Reviews the book `Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section

·期刊原文
Reviews the book `Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section
of Tsong-kha-pa's Lam rim chen mo'
Reviewed by Mark Tatz ;translated by Alex Wayman

Philosophy East & West
Vol. 4 No.2
1993.Apr
Pp.337-341
. Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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The Stages of the Path (Lato rim)by Tsong-kha-pa (A.D.
1357--1419) is the summa theologica scholastica et moralis of
the Gelugpa (the school of the Dalai Lamas) in Tibet. The
section on ethics translated here constitutes almost a
quarter of the long version. It follows sections on the
lesser and middling types of personality: those who practice
religion, respectively, in order to gain heaven in a future
life or to achieve liberation from rebirth. This opening
section on the greater personality--who seeks to attain
buddhahood in order to liberate others--covers the two
aspects of the "thought of awakening" (Sanskrit: bodhicitta):
the thought as "aspiration" to attain buddhahood, and the
thought as "engagement" in a course of training to implement
that aspiration. The initial act of engagement is to take the
bodhisattva vow. The vow's precepts, or points of training,
are organized summarily under the headings of the six
perfections, by which one gains buddhahood, and the four
means of attraction, by which one assists others to that end.
"Ethics" or morality is, strictly speaking, the second of the
six perfections. More generally, however, it comprises all of
bodhisattva practice, inasmuch as the bodhisattva is
ethically bound by the vow to seek liberation for everyone.
This section is followed by two great sections on "calm" and
"insight," in effect expanding upon the last two of the six
perfections. Professor Wayman, of Columbia University,
published in 1978 a translation of these two sections, titled
Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real. His work was a
pioneering effort at the time, in that no major work by this
author had been presented before it. Since then, highly
competent translations have been presented by Jeffrey Hopkins
(the Sngags rim, translated as Tantra in Tibet and Yoga in
Tibet), and by Robert Thurman (the Legs bshad snying po,
translated as The Speech of Gold); and this reviewer has
presented an independent work on ethics (the Byang chub
gzhung lam, translated as The Basic Path to Awakening). As a
title, "Ethics of Tibet" is at the same time too narrow and
too broad. On the one hand, Tsong-kha-pa sets himself
squarely in the Indo-Tibetan tradition of exegesis,
underlining his sense of continuity with numerous citations
from the "source texts" (gzhung) of India. On the other hand,
within Tibet his treatment of ethics is prescriptive only for
the Gelug school. The Basic Path treatment of ethics is
structured as a commentary to Asanga's chapter on "Ethics" of
the Bodhisattva Stage. In the Stages of the Path, the author
develops his own framework. He refers to the Basic Path for
an exposition of certain points, and marvelously avoids
repeating the same citations, basing the discussion in part
on different sources. He seems to place more emphasis on
restraint from wrongdoing, and less on the affectional nature
of bodhisattva ethics. The reception following the
publication of Wayman's Calming the Mind was distinguished
chiefly by the controversy it engendered between the
translator and one reviewer: Geshe Lhundup Sopa, professor at
the University of Wisconsin. The geshe (whose title indicates
that he has mastered the scholastic tradition of the Gelug
school) demonstrated that the translator cannot correctly
construe Tibetan grammar and syntax with any consistency.
Irrefutably, with numerous and lengthy citations and
corrections, Professor Sopa showed how the translation
confounds the author's intention at every turn, often
reversing it entirely? As part of his response (in the work
cited), Professor Wayman maintained that native scholars
cannot necessarily read Tsong-kha-pa either. Nevertheless, he
consulted with living Tibetans in preparing this section on
ethics. According to the Introduction, he spent one month in
Dharamsala working on "certain knotty problems" with Geshe
Lobsang Gyatso and an interpreter. Given only a month,
however, the time would have been better spent in systematic
examination of all the work's quotations from oral tradition
(colloquial, homespun images from the Ka-dampa geshes),
scarcely one of which is translated in a way that makes any
sense. In addition, Mr. Losang Jamspal, also of Columbia
University, checked the whole of the translation, "making
numerous suggestions for improvement." Whether the
suggestions were adopted is not specified. One might suppose
that this section on ethics would have proven easier to
translate than the others, but such is not the case, if only
because the translator is less in control of the technical
terminology. To pile up instances of mistranslation, as the
geshe did in his review, would be a simple matter, space
permitting. As a rough estimate, to correct all serious
errors would require a review twice as long as the book: one
length to cite passages as translated, and a second to
provide corrected versions. For example, there are errors in
the opening and closing passages of each of the two sections
of the translation. More briefly, this review can add two
points to the geshe's assessment: first, that Sanskrit is
handled as badly as Tibetan, and second, that the work is
self-alienated not only from traditional Tibetan scholarship,
but from modern Western as well. When Tsong-kha-pa cites
Indian sources that are available in Sanskrit, the translator
all but ignores the Tibetan, translating the Sanskrit
directly--regardless of the fact that Tsong-kha-pa did not
know Sanskrit. thodologically unsound, this can lay a rocky
road through the text. For example, the translation of a
passage from the Sik.sa-samuccaya of Santideva reads: "One
should not rail with his mind against the 'gal ba (the
red-hot pillar for torturing criminals); how much less should
he against a body endowed with consciousness!" The phrase
"red-hot pillar" is taken from the translation of the
Sanskrit Siksa-samuccaya done by Bendall and Rouse in the
early part of this century. Wayman presents it here, it
seems, as a hitherto unknown meaning of Tibetan 'gal ba. Upon
closer examination, however, the Tibetan suggests a Sanskrit
original sthula, where the Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript reads
sthuna. Making the correction gives a better sense: "Never
allow your mind to be irritated at a transgression ('gal
ba)--still less at a body endowed with consciousness]" (tr.
147, ed. 484.1-2).[2] On occasion, the Sanskrit for citations
(given as an appendix without cross-references to the text)
has been incorrectly copied ("traced out," as the translator
puts it). For example, in "tracing out" a passage from the
Siksa-samuccaya, the word "study" (sruta) in the phrase
"striving in study et cetera" has been dropped; then, to
compensate, the "et cetera" is ignored. The presence of
"study" in the Tibetan, and in the English translation of the
Siksa-samuccaya, has not lead the translator to recheck the
Sanskrit. Also unnoticed in this passage, the Tibetan has
dhyana, "meditation, " where the Sanskrit has samadhi,
"concentration" (tr. 204, ed. 549.5). Also from Sanskrit,
verse 31:4 of the Ratnagunasarhcayagatha is misconstrued out
of failure to heed the Sanskrit (or Tibetan) syntactic
markers, or at least to consult the prior translation by
Edward Conze. Wayman's translation reads, "If the Bodhisattva
enjoys the five sense objects, he (still) takes his refuge in
the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Noble Samgha. If, orienting
his mind to omniscience he thinks, 'I shall become a Buddha,'
a wise person should know the (Bodhisattva's) place --the
perfection of morality" (p. 76, ed. 397.5-6). A better
reading would be, "If the bodhisattva enjoys the five sense
objects but still takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and
the Noble Samgha, keeping his mind upon omniscience and
thinking, 'I will become a Buddha,' then the wise should
understand that he does maintain the perfection of morality."
There are times when Tsong-kha-pa assumes that we know the
story. For example, Tsong-kha-pa writes (my translation):
"The great Elder Brother [Atisa; this is the correct
spelling], while circumambulating the Vajra Seat [at Bodh
Gaya], pondered how he might attain awakening quickly. He
heard the small figurines get up and ask the large ones: 'In
what should one train in order to attain nirvana quickly?'
'Train yourself in the thought of awakening.'" This story and
another wondrous tale that follows are related at greater
length in the large biography of Atisa edited, with summaries
in German, by Helmut Eimer.[3] Instead of consulting it, the
translator wrestles the syntax into this contortion: "He
decided there would be a speedy Buddhahood for the great ones
who have constructed small images of the body (of the
Buddha). Then, when he was asked, to whom this should be
taught (he responded), 'It is to be taught to the one with
the Thought of Enlightenment'" (sku gzugs chung ba rnams
bzhengs nas che ba rnams la myur du 'tshang rgya bar 'dod pas
gang la bslab par bya zhes dris pa na byang chub kyi seres la
bslab par bya'o zhes; tr. p. 75, ed. 396.2). The beginnings
of quotations are elusive (p. 32) ; the lexicon is
idiosyncratic. A scholar is referred to as the "great
waylayer Kamalasila"; the term is usually translated "great
chariot" (shing rta chen po). Whereas the general rule of
such translations is to utilize the full, rich vocabulary of
English, here the English vocabulary is reduced. "Nature" is
used for chos ("dharma," "doctrine"), as in "practice only
one nature" (p. 40), and also for rang bzhin (Sanskrit
svabhava, more commonly "self-nature"), and for ngo bo. "Sin"
is used to translate kha na ma tho ba dang bcas pa
("reprehensible"), nyes pa ("fault"), and sdig pa ("misdeed")
. The adjecti-val mchog is translated as comparative and as
superlative. "Contemplate" translates both bsam and bsgom,
different modes of meditation. A legion of semantic errors
disfigures the work. The compound gnang bkag means "what are
permitted and forbidden," not "importance" (tr. 136, ed.
470.1). (It is correctly translated later on, after being
uncompounded in a citation; see p. 201, ed. 546.3). The
Sanskrit srama-nerika should be "nun-probationer," not "pupil
monk" (tr. 230 n. 77). The abhidharma term 'phen pa signifies
"projection" into the future of the effect of an act; without
this meaning, the sentence distinguishing present from future
effects of karma makes no sense (tr. 148-149; ed. 486.2). The
noun-phrase sems rtse gcig pa (Sanskrit cittaikagra)
signifies a mind that is "one-pointed," "concentrated"--not a
"single area of thought" (tr. 195, ed. 539.6 and elsewhere).
lhe last phrase comes from the section on meditation, and
could have been corrected by reference to the Demieville
translation into French of the "Meditation" chapter of the
Bodhisattva Stage. Because the translator does not use
English-language scholarship when he should, it cannot be
demonstrated that he fails to use European languages out of
inability. However, the only foreign-language source (in
French) to appear in the Bibliography has the author's name
misspelled. Use of parentheses and brackets is unpredictable.
A pair of subheadings is omitted at page 44 (cp. ed. 359.6),
between the topics marked 2a and 2a1, leading further on (pp.
50, 56) to misnumbering, mistranslation to account for it,
and confusion of the topics. The verb snang ba is not
understood in its sense "to appear," "to seem"--Ieading to
horrendous misconstructions. In the following passage, it
appears to have been ignored: "Equipped with the insight of
two virtues, given violations ('gal ba) he desists from
violations." This would better read: "Two virtues that appear
to contradict one another (namely, love and pity,
appreciation and evenmindedness) are proven to be without
contradiction by those endowed with wisdom" ('gal ba snang
ba'i yon tan gnyis shes rab dang Idan pas mi 'gal bar bsgrub;
tr. 199, ed. 544.6). Further into that discussion--how to
cultivate apparently contradictory virtues--'gal ba is
correctly translated as "to contradict." The translation does
adjust somewhat to the material as it goes along, but it
never looks back to correct its earlier missteps. The
translator may have learned about ethics in the process;
readers, however, are likely to be tripped up at steps that
Tsong-kha-pa considers the most crucial of the path. For
example, Tsong-kha-pa demonstrates at one point that the
pra-timoksa vow--the lay or monastic precepts which restrain
one from harming others--is inherently a part of the
bodhisattva vow, whether or not the pratimoksa has been taken
in a ceremony. To understand it requires familiarity with the
lengthy discussion in the Basic Path, where the views of
different scholars are adduced. The consequences for
individual behavior (and for politics) are significant, and
the published translation reverses or distorts most of the
sense of the passage (tr. 141, ed. 476.3-5). In the face of
such hazards to the spiritual welfare of the reading public,
the disadvantages of overliteral translation may seem
trivial. But prospective translators may wish to consider
this one example: 'jigs pa, "to fear," is intransitive in
Tibetan, and takes the instrumental for its cause. Wayman
translates the instrumental literally: "having feared by
reason of the disadvantages" (nyes dmigs kyis 'jigs nas; tr.
139, ed. 473.4). In English, "fear" may be transitive, with
the cause as direct object, "fearing the disadvantages;" or
it may be intransitive, with the cause in the genetive,
"afraid of the disadvantages." NOTES 1 - See the Journal of
the International Association of Buddhist Studies 3:68-100,
and my own review in the Journal of Asian Studies 39: 3. 2 -
The translation provides page numberings for the sections
translated, but neglects to mention which edition was used
(it was probably the Lhasa Zhol). In this review, references
have been keyed to the Tashil-hunpo edition, found in the
Collected Works of Rje Rin-po-che, vol. 19, pp. 338-563 (= Pa
169b-282a).

3 - Rnam that rgyas pa (Wiesbaden, 1979), secs. 139-140.