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

(Answer). Yes, but it must be done on the basis of principles ad¬ mitted by yourself, not on the basis of principles admitted by your opponent.

1 svdtnm-adarSana-dharma.

2 Dignaga has.established the rule'that a discussion must start from facts the reality of 'which is admitted by both parties. For the Madbyamika as a Monist all individual facts have no reality. Transcendental logic is thus doomed. But Bhavaviveka deems it possible to establish a kind of logic on the basis of facts the reality of which is admitted by one party alone, viz. by the opponent. Candraklrti, on the contrary, requires that the facts should be recognized by the disputant. He thus cannot produce any direct proof.

This 1 is what happens in everyday life. Indeed, sometimes in common 35. l. life two contending parties appoint somebody to judge them, and according to his verdict the gain or the loss are settled. Sometimes the disputant himself declares (that he has won or lost). But never is this question of gain and loss to be settled by the enemy. What is good in common life is equally right in logic, because scientific logic is exclusively concerned (with an examination of the principles which underly purposive action in common life). 2

For this very reason some (logicians) have maintained that an argu- 35. 4. ment cannot be exploded on the basis of the principles admitted by the opponent, because it is just these principles, by him admitted, that it is in¬ tended to reject.

Of course (Dignaga) thinks that a demonstration or a refutation (can 35. 5. be valid, if it is carried on principles) admitted by both parties, not by one of them only. 3 If admitted (by one of them only), it will be inconclusive.

But even he must make allowance for the just mentioned method prevailing in common life (and admit the validity of arguments which start from prin¬ ciples admitted only by one party).

Indeed (he admits that when discussions are going on about religious 35. 8. matters), you cannot repudiate the Scriptures (adopted by your opponent on the basis of some other Scriptures which would be adopted by both parties. As to individual judgments 4 (which are going on in every man’s 35. 9. consciousness) they are guided exclusively by what people themselves think right, not by what both parties, (a respondent and his possible opponent), may agree upon.

Therefore the standpoint of (strict) logic is to no purpose. The Buddhas 36. 1. have favoured their converts, who were not versed in the (science of logic), with arguments which suited the occasion. Enough about this subject! Let us continue our comment.

1 Read evam instead of eva, p. 35. 1.

2 Cp. below, text p. 58.14 and Nyayabindu, p. 3.5.

3 Ibid. III. 58 (p. 62).

4 svarthanumana corresponds to our judgement, it includes every our cognition which is not a direct passive sense perception.

36 . 3 .

• 36 . 5 .
• 36 . 10 .

36 . 6.

36 . 8.

36 . 11 .

36 . 13 .

XXYI. Denial of Causality through a separate substance.

Neither do entities arise out of something different from them, just because (from the monistic point of view) the different does not exist. 1 This point will be elicited later on, a where it will be expressed that «(what be¬ longs to the things themselves), their own essence, does not belong to their causes and (conditions)*). 3

Therefore, just because they do not preexist in something else, they cannot be produced out of it. Moreover the impossibility of a substantial break 4 between cause and effect can also be established on the lines which we have laid down in our ((Introduction into the Madhyamika System» where it is said, 5

If, to be sure, a thing were «other)) in regard to causes,

Deep darkness would then be produced from light. 6

Then surely everything could be produced out of anything,

Since «otherness» is just the same (in causes and) non-causes. 7

The Master Buddhapalita comments, •«entities cannot arise out of something (essentially) different from them, since it would follow that every¬ thing could then arise out of anything)).

The Master Bhavaviveka assails this comment. «It is nonsense! he says, because the argument contains its own destruction, 8 since 1) it is mere deductio ad absurdum , 2) it conflicts with the point previously esta¬ blished. Indeed in taking the counterpart of the reason and of the predicate

1 or «just because entities do not exist in something else {=parasminn abhavad eva)u as e. g., the cloth in the treads, the jar in the clay, etc.

2 Cp. aphorism I. 3.

3 Lit., 36. 4. «The own existence (svabhdra) of entities ( bhavanam ) is not found in their condition, etc.». Cp. infra I. 3. This is the Vaise$ika view, the cloth is something different from the sum total of the threads, the jar something over and above the some total of the atoms of clay, etc.

4 parata utpattih , 36.10,

5 Madhy. av., VI. 14. *

6 When causality is understood as a regularity of consecution the day will be the cause of the following night and night would produce the following day, a question that has been often discussed in European philosophy.