CHAPTER 5:

AND VASUBANDHU

85

CHAPTER 5

5.1 Introduction

‟

various Abhidharma schools. The second part deals with the philosophy of Vasubandhu

that these two thinkers have a lot of points in common

and that ‟ a

clear manner and who cannot be classified as either realists or idealists.

5 the emptiness

In the second century AD, around seven centuries after the era of the Buddha, Buddhist

philosophy had become a full fledged philosophical movement which was immersed in all sorts

of metaphysical and ontological speculations and was certainly

, who with his philosophy of emptiness ( )

challenged the very foundations of the Indian philosophical schema, Buddhist and -

‟ phy in this chapter for three major reasons.

Firstly, ;

- -

esents the resurrection of

Buddhist philosophy from the speculative and metaphysical jargon of some of the Abhidharma

schools and the restoration of ‟ true message in its clearest form. Another such attempt

86

at clarifying the conceptual confusions in Buddhist thought and at understanding the true

message of the Buddha had already been made by Moggaliputta-Tissa

69

However, it corruption of the

‟ Abhidharma writings. The third and the most important reason is that in

order to understand what exactly Vasubandhu was doing in his writings (if he was not presenting

a metaphysics/ontology of realism or idealism)

juna and then try to comprehend

unlike most Abhidharma philosophers, was not presenting anything new but only trying to revive

the crux ‟ been lost in the speculative attitude of the

Abhidharma schools.70

Keeping these factors in mind, I have presented a brief sketch o

d the

non-Buddhist schools with penetrating insight and sharp intellectual acumen. Among the

Buddhist opponents, his principal attack was on the realist schools of Buddhism - the

and the - whose notions he thoroughly refuted in the celebrated -

Madhyamaka- (hereafter MMK).The foundation on which the philosophy of the realist

schools was constructed was the notion of that they presented in their writings. For

these realists, reality consists of discrete momentary elements of experience ( ) which

have an intrinsic nature ( ) and because of this intrinsic nature each entity of experience

happens to be the particular kind of entity that it was. For example, water is different from fire

because the intrinsic nature of water is to be wet whereas the intrinsic nature of fire is to be hot.

In other words a denotes a property which an object cannot lose without ceasing to be

that very object. Thus a substance cannot be called fire if it does not have the property of

hotness. Similarly, a substance cannot be called water if it does not have the property of w

was antithetical to the original teachings of the

‟

teachings would not hold if things had intrinsic natures. This is because he believed that there

69

Moggaliputta-Tissa (327BC-247BC) was a Buddhist monk-scholar who presided over the 3rd

-way teaching of the Buddha. (Kalupahana, 2005, pp.2,5) 70

David Kalupahana sees Mogaliputta- ‟ ‟ ‟

as the three major attempts in the history of Buddhist philosophy to resurrect the teachings of

the Buddha. (Kalupahana, 1987/1992, p.5)

87

was no way these substances with fixed could be accommodated in a schema whose

foundation was built on the process of impermanence. Either things have fixed and intrinsic

nature, in which case the phenomena

) claimed that

things have no fixed essences and are devoid of any intrinsic nature ( -

f throughout his

writings and proposed that the conception of is an untenable one and involves a lot of

logical contradictions. In this way he clearly and explicitly refuted the realist position. However,

he made quite sure that while refuting realism, he did not commit himself to the other extreme

view, that of idealism. In fact he refrained from taking any metaphysical view on the nature of

reality since for him reality was pure emptiness and there was no way this emptiness could

propagate either realism or idealism. In his MMK, he pulled the carpet from underneath classical

philosophical notions like causality, motion, perception and others and showed that taking a

substantialist or essentialist view of these notions involved logical contradictions which would be

unressolvable unless things are realized to have no essential or intrinsic nature.

‟

when properly understood could lead back ‟ original teaching of emptiness which

was lost somewhere by the systems built after his death.

theoretical position on the nature of reality. In fact he was a

sort of anti-theorist who thought that any theory about reality (realist or idealist or any other)

would miss the mark since the Real is beyond the scope of discursive thought. It is only when the

dichotomizing tendency of thought comes to an end that one gets into an existential touch with

the real. In one of his celebrated verses in the MMK, he writes

The bringing to rest of all apprehending is the bringing to an end

of the dichotomising tendencies of the mind and this is peace. No

dharma anywhere has been taught by the Buddha of anything. 71

(Inada, 1993, p.159)

71

. (MMK,xxv,24)

88

Throughout the length of the MMK ‟

language itself and by corollary any theory is utterly incapable of explaining the true nature of

reality.72

‟ at had

resulted in the misinterpretation of the ‟ ‟

Buddhist schools only because they were misinterpreting t ‟

origination. He writes:

in an ancient form recognized probably by all school of

Buddhists as the teaching of the Buddha, but attacks what he

sees as misinterpretation of the schools. He professes to be

simply restoring the original meaning of the old sutras, showing

that the innovations of the schools lead to contradictions and in

particular conflicts with what he takes to be the essential

teaching, namely conditioned origination. (Warder, 1973, p.84)

, like that of the Buddha, cannot be

accommodated in a schema of realism or idealism. In the next section, I have shown that an in

‟

masters, showed no inclination to take any position on the nature of reality (either realism or

idealism).

72

(MMK, xviii,7)

“ which

is neither originated nor destroyed, the true nature of things ( ” 1993 115) ;

(MMK,xxii,15)

“

description a ” 1993 135

89

5.3 Vasubandhu: Realist or Idealist?

Another

in, who with his

works made sure that he, e Buddha and

that he shares more affinity with the views of these two masters

than with any of the idealist or the realist trends in Buddhist thought.

In the next section, I have presented a few arguments in order to show that it is not

justified to try to accommodate Vasubandhu either into realism or idealism. These arguments

make an appeal both to the kind of philosophy that Vasubandhu espoused in his writings and also

to the life of Vasubandhu as he lived it. Nevertheless, all these arguments combined together

would show that Vasubandhu was not any ordinary philosopher but was rather a creative genius

and an enlightened master whose style of living and working has to be understood deeply before

we can pass any judgment on the nature of his philosophy.

5.3.1 The phenomenal and the noumenal in Vasubandhu

Whether one takes Vasubandhu as a realist or an idealist, there is an important fact to notice about

his philosophy. The fact is that for Vasubandhu, there are three aspects of reality - the constructed

(pariklapita), the other-dependent (paratantra) and the fulfilled ( ). To use more

familiar terms, the first two aspects correspond to the phenomenal nature of the world (the world

as it appears to us) while the fulfilled is the noumenal aspect (the way world really is) of the

reality. If we carefully understand the philosophy of Vasubandhu, we would come to realize that

all discussions about the real and ideal nature of the world proceed in the phenomenal aspect of

the world; in its absolute or noumenal aspect, reality is indescribable and known only to the

enlightened ones.73

In the noumenal state, which is beyond the bounds of finite thought and

linguistic discourse, there can never be any statement about the nature of the world, leave aside

any categorical ontological statement about the world being real or ideal. Hence, the real-ideal

debate is only a part of the phenomenal aspect of the world, an aspect which for Vasubandhu is

73

, verse 22 (Anacker, 2005, pp.174-175).

90

just the way ordinary unenlightened beings perceive the world and is in no way the true way of

knowing the world. The true way of perceiving the world by all means is obtained only in the

state of in which no such real-ideal debate can actually occur. Thus a careful

understanding of the philosophy of Vasubandhu would reveal that the very debate about the world

being real or ideal is in a sense a pseudo-debate which is part of the constructed nature of the

world.

The view that the real-ideal debate can happen only in the phenomenal aspect of the

world and not in its noumenal one is backed by the assumption that a real-ideal debate

presupposes the functioning of language for this debate to actually start.74

The noumena is

considered to be the actual truth by Vasubandhu and since this noumena is beyond the categories

of language, there is no scope for the real-ideal debate to arise in the true sense of these terms.

My contention is that when one is talking about the nature of the world, one has to take

into account the nature of the reality in its absolute sense, but then the nature of such absolute

reality is actually claimed to be ineffable by Vasubandhu. The subsequent passage discusses the

problems that can arise for a real-ideal debate if the world is thought to be cognitively qualified

by its phenomenal and noumenal aspects.

In an epistemological understanding of the world in terms of its phenomenal and

noumenal aspects, one can either claim that the noumenal sphere does not exist at all and is just a

metaphysical speculation with no grounding in reality or if it exists, it must be accessible to us in

order that we can pass a judgment on its real or ideal nature. In Vasubandhu, we see that both

these options are unavailable. The noumena ( panna) exist for sure, but then their nature is

ineffable. Now such a view about the nature of the world is very different from the way we

understand the world in the philosophy of some Western thinkers who have talked about realism

and idealism. Take for example the case of Absolute idealism of Hegel (1807). There is no such

division of phenomena and noumena in Hegel because for him, the real is the rational itself or in

74

E L 2002 ‟ -

idealism debate. He notes:

“In Wittg ‟

“ ”

provided by language. Language is thus for Wittgenstein a precondition of the distinction between real and unreal,

and this in a way akin to the way in which pure a priori concepts and categories are a precondition of experience for

” (Loomis, 2002)

91

other words the Absolute itself is reason being actualized by the dynamic movement of the world

spirit (Geist). In fact, at the heart of his philosophy is the criticism of the phenomena/noumena

division given by Kant, for Hegel believed that to talk of a noumenal sphere which we do not

have any epistemic access to is a contradiction of sorts, there being no way we can know about

the existence of such a sphere. Kant had claimed that the noumena were beyond the bounds of

senses. Hegel claimed that if it really were beyond the bounds of our senses, as Kant claimed,

there was no way in which Kant could pass any judgment on its existence without landing into a

logical contradiction (since it was beyond our epistemic access, Kant could never know anything

about it himself).

Another major philosopher who was considered an idealist, namely George Berkeley

(1710), also made no such division between the phenomenal and the noumenal in his philosophy.

When he talked about the world, the phenomenal world was all he meant. Reality for him

consisted of various ideas in the infinite mind of God who causes us to perceive the world by

directly willing us to perceive the so called external objects in our consciousness. Such a decisive

view about the nature of the world accommodated Berkeley into the categories of real or ideal

and hence he could conveniently be called a subjective idealist.

‟ reveals that his position is

closer to Kant than to Hegel or Berkeley. Kant (1781) also believed that there are two levels of

reality - the phenomena and the noumena. But there is one striking difference between the

philosophies of Kant and Vasubandhu. For Kant, the noumena can never be known since it is

beyond the limits of our sensory fields. So we are left with the understanding of the dynamics of

phenomena only. In the phenomenal realm, Kant claims that things are empirically real though

transcendentally they are ideal.75

Kant makes certain claims only about the phenomenal aspect of

the world since he knows that he can never get access to its noumenal aspect. However the case

is different with Vasubandhu. He had to, and in fact he does suspend his judgment about the

ultimate nature of the world not because it could not be known at all as Kant believed, but

because it could be known only by the enlightened Buddhas and hence the decision about the

ultimate nature of reality is best left to be decided by these enlightened ones. Interestingly, the

enlightened ones like the Buddha have never passed any categorical judgments about the real or

75

„ ‟ „ ‟

preconditions of knowing things (the forms of intuition and the categories of understanding) are in the mind of the

knower.

92

ideal nature of the world and had remained quiet when asked metaphysical questions.76

E

the second Buddha by many, talks about the Absolute nature of the

world, he does not talk about it being real or ideal but rather talks about its mystical and ineffable

nature.77

‟

thought. If we are bent on doing that, it would be a grave injustice to the subtle and deep

philosophy of Vasubandhu and a defeat of his entire philosophical project which dealt with

clarifying the path to and not with deciding about the real or ideal nature of the world.

5.3.2 Vasubandhu: A contrast with other philosophers

For an idealist, mind or ideas or consciousness is the only reality that exists and the so called

external or material world is nothing more than an appearance. However, if one carefully

examines ‟ siddhi, one would come to the conclusion

that for Vasubandhu, consciousness is not the only reality that is there in the world (as an idealist

would believe), it is just that consciousness is the only thing that has a certainty for him, and the

external world can at best be inferred. In my opinion, no decisive philosophical standpoint can be

deduced from such a position with certainty towards consciousness and uncertainty towards the

world. Interestingly, a similar position about consciousness and external world was held by the

. The also believed that the external object can only be inferred as the

source of our sensations. Taking this source of sensations to be something that existed without

doubt, the inferred the existence of the external world.78

In Western philosophy,

Kant also held such a position and hence called himself a realist in the empirical sense of the

term. By a similar logic, the - also

considered realist.

76

- of the ya of the Sutta Pitaka

person to lead a holy life. The Buddha advises his disciple to focus instead on the immediate act of human suffering,

its causes and its cessation. 77

Refer footnote 72 of this thesis. 78

“ - - ) as the cause of

those ideas that are independent o ” 2008 138

93

Vasubandhu as a predecessor as well as an inspiration for their philosophy should also be taken

as a realist (Kochumuttom, 1982, p.26). However, a very important difference between all these

indirect realists79

and Vasubandhu is that Vasubandhu never explicitly claimed the existence of

the external world (like the ikas, Kant or the - ). In fact in the

, he seems on the first glance an idealist who is thoroughly attacking the existence of

an external world. Nowhere in the text can one observe any explicit similarity with the

ntikas a so obvious and he was a realist

as Kochmuttom has suggested, Vasubandhu would not have been taken as an idealist by many

scholars who have commented upon his texts. Normally scholars obtain an idealist reading of the

siddhi because that is the primary picture one deduces by reading his theory of

- in the . It is therefore interesting that in spite of being uncertain about

the world, Vasubandhu never claims the uncertain world to be either existing or non-existing.

Standing on similar philosophical grounds, noted Western philosopher David Hume

(1748) believed that he only knew about the sense-data that his mind perceived and was not sure

about the source of these sensations. Hence he became a skeptic about the existence of an

external world. However Vasubandhu does not take this skeptic stance also because unlike

Hume, he believes that the true nature of the world is accessible to the enlightened minds and

nothing further can be said about this world because it is ineffable by its very nature. Thus

Vasubandhu can be called neither a realist like the or Kant or

(since he does not claim that the external world exists) or an idealist like Hegel (since he does

not says that consciousness or idea is the only reality) nor can he be called a skeptic like Hume

(because for him the enlightened ones can know the noumenal aspect of reality). Now, if

Vasubandhu seems to be taking such a noncommittal attitude about things, we must not attempt

aligning him with any of the aforementioned philosophical standpoints. Speaking in ‟

‟

of own being ( ) for if they had any essentialist overtones, they could be readily

accommodated into a realist or an idealist or a skeptic discourse. Instead we observe that the

more we understand his philosophy, the more difficult it becomes to actually fit him into any of

these camps. Since Vasubandhu is just describing the nature of experience and this fleeting

79

For an indirect realist, although external objects exist independent of the mind of the perceiver, we can never

know these objects as they actually are but only as they appear in our minds, in the form of various ideas that we

have about them.

94

experience cannot be fitted into any category of fixed essence, he must be understood as

someone whose philosophy is neither realism nor idealism.

This again makes it clear that Vasubandhu never commits himself categorically to any

metaphysical position in his siddhi. The supposedly idealist or realist readings,

when carefully analysed, can be reread in terms of a noncommittal thesis.

‟ losophical orientation, which can be gauged if we

take his life into consideration, is the fact that during different phases of his life, he was learning,

exploring and expounding different forms of Buddhist philosophy - whether

. His psyche was flexible enough to change, accommodating new

ideas and concepts as and when he encountered them in his life. Thus while he was influenced

in the early phase of his life, he later on came to r

, on the initiation of his half-brother Asa E one can

observe a marked variation in the content and style of the various works that have been ascribed

to him. Thus while his early writings like the and the

are works of an encyclopedic nature, what can be called his middle-period works (e.g. the

and the ) are treatises which hammer around a

single issue of analysis. However, his later works ( , ),

although written with equal philosophical rigor and intellectual acumen, are more aphoristic in

nature and also show signs of a mystical and para-psycholgical approach. Such is the diversity of

‟

Vasubandhus - one the writer of the and -

80

This flexibility of thought is quite interesting for a

conventional philosopher, since most philosophers adhere to a particular philosophical position

in the early years of their philosophical careers and then just revolve around their basic ideas in

the subsequent years of their lives. One notable exception in Western philosophy that readily

80

The theory of two Vasubandhus was given by E. Fraulwallner (1951). 1950‟ 60‟

most Buddhist scholars now do not accept this theory as plausible.

95

‟ L d

flexibility.81

Although Vasubandhu was undoubtedly a nist for the major part of his life,

this respect for the at he gained from the

school rather than from any strict doctrinal allegiance to any particular philosophical standpoint

of the same. Such a thinker therefore resists being categorized as a philosophical extremist who

would cling to a single and fixed view about the nature of reality.

Discussed below is an important incident of his life which points to the flexibility and

openness of his mind, and which clearly shows that for Vasubandhu, doctrinal affiliations and

philosophical views were not things which were terribly important and hence worth living and

dying for. The primary purpose of his life was to live a life of the Bodhisattva, actively engaged

with the world through his compassionate heart and refined wisdom.

debate in the court of Emperor Candragupta II, 82

he was awarded 300,000 pieces of gold by the

king himself. Vasubandhu used this money to build three monasteries. One of them was for the

scholars and monks; another was for the nuns of the Buddhist order. Interestingly,

the third monastery that was built with this money was for the . Now

were the people who were among the harshest critics and opponents of

Vasubandhu since the time he had refuted their philosophical positions in his

. They had no good words for Vasubandhu.83

In spite of this antagonism,

Vasubandhu made sure that he remembered his old colleagues and the people who introduced

him to the depths of Buddhist philosophical thought in his younger days.84

Hence he gave them

their due share and respect. On a casual glance, such an act might be considered an act of

Buddhist humility, but if one considers the amount of hatred and contempt one had for

81

‟ divided into two phases - the earlier one in which he wrote the

Tractatus-Logico-Philosphicus (1921) and the later one, in which the Philosophical Investigations (1953) was

written. The author is famously called the early-Wittgenstein and the later-Wittgensiein in order to denote the

variation in his thought during the different phases of his life. 82

‟

was away from Ayodhya. When he returned, Vasuba

a written work, . (Anacker, 2005, p.17) 83

s “ ” ”

subscriber to theories ” habhadra, , referred to

“ man whose theories have the coherence of the cries of a deaf-mute in a fever dream.”

(Anacker, 2005, pp.17-18) 84

Vasubandhu, while young, studied

teachings that he produced his magnum opus, the Abhidharmak .

96

philosophical opponents in the era to which Vasubandhu belonged,85

this act carries a lot of

weight and speaks volumes about how open min

as he must have believed t

„ ‟

Dhamma and the Sangha and who in their own ways were committed to spreading the message

of compassion and enlightenment to the countless humans immersed in suffering. This act

clearly shows that for him that the life of compassion, humanity and service that the Buddha

exemplified and expected his followers to live by was the ultimate thing to strive for and

philosophical standpoints were just secondary issues which were not to become primary factors

of concern in the Buddhist way of life. One can easily deduce from the above incident that he

was not a fundamentalist with regard to philosophical positions and doctrines. The same

approach is evident in his works (especially in the later writings like the

and the ) where he seems least committed to any fixed view about the nature

of reality and just describes the dynamics of the phenomenal aspect of reality in the acts of

consciousness. In keeping with the above, my intention is to place his thought beyond the narrow

confines of realism and idealism.

5.3.4 Vasubandhu: On Theory and Practice

An impor ‟ s that in addition to being a brilliant

intellectual and writer, he was a great monk who not just talked about the Buddhist way of life

but actually lived it. He had an avid interest in the various techniques of meditation since his

younger days which only grew stronger with age. In fact towards the end of his life, he spent

most of his time in meditational activities, to the extent that he almost stopped his writing and

85

Commenting on the extent of hatred that philosophical opponents had for each other in the times of Vasubandhu,

Steven Anacker notes the following:

“

8000

were not so drastic: they could mean formal recognition by the defeated side of the superiority of the winning party,

forced conversions, or, as in the case of Council of Lhasa, which was conducted by Indians, the banishment of the

” 2005 p.20)

97

debating, the very activities which are considered the hallmark of any great philosopher.86

As

Anacker aptly remarks- “ : If it ‟

” 2005 22

Thus when ‟ rival, challenged him for a debate

and asked Vasubandhu to defend his statements in the Abh , Vasubandhu

simply refused the offer and told his students that there was no need for such a debate. In the

twilight of his life, the enlightened master must have realized that there was more to Buddhism

than just engaging in scholarly debates. Hence he kept himself involved with the meditational

and contemplative exercises that became a norm during his later years. Those who have any

familiarity with the Indian tradition of debate know that such a refusal to debate is seen as a sort

of defeat and is considered humiliating by any competent scholar. However, Vasubandhu must

have thought that his meditational practices and living the Buddhist life of contemplation and

compassion were more important than the fame and recognition he would get while winning

such debates. The difference between theory and practice which he had realized is self-evident in

the tribute he reportedly gave : “ was a clever

and ingenious scholar. His intellective powers were not deep, but his dialectics were always to

” 2005 23 87

This remark clearly indicates that Vasubandhu recognized a

clear cut division between the meditative intelligence of a genuine monk and the scholarly

debating techniques of a true academician. Hence, for Vasubandhu the primary interest was

never scholarly formulation but always the practice of the Bodhisattva path.

Considered a serious practitioner of meditation himself, Vasubandhu is considered an

authority on meditational techniques in the many forms of Land

Buddhism as well as Zen Buddhism ascribes two of their fundamental texts to Vasubandhu.88

Even in his philosophic ‟ meditational practices over

scholarly analysis is evident. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition sees his

as a chief source for understanding the descriptions of Buddhist meditational practice (Anacker,

86

As Wittgenstein famously puts it, “A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never

g ” 1981) 87

Anacker has used Hsuan –Tsang, Records I, p.195 as his source for the quote. 88

The Pure Land scho C ‟ as a primary text for

meditating on 1978 249-290). Vasubandhu is also considered the

21st Z L „C ‟

considered an important text for Zen practioners. (See Yu and Luk, 1993, pp.159-200).

98

2005, p.194). Even in the and he talks about states which are beyond the

scope of finite intellect and discursive thought and can be understood only by the direct intuitive

wisdom of the Buddhas.89

In fact all notions and concepts like the - and the various

that he uses in his works should be taken not as marks of an absolute philosophy but

only as tools which help to extract the highest wisdom of the Buddha and the meditative state

bereft of subject-object dichotomy which he keeps on referring to in his works. His meditation

without props is considered his foremost contribution to the meditation practices which leads

towards the realization of emptiness of all phenomena. Thus Hsuan Tsang, while commenting

‟

Vasubandhu Bodhisattva was attempting to explain that which is

beyond the power of words to convey, and which came to him

by the mysterious way of profound meditation. (Anacker, 2005,

p.21)

As was

was trying to present the notion of emptiness only. Vasubandhu is credited with introducing a

techn L also stresses the

„ ‟

‟

profound understanding of the emptiness of all phenomena.

Thus we observe th ‟ s a

careful analysis of his works reveal that this many sided genius cannot be fitted into the narrow

philosophical confines of realism and idealism. Such is the range and depth of his thought and

writings that sometimes he seems to be pointing towards realism (like Kant), sometimes towards

idealism (like Berkeley), sometimes he seems like a phenomenologist (like Husserl) and more

interestingly sometimes he seems to leave philosophy and enter the zone of psychology and even

mysticism. However, a proper understanding of his philosophy can surely make one realize that

to bind him with any of these positions would be trying to force a great scholar into a narrow

89

Refer , verse 22 and , verses 29 and 30.

99

domain, neglecting the profundity and the depth of his works. My argument is that his

philosophy is rjuna since he also uses philosophy as a tool only to enter

the path of the dhamma, more for clarification of thoughts and concepts already existing rather

than to present a system of metaphysics or ontology. While it cannot be denied that

‟ epistemology/phenomenology (whose

contribution was mainly deconstructive),90

yet the primary purpose of the writings of both the

masters is clear: to expound the essential message of Buddha which was somehow lost in the

over-philosophization of the Abhidharma schools.91

and Vasubandhu: Different means, same end

At a casual glance Vasubandhu may appear as a philosopher with a realist or idealist leaning, but

a careful analysis of him would reveal that he was closer ‟ to any

other strand of Buddhism. Although both were trying to make certain similar points and

‟ , it was only due to their terminology and

conceptual framework that their respective philosophies diverged.

I guess the only reason for Vasubandhu presenting his noncommittal philosophy in a

style

which was dif

92

hat might have made him

interested in the theory of s and must be the fact that these were the

90

‟ ‟

‟ MVB “ ‟ - - ‟

- - ‟

) rooted in meditation (yoga ”

(Anacker, 2005, p.194) 91

” C

difference existed between them, these arise only with regard to the arguments and theories designed to establish the

old fundamental Canonical teaching, but not with regard to the teaching itse ” 1978 82-83) 92

apura, the birthplace of Vasubandhu is situated in modern day Peshawar in ‟

schools.

100

‟ understanding of the world and it was only by properly

understanding the workings of the and hence the mental world that the whole of the life-

world that we inhabit (regardless of whether it is internal or external) could be understood.

‟ -dimensional

teachings - an aspect in which the centrality of mind and consciousness in understanding

the Buddha which dealt with the non-substantiality of the self and the objects. Interestingly the

notion of non-substantiality occurs time and again in the teachings of Vasubandhu also and it is

because of these overlapping themes that many scholars of repute have always seen Vasuban

rather than proposing opposing views.93

Both

these scholars, in accord with the highest teachings of the Buddha made sure that in their

writings, words and concepts were used only as instruments in the path of salvation and not as an

end in themselves.

„ ‟94

because of the numbe

wanted to dissolve rather than reify various conceptual constructions. An important charge that is

held against in general and Vasubandhu in particular is that by presenting the thesis

of perception-only, they reified the notion of consciousness. Such an approach is seen

reifying them and who talked about emptiness of all phenomena, consciousness included.

However, I believe that Vasubandhu emphasized the notion of consciousness because the notion

of emptiness is too much for a normal intellect to grasp whereas with consciousness there is at

least something which one can use as a support and foundation for understanding the world, at

least in the initial stages of the spiritual path. In the final stage of realization however, even the

idea that consciousness is the only reality also drops away, otherwise there can be no non-dual

awareness.95

Thus Vasubandhu seems to be making a more stepwise entry into the notion of

93

Rahula (1978) and I.C. Harris (1991). 94

“ - -sutras once termed Vasubandhu as a

„ ‟ ” (Anacker, 2005, p.2) 95

- - - -

- - -

One does abide in the realization of perception-only

When one does not perceive also a supporting consciousness

101

emptiness. He makes a phenomenological enquiry into the nature of experience so that one can

understand that the object of consciousness is nowhere found except in consciousness. In the

absence of the object, the subject also drops away,96

and only emptiness remains. Although

Vasubandhu makes use of the notion of consciousness, he is never positing consciousness as

creating the world

Hence it is obvious that only the methods of Vasubandhu and -

Vasubandhu through his subtle phenomenological descriptions goes from consciousness to

emptiness, with his mighty deconstructive blows straightaway penetrates into

the heart of emptiness. The final goal of both Vasubandhu ; it is just

that they both take different approaches in pointing towards the same reality. This is something

akin to how the Buddha used to teach his different disciples;

higher intellects and the philosophers, whereas Vasubandhu can cater even to an average seeker.

This difference in style must not be mistaken for a difference in intent.

I. C. Harris (1991) has thrown light on the essential project of the great Buddhist scholars

of the rgues that the thought of

andhu forms a continuity of tradition whose real purpose is to

provide a scholarly refinement and clarification of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. He

cites important Buddhist scholars to add more weight to his argument. Thus he notes

According to these authors97

Vasubandhu are system builders in the generally accepted sense

of the term. Rather, they have set themselves the common task of

rendering traditional Buddhist doctrine in such a way that it can

be used to tackle particular problems. Furthermore it is pointless

For, the graspable objects being absent,

There cannot either be the grasping of that,

[namely the grasping of the supporting consciousness]

, verse 28 (Kochumuttom ,1982, p.159) 96

- - - -

That is, from the perception that there is only , arises the perception that there is no artha [object]; and then

from this non perception of artha arises the perception that there is not even mere . (MVKB I.7).

(Kochumuttom, 1982, p.8) 97

Harris is referring here to authors like D.T.Suzuki (1930) and W.Rahula (1972).

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categorizing them as nihilists or idealists or anything else as the

kind. They should be seen as the expositors, adapting traditional

doctrine to meet the needs of particular tasks while at the same

time leaving the body of doctrine fundamentally unchanged and

” 1991 68

The theory of emptiness was an important part of the teaching of the Buddha in the

Tipitaka. In fact one of the greatest contributions of the Buddha to the Indian philosophical

thought was his novel explanation of personal identity in terms of a dynamic aggregate of

various physical and mental functions, thereby showing that the self was in reality empty of any

fixed and essential nature, unlike what the orthodox Indian schools had believed. N

this teaching of emptiness to its philosophical conclusion and showed that emptiness was at the

‟

In a similar way, the notions like mind, consciousness and perception, and his analysis of the

interaction of the cognitive faculties with the sense data was another very important theme in the

teachings of the Buddha. It was Vasubandhu who marks the philosophical conclusion of this

aspect o ‟ these masters, viz. N were

doing nothing but developing different aspects of two of the most essential themes in the

‟

5.5 Concluding Remarks

Thus we observe that in the post-Buddha period, where on the one hand Buddhist philosophy

‟ o heed

‟ not indulging in unnecessary metaphysical speculations

‟

and reclaiming the Buddh ‟ The chapter at hand showed how both

‟

‟ n that debates like

the realism-idealism one would not have interested the Buddha in the least in the kind of life he

lived and preached; the same would apply to Vasubandhu also. In spite of such strong historical

evidence of Vasubandhu being a philosopher whose writings have nothing to do with realist or

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idealist theories, he has consistently been projected either as an idealist or realist throughout the

history of Indian philosophy succeeding him.

The next chapter has therefore been devoted to tracing the history of the text, that is

hi and to observe the reasons how and why this subtle and masterly work of

Vasubandhu suffered varied interpretations and why it has been attached the philosophical labels

of idealism, realism and many others in the course of its history.