Asvaghosa And Vaisesika

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269203/1

Page #1

Ašvaghoṣa and Vaiseșika
Johannes Bronkhorst
Buddhism and Jainism, Essays in Honour of Dr. Hojun Nagasaki on His Seventieth Birthday
2005 November

Page #2

Aśvaghoșa and Vaišeşika
Johannes Bronkhorst
Ašvaghosa, being one of the earliest classical Sanskrit poets whose work has survived at least in part, is an extremely important source of information for Brahmanical thought. Though himself a Buddhist, Asvaghoṣa was very well acquainted with Brahmanical culture, as has been documented by E. H. Johnston in the introduction to his English translation of the Buddhacarita. Johnston enumerates the different departments of Brahmanical learning known to Asvaghosa, which are numerous, but which do not include the Vaiśeșika system of philosophy. Johnston claims that this system was “entirely unknown to Aśvaghosa”, and observes that this is remarkable in view of the fact that the outstanding position of this system is freely recognised in later Buddhist literature. He continues: "The argument ex silentio for once has cogent force, because in later Buddhist lists corresponding to [Saundarananda), xvi. 17 (e.g. Lankāvatāra and Visuddhimagga), reference to the Vaiseşikas is included by the addition of the word anu."
Johnston's conclusions are important, because they are based on a thorough acquaintance with the texts. And yet there is at least one passage in the Buddhacarita which makes most sense if read in the light of Vaiseşika thought." The passage occurs in the twelfth chapter (sarga) of this work, in the discussion between the Bodhisattva and his teacher Arāda Kālāma. What Arāda teaches him is in many respects close to Sāmkhya, and Arāda's teachings as reported by Aśvaghosa are indeed an important source for the early history of that school of thought. However, not all Arāda teaches is Sāmkhya; the path of meditation which he recommends to the Bodhisattva is in fact thoroughly Buddhist in nature, in which however some Sāmkhya notions survive, prominent among them the idea of a kşetrajña "knower of the field”. The Bodhisattva rejects Arāda's path, concentrating in particular on this specific notion. He maintains that no liberation is possible as long as the
[235]
596

Page #3

notion of a self is not abandoned. In this context he presents some arguments which are difficult to understand against a Sāmkhya background.
Consider first Buddhacarita 12.77, which reads:
samkhyādibhir amuktaś ca nirguņo na bhavaty ayam/ tasmās asati nairgunye nāsya mokso 'bhidhiyatel/
Johnston translates:
And as the soul is not released from the activity of reason and the like (samkhyādi), it is not devoid of attribute (guņa); therefore, as it is not devoid of attribute, it is not admitted to be liberated.
Johnston is not however very sure of this translation. In a note he makes a number of observations, among them the following: "The exact meaning of samkhyā here is uncertain; if it could be solved, we should perhaps know how the name Sāmkhya arose.... What attributes are indicated by ādi also escapes me. It would be wrong to understand a secondary sense in the second line with reference to the guņas of classical Sāmkhya, for the word guna in Aśvaghosa's day was ordinarily used in Sāmkhya discussions of anything rather than the three factors of prakrti, and in the Sāmkhya known to the poet salvation was attained by the destruction of rajas and tamas only, sattva remaining alone in an enhanced state."
The difficulties surrounding the correct interpretation of samkhya vanish when we consider the possibility that a Vaiseșika-like position is criticised here. The word samkhyā in classical Vaiseșika means number, and numbers are conceived of in this system as qualities (guna). Even a liberated soul will, from the Vaiseșika perspective, possess the quality 'number' by virtue of the fact that it has a number: each liberated soul by itself is one in number. Nor is number the only quality which even a liberated soul will possess. Praśasta's Padārthadharmasangraha alias Prasastapādabhāşya explicitly enumerates the following qualities (guna) that can reside in the soul (WI S 80, p. 16): buddhi, sukha, duḥkha, icchā, dveşa, prayatna, dharma, adharma, samskāra, samkhyā, parimāņa, prthaktva, samyoga, and vibhāga. The first nine of these do not remain in a liberated soul; some of the remaining ones will.
It follows, then, that the above stanza allows of the following translation, which makes complete sense against the background of Vaisesika thought:
595
[236]

Page #4

And as the (soul] is not released from number etc., it is not devoid of qualities; therefore, as it is not devoid of qualities, it is not admitted to be liberated.
The possibility that stanza 12.77 does not deal with, and therefore does not criticise Sāmkhya ideas is strengthened by the immediately following stanza. Buddhacarita 12.78 reads:
gunino hi guņānām ca vyatireko na vidyate/
rūpoşņābhyām virahito na hy agnir upalabhyatel/ Johnston's translation, in which I have substituted 'qualities' for 'attributes', reads:
For no distinction exists between the qualities and the possessor of the qualities; for instance, fire is not perceived, when devoid of outward appearance (rupa) and heat (usna).
Outward appearance (rūpa) and touch (sparsa), of which hot touch is but a variety, are qualities of fire both in Sāmkhya" and in Vaišeşika'. The mention of these two does not therefore allow us to determine what position is criticised here. However, the denial of a distinction between qualities and the possessor of qualities makes no sense if Sāņkhya is criticised. The Sāmkhya of the Şaştitantra-as testified by various early authors, among them Bhartshari, Mallavādin, and Dharmapāla (Bronkhorst, 1994)-maintained that objects are nothing but collections of qualities. Aśvaghoşa's own description of Sāmkhya (Buddhacarita 12. 18 f.) includes the qualities as final evolutes among its fundamental tattvas, which seems to indicate that this form of Sāmkhya, too, saw material objects as collections of qualities. Vaišeşika, on the other hand, h always distinguished between the two.
The assumption that the opinion here criticised by Aśvaghosa shares some essential features with early Vaiseșika finds confirmation in a curious line of argument which the Bodhisattva presents in stanzas 12.80-81. The soul is here still called kşetrajña, a term common in Sāmkhya and unknown in classical Vaišeşika, but this choice of terminology should not lead us astray. Nor should we be confused by the first half of the argumentation, which raises problems of its own. Its second half is such that a link with Vaiseșika ideas
[237]
Bronkhorst: Ašvaghoşa and Vaiseșika 594

Page #5

inevitably comes to mind. These stanzas read:
kşetrajño viśariraś ca jño vā syād ajña eva vā/ yadi jño jñeyam asyāsti jñeye sati na mucyatel/ athājña iti siddho vah kalpitena kim ātmanā/ vinäpi hy ātmanajñānam prasiddham kāşthakudyavat//
Johnston's translation, slightly modified, has:
And the knower of the field, when without a body, must be either knowing or unknowing. If it is knowing, there is something for it to know, and if there is something for it to know, it is not liberated. Or if your teaching is that it is unknowing, what then is the use of inventing the existence of a soul? For even without a soul the feature of notknowing is well established as in the case of a log or a wall. .
Once again, this criticism has not much force if directed against something like classical Sāmkhya, which conceives of the consciousness of the soul as being essentially without object. Vaiseșika, on the other hand, thinks consciousness as essentially object-oriented. What is more, consciousness or knowledge (buddhi) is, in Vaiseșika, a quality (guna) of the soul which does not remain in the state of liberation. The liberated soul, and consequently the soul in and by itself, is unconscious, and therefore like a log or like a wall. This view of liberation has been ridiculed by others," but appears to be insep-. arable from Vaiseșika. The fact that we find it here in the Buddhacarita can be taken as an indication that Aśvaghoṣa was familiar with this notion, and therefore possibly acquainted with Vaiseșika.
At this point we have to turn to Eli Franco's recent article about "the earliest extant Vaiseșika theory of gunas" (2000). Franco presents here some fragments from the Spitzer manuscript, which presumably dates from the 3rd century C.E. at the latest." These fragments seem to criticise a Vaiseșika position which does not in all respects tally with the Vaiseșika of the Padārthadharmasangraha and other later works. These fragments appear to refer to an omnipresent (sarvagata) soul, and speak about qualities that inhere in the soul and can become “contracted into a minute state" (anusamavasthāsamhrta)." In that state they are as if destroyed (pralayagāh khalv api
593
[238]

Page #6

vinastā iva; p. 158)® though not really destroyed (avinastam api sat anusamavasthāsamhrtam api pralinam ity ucyate; p. 161), and unperceived (ātmany eva tu pralinam nopalabhyate; p. 161).
These fragments from the Spitzer manuscript confront us with a number of riddles which it may not be possible to solve in the present state of our knowledge. We can however raise the question whether all qualities that inhere in the soul can undergo such a "contraction into a minute state", including the qualities that are not specific to the soul, such as 'number' etc. If so, one could imagine that the Vaiseșikas of that time used this as an answer to the objection which we know from the Buddhacarita, viz., that the liberated soul of the Vaiseșikas still possesses the qualities 'number' etc. The Vaiseşikas could not of course deny this after all, one liberated soul remains one liberated soul; it does not become numberless by being liberated-, but they might point out that the remaining qualities had become totally harmless, indeed as good as destroyed, by this contraction into a minute state".
All this is of course pure speculation and should be taken as such. It may nonetheless be useful to ask the question whether the objection against Vaiseșika (if it is one that we find in the Buddhacarita may also have occupied the minds of others, including the Vaišeşikas themselves, and whether the latter felt the need to find an answer to this objection.
References: Bronkhorst, Johannes (1993): "Studies on Bhartrhari, 5: Bhartrhari and
Vaišeşika.” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Bhartrhari (University of Poona, January 6-8, 1992). Asiatische
Studien / Études Asiatiques 47 (1), 1993, 75-94. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1993a): "Mysticisme et rationalité en Inde: le
cas du Vaiseșika." Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 47(4) (Mystique et rationalité: Inde, Chine, Japon. Actes du colloque tenu
à l'Université de Genève du 29 au 30 novembre 1990), 1993, 559-569. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1994): "The qualities of Sāmkhya.” Wiener
Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38 (Orbis Indicus, Festschrift G.
Oberhammer), 309-322. Franco, Eli (2000): "The earliest extant Vaiseșika theory of guņas."
Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 44, 157-163.
[239]
Bronkhorst: Asvaghoșa and Vaiseșika 592

Page #7

Franco, Eli (2000a): "The Spitzer manuscript: report on work in
progress." Abhidharma and Indian Thought: Essays in Honor of Professor Doctor Junsho Kato on His Sixtieth Birthday. Ed. Committee for the Felicitation of Professor Doctor Junsho Kato's Sixtieth Birthday, Nagoya. Tokyo: Shunju-sha. pp. 562-544 (= [49]-[67]). Franco, Eli (2000b): "Lost fragments of the Spitzer manuscript." Harānandalahari. Volume in Honour of Professor Minoru Hara on His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. R. Tsuchida and A. Wezler. Reinbeck: Inge Wezler. pp. 77-110.
Franco, Eli (2001): "Fragments of a Buddhist pramāṇa-theory from the Kuṣāṇa period." BDK Fellowship Newsletter (Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai, Tokyo) 4, Autumn 2001, pp. 2-12.
Johnston, E.H. (1936): Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita or Acts of the Buddha. Sanskrit text of Cantos I-XIV with English translation of Cantos IXXVIII. New enlarged edition: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc. 1984. Murakami, Shinkan (1978): A Study of the Samkhya-Philosophy. Tokyo: Shunju-sha.
Abbreviations:
Nyayakandali [of Sridhara], with three subcommentaries, ed. J.S. Jetly and Vasant G. Parikh, Vadodara: Oriental Institute, 1991 VS(C) Vaiseṣikasūtra of Kanada, with the Commentary of Candrananda, critically edited by Muni Śri Jambuvijayaji, second edition, Baroda: Oriental Research Institute, 1982 (Gaekwad's Oriental Series 136)
Ny
WI
591
YD
Word Index to the Prasastapadabhāṣya: A complete word index to the printed editions of the Prasastapādabhāṣya, by Johannes Bronkhorst & Yves Ramseier, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994 Yuktidipika, ed. in Albrecht Wezler and Shujun Motegi, Yuktidipika: The most significant commentary on the Samkhyakārikā, Vol. I, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998 (Alt- und NeuIndische Studien, 44.)
Notes
1) This passage has also been studied by Murakami, 1978: 772 ff.
2) E.g. YD p. 225 1. 17: sabdasparsagunāt sparśatanmätrāt trigunam tejaḥ.
[240]

Page #8
3) Cp. VS(C) 2.1.3: tejo rupasparsavat; 2.2.4: tejasy usnata. 4) See e.g. Ny p. 636 1. 12-13: atha matam: acetanasyatmano muktasyapi pasanad avisesah, so 'pi hi na sukhayate na ca duhkhayate, mukto 'pi yadi tathaiva, ko 'nayor visesah?; Bhaskara on Brahmasutra 2.2.37: pasupatavaisesikanaiyayikakapalikanam avisistah muktyavasthayam pasanakalpa atmano bhavant[i]; id on 1.1.19: anyatha sukharahitam brahma vaisesikadimatavat prapnoti. 5) Franco, 2000a: 559-558 (=[52]-[53]); 2000b: 87-88. 6) Franco (2000: 162) states: "This reference (to an omnipresent soul) is of particu lar interest because it has been widely assumed that in early Vaisesika the atman was only as large as the body. If this assumption is correct, our text provides the earliest reference to the new atman doctrine of the Vaisesika and confirms that this change in the atman doctrine took place at a rather early age in the history of the Vaisesika, perhaps as early as the 2nd c. A.D." It is of course more straightforward to look upon this reference as additional evidence that in Vaisesika the atman was conceived of as being omnipresent right from the beginning; see Bronkhorst, 1993: 87 ff.; 1993a: 565 ff. 7) This translation is to be preferred to Franco's "[contracted) into the state of an atom" (p. 159, 161). The reason is that in Vaisesika qualities, even though they cannot possess 'size' which is another quality (so Franco, 2000: 162), can certainly be confined to a part of their substrates or be coextensive with them (cp. WI SS 112-113, p. 20: samyoga-vibhagasabdatmavisesagunanam pradesavrttitvam, sesanam asrayavyapitvam). There is therefore in principle no theoretical objection against them becoming "contracted into a minute state" but, being qualities and not substances, they cannot be contracted into the state of an atom. In another publication Franco (2001: 11) concludes from the use elsewhere in the Spitzer manuscript of the compounds gunaguna and gunavayava "that our text was written before the establishment of the classical Vaisesika doctrine that qualities may not be qualified by further qualities and not have parts". This conclusion is far from compelling, since these compounds occur in a context that does not deal with Vaisesika but with "a Buddhist pramana-theory", as Franco himself points out. 8) Here and in what follows I present Franco's reconstructions / conjectures. (Professor, Universite de lausanne) [241] Bronkhorst: Asvaghosa and Vaisesika 590