming healers are expressed in differ-

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ent ways. The following narration of a female medium is centred round the difficulties in her life and her suffering, up to the point when she considered committing suicide: “Sixteen years after my marriage I got my first child. That time my husband started to drink a lot of alcohol and gave me more and more trouble. I was very sad and I did not want to stay with him anymore. I felt like going somewhere to kill myself. Until I did not have a child he made me feel very bad about not having a child, and now I have a child, but he does not feed it. Where could I go to have peace? I thought there was no use to live on, even though people would say bad things about me. To continue living with him would not do any good. Then I said to myself “just go to the field”. Because my financial situation was very bad, one family let me work on their field for my livelihood. As long as I was working on the field they would not take it back. One day, when I was very depressed, I went to the field to cut paddy. Suddenly something came on my leg. First it was a very small snake that felt cold on my skin. When I looked around it came to my shoulder where I felt some kind of heaviness. I did not know what had come up on my body. Later on I saw that the snake was standing right behind me. When I saw that it was standing on its tail, I thought that it must be Bhagwān. Then I took a bunch of paddy where the snake could crawl onto and put it on the ground. Right after that I felt a sensation like electric current running through my body. First I did not know what to do, but then I thought if I stay on the field, my husband would not come to see me there, nobody would come to see me there. I called the two women who were working on the field next to mine to show them the snake. I told them that it was very small before, but now it is so big. That was Bhagwān who had come to me, because there was so much hardship in my life, so much poverty, and I was not able to go anywhere. Because I wanted to die, Bhagwān came to help me and gave me the power to heal other people.” The medium told that she was nine years old when she became very sick for the first time. After that she was fine until she got married at the age of eighteen. For days she was in a strange state crying, laughing, screaming and beating her husband. She was taken to a local healer and later also to a hospital where the doctor said that nothing was wrong with her and there was no need to bring her to the hospital. In the case of this woman, the resentments of family members of the older generation who were afraid that the traditional life-style and

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social order could be endangered were an important factor for prolonging her suffering. Especially the parents-in-law refused to accept her calling, because as a healer she should not bow down to their feet, sit lower than they or touch anything polluted by them, such as food leftovers or dirty clothes. Eventually this obstacle was overcome and the medium was able to set up a regular practice. One Newar medium had problems with her family members who were not religious and did not believe that mediums could be effective healers. Her father was a politician who considered it as inappropriate that his daughter was a medium. She was expected to be a good housewife, taking care of all the practical matters in the home. Only when her mother became seriously ill and was cured by her daughter she was finally acknowledged as a healer. A male medium had extraordinary experiences from his early childhood that were due to his special connection with Hariti Mā. She is the Buddhist goddess of smallpox, who is believed to be a spirit (yakṣa) converted to Buddhism and the guardian of young children (Gellner 2001:2003). Although this medium had to suffer a lot, because it was not realized that a deity had come over him, he was also protected by the goddess so that nothing serious or life threatening would happen to him. When, finally, Hariti spoke through him, it was also his legitimisation that he would become a powerful healer. Despite the suffering he took his experiences more lightly, at least afterwards when he was already a well-established healer. The way he told his life story interspersed with funny incidents made his listeners laugh and difficult events lay in the past: “I was very sick (bimāri) for a long time. One health assistant came and gave injections, he gave injections for such a long time and nobody knew what was wrong with me. He checked my pulse and said that nothing bad would happen. He always gave medicine to me. Then one time a man from the village who traded with buffaloes came. My grandfather asked him what was happening to his grandchild. At that time nobody was able to move my head that was standing straight like a rock and I had become very thin. The man from the village said that the head should not be kept like that. Doctors had already given so much medicine to me. Then the man took some rice and checked my problem and

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said: ‘Alas! You should do pujā2 for Mā!’ Following his advice I was getting better every day.” Like in other narrations it was emphasized that Western-type medicine is of no use for problems of this kind. Sometimes it is even considered as a treatment that could make the condition of the suffering person worse. Only the man from the village realized that Hariti Mā had an influence on the young man, who should manifest devotion to the deity. Later in life his condition became again very serious: “After I had married off my daughter, I was possessed very often. At that time I was throwing things here and there and made much mess in the house. Everyone was so scared that my brother decided to bring the army doctor from nearby. They tried to calm me down and I was given an injection in my buttock. It was so painful! I asked the army doctor why he had given me an injection, because there are no cuts and no fever. Then I became unconscious. As soon as I was awake I behaved like mad again. Then they took me to the hospital. I said to someone: “you are not a doctor”, and he replied: “Prabhu3, you are in tension!” Why should I have been in tension? I did not have any problem. The doctor was so surprised and said: “It is not like this, Prabhu.” Later they also wanted to give oxygen to me, but I told them that I did not need any oxygen and pulled the tube out. Finally they sent me back to the house. … Some time later they brought a shaman. He started to do a healing ritual for me and went on for such a long time. I grabbed the little broom from him and said: “How can you heal me with this?”4 After that he left the house, the doctor and the health assistant were also gone. You could ask those people who were sitting here at that time. And then it was all over. I poured a bucket of water on myself and took a bath. Everyone realized that something had changed. It was around ten years ago. Since then I have a lot of power.” The Nepali word bimāri means sick, but its connotation is extensive, ranging from just not feeling well to being seriously ill. When he told about the incidents with the doctors, of course, he understood them from the point of view of his present life. Injections and oxygen seemed as crazy treatments that could not make his condition any better. 2 3 4

Ritual to honour the deity. Respectable way of addressing god. If a person already has a strong connection with deities, no healer or doctor can do anything.

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The medium even pointed out that the doctors regarded him as a god – but one who needed medicine to calm him down. The outrageous behavior was considered as a transient state of mind and not as an illness, so also the shaman was not able to cure him with simple methods like brushing out illness-causing agents. As soon as the strange behavior has ceased, the power of the deity invested in the shaman can be used fully. A calling experience or a deity revealing itself through a chosen person is usually followed by a long period of intense personal and spiritual development that should also lead to a life-style that is suitable for deities. Sometimes such a period also precedes the calling experience or is considered to be part of it. The traditional shamanic initiation ceremony that introduces the neophyte to the public and after which he or she is accepted as a mature shaman - if the tests are mastered - (Peters 1998:77ff) is often not carried out anymore, especially in the Katmandu Valley. Mediums traditionally just start to practice and are respected more and more if their treatments are successful. Some of them have an experienced medium that helps them establish their practice, but they do not learn anything from that person. PURITY To be pure is something essential for the work of mediums as well as for that of shamans. A kind heart, a good way of life, and helping other people are considered as most important in the career of spiritual healers. This implies also avoiding pollution in everyday life. If a person shows unusual behavior or is ill for a prolonged time, bringing him or her in contact with something polluted can be used as a provocation technique to find out the reason for the person’s strange state. A Tamang shamaness told about the time before it became clear that she was going to be a healer: “One day my husband, who was working in the army at that time, was preparing for his written test that is required to be taken by military men in their barracks. I was trembling and one of my hens was moving around. It was quite a big hen. Suddenly the hen was caught by a wild cat and carried away. … A footman on duty threw a rock at the wild cat which ran away leaving the hen at the spot. Because the hen was not dead, it came back running toward us fast. When we looked at it, we saw two small holes at its neck that were caused by the wild cat when carrying the hen away holding it with its teeth. After some medicine

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was applied on the wounds the hen suffered even greater pain. My husband proposed to cut the hen, which was quite big, and eat it rather than let it go like that. I did not agree to eat it. He persuaded me to eat the chicken trying to convince me that it was not dirtied by anybody, not tasted at all, but only injured by the wild cat. So we cooked the chicken in the evening and ate it. After dinner I went to bed while my husband was still reading. Exactly at twelve o’clock in the night deities ascended on me and I began to tremble. In that trembling state I hugged a cotton quilt firmly. When my husband looked at me, I laughed. Later on my husband told me that I laughed boisterously as he looked at me and he was very much scared at the situation. It was a hot month but even then I was hugging the quilt and laughing like mad. Then he tried to wake me up shaking me and asked me why I was laughing like that. He told me later that the more he wanted to know the reason for my laughter, the louder I went on laughing. At this he became very scared and kept the door wide open so that he could run away in case I came down upon him. Then he splashed water over my face from a brass pot with a spout. Instantly I stood up from my bed and asked him angrily why he had made me eat chicken that had already been tasted and fouled. My husband expressed his surprise at this question and said that he had not done that. Again I shouted at him that he indeed had given me the polluted chicken that had already been tasted and fouled by the wild cat. After this I trembled vehemently. I went on shivering and trembling all over. The fouled chicken was the root cause of all this.” Due to the strong connection with deities, pollution cannot be tolerated anymore. For the husband of the shamaness this also means that he too has to change his life, respecting the situation. In the narration of the shamaness the polluted hen precipitated a series of events that set an end to her suffering and eventually made her a healer accepted by the community. Stories like this are told many times in pretty much the same way. They show the paths from being a disturbed person to becoming someone who needs special treatment - because of the strong connection with spiritual beings - so that the therapeutic actions can exert positive effects on the whole community and its individual members. Such incidents also give legitimisation to the healers. Thus, shamans who do not know the “creation myths” sing their own life stories during the long rituals. They say that no specific texts have to be recited, but that

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anything that describes their position and how it came about fulfils the same function. Pilgrimages are important for gaining and renewing power, but pollution can happen easily on the road. At the pilgrimage places people are under the protection of the deities and the atmosphere is so strong that no accident happens and in a trance-like state people avoid everything that could cause pollution. The Tamang shamaness told that on the way back from a pilgrimage place she met a man who was in a very serious state. Despite the fact that shamans work as “individual” healers they undertake pilgrimages in smaller or larger groups. Undertaking pilgrimages in groups is partly due to practical reasons, in terms of expenses and entertainment, and partly for creating opportunities to share experiences and provoke each other in a sort of contests. On such a special occasion there are usually also quite a number of lay people accompanying the healers, attending them and getting blessings at a holy place. According to the shamaness, the other healers present at the place where they found the sick man, left saying that they were not able to bear the extreme chill there. But the sick man was wreathing with acute pain in his heart. When asked what had happened he answered: “Mother, I am going to die, the pain is unbearable. Please, do something!” The shamaness said that she started to examine him, wondering where she could find some ashes5 at a place like that: “I picked up some soil dust instead, and when I had just touched him, I found it was effective. I blew my breath over his body chanting mantras and gave him some empowered water to drink. After that I told him to leave the place immediately, because it was not suitable for a sick man to stay any longer at such high altitude. We asked him to go ahead of us and sat down on the hill. All the members of our group had not yet assembled together. We borrowed a plate from the sick man to eat some snack. Later it was found out that the plate had been left unclean. I felt its effect immediately. At first I had thought that it was clean and pure and so I had borrowed it. As soon as I had eaten I felt a shiver all over my body. It struck my mind that I had eaten from a defiled plate. In an instant I felt its pressure. I said that the plate was unclean and defiled. 5

Used for treatments. Purified ashes are used along with blowing mantras on a sick person, and are sometimes also ingested orally.

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The sick man, on the other hand, got better after ten minutes’ walk. Unclean and defiled food does not suit me and I have to be given only pure food. As soon as I realized that the food was impure, I threw up. Then I felt like defecating. When everything I had eaten had come out completely, I was relieved.” Also in this case the deities with whom the shamaness was connected so strongly did not tolerate any impurity. The only way to deal with such a situation is to get rid of everything polluted right on the spot. This may not be done intentionally, but it happens and it works. Eating outside one’s house always bears dangers with it and should be avoided as far as possible. A young male medium told that he always cooks his meals himself to make sure that they are not polluted by anyone and that there are no impure ingredients in the food. He does not eat chicken meat or chicken eggs and therefore he also stays away from noodles because there might be chicken products in them. Which kinds of food items are considered to be impure is said by the deities, and is culture-specific to a large extent. Those healers who follow a strict discipline stay home as much as possible, at least insofar as eating and drinking are concerned. In general, it can be said that the ethnic minorities from the hills feel more relaxed about their food. Even though the healing methods of shamans and mediums are based on specific cultural traditions, they can be applied in regard to clients from different cultures and at any place in the world. Outside Nepal the practical everyday life can be quite difficult. A shamaness told that during her visit to America she had lots of problems with her food, because she cannot eat some types of meat and several kinds of vegetables. Furthermore, if she eats something that has been touched by a person who is impure for some reasons, it will have a bad effect on her. A Newar medium, who was asked if she had practiced as a healer while living in the United States, replied that it was too difficult to avoid the food she is not supposed to eat and that she suffered a lot because she was punished by the deity. After a dispute with her only son who had lost everything in business, she wanted to earn some money to build a house. A Brahmin family, for whom she had worked before, agreed to send her to some relatives in the United States to cook for them and do other chores in the household.

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“I went alone and stayed over there only for three months. Then I could not bear to touch anything polluted, because it had a very bad effect on me making my body tremble. I was desperate and I suffered a lot. Mā [Hariti] would not allow me to touch anything impure. I cannot eat beef or pork and so I had a very hard time over there. One day I cooked pork and so I had to clean the meat. At night Mā said that I have to do a ritual for her, she was gritting her teeth and expressing her anger. When I got up the following morning one of my fingers was swollen very much and I felt a lot of pain. I told them about my finger and asked them to take me to a doctor. They scolded me and said that it is not like in Nepal, doctors are too expensive in America. What to do? Then I put some ash that I had taken with me from Nepal on my finger. I wanted to sit in meditation, but there was no place for that. The only thing I could do was to go to the bathroom, like going to the toilet, lock the door and sit in meditation. I started to see Mā and got blessings from her. I did not want to get out of the bathroom anymore. They knocked at the door and asked me what I was doing in the bathroom for such a long time. Then I told them that I wanted to go back to Nepal.” The medium found it difficult to find a suitable place for devotional rituals but she is sure that Ma is present all over the world. Due to the insensibility and ignorance of some people in America she was not able to adjust and to work as a healer. Even her host family from Nepal have become estranged from their traditional way of life and threatened the medium that she would end up in a mad house if she continued to show such strange behavior. INTERRUPTION AND CONTINUITY Even if a calling is accepted, but a person cannot continue the path that he or she has been chosen to follow, there will again be serious problems and/or illness and suffering. The growing union with spiritual powers cannot be reversed anymore. Some women may neglect their profession because they are very busy with their children and the household. Men may look for a different job to earn more money to support their families and then find it too difficult to continue the spiritual path in a secular surrounding. A shamaness told about her life: “After I got married and had come here, I did not work as a healer for six years. Then I had a very serious crisis again. For three months I was

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lying in bed sleeping. There was no pain, nothing of that sort, but I was sleepy all the time and did not know what was going on around me. When I got up I had to vomit, when I slept there was no vomiting. In this room I was lying all day and night. At the beginning of the fourth month – it was on a full moon day – I heard a voice ordering me to get the shaman’s equipment that I had used before. When I had everything with me I should do a ritual in my house. Only thereafter I would become alright. Like we are talking now this was told to me. I was not able to get up and so I asked my husband to bring the equipment. My husband replied: “Today, I am not on leave. Tomorrow I will get leave, so I could go to the village tomorrow. But I will ask my father.” Then the father said he would go to get the things. He might have reached my home – how funny – my japmālā6 arrived in my bed. How did it come? Nobody knows that. I was sleeping like this,7 it was right in my hand. Then I felt as if I awoke from a sleep and I wanted to get up. For a moment I was afraid that I would vomit again after getting up. But when I got up I found myself very light. I was told to take a bath. Since there was no tap there I asked some relative to go and fetch a pot of water and also get me some titepāti8. She wanted to know what for I needed that. I told her that I wanted to take a bath. “If you are so sick, how are you going to take a bath?” I replied that I had to take a bath that day. The water and the titepāti were brought, I took a bath, and I threw away my clothes. That morning after taking a bath I became very fresh, strong and light. Then I told my younger sister to smear the house with cowdung9, because I would do a ritual that night. Father and the others of the group who had gone to my village would arrive home bringing my stuff. At that time we had cows and my younger sister did everything needed. In the evening I did a special ritual in my house. Then suddenly the disease was gone forever. It was not there any more. Because I had quit working as a healer for some years, I had to bear all that.” When the shamaness was prepared to practice again as a healer, all her complaints suddenly disappeared. Her instant recovery from the crisis lasted until the end of her life. Being her neighbor during several 6 7 8 9

Rosary used for muttering the name of a god or a religious formula repeatedly. Shows lying back. Bitter weed (Artemisia vulgaris). To clean and purify it.

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periods of my fieldwork I had the chance to observe and take part in her healing work for some time. She never showed any signs of confusion, disorientation, depression or lack of energy again. More and more clients came to consult her, because she was considered to be a powerful healer. When she got old and felt she would die soon, she went back to her village bringing with her the ritual paraphernalia so that someone of her father’s family could use them. A calling influences a person’s whole life until the end. If the demands of deities or ancestor spirits are not obeyed, suffering, insanity or death will ensue. Even if a person becomes sloppy in regard to devotional and healing practice later in his or her career, life will definitely become very hard. One Tamang shaman, a specialist for the old traditional rituals, neglected devotion and purity for some years. During this period there were a lot of problems in his family and the shaman started to drink in the early morning so that he was hardly able to see his patients. His clientele as well as his income dwindled and this in turn made him drink even more. Eventually the shaman managed to get out of the vicious circle so that his life took a different turn again. Regardless of how many obstacles there are and how much suffering someone has to endure, the deities’ demands to improve lifestyle, to work hard on overcoming the crisis, to give in to spiritual powers and get transformed bear many consequences. For the matured healer the issue is not if life has become more or less enjoyable and comfortable, but to accept life the way it is. Family, mundane activities or even hardship are slowly fading as emotional experiences. With time conflicts dissolve and relationships are seen in a different light. A medium told about her situation right after having set up her practice as a healer: “Because of Bhagwān my life has changed a lot. I cannot eat what I want, and my husband is still young, so sometimes he gets angry with me and tells me that he wants to marry another woman, because he has a desire for things, but I do not feel any desire. I just want to stay clean, quiet, and calm…. If I did not have my daily responsibilities it would be good. I just want to show devotion to the deities.” GAINING POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND CLIENTS In order to strengthen the connection with the spiritual world after a calling, deities and ancestor spirits must be worshipped regularly. One

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common technique is reciting the names of deities and concentrating on them. During this process there is a loosening of ego boundaries and a change in the sense of being oneself. A growing submission of the own person to spiritual powers takes place. Repetition of these words mero bhakti guruko śakti “my devotion, the guru’s power” is also used for devotional practice. It does not make any difference if the words are pronounced aloud or silently. According to many shamans, continued remembrance of gurus is essential for successful healing: “Without guru nothing can be done.” Notably, the devotional exercises do not have to follow a certain pattern, so that each healer develops his or her own individual style. One shamaness, for example, takes a bath and performs a pujā with pure water from a well nearby every day in the early morning. Patients may arrive before she has finished her pujā in her house. When she is still doing her devotional exercises they have to stay outside whereas later they wait for their turn inside the healer’s room. Specific practices might change over the years. Once she told me that she gets up at three o’clock in the morning to visit some holy places in addition to her usual daily routine. A shaman living in the Katmandu Valley has integrated hand reading (which has happened to learn in the public parks of Katmandu as a child) into his healing practice. Although hand reading and shamanic techniques come from quite different cultural traditions, their combination is not considered as inappropriate. In the course of the years he has become quite popular and sees sixty to hundred clients per day. When asked if he also performs the traditional night rituals he replied: “I work from six o’clock in the morning until six, seven or eight o’clock in the evening. How can I work during the night, too? If some people want a traditional Tamang ritual I refer them to someone else.” It appears that the demand for the elaborate night rituals is decreasing. Performance of only short therapies also means that there is no more reciting on a regular basis of the “creation myths”, telling about the beginning of shamanic practice and the paraphernalia that have been used since primordial time. Those myths used to be an essential part of a traditional healing ritual. Because this shaman (who also practices hand reading) did not want to break with the tradition, he started singing the myths every Saturday morning before seeing the clients. In this way he remembers his gurus and practices devotional meditation. In his

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opinion it is one important factor that has made him such a popular healer. Many Newar mediums follow a very strict daily discipline. They get up very early to take water from a tap or well, that should not be touched by anyone, and clean all the plates and cups used for rituals. Afterwards they take a bath with however much water there is and wash face, hands and feet or the whole body. They do some kind of meditation, remember the deities by saying their names, and give offerings. Before the healing sessions they should not eat anything and not even drink tea in order to be pure and clean. Meditation practices and presentation of devotional offerings have aesthetic qualities. Special words are spoken in rhythmical ways or sung in melodies created by the individual healers in connection with their tutelary deities. The various kinds of materials used as offerings are arranged according to the wishes of the deities. There are no specific demands and no rules to be followed by the healers. It is a creative process that is being shaped instantaneously in the given situation. It may happen that during devotional exercises a person’s body starts trembling. This too is interpreted as a sign that someone is connected with a spiritual power. Rhythmical drumming, singing, and trembling are also used to mark the beginning of the ritual time10, in which different processes are made possible and the laws of everyday life are somewhat relaxed and alleviated. Drumming and dancing are traditional techniques of the shamans; trembling is a technique for shamans as well as for mediums. Furthermore, drumming, dancing and trembling are highly efficient techniques for inducing altered states of consciousness.11 The term technique implies intentionality, but the shamans and mediums say that the trembling just happens. Certain behaviors influenced by deities can even show up suddenly, for example, in the streets. In such cases the healers go in front and the people behind them will be protected. Reinhard’s definition (1976:16) states that “a shaman is a person who at his will can enter into a non-ordinary psychic state”. Crapanzano (1977:9f) argues that the emphasis on control may be of more impor10 11

Compare Turner (1989) and van Gennep (1909). The effect of rhythmic movements of the body can be used in any culture. Contemporary music therapy in the West emphasizes the therapeutic value of rhythm and its importance in the development to a healthy person.

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tance for the Western observer than to the healers and their communities. Deities can act through shamans and mediums at any time, but it never happens at an inappropriate moment. Uniting with deities leads to non-dual action that is “spontaneous (because it is free of objectified intention), effortless (because it is free from a reified “I” that must exert itself), and “empty” (because one is wholly the action, so that there is no dualistic awareness of an action)” (Loy 1988:10). In order to be able to work as a shaman or a medium, one has to explore the spiritual world, overcome fears and gain the ability to control demons and other illness-causing spirits. Whatever ability or knowledge is needed for working as a healer is learned through connection with spiritual powers. A shamaness told that she has learned everything from the spirit of her deceased father and the deities with whom he has been connected. During her dreams spiritual teachers lead her to some places, and give her mantras and everything else she needs for her work. The teaching might also take place while she is awake and engaged in some daily routine. “My imagination (kalpanā) reaches at other places. The body remains here, but I reach to places far away. At that time I am fully absorbed in my plays and conversations with the spirits.” When she was asked if she also visits other places in her imagination while performing healing rituals, she answered: “No, I don’t. Now I am fully mature. I have completed my staying in the cave.12 I have already eaten the incense and the lamp and completed playing with the spirits. Thus, I am now a fully trained shaman, the knowledge has penetrated me completely. That is the reason why I can do everything that a shaman has to do. If it were not like that, spiritual powers13 would come over me only at moments, and at other times they would leave me alone. Deities have made me experienced by asking me to do a thing like this and another thing like that. I learned from them day by day slowly and gradually. Now I have achieved all the required

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guphā – traditionally structure for storage (Peters 1998:94); in this shamaness’ case a military tent was put up on a cremation ground. The tent was provided by her husband’s colleagues. Usually a shaman has to stay there for three days and three nights continuously, deal with illness-causing spirits or demons to show that he/she has overcome fears and is a mature healer. Helping spirits who are invoked at the beginning of healing rituals.

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skills. It was only when I was a beginner that I went outside in the flights of imagination. Now everything comes rushing towards me.” Under the influence of deities, healers exhibit extraordinary powers. One medium told that just by blowing a mantra on a rope that was tied around him, the rope would open. He also emphasizes that some people in his community changed their minds perceiving his special abilities: “When I just moved my hand a coconut came out of it. Then people slowly started to believe in the power that was in me and started to respect me.” Deities come over the healers and show themselves in different appearances, speak and act in unusual ways. One medium has a postcard that shows “herself” with the faces and attributes of several deities. During her healing sessions she sits behind a thick cloth so that people might not become frightened by the appearances. For the advanced healers corporeal form and mind are non-dual. “… it is a radically transformed world. The familiar, everyday world of material objects was formerly balanced by an ego-consciousness that was supposed to be observing it. The disappearance of that discrete consciousness requires a new explanation of what awareness is. The awareness that was previously understood to be observing the world is now realized to be one with it. No longer do “I”, as the locus of consciousness, see something external. Rather, the non-dual, self-luminous nature of the world stands revealed. When we want to describe this experience, what shall we say?” (Loy 1988:210). Bāgh Bhairab, a fierce powerful deity in the shape of a tiger, comes in critical stages of healing sessions and brings a special atmosphere into the room.14 When I asked a shamaness how she feels when Bāgh Bhairab comes over her she answered: “At that time my awareness changes, and even my body becomes more or less like a tiger. I can feel the shape of a tiger from the inside.” According to her, in the Golden Age it was possible to transform into a tiger completely. Another shaman told that he could become a tiger if he knew the right mantra.

14

The ability of shamans who transform themselves into tigers or other animals is a widespread belief (see also Riboli in this volume).

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CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE I Scharfetter (1996:72ff) points out that in Western societies for person who is awake and conscious the ego (I, me) stays the same continuously in the course of one’s life and personal history. The consciousness of the I is the certainty that “I am myself” all the time. Furthermore, Scharfetter notes that we do not have consciousness, but we are consciousness. In his opinion the I is something abstract that stands for the human person being oneself. Being one with the cosmic consciousness is what he calls transpersonal, a trans-ego-experience. Even though Scharfetter (2004) takes into account cultural differences, he emphasizes the dangers of the spiritual path. If the demarcation of the I (i.e., the border of one’s own person), the consistency of the I (i.e., the certainty that one has a coherent life, being the same all the time) or the activity of the I (i.e., the certainty that one’s own experiences, thinking, and acting are determined by oneself) decrease appreciably, one glides into a pathological state. Ego-boundaries can be loosened at times to experience an oceanic feeling, but in everyday life there is no room for that. Spiritual healers in Nepal have given up their sense of being oneself to a large extent; their actions are not done with their own intention, and the calling constitutes a break in the coherence of their lives. Yet, they are perfectly fine and able to help the people around them. During the healing sessions shamans and mediums are treated like deities. Clients bow down to them, offer incense and give those deities, who like to have light, burning wicks to eat. Sometimes they also ask for a special kind of incense or even burning coal. An atmosphere of awe is created that opens up the patients so that even very short treatments exert a big effect. Some deities like to eat burning wicks that are offered by the people in the audience. The healers swallow the burning wicks that are given to them, but the light is an offering for the deities with whom they are united. While watching a video recording that showed deities coming over her during a healing session together with a medium, the shamaness was very surprised. Sounds, gestures, and movements were determined by the deities. She had never seen herself like this and said: “This is not me. My appearance is the same as Kāli’s. Nobody will say this is me. My voice is different. Look at my eyes! Some said that they had seen different faces but I never believed them. Now it is becoming clearer to me.”

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One medium through whom several deities speak during the healing rituals sings a devotional song addressing Mother Earth. In the course of the song she herself becomes Mother Earth. Mātā you are Mother Earth It is only your support With which we have been living Mother Earth Mātā Be kind Who else is there for us Carrying the load of the earth Has been difficult, Mātā This is Kāliyug15 When it is difficult to keep up the earth Liberate the people of the world Be kind I cannot bear it all I cannot carry the earth anymore If I leave Then the world will be finished Be kind Oh Buddha Bhagwān The medium’s identity has changed: she is herself and not herself, she is not a perceiver who perceives something that is separate from herself; the consciousness of the I is not set against the world that she could be conscious of. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bista 1967 Crapanzano 1977

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Jor Bahadur Bista, People of Nepal, Ratna Pustak Bhandar 1967. Vincent Crapanzano, “Introduction”, in V. Crapanzano and V. Garrison (eds.), Case Studies in Spirit Possession, Wiley & Sons, New York 1977, 1-39. Dagmar Eigner, Ritual, Drama, Imagination. Schamanische Therapie in Zentralnepal, Wiener Universitätsverlag, Wien 2001.

The present age that has been preceded by three others. It is the Black Age in which bad qualities of people are prominent, prosperity declines, and everything will come to an end.

388 Gellner 2001 Loy 1988 Peters 1998

Pfeiffer 1994 Reinhard 1976

Scharfetter 1996 Scharfetter 2004 Turner 1989 Van Gennep 1909/1986

DAGMAR EIGNER David Gellner, The Anthropology Buddhism and Hinduism: Weberian Themes, Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2001. David Loy, Nonduality. A Study in Comparative Philosophy, Humanity Press, New Jersey 1988. Larry Peters, Tamang Shamans. An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal, Nirala Publications, New Delhi 1998. Wolfgang Pfeiffer, Transkulturelle Psychiatrie, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 1994. Johan Reinhard, “Shamanism and Spirit Possession: The Definition Problem”, in J. Hitchcock and R. Jones (eds.): Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi 1976, 12-20. Christian Scharfetter, Allgemeine Psychopathologie, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttart 1996. Christian Scharfetter, Das Ich auf dem spirituellen Weg, Verlag Wissenschaft & Praxis, Sternenfeld 2004. Victor Turner, Vom Ritual zum Theater. Der Ernst des menschlichen Spiels, Qumran, Frankfurt 1989. Arnold van Gennep, Übergangsriten, Campus, Frankfurt 1986.

JOHN R. BAKER

Psychedelics, Culture, and Consciousness: Insights from the Biocultural Perspective

INTRODUCTION The contributions in this volume attest to both our extraordinary human abilities to voluntarily enter into altered states of consciousness and to the sophisticated conceptual frameworks that people draw upon to comprehend these states. Although certainly not exhaustive, these papers demonstrate that a wide variety of techniques for inducing altered states of consciousness have been developed in both traditional and modern contexts. They also make it clear that these states can vary both in terms of the experiences they are associated with and the ways that these experiences are interpreted and understood. In this paper, I will employ a biocultural perspective as I discuss a methodology for altering consciousness that is different from all of the others presented at this symposium: the ingestion of psychedelic substances. The use of psychedelics may be more ancient than all of the other techniques for altering consciousness discussed in this volume. Yet in spite of the widespread use of these substances across cultures and throughout time, cultural training and individual variation continue to play as great a role in shaping their effects and outcomes as they do in the meditative and contemplative traditions. What is more, the fact that profound altered states of consciousness can be spontaneously induced through exogenous agents as well as through long periods of training makes the study of psychedelics very useful for discerning the roles that cultural expectations and individual characteristics play in shaping the experiences of an altered state and the ways in which these experiences will be understood. Moreover, since psychedelic substances are almost “guaranteed” to produce effects in even naïve individuals, they can help us to understand the constructive potential that altered states of consciousness may have for a much wider population than just

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those persons who are both motivated and privileged enough to study and practice meditation and other similar techniques. THE BIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE The biocultural perspective is an emerging anthropological paradigm that aims at developing a more comprehensive framework for understanding human life by incorporating biological insights into explanations of sociocultural phenomena. While biological scientists are able to draw upon the robust explanatory framework provided by neoDarwinian evolutionary theory when investigating such topics as intraspecies cooperation and interspecies competition, researchers who investigate such cultural phenomena as politics or warfare do not yet have an equally well-articulated and integrated view of their phenomena at their disposal. Biological insights offer a way out of this theoretical impasse. As in the other social and behavioral sciences, many of the theories developed within anthropology have downplayed or even denied the role that biological factors play in human social life. This tendency has its roots in the Enlightenment, when such thinkers as John Locke argued that the mind of a newborn infant was like an “empty cabinet” which his or her culture then filled with knowledge (Harris 1968:1016). To be sure, there were great differences in opinions as to what kind of “wood” this empty cabinet may have been made off (contrast the rather pessimistic perspective that Thomas Hobbes offered on human nature with the more romanticized view of Jean Jacques Rousseau). This “enlightened” thinking led to numerous nineteenth century ideas based upon the general notion of social “progress,” which were framed (whether implicitly or explicitly) in ways that provided justification for the imperial, colonial, and missionary activities of the European powers. The focus on the influences that social and technological complexity, religious beliefs, and even geographical latitude and climate could have on human life represent an early emphasis on “nurture” (as opposed to “nature”) that overlooked the very real biological differences between individuals. This trend found perhaps its most extreme example in the recent postmodern movement, whose proponents frequently complain that efforts to identify the biological bases of human life represent an

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attempt to assert the “hegemony” of science over other, equally legitimate “narratives” about the human condition (cf. McKinley 2000).1 However, ignoring our biology can make it well nigh impossible to comprehend even quite simple aspects of human life, such as why different people have different dietary requirements, or why some people are more sensitive to sunlight than others. When looking at consciousness, leaving biology out of the picture can make it difficult to understand why one person can more readily attain a particular state of consciousness than another, or why changing our mental state may affect our breathing, digestion, and body temperature. Because the biocultural perspective considers both the biological mechanisms and processes that make human consciousness possible and the cultural techniques and explanatory frameworks that are used to produce and understand any particular consciousness state, it offers a comprehensive and powerful paradigm for understanding the effects of different techniques for altering consciousness. Two biological facts about humans are especially pertinent to the present discussion: 1) modern humans are descended from animals that possessed smaller and simpler brains; and 2) humans differ from one another with respect to numerous micro-features of our brains and nervous systems. Although these facts may appear to be so basic as to be trite, they have important implications for the present discussion. In vertebrates, the brain is the integrative center for almost all nervous system functions. As vertebrates evolved, their brains acquired increasingly powerful abilities to not only control their bodies, but also to retain memories of past events, learn from present experiences, and contemplate ever more complex scenarios about the future. The diversity found in the vertebrate subphylum today bears witness to the stages in which vertebrate brains—and their associated abilities—evolved. Simple vertebrates, such as the fish and amphibians, possess quite limited mental abilities, and consequently exhibit a rather narrow spectrum of behaviors, social groupings, and experiential states. Others, especially the birds and mammals, are capable of a much wider range of behav1

One colleague of mine told me of a conference she had attended in which a shouting match had erupted between supporters of postmodernist thinking and proponents of a more empirical view. When one empiricist attempted to introduce genetic evidence in support of his argument, his appalled opponent shouted out “You don’t really believe in genes, do you?”

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iors, social groups, and experiential states (see Griffin 2001 for a more detailed discussion). The ultimate expression of this trend, of course, is the human brain, which has also acquired the ability to communicate what it has learned to others. In addition to the macroevolutionary processes that have made humans distinct from all other animals, the microevolutionary processes of random mutation and selection, and the process of individual development, make each of us distinct from one another. As a result, every human possesses a somewhat different constellation of mental qualities, resulting in disparate degrees and types of intelligences. Because states of consciousness are directly linked to brain functioning, this implies that each of us varies in terms of our abilities to learn about and enter into altered states of consciousness. THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Although we commonly speak of “states” of consciousness, this choice of terms glosses over the ever-changing nature of conscious experience (cf. Zinberg 1977). Mammalian consciousness shifts between three primary modalities, each of which in turn consists of a wide range of experiential states: the waking state, REM sleep, and deep sleep. Put simply, the mammalian waking state is the modality in which animals are able to actively engage their external world, while REM sleep and deep sleep allow animals to recover from their exertions and process their waking experiences. Within these three primary modalities of consciousness exist countless subtle variations. In the waking state, we may at one moment be alert and focused on the task at hand, while the next moment may find us drowsy and unable to concentrate at all. Even when we are completely awake, our ability to focus our attention varies, as do the objects that engage our awareness. These fluctuations in our mental activity have long been recognized, and some meditative traditions explicitly aim at taming our “monkey mind,” the tendency of our attention and awareness to wander (cf. Chodron 1999). The monkey metaphor raises interesting questions as to how and when our ancestors first became able to voluntarily induce altered states of consciousness and to utilize these for constructive purposes. Even casually observing another animal is sufficient to see that like humans, it too has periods of activity and quiet, and that the objects that may

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interest it at one moment will be ignored at another. We can assume that the consciousness of our ancestors, like that of humans and other animals today, was characterized by similarly alternating periods of alertness and drowsiness, focus and lack of focus. As their intelligence and self-awareness increased, our ancestors would have needed to be able to exert some degree of control over these shifts in conscious awareness, for there would have always been those basic “reality checks” that came from the external world, whether in the form of predators that they needed to evade or potential mates that they would have wanted to recognize. The selective pressures coming from the world outside of their bodies would have been unforgiving, and those individuals who could not quickly respond to important events in their external world would have paid with their lives. Evolutionary fitness is measured by the number of offspring an individual produces, and therewith the number of genes that the individual is able to contribute to the next generation. Clearly, those individuals that were better able to rapidly disengage from the internal worlds of deep and REM sleep and face their external worlds in a reality-based manner (that is, one that would benefit their survival and reproduction) would possess advantages over those that were less capable of doing so. Moreover, as brains increased in size (especially relative to an animal’s body size), animals became more capable of both processing the information being provided by their senses and to remember their previous experiences. This led to increases in their abilities to discern the differences between specific events and to envision alternative scenarios about both the causes and the implications of these events. These increases in intelligence, coupled with the development of more complex social groups in which individuals could observe, interact, and learn from one another, eventually led to the emergence of culture (Bonner 1980). The broad strokes of these evolutionary events are documented in the fossil record, and we know much about the general sequence in which they occurred in our own hominid lineage (see, e.g. Johanson 1996). But are these increases in intelligence and social complexity enough to explain the emergence of the types of consciousness traditions discussed in this volume? This is not likely. For one thing, all known contemporary traditions of consciousness alteration rely upon detailed and nuanced models for describing the effects of the experiences they aim at evoking, and these models are communicated through

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language (examples may be found in the other papers in this volume). While we will never be able to fully reconstruct the sequence of evolutionary events that led to the appearance of Homo sapiens, the fossil record clearly indicates that modern humans are descended from smaller brained animals that lived in social groups of about 100 individuals or less. With brains no larger than those of a modern chimpanzee, and lacking a system of language like that used by all human groups today, it is safe to assume that the traditions of consciousness alteration described elsewhere in this volume did not—indeed could not—exist until our ancestors had acquired not only the anatomical features that make these experiences possible, but had also developed the linguistic abilities that enabled them to describe their experiences to their fellows and to discuss with one another what these experiences meant. We do not know when our ancestors first acquired the capacity for language as we now know it. In all likelihood, a number of steps were necessary before human language could emerge (see Mithen 1996 for one possible scenario). Lacking language, it would have been impossible to develop the explanatory models found in the meditative traditions discussed in this volume. Without language to teach a person how to achieve a meditative state, it is likely that the first mystical states of consciousness that our ancestors experienced were spontaneous events. While extreme activity—including excessive physical exertion, hunger and thirst, and sleeplessness—may have elicited these events, there are other possibilities, and these are present in many environments around the world. The number of plants, fungi, minerals, and even animals capable of rapidly inducing profoundly altered states of consciousness is unknown, but it is large (see Rätsch 2005). As our foraging ancestors browsed through their environments in search of food and other resources, they would have occasionally and unavoidably encountered psychoactive agents. As they gained familiarity with their effects, they would have learned that some of these agents could help them to stay awake, others would cause them to fall asleep, and still others were able to induce experiences unlike any they had ever known. It is this latter group of agents that may have served as the catalysts that would eventually lead to the emergence of other techniques for voluntarily altering consciousness.

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PSYCHEDELICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS Of all the naturally occurring psychoactive substances, those with the most profound effects upon consciousness have become known by many names. Lewis Lewin, the German physician regarded as the father of modern toxicology, called them “phantastica” (Lewin 1980[1927]). Some of the other terms that have been put forth include “hallucinogens” (Hoffer et a. 1954), “entheogens” (Ruck 1979), and “psychointegrators” (Winkelman 1995). In the present context, perhaps the most appropriate term is “psychedelic”, a term coined in 1956 (Osmund 1957). The word literally means “mind manifesting”, and refers to the abilities of such substances as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin to temporarily suspend our normal perceptual and mental functioning while having little effect upon memory. Visual and other sensory effects are common, and higher dosages can lead to a complete dissolution of an individual’s awareness of himself as an individual (producing a sense of “merging”), an inability to distinguish between perceptions arising from inside and outside of the body, and the temporary suspension of normal cognitive and affective interpretations of perceptions. A wide variety of substances can produce these effects, and the use of these substances has been documented throughout the world (Dobkin de Rios 1984, Furst 1990, Schultes 2001). Depending upon their chemical structure, their mechanisms of action vary considerably. Some naturally occurring psychedelic substances (such as the tropane alkaloids) can produce lethal as well as visionary effects. In spite of such dangers, Datura, Mandragora, Atropa, Nicotiana, and other members of the Solanaceae family have been used for shamanic, initiatory, and other ritual purposes since prehistoric times (cf. Baker 1994, Wilbert 1987). The use of such plants reflects both our basic human predilection to enter into altered states and the fact that almost any psychoactive substance can be utilized for personally integrative and culturally constructive purposes when used appropriately. The use of the more powerful hallucinogens, such as mescaline and psilocybin, is also ancient. Ayahuasca, a preparation made by boiling the stems of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine together with the leaves of the Psychotria viridis bush, has been used by Amazonian tribes for centuries. The pharmacology of ayahuasca is extraordinary, for substances present in the caapi vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) inhibit the release of an enzyme—monoamine oxidase—that normally breaks down the substances present in the chacruna leaves (Psychotria viridis). The

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potent visionary effects characteristic of ayahuasca can only be achieved when these two plants are used in combination. When and how the indigenous peoples of South America first learned to combine these two plants is unknown, but its use is now so pervasive in the Amazon basin—and increasingly elsewhere—that ayahuasca may be the most commonly used psychedelic preparation in the world today (for more on the history, pharmacology, and psychology of ayahuasca as well as numerous personal reports, see Metzner 1999). In contrast to the traditional use of psychedelic substances in non-western cultures, the modern use of psychedelics in the West has often been associated with the idea of “bad trips.” One reason is our long-standing cultural attitudes towards altered states of consciousness in general, for of all the world’s cultures, those whose roots lie in the eastern Mediterranean basin are the least likely to have institutionalized religious traditions of altering consciousness (Bourguignon 1973). Today’s western “hallucinophobic” attitude has a long tradition. The proscriptions against “pagan” religions issued by the Emperor Theodosius in 380 C.E. when he adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire suppressed such previously accepted practices as the Eleusinian and Dionysian Mysteries (or forced them far underground), and resulted in a loss of knowledge concerning the proper ways to use psychedelic substances. During the next sixteen hundred years or so, most European knowledge about the proper ways to use these substances and exploit their effects for constructive purposes was lost. Consequently, few were prepared for the rediscovery of the psychedelic substances that began in the nineteenth century and accelerated in the twentieth, especially after the discovery of LSD in the 1940s. Many of the first experiments in which chemists and other researchers ingested LSD and psilocybin produced such unanticipated effects that it was thought that these substances produced a kind of transitory psychotic state (Stoll 1947). The “psychotomimetic” and “toxic psychosis” models that were developed to explain these effects led some clinic and hospital administrators to urge their physicians, nurses, and other attending staff to have experiences with these compounds so that they could gain temporary access into the worlds that their patients were thought to inhabit on a more or less permanent basis. It was thought that this would enable these health care workers to better understand their patients and to develop more effective methods for treating them. But many of these “normal” people

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noticed that their experiences were completely different from those of their patients, and it quickly became clear that new models were needed (see Grob 1994 for a more detailed discussion). Humphry Osmond, the British psychiatrist who coined the term “psychedelic”, used LSD to treat psychiatric patients who did not respond to more conventional treatment methods. He and his colleagues administered extremely high doses (usually once) in order to evoke experiences that would literally overwhelm their patients and lead them to reassess their lives (Osmond 1957). This treatment method, which aimed at essentially bypassing repressed traumatic events and eliciting a religious “conversion” experience, worked especially well with alcoholics and other patients with rigid personality structures (see also Sherwood 1967-68). In contrast to this largely North American methodology, much of the clinical work performed in Europe followed a protocol in which a series of low to medium dosages of a psychedelic agent were administered in conjunction with psychoanalysis and group work. This “psycholytic” (literally: “mind dissolving”) approach aimed at peeling back the layers of personality and memory as if they were an onion, allowing repressed material to emerge into conscious awareness at a pace and tempo that could be tolerated by patients. This treatment strategy allowed patients to uncover, understand, and accept the traumatic events of their past, and gave researchers unanticipated insights into the dynamics of the mind (Sandison 1954a; Sandison 1954b; Grof 1976). In addition to these clinical studies, psychedelic substances were also given to artists and other persons to assess the impact they might have on creativity (Dobkin de Rios 2003). As increasing numbers of people were being exposed to psychedelics, it was only a matter of time before they would “escape” from the laboratory and make their way to the streets, where millions of individuals were ultimately able to take their own psychedelic “trips”. By the early 1960s, the settings in which psychedelics were used varied enormously, ranging from individual and small group sessions in natural settings or at home to large scale gatherings at parties and concerts. Lacking any traditional contexts for using these substances, some people were unprepared for the personal and transpersonal insights that accompanied the spectacular visual and other sensory effects, and they experienced “bad trips”. Others suffered physical injury because they were temporarily unable to react appropriately to external events. Yet for many people, the inner worlds revealed by

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these substances were mysterious and beautiful, and they offered a stark contrast to the images of violence and destruction that were coming back from Vietnam and to the crass consumerism and the push for conformity that were the legacies of the return to normalcy after World War II. For many in this group, the vistas revealed by psychedelics suggested alternative ways of living that were quickly perceived as threats to the existing social order. The psychedelic insights expressed in the lyrics to the Beatles’ song “All You Need is Love” were matched by hyperbole from more conservative quarters. For example, C.W. Sandiman, who was then serving as the chairman of the New Jersey Narcotic Drug Study Commission, described LSD as “the greatest threat facing the [United States] today, … more dangerous than the Vietnam War” (cited in McGlothlin 1967:42). Laws were quickly passed that prohibited the manufacturing, distribution, use, or possession of psychedelic substances. By the mid1960s, all legitimate scientific research using psychedelics on human patients had been curtailed. In spite of a large body of research suggesting that psychedelic experiences can be beneficial for personal and spiritual growth (e.g., Pahnke 1972, Smith 2000, Winkelman 2007), most people in the West continue to view psychedelics in a highly negative light. Clearly, the influence of cultural attitudes about altered states remains powerful. CULTURAL CONTEXTS: SACRAMENTS VS. SACRAMENTALS If we recall the role that culture plays in such mundane aspects of human life as what types of things can be eaten or when a person may engage in sexual activities, it should not be surprising that cultures also have something to say about what states of consciousness are allowed and what these states mean. The cultural context in which psychedelics are used is one of the most important variables for understanding their effects. To distinguish between the use of psychedelics in societies that permit and even encourage their use from the use that occurs in societies in which such use is proscribed, it is useful to differentiate psychedelic “sacraments” from psychedelic “sacramentals” (Baker 2005). In spite of their profound effects upon consciousness, the “major” psychedelic agents (psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, ayahuasca) have few adverse effects upon a person’s physical health. Indeed, unless a person has serious psychological issues, the most dangerous aspect of

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psychedelic use has to do with the possibility of a person harming themselves while he or she is unable to perceive or understand the outside world, and with the potential legal consequences that can result from the possession and use of these substances. In contrast, traditional societies both respect these substances and provide supervision for novices, both to prevent harm and to help them deal with any issues that may arise while they are in an altered state. In such societies, the first use of a psychedelic substance often has an initiatory quality, and experienced users coach novices about the types of experiences they should expect. Armed with a detailed “map” of the worlds they will be entering, convinced of the significance of their experiences, and supervised while they are in the altered state, a novice’s fears can be allayed and positive outcomes become more likely. In societies which have little or no understanding of psychedelic substances, or which view them with fear and suspicion, psychedelic use tends to occur clandestinely, and users typically have no guides. As they explore their new worlds, they must find their own way through the tangle of their visions, thoughts, and emotions. The emergence of repressed memories or a vision of an unexpected nature may evoke terror in a user, and any issues that are not resolved during the acute phases of the psychedelic experience may emerge later as a “flash back.” In spite of these possibilities, many people in such societies have experiences that provide personal insights that they interpret as beneficial (cf. Stolaroff 1999). When the use of a psychedelic substance occurs in an accepting and supportive context that promotes the importance of the experiences for both the individual and society, we may refer to such use as a “sacrament.” Thus, both the ancient mysteries of Demeter that were carried out for centuries at Eleusis (Wasson 1998) and the contemporary use of peyote among both the Huichol Indians of Mexico (Myerhoff 1974) and the members of the Native American Church (Stewart 1987) may be considered to be psychedelic sacraments. They are sacraments because they occur in culturally sanctioned ritual settings, and novice users are provided with a shared cultural framework that enables them to anticipate what they will experience and to understand their experiences once they have passed. Under such conditions, the use of psychedelic substances is considered beneficial and aids in integrating the individual into their society.

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In contrast, the use of psychedelic substances in societies which prohibit their use can lead a person to question that society’s value system if he or she has an experience different from that which they have been taught to expect. Any rituals or interpretational models that may surround such use will tend to be either personal in nature or be shared by only a small group of individuals. Although the individual may find their experiences beneficial, the larger cultural context will not agree. Under such conditions, idiosyncratic interpretations of psychedelic experiences are common, and these interpretations may not lead to greater social cohesion. It is for these reasons that I have used the term “sacramental” to distinguish these contexts of use from their more traditional and accepting counterparts (Baker 2005). The western emphasis upon individual development—often at the expense of other members of the group—stands in stark contrast to the emphasis traditional societies place upon integrating the individual within the group. In and of themselves, psychedelic agents do not promote anti-social attitudes. It is the context in which they are used that determines whether the experiences may lead to social cohesion or fragmentation. A society that can accurately describe and teach its members to safely navigate through the visionary worlds revealed by psychedelics will minimize the possibility that these members will resort to “counter”- (or even “anti”-) social interpretations for these experiences. A society that tells its members that these experiences are illusory or have no meaning risks having its members question its other values as well. THE UNIQUE NATURE OF ALL ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS The “sacrament”/”sacramental” distinction underscores the role that cultural expectations play in shaping the experiences and interpretation of an altered state. The idea that some people are more susceptible to “bad trips” because of repressed traumas or other personal, biographical factors points to the role that may be played by individual psychological differences. Moreover, it is likely that basic genetic (and thus molecular) differences between individuals also play a role in determining sensitivity to psychedelic substances. For example, the effects of LSD are known to be at least partially related to a specific type of serotonin receptor site known as 5-HT5a (Grailhe 1999), and the gene which codes for this protein is polymorphic in humans (i.e., it has more than one

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expression). Studies have been conducted into the role that this genetic variation may play in schizophrenia (Iwata 2001) and in major depression and bipolar disorders (Arias 2001), but the results have been equivocal. Yet just as psychedelic substances exhibit affinities to specific receptor sites, it is likely that structural differences in those receptors may affect the uptake of these substances and therewith the extent to which their effects will be elicited. My aim here is not to provide an overview of the physiological mechanisms involved in psychedelic activity, but to point out that the variation which humans exhibit at the molecular level is also likely to shape the experiences elicited by psychedelic agents. Thus, the unavoidable genetic and psychological uniqueness of each individual suggests that the experiences a person has while in a psychedelic state will always be somewhat different than those of another individual, even when the same psychedelic substance is being used at the same time in the same cultural context. The American anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace has described culture as a system that organizes the diversity of human views of reality (Wallace 2003). Thus, in traditional societies, the preparatory phase in which novices learn to interpret and anticipate their experiences will help to channel their experiences into similar courses, yet there will always be some individual idiosyncrasies in these experiences. But in societies that do not provide such preparation, an individual’s experiences while in a psychedelic state are much more likely to diverge from those of her fellows, and idiosyncratic interpretations are far more likely as well. Moreover, since each psychedelic substance has its own unique chemical structure, each of these substances will affect the nervous system in a different way and elicit a unique state of consciousness. The constant changes in the neural “wiring” in an individual as well as the role of experience also suggest that no two psychedelic states of consciousness can ever be identical. Even in the same person, prior experience (or lack thereof) will shape the ways in which a psychedelic session unfolds. Although we speak of consciousness “states”, in reality consciousness is fluid.

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THE IMPLICATIONS OF PSYCHEDELICS FOR UNDERSTANDING MEDITATION AND YOGIC PERCEPTION Although this paper has focused on the use of psychedelics, I believe that the points it raises apply to consciousness in general, and to meditation and yogic perception in particular. All organisms must be able to pay some attention to the world around them, and their ability (or inability) to do so has been a potent evolutionary selective force. Yet normal mammalian functioning also depends upon an animal being able to periodically withdraw from the outer world, both to restore the body and to process mental events. Meditative techniques represent a new and uniquely human way of withdrawing from the outer world. While meditative traditions differ in terms of the techniques they utilize and the ways in which they are interpreted and understood, all involve shifts in consciousness away from the normal ways in which humans interact with the external world. As with psychedelic substances, cultural training and personal histories will affect an individual’s abilities to enter into and learn from meditative experiences. This fact has been recognized by many meditative traditions and conceptualized in manners consonant with the other assumptions of the cultures in which they arose. According to the Hindu and Buddhist traditions that are the primary focus of this volume, for example, it may take many lifetimes for an individual to overcome their negative karma and achieve a birth that is conducive to attaining moksha or nirvana. This negative karma is said to be the result of past thoughts and actions. What such traditions have not considered—at least as far as I am aware—is the role that what we now call genetic factors may play in shaping a person’s mood, intelligence, or memory. What makes the study of psychedelics particularly interesting in the context of this volume is that they explicitly remind us of the role that even small-scale molecular processes can play in the large-scale picture of human consciousness. It is for this reason that I am arguing that a comprehensive understanding of any type of methodology for altering consciousness must consider not only the cultural assumptions associated with that methodology, but also the insights offered by biology. In other words, consciousness is a product of processes that occur from the “bottom up” as well as the “top down.” Understanding consciousness requires that we look at both. Psychedelic substances also provide us with another important lesson. Unlike most meditative and contemplative traditions, which

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demand that practitioners devote extended periods to learning and gradually refining their abilities, the effects of psychedelic agents are rapid in their onset and almost impossible to overlook. Psychedelics offer a short-term “break” from normal reality that a person can easily work into their schedule. Consequently, they have the potential to “democratize” consciousness by making it possible for large numbers of people to explore the worlds that exist within them and to examine and refine their conceptions and attitudes about the world. How helpful it would be if our cultures would provide us with both an accepted means and an accurate map for exploring these worlds. BIBLIOGRAPHY Arias 2007

B. Arias, D.A. Collier, C. Gasto, L. Pintor, B. Gutierrez, V. Valles and L. Fananas, “Genetic variation in the 5-HT[5A] receptor gene in patients with bipolar disorder and major depression,” Neuroscience Letters, 303(2):111-114 (accessed on 30.6.2009 at http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=952198). Baker 1994 J. R. Baker, The Old Woman and Her Gifts: Pharmacological Bases of the Chumash Use of Datura, Curare 1994 17(2):253276. Baker 2005 J. R. Baker, Psychedelic Sacraments, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2005, 37(2):179-187. Bonner 1980 J. T. Bonner, The Evolution of Culture in Animals, Princeton, New Jersey, 1980. Bourguignon 1973 E. Bourguignon, Introduction: A Framework for the Comparative Study of Altered States of Consciousness, Religion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Social Change, ed. By E. Bourguignon, Columbus, Ohio, 1973, 3-35. Chodron 1999 T. Chodron, Taming the Monkey Mind. Berkeley, CA. 1999. Dobkin de Rios 1984 M. Dobkin de Rios, Hallucinogens: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1984. Dobkin De Rios 2003 M. Dobkin and O. Janiger, LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process, Rochester, Vermont, 2003. Furst 1990 P. T. Furst, Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1990. Grailhe 1999 R. Grailhe, C. Waeber, S. C. Dulawa, J. P. Hornung, X. Zhuang, D. Brunner, M. A. Geyer, and R. Hen, Increased Exploratory Activity and Altered Response to LSD in Mice lacking the 5HT(5A) Receptor, Neuron, 1999, 22(3):581-91. Griffin 2001 D. R. Griffin, Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness, Chicago, revised and expanded edition 2001.

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McGlothlin 1967 McKinley 2000

Metzner 1999 Mithen 1996 Myerhoff 1974 Osmund 1957

Pahnke 1972

Rätsch 2005 Ruck 1979 Sandison 1954a

JOHN R. BAKER C. S. Grob, Psychiatric Research with Hallucinogens: What Have We Learned? Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness, 1994, 3:91-112. S. Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research, New York, 1976. Harris, M., The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, New York, 1968. A. Hoffer, H. Osmond, and J. Smythies, Schizophrenia: A New Approach. II. Results of a Year’s Research, Journal of Mental Science, 1954, 100(418):29-45. N. Iwata, N. Ozadi, T. Inada and D. Goldman, An Association of a 5-HT5a Receptor Polymorphism, pro15ser, to Schizophrenia, Molecular Psychiatry, 2001, 6:121 (accessed on 30.6.2007 at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v6/n2/pdf/4000870a.pdf). D. Johanson and B. Edgar, From Lucy to Language, New York, 1996. L. Lewin, Phantastica: die betäubenden und erregenden Genussmittel, second, expanded edition 1980 (reprint of the 1927 edition). W. H. McGlothlin, Toward a Rational View of Hallucinogenic Drugs, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, 1967 1:40-52. B. McKinley, Report on Last Spring’s Science and Anthropology Session, CSAS Bulletin Central States Anthropological Society, 2000, 36(1):12-16. R. Metzner (ed.), Ayahuasca: Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature, New York, New York 1999. S. Mithen, The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science, London, 1996. B. Myerhoff, The Peyote Hunt: The Religious Pilgrimage of the Huichol Indians, Ithaca, New York, 1974. H. Osmund, A Review of the Clinical Effects of Psychotomimetic Agents, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1957 (reprinted in David Solomon (ed.), LSD: The ConsciousnessExpanding Drug, 1966, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, pp. 132154). W. N. Pahnke and W. A. Richards, Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism, Journal of Religion and Health, 1966, 5:175-208 (reprinted in Charles T. Tart (ed.), Altered States of Consciousness, Garden City, New York: Anchor, pp. 409-439). C. Rätsch, The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants, Rochester, Vermont, 2005. C. A. P. Ruck, J. Bigwood, D. Staples, J. Ott, and R. G. Wasson, Entheogens, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, 1979, 11(1-2):145-6. R. A. Sandison, Psychological Aspects of the LSD Treatment of the Neuroses, Journal of Mental Science, 1954, 100:491-507.

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R. A. Sandison, A. M. Spencer and J. D. A. Whitelaw, The Therapeutic Value of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Mental Illness, Journal of Mental Science, 1954, 100:491-507. R. E. Schultes, A. Hofmann, and C. Rätsch, Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers, Rochester, Vermont, 2001 J. N. Sherwood, M. J. Stolaroff and W. W. Harman, The Psychedelic Experience – A New Concept in Psychotherapy, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, 1967-68, 1:96-111 (originally published in Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 1962). H. Smith, Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals, New York, 2000. O. C. Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History, Norman, Oklahoma, 1987. M. J. Stolaroff, Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism? Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1999, 39(1):60-80. W. A. Stoll, Lysergsäure-diäthylamid, ein Phantastikum aus der Mutterkorngruppe, Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 1947, 60:279-323. A. F. C. Wallace, Revitalizations & Mazeways: Essays on Culture Change, Volume 1, edited by Robert S. Grumet, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2003. R. G. Wasson, A. Hofmann and C. A. P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, Twentieth Anniversary Edition, Los Angeles, 1998. J. Wilbert, Tobacco and Shamanism in South America, New Haven, Connecticut, 1987. M. Winkelman, Psychointegrator Plants: Their Roles in Human Culture, Consciousness and Health, Yearbook of Cross-Cultural Medicine and Psychotherapy 1995, Theme Issue: Sacred Plants, Consciousness, and Healing. Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, M. Winkelman and W. Andritzky (eds.), pp. 9-53, Berlin, 1995. M. J. Winkelman and T. B. Roberts, Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments, Westport, Connecticut, 2007. N. E. Zinberg ed., Alternate States of Consciousness, New York, 1977.

SHULAMITH KREITLER

Altered States of Consciousness as Structural Variations of the Cognitive System

ABSTRACT The chapter presents a new approach to defining consciousness in terms of an innovative theory of meaning (Kreitler & Kreitler). Most of the existing approaches to consciousness are based on the assumption that differences in consciousness consist primarily in degrees of awareness, so that it may seem superfluous to dwell on the characterization of various so-called alternate states of consciousness (SOCs). However, an analysis of different SOCs reveals several major dimensions in which they differ, e.g., status of the ”I” or sense of control. The new approach is cognitive and is based on the theory of meaning which deals with the contents and processes underlying cognitive functioning. The major thesis is that SOCs are a function of encompassing changes in the cognitive system brought about by specific organizational transformations in the meaning system. Structural changes of this kind may affect cognitive functioning, personality manifestations, mood and affect, as well as physiological processes. The new approach may enable matching of cognitive tasks to adequate SOCs, the production of SOCs by selfcontrolled cognitive means, and even the definition of new SOCs. DEMYSTIFYING CONSCIOUSNESS According to Dennett (1991: 21) “human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery”, whereby mystery he defines as a phenomenon that people do not know how to think about and where to look for answers about it. This paper is designed to make a contribution to demystifying consciousness by embedding it in a relevant context, which may inspire thoughts about consciousness, and possibly the basic components for a new theory of consciousness (Kreitler 1999; 2001; 2002).

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CONSCIOUSNESS AND AWARENESS Any survey of the common definitions of consciousness readily reveals that most of them tend to equate consciousness with the mental state of awareness (Sutherland 1995; Dennett 1996). This conception has its origins in the approaches to consciousness prior to Freud (Whyte 1962: 17ff) and has been adopted and developed by Freud and the psychodynamically oriented psychologists (Freud 1981). According to this approach consciousness is considered as a property that varies along one continuum, best described in terms of the triarchic set ‘conscious,’ ‘preconscious’ and ‘unconscious.’ The continuum is mostly positioned perpendicularly, with consciousness characterizing its upper end, unconsciousness its lower end, and preconsciousness holding a middle position, in between the extremes. The upper end of the continuum represents ordinary consciousness, with its highly valued qualities of awareness and clarity, to which other similarly valued characteristics became attached, mainly logical reasonable thinking, control of drives and emotions, the power of volition, reality-orientation and self-regulation of behavior. The lower end of the continuum stands for the various altered states of consciousness (SOCs). Since awareness was considered as the major property of consciousness, it did not make much sense to dwell on the characteristics of the various altered states of consciousness, all of which seemed to be characterized by low or fuzzy awareness. Differences among SOCs were dealt with, if at all, in terms of the external stimuli or triggers, such as drugs, alcohol or hypnotic induction. Psychodynamically oriented theoreticians may differ in the descriptions they provide of the contents of the unconscious. Thus, according to the Freudians (Freud 1981) the contents are mainly sexual and aggressive drives and personally repressed issues, whereas according to the Jungians (Jung 1982) they also include collectively shared archetypes of structures and meanings of general importance for human beings. But differences in contents of this kind did not lead these theoreticians to attribute psychological importance to differences among SOCs that have been experienced and documented by many people and peoples.

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MULTIPLE PHENOMENA The assumption that consciousness is characterized mainly by awareness leads to a unidimensional conception of consciousness. This approach seems to be too narrow and may result in an erroneous conceptualization of the problems of consciousness. Our first step towards a different approach would be considering the phenomena that are relevant for consciousness. The literature and documentation of consciousness contain a long list of concepts, labels, descriptions, or terms denoting SOCs (e.g., Barber, Spanos & Chaves 1974; Blackmore 2004; Eliade 1964; Fischer 1978; Foulkes 1990; Habel, O’Donoghue & Maddox 1993; Harrison 1989; Kakar 1992; Ornstein 1977; Riboli 2000; Singer & Antrobus 1972; Wulff 2000; Zuckerman 1969). Let us mention at least some of the major ones. A regular textbook or encyclopedia mentions SOCs that can come about through physical disorders, such as indigestion, fever, nitrogen narcosis (deep diving), a traumatic accident or deprivation of food or water or sleep or oxygen; states induced by meditation, prayer, or techniques bound with specific disciplines (such as Mantra Meditation, Sufism, Yoga, Surat Shabbda Yoga); intoxication states induced by psychoactive substances or opioids (e.g., LSD, mescaline, heroin, marijuana, MDMA or ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, datura or jimson weed, peyote, ketamin, ayahuasca, DXM or dextromethorphan, amphetamines, cocaine, including perhaps also the lower-grade ones, such as nicotine, caffeine and Ritalin or methylphenidate); states induced by sensory deprivation (also called floating tank, sensory attenuation tank or Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy or Floatation REST); states induced by physical means, such as postures, dancing or breathing exercises; mental disorder states, such as mania or psychosis; states bound with hypnosis, self-hypnosis or guided imagery; sleep, dreaming, lucid dreaming, and transitional states between sleep and wakefulness (hypnagogic and hypnopompic, false awakening, and sleep paralysis); drunkenness (e.g., induced by the consumption of alcohol); states induced by shamanistic practices, including music and drugs; mystical experiences; oceanic experience; psychological states like flow, as well as intense emotional states (e.g., fear or panic, love, anger, sadness or depression); peak experiences; trance states including rapture or religious ecstasy, Samadhi, “possession” and “channeling”; and the state often produced by immersion in a crowd.

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The list that uses the terms commonly applied in this context presents a mixture of several points of view. The main ones are (a) contents that characteristically appear in the described states (e.g., mystical experiences), (b) conditions under which the states characteristically occur (e.g., sleep, mental disorders, physical state of deprivation, sensory deprivation), (c) techniques used for inducing particular states (e.g., meditation, hypnosis, shamanistic practices, music, dancing), and (d) chemical or other substances applied as triggers (e.g., psychoactive drugs, alcohol, stimulants). Sometimes the category of chemical substances is further subdivided into classes of drugs in line with their general effects, such as stimulants, opioids, psychedelics, dissociatives and delirants. It is possible that one or more of the states categorized under one of the four major headings is similar to or identical with a state categorized under a completely different heading, for example, a state induced by hypnosis and a state triggered by a certain drug. This unclarity calls for a new attempt to construct a taxonomy of the different SOCs which would enable productive research considering the whole range of observed variations. MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS Several approaches are possible to the issue of setting up a taxonomy of SOCs. Those of potentially greatest interest are the psychological and the physiological ones. The psychological approach to be applied here has the advantages of being closer to the phenomenological-experiential level of SOCs and of being based at present on a larger store of information than the physiological one is. It may be hoped that in the future the two sets of characterization will be combined. The psychological approach proposed here consists in defining a set of dimensions, each of which may get different values. It is expected that this approach will result in the characterization of each state of consciousness by a profile of values along each of the dimensions. The first part of the task is to define the relevant dimensions. There are several proposals of dimensions for mapping the consciousness phenomena. One often applied dimension refers to the continuum from the outer being to the inner being and is rooted apparently in different mystical traditions including the Indian, Jewish (Kabala, Hassidism) and European (Gooch 1972; Lilly 1972). It is often de-

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scribed in metaphorical terms as representing a variety of axes, the main ones being from the subjective to the objective, the personal to the impersonal, the illusory to the absolutely true, the material to the spiritual, and the temporary to the constant. Two other proposals are often quoted. Tart (1975) suggested two orthogonal dimensions of irrationality and of the ability to hallucinate, which define the locations of three clusters labeled REM dreaming, lucid dreaming and ordinary consciousness. Fischer (1978) proposed two dimensions fanning to the sides from one origin: one along the perception-hallucination continuum of increasing ergotropic arousal (of the sympathetic nervous system), which describes a gradual turning inward toward a mental dimension while turning away from the physical arousal, and includes creative, psychotic, and ecstatic experiences; and another dimension along the perception-meditation continuum of increasing trophotropic arousal, which includes the hypoaroused states of Zazen and Yoga Samadhi. To our mind these proposals are inadequate. The axis from the outer to inward reality is overly general and vulnerable to metaphorical expansion and fuzziness; irrationality and ability to hallucinate are both cognitive characteristics and do not seem sufficient to cover the whole variety of experiential phenomena, beyond the three clusters discussed by Tart; the two dimensions of ergotropic and trophotropic arousal define in fact one dimension of arousal and is also too limited in scope. The following dimensions are based on preliminary investigations and present an attempt to do justice to the field in psychological terms. They emphasize aspects of the phenomena that, on the one hand, are sufficiently close to the observed characteristics to have at least face validity, but, on the other hand, have the potential to account for characteristics that may not be directly observable, so that they have construct validity. It will be noted that the dimensions refer to specific psychological variables. The listed dimensions do not stem from any specific psychological theory and may match different theoretical approaches. Further, none of the dimensions was defined in view of one specific state of consciousness, so that they all apply to all the different SOCs. At present there are 9 dimensions, but the number may change somewhat in the future. Brief definitions and examples will follow the presentation of each dimension.

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1. Salience and status of the “I”. This dimension describes the role, salience and status of the I in the different SOCs. In ordinary consciousness the I is experienced as the major agent of all actions, clearly delineated and differentiated from external reality, in charge of all its components, which include also the body. It functions actually as “the measure of all things”. In dream states the I is not always prominent, and often occupies a secondary role in the fringes; in hypnosis the I may relinquish its ruling status and transfer it to another agent, such as the hypnotizer; in an oceanic experience the I may experience a sense of connectedness to everything in the vicinity or even a feeling of “oneness” with all beings; in shamanistic states the I may even give up its existence and get transformed into the shapes or functions of other beings, human or animal; and even in a state of immersion in a crowd situation the individual may lose the sense of one’s self. 2. Sense of control and ability to control. The strength of the sense of control and the domains in regard to which control is exercised or felt to be viable differ in the various SOCs. Thus, in ordinary consciousness the individual may feel having control of oneself and one’s behavior as well as over the closer environment, but neither over physiological processes within one’s body nor over reality at large. In some dream states a person may feel having control over external reality (e.g., changing some parts of reality); and in hypnosis - over physiological processes, if the instructions are adequately given. In other SOCs one may experience loss of control over one’s muscles and ability to move (e.g., ‘false awakening’) or in contrast experience the ability to fly (e.g., shamanistic flights). 3. Clarity of thought. Clarity of thought, sharpness of attention, and ability to concentrate and to focus when performing any cognitive act vary from one SOC to another, regardless of the contents of the thoughts. Clarity is increased in the states of inspiration as for example in “Flow” and after ingesting stimulants, but it is decreased in states of fatigue, disorders of metabolism, liver, kidneys, lungs, or heart as well as following toxic exposure, carbon dioxide or opioid toxicity. 4. Precision of perception in regard to external reality and environment. Precision of reality perception is fairly good in ordinary consciousness, but it is impaired for example in states of sleep or intoxication due to alcohol ingestion or certain drugs, when even the perception of constancies is transformed and time and place disorientation may follow. The hallucinogenic drugs produce hallucinations that impair

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external reality perception. In other states it may be enhanced, as for example in depression or increased fear, especially in regard to the threatening stimuli. In some SOCs due to the ingestion of certain drugs there is an enhanced perception of colors and sounds of music, but following other drugs (e.g., LSD) there may be dramatic changes in perception. 5. Precision of perception in regard to internal reality and environment. In some SOCs there may be an enhanced perception of inner states, physiological or others (sometimes called intuitions), as in hypnosis or specific types of meditation, whereas in other SOCs there may be complete dissociation from the inner and bodily processes. 6. Emotional involvement. The different SOCs differ greatly in the amount and direction of emotional involvement. Some SOCs are characterized by low degree of emotionality, sometimes to the point of dissociation. In other SOCs there is a tendency toward intensified emotions, as in a crowd situation with a “charismatic” leader, or after ingestion of certain drugs. The evoked emotions may be positive (following the ecstasy drug) or negative (e.g., fear, anxiety, disorientation). 7. Arousal. Basically this dimension describes the differences in arousal that characterize SOCs, which may range from peaks of hyperarousal (e.g., following a leader in a crowd situation, ecstatic experiences, or psychosis) to low level of hypoarousal (e.g., dream states, following the ingestion of sedatives). 8. Kind of cognitive processes activated. A large body of data indicates that SOCs differ greatly in the cognitive processes that are prominent or weak while they last. Thus, some SOCs are characterized by logical and systematic thinking, primarily verbal (e.g., ordinary consciousness); some – by creativity (perhaps LSD; and other SOCs – by imagial (imaginative?) integrative thinking that produces connections and relations between different themes or domains (e.g., night dreams). 9. Accessibility and inhibition of certain kinds of information (kinds of and amount). This dimension focuses on accessibility of information. In no SOC is all available information also accessible. In ordinary consciousness the accessible information refers primarily to the external interpersonally shared reality that is socially and culturally confirmed and approved. The inaccessible information refers mostly to personal information of a threatening nature, emotions, often the negative ones, as well as drives and wishes that are classified as taboo in one’s culture, or traumatic experiences and memories that are bound to

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significant figures in one’s life. Basically, all the inaccessible information is of the kind viewed as “unconscious” by the psychodynamic approaches. In dream states the accessible information refers to personal emotions and experiences of the kind labeled as unconscious in ordinary consciousness, while the inaccessible information refers to external and interpersonally shared reality. In drug induced states, such as following the ingestion of ayahuasca information referring to spiritual and religious themes is apparently accessible while the information referring to external and interpersonally-shared reality is inaccessible. In a state of being in love the accessible information includes all the good qualities of the beloved one and those that express optimism in general, but all the weaker features pointed to mostly by others are inaccessible. The presented dimensions were selected for their relative generality and ability to account for other psychological phenomena that differ among the SOCs but could be derived from one of the dimensions or a combination of several dimensions, whereby both higher and lower values on the relevant dimensions need to be considered. Thus, for example, suggestibility could be derived from low values in Dimension 3, “Out-of-the-Body” experiences are likely to be facilitated by low values on Dimension 1, when the strongly delineated boundaries of personal identity are weakened. High values on Dimension 1 are involved in IThou relations and empathy for others (but not identification) that require clarity and stability of the personal identity. Telepathy and parapsychological effects also require the activation of values on specific dimensions, most likely high values on Dimensions 9 and 5. All the effects that are presented as dependent on one or more dimensions may be considered as derivatives or secondary manifestations of the dimensions. Some of the derivatives are more complex because they seem to depend on a combination of several values of several dimensions. One example is healing power, actual or virtual. There is evidence that in some SOCs the individuals report experiencing being endowed with a healing power, which may be illusory or actual (e.g., shamanistic states, mystical experiences). One may surmise that in specific SOCs the sense of this particular power is more likely to be evoked or elicited than in others. Dimensions that are probably involved include low values on Dimension 1, high on Dimensions 5, 6 and 9. The second example is specific scientific disciplines. It seems that specific sciences thrive more or better under specific SOCs than under others. For example, psychol-

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ogy as a science requires among others a high value on Dimension 1 given that its basic unit of inquiry is the human individual; the life sciences require high values on Dimensions 3 and 4; while mathematics requires also high values on Dimension 5. Table 1: Schematic presentation of dimensional profiles of four SOCs Dimensions

Ordinary Consciousness High High High High

Hypnosis

Dreams

Ecstatic state

Medium Low Low Low

Low Low Low Low

High Low Low Low

Low

High

High

Medium

Medium Medium

Medium Medium

High Low

High High

Thinking

Logical

Imagial

Paralogical

Unsystematic

Information

External High Internal Low

External Low Internal High

External Low Internal High

Low

Status of the I Control Clarity External reality Internal reality Emotion Arousal

The dimensions could be used for setting up profiles characterizing different SOCs. (See Table 1 for examples). At present some of the profiles may be incomplete due to missing information. The dimensions may also be helpful in organizing the different SOCs into clusters on the basis of similarities among them in several of the dimensions. A taxonomy of this kind could promote the efforts of matching the psychological characteristics present and future physiological information about processes mediating the psychological phenomena. A further use of the profiles could be that they would help in devising additional elicitation procedures for the different SOCs (in line with the specific values on the dimensions). Another advantage is that the profiles could promote diagnosing specific benefits and risks of the different SOCs. For example, some SOCs are characterized by highly accurate perception of external reality, whereas other SOCs may be characterized by enhanced fantasy functioning. The former SOC would seem to be adequate for tasks such as monitoring screens for detecting the earliest signs of dan-

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gerous weather changes, whereas the latter SOC would be more adequate for tasks such as producing creative advertisement. Most importantly, the profiles could help in selecting the appropriate SOC for performing a particular task, if the means and procedures for eliciting the diverse SOCs are under our control (see Kreitler 2002). CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION An examination of the different dimensions and the range of effects that they represent reveal a large number of phenomena that are affected by changes in SOCs. Some investigators treat the changed aspects as one package and lump them together under a general term, such as “mental functioning” (Tart 1972: 1203). Others (Farthing 1992) provide a detailed list of the domains in which changes take place: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning and significance, time perception, emotional feeling and expression, arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, sense of personal identity. Despite its length it is unlikely that the list is complete. Notably missing are effects in the domain of behavior, including motor actions, and physiological processes. However it may be, scanning the list, even though it is partial, raises the question of what kind of system in the living organism could be responsible for such a diversity of effects? There is only one system that could be considered as a candidate for this role. At least at present, on the psychological level cognition is the only system that has been shown capable to promote, originate, enable and affect phenomena in all the named domains, ranging from perception to behavior, including all the cognitive processes, emotions, and personality traits. There are a great many indications in the writings about consciousness that suggest the intimate relations that have long been noted between consciousness and cognition. Many investigators have noted that consciousness and changes in consciousness affect cognition. For example, ordinary consciousness promotes learning new and complex material (Baars & McGovern 1996: 74-75; Hardcastle 1995); a hypnotic state intensifies the individual’s imaginative processes (Barber, Spanos & Chaves 1974). Others considered cognition as the object of consciousness, so that consciousness has been described as referring to contents contained in ‘primary memory’ (a kind of short-term working store) defining the ‘psychological present’ (James 1890/1950). Another

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conceptualization emphasizes cognition as the antecedent, condition or cause for consciousness (Mandler 1984). Most prevalent is the conception of cognition as the function of consciousness, evident in regard to a specific cognitive subsystem, e.g., episodic memory (Tulving 1983), or the majority of cognitive processes (Baars 1988: chap. 10). The close interrelatedness of consciousness with cognitive processes and contents encourages attempts to construct cognitive theories of consciousness. Some of the better known ones have been proposed by investigators of different theoretical orientations (e.g., Baars 1988; Johnson-Laird 1988; Kihlstrom 1993; Nastoulas 1994; Velmans 1996). However, these attempts have been limited in the scope of their contributions to the understanding of consciousness, mainly because of several assumptions they share concerning consciousness and cognition. One major assumption concerns the unidimensional character of consciousness, conceived solely in terms of a continuum denoting differences in clarity and awareness. As noted, this assumption leads to disregarding differences between the SOCs, lumping all those that are characterized by apparently lower awareness under the heading of “unconscious states”. Another important assumption concerns the consideration of cognition as a set of subsystems, each reflecting one of the standard functions, such as memory, attention or problem solving. Other functions, including dreaming or daydreaming are mostly overlooked as well as the underlying substratum that may maintain the functioning of all of the separate subsystems. According to this approach, consciousness is distinct from cognition, which it may however affect. More importantly, changes in consciousness are viewed as mediated by agents external to consciousness, or for that matter, to cognition (e.g., physiological phenomena, drugs) and are not themselves cognitive. These assumptions, one or more of which may be implicit, have resulted in too narrow conceptualizations of both cognition and consciousness, which do not suffice for a comprehensive theory. Despite these critical remarks, cognition is the context we suggest as relevant for the comprehension and study of consciousness. We will outline a blueprint for a new cognitive approach to consciousness that is based on other assumptions. According to this new approach consciousness and cognition are considered as inextricably bound together. Though distinct, one cannot be described satisfactorily without the other. Further, consciousness is viewed as a characterization of the cognitive system as a whole, not just of this or another part of it. It

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expresses or manifests something that inheres in or depends on the totality of the cognitive system. The cognitive system itself is conceptualized as including not only processes (e.g., abstracting, categorizing), as is commonly assumed, but also contents (e.g., memories, informations) which are involved in the performance of all cognitive functions, both the standard ones (e.g., memory, problem solving) as well as the not yet standard ones (e.g., dreaming). All these assumptions derive from the basic conceptualization that cognition is a psycho-semantic system, namely, it is a meaning-processing and meaning-processed system, or in more specific terms, it is a system that produces, assigns, stores, retrieves, transforms, applies and elaborates meaning. This assumption will become clearer after the next section that deals with defining meaning and illustrating its role in cognition. MEANING AND COGNITION The theory of meaning is based on a large body of data and empirical studies (Kreitler & Kreitler 1988; 1990a; 1993b). Meaning is defined as a referent-centered pattern of cognitive contents. Referent is the input, the carrier of meaning, which can be anything, including a word, an object, a situation, an event, or even a whole period, whereas meaning values are cognitive contents assigned to the referent for the purpose of expressing or communicating its meaning. For example, if the referent is ‘Town,’ responses such as ‘includes buildings’ or ‘it is bigger than a village’ represent two different meaning values. The referent and the meaning value together form a meaning unit (e.g., Town – includes buildings). Five sets of variables are used for characterizing the meaning unit (see Table 2): (a) Meaning Dimensions, which characterize the contents of the meaning values from the viewpoint of the specific information communicated about the referent, such as the referent's Sensory Qualities (e.g., Grass - green), Feelings and Emotions it evokes (e.g., Storm - scary) or experiences (e.g., I - love my sister), Range of Inclusion (e.g., Body - the head, arms, torso and legs); (b) Types of Relation, which characterize the immediacy of the relation between the referent and the cognitive contents, for example, attributive (e.g., Summer - warm), comparative (e.g., Summer - warmer than spring), exemplifying instance (e.g., Country - the U.S.); (c) Forms of Relation, which characterize how the relation between the referent and the

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cognitive contents is regulated, in terms of its validity (positive or negative; e.g., Yoga - is not a religion), quantification (absolute, partial; Apple - sometimes red), and form (factual, desired or desirable; Law should be obeyed, Money - I wish I had more); (d) Referent Shifts, which characterize the relation between the referent and the presented input, or - in a chain of responses to some input - the relation between the referent and the previous one, for example, the referent may be identical to the input or the previous referent, it may be its opposite, or a part of it, or even apparently unrelated to it (e.g., when the stimulus is “U.S.” and the response is “I love New York,” the response refers to a part of the stimulus) ; (e) Forms of Expression, which characterize the forms of expression of the meaning units (e.g., verbal, denotational, graphic) and its directness (e.g., actual gesture or verbal description of gesture) (Kreitler & Kreitler 1990a). Table 2: Major Variables of the Meaning System: The Meaning Variables MEANING DIMENSIONS Dim. Contextual Allocation 1 Range of Inclusion (2a: Dim. 2 Sub-classes; 2b: Parts) Dim. Function, Purpose & 3 Role Actions & Potentialities Dim. for Actions (4a: by 4 referent; 4b: to referent) Dim. Manner of Occurrence 5 & Operation Dim. Antecedents & Causes 6 Dim. Consequences & Re7 sults Dim. Domain of Application 8 (8a: as subject; 8b: as object)

FORMS OF RELATION FR 1 Propositional (1a: Positive; 1b: Negative) FR 2 Partial (2a: Positive; 2b: Negative) FR 3

Universal (3a: Positive; 3b: Negative)

FR 4

Conjunctive (4a: Positive; 4b: Negative)

FR 5

Disjunctive (5a: Positive; 5b: Negative)

FR 6

Normative (6a: Positive; 6b: Negative)

FR 7

Questioning (7a: Positive; 7b: Negative)

FR 8

Desired, wished (8a: Positive; 8b: Negative)

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Dim. 9

Material

SHIFT IN REFERENTB

Dim. 10 Dim. 11 Dim. 12 Dim. 13 Dim. 14 Dim. 15 Dim. 16 Dim. 17 Dim. 18 Dim. 19

Structure

SR 1

Identical

State & Possible change in it Weight & Mass

SR 2

Opposite

SR 3

Partial

Size & Dimensionality

SR 4

Modified by addition

Quantity & Mass

SR 5

Previous meaning value

Locational Qualities

SR 6

Association

Temporal Qualities

SR 7

Unrelated

Possessions (17a) & Belongingness (17b) Development

SR 8

Verbal label

SR 9

Grammatical variation

Sensory Qualities (19a: of referent; 19b: by referent) Feelings & Emotions (20a: evoked by referent; 20b: felt by referent) Judgments & Evaluations (21a: about referent; 21b: by referent)

SR 10

Previous meaning values combined

SR 11

Superordinate

SR 12

Cognitive Qualities (22a: evoked by referent; 22b: of referent)

SR 13

Synonym (12a: in original language; 12b: translated in another language; 12c: label in another medium; 12d a different formulation for the same referent on the same level) Replacement by implicit meaning value

Dim. 20

Dim. 21

Dim. 22

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TYPES OF RELATIONa TR 1

TR 2

TR 3

TR 4

Attributive (1a: Qualities to substance; 1b: Actions to agent) Comparative (2a: Similarity; 2b: Difference; 2c: Complementariness; 2d: Relationality ExemplifyingIllustrative (3a: Exemplifying instance; 3b: Exemplifying situation; 3c: Exemplifying scene) Metaphoric-Symbolic (4a: Interpretation; 4b: Metaphor; 4c: Symbol)

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FORMS OF EXPRESSION FE 1

FE 2

Verbal (1a: Actual enactment; 1b: Verbally described; 1c: Using available materials) Graphic (2a: Actual enactment; 2b: Verbally described; 2c: Using available materials)

FE 3

Motoric (3a: Actual enactment; 3b: Verbally described; 3c: Using available materials)

FE4

Sounds & Tones (4a: Actual enactment; 4b: Verbally described; 4c: Using available materials) Denotative (5a: Actual enactment; 5b: Verbally described; 5c: Using available materials)

FE5

a

OF

Modes of meaning: Lexical mode: TR1+TR2; Personal mode: TR3+TR4 Close SR: 1+3+9+12; Medium SR: 2+4+5+6+10+11; Distant SR: 7+8+13

b

Each individual tends to use only a part of the different meaning variables in assigning meaning to inputs. The individual’s tendencies for meaning assignment can be assessed through the Meaning Test, which yields information about the individual’s meaning profile, namely, the frequency with which the individual uses each of the meaning variables. Each meaning variable has characteristic manifestations in the different spheres of cognitive functioning. For example, the meaning dimension Locational Qualities is involved in performance of tasks that rely on spatial and locational aspects, such as finding one’s way or storing things. A body of data has shown in regard to a great many cognitive tasks that a set of different meaning variables is involved in the performance of each task, and that individuals who use most or all

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of these meaning variables frequently (according to their meaning profile) succeed better in the performance of the specific task than those who do not use them often. Specific patterns of meaning variables which could be called ‘meaning profiles of tasks’ - were found to correspond to good performance on cognitive tasks which assess spatial navigation, curiosity, creativity, constancy, problem solving, planning, learning of reading and reading comprehension (Arnon & Kreitler 1984; Kreitler & Kreitler 1985b; 1986a; 1986b; 1987a; 1987b; 1990b; 1990c; 1994; Weissler 1993). Such patterns reveal, as it were, the infrastructure of the cognitive processes involved in performing the cognitive act of, say, planning or solving a problem, thereby providing insight into the cognitive dynamics characteristic of the act. When meaning variables are used for exploring the cognitive processes involved in specific cognitive tasks, they are grasped in a dynamic sense, whereby each meaning variable corresponds to some process (e.g., the meaning dimension ‘range of inclusion’ - to analyzing into components; the comparative type of relation - to detecting similarity or difference). The meaning system can however be conceptualized also in a static sense, whereby each meaning variable corresponds to some specific domain of contents (e.g., the meaning dimension ‘sensory qualities’ - to contents such as sensations of different kinds; the metaphoric type of relation - to metaphors). The dynamic and static manifestations of each meaning variable complement each other. The central role that meaning fulfills in regard to cognition has led to the conceptualization of cognition as a meaning-processing and meaning-processed system. This conceptualization expresses one of the basic functions of meaning, which is to provide the infrastructure and the raw materials for cognitive functioning. However, our studies revealed other basic functions of meaning, a major one being in the domain of personality. A body of research has shown that each of almost 300 personality traits and tendencies was correlated with a specific set of meaning variables (Kreitler & Kreitler 1990a; 1993a; 1997). These findings support the conceptualization that each personality trait corresponds in fact to a unique pattern of meaning variables that is characterized by specific qualities. Again, an individual whose meaning profile contains the meaning variables that define a particular personality tendency would show evidence of behaving in line with this

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personality tendency. Thus, a second function of the meaning system is to provide the cognitive foundations for personality traits. Further, studies showed that the meaning system provides the cognitive raw materials for the self-concept (Kreitler & Kreitler 1987c), and is also similarly involved in the elicitation, selection and implementation of emotions (Kreitler 2003; Kreitler & Kreitler 1985a; 1987a). In conclusion, it seems justified to assume that cognition, as it is modulated and activated by the infrastructure of meaning, is potentially adequate and capable to account for SOCs. How does this take place? COGNITION AND SOCS Cognition is a system that is constantly activated since it is involved in all cognitive acts and other activities of the organism which depend on cognitive support, regardless of whether the acts are conscious or not. In each activity only those cognitive processes and contents that are relevant for the task as well as accessible to the individual are involved. One major factor that defines and modifies the accessibility of the adequate cognitive processes in the individual is the state of the cognitive system in the course of performing the task. The state of the cognitive system is defined in terms of the kind and number of meaning variables that are in a focal position and salient at the time, namely, they have an organizational primacy and a functional advantage for elicitation and involvement in the act, whereas the other meaning variables are in the background in different states of inactivation. A great many changes occur in the cognitive system due to ongoing cognitive operations. These include actions elicited by some externally presented task, such as solving a problem; handling some task arising from the needs of the cognitive system itself, e.g., organizing material; or performing a cognitive act in response to the needs of other systems in the organism, e.g., emotional or social. Some of the changes are relatively small, for example, in contents defined as changes within one meaning variable, others may be larger in the sense that more processes are involved, or more complex, in the sense that the changes are interdependent and more enduring. However, regardless of how encompassing or how long they last, these changes do not affect the cognitive system as a whole.

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Changes that affect the whole cognitive system may be brought about by means of organizational transformations in the meaning system. These kinds of transformations take place because of the needs and dynamics of the meaning system itself sui generi or in response to the needs of the organism, for example, reorganizing when a mass of new contents has become available, developing structural complexity, complementing a rudimentary or fragmentary view of reality, etc. Changes motivated by the dynamics of the meaning system typically consist of placing in the focal position one or more specific meaning variables or even merely one or more meaning values and changing accordingly the whole structure of the meaning system (organizational transformation). Changes motivated by the meaning system include, for example, placing in a focal position (a) the meaning dimensions ‘Contextual Allocation,’ ‘Results and Consequences,’ and ‘Causes and Antecedents’ which manifest the so-called ‘abstract approach’; (b) the meaning dimensions ‘Sensory Qualities,’ ‘Size and Dimensions,’ ‘Weight and Mass,’ and perhaps also ‘Locational Qualities’ - all of which manifest the so-called ‘concrete approach’ or ‘concrete thinking’; or (c) the meaning dimension ‘Feelings and Emotions,’ which would manifest the ‘emotional approach.’ Likewise, we could refer to the ‘evaluative-judgmental approach,’ when the meaning dimension ‘Judgments and Evaluations’ is in the focal position, the ‘actional approach’ when the meaning dimension ‘Actions and Potentialities for Actions’ is in the focal position, the ‘comparative approach’ when one or more of the comparative types of relation is in the focal position, the ‘disjunctive (or either/or) approach’ when the disjunctive form of relation is in the focal position, or the ‘nonverbal approach’ when one of the nonverbal forms of expression (e.g., gestural, graphic) is in the focal approach. As a matter of fact, almost any of the meaning variables and quite a number of sets of meaning variables could serve as foci for the meaning system and be the carriers of an organizational transformation. In order to exemplify the process of organizational transformation and its effects one set of studies will be described briefly. The studies dealt with two complementary organizational structures of the meaning system: one focused on the interpersonally-shared (or lexical) mode of meaning and the other on the personal (or subjective) mode of meaning (see Table 2). The definitions and experimental procedures were based on prior findings about the salience of these modes of meaning in interpersonal and personal communication. The interperson-

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ally-shared mode of meaning is defined by the two following types of relation: 1. the attributive, which relates the meaning value to the referent directly in a substantive (e.g., Flower - in the garden) or actional way (e.g., Dog - can bark); 2. the comparative, which relates the meaning value to the referent through the mediation of another referent, by way of similarity (e.g., Sea - has the same color as the sky), difference (e.g., House - unlike a tent is built of wood or bricks), complementarity (e.g., Wife - has a husband and husband has a wife), and relationality (e.g., Highway - broader than a path). In contrast, the personal mode of meaning is defined by the two following types of relation: 1. the exemplifying-illustrative, which relates the meaning value to the referent by way of an example, in the form of an instance (e.g., Wisdom - Moses), an image portraying a situation (e.g., Motherhood - a woman holding a baby in her arms) or a scene with dynamic elements (e.g., Aggression - an unemployed person comes to the government agency for employment, the clerk tells him that there is no work for him, the person feels warm anger rising in him, his fists clench, his vision becomes blurred etc.); 2. the metaphoric-symbolic, which relates the meaning value to the referent in a mediated way using non-conventional contents, in the form of an interpretation (e.g., Life the unknown known), metaphor (an image related interpretatively to a more abstract referent, e.g., Wisdom - cool water in the desert at noon), or symbol (a metaphoric image that resolves contrasting elements, e.g., Love - a fire that produces and consumes) (Kreitler 1965). A method was developed for inducing experimentally each of the meaning modes so that the participants acted when their cognitive system was structured in line with one or the other mode (Kreitler, Kreitler & Wanounou 1987-88). In different groups of participants the findings showed that under the impact of induction of personal meaning - as compared with their performance under the impact of interpersonally-shared meaning induction - participants scored higher on visual memory tasks, identifying embedded figures, recalling faces; performed better on creativity measures of fluency, flexibility and originality; reported many more unusual and bizarre experiences; produced a greater number of associations; grasped texts more often in metaphoric terms; made more mistakes on judging the validity of logical syllogisms; had lower scores on reality testing and emotional control in the Rorschach test; and had higher scores on scales assessing emotions (negative as well as positive). Findings of this kind demonstrate first, that it is possible to

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produce cognitive changes by manipulating modes of meaning, second, that the produced cognitive changes are of various kinds and in various domains, and third, that the level of performance of specific cognitive tasks depends on the organizational state of the cognitive system. The changes brought about by the placement of different meaning constituents in a focal position include changes in the nature, salience, and interconnectedness of contents and cognitive processes that affect cognitive functioning. But the changes are not limited to the cognitive sphere. Since, as noted, the meaning system is also involved in personality traits, the self-concept and emotions, it is likely that the organizational transformations of the meaning system affect these spheres too, directly or indirectly. Hence, one may expect the organizational transformations of the meaning system to be manifested in the form of changes in cognitive functioning (e.g., changes in attention, memory, creativity, the difficulty of solving different types of problems, styles of decision making, fluency and flexibility of associations, etc.), in the self concept (e.g., thoughts about oneself, selfesteem, one's biographical narrative, the experiential atmosphere of the self, etc.), in personality traits (e.g. changes in the strength and salience of different traits and other personality dispositions), and in emotions (e.g., changes in the strength and salience of different emotions and moods). These changes in turn may bring about further changes in the affected domains as well as in other domains, including overt behavior and physiological reactions. BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANING-BASED COGNITIVE THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS In view of the theoretical considerations and empirical findings presented above, it seems justified to suggest that SOCs are products of changes that concern cognition as a whole, reflecting organizational transformations in the meaning system (Kreitler, 1999; 2001; 2002). Since cognition is involved in the functioning of many systems in the organism, the suggested definition may be expanded by emphasizing that SOCs refer to a total state of the individual that in principle encompasses, in addition to the cognitive system, also other systems in the individual (emotions, personality, self) affected directly by changes in the meaning system or the cognitive system or both. The above definition refers to SOCs rather than to consciousness for two reasons.

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First, as noted earlier, consciousness is identified by many investigators as awareness, which is only one of the dimensions in terms of which SOCs may differ. Secondly, according to the approach presented in this chapter consciousness is the overall quality that refers to the state of the cognitive system, and since the cognitive system is always in some state, it would be more precise and correct to refer to the State of Consciousness (SOC) rather than to consciousness. It may not be superfluous to reiterate at this point that according to the here suggested definition, conscious-unconscious adjectives describe the state of different contents and processes in each SOC. Hence, unconsciousness is not a SOC or an altered SOC but denotes a specific degree of availability or readiness for evocation and can be applied in regard to each SOC. In each SOC there are contents or processes that are not available and may hence be considered as "unconscious". The difference between the SOCs consists then merely in the kind of contents or processes that are unconscious. Thus, every SOC has an unconscious but the SOCs differ in the duration of the unconsciousness, the ease with which the unconsciousness can be overcome or suspended and mainly in the rules defining which material (contents or processes) is rendered unconscious. Defining SOC as reflecting the state of the cognitive system (and other systems) under the sway of a meaning-based organizational transformation has several theoretical implications and practical applications. First, in contrast to the definitions that assume the existence of ‘the’ consciousness (presumably denoting ordinary consciousness) and so-called altered SOCs, the suggested meaningbased definition implies that there are an infinite number of potential SOCs and all are evaluated as of equal potential importance and status. Indeed, any one of them can become dominant for any duration and can come to characterize a given culture. It is possible that some of the possible SOCs are not yet known or described. Moreover, it is likely that it is even possible to invent new SOCs. In principle, any organizational transformation in the meaning system may be considered as generating a SOC. Thus, there is an infinite number of possible SOCs. In practice, however, not all organizational transformations affect the cognitive system and other systems (personality, emotions, etc.) to the same extent. Sometimes the changes may be minimal, or hardly noticeable, so that they may pass unnoticed or may be experienced as fluctuations in the prevailing SOC.

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In other cases the changes may be very salient, so much that they are clearly experienced or considered as alterations in consciousness (viz. altered SOCs). The extent of the changes could be associated with their duration, but does not depend on them. There may be dramatic changes in the SOC that may last milliseconds and yet be noticed, sometimes even treasured for a lifetime. Another factor that can affect the extent of the changes is probably the number and nature of the meaning variables that are placed in the focal position in the meaning system bringing about the organizational transformation in the system. It may be assumed that there exist core variables in the meaning system whose placement in a focal position yields a far-reaching organizational transformation (e.g., the modes). Further factors affecting the extent of the changes are probably the salience of emotional reactions among the changes, and the difference between the resulting SOC and the one habitual for the individual. It is likely that some changes in SOCs become noticeable because they are sanctioned by the culture to which the individual belongs, or are bound to a specific technique that is salient in a particular culture (Faber 1981). Thus, the training of Yoga may focus on differentiation of SOCs that a regular untrained person from Western culture can hardly make sense of. A case in point is the differentiation between the following two consciousnesss states that form part of Buddhist meditation: Dhāraṇā and Dhyāna. Dhāraṇā (=“fixation of attention”) is described as the first step of deep concentrative meditation, when the target object is held in the mind without wavering of consciousness, but the meditating person, the act of meditation and the object of meditation remain separate. Though consciousness is focused on one object, awareness of the object is still interrupted. Dhyāna (=“concentration,” “meditative stability”) is described as a more advanced stage of meditation, when consciousness of the act of meditation dwindles away, and only the consciousness of being and the object of concentration continue to exist in the mind. As a result, awareness of the object is complete and without any interruption (Fischer 1978: 42; Maehle 2006: 234). Admittedly, an untrained person can hardly be expected to comprehend and apply SOCs of this kind. Another important implication of the suggested definition of SOC is that SOC depends upon and is characterized by changes occurring in the cognitive system (through an organizational transform-

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ation in the meaning system), regardless of the nature of the agent or conditions that brought about the changes. Even when the changes are induced by conditions external to meaning and cognition, for example, behavioral, emotional, physiological, technological (e.g., virtual reality), the changes that form the basis for SOC occur in cognition. This conclusion as well as the findings of the studies on inducing interpersonally-shared and personal-subjective meaning modes indicate that it is possible to generate SOCs by psychological means tailored to produce the targeted SOCs. The use of psychological induction methods may broaden infinitely the range of individuals that will expose themselves to SOCs and the range of SOCs that they will experience. Notably, the psychological induction methods of SOCs will eventually make it possible for individuals to produce desired SOCs by self-controlled cognitive means. Moreover, by using psychological induction methods it may be possible to produce not only already known SOCs but also new not yet documented or experienced SOCs. Generating and inventing SOCs depend on values of SOCs in terms of the defining dimensions (e.g., Table 1) and the relations between these values and the meaning variables of the meaning system. There are three major reasons for improving the potentialities of experiencing SOCs and expanding the range of available SOCs. One reason is that some SOCs are apparently accompanied by enjoyable experiences, which many people seek out and crave for, as manifested in the popularity of various drugs and stimulants. Another reason is that SOCs seem to lead to unraveling new and hitherto unknown aspects of oneself, others and the world, which make possible the attainment of a deepened knowledge of the self and reality. It is possible to speculate that the exposure of new aspects of the personal and impersonal reality may in principle culminate in the formation of new scientific disciplines. The third reason is of a more practical nature. Since there is evidence that some cognitive tasks are performed better under specific SOCs than under others (see above the set of studies on the induction of modes of meaning), it is of importance to be able to elicit for each cognitive task the SOC that promotes its performance in the best possible way. In sum, the means for inducing, defining and creating SOCs provided by the new approach presented in this paper may serve to expand our view of consciousness, our methodology for studying

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consciousness and our ability to manipulate, shape and experience consciousness. ABBREVIATIONS SOC REM

State of consciousness Rapid Eye Movement

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R. Arnon & S. Kreitler, Effects of meaning training on overcoming functional fixedness. Current Psychological Research and Reviews 3 (1984) 11-24. B. J. Baars, A cognitive theory of consciousness. Cambridge, MA USA Cambridge University Press 1988. B. J. Baars & K. McGovern, Cognitive views of consciousness: What are the facts? How can we explain them? In: The science of consciousness, ed. M. Velmans. London Routledge 1996, 63-95. T. X. Barber, N. P. Spanos, & J. F. Chaves, Hypnosis, imagination and human potentialities. Elmford, NY USA Pergamon 1974. S. Blackmore, Consciousness: An introduction. Oxford UK Oxfor University Press 2004 ( section 8). D. C. Dennett, Consciousness explained. Boston Little, Brown & Co 1991. D. C. Dennett, Kinds of minds: Towards the understanding of consciousness. London Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1996. M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton NJ USA Princeton University Press 1964. M. D. Faber, Culture and consciousness: The social meaning of altered awareness. New York Human Sciences Press 1981. G. W. Farthing, The psychology of consciousness, Englewood Cliffs, NJ USA Prentice-Hall 1992. R. Fischer, R. Cartography of conscious states: Integration of east and west. In: Expanding dimensions of consciousness, ed. A. A. Sugerman, & R. E. Tarter. New York Springer 1978, 24-57.

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S. Freud, The ego and the id. In: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, ed. J. Strachey. Volume 19, London Hogarth Press 1981. D. Foulkes, Dreaming and consciousness. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 2 (1990) 39-55. S. Gooch, Total man: An evolutionary theory of personality, London Allen Lane/Penguin Press 1972. V. G. Hardcastle, A critique of information processing theories of consciousness. Minds and Machines 5 (1995) 89-107. I. B. Harrison, On the Oceanic Experience. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 37 (1989) 559-563. N. Habel, M. O’Donoghue, & M. Maddox, Myth, ritual and the sacred: Introducing the phenomena of religion. Underdale University of South Australia 1993. W. James, The principles of psychology. New York Dover 1890/1950. P. N. Johnson-Laird, A computational analysis of consciousness. In: Consciousness in contemporary science, ed. A. J. Marcel & E. Bisiach. Oxford UK Clarendon Press 1988, 357-368. J. L. Kihlstrom, The continuum of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition 2 (1993) 334-354. C. G. Jung, The archetype and the collective unconscious. In: Collected works of C. G. Jung. Princeton NJ USA Vol. 9 Part 1 2nd ed. Bollingen 1981. S. Kakar, Ramakrishna and the mystical experience. Annals of Psychoanalysis 20 (1992) 215-234. S. Kreitler, Symbolschöpfung und Symbolerfassung: Eine experimentalpsychologische Studie. Basel/Munich Reinhardt 1965. S. Kreitler, Consciousness and meaning. In: At play in the fields of consciousness, ed. J. A. Singer, & P. Salovey Mahwah, N.J. Erlbaum 1999, 175-206. S. Kreitler, Psychological perspective on virtual reality. In: Virtual reality: Cognitive foundations, technological issues and philosophical implications. ed. A. Riegel, M. F. Peschl, K., Edlinger, G. Fleck, & W. Feigl. Frankfurt Peter Lang 2001, 33-44. S. Kreitler, Consciousness and states of consciousness: An evolutionary perspective. Evolution and Cognition 8 (2002) 27-42.

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SHULAMITH KREITLER S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, The psychosemantic determinants of anxiety: A cognitive approach. In: Advances in test anxiety research. ed. H. Van der Ploeg, R. Schwarzer, & C. D. Spielberger. Lisse, The Netherlands Swets & Zeitlinger Vol. 4 1985a, 117-135. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, The psychosemantic foundations of comprehension. Theoretical Linguistics 12 (1985b) 185-195. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Individuality in planning: Meaning patterns of planning styles. International Journal of Psychology 21 (1986a) 565-587. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, The psychosemantic structure of narrative. Semiotica 58 (1986b) 217-243. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Modifying anxiety by cognitive means. In: Advances in test anxiety research. ed. H. Van der Ploeg, R. Schwarzer, & C. D. Spielberger. Lisse, The Netherlands Swets & Zeitlinger Vol. 5 1987a, 195-211. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, The motivational and cognitive determinants of individual planning. Genetic, Social and General Psychology Monographs 113 (1987b) 81-107. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Psychosemantic aspects of the self. In: Self and identity: Individual change and development, London Routledge & Kegan Paul 1987c, 338-356. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Meanings, culture and communication. Journal of Pragmatics 12 (1988) 135-152. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Cognitive foundations of personality traits. New York Plenum 1990a. Kreitler, H., & Kreitler, S. (1990b). The psychosemantic foundations of creativity. In: Lines of thought: Reflections on the psychology of thinking, ed. K. J. Gilhooly, M. Keane, R. Logie & G. Erdos. Vol. 2, Chichester UK Wiley 1990b, 191-201. H. Kreitler, & S. Kreitler, The psychosemantics of responses to questions. In: Lines of thought: Reflections on the psychology of thinking, ed. K. J. Gilhooly, M. Keane, R. Logie & G. Erdos. Vol. 1, Chichester UK Wiley 1990c, 15-28.

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S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler The cognitive determinants of defense mechanisms. In: The concept of defense mechanisms in contemporary psychology: Theoretical, research and clinical perspectives, ed. U. Hentschel, G. Smith, W. Ehlers, & I. G. Draguns. New York Springer 1993a, 152183. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Meaning effects of context. Discourse Processes 16 (1993b) 423-449. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, Motivational and cognitive determinants of exploration. In: Curiosity and exploration, ed. H. Keller, H. Schneider, & B. Henderson. New York Springer 1994, 259-284. S. Kreitler, & H. Kreitler, The paranoid person: Cognitive motivations and personality traits. European Journal of Personality 11 (1997) 101-132. S. Kreitler, H. Kreitler & V. Wanounou, Cognitive modification of test performance in schizophrenics and normals. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality 7 (19871988) 227-249. J. C. Lilly, The centre of the cyclone. England Marion Boyars Publishers 1972. G. Maehle, Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and philosophy. Innaloo City, WA Australia Kaivalya Publications 2006. G. Mandler, Mind and body: Psychology of emotion and stress. New York Norton 1984. T. Natsoulas, The concept of consciousness-sub-4: The reflective meaning. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 24 (1994) 373-400. P. Ornstein, The psychology of consciousness. New York Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich 1977. D. Riboli, Tunsuriban: Shamanism in the Chepang of southern and central Nepal. Kathmandu, Nepal Mandala Book Point 2000. J. L. Singer, & J. S. Antrobus, Daydreaming, imaginal processes, and personality: A normative study. In: The function and nature of imagery, ed. P. W. Sheehan. New Yor Academic Press 1972, 175-202. S. Sutherland, Consciousness. In: The International dictionary of psycholog. New York 2nd ed. Crossroads 1995. C. T. Tart, States of consciousness and state-specific sciences. Science 176 (1972) 1203-1210.

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SHULAMITH KREITLER C. T. Tart, States of consciousness. New York E. P. Dutton 1975. E. Tulving, Elements of episodic memory. Oxford UK Oxford University Press 1983. M. Velmans, What and where are conscious experiences? In: The science of consciousness, ed. M. Velmans. London Routledge 1996, 181-196. K. Weissler, The Cognitive determinants of learning to read in first and second graders. Tel Aviv University Department of Psychology Unpublished Master’s Thesis 1993. L. L. Whyte, The unconscious before Freud. , Garden City NY Doubleday 1962. D. M. Wulff, Mystical experiences. In: Varieties of anomalous experience: Examining the scientific evidence, ed. E. Cardeňa, S. J. Lynn, & S. Krippner. Washington DC American Psychological Association 2000, 379-440. M. Zuckerman, Hallucinations, reported sensations and images. In: Sensory deprivation: Fifteen years of research, ed. J. P. Zubek. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts 1969, 85-125.

RENAUD VAN QUEKELBERGHE

Mindfulness and Psychotherapy The Revival of Indian Meditative Traditions within Modern Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Medicine

I. INTRODUCTION Within the last ten years the practice of mindfulness entered the fields of scientific medicine and psychotherapy. For sure, mindfulness is a very ancient and useful medicine going back to times immemorial. The Pali word satipatth  āna - usually translated as mindfulness - also means the way of mindful remembrance or recognition. Some Buddhist texts describe satipatth  āna as a clear and easy means leading to enlightenment and liberation from suffering. In Majjhima Nikāya 1,10 (Bhikkhu 1995: 145) we read for example: Bhikkhus, this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of Nibbāna – namely, the four foundations of mindfulness.

These few words claim that the practice of mindfulness is able to liberate everyone from all kinds of sufferings and psychological burdens. Moreover, they clearly indicate that this practice can lead to nibbāna or the supreme state of enlightenment. Mindfulness is called “fourfold” (cf. Majjhima Nikāya 1, 10, 31-38), because we have to focus our mind on four areas: 1. On our own body: breathing, moving, digesting, the use of our five senses, as well as focusing on the decay of our body after death, clearly looking at the decomposition of all organs up to the final structureless heap of bones. The latter part of this mindfulness training sounds like a shamanic initiation practice (cf. Eliade 1983: 65-67).

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2. On our own feelings and passions: mainly focusing on their processes of “becoming, intensifying, declining and disappearing”. 3. On our own thoughts and ideas: not only clearly registering their context, but also and most important their process of becoming, sustaining and disappearing. 4. On external things or beings: their coming and going, but also on Buddha’s central teachings such as the four noble truths. Looking at the satipatthāna-sutta from a psychological and therapeutic perspective, the following main aspects emerge: • • • • • • •

We should observe one by one the contents of our mind just as somebody opening a jar full of different beans and berries, describing every item very cautiously. We should observe the coming and going in every mind process. Buddha insists on different stages of mindfulness. The training must be adapted to the trainee’s level. He also insists on gaining a meta-perspective or “metanarrative”. The trainee has to focus on the dhamma or the principle of non-substantiality or impermanence, satipatthāna cannot be delegated to other people. It is always a matter of one's own mind experience. Buddha insists upon strong motivation and perseverance. As to the duration of the training, we find no precise statement: it can last from at least seven days up to seven years and more. Buddha, however, is very optimistic: if people are really motivated, the satipatthāna method will indeed be successful, i.e., will lead to nibbāna.

The satipatthāna-sutta relies on a kind of universal metaphor: a way leading from a starting point (e. g., some actual level of consciousness) to an end point, a supreme mind transformation or remembrance. At any starting point, we will encounter a suffering mind. At the end point, we will enjoy enlightenment or liberation from any suffering. This kind of metaphor is also very common or central for modern mindfulness therapy. Here we start our journey at some point of suffering - for example, a social phobia or a pernicious depression - and we try to reach a point of liberation or at least the alleviation of complaints.

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In the last decade or so, the parallels between psychotherapy and wisdom traditions such as Taoism, Hinduism, and predominantly Buddhism were deeply reflected by psychotherapists, far beyond metaphoric superficiality. For example, cognitive behavior therapy and psychoanalysis started to focus on training mindfulness as a privileged method to overcome a lot of clinical symptoms and sufferings. Needless to say, the programs and goals of modern therapy are distinctly different from the specific agenda of yogic trainings. Nevertheless, quite a lot of intensive studies have renewed the emphasis on the utility of a dialogue at all levels (so to speak: from a meta-theoretical to a hyperpractical level). The recent shifting within cognitive behavior therapy from symptoms as “contents” towards attitudes or mental modalities as “context” offers a certain analogy with the traditional distinction between pure consciousness as context and conscious processes or structures as contents within Buddhism or other Asian wisdom traditions. The following three metaphors briefly illustrate the relationship between “context and content” in mindfulness or Asian wisdom traditions (cf. van Quekelberghe 2007: 168-196): 1. emptiness, pure peace of mind, pure silence (context) versus ego-related passions (contents) 2. endless ocean versus “ego-waves” 3. crystal like, pure mirror versus plenty of mirages (thoughts, feelings,…). Such metaphors try to describe the subtle difference between consciousness itself (for example, pure awareness) and the contents of consciousness. Ad 1. Emptiness versus passions A progressive detachment from strong passions and countless strivings leads to a kind of a context without any perceivable content, a “pure awareness.” Surely, as soon as we try to further describe this context, we produce a lot of new contents. Therefore, the Asian traditions are psychologically right and wise in their saying that we have to experience primarily and not to think about emptiness. Great silence, inner peace, “no mind,” and pure awareness are usual descriptors of such a

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conscious experience. Only if we enter deep into our “heart”—beyond thoughts and feelings—and discover our awareness as endless, infinite, without beginning, timeless, indivisible, then we can observe all conscious contents, so to speak, beyond our own limited conscious ego. Developing emptiness or pure consciousness leads not only to a kind of awakening or enlightenment, it also helps to overcome plenty of psychic sufferings and cognitive bias of our own mind. Ad 2. A limitless ocean of pure awareness/mind versus waves of thoughts, feelings, strivings, or passions The endless ocean, similar to the “Dirac-Sea” or the quantum vacuum of modern physics, presents the first or last context, the infinite ground for all real or potential phenomena or contents (cf. van Quekelberghe 2005: 77-91). Patañjali-Yoga tries to bring this limitless awareness into the focus of a mindful meditation through complete cessation of any “wave or disturbing content” of one's own mind: citta-vṛtti-nirodha. This resonates through the Patañjali-Sūtra like a “mantra” and is a good expression of the relationship between pure awareness or mind and its countless vṛttis or contents. For Patañjali the drastic reduction of vrttis is undoubtedly the best medicine, mainly because of quieting and freeing the mind, and at the same time the best means to achieve mokṣa. Moreover, the nature of our mind is oceanic. Dazzled with “content waves,” we often oversee the endless ocean as context in and out of us. Ad 3. A mirror reflecting all kinds of contents Many wisdom traditions describe pure awareness or mindfulness as a mirror endlessly reflecting all possible mind contents. Surely, such a metaphor is to be found in many shamanic traditions. A mirror on the chest belongs to the attributes of numerous Siberian shamans (cf. Eliade 1983: 134-135). In Buddhism (e.g., Fa-Tsang), Sufism (e.g., Rumi) or Christianity (e.g., Gregory of Nazianz), only a soul free from egorelated views is able to generate a pure awareness or mindfulness mirroring the only “one context” of all possible contents, namely, according to the spiritual vocabulary of each tradition: Emptiness, Satcitānanda, God, Great Spirit, Shiva-Consciousness, Absolute Oneness, Nirvāna and so on.

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All three metaphors focus on the necessity for stepping back from a close bondage to endless contents in order to come in touch with the changeless one context. Spiritual traditions, mainly yogic and Buddhist meditative schools claim that stepping back from any content and at the same time opening an endless context of awareness are decisive steps for the achievement of mind enlightenment. While modern psychotherapy refers more and more to the distinction between context and content, only a few therapists, however, are fully aware of the spiritual dimension of such a distinction. The more we try to understand or even experience the meaning of a “contentless context,” the more, I guess, we have to open our mind to an absolute, endless or spiritual dimension, i.e., the very deep dimension of our own mind. II. BUDDHISM AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: A BRIEF SURVEY OF A BEGINNING DIALOGUE

In the following brief survey, four main areas of modern medicine or psychotherapy with relevance for Buddhist views and meditations for health care or psychotherapy are overviewed. These areas are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Classical psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Jung and the Neo-Freudians, Cognitive behavior therapy, Transpersonal psychology and psychotherapy. 1. Classical psychiatry and psychoanalysis

Franz Alexander (1891-1964), professor of psychiatry, psychoanalyst and founder of the first Institute for Psychosomatics worldwide, published a well known study in 1931, entitled “Buddhistic training as an artificial catatonia”. In this article, he describes the Buddhist meditation as narcissistic self-absorption, a kind of artificial schizophrenia, and as a compulsory masochistic practice killing any emotion. Furthermore, Alexander describes Lord Buddha as a neurotic man not having analyzed his repressed emotions and their transfer to his followers. This early study inspired many leading psychiatrists and psychoanalysts to focus on the parallels between schizophrenic regression or at least compulsory disorders and yoga or Buddhist meditative practices (cf. Alexander and Selesnick 1966).

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The German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz was surely one famous exception. The development of his autogenic training in the thirties was largely influenced by his positive view of the yogic traditions. Finally, Arthur Deikman (1977) was the very first psychiatrist who fought against the naïve arrogance of psychiatry and psychoanalysis toward Eastern meditative practice. 2. Jung and the Neo-Freudians C.G. Jung rejected the psychoanalytic view of Asian or Buddhist meditations as infantile regression, autistic defense formation or narcissistic neurosis. He studied different Eastern traditions and recognized their therapeutic power. Terms such as “Mandala, I Ching, Tao or Yoga” are often to be found in his collected works. Nevertheless, he believed that an integration of Western psychotherapy and Eastern meditation was - if ever possible - not desirable. Therefore, he often quoted Kipling's words: “East is east and West is west. And never the twain shall meet.” Quite independent from Jung, the so-called Neo-Freudians such as Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Harold Kelman got in touch with Zen-Buddhism in the fifties. Karen Horney (1885-1952) met the now renowned Zen author Daisetz T. Suzuki in the winter of 1950/51. Shortly after this meeting, she lectured about Zen-Buddhist principles and practices at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis. Horney saw a deep relationship between the Zen-mindfulness of “Here and Now” and the free floating attention in psychoanalysis. She understood this kind of attention as an endless, non-judgemental and warm-hearted mindfulness in sharp contrast to the positivistic, neutral attitude of her colleagues (cf. Horney 1987: 19-21). Erich Fromm (1900-1980) organized a conference in Cuernavaca (Mexico) on Zen-Buddhism and psychotherapy, inviting Daisetz T. Suzuki as keynote speaker. In the first book on Zen-Buddhism and psychoanalysis (Fromm et al. 1960), Fromm emphasized strong convergences between both traditions. He believed that Zen, like psychoanalysis, was able to free the individual from all unconscious or repressed strivings. Kelman (1960), a student of Karen Horney, considered psychoanalysis as a meditative training in mindfulness and emphasized the development of a therapist-clientrelationship in analogy to the relationship of guru and disciple as a radical new perspective for modern psychoanalysis.

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The psychoanalyst and psychologist Jeffrey Rubin (1985) tried to integrate Buddhism into a so-called contemplative psychoanalysis. Even if he somehow confused the Buddhist conception of egoless-ness (Pali: anatta) with psychoanalytic narcissism theory, he strongly advocated a free dialogue between Buddhism and psychotherapy (cf. Rubin, 1996). Brazier (2003), Magid (2002), Molino (1998), and Safran (2003) have developed this free dialogue further. The New York psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Barry Magid (2002) is perhaps the best known representative of this new era. In contrast to the previous pioneers such as Horney, Fromm, or Kelman, Magid is not only a psychotherapist, but also a Zen master. Within his integrative psychoanalytic Zen practice, Buddhist issues such as enlightenment or egoless-ness are discussed psychoanalytically; on the contrary, transference or defense mechanisms are questioned from a Buddhist point of view. 3. Cognitive behavior therapy and Buddhism Mikulas (1978, 1981) was the first behavior therapist arguing for an integration of Buddhist meditation into behavior therapy. He delineated many common aspects of behavior therapy and Buddhism, as for example: • • • • • • • • •

emphasis of individual self-control skills, few theoretical constructs, preference for observation and description of behavioral sequences, mainly focusing on concrete contents of conscious experiences, clear distinction between observable behavior and problematic ideas such as “person, ego, identity, world”, reduction of anxiety reactions with the help of relaxation, distraction, self-control procedures, emphasizing possible behavior changes by means of rehearsal, emphasizing regular exercise, optimistic view of learning capacities.

De Silva (1985) found such exercises in Buddha's sayings clearly corresponding to modern techniques of behavior therapy. Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) - developed during the eighties on the basis of Buddhist satipatthāna according to the tradition

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of the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw - was surely the primary source for the further integration of vipassanā and Zen-meditation into cognitive behavior therapy. Grossman et al. (2004) have recently published a review and meta-analysis of MBSR-studies. The statistically significant results strongly indicate that the mindfulness-based stress reduction program can have an important positive impact on a broad range of psychic and psychosomatic disorders. Linehan (1987), Hayes (2002), and Teasdale and Segal (Segal et al. 2002) are the foremost representatives of the so-called “third generation” (and up to now the last generation) of behavior therapy, namely the mindfulness cognitive behavior therapy. Marsha Linehan working with borderline patients introduced mindfulness meditative exercises into her behavior therapy programs in order to develop a radical, nonjudgemental acceptance of any present situation. Some aspects of her training remind us of Gestalt therapy. Perls (1893-1970) has always claimed a narrow relationship between the main principle of Gestalt therapy (concentration on the “here and now”) and the principles of Zen-Buddhism. Linehan's dialectic behavior therapy is based on the concept of “wise mind.” As a synthesis of cognitive and emotional systems, this “wise mind” is at the same time the source and the goal of any concentration on the “here-and-now” of any situation with a radical, nonjudgemental acceptance. For Linehan, “wise mind” is the cornerstone of acceptance and mindfulness within therapy and the source of a sort of universal spirituality, so to say beyond Buddhism or Christianity (cf. Robins, Schmidt, and Linehan 2004). Inspired by Kabat-Zinn, Segal et al. (2002) I have developed the so-called mindfulness cognitive behavior therapy” with special programs for the treatment of clinical depression. Empirical results show that a mix of mindfulness, meditative and cognitive skills is more efficient than a cognitive training alone (cf. van Quekelberghe 2007: 210214). Steven Hayes (2002, 2004) has developed the acceptance and commitment therapy” (ACT). The influence of Buddhist vipassanā meditation on ACT cannot be overseen. Meditative concentration and a non-judgmental approach to any experience are its main components. Hayes emphasized: 1. the learning of diffusion, making a clear distinction between verbal or cognitive representations and the direct experience of

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situations (cognitive fusion and getting entangled in contradictions often lead to psychic disorders), 2. the learning of the difference between our ego as context and our various ego-contents. Mindfulness meditation greatly contributes to both these learning goals. The second main component, the distinction between context and content, surely leads to a spiritual view of our own self. While learning a kind of de-identification from all our ego-contents, we come very close to the meditative Asian traditions which emphasize the stepping back from all forms of strong attachment to contents. It is interesting to note that Hayes (2004: 20-21) refers to a “transcendent sense of self” which cannot be identified with any ego-content. He also refers to the metaphor used by the transpersonal therapist Roberto Assagioli. According to Assagioli, we should see our own ego as the chessboard and not plainly identify ourselves with any white chess piece (for example, our good thoughts or feelings) or with any black chess piece (for example, our bad thoughts or feelings). 4. The transpersonal psychotherapy and Buddhism An important area of dialogue between Asian traditions and psychotherapy is surely the transpersonal psychology and therapy. Since the launching of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (1969) and the foundation of a scientific society (1970), many psychiatrists, psychologists, and social scientists have greatly contributed to a broad dialogue between Asian wisdom traditions and modern science (especially psychiatry and psychotherapy). Authors such as Ken Wilber or Stan Grof have largely influenced the development of this new research area. In my book (van Quekelberghe 2005), I describe the main fields of this transpersonally or spiritually oriented psychotherapy. III. THE BODHISATTVA WAY: A POSSIBLE IDEAL FOR A SPIRITUALLY ORIENTED (POST)MODERN PSYCHOTHERAPIST? The Bodhisattva ideal belongs to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Bodhisattva (bodhi: Sanskrit for “enlightening/enlightenment”; sattva: Sanskrit for “being”) is centering all his/her life on enlightenment and the freeing of all sentient beings from suffering. The Bodhisattva resolves

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to achieve a pure state of mind for the liberation of other beings from the chains of craving and suffering. The Bodhisattva vow goes like this: The sentient beings are countless; I vow that I'll free all of them from suffering. The illusions are countless; I vow that I'll destroy all of them. The dharma gates are countless; I vow that I'll go through each of them. The enlightenment is endless; I vow that I'll realize it! In Mahāyāna Buddhism we have two main types of Bodhisattvas: the transcendent and the transient or human ones. Transcendent Bodhisattvas are for example Avalokiteshvara (Bodhisattva of compassion) and Mañjushrī (Bodhisattva of wisdom). The transient or human Bodhisattva has to go through 10 stations (Sanskrit “bhumi”) before achieving a transcendent or completely enlightened state of consciousness. There are at least six perfections to be trained: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

generosity passionless behavior patience courage mindfulness wisdom

The training of such attitudes leads to the following four stable characteristics of the Bodhisattva state of consciousness, the so-called brahmavihāras: 1. 2. 3. 4.

mettā (Pali for “goodness”) karunā (Pali for “compassion”) muditā (Pali for “serenity”) upekkhā (Pali for “equanimity”)

Perfect wisdom and compassion, the essential characteristics of any transcendent Bodhisattva, emerge out of the training of the six perfections (Sanskrit: pāramitās) and the four brahmavihāras as perfect states of consciousness. Both characteristics are grounded in the primary perception of an unitary (endless) context for all possible contents. The Bodhisattva way could be helpful for any spiritually oriented therapist - not only for Buddhist therapists - at multiple levels of actions and different stages of training, for example:

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developing a profound compassion for any suffering human being, enjoying the alleviation of suffering (surely a good remedy against the burn out syndrome), developing more acceptance and more mindfulness of one' s own emotions and cognitions, reducing our own defense mechanisms and resistance, i.e., becoming more flexible in all kinds of situations, developing perfections (pāramitās) such as generosity, patience, and courage is surely quite adequate for long term patients and/or low motivated clients the third bhumi (Sanskrit: prabhākara) means “radiant charisma.” So the more a therapist progresses along the Bodhisattva path, the more he/she will be able to communicate non-verbally some sort of “positive healing energy.” This non-verbal charisma will also reduce the resistance and/or motivate the patients to go beyond a verbal level of comprehension and communication.

These few examples show us that the Bodhisattva way should be useful for any post-modern therapist interested in cultivating a spiritual dimension along acceptance and mindfulness. It should be clear that this way is really open to all forms of “Weltanschauung”: agnostic, atheistic, theistic, Hinduistic, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, etc. IV. NĀLANDĀ Finally, I would like to point to Nālandā as to our real need for postmodern “wisdom research centers” to help physicians, psychotherapists, teachers and others on the long way towards a fully enlightened and enlightening mind. Nālandā, 60 miles south of Patna (Bihar, India), was such a wisdom research center for nearly eight hundred years (V-XIII centuries c.e.). Such a center offered the possibility for long retreats and the teachings of top skilled persons such as Nāgārjuna or Naropa. We need many post-modern “wisdom research centers” in order to promote a sustained, deep, and competent move of modern medicine and psychotherapy towards more mindfulness, acceptance and spirituality.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander 1931

F. Alexander, Buddhistic training as an artificial catatonia. Psychoanalytic Review 18 (1931) 129-145. Alexander & Selesnick 1996 F. G. Alexander & S. T. Selesnick, The history of psychiatry: An evaluation of psychiatric thought. Harper & Row. New York 1966. Bhikkhu 1995 B. Bhikkhu, The middle length discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Wisdom Publications. Boston 1995. Brazier 2003 C. Brazier, Buddhism on the couch. Ulysses. Berkeley 2003. De Silva 1986 P. De Silva, Buddhism and behavior change : Implications therapy. In : G. Claxton (Ed.), Beyond therapy: The impact of Eastern traditions on psychological theory and practice. Wisdom Press. London 1986, 217-231. Deikman 1977 A. Deikman, Comment on the GAP report on mysticism. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 165 (1977) 213-217. Eliade 1983 M. Eliade, Le chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l’ extase. Payot. Paris 1983. Fromm 1960 E. Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism. In: E. Fromm, D. T. Suzuki, & R. De Martino (Eds.), Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. Harper & Row. New York 1960, 77-141. Grossman et al. 2004 P. Grossman, L. Niemann, S. Schmidt, & H. Walach, Ergebnisse einer Metaanalyse zur Achtsamkeit. In: T. Heidenreich & J. Michalak (Eds.), Achtsamkeit und Akzeptanz in der Psychotherapie, ed. DGVT. Tübingen 2004, 701-726. Hayes 2002 S.C. Hayes, Buddhism and acceptance and commitment therapy. Cognitive & Behavioral Practice 9 (2002) 58-66. Hayes 2004 S. C. Hayes, Acceptance and commitment therapy and the new behavior therapies. In: S. C. Hayes, V. M. Follette, M. M. Linehan (Eds.), Mindfulness and acceptance. Guilford Press. New York/London 2004, 1-29. Horney 1987 K. Horney, Final lectures. In: D. H. Ingram (Ed.), Final Lectures, ed. Norton. New York 1987. Kelman 1960 H. Kelman, Psychoanalytic thought and Eastern wisdom. In: J. Ehrenwald (Ed.), The history of psychotherapy: From healing magic to encounter. Jason Aronson. New York 1960, 328-333. Linehan 1987 M. M. Linehan, Dialectical behavioral therapy: A cognitive behavioral approach to parasuicide. Journal of Personality Disorders 1 (1987) 328-333. Magid 2002 B. Magid, Ordinary mind. Exploring the common ground of zen and psychotherapy. Wisdom Publications. Boston 2002. Mikulas 1978 W. L. Mikulas, Four noble truths of Buddhism related to Behavior therapy. Psychological Record 28 (1978) 59-67. Mikulas 1981 W. L. Mikulas, Buddhism & behavior modification. Psychological Record 31 (1981) 331-342.

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A. Molino, The couch and the tree: Dialogues in Buddhism and psychoanalysis. North Point Press. New York 1998. Robins et al. 2004 C. J. Robins, H. Schmidt III, & M. M. Linehan, Dialectical behavior therapy : Synthesizing radical acceptance with skillful means. In: S. C. Hayes, V. M. Follette, & M. M. Linehan (eds.), Mindfulness and acceptance. Guilford Press. New York / London 2004, 30-44. Rubin 1985 J. B. Rubin, Meditation and psychoanalytic listening. Psychoanalytic Review 72 (1985) 599-613. Safran 2003 J. D. Safran (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An unfolding Dialogue. Wisdom Publications. Somerville, MA 2003. Segal et al. 2002 J. Segal, V. Zindel, J. Williams, G. Marks, & J. D. Teasdale, Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy of depressions. Guilford Press. New York 2002. van Quekelberghe 2005 R. van Quekelberghe, Transpersonale Psychologie und Psychotherapie. Dietmar Klotz. Eschborn bei Frankfurt/M. 2005. van Quekelberghe 2007 R. van Quekelberghe, Grundzüge der Spirituellen Psychotherapie. Dietmar Klotz. Eschborn bei Frankfurt/M. 2007.

MICHAEL DELMONTE

Empty Thy Mind and Come to Thy Senses: A De-constructive Path to Inner Peace “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” William Shakespeare, Hamlet

1. INTRODUCTION Increasingly, we live in an age of hyper-communication – in terms of both sheer quantity and speed. If one takes a complete break from one’s office for a couple of weeks, then the e-mails, text messages, letters, faxes, phone messages, etc, pile up and await us in intimidating bulk, all demanding instant attention upon our return. On top of all of these we have the ever-present radios, televisions, newspapers, magazines, videos, DVDs and the like also competing for our limited mental space. If this were not enough, bill-boards try to out-perform each other for our special attention – as do the many demands of our work colleagues and last, but hopefully, not least, the demands of our loved ones, families and friends. Then there is the endless chatter – at work, social gatherings and conferences. The chattering species – or “Homo chatteraticus” – would punningly describe our manifest nature - especially that of our subspecies that dwells in our modern expanding urban sprawls. Is it any wonder that we compulsively prattle so much? Our minds are probably over-stimulated, with a constant barrage of hyper-communication on a level to which our so-called “primitive” ancestors were relatively unaccustomed. Our over-talkative mouths reflect, of course, our unstoppable minds: Minds which find it increasingly difficult to switch off. Even when we go on holidays we take these over-stimulated, hyper-active minds with us on frenetic attempts to “enjoy ourselves” via novel forms of stimulation (de Botton, 2003). Well, not quite always – if we know how. Never before has quiet meditation been more appropriate as an antidote to this volume of mental overdrive. A real mental vacation means just that – a vacant mind. Meditation – whether by means of con-

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centration on only just one stimulus at the time, or temporarily (trying) to remain mindful, i.e. practicing being a neutral, non-judgmental observer – aims at minimizing the thinking/analytical mind and fostering clearer sensory and reflective awareness instead. Paradoxically, deep mindfulness, if practiced competently, can eventually lead to a peaceful void or “mindlessness” – characterized by a state of “no thought” – even if it is only for brief moments initially. 2. THE TALKING CURE So what can we do with anxiously driven and chronically over-aroused minds? Typically, one option is to offer them the “talking therapies” with a “talking cure” in mind! So we have Freud’s “free association” monologues, cognitive therapy’s “cognitive restructuring” dialogues, and many other variants all using verbalization as their modus operandi. I have no doubt that these are often very useful approaches – usually in the earlier (i.e. “repair”) stages of psychotherapy when dealing with deficits, conflicts and defenses, but I am less convinced that this always remains the case, for example, with those among us with varying degrees of obsessive thinking. Can problems of the pained and over-active mind exclusively be solved by the thinking mind? Hopefully some clarity on this shall emerge as we proceed. 3. INTERNALITY VERSUS EXTERNALITY You may object that I am also right now engaging in communicative chatter! Well, yes, this has to do with externality. Talking and writing are useful means of communication between “objects,” i.e. between people. Internality, must not, however, be neglected. We are not just objects to each other, we are also subjects. Our internal space – our subjectivities – should not be overlooked. Again this is where meditation is also valuable. When we attend to our inner space we often notice how our incessant thinking is like a compulsion, well-nigh impossible to stop, even when we claim that these thoughts are often unwanted. This repetitive thinking has typically been dealt with in cognitive therapy by “thought stopping”, but evidence suggests that a gentler approach, based on the acceptance of unwanted cognitions via mindful “witnessing”, may be more effective (Tolle, 1999, 2005; Thich Nhat Hanh, 1975, 1991, 2003; Barnes-Holmes, et al, 2004). This is not a defeatist

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acceptance, but rather a mindful choice. Hayes and Smith (2005) refer to the acceptance emergent from mindfulness practice as “radical acceptance.” “Awakening” our “inner observer” capacity is what mindfulness meditation promotes. Much of our private thinking is comprised of unproductive monologues at best (often telling ourselves illusory stories), but also by destructive imaginary, internal disputes and conflicts. Many people suffer from minds which are ceaselessly engaged in anxious or depressive self-statements, in weary “battles” and the like, with little in the way of creative outcome. Many of us also “live in our heads,” disconnected from our bodies. What can be done about all of this? For a start one can begin to raise one’s awareness level via mindfulness training. 4. MINDFULNESS AND DIS-IDENTIFICATION It may be easier to start mindfulness training by observing our physical bodies in action, e.g. simply by watching ourselves walking as in walking meditation. We can do likewise for various other daily activities, for example, while washing our hands or eating. The mindful practice of Hatha Yoga affords us an excellent means to deepen awareness of our embodiment. Paradoxically, when we apply our “inner observer” to our own thinking minds while practicing mindfulness, it is not necessarily with the intention of “refining” our thinking, but rather to learn how to dis-identify from it (Assogioli, 1965; De Mello, 1990; Holmes, 1997; Tolle, 1999; DelMonte, 2000, 2003). Observing our thoughts, like clouds passing through the sky without either rejecting or clinging onto them, is what dis-identification is basically about. Thereby one learns to let go temporarily of unsolicited and invasive thoughts so as to have a less “muddied” consciousness, and eventually to let go momentarily of all thoughts, rendering moments of stillness – or better still, the “just being ” of clearer consciousness (see “Adaptive Dis-identification” later). Although consciousness without thought is a possibility, its opposite, thought without some consciousness is not (excluding the Freudian repressed unconscious). Consciousness thus appears to be primary, and from it emerges thought as a secondary epi-phenomenon: An epiphenomenon that can become “parasitic,” in the sense that consciousness can play the role of a reluctant host to our unbidden thinking - as in dreams, obsessional ruminations and when “hearing voices” (auditory

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hallucinations). When, in meditation for example, we experience consciousness without thought, we may be in touch with “just being”, i.e. our deeper essence beyond mental and physical form. Brain activation produces cognitions and emotions. Quieten this brain activity with meditation and one is left with the “no thought” of clear consciousness. Thus consciousness appears to be primary and mentation secondary. 5. AWARENESS TRAINING It is possibly obvious by now that the early stages of mindfulness practice can also be seen as a form of sensory awareness training. Awareness training often starts with self-observation (De Mello, 1990). As already mentioned, we have several objects of choice on which to focus our attention, such as our breathing, hearing, and so forth. We learn to train, i.e. sensitize, all our senses in this way. This is best done nonanalytically and in the “hic et nunc” (here and now) mode. We can also observe our cravings, our dislikes, our clutching and needy minds in action and via “just letting-be,” learn to side–step them. Such stoic side stepping can be seen as a form of adaptive dissociation. Identification with the desired contents of one’s mind, i.e. with one’s attachments, typically leads to fear of their loss, and consequently to emotional distress, pessimistic thinking and compensatory behavior. These cravings can be simply observed, and, for a change, neither judged nor acted upon. We can also become attached to, and identified with, our pain, losses and suffering, as in a felt sense of prolonged victimhood. (See Attachments section below). So developing an awareness of our varied attachments is another aspect of mindfulness training, contradictory as some of these attachments may seem to be. Craving for sensory gratification, for continued existence and for annihilation, corresponding to the Freudian constructs of libido, ego and the death instinct (See de Silva, 1990), can all be problematic. Dependence on sensory gratification implies dependence on instinct and on externality. Craving for continued existence is a denial of impermanence, and craving for annihilation is surrender to the death wish, i.e. to Thanatos. This can be seen in impulsive aggression turned outwards on others (sadism), or inwards on oneself (masochism), as found with drug and alcohol abuse, self-harm and suicide. Behind the death wish is often a desire to return to a non-suffering peaceful state free of longing, frustration and fear. This peace can, temporarily, be

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attained on earth much more constructively via meditation, yoga and mindfulness practice. Many approaches to mental health see the development of selfawareness as beneficial. The insight gained through psychoanalysis is purportedly transmutative in terms of neurotic symptoms (Freud, 1900). Likewise, the self-awareness fostered in Gestalt therapy (Perls, et al., 1973) was seen as therapeutic. (See later for psychodynamic, Gestalt and constructivist approaches to awareness). Schwartz (1983) saw selfattention per se as playing an important homeostatic, and thus integrative, role. It has also been argued, with some empirical support, that meditation in general, and mindfulness meditation in particular, is conducive to well-being (Shafii, 1973b; Carrington & Ephron, 1975; Deatherage, 1975; Brown & Engler 1980; DelMonte, 1984a, 1985, 1990; DelMonte & Kenny, 1985). Moreover, it has been suggested that increased (non-neurotic) self-awareness, with its attendant clarity of vision, should allow one to make more informed choices, and thus enable one to discard old habits, attitudes and attachments that no longer serve our evolving needs. These claims are addressed (see later) in the context of our attachments to people, objects, emotions and ideas, as well as in the context of our attempts to foster self-awareness via self-attention strategies. So is there a link between self-attention and health? 6. SELF-ATTENTION, AWARENESS AND SELF-REGULATION Schwartz’s (1983) disregulation theory can be catch-phrased as: “Repression and Disease versus Mindfulness and Health”. He postulated that awareness is linked to health and that repression is associated with “dis-ease”. He produced considerable empirical evidence that repressors show elevated levels of psycho-physiological distress such as electrocortical (brain-wave), electromyographical (muscular) and, especially, cardiovascular arousal. These latter findings are consistent with some later work of my own also showing a significant relationship between defensiveness and haemodynamic arousal in general and cardiovascular arousal in particular (DelMonte, 1984a, 1985). Repressors also report significantly more physical illness than “true low anxious” subjects (see Schwartz, 1983). Schwartz agrees with Galin (1974) when he proposed that repression is produced by a functional cerebral disconnection syndrome in

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which the left hemisphere (which is usually associated with verbal and analytic functioning) becomes functionally isolated to varying degrees from the right hemisphere, with its relative non-verbal (e.g. emotional) and spatial function. Schwartz produced evidence that repressive subjects appear to show more (right hemisphere) cerebral lateralization with regard to negative emotions and in situations which are potentially threatening. He also quotes other evidence indicating a relative attenuation of information transfer from the right to the left hemisphere in “repressive” compared with “true low anxious subjects.“ Traumatic memories tend to be stored in the right parietal lobes (van der Kolk & Fisher, 1995). Overall, the right hemisphere seems to be activated in the expression of difficult and disturbing emotions, and the left hemisphere tends to be associated with the expression of positive emotions such as joy and happiness. Two months of mindfulness training has been shown to lead to a significant shift to a higher ratio of left-sided compared with right-sided brain activation (Davidson, et al, 2003). Warrenburg, et al. (1981), reported a significantly high proportion of hypertensives being repressors. For these hypertensive individuals, the more relaxed they said they were during the speech-task the higher their blood pressure! This observation is supported by other evidence that high blood pressure (internal arousal or “noise”) can be used to dampen cognitive awareness of distress (Dworkin, et al., 1979; DelMonte, 1984a). Schwartz (1983) argued that self-attention, as practised in various mindfulness meditation techniques, “seems to have specific autonomic, self-regulatory, stabilizing effects on physiological functioning” (p.114). He contended that self-attention can promote localized healing, “especially if the self-attention is guided by relevant imagery that is targeted to the appropriate part(s) of the body” (p.114). This suggestion is interesting in terms of the often quoted pioneer work done by Simonton and Simonton (1974) and by Meares (1978) in which they used meditation and visualization exercises with cancer patients. In a similar fashion the insight gained in psychotherapy may be therapeutic. There is some evidence that those receiving psychotherapy are less likely to subsequently report physical illness (Rosen & Wiens, 1979). Psychotherapy typically aims to enhance insight and awareness, as well as provide a corrective attachment experience. But do we need to distinguish between such positive attachment experiences, and our tendency to clutch indiscriminately in many directions?

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7. ATTACHMENTS Much has been said elsewhere (DelMonte 2003, 2004) about our clutching minds attaching to opinions, appearances, possessions, success, power, status, prestige, wealth, pride and so forth. Less has been stated about our minds’ equal capacity to identify with, and stay with, suffering, by either living in the past in holding onto bygone insults, losses, hurts, defeats, etc, or by anticipating the future in pessimistic, paranoid or hypochondriacal ways. Victimhood can become a fixed identity, i.e. an attachment and even a way of life (Tolle, 1999; Bruckner, 2000). The “Pain-body” (Tolle, 1999, 2005) and the pain-mind are often characterised by an exaggerated need to wallow in and talk about suffering compulsively and self-righteously – usually blaming others for our current misery. Then there is the compulsion to compare and judge others from a “knowing” position. Engaging in such non-compassionate “sitting in judgment” and “forming opinions” self-righteously about others only isolates us. Psychic pain is inevitable if one is identified with one’s egotistic mind, which seeks a constant array of ego gratifications, including the need to be always right or victorious. Ego identifications lead us to cling to past gains, regret past losses and worry about future snags, snares, pitfalls and more losses; thereby taking us away from living fully in the present reality – especially when it can have so much to offer. Life inevitably involves a series of gains and losses. Griffin (2001) saw adjustment to loss as a lifelong regenerative learning process. Losses also open up new opportunities. Then there is the social domain. Attachment has both physiological and psychological components. Developing a “theory of mind” in childhood facilitates the latter (Fonagy, et al, 1994). People often remark on the proclivity of human beings to form strong emotional bonds. We are popularly described as “social animals”. However, there is considerable variation in this tendency to seek out others and to maintain contact. Social “stickiness” does not appear to be spread out evenly in the population. Some individuals deliberately enhance their outreaching social skills, whilst others, for a variety of reasons, use various strategies to distance themselves from people or to withdraw into themselves. I shall go on to explore the way Eastern techniques, in particular, can be used to alter these apparently opposite inclinations – to either “connect” with others or to retreat from them. Much has been written about the manner in which children learn to socialize as they grow up. Establishing “healthy” roles and social

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links is seen as a prerequisite to mental health. Those of us who are unable to form and sustain intimate affiliations are usually perceived as having serious emotional problems – but so are those whose emotional bonds are overly dependent. In other words, extremes in emotional distance, that is, being too closely enmeshed in a dependent way or, at the other end of the scale, being excessively self-reliant, are considered socio-maladaptive in adults (see Birtchnell, 1997). As already alluded to, we not only become attached to people, we also form strong attachments to a range of objects and experiences, such as the taste of certain foods and drinks, the sound of particular forms of music, our possessions such as childhood toys, paintings, ornaments, land, houses, money, etc. Moreover, we also become attached to the non-material realm in terms of our languages, religions, ethnic groups, theories, ideologies and achievements. We may identify with such attachments, to the point of describing ourselves in terms of their labels. So we may characterize ourselves as “communist,” “nationalist,” “feminist,” “Protestant,” “Orthodox,” “liberal,” “left-wing,” “Afrikaansspeaking,” “humanist,” etc. We also characterize these attachments in egotistical terms, e.g. my religion, my flock, my people, my career, my territory, in my opinion, and so forth, and express strong dislikes of other identities. So, is our real identity the sum of such potentially divisive, personal attachments, or is this just our mask hiding a deeper essence? We may cling as arduously onto non-material as onto material attachments, e.g. try persuading an “opinionated” person to change his mind! Attachments do not always make much rational sense. We can become attached to, or enmeshed with, other peoples’ difficulties, our own personal problems and abusive relationships. Attachments can limit, hold and constrain consciousness to particular viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives. They can imprison and isolate us, and impede our further development. 8. ATTACHMENT AND LOSS However, attachment and loss are two sides of the same coin. Nothing is permanent – all is flux. Much is illusion and even delusion. All investments are potential losses – if not during our current lifetimes then certainly upon their physical ends. We all live in the shadow of death – the ultimate narcissistic blow!? This knowledge – colored by our own personal history of previous losses (both emotional and material) – has

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as a consequence that we can feel varying degrees of insecurity about our desired attachments. Paradoxically, the various objects and people on whom we have become dependent for our emotional identity and security may also become the very source of our deepest anxiety, as observed in the “separation anxiety” linked to their feared loss. Although with emotional attachment comes varying degrees of social support, this support is often at a price – namely that of burdensome counter demands and responsibilities! Caring for others can be emotionally draining – not just rewarding. 9. DEFENSIVE DETACHMENT Some of us try to avoid this anxiety by means of a “schizoid defence”. It is likely to be found in those who are fearful of the risks involved in emotional inter-dependence, often due to past failures and hurts in this area. This defense is characterized by a contrived emotional detachment (largely unconscious) based on an exaggerated attitude of personal selfsufficiency, often where childhood bonding with care-givers was painfully inadequate or insensitive. In the absence of adequate parental attunement and nurturing behavior, emotional self-dependency may be sought via varying degrees of emotionally insulating and “autonomous” behavior. An extreme version of this defense could be the affective “non-attachment” (and non-attunement) found in borderline personality disorder, where long-term intimacy is too uncomfortable to be sustained (see Holmes, 1997). However, several variants of defensive isolation, or extreme egoism, exist. Solipsism, for example, is an intellectual rationalization for this cut off stance in life. But is mere withdrawal adequate? How can one really enjoy such false “escapism” when surrounded by others who may be in pain? This issue of defensive detachment shall be expanded on later. (See “Problems with Detachment and Disidentification”). 10. ADAPTIVE DIS-IDENTIFICATION Not all forms of detachment are mal-adaptive defenses. Some psychotherapists deliberately encourage a form of non-attachment as a way of coping with potential loss. For example, both Assagioli (1965) and, later, Holmes (1997) refer to the strategy of “dis-identification” when

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dealing with psychic pain (see earlier “Mindfulness and Disidentification”). Assagioli’s viewpoint was similar to that of those Buddhists who perceive our tendency to identify in a clinging way with objects of our desire as ultimately leading to the pain of their actual or imagined loss. He described cognitive exercises to encourage the development of a mental set of “dis-identification” as a counter-force in coping with this tendency to over-invest and to over-identify ourselves with our physical bodies, emotions, thoughts, etc., and with our attachments in general. The objective of Assagioli’s “dis-identification” exercises is to be less at the mercy of our longings, wishes and desires. One finds an echo here of the Buddhist dictum, already referred to, that craving is the source of suffering. Mindfulness training can raise awareness of our acquisatorial nature and help liberate us from the slavery of endless grasping, of which contemporary materialism and consumerism are obvious hedonistic examples. For Freud (1900, 1912, and 1930) the pull of the pleasure principle is not freedom, and is only one side of a dualism – the other side being the displeasure which inevitably follows in the heels of pleasure seeking. Psychological freedom also comes from letting go of defensive and reactionary views, and from moving above polarised construing as in “them versus us” attitudes. Let us now look at a non-clinical example of dis-identification. The exile is an interesting case, especially if he, or she, comes from a poorly understood cultural background or ethnic group. Being an exile in a foreign land often means that one’s former cultural identity has to be suspended while a new one is being constructed. Todorov (1996) refers to the latter process as acculturisation. Here we should also speak of de-constructing one’s former persona (or de-culturisation) and developing a new identity (or mask?). This can be a painful process, characterized by considerable nostalgia for lost familiarities and by obsessional reminiscing about the lost world in an attempt to keep it mentally alive while we construct a new one. But this process is rarely fully complete, so that one is left as a transcultural hybrid betwixt two worlds. Rather than view this new state of affairs as a failure, it could on the contrary be seen as an adaptive dynamic in which one’s identity is “elastic.“ Fixity gives way to resilient flexibility in which acquisitions (identifications) are constantly being balanced by losses (disidentifications) to produce a freshly evolving self.

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11. NON-ATTACHMENT TECHNIQUES OF THE ORIENT In the Orient there is a long tradition going back thousands of years linked to Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism, of using various techniques such as meditation, Yoga, Tai-chi, Qi-gong and so forth to achieve altered mental states characterized by equanimity and non-grasping, by moving beyond (i.e. "transcending”) the issues and problems onto which our thoughts can “stick” (see Mascaro, 1962; DelMonte, 1995a; DelMonte, 2000). Meditation, Hatha Yoga, and Qi-gong exercises can be used to focus on bodily posture, breathing and the contents of one’s mind. They (like the use of Zen Koans) also play down the value of intellectualization, rationalization and other aspects of what is known as “shi-shen” in ancient Chinese Qi-gong. Shi-shen, or conceptual knowledge, must be balanced by “yuan-shen” which lies beyond conceptual consciousness, yet permeates all aspects of life – being its very source. Yuan-shen is seen as the dynamic force inherent in “Qi”. Qi could be referred to as “vital energy” in the West. Yuan-shen, being essentially ineffable, is difficult to symbolize, e.g. to put into words. During meditation and Koan contemplation one tries to side-step the discursive mind with its focus on conceptual knowledge or shi-shen. The periods of meditative “no thought” characterized by stillness, silence and openness may present opportunities to experience the ineffable yuan-shen referred to above. Moreover, yuan-shen may be phenomenologically similar to Jung’s (1958) “collective unconscious”, namely a vast, loose, preverbal, pre-conscious and inchoate transpersonal resource of vast potential. This resource can be “tapped into” more readily by the use of certain techniques such as meditation in which the chattering conceptual mind is temporarily silenced. Lose thy mind and come to thy senses – in the here and now! (See “Gestalt Therapy Perspective”). Dorcas argued that meditation and Qi-gong are similar insofar as they both use attentional concentration and mindfulness to tune the mind to “an advanced level of consciousness, in which the divisions between subject and object cease to exist, the division between me and not me melts away and in which one feels at one with the entire universe" (Dorcas, 1996, p.13). This advanced state of consciousness is also hallmarked by “choiceless awareness” (Krisnamurti, 1991) in so far as such awareness implies a non-seeking and non-clutching approach to the contents of perception. Bearing the above train of thought in mind, a distinction can usefully be made between “detachment”, which implies detaching, i.e.

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withdrawing interest or giving up something previously valued on the one hand, and “non-attachment” on the other, which implies a more neutral or non-grasping stance whilst accepting, in a non-possessive manner, all of that which momentarily forms part of our experiential world. Whereas detachment can seem anti-social, non-attachment does not imply a lack of compassion, nor indifference to the world or to the lot of others. Detachment can also be seen as harboring strong defensive undertones and may have little to do with maturing through life’s experiences – be they work or love related. 12. MINDFULNESS MEDITATION PRACTICE Advanced practitioners of meditation often focus their attention on the phenomenology of consciousness by means of introspective mindfulness (see DelMonte, 1995a; Kabat-Zinn, 2005). With mindfulness techniques the meditator is encouraged to maintain “a quiet awareness, without comment, of whatever happens to be here and now” (Watts, 1957). The objective of mindfulness meditation is “to come to know one’s own mental processes, to thus begin to have the power to shape or control the mental processes, and finally to gain freedom from the condition where the mental processes are unknown and uncontrolled, with the individual at the mercy of his own unbridled mind” (Deatherage, 1975, p.134). Hendricks (1975) sees such introspection as a form of discrimination training which helps meditators to observe their own thoughts in a relatively detached way. He speculates that “since nearly everyone has a certain number of neurotic thoughts mental health is dependent upon the ability to recognize that they are “just thoughts” (p.145). This approach can be applied to depressive, anxious and obsessive cognitions, and several authors have done just that (e.g. KabatZinn, 1996; Teasdale, 2000). A variant of meditative mindfulness (analytic mindfulness meditation) can also used to observe the psychic nature of felt attachments, with their complex interwoven webs of emotional, cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral sub-components. In observing the very construction of consciousness in this non-attached (i.e. non-grasping or non-identificatory manner) practitioners hope, at least temporarily, to move beyond the pull of their unbridled yearnings and the push of irrational dislikes. Being mindful of the impermanence of all material and psychic attachments facilitates awareness of the ephemeral nature of our

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personal consciousness, laden as it is with regular eruption of instinctive craving. Freedom is where craving is converted into mindful choice. If cravings are invariably suppressed then we are no freer than if we always yield to them! Full acceptance of “the now,” by neither clinging to nor rejecting our experiences, is the essence of mindfulness. Its aim is to free us from our reactionary minds, i.e. minds dominated by raw instinct and by past conditioning. Mindfulness meditation encourages an opening to broader consciousness. In this way it is similar to some forms of spiritual practice. One can say that such meditation favors an opening of our intuitive self. It fosters this intuitive self over our more driven instinctive self and reactive conditioned self, as well as over our split-off cerebral self. The insights gleaned from meditation are not to be limited to personal gain, but should be transformed into relational acts of kindness, compassion, respect and tolerance of others. Acceptance of the suchness of reality does not preclude compassionate work towards improving the lot of ourselves and of others. 13. THE SILENCE OF MEDITATION Meditation, with practice, can become very simple. For example, we can learn to observe the silence within us – if we progress that far. Moments of timelessness may emerge as may a sense of formlessness. Our personal experience of timelessness is just a small chip off the eternity “block,” just as our experience of formlessness yields a sense of infinity. These moments of dwelling in timelessness and formlessness, however brief they may be, nevertheless yield a sense of unity where the dualistic discursive mind has suspended its “me/other” construing. By letting go of dualistic sense-making and just “letting be” one approaches whatever emerges with increasing equanimity. Deeply silent meditation, characterized by “no thought” and by a sense of unity, brings us face-toface with the unmanifest, i.e. with yet-to-be expressed potential - a real break from repetitive and predictable thinking. This dichotomy between the discursive mind and no-thought does not imply an inherent conflict. Thinking undoubtedly has its value and place – especially when we use thought and speech to facilitate informative, creative, humorous or playful communication. Silence, on the contrary, facilitates communion (Shafii, 1973a), i.e. the meeting of minds (or rather of “hearts”) non-verbally through intuition, feeling,

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empathy and sensation. As Jung pointed out (Jung, 1958) there are four ways of knowing – i.e., thinking, sensation, feeling and intuition – with thinking being increasingly favored in contemporary Western culture. However, with the silence of meditation one uses focussed sensory attention (sensation) to foster the emergence of the intuitive mind. The practice of silent meditation leading to “no thought” can be described as the “via negativa” (the empty way) as opposed to the “via positiva”, which is the more habitual mode as seen daily in our discursive minds. They represent opposite ways of sense making. The path of meditation (silence) should not seek to negate the mind in action, but rather to assist in the liberation of one’s self from blind allegiance to our instinctual impulses, obsessions and compulsions (Freud’s id), and also from fleeing from our dislikes and fears. It may also free us from the impoverishment resulting from our maladaptive defenses which primarily serve to limit our awareness, and from judgmental attitudes (Freud’s “harsh” super-ego). Silence and mindful meditation thus facilitate the emergence of “creative emptiness” in which “benevolent depersonalization” is fostered, i.e. the discarding of unhelpful id and super-ego impulses and control (see Moncayo, 2003 for fuller exposition). 14. SILENCE IN PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY Western insight psychotherapy, compared with Eastern mindfulness meditation, is a neophyte on the world stage. Both, nevertheless, are concerned with awareness, in so far as the insight sought from therapy and the mindfulness emergent from meditation may be similar. However, most forms of psychotherapy use verbalization as their modus operandi. A common view held by psychoanalysts is that those who do not learn to “think through (i.e. to symbolize verbally) are bound to “act out” and to go on suffering – as with the hysterically inclined who tend to “feel” too much. Hence we have the “pain-body” (Tolle, 1999), a somatizing body impoverished in terms of its capacity for reflective thinking. While one would not dispute that there is great merit in the “talking cure” approach there is, nevertheless, a growing corpus of opinion on the value of some fecund silence in therapy. For example, the obsessionally inclined, in thinking (and often talking) compulsively, block out feelings, and, in so doing, demonstrate that we cannot always just “think” our way out of problems. In therapy they typically have difficulty in being “in touch” with feelings – their own and those of

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others – and are usually very uncomfortable with silence. Hence the endless chatter, which is often split off from feeling. This is sometimes pejoratively referred to as “free disassociation” (Perls, et al, 1973) or split-off intellect. (See Gestalt Therapy Perspective later). These people may need to learn that speech, just like music, is given deeper meaning by being punctuated by fertile silence so that something more profound than words may emerge. According to O’Donoghue (1977) “If you are outside of yourself, always reaching beyond yourself, you avoid the call of your own mystery. When you acknowledge the integrity of your solitude, and settle into its mystery, your relationships with others take on a new warmth, adventure and wonder”. Thereby silence can foster a sense of compassionate communion. However, silence on the part of the patient was seen as resistance by Freud (1912). But, Balint (1958) argued that “if we can change our own approach – from considering silence as a symptom of resistance to studying it as a possible source of information – then we may learn something about this area of mind”. Later authors saw silence as indicative of shyness, shame, sorrow, anger, hostility, psychic absence and fear (Shafii, 1973a; Coltart, 1992). Silence has also been construed, at times, as adaptive regression to pre-verbal sense-making (as opposed to malign or psychotic regression – Shafii, 1973a). The psychoanalyst Coltart (1992) goes as far as saying that “my own preference above all others, is for a silent patient.“ This may be because the relatively silent patient allows the analyst ample time to work with the visceral felt-sense of the counter-transference. It should come as no surprise that Coltart also described herself as a practitioner of meditation and Buddhism. This is a long way from Freud who typically did not work with the counter-transference, and who saw religious experience, meditation and mysticism as regressive, irrational and maladaptive phenomena, i.e. forms of “oceanic” fusion and oneness with mother, or the wish to re-experience intra-uterine life (Freud, 1930). To facilitate the patient in adaptive regression the therapist must also be capable of silence, e.g. by avoiding premature, aggressive and excessive interpretations, instructions or comments. In this way pre-verbal traumata can be “re-experienced and mastered again in silence” (Shafii, 1973a). Dreams also tend to be silent. It is well known that Freud (1900) described dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious.“ Perhaps less well known is that Jung (1958) similarly described meditation as a “sort

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of a royal road to the unconscious” (p.508). Jung, however, also saw meditation as a “surrender” to the collective unconscious, as its practice leads primarily to an indefinite experience of oneness and timelessness, which according to Jung are hallmarks of the collective unconscious. Kretschmer (1962) also saw meditation in a similar light, and I quote “Dreams are similar to meditation except meditation gains the reaction of the unconscious by a technique which is faster than depending on dreams” (Kretschmer, p.76). However, it may take several years of practice to arrive at the adeptness of an “advanced” meditator. By now it should be obvious that it is not just meditators who strive to clear the mind of its sticky attachments. Psychoanalysts like Bion (1970), Shafii (1973a) and Coltart (1992) also see value in analysts themselves temporarily creating an empty or “fallow” state of mind during clinical sessions so as to be more receptive to the patient’s transferences (see DelMonte, 1995b). Bion (1970) advised therapists to forsake memory, desire and understanding during clinical practice. He quoted from a letter written by the English poet John Keats in 1817 in which Keats referred to “negative capability” as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Bion, 1970, p.125). Here we see a psychoanalyst advising his colleagues not to hold too tightly onto one’s professional opinions and theories when dealing with an individual patient. This is also a variant of mindful non-attachment. The silent mindfulness emergent from meditation training allows the analyst to listen more deeply to their patients, to receive their projections, and to let go of these projections after the therapy session. Other forms of therapy, in particular Gestalt therapy, also question the value of too much focus on verbalization in therapy. 15. GESTALT THERAPY PERSPECTIVE Perls was influenced by Tao philosophy as well as by Freud, Reich, Mareno, Gestalt psychology and existentialism. He emphasized personal responsibility in the resolution of problems. Both Gestalt therapy and meditation techniques focus on the “hic et nunc” (here and now) of experience, i.e. both meditation and the various Gestalt techniques play down the value of verbalization. In fact, Perls, et al (1973) stated that verbalization, as in free-association, could become a sort of escapist “free-disassociation” from feelings and emotions. Together with obses-

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sional verbalization, Perls also saw excessive rationalization as a defense against subjective feelings. Instead, Perls stressed the importance of “contact” and “sensing,” hence his admonition “lose your mind and come to your senses”. He described many specific techniques, involving sensation, used to foster awareness. In this regard it is worth noting that Perls defined himself as an existentialist who applied the phenomenological approach (Perls, et al, 1973). The phenomenological method used by many existentialists is a method of subjective inquiry originally developed by Edmund Husserl and later used by Martin Heidegger as a means to examine one’s immediate experience. It has to do with a critical and scrupulous inspection of one’s mental processes and one’s consciousness. It involves an attempt to exclude all assumptions about external causes of internal phenomena. (See DelMonte, 1989, for a fuller discussion of phenomenology and existentialism). As existentialist phenomenology concerns subjective awareness without prejudice (prejudgment) it could be argued that it closely resembles the technique of mindfulness meditation in that the latter is purportedly characterized by a de-automatization of experience (i.e. the dropping or suspension of perceptual and cognitive habits). With both the mindfulness and phenomenological methods one strives for a permeable (or open) stance to the flux of consciousness without trying to punctuate any experience had. In this way both methods are typified by what Perls calls “confluence”, i.e. the absence of figure/background contrasts. In both meditation and Gestalt therapy the observer role is valued. For example, Perls encouraged patients to observe tension and anxiety and not to engage in “pre-mature relaxation.“ In other words, Perls promoted “approach techniques” rather than avoidance. In the same way in mindfulness meditation one is encouraged to observe steadfastly one's moods, feelings, thoughts, and so forth in a nonattached and non-judgmental way, i.e. neither clinging to them nor pushing them away. Perls, like Schwartz (1983) and many practitioners of meditation saw awareness per se as being therapeutic. This even included awareness of simply “being” for which he used his “internal silence” and “make a void” techniques. Perls acknowledged an influence from Tao philosophy here, and the similarity between Perls’s internal silence technique and the “no thought” strategy of concentrative meditation is

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striking (See earlier and DelMonte, 1990, for a fuller discussion on “no thought”). Perls also used breathing exercises similar to those found in breath meditation. Both involve paying attention to one’s breathing. In Gestalt therapy there are also exercises for focusing on anxiety, panic, depression, fatigue, psychosomatic symptoms and behavioral problems – all in order to “integrate” and resolve them, thus leading to Gestalt “closure.“ Likewise, mindfulness is increasingly being used with a similar range of psychological disorders (Kabat-Zinn, 1996, 2005; Teasdale, 2000). Finally, it has been argued by McGee, et al., (1984) that those experiences which are too threatening to one’s core psychological functioning may be suspended as “unexperienced experiences,” i.e. without being fully processed or integrated at a conscious level. Such experiences remain akin to the “unfinished business,” the “unfulfilled needs” or the “incomplete Gestalten” of Gestalt therapy. These incomplete Gestalten tend to be at low levels of awareness and “acted out” behaviorally or hysterically in order to be communicated or when trying to achieve closure. In this sense the symptoms of hysteria are seen to be functional and symbolic (Szasz, 1972). It may be that the weakening of one's cognitive defenses during Gestalt exercises, free association and meditation facilitates the abreactive emergence of incomplete Gestalten (or repressed material). Following abreaction, patients can check on any emotions that they have just experienced. Such enquiry should enable the client to put some verbal structure onto these preverbal feelings. By learning to put verbal form on feeling the client is in a better position to discuss his or her experiences with others – including the therapist. Putting verbal form on feelings, i.e. labeling them is also an aspect of constructivist psychotherapy. 16. PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY APPROACH George Kelly (1955) saw man as living in two realities, firstly the reality beyond human perception and secondly our interpretations or personal constructions, as he would put it, of this primary reality. For Kelly, man is like a scientist developing bi-polar constructs in order to make sense of the world by looking for repetitive patterns of similarity and difference among a series of events occurring through time. Even as infants, before we acquire language, we construe events dichotomously via bi-polar discriminations such as “milk versus not milk”, “mother

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versus other,” “thick versus thin,” “hot versus cold,” and so forth. Therefore, initially these discriminations or constructs are pre-verbal, that is, they have not been verbally labeled. Although a growing child learns to attach verbal labels to many such discriminations, much of adult construing remains non-verbal (or somatic). As each person moves along the dimension of time he, or she, develops his or her own personal construct system to be used in the anticipation of events. The construct systems of “normal” individuals are constantly being “updated” in the light of newly assimilated evidence. Such accommodation or revision of our construct systems allows for a better fit with primary reality. As McWilliams (1984) postulates, both Buddhist psychology and personal construct theory acknowledge that normal human understanding of the universe involves the use of dualistic dimensions to make sense of a unitary universe. Buddhist approaches would emphasize the need to see through this illusion of duality via practices such as mindfulness meditation. On the other hand, constructivist psychologists would focus on the reality of a more sophisticated and more effective personal construct system in order to be able to more accurately predict events. Buddhists and many Eastern writers such as De Mello (1990) would see suffering as stemming from our desire to force the unitary world to conform to our dualistic and egocentric cravings, beliefs and values. A fundamental concern about dualistic construing is that it creates conceptual divisions and boundaries in a universe that Buddhists postulate to be inherently holistic, unitary and in flux. Thinking tends towards dualism. Concepts tend to fragment reality. Different languages fragment reality in their own unique ways, rendering exact translations impossible. As McWilliams says, “to the extent that we attend to conventional, dichotomous, ideas about the universe, we are taken away from direct, immediate experience of the universe”. McWilliams contends that the Buddhist viewpoint is that it is possible to transcend the delusion of our self-invented dualistic world, and, in seeing the transparency of our construct system, experience a greater sense of unity (with the universe). Such an experience comes from an awareness of how we personally construct our subjective view of this greater reality. This awareness may be unfolded through mindfulness meditation practice. An aim of this practice is to put us in touch with the interpenetration and the inter-dependence of all forms of life, and also with compassion and “inter-being” (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1975, 1991, 2003).

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Kelly was adamant on the notion of bi-polarity of constructs. One always abstracts on the basis of both similarity and contrast. Dichotomy is seen as an essential feature (and limitation) of thinking itself. Whilst Kelly says that one can transcend one’s biography and not become a victim of circumstance, one can only do this through developing alternative constructs. One never escapes from one’s construct system, but always assimilates the world through it or through its elaborations. Thus, when one transcends a particular bi-polarity, one tends to climb to a higher and more abstract level, but to a level which, nonetheless, is structured in bi-polar terms. It may be that some meditation and yoga approaches are directly or indirectly attempting to elaborate the non-verbal construing of the person so that it supersedes the verballylabeled constructions. From this point of view one could initially be talking about “descendence” from the psyche to the soma, rather than transcendence. One, therefore, has to distinguish between descendence, ascendence and transcendence. Descendence implies moving “down” from cognitive to pre-verbal or somatic construing. In psychodynamic terms this is known as adaptive regression as opposed to psychotic regression. Here there may be a gradual decrease in the level of cognition (thinking) right down to the unconscious level. Ascendence, on the other hand, describes a movement “up” to a higher and more abstract bi-polar construct, i.e. to super-ordinate construing within one’s personal construct system. Such super-ordinate construing may, if taken far enough, be seen as the supra-conscious (Assogioli, 1965) and may also become difficult to verbalize. Transcendence, as in “no-thought”, is the feeling of unity or bliss when the meditator has the experience that he or she has transcended the bi-polarity of all construing – but nonetheless is still construing at a very basic somatic level in terms of balance, posture, respiration, osmo-regulation, blood pressure and other vital aspects of one’s metabolism. Transcendence is, therefore, where the person recovers his or her non-verbal sense of “oneness” by not confusing the duality of our personal bi-polar construing with the essential unity of greater reality. Both ascendance and descendence, in so far that they side-step the bi-polar thinking mind, may involve varying degrees of transcendence.

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17. PROBLEMS WITH DETACHMENT AND DIS-IDENTIFICATION As I mentioned earlier, there are individuals whose attachments are problematic, being either, too intense and overly dependent, or in the other direction, practically non-existent. Does meditation ever encourage an exaggerated introverted stance to the external world, at times bordering on pathological dissociation and fostering social isolation, i.e. the avoidance, or even rejection, of the relational domain? Epstein (1990) thought that meditation could lead to “narcissistic emptiness” as ego-strivings aimed at the external world are negated. Castillo (1990), in a similar vein, could see excessive meditation practice as leading to pathological de-realization and de-personalization as both the external world and the self are eschewed. These comments shall be returned to later. So what is it about Eastern techniques, like meditation, that may lead to these concerns? Are there any parallels with Western techniques such as hypnosis in general and auto-hypnosis in particular? For example, Wang (1998) described similarities between “internal Qi-gong” and self-hypnosis. Both can be used to raise finger temperature, an indicator of relaxation (Song, 1998). It can also be argued that adaptive dissociative processes may be operative, to varying degrees, in meditation, hypnosis and Qi-gong. All require a capacity for relaxed absorbed attention in the practitioner which is directed inwards and away from external stimuli. Those forms of meditation which employ a relaxed posture, closed eyes and the rhythmical and monotonous repetition of a mantra, encourage a shift away from one’s habitual construing of external reality towards a trance-like state in which suggestibility may be enhanced (see DelMonte, 1981; 1984b). Thus mantra meditation, like hypnotic induction, can weaken one’s ability to marshal one’s cognitive defenses, thereby encouraging partial dissociation between external reality and one’s inner world dominated by memories, fantasies, wishes, desires, and the like. It has also been argued that turning attention away from the external world facilitates an exploration of the internal realm, including the unconscious and archetypal imagery in the Jungian sense (see DelMonte 1995a, 1995b). Such an exploration would usually be seen as “adaptive” regression. Adaptive regression operates in the “service of the ego” (Shafii, 1973b). It purportedly leads to a fuller familiarity with one’s internal world.

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18. PATHOLOGICAL REGRESSION Adaptive regression can be contrasted with “pathological” regression. The practice of meditation is typically associated with adaptive regression, but it can also lead to pathological regression, i.e. back to primitive psychic functioning with those who are emotionally vulnerable and probably in need of psychotherapy prior to taking up meditation. The practice of meditation can, especially with novices, increase suggestibility (DelMonte, 1981). The monotonous repetition of a mantra, the relaxed posture and the reduced sensory input all tend to increase regressive mentation and hence facilitate a relaxation of one’s cognitive, e.g. intellectual, defenses. This regression can become pathological with some individuals when it no longer serves healthy ego functions nor Eros (love, the lifeforce or Qi), but instead becomes fixated on the id, or worse still, on Thanatos (the death-drive, i.e. the wish to return to an undemanding pre-incarnate state). It is thus not surprising that several decades ago Alexander (1931) described meditation as a “sort of artificial schizophrenia with complete withdrawal of libidinal interest from the outside world” (Alexander, p.30). He is referring to the meditators’ attempted non-attachment to desires and drives, and to their avoidance of egogratification. Here people can be split off emotionally from others, from meaningful relationships and escape from troublesome aspects of social life into isolated self-absorption. This fostered (maladaptive) dissociation between the self and one’s surroundings can, for those at risk, lead to de-realization, as one becomes estranged from once-familiar aspects of the external world. It can also lead to defensive de-personalization as the (often excessive) meditator may dis-identify from his or her peripheral social constructs (and even to some degree from one’s personal constructs) and thus increasingly withdraw into a minimalist core dissociated from the external trappings of selfhood and devoid of the necessary motivation to deal with outside demands. The twin effects of such avoiditive de-realization and de-personalization can amount to a premature dis-engagement from life in which relationships – both of the “heart” and of work – are neglected in favor of an obsession with the complexity of one’s internal space. Here meditation, in some cases, may lead more to self-absorption than to self-awareness. Such selfabsorption has little to do with either creative de-personalization or with adaptive “transcendence.“ As it lacks compassion for, and social engagement with, others the relational aspect of growth is neglected.

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19. THE VULNERABLE Not everybody is suitable, i.e. ready for meditation. In the West, those who take up meditation tend to be more anxious, neurotic and to report more problems than the population at large (DelMonte, 1990). Those with dissociated-identity disorders, as well as psychotic, narcissistic, very shy, schizoid, paranoid and socially phobic individuals, i.e. those who are already having difficulties in the social domain, and whose ability to “read” other people’s emotions and to empathize is impaired, may inadvertently come to use meditation as a schizoid defense to escape even further from others and end up feeling even less connected and thus more isolated. Furthermore, immature or traumatized people with very poorly integrated personalities may use meditation to “escape” into a split off sub-personality which is less orientated to the outside world. In other words, when meditation practice induces solitary escapist dissociation, poorly adapted “alter-egos” may emerge in those whose personalities only hold together rather loosely. It thus is argued that the deliberate fostering of non-attachment to the external world, i.e. to mundane reality, may lead to a pathological detachment (or indifference) in those who are already emotionally and socially frail. Likewise, deliberate dis-identification from the contents of one’s consciousness can also be used as a mal-adaptive defense by those whose self-identity has remained under-developed and never blossomed. In other words, when special techniques are used to foster nonattachment and dis-identification this can, for some, have varying degrees of pathological dissociation as its outcome. This is not to argue against the obvious benefits of adaptive non-attachment, disidentification and mindfulness as practised by the majority of meditators However, it does suggest that with more vulnerable individuals, i.e. those with poor ego-strength, psychotherapy may be indicated to help build up their ego-strengths before they embark upon prolonged meditation practice, as the latter is about learning to side-step identification with one’s over-reactionary and egotistic mind. It should be easier to meditate successfully with a reasonably well-integrated ego. Paradoxically, one needs considerable ego-strength in order to successfully suspend reactionary ego-functioning by means of meditation.

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20. CONCLUSION In general, practices like meditation, Hatha Yoga, Qi-gong, Gestalt therapy and some forms of insight–orientated psychotherapy, by encouraging quiet adaptive introspection, circumspection and mindfulness, can, with many people, serve psychological growth (Eros) by encouraging the development of a more reflective self through an exploration of the conditioned and furtive aspects of consciousness, and of the clutching nature of our attachments and of our dualistic obsessional thinking. The resultant self-awareness should help clarify our desires and choices. However, all techniques can be used inappropriately by the vulnerable. Thus meditation can encourage dis-engagement and demotivation with respect to the external world and lead to an escape into an inner-self, to the detriment of social engagement, emotional attachments and cathecses. Here neither love nor work satisfaction can be properly experienced, as the individual in the premature grasp of Thanatos forgoes compassion and the interactional aspect of living. Life does involve taking risks, both with attachments and with the building up of a sense of self-identity – even if death shall finally transform all physical and mental attachments into naught (or into the spiritual domain?). The fear that nothing of the body and of the mind (like castles in the sand) can survive in their present forms prompts many of us to try to transcend these passing aspects of experience in a quest for something durable beyond the dance of earthly impressions. However, the defensive pursuit of escapist “transcendence” can itself become a form of selfish ego-striving. Such escapist “transcendence” is really a cultivated, but maladaptive, form of dissociation. The dilemma facing all of us as self-conscious and reflective beings is, how to build up and forge an internal sense of self, how personally and socially to sustain this fragile sense of self and attain a continuity of deeper identity, while living in the shadow of impermanence and dis-continuity. The ancient practices of meditation, Yoga and the like, as well as the contemporary practices of Gestalt therapy, constructivist and psychodynamic psychotherapies, offer us some choice out of many possible approaches in dealing with this challenge; but no approach is without its own limits and risks. Balance is required in dealing with this dilemma. Our quest for knowledge and fulfillment has two principal orientations – namely those typified by introversion and those by extraver-

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sion. Both are valuable and neither should be neglected. It is a question of equilibrium. Introversion naturally implies introspection and elaboration of our subjectivity and self-awareness, whereas extraversion involves circumspection and adaptation to cultural reality, thereby enhancing social awareness. Such extraverted social adaptation more typically occurs during the first half of life. On the other hand, with introspection one is connected inwardly with our essence, i.e. the mystery of the self (- a microcosm of the universe?). Such introspection tends to become more important to us as we age, but can be precipitated at any stage of life if in crisis. Circumspection is the sine qua non of enhancing our sense of relatedness to external form, i.e. to social convention and to “languaging”. Inwardness (i.e. subjectivity) and outwardness (i.e. objectivity) can be complementary. (Also see Nino, 1997, on this topic). Put psychodynamically, self-psychology should be balanced by object relations. It may be tempting to escape from harsh external reality by taking refuge inwardly into illusions and even delusions. Likewise, one can remain in exile from one’s true core-self by being overly adapted to and concerned with external reality, and by developing a false self or facade. Bridging the chasm between our inner and outer worlds allows for a two-way flow that enriches both in the process, and brings them more into harmonious alignment. This is the nature of our connection with the social and physical worlds of which we form a part. A final point is that the Western obsessive focus on individualism, with the forging of a strong individual identity, can create a neurosis around the loss of this over-valued persona or mask. When we identify with this mask we are identified with a limited and false self. The traditional Eastern emphasis on developing a social sense of collective identity, i.e. an awareness of social inter-penetration, which does not overly focus on individualism, may facilitate attempts to dis-identify from over-invested egoism. The aim of meditation, Yoga, (and other Eastern techniques) and some forms of psychotherapy is not to become atomised emotional islands, but rather to be more in touch with the personal, social and spiritual aspects of living. Some individuals also use mindfulness meditation to foster a personal relationship with the spiritual domain, and as a preparation for an after-life. However, this quest is enhanced by wholeheartedly including the relational aspect of our spirituality in our daily living by practising compassion, loving kindness, inter-being and the like. We can thereby evolve our capacity to

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CONTRIBUTORS Orna Almogi

Universität Hamburg, Asien-AfrikaInstitut, Edmund-Siemens-Allee 1, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany [email protected]

John Baker

Moorpark College, Life Sciences Department, 7075 Campus Road, Moorpark, CA 93021, USA [email protected]; [email protected]

Karl Baier

Universität Wien, Institut für Christliche Philosophie, Freyung 6a/2/4, A-1010 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Michael M. DelMonte

St. Edmundsbury Hospital, Lucan, County Dublin, Ireland [email protected]

Dagmar Eigner

Medizinische Universität Wien, Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Währingerstrasse 25, A-1090 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Vincent Eltschinger

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Institut für Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Prinz-EugenStrasse 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Eli Franco

Universität Leipzig, Institut für Indologie und Zentralasienwissenschaften, Schillerstrasse 6, D-04109 Leipzig, Germany [email protected]

Shulamith Kreitler

Tel Aviv University, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel [email protected]

Anne MacDonald

Universität Wien, Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde, UniCampus AAKh, Hof 2.1, Spitalgasse 2-4,

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CONTRIBUTORS

A-1090 Vienna, Austria [email protected] Lawrence McCrea

Cornell University, Department of Asian Studies, 370 Rockefeller Hall, Ithaca NY 14853, USA [email protected]

Philipp Maas

Universität Wien, Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde, UniCampus AAKh, Hof 2.1, Spitalgasse 2-4, A-1090 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Marion Rastelli

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Institut für Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Prinz-EugenStrasse 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Diana Riboli

Fotomara 93-93 11745 Neos Kosmos Athens, Greece [email protected]

John Taber

University of New Mexico, Philosophy Department, MSC 03 2140, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA [email protected]

Marcus Schmücker

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Institut für Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Prinz-EugenStrasse 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria [email protected]

Renaud van Quekelberghe

Universität Koblenz-Landau. Mailing address: Dürkheimerstr. 140a, D-67227 Frankenthal, Germany [email protected]

CONTRIBUTORS

Dorji Wangchuk

Universität Hamburg, Asien-AfrikaInstitut, Edmund-Siemens-Allee 1, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany [email protected]

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