Xuanzangs Proof Of Idealism

SR No.: 269514
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Eli Franco
Publisher: Eli Franco
Total Pages: 14
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

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Hõrin 11/2004
The first condition holds because the property "not being dhātu no. 2" which occurs in dhātus nos. 1 and 3 is present in dhātu no. 1; the second condition holds because the same property is present in dhātu no. 3, and the third condition holds because, owing to the qualification of the reason, being included in dhātus nos. 1 and 3 is absent in dhātus nos. 2,4–18.
Could the opponent contest Xuanzang's position by formulating a competing inference? He could not, because any re-arrangement of the three visual elements is acceptable to Xuanzang: If the visible object is not separate from visual awareness (because it is not the visual sense), then visual awareness is (tautologically) also not separate from the visual object (for the same reason). Even if one takes the visual sense as the subject of inference, inferring that the sense of vision is not separate from visual awareness because it is not the visual object, or that it is not separate from the visual object because it is not visual awareness, the inferences will merely prove the Yogācāra position that the senses are nothing but seeds in the awareness." Moreover, if the opponent were to suggest such an inference, he would be guilty of contradicting his own position (siddhāntavirodha), for the opponent, being an adept of Conservative Buddhism, does not admit that any dhātu is inseparable from or identical with any other dhātu.
Still, Xuanzang's inference may seem to be merely a clever trick. Reduce the world of discourse into three entities - in practice this is what the qualification does by excluding the reason from being present in dhātus nos. 4-18 - and you could say: Entity no. 1 is (not separate from) entity no. 2 because it is not entity no. 3 (and if one needs an example, one may add: like entity no. 2). Since our world has only three entities, the reason does not need a qualification in order to be valid. The distribution into pakşa, etc., is: Subject: no. 1 sapakşa: no. 2
31 Cf. L. de La Vallée Poussin, Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi. La Siddhi de Hiuan-Tsang. Paris
1928, p. 42: "Comme l'indique leur nom d'indriya (Kośa, ii, p. 103) ils sont seulement des 'puissances' (sakti), non pas des choses extérieures constituées par la matière dérivée des quatre grands éléments (upādāyarūpa, bhautikarūpa, Kośa I, p. 21). Un Rūpa sapratigha extérieure à la pensée est rationnellement inadmissible: donc les cinq organes, comme leurs cing objets, en un mot les dix āyatanas, ne sont que le développement-manifestation du Vijñāna." Cf. also ibid., pp. 230-231. According to Frankenhauser, op. cit., pp. 76 and 78, Xuanzang's inference was the central part of a larger treatise and was directed against a certain Prajñāgupta, a Sammitīya from South India, who wrote a treatise refuting the Mahāyāna in seven hundred ślokas. Others, however, are of the opinion that Xuanzang's opponent was a Sarvāstivādin. In fact, Xuanzang's inference could be used against any representative of Conservative Buddhism.
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