________________
Jabannes Bronkborst
individual liberty, there can be no doubt that debaters could lose their reputation once and for all, and with it whatever privileges were reserved for their group or community. Winning a debate could be very advantageous. Elsewhere Genjö reports that Śllabhadra, the same Master also mentioned in the preceding passage, had once defeated a Brahmin in a debate, after which he had received from the local king the revenues of a certain city,"
Let us now turn to the second example, situated a few centuries before the time of Genjo. It depicts a debate between a Buddhist and a Sämkhya in which, this time, the latter is victorious. The story is found in Paramartha's The Life of Vasubandhu. The main character is the Samkhya teacher Vindhyavasa, who modified the Samkhya doctrine and came to think that the doctrine set forth by him was the greatest, and that nothing could be superior to it. However, Buddhism was flourishing in the world at that time. Vindhyaväsa therefore resolved to refute it. The text
continues:"
Accordingly he went to the country of Ayodhya and beat the drum of dispute with his head and said:
(The translator of this passage explains in a note that, according to a commentator, 'it was customary for a king in India to keep a drum at the Royal Gate. When a man wants to appeal to the Court or to challenge a dispute, he has to beat it.")
'I will dispute (with any Buddhist Śramana). If I am defeated my opponent shall cut my head off; but if, on the contrary, he is beaten, he shall give me his head.' The King, Vikramaditya..., being informed of the matter summoned the heretic and asked him about it, whereupon the latter answered: "Thou art, O King, the Lord of the Land, in whose mind there should be no partial love to either Śramanas or Brahmins. If there be any doctrines prevailing (in thy country) thou shouldst put them to the test (and see whether) they are right or wrong. Now I intend (to dispute) with a disciple of Sakyamuni [-the Buddha] to determine which party is the winner or the loser. Each should vow to stake his own head." The King thereupon gave him permission and despatched men to ask all the Buddhist teachers of the country in the following words: 'Is there anyone who is able to oppose this heretic? Whosoever thinks himself competent should dispute with him."
At that time the great Teachers of the Law, Manoratha, Vasubandhu, and others were all absent travelling in other countries....
There was at home only Buddhamitra the teacher of Vasubandhu.... This Teacher of the Law was formerly very learned, but he was now advanced in years and therefore weak in mind and feeble in his speech. He said: "Now the great champions of the Law are all abroad. The heretic is strong and obstinate and must not be let alone any longer. I will now see to it myself. He informed the King, who appointed a day on which he summoned a great assembly to the hall of discussion, where the heretic and the Buddhist teacher were to meet and dispute.
The heretic said: "Will you first set forth your opinion? Or will you refute the opinion first set forth by me?" The priest replied: 'I am like a great ocean which swallows up all that comes. You are like a lump of earth which will be submerged if it comes to the ocean. You may do as you like.' His opponent said: "Then you had better set forth your own opinion (first). I will refute it.'
6 Watters [1904-05/1973: : 109-110)
7 Takk [1904: 283 ). Cp. the discussion in Larson & Bhattacharya [1987: 131 0
16
The Congest of Indian Philosophy
The Buddhist teacher, thereupon, set forth his doctrine of impermanence and said: 'All composite things are in process of destruction every moment, why? because they disappear in the end.' He further supported this by various arguments. The heretic opponent could repeat all these arguments of the Buddhist priest after once hearing them and began to criticise them one by one by processes of reasoning. On being requested to commit to memory and repeat these refutations the priest failed to do so. He could not even re-construct his own arguments, though requested to do so. Thus the Buddhist priest was completely defeated. The heretic said: "You are a Brahmin by caste and I also am a Brahmin. We are not allowed to kill. I will beat you on the back instead, in order to show that I am the victor." He did so. The king gave him three lacs of gold as a prize. On receiving the gold he distributed it among the people at large and returned to the Vindhya mountain where he entered a rocky cave.
The story has a happy ending after all, for Vasubandhu, after his return, composed a work criticising the Simkhya doctrine in such a competent manner that the heretics had nothing left for them to fall back upon. In this way, without meeting Vindhyaväisa, Vasubandhu took full vengeance on him and wiped off the disgrace put upon his teacher.
These examples show that loosing a debate could have serious consequences, and winning one could have serious advantages. It is not surprising that debating manuals were produced, some of which have survived. Public debates had to be won, and all possible means were used in order to attain that goal. This included trickery, but also straightforward, and soundly based, criticism of each other's positions. It is this aspect of the debate tradition which has no doubt exerted a lasting influence. Criticism directed at others and criticism received from others had the unavoidable effect that all participants in these debates straightened out their own positions. Incoherent or inconsistent views might not survive scrutiny, not by an opponent in debate, but neither by the thinker who did not wish to be exposed by those who disagreed with him.
It is in this way that a social custom-viz., organizing public debates, preferably at the court of a king or local ruler-was responsible for one of the most striking features of Indian philosophy: the search for coherent systems of thought. Interestingly, we know much more about the effect of this social custom than about the social custom itself. Our sources inform us in great detail about the systems of thought that were elaborated, and only occasionally about the debates that took place. The connection between these two seems to me yet close enough to allow us to draw conclusions with regard to periods from which we have very little information about the social context. I suggest that, wherever Indian philosophy gave rise to coherent systems of thought, we can conclude from this that a debate tradition made this possible, or even necessary. Note at this point that not all of Indian thought is coherent and systematic. Most of the religious literature of India contains ideas which are not put into the straightjacket of a system of thought. Examples are the early Upanisads, the philosophical portions of the Mahabharata, and much else. Systematic thought in India dwindles in comparison with the quantity of non-systematized thought. Yet it is systematic thought that interests us at present, because it reveals something about the social context in which it could arise and flourish.
If, with this in mind, we look at the earliest manifestations of systematic thought in India, our attention is inevitably drawn to the scholastic development which Buddhism underwent during the last centuries preceding the Common Era. Buddhist scholasticism of that period, called abhidharma, has mainly survived in two bodies of texts, belonging to two schools of Buddhism.
17
