Materials for the Study of Aryadeva, Dharmapala and Candrakirti

Aryadeva’s Catuhsataka along with the work of Nagarjuna provided the philosophical basis for much of subsequent Mahayana Buddhism. Like Nagarjuna’s Mulama-dhyamakakarikas, it too was commented upon by Vijnanavada or Idealist, thinkers as well as by those of the Madhyamaka or “Middle Way” school. Thus the Catuhsataka was interpreted in very different and yet philosophically rich fashion by its sixth century commentator’s dharmapala and Candrakirti the former saw it as only refuting ascription of imagined natures (parikalpitasvabhava) to phenomena while leaving real natures untouched; the latter interpreted Aryadeva’s work as a thoroughgoing rejection of all real intrinsic nature whatsoever. Tom Tillemans, in this reprint of his 1990 doctoral thesis takes up the key themes in Dharmapala and Candrakirti’s philosophies and translate two chapter from their respective works on catuhsataka both commentaries had a strong influence on subsequent Buddhism Candrakirti’s was imported for Tibetan development Dharmapala played a formative role in the increasingly marked differentiations between Vijnanavada and Madhyamaka philosophies.

Tom J.F Tillemans is an expatriate Canadian who since 1992 has been professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is also the secretary- general of the international association of Buddhist studies.

His research centers on Madhyamaka philosophy and Buddhist logic and epistemology in Indian and Tibetan traditions His published books include scripture logic language essays on Dharmakirti and his Tibetan successor [studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism wisdom publication Boston 1999] as well as dharmakirti pramanavarttika An annotated translation of the fourth chapter (pararathanumana volume 1)[ Verlag der Oesterreichischen akademie der wissenschaften Vienna 2000]

The following work takes as it nucleus a series of seminars given by Prof. J. May during which over a number of summer semesters we read the Sanskrit text of Aryadeva’s Catuhsataka (CS) and Candrakirti’s Catuhsatakavrtti (CSV). Subsequently in Japan while working mainly on Dharmakirti with Prof. S. katsura, I began to read the Chinese commentary of Dharmapala and was impressed with the importance and philosophical interest of the latter text not only for understanding Aryadeva in a different manner, but also for its connections with the Epistemological school founded by Dignaga.

Below the reader will find translation of two chapters from Aryadeva Candrakirti and Dharmapala chapter which are diverse in style and contents, CS XII and its commentaries being largely rhetorical- a polemic against the infidels – while the subsequent chapter on perception and its commentaries are full of dense philosophical argumentations My approach has been in effect to show a representative sample of Candrakirti and Dharmapala’s interpretation of Aryadeva. Nonetheless two chapter are hardly exhaustive: we should mention that the eighth chapter Dharmapala’s commentary which is of considerable philosophical and historical interest remains to be translated.

The translations are preceded by a three chapter introduction. The first seeks to present the usual introductory matters such as material on previous research lives dates and works of the authors as well as few methodological points. The subsequent two chapter are loosely based on topics in the commentaries to CS XII and XIII numerous arguments, I have preferred to treat of the dominant themes in CS XIII and XIII by placing them in a larger context of Yogacara and madhyamaka philosophies Nonetheless the structure of the arguments themselves should be comprehensible from the subheading which I have added to the translation and from the presentation of rgyal tshab Dar ma rin chen’s topical outlines which I have appended to the introduction.

A few brief words are in order on the transcription of Tibetan and Chinese words and on some other conventions which I have adopted. Tibetan transcription is in the system recommended by the American Library Association and the “Verein Deutscher Bibliotheakre” that is with the n+ superdot (n) n+ tilde (n) z + accent aigu(z) and s+ accent aigu(s) instead of the ng, ny, zh, sh which one would us in the system of T. Wylie. (see e.g Steinkellner and Tauscher 1983 p. ix or Mimaki 1976 p.185 for the details) Chinese is transcribe in Pinyin with the first tone (flat) being indicated by macrons (i.e a, e, i) second tone (rising) by an accent aigu (i.e a, e, i etc) the third tone (falling rising) by a superscribed v (i.e a, e, i, o, u ) and fourth tone (falling) by means of an accent grave ( a, e, I, etc) I have repunctuated the Trish’s Chinese text by placing a small circle (i.e) beside the character which I take as ending the Chinese sentence The Taisho’s own rather misleading punctuation consisting in points after the character can safely be ignored Footnotes are used in the introductory chapter while endnotes figure in the translations. The former are indicated simply by superscribed numbers whereas the letter are indicated in the text by numbers in parentheses the actual endnotes themselves being found in the section “Notes to the Translation”. In cross-references and in the indexes “footnote” is abbreviation by “fn” and “endnote” by “en.” Finally it may be remarked that many Sanskrit words such as “Dharma” “karma” and “nirvana” have been left unutilized this is because they are now bona fide English words Nonetheless in many cases such as “Skanda”, “sraddha”, “Dharmakya” etc where the reader might very well have difficulties I have still followed a more conservative approach i.e. putting the term in italics and providing a translation for a partial list of these surprising new English words included in Webster’s third new International dictionary see Jackson(1982).

Numerous are those who have in one way or another assisted me in accomplishing this work amongst them let me single out a few names for special mention First and foremost is Jacques may who was the director of my theses and who has shown me great personal kindness and careful guidance over the years that I have been in Switzerland. My gratitude also goes to the other members of the jury i.e. J.F Billeter, J. Bronkhorst and D.S Ruegg, as well as to Shoryu Katsura and (last but not least) to Ernst steinkellner for his encouragement and willingness to publish this work Karen Lang, who has made and is making important contribution on the catuhsataka has kindly provided Prof. May and me with copies of her publication. Her work has been of constant use to me and has been consulted at every stage in working on the CS and CSV. As in the case of Richard Hayes recent book on Dignaga which is also a valuable contribution my occasional disagreements should not at all be misinterpreted they are hopefully constructive disagreement and are intended as such.

Tony Duff of help computer consulting in boulder, Colorado, has the incalculable merit satisfactorily solving the problem of printing Sanskrit Tibetan and pinyin diacritical marks Georges Dreyfus with whom I’ve had a running dialogue on common philosophical concerns for approximately ten years has had an important influence on the development of my ideas no doubt many of our discussion have in one way or another found their course into the position which I have adopted in this book finally my sincere thanks to my parents and especially to my wife Shelley whose support comments and patience were indispensable to my being able to accomplish this work.

Financial support was gratefully received from the Japanese Ministry of education (1983-85) the social science and humanities Research council of Canada (1984-85) and the Fonds national Suisse de la recherché scientific (1985 until the present ) the university partially subsidized the costs of publications.