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

57. io. The Madhyamika. When the Saints are engaged in a conversation with simple folk, they do not really exhibit their own arguments. They take the arguments which are just the. arguments that appeal to simple men, they (provisionally) admit them as a (convenient method) for the instruction of others, and thus give instruction to common people by just those (methods which simple men can understand).

57. li. Just so it is that men influenced by sensuality invert (the real con¬ dition of things). The real impurity in the body (of a female) they over¬ look. They imagine a non-existing beauty of its forms and are tormented by it. In order to liberate them from their passion, a person magically created by Buddha or a god may depict to them the impurities of the body which therehefore were concealed from them under the idea of its beauty. This body, (they will say), is covered by hair and contains other (impurities in the intestines). 3 These men will then get rid of their conviction that it was a beauty and attain impassibility.

58 . i. Just the same happens here. Common mankind whose power of vision is obstructed by the darkness of ignorance imputes to (separate) entities a reality which they do not possess, a reality which for the Saint does not exist at all. (It then happens that these ordinary men) are tormented by some particular thing which they somehow ima¬ gine to exist. 4 The Saints then try to rouse (their skepticism) by some argument which would appeal to them. E. g., (supposing the Sankhya proves his tenet of identity between an effect and its material cause, the Monist then says), «if the jar did really exist in the clump of

1 paramdrthah .

2 prapanca — vak, M. vr., p. 373 . 9 . Lit. «Therefore wherefrom the possibility there of speech, so that there would be either argument or no argument >».

3 The asubha-bhavana, is here alluded to, the practice of the yoyins to concentrate upon the repulsive, loathsome particulars of every animal life.

4 Lit., p. 58 . 1 - 3 . « Just so here likewise, the worldlings are very much tormented (sub¬ ject to klesas ) having imputed to something some inverted essence of entities, because their mental eyes are obstructed by the darkness (or ophthalmia) of ignorance, (an essence) whose substance is in every respect unperceived by the Saints ».

clay, it would uever have needed to be produced out of it once more#.

This will be acquiesced in. He then concludes, «if something exists before its production, it needs not to be produced ouce more, because it exists#.

(Thus the Sankhya will be confuted in a way intelligible to everybody).

Similarly (will it be said against the converse theory of the Vaise- 58 . 5. sikas who admit a break between the effect and its material cause), «you agree that a sprout cannot be produced out of blazing coal because the latter is different. w T e then must conclude that it neither can originate out of seeds etc., which are usually represented 1 (as their cause), (since they also are different). 2

The Logician may at last (maintain that causality exists because) 58 . 7. such is our direct experience. 3

Madhyamika. This also is wrong because of (the following argument).

(Thesis). This direct experience is misleading.

(Reason). Because it is experience.

(Example). Just as the direct experience of a double moon by a man suffering from ophthalmia.

Consequently it is wrong to oppose our argument on the basis of direct 5?. g, experience, since (the reliability) of the hitter remains to he proved. 4

We have thus established in the first chapter of our work that the (sepa- 55. 10. rate) entities (ot the phenomenal world)ha,ve never originated (and do not exist).

And we have proved this (by our negative method). We first assume the reality of something impossible and then condemn it. 5

• The remaining parts of the treatise are now (concerned with details), as. 11. They are devoted to the repudiation of all (possible) characteristics (of reality), wheresoever (they have been assumed to exist). It will be shown that (in the light) of Relativity all these particular characteristics are not

1 vital sita.

2 In order to save the reality and substantiality of separate objects the Vaise§ikas main¬ tain that the effect is absolutely different ( atyanta-bhinna ) from its material cause, and that the whole contains something in addition, over and above its parts. But this does not prevent them from maintaining that the parts are inherent (samdveta) in the whole. The Madhyamika here resorts to his «diamond liken argument against Causality, «if the effect is different, there is no causation, if it is partly different and partly non-different the difficulty will be double#. This of course should not prevent him to make use of the every-day conception of Causality when needed.

3 anubhava. 4 sadhya-sama.

5 Lit., p. 58. 10, '(Therefore unproduced are the entities, thus, first of all, by counter¬ argument, by imputation of a contrary essence, the first chapter is composed ».

SS. 14.

5S. 15.

59. 1.

(ultimately) real, e.g., neither a moving object, nor the point to be reached, 1 nor motion 2 itself (do really exist). 3