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76
The Various Buddhist Views Regarding Soul
fact that propertjes (=dharmas) do not exist in the form of a real entity or that things are devoid of their own nature. To attach oneself to a property-owner or a property, to this party or that is not the Middle path. As for what constitutes the ultimate real, it is free from all the possible sets of rival alternatives and is amen able to cognition on the part of prajñā (=supra-ordinary wisdom) alone. Thus in spite of propounding the doctrine of sünyavada they did defend Buddha's Middle Path Wisdom-as also the doctrine of rebirth and spiritual progress.
Thereafter and last of all comes the doctrine called Yogācāra. To the advocates of this doctrine it might have appeared that the doctrine called śünyavāda does not describe any element whatsoever positively or in the form of a really existing entity-so that even the element nāma centred around cognition (=vijñāna) and posited by Buddha becomes something akin to a mere void =nonentity). Possibly, some such consideration impelled the advocates of Yogācāra in the direction of propounding the doctrine called vijñānavāda. Thus they established that the element alternatively nāma, citta, consciousness or soul is of the form of mere cogntion. This doctrine differs from the earlier enumerated ones inasmuch as all the earlier Buddhist disputants conducted their investigation on the presupposition that the extra-cognitive element - rūpa (=physical element and the things made up of them -- all amenable to sense-perception) is something that exists really whereas all the advocates of vijñānavāda --whether old or new
denied the separate existence of any such external rüpa and submitted that that corporeal element which the Buddhist and other disputants call ‘rapa', is merely a form of cognitiona (=vijñāna) but appears to be something different from cognition owing to nescience, past-impression or concealment. Thug the Buddhist tradition, after passing through several stages-of-thought as regards the nature of soul, ultimately got established in the doctrine that there exists cognition alone,-a doctrine advocated by Yogāc. ára; and competent efforts were made by scholars like Dharmakirti, śānt. arakṣita and Kamalaśila to make this doctrine intelligible,37
Yathoktam āryaratnāvalyām-- Nästiko durgatim yäti sugatim yāty anästikaḥ 1 Yatha bhutaparijñānän mokşam advayanişśritaḥ // Aryasamadhiräje coktam bhagayatā - Astiti nastiti ubhe'pi antā guddhi aśuddhiti ime'pi antā / Tasmad ubhe anta vivarjayitva madhye'pi sthānam na karoti panditaḥ 11 Astiti năstīti vivāda eşaḥ śuddhi asuddhiti ayam vivādaḥ / Vivādaprāptyä na duḥkham praśāmyate avivāda prăptyä сa duḥkham nirudhyate ||
-Mădhyamikayrtti pp. 135-6 37 Pramänavårtika 2.327 etc. and the Tattv asangraha section Bahirarthaparikşă pp.
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