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

The words of specially qualified persous who directly perceive trans- 75 . 6. cendental things 5 are called Scripture.

If something that has never been experienced is cognized (through a 75 . 7 . description), so far as it has been declared to be similar (to another thing which has been experienced by us) — this is called analogy, e. g., when we are told that a gayal whom we have never seen is (some animal) similar to a bull.

By these four methods of cognition is our knowledge of objects deter- 75 . 9 . mined (and our actions guided) in common life. 6

(But if we are then asked on what transcendental basis these four 75 . 10 . methods of usual cognition repose, we will be obliged to confess) that their reality is relative. 7 The cognizable things exist so far as cognitions exist and (vice versa ), cognitions exist so far as the cognizable objects exist.

1 loke. 2 aparoksa. 3 laksya.

4 jnanena saha , according to Dignaga pratyaksa, when pure ( Suddha ) is not jnana, but Dharmaklrti brings it under the head of samyag-jnana, cp. Tatparyat., p. 102. 17.

5 atindriyartha.

B These are exactly the four sources of knowledge admitted by the Realists, the Naiyayikas.

7 parasparapeksaya siddha — Sunya,

U*

NIK YANA

But 1 iu no case is there any independent (absolute) reality 2 either of our cognitions, nor of the objects cognized. Therefore let us be satisfied with the usual (view of the phenomenal world), just as it is cognized by us from experience. 3

Enough of this discussion!

Let us revert to our subject matter.

The Sublime Buddhas have also preached their doctrine in adapting it just to the habits of thought of common humanity. 4

XLII. The Hinayana theory of Causation examined.

6 . i. From our correligionists 5 (the Hinayanists) we receive regarding this (our denial of causation) the following reply. 6 We agree with you, (they say),

1 Here Candrakirti winds up this remarkable controversy with Dignaga by admitting realistic logic in the empirical field, but not in the transcendental, and by rejecting Dignaga’s reform which, although professing to be a logic of common sense ( laukika ), aimed at establishing a transcendental reality of a «thing in itself». For describing the fact that phenomenal reality is established iD his system on a firm basis, lie uses two words, it is satya «a truth®, and it is siddha , «estblished as a reality)). However it is a «surface truth» (samvrtisatya) and it is « established as a relative reality» (paraspardpeksayd siddha), not absolutely ( na ta svabhavena). Dignaga retorts that he has also two realities, the relative reality of all our con¬ ceptions and the absolute reality of the «thing in itself®. Indeed the followers of Aryasanga and Digniiga are frequently characterized as being also Madhyamikas (i. e., relativists) because they adhere to the doctrine that all our conceptions have merely a relative value (paratantra). But Candrakirti insists that Dignaga’s «thing in itself» is also relative, that he has thus failed to grasp the real profound meaning of the doctrine of the two realities, the Relativity is the « surface » of the Absolute, it has its real stand as such a surface. Therefore in chap. XXV. 9 and XXV.20 Nagarjuna will emphatically assert the essential identity of the Absolute and ihe Phenomenal, of Nirvana and Samsara, cp. translation below p. 200. The Absolute of Nagarjuna and Candrakirti has thus a certain similarity with the ev xai 7rav of Parmenides, whereas the «thing in itself® of Dignaga has some points of similarity with the Hoc Aliquid ( = kinxeid idam ) of Aristotle. The Madhyamika view can be clearly realized out of the following equations,