Reviews the book `Buddhist Hermeneutics,

·期刊原文
Reviews the book `Buddhist Hermeneutics,
edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Griffiths, Paul J.
Philosophy East & West
Vol.40 No.2
April 1990
Pp.258-262
Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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This volume contains a lengthy editorial introduction and
eleven chapters. Ten are revised versions of papers delivered
at a conference on Buddhist hermeneutics in the spring of
1984; the eleventh is an English version of a classic study
by Etienne Lamotte, first published in French in 1949.

In spite of the series in which it appears, the volume does
not deal only with East Asia. Four of the contributors
(GeorgeBond, Etienne Lamotte, Donald Lopez, Michael Broido)
deal largely with Indic materials; two with Tibetan materials
(RobertThurman, Matthew Kapstein); two with Chinese materials
(DavidChappell, Peter Gregory); two with Japanese materials
(ThomasKasulis, Roger Corless); and one with Korean materials
(Robert Buswell). The essays taken together therefore provide
a conspectus of discussions of Buddhist hermeneutics from all
the major culture areas within which Buddhism has been
influential.

All but two of the contributors received their Ph.D's from
American universities and now hold teaching positions in the
U.S. (theexceptions are Lamotte, who was Belgian and died in
1983, and Broido, who holds a position in England). The
generally high standard of the pieces speaks well of the
philological training and conceptual sophistication of those
now engaged in the study of Buddhism in the U.S. This volume
is now the best resource available in any language on its
subject.

The inclusion of Lamotte's classic study "Assessment of
Textual Interpretation in Buddhism" shows excellent judgment.
It has been the first refuge for Western scholars interested
in these matters for half a century, and it is good to have
Sara Boin-Webb's English version conveniently available as
the lead piece here. Lamotte clarified for the first time the
technical terminology used by Buddhists in their discussions
of how to extract meaning from texts. He explained the four
refuges (catuhpratisarana) as a set of soteriological
categories, designed to lead the practitioner away from
reliance upon the words (vyanjana)in which the doctrine is
expressed, or upon the person (pudgala)who taught it, since
the former need to have their meaning drawn out (neyartha)and
the latter has no ultimate (paramartha)existence. Instead,
the practitioner should rely upon the true meaning (artha)of
the text, a meaning that needs no further elucidation
(nitartha)and which is apprehensible only by direct insight
(jnana),not by discriminative ratiocination.

The Buddhist hermeneutic thus grew out of and has always been
controlled by the tradition's soteriological needs. The
discussion of intention and motivation (abhisamdhi,abhipraya)
so common in these texts must always be understood in this
context: for the scholastics of the Buddhist tradition, true
understanding of a sutra's definitive meaning consists,
finally, in having the same insights, and thus the same
transformation of consciousness, as that possessed by its
omniscient author. Buddhist hermeneutics thus tends to be
based upon a theory of understanding whose ideal goal is a
fusion of the cognitive horizons of the hearer/reader with
those of the author in a sense more radical than any
envisaged by Gadamer. This theme is discussed, with
variations, in virtually all of the pieces included in this
volume.

A second common theme is that of upaya and its application:
all Buddhist theorists on this matter agree that at least
some of the words of the Buddha preserved in sutra texts are
upaya, words not literally true and which are incapable, as
they stand, of effecting the realization of nirvana in their
hearers. These texts need their meaning elucidated; they are
neyartha. In deciding which texts are neyartha and which are
not, two strategies seem possible. The first, the radical
position, is that the meaning of every text needs to be drawn
out; the meaning of none has been so drawn (nitartha).On this
view the texts of the tradition become a glittering field of
wish-fulfilling gems, towards which the proper attitude is
jouissance, a playful taking of pleasure like that advocated
by Roland Barthes (Leplaisir de la texte (Paris,1973)),
though the pleasure is not akin, as Barthes suggests, to that
of sexual orgasm, but rather to the rasa of the clear light
of the void, the taste of the ineffable dharmakaya of the
Buddha. The more sober, more intellectual and analytical
pole, adopted by the scholastics of the Indo-Tibetan
traditions more often than by those of East Asia, refuses to
regard all sutras as neyartha; instead, some words of the
Buddha are, simply, true (nitartha),while others have an
intention, a meaning, not evident on their surface, however
glittering it may be. The proper goal for one who engages in
such a dourly intellectual approach is not jouissance but
analysis (pravicaya);she must write treatises justifying a
particular method of distinguishing between definitive and
interpretable texts. This is serious business, and it is
always carried out, when attempted at all, by imposing on the
texts of the tradition a well-defined pre-understanding of
reality and truth (andthus of what the omniscient Buddha must
have meant), a pre-understanding given to the interpreter by
his lineage. This theme, too, is present in more or less
explicit fashion in most of the contributions.

Among the contributors dealing with Indic materials, George
Bond (pp. 29-45) explores the use of hierarchical
path-structures as hermeneutical devices in the
Nettipakarana; his is the only contribution to deal with
Theravada texts. Donald Lopez (pp.47-70) discusses the
application of the idea of upaya to the history of the
interpretation of the Mahayana sutras in India and Tibet: all
are the word of the Buddha, but only some are of definitive
meaning. Lopez's contribution is especially valuable for the
use he makes of contemporary Western hermeneutical theory. He
is the only contributor to make any serious attempt to engage
Jacques Derrida (see especially his use of the Derridean
notion of supplement on pp. 59-60).

Michael Broido's contribution (pp.71-118), perhaps the most
technical and challenging in the book, explores the
interpretations given in the Vimalaprabha to the injunctions
to engage in such forbidden acts as killing and stealing
found in the Kala cakratantra. He provides the Sanskrit and
Tibetan texts of Kalacakra III.97c-98d, and of the Vimala
thereon (pp. 113-118), as well as an English translation of
both (pp.75-79). His translation is perhaps not entirely
beyond question (seeespecially his translation of III.98d),
but the text is a difficult one, and his work is a major
contribution to our understanding of Tantrika hermeneutics.
Broido, in this and related studies, has done more than any
other scholar in recent times to elucidate the meaning of
technical hermeneutical terminology in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

Broido argues, interestingly, for a
propositional-attitude-ascription notion of interpretation
(pp.82ff)as a necessity for making sense of linguistic acts.
He suggests, also, that Buddhist interpreters made use of a
related notion, that of intention-ascription, in extracting
meaning from texts. This seems quite correct, and is very
convincingly argued; but Broido goes on to deny (especiallyon
pp. 85-86) that the historical development of Western
hermeneutical theory, arising as it did from the necessity of
extracting meaning from revelatory texts, has any relevance
for our understanding of Buddhist hermeneutics. This for the
simple reason that there are few or no revelatory texts in
Buddhism. Broido is here working with an inappropriately
narrow view of what constitutes a revelatory text. Most of
the hermeneutical efforts put forth by Buddhists were devoted
to interpreting the word of the Buddha; and while the word of
the Buddha is not quite the same as the word of God, the two
have enough in common, both functionally and substantively,
that they can properly be considered under the same rubric.
Thus the comments made by Broido on this matter (p.108 n. 70.
especially) are quite mistaken. This does not, however,
significantly affect the great value of his contribution.

The first of the two contributions based on Tibetan sources,
Robert Thurman's "Vajra Hermeneutics" (pp.119-148) ,
concentrates on the beginning of Candrakirti's
Pradipoddyotana, making use of Tsong-kha-pa's comments
thereon. Thurman's analysis of the "six parameters" (mtha'
drug)and "four modes" (tshulbzhi)breaks new ground; but he,
perhaps more than any of the other contributors, falls into
the error of extending the meaning of 'Buddhist hermeneutics'
too far. The hermeneutical differences that he alludes to
between, inter alia, Chih-I and Fa-tsang, are not differences
in hermeneutical theory or method, but rather differences in
substantive philosophical conviction, conviction about what
is the case. There are reasons why Thurman has yielded to the
temptation to make Buddhist hermeneutics coextensive with
Buddhist thought: the tradition itself perceives very
intimate links between its theory of interpretation, its
theory of understanding, and its entire soteriology. But
there are better reasons for avoiding the temptation.
Thurman's essay would have been better had he observed
Broido's strictures (pp.82-83)on these matters.

The second of the two contributions based on Tibetan sources,
Matthew Kapstein's study (pp.149-174)of Kong-sprul's and
Mi-pham's treatment of the yukti-catustayam, the "fourfold
principle of reason," is, by contrast, methodologically very
careful in distinguishing actual interpretations, particular
readings given to texts, from rules governing the production
of such readings, and both from the hermeneutical theories
that ground such rules and exhibit their interconnections
(pp.149, 166-167 nn. 2-3). He shows, with convincing detail,
that for Mi-pham all understanding is hermeneutical: one's
interpretation of reality, yathabhutam, is a proper
precondition for one's understanding of buddhavacana, and
vice versa. Exegesis guarantees and supports proper spiritual
practice, just as proper spiritual practice makes possible
proper exegesis.

David Chappell's piece "Hermeneutical Phases in Chinese
Buddhism" (pp. 175205) is perhaps the least satisfying
contribution. He discusses the hermeneutical methods used by
the Pure Land and Ch'an schools in the early phases of the
acculturation of Buddhism into China, and applies to them a
schema of three stages: crisis, integration, and systematic
propagation. The use of the p'an chiao system to organize and
rank texts is identified with the third stage.
Disappointingly, Chappell appears to have an entirely
functional understanding of hermeneutics: for him, someone's
hermeneutic has been explained when one has explained what
motives govern that individual's choice of and use of texts.
Chappell provides no critical-theoretical emphasis on the
methods by which one extracts meaning from texts, and thus no
real insight into hermeneutics as a theoretical
discipline--which it undoubtedly was in China.

Peter Gregory's study (pp.207-230)explores the changes in
Hua-yen hermeneutical practice in the period from Chih-yen
(602-668CE)to Tsung-mi (780-841CE), with special reference to
changes in the status attributed to the Avatamsakasutra
itself. He shows that Tsung-mi's substantive philosophical
position--his emphasis on ontological categories such as the
dharrnadhatu and the tathagatagarbha--was interestingly
different from Fa-tsang's, and this meant that his p'an-chiao
system, his classification and grading of texts, also had to
change. Gregory's study shows once again how close the
relationship between a Buddhist thinker's substantive
philosophical position and his hermeneutic is; like Thurman,
he sometimes mistakes the one for the other.

Robert Buswell's piece (pp.231-256)is the only one to deal
directly with Korean materials. He explores the hermeneutical
devices employed by Korean Son (Ch'an)thinkers to distinguish
their position from the "sudden teaching" allotted an
inferior position in the Hua-yen p'an-chiao system.
Especially useful is his discussion of the
live-word/dead-word dichotomy used by Korean Son
theoreticians. Live words are instrumental; dead words are
theoretical. The former cannot create theory; they can only
remove barriers to awakening. These are context-sensitive
properties of texts. A dead word for someone in some context
might be a live word for someone else in some other. There
are no words that live for everyone, and so, presumably
(thoughBuswell does not say this), no nitartha texts. Korean
Son thinkers are clearly among the radical hermeneuts of the
Buddhist tradition.

Of the two pieces treating Japanese materials, Thomas
Kasulis's discussion of Kukai (pp.257-272)also stresses the
instrumentality of language rather than its referentiality.
All utterance, according to Kukai, is a "manifestation of the
universal resonances constituting the universe" (p. 264), but
some utterances are more effective than others in leading
their hearers toward the realization of Dainichi. On this
basis Kukai developed a classification of states of awareness
correlated with philosophico-religious theories, and so also,
though more tangentially, with the texts in which these are
expressed. Kukai is perhaps rather more dramatic than the
Nettipakarana; but at a fairly high level of generality his
hermeneutic is identical.

Roger Corless's study (pp.273-289)of Shinran's hermeneutic
explores Shinran's use of the Sukhavativyuha and demonstrates
that his hermeneutical method is a direct outgrowth of his
own spiritual realization: having seen that all salvation
comes from Amida, that nothing is gained by entering into the
ritual complexities of the Tendai of his time, and that the
only proper response to the grace of Amida is to chant the
Namu Amida Butsu--having seen all this it naturally follows
that the Sukhavati and the other sutras can have been doing
nothing other than expressing just this. And so Shinran must
develop and apply a hermenetuic that shows this to be the
case.

This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in
hermeneutical theory. Those without training in the history
and languages of the Buddhist traditions will find some of it
heavy going--but certainly no heavier than Lacan, Barthes, or
Derrida. I hope that in the future some of those who have
contributed to this volume will turn their attention more
explicitly towards engaging the Buddhist traditions with
those of contemporary Western hermeneuts. There are some
suggestive pointers in this direction, particularly in the
contributions by Lopez, Broido, and Kapstein, but much more
needs to be done.