Conze on Buddhism and European Parallels

·期刊原文

Conze on Buddhism and European Parallels

By Alex Wayman

Philosophy East and West

V. 13 (1964) pp. 361-364

Copyright 1964 by University of Hawaii Press

Hawaii, USA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

p. 361

Dr. Conze has contributed so much to make Buddhism better understood in the West, especially by extensive translation of Praj~naapaaramitaa texts, that his views on correct and spurious parallels to Buddhist philosophy deserve consideration. Another reason is that thorough-going comparisons of East and West philosophy have usually been done out of good will, as an exploration of areas of agreement between philosophical thinkers of different cultural backgrounds; and Conze's two articles have a bearing on this "will." In short, he asserts that there are only three currents of Western philosophical thinking which can be legitimately related to Buddhist counterparts. This is an important thesis (pak.sa); for, if he is right, this poses a discouraging prospect for all future philosophical ingenuity and insight, condemned at the outset to be wrong by venturing a comparison outlawed by Conze. But I set no limit on the valid comparisons that can and ought to be made. Affirming my position in the opposite camp (pratipak.sa), I begin by questioning his clarity in assumptions about Buddhism.

These assumptions are not integrated into a consistent framework. Thus, he holds (p. 11) that Buddhism distinguishes a "triple world" and degrees of "reality, " but holds as well (p. 20) that Buddhism has a distinct affinity with the "monistic" traditions of European thought. He is apparently oblivious of any necessity to show consistency as is attempted in the Hindu philosophical school called Bhedaabheda (Monism and Plurality). And is not any attempt to compare Eastern and Western thought an exercise in demonstration of consistency or inconsistency?

For judging "true" as against "spurious" parallels, he has a remarkable criterion -- measuring the amount of supposed disagreement as a test of mutual agreement; for example, "For pages upon pages Shinran Shonin and Martin Luther in almost the same words expound the primacy of 'faith,' and yet in fact their two systems disagree in almost every other respect" (p. 105). What Conze means is that if two persons seem to agree on item

p. 362

x, and seem to disagree on items y1, y2,... yn -- it follows that they do not agree on x; for, if two persons seem to disagree on several things, they do not agree on anything. But, in fact, faith is the most important, and virtually the sole, topic in the writings of Shinran Shonin, while Shinran's revolt against priestly celibacy is also comparable to Luther's -- therefore, specialists in Japanese Buddhism quite rightly refer to Shinran as the Martin Luther of Japan.

We must concede that Conze is consistent in applying this criterion for "spuriousness" of parallels, but he could have earned our admiration if he had applied it also in the cases of his claimed "true" parallels. Since he observes (p. 19), whether rightly or wrongly, that Schopenhauer differed from Buddhism on two points (he hopes "only on two points"), he should have wondered if Schopenhauer and Buddhism are really parallel (parallel lines are not supposed to diverge). Again, he does not investigate whether there are any disagreements between Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism, on the one hand, and Buddhism, on the other (p. 17). Yet, it would be just as easy for anyone to assert supposed disagreements in these cases of "true" parallels as it was for Conze so to assert for his "spurious" parallels. It is simply a matter of "will to believe." With this same will, one can assert that the celebrated work on logic, Pramaa.na-samuccaya, by the Buddhist author Di^nnaaga, is not a Buddhist work because the author sets forth only two pramaa.nas (valid sources of knowledge), whereas the Yogaacaarin Asa^nga has three and the Maadhyamika Candrakiirti four. We could find so many disagreements between the Yogaacaara and the Maadhyamika schools of Buddhism as to deny any possibility of their agreeing on anything (to use Conze's criterion).

Conze chooses (p. 12) to be on Murti's side in regarding the Maadhyamika as the central tradition of Buddhism, and chooses (p. 107) to be opposed to Murti as to similarities between Kant and the Maadhyamika. He gives this reason (p. 107, note): "But Kant never questioned the value of empirical knowledge. In Buddhism, however, the sa^mv.rtisatya (conventional truth) is a mere error due to nescience (a-vidyaa, a-j~naana), and conventional knowledge represents no more than a deplorable estrangement from our true destiny." Certainly Candrakiirti, in the greatest extant commentary on the Madhyamaka-kaarikaa, provides an explanation of sa^mv.rti quite at variance with Conze's exposition. Candrakiirti writes, "I, like an elder of the world, combat just you who are falling away from good behavior of the world, but [do] not [combat] conventional things (sa^mv.rti) ." [1] Conze apparently over-

p. 363

looks the significance of the first chapter in this work of Candrakiirti, which quotes the AArya-Ak.sayamatinirde`sa-suutra about the two kinds of suutras, those of provisional meaning (neyaartha) and those of final meaning (niitaartha). The same Suutra is quoted by Bu-ston as follows (my translation) : "The suutras which demonstrate sa^mv.rti are of provisional meaning; the suutras which demonstrate paramaartha are of final meaning." [2] In short, sa^mv.rti-satya (conventional truth) is the truth of multiplicity, triple worlds, steps of the path; while paramaartha-satya is the truth of monism, the ultimate attainment. And, since there are two truths (neither of which are falsehoods), there are two kinds of discourses (suutra).

Hardly better is a second reason given by Conze for rejecting the Kant-Maadhyamika similarity. He asserts that the Maadhyamika sa^msaara/nirvaa.na are identical, while the Kantian phenomena/noumena are not identical. This argument involves an unwarranted interpretation of a celebrated verse of Naagaarjuna's Madhyamaka-kaarikaa (XXV. 19), which is correctly translated by Stcherbatsky: "There is no difference at all between nirvaa.na and sa^msaara. There is no difference at all between sa^msaara and nirvaa.na." [3] Granted, the verse does not say that nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are identical. Since that work by Naagaarjuna aims at reductio ad absurdum of untenable epistemological positions, this verse can be paraphrased: "Any argument to show that nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are different can be reduced to absurdity." Does this imply that Naagaarjuna intends the identity of nirvaa.na and sa^msaara? He may well be implying the identity through mystic conversion, the transmutation (paraav.rtti), of the Buddha's Enlightenment. That is, nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are identical during transfiguration: then the turbulent world is the peace of Nirvaa.na. But Conze wants the identity in words. Surely Naagaarjuna could have said that if he had wanted to. If he had done so, he might have been, as Conze declares, searching for the own-being of dharmas. But, since Naagaarjuna did not assert the identity in words, it must be maintained that Conze is unfair when he bases his argument on the unwarranted interpretation, Furthermore, our rejection of Conze's two reasons should not be construed as an argument in favor of the Kantian-Maadhyamika parallel

An interesting feature of his first article is his self-regard as the spokesman for Buddhism. There is something, a body of data, called "Buddhism," and Conze knows it. Therefore, "I now speak of the only three currents of

p. 364

European philosophy which can significantly be compared with Buddhism" (p. 15); "Buddhists [Conze is the 'Buddhists'] must view all these tenets [of 'sciential' philosophy] with the utmost distaste" (p. 13); "...human history, which Buddhists hold to be utterly pointless" (p. 23). Then they were not "Buddhists" who wrote the prophecies of the gradual disappearance of Buddhism (mappo in Japanese); they were not "Buddhists" who wrote the chronicles of Ceylon.

A striking feature of his second article is his confidence in knowing everything ever known or believed in India. Therefore, "This tension [between traditional values and natural science] was quite unknown in India" (p. 107). Conze is unaware that any tension was aroused in India by the introduction of Greek science, later by the kind of science the Mughals introduced (in part, returned to India), or in modern times by the British introduction of Western science. "This [Kantian] assertion of the primacy of the subjective over the objective assumes a separation between subject and object which is alien to Indian thinking" (p. 108). Conze does not explain why it should be more of a separation between subject and object to suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge than it is to suppose that our knowledge must conform to objects. In any case, Candrakiirti's Maadhyamika seems to adopt both points of view: "When there are valid sources of knowledge, there are the entities to be known; when there are the entities to be known, there are the valid sources of knowledge." [4]

Finally, it is not my intention by the foregoing remarks to condemn everything that Conze has set forth in the two articles, which are more challenging than cogent. It is good that he set forth his views; but I consider that he failed to establish general criteria for judging "true" as against "spurious" parallels.

Notes

1. Louis de La Vallee-Poussin, ed., Muulamadhyamakakaarikaas de Naagaarjuna avec la Prasannapadaa commentaire de Candrakiirti, Bibliotheca Buddhica, Vol. IV (St. Petersbourg: Imperiale de l'Academie des sciences, 1903-1913) , Japanese photographic reprint, p. 69: lokav.rddha iva lokaacaaraat paribhra^m`syamaana^m bhavantam eva nivartayaami na tu sa^mv.rti^m.

2. Cf. E. Obermiller, trans., History of Buddhism by Bu-ston, Part I, (Materialien zur Kunde des Buddhismus, Heft 18) (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1931), p. 30.

3. Cf. S. Radhakrishnan and C. A. Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1a57), p. 344. The original Sanskrit word for "difference" is "vi`se.sa.na."

4. Louis de La Vallee-Poussin, ed., op. cit., p. 75: satsu pramaa.ne.su prameyaarthaa.h satsu prameye.sv arthe.su pramaa.naani. Cf. Th. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na. (Leningrad: Publication Office of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1927; reprinted in Shanghai, 1940), p. 163.