Review the Book `Nagajuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way

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Review the Book `Nagajuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way
Mulamadhyamakakarika Introduction Sanskirt Text
English Translation and Annotation

by David J. Kalupahana

Herman A.L.

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Vol.14 1987 Pp.111-122

Copyright 1987 by Dialogue Publishing Company, Hoonolulu.

Hawaii,U.S.A.

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P.111

This is a magnificent book by an outstanding scholar who has
already ably proven himself to be one of the finest exponents
of Buddhism, both for the professional with his Causality:
The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (The University Press of
Hawaii, 1975), and for the non-professional with his Buddhist
Philosophy: A Historical Analysis (The University Press of
Hawaii, 1976).(1) The present work is, I believe, destined to
be in this century a classic in Buddhist studies. Naagaarjuna's
Muulamadhyamakakaarikaa (hereafter "Kaarikaa") is a gla-
ringly difficult Sanskrit text with as many interpreters who
know that they alone are right as there are interpreters who
know that everyone else is all wrong. Kalupahana, armed with
the specialist's knowledge of Sanskrit, Pali and Chinese,
clears the field, starts at the beginning and has produced
a book which, even if you disagree with his interpretation,
will press you hard to refute what he has said and to come up
with a better interpretation yourself.
In what follows I would like to do three things: First,
examine Kalupahana's claim that Naagaarjuna (ca. 200 A.D.)
composed the Kaarikaa in response to one particular canonical
Buddhist text, the Kaccaayanagottasutta, and that the Kaarikaa
is a faithful attempt to explicate the orthodox contents of
that text; second, present an analysis of several of the
twenty-seven chapters of the Kaarikaa that underscore the major
philosophical views that, I believe, Naagaarjuna, the author,
and Kalupahana, the translator and interpreter, are trying to
make; and, third, conclude with seven observations of what,
it seems to me, Kalupahana has done in this entire enterprise
that is both new and good.

P.112

The Kaccaayanagotta-sutta and the Muulamadhyamakaarikaa

Kalupahana "starts at beginnings" by asking,"Where would
a philosopher like Naagaarjuna go in order to discover the
Buddha's teachings? , " eschewing Candrakiirti's standard
interpretation along with a legion of Vedaantists and Maahaayana
absolutists who followed him. Kalupahana argues that
Naagaarjuna and the Kaarikaa remained faithful to the Buddha's
early teaching, the essence of which was par.ticcasamuppaada
(Pali), "dependent arising". The proof for this major thesis
is offered by Kalupahana in what this reader considers a most
compelling and elegantly presented argument. He begins with
an answer to the above question by turning to the
Kaccayaanagotta-sutta (hereafter "sutta"), claiming, first,
that Naagaajuna would have known and would have accepted this
text which is held in high esteem by almost all Buddhist
schools, and, second, that the sutta contains the essence of
the practical middle path of the Buddha, a middle path
between the two distasteful extremes of permanent existence
(atthitaa) of the Upani.sads, on the one hand, and of
nihilistic non-existence (natthitaa) of the Materialists on
the other. The practical middle path is, of-course, the noble
eightfold path, which both the sutta and the historical
Buddha agreed, would, if followed, lead ultimately to freedom
and happiness. That is the central thesis of the
Kaccaayanagotta-sutta of the Buddha and it is also, Kalupahana
claims, the central thesis of the Muulamadhyamakaakarikaa If one
keeps that thesis constantly in mind and reads Naagaarjuna as a
born-again Buddhist fundamentalist who is trying to get back
to Buddhist beginnings where everything was all right before
everything suddenly went all wrong, then Kalupahana's
interpretation of the Kaarikaa will leave very little room for
disagreement. The Kaarikaa as he explains, is "a superb
commentary on the Buddha's own Kaccayaanagotta-sutta, a
commentary in which Naagaarjuna upholds every statement made by
the Buddha in that discourse...."(2) The conclusion that the
argument from the sutta yields is that Naagaarjuna, contrary to
popular and long standing opinion, was not a Mahaayaanist, but
a pragmatist and empiricist who followed the original
teachings of the Buddha. This latter point will be defended
in what follows.

P.113
113

An Analysis of the Kaarikaa

The Kaarikaa sets out to do several things, viz.,
re-establish the middle way of the Buddha, discredit the
heterodox views of the Sarvaastivaadins with their
substantialized dharmas (Chapters III-XV) , and the
Sautraantikas, with their reified self, or pudgala (Chapters
XVI-XXI), and explicated the positive doctrines of the Buddha
as they echo the fundamentalism of the sutta. The principle
aim of the Kaarikaa really lies with the laying out of those
positive doctrines which are to explain how a human being in
bondage can be freed from suffering by being liberated from
all ideological constraints.

Chapters 1 and 2. Conditions (pratyaya), and Change (gataagata)

The text criticized the speculations of the Sarvastivada
and the Sautraantika and their substantialist notions of
causation that would have established as ultimately real an
existent (bhaava) possessing an unchanging and eternal
self-nature (svabhaava). This criticism is continued into
Chapter 3, Faculties (indriya) as Naagaarjuna attacks the
Sautraantika version of a cogito argument that says, in
effect, that where there is sensing going on there must be a
sensor, i. e., a controller or a self; and on into Chapter 4,
Aggregates (skanda), as he attacks the Sarvaastivaada view that
where there are self-existing entities (bhava) like the five
skandas, viz., feeling, perception, consciousness, and
material form, there must also be entities with a self-nature
(svabhaava). The substantialists in each case had contradicted
the central and basic doctrine of the Buddha, viz.,
pratiityasamutpaada (Sanskrit), dependent arising. Naagaarjuna
thereby establishes early in the text what the wrong views
are that he is attacking and what the right view is that he
is defending, views made abundantly clear by Kalupahana in
his exegesis of each of the translated verses.

Chapter. 5. Elements (dhatu)

The Buddha in discoursing on the aggregates refuted the
notion of an eternal self (aatman), just as here the discourse
on dhaatu refutes the notion of either a material self or
eternal matter. The point is that with no eternal

P.114

selves or substances there is nothing ot grasp, nothing to
cling to. And with nothing to cling to, grasp or lust after,
suffering disappears since it depended on such grasping. What
follows is the presentation of the positive views that both
the Buddha in the sutta and Naagaarjuna in the Kaarikaa are
trying to make absolutely clear. Kalupahana's genius for
finding the right translation is nowhere better illustrated
than here as he summarizes those right views:

Abandoning grasping (upaadanaa) for the object, one
eliminates the metaphysical beliefs pertaining to
eternal existence (astitva) and nihilistic
nonexistence (naastitva). Hence the emphasis on the
appeasement of the object. Indeed, "the appeasement
of the object" (dra.s.tavyopa'sama) is the means by
which one can realize the "nonsubstantiality of
phenomena" (dharmanairaatmya) and it does not mean
the elimination of the object(3).

Put another way, Naagaarjuna is showing how the belief in
eternal existence (astitva, bhaava) and nihilistic
non-existence (naastitva, abhaava) can lead to lusting and
grasping (upaadaana) and from thence to suffering(du.hkha). But,
ultimately, what Naagaarjuna is going to recommend is not so
much the appeasement of the object as the appeasement of the
philosophical views that people take about those objects for
he is more concerned in the final analysis with views that
people cling to rather than objects (a point which Kalupahana
will underscore as we proceed).

Chapter 13. Disposition (sa.mskaara)

Commenting on the chapter, Kalupahana states that
dispositions dominated by our likes and dislikes, push us in
various directions. When they are appeased, non-grasping
occurs and with non-grasping, once again, one is liberated.
But the dispositions themselves are not eliminated, only
appeased or pacified. Kalupahana comments,

In the Buddha's view, therefore, the cessation of
suffering is synonymous with "non-grasping" after
views which comes about

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as a result of the appeasement of dispositons.
Cessation of suffering is not synonymous with not
having views or not having dispositions. Rather, it
is synonymous with the appeasement of
dispositions.(4)

The chapter examines the way of adopting emptiness ('suunyataa)
by avoiding the concepts of the existent (bhaava), the
non-existent (abhaava), self nature (svabhaava), and so on, and
concludes as Naagaarjuna warns,

The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is
the relinquishing of all views (d.r.s.ti). Those who
are possessed of the View of emptiness are said to
be incorrigible.(5)

Thus emptiness is a view that, while it helps one to attain
freedom, must never be clung to as an ultimate truth.

Chapter 16. Bondage and release (Bandhana-mok.sa)

Naagaarjuna's attack is here directed at the Sautraantika
theory of a transmigrating personality (pudgala). But what is
it that transmigrates? If dispositions are permanent, then
they cannot transmigrate for that would entail their
disappearing in one place and reappearing in another, which
contradicts the assumption. Thus no permanent self can
transmigrate. But both transmigration and bondage may take
place with an impermanent self, and Kalupahana indicates that
Naagaarjuna may not object to such a notion. His objection is
always directed towards the belief in substantial permanency
in anything.

Chapter 17. Action and consequence (Karma-phala)

Again, the aim is to avoid any beliefs in either
permanence (nityata) or substance (svabhaava). The question is
raised. "Does karma exist befor it has produced its
effects?"; in other words, Do the effects, fruits, pre-exist
before karma reaches maturity?" The question is easily
answered if one believes

P.116

in an underlying causal substance which carries its effect
along with itself. But Naagaarjuna has rejected the belief in
all such entities. He then likens karma to an "imperishable
promissory note. " One is indebted as long as the note lasts.
Kalupahana argues that the note is not "permanent and
eternal, " for that lands Naagaarjuna back with the
Substantialists. Karma, like the imperishable note, is not
unreal; yet it is not a substance. The problem is to keep the
karma that must be paid for while at the same time avoiding
any hint of eternality and permanence; and "imperishable"
seems to come uncomfortably close to "substantiality. "
Kalupahana's way out for Naagaarjuna is unique:

The imperishable mature (avipra.naa'sa-dharma) of
action merely implies the possibility of action
giving rise to consequences, and this need not
involve the notion of an underlying permanent
substance in action.(6)

For suppose that a promissory note written on paper were to
be destroyed; still, the "note," through a sense of honor
regarding an unpaid debt, would remain in existence.

Chapter 18. Self(aatman)

The claim all along has been that it is not substances
per se that gets persons into trouble, suffering, and
bondage, but only the views that they take of such
substances. The Maadhyamikas and Naagaarjuna probably never
denied the relity of action, agents, and consequences or
Buddha fields;Happy Lands, and heavens; their primary concern
has been to deny the truth of the beliefs in permanent and
eternal substances. Concerning the self (aatman) in this
context, Kalupahana comments'

The belief in such substantial entities and events
gives rise to the feeling of "possession" as "this
is mine" (mama) which in turn produces obsessions
(prapa~nca)."(7)

P.117

To prevent such obsessions, Naagaarjuna turns to the perception
of emptiness ('suunyataa) , the great medicine for all
threatening absolutist views.
The remaining chapters of the Kaarikaa are concerned with
the human personality, its survival, its responsibility as a
moral entity, and its non-substantiality as a process
striving for liberation. Beginning with Chapter 22, Naagaarjuna
turns to the non-substantiality of the person who has
attained freedom.

Chapter 22. "Thus Gone On" (tathaagata)

Enlightenment is attained when one realizes the means to,
and the limits of, knowledge, just as the
Kaccaayanagotta-sutta had argued. The enlightened are freed
from continuous becoming (bhava) or rebecoming (punarbhava)
and lead a happy and contented life, as craving and desiring
wane. But the unenlightened, bound by lust and desire, seek
eternal life beyond and expect to see something awe-inspiring
in the tathaagata who is freed while alive. Any speculations
regarding the existence of a taathaagata after death are, in
keeping with the admonitions of the Buddha, not appropriate.

Chapter 24. Truth (satya)

That Naagaarjuna was merely restating the views of the
Buddha, and that he was neither Mahaayaana nor Theravaada nor
Hiinayaana, is underscored in this chapter as he discusses the
four noble truths. Just as the Buddha sought the middle path
between permanent existence (atthitaa) and nihilistic
non-existence (n'atthitaa), so also Naagaarjuna has put himself
in a similar situation in adopting emptiness as the antidote
to the substantialist theories of self-nature of the
Sarvaastivaada and other-nature of the Sautraantika. His
emptiness doctrine had been interpreted, on the one hand, as
a doctrine of nothingness, as a denial of the four
noble truths and the noble fruits of the ascetic life, and on
the other hand, as a denial of the truths about ordinary
moral and worldly conventions, In other words, to his critics
Naagaarjuna's "nihilistic" doctrine had seemed to threaten the
very moral and religious fabric of society itself; so here he
takes the trouble to set matters straight on 'suunyataa
Naagaarjuna

P.118

explains the doctrine of emptiness in terms of the doctrine
of dependence (pratiityasamutpaada), the central philosophy of
Buddhism as seen by both Naagaarjuna and Kalupahana:

Whatever is dependent arising that is emptinesss.
That is dependent upon convention. That itself is
the middle path.(8)

Having disarmed his critics by showing that 'suunyataa is basic
Buddhist doctrine, Naagaarjuna moves on to what has become the
most famous and the most important chapter in the Kaarikaa:

Chapter 25. Freedom(nirvaa.na)

One of the central questions in Buddhist scholarship
regarding translation and interpretation has centered around
the following:

Na sa.msaarasya nirvaa.naat ki.mcid asti vi'se.sa.na.m,
na nirvaa.nasya sa.msaaraat ki.mcid asti vi'se.sa.na.m(9)

Kalupahana's translation is insightful, inspiring and accurate:

The life process has no thing that distinguishes it
from freedom. Freedom has no thing that
distinguishes it from the life-process.(10)

The next verse he translates as follows:

Whatever is the extremity of freedom and the
extremity of the life-process, between them not even
the subtlest something is evident.(11)

The Mahaayaana have interpreted the passages to mean that there
is an essential identity between sa.msaara and nirvaa.na. The
Theravaada have condemned the identification entirely. The
verses cut across the pre-Buddhist belief that in order to
get one of the two, either sa.msaara or nirvaa.na, one had to
abandon

P.119

the other, either nirvaa.na or sa.msaara. What Naagaarjuna is
attempting, according to Kalupahana, is not an identity
between bondage and freedom, but a denial of any ultimate
substance, a dharma, that would make either sa.msaara or
nirvaa.na, either bondage or freedom, a unique entity; and
this, indeed, is what is emphasized in the concluding verse:

The Buddha did not teach the appeasement of all
objects [i. e., freedom], the appeasement of
obsession, and the auspicious as some thing
[substantial] to some one at some place.(12)

There is nothing substantial to cling to, to desire, to lust
after, not sa.msaara, not nirvaa.na, nothing. One is reminded of
Shen-hsiu's substantialist verses:

The body is the Bodhi tree;
The mind like a clear mirror standing.
Strive to wipe it all the time,
And let no dust cling to it.

And of Hui-neng's (637-713?) appeasement response to it:

There never was a Bodhi tree,
Nor clear mirror standing.
Truly, not one thing exists;
So where is the dust to cling?(13)

That is the Ch'an and Zen point of view and it is the essence
of Naagaarjuna's Maadhyamaka.

Chapter 26. Human personality and its survival (dvaadasaa^nga)

The chapter underscores Kalupahana's contention that the
Kaccaayanagotto-sutta has served as the inspiration and the
foundation for the Kaarikaa: Having earlier and throughout the
Kaarikaa been at pains to indicate all the wrong views, here,
in the penultimate chapter, Naagaarjuna responds to the very

P.120

question Kaccaayana put to the Buddha and he receives the
self-same answer. The question raised in the Sutta was,"What
is the right view of the Buddha?" That view, we know by this
time, is the middle position known as dependent arising
(pratiityasamutpaada) which Naagaarjuna has been interpreting as
emptiness ('suunyataa). The theory of the human personality
which survives death is then explicated in terms of the
twelve factors of that dependent arising that explain the
ceaseless becoming of the human personality wherein, by
following the prescription of the noble eightfold path,
cessation of becoming and suffering can be brought about.

Chapter 27. Views (di.t.thi)

The final chapter points up the purely pragmatic nature
of Buddhism. Wrong views are rejected primarily because they
do not lead to freedom and happiness. Nor do these wrong
views bring about worldly fruits or success (attha). The
middle position, on the other hand, is the right view
precisely because it leads to worldly success as well as to
freedom and happiness. But while that right view, whether
dependent arising or non-substantiality or absence of
self-nature or emptiness, is the view to follow, Naagaarjuna's
and the Buddha's warning remains: "Don't cling to even the
right view!"

Some Final Observations

There are, I believe, seven major points about Naagaarjuna
and the Kaarikaa that Kalupahana makes in his translation and
commentary that are worth drawing attention to, some of which
points are highly controversial but all of which are more
than adequately defended by Kalupahana:

1. The Kaarikaa is meant to be and is a commentary on the
Kaccaayanagotta-sutta.

2. Naagaarjuna knew most of the discourses of the Buddha and
knew them extremely well.

P.121

3. Naagaarjuna's use of the method of reductio ad absurdum
(praasa^ngika) has been much overplayed by Buddhologists,
along with the mistaken view that he is an analytic
philosopher who is nihilistically critical to the point
of having no views of his own. Naagaarjuna has views, as
Kalupahana has made abundantly clear; what he does not
have is a commitment, an attachment, to views.(14)

4. Naagaarjuna is no closet absolutist attempting to turn
'suunyataa into Suunyataa; another Brahman-Aatman substance.
In other words, Naagaarjuna is neither a Mahaayaana nor a
proto-Mahaayaana philosopher.

5. Naagaarjuna's philosophical methods consisted of both
analysis (vigraha) and explanation (vyaakhyaana) wherein
he had something positive to present, viz., a view as
close to the original position of Gautama as one can
possibly get.

6. probably the best philosophic description that one can
find for Naagaarjuna, and the similarity to William James
is beautifully made by Kalupahana throughout the text,
would be "pragmatic empiricist." This is best illustrated
in my final point:

7. Freedom, nirvaa.na, is not different form ordinary life,
samsaara, even though the concepts are not identical.
Freedom deals with the life of a human being, wherein
that life is gradually transformed "through the
cultivation of moral precepts, into one of moral
perfection."(15) it is transformation, the process, as
Kalupahana states, rather than transformation, the
substance, that is implied by nirvaana. Now that, I think,
is pristine Buddhism at its ancient best!

This is a great book. David Kalupahana has produced one
of the outstanding translations and commentaries of the 20th
century in a work destined to become, I believe,.the standard
scholarly rendering of the Muulamadhyamakaarikaa.

P.122

NOTES

1. And now Kalupahana has just published a beautiful
translation with a superb commentary of the Dhammapada
that is well-worth everyone's very serious
consideration. See A Path of Righteousness, Dhammapada
An Introductory Essay, Together with the Pali Text,
English Translation and Commentary (University Press of
America, 1986). $12.50.
2. Op. Cit, p. 5.
3. Ibid., p. 40. See Kaarikaa V. 8, pp. 151-152.
4. Ibid.,p.48.
5. Kaarikaa X⒒. 8, Ibid.,p. 223.
6. Ibid.p. 55. See Kaarikaa XVII. 14--15,Ibid.,pp. 249--251.
7. Ibid,p. 56.
8. Kaarikaa XXIV. 18,Ibid.,pp. 339,69.
9. Kaarikaa XXV. 19, Ibid., p. 365.
10. Kaarikaa XXV. 19,Ibid., p. 366.
11. Kaarikaa XXV. 20,Ibid., p. 367.
12. Kaarikaa XXV. 24,Ibid, p. 369.
13. See The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch,
translated by Philip B. Yampolsky (Columbia University
Press, 1967), pp. 130,132.
14. Ibid., pp. 26,92-93.
15. Ibid, p. 90