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ENCORE: THE PRATITYASAMUTPADAHṚDAYA--- KÄRIKĀ OF NAGARJUNA
By
V. V. GOKHALE
in collaboration with M. G. DHADPHALE
Introduction :
The Buddhist theory of causality envisages all creation (samutpada) as taking place by the Cause (hetu) approaching (pratitya) what is called the Result (phala). There is no doubt a certain link-up (pratisandhi) between the Cause and the Effect; and yet there is a lack of actual migration (asamkrama) from the Cause to the Effect. This, in brief, is said to be the essence of the first Enlightenment (bodhi), attained by the Buddha sitting under the Pipul tree at Bodhgaya about 2500 years ago. In his vision the Buddha saw the Wheel of Life (bhava-cakra) as consisting of the well-known twelve sectors (dvadaśānga), each one linked up with and conditioned by the other to form the Past (atita), the Present (pratyutpanna) and the Future (anāgata). They are: (1) Avidya (Ignorance), (2) Samskaras (Habit-formations), (3) Vijñana (Consciousness), (4) Nama-rupa (Name and Form), (5) Sadayatana (Six Senses) (6) Sparsa (Sensation, Contact), (7) Vedani (Feeling), (8) Trṣna (Desire), (9) Upādāna (Grasping), (10) Bhava (Course of life), (11) Jati (Birth), and, (12) Jara-marana (Maturity and Death).
This theory was variously interpreted by later philosophers, among whom the great Nagarjuna (who lived about 500 years after the Buddha) made it the basic principle of a relativistic philosophy, expounded by him in his Madhyamaka-sastra. Santarakṣita, another great writer, who followed him, another 500 years later and wrote the Tattvasamgraha, had still the same veneration for this theory of Causality, although he gave it a dynamic orientation by describing it as a 'moving Reality' (calam). Still others tried to bring out its epistemological or psychological import in the long
