Darsanamarga Section Of Abhidharmasamuccaya And Its Interpretation By Tibetan Commentators

SR No.: 269632
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L Schmithausen
Publisher: L Schmithausen
Total Pages: 17
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 9

secondary importance of such differences in the view of the ASBh - and this leads us to the second important contribution of the ASBh going beyond the AS itself is evinced by its assertion that the whole prolix treatment of the darśanamarga in the AS is only a makeshift (vyavasthanamātra) for the sake of instruction and preparation, the real nature of the supramundane state of the darśanamarga being accessible to personal experience only.
Inspite of these important contributions to a doctrinally consistent interpretation of the AS, the ASBh does not, at this point, discuss the question whether there is any difference between the darśanamarga experience of the Bodhisattvas and that of the Śrāvakas (as one would be inclined to assume on the basis of other passages 53) and in what relation the definitions of the AS stand to this difference.
52
53
Darśanamarga section of the Abhidharmasamuccaya
This problem leads me to Bu
ston.
The first thing to state is that Bu ston makes ample use of the explanations of the ASBh, sometimes rendering them more explicit, as, e.g., in the case of the first definition where he expressly states that nirvikalpa in the ASBh corresponds to anupalambha in the AS. 54
Sometimes Bu ston supplies additional word-explanations, as, e.g., when analysing the compounds duḥkhe dharmajñānakṣānti, etc. 55 Such explanations are usually helpful but occasionally questionable, e.g. when he understands the last words of the third definition 56 as a separate, positive element, interpreting the word chos (dharma) as referring to
54
52
56
267
4.
Bu ston 580,4:
mi dmigs pa
ASBh 77,23ff. (= § 85C which, although it has somehow crept into the Chinese version, has to be included from the text of the AS on the basis of ASt).
E.g. ASBh 123,5-7.
rham par mi rtog pa dmigs pa'i rnam rtog gi gñen por gyur pas
55
Bu ston 581,2f.; of the two analyses of the compound dharmajñānak şanti, it is obviously the second one ((chos) ses pa'i dban du byas nas sdug bden la bzod pa) which suits the peculiar interpretation of this term given in the AS (AS 66,13ff.: dharmajñānam katamat prayogamärge ... dharmavicāraṇājñānam | kṣäntiḥ katamā pūrvavicaranam adhipatim krtva duhkhasaty (apratyaks) anubhāvini prajñā|; text changed acc. to AS and AAA 347,7f.); the first analysis (chos kyi de kho na hid ses pa'i phyir bzod pa), on the other hand, agrees, at least structurally, with the analysis of the term given in Abhidharmakośabhāṣya 350,5 (dharmajñānārtham kṣantih).
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See n.29.