The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)

XII. THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY IN THE HINAYANA

Vacaspatimisra is full of respect towards Buddhist logicians, but for the Madhyamikas he has only remarks of extreme contempt, he calls them fools 1 and accuses them of reducing cognition to nothing. 2 Sankara accuses them of disregarding all logic and refuses to enter in a controversy with them. The position of Sankara is interesting because, at heart, he is in full agreement with the Madhyamikas, at least in the main lines, since both main¬ tain the reality of the One-without-a-Second, and the mirage of the mani¬ fold. But Sankara, as an ardent hater of Buddhism, would never confess that. He therefore treats the Madhyamika with great contempt, but not on the score of a «denial of the existence of our ideas», or of maintaining «absolute nothingness)), but on the charge that the Madhyamika denies the possibility of cognising the absolute by logical methods ( pramana ). Vacaspatimisra in the Bhamati rightly interprets this point as referring to the opinion of the Madhyamikas that logic is incapable to solve the question about what existence or non-existence really are. This opinion Sankara himself, as is well known, shares. He does not accept the authority of logic as a means of cognising the Absolute, but he deems it a privilege of the Vedantin to fare without logic, since he has Revelation to fall back upon. From all his oppo¬ nents he requires strict logical methods. 3 It must be added that the Japanese

1 devdnam-priya , cf. Tatp.tika, p. 341.23, 469.9.

2 Ibid, ad N. S., 1Y. 1.18, sarva-Sunyatve khydtur alhdvdt khydter abhavah. Vacaspati knows that they deny abhdva just as much, and in the same sense, as they deny bhdva, cf. Bha¬ mati ad V. S., II. 2. 32, na ca nistattvataiva tattcam bhdvdnam , tatha sati hi tattvabhavah sydt , so’pi ca vicaram na sahata ity uktam bhavadbhih. He also knows that to transform every thing into abKava is tantamount to endow non-reality with reality, to have a vigrahavan abhavah ibid. 389,22. But this does not prevent him from repeating popular accusations.

3 Cf. Deussen, System des Vedanta, p. 99; Sankara ad V. S., II. 2. 38. The Madhya¬ mika denies the validity of logic, i. e. of discursive conceptual thought, to establish ultimate truth. On the charge that in doing so he himself resorts to some logic, he replies that the logic of common life is sufficient for showing that all systems contradict one another and that our funda¬ mental conceptions do not resist scrutiny, cf. Vacaspati, Tatparya-tika, p. 249 — avicdritasiddhaih pramanair itaresdm pramanyam pratisidhyate. This is exactly the standpoint which is developed with such infinite subtlety and ingenuity by Srihar§ a in his Khan<jana-khanfia-khadya where he openly confesses that there is but little difference between Buddhism and Vedanta, a circumstance which Sankara carefully conceals. But in later works, e. g., Vedanta-paribhaga, or Nyayamakaranda, different pramanas are established as proofs for the existence of brahman. When commenting upon V. S., II. 2. 28, Sankara, in combating Buddhist idealism, resorts to arguments of which he himself does not believe a word, since they are arguments which the most genuine realist would use. He thus argues not sva-matena, but paramatam aSritya , a method very much in vogue among Indian pandits. Deussen’s interpretation of this point, op. cit. p. 260, as intended to vindicate vyavahara-satya is a misunderstanding, since the Buddhists never denied scholars, Suzuki, Anesaki, Yamakami Sogen and others who have a direct knowledge of what Mahayana is have never comraited the mistake of re¬ garding its philosophy as nihilism or pure negativism.