CHAPTER XIV

THE IDEALISTIC NEGATIVISM OF THE

VIJÑĀNAVĀDA

1. The Doctrine of Knowledge

THE Vijñānavāda formally, as in practice the Madhyamaka, recognizes the existence of three distinct forms of knowledge.1 Absolute or perfect knowledge (pariniṣpanna-lakṣaṇa) admits only the final purification of thought which means the disappearance of consciousness, the complete destruction of the last thought element on which ensues Nirvāņa. Nirvana, the cessation of activ. ity, and the ether are the sole realities to be admitted from the point of view of absolute truth, so that there is little real distinction between the view of the Vijñānavāda and the Madhyamaka on this score.

Below absolute truth is the realm of relative knowledge (paratantralaksana), which embraces the whole series of intellectual states into which the school resolves all the world of experience. But the extent of the reality of this knowledge is a matter of dispute; 2 in one view it is to be regarded as having absolute reality in the sense that it does exist and not as illusion, but disappears absolutely when the thought is purified and Nirvāņa is attained. The other, and more prevalent view, seems to tend to a much lower estimate; the subject of knowledge, the object, and

1 MSA. vi. 1; xi. 13 ff.; Madhyāntavibhāga in MKV., p. 445 (cf. p. 553), 274 f.; Mvy. 87; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, pp. 292 ff.; Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 380.

2 BCA. ix. 12, 17, 18 assumes reality; but see MSA. vi. 1 where the two lower forms are sharply opposed to the higher; Dharmakīrti in Upadeçasahasrī, p. 308; SDS., p. 13; JBRAS. xviii. 94 f. ; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, pp. 309 ff., whose account gives many unintelligible distinctions of view, 289 f. (Dignāga as a realist).

knowledge itself should not be regarded as real in any sense; there is no distinction in actual truth, but merely an illusion. Thought, in itself absolutely pure (vyavadāta), by an inveterate error imagines itself to be infected or defiled (klista), and thus conceives itself under the three forms of subject, object, and knowledge. The distinction between these views is obviously parallel to that between the orthodox interpretation of Buddhapalita of the Madhyamaka and the realistic preferences of Bhavaviveka, who admits the the existence of phenomena as such.

Accepting, as they do, the sole existence of thought even in the modified sense of relative knowledge, it is not at first apparent what room there is in the system for a third class of knowledge, which can be called imaginary (parikalpita). But in deference to the demands of common sense the Vijñānavāda1 admits that there is a clear distinction between the rope which is mistaken for a snake and the animal, the water of a mirage and real water, and the visions of a dream and ordinary reality. Things again are all internal, and there is no external being, but things do appear as if external (bāhyavat), and such imaginations fall within the third class of knowledge, as do also such beliefs as the conception of a permanent self. But a strict criterion between the relative and the imaginary is not available; in the case of sense perceptions, however, we can correct one by the other; the water of the mirage cannot be drunk or touched; the visions of a dream cannot be realized. But the Vijñānavāda, as little as the Madhyamaka, faces the problem of the fact that these imaginary experiences are caused, and have effects, so that in reality it is impossible to dismiss them as imaginary on the ground that they do not possess causal activity (arthakriyākāritva), though this activity is of a different kind from the normal. In both schools in fact the classification of knowledge is essentially based on metaphysical conclusions, and is not derived from any serious epistemological investigation. The fact is illustrated by the development in the Vijñānavāda of Dignaga, and probably also of Dharmakirti, of a doctrine of logic, 1 Or Yogācāra. The Chinese adopt a form equivalent to Yogācārya but also style it Vijñānamātra the Japanese Dharmalakṣaṇa; see Lévi, MSA. ii. 16, n. 1. On the older use of Yogācāra, magician, see Mhv. i. 120; Poussin, Bouddhisme, p. 356; Cf. Yogāvacara, Mil., pp. 43, 366.

which is not epistemological, but which for its own purpose treats the topic as if the existence of an external reality (paramarthasat) were admitted, and develops an interesting doctrine of inference on the basis of the metaphysical assumptions of the school.1

2. Idealism and the Void

The Vijñānavāda does not deny the doctrine of the void (çünyată) of the Madhyamaka, but it is unable to accept the view that illusion can exist by itself and in itself without any support; there must be, to explain illusion, a thought which suffers from illusion. More. over, the conception of the void essentially connotes a receptacle without any content, and this is afforded by the conception of void thought, devoid of any characteristic, and free from the distinction of subject, object, and knowledge. Moreover, this conception of reality has, it is urged, the full approval of the Buddha who was essentially an idealist, and, if this assertion can hardly be accepted in the light of the facts, at any rate the new school can fairly claim that it is continuation in a sense of the doctrine of the thought series which the Sauträntika developed to replace the older and more vague speculations as to the nature of the substitute for the self.

External reality cannot possibly exist; if it did it could not possibly be known, and it is obviously absurd to assert the existence of something of which it is certain that we can have no knowledge. We must recognize that we have in the world as it appears to us the result of mental construction; a perception involves an apparent datum, but all that is known is essentially the network of mental construction which is imposed on this datum, and we cannot speak of the datum as anything external; without the mental construction it is simply nothing; it is,

1 See below, ch. xviii. §§ 2, 3.

2 BSB. I. iv.

See below, ch. xv, § 8; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, pp. 307 f. The priority of Çunyavada to Vijñānavāda is logical and natural; it accords with all we know of the history of the schools unless the Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda is Açvaghosa's, and cannot be overthrown by arguments such as those of A. Guha, Jivātman in the Brahma-Sutras, pp. 39 ff.

Cf. the distinction of consciousness as khyāti-, and vastuprativikalpa, Lank., pp. 21 f., 44; BSB. I. iv.

perhaps we may hold, the fact of the arising in consciousness as a result of past experience of a new content, which thus appears to be given, and not to be our own creation, but which on ultimate analysis is essentially the product of thought. There is no real external water, but our sense construction of smoothness produces this impression; similarly sense constructions of heat and movement produce our belief in external fire and wind. There is apparently an external chain of causation e. g. from seed to plant, but this is due only to our habit of projection of reality; we apply names and ideas (nāmasaṁjñāvyavahāra), and by this means we are the real sources of the apparent causal development conceived as without us.1

But we must not think that internal reality is any more absolutely real-at any rate on the orthodox view-than external reality. The apparent distinction of subject, object, and knowledge is not real. Thought cannot know itself any more than anything else, or there would be duality, and it would not be pure thought. The internal chain of causality, therefore, must not be regarded as anything real. It is merely the result of the infection of the purity of thought. This infection is the source of the illusion of subject, object, and knowledge, but its origin we cannot trace; there is no beginning in time to the process of illusion. The infection of our thought produces in us the holding of belief in eternity, in happiness, and induces us to action, good or bad, and these acts and thoughts leave within us the tendencies which produce again the same wrong views and acts, and continue for ever, unless enlightenment is attained, the process of illusion."

We have here in effect the series of the Sautrantikas, but there is developed a contrast between the originating or receptacle intelligence (alayavijñāna), and the individual intellectual experiences of the process (pravṛtti-vijñāna), which clearly opens the way to a different conception of the final character of reality. On the strictly orthodox view the receptacle thought may be held

1 Cf. Lank., p. 85; on our speech constructions, 87; MSA. vi. 2 Ibid., pp. 100 ff., 44; MSA. xi. 38; xxi. 54 ; xi. 14 ff.

3 Cf. MSA. i. 18; vi. 10; xi. 32, 44, 49; SDS., p.15; Mvy. 103; Bhāmatī, p. 353; NVT., pp. 144, 145; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, pp. 287 ff.; pravṛttivijñānatarañga, anyonyahetuka udadhitarañga iva, Lañk., pp. 45, 50, 126; TRD.,

to be nothing but a collective expression for the whole series of particular thoughts, or to put it in another light the receptacle intelligence at any moment consists of the actual particular intellectual action together with all the potencies latent in it, for, as with the Sautrāntikas, the intellectual moment is charged with impressions of the whole of the experience of the apparent individual from time immemorial. This view may be supported by the doctrine that the receptacle intelligence has no origination, duration, or destruction, which is an apt enough description of what is merely a collective expression, and does not denote any special concrete reality. The same impression may be derived from the comparison of the relation of the particular intellectual moments with the waves of the sea of the receptacle intellect. Intelligence appears under diverse aspects; as Citta it accumulates action, as mind it synthesizes, as Vijñāna it forms judgements, as sense it has consciousness of objects. But this idea admits also of allowing a greater measure of reality and universality to the receptacle intellect;2 we may treat it as parallel with the Vedantic absolute, and regard its infection and its development as parallel to that of the absolute under the influence of nescience. Or from another point of view we may hold that the flux of intellectual moments does not actually infect the receptacle intelligence, but is comparable to an image reflected in a mirror which remains untouched by it, or to a sound echoed by the rocks which suffer themselves no change. Thus the receptacle intelligence would be akin to the person (purușa) of the Samkhya.

1

These tendencies, however, are opposed, it appears, to the fundamental conceptions of the school which embraces the conception of the void as the ultimate truth. It is essential to realize that all our determinations by name or conception are unreal; examine appearances and there is no substance to be found; the p. 47; Muséon, v. (1904), 375 ff.; MA. vi. 46; Jacobi, JAOS. xxxi. 2; PGAB., p. 118.

1 Lank., pp. 50 ff. (misrendered in Dasgupta, Ind. Phil. i. 146).

Cf. Lévi, ii. 20, 16, n. 2, who makes it not the affirmation of self, a function of mind, but that which renders possible the activity of mind by giving it a centre of organization, the underlying reality. Cf. Suzuki's comparison (MB., p. 132) with the 'ego of transcendental apprehension', and Vasubandhu's Vinçakakārikā; TDC., p. 65.