[Buddha-l] MPNS (Morrison)

[Stephen Hodge]

Dear Robert,

> Good to see you back!
Thanks !

> Yes, but reading Yamamoto's translation of Dharmaksema, at least all the
> analogies used are consistent in attempting to show that it is a mistake 
> to
> take Buddha-nature as a literally existing in unawakened beings.
Two things here:  1) Yamamoto's English rendering is not entirely reliable 
or accurate, though a brave attempt to introduce the MPNS to a wider 
audience.  However I notice that he does misunderstand things at times.  2) 
I assume you mean the portion of D from Ch18 - 45.  This does not surprise 
me but rather corroborates my view that that portion of the MPNS has a 
different agenda to the earlier section.  It should also be noted that even 
Ch 1 - 17 in D has been carefully re-worked by somebody in comparison to 
Faxian / Tib & the Skt fragments.  The Faxian / Tibetan versions *do*, 
overall, take so-called Buddha-nature as literally existing, as my quotes 
shows -- though they are not completely consistent.

> So are you suggesting that Dharmaksema, or at least his text, has been
> modified to present a consistent anti-essentialist view of
> Buddha-nature/-dhatu?
Yes.

> Also, these analogies are scattered throughout Dharmaksema's text,
> not just the 'later portions'.
As I mention above, even in Ch 1 - 17, D has been re-worked.  For the 
benefit of other readers,  should mention that Faxian represents the 
earliest extant version, followed by the Tibetan (which is closest to the 
Skt fragments from Central Asia), followed by D.  In other words, although 
the Faxian and the Tibetan translations are separated by approx 400 years, 
they are relatively close in content -- but some re-writing has taken place 
by the time of the Tibetan version.  On the other hand, Faxian and 
Dharmaksema are just separated by a few decades but the difference between 
them is quite considerable, with many interpolated passages even in ch 1 - 
18.

> As for the 'correct position', I would argue as follows.
I am glad you have put 'correct position' in inverted commas.  This raises 
some important issues.

> This is straightforward essentialism, later called
> satkaaryavaada, 'the doctrine that the effect exists in the cause'.
There are some strands of Buddhism that are quite comfortable with this --  
apart from the MPNS (Faxian / Tib), it later figures extensively in Tantric 
Buddhism.

[snip]

> So while the 'ghee actually exists hidden in the milk' view is certainly
> Indic, it completely contradicts what the Buddha is reported as saying 
> above
> and in many others places in the Pali suttas and Aagamas.
The key words here are "is reported as saying".  If we look at the 
scriptures of other religions -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc, it has 
become fairly clear that the words attributed to the various prophets and 
founders are basically fiction.  Fiction in the sense that they were never 
spoken or even likely to have been spoken by the people to whom they are 
attributed.  I can't see any reason to suppose the case was different with 
Buddhism.  However, it may be possible to retrieve some pre-canonical 
elements in these cases -- often snippets revered for their age but of which 
the significance was early lost.  To take a small but very important example 
from the Christian Gospels -- the mention of the woman who touched the "hem" 
of Jesus' robe.  It was probably left in because the significance of this 
was completely lost in Greek and other later languages to gentile readers --  
it was not his "hem" but the fringe of his prayer shawl that she touched. 
If Jesus regularly wore a prayer shawl, then other deductions follow which 
cast doubt on various Christian claims made about him.

Anyway, I am quite happy to accept that the position you describe was indeed 
attributed to the Buddha and became the pre-dominantly orthodox view but I 
really do wonder to what extent the orthodox position was in toto actually 
taught by the Buddha. Generally, most people's understanding of Buddhism is 
the neatly systematized version of some particular school or lineage, with 
all the wrinkles carefully smoothed away or hidden from sight.  But there 
are enough doctrinal inconsistencies and variations even in the Nikayas / 
Agamas to give one pause for thought.  I have not got the time to go into 
this in detail but some scholars who have tried to extricate pre-canonical 
elements in Buddhism arrive a picture not too dissimilar to some of the MPNS 
doctrines.  Have a look at the work of Stanislaw Schayer, pp 374-77 of 
Reginald Ray's "Buddhist Saints in India" (Oxford 1994) [In fact the whole 
book is significant], and the much-neglected "Nama-rupa and Dharma-rupa" by 
Maryla Falk (Calcutta 1943), Kamaleswar Bhattacarya's book on the 
Brahman-Atman in Early Buddhism [sorry, don't have the exact French title to 
hand at the moment], and also Tillman Vetter's "Ideas and Meditative 
Practices of Early Buddhism".

> So if Dharmaksema or his followers did alter the text, then it seems
> they might have done so to subvert what they saw as brahminism
> sneeking in under the guise of Buddha-nature.
Indeed, that is exactly what I think they did.  However, the key words for 
me here are "what they saw as brahminism".  I think that it is fairly well 
accepted, as I am sure you know, these days that there were two strands in 
early / mid-period Buddhism -- the monastics and the forest-dwellers.  The 
differences between them in terms of doctrine and practice are not fully 
known but some salient features are understood.  The contrast between 
dhyaana and praj~naa as a means to liberation is one that comes to mind. 
Anyway, to cut a long story short, it would seem that the bulk of the 
Nikayas / Agamas are a product of the monastics and not the 
forest-dwellers -- Buddhism seems to have undergone rapid changes at the 
hands of the monastics, a process that even started soon after the Buddha's 
death.  This is corroborated when one reads between the lines accounts of 
the last years of poor old Ananda who outlived all the other immediate 
disciples.

Now, as far as the MPNS is concerned, there are important clues concerning 
both the origins of the text and even the origins of some strands of 
Mahayana.  This concerns the mysterious group of "acaryas", teachers of the 
MPNS, who do not follow the monastic vinaya (or even live in monasteries) 
but follow a moral code derived from the sutras.  They spent their time 
going around in pilgrimage and preaching at the main great stupas enshrining 
the Buddha's relics.  This stupa connection becomes especially important in 
the context of the MPNS as both "tathagata-garbha" and "buddha-dhaatu" are 
actually technical terms related to stupas in origin.

My suggestion is that these acaryas were members of an out-lying Buddhist 
wing, possibly akin to the forest-swellers, who possibly preserved a 
different or pre-canonical understanding of the Buddha's teachings -- cut 
off from the monasteries, they may well have missed out on much of the 
"orthodox" invention of Buddhism.  Sure, this is speculative and the 
evidence is fragmentary but putting all the scattered bits together, one can 
arrive at a different picture of the development of Buddhism in which it is 
the "orthodox" view which is actually unorthodox.  This is what the core, 
unrevised,  portion MPNS keeps repeating.

Sorry if the above is bit of a muddle but it all really needs a book to 
discuss.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge

PS:  Yes, the back is fine now but other health problems persist.