Reviews the book Madhyamika Thought in China

·期刊原文
Reviews the book Madhyamika Thought in China,
by Ming-Wood Liu

Lai, Whalen
Philosophy East & West
Vol.46 No.3
Jul. 1996
Pp.415-417
Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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This book, a study of the Madhyamika tradition in China,
covers the Indian background (chapter1), Seng-chao (chapter
2), Chi-tsang (chapter3), and T'ien-t'ai and Niu-t'ou Ch'an
(chapter4). As such it is the most comprehensive overview in
English to date of the key developments from the early fifth
to the mid-seventh century. As with Dr. Liu's other published
works, one can always count on a diligent reading of the
classic texts in the original Chinese, new and selective
translations therefrom, and a patient, point-by-point
analysis of the relevant passages chosen.

Trained by the late Kenneth Ch'en, Dr. Liu is one of the two
leading Buddhologists in Hong Kong. He keeps up a
philosophical reading of the Chinese Buddhist tradition and
does so in a style sufficiently different from American
scholars trained in Japan such as Aaron Koseki (on
Chi-tsang), Paul Swanson (especiallyon T'ien-t'ai), and John
McRae (on Ch'an). They cover certain areas but not the full
span as Liu does here. Some topics treated in this book, such
as Chi-tsang's reaction to and criticism of his
contemporaries (pp.82-135)are most revealing and are simply
not easily available in English elsewhere.

As a study on Madhyamika, this book devotes only a scant ten
pages to Nagarjuna (pp.26-35). Moreover, contrary to the
usual appreciation of him as the philosopher most able to
expose as self-defeating the premises of other thought
systems, Liu judges a sample of Nagarjuna's argument to be
"based on unstated and unproven premises" (p.34); this
unsympathetic treatment is most unexpected. The abridgment
here of the full Madhyamika system must be chalked up to a
certain Chinese bias. For example, there is no discussion in
chapter 1 on the whole rationale behind the abhidharmic
postulation of svabhava. Without an accounting of how, by
conflating logical discreteness and ontic self-sufficiency,
Abhidharma only invited Nagarjuna's critique, the whole point
of emptying the so-called "self-natures" would be lost to the
reader.

This omission, however, is understandable given the way China
acquired and developed the dialectics of Emptiness. Prior to
mastering fully the subtleties of abhidharma, China had
already applied that negative dialectics to the Neo-Taoist
fixation with the postulates of being and nonbeing
("existence"and "inexistence" in Liu). As Chinese shades of
the Sanskrit sat and asat, this pair is not exactly the
overriding concern in Nagarjuna's original critique. In
keeping with the deeply rooted Chinese fixation with
overcoming/incorporating existence and inexistence, Liu
recapitulates the whole tradition with that telos in mind.
Thus, in his conclusion (pp.258-261), we find an unbroken
thread running from the Buddha's cessation of cravings
through the early Mahayana praxis of nonattachment to
Nagarjuna's denial of all stands. Abhidharma is shortchanged
in the process; it is always presented in stereotype as being
scholastic and amiss in praxis--as if Madhyamika has not at
times been guilty of the same thing.

By making "nonattachment" the common thread and "overcoming
existence/inexistence" the goal, this study simplifies the
history of Madhyamika in China. Is this due to the nature of
the Chinese reading of it or to the author's reading? The
answer might have to be both. A fuller history of Madhyamika
in China would show that it did not end with Niu-t'ou Ch'an.
There is a claim by Fatsang of the Huayen school that he
inherited another direct Madhyamika transmission. Truth or
fiction, it turned out to be supportive of his reading of a
sinicized dialectics found in the Awakening of Faith in
Mahayana. After Tsung-mi abridged Fa-tsang's commentary of
this text, Chinese Buddhists--when compared with Japanese
Tendai scholastics--generally lost touch with the sharp edges
of the original Indian four-cornered dialectics. And in one
sense, the present book is heir to that simplification of
Madhyamika since Tsung-mi and the Sung period.

This simplification shows up in the author's approach, which
is more philosophical than historical. Perhaps because he
works in isolation in Hong Kong, even when he keeps up with
studies done elsewhere, he chooses not to engage himself
actively in a disputation with other interpretations that are
now current. He stays close to the Chinese text and offers
his own philosophical exposition instead. Much of that is
elucidating, but sometimes, by ignoring the larger context of
debate, questionable interpretations are allowed to creep in.
A few of these come up, for example, in the treatment of the
much-studied Seng-chao.

Seng-chao's essay on Emptiness takes Chih Tun to task (pp.
53-59). But to allege that Chih Tun was talking about a
"primary matter" and a "secondary matter" (p.55)is to base
oneself on a set of words in the text, the English reading of
which is dubious and not founded on a careful reconstruction
of Chih Tun's argument from other sources. Seng-chao did not
originate the reading that "the nature of things is neither
existent nor inexistent"; that reading was already in Chih
Tun, and thus their difference must be more finely tuned.
Likewise (p.61), when Liu offers to explain Seng-chao's
thesis on the "changelessness of things" by arguing that by
"change" people usually meant partial and not total
change--in other words, pien and not hua--that is Liu's own
addendum.

Phrasing the problem thus is pushing the argument naively
back to a Hindu satkaryavada position--that is, something
never changes--that the Buddha had denied; trusting in
asatkaryavada (noeffect preexisting in the cause) , the
Sarvastivadins had tried to come up with a most rational
account, both extremes of which were judged equally flawed by
Nagarjuna, whose critique of temporality Seng-chao then tried
to replicate in this essay. This shows that wherever there is
a history of debate and prior studies thereof (by Robinson
and Liebenthal), one cannot offer a new, personal exegesis
without justifying such an exercise in light of
interpretations past and current.

Likewise a philosophical exegesis of Seng-chao's essay on
"Nirvana as Nameless" is inadequate. Only by working through
the problems of the ideological debate behind this text can
one see what was at stake--how unlike Chi-tsang Seng-chao
was, why he was not counted as a San-lun master within the
new San-lun lineage, and why Chi-tsang's version of that new
lineage was an ideological creation. In this essay, Seng-chao
sided with Yao Hsing, his patron, against the prince Yao Sung
(p.68) . Seng-chao defended gradual enlightenment by
appealing, as Yao Hsing did, to the Triyana doctrine in the
Wisdom Sutra. He thus opposed a theory of sudden
enlightenment derived at the time by Tao-sheng--not from the
Nirvana Sutra but from the Ekayana of the Lotus Sutra, as was
also done by Yao Sung. This shows how Seng-chao was as yet
unable to reconcile the Empty and the One (Vehicle).

Other early disciples of Kumarajiva specializing in
Madhyamika could not reconcile the Empty (theabsence of any
essence)with the new Buddha-nature doctrine either. It took
Chi-tsang, a century later, to reconcile these three
teachings of the One, the Empty, and the Real--after the
Ch'eng-shih masters had forged their own synthesis. It is in
battling the latter school that Chi-tsang came up with a new
history of the San-lun transmission, one that bypassed the
mistaken Ch'eng-shih master and claimed to be directly
inspired by the sutras themselves.

No discourse is ever objective; all writings, including this
review, privilege certain views over other views. My
disagreement with the author over some interpretations is
minor; much of the work in this book is solid and sound.
Overall, Madhyamika Thought in China is a valuable addition
to the field. It offers a very sympathetic exposition of the
Madhyamika tradition in China, and it is as much a book on as
in the tradition of "Chinese Thoughts on Madhyamika." For
that, it should be read with an equal amount of caution and
appreciation.