Madhyamakālokabhā
The *Madhyamakālokabhā?yatattvapradīpa: An Indic Commentary on (1)
The *Madhyamakālokabhā?yatattvapradīpa:
An Indic Commentary
on Kamala?īla’s Madhyamakāloka
(Dbu ma snang ba)
Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp
(Harvard University)
Ye Shaoyong, Li Xuezhu, and Kano Kazuo, the authors of the rewarding article, “Further Folios from a Set of Miscellaneous Texts in ?āradā Palm-leaves from Zha lu Ri phug,” that was published in a recent issue of this journal [no. 1 (2013), 30-47 (plus one errata page)] are to be thanked for their painstaking and valuable labors. Their discussion of the disjecta membra of a number of diferent manuscripts to which they have now drawn public attention is in part based on photographic copies and the references to these that are found in the in-house catalogs of Sanskrit manuscripts from the Tibetan area. All unpublished, the catalogs in questionare those by the late Wang Sen (1912-1991), Luo Zhao, and Gsang bdag. True, copies of these catalogs do enjoy a measure of samizdat circulation in and outside China, but it is nonetheless a great pity that none of these were ever officially published, and this holds for Luo’s catalog in particular.
Among the fragmentary manuscripts they described in their essay, there are ive folios [pp. 37-8, 47, n. 15] from what is evidently an unidentiied commentary of Kamala?īla’s (late 8th c.) Madhyamakāloka, his seminal and complex study of Buddhist philosophy in which he combined his understanding of Nāgārjuna’s (2nd c.) Middle Way philosophy with the logic of Dharmakīrti (7th c.). Not one single Indic commentary or gloss on this diicult treatise was ever translated into Tibetan or any other language,1 but these folios may very well de-
2 China Tibetology No 1, March 2014
rive from the only known Indic commentary on this work to which the elusive J?ānavajra (11th-12th c.) referred in his large exegesis of the La&kāvatārasūtra, the Lang kar gshegs pavi mdovi vgrel pa de bzhin gshegs pavi snying povi rgyan (*La&kāvatārasūtrav?ttitathāgatagarbhāla?k-āra). Namely, in the course of his study, which is only available in an anonymous Tibetan
translation,2 J?ānavajra refers to this commentary that has the title Dbu ma sang bavi rnam par bshad pa de kho na nyid kyi sgron ma for additional explications.3 Obviously, the Sanskrit equivalent of this title would be something like *Madhyamakālokabhā?yatattvapradīpa.4 The passages in question concern the unknown author’s exegeses of Kamala?īla’s exposition and use of the “free from singularity and plurality argument” (ekānekaviyogahetu, gcig dang du ma bral bavi gtan tshigs) and his notion that “since their loving kindness and compassion is slight, the ?rāvaka do not have the highest resolve to become buddha, because of their re-solve being simply inferior (byams pa dang snying rje shas chung bas byang chub mchog tu bskyed pa med de / dman pa nyid du sems bskyed pavi phyir ro //).5
One of the so-called “three eastern Svātantrika treatises” (rang rgyud shar gsum) of the eighth century, the other two being J?ānagarbha’s Satyadvayavibha?ga and ?āntarak?ita’s Madhyamakāla?kara, the Madhyamakāloka appears to have been a fairly popular work par-ticularly in the early days of the “later propagation” (phyi dar) of Buddhism in Tibet. It is not clear when the expression rang rgyud shar gsum or its variants irst gained currency in Tibet, but it was deinitely presentin the twelfth century. Not yet available, Rngog Lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab (?1059-?1109) wrote a summary of the Madhyamakāloka.6 Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge’s (1109 -1169) undated Madhyamakāloka exegesis has recently surfaced by way of a eighty-two folio, dbu med manuscript.7 Its title page but has Dbu ma’i yig cha / phya pas byas, “Madhyamaka Text Written by Phya pa.” The colophon has the quasi-descriptive title: dbu ma snang bavi gzhung go don rigs pavi tshul dang myi vgal zhing blo chung bas kyang bde blag tu rtogs pa byis pavi vjug ngogs, “The import of the *Madhyamakāloka treatise which, not standing in conlict with the way of logic, is easily understood even by the young of mind: an entry for children.” As a matter of fact, Phya pa wrote commentaries on the each of the rang rgyud shar gsum and his equally undated Dbu mavi de kho na nyid bsdus pa / snying po is a kind of summary-cum-exegesis of all three.8But his other ‘synthetic’ work on Madhyamaka philosophy is by far more based on a close reading of these three works.9 But as far as I can tell, Phya pa did not have access to the *Madhyamakālokabhā?yatattvapradīpa. Sustained inter-est in Kamala?īla’s work waned to some degree in the ensuing centuries and the only study of it that was written in these later years appears to have been the relatively recent one by the Mongol scholar Bshad sgrub bstan dar (1835-1915), alias Bstan dar Sngags rams pa, as a “memorandum” (brjed tho).10
Notes
1. For a rather full, albeit only slightly dated, listing of the secondary literature on the Madhyamakāloka, see the bibliography in Ryūsei Keira, Mādhyamika and Epistemology. A Study of Kamala?īla’s Method for Proving the V oidness of All Dharmas, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 59 (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universit?t
The *Madhyamakālokabhā?yatattvapradīpa: An Indic Commentary on (3)
Wien, 2004).
2. For J?ānavajra and the reference to the Madhyamakāloka commentary, see my The Kalacakra and the Patronage of Tibetan Buddhism by the Mongol Imperial Family, The Central Eurasian Studies Lectures 4, ed. F. V enturi (Bloomington: Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University, 2004), 18-9.
3. See the Bstan vgyur [dpe bsdur ma], ed. Krung govi bod rig pa zhib vjug lte gnas kyi bkav bstan dpe sdur khang (Beijing: Krung govi bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 2003), vol. 70, no. 3251, 100, 407.
4. For the bhā?ya genre of Indic philosophical commentaries, see J. Ganeri, “Sanskrit Philosophical Commentary,” Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 27 (2010), 188, and its expansion on pp. 190, 192-198; another version of this article was apparently published earlier in the Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 25 (2008), 107-127.
5. See, respectively, Ryūsei Keira, Mādhyamika and Epistemology. A Study of Kamala?īla’s Method for Proving the V oidness of All Dharmas, 173 f., and the Madhyamāloka in the Bstan vgyur [dpe bsdur ma], ed. Krung govi bod rig pa zhib vjug lte gnas kyi bkav bstan dpe sdur khang, vol. 62, no. 3116, 1372 f.
6. This work is mentioned in his biography by Gro lung pa Blo gros ‘byung nas (11th-12th c.), for which see the Biography of Blo ldan ?es rab, the Unique Eye of the W orld, ed. Dram Dul, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 61 (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universit?t Wien, 2004), 48, and also R. Kramer, The Great Tibetan T ranslator, Life and W orks of rNgog Blo ldan shes rab, Collectanae Himalayica, Bd. 1 (München: Indus V erlag. 2007), 111.
7. See Bkav gdams gsung vbum phyogs bsgrigs, vol. 6, ed. Dpal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib vjug khang (Chengdu: Si khron dpe skrun tshogs pa and Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2006), 265-428.
8. Bkav gdams gsung vbum phyogs bsgrigs, vol. 7, ed. Dpal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib vjug khang (Chengdu: Si khron dpe skrun tshogs pa and Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2006), 15-130. It is most probably closely connected with his teacher Rgya dmar ba Byang chub gragsv (?-?) Dbu mavi de kho na nyid gtan la dbab pa, Bkav gdams gsung vbum phyogs bsgrigs, vol. 31, ed. Dpal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib vjug khang (Chengdu: Si khron dpe skrun tshogs pa and Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2007), 8-68.
9. See the careful edition of H. Tauscher, Dbu ma shar gsum gyi stong thun, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 59 (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universit?t Wien, 2004 and also K.A. V ose, Resurrecting Candrakīrti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prāsa?gika (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009), 139-169, for a translation of a portion of the text.
10. A slightly incomplete xylograph of this work with the last few folios missing was reprinted in Collected W orks, ed. L. Chandra (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1982), 501-894.