Asvaghosa And Vaisesika

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

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

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Asvaghosa and Vaisesika Johannes Bronkhorst Asvaghosa, 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, Asvaghosa 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 Vaisesika system of philosophy. Johnston claims that this system was "entirely unknown to Asvaghosa", 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. Lankavatara and Visuddhimagga), reference to the Vaisesikas 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 Vaisesika thought." The passage occurs in the twelfth chapter (sarga) of this work, in the discussion between the Bodhisattva and his teacher Arada Kalama. What Arada teaches him is in many respects close to Samkhya, and Arada's teachings as reported by Asvaghosa are indeed an important source for the early history of that school of thought. However, not all Arada teaches is Samkhya; the path of meditation which he recommends to the Bodhisattva is in fact thoroughly Buddhist in nature, in which however some Samkhya notions survive, prominent among them the idea of a ksetrajna "knower of the field". The Bodhisattva rejects Arada's path, concentrating in particular on this specific notion. He maintains that no liberation is possible as long as the [235] 596

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notion of a self is not abandoned. In this context he presents some arguments which are difficult to understand against a Samkhya background. Consider first Buddhacarita 12.77, which reads: samkhyadibhir amuktas ca nirguno na bhavaty ayam/ tasmas asati nairgunye nasya mokso 'bhidhiyatel/ Johnston translates: And as the soul is not released from the activity of reason and the like (samkhyadi), it is not devoid of attribute (guna); 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 samkhya here is uncertain; if it could be solved, we should perhaps know how the name Samkhya arose.... What attributes are indicated by adi also escapes me. It would be wrong to understand a secondary sense in the second line with reference to the gunas of classical Samkhya, for the word guna in Asvaghosa's day was ordinarily used in Samkhya discussions of anything rather than the three factors of prakrti, and in the Samkhya 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 Vaisesika-like position is criticised here. The word samkhya in classical Vaisesika means number, and numbers are conceived of in this system as qualities (guna). Even a liberated soul will, from the Vaisesika 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. Prasasta's Padarthadharmasangraha alias Prasastapadabhasya explicitly enumerates the following qualities (guna) that can reside in the soul (WI S 80, p. 16): buddhi, sukha, duhkha, iccha, dvesa, prayatna, dharma, adharma, samskara, samkhya, parimana, prthaktva, samyoga, and vibhaga. 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]

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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 Samkhya ideas is strengthened by the immediately following stanza. Buddhacarita 12.78 reads: gunino hi gunanam ca vyatireko na vidyate/ ruposnabhyam 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 (rupa) and touch (sparsa), of which hot touch is but a variety, are qualities of fire both in Samkhya" and in Vaisesika'. 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 Sankhya is criticised. The Samkhya of the Sastitantra-as testified by various early authors, among them Bhartshari, Mallavadin, and Dharmapala (Bronkhorst, 1994)-maintained that objects are nothing but collections of qualities. Asvaghosa's own description of Samkhya (Buddhacarita 12. 18 f.) includes the qualities as final evolutes among its fundamental tattvas, which seems to indicate that this form of Samkhya, too, saw material objects as collections of qualities. Vaisesika, on the other hand, h always distinguished between the two. The assumption that the opinion here criticised by Asvaghosa shares some essential features with early Vaisesika finds confirmation in a curious line of argument which the Bodhisattva presents in stanzas 12.80-81. The soul is here still called ksetrajna, a term common in Samkhya and unknown in classical Vaisesika, 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 Vaisesika ideas [237] Bronkhorst: Asvaghosa and Vaisesika 594

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inevitably comes to mind. These stanzas read: ksetrajno visariras ca jno va syad ajna eva va/ yadi jno jneyam asyasti jneye sati na mucyatel/ athajna iti siddho vah kalpitena kim atmana/ vinapi hy atmanajnanam prasiddham kasthakudyavat// 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 Samkhya, which conceives of the consciousness of the soul as being essentially without object. Vaisesika, on the other hand, thinks consciousness as essentially object-oriented. What is more, consciousness or knowledge (buddhi) is, in Vaisesika, 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 Vaisesika. The fact that we find it here in the Buddhacarita can be taken as an indication that Asvaghosa was familiar with this notion, and therefore possibly acquainted with Vaisesika. At this point we have to turn to Eli Franco's recent article about "the earliest extant Vaisesika 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 Vaisesika position which does not in all respects tally with the Vaisesika of the Padarthadharmasangraha 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" (anusamavasthasamhrta)." In that state they are as if destroyed (pralayagah khalv api 593 [238]

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vinasta iva; p. 158)(r) though not really destroyed (avinastam api sat anusamavasthasamhrtam api pralinam ity ucyate; p. 161), and unperceived (atmany 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 Vaisesikas of that time used this as an answer to the objection which we know from the Buddhacarita, viz., that the liberated soul of the Vaisesikas still possesses the qualities 'number' etc. The Vaisesikas 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 Vaisesika (if it is one that we find in the Buddhacarita may also have occupied the minds of others, including the Vaisesikas 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 Vaisesika." Proceedings of the First International Conference on Bhartrhari (University of Poona, January 6-8, 1992). Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 47 (1), 1993, 75-94. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1993a): "Mysticisme et rationalite en Inde: le cas du Vaisesika." Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 47(4) (Mystique et rationalite: Inde, Chine, Japon. Actes du colloque tenu a l'Universite de Geneve du 29 au 30 novembre 1990), 1993, 559-569. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1994): "The qualities of Samkhya." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens 38 (Orbis Indicus, Festschrift G. Oberhammer), 309-322. Franco, Eli (2000): "The earliest extant Vaisesika theory of gunas." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens 44, 157-163. [239] Bronkhorst: Asvaghosa and Vaisesika 592

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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." Haranandalahari. 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 pramana-theory from the Kusana period." BDK Fellowship Newsletter (Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, 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) Vaisesikasutra of Kanada, with the Commentary of Candrananda, critically edited by Muni Sri Jambuvijayaji, second edition, Baroda: Oriental Research Institute, 1982 (Gaekwad's Oriental Series 136) Ny WI 591 YD Word Index to the Prasastapadabhasya: A complete word index to the printed editions of the Prasastapadabhasya, by Johannes Bronkhorst & Yves Ramseier, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994 Yuktidipika, ed. in Albrecht Wezler and Shujun Motegi, Yuktidipika: The most significant commentary on the Samkhyakarika, 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: sabdasparsagunat sparsatanmatrat trigunam tejah. [240]

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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